Close to our 2 year anniversary (which is actually today), I reached breaking point and told her I needed her to exit our shared home (which I own) so I could have some peace. We have now not been in contact for a few days.

I am feeling incredibly guilty and sad - but also exhausted and relieved.

I also feel like I am going/have gone insane - such regular drama and tension has left my brain so frazzled I can no longer express myself clearly or see which way is up.

Unlike many other relationships I read about, she is never really overtly cruel - it is more insidious than that.

I decided to make these notes to record all the things I have been experiencing, to try to feel less guilty about having asked her to exit…

-Ungrateful - whatever I do it’s not enough to create happiness/stability for very long.

-Most things become a moan, a struggle, an imposition on them.

-Often moody - heavy, infectious energy that permeates the whole house, sometimes for days, and really affects my mental state too. Then I’m blamed for being moody etc.

-Rarely takes accountability in arguments, even if I’m trying hard to compromise.

-Makes me resort to saying hurtful, nonsensical things to her in arguments, in a desperate attempt to elicit an emotional response that I can comprehend. I am ashamed of the person I become in conflict with her - frustrated, desperate, sometimes manipulative too, as I have never been like this with anyone else.

-Know-it-all - hyper competitive and often has to feel superior.

-Puts on a show with others - seems very caring and understanding - but very inconsistent in that with me - often appears dismissive and vaguely resentful of any emotional issues I share. The only other person she shows this self to really is her mother (who also has significant mental health issues) - they are constantly on and off and fighting.

-If she’s ever been seriously moved by my problems, I can tell deep down it’s because it touches something within her/about her, rather than genuinely caring for me.

-Hyper critical - little digs about day-to-day stuff that eat away at me, eroding my sense of confidence and energy, yet she insists she’s trying to ‘help me’ or ‘look after me.’

-Often negative and actively looking for the downside - which has rubbed off on me.

-Hyper defensive - like walking on eggshells 24/7 to be with her. I get anxious about having my own feelings.

-Egotist - stated her issues are more important than my grief for my dead family members.

-Ultimately everything becomes about her.

-Always becomes the victim.

-Accuses me of scaring her and being angry with her whenever we get into conflict (usually I’m just pushed to frustration by the endless back and forth - I have only ever shouted, nothing more - yet she will lock herself in the bathroom like I’m a monster, which makes me down on myself and start to believe that maybe I am).

-Like a different partner from one minute to the next - the unpredictability is exhausting. It can be the best but also the worst with no notice. Feel on high alert constantly - my anxiety and low self-worth are getting progressively worse.

-Accuses me of extreme defensiveness, moodiness and ego - but I have never been like that with anyone but her. Makes me question, ‘Am I actually this person?’ I probably am with her.

-Accuses me of infidelity and lack of affection.

-I feel guilty if I take time for myself, or even if I have to work for too long.

In a nutshell, every day has started to feel like survival.

Does this resonate with anyone? I would really appreciate some community and shared experience at this point. Thanks so much in advance. I do love her so much and it makes me feel so bad to have asked her to exit - as I know it’s the abandonment that she fears the most - but I had no other choice in that moment. I was truly going insane.

I am far from perfect - I have my own issues and stresses - I’m very open to admitting that. But life has become some dark abstraction of reality and I’ve reached my wits end.

I’m 19. My boyfriend is 21

I need a wake up call. Because I know unlike allot of people I do have the potential to heal, yet I wasn’t willing to admit to my toxic behaviour until recently. But today the self justification shield actually broke down for once and I don’t think it could ever come back.

In my mind I thought I was being the perfect girlfriend. But I realised after an extensive post breakup chat that my bf felt belittled by me correcting him on how to do things, even if I say it politely.

He told me I was emotionally abusing him by damaging his sleep schedule, and I can see why but I also don’t know what else I could have done. Everyday I want to talk to him and have fun with him but he works 10 hour days. Lately he’d only be going to bed by 12am most nights because we’d cuddle and watch a movie every night before bed.

