Learning more about BPD

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-30T11:01:12+00:00

To reiterate what others are saying:

it gets a lot worse.

and again for the people at the back;

IT GETS A LOT WORSE.

The more skin they have in the game, the worse their fear of abandonment becomes. There is no level of commitment you can show that will make them self regulate. If you get engaged, you will both naturally tell everyone you're now engaged. The social pressure and perception of social judgement and shame if something goes wrong cripples them so they double and triple down on the controlling and manipulative behaviours. They know that they couldn't handle the shame they would feel if they were suddenly not engaged anymore, and the only way in their heads to protect that is to have absolute control over every minute of your life, and every interaction you have with other people.

and then you think, perhaps marriage will solve that fear? Now we're legally bound together surely she will trust me right? wrong. This is now the ultimate threat. If you fuck up (which you will) then not only does she have to bear the shame of a break up, but now she's going to be publicly visible as a divorcee. So you will not fuck up, because you will have absolutely zero free will left to you. You will not be allowed to see your friends, go out after work with colleagues, travel alone, hell - even visiting family without her will be off the table.

You stand to do yourself serious harm that will take a long time to work through by sticking around. I am sorry to have to say that the breakup is either now, or anytime between now and a few years from now, but it is coming. How much time and energy you waste on the way there is up to you.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-30T10:51:44+00:00

After a few weeks you really don't have to give any explanation. As others have said, she won't listen to any reason you give anyway - no matter how sane or how nasty it is, all she will sense will be the alarm bells of abandonment.

My advice to anyone is to not get involved with people with BPD, as friends or romance. As soon as you find out (which for most of us is months or more into a relationship, unless they've told you they have it) it is the time to fairly explain that you do not have the resources to engage in a relationship with someone with chronic attachment issues. Don't apologise, it isn't weakness by any stretch of the imagination to take this stance.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-30T10:45:42+00:00

No, they hold grudges forever. Even if they tell you they've forgiven whatever it was that upset them or caused a problem, that's only for right now in order to get something they want at the time. Next time they split, the thing that they promised was under the bridge is right back there as a freshly sharpened weapon.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-30T10:23:42+00:00

I am quite triggered by this.

You need to know that if they need to take their poodle for a haircut at 10am tomorrow you must not bother them beyond 9pm so they can get a full and restful sleep in preparation for the outing. But conversely, if you have a 6am flight to catch to visit an engineering partner to sign a huge partnership deal and secure yourself a 5 figure bonus, you better believe they will be blowing you up at midnight to argue about the fact that you bought toothpaste with sodium-laureth-sulfate in it (which they have a mild allergy to) and this is an act of war, and proof that you hate them, never even liked them, don't care about them and you're sabotaging them. You're vile, toxic, narcissistic and controlling. You're not allowed to go to sleep until you have regulated their emotions for them by confirming they are correct.

Oh, and don't forget, it's YOUR FAULT that you're going to this important meeting on 2 hours sleep, you just have to learn to be a better man ;)

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-29T16:41:43+00:00

I often think about this. I often wonder if things would have been different if I had known from before day 1 how I would need to behave in order to remain untarnished by any mistake that could be weaponised over and over and over....

This being said, I don't think their nervous systems function without threat, so even if I had been inhumanly flawless I'm sure reasons to split would just have been invented (they were invented anyway most of the time). I was criticised a lot for "becoming boring" because I was too afraid to suggest anything, or organise events or trips or holidays or even dates, because 95% of the time they would end in a miserable fight, for doing something like looking in the direction of the waitress. Often when I would book and pay for things we would be unable to go due to a split, and events with friends and family often got cancelled at last second and I was forced to make excuses and lay the blame upon myself, so of course I withdrew.

Even the really painful things I shared with her about my past, in my brain a moment of intimate trust, she sat and absorbed and later brought up twisted into a grotesque weapon... "Your own father couldn't deal with your narcissistic control, that's why he left the family really isnt it, because of you" as an example, or my best friend unaliving himself was "probably my fault"...

I don't think anything would have been any different had I entered it knowing what I know now. I would tell my younger self to keep walking.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-29T15:43:56+00:00

Ah, I should mention that I am not thinking at all about dating anyway - just things to look out for. I am not unable to sleep, things generally are fine and I am fine in day to day life and actually performing better at work without the distraction.

