r/BPDlovedones

I was with someone with BPD for 2 years before we found out what BPD was. She was originally treated for bipolar, PTSD, anxiety, and depression. She was on 7 different psych meds that made absolutely no sense to me Until a suicide attempt caused a hospital to detox her from all medications and basically start over.

Once I found out about BPD, everything fell into place like Tetris.

The biggest indicator for me was how she could go from loving me, wanting children, wanting marriage, and adoring me, to despising me in an absolute fashion.

There was no mid-ground. She either loved me and I could do no wrong, or she hated my entire existence and I was the worst person alive.

Aside from a clear diagnosis from a mental health professional, what was your light globe moment about your pwBPD?

Came to terms with the fact these peoples behaviours aren’t normal. they are so self centred and lack real empathy. Similar to sociopaths. I genuinely wonder the figures for Divorces and what percentage of them was a PwBPD.

Children Have more emotional intelligence and maturity than some of these people.

I feel sorry for the people who come after me icl. I wouldn’t wish dealing with these people on my worst enemy.

How common is or was stonewalling in your BPD relationship? To be clear, when I say stonewalling I am talking about where they flat refuse to communicate with you at all about something important to you, bothering you, or you need answers on. Stonewalling is different than the silent treatment. The silent treatment is typically used to punish whereas stonewalling is typically used to avoid accountability or avoid a secret they are keeping from being exposed.

For example, you ask them about something they said or did, the answer they give you doesn't make sense. When you ask for clarification, they say "I told you what happened. I am done talking about this" and that's the only answer you get. If you try to push it further they will split on you and discard you if necessary. Other times it can take the form of just flat ignoring you when you ask them a direct question or they change the subject.

My diagnosed BPD ex would stonewall me all the time and it was easily the most frustrating part of the relationship for me. I'm curious if this was unique to her or pretty common in all BPD relationships.

Why why why why why why why
Why
Why
WHY

I’m absolutely exhausted. I honestly feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m not even in the relationship. Trying to navigate a friendship (an ending friendship) with someone with BPD feels like psychological torture. The word soup and the mind games and the deliberate commitment misunderstanding you. I just want to cut and dry the relationship and walk away but I’m scared of what they’ll do and how they’ll react. They’re vindictive and spiteful and manipulative and I really think they believe the reality they’ve created. It’s insanity.

I’m so tired.

Knowing what you know now about the nature of bpd - and let's say you love that person with it more than anyone else, would you still sign up for a life of that just to be with them?

My gut says no. I've had a traumatic life of my own, and it may sound selfish but I spend the last 20 years trying to be there for other people in relationships who it turns out did not want my help anyway. I am tired. I am not about to sign away the rest of my life caring for someone who - perhaps through absolutely no fault of their own - lapses into a form of 'psychosis' or is immune to reality for periods of time that have severely destabilizing effects on me.

It is just not in me to be someone's caretaker that way. If they were normal and behaved normally I would be happy to do the 50% of what it takes to keep a relationship afloat and thriving. But I cannot be doing that plus another 40% of whatever when they lapse because they are incapable or unwilling to see the reality of what they do.

My wife called me selfish, and perhaps I am. But I never signed up to be something that was to be used up and thrown away like a paper towel. It does remind me very much of my relationship with one of my parents who would NEVER take accountability for the hell she created. Why would I put myself through a life sentence of more of that? Of having to live in her reality or else she'd going to rage or sulk like a 13 year old?

No.

I think I finally realized that I'm worth more than a life of this. being alone is better than being the floor of someone's taxi cab. That I should not have had to parent a parent, or act like a parent toward my own wife.

A few weeks ago somebody asked me what kind of apartment I would have if money and other people's opinions weren't a factor.

Such a stupidly easy question.

I couldn't answer it.

I was with my diagnosed BPD ex for almost six years, and somewhere along the way I got incredibly good at having preferences that were compatible with hers.

What should we eat? Whatever you want.

What movie? You pick.

Should we go out or stay home? I'm fine either way.

Do I like this couch? Well, do YOU like this couch?