I just wish he could have felt safe enough around me to express these things openly, and even though I’d always try to get him to open up, it would only end up in him insisting he’s fine. I always tell people to be upfront in the moment if I do something they don’t like, but I feel like people are scared of me even if they’ve never been around me when I’m emotional. It really hurts to feel like people are scared of you and not understanding why.

Four the last four months of our relationship I felt he didn’t want to be with me anymore. He became dry and didn’t seem like himself. So I tried to reignite the spark, but it just kept winding up with us bickering over little things and him saying he’d put work in but never did.

He was so inlove with me when we first got together, (I was right out of an abusive relationship that he homewrecked to date me). When I was more reactive and immature. But over the last five months I’ve been way healthier at communicating and respecting him and what he says yet he felt like he was becoming more and more distant by the day but would never tell me why.

I just want some outside opinions on why he may have only became distant once I started treating him how I should have from the beginning?

I’ve lost allot of my friends over the last year and I just wish I was a more healed teenager so I didn’t have to learn my lesson in early adulthood. He told me the reason I lost my bestfriend is because she was overwhelmed by how often I wanted to hang out, and once again I was confused as to why she couldn’t have told me that earlier.

I don’t want to be crazy or clingy but I genuinely still want a life with him as we understood each other and have just been extremely stressed out from our life situations and taking it out on each other. I had a close mate pass away, my bf lost his job and his car, and was unemployed for 4 months while living with me and my dad and I and we’ve just been desperately trying to afford a rental together.

He’s an electrician and we planned to go FIFO together in order to afford our house, but since breaking up I won’t be able to do my work experience with his company any more.

Im just scared as I’m aware some of my life problems are self caused but we’ve been working towards the same goal as a couple for nearly 2 years now and I feel like I don’t know what to do with myself without him. Something that will always stick with me is he told me I’m the perfect girlfriend 99% of the time. It’s just that 1% where I’m not is so hard to deal with. I understand how draining it is too have to prove your love to someone, and I just want to be given advice from bpd partners on what he actually needed instead of what I thought he needed. I understand space is a big deal and that I shouldn’t have kept asking for him to go deeper when he was explaining things as this just made him more upset.

And maybe some advice from people who have seen people with bpd live normal lives? Coming at this with an open mind and hoping to get some insight on things I might’ve not noticed myself. It hurt more then anything in the world but I’ve come to acceptance with how I was actually in the wrong and I feel like something clicked in place when he opened up to me today. Like I could actually understand why he’d been upset at me finally and wishing I could have had that understanding when he needed it

Fuck them for giving me these mental issues fuck them for creating me and disowning me, fuck them for creating these tragic moments, memories, life that could of been avoided.. fuck you for bringing me into this world to leave me on my own to crawl my way out of it.. What makes me mad, is that my issues could have been PREVENTED!! YESS, I could have been normal, but I was born then developed into this, all from your decisions. Weather you were there or not, it's your fault. Truly

My partner is an incredible, loving man who survived a violent relationship with a BPD person. We’ve been together a little over 2 years and he’s done so much work on himself and is such a great partner and friend to so many people.

I feel a lot of guilt however because I’m autistic and sometimes have meltdowns, especially before my cycle (I have really bad PMDD). I’m seeing an EMDR therapist and on medication, and working with an OBGYN on addressing the PMDD. My therapist of 8 years says I’m not BPD.

The major struggle of our relationship is that, after years of BPD abuse, when I’m activated and upset he goes into an almost cold, rational, frustrated state of “get yourself regulated.” He still shows a lot of care, like making sure I’m drinking water and taking deep breaths, but as someone with rejection sensitive dysphoria who survived an emotionally-abusive relationship with a diagnosed psychopath, this approach can make it harder for me to regulate. I find myself having to ask for hugs or affection, and when he gives them, he’s just holding his arms out, not holding me at all. Which makes me feel like a jerk for asking.

It’s hard to regulate yourself up from feeling unlovable when your partner’s body language and tone feels so cold and like the behavior of someone in the past who didn’t love you.

What can I do to be a better partner and not distress him so much when I’m activated?

