In my opinion, a borderline personality disorder breakup is one of the 3 types of personality disorder breakups that is emotionally and psychologically the most challenging to overcome.
The other 2 types are narcissistic breakups and bipolar breakups as they also bring their own set of challenges.
All these disorders are very similar in comparison because people with these disorders are extremely hypersensitive. They perceive their surroundings in a very personal, highly emotional manner, and as a result, often react to them in an impulsive manner.
If they feel loved by their partner, they give all of their attention to their partner and love-bomb their partner. If they feel threatened, they pick a quarrel with their partner and defend themselves. And if they feel disinterested, they ghost and/or coldly pull away.
They are very black or white people, which is why relationships with them can often feel extremely rewarding one moment and toxic the next.
Many people with BPD don’t even know they have BPD. They think the problem is with their partner, so they continuously blame their partners for their mistakes and switch back and forth from a loving and caring person to a hateful and vengeful one.
And they do this transition in a matter of seconds without much remorse or consideration for their partner.
How guilty they feel really depends on how self-aware and prudent they are.
Other toxic types of relationships also follow this unhealthy push-pull, up-and-down pattern as people in toxic relationships also tend to lack control over their actions. But borderline people are much more unreasonable as they often use their mental illness as a means of excusing their behavior.
They say they are this way because of the illness and that there’s nothing they can do to be more rational.
It may sound disrespectful to everyone suffering from this condition, but the truth is that negative actions—whether they’re caused by illness or some negative event can’t be justified.
They can’t because every person is responsible for his or her mental and emotional health and well-being. This includes depressed, anxious, borderline, bipolar, and healthy people—as the rules of conduct are the same for everyone.
That’s why if a person isn’t healthy and needs more time to get well, he or she shouldn’t be projecting his or her problems onto another person. He or she shouldn’t be dating either. At least not until he or she is emotionally stable, happy, and independent in most areas of life.
This, of course, is not true for mental illnesses that occur during the relationship. If a person at any point in time during a relationship gets depressed/diagnosed with a mental illness, that person obviously couldn’t predict what was going to happen.
He or she thought he or she was emotionally healthy to date, and as a result, needs love, understanding, and lots of support.
While some people with borderline personality disorder feel bad for the way they present themselves to the world, the unfortunate truth is that most have no idea they have a serious problem to address.
Most just justify their actions with their feelings and perceptions (especially false perceptions) and continue to react impulsively to them. Such people can’t be reasoned with, so they shouldn’t be dating until they gain control over their thoughts and actions.
Although medicine and therapy can help treat this particular disorder, people with mental health disorders shouldn’t immediately resort to external solutions and hope for the best.
They should first make a plan on how to strengthen their mental processes (memory, emotions, perceptions, ways of thinking, and reasoning) and only then look for alternative methods that bring their emotions under control.
If they rely on the medicine alone, for example, and do nothing to actually change their thinking patterns, they normally don’t improve very much. At least not behavior-wise because their negative behavior is deep-rooted and has no incentive to change.
For a person with BPD to get well and stay well, he or she has to grow rationally and emotionally—and strive hard not to fall back into an old routine.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about in this post. We’ll talk about how to tell if your ex has a borderline personality disorder and what to do when a borderline personality disorder ends a relationship.
Does my ex have a borderline personality disorder?
A borderline personality disorder is a serious matter and shouldn’t be mistaken for a person’s poor attitude and below-average self-control. It should be considered a mental illness that affects around 1.5% of people in the United States, 75% of which are women.
You can tell a person has a borderline personality disorder when he or she verbally or non-verbally goes to extremes and struggles to remain calm and collected.
People with BPD often:
- emotionally and physically abuse their partner
- break their partner down and apologize after
- constantly shift from hot to cold and vice versa
- blame others for their own problems
- self-mutilate
- appear obsessed and addicted to various (unhealthy) substances
- propose breaks, threaten to break up, or sleep with other people
- expect double standards (I can do this, but you can’t)
- fear and reject constructive criticism
- control and demand constant attention, support, validation and provide very little reassurance in return
- cause envy and jealousy and look for a negative reaction
- guilt-trip and inflict pain
- gaslight
- obsessively seek control (go through the phone, stalk on social media, and dig deep into people’s pasts)
- justify their toxic behavior with the way they feel
A person with a borderline personality disorder is very moody, emotion-driven, and can be very unpredictable at times.
