BPD and The Nice Guy Personality Type
Most people know that women with traits of BPD or borderline personality disorder share certain personality characteristics that create the behavior patterns we associate with the disorder. But what you might not know is that the men who enter relationships with women with traits of BPD often have a pattern of behavior of their own which can be similarly recognized.
Just like women with traits of BPD, these men seem to share similar character traits. And these traits can influence them not only to fall in love with a woman with traits of BPD, but also to remain emotionally attached to her long after he should have left the relationship and sometimes long after the relationship has ended.
The personality type that seems to most often become entangled in the web of a woman with traits of BPD is a man we often refer to as a nice-guy type. There appears to be an alchemy of sorts that takes place when a woman with traits of BPD and a man with nice-guy traits get together.
And it is this unique dynamic that can initially attract the nice guy and subsequently lock him into an unhealthy relationship often despite his better judgment. We often think of women with traits of BPD as having personality traits that cause them to have an unrealistic perspective on human nature. But as it turns out, the nice-guy type also has traits that cause him to see the world unrealistically.
The woman with traits of BPD may see the world through a lens of negativity, believing that people are less trustworthy than they really are. But the nice-guy type has the opposite bias when it comes to human nature.
His character traits lead him to believe that people are nicer or more trustworthy than they really are. And it is the nice-guy type’s mistaken assumption that deep down the woman with traits of BPD is really just like him that keeps him from recognizing her limitations as a relationship partner.
But there is a very good reason for him to believe that she shares his nice guy traits. Anyone who has been in a relationship with a woman with traits of BPD can tell you she does not start out by mistreating her partner.
Differences and Similarities Between
Traits of BPD and The Traits of a Nice Guy
In most romantic relationships, women with traits of BPD move through an initial phase of idealization. This phase is fueled by an intense drive to achieve emotional intimacy which because of her lack of trust she is then unable to sustain. During this first phase her behaviors perfectly mimic those of a nice-girl, which is exactly the personality type the nice guy will be looking for.
The nice-guy type, when he meets a woman who seems to share his trusting nature and appears as interested as he is in true intimacy, will naturally believe he has found his perfect match. He will not realize that the nice-girl behavior that women with traits of BPD initially display will be followed by behavior that is anything but nice.
But because the idealization phase of BPD relationships creates the illusion that he is with a kindred spirit, the nice guy will naturally assume she is as trustworthy as he is, causing him to throw caution to the wind. And by the time she transitions out of her idealization phase and into her devaluation phase, he is usually deeply in love with her.
If he were not in love he may have been able to realize he was wrong about her ability to treat him well. He may have been able to emotionally disentangle himself from her. But the combination of being deeply in love and his lack of awareness of how other personality types function may instead launch him into a state of disorientation and great confusion.
Everything the nice guy experiences once she has transitioned into her devaluation phase will clearly indicate she is not the nice-girl type he mistook her for. But because he is in love with her, he will not connect the dots. Desperately wanting to believe that the woman he loves is still his perfect match, he will repeatedly attempt to approach his relationship partner with reason and logic.
Convinced she is a nice girl at heart he will be blinded to the fact that although reason and logic work for nice-guy and nice girl-types, they are nowhere near powerful enough to get through the defenses of a person who lacks his trusting nature.
In order for the nice-guy type to free himself from the illusion that he could bring back the idealization phase of his relationship, he must find a way to accept that his initial assessment of this woman was wrong. He must learn that although the woman with traits of BPD may closely resemble a nice-girl type, the motivations behind her behavior are quite different.
But it may take more than education about traits of BPD to convince a nice-guy that the love of his life was not who he thought she was. In order to accomplish this the nice guy may also need to come to terms with his own identity.
He may have to learn to accept the fact that the ability to treat others well that comes so naturally to him is not a trait that most people share and that in order not to be taken advantage of he must learn how to carefully vet anyone who asks for his trust.
He may also need to understand his own motivations, driven by his nice guy character traits before he can truly accept that she is not like him after all.
We’ll begin out exploration of the nice guy-type by addressing what differentiates the nice-guy type from the rest of the population.
Defining The Nice Guy Type
The nice-guy type is a somewhat common cluster of personality traits that is present in both men and women. This cluster is very beneficial to those that possess it, particularly in regard to their romantic relationships. People with this cluster of traits seem to have a natural aptitude for interpersonal communication. They also have a natural aptitude for closeness and intimacy.
What makes them different from most people is that they lack the fear of betrayal that most of us must overcome in order to be intimate with others. The nice guy will tend to use logical reasoning to assess whether another person is safe to get close to as opposed to what we might call emotional reasoning.
When we look closer at this natural aptitude for intimacy we find that what seems to separate the nice-guy type from others is actually not a trait that he possess, but a trait that seems to be strangely missing from this personality type. The trait that the nice guy type seems to lack that almost all other people possess is the natural fear of being hurt or taken advantage of that most people have to work through in order to achieve intimacy.
Although his lack of fear may help him immensely in his relationships with others, there are several reasons that his lack of experience with this type of fear may cause problems for him. Because he lacks the trait of fear of closeness that almost all other personality types have, he is not familiar with what we might call the dark side of human nature when it comes to romantic relationships. This dark side could be defined as a series of defense mechanisms that people use to protect themselves from feeling vulnerable.
Not understanding the fear involved for many people to expose their vulnerability to others, he may not be able to comprehend the range of emotions an untrusting type can feel for a romantic partner. Interestingly enough, the very trait that the nice guy lacks seems to be the one that the woman with traits of BPD possesses the most of.
Here are a few of the negative behaviors often seen in women with traits of BPD that the nice guy may not be able to recognize or understand:
Devaluation
Stalking
Domestic violence
Verbal abuse
Emotional abuse
Blame-shifting
Lying
Grandiosity
Selfishness
Accusations of infidelity
Cheating
Rage
Although the nice-guy type may believe there are abusive or unhealthy people in the world, he will often have a black and white perception of how good and bad manifests in human behavior. He may not completely grasp the concept that when it comes to romantic love, untrusting people can feel both intense love and intense hatred for the same person.
Without having any familiarity with the deeply troubling and almost paranoid state of mistrust that the woman with traits of BPD routinely experiences, he may mistakenly believe that her destructive behaviors driven by fear of closeness can be addressed through standard methods of communication.
Now that we have addressed some of the difficulties nice guy types have in understanding other types, let’s turn our attention to misunderstandings that other types have for the nice guy.
Are Nice Guys Too Nice
The most common misperception that people make about this personality type is that nice guys are all people-pleasers. Although people-pleasing can be a tendency among nice-guy/nice-girl types, people-pleasing is not part of the nice guy constellation of traits. The nice guy’s good treatment of others is not, as many people may assume, motivated by fear or by low self-esteem.
However, the value he places on connection with others can in certain circumstances create a vulnerability for the nice guy that other types may not be susceptible to. We will find that nice-guy types who are under extreme stress or who have not received enough positive reinforcement from early caretakers can be susceptible to people-pleasing or in more formal words, over-dependence on others.
The common assumption that being a nice guy means you are a pushover or a doormat is usually a projection from people who do not possess the natural ability to treat others well. These are often individuals who can’t quite grasp the pay-it-forward benefits that the nice-guy and nice-girl type grasp intuitively.
But if a nice guy does realize he has fallen into the habit of putting others’ needs ahead of his own, it may be important to recognize that this tendency can be easily remedied through therapy, behavior modification or personal development and self-help techniques.
Since it is fairly easy to determine whether you might be gravitating towards people-pleasing, and recognizing it can be the first step to becoming less dependent, let’s take a brief moment to more closely examine the full range of human dependency.
The Nice Guy and Over-Dependency
When we talk about dependency, we are really talking about how much reliance we will put upon others in order to get our emotional needs met. In order to get a clearer understanding of how dependency relates to the traits of a nice guy we are going to look at an imaginary scale or spectrum of dependency.
On the far left side of this scale we are going to put people who are overly dependent on others. On the far right side we are going to place people who are under-dependent. These are individuals who hardly depend on others at all. And in the middle we are going to place individuals who are what we will be calling inter-dependent, meaning they are capable of achieving a healthy balance that lets them retain their sense of independence while also allowing others to take care of some of their emotional needs.
In order to be healthy in the kinds of relationships in which we depend on others, we need to find the balance between over-dependency and under-dependency. The nice guy type will most often sit somewhere near the middle of this spectrum. But because he has a strong affinity for human connection, we will place him slightly towards the side of over-dependency, but still in the healthy zone.
Then we will place an individual who we might call an independent personality type also near the middle but slightly to the right side of this scale or the under-dependent side. This individual is also still in the healthy zone, but closer to under-dependence because of their less pronounced drive for human connection.
We will find that most of the population sits somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, occasionally having to make minor adjustments at stressful times to bring them back towards the healthy center. A nice guy may from time to time need to develop his independence and an independent type may need to remind themselves to focus on their connections with others.
But there are also those individuals who chronically end up on the unhealthy or extreme ends of this spectrum. Let’s now take a look at the qualities associated with first an over-dependent person, and then someone on the opposite end of the scale, an under-dependent individual.
Over-Dependency In Relationships
An overly dependent individual is someone who we might call too nice. This is a person who experiences other people’s needs as more important than their own. When we sacrifice our own needs to take care of others needs, we send a negative message to ourselves which can strongly affect our self esteem.
Low self esteem and insecurity can make a person feel like they are not worthy enough, and this can often drive them to be overly dependent on others. They may feel like they cannot survive without the help of their family, friends or romantic partners. They may also find themselves being taken advantage of by others.
There are many factors that lead to over-dependency, most often stemming from negative experiences in early life. When events happen that make a child or young adult doubt their own worth, they may end up placing less value on themselves and more on others. Or they may not trust in their own worth and may feel obligated to give more to others in order to receive anything back.
If you are curious as to whether you have a tendency to be over-dependent you might ask yourself if you tend to put others’ needs before your own. You might also reflect on whether there are regular circumstances in which you want to say no to taking care of others’ needs but find yourself unable to. And the third tell-tale sign that you might be losing your sense of self to others is if you find yourself trying to rescue others who should be helping themselves.
Let’s now take a look at the qualities of a person who is in the unhealthy zone of under-dependency when it comes to relationships with others.