At the time I thought I was just easygoing. Looking back, having an opinion often created another opportunity for conflict, disappointment, accusations that I was being selfish, or a 40-minute conversation about my "tone." So eventually I became very flexible.

Apparently I became flexible enough to disappear.

I've been living alone for a while now and I'm functional. I work, clean, pay bills, see friends. From the outside I probably look completely normal again.

But I noticed I still do this weird thing where I automatically search for the most defensible option instead of the option I actually want.

So I made a note on my phone called “Things I Like.”

Not goals. Not red flags. Not lessons from the relationship. Just preferences.

I like lamps instead of the ceiling light.

I like grocery shopping late at night.

I actually hate scented laundry detergent.

I like sleeping diagonally when I have the bed to myself.

I prefer stupid action movies to serious dramas.

I like breakfast food at night.

I don't enjoy hiking nearly as much as I spent six years claiming I did.

I like having absolutely nothing planned on Sunday.

The list is embarrassingly mundane, but adding things to it has become one of the strangest parts of recovering.

Last weekend I bought dark green bedsheets. I stood in the aisle for way too long thinking about whether green was a weird choice, whether I'd get tired of them, whether another color was more sensible.

Then it hit me that there was no committee.

Nobody was going to interrogate the purchase. Nobody was going to decide the sheets meant something about how much I cared about them. I didn't have to make a case for green.

I just liked them.

That sounds microscopic compared to the things people here have been through. But I think this is the first time I've understood what “focusing on myself” actually means for me.

It's not becoming a dramatically new person.

It's finding out whether the person underneath all that adapting still has opinions.

Turns out she does.

And apparently she really likes green.

My ex-boyfriend is BPD, autistic, and has ADHD. He has never gotten a BPD diagnosis, but I have worked with 4 different therapists and specialists who all fully agree with me that he is BPD based on the information I have provided after spending over 2 years with him. His cycle is crystal clear and he will admit that he has many issues, but he will not acknowledge BPD, which means he will not get help for BPD. He cycles through therapists regularly and has admitted he does not feel comfortable sharing much with them because of his trust issues so they will never get the full picture of him. But every single thing others on here have described fits him perfectly and my life with him is an echo of the other stories here.
I left him last week, I just cannot take anymore. And I have stopped speaking to him. I have left him before and watched how the cycle plays out each time. Once again, he is saying he has spent time reflecting on our relationship and sees how we BOTH did many things wrong, how we BOTH created issues and made the other feel unsafe. How BOTH of us have serious mental issues and need help.

It is the injustice for me, that he will never have to face the reality of all of the abuse and mistreatment, and just crazy s****, he put me through for the last 2 years. That he will move on and create some victim narrative where he knows he wasn't perfect but he tried so hard to help me, I just had too many problems and he couldn't save me. I know this because it is essentially what he fed me about his ex-wife when I met him. And some poor, vulnerable woman will believe him and he will do it all again.

Does he genuinely believe this? That yeah, maybe he did a little bit that wasn't great, but I really was the main problem? It is just so unbelievable. He should be begging my forgiveness and he is journaling about how damaging I actually was for him.

Ex called after 27 yrs to tell me her life was collapsing. Texted briefly next day. Few days thereafter, she disconnected her phone and left her home. She hasn't returned home in 3 weeks. Do they just run away sometimes, or has she self-deleted?

In the process of divorcing my husband with BPD, and today has been… well, a lot.

I texted my soon-to-be-ex asking if he could pick up our 14-year-old daughter after school. She was included on the text thread because, you know, she is 14 and this was about her transportation.

Cue an entire day of meltdowns.

Apparently I am weaponizing our children, trying to embarrass him, being irresponsible, criticizing him to death, etc.

Then I discovered he took $10,000 from my business account within the last week. When I questioned him about it, I was accused of harassing him. He told me he can do whatever he wants with “his” business finances, because he put the business I actually run in his name. That is a whole separate, very long story, but he has used control of the business and its finances as a means of control over me for years.

Now he is threatening to fire me as the manager and telling me that I know nothing about the day-to-day operations of my own business and that I am a complete failure.

