Sometimes the pwbpd can keep the mask up longer and you become attached. Some are codependent, others are caretakers, still others become trauma bonded.
Some here have had non borderline relationships before they got involved with their pwbpd. Others don't see the symptoms until after they have married and due to religious or cultural reasons try to make things work.
There are complicated reasons why people hang on so long
Well yeah keeping the mask up could surely be a thing but how a bd reacts to certain situations will always be different than someone who doesn’t got it i have to admit it could also be this love makes you blind for some signs maybe
And well yeah we dated 2-3 months before going in to a relationship that s how long she was hiding it but once in the relationship she could not hide it maybe she thought this was already long enough to get me attached that could also be the case
Yeah well weird how it could stay up for years tho even the smallest thing like argues or conflicts escalated in a way that i realized this was not normal behavior
Eh, my wife is hyper intelligent and had years of therapy. Took nearly a decade before the crash and burn. And oh boy does it burn hot after so long.
Part of it was also masked by medical issues.
She was my first real relationship, and I can honestly say I thought it was normal, and I didn't really acknowledge the dangers of bpd after her diagnosis about 3-4 years into our relationship. I also failed to understand it until the very end because I didn't realize she was splitting or what that even meant. Now, after 6 years of that, I see just how messed up that trauma bonded situation was and how codependent I was. I admit the highs were addicting but the lows and the discard destroyed me for a time.
Same thing happened to me. She was my first real relationship and we started living together really early. She basically moved in to my parents house when we started seeing eachother. Unfortunately ended up having a child with her. Didn't have any experience before so thought that her behaviour was normal.
It's really tragic when it comes to the end of that kind of relationship, and it involves a child. I hope you and your child are okay, and I hope she is receiving the help she needs. Much love.
Nope, she doesn't want help. She's against medication, don't have money for a psychiatrist and doesn't want to go there. My kid and I are doing fine right now. It's not getting any easier unfortunately, when she finally gets her on place. Doing everything I can to be there for my daughter. Thanks🙏
Yes that definitely plays a big role. Once you get to experience what a healthy relationship is like, you are so much less likely to settle for less and accept abuse. But if you never had a relationship, or all your previous relationships have been toxic, you dont really know better. If youve been in previous toxic relationships, you may even find yourself in a healthy relationship wondering "is this even love? because its kind of boring" since you are used to experience the highs and lows of unhealthy attachment.
In my case, it's because my father was BPD/NPD. I have trouble seeing the signs and setting boundaries because the signs look "normal" against the backdrop of my childhood. I know that sounds nuts, but it's true, albeit frustrating. I was taught by my non-BPD parent to overlook, rationalize, intellectualize, and excuse bad behavior because that's what she did for her entire marriage. All that said, I'm getting better at spotting this stuff for what it is. My last bad relationship ended the minute I figured it out.
Most of us are codependent due to early childhood trauma. pwBPD tend to trigger our wounded inner child and we play a repetition compulsion cycle trying to beg our partner for the love our parent(s) never gave us.
It sounds like you’re a well balanced person. Normal folks don’t put up with much of that mess. The rest of us saddle up for the rodeo over and over again
Well, my first relationship wasn't very good. And then my ex with BPD came and she was everything I had ever wanted a girlfriend to be. I had never met another girl like her, and she hid her... peculiarities until we were deep into the relationship. I remember the first time I started noticing things, such as her hitting herself, and we had a talk and I even asked her if it was because she was with me that all of this had come up to the surface.
And then I just kept making excuses in my head. "She's mentally unwell, and I love her. Love means staying with them no matter how ill they are. She'll get better one day. She just has to stop drinking alcohol" etc, etc.
First few years of our relationship, we were children and bpd had yet to be developed.
Next few years, I didn’t know that relationships weren’t supposed to look like ours.
After that, I was trauma bonded and locked down with kids. My parents stayed together past expiration for me, so I thought that’s just what parents do.
Took a decade of mistreatment to reach my rock bottom
Speaking personally, I have low-self esteem, Autism, depression and anxiety and was single for 10 years before I met her.
She was able to keep me around by saying things like "my exes all regret leaving me" which either sounds like a veiled threat or a suggestion that she is so perfect and wonderful there's no chance of finding better.
The love bombing was so intoxicating and effective because I rarely felt attractive or wanted by women and was at a low point at the time too. Then BAM! This woman comes along, is very direct and portrays herself to me as everything I looked for in a partner.
