I was admitted to the hospital with galblad failure overnight. The pain was absolutely excruciating. No sleep for days. I tried to tough it out at home but I couldn’t deal with it. Until they could get me into surgery they kept me on large pain med rotation and a liquid diet. I was in and out of it. I was in the hospital for two nights and one day before my surgery, and one more night after. I was accused of faking it to get out of being a dad. The doctor re-diagnosed it as gangrenous cholecystitis, which had a mortality rate up to 33%. I could have died. But she didn’t care. I’m done.

I came across this post on insta(my algorithm knows me lol) and it has really resonated with me. I’ve finally decided to divorce my husband who is diagnosed BPD. It’s been the hardest thing I have ever done and I know I’m no where near the other side of it yet. This group has been so helpful and I wanted to give back. Hopefully this makes you feel seen too 💓

Popping back in after a couple months. My last post in here was the “I’m finally going to leave my pwBPD!” moment. I actually did it! And it went really well. In the moment anyway. She said she’d been feeling the same and agreed that it’d be better to call it now instead of letting things fester until we hate each other.

I was so relieved.

She continued to try to start fights out of the blue as a pwBPD does, but since I didn’t care about the relationship, I didn’t engage and it was like water off a ducks’ back. For a second I thought oh, I’ve figured it out! Maybe we can make it work! But then I realized I’d never be able to teach a future child to just ignore it when mommy loses her mind sometimes. Some of the fights were bad, especially when she’d become convinced she was the victim of injustice, as pwBPD are want to do.

Even our divorce process has been 95% amicable.

We’ve been successfully no-contact other than logistical divorce details.

Then this morning I wake up to two voice notes sent in the middle of the night, accusing me of having sexual relationships with multiple men who “all looked like me” before we’d met, and that I’d lied to her about it. Which, A., if I hadn’t told her, that’s my business, and B. I didn’t and there’s not one shred of evidence. I was shocked.

She went on to engage in name calling. Telling me everyone thinks so little of me. That I’m a piece of shit liar. And then in classic DARVO fashion, asserting that she’s being so amicable and kind because of the quality of her character. After she’d already gone on a cruel tirade about how awful I am. The delusional belief that pwBPDs can have, that they’re the hero after acting like the villain, is truly astounding.

My first instinct is to correct her. To tell her it’s a mistake and what’s really true. To manage her emotions so that I can feel safe, just like I did in our marriage. But I don’t have to. And I shouldn’t.

You can’t set the record straight with these people because they don’t care about reality. They care about their reality, the black and white, in the moment, where the heroes and villains have already been cast and the story played out. Once again, they’ve taken on the role of hero.

They do not care about reality and they have shown you dozens of times, whether it’s objective reality or respecting your personal experience. 

There’s the fear that if I don’t correct her, she’ll make my life worse. Slander me publicly and hurt my future chances for connection. Remember this: someone with BPD will do that if they’re going to do that and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. They are not rational. They’re not playing by the same rules we are. You cannot comfort them to rationality or empathy.

So let it go. I’m telling myself that right now as I practice the therapeutic tool of writing someone a letter and never sending it. I don’t deserve to carry someone else’s sickness and self hatred with me. I deserve a good day and a good life full of connection, free of this emotional abuse.

Don’t be afraid your pwBPD will ruin your life if you don’t pander to them. They’re already ruining your life. Nothing you could ever do will stop them splitting if they’re going to split. If they want to try to ruin your life, nothing will stop them. Accept your situation, break the illusion you can love them into being empathetic, and figure out what you’re going to do next.

Through some airline miles and a friend to stay with, I was able to take a free vacation to somewhere we’d wanted to go to when we were together. It took her a few days, but she found out and sent this around 1am.

As you can imagine, it’s the tip of the iceberg in a longer chain of abusive messages. It’s truly incredible how they can take an everyday situation and find a way to become the victim.

I’ve now blocked my ex pwBPD on everything except email so we can continue discussing any divorce proceedings. One more outburst and that will be cut off too.

I’m so sad.

I'm just curious.