Then came the personal attacks: I’m a man-hater, I learned it from my mother, I’m worthless, etc.

And then I found out he emptied our retirement account.

$500,000. Gone.

I am exhausted.

This is such bullshit. I don't want revenge. I don't want a dramatic life. I don't want to spend my days documenting financial transactions, defending myself against accusations, or trying to figure out what has been done behind my back.

I just want to live a regular life.

Update:

I have a lawyer, and we are at the start of a divorce. He bit my 17 year old a few weeks ago, making him bleed, and that was it. I saw a lawyer on the next weekday. We filed a TPO to protect the finances so he can no longer drain my business accounts.

I am a French woman with an ex best friend who has BPD. I'm glad to be on the computer now to write a conversation i just her after 10 months of no contact, i wanted to put screenshots but it's in French so i guessed it's better that i directly translate it here.

For context, i met her 13 years, for 12 years we used to be really close and talking everyday to each other, i really thought we had a real connexion. 7 years ago she met a man and stayed with him for 7 years and they planned to get married last year. But last year he has broken up with her because he couldn't dealt with her emotions, only few weeks after that she met a woman and started dating her, now she believes she is the love of her life and that she found home. Let's called her Nataly.

Since she met that woman, she stopped talking to me, she discarded 13 years of friendship, it really hurted me because it all feels like she never saw me as a friend but maybe more like a potential romantic partner and since she has found another woman, i'm just a useless tool to her... i have sent her some texts since she met her and sent her funny reels as we always used to do, she always seen the messages but never answered. She still follows me on instagram and still watches my stories.

Now forward to today, she suddenly sent me a reel on insga which broke 10 months of no contact, this is how it went :

Me : that cat looks so sassy hahaha

Her : yeah, little demon, he's cute though !

Me : totally 😁

Her : by the way, i have sooooo much stuff to tell you since the last time we spoke, a lot of crazy things happened

Me : 👀

Her : First i moved out and now live in Normandy, my ex tried to contact me again on messenger but i blocked him so it's all good, Nataly and me are having ups and downs but it's alright, right now we're a bit angry at each other but i am sure it won't last !

Me : i think we should keep our distance

Her : wtf, why ?? Why would you say that, what's going on ??

Me : i thought you contacted me because you were my friend and that you missed me a bit like i missed you, in your text i was waiting a bit for an explanation to why you stopped contacting me and now it feels that the only reason you're contacting me is because you can't talk to your girlfriend !

Her : i am in disbelief right now, you want to push me away just because you thought you weren't my friend !? If i wasn't your friend i would have never shared vulnerability with you, which i am still doing right now, the way you sees me hurt me very much !

Me : i want you to know that if i am wrong i'm sorry, but i need a bit of distance right now because even though you explained to me it's not true, i still feel a bit hurt, also we haven't been texting for 10 months so i guess one more evening is alright, i'll text you tomorrow, take care ❤️

Her : i can't believe how selfish you f*cking are, i am telling you that i am struggling with my partner and your first thought is to pull away, DISGUSTING BEHAVIOUR, i should have never contacted you ever again, i was hurted but you devastated me even more, i would always be here for you and yet you leave me alone when i need you, you never were a good friend, i regret having texted you today, the demon wasn't the cat in the reel, it wad you all along !

Me : don't contact me ever again.

I am completely devastated...i needed to post it, it hurts very much..

It's been about 2 years since my ex had her 'final-split', and monkey-branched to another man. I ended up blocked on everything, and have had no contact since.

This left me mentally broken, for lack of better phrasing. I dissociated for 2 months and was having panic attacks and breakdowns so bad I needed a doctors note to get out of work. 'Acute Stress Reaction' was the official consensus but I wouldn't be surprised if i have some form of C-PTSD.

Anyway, in those two years I have noticed I'm normally in two stages.

For the first year maybe: denial, heavy drinking, dissociating, depressed and struggling

Then once I had the time to stabilise myself, I slowly got past all my issues, and improved in every way.