Under-dependent Relationships
We will define under-dependency as the lack of desire to depend on others for personal needs. Under-dependent individuals are fully functional on their own, but because they are unwilling or unmotivated to give and take in their close relationships, we would consider them on the unhealthy side of the scale when it comes to their ability to participate in an emotionally reciprocal relationship.
Some of the reasons that people may become under-dependent are negative past experiences, usually linked to betrayal that cause them to feel too vulnerable to allow themselves to risk being hurt again. We may find people who have married and divorced who choose to stay permanently single because they do not want to repeat such a negative experience.
Some people are raised in an environment where they have been taught that leaving oneself emotionally vulnerable is something to feel ashamed about. They may want to enter an intimate relationship but not be able to risk the shame that could go with it.
And just as there are people who have naturally strong drives to bond with others, there are plenty of people who have almost no natural drive to bond. These people get their sustenance from other areas in their life. They may find their work so engrossing that it fulfills their needs. They may have a drive to connect romantically to fulfill physical needs but not have the drive to connect emotionally.
There are also people who, because of the anxiety that is caused by entering into intimate relationships choose to have many superficial or social relationships. These individuals may find that they can compartmentalize their needs, and find many different people to support them instead of having putting all their eggs in one basket and risking that the person is not up to the job.
The Self-Made Nice Guy
There is one other aspect of the nice guy personality that we need to address. Not every nice guy was born with prominent nice-guy traits. Although most people possess their nice-guy behaviors from birth, there are also some nice guys who develop these characteristics in childhood or over the course of their life.
As human beings we are capable of developing character attributes by strengthening areas we might be weak in. Many parents help their children develop nice-guy or nice-girl qualities. Some nice guys develop these parts of their personalities on their own in later life as they mature. Both men who were born with nice guy traits and those who developed them in later life share the same perspective and face the same challenges.
Now that you have a general idea of what the nice guy is and also what he isn’t, let’s take a look at the actual traits that define this personality type.
Profile of A Nice Guy
So exactly what are the recognizable character traits of the nice guy? We can best understand the characteristics of a nice guy type by breaking down his behavior into three character traits. When we use these traits to define the nice guy we can easily see what motivates him to treat others consistently well:
Trait 1. A strong drive to do what’s right.
Trait 2. A strong drive to establish an authentic connection with others.
Trait 3. A strong drive to create interpersonal harmony.
Now let’s look at the behavior patterns that each of these traits produce, starting with the first trait, a strong sese of doing what’s right.
One of the qualities that stems from nice-guy personality traits that motivates nice guys to treat others well can be an unusually clear sense of right and wrong. This highly developed understanding of the fair treatment of others may have come naturally to him or he may have developed this part of his personality as he made his way towards adulthood.
But in order to understand the characteristic of wanting to do what’s right, we must first address why treating others the right way should be an unusual behavior pattern in the first place. In other words, why isn’t everybody a nice-guy or nice-girl type?
Many people make the assumption that everyone is basically nice, and when they aren’t being nice to others they are deviating from their natural behavior. They may assume if someone isn’t being nice it’s because they must have a psychological problem or issue keeping them from acting in a nice way.
The truth is that we don’t actually need to have a psychological problem in order to treat others badly. Being nice to others does not come naturally to human beings. In fact, it’s actually the complete opposite. We are by our nature somewhat selfish creatures. We all possess an instinctual drive to continually look towards our own interests.
Although this drive is certainly helpful when it comes to helping us stay alive, it doesn’t serve us very well in modern society. So in order for us to be nice to others as well as to ourselves, we actually have to be taught how to override our natural selfishness. If we look closely at our early upbringing, we may realize that our ability to do the right thing in terms of how we treat others was actually a skill we had to learn.
Treating others fairly and respectfully is part of a skill set we all learn in childhood as a normal part of our socialization process. Those with very good memories will recall that it was our parents and more commonly our early teachers who taught us how to treat others fairly.
Every time our teacher asked us to refrain from kicking or biting our fellow schoolmates or insisted that we wait on line for our lunch or made us share our toys with others, we were learning the skill set of how to treat others well.
It is these important skills of good treatment of others that allow us to move through later life with ease, how to be productive members of society, and how to conform to standards of good behavior that allow us to be accepted by the majority of the people we come into contact with.
Although many of us gave our early childhood teachers a good run for their money, most teachers will tell you that there are always one or two students in each class who didn’t seem to need as much supervision or restraint as the others. These students from a young age seemed to understand how to treat others well without much encouragement at all.
If you are a nice guy and you can remember that far back, you may realize that you were that child who seemed to understand the rules of good behavior without trying too hard. Behaving well towards others would have felt natural to you. Children who don’t need much training in how to treat others usually have a natural high aptitude for learning the skills of getting along with others.
Of course, not every nice guy was born that way. There are many men who become nice guys after growing up in communities or families that strongly reinforced doing the right thing when it comes to treatment of others. A nice guy may also have taken on these characteristics after growing up in a strongly spiritual family or community. Or his family and community may have put special emphasis on human rights which played out in their treatment of each other.
A nice guy may have been raised in a family or community that had strong feelings about honoring their cultural traditions which may have resulted in a deep understanding of the value in showing respect to others around him. Sometimes nice guy-types simply have strict parents whose rock solid boundaries may allow them to get significantly more practice controlling themselves than the average child.
These are also men who when they reach adulthood realize that they value their own personal integrity so much that they are willing to put in the personal development work necessary to learn the skills of control over their less healthy impulses. In later life they make a conscious effort to develop the nice guy side of their personality in order to be able to align their beliefs with their actions.
Let’s now move on to the behavior pattern driven by the second nice-guy trait, the drive to connect with others.
Some people are uncomfortable with the nice guy type’s obvious drive to connect with others. They question whether the connection the nice guy seeks is authentic and genuine.
If you identify as a nice guy type you will probably know that this wish to connect has nothing to do with the hidden motive to have the favor returned. The enjoyment of connection is its own worth. Many nice guys simply enjoy the feeling of closeness and connection that intimacy can bring more than the average person.
Let’s now take a look at why a strong drive to connect with others is not a trait that the average person possesses.
In order to make an authentic connection with another human being, each of us has to make some mutual promises that we will be loyal and won’t betray the other person or take advantage of their good will towards us. Because human beings have a bad habit of misjudging their ability to override their selfish desires, they often cannot fulfill these promises even when their intentions were good.
This poses a real challenge when trying to connect with others on more than a surface or social level. If individuals who are trying form a close friendship or romantic relationship do not possess strong skills to override their selfish desires, they may end up betraying each other’s trust, leaving both individuals wary to try to establish this kind of connection again.
The nice guy’s unusually high affinity for connection allows him to more easily override his fear of rejection or betrayal. His drive to connect allows him to take the chance of getting hurt without the kind of ambivalence that most people feel when entering into a relationship. His personality lends itself to connecting with others because he gets most of his life sustenance from authentic human connection.
Let’s now take a look at the behavior pattern driven by the third trait, the strong drive for interpersonal harmony in his relationships with others.
The third in our cluster of personality traits that we identify with nice guy types is what others might interpret as an avoidance of conflict. But the real motivation behind the nice guy’s wish for harmony in his relationships with others is not a fear of conflict but the promotion of good feelings.
If a nice-guy type is afraid of conflict, this fear usually stems from painful childhood experiences, but fear of conflict is not part of the profile of the nice guy personality. Most nice guys simply prefer a healthy and nourishing environment to one that is filled with drama. They are generally a peaceful sort who are not easily provoked.
They simply prefer to settle their issues with others in a non-confrontational way. Because of they possess the trait of striving for harmony, a nice guy type may choose security over excitement in their relationships, gravitating towards authenticity over hype.
Just like the strong drive for doing what’s right and the drive for connecting with others, the drive to achieve interpersonal harmony does not always come naturally. There are many individuals who discover through negative experience with conflict-filled relationships that they are more than ready to give up the excitement in favor of a harmony, security and comfort. The relationship they then seek may be characterized by some as boring, but for those who seek a safe haven from drama feels exactly right.
As we now stand back and look at the personality profile of the nice-guy/nice-girl and compare it to the profile of the woman with traits of BPD, we see that there are very real differences in these two personality types. The most pronounced difference between these two types is the ability to trust in an intimate relationship.
Although her ability to trust him in the initial phase of romantic idealization does match the trust level of the nice guy, she will not be able to sustain this level of trust on an ongoing basis. She does not operate from a strong drive to do what’s right. Instead the woman with traits of BPD will be operating from whatever she is feeling in the moment.
Although she has a strong drive to establish an authentic connection with others, she does not possess the skill set to sustain it. The nice guy will also find that as opposed to his drive to create interpersonal harmony, the woman with traits of BPD will have a destructive drive to create conflict due to a naturally high level of fear of betrayal.
Armed with the knowledge that the woman with traits of BPD was truly not the woman she professed to be and finally aware that the fleeting initial phase of his relationship can never be attained again, the nice-guy type can often break out of his state of confusion.
Once he declassifies her from the nice-girl type and re-classifies her as a woman who although alluring and passionate is not capable of sustaining a long-term relationship, he can often find the separation he needs to move on with his life.
Related Posts:
Did Your Ex-Girlfriend Have Traits Of Borderline Personality Disorder?
Women on the Spectrum of BPD: Did She Really Love Me?
Women With Traits of BPD – Why Did She Lie?
Did Your Ex-Girlfriend Have Traits of BPD: How to Let Go of the Good Times
Identifying Traits of BPD In Women Before Relationship Commitment
Romantic Idealization And Devaluation In Women With Traits of BPD
Women With Traits of BPD – Why Men Stay
Did Your Ex-Girlfriend Have Traits of BPD-The Defense Mechanism of Projection
Note To Readers: I’d like to take a moment to thank all of you who have taken the time to post in my comments section. Your questions, opinions and personal stories form an invaluable contribution to this important discussion.
If you would like to learn the Nicola Method so you can put an end to the high conflict situations you may be experiencing, click on this link to the welcome page of this website where you will find the resources you need.
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Very nice article. I wish I had found your website 4 years ago, well, 10 years ago. Thank you for helping the rest of us understand ourselves and others better.
Carlos.
Thanks, Carlos! It’s good to hear that the blog was useful for you.
I read this and thought, “wow this is me, but except I’m the nice girl with the bpd man.” I would really appreciate some articles that are focused on the aspects but from the other side. As I read through your articles, I see a lot of deragotory spotlight on women. These things happen with roles reversed as well.