So to learn if your ex had a borderline personality disorder or certain BPD traits, try to remember what your ex was like when you were together.
Was your ex extremely sensitive, reactive, angry, and lacked control over himself or herself during difficult times? Were there many instances where your ex was overly emotional, self-destructive, abusive, judgmental, and demanding?
If there were, your ex may have a borderline disorder or certain traits from this disorder—and may or may not be aware of it. Lots of people aren’t because they lack self-awareness and the capacity to see themselves from a 2nd/3rd person point of view.
How does a borderline personality disorder affect relationships?
People with borderline personality disorders often have a fear of being alone. They crave intimacy and affection and tend to experience waves of separation anxiety and a fear of losing control.
This is why most borderline people appear very clingy, angry, nagging, desperate, controlling—and extremely emotional at times. So much so that they start arguments out of the blue and demand solutions.
They do this because they wish to be one step ahead of their partners. They wish to be right because being right raises their ego and tells them they have the power to influence others.
Some people think that those with borderline personality disorders are weak and that they always stay loyal due to their codependence, but the truth is that this isn’t always the case.
Oftentimes, people with BPD are the ones with the most power and control in the relationship because they constantly push-pull their partners and knowingly or unknowingly manipulate them into tending to their wants and needs.
The thing with borderline people is that they subconsciously look for someone who can bend to their will. They themselves lack control, so they look for a person who’ll be understanding and tolerant of their unhealthy behavior.
When they find that person, they almost immediately start using that person as their punching bag to repeatedly project their emotional struggles onto him or her.
They essentially drag their partners into their own battle, make them experience extreme highs and extreme lows, and make their partners dependent on them by giving them affection and taking it away.
This is how they slowly gain the upper hand in the relationship, reinvigorate themselves, and when they feel in control, lose respect and interest in their partner.
Most people with BPD don’t hog all the power on purpose. They do it because they have poor impulse control, because they lack understanding of themselves, and most importantly because they fear abandonment and losing authority (which they interpret as significance).
Why do people with borderline personality disorder break up with their partners?
The reason why people with BPD break up with their partners is very simple.
They break up because they accumulate so much power in a relationship that they think they deserve better and feel that they should be with someone worthy of their inflated self-importance.
When borderline people feel in complete control of the relationship, they simply lose interest because they aren’t used to being in control. They’re used to fighting for love and recognition, so they feel that they’ve gotten as much out of the relationship as they could.
To them, relationships are battles of power. And when they win those battles (accomplish what they’ve been after all along), they change their scarce mindset to an abundant mindset and put themselves at risk of detaching.
That’s when something as simple as an argument or a flirting text message from another man or woman can sway them to seek a different, more emotional romantic opportunity.
What makes borderline personality disorder breakups so hard?
Borderline breakups are hard because people with borderline personality disorders tend to swing from one extreme to the other. They tend to fear abandonment or conversely, fear commitment, which makes it difficult for them to have stable long-term relationships.
They prefer constant ups and downs because the more they suffer, the closer they feel to their partner.
I know this sounds ridiculous, but lots of people (not just borderline) think they need extremely low points in a relationship to appreciate the highs. They think they need to go from one roller coaster ride to the next without stopping or they’ll get bored and feel unfulfilled.
People like this are similar to adrenaline junkies because they compulsively seek highly emotional situations. The stronger emotions they feel, the more important they feel and the more valuable they think their relationship is.
It’d be hard to say exactly what people with a borderline personality disorder do that makes breakups hard, but here are some of the most common behaviors you can expect from a BPD person who broke up with you:
- spreading rumors and smearing you to his/her friends and to the people you know
- pretending to be the victim
- dating someone new right after the breakup and bragging about it
- calling you bad names and trying to bring a bad reaction out of you
- prank calling you and exposing your secrets/vulnerabilities
- throwing tantrums for not receiving your attention
- trying to ruin your relationships, damage your work, and affect the way you perceive yourself
Conversely, a person with BPD who gets broken up with could:
- threaten suicide
- make fake social media profiles
- stalk you in person
- tell friends to reason with you
- take revenge
- find someone else and pretend to be happy with that person
- promise to change ask you to give him/her one more chance despite giving him or her plenty of chances
Someone with a borderline disorder can act very similarly to a regular person who gets broken up with. But the main difference is that a healthy person normally learns and improves from the breakup whereas a person with BPD doesn’t.
