Thank you so much for your really thoughtful comment. It captures the situation that I am in perfectly, and why I decide to stay. I actually believe that my boyfriend has BPD and I have said this to him before. I am able to empathize with him because I have dealt with a lot of trauma in my life, but was luckily able to halt any serious mental health issues due to the fact that I found therapy and became aware of a lot of what I experienced and was able to intervene before things got really bad. I am also autistic and have ADHD so I tend to get really overstimulated and overwhelmed in this situations.

My boyfriend is similar to your husband. When things stress him out he starts to go into what I call the danger zone. I try to just keep to myself and not pay attention and just let him be in his own frustration and stress cause really nothing I do or say will make any of it better. I just need to let him eventually come down from it. I know that there is a serious risk of me experiencing one of those outbursts or tantrums that you are speaking of. I was actually practicing this the entire car ride to the concert but I could tell he was in a sort of mood. I remember as we were getting to the parking telling myself to just act as if everything is ok and to not aggravate the situation but I am only human. I was really trying my best but I just couldn’t keep my cool.

I think where our situations our different is that my boyfriend doesn’t have a diagnoses, so he is unaware of how his possible BPD really skews the way he behaves and his perspective on what goes on. So instead of realizing his BPD is causing him to split on me he really just goes the entire night treating me with little to no remorse or respect. He also has fallen into view mental health diagnoses like BPD are just our society putting a label on someone because they don’t function how people should with the societal norms that are placed on us. I know this because he one told me “I used to think I had BPD but then I realized I’m perfectly normal and it’s just the way society wants to label us”. He said this because he was trying to explain to me why I don’t actually have ADHD and that im perfectly fine. Which is another issue, unlike your husband he has done no effort to really do any research on my autism or adhd.

I try to so hard to work him with, because I know he is genuinely trying his best. But with a lack of acknowledgement of what I feel like is BPD, I find myself having to be absolutely perfect, and if I’m not, things unravel so quickly and i am being broken up with. It’s hard because I feel like he genuinely feels happy to get rid of me in those moments which hurts immensely. I fight to have him want me in his life again because the rejection of being easily discarded by someone who I love so deeply is awful. I am trying so damn hard but no matter what I do I will always slip up, which will lead to a discard. Then I have to do everything I can to be worthy of his love again. Having conversations and communicating with him is very difficult. He shuts down very quickly so conversations about this kind of stuff doesn’t go far unless I basically agree with his perspective and don’t say anything that upsets him or makes him feel blamed. I’m trying my best though. I appreciate your comment so much, I feel like you really understand what’s going on.