What is dating someone with BPD like?

A romantic relationship with someone with BPD can be, in a word, stormy. It's not uncommon to experience a great deal of turmoil and dysfunction. However, people with BPD can be exceptionally caring, compassionate, and affectionate. In fact, some people find this level of devotion from a partner pleasant.


Is it difficult to date someone with BPD?

Dating someone with borderline personality disorder can be challenging. Your partner may have major difficulties with strong emotions, drastic mood swings, chronic fear of abandonment, and impulsive behaviors that can strain your relationship with chaos and instability.

Should you date someone with borderline personality disorder?

If you do decide to date (or continue dating) someone who has borderline personality disorder, keep in mind that if they're not in remission, their behaviors can create an unhealthy environment for not only you but also your children.


Who are BPD attracted to?

Those who have BPD tend to be very intense, dramatic, and exciting. This means they tend to attract others who are depressed and/or suffering low self-esteem. People who take their power from being a victim, or seek excitement in others because their own life is not where they want it to be.

What does a relationship with BPD look like?

People with BPD often have patterns of intense or unstable relationships. This may involve a shift from extreme adoration to extreme dislike, known as a shift from idealization to devaluation. Relationships may be marked by attempts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.


Borderline Personality Disorder: Tips for Dating Someone Who Has BPD



Do people with BPD fall in love easily?

People affected by BPD often have highly unstable intimate relationships. Usually of above average intelligence, they tend to fall in love easily, sometimes without getting to know the person.

How do borderlines feel after a breakup?

Even the slightest touch or movement can create immense suffering.” Breakups are hard enough, but for those who identify with symptoms of BPD and have no “emotional skin”, losing the love and companionship of their favorite person can leave them feeling such unbearable pain that life itself is too much to bear.

Do borderlines love their favorite person?

Borderline Personality Disorder

However, because of the nature of this condition, the favorite person connection may sometimes swing between extreme love and attachment, to a strong dislike. This switch may occur when the person with BPD perceives that their emotional needs aren't being adequately met.


Are BPD good partners?

A romantic relationship with someone with BPD can be, in a word, stormy. It's not uncommon to experience a great deal of turmoil and dysfunction. However, people with BPD can be exceptionally caring, compassionate, and affectionate. In fact, some people find this level of devotion from a partner pleasant.

Can someone with BPD have a good relationship?

Anyone living with BPD can still lead satisfying lives and take pleasure in long-term relationships and even life partnerships. With the proper treatment and support, people with BPD can and do have healthy and happy relationships.

How long do relationships with borderlines last?

Results found in a 2014 study found the average length of a BPD relationship between those who either married or living together as partners was 7.3 years. However, there are cases where couples can stay together for 20+ years.


Why are BPD relationships so complicated?

So, why are BPD relationships so complicated? Individuals with BPD tend to idealize their partners and put them on a 'pedestal'. Doing this allows them to believe, however fleetingly, that they have found their soulmate. The problems arise when reality doesn't match up to their idealized version of the partner.

How do people with BPD act in a relationship?

People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) tend to have major difficulties with relationships, especially with those closest to them. Their wild mood swings, angry outbursts, chronic abandonment fears, and impulsive and irrational behaviors can leave loved ones feeling helpless, abused, and off balance.

Do people with BPD struggle with intimacy?

People with BPD are often terrified that others will leave them. However, they can also shift suddenly to feeling smothered and fearful of intimacy, which leads them to withdraw from relationships. The result is a constant back-and-forth between demands for love or attention and sudden withdrawal or isolation.


Can BPD cause you to cheat?

Borderline personality disorder relationships and cheating may occur due to the impulsivity associated with this mental health condition. Recent research has shown people with BPD are more sexually impulsive and likely to engage in risky sexual behavior than those without BPD.

What is BPD splitting?

Splitting is a psychological mechanism which allows the person to tolerate difficult and overwhelming emotions by seeing someone as either good or bad, idealised or devalued. This makes it easier to manage the emotions that they are feeling, which on the surface seem to be contradictory.

Are BPD relationships toxic?

Often, the person with BPD will react towards loved ones as if they were the abusers from their past, and take out vengeance and anger towards them. When the person with BPD feels abandoned, they can become abusive or controlling as a way to defend against feelings of abandonment or feeling unworthy.


Are people with BPD loyal?

Passionate and emotional – When a person with BPD loves, the love is deep, highly committed and loyal to the relationship. Even though there may be struggles with attachment and fears of abandonment, these are ultimately manifestations of love.

Do borderlines ever forgive?

These results suggest that patients with BPD report becoming more accepting and forgiving over time. Additionally, recovery status is significantly associated with increasing time in these states.

Are borderlines clingy?

People with BPD can act overly needy. If you take them out of their comfort zone, or when they feel “abandoned” they can become a burden.


How do you know if someone with BPD loves you?

How do you know if a person with BPD loves you?
  1. Consistent need for reassurance.
  2. Intense declarations of their love or appreciation for you.
  3. Reaching out more frequently when you don't respond.
  4. Fear that you will leave them or no longer love them.


Can people with BPD be abusive?

Those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or those with BPD who may not even know they have it, are more likely than the general population to be verbally, emotionally/psychologically, physically abusive.

Do borderlines Gaslight?

Gaslighting is by no means unique to individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), but certain symptoms make it more likely for people with BPD to feel gaslighted by others and create circumstances where others feel gaslighted by them. Gaps in memory result from dissociation.


Are people with BPD hopeless romantics?

Romantic fantasization is a common feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The unpredictable emotional state associated with borderline personality disorder can cause confusing fluctuations in how borderlines view their romantic partners.

Do borderlines feel remorse?

Only remorse leads to a real apology and change. One of the hallmarks of people with Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (BP/NP) is that they often do not feel truly sorry. Even though a BP/NP may say he or she is sorry, there is often something lacking.