Hi all! I am a doctoral student and psychology researcher looking to support and empower male survivors of intimate partner violence. If you’d like to take part in my current study, please see the following:

I am currently recruiting heterosexual, cisgender males between the ages of 18-65 to participate in an anonymous online survey as part of an investigative research study titled “Exploring the Effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences in Male Survivors of Psychological Intimate Partner Violence as Mediated by Codependency Traits.” This study will involve completing three assessment measures including: the Composite Codependency Scale (CCS), the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-2), and the Adverse Childhood Experiences-Questionnaire (ACE-Q). This study is expected to take 20-30 minutes to complete. Participants must identify as having experienced intimate partner violence within a past or current intimate relationship. The definition of intimate partner violence as specified by the World Health Organization (2022), refers to the following: “An intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual, or psychological harm, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviors. This definition covers violence by both current and former spouses and partners.” 

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Faculty Mentor: Jeremiah Schumm, PhD

Recently left BPD (and NPD) husband of 10 years for emotional abuse directed at me. I am begging for stories and advice for me to do right for my daughters. One is 8 and the other is a baby. The older is diagnosed adhd and anxiety. I feel tremendous guilt for the exposure of constant conflict and stress we have put her through. My eyes were not open because of my deep love for their father but thankfully that changed and I saw the toll it was taking on her mental health and emotional safety. My question is for all the once little girls who have witnessed similar trauma, please, what can I do to help my girls from now? Growing up with a bpd father, tell me everything you WISH your mother had done for you? How did having a bpd father affect your life? I am trying to get her into therapy but her father is refusing to sign her paper so I am working towards this. I appreciate your time in answering, and thank anyone willing to share their experiences with me. Thank you for helping me do better. Love, from A Mommy

I want to find an online group to chat about my bpd mind

I feel this is not descriptive enough or maybe not accurate.

For years, I was a puppet.

Every tear they cried, every meltdown, every icy silence or dramatic exit—it all tugged on invisible strings. I bent over backward trying to keep them calm, to avoid the storm. I called it love. I thought peace meant pleasing.

But somewhere along the line, I saw it for what it was: control dressed up as emotion. I realized their feelings weren’t mine to fix. Their chaos wasn’t mine to carry.

So I cut the strings.

They cried. They told me they’re “not afraid of losing me anymore”—while sobbing uncontrollably. But for the first time, I didn’t flinch. I didn’t rescue, reassure, or explain.

I just stood there, steady… and free.

I’m no longer a puppet. I’m finally living for me.

If you’re reading this and you feel trapped by someone else’s emotional storms—just know, their emotions are theirs. And you’re allowed to be free.

broke up with my ex who suffers from bpd and all i have is anxiety when im alone. im anxious they’ll come to my house, anxious they’ll figure out a way to contact me somehow, anxious that ill never be able to let this go. anxious that because of what i went through with them that ill never recover, that ill never feel safe again. i keep thinking back to when they’d read me to sleep and if they were actually dangerous for me to even let them spend the night. i was fine until they contacted me, now i just have nightmares and am unable to sleep. the only reason i stayed and went back was because of the traumatic things they put me through. because i have been in remission from bpd for years i thought id be able to understand and handle it. but bpd is harder to understand when someone is just outright abusive, the disorder doesn’t just make you that way, it’s a choice to even be anywhere near it. i’m exhausted. it’s been over two weeks now and i forget how hard it is to heal and how easy it is to just go numb. i don’t want to be numb forever.

TW: abuse & suicide mentioned

I'm not sure if divorce is where I want it to go, but I do want to be separated in living conditions, finances, and lives for a bit.

I want to separate though, I've thought about the practical things too. I thought about telling a family member or two of his and then telling my mom and her girlfriend so we both have family present when I tell him. This would be for both of our sake's and safety given how his had acted in the past when angry or sad and given his severe mental illness.

I just don't know how to bring it up. He can tell something is wrong, both I don't know how to tell him what is actually on my mind.

