# Big problems with controlling girlfriend



## Greven (Jan 14, 2012)

I realized that I have been writing way to much, I hope something have the patience to read it and give me some advice. I'm in desperate need of it. 

Thank you very much for all your help!! 

Here comes my story, I'm 27 and my girlfriend is 29. 

I have been in a relationship for a little bit over a year now. I’m truly in love with my girlfriend. 

Her ex boyfriend abused here for a couple month a couple of years ago. He smashed in her head to a wall and left big marks. She left him after a while, I don’t know exactly how long they were together. 

I meet her and everything was fine, the first problem came after a couple of weeks, there was something we argued about, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but what we argue about is not whats important. 

What happened was that my girlfriend got upset about something random, that’s not really a problem, she then get extremely emotional, she see everything through extremely negative glasses, everything is wrong, everything I do is wrong, she looses all empathy, I try to explain my point of view, but she refuse to listen to me. She transfers into an evil *****, she tells me a lot of horrible things about me, everything that’s been bother her about me come up all at the same time. 

Before we are able to finish our conversation she tries to do everything she can to KILL the conversation, telling me that’s she’s tiered, or that she want’s me to leave the room. 

When it's comes to me, I always keep calm and logical, I like to discuss things, I'm good at it, and I never become angry over a discussion, I now friends that I have been having random discussions with that gets angry on me, just becouse i proved them wrong, they can't execept that we have different opinions and it's just a discussion. So back to my girlfriend, I keep calm and logical, but that doesn't work with her, she completly ignores what I'm saying and were ending up just talking about her or the stuff she want's to talk about. 

After a day or two everything was fine again, she transfer back to my nice caring lovely girlfriend. She doesn’t really say that she’s sorry, because everything was my fault and now she’s been forgiving me. The problem is that she kind of seem to forgot at least half of all the things she been saying to me. When I have been talking to her about this problem, she pretends like they never happened, and when I give her proof, she tries to just minimize the problem by saying that wasn’t a biggie, that’s was not that bad etc

So now when we been togheter for a year, there was been an evil episode coming up around once every 4-5 weeks, the longer our relationship been lasting the longer time there has been between this episodes. 

There is signs in our relationship that’s not good. She is very controlling, when I moved in with her (after 2-3 month of dating) the first thing she said to me was “no video game playing in my house” I was laughing a little bit because I thought she was joking. But she wasn’t, I love videogames, but I’m not fanatic. She controlled my computertime, by being angry if I spent more than 30min in front of the computer per day. And when I was sitting at the computer she did everything to distract me, like yelling to me from the other room, asking me stuff so I had to leave the computer. 

The other thing was she didn’t take no for an answer, if she wanted to go to one of her friends for a dinner or whatever and she asked me if I wanted to come, if I said no, she just keep convincing me to go, on time I said no, and she got so damn angry, I did that to show her that she can’t control me. 

This control behaviour has been getting better during our relationship, the problem I have at this stage is that she want’s to hang out with me 24/7 and I need space, to do my own thing, to just do what I wants, we have been argueing so many time that I don’t talk to her enouth, hang out with her as much. And the problem is that I have almost lost the few friends that I got, because when I don’t hang out with her she gives me such a bad conscience, she makes me feel so guilty, that I hang out with her not because I want but because of guilt. 

I catch myself making up lies to be able to get some space, for example I tell her that I need to send emails and call my family (I’m living in Australia and my family in Sweden) just to be able to get some piece and quit. And I know that have to make up lies is not a sign of a healthy relationship. 

I feel like prisoner in my own home, don’t know what to do. The problem is that I really love her, we have fun togheter, we have great sex, the is a lot of love and care in the relationship, everything is perfect as long as I play by her rules, when I don’t do that, then half hell brakes loose. 

The biggest problem is that I can’t talk to her about serious problems, because when we have this conversation, she gets angry and emotional and she looses all kind of logic and she tries to do whatever she can to kill the conversation. I have tried to just delay the talk to a time when she’s calm, but everytime I bring it up, she’s gets upset and she doesn’t listen to me. I don’t know if this has to do with her ex abused her, that she’s afraid of the situation to escalate. 