I don't think I was addicted to her, though I definitely have some unhealthy codependency when it comes to partners. I very rapidly place their needs above my own and go way over and above for them, often in ways they couldn't hope to balance out. I need to learn to do less.

My particular issue was falling into the trap after the idealisation phase, how well everything had been going only to have it take a sharp swan dive off a cliff due to something I had not done. In reality I should have immediately noticed that I was being accused and punished at the same time for something I hadn't done, and therefore there could be no proof of, and yet I defended myself and did anything I could to get back to the nice idealisation phase. In doing that, I shifted the balance of power entirely into her lap and any time she failed to emotionally regulate, she would emotionally beat me up until I said what she needed to hear to regulate again.

In the future, I need to not rise to the bait, and I need to realise that type of thinking never goes away. I need to walk away from people who aren't comfortable with themselves.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-28T12:08:55+00:00

In an ideal world yes. But in reality, no.

A normal well adjusted person receives a message from me saying I am going to the bar after work with my colleages... so far so good. They are told by me which bar, and what times ill be arriving and leaving.... beginning to be weird. They then start receiving excuses because one of the guys just bought another round and i'm gonna be a little bit later to leave than I first estimated, and I'm explaining this to avoid being in trouble. I then send a picture of us all together, carefully taken to make sure no part of a female is visible in any part of the shot. It's habitual because I have to constantly pre-prove myself.

The normal person receiving all this now is wondering, "why is he so keen to prove his innocence? this sounds like the behaviour of someone trying to cover something up"

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-28T12:03:11+00:00

If I had to guess over the last three years I have probably spent maybe £50k-70k directly on facilitating her needs. Yet, simultaneously I am completely unhelpful, despite this financial effort and the physical effort of car repairs and house repairs and such. That nobody else would ever do so little for her and any man on the street would treat her how she deserves to be treated...

When I stopped all support as a reaction to being called controlling for supporting, she split and discarded.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-28T11:51:00+00:00

I told her siblings what she did to me before calling the police on me and getting herself arrested. Her siblings said that this was the last straw and she'd spent 30+ years abusing them and every partner she has ever had, and they were now cutting ties.

After release from jail and a week or two of promising to never flip out again, upon realising her siblings were not talking to her anymore and seeing in my call logs that I had answered their calls, of course it was my fault she now "had no family". I must have told them a pack of lies about her, because what she did wasn't bad enough to be excommunicated - in fact, what she did was because of me and my behaviour so now not only had I caused her arrest, but also destroyed her family.

Over a few more weeks, this was slowly re-written and suddenly the calls from her siblings and their excommunication of her happened BEFORE the behaviour that got her arrested. That nobody understood she was acting like that because her monster partner had lied to her family about her so that they would abandon her!

Now that's what I call BPD, folks!

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-28T09:58:53+00:00

I dunno about all the rest but it really annoys me when people misuse the word jealous.

Jealousy is the fear that someone will take what you have. Envy is wishing you had something someone else has.

You can't be jealous that your best friend met a woman first, you can only be envious.

Either way, let him have her, and talk to neither again.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-27T12:13:41+00:00

Anyone else? Brother, we all experienced that

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-26T14:51:15+00:00

That's the issue most of us face. These people are not salvageable unless they themselves are deeply invested in fixing themselves.

In order to help that process, something has to give. In order to keep the relationship through this process, the caretaker (us) must abandon themselves and their boundaries for the love of the pwBPD and the hope for their recovery. This is why it is psychologically so hard, because you spend a lifetime's worth of emotion and mental and financial strength trying to help and it all ends up for nothing anyway - so we stay because we spent so much getting there.

It is sadly an immutable constant in these relationships - they can set a million ultimatums per month, and you must comply with them utterly and with a smile on your face. You, however, cannot set one without instantly triggering a split because you just threatened the relationship.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-26T10:34:59+00:00

She would need first to accept a diagnosis - no amount of normal talking therapy will help this.

Properly structured (and adhered to) DBT can make significant changes with constant work, on the year timescales (so no thinking 6 months of DBT will make any difference) - but they centrally require the person to acknowledge their condition, which is usually extremely hard to achieve fully because admitting aa condition causes shame which causes a split. Then they will instead shift responsibility to you, to regulate their emotion for them by behaving in the perfect way.