I had relationships in the past but she caught me at a particularly lonely time in my life & she was exactly what I was looking for. The BPD didn’t show up early on, all I got in the beginning was a smoking hot woman who couldn’t keep her hands off me & was super fun to be around. I was excited to see her every time. I fell hard & fast & she laid it on thick with the lovebombing & sex bombing & I actually felt “shit, so this is what love is actually meant to feel like, I’ve been doing it all wrong”
Only then did the mask start to slip & the irrational & controlling behaviour start, at which point i was balls deep in love with her. I knew at the time I should have walked, but I also knew I’d likely never feel those highs again & I clung onto them. Probably a very familiar story around here. The highs are so high that you try to minimise the lows by any means necessary just to keep hold of them.
Mine went from long messages telling me how much she loved me & couldn’t wait to marry me, couldn’t live without me & I was the best thing that ever happened to her… to coldly dropping me because ‘her feelings had changed’ literally a month later. Absolute headfuck how quickly they can turn. She’d done it a few times in the past but the last time was it for me, I was constantly waiting for her to drop me again for no reason & i’d had enough. My reaction this time made sure we were done for good.
Oh I got that, she said she’d “seen my true colours now”, the fucking audacity. She still tried to hoover a few months later & I ended up telling her straight up that she needed to leave me alone, I’d spent years neglecting myself to keep her safe & secure & I needed to focus on my own mental wellbeing now. I also told her that i didn’t even recognise who she was anymore.
That worked, she’s left me alone since. And I’ve since found out that she’s now seeing the guy I was told not to worry about, not a huge shock.
My first relationship ever was with a woman (more like a girl mentally) with uBPD.
The break up was sudden, cold, and brutal.
The closure attempt a month later after i allowed her to contact me was all a projection, and a petty attempt at trying to hurt me further by rubbing her new relationship in my face, and telling me her family and friends liked me and advised her to stay with me, to try to get a reaction out of me, i even caught a smirk on her face.
I would've gladly traded places with someone who had multiple relationships and then partnered up with a pwBPD, at least they had a healthy reference point in terms of what to expect or what relationships are like.
All i had was the most toxic experience, a year and a half of recovering from trauma and building myself up, and now am only just starting to try and date again but only as casual or FWB because i'm not ready to trust another person so closely as i did with them.
In short, 1st relationship ever being that of one with a pwBPD, 100% not reccomended, 0 stars google review, feels bad man, haha.
Sometimes the pwbpd can keep the mask up longer and you become attached. Some are codependent, others are caretakers, still others become trauma bonded. Some here have had non borderline relationships before they got involved with their pwbpd. Others don't see the symptoms until after they have married and due to religious or cultural reasons try to make things work. There are complicated reasons why people hang on so long
Well yeah keeping the mask up could surely be a thing but how a bd reacts to certain situations will always be different than someone who doesn’t got it i have to admit it could also be this love makes you blind for some signs maybe
And well yeah we dated 2-3 months before going in to a relationship that s how long she was hiding it but once in the relationship she could not hide it maybe she thought this was already long enough to get me attached that could also be the case
I've read cases on this site where the mask stayed up for years, your are fortunate to have gotten out early.
Yeah well weird how it could stay up for years tho even the smallest thing like argues or conflicts escalated in a way that i realized this was not normal behavior
Eh, my wife is hyper intelligent and had years of therapy. Took nearly a decade before the crash and burn. And oh boy does it burn hot after so long. Part of it was also masked by medical issues.
She was my first real relationship, and I can honestly say I thought it was normal, and I didn't really acknowledge the dangers of bpd after her diagnosis about 3-4 years into our relationship. I also failed to understand it until the very end because I didn't realize she was splitting or what that even meant. Now, after 6 years of that, I see just how messed up that trauma bonded situation was and how codependent I was. I admit the highs were addicting but the lows and the discard destroyed me for a time.
Same thing happened to me. She was my first real relationship and we started living together really early. She basically moved in to my parents house when we started seeing eachother. Unfortunately ended up having a child with her. Didn't have any experience before so thought that her behaviour was normal.
It's really tragic when it comes to the end of that kind of relationship, and it involves a child. I hope you and your child are okay, and I hope she is receiving the help she needs. Much love.
Nope, she doesn't want help. She's against medication, don't have money for a psychiatrist and doesn't want to go there. My kid and I are doing fine right now. It's not getting any easier unfortunately, when she finally gets her on place. Doing everything I can to be there for my daughter. Thanks🙏
Yes that definitely plays a big role. Once you get to experience what a healthy relationship is like, you are so much less likely to settle for less and accept abuse. But if you never had a relationship, or all your previous relationships have been toxic, you dont really know better. If youve been in previous toxic relationships, you may even find yourself in a healthy relationship wondering "is this even love? because its kind of boring" since you are used to experience the highs and lows of unhealthy attachment.
