Dear Ed:

“I am sorry for venting so much” – I read your last recent post before reading what came before, so I didn’t read your venting yet, but I am fine with you venting at any length! After all, I tend to post a lot, sometimes very long posts, so you deserve the same opportunity. Next, I’ll be reading your recent posts this way: reading a few sentences and responding before reading what’s next, then read a few more sentences, respond, etc.

“her state of mental health wasn’t evident at first. while I knew that she was struggling with something, her depression became apparent around half a year into the relationship. Later on she would be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and/ or co-dependent personality disorder. Was I wrong to want to be with her? should I have broken up when these issues became clear?” –

–  (1) No, it wasn’t wrong and you weren’t wrong for wanting to be with her, and you weren’t wrong for not breaking up with her once her issues became clear, (2) Having a girlfriend who fits the Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)  is the worse experience a man can have: a woman’s BPD behavior in a romantic relationship is a nightmare to a man who is decent and unlucky enough to be in this situation. (I am aware of the term codependency, but it is not a personality disorder, at least not according to the DSM- the American Diagnostical Manual of mental disorders).

BPD people are known to be black-and-white thinkers and behave accordingly to that thinking: moving from love to hate in ways that are very distressing to their romantic partners who are victims of BPD-abuse, really. In your original post, you wrote: “her being empathetic, honest and understanding turning into anger, lies and emotional distance” – from Love to => Hate.

Her last act of Hate against you (still from your original post): “she wrote me a top 10 list of things she hated about me”.

Back to your recent posts: “I felt valued and respected as she opened up to me… the time we spent together felt great, it didn’t matter if we went out to meet friends, went on a date or spent the day just the two of us. We could talk hours about random stuff, our experiences or things we both enjoyed. the sex was great” – according to the black-and-white thinking characteristic of BPD, and resulting extreme behaviors: at first- I imagine- she looked up to you as someone who can save her, idealizing you, so she was anger-free and loving. But it was not a mature kind of love, but the love of a young girl looking up to an adult with the unrealistic expectation of being saved, of being made whole and healthy. It was only a matter of time before her unrealistic expectations would not come to be.. and at that point, she’d get hateful.

“As time went on and her mental health became more of a topic. I admired her strength with which she would fight on for herself. We made plans for the future… as for me, I just felt valued for the first time in my life, when she used to be deeply interested in me as a person” – you didn’t know, had no way of knowing that she valued you as someone who can save her, an impossibility for you or any man in a romantic relationship with her (!)

“I also couldn’t help but feel hopeful about all the promises she made to me about “always loving me”, “never lying to me” and so on. even though I had to slow things down a lot, for example her wish to move in together, it still felt good as a compliment” –

– I don’t think that she took it well that you slowed her down, that you didn’t move in with her immediately! I can sense her anger building right at that point, and always loving you turning to=> always hating you.

“this relationship never had a chance to work, right?” – not when considering her BPD diagnosis or features of BPD.

“I  just loved the way she would laugh at dumb jokes. how she told me things would be okay when I had a bad day” –

– she was happy for as long as she (unrealistically) believed that you were able to save her. Her love for you was conditional on being saved (made to feel whole and healthy), and hell was to break loose when she’d realize that you didn’t save her.

“she didn’t make me complete or whole or happy by herself, but having her in my life just made me feel special and I was so grateful to have someone so ‘perfect’ in my life and her saying she loved me” –

– here is the difference between you and her: you were happy in the relationship even though she did not (and wasn’t able to) make you complete or whole or happy, but she was not okay with you when she figured that you failed (although no man would succeed) to make her complete, whole and happy.

“I am just struggling to understand where and why things went wrong. How we started as a couple all people around us were jealous of…  how she started accusing me of only using her for sex” – I bet (?) this happened after she told you that she wants the two of you to move in together and you did not make it happen.

I hope to read from you soon.

anita