u/ville2020

I’ve spent like a year trying to get over someone who just completely flipped a switch on me one day. Love bombed me and then just one day decided she didn’t want to anymore. I was boring, a chore, etc. No guilt, no responsibility to initiating the pursuit and telling me over and over I could be vulnerable with her…just done.

It’s so annoying how she gets to feel resilient. Anyone could feel resilient if they could just decide not to care about something any more. Things have to be so much harder because I have to carry all the complexity and ambivalence of the relationship. She had a new boyfriend in a month, and I’m still depressed.

Does your BPD partner/ex feel guilt, ever?

Wondering what others partners do with feelings of guilt? I’ve heard individuals with BPD in a state of self loathing for cheating, impulsivity, or self destructiveness. For me, my ex partner was almost incapable of feeling guilt. When she cheated on me, it was blamed on me and explained away. If she treated me like crap and spoke to me like I was dirt, it’s because I was. I wasn’t the only partner she did that to and the feeling never changes. Forever, it will be fine that she did that to me and others because she is so steadfast in her belief I am worthless and don’t deserve her, loyalty, or an explanation.

Something that I’ve been dealing with over the last year and a half is really bad depression after a relationship with someone I’ve been given reason to believe had BPD. I’m wondering if anyone else has experience. I’ll preface this all by saying I’ve been in therapy for a year and a half and my psychologist actually brought up to me he wondered if I was speaking to someone with a personality disorder. But anyways.

The thing that was most shaming was the sexual aspect of our relationship. Early on, I got just classically love bombed. She told me all about her trauma and stuff and how I’m the only person in the world she can talk to. If I was distant, she’d sexualize, telling me she wanted to be “driven up a wall” and she’d send me excerpts from smut books about what she wanted me to do to her.

Look I’m a guy, but I am admittedly sensitive. There’s something about someone seeing some level of rejection from me and immediately sexualizing that makes me feel so bad for them. I felt so protective of her. I couldn’t really have sex with her because, I just don’t know how that would not be taking advantage of her. That’s not mutuality and no matter what she did to me later, i still think it would be taking advantage to have taken her up on those offers before I was ready to be emotionally committed to her fully.

When I did become more emotionally ready, she would tease and humiliate me. She would start, stop, and tell me how easy it is to get me aroused. Then she would tell me how I need to tell her when I got home and finished to the thought of her. Pretty soon I got completely devalued, she saw me as worthless and left, immediately in a new relationship. On the way out she laughed at me and told me it’s not her fault I can’t handle sex without getting emotionally attached (she told me repeatedly she loved me and pushed for me to say it as well, which I did, so the emotional heaviness was there). I noted that the two of us never shared that, I loved her for who she was. She laughed at me again and said “yeah we won’t ever be doing it now, since you can’t handle it.”

I have felt very ashamed. There’s something really vulnerable about her having me get naked and then putting her clothes back on and laughing at me. I just don’t know what to do with how much I hate myself as a result of her treatment of me.

I got cheated on and dumped more than a year ago. Almost a year and a half ago. It’s *still* the first thing I think of in the morning and the last I think about at night. When I am in a bad mood, I’m thinking about that. It has frozen me and it feels like a major conflict I must resolve before I move forward.

I’m functional and work but haven’t even thought about being with anyone. She’s already been with multiple new people. I don’t know what to do. I’m in therapy but I just want my life back.

Recently listened to a podcast with Frank Yeomans and Diana Diamond and was left with questions about Transference Focused Psychotherapy.

The two noted that more than any other modality, TFP makes an aim to alter the underlying personality organization, helping an individual not just deal with symptoms, but also have more stable object relations.

A few questions. First off, is the concern with supportive modalities that they reinforce splitting mechanisms? Is the idea that they in part are dealing with symptoms through better developed primitive defenses? That by dealing with symptoms, they may mask underlying chaos within the personality? That leads into my main question which is, how is identity diffusion spotted in clients that do have history of rather successful development in supportive therapies?

So me and this girl have been talking about a month and she seems very into me. Part of that is that I feel very compared to her past partners. We’ve discussed this before, I’ve had one previous relationship that ended mutually. She told me she had 3 boyfriends, all of whom cheated on her and that unlike them I am “actually nice.” She also said she wouldn’t let any of them touch her with a ten foot pole and she seemed to have a lot of pride in “not having any attraction to them anymore, whatsoever.”