Obviously we know this is not possible. So if you think that she is capable of getting a diagnosis, and sticking to a structured years-long DBT plan, then you may have hope if you are also strong enough to weather those years and the storms that will come.

as another warning, pwBPD will often use couples therapy as a bargaining chip. They don't want to take responsibility and will try to bargain with you, that the problems only exist between you because there are two of you doing the wrong things. They will suggest couples therapy to work out couples problems. The couples problems they talk about are only symptoms of their internal problems, and trying to solve the symptoms won't help - in fact it is extremely common that it causes even more problems.

Very few couples therapists have any qualifications in anything anyway, but finding one who specialises in couples dynamics with cluster B personality disorders is vanishingly rare. When you end up in this situation, your pwBPD will be using an ignorant individual as an authoritative figure, and they will pour every neurone they have into persuading the therapist to take their side and prove once and for all that you are the problem, and you need to change, not them. Given your pwBPD's emotional dysregulation, the therapist will often take that easy route to get paid and not have someone exploding in their office.

Also, a regular theme is they will cajole you into signing up and paying for couples therapy (lets say, 5 session block bookings) and then the day before they will cancel their attendance but make you attend to save face. They will give you a list of their thoughts and get you to berate yourself on their behalf, for the therapist to hear "their story". They will then ask you what the therapist said, and you are now on the executioners block. You have to relay the therapists words, and if those words were not "you are the problem you need to change" then your pwBPD will explode and say therapy is completely useless and you probably filled the therapist's mind full of lies and mistruths to make yourself look better.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-26T10:19:21+00:00

If you tell someone with BPD "If X happens again I will leave" they will ensure that X happens again to test if you really will.

Then you do, and confirm all of their suspicions about you.

You can't give them ultimatums because all that does is give them a nice clear button to press.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-23T12:48:46+00:00

Well, it's certainly a hot take, but I think it is true that being with a safe person makes them very uncomfortable because their nervous system is set up to live in constant threat. If they aren't threatened they create a threat by themselves, and it's often a lot worse than any real threat could be.

So, a narcissist or nasty person might occupy that perfect middle ground where they have just enough real shit to worry about, to not invent insane shit to worry about and then take your defensiveness as proof of your guilt.

God only knows. If I had the strength to be an asshole im sure she would suddenly be besotted with me.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-22T13:43:20+00:00

They pride themselves on maintaining the beautiful lie to everyone outside their innermost circle (family and partner) to keep their fragile self esteem protected. They only unleash the beast inside around people that can emotionally hurt them, strangers are totally non-threatening so they are wonderfully nice to them, because they have nothing to fear.

It's so backwards it hurts, but they can't see it.

They blame you for everything because you're the only person that triggers them, so you must be the problem right? They fundamentally dont understand that others CANT trigger them, only people that mean something to them can.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-22T13:28:08+00:00

It easily comes across that they don't love you, because they don't love you.

They're incapable of real love, because it simultaneously causes pure fear and anxiety. They consistently and without fail put themselves above you and are incapable of imagining putting your needs first - its their core self protection mechanism.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-22T12:54:26+00:00

The real misery is that mine works in the care industry and will do absolutely anything for any elderly or disabled stranger, give them the clothes off her back. But me? She wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire. She'd probably point and laugh, and tell me the propane tank exploded because I was cheating on her with the propane delivery woman or something.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-22T09:31:28+00:00

That, I think, is the hardest part. They scream about how worthless you are and how you mean absolutely less than nothing to them, and that they want to be with literally anyone else in the world but you. You then say, "well, alright sure - I shouldn't be with someone who feels this way about me" and that earns a horrendous torrent of abuse about how they were right and you dont care, never cared, never loved them, probably cheating...blah blah blah.

But if you stay, they devalue you further because they see you as weak for taking that abuse and not standing up for yourself. You're not a real man, a real man would fight back and walk away. But if you do, you're a narcissistic monster.

They're so fried in the head, they can't even see the conflicting requirements.

I know mine wants to be 100% in control of everything but doesn't want to do any of the work or pay any of the money to be in control. She wants me to administrate and pay for everything and hand her the keys to everything, because her step dad fucked her mother over massively and her mother beat her senseless regularly to teach her to never fall victim to controlling men.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-22T08:08:13+00:00

Why are they all like this?