When we have the talks and she gets angry, she get so cold, she says horrible things, she makes me so angry, BUT i can handle it, I kind of understand that not everyone is able to handle that. No girl has ever made me is angry that she does, and the fact she says horrible things, and then refuses to listen to me, and it she try to compare me to her ex, and says that im to aggressive, even if I am really calm and just tries to talk. 

I have no idea what to do, I really want to stay with her, because I love her so much and we have such a great time together, it’s just so hard. 

Yesterday we had a big argue, we where on a road trip and she got really annoyed at me for some random stuff, this is usauly how our fights start. This one started with us going on a road trip to pick up some friends on the airport. I wanted to do it myself, to get some time for myself, my girlfriend wanted to go with me, I didn’t want to say now, so we went. It started with us buying a new laptop for her, she was driving (but she didn’t really want to drive, I said to her several times I could drive, but she thought that I didn’t want to drive in the city). So I packed up her laptop and started it, we were driving so had nothing else to do, but she told me to stop, she didn’t want me to be the first one to use the computer. So I got a bit frusterated, I’m the computer guy and always help her with her computer, but I let it go. 

We are at the airport and she tells me to call the Swedish couple we are getting, I have no credit on my phone, she get’s angry and says that I’m totally disorganized, I take her phone and call them and within 5-10 minutes they are all in the car, but she’s mad, because she stopped at a place where you only are allowed to stop for 1 minute, and then she had to drive to another part of the airport (100m away) and she told me that THEY should wait outside the terminal and we should just pick them up. I really don’t see the problem. I tried to talk enlgish with the couple, but they talked Swedish, my girlfriend gets angry, and showing that she’s not happy by saying shes so bored, she can’t her the radio, she is mad. So I stop talk, and just sit quit to make her happy. When we were sitting in the car I asked her several times how she was doing, I told her I hope she was happy now when she made me quit and that I stopped talk to the Swedish couple, she’s kind of ignores me so I say it again. 

She tells me she doesn’t feel well that she don’t want to drive anymore. I tell her that she should pull over on the next exit, but she won’t do it, I get angry and wants to have a reason why, but she’s just ignoring me which makes me even more angry, I tell to change lanes and go to the exit (the traffic is almost not moving so there is plenty of time and space to do it) after a while she did it, but in protest and said it going to take 30min to get back on the highway again, it took 5 minutes. 

When we come home after the road trip, she’s so angry, telling me that I’m so rude, talking to her like that, that she want to through me out of the house (second time she been doing that), but she want’s to “sleep on it first”. She said that she don’t want to be with someone as aggressive as me (comparing me to the ex again), even though I just raised the voice a little bit, but I was angry, because she was ignoring me, didn’t communicate with me. 

I'm thinking maybe go and see to couples counselor, that might help her, if she don't want to listen to me, that she might listen to that person, and give me some advice how to handle her, if there is stuff that i don't get. 

So today I’m writing this, we haven’t been speaking and I try to avoid her.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Why are you putting up with being treated this way? She's controlling and abusive.

I doubt she will go to a counselor. Most controlling/abusive people will not. But I suggest that you see one to find out why you are putting up with her mistreatment of you.

Remember that you cannot change anyone else. You can only change yourself.

Anything that bothers you now in the early days of your relationship will get 100 times worse as the relationship goes on.

Just some food for thought.


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## Greven (Jan 14, 2012)

EleGirl said:


> Why are you putting up with being treated this way? She's controlling and abusive.
> 
> I doubt she will go to a counselor. Most controlling/abusive people will not. But I suggest that you see one to find out why you are putting up with her mistreatment of you.
> 
> ...



Thanks for taking the time to answer!! I will sleep on it and see how I feel!!


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Greven, welcome to the TAM forum. The behaviors you describe -- verbal abuse, temper tantrums, controlling, clinging, hating to be alone, black-white thinking, lack of impulse control, and the "I am a victim" mentality -- are classic traits of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), which my exW has. Whether those traits are so severe as to satisfy 100% of the diagnostic criteria for having full-blown BPD is a determination that only a professional can make.

This does not imply, however, that you cannot spot the red flags (i.e., strong occurrences of these traits) in a GF you've been living with for a year. There is nothing subtle about traits such as verbal abuse, constant blaming, and temper tantrums. I therefore suggest that you read more about the nine BPD traits to see if most of them sound very familiar.