Rebecca, most of my writing actually entails teaching low emotion individuals, usually males, how to translate the language of high emotion individuals, usually females and then how to use that understanding to communicate effectively with them. We can use your comment as a good example for the average reader of my blog who struggles to translate comments like yours.
Whether or not you are aware of it, the language you used includes some insinuation. Although you don’t say it directly, the insinuation in your comment is that I have somehow done something wrong in my process of writing. I believe if we were having an in-person conversation and I told you that what you wrote to me made it seem like I did something wrong, you would be able to translate your communication to me from indirect language of insinuation into direct language which allows us to have a more productive conversation.
My guess is that if I asked you what you thought was wrong about my writing you would be able to tell me more directly that I seem to unfairly write about females with BPD even though there are plenty of males with this condition and also that I unfairly seem to shine a spotlight on derogatory aspects of female behavior while ignoring the negative aspects of male behavior.
Assuming my translation of your comment is somewhat accurate I will try to address your complaints. To clear up the context surrounding these issues, let me state that I don’t write about the condition of borderline personality disorder. What I do write about is the effect of three specific personality traits which may make some women susceptible to BPD but that most often show up in non-disordered women as a specific negative behavior pattern in romantic relationships.
The way we can tell the difference between a disordered individual and one who only has the personality traits that make women susceptible to the disorder is whether they can function in their everyday lives. Individuals with the actual disorder usually cannot hold down a job. Their relationships are highly dysfunctional and include behaviors that are well outside the realm of social acceptability. They also experience crippling pain and self-hatred that make every day unbearable, pain so severe that it makes suicide seem like a good option.
The individuals that I generally write for have had partners who in a simplistic sense could be said to have a stronger than usual presentation of the common cluster of personality traits that most women possess but not extreme enough to cause the disorder, a fairly small segment of the population. And when I write about the nice-guy/women with traits of BPD dynamic, I am writing about an even narrower and more limited population. To sum it up, my writing is not tailored to those in relationships with women with the actual disorder, nor is it tailored to women partnered with men who have their own version of these traits, although both may benefit from my writing to the extent that it happens to fit their situation.
To answer the last part of your complaint, because the therapeutic community has been shining a derogatory light on the behaviors associated with the common cluster of male traits to everyone’s benefit for several decades now, I can see no possible reason why the negative aspects of female behavior shouldn’t be examined in an equally rigorous manner, particularly when it is to the benefit of those who have suffered as a result of it.
Although you didn’t ask for it, I will try to point you to some resources that may be beneficial for you. There is very little information on male BPD at this point. However, most male domestic batterers are now considered to be on the spectrum of BPD. Lundy Bancroft has an excellent book on male domestic batterers called “Why Does He Do That” which can give you some very good insight into male BPD behavior. Randy Kreger is also a wonderful resource for borderline personality disorder in both men and women.
Thanks alot – your answer solved all my problems after several days stliggrung
Holly, shit, i got 2 little boys to one of these, i am in deep deep crap here, i got this whole story only worse with two little innocent boys on top… i have been trying to match up some disorder of mental disorder, but its a straight up dirty narc, i have been wasting every waking moment on a filthy narc, jesus, you should see how bad these creatures are it is worse that this bloke says, this one would suc the life out of ya and then hide the dirty switching smile, holly crap, what the bloody hell do i do, she will destroy these kids to… i have nothad one moment with this piece of poo… tell me born like this., no one is that cruel to someone no-one naturally, what u supposeed to do with em… im out
Wow… thanks.
I’ve heard about nice-guy personality before, but it seems to me it is exactly what I am.
Thanks for clearing things up for me.
My girlfriend posses almost all of the traits of BPD personality, I couldn’t understand why she is behaving like this. Your articles have opened my eyes. Thanks a lot!
I’m so glad the articles were useful for you.
Of the hundreds of pages I have read about BPD, 99% of which simply say “run away as fast as you can” ,these Nicola articles explain what is really going on – even if the end message is the same but put across in a less dramtic way. I am obvoulsy the nice guy and it would never work with my ex no matter how much I thought I loved her. The real her in the here and now is not the woman I fell in love with and nor will she ever be if she won’t get help. It is a real shame as she turned down what could have been a great life for her and her unborn child if she could simply accept the unconditional love I wanted to give her. Although I would never have cheated on her, and would have walked on hot coal rather than hurt her in any way, she could not trust me and in the end her lies were such that I could not trust her. Nice guy or not I could not be with her knowing she didn’t trust me and she couldn’t trust me not to abandon her. We split after her latest indiscretion. I will read this article every day until I convince myself to give up on her and walk away from any hope she will return as the beautiful woman she was during our first three months together.
Colin, I’m sorry to hear about what you have gone through, but I’m happy to hear that these articles were helpful in your healing process. It’s very important to understand that unconditional love is not recommended in a romantic relationship, as ideal as it may seem. The reason we must put boundaries or conditions up with others is because we don’t live in a world where everyone has the nice guy personality type that you have.
Nice guy/girl types are unusual in that they have a high aptitude for controlling negative impulses when it comes to their relationships with others. For the average person, a romantic relationship is very triggering. So although you yourself may not need others to set conditions or boundaries in order for you to refrain from taking advantage of them, most people do need to sense that their partner won’t put up with mistreatment in order to control themselves.
Letting down your guard in the way you describe should be reserved for either other nice guy/girl types or those who have worked long and hard on their relationship skills. I’m very glad to hear that your healthy boundaries did kick in at the end and allowed you to walk away even from someone you loved greatly. Learning that love alone is not enough to sustain a relationship can be a very painful lesson.
Excellent articles. As a man who got entrapped (pregnancy) by a BPD woman, I can tell you so much of what you say is true. They struggle to sustain anything, including the connection they have with a child. It is about how they “feel”, not true reality. While this is alluring in some respects (sense of wonderment is very seductive), it is important to watch the reality of how words are so often inconsistent with actions. This is where I finally had enough, and decided to break up with this woman after her declarations of intense love were matched by betrayals and inconsistent actions (calling and emailing ex-lovers on romantic trips, triangulation, etc.). Unfortunately, one month after I broke up with her she texted me “I’m pregnant” and thus the ride began anew. After the drama of protective order violations by her and domestic violence arrest and conviction, and subsequent legal discovery and depositions, I found out so much about the person behind the mask, and it was not pretty. Drug dealing, prostitution, and conniving tactics were what she really was. The pregnancy was spawned out of abandonment fears and the child was a means to an end and a way to a monthly stipend. In the end, I got primary custody of my daughter, am free of child support, and I have learned so much about myself thru therapy (had to own my part) and have learned that I am indeed an enabler and a “good guy”. Now that I know these tendencies, I have awareness. And with awareness comes the power of a new day. Be careful out there…..way too many crazy people…..
I too was entrapped through pregnancy by a woman with BPD (or BPD traits). She did this to keep me from moving away to be with another woman who I had been dating. The wBPD (person with BPD) was never my girlfriend or romantic partner beyond occasional sexual encounters initiated by her. I decided that getting away from her was the right move, so I went ahead and moved several states away.
Unfortunately, my nice guy traits made me try to be in the child’s life. Big mistake. That lead to many years of emotional pain and suffering, not to mention, financial loss. It has also created a great deal of confusion for my son. Ultimately, to protect my wife and our child (I got married to somebody else and we had a child), I had to move on from the relationship with my son with the pwBPD. He had become alienated from me and the relationship became toxic. Someday I hope my son and I can reconcile, but who knows.
Borderlines are very troubled people. Essentially, emotional con artists.
Best of luck with raising your child. It wasn’t an option that was available to me.
Hello, how does one cope with conflicting traits, naturally a good guy “person” personality but real life has instilled a mistrust so deep of anything human that I now have severe anxiety & agoraphobia. I hate being nice, I hate that I care that an old lady is struggling with bags walking in the cold, I hate that I’m always offering rides to strangers walking in the rain or with kids, I hate handing over money when the person in front of me is short for his purchases then can’t even say thanks but snatches the money like they expected me of do that. I live with a cheater, a verbal/emotional abuser with demands, accusations & rages where my items are broken, I’ve lived with him for 30 years & because I’m slow to learn that humans are trash-I’m only just realizing it’s been abuse & seeing how my self esteem was lowered so that I never realized I am somebody & others would be interested in me. I’m a very tiny ,pretty girl & have wasted my entire life because I’m the trusting type who was sheltered as a child, I believed I was worthless & all the lies he fed me. I’m now in a hole with medical issues from it with 2 children & wonder why bother now, at 48, I will be dead soon but I fight myself in my mind because I’m still always the nice person. Helping strangers without being asked but I’ve been burned by my 30year relationship & my birth mother & the woman who raised me since I was 2 yrs old, I’ve cut all contact with everybody except the boyfriend & my 3 sons for 6 years. How do you have one personality trait instilled at birth but form the complete opposite trait from outside stimuli & really ever trust anyone ever again? I’ve turned to animals who do give unconditional love & have a deep hatred of humanity but still jump when someone’s in need..
Lajjea, your story is very sad, but it is what happens to so many nice guy/girl types who get taken advantage of by those who are not nice, particularly as in your case, early in life. It’s absolutely necessary to learn how to protect your valuable assets, meaning your ability to trust, create intimacy and your naturally strong relationship skills. There are so many people out there who have strong needs, but they are not capable of giving back. A nice guy/girl who gives freely because it’s the right thing to do is very vulnerable to being taken for a ride by these individuals. And many nice guy/girl types find themselves turning bitter and afraid until they learn how to limit their close connections to other nice guy/girl types or individuals who have done a great deal of personal development work. It’s very painful to have to accept that most people are not capable of controlling their emotions and their defensive nature enough not to damage other human beings, but it’s essential in order to protect the unique and valuable qualities that you possess.
You might find the book No More Mr. Nice Guy very helpful in learning how to refrain from giving to those who are not equipped to give back. It’s written for men, but applies equally to women.
Just wanted to say…thank you so much for this wonderful article. I am 2 1/2 months out of the end of my first love relationship at 23 years of age with a BPD woman. I resonate with all elements of this nice guy personality except for a tendency to avoid conflict. I personally have no problem dealing with conflict or confrontation, and ultimately the goal would be to create harmony anyway. I was lied to and cheated on within 2 months of the relationship starting and went another 13 months before I found out from one of her other lovers that she was in fact lying to me. We lived together, spent a great deal of time together, and I told her I loved her everyday. Everything aligned in a way not atypical of these BPD relationships. It is devastating to think of something so special to you as being so utterly predictable, but knowing others are out there who are dealing with similar problems has been somewhat consoling. I hope you keep writing on the subject of BPD. I thoroughly enjoyed this article…and I’ve read a lot!!!