A borderline person can’t change because the issue is much more deep-rooted and requires a change of mindset which oftentimes only professional help and medication can achieve.
What to do when a borderline personality disorder ends a relationship?
When a borderline personality disorder ends a relationship, you need to need to understand that your ex has fallen out of love with you. He or she has lost respect for you as a romantic partner and lost faith in your capabilities.
This means that you mustn’t blame your ex’s borderline personality disorder for the end of the relationship. Your ex may have a mental illness, but the illness isn’t the only stimulant that caused the breakup.
Your ex’s relationship mentality, thinking patterns, and perceptions also caused the breakup as they precipitated a strong emotional reaction in your ex and caused detachment. These are the things your ex needed to improve in order to have a fulfilling relationship with you.
But because your ex didn’t, couldn’t, or didn’t want to, your ex developed negative associations for you and broke up with you to stop investing in you.
So if you’re wondering what to do when a borderline personality disorder ends a relationship, the first thing you need to do is to stop blaming the illness for the breakup.
The illness may have increased your ex’s negative emotions, but it’s not something you or your ex can put the blame on. Your ex was the one responsible for staying in love with you and for dealing with BPD.
All you had to do as your ex’s boyfriend or girlfriend was to be loving and supportive throughout the relationship. Everything else was your ex’s responsibility and completely out of your control.
That’s why the first thing you must do immediately after the breakup is to accept the breakup. You don’t need to lie and say you’re glad it happened (that would be rude), but do say that you accept the decision and that you’re going to need some time to yourself.
Say that you need at least a few months of no contact and that you’ll reach out when and if you’re ready to talk again. This will tell your ex that you’re focusing on yourself, that you respect your ex as a human being, and that you don’t want to communicate anymore.
Your BPD ex might not like that you’re pushing him or her away (might become afraid), but if you convey it nicely, he or she might see that you’re sincere and intend no harm. Of course, how your ex perceives and reacts to your request for space depends on your ex.
But generally speaking, the nicer you express yourself, the higher the chances that your ex won’t react negatively.
So leave your ex alone and don’t provoke your ex. Don’t respond to provocations either. Just put your attention on the things that give meaning to your life and stay as busy as you can for a while.
And try not to worry too much about your ex. Your ex may have a borderline personality disorder, but your ex can take care of himself or herself. If he or she can’t, your ex can ask you directly for help, or better yet, get professional help.
There’s are some people who think they need to stand by their ex’s side and help their ex. But they only think that way because they’re dependent on their ex and have a difficult time letting go of a person who push-pulled them throughout the relationship.
If this is what’s happening to you, it’s important that you stop checking up on your ex and cease all contact immediately. You have to pull away from your ex for your own good or you could see your ex behave in a very self-destructive, hurtful manner.
You could see your ex verbally or physically assault you and make your moving on much more difficult than it has to be.
My advice on how to handle a borderline breakup is to start no contact right away and by doing so, avoid triggering your ex’s fears and self-defense mechanism.
By going no contact, you will essentially avoid:
- begging and pleading (degrading yourself)
- stroking your ex’s ego
- holding on to hope
- feeling stuck in the past
- causing your ex to react
- and delaying your pain and attachment
When a borderline personality disorder ends a relationship, your ex’s life is no longer your business. Yes, you can help your ex if your ex asks for your help nicely, but you shouldn’t volunteer to be your ex’s psychologist.
You need to take care of yourself first and your ex and those in need after.
Here are a few tips on what to do when a borderline personality disorder ends a relationship.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you did and you have something to add, comment below.
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My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.