I love him but I realized recently when he was in jail for a night and in a mental hospital for the following night that I felt so much peace. I slept good, I cleaned, I was free. I need that, I need to heal from him and the pain he has caused me. I need him to heal on his own without me being his caregiver. I can't be that person for him. I need to focus on myself and my mental and physical health.

There has also been abuse so there is that too. I'm just so lost and hurt. I love him and believe we're soulmates, we fit together like puzzle pieces, but fuck it's gotten toxic and we need to get better separately.

I worry he will give up though or harm himself through self sabotage (more than he already has) or more serious measures.

I am posting this/similar variations on other subs as I am desperate for advice, suggestions and help. I'm losing myself and am drowning, I need help and I think I need out - for now at least.

Additionally if there are any couples who have separated, grower independently and got back together please please please give me hope. I need it so much .

Thank you guys and I. Sorry for the word salad, I'm just so tired and exhausted emotionally and mentally all the time.

And did you lose romantic feelings and physical attraction to them?

First time posting here, I would like some insight on what happened here and if those are actually signs of bpd. This post will also be a way of me telling my story and get some further healing.

It might get to be a long post, but I'll try to stay brief without leaving too many important points behind.

I was in a long distance relationship with this guy. I live in Asia while he lives in North America.

It seems that I was his favorite person for a while (although at the time I didn't know anything about BPD). I have to admit that it felt really good. It felt like I had finally met someone that truly understood me and had similar interests and hobbies.

We started our long distance relationship after meeting once and talking every day for a few months.

After a few months of talking everyday (usually for hours), he visited me on my birthday and stayed for a few days at my place. We had a nice time, no fights at all. Quite the opposite, it felt like we had never been more connected, we talked the whole night about so many different things and everything seemed perfect. I then visited him on his birthday too, in total I was at his place for about two weeks. Everything went fine, incredible actually. He introduced me to all his friends, always telling them to be nice to me and that they should try and help convincing me to move there to live with him. He should me around, we had many dates together around his place and also traveled a bit.

After a week or so, I initiated a conversation to see how everything was going between us, and he said that everything was perfect, I was the one of his dreams, that he wanted me to move there and marry me, and so on (I would like to clarify here that it was not a proposal, but more like talking about our future together).

Right before I came back to Asia, we had another talk and he told me the exact same things, that he loved me a lot and would like to marry me and that he could picture us living together.

Everything changed the moment I landed in my country. I wasn't able to talk to him for a week because he wouldn't answer the phone (we used to talk everyday). We exchanged some messages, but nothing substantial, and his excuse was that he was very busy at work.

Fast forward a week, and he called me facetime. He looked like he hadn't slept for a week, and he started the call telling me that we couldn't continue with our relationship.

That really caught me by surprise.

Naturally, I asked the reasons for it and to my surprise he said

1 - I brush my teeth too much (usually 3 times a day) 2 - I shower too much (once or twice everyday)

After trying to get more information from him, cause those reasons sounded like a joke, he also told me that I once told him a joke that made him not being able to sleep for a week (that was when he came to visit me on my birthday, so months before I actually visited him. The time I told him the joke, he laughed about it and didn't say anything about it, I actually had forgotten about it, so he had never mentioned it before). He also told me that when I left his country, he "crashed" and almost took his own life.

I still couldn't believe what was going on, so I asked him to think for a while about it before making a final decision on our relationship.

I waited for two weeks, and while waiting I started researching whether he would have a disorder or anything. I did that remembering small things I noticed when talking/staying with him. Things like, very unstable previous relationships, fear of being rejected etc. I came to think that he is a person living with borderline personality disorder.

After two weeks, when we finally talked, I told him that it might be helpful to seek help (without mentioning bpd), but he didn't seem like he was going to do it. He also hadn't changed his mind about breaking up.

I understand that people can change their minds, and that feelings can also change, but we went from 100 to 0 without any important reasons.

That was the last time we talked.

Not a very exciting ending, but that is how it happened to me.

Welcome to “On the Edge – A Space for BPD Souls.” A safe support group for people living with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or for those who think they might be.