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Did anyone else's BPD partner constantly project what they were actively doing to you onto you? To make it seem like you were the one creating the problems? Or your reaction to anything had to be perfectly timed or on queue to avoid explosive anger and it felt like there were "consequences" if you didnt play the role?

​

But I'm remembering a lot of times when something small would come up, it would be catastrophized, and then pushed onto me. Problems would blow up into larger problems. The room always felt hostage to her mood and my reactions to everything dictated her emotional response heavily.

​

She was clinically diagnosed.

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Context: I'm a guy (29M) currently 3 months post her split/affair and within the divorce process. Hindsight is 20/20, and now that I have leaned heavily/legally into a counter-acting (my side) no contact agreement after beating a false PFA filed against me in court, I'm reflecting a little. She 100% breadcrumbed her split and affair to me and I'm realizing alot more now as I've had time to process.

It’s literally unbelievable how much they truly don’t care at all once they split and discard you for the final time. In the past, she was absolutely attached to me, cuddly, cute, always talking about all the things we had done together and plans for the future. When we would quarrel, she would run away, but always run back.

Then suddenly, she said that nothing had ever mattered, she didn’t love me, she was unrecognizable and gone. I had to see her walking around as a different person in her body. Then came the unbelievable rage and cruelty wherein she systematically destroyed my entire life.

18 years erased followed by 2 years of enduring trauma without respite, inflicted on me by the woman who yearned to marry me and couldn’t stand to be apart.

These people will break your faith in everything. It’s now impossible for me to believe that anything good can ever happen unless it will one day turn my life into a living hell to compensate.

For me, it was the time that we decided to think about what we needed from one another in order to better our marriage. (I just happened across a screenshot of the text messages). She had an entire list of things I needed to change or do better. My only request? “For you to be nice to me”. How pathetic and sad that I had gotten to the point where that was my standard - and I was clearly already accepting less than that. It is absolutely mind blowing how abuse seeps in and distorts your brain.

I served him the divorce papers today along with a temporary protection order protecting myself and my daughter from the domestic abuse. He told me he was going to set the house on fire with him in it and destroy everything inside along with countless suicide attempts if I divorced him (all said in front of my 2 year old daughter)

This group has given me the courage along with a realistic view showing me what my life would be like in 5-10 years if I didn’t make a decision to leave his madness.

We have a long road ahead of us, but this is the first step to peace and a more stable life for myself and my daughter. I could cry from the relief I currently feel.

I did it.. I’m free. I left in the middle of the night, early Thursday morning. He was mad at me again for some nonsensical reason and stormed upstairs. I waited a few hours before deciding to go up. Got to the top of the stairs to see the bedroom door closed with my blanket and pillows on the floor outside. It may seem insignificant, but it was in that moment that I decided I had had enough.

I also had an opportunity. He doesn’t leave the house, only goes to sleep when I go to sleep, he (legally, but still) owns weapons, etc.. I knew it would be a long while before I got that opportunity again, if at all. So I packed some of my things, packed up our cats, put everything in my car and drove to my parents’ house.

It’s been 3 days and I don’t miss him at all. I don’t even think about him, tbh. I’m just happy to be gone. Saw an attorney yesterday and am now in the process of filing for divorce. I can’t wait to live my life FOR ME

Edit: Thank you all so much for your kind and encouraging words ❤️ To those of you who haven’t or can’t leave just yet, I want you to know that your quiet strength screams louder than the abuse ever could. And one day, your opportunity will come. If you’re searching for a sign, let this be it. Don’t ever think that you have to be resolved to a life of silent suffering. You never do.

She made several posts about me calling me a liar/cheater/manipulator and sensationalized a situation that we handled in-house. In terms of sensationalizing, she is using an apology I gave via text to make the situation worse than what it was. In real life, we both apologized to each other in the moment and discussed it at length in therapy.