I highly suspected my male ex had BPD/traits. Anxiety, addiction, depression, moody, contant need for attention, validation, blaming, oversharing, impulsive. It seemed to get worse the last 3 yrs of our 5 yr roller coaster relationship. The police had be called and he went to live with his parents the last time as he had an explosion, was threatening me and I felt unsafe. That was the last time I saw his face, 6 Mos. Ago. He begged, pleated and playing mind games to get my attention and reconnect the months following, but I couldn’t. I do feel sorry for him. I believe he loves me and is miserable that he messes up so bad and cant be with me. But he’ll destroy me if I let him get close and he won’t seek professional help.
R.
You don’t need to feel sorry for him. Distance is better for both of you. Remember that the relationship was toxic and that it won’t work no matter how many times you give it a try.
Kind regards,
Zan
Hello Zan, It is good that you allow all to talk and say their piece whether right or wrong and don’t remove their posts. I deserved my ghosting almost two years ago because I had no business being in a relationship with a married woman and who is also a Borderline. Please readers don’t ask me how I know this. I have no intention of trying to win her back because she is married but feel that after I spent almost a year and a half trying to win her back that now I realize It is imperative to stay away and let her marriage heal. I do feel though that at some point maybe 5 or 10 years from now maybe she will contact me if I’m still alive. She’s 46 and myself 67 years old. My overnight ghosting occurred after I (by mistake) almost caused her and her husband to break up and she split me black for almost a year. I’m guessing I’m still black even though she’s out of the split, since she won’t talk to me and has me blocked everywhere. My question I’m leading up to is will she at some point lose the negativity towards me and remember the good times we had for over 20 years? Or will I be hated and painted black forever? I don’t want her back but don’t want to be hated either
I was in a relationship with a woman who didn’t know she had BPD, and I discovered it after a year of being together, but I didn’t share that info with her until recently. She said my picture should be next to BPD. That’s a classic sign of BPD.
Anyway, this article made more sense after half way through. It made me realize my mistake as a normal person would when dealing with BPD break up.
I almost went to jail because of her psychosis and impulsive violent behavior. Now I want nothing to do with her. But she felt the need to rub my face in her new guy that she cheated on me with on Christmas. Btw, Christmas morning she loved me. That evening she didn’t love me anymore and now I’m hated. This cycle of love/hate seemed to happen at least once a month. Also she had every sign of BPD, now that I know what they are.
In comparison, I was in a 10 year relationship with a narcissist and the 1 year with the BPD woman was worse.
Be prepared to walk on eggshells for life, and stay strong. They don’t care about you that much, but deep down they can. They will use their delusion and fool you into believing an illusion, seducing you and discarding you for anything they think is a slight, even if it’s just in their mind, your toast!!!!!
Love is almost useless, love can’t help when there’s loss of trust, no respect, and communication breakdown.
——-
Remember you can’t reason with a unreasonable person.
You can’t rationalize with a irrational person.
I hope this helps someone.
How can they be so cruel? I’ll never understand… I know it was all fake but how? Why would they do all that? Live with so many lies and promises they never intended to keep. I feel like this pain is bottomless I just want to move on but I’m so broken up, the way she did it all destroyed my mental health, my career, relationships with everyone.
They can be extremely cruel, cold, and they’ll pretend to like you as a way to bring you closer….closer to your doom!
I recommend pay attention to the patterns. The background might be different, but the plot is the same. I found fighting them makes things worse. It seems the only way to not be destroyed is to roll with the punches, kicks, etc….but never let them knock you down. Be a one-man army. Be proud your not with them any more. No need to warn the next person either. That might give away your power of knowledge about them. And they’ll use it as ammo to blast your arms off.
It’s better to be temporarily lonely than be a chew toy. However your not alone. You got us.
I feel you, I´ve just went through the same. We didn´t deserve any of this. I´ve been with him for only 3 months, he promised me everything, he made a lot of plans and out of the blue he ghosted me,then broke up with me and instantly he moved on like nothing, while he has left me broken.
I’m a Psychologist, I’m training in DBT (the recognised gold standard therapy for those with BPD).
I would like to point out that this article is entirely unreferenced. The author uses no journals, research papers etc to prove their theories are based on fact. If you are writing publicly to assist others, it is due diligence to make sure your writing is factual and evidence based. You have failed to do this, so I doubt you are even degree educated.