The issue is though is that it would flip back and forth. I'd be fine for about a month and then I would see or feel something that would cause me to relapse back into the horrible state I was in. Sometimes I wouldn't even be aware that it had flipped back to my horrible state.

The recovery time periods would get longer and the relapse periods would get shorter. This seemed to be the general pattern until recently.

I'm not sure what has triggered it but I am in such a bad Mental Relapse.

I feel so anxious, paranoid and sad, as well as picking up drinking again (which I'm doing my best to handle).

I want to break no contact, despite not having done so for 2 years, and having no way to.

I'm not even sure what for?

Do I want to speak to her, no.

Do i want her to think of me or reach out to me? Yes, 100%.

Yet I'm not even sure why.

I don't know how she is, if she's in a relationship, how she thinks of me, or even if she does at all. I do understand that going back would just be painful, and frankly I probably don't even have the chance for her to let me back into her life.

I'm hoping this is just a really bad mental relapse cycle, but I am concerned because it hasn't been this bad since the first few months. My dissociations have gotten incredibly common, to the point I barely noticed them.

I’m about to throw in the towel.
It has been four weeks since my ex and I broke up, and right now I genuinely feel like she is winning in every possible way while I am left carrying all of the damage.
About a week after the breakup, I called her because I needed to bring over some clothes she had left behind. During that conversation, she made a point of telling me how incredibly well she was doing, how happy she was, and how much energy she suddenly had.
Her parents apparently said they had never seen her with this much energy before. She was training constantly, barely spending any time at home, always doing something.
And then she told me about a new guy she had already started talking to.
“He’s really sweet.”
Now four weeks have passed since our breakup, and they are officially together. From what I understand, they have basically been seeing each other since around one week after she left me.
So while I have been trying to understand what the hell happened to my life, she seemingly went straight from our relationship into a new one.
There is also an important detail when it comes to social media.
I am blocked by her on Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, TikTok and on my phone number.
The only reason I was ever able to see her TikTok activity after the breakup was because I had an old fake account.
And this was not some secret account she knew nothing about.
She knew I had it.
I had told her about it while we were still together, and during previous periods where we broke up and got back together, we had even acknowledged that we sometimes checked each other’s reposts.
About a week after this breakup, she indirectly confirmed again that she knew I could still see her TikTok.
She had started posting pictures of herself in swimwear and other similar content, and during one of our conversations she asked me whether I was “stalking” her.
I said no.
But the fact that she even asked made it clear to me that she remembered the account and knew there was at least a possibility that I could see what she was posting.
I have deleted that account now because seeing everything became too painful.
But before I deleted it, I saw what she was posting.
And honestly, the intensity of it has completely messed with my head.
Almost everything was about love.
Posts about someone “bringing her spark back.”
Posts about never having felt this way before.
Reposts saying things like “How do you see him?” followed by pictures of weddings, children and an entire future together.
She even made her own post saying, “2026 is going to be my year,” and when you swipe, there is a picture of the two of them standing together in a mirror.
Videos of them driving together.
“I’m so happy to be your girlfriend.”
Constant romantic reposts.
And this is where I start questioning my own perception.
Because I do not know whether this has anything to do with me at all.
Maybe she is simply extremely infatuated and posting exactly what she feels.
Maybe she is in a honeymoon phase and none of it is directed toward me.
But because she knew about the fake TikTok account and knew that I had previously looked at her reposts, part of me cannot help wondering whether there is also some awareness that I might see it.
I even find myself wondering whether knowing that I could potentially see certain posts gives her some kind of validation or emotional reaction.
I do not know if that is true.
I do not want to pretend that I know what is going on inside her head.
But it is something my mind keeps returning to, especially because the posting became so intense and because I was never displayed like this on TikTok when we were together.
Not even close.
And I know how unhealthy it is for me to watch it.
That is exactly why I deleted the account.
But I cannot get the images out of my head.
Because while all of this is happening, I am the one who has had to seek help from a psychologist and a mental coach just to process what happened during our relationship.
I was there through psychiatric treatment with her.
I attended group therapy with her.