Greven said:


> She transfers into an evil *****, she tells me a lot of horrible things about me.... After a day or two everything was fine again, she transfer back to my nice caring lovely girlfriend.


Greven, that unstable behavior is called "black-white thinking." It is the main reason that the partners of BPDers (i.e., those with strong BPD traits) often feel like they are living with a person who is half-way to having a split personality. B-W thinking occurs when a BPDer categorizes everyone (including herself) as "all good" or "all bad" -- and she will recategorize someone from one polar extreme to the other -- in just ten seconds -- based solely on an idle comment or minor infraction. 

This all-or-nothing thinking is a primitive ego defense that all of us rely on heavily during early childhood. And we continue to use it occasionally in adulthood every time we get extremely angry or become infatuated with someone. BPDers rely heavily on B-W thinking because they never learned (in early childhood) how to tolerate strong mixed feelings and ambiguities. 

They therefore are extremely uncomfortable with the grey areas of reality. They find it difficult, for example, to think of a person as being "an essentially good person who sometimes does bad things." One result is that a BPDer can switch, on a dime, from adoring you to perceiving you to be Hitler incarnate. Another result is that a BPDer will often use extreme expressions such as "you always" and "you never."


> Everything I do is wrong, she looses all empathy, I try to explain my point of view, but she refuse to listen to me.


One of the hallmarks of a BPDer is the lack of empathy. A BPDer is always convinced she is "the victim." Because she has a weak, fragile sense of who she is, the strongest thread of a self image usually is that false notion of being a victim. A BPDer therefore maintains a death grip on that false self image and will tolerate living with you only if you continue to validate it by playing one of two roles.

The first role is being "the savior," a role you played during the infatuation period lasting about 3 to 6 months. During that period, she thought you were perfect and that -- unlike all previous BFs -- you would save her from her unhappiness. The implication of your being "the savior," of course, is that she must be a victim in need of saving. 

Sadly, that illusion quickly evaporates along with the infatuation. Moreover, a BPDer does not really want to be saved. Rather, she only wants validation of her false image of being "the victim." That's why, every time you pull her from the raging seas, she will jump right back into the water as soon as you turn around.

Since the infatuation period ended, there is only one role left for you to play: being "the perpetrator." As long as you keep allowing her to blame you for every misfortune that befalls her, she will keep you around because you are validating her false self image of being "the victim." This is why you will be blamed for every misfortune in her life. Once you leave her, she will be telling people how awful you were -- just the way she talks badly about the BFs she had before you. She is "the victim." They are all considered to be perpetrators.


> I meet her and everything was fine, the first problem came after a couple of weeks....


High-functioning BPDers -- as your GF may be -- are very VERY easy to fall in love with. One reason is that, because they have a fragile sense of who they really are, they emulate all of the best aspects of a person's personality when they become infatuated with him. This process -- called "mirroring" -- is so nearly perfect that the two of you will both be convinced you've met your "soul mate." During this infatuation period, she will not only act like you but she also will like nearly all of your friends and all the activities you enjoy. Sadly, this period quickly ends as soon as the infatuation evaporates -- usually within 3 to 6 months.


> I really love her, we have fun together, we have great sex, the is a lot of love and care in the relationship, everything is perfect as long as I play by her rules, when I don’t do that, then half hell brakes loose.


Greven, you are describing the behavior of an adult who has the emotional development of a 3 or 4 year old. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem describing your GF (and my exW) in the 19th century. He wrote,There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.​


> What happened was that my girlfriend got upset about something random, that’s not really a problem, she then get extremely emotional, she see everything through extremely negative glasses, everything is wrong.


BPD traits are said to constitute a "thought distortion" because they distort the BPDer's perception of your intentions and motivations. Remember, a BPDer always has tremendous anger right there under the skin -- anger she has been carrying since early childhood. Hence, you don't have to do a thing to CREATE the anger. It is already there. You only have to do or say some minor thing that TRIGGERS it.


> The biggest problem is that I can’t talk to her about serious problems, because when we have this conversation, she gets angry and emotional and she looses all kind of logic.


A BPDer is not good at intellectually challenging her intense feelings. Instead, she is convinced that any feeling that is that intense MUST be right. She therefore will produce whatever rationalization that pops into her head to justify the feeling. This is why a BPDer will often make such ridiculous, illogical "arguments" that you simply marvel any adult can say such a thing while keeping a straight face. If I challenged my exW's allegations, for example, she would either replace that argument with another that is equally ludicrous -- or eventually loop back to the original argument. 

