Does my ex have borderline personality disorder?

Question

Hey all. I was married to a woman for 10 years. We got divorced earlier this year. To sum up some her behavior: Dozens of times she would get upset over the most trivial matters, insult me and react aggressively, ask for a divorce, then within hours or the next day she would apologize and plead with me in tears not to leave or abandon her. She struggled badly to make friendships and social relations, and that would eat at her.

She would regularly have bouts of depression (sometimes without an external trigger) and would tell me that she feels completely empty on the inside. She also used to say that she wished she never existed or that she would just die and no one would remember her, and she had a lot of moments when she felt that she had no self-worth. There were other moments when she would get into fits of rage with me or her siblings for very trivial matters. She sees things in a very black-white spectrum and is emotionally very immature and cannot cope or manage her emotions properly. She constantly had problems at work over real or perceived annoyances from her co-workers (across many jobs), and she would often complain about it all day for days on end until she would either take it out on me or the person at work.

With me, she could be the most tender, loving, caring, and funny person in the world, but when the dark clouds sets in, she becomes complete pandemonium. She could be very judgemental and make me feel like i'm not living up to her standards, or she could make make me feel like the best man in the world. Living with her felt like constantly walking on egg shells, but I still felt very emotionally attached to her. Finally, she decided to get a divorce and carried on with it and made it very acrimonious for no good reason.

Trying to rationalize what the hell i've been through, I started reading on personality disorders. I found that she had many symptoms related to borderline personality disorder (BPD). Although she used to see a psychiatrist (who merely diagnosed her with depression) and took medication, she completely refused to see a therapist/psychologist when I would plead with her to do so. So judging from the above, is it plausible that she had BPD, or is it some other condition?

Posted Nov 5, 2025, 1:45 AM UTC

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