Being in a relationship is hard at times, but being in a relationship where a partner suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) can be almost impossible. Patience is critical with BPD people, but even patience cannot bring the strongest people to understand the reason why someone cheats, spends, lies, or otherwise self-destructs. No amount of talking to a BPD will help the situation either.
Quick case-study on a couple that recently split due to BPD / MDD:
Watching a couple from start to finish and knowing that one of them has BPD is truly heart-wrenching. Not only did it not matter what was taught to the partner with BPD, the partner without BPD also would not listen. Generally, partners feel responsible for the health and well-being of their spouse. When mental illness is discovered, the partner without BPD wants to stay and try to "fix them." In this case study, one partner had BPD and the other partner had Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (both previously diagnosed by a psychiatrist). These two individuals were extremely interesting to observe and listen to because they continually fed each other's mental illness until both were admitted to a psychiatric hospital. One for abandonment issues (the BPD) when the depressed partner left due to the BPD issues of cheating. And the other for becoming more depressed about being used and cheated on. Note that BPD and depression can occur in both male and female. This case study is from the point of view of the female having BPD and the male having MDD.
The Female:
The female in the situation was diagnosed with BPD when she was in her late twenties. This person is a textbook BPD in that her symptoms included: unstable relationships with family, friends, and children, reckless spending and sexual activity, lying, complaining constantly of abandonment (largely imagined), creating drama for pity, attention-seeking behavior, body image issues, intense anxiety, and recurrent suicidal gestures when she did not get what she wanted. When the female felt lonely, such as when the husband was at work, she would find ways to stay occupied which usually included seeking the company (texting, talking to, or surfing dating sites) of other men. In between her last marriage and her current marriage, she bragged often of sleeping with over 30 men from online sites. This was between a 30-day period.
After one year of marriage, she began talking about including another man in the sex life and when her husband did not want this, she went out and got a boyfriend at work. She lied constantly about her whereabouts, the nature of the relationship with the man, and how she felt about the other man. For instance, when she would get off work, she would spend time with the other man in his or her vehicle (sexually), would write love notes, would text him, and then would tell her husband that the other man wouldn't leave her alone. Generally when a woman without BPD does this, it would be called an affair and once caught by the husband, the woman would stop the affair or leave the husband. The difference between a woman without BPD and one diagnosed with BPD is that she did not stop the affair or leave the husband. She continued the affair and was caught numerous times. The husband begged her to stop, but she would not listen and then, in line with classic BPD, created a world around herself where the husband was the bad guy and made her do it. Her reasoning for not stopping the affair and not leaving the husband was quite simple – he made money, she liked money, and he was a pushover to her. She needed a car, the money, and she would not leave her husband because she did not want to be the bad guy by leaving. If the husband left, she could create a world for her friends showing how abandoned she was, creating more drama and, thus, more pity for herself.
In this case, the husband was not bad to her – no abuse, no cheating, he worked and supported her and her children, and he did anything she wanted. However, he did begin to believe it was his fault, and then attempted to do anything in his power to get his wife to love him again. All attempts were in vain because an untreated BPD simple does not care about repercussions of actions, especially how others feel about what she is doing.
The Male:
The male was diagnosed in his early 30s with MDD. He was insecure about his weight, his personality, and generally suffered from depression since high school due to the weight mainly. This person had a sense of grandeur and often when not meeting the internal expectations, would become depressed about himself. For instance, he constantly calls himself "a good man" and talks as though he is the best man for a woman ever not realizing that every woman's expectations of a man is different; he expected a good wife, a non-cheating marriage, and had expectations of what this meant to him. When he found his wife cheating, there was no possible way to overcome the issue in his mind because his ideal world was crushed. He would attempt to get over it, but then something innocuous or blatant would remind him of his wife cheating and he would lash out or become seriously depressed. An example is that one day he saw his wife's contact list in her phone about 7 months after the "affair", which was really still on-going but the husband did not know at that time, and he asked her why the other man's phone number was in her new phone. She began to lie and he lashed out at her and left the house. Upon leaving, he said they were getting divorced. Immediately, the female called her other man and had him over to her house for the evening. When the husband showed back up and learned of this, he was convinced by her that it was his (the husband's fault) for abandoning her that evening. She "thought it was over." The husband stayed with her after this.