Thank you for this great article, your website has been an incredible help to me. I realise that I have been attracting borderline women into my life for as long as I can remember. I broke up with my (who has bpd traits – not known at the time) partner to be with a woman who I thought was the girl of my dreams. She seemed like the perfect woman, we talked about kids, travelling together etc but as I got to know her more, she started to reveal more about herself. She was a recovering alcoholic but I figured I could handle that. I found about her binge eating habits, her habit with scratchcards, her spending sprees and massive debts. In the end this girl I loved started to make my life miserable accusing me of this and that and I just couldnt get her to trust me and she made me think I was losing my mind. She is receiving help for the alcohol and has been off it for nearly a year now which is good. I tried to get her to look at the possibility she might be BPD (she has nearly all the symptoms of it) but she shrugged it off and she has projected just about everything back to me. She has blocked me on every form of social media including her phone, sms etc and was on two dating sites within two weeks (although I think it might be much longer) my friend showed me one ad, the other I found myself.
I realise now that I fell in love with the woman she pretended to be and not the real person she
I must admit I am pretty much broken by it all, it has been very hard because I still love her very much. I don’t think I have ever felt so crushed before and I am struggling to pick myself up from this but I will get there.
I will keep reading and keep trying to get her out of my head x
Hi Nicola – Love your website as it’s ideally suited for a “nice guy” like myself. After coming out of a 10 year marriage with a woman that exhibits many BPD-like behaviors, I am focusing on developing strong healthy boundaries. Also the divorce was as traumatic as she could make it – yes, she pulled all the BPD nastys she could.
My boundaries are fairly healthy after 2 years of counseling, but I still find myself attracted to the “feminine” women. My current and first post divorce girlfriend started exhibiting BPD like traits after 3 months of amazing “honeymoon”. She now has started the devaluing, showing extreme jealously, has made accusations and threats behaviors. One concern that I have had from the beginning is that at the age of 42, her longest relationship has been less than 5 years.
At this point, I am working on therapeutically responding to her behaviors that don’t work for me (listed above). I am firm but non-confrontational and looking to use your language of “when you said that it made me feel you thought I did something wrong”.
I’m glad to hear you are learning boundaries, but it worries me that after 10 years and a BPD divorce you may be repeating this pattern. There certainly are many women whose traits are light enough to use my techniques successfully with, and I always recommend learning to protect yourself by the use of these techniques while in the process of ending a relationship, but if your new girlfriend after only three months is showing this many BPD behaviors I cannot help but advise you to rethink this relationship.
Nicola,
What a great article for chronic nice guys like me. I was entrapped through pregnancy by a pwBPD (person with BPD). She did so in order to keep me from moving away. Our relations was a casual sexual one. I was never in a true romantic relationship with her. When she told me she was pregnant my self-preservation kicked in and I went ahead and moved away. That distance allowed me to have some sanity in my life. Unfortunately, my nice guy tried to be involved with the child. That’s been a very painful and emotionally destructive experience. Long story short, a few years ago I chose to end the relationship with my son in order to get his mother out of my life. In the process of dealing with that I’ve been working with a psychologist to help me unwind a lifetime of putting the needs of others first.
Anyway, your article brings clarity to that process. It’s confusing because while I’m a nice guy, I’m also extremely independent. The combination has made me successful in life, but I often find myself angry and depressed because I’m always giving to the point of feeling betrayed. It’s a long process to end the nice guy habit, but slowly I’m learning to draw boundaries and support my needs.
Thanks again for writing this.
Sorry, I addressed you as Nicola, I meant, Joanna. See, the nice guy won’t let me make a mistake towards another. LOL.
Depth Tested, it sounds like you are definitely on your way to healing from codependency. I think you will find that the negative aspects of the nice guy personality type can be fairly easily worked through leaving the best parts of this personality type in place. It will be well worth the effort.
As someone who is finally recovering from a failed marriage to with a partner I strongly suspect has BPD…I think this article hits the nail on the head.
I visit a forums for people trying to recover from BPD breakups and their is a similar pattern of behaviors shared by most of us.
I’ve mostly seen this referred to as co-dependence or co-dependent traits, which we (myself included) have had to work on, mostly through strengthening personal boundaries and being wary of relationship red flags.
Anyways, I’ve always struggled with this definition as I don’t really feel I fit the mould of a co-dependent. I think what you have describes is more me…well to be honest, you described the evolution (and destruction) of my relationship to a tee!
Kind regards
Ahoy, one very interesting observation that shows us that there is a flaw in the one-fits-all co-dependence explanation for why people get enmeshed in these relationships is the amount of people who after breaking up with their partner with traits of BPD find themselves in a relationship with a normal healthy partner. There is often a period of adjustment, or more accurately a period of getting used to calm, rational behavior. But once they do they are completely comfortable being in a healthy relationship which a co-dependent person would not be.
I think it’s very difficult for people to recognize that there are many accepted beliefs about relationships that do not apply when it comes to behaviors associated with BPD. One of them is the belief that in relationships it always takes two when it comes to conflict. And another is that if one partner is unhealthy, the other partner must be equally unhealthy to have chosen them. Clearly when it comes to BPD behaviors there are many more nuances involved than we may have previously thought.
A good rule of thumb that can be applied to tell whether you chose this relationship out of co-dependency or out of mistaking the idealization phase for a capability to commit to a relationship is to imagine you are with a partner who behaves exactly as you do in relationships. In applying this standard we find that the wish to provide for and protect a mate is a healthy quality of interdependence, not co-dependence. The ability to see another’s needs as equally important to one’s own is a healthy quality of interdependence. Kindness, generosity and a good-sized dose of altruism are also healthy qualities when it comes to our relationships. On the other hand, two people who each sacrifice their own needs for their partners would result in what is clearly an unhealthy relationship.
This website has been very helpful for me. I’m a nice guy through and through – personality tests always label me the peacemaker, I have superman memorabilia all over my house. I’m quite black and white about right and wrong… I’m just, friendly and I tend to see the best in people – even when I should not.
I recently broke up with a girl with BPD after an intense 2 months. And its clear as day that we went through the Romantic Idealization And Devaluation phases. She hooked me in, I told her I loved her – she starting slipping away. I “mistakenly believed that standard methods of communication” would set us right – but we chose to end the relationship instead. It was quite amicable – despite the hurting. Something I felt much more than her, you wrote somewhere else that many woman seem to be able to just walk away with little pain or care. That was definitely the case here. Again, this website has been very helpful for my healing and understanding. Thank-you Joanna.
I have some questions though. The girl was aware she had BPD. She told me with a warning after a few dates. She claims she is familiar with a lot of the information available. Yet as we tried to discuss our split she didn’t once refer to the Idealization And Devaluation phases or ‘splitting.’ Would someone with BPD own up to taking the steps? Should I tell her what I have discovered? Will that help her? Maybe I can warn /prevent her next catastrophic relationship?
Perhaps I have fallen in with the ‘long-term love’ crew – but I do care about this girl and want what is best for her. Classic Nice Guy right?
Additional details: The girl suspected she had BPD for a long time, she was told she probably had it for a while. She was recently diagnosed officially. She is refusing to take the group BPD therapy classes available to her so she can travel and live abroad (one of the reasons we broke up). She claims she will continue sessions with a psychologist. But not a BPD specific one as there are few resources where she is going. I did consider the girl to be quite high functioning until finding this website and seeing how clearly we moved through the idealization steps.
Nick, the way individuals with BPD experience romantic love is different than the average person. They can feel as though the person they are with is perfect, and then that feeling can completely evaporate. And then they can feel like the next person is the love of their life, and on and on.
When most of us make a big decision based on emotions, we make sure those emotions match reality. People with strong traits of BPD have a high emotionality which keeps them from anchoring their emotions into reality. We might label the big emotional decisions those with BPD make without anchoring to reality as fantasy. Your declaration of everlasting love was probably based on reality where you saw her as a match to your real-life hopes and dreams and life goals. She would have likely been feeling as though she would if she was sharing a fantasy with you. The loss of a fantasy is very different than the loss of a real-life partner.
It is very hard for those with this disorder to acknowledge the pain they cause. Getting help means facing the damage they have done and the fact that they will be continuing to hurt other people for a long time before their treatment takes hold. This dilemma of having to take in the damage you have done while acknowledging you are going to keep doing it is incredibly hard for them to accept. So it’s not surprising she has found a way to put off the treatment.
The fact that she is not aware of idealization and devaluation isn’t too surprising. Those who have gotten involved with someone with the actual diagnosis may forget that this extreme presentation of traits of BPD comes with a lot more than just the negative behavior associated with their romantic relationships.
The behaviors we see in those with lighter traits of BPD are an example of a successful coping mechanisms. In other words the negative behaviors in their relationships keep them from experiencing pain due to their emotional sensitivities. When they engage in these negative behaviors they can successfully distract themselves from the pain.
Those whose traits are so strong that they qualify for a diagnosis have pain so extreme that even these negative behaviors cannot distract them. They are experiencing the kind of pain that makes them suicidal, that causes self-harm, psychosis and delusion and chemical addiction. So the focus of someone with this diagnosis is usually not initially on how they treat their romantic partners. It’s on how they can learn how to survive from day to day.
So there are many reasons she may not be focusing on these less traumatic areas of her life. But since she has acknowledged that she wants help, you might send her a copy of a workbook for dialectical behavioral therapy which you should be able to find fairly easily on line. This could at least introduce her to the concepts of the treatment that one hopes she may eventually seek out.
Thank you for your reply!
I guess if I do try and suggest help or some knowledge I will need to be tactful.
It’s interesting how your comments change or open my own understanding. While I am hurting I declare that she created a fantasy of herself that I fell in for and wish I had not. And I hadn’t really comprehend that she too created a fantasy of me.
The hardest part about moving on is knowing I’m sitting around moping while she is probably having a carefree fun day.
