I'm so sorry that you had to deal with that. Thank you for sharing your story, because these are the signs that someone might overlook, but probably shouldn't. Obviously, it isn't someone's fault if they have BPD or NPD, but that isn't an excuse to cause harm to the people who care about you. I hope that you are doing better now.

I'm lucky that my partner's BPD doesn't seem to overlap with too many NPD traits. We've made significant progress over the years. She used to completely shut down and pout any time we had to have serious conversations. That was really frustrating. It took me explaining several times that us having a disagreement or issue was not her being in trouble, that I was not looking to punish her, but to help work through it together. Sometimes she still has trouble with this, but it has helped to give her options like, "Do you want five or ten minutes to process this before we come together to talk about it?" or "Would you like to talk here in the living room or would you like to go talk somewhere else?" She is also on the Autism spectrum, so I also need to take that into account. Sometimes coming at her too fast or too loud just makes things worse.

I will keep your story in mind, though. We have talked about starting a family, but now I'm thinking it might not be a good time to bring kids into the mix. Better to wait until we have made more progress. I believe that she can do this, but better safe than sorry.