This is what happens when you try to argue with a woman who, although very intelligent and knowledgeable, has the emotional development of a four year old. In effect, you are trying to argue with the very angry little girl that is control of her mind. The logical adult part of her mind is being "split off," placed out of reach of her conscious mind. You therefore cannot carry on a calm, rational discussion about any sensitive topic because you have only ten seconds to do so. In that short time, any attempt to discuss sensitive matters will trigger her anger, bringing her child back into the driver's seat. And, with a BPDer, nearly ever issue is considered a "sensitive" issue.


> She doesn’t really say that she’s sorry, because everything was my fault and now she’s been forgiving me.


It is rare for a BPDer to admit to having made a mistake. A BPDer is so filled with self loathing and shame that the last thing she wants to find is one more thing to add to the long list of things she hates about herself. Hence, even if you catch her in a calm mood, you are unlikely to hear a sincere apology. Like I said, you have ten seconds before the kid is in charge. It therefore does not matter -- at all -- that you have caught her in a calm, apparently receptive mood. With a BPDer, you are always ten seconds away from a temper tantrum if you raise a sensitive issue.

The statements and actions that will trigger a release of her anger consist of anything that she interprets as posing a threat to her two great fears: abandonment and engulfment (from intimacy). Because you never know what trivial thing will trigger one fear or the other, you are always walking on eggshells. 

Your predicament is made all the worse by the fact that the two fears are at opposite ends of the same spectrum. This means that, as you back away from one fear to avoid triggering it, you will necessarily be drawing closer to triggering the other fear. For example, when you had a very intimate evening or great weekend together, you likely found her -- the next morning -- creating an argument out of nothing to push you away. 

For a BPDer, intimacy is experienced as suffocating and engulfing, making her feel as though she is losing her identity by merging into your strong personality. It is a frightening experience in which she feels she is vanishing into thin air. She therefore will feel that you are somehow "controlling" and dominating her (never mind that she is the controlling one).

Yet, as you back way to give her breathing room, you will eventually trigger her great fear of abandonment. It may take days or weeks for that to occur but, unless the BPDer has split you black permanently, it likely will occur. At that point, she will return behaving extra caring and sweet to pull you back into the R. This is why one hallmark of a BPDer relationship is cycle of push-you-away and pull-you-back.


> The problem is that she kind of seem to forgot at least half of all the things she been saying to me. When I have been talking to her about this problem, she pretends like they never happened, and when I give her proof, she tries to just minimize the problem.


It is common for BPDers to "rewrite history," leaving you with the impression that they were out of the room for half of the conversation you had with them. Part of this likely is due to outright lying because, when you get a BPDer cornered with hard evidence, she typically will avoid the intense shame by fabricating her way out of it. 

Most of the "forgotten" conversation, however, likely is due to dissociation or projection -- two primitive ego defenses that BPDers rely heavily on. Dissociation occurs when they escape the stress of the argument through daydreaming, i.e., leaving the room by redirecting their thoughts. Projection occurs when, at a subconscious level, the BPDer attributes her mistakes and bad thoughts to you. Because it occurs subconsciously, her conscious mind actually believes the projection is true -- allowing her to fully escape any sense of guilt or shame.


> the problem I have at this stage is that she want’s to hang out with me 24/7 and I need space, to do my own thing.


Because a BPDer has such a fragile self image, she hates to be alone by herself. She has little idea of who she is or what it is she really wants in life. She therefore needs a man with a strong personality around at all times who will serve as her emotional anchor, to help ground her. This is why a BPDer will quickly go from one relationship to another even though the relationships always become toxic and painful to her.


> When I moved in with her (after 2-3 month of dating) the first thing she said to me was “no video game playing in my house.”


Like I said, a BPDer hates to be alone by herself.


> She is very controlling... I have almost lost the few friends that I got, because when I don’t hang out with her she gives me such a bad conscience.


A BPDer has a great fear of abandonment and therefore will try to control every aspect of her loved one's life. She typically will be extremely jealous of any time you spend with other people -- fearing that you may eventually abandon her. 