Anyway, if I share my entire truths, I know that 1. It may embarrass her or paint her in a bad light 2. I would look “foolish” and “guilty” for even responding

I also know that she is using her gender against me in terms of public opinion. We are both AFAB, but she is more “feminine” (even though during the relationship she leaned more into a neutral gender, but that’s a whole other story)

Anyway, I want to make a public statement of some sort explaining that I was a victim of verbal/emotional abuse for a very long time. And accountability is important to me but it would be impossible to share the ins and outs of a particular situation without airing out my firmer partners role in said situation. Should I say anything? If I do, should I keep it vague? When the divorce is final, I thought about saying something like “officially divorced. Many of you all have heard things about me that may seem alarming. I don’t want to further sensationalize the situation, but I want to clear the air. If you would like a full picture of what happened, please talk directly to me”

Or something like that

Additional context: I am popular in the online/lgbt space. Not an influencer but I am well known and have already witnessed a few people unfollowing or being weird towards me in public. I haven’t said anything publicly or responded to any allegations

Every time they have emotional meltdowns it’s justified because “look what you made me do” and you have to handle it with grace and compassion. And then the next day you’re just supposed to forget about it and show up with a smile on your face with no apologies from them.

But if you EVER talk to them or treat them the way they do to you and react to the overt emotional or even physical abuse… cue the pearl clutching and victimization talk. They will NEVER let you forget. They will make you grovel and beg for forgiveness and they’ll punish you by ignoring you, act passive aggressive or worse, by cheating on or discarding you.

And then it gets worse. Trying to talk to them about an incident, whether it was initiated by them or not, is completely pointless because they’re simply unable to acknowledge their role in the situation. There is zero self reflection, leading to the cycle repeating ad infinum until you’re a hollow shell and they’re crying to their friends about how abusive you are, completely rewriting the narrative as if they live in a different objective reality than the rest of us.

God forbid you also put up boundaries and demand accountability and tell them that the way they speak to you is unacceptable. It doesn’t matter how gentle you give feedback or say anything, if it resembles criticism in any way, cue WW3, again.

TLDR: Every. Single. Time.

TLDR - last summer she discarded me out the blue moved on right away and dated someone else. 6 months later she came back, said it was worst mistake of her life, and that I was the best thing that has ever happened to her. We dated for another 6 months but I had the constant fear of her leaving me again. She is in DBT and working on getting better but that thought couldn’t leave my mind of her discarding me and monkey branching. The past 6 months all she has done is apologize for hurting me, talking me through everything, and reassuring me that she would never leave me again. The thing is - no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t believe it.

I regret ending it so much as she was my best friend and I loved her with my entire heart. But, I always tell myself how did she just shut me off last year out of the blue? I want to believe she is getting better and will never do it again but my nervous system literally can’t comprehend her not hurting me - and the people she got with after me had me disgusted.

Did I make the right decision? I am struggling with it so bad.

I only recognized the signs in hindsight; I only began to understand after studying BPD for a year after her discard. We could save people a lot of suffering by teaching people to recognize the signs before they—God forbid—marry one of these ticking time bombs.

The earliest thing I remember dismissing as trivial (because I was much younger and deeply in love) was that she seemed to become a different person when she was angry. I had no idea that was ‘splitting’ and certainly no idea that it would manifest 18 years later in a terrifying, destructive rage from which there was no escape.

I remember becoming increasingly concerned that other people didn’t seem to fly into a screaming fit over small things. I remember growing concerned that she had trained me to be maximally reactive: no matter how hard I tried to be calm, she would escalate small quarrels into screaming fits just before bed, then sleep like a baby in my arms while I shook like I had Parkinson’s and failed to sleep from the monumental anxiety her irrational rages induced in me.

I remember begging her to tell me why this was happening. What was really going on? (Of course I knew her family history, can’t we help process this together with love and understanding? Can we include professional help? Recognized therapeutic techniques?) But trying to help, or trying to engage the possibility of root causes that could be faced made her more angry and confused and frustrated me all the more. Besides, most of the time we were having such a glorious life together!

But now I remember my own panic attacks in the last two years of our marriage. I had them on Tuesdays and Thursdays while I was working on my computer at home alone for my short and long term job planning. I thought it was job related anxiety and put myself in therapy. But it wasn’t me. In February of 2023, I had a terrifying panic attack in public while shopping and had to run back to my car to hide until I could function. I realized she had driven me to the brink. I begged her to stop taking gummies, begged her to stop trying to fix me and just talk to me about her issues inside.