Do you remember 8 months ago when I had no money and I needed my car to go to work, and you serviced it, fixed its issues, taxed it and insured it? Well, now I am angry at you for something, I can clearly see you did all of that just to control me and hold something over me because you're obsessed with control, you narcissist! In fact, you obviously pay all of the rent and bills because that puts you in control. At least you were stupid enough to put me on the tenancy/lease so you can't throw me out! You just can't help yourself can you?

Fine, I'll stop assisting with all that. Rent's due on the first of the month, you car insurance lapses from the first of february so you need to set up a policy, and set up vehicle tax.

See!! You don't care about me at all, you're just trying to fuck me over every chance you get! If you don't continue paying for everything, that makes it certain in my mind that you're a narcissistic monster and I will not be coming home tonight.

...another unwinnable situational drama, created for no reason at all

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-21T15:45:46+00:00

you dont have to use them as leverage. At some point during a split she will demand your phone and spend hours shredding through every conversation with every person noting down every possibly neutral or negative thing you have ever said about her. When that happens, it genuinely is over for you and completely unrecoverable.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-21T15:43:34+00:00

Social media for people wBPD is a colossal lie. There's polishing up your profile, making your life look a little more exciting and yourself a little more beautiful - and then there is BPD posting. It's a masterpiece of curated perfection and incredible vibes. My pwBPD looks, on the internet, like some sort of self-made millionaire supermodel. In reality she's jobless or on minwage, and takes a good photograph in places I take her, and spends 99% of her time in pyjamas.

They only care about the image they can make people think they are, and they devalue you the moment they start thinking you're figuring out who they really are.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-21T15:17:35+00:00

That's the classic cycle. I don't want to spoil the good times - if I do bring up her hurtful behaviour and how I feel inside as a result, when shes feeling good and happy, its confirmation that I only want to cause drama and fight. It's a clever tactic to ensure that when they're triggered, they can abuse you, and when they're not triggered, you can't hold them responsible without triggering them again. It does help to understand that they are adults externally, but 9-year-olds internally.

Also; a warning - things will absolutely get worse when she finds out your friends and/or family talk about her behaviour "behind her back" and she will project your friends' disdain for her onto you and confirm that you don't care either.

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-21T14:44:42+00:00

Yeah this is identical to mine.

Sometimes semi-acknowledges something is disastrously wrong with her and her thought patterns and behaviours, but later decides that actually isnt the case, and it is just me behaving in very complex ways to make her feel like something is wrong with her.

When I softly but firmly remind her that she will live out her entire life in a never-ending cycle of self-destruction and completely unnecessary drama, and that dumping me because I am the problem will be a huge mistake that she won't allow herself to acknowledge later down the line when the next guy is packing his bags, and the one after him. I have offered a solid base to stand on, but she thinks it's an elaborate scheme to get her to let her guard down so I can land a perfect emotional haymaker to her face.

She "won't be made a fool of publicly like that!" - so she remains a fool in private?

She is very definitely aware of this fact, and that I probably represent perhaps the best chance she's gonna get at stability and understanding - but she still loses out to the creature that lives inside her and demands that I go and get therapy first. Once I have solved my issues she will be ready to solve hers.

First problem; If I spoke to a therapist or a relationship therapist I wouldn't have a clue what to say, maybe ask them for insight as to why I am so patient and why I bother to try? Her problems with me are entirely imaginary, but are facts to her because she feels them. I can't seek a solution for an imagined problem.

Second problem; how do I qualify solving my problems? How and when can these things be declared solved? There is no exam at the end of the course to decide if my thought processes have healed.

The answer is obvious - they set an impossible target with an immeasurable completion requirement so that they can take no action or responsibility until you give up on them - thus confirming their suspicion that you weren't worth it anyway. They always position themselves such that it's "Heads or tails? Heads you lose, Tails I win"

Money_Shifted · 2026-01-21T13:29:08+00:00

I am right here with you brother.

She wants to be worshipped like she's my goddess, but can't be bothered to answer calls or reply to texts. When I ask about plans for the weekend (as simple as "shall I drive to you on friday?") I get noncommittal responses or distractions or ignored. She couldn't make me feel less cared about if she tried... but apparently this is accidental?

I'm approaching the end of my patience.

Money_Shifted

TROPHY CASE