This is a personal blog by someone writing from personal feeling. I see no evidence that this is a competent therapist or has any Psychological background or knowledge. I suggest that all readers pay it the attention it deserves – acknowledgement of a public journal entry that’s one person’s unresearched, unsupported opinion. Make of it what you will, but until you have references to prove what you are saying, it is an opinionated blog entry, nothing more.
Hardly any of this is true. Sweeping generalisations litter this piece of writing and often the writer confuses NPD with BPD. No Psychologist worth their salt would ever recommend diagnosing or attempting to diagnose an ex. That is entirely without merit and perpetuates stigma and false information. You’re too close to diagnose someone and only psychiatrists can do so.
If you are struggling to understand and move on from a break up, shift your focus off your ex and onto yourself. If you have BPD, then please do not take what is written here to heart. Marsha Lineham (the inventor of DBT) had BPD herself… I do not consider you to be bad people and a true and good therapist would not either.
Stay strong and know yourselves and your truth (and find some help if you’re really struggling)
Xxx
Jenny and the others who commented negatively, with all due respect, I think you are wrong. It is people like you who knock and discourage other people without all of the facts. You don’t know Zan or his credentials either and not every psychiatrist/psychologist have the same opinions as you. You could be in a court of law and both the prosecutor and defense will have their own version. And just like Zan, you don’t have your credentials listed either. It is better to encourage than it is to criticize. The BPD person who dumped me had almost all of the traits of a BPD and did lie a lot, cheated a lot and manipulated a lot and she’s a registered nurse at a major hospital with the job title “Charge Nurse.” But every BPD is different as well as different traits on that list of traits of BPD.
I completely agree with this comment. The whole article is full of false information. BPD is not NPD – do some research! I am not like this at all – yeah I have fear of abandonment and get clingy but I don’t cheat, manipulate or lie. I give too much if anything and I always get my heart broken. So please think about those who have these illnesses before posting these toxic articles
Exactly bro, some info is accurate but most of it is just making us out to be monsters. It hurts a lot tbh, we don’t have a self-inflated ego. It’s quite the opposite. This article was painful to read.
Thank you Zan. your notes helped me a lot. Always grateful. I wrote for you in the previous texts that my ex dumped me on my birthday without any closure, and as I was with him for 2 years I know he has BPD traits refusing to meet a therapist. Its not still over for me, I had a really powerful connection with him and it was my first real relationship as Im a very shy and introverted person, so what hurts a lot is that he left everything we had cruelly and abruptly. It seems to me everything that meant a lot to me was fake and surreal. I learnt a lot in the process of detaching, but also hurt badly. I hope someday I feel free from this pain and gain my lessons. Thank you Zan, I will never forget you and your care.
I’ve recently gone through this. We’s spoken about moving in together and spending the holidays together. Then poof! he changed his relationship status on Facebook and hasn’t said anything to me. I spend the first few days wondering if anything was real.
Yes it was byt now there is nothing. Try to forget. Best You can is go no contact and never be open for reconciliation.
Hi
I don’t know where you got that Zan was telling people not to love people with BPD, all it was said is for Us (people who have been with a BPS partner) is to take care of ourselves. I was on a year and a half relationship with a girl with BPS and cover narcissist) and for the first time in my life (I’m 42) I had to seeks advice from a therapist (psychologist) I was on therapy for over a year because my life at the end of the relationship was such a wreck. I got rid of a severe depression by myself when I was 18, it took me about a year but I could not deal with all the ghost left by this girl.
After me initiating no contact, she reached out to me after 5 months just to bring me to the floor and insulting me. (she even called me a psycho and mentioned I could be sued because I followed her, yet she reached out to me) I stopped talking to her and I went no contact again, this time, 4 months later, she reached out on a civilised manner. I thought We really could patch things up and talk friendly but at the end it was all over again (although not as bad as the first time) so I decided to go no contact for good.
Perhaps You’re a great person, with lots of good qualities and I’m happy for you and your relationship, but not everyone is the same.
Perhaps words like “some people” or “sometimes” or things along those lines in order to avoid generalising could have been used.
I hope You have a great day
All the best
Tom.
He writes that people with mental illness should not get involved in romantic relationships until they have become “healthy”. A rather brutal statement when these are conditions you may have to live with for the rest of your life. Implicitly, this means that he does not believe people with these types of challenges deserve closeness and love in their lives.