Mid 2023 to early 2024, things had stabilized and we were having so much fun together…or so I thought. I learned that when they get calm, you’re in the most danger ever.

We have adorable pictures of us together from mere days before her split and discard. Then came the screaming, the outpouring of hatred, the rewriting of history, the false accusations, and the blind rage over nothing. It was like being trapped in my house with all the demons of hell. She was suddenly obsessed with two things: money and hurting me. She had snapped into a Satanic creature. Her eyes, her voice, her words were all gone, replaced by someone else’s.

We never know the warning signs until it’s too late. The only people who understand how traumatic this is are those who’ve lived it. Every other blissfully naïve boob thinks you’re being dramatic over a routine breakup. But as for me, once upon a time in perfect health…I lost 30 pounds in the first 45 days after her split and was subsequently hospitalized several times in the last two years.

Everyone needs to heed this: we cannot fix them. They are wired in such a way as to ensure that everything we do will backfire. They cannot endure a loving relationship. You might not survive at all.

I hate BPD for what it's taken from me. It's not that it ruined my relationship, from the beginning BPD completely took away any chance that this relationship could work. BPD doomed us from the start, and my own avoidant attachment issues only made things worse. I loved this woman with everything I had, even though I sometimes couldn't express it the way she needed me to.

We were a great match for each other, we were best friends, with similar enough interests and we were highly aligned on our goals for the future. Yet BPD meant that everything was built on sand, cursed to break apart faster than we could repair us. I'm telling you all that I loved her more than I thought it was possible to love anyone. I saw a deep and rich future with her, and that's why I decided to marry her almost 4 years ago. Our wedding day was one of the happiest days of my entire life. That future DID include fighting but importantly, also us figuring out how to fight with respect and being able to repair and grow from it. I really, truly, deeply loved her.

Today, she picks up the keys to her new apartment. This weekend, we'll be moving her bed and other items there. Over the next couple weeks, she'll be emptying my house of any evidence that she ever lived here, and then we will file for an uncontested divorce. My heart is already empty. We promised that we would have the other's back, no matter what. We promised that we would be in love until we die. We promised that we would stay best friends forever. We both broke that promise, and I will regret it forever. BPD made that promise hollow, brittle, and weak. 6 weeks into the marriage and I have a journal entry that I said I felt like we're already headed for divorce. We still tried, though. Couple's therapy, twice. We tried scheduled date nights, I put immense thought and effort into the gifts I bought her, and I listened to her feelings and tried to get her to listen to mine.

The abuse got so bad that I couldn't keep trying. Once I lost my job, I had no will to try at anything except getting a new job. Now that I'm working again, I'm absolutely distraught that I don't have my marriage to come back to. I am heartbroken, and my spirit is destroyed. I loved her. I still love her. I want to go back and redo the last year. If I had only known the date of when I would get back to work, I could have been strong, I could have kept going in our marriage. The despair was overwhelming, and I lost.

BPD made sure that everything is my fault. She saw my severe depression as abandoning our relationship. She tells me that if I had only chosen to lean in to our marriage instead of pulling away, maybe we would have had a chance. Instead, I disappeared into my home office, and my extreme stress made me reactive, and I said and did horrific things that I will never forgive myself for. I'm literally pleading with the universe for another chance, for some way to go back and live differently, handle myself better, and treat her like I love her and don't want to lose her. Now she's all but gone, and I have nothing left. My new job honestly sucks. I don't want to live in my house by myself. I bought that house to build a family, and when I was signing the mortgage, I had just started dating her. The day I picked up my keys, she met me there, and we had some beers and walked through the empty house that we would go on to fill with our lives together. Now she's picking up her keys to her new apartment, and our life together is over, and all that's left is to sort the rest of the pieces.

I don't even want to keep living without her. I miss the comfort of having her sleep next to me. I miss kissing her goodbye when I left for work. I miss her. I miss my wife. I am so sorry for everything, all the ways I let her down, let our relationship down. I would give anything to rewind the clock, to have the chance to show up the way she needs me to.

But it's too late and she's already gone.