I was there during some of her absolute worst moments.
There were times when she screamed at me, insulted me and threw things at me, and instead of leaving, I stayed.
Sometimes I would literally hold her while she was raging at me until she eventually broke down in my arms, crying and telling me that she loved me more than anything.
She told me nobody had ever made her feel as safe as I did.
She talked about wanting a future with me.
Children.
A life together.
And I stayed through things that took an enormous psychological toll on me because I loved her and because I believed that underneath everything that was happening, the person I loved was still there.
That is why this is destroying me so much now.
Because four weeks later, I look at her life from the outside and it looks like I was the problem.
She looks happy.
She is training.
She is constantly doing things.
She has a new boyfriend.
Her family says she has more energy than ever.
Her social media looks like she has found the love of her life.
And I am sitting here trying to rebuild myself.
There was also another situation about a week and a half or two weeks after the breakup that confused me even more.
She called me because she was upset that I had discovered that a rumor I had heard was actually true.
The person involved in the situation had personally confirmed it to me, and she wanted to explain herself.
I met her at the train station at around 10:30 at night.
At that time of night, trains only came approximately every twenty minutes.
She skipped two trains just to continue standing there talking to me.
But during that same conversation, I was repeatedly told how amazing she was doing.
She was happy.
She did not miss me.
She did not really love me anymore.
She was doing better than ever.
At the same time, there was still this strange tension between us.
At one point she grabbed my head, and I grabbed hers.
She looked at me and said:
“You’re the person who can make me the craziest.”
I replied, “Likewise.”
She suddenly had this huge smile on her face.
I joked, “Well, someone just got flashbacks to our sex life.”
And she completely lit up, smiling and almost unable to contain herself.
I know meeting her was probably a mistake.
But she called because she was upset, and the truth is that I missed her too.
What I cannot understand is how somebody can go from everything we had — everything we went through, everything she told me, all the plans for the future — directly into another relationship within what feels like days.
And there is another part of this that I am almost embarrassed to admit because I know how irrational it sounds.
I am terrified that she is going to change completely for him.
That somehow every problem we had disappears.
That everything I went through was somehow necessary for her to become the perfect version of herself for the next person.
That she suddenly becomes completely stable, builds the perfect life, has children with him and gives him everything I fought so hard for.
She also lives with paranoid schizophrenia, which added another very complicated layer to our relationship and to everything we went through together.
I understand intellectually that a person’s mental health, relationship patterns and deeper issues do not simply disappear because they meet someone new.
But emotionally, that is exactly what I am afraid of.
And I keep questioning the TikTok situation too.
Why is this relationship being displayed so intensely?
Especially on TikTok?
I was never posted like this.
Not even close.
And she knows that TikTok was the one place where I used to watch her reposts.
So part of my brain keeps wondering whether some of this is consciously or subconsciously directed at me.
Is it possible that she genuinely feels intensely in love with this person while at the same time knowing that displaying it could hurt me?
Could both things be true at the same time?
Or am I desperately trying to find meaning in something that has absolutely nothing to do with me anymore?
Maybe she really is completely infatuated.
Maybe this really does feel like the greatest relationship in the world to her right now.
I honestly do not know.
That uncertainty is destroying me.
Right now I feel like I am standing alone in a completely dark room and I cannot tell which direction is up or down.
I feel like she won.
She got to walk away, start over, be happy and apparently become this new version of herself.
And I got left with the anxiety, the memories, the questions and the psychological consequences of everything that happened.
For people here who have gone through breakups involving BPD traits, severe mental health issues or similar relationship dynamics:
Have you experienced something like this?
Did your ex also seem unbelievably happy and completely transformed immediately after the breakup?
Did they enter a new relationship almost instantly and present it as if they had finally found everything they had ever wanted?
Did you ever feel as though their social media was partly meant to be seen by you, even when you were blocked?
And how did you learn to tell the difference between what was actually happening in their life and what your traumatized brain was trying to interpret from social media?
Most importantly:
How did you stop feeling like they “won”?
Because right now, I am struggling to believe that there is another side to this.
I just want to understand how I get there.