On top of that, she will find it much easier to control you if you don't have any friends or family members to support you. That is, she doesn't want anyone taking your side and saying "That's the most ridiculous excuse I've ever heard." Like your GF, my exW was extremely controlling and tried to isolate me from all friends and family.


> I catch myself making up lies to be able to get some space.


It is common for the partners of BPDers to go to great lengths to avoid triggering another temper tantrum. They will sometimes tell lies and generally will stop acting like themselves. After a while, they will start forgetting who "they" really are. Hence, one of the toxic aspects of living with a BPDer is that you become such a different person that you have difficulty remembering who the "real you" is. This process of not being yourself around the BPDer -- to avoid the rages -- is called "walking on eggshells." This is why the #1 best-selling BPD book (targeted to the partners) is called _Stop Walking on Eggshells._


> I don’t know if this has to do with her ex abused her, that she’s afraid of the situation to escalate.


If your GF has strong BPD traits, they arose from damage to her emotional core that occurred before the age of 5 -- causing her emotional development to freeze at that young age. This likely is why you are seeing her behave like an angry four year old, throwing temper tantrums and hissy fits whenever she doesn't get her own way. 

Emotional damage occurring much later in life -- as may have happened with the abusive exBF -- does not cause BPD traits. Rather, it causes PTSD traits, which are much different. Moreover, I would be very suspicious of your GF's claims about any of her exBFs unless you know for certain that it happened. As I said earlier, she has already started perceiving you as "the perpetrator" and she almost certainly will be saying awful things about you when you break up with her. That distorted perception of her exBFs is necessary to sustain her false image of being the perpetual victim.


> When we have the talks and she gets angry, she get so cold, she says horrible things, she makes me so angry, BUT i can handle it, I kind of understand that not everyone is able to handle that.


Greven, it is admirable that you have the patience of Job and are so compassionate. Because you are a caregiver like me, you will make someone a wonderful father some day. Your objective, however, should be to RAISE a child -- not MARRY one of them. But that is exactly what you are trying to do by continuing to cohabitate with a woman whose emotional development is stuck at the level of a young child. That is your first mistake.

Your second mistake is your erroneous notion that the toxicity in your relationship is something that SHE is doing to you. That is wrong. It takes two willing people to create a toxic relationship lasting over a year. Hence, the toxicity is something that you BOTH are doing to each other. Her contribution to the toxicity is obvious and you've done a mighty good job in describing it.

Your contribution, however, is much harder for you to see. Essentially, you are harming your GF by preventing her from suffering the logical consequences of her own childish, selfish behavior. Specifically, you are enabling her to continue acting like a spoiled, angry four year old -- and GET AWAY WITH IT. For her to have any chance at all of confronting her issues, she must be allowed to suffer the logical consequences. Otherwise, there is no chance at all she will ever obtain the professional guidance needed for her to grow up emotionally.

As to your statement that "not everyone can handle" the verbal abuse your GF dishes out, it would be more accurate to say those other guys are _unwilling_ to tolerate such abuse. Emotionally healthy men have strong personal boundaries and thus will walk away when those boundaries have been violated. 

Caregivers like you and me, however, have weak personal boundaries that we don't enforce very often. Our focus is so much on helping the loved one that we lose sight of our own needs and personal boundaries. Hence, our desire to be needed (for what we can do) far exceeds our desire to be loved (for the men we already are). If you doubt that -- somehow believing that your GF loves you for the man you really are -- just try behaving "yourself" for a few hours and watch the ensuing rage and outpouring of contempt.


> I'm thinking maybe go and see to couples counselor, that might help her, if she don't want to listen to me, that she might listen to that person.


If your GF has strong BPD traits, MC likely will be a total waste of time and money because her issues go far beyond a lack of communication skills. Although there are excellent treatment programs available for BPDers, it is rare for a BPDer to have the self awareness and ego strength to stay in those programs long enough to make a difference (several years, at least, is needed).


> Please give me some advice. I'm in desperate need of it.


I suggest that you read more about the nine BPD traits to see if most of them are strongly evident in your GF's behavior. One reading option is the book mentioned above. Another is my description of BPD traits in Maybe's thread at http://talkaboutmarriage.com/general-relationship-discussion/33734-my-list-hell.html#post473522. 