Nick, what we may see on the outside as a carefree fun day for a woman with strong traits of BPD would be very different than the average person’s carefree fun day. On the very surface, she may show happiness, but because she is constantly hurting others, she will not be able to escape the guilt and shame for what she has done. Without extensive treatment she will not be capable of experiencing true happiness. She is caught up in a cycle of using destructive behaviors that allow her to temporarily escape from feelings of shame which then cause her even more layers of shame. So it’s important to recognize that the carefree, happy and loving person you fell for was no more authentic than the happy and carefree person you are seeing now.
This was a wonderful read, and I truly wish I had read it when you published it last year. I have just got out of a one year roller-coaster of a relationship with a diagnosed BPD sufferer who was actively seeking help. I held on for so long hoping there would be change, but there never was.
One question I have is, is there a chance they could get better? I often worry that maybe she will get better, and that I will have missed out on the love of my life, the way I thought it could be, just because I gave up. How often, in your experience, do the symptoms dissipate, if ever? I heard they can get better with age.
I feel a bit silly for writing this given that every part of my mind and body says that I have to keep the no contact rule I have set myself. But I love her, y’know? And I don’t want to miss out on the chance.
Tommy, if your ex was immersed in therapy that centered specifically around treatment for BPD and if that therapy included DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy, depending on her level of commitment to healing she could shed all of the negative behaviors possibly within two or three years. Once she has learned the skills that allow her to overcome her negative behavior patterns she will no longer hold the BPD diagnosis, and she will be able to function like a normal person in her relationships.
Unfortunately the process of healing entails entering psychological areas that these individuals have spent their entire lives trying to avoid. So although treatment is now available, the work entailed with overcoming this disorder is often too overwhelming. Often these individuals adopt just enough of the changes to lower their general pain levels, but they often stop short of the kind of full recovery which is necessary for healthy relationships.
Because romantic relationships are the core trigger for individuals with BPD, it is not advisable for people in treatment to seek out relationships. They must learn how to regulate their emotions in a non-triggering environment first and slowly build up to a relationship. So it is not surprising that your ex was not able to maintain her emotional “sobriety” while you were together.
WOW! WOW! I am in utter shock as to how many other men out there that were trapped by a pregnancy. The bpd women prey on the “nice guy” because they recognize how open and awesome they are; then translate that to vulnerability. I am just glad that i wasn’t the only one who fell into this distressing situation. My bdp soon to be ex-wife is incapable of loving our kids, its all about her, she cannot take responsibility for anything, from mistreating people to shoplifting (chronic shoplifter). After 13 years of marriage and 4 kids, i can’t do it anymore. she exhibits all the traits -Devaluation
Stalking
Domestic violence
Verbal abuse
Emotional abuse
Blame-shifting
Lying
Grandiosity
Selfishness
Accusations of infidelity
Cheating – i have not caught her but something tells me she’s just good at hiding it.
Rage
Thank you, i feel relieved to be fighting alongside other men.
Joanna, thanks for these articles. I just stepped away from a relationship with a woman whom I believe was on the lower end of the BPD spectrum. She functions quite well outside of the relationship she had with me. Your writings have really helped put this disorder and our failed relationship into perspective–it is helping me heal.
I consider myself the nice guy who found someone I thought was a perfect match for me. I tend to focus on the positive aspects rather than the negative, that is, until those negative aspects put me into emotional tail spins for which I couldn’t understand. Its amazing how she had a knack of convincing me many of our issues were because of me. It wasn’t until I was able to take a step back and see things more for what they were that I realized the extent of her issues.
She engaged in black and white thinking, projection, snarky comments sprinkled with predictors about our not yet failed relationship, the inability to talk about an issue between us, circular arguments, and the list goes on… I question everything she told me about her previous relationships. I also suspect she might have lied about men from her past relationships having continued interest.
You made a comment about a how an ex of someone suffering from BPD might come off as having a mental illness himself if he tries to explain the relationship dynamic. That is exactly what I feel like. I choose not to talk about it too much.
I will heal and move forward. I choose to trust, although not blindly. I would rather trust and be open again for love even risking getting burned than be untrusting and never have a chance at intimacy.
Thank you!!!
Bill, I am in agreement with you that a nice guy type should not let go of his tendency to trust. It is a great capability, and with the proper vetting nice guy and nice girl types have a tremendous amount to give in a relationship and have the aptitude to develop relationship skills that can easily sustain a relationship for a lifetime.
She would tell me I said certain things, sometimes months ago, that I was pretty sure I didn’t say, but because I couldn’t remember 100%, I also couldn’t adamantly deny it. Frankly, the word choices didn’t sound like something I would say and each time, what she claimed I said, was something rather rude to her or something negative about our relationship. I was beginning to think maybe I did way something that was either meant as a joke or taking out of context, although I couldn’t see how.
I honestly was starting to question my own memory and perhaps my sanity too. She was so confident and insisted what she told me I said were my exact words.
i am curious if this is common and if others have had this experience with a BPD partner. Perhaps a form of gas-lighting–although not consciously. Could it be a skewed sense of reality and filling in the blanks for the way she was feeling at the time by re-writing history?
Bill, your experience with your ex is very common for those with traits of BPD. It’s hard to say where these inaccurate recreations of past conversations come from. We can understand them a little better if we apply the phenomenon of paranoia that all human beings are susceptible to. We can imagine a spectrum of paranoia where most of us are on one side where a campfire story might give us the willies and the other end of the spectrum is where the person is literally delusional.
If an individual is not anchored by reality because of too high a setting of emotionality, their memories can stretch, shrink or become distorted. Because the emotion that those with traits of BPD suffer from the most is fear of judgment from others, distortion of what is said to them by loved ones is predictible.
The reason that people with traits of BPD are so certain that their distorted memories are accurate is because for them, emotions are like a sixth sense. They depend on the information their emotions give them in the same way the rest of us depend on our vision or our hearing. Telling them that their emotional perceptions are wrong feels like someone telling them what they see is an illusion. It throws them into cognitive dissonance.
My ex-wife also had/ has this issue.
An great example (the best I can think of), how she twists things, what she hears:
1) Once I said that I could live without her, but I am happy being together with her, that I love her and don’t want to live without her (in healthy relationship you can say it).
2) After a week or so, she blamed me that I have said, that she is not important to me…
3) After another week or so she said that I have said that I don’t need her…
A.R., yes, your statement to her reflects a healthy attitude towards a relationship. But an insecure partner will superimpose their insecurity bias on what they are told. To them a comment like this feels like a threat of abandonment. Your experience illustrates one of the reasons why relationships between healthy individuals and those with strong traits of BPD do not work.
A person with strong traits BPD can only keep their insecurity at bay if they believe that their partner could not live without them. Initially they try to create a relationship where both partners are so obsessively focused on each other that each feels like they would die if they were apart. But this state of mind soon catches up with the insecure partner with traits of BPD. Once they have created enough security to calm their fears, they find they are too insecure to handle the pain they would feel if the partner ever did leave them. They often leave the partner first.
Unfortunately the partner who is left is still in the state of mind where they feel they can’t survive without the abandoning BPD partner. Because they are unaware that the person with traits of BPD has created this extreme type of emotional bond, they have no idea why they are left experiencing such overwhelming grief.
I will give my comments in 2 parts. 1st part – Introduction (not so interesting). 2nd part – me as a nice guy. So, this is the 1st part.
This is just WOW x 1000 times! Thank you very much! I found this article by googling something like this: “Why I am attracted to crazy woman”. I have spend hundreds of hours reading about BPD, but now I have found an article, that helps me to understand, who I am. It seems that I am a nice guy, and I will it explain in in the text, but I should say some words about my experience with BPD. Long story short – I was together with a woman for 13.5 years (5.5 years before the marriage and 8 years in the marriage) since I was 17 years old. She has BPD. It has been a roller coaster all these years, but it didn’t to troubled me much, as I have understand that I don’t need much to be happy. Actually, my ex-wife kinda blamed me that I could live in a cave and still be happy. I fully agree with this, unless you have a bad health or you can not take care of your kids. During a couple therapy (it was my idea – I didn’t feel bad in the marriage, but I knew that something is wrong) she said that everything is over and nothing could be done about it. So, here comes the first thing about me a nice guy! I could not understand and accept it, as: 1) we both were the love of the live to each other (and these were our first sexual relationships); 2) nothing terrible had happened during the marriage – OK, now I see that there was kind of emotional abuse from here side, but there was no cheating (at least from my side), no violence or substance abuse… So, I tried to do my best to recover these relationships… nothing worked. After a year (when I was wondering, why she has been so crazy and with no logic in the way she reacts) I realized that most likely she has BDP. Before this I was thinking that this just her character or there are some “problems” in her body, for example, hormonal imbalance. It came as a relief, because before that I was blaming her and also myself, that this marriage didn’t work. After |i realize that she has BPD, I wanted to be her hero, who could save her. It did”t work and I have let her go only after more than a year and I half, when I realized that she is having sexual relationships with another man. I perceived it a knife in my back (as a treason) in the worst possible way, as we are still married… Why we were married by that time? Because she couldn’t bring herself to a divorce, even though her words and actions showed that everything is over. Now I want divorce too and I feel relieved that this is over. Or in more simple words – I have finally realized that she really is a crazy b!tch and I should stay far as possible from her.
Dr. A.R. Thank you for your story. It illustrates how many different personality types can be within the nice guy type. It also shows us that not every personality type is deeply hurt or damaged in a psychological way by BPD behavior.
2nd part – me a a nice guy!