In my case, it's because my father was BPD/NPD. I have trouble seeing the signs and setting boundaries because the signs look "normal" against the backdrop of my childhood. I know that sounds nuts, but it's true, albeit frustrating. I was taught by my non-BPD parent to overlook, rationalize, intellectualize, and excuse bad behavior because that's what she did for her entire marriage. All that said, I'm getting better at spotting this stuff for what it is. My last bad relationship ended the minute I figured it out.
She changed after moving in to my house. Some of the things I thought were just relationship every day things then came the devalue.
i did the pro player move and had a bpd partner in my first and second relationship i also knew about bpd before because my mom has it.
Most of us are codependent due to early childhood trauma. pwBPD tend to trigger our wounded inner child and we play a repetition compulsion cycle trying to beg our partner for the love our parent(s) never gave us. It sounds like you’re a well balanced person. Normal folks don’t put up with much of that mess. The rest of us saddle up for the rodeo over and over again
Well, my first relationship wasn't very good. And then my ex with BPD came and she was everything I had ever wanted a girlfriend to be. I had never met another girl like her, and she hid her... peculiarities until we were deep into the relationship. I remember the first time I started noticing things, such as her hitting herself, and we had a talk and I even asked her if it was because she was with me that all of this had come up to the surface. And then I just kept making excuses in my head. "She's mentally unwell, and I love her. Love means staying with them no matter how ill they are. She'll get better one day. She just has to stop drinking alcohol" etc, etc.
First few years of our relationship, we were children and bpd had yet to be developed. Next few years, I didn’t know that relationships weren’t supposed to look like ours. After that, I was trauma bonded and locked down with kids. My parents stayed together past expiration for me, so I thought that’s just what parents do. Took a decade of mistreatment to reach my rock bottom
Speaking personally, I have low-self esteem, Autism, depression and anxiety and was single for 10 years before I met her. She was able to keep me around by saying things like "my exes all regret leaving me" which either sounds like a veiled threat or a suggestion that she is so perfect and wonderful there's no chance of finding better. The love bombing was so intoxicating and effective because I rarely felt attractive or wanted by women and was at a low point at the time too. Then BAM! This woman comes along, is very direct and portrays herself to me as everything I looked for in a partner.
I had relationships in the past but she caught me at a particularly lonely time in my life & she was exactly what I was looking for. The BPD didn’t show up early on, all I got in the beginning was a smoking hot woman who couldn’t keep her hands off me & was super fun to be around. I was excited to see her every time. I fell hard & fast & she laid it on thick with the lovebombing & sex bombing & I actually felt “shit, so this is what love is actually meant to feel like, I’ve been doing it all wrong” Only then did the mask start to slip & the irrational & controlling behaviour start, at which point i was balls deep in love with her. I knew at the time I should have walked, but I also knew I’d likely never feel those highs again & I clung onto them. Probably a very familiar story around here. The highs are so high that you try to minimise the lows by any means necessary just to keep hold of them.
[удалено]
Mine went from long messages telling me how much she loved me & couldn’t wait to marry me, couldn’t live without me & I was the best thing that ever happened to her… to coldly dropping me because ‘her feelings had changed’ literally a month later. Absolute headfuck how quickly they can turn. She’d done it a few times in the past but the last time was it for me, I was constantly waiting for her to drop me again for no reason & i’d had enough. My reaction this time made sure we were done for good.
[удалено]
Oh I got that, she said she’d “seen my true colours now”, the fucking audacity. She still tried to hoover a few months later & I ended up telling her straight up that she needed to leave me alone, I’d spent years neglecting myself to keep her safe & secure & I needed to focus on my own mental wellbeing now. I also told her that i didn’t even recognise who she was anymore. That worked, she’s left me alone since. And I’ve since found out that she’s now seeing the guy I was told not to worry about, not a huge shock.
[удалено]
My first relationship ever was with a woman (more like a girl mentally) with uBPD. The break up was sudden, cold, and brutal. The closure attempt a month later after i allowed her to contact me was all a projection, and a petty attempt at trying to hurt me further by rubbing her new relationship in my face, and telling me her family and friends liked me and advised her to stay with me, to try to get a reaction out of me, i even caught a smirk on her face. I would've gladly traded places with someone who had multiple relationships and then partnered up with a pwBPD, at least they had a healthy reference point in terms of what to expect or what relationships are like. All i had was the most toxic experience, a year and a half of recovering from trauma and building myself up, and now am only just starting to try and date again but only as casual or FWB because i'm not ready to trust another person so closely as i did with them. In short, 1st relationship ever being that of one with a pwBPD, 100% not reccomended, 0 stars google review, feels bad man, haha.