At first this talk made me feel good. Like I am a pretty unexciting partner. Definitely a history of being friendzoned and stuff and being the “nice guy.” So at first it felt like this girl that had guys that mistreated her but now found eyes for the more boring and easy going guy who does treat her well. And I feel like I do, I think I am getting into relationships for the right reasons and really value mutuality.

But the other night my stomach just kinda turned when she talked about and ex and giggled as she said she “just stopped liking him.” It was her most recent ex and they had only broken up like 4 months ago.

Perhaps I’m reading into it too much but what I feel this is that all of them were different than all the other ones. And one day if I let this go on, I will be “crazy” and she won’t want a thing to do with me because she just stopped feeling it and created that narrative. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

I’ve been in a relationship for a few months now and over the last several weeks I feel she has grown really critical of me. I’m an anxious person and can be easily overwhelmed. However, I’ve been told my others that I never put this on other, I retreat to myself and being alone. Which I think I do very consciously, I feel like I live most my life trying not to be someone else’s burden. Even still I understand how having anxiety can still negatively impact those around me.

Early on in our relationship she was very open about how she does therapy—she has awful adolescent trauma and it has meant the world she opened up to me about it. She said I can always be vulnerable with her and let me know “everyone should do therapy, it is great to work on yourself.” This week I mentioned I was really considering it and had some calls into some offices. I was kind of shocked when she told me that I was just trying to be like her and that my bringing it up stresses her out and is not her issue to deal with.

Looking back I feel like a lot of our relationship maybe hasn’t been super mutual. For example early on, I wanted to take things slower and because of some childhood trauma (although I didn’t tell her this) I wanted to wait on sex. Regardless of what she knew or didn’t know, she would just tell me I wasn’t outgoing enough and was too careful and a “chronic overthinker” for wanting to wait.

My main point is that I’m wondering if these are normal relationship struggles or if I should expect better. This is my first relationship so I have no insight from experience.

All my life I’ve always been super sensitive. Mostly to sense, like loud noises and intense experiences. Anything a kid could be scared of, I was. Loud noises, sleeping alone, the dark, intense contact sports, I got really overwhelmed by it all. My parents and especially my dad hated me for this. I remember overhearing my dad call me a “p*ssy” and “f*g” to my mom when I was scared in organized sports.

My question is for other HSP men on how you have grown into masculinity while maintaining the sensitivity that makes you yourself. All I want in life is to have a positive impact on other people, but I never grew that confidence. In my head, all I am is weak and pathetic and the opposite of masculine. I think I have one side of who I want to be down naturally. I really care about others and like so many of you am attuned to how others feel and can be empathetic. But I’d like the confidence and personal wherewithal to be able to use that to be a friend, a great family member, a quiet community leader, a husband and a dad. As well as a great son as my parents enter their 70s.

If any HSP men can provide concrete advice (being in therapy, self improvement steps) I’d really appreciate it.

So this situation ended a couple of months ago but I wanted to post about it here because I just found this sub and am looking for insight. My ex (although I guess we never had a label) started our relationship out really intensely and ended it that way too. For example early on, the way she told me she had feelings was by disclosing to me the recent death of her dad, telling me I was the only person she could rely on even though we really barely knew each other outside of being coworkers.

I was bad with boundaries and such but at the end, she just would pick fights constantly and blame me. Things I heard from her were “you remind me of how I was before therapy” “none of this was really that deep, you just clearly can’t handle having sex with someone while detaching feelings like I can” and “I can chill and relax alone and be by myself clearly you can’t do that but imma need you to get a grip on that because it’s not my f****** problem.”

When I tried to offer space or was made so anxious that I could help but feel like I was walking on eggshells she would criticize me. Any and all of my defenses got met with being told I was “gaslighting” her.

I just try really hard to be a good partner and I truly do love her even now. Heck, she has a new boyfriend already and I still love her, I really do. But does anyone else have advice for the mindf*ck of just getting accused of being manipulative when trying so hard to repair?