Once again – thank you for this article, at it explains a lot to me. 🙂 Indeed, I am a nice guy, who feels happy almost wherever he is. I have never understood, why people, even those ones, who are not poor and without important health problems feel depressed… And it seems, that I have never had trust issues – I just don’t understand, how it is that you don’t trust someone… And here comes the facet of the article I would like to focus on (even though there are many things I would like write about). What make me wondering – is there a nice guy, who actually is in the end of the under-dependency ?! It seems that I am that person, and I will explain why. I have a strong drive to do what’s right and I really care about people, who are around me (people have told me that I am a good father and a good friend) – I am a good listener and I like to help people (practically, financially and emotional support). I participate in volunteering and donate to charity organizations, but here is a big BUT… I don’t actually know, why I am doing this… Do I just like to see people being happy?! And definitely this is not about something I “get” from them, because I really feel that I don’t need their approval or their “thanks” for the things I have done. And I have never felt that I need someone… Yes, I like to spend time with my friends, but I have never missed them… I have never missed my father, who left when I was 3 years old (as this is opposite to my twin, who felt that something is missing in his life). I even did not feel that I “needed” my wife, when I was married… yes, I felt good and happy with her, and I really took care of her, but I felt equally good when she was by my side and when she was not… And one more thing, that is really important – one can be a good friend to me (or a close relative), but if he betrays me or he behaves really bad towards the ones, who are even closer to me than he is, then in my eyes this first person will become lower than a grass and I will really turn into a Tasmanian devil, who will use even his minor vulnerability to pay back all the bad things he has done. This is why I sometimes feel strange – from one side I love people and take care of them, and I trust in them (more than a average person), but from another side – I can become a really evil person, if I feel that someone is mistreating badly me or other people (actually, I get more angry is someone is hurting my friends than myself). And these people even don’t have to be close to me. For example, every time I see pickpockets trying to steal from random people, I have to gather myself not to punch them in the face and throw them down from the stairs.
I was reluctant to leave a comment, but maybe it will help me to continue to move forward instead of always going back. It has been a difficult road, even though it hasn’t been years and years like some others I have read. I am hopelessly in love with a woman who by all accounts is a “dream girl”… She actually had told me in the beginning of our relationship that she was a “Unicorn”..: A professional woman, incredibly driven and successful, as well as beautiful and alluring. We worked together and when I first met her it was, pardon the phrase, “love at first sight.” But I did not pursue her because of our work relationship, and I didn’t want to break that unwritten rule. However, after working with her for two years, watching her every day, I became uncontrollably drawn to her charisma and ability to draw people to her. I am somewhat of an introverted, shy person, so I found her that much more attractive because she was so outgoing. I really didn’t see any “red flags” in the two years I worked with her, she was intelligent and talented at work. Did I mention beautiful? Every man who met her flirted with her.
I finally mustered up the courage to confess my love to her, probably a mistake to use the word love right off the bat but I was overcome with emotion at the time. She told me she was flattered but was seeing someone, and I was just proud of myself for having the courage to tell her my feelings. A few days later she told me she broke up with her boyfriend, I thought I had won the relationship lottery! The woman of my dreams…. Setting that stage, we began dating and everything moved very rapidly. I discovered pretty quickly that she smoked cigarettes and drank quite a bit after work, she said because her work was very stressful and she did these things to relax. I was so enamored with her I accepted these behaviors-although I would never normally date a smoker as I am very health conscious. I also discovered she took a mild sedative to sleep at night, she told me due to a long standing battle with insomnia. Again, I was so in love I just figured what sort of insensitive man would judge someone for these actions? Things moved very rapidly, and after about a month I moved in with her. She was telling me she was going to marry me someday and I just was hypnotized. It was a fabulous time. Soon after that, she began to get very anxious, and almost all our evenings were spent drinking a few glasses of wine. At some point, I experienced her first episode of anger and contempt for me, telling me she left her boyfriend for me, and she made a mistake, and he loved her more than I did. I should have got up and walked away that moment, but I was crushed and felt guilty for letting down this woman who was my friend for two years, now my girlfriend. I told myself I didn’t want to let her down because she took a chance on me, leaving a successful man for me. It became this sort of pattern, where she would call me names, speak very condescendingly to me, and tell me there were other men waiting to take my place if I didn’t get it together. I was completely crushed and confused- I knew this woman for two years! Needless to say, no matter what I did, there was always something she focused on that made me untrustworthy. I thought I was losing my mind, and I began to feel I was actually untrustworthy. I began to get into arguments with her- trying to rationally explain my side, all that did was escalate the situation. To make a long story short, over the next few months it got worse- she began to demand to scan through my cell phone- any call or text I couldn’t explain was met with a violent reprimand. That’s the first time she hit me and threw me out of the house. I had nowhere to go of course. This became the norm- demanding to see my phone, constant interrogations, humiliating comments, and even once she sunk her teeth into my wrist to try to get me to release my phone. Over this period I was severely demasculinated- I cried, begged her not to break up with me, crawled on the floor, cowered in fear.. The interesting thing is that the next morning after each of these episodes, she would reset like nothing happened, and at work she was her normal, productive, helpful self. I really thought something was wrong with me, and she was very willing to promote this belief. Looking back, I can’t believe I stayed- my friends and family were in shock and told me I clearly needed to run away, but I couldn’t… I loved her and wanted to prove to her I was worthy of her love and trust. And I was so physically attracted to her I didn’t want to lose the best physical chemistry I ever experienced in my life. And I didn’t want to lose her to someone else.. I lived with that fear every day, men were always in the periphery of our lives. I felt like I was playing a sick game of “King of the hill”…
Finally, I realized I was beginnng to break down, I was drinking like her every day, and not able to maintain outside friendships for fear of losing her for putting others above her. I was alienating my friends and family. One morning while she was at work, I moved out. I was dying every moment away from her, like a heroine addict away from his drug fix. After about two weeks apart, she began dating another man. I was crushed. Crushed. Of course she rubbed it in my face telling me this guy was everything I wasn’t…
I tried to move on with my life but I was sick. I could barely eat or sleep, certainly couldn’t date another woman. After about three months my friends tried to help me move forward by introducing me to a normal woman, and I spent some time with this woman for about 6 weeks, but still longing for the feeling I had in the beginning with my co-worker/dream girl. About this time, I received a text from my ex girlfriend, and unbelievably without a second thought I dropped the new girl like a bad habit, and ran straight back to my ex. She told me our time apart made her miss me and realize I was the man for her, although she confessed to me she had a sexual relationship with the other guy while we were apart. I had high hopes thinking everything would be different this time. Well, it was, this time there really was no idealization phase, we fell right back into the same pattern as before- me trying to prove I was trustworthy, and punctuated by some good days in between. This was just before Thanksgiving 2017. Needless to say, I held on through more humiliation, physical violence, drinking, and sleeping pills. On one of our rare “good weekends” about 8 weeks ago, I got out of her bed on Monday morning, went to work, and never went back to her. I wanted to leave on a good note. That brings me to the present. Don’t get me wrong- we kept talking this whole time, with her subtly saying she wasn’t going to wait around, followed by “I miss you “. It is a constant, daily struggle not to want to run back to her. My friends and family are dumbfounded, and I have nearly lost them. Yet I still say I love this woman desperately, despite the hitting, kicking, biting, and most venemous words I have ever heard from a woman. If you ask her, she will tell you our problems were minor and our fights were few and far between. I still tell myself I screwed up my chance at lifelong happiness with my dream girl- somehow I broke her trust and yet she is still waiting for me to be the man she believes I am. I am tormented. The only thing that keeps me from running back again are these websites where I can make a little sense of what happened. And my friends are still there trying to keep me focused on moving forward. But they aren’t with me 24 hours a day, and it is very, very difficult, despite being able to visualize all the horrible things that happened over the past two years, to not want to just forgive and try once again to go back to her and love her with everything I have…I have never felt this way in my life, and I am 49 years old and have met and loved some amazing women prior to this toxic relationship. I just feel I will never feel the chemistry I felt with my ex girlfriend, who it seems has traits of BPD personality even though in every other aspect of life she is successful. I hope this is not the case and that I will be able to carry on a healthy relationship in the future. Thank you for the helpful articles…
Kevin, thanks for your story. It is truly a cautionary tale for those who may be on the fence about staying in one of these very damaging relationships.
Thank you for sharing your experience. What you have described has many parallels to what I have been, and currently am experiencing. It feels good to know I am not alone in these experiences.
Also, there was no devaluation phase in my case. I was the one who eventually left because my mental health was suffering. She told me she would do anything to make it work and she contacted me daily to try to keep us together. But even apart from her, she continued to call me names, lash out with angry texts, and blame me for everything. She said I was the one who gave up, not her. And believe me, every day is a fight not to go back to her because of my emotional attachment and feeling like I abandoned her and lost my dream girl.
Kevin, sorry about your experience. That is more intense than my experience for sure. Mine was successful in every other part of her life too. I have been out of my relationship with a BPD for a little over a month. I will tell you it is hard. Recently, I blocked her on all social media and both phone and text messaging. She wasn’t contacting me but, for me, it was one small step in my attempt to move on. I am resisting the urge to go back simply because I realize that the exuberant relationship we once had was based on a fabrication. It was based on her ability to mirror me. This person was never as compatible as I thought. I know its not easy but try to keep those concepts in mind.
I think learning all you can about this disorder can help. Loving and supporting the BPD person isn’t going to make it better. We can’t make them better; only they can. I did notice that my ex is on a dating site already–while I can’t even think about dating yet. Goes to show you how they need to find a replacement since they cannot be alone for long. I feel sorry for the next guy.
We are healthy and can find a meaningful, healthy relationship. They will always be caught in the same cycle. especially if they don’t get treatment. It makes me sad because I still care about her but also realize that is her issue and not mine. There is truly nothing I can do. I think coming to these realizations can help.
Thank you for your great website. My life has been turned upside down since meeting a girl who fits many of the descriptions of BPD. Just to preface this with I’m not a perfect guy and have many areas I can improve on. We dated for 2 years however the last year was long distance. We are from different countries and cultures and I was living in her country alone at the time. Everything started great and I couldn’t believe someone could idolise me so much. I tried to talk her out of the idolisation but realised it was not quite getting through. I thought at the time well its not a bad thing. However after 3 months things started to change.
At first the constant and aggressive requests to marry her. I said I’d like more time as it felt too quick. She persisted with this for the rest of the relationship. After this extreme jealousy started with checking my social media accounts. Contacting my friends using my account and creating fake profiles of me spreading lies in it. Also many bullying messages to me. Around this time violent outburst started to happen. Since I’m a big guy and she was petite I could handle them. However threats of suicide and pulling a knife on me was seriously shocking. I tried to break it off but we were both to weak to not get back together. I feel I have nice guy traits and tried my best to rationalise her thinking and mine also. Deep down and logically I knew it was a disaster in the making but could not break myself free. I had no support group around due to living in a foreign country.
After this she took contraception as didn’t like condoms. I made her agree we won’t have kids yet but later she conveniently forgot to take them. Thus she had me with a pregnancy and ticket to marriage. However I said I still would not marry her as I was scared of the behaviour. Eventually she took an abortion which is something that has scarred me for life as I was part of the decision. Also it has scarred her and I feel terrible about it. I did not force her and couldn’t have but told her strongly that her violence and rage was scary and our relationship would be a disaster to bring a baby into this world. At this point my coworkers got involved as she smashed my apartment up after I told her my final thoughts. Tbh I forgive her for this due to the situation.