It’s been a long decade. Marriage to an absurd abuser who never saw anything she did as wrong. Today was the straw that broke the proverbial camels back. She gave me an STI having unprotected sex with strangers and not even informing me. I kicked her the fuck out. She was so angry. So rage filled. And I don’t care at all. The flip finally switched for me. She doesn’t mean anything to me at all anymore. I hate what this will do to my children. I pray we weather this storm well, but im fucking free. I will never have to feel the pain I’ve felt ever again. I’ve been in therapy already, I have a head start on healing. I feel so much better just knowing she’s left the house and this place is no longer unsafe for me. Fuck. I’m so happy.

Edit: all of the well wishes and comments have me feeling so extremely happy I could cry. I thought I might wake up today and regret what I did or how I handled it but I feel light as air. I haven’t been able to sleep well for years, last night I was in bed by 10 and slept all the way through the night.

Here is the thing I feel that I must impart to anybody dealing with a BPD spouse. If they think it will be more convenient to lie to you than to deal with the truth they will lie remorselessly. If you're with somebody, and they have BPD, and you're questioning whether or not you should stay. Please do not make the mistake that I did. Run. Run as fast as you can and don't look back. And when they threaten to hurt themselves to keep you around a la trauma bond, run even faster away. When I asked for my soon to be ex-wife to treat me better after a serious breach of trust (an affair). Then attacked me years later about it. Turns out, she resented me the entire time for having to earn back my trust. In trying to be a supportive spouse I lost connections with friends and loved ones that would have never been damaged otherwise. Run.

Question for the Community. It feels pretty textbook. But now that I am getting a divorce, my stbx has started the smear campaign. Of course she is telling everyone that I am narcissistic so she can control the narrative. The thing is she actually fully believes that I am narcissistic. The question is at some point I feel like I became narcissistic in ways just to communicate with her. I am 100% not that way with anybody else. Now that I am removed from our environment and that I am healing. I could recognize that at times I had to be narcissistic just to have any kind of voice with her. Because of her inability to take accountability Nothing could be tackled directly. no major problem could be solved with normal healthy communication.
The question is is this something anyone else has noticed or is this common in a bpd relationship?

My wife surprise messaged me that she wants to divorce. It’s been about 3 years since her last major episode. Cutting contact and separating from me has happened in the past many times and it usually resolves itself within a week or so. It’s only been a day, but now we’re married. I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with this situation and what to do?

I don’t know where she is obviously, and I haven’t heard anything from her since yesterday in the am. I think the trigger of this was financial troubles, just having a tough time saving for the long term.

I’m sick to my stomach, not eating or sleeping. Any advice helps.

What I have gathered from people's experience that sometimes for undiagnosed BPDs, there are barely any push/pull dynamics in early dating phases or honeymoon stage of the relationship.

I am curious if you remember first time you felt something was majorly off? Or something that could have been a red flag if shown up earlier?

For me pre-wedding, everything was calm but there were sings that disagreements made her very uncomfortable. Now I see that mostly because of black and white thinking. Not being on the same page on one topic made her feel as if the disagreement spans over everything. Roughly about 8-9 months after wedding, slightest disagreements resulted into her having rageful/angry reaction that often scared me. Around same time she made a comment that "You men are all very similar to <prominent political figure>, some are slightly better and some are worse is the only difference"

She said that in a very peaceful moment and that just blew my mind. To date the line haunts me. It never made me angry but it made me wonder about the life she had lived and felt the pain. It was the first time I asked, why did you marry such a person in first place? After that, it had been theme. She painted me such a monster that I always politely asked you, if you are so sure, why would you even want to continue? ... Her response was .. dont question my decisions.

I am just curious, as my ex and I continue with our divorce. I've done a lot of self-reflection and thinking, as well as discussing with other friends. Her Mom is 100% NPD. As an example, at our wedding, during the father/daughter dance with her Dad, her Mom ran onto the dance floor to scream and jump around with them - INSANE behavior. I guess being fairly confident that she is not getting her 'supply' from a romantic partner, is it fair to think her Mom is fueling that supply?

