I will in this article cover some of my own experiences living with a person with a dysfunctional personal disorder of type borderline. I call these person BP (BorderlinePersonality) to make things easier.

Why is it so hard to live with these people? What are the warning signals? What is there to do?

At first this persons are very charming so it's very hard to detect these disturbances. I also want to state that each and every one of us has some kind of borderline in our selves. Most of us don't have it to such a degree though that it could be classified as an illness.

Everything worked out fine for the first of couple of months and then suddenly BANG.

The first emotional outbreak appears and you don't even know what hit you.

I lived with a person like this for six years until I finally decided that enough is enough. We have two adorable children together that we both love more than anything on the world. The children have of course also suffered but I know that there are people out there in much worse situation others then mine.

As a relative in a family with persons like this it can be hard and also embarrassing to take this up with somebody else since you have the feeling that no one really understands you. The last couple of years I was so deep in it that I truly believed that everything was my fault.

Now, you know the saying "it takes two to tango" so I of course contributed to the situations and to the relationship. It did heart a lot finding out that I couldn't see this coming. So I had a big part of it naturally.

One of the things these persons are an expert in doing is getting the partner to feel guilty about things even though this is not the case. Many relatives complain about the emotional and physical fights that they keep getting into with almost no way to protect them selves from it.

Even though they know it's pointless to go into a fight like this it happens anyway.

The most known sign of a borderline personality is their emotional emptiness. To be a relative is like filling up Grand Canyon with a water gun. The only difference is that Grand Canyon actually has an end.

One other thing is "whatever you do is wrong". Do you recognize this? For a BP everything is either black or white there is no in-between. "You are either with me or against me" is also one of these statements you can hear.

Ending a relationship with a borderline personality is hard it's like having a delicious pizza slice in front of you with lots of mozzarella cheese on it. No matter how far you try to take the slice from your mouth, the cheese "string" only gets longer and longer without braking. For you as a relative there is only one advice use knife and fork.

As a relative be consequent at all times (this is very hard but it works).

We all have a choice, mine was to simply get out of the relationship and move on. There are still moments of fights every now and then but I think since the relationship ended both of us and our children has gained a lot more than if we would have stayed together.

There was of course times that where good in our relationship. Never knowing when the next outbreak would come took unfortunately away those moments.

The first step for me to come out of this was actually to read and learn about BP.

Maybe this article has the same impact on you, I sincerely hope so.

I wish you all the best!

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Oliver Troll
The Croftbiz Team
Croftbiz