Greven, if that discussion and the book ring a bell, I advise you to walk away from this young woman. I don't want you to go down the path I pursued for 15 years -- vainly trying "to save" my exW by taking her to weekly visits with six different psychologists and two MCs -- all to no avail. That path does not end well. Yet, if you are unwilling to walk out at this time, I strongly advise you to see a clinical psychologist -- on your own for a visit or two -- to obtain a professional opinion on what it is you are dealing with. Take care of _yourself, _Caregiver.


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## Greven (Jan 14, 2012)

Uptown, thank you so much for all this information! Finally things makes sense. 

I have been talking to a few friends about the problem and they all just say "yeah, it sounds like woman" deal with it. They also told me it was properly PMS. It didn't make sense. 

Everything you describe is very accurate, and this really opened my eyes for this situation. I have been feeling that I haven't been really happy in our relationship, but I didn't understand why, I have been so blind. 

To complicate this even more, I'm from Sweden and was travelling Australia when i meet my GF and i wanted to stay here so if I break up my GF i will have to leave the country. My GF nows that, and I think she uses that, because she no that the day we break up the day will my visa get cancelled. 

But I guess it's better to save myself, to leave before i get in big trouble. 

About the fact that shes now throwing me out of her house, I guess that she will soon change her mind and beg me to come back, once she's out of her 4 year old state of mind. 

I have another question, her BPD doesn't seem to have any affect on her Friends, she never seem to have arguments or problem with her friends. Even when shes in her upset mind, and a friend did come over once, she acted normal and when we were alone again this 4 year old state of mind kicked in again. So can it be that she can handle her friend and hide the BPD from them? And when we break up and she doesn't have a BF then there must be someone else that she need to get her frustration on right, becuase her problem doesn't disappear just becuase the relationship ends. 

So thank you so much for all your answers and all the time you put in, i really appreciate it!!


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Greven said:


> I guess that she will soon change her mind and beg me to come back, once she's out of her 4 year old state of mind.


Yes, Greven, she almost certainly will shift from the push-away to the pull-back phase of the cycle you've already seen many times. But, in one important respect, she will never be "out of her 4 year old state of mind" unless she seeks treatment and stays with it a long time. Without years of intensive therapy, she is stuck 24/7 with having to use the primitive ego defenses of a four year old (e.g., the projection, denial, magical thinking, and B-W thinking). She never learned the more mature ego defenses.

You nonetheless are correct that her state of mind changes often. One change is seen in the way she flips from "splitting you white" to "splitting you black" -- the result of the B-W thinking I discussed. Another change is seen, when you move closer or farther away, in the way she becomes more fearful of abandonment or, alternatively, of engulfment (depending on which way you are moving). 

A third change is evident in whether she chooses to place her logical adult or her intuitive child in charge of her conscious decisions and actions. When you raise a sensitive subject, for example, her anger will be triggered in a few seconds, leading her to place the child in charge. That's why you always are left trying to reason with an irrational four year old on every important matter.


> I have another question....


Just one more question, Greven? I really doubt that. When I was in your shoes, I had a hundred. Moreover, you haven't even asked your most important question: Did she ever really love me or was it all fake? At the websites targeted to us "Nons," i.e., the nonBPD partners, that's the question they most want answered. And they are divided on the answer, with many believing that BPDers cannot love. 

My experience is that this view is so very wrong. BPDers are able to love and, indeed, can be very caring individuals. Yet, because their emotional development was frozen at the level of a four year old (if they have very strong traits), they are only able to love like a very young child does.

How bad can that be? Not so bad, is it? After all, you don't see parents run screaming away from their young children just because they know that "I love you" really means "I desperately need you to love me." No, that is not gawd awful. On the other hand, it is an immature type of love that falls far short of what is needed to sustain a marriage of two adults. For that reason, no emotionally healthy adult is willing to settle for that impaired form of love in a marriage partner.

Further, I believe it would be a mistake to think of your GF as being "herself" while splitting you white and not being herself when splitting you black. Instead, she is being herself in both states. This means her love for you is there all the time, regardless of whether she is in touch with it or not. Yet, because she so frequently loses complete touch with those good feelings, her conscious feelings toward you -- though very intense -- are very fickle too. This is why it is often said that a BPDer's feelings are "a mile wide and an inch deep."