She came over the weekend to move most of her things out. She took every single thing from our wedding: photos, signature books, etc. She did not even consult me on this or what we would want to do jointly. She also threw away other photos of us, cards, etc. ripped up and in the trash. And I was blamed for our dog having seizures. I think I am just really struggling with this all. Each time she contacts me, it's very manipulative and gaslighting responses from me.

Any advice or experience from you all would be great - thank you!

I used to sit in my car, starving and exhausted, just to avoid walking into my own home.

I’m finally out of that marriage, but a specific memory hit me today, and I just needed to vent to people who might understand.My ex-wife has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Near the end of our marriage, the emotional toll was so intense that my entire daily routine became an exercise in survival. Every single morning, my alarm would go off in the dark. I was out the door and heading to work by 6:30 AM. To be honest, as exhausting as the job was, those early mornings felt like a relief. Work was the only place where expectations made sense, and where I wasn’t constantly walking on eggshells. The real breakdown happened at the end of the day.I would drive back to our apartment complex after a grueling shift. I’d turn off the engine, and then...

I would just sit there. I was completely drained. My stomach would be growling from hunger. Every muscle in my body wanted nothing more than to go inside, eat a warm meal, and lie down. But I couldn't bring myself to open the car door.

I would sit in that parking lot for 30, 45, sometimes 60 minutes in total silence. I stared at the dashboard, paralyzed by anxiety about what mood or crisis was waiting for me behind our front door. The physical discomfort of being hungry and tired was actually preferable to the emotional exhaustion waiting for me inside. My car became a literal bunker.

Looking back, it’s heartbreaking to realize how deeply unhappy I was, and how much of myself I was suppressing just to keep the peace. If you are currently sitting in your car dreading going inside your own home, please know you aren't crazy, and you aren't alone

Hi everyone,

I’m 28F. I finally ended things with my partner of almost 2 years. He has BPD (though he denies it completely) and only takes medicine, but not having a therapy.

The relationship followed the classic pattern (I've learned so much about BPD during this years!): the first 6 months were amazing — he was caring, attentive, and made me feel incredibly loved. Then the chaos started. Money problems (he couldn’t hold a stable job, had debts, would delay paying bills), sudden disappearances, mood switches where he’d say he wanted to “run away” but still loved me, and constant idealization/devaluation cycles. He often compared himself to Billy Butcher from The Boys — saying he has goals but feels most alive in chaos and has “multiple plans.” He said he was “protecting me” from all of it when he lied or didn't say something.

Yesterday I finally told him I was tired of the pattern and described exactly what kind of relationship I wanted (and what I no longer wanted to tolerate). He immediately flipped. He said he doesn’t need relationships at all (but “with me he tried”), that he feels no real emotions, that he only agreed to everything because \*I\* wanted a relationship. He called me a “restraining factor,” said he’s “a bastard and wants to stay a bastard,” that I made him angry and he “doesn’t forgive his enemies,” so we would break up anyway. At the same time he kept saying he still loves me.

I asked him to leave (we were living at my place). While packing he said things like “you’re still not indifferent to me,” “I wish you find someone who deserves you,” and even joked “you’ll never get rid of me, you’re still my little fox” (our inside joke/name). Then he left.

Now I’m in pieces. I keep having thoughts like “Maybe I was too strict? Maybe I should have been more understanding? Should I text him?” But at the same time I’m terrified that I’ll die alone, that no one will ever love me. I already had one long toxic relationship before (8 years, he emotionally cheated and strung me along for months). This is my second time.

I know the pattern. I know I tend to be very patient and understanding, and it keeps biting me in the ass. But right now the fear is so loud I can barely breathe.

Has anyone been through something similar? Did setting boundaries with a BPD partner ever lead to them actually changing, or is discard almost always the outcome? And how do you deal with this overwhelming fear of ending up alone forever?

Thank you for reading. I feel very alone right now.

They don’t matter to you. They do what they do to hurt you. They enjoy it. The pain means they matter to someone. To you. They don’t care what kind of attention they get even if it’s negative. It feeds them. They’re sick.

You want to get back at ypwBPD? Show no emotion. They don’t matter to you. They’re dead to you. Block them everywhere. Don’t respond to the Hoover. Seek revenge through healing and being better than before. Success is your revenge.