Did she cheat?

I was recently asked if she cheated on me. Borderlines are known to cheat on their partners quite often.

She probably did cheat on me. There were weekends when we were first dating when she would suddenly be unavailable and not speaking with me, so she probably did, early in the relationship. I remember, early in the relationship, she was feeling insecure and paranoid about me cheating, and she said, "you know, if you cheat, I can cheat too."

I was usually quite confident and jovial in my approach to the Borderline. This one struck me hard, and I suddenly got serious, stared right at her, and queried, "what did you say?"

She repeated herself.

I looked her straight in the eyes, and said, "if you cheat on me, this relationship is over."

She never said or hinted that she would cheat based on her perceptions again. Although she still had her paranoid suspicions, she knew better than to say such things to me.

This is the textbook definition of setting a solid boundary for the BPD. The borderline knew that cheating would not be tolerated, so while she continued to think that I was cheating, she would not cross that boundary, or even test this boundary.

She probably did cheat, early in the relationship, before I set the boundary for her. After the boundary was set, she never would have done such a thing.

In the end, it doesn't matter -- if the relationship is so dysfunctional, you should get out. If she cheats, don't tolerate such poor treatment.

Separation Anxiety and BPDs

I completely forgot about the BPDs and the terrible case of Separation Anxiety that they have. When I started dating the BPD, I was living in Delaware, and she was living in New Jersey. We would spend the weekend together, having an amazing weekend, and then I'd have to leave.

The goodbyes would always be hard; I would have to go back to work, so my departure was imminent, but we'd push it to the last moment. After I left, it would take three hours, and no more than three hours, for her separation anxiety to become so bad that she would contact me with her first round of accusations.

Her accusations were so ridiculous that they were comical. I asked her to log onto my email account (bad move) and she found SPAM porn email, so she started accusing me of being a sex addict.

On another instance, she accused me of leaving my shoes in women's places throughout the area so I had an excuse to go back. She also accused me of having women geographically disbursed throughout the area so I'd have someone to see regardless of where I went.

I had to travel quite a lot at that position, which was bad enough; now I was being accused of being so insecure that I needed people to see everywhere I went.

When I was living through these waves of accusations, I thought them comical, thinking things like I can't even believe that she'd think these things about me. The accusations were so ridiculous that you'd have to laugh.

Looking back, that was her reality, and she loathed herself so much that she really believed that someone would take such advantage of her.

I used to tell the BPD that she had separation anxiety and would joke with her about it. I never knew that it was a real term.

I tried everything with the BPD to deal with her separation anxiety. I gave her a card for her to keep in her purse in case she started feeling anxious that would reinforce that I loved her and she was the only one for me.

Sadly, she ripped that card up within a week. Borderlines will live their fantasy no matter how you try to intervene and make their life secure.

So sad.