It also would be a mistake to think that her perception of you is less distorted when she is splitting you white. Instead, it likely is equally as distorted as when she is splitting you black. I say this because, when you are being split white, she is projecting onto you all sorts of wonderful attributes (i.e., an ability to make her happy and fix her) that you cannot possibly have. She uses such "magical thinking" to temporarily escape her pain and feeling of emptiness. Because her perception of you is seriously distorted nearly all the time, the important question is not whether she loves you but, rather, why you are willing to settle for such an impaired form of love.


> Her BPD....


Greven, I would rather say "her strong BPD traits." There is a world of difference between spotting strong occurrences of BPD traits (nearly every teenager can do that) and determining whether those traits are so severe and persistent as to constitute having the full-blown disorder. Only a professional can diagnose her as "having BPD." 

Yet, because every adult on the planet occasionally exhibits all nine BPD traits, you know for certain that she "has BPD traits." We all do. And, because you can spot strong occurrences of them, it is reasonable to say you believe she "has _strong_ BPD traits." Indeed, you would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to spot traits such as strong verbal abuse, blame-shifting, and temper tantrums.


> Her BPD doesn't seem to have any affect on her Friends, she never seem to have arguments or problem with her friends.... So can it be that she can handle her friend and hide the BPD from them?


Yes, absolutely. This would not be the case, however, if she were low functioning. But if that were the case, you would not be dating her. Hence, if she has strong BPD traits, she almost certainly is a high functioning BPDer -- as most BPDers are. This means she does very well wen interacting with business associates, casual friends, and total strangers. 

None of those folks pose a threat to her two great fears: abandonment and engulfment. Namely, there is no close relationship that can be abandoned and no intimacy that can cause the suffocating feeling of engulfment. Heaven help those people, however, if they make the mistake of moving closer to her and becoming a close friend. She will then treat them badly, which is why it is rare for a BPDer to have any long-term close friends (unless the friend lives a long distance away).

This is why it is common for a HF-BPDer tp treat total strangers with kindness and generosity all day long -- and then go home at night to abuse the very people who love her. And this is why, when you break up with your GF, you likely will lose most of the casual friends you shared in common. She almost certainly will be playing "the victim" and bad mouthing you -- and those casual friends likely will have no reason to doubt her word. They have never seen her dark side.


> Even when shes in her upset mind, and a friend did come over once, she acted normal and when we were alone again this 4 year old state of mind kicked in again.


Greven, even when a HF-BPDer appears to be "totally out of control," she usually can come completely out of it in a few seconds. Like a four year old who promply stops a tantrum when distracted with a toy offering, she is capable of immediately calming herself if she chooses to do so. It therefore is common for a BPDer to transition from a screaming rage to a shy, quiet "I'm just a poor little victim" in a few seconds when the police knock on the door. Generally, BPDers are excellent actors because they've been practicing for a lifetime in order to fit in and be loved.


> When we break up and she doesn't have a BF then there must be someone else that she need to get her frustration on right, because her problem doesn't disappear just because the relationship ends.


Yes, as I said earlier, a BPDer hates to be alone. Lacking a strong sense of who she is, she needs a strong partner who will serve as her emotional anchor -- to ground her and prevent her from drifting off in all directions. Sadly, as soon as she acquires that emotional anchor, she will resent his presence because she will feel that he is "controlling" her. Hence, with or without a relationship, BPDers are suffering badly -- and there is not one thing you can do to fix it. Your drawing close to her causes painful feelings of engulfment. Hence, trying to heal her by loving her is the equivalent of trying to heal a burn patient by hugging her.


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## Zzyzx (Aug 24, 2011)

Walking on eggshells... Greven, I know the feeling. Uptown has hit the mark. Listen well.

If I were you, I would leave. So what if it costs you your visa, your life and well-being are worth more. Don't count on seeing any of her friends again, she will tar you with them.

If you really want to know what you're in for if you stay, you can search "walking on eggshells" in Google or Amazon. Know that if you do choose to stay with her, it will never ever get better without the work on her part. If she's unwilling to admit a problem, that's your red flag right there.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

I've found that sometimes but not always the greatest weapon you can wield against a paranoid narcissist control freak is to literally hand them every iota of control. About everything. Because what they want is power NOT accountability. When she infantilizes you, drop everything and hand it to her to do. Whatever it is.


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