After this against my coworkers advice I still let her back in. The same behaviour quickly started again. Violence and bullying tactics, threatening to contact my work manager and coworkers telling them xyx. Which she did much to my extreme embarrassment and shame when arriving to work. Stealing my phone and finding out the pass code. Eventually coming to my workplace and causing a scene. At which point I had to go to the police on my works request. This caused even more problems and she started stalking me, waiting for me at my apt or going to my work. This happened again in which the police were called a second time. This was another harrowing experience hearing her screaming from another cell while the police questioned me. Finally after the humiliation of my disaster of a relationship being made public and causing me to leave my dream job at the time I had to return home. Despite this i still kept contact. Eventually I returned to her country but with a distance. This didn’t work and some irrational and bad treatment from her forced me to finally move on. However I’m still struggling and feel so sad about everything. My new girlfriend is amazing and knows everything but I really can’t explain to her the scar this has left in my heart. The story is even longer and wild but you get the picture. The good times were amazing and the bad times were hell. Somehow I conveniently forget the bad times and naively think it would be different. Thankfully I’ve met someone else now but it still feels like giving up an extreme addiction.
Thanks you for the great site, I’ve been so relieved to find such a great resource to help me with this.
Charles, thanks for sharing your story. It illustrates how quickly what seems to be a fairly normal relationship can escalate into a life-threatening and even life-ruinous situation.
Much like many of the comments before mine, I also have found myself involved with women who exhibit traits of BPD. I am currently 35 years old and I was married to one a few years ago(she told me she had bpd) and recently got out of a short term relationship with one. After this last relationship I have been doing a lot of research and reading on this subject. This got me to thinking that of the handful of women I’ve actually called my girlfriend through my life, I would say 3 out of the 4 have exhibited bpd. That has raised some serious alarm bells in my head regarding myself. From what I read I am a typical “nice guy” and easily susceptible to believing the lies even though the red flags are usually going off in my head.
A question that I hope Joanna can answer is:
While it is clear that nice guys and bpd’s cannot work, yet tend to be attracted to each other, is there a “general” or “common” personality type that a “nice guy” tends to actually be compatible with? It is incredibly frustrating for me knowing logically that I cannot be with someone with bpd, and certainly not wanting to be with someone with those traits, all the while professing to be attracted to someone more like myself(shy, quiet, NICE!), yet get duped into believing the lies of someone with bpd. You would think we would learn our lessons!
David, you are absolutely right, a great match for a nice guy type is a nice girl type. The important aspect in choosing a partner for the nice guy type is learning that their character attributes make them a very valuable partner. Once they recognize that their qualities are highly sought after, they can become truly discerning, choosing only partners who have over the years proven themselves to have the same positive relationship skills that the nice guy type has.
It’s also very important that they recognize in themselves the tendency to take care of others. It’s easy for them to take care of others, and they are capable of taking care of their own needs at the same time, a skill level that many people lack. So they don’t consider care-taking a big deal since there are no consequences for themselves.
But their lack of awareness of the rest of the iceberg hidden by those that cannot take care of their own needs eludes them. They also lack experience in the rarity of a nice girl type, and instead of strongly questioning someone who seems like a perfect partner, since they have the relationship skills that can create a wonderful life for others without great effort or years of personal development, they just assume their love interest is as skilled as they are.
Recognizing that finding someone with very strong relationship skills is much more difficult than they may think will usually be enough to convince them them to vet any BPD types posing as a nice girl type. Unfortunately, BPD types are very capable of a perfect mirroring of the nice guy’s dream partner. So sometimes the only way to vet is to talk to friends who have a history with this person to find out their true nature outside of the idealization phase.
I’m sorry but I find this quite a degrading and generalizing article about women with bpd.
A few years ago I myself was diagnosed with having high functioning bpd, and I can say from experience that this does not mean that a real and meaningful connection in a relationship is impossible.
Articles likes this give those with a bpd diagnosis a bad name and that is extremely sad since living with this disorder is already very tough as it is.
The stigma attached to bpd makes it very complicated to communicate about the difficulties that it could possibly bring in a relationship, and again articles like this make it even worse when your partner starts to google bpd for more clarity.
Also isn’t it a bit dangerous to let people decide if they are a ”nice girl” or ”nice guy” personality type. How often are we really critical to our own behaviors and role in a relationship?
What I also find ironic is that quite a lot of people with bpd are people pleasers and can actually be so caring and sweet that they become invisible in a relationship. While attracting partners that are not so ”nice” at all.
But apparently having bpd and being a ”nice” person can not coexist in a person.
Thanks a lot for contributing to the stigma and I hope that in the future better education about bpd will be out there especially on the internet.
I’m a woman with bpd, I’ve been going through quality treatment for a while now. Despite the improvements in every aspect of my life, so called nice guys still actively pursue me. They’ll exhibit all the warning signs right away. I know they’re a bad fit. Terrible, even.
The initial idealizing, poor boundaries, emotionally charged Grand statements very early on, over agreeableness, lack of opinion, almost immediate “self sacrificing” behavior referred to by them as just being a gentleman. Then there’s the passive aggressive acting out- it starts off jokingly or subtly, but again, it starts almost instantly.
Luckily I’ve been able to experience dating with emotionally healthy men too. Stark contrast I didn’t have before.
S – don’t worry about the stigma- hopefully this article will at least get some “nice guy” reader into therapy. But yes, otherwise this article is potentially dangerous.
So, reader, heads up, although this article will have you feeling validated in the hell you went through, it’s doing you a huge disservice by pushing your head further in the sand.
To even hear a grown adult say they were “trapped” by a pregnancy is a huge red flag for me now, along with a few other things I’m reading in the comments here. Note: Unless she covered her vagina in leaves and you fell in, you weren’t trapped, you were just plain old irresponsible.
I like Holly’s comment. If you’re a guy like me who thinks he’s nice: don’t be complacent. You have to take a hard look at your own issues (which I think is Joanna’s point) and not paint yourself as a victim.
What Holly has described in terms of men who pursue her sounds like the “accommodating dependent” personality type. (This is NOT Joanna’s “Nice Guy,” but there’s overlap and this personality type can fool himself into thinking he’s a Nice Guy.) Some of the traits are: agreeable; passive; seeks approval; compliant; naive about people’s motives; but also friendly and gregarious, easy to get along with; and they don’t like being single.
I have some of these traits. I can get pulled in quickly to a relationship with a woman who’s dramatic, passionate and sexual. I like being taken care of, I like being with a strong woman, I’m good in bed or so I’ve been told, and I’ve been willing to play along. Eventually it goes south. I’m actually not such a nice guy; I’m simply aggressive, not passive-aggressive, and I start making my needs known; but I tend to hide that at first, which is on me.
Men, if you have these traits, the key point is, when you first meet someone, PAY ATTENTION to any behaviors or statements that seem off or odd, or where boundaries aren’t observed, such as: over-sharing intimate details; impulsivity; teasing; sloppy drinking; signs of disorganization or a chaotic life; provocative, attention-getting behaviors; and, especially, any evasiveness, gas-lighting or other signs of untrustworthiness. (These can all be mixed together, such as the woman who quickly revealed to me that she had recently divorced but for years was married with children but had slept every night at her boyfriend’s who lived down the block, and everyone knew about it and was cool with it; apparently I was supposed to agree that this was OK and normal… give me credit, I did not pursue that one.)
You will be able to see these warning signs in the first few minutes of meeting someone. Do NOT ignore them. Do NOT tell yourself that you’re just being open-minded and you don’t want to judge too quickly. You most definitely DO want to judge a potential partner quickly. And, remember, you are speaking to this person; you may have sought her her out in a social setting and encouraged her attention. This is where YOU have responsibility.
If you don’t back away ASAP, and you get involved, you can expect excessive generosity (such as cooking elaborate meals or spending lots of money on you), flattery, and quick and intense sexual intimacy.
The difficulty is that there’s an overlap between these 2 personality types – the dependent man who needs an immature and immediate form of intimacy and the BPD woman who wants intimacy but is too damaged to sustain it. The early days are great. Who doesn’t want to jump into bed with a beautiful, friendly new woman who’s flattering you up, down and sideways? It’s very seductive and what you end up with is a relationship of two damaged people who can’t make it work and can’t make it stop.
Wow, thank you, at last I can see the dynamic at work in my relationship with my wife, I had already come to the realization that clearly she is BPD (from reading on Quora.com) but I could not see how my own dynamic played into it. Worse she seems to have a heavy overlay of paranoia, today she called me and alleged that somehow I had changed her post office forwarding address on the US Postal Service website to prevent her from receiving mail at her new address in town, I now see how my own dynamic prevented me from seeing the truth. Thanlk You, Earl MacFarland
I’m so glad my blog was helpful for you.
Dear Nicola,
Thank you very much for your work on explaining BPD in women.
I am both very thankful that I have found your webpage and shocked as to how accurately the content of your blog explains my life experiences with (some) women. Reading your blog has been of tremendous relief to me and I have also learnt so much from it.
Could you please explain to us if it would be spossible for a woman on BPD spectrum (a person clearly matching many of BPD traits listed on your webpage) to also have successful academic career? Your list of BPD traits matches perfectly one of my ex-partners, but that person is an accomplished academic researcher (in the field of medicine, in fact!) – would a person with strong BPD traits be able to have successful academic career also? Would not such personality traits interfere with that person’s career? If so and my ex is so successful in academia, I might be mis-judging her as to having BPD.
Thank you in advance.
Kind Regards,
Jan from Poland
For the most part I try to only comment on the effect of traits of BPD, not the actual condition itself, in other words traits of people who are on the spectrum of BPD. That being said, one of the limitations of a medical diagnosis for BPD and also NPD is that the person’s negative behaviors makes them dysfunctional in everyday life. But because both of these disorders present on a spectrum, it may be difficult even for professionals to know where the line is that qualifies a person for diagnosis.
Generally speaking the difference between someone who is diagnosed with BPD and someone who is merely on the spectrum of BPD are the extreme natures of behavior outside of their romantic relationships. But interestingly enough, a person can have as extreme behaviors as someone who qualifies for diagnosis within their romantic relationships but be completely functional in their everyday life and therefore not qualify for diagnosis. This can cause confusion for partners who may be the only ones who see what they may consider pathological behavior.
