How To Be Happy (In A Relationship With A Borderliner)

I have this blog about being the girlfriend of someone diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). One post is about how depressing it is to google for information about relationships with borderliner people. It is my most read post I‘ve ever written and appears quite early on Google results when you search for „borderliner lie“ „borderline lie and manipulate“ „borderliner cheat“ and all that kind of thing. I write about how scared it made me to read only these things after my girlfriend was diagnosed, and how I wanted to have more helpful and positive information.

After nearly four years relationship with my girlfriend, I now try to provide this information myself.

The most important stuff first:

You can be happy with your BPD partner.

You can be happy for a long time with them, and be in a healthy relationship, that is equally fulfilling for the both of you.

Your partner’s BPD diagnosis doesn’t mean that they will cheat, lie or manipulate you. I am not saying that they for sure won’t do that, but there are lots of BPD people who are honest and trusty, even though the chliché will tell you differently.

HOW TO – What do I do now?

I can only draw from my personal experience. I will tell you that I am happy with my partner, and that I think the following tips are important for that. Whether they will be equally important for you, or if they are enough? That’s what you guys will have to figure out on your own.

1. Your emotions are important.

Especially as the healthy partner you might easily put your own feelings aside and take those of your BPD partner more seriously. Your feelings matter just as much though, and for your own life even more. You are the most important person in your life! Yes, you. No, not your partner. Only you. And that’s why it’s your right – and your responsibility! - to take your emotions as the most important. You might feel less intense, but that doesn’t mean your feelings are less valid.

If you always put yourself behind, you won’t be happy and content. It only leads to frustration on your side, even if in a specific moment you think you can easily take it and it was the best decision.

For your partner it isn’t healthy either, if you don’t take care of yourself. They already fight enough to look at their own emotions as important and to figure out how to deal with them. You taking yourself not seriously is something that neither you nor they need in your lives.

The emotions you and your partner have are equally as important, regardless of whether you have a specific diagnosis or not.

Allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling. Don’t compare your emotions to your partner’s. You are important for who you are. Give your feelings space, too. Do the things that matter to you. It’s oyur right.

2. You are not responsible for your partner’s decisions and health.

Your partner is an adult. Or at least on the way to be one. Why do you think you have the right to take their independence away?

Yes, it might be hard for you to experience, for example, self-harm of your partner. You might see that some of their behaviour is unhealthy and will harm them over time, and you want to prevent that, because you care about them. You want to make them happy and rid them off their pain.

But that’s not your task. You don’t have to, and shouldn’t, feel guilty for the decisions your partner makes. And you are not the person who will heal them. Nobody else will do that either. That’s only their task.

When you tell your partner what they should and shouldn’t do, you are taking something away from them that is part of healthy behaviour: To take responsibility for yourself. It’s what we all have to do as adults, and it’s a good thing. You don’t have the right to make decisions for your partner, to “educate” them, even if you think that their decisions aren’t good for them.

You shouldn’t do that to yourself either. You don’t decide whether they self-harm. It is not your fault. It’s not your responsibility to stop them or save them. You don’t have to feel bad only because they feel bad too. Their decisions, their life, their emotions – your decisions, your life, your emotions. You want to share your lives, but you don’t have to feel each other’s emotions.

3. Talk to each other – but don’t spring each other.

Open communication is important in every relationship. That’s not different if (at least) one of you has BPD.

In some situations with your BPD partner that can be frightening. They may react impulsively, be very defensive right away and take the opposite side, or, overly blame themselves, when you mention something that is important to you. Still, or maybe especially because of that, it is very important that you talk to each other about your relationship. You are allowed to tell them what bothers you and what you need, and they are allowed to do the same.

It can be helpful to announce a talk like this beforehand. “There is something that’s hard for me in our relationship recently. I’d like to talk to you about it. When is a good time for you?” Maybe you can already state the topic you want to discuss or mention that you don’t plan on leaving them (unless, you do 😉). To arrange a date gives you both the chance to mentally prepare yourselves and take time for each other. Which means you’ll have a bigger chance of talking calmly and collectedly.

It is also crucial, that you don’t hide what bothers you for ages, until it is big and suddenly very important and bursts out of you, and your partner is completely overwhelmed with it. If you always act as if there’s nothing wrong, and then suddenly there’s something VERY wrong, well, of course that’s a shock to your partner! So even if you are scared of the disagreement that could happen from your talk – it is better if you say something earlier on.

Plus: You both have the right to have a healthy way of communication. Disagreements are scary, but for BPD partners it for sure is nice to see that you can have differing opinions and still support each other.

4. Respect your partner, and expect respect from them.

Your partner’s emotions are real. Even if you don’t get them or they seem intense to you. Their actions have reasons that are very valid from their point of view. They aren’t crazy or just do weird shit – they have their own justification for what they do and if they are able to explain it to you, you will probably understand them. So, treat her with respect.

In the same way you deserve respect too. You are allowed to put up boundaries (just as they can) and be stern about them being met. If there’s something that you really don’t want to experience, you don’t have to endure it just because your partner has a certain diagnosis. You’ll get bonus points if you communicate your boundaries clearly. :)

Respect also means that you acknowledge each other’s efforts. All of these here are tips for you has the partner and expectations on what you should focus on to make the relationship work. Keep in mind that your partner invests at least as much to make your relationship a good one. Talking about what kind of efforts both of you undergo and to appreciate them will feel good for you both.

5. Give each other space.

For BPD people, emotions easily run hot. Sometimes it can be helpful for your partner to then be alone and use their own skills to deal with their thoughts and feelings. Give them that space. Afterwards the air is probably calmer and you can talk more easily with each other.

You deserve space for yourself too. When your partner distances themselves, respect that – and use that time to do something for your own feelings. If they don’t need space right now but you do, you are allowed to claim that too. Explain to them what’s going on, that you will be coming back but need a break, and then take that break. Do what feels needed for you.

You both deserve to take some time to just take care of yourselves.

It is often said that BPD people have totally normal emotions, just way more intense than most others. I think you could say something similar about these tips. Everything that I talked about is important to keep any kind of relationship healthy. According to my experience, it is just a little extra important in a relationship with someone with BPD.

The first two years of the relationship between me and my girlfriend weren’t easy. I had to learn all of that first. My partner learned her own lessons. We had many highs and lows and almost broke up a couple of times. We didn’t always treat each other healthily and did many things wrong.

But we learned it. Now, when I talk to couples who are longer together than us – even my parents! -, these things are exactly what they have to learn too to bring out the best in each other and be happy together.

Maybe we’ve learned it earlier and quicker and on tougher terms than others. For sure there’s many things that we still have to learn and will work on. But I feel independent, strong, happy and supported in my relationship. My girlfriend sees me and is there for me and our respect for each other is huge. We are still learning to communicate openly, but we have also become really good at it already. Her having borderline personality disorder has become a small part of our relationship that I barely think about anymore. We just walk by each other’s sides through life, help each other to learn what we each need to figure out and are there for each other.

A while back I always thought in rocky times that our love is worth the pain. Today I know that I don’t have to put myself in pain and still can have the love.

Your partner faces many hardships in life. If they go to therapy it can help the both of you too (for me and my girlfriend it was crucial that she worked hard on herself too).

Regardless of that though it is important for a healthy relationship, that you keep it healthy. Take yourself seriously. You are important. And make yourself happy. You deserve it.