After at least five of this type of incident, the husband became suicidal and attempted suicide to gain the attention and reclaim affection from his wife. His wife did not care much about the attempt, however, and this caused further depression. The husband was committed to a mental health facility for a few days. During this time, the wife sent and received sexual text messages from the other man as well as met with the other man for sex. She decided then to tell her husband about the encounters, and even the text messages which she deleted. The husband would have never known, but the wife wanted "to be honest" with him. The depression worsened and he left his wife for one week.
His wife begged and begged him to come back (needing money and a ride) but convinced the male that she really loved him. The leaving and getting back together happened three times within a span of two months. At this point, the male would do anything to get the female to love him because she created a world where she made the male beg for approval (and he did).
Talking:
Speaking to the female, it was very obvious that she married the male to get over her ex-husband and that she was still very much angry about being "abandoned" by him. She admitted to cheating on her husband one day, but then would say that she never cheated the next day. Speaking to friends, relatives, and the husband, the female did cheat numerous times on her ex-husband. Furthermore, she treated the current husband the exact same way, with an almost exact pattern of abuse.
More than anything, she wanted a certain image of herself to be portrayed to other people. She wanted people to believe she was a great mother and wife and that all of her misfortunes were because of men who treated her poorly. She also stated often that she was abused, but no evidence of abuse ever surfaced. She did not want people to think that she was at fault for any of her indiscretions. Instead of taking responsibility, she would blame other people and essentially regress back to an adolescent mind-frame.
When asked if she was taking her prescribed medication, she would lie and say, "Yes, of course." However, the only medication she would take was pain pills that were often prescribed for pain that was not really there (i.e. back pain, but she could do Yoga, dance, and had full ROM with no issues off medication).
Speaking to the male, he was very sad and would cry often because he truly believed that his weight had affected his marriage. He would talk about how great of a guy he was and that he couldn't understand why he was being treated that way. He would say how much he loved her and that when he told her he loved her she would say "okay" and be very indifferent to him as a person. He told me that she would no longer have sex with him, unless he threatened to leave her.
The female would constantly ask for advice, but then would do the opposite. The female was advised to take her medication and to either leave or stop cheating and work on the marriage by not bringing up the weight issue or the other man's name. The male was told to leave or to get her and himself treatment immediately. Cognitive behavioral therapy through a licensed professional and an adjustment of medication were advised.
The Split:
Five months after the affair, the male decided to leave the wife for good with the support of his friends and family.
During the split, the female would call numerous times per day and would invite the husband over while the other man was at work in order to have sex. The husband would oblige, not knowing she was seeing the other man, and then he would leave. After he would leave, he would receive texts stating that he just used her for sex. When the male asked her to not call and told her that he would not be seeing her again, the female checked herself into a hospital stating she was going to kill herself. She sent a text message to the male and to the other man letting them know she was killing herself and then would not answer her phone. She was later found at a local hospital and was physically okay. She was put into a mental health treatment center for four days and released. No change was apparent because the day of her release, she called the husband and asked for a ride back home. He said he would do that for her and then about an hour later she called back to let the husband know that she asked the other man to help instead and she would rather do that. She then told as many of her friends as possible that her husband left because he cheated and that he was physically abusing her.
The female had the other man moved in the night that the husband left and currently is seeing the other man on a regular basis. She has not contacted the husband for at least one month, but often has her friend contact him to keep him up to date on what she is doing with the other man. This exacerbates the depression of the husband.
Medication and behavioral therapy was suggested to the female, but the female refused stating, "There is nothing wrong with me." BPSs often state that there is nothing wrong with them, but instead insist that there are things wrong with everyone else.
The male remains majorly depressed but is going to counseling and is on medication. He firmly believes it is his fault no matter how much he is told that the female has BPD and it is not his fault. The male suffers from extremely poor coping skills as an adult.
The Takeaway:
This is a real-life situation, with no lists of facts or signs. Living with BPD is hard on everyone involved, including the person with BPD. If a family member or friend has BPD, they need help because they, too, are struggling. Help is widely available and includes medication as well as therapy. This case-study was designed to show what to watch for in a person with BPD and how to avoid issues during a marriage or friendship with someone who has BPD.
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