The kinds of behaviors that usually lead to diagnosis of BPD are not in the romantic arena. They may be psychosis, suicidal tendencies, drug or alcohol addiction, and other life endangering behavior patterns along with the behavior patterns in relationships which both diagnosed and those only on the spectrum share.
So even though the person you refer to here may not have qualified for diagnosis, her behaviors within the relationship could be as extreme as a diagnosed individual, but only within their romantic relationship. On the other hand, there are many people who are able to maintain a mask in their outside life who are engaging in these highly destructive behaviors in private.
But do be aware that because the behavior pattern in romantic relationships of those on the spectrum can be as destructive to partners as those who qualify for diagnosis, the damage done to partners can be equally destructive.
Thank you for your answer.
Kind regards,
Jan
Joanna,
Your articles are amazing to me, it’s like you know everything about my wife.
I met her ten years ago and I was initially struck by her beauty and charm we hit it off like no one I’ve ever meant before. Quickly we developed extremely strong feelings for each other, looking back on it she morphed herself into exactly what I wanted. At the time I didn’t see this and just thought she was perfect. She literally became my dream girl, or so I thought. She made me feel like I found “the one”. She boosted my ego in nearly every way early on in the relationship she was extremely eager to please me. During this time I we were shared so much emotional intimacy that it was unreal. Years later into our marriage it was never near the level we achieved shortly after meeting, this is when she was the most honest and open and real.
There were some red flags as we got more serious and dated for longer but I was too smitten to acknowledge them. I had never been prouder to be with anyone in the world. She made me believe that I was the most handsome smartest most capable and confident man alive. I was literally on cloud nine, during this time I helped her get her career in order and motivated her to achieve her dreams. A few years later we get engaged and then married shortly after. Ironically, the dating was the very best part of the relationship, once married, conflict went through the roof and her rage escalated significantly. This dream quickly became a nightmare at times and was the perfect wife and friend at other times.
Often her explosive behavior was fueled by alcohol, lots of it. I’m a Fighter Pilot in the Marine Corps and often times she scared the you know what out of me. It was like she would transform into someone else when she got angry enough, you could see it in her eyes. Even before we had children I always ensured that every weapon in the house was locked away in safes where she could not access it due to fear she would use it on me when she had an episode. Being madly in love with a women who can go from what feels like she is loving you to hating you with the most intensity imaginable at the drop of a hat is very damaging. A walk down the magazine isle (she would accuse me of looking at anything with a woman on it) at the local grocery store would be enough to trigger a jealous and insecure rage, that would often last for 2-3 days. Over the course of our marriage she would routinely be physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive towards me. I always protected her and never called the police which was a huge mistake.
A few months ago I found out about a unnecessary hotel room she had, that could not be explained. She was staying with family and had a hotel she was going to mid day near her office. I asked if she was having an affair, likely with a coworker which I had suspected for some time. She immediately clammed up and hung up on me blocking my number. A few days later she would reach out for a divorce attorney.
I attempted to repair our relationship, and got us into counseling. Later I found a secret cell phone in her belongings. Then out of the blue she filed for an emergency ex parte order from the court saying that I was threatening her and stalking and harassing her, it was full of lies. Then after I moved out of the home she then wanted to attend marriage counseling to a new provider, recommended by her lawyer. I wanted to reconcile so I was eager to attend.
Later I realized it was a way for her to build more of a case against me. Four months into our required 12 month separation period for a “no-fault” divorce I was deployed to the Middle East, 7,000 miles from home. Our divorce had turned into to a nasty child custody case. The devaluation was at its lowest point. My wife sent a friend to my commanding officer to make allegations that I was abusive to her in every way imaginable.
Divorce was not enough, she was dead set on trying to destroy me and my career in the process. Currently she is claiming that I “raped her” continuously throughout our entire marriage. This is a woman with a whom I once had a deep love and respect for, the mother of my two children. She has conducted a massive smear effort against me and ensured that every single person she knows thinks I am the worst person imaginable. She carefully picks those with whom she enlists help to attack me. Typically she preys on the emotionally or intellectually weak. Those who are extra easy to manipulate. She has two personas a public one which ya very attractive and seems nearly perfect and a very very dark private one which only a few people have ever actually seen.
She is a pathological liar, even manipulating our toddler children. What I wouldn’t give to turn back the hands of time and just walk away from her the night I meant her. I fit the nice guy bill to a tee, she in reality is anything but nice. If you have someone with a lot of these traits run don’t walk in the opposite direction as fast as you can. All the incredible feelings early on are not worth the pain, damage, and headache on the long run.
Hi Joanna,
I found this blog last night and I can’t stop reading the posts and comments. I knew after reading just a few posts that I was in a 7 month “relationship” with a pwBPD. wow! It gave me much relief and a sense of peace to understand this terrible disorder. I am a nice guy; but I have years of therapy under my belt and in a recovery program for years. She is high functioning and beautiful. We connected right away and had all the chemistry others have talked about. But, I can tell you that my boundaries are solid. Even though I engaged in a push pull the whole time. My mistake was to stick around as long as I did. But, I found out that she was triangulating men and just lying on a regular basis. I talked to her of my working in therapy through trauma and ptsd from childhood abuse and suggested she seek professional help. She has multiple years of recovery from alcoholism and is active helping others. However, she had systematic sexual abuse from a caregiver from 2-8 YOA. Daily. She was a stripper and has had countless sex partners. Sometimes multiple different encounters in one day. She’s a miracle that she’s even clean and sober and alive. Once I found out that she was seeing other men and lying about it I ended it immediately. And I did it with kindness. I’ve had no contact at all (except she made a couple of early attempts to contact me; I politely declined). Since then she has got with one of the men she overlapped with me and it looks like they are “in familiar “ (not love). Entwined in church, jobs maybe moved in etc… This was not even a break for her from me. Unfortunately, I hear some news inadvertently through mutual friends of her comings and goings and sometimes it’s a mental setback for me.
I have a specific question. Many men commented about the amazing sex etc…, and certainly I had chemistry with her. But, if a BPD is in so much pain from constant shame and guilt, is their experience with sex fulfilling at all? I can’t believe it to be since they have no sense of self. Are they disassociated from the actual lovemaking? Or is it always some amazing experience as she makes it out to be? I guess generally it would seem to me that sex for the BPD would ultimately be, at times, a part of the shame and guilt they are constantly battling and not be a good experience. My gf would suffer shame attacks the next day and break things off. Even just after kissing etc. she was on high alert; nit relaxed. But, she uses sexuality as a salient point on meeting men. She’s been married 4x and looks like she’s onto number 5. I’m so thankful I’m out.
I’m asking about the sexual experience because I didn’t see a comment about what the BPD May feel. Is it just another tool? I prefer to be fully present. I can’t imagine they are.
Thanks in advance.
The person you write about is a little bit unusual and not the type of person with traits of BPD that I address in my writing. This person may not have the traits of BPD, but her extraordinary abuse particularly at this young age certainly can create a similar behavior pattern. She is really doing very well in her recovery, and the expectations one might place on a partner simply may not apply here, as you have accurately recognized.
There is no way to tell in this individual case how she feels about sex because of her horrendous childhood experience directly related to it. So I can’t comment on her specific case. Generally speaking, I have not spoken directly with anyone I have worked with about how they feel about sex when it’s happening, but I will tell you from what I have read anecdotally that sex is used as a tactic to get emotional needs fulfilled, in other words, to strengthen the bond between her and her partner in a very short amount of time through mirroring the often much higher sex drive of a male partner. This makes the male partner believe that they have found a woman who has similar needs in this area which for many men is a difficult match to find. These individuals are often aware that they are using sex as a tool.
As far as what they are feeling in the moment, for the most part their feelings are more of an addictive nature, similar to how a sex addict would describe their experience of sex.
Post script: I have little doubt she’s on the diagnosable end of the spectrum. It’s baffling how she can function as a professional in medical/MH community. Although she reported to me nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks during our kissing/fondling, and she has a constellation of men around her at all times. She’s never been single and is in her late 40’s. She’s been having sex with men since she was 11YOA. Has impossible standards to live up to with her church. Devout in word; not actions. And, has an eating disorder. God, me writing all this out is revelatory and I’m lucky I’m out.
I recognized 5 of the 9 criteria from DSM. But we were never fully in a relationship bc she was always running away. I think that she didn’t know what to do with a guy like me. She told me in a few different ways at different times that I was too good for her and that she always walked away from guys like me because she was scared they would hurt her. That was a red flag for me. I never saw rage or open devaluation (she had the new guy and me hang out once; pretty shitty bc I didn’t know what was up, so covert disrespect). No smearing that I know of, and I would know. I’m actually scared she’s going to come back around looking for romance. But I want none of it. It’s been a month and a half of no contact and she’s busy with new guy (s?).
I’ve never experienced I “love you, go away” at this break neck speed. Every time she left (for a week, a few days) she would be with the other guy on the line.
So there’s more info. I could write much more but you get the idea.
Thanks again.
Hi, I just wanted to thank you for this article and many others about Borderline Personality Disorder.
I am myself aware of being a nice guy. I am very honest and straightforward and don’t hesitate to go the extra mile for people I barely know.
I like to define myself as the incurable ingenuous, getting screwed over and over by people but still trusts unconditionally.
I cannot say that these traits brought me a lot of positivity in my life to be honest, being relational or professional.
Well, what had to happen happened. I met a pwBPD, unaware and untreated (I did not know anything about that at that time) and everything went according to the book: Idealisation, devaluation, discard. Me in total confusion, self-esteem utterly destroyed, not knowing what on earth what happening and finally left torn to pieces while the pwBPD moved on instantly with her life (and other partners) like nothing had happened at all.
For a long time I used to think it was all my fault until I came accross an article about the disorder by accident, it was like a revelation (and not really a good one to be honest, yes it was not my fault but that truth came with a high price).
It’s been two years now, I feel much better know yet I still have flashbacks sometimes, nostalgic memories of things that never were reality.
I like to think this experience allowed me to look into myself and to grow, emotionally and spiritually.
I have learnt to love myself before others.
Thank you again.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I truly believe that stories like yours can help others who are struggling with trying to heal from these types of breakups.