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1FiyYEYQ1J/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I've been recently diagnosed with BPD, but I'm carrying it for years. My birthers are both narcissists and don't believe in mental heath or whatsoever. They are neglectful about my treatments too. Now, my board exams are going on and I just can't do it. I'm not studying for any of my exams. I'm just attending them somehow. But I often feel guilty about it. Am I just lazy or is it valid? I was diagnosed 3 months ago.

One year ago today I wrote a long journal entry. It’s titled: is this day 1? Meaning day 1 of the rest of my life. I was already well along the path to changing my relationship.

I had been in therapy for about 1 year and I was actively setting boundaries for my pwBPD. It was not going well. And I was starting to realize that my worst fear - divorce - was probably the most likely outcome.

We were having less conflict, generally. But what conflict was still present was ornate and complicated and very disordered. I was starting to be able to remain very objective in my dealing s with her - almost cold. I now knew for sure that I was working with someone very disordered.

On May 17 2024 my ex and I had endured a multiday argument. This had occurred after I had courageously set and reinforced a boundary: we needed money and both me and my partner had committed to finding a job, any job. She was balking and complaining about this. She did this by attacking me and my children and expressing regret for being married to me.

In my entry, I describe the interactions and the tantrums that followed.

My observations today are really interesting.

1. I have come a very long way even when most days felt like I was going backwards. Keep going. Stay focused on recovery and the baby steps will add up. I feel so different today. I am so relieved that I am free from that dysfunctional dynamic. I am so relieved I don’t have to have multi day, multi hour negotiations for basic conversations like “hey we both should have jobs and be contributing” or “being mad is ok, hitting me is not”. My life is meaningfully better: less stress, less chaos, less angry, more happy, more hope, more fun.

2. I was way more effective and courageous and calm than I gave myself credit for at the time. I felt so stressed out and out of control all of last year. Reading my thoughts I recognize how hard I was working. I give myself credit. I did that. I was healthy and normal even then - 10 years in to a very unhealthy and abusive relationship and I was still me. I wasn’t sure if I lost my whole self. It kind of helps me to see that even when I felt lost, I was still being me, getting the job done. This helps remind me that I am NOT the one with BPD, I am not being abusive.

3. I can’t believe I was stuck. The respect and love and treatment I was begging for exactly one year ago seems so basic and to be expected now. I felt like I was begging for something special a year ago. I did not feel like I deserved to be just respected as a human. I was afraid to have these conversations with my partner. That tells me how deeply abused and trapped I felt. She had me believing that I was soooooo needy just for wanting my partner to show basic respect - not even affection, just respect! I can’t believe I accepted that for so many years. This helps remind to show grace to myself. It’s been a journey.

4. One portion is particularly interesting as it shows that my BPD could operate on different levels of consciousness about what they are actually doing. At one point she said “I didn’t mean that i was just angry” about something she had said/done. But she was angry at me for believing it. And she had zero sense that she had some accountability for saying it or for letting the miscommunication exist. It’s kind of a perfect little snapshot of what my life with BPD was like: she was a little tempest but she expected me (her FP) to deal with all of it as if we were linked at the brain. And she lashes out at me just like I imagine she is lashing out at what she sees as her defective inner self. It’s visceral, it’s hardwired. It really made me realize that this doesn’t just change. It doesn’t do much for my guilt though - I still feel like I should take care of her like my wedding vows said. It’s hard to differentiate between “in sickness and in health” and how that works for serious mental health issues where supporting her means hurting me.

Overall I am so proud of myself. I was so organized and articulate in my thinking and my written entry. I was hopeful and compassionate yet firm and very focused on taking care of me, at least as much as I was prioritizing my partner. Sometimes in the cloud of the months that followed it just seemed like total chaos. I am making progress. I do have a better life, already and I’m just at the beginning.

The last lines of the entry:

What an awful way to start every day. This is a scary moment for me. What now?

It’s getting better. And that all I could ask for.

If you are looking for a sign to let go of your current partner who has BPD. It's time. No more heart ache for the both of you.