InternalPerformer

Everything's been going so smoothly: I'm still seeing my ex's kid from time to time, and he seems to be doing quite well. I've been the grayest of rocks, keeping the ex out of my life, and she's accepted it and isn't trying to push my boundaries.

But now she's quitting therapy because "it's no longer needed" AND she's on the path to becoming a foster parent! I get that she's probably feeling better and healthier than ever but that doesn't sound like a good combination. I have a bad feeling about this...

Yeah I know, sounds counter-intuitive - shouldn't dating be the solution to loneliness? Well, it's not. It's also not the solution to depression, unhappiness, lack of meaning in life or any other problem that you might have.

If you're lonely you probably won't attract the kind of people that would make a good partner. If you're lucky, your desperate attempts at finding a significant other will only result in wasted time and more loneliness. If you're unlucky, you'll attract someone who likes to exploit and abuse vulnerable people and you'll still cling to them because you'll think that's the best you can have. Most likely you'll continue to feel lonely in the relationship, perhaps more l

I'm currently reading the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and it references John Gottman's research on relationship success. According to the research the long term success of a relationship depends far more on avoiding the negative than on seeking the positive. They even come up with a "magic ratio": a stable relationship requires that good interactions outnumber bad interactions by at least 5 to 1.

I didn't keep score of my ratio with my ex but needless to say that it was far from 5 to 1. And she couldn't and wouldn't understand why I was so bothered about the negatives when there were also positive things. As if the positives (often just little breadcrumbs) could outw

I very rarely visit this forum these days and read your stories. But when I do I catch myself thinking "Come on man, where's your self-respect, you shouldn't let anyone treat you like this", or "Why are you still with him, it's only going to get worse" etc. Then I realize - oh right, I've been there, I took my abusive, violent, erratic mess of an ex gf back multiple times. She said and did some crazy shit but what did I do? I convinced myself that I could make it work. I wasted my sanity, health, time and energy for a mission impossible. It's obvious to me now but I didn't realize it back then.

And yes, there was a period of time after the breakup when I was so lonely and sad that I couldn'

People who have been in therapy after ending a relationship with an exwBPD, how did it go and what's the most valuable thing you got from it? Was it being able to just vent your feelings safely? Did the therapist have some good suggestions or make you realize something important you wouldn't have realized on your own?

I thought I was doing fine so I just tried dating again. Then I realized that I'm in fact not fine and would probably benefit from therapy. Do you guys have any advice for me how I should approach therapy? For example, should I prepare for the meetings and think beforehand what I want to talk about or just go and see what happens? Thanks!

I've often seen the phrase "they're a blessing in disguise" here because a relationship with a pwBPD will force us to confront our issues, go to therapy, define what we are, what we want and what our boundaries are. I'm curious to hear what positive changes you were able to make during or after the relationship.

What comes to my mind:

• I had milder or more contained versions of some of the same flaws that my ex has. One of them was judging people too quickly because of an annoying voice, speech patterns, boring stories, facial expressions, you name it. After being the target of such judgement long enough by my ex I began to absolutely love interacting with "normal" people, seeing pa

Those were fun times. We had a team of two therapists - a couple of middle-aged women. My ex was excited at first because she thought I would finally learn to understand her, empathize with her and fully commit to the relationship. According to her I had a problem with accepting advice and criticism from her, but if a third party expert told me the same things I would be more receptive.

I guess you guys can guess how it went after that. It didn't take long for my ex to decide that:

• The therapists were against her and didn't understand her
• They always took my side. (She absolutely hated it when she interpreted my words in the worst way possible and attacked the straw man she had c

Man, it's been a couple of stressful months. Last week we finally finalized the sale of her share of the house to me and she's moving to a new place on Thursday. I've been helping her with packing stuff, painting the walls at her new place etc.; partly because I want to help her and reduce her stress, but mostly because I want to do everything in my power to make sure the move actually happens and there are no surprises that "force" her to stay for another x weeks. I've been waiting for this for so long but I'm also really worried that something could still go wrong and she could still go into full BPD mode one last time and make a mess of things. I guess that's unlikely given how well she's

First of all, huge thanks to the wonderful and empathetic people on this forum! I think you guys pretty much saved me and also my soon-to-be-ex pwBPD girlfriend. I stumbled upon this place when I was the most miserable I've ever been and thought I had turned from a pretty creative, hard-working and resourceful guy into a total loser who can't do anything right. Turned out that it was caused by this wicked reality-distorting thing called BPD.

After reading the stories and the diagnostic criteria it took me probably 30 seconds to realize that my gf had BPD, and to my surprise she agreed and was very relieved that her condition has a name and somewhat effective treatment options. Very soon

Hi guys!

I posted about my situation a couple of months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/BPDlovedones/comments/8bh0ox/im_new_here_new_to_all_of_this/

Quite soon after that post she saw that something was up with me - I was reading the book "Walking on Eggshells" and she could tell that I was upset. So I broke down and told her what's going on and that she probably has BPD. A few hours later she had taken every "do I have BPD?" test online and come to the conclusion that yes, this would explain a lot of things. And she bought a book on BPD, went to see a psychiatrist and is scheduled to start weekly

Hi fellow BPD loved ones!

Don't know what's the best path forward. I've been with a very BPD-ish gf for 1.5 years and we were stupid enough to buy a house last summer (with separate loans for each, thank god). For several months I've been 90% sure I want to break up, but just last week I found out that a condition called BPD exists and now I'm kinda split between "now this all makes sense, I can manage this" and "I don't want to spend what should be my best years taking care of a sick person". And unfortunately there's a 2-year-old kid (hers) whose well-being is of utmost importance to me whatever I do.

But what I'm sure of is that my self-esteem got a lot better when I read about BPD and