Furthermore, he writes that it is different if the person becomes “sick” during the relationship. A paste that falls on its own unreasonableness as this is not something you get “infected” by. It is a part of the personality that has been present all along. Even when you fell in love and stayed with him or her.
The Internet is filled with this kind of one-sided and unpublished articles. They put all the blame and shame on people who are already stigmatized and have great challenges in life. All to comfort bitter and angry exes with broken hearts. It is a dehumanization and stigma that neither those who struggle with mental challenges nor the rest of society benefit from.
Openness and understanding about mental health is the solution. Unfortunately, we have not come further than this in 2021 either. I have chosen to keep quiet about my diagnosis due to articles and attitudes like this. Maybe that is something to think about?
So, you write that those with mental illness are not worthy of love. That they should not have anyone in their life to love, or be loved by.
It’s naive at best. At worst, totally devastating. You have a wide platform, and a lot of followers. Things you write have a big impact on people. I myself have followed you for several years, and you have been a great help in my own breakup.
But, with this influence also comes a great responsibility. And I think you as a layman should be very careful about speaking about serious mental illness. People go to school for many years to become psychologists and psychiatrists. They may have something more sensible to say, but that is not always true either, because psychiatry is not an exact science like somatic diseases.
You can not put everyone in the same box, and you can not make a schematic representation of how we are as human beings.
Hope you follow what I write. As I said, you have a huge responsibility. Be aware of it, and manage it with care. We are already a stigmatized and vulnerable group. Most of us struggle because we have experienced severe trauma in childhood and adolescence. It does not make us monsters.
By the way, am in a well-functioning and good relationship with a man who loves me for who I am. Openness and communication are always better than perception and speculation. Otherwise, I want to thank you for an otherwise good blog.
I sadly had to stop reading midway through the introduction. because you clearly have experience dating someone with these problems, but do not have a clear understanding of what bpd entails.
first off, borderlines are mostly hyperaware of everything they think, ffeel, and do. and often times crumble under the guilt of their actions afterwards. so to say they have no remorse for their actions is not only completly wrong, but also a toxic believe to put out on the internet.
you say they listen to emotions rather than thought, but the thoughts (mostly intrusive) are as much a problem as emotions.
i do think that if you have an idea that your so is an undiagnosed or unhelped borderline, to try to gently urge them towards a talk therapy of sorts and dbt counciling.
the problem occurse when a trigger gets so bad a borderline shut down. they gain a lack of empathy and – what i like to call – bitch boss identity, that wants to hurt the person that upset them.
it is that lof empathy that might hurt you, the partner. but realise that it is just as terrifying for a borderline to witness the actions and words happening and not being able to break through the numbness that has suddenly occured.
before you post an article -with the full intention of helping people go through such intense relationships- make sure you do your due research to truly know what the hell you’re talking about.
sincerely,
a borderline
This is super helpful. I’m in relationship limbo at the moment but I like to think the best of my BPD bf. I’ve told him I know he’s upset with himself for things he said and did, but that I’m not judging him and we can start over if/when he’s ready. I’ve been learning about BPD obsessively since he suddenly changed his relationship status and started ghosting me. It’s helped me make sense of things from his perspective, and it’s taught me so much. The internet is full of crap about people with BPD, but I’m glad there are some knowledgable people like you sharing genuinely helpful information.
Thank you Zan for this article! You can’t imagine how much I needed to hear this before. My therapist said that my ex maybe had BPD.
And yes “they are very black or white people, which is why relationships with them can often feel extremely rewarding one moment and toxic the next” I can’t agree more.
I really needed to read this article
Thank you for this article, Zan. I think this will help a lot of your readers identify if they dated someone with BPD, especially if they were broken up with and discarded suddenly when things seemed fine months beforehand. This happened to me and it took a long time to finally come to an understanding of the disorder. They truly are hyper sensitive. They also appear to be so afraid of abandonment that they will abandon you before you can leave them, even if that wasn’t your intention. Ironic. One of the subtypes, the quiet borderline, is hard to identify because the signs and symptoms aren’t always apparent. They direct their emotions inward rather than outward so things hardly ever seem out of place until your blind sided.