I have been reading alot online recently on BPD. one of the guys here turned me onto a great site, gettinbetter.com i highly recommend reading the articles on there about BPD. Here's the thing, I'll recap my story real quick for anyone who doesnt remember me. I am with a girl, 3 yrs now...we've been apart for 2 1/2 of those years because I was working out of the country. But we've kept in touch and tried to maintain a relationship...she got pregnant just before i left, after being with her for only a few mos...anyway, we are now back in the same zip code and seeing eachother and I've spoke with her family who say that they thnk she is BPD. She was never diagnosed and she is in recovery from alchoholism. She attends AA meetings very often and she eats,sleeps and breathes AA. She has alot of issues and she's said to me many times that she's "broken" and things like this. Anyway after reading alot more about BPD, I'm honestly wondering if she really is infact BPD. She does exhibit many of the traits and she fits the criteria (if i take into account her past behavior that she's told me about) but like i said, she attends AA meetings and has done alot of self help. Many of the things ive found on borderlines says that theyre "liars" and that they are sexually active, cheaters, etc...well, this makes me really wonder. I spoke with her sister to ask her opinion and she says that she definatly wouldnt call her a "liar' she does tend to change the past events to make it more paletable for her remember incidents of her past, so they arent so painful but basically on a day to day, i would say that shes pretty honest. She is very hurtful and says some pretty devaluing things to me, she has alot of anger, she was abandoned as a child, her mother had her own problems and basically abandoned her...so she fits alot of the critera but i guess im wondering, through her self help efforts to get sober, is it possible that she is fixing some of herself? she claims that she's never cheated on anyone in her life, even though shes been cheated on...idk what to think. I am in love with this girl and now shes pregnant with another baby of ours...and i guess i am willing to work on alot of her issues and accept alot of the ones that she'll never be able to change but if she is a cheater than all bets are off. I did catch her looking on an internet dating site, she claims that she was just looking and she never even spoke/emailed anyone and she did show me and proved that she wasnt lying about that. but still, im having a hard time letting that one go...i guess im wondering if anyone thinks that she may not be BPD but something else, that is similar? from what im reading about BPD, I'm ready to run for the hills but like i said, we have children and if she, in reality, isnt BPD and she isnt all that bad etc..i might feel like hanging around and trying to make it work...idk what to do, can anyone help>?

The diagnositic critereon of bpd are not set in iron. But a matter of degrees. And there is the 5 of 9 rule. Mine was an ex druggie as I found out later and she did AA hard for a long time. She drank like a fish too. In one of her drunken rants she got to calling me an incorrigible drunk.....projection much? Insisted I hookup with her old group and every male in the place knew her. Next week I picked a group where she was unlikely to be known and all the guys there knew here too. They knew her from the bars....not the meetings. And she wanted to sponser me......control much? Still have a couple of old bills where she had 8 and I had one or two.

Family has a very good view......years of observation. Mine had a familly that always told me how off the wall crazy she was and commented how much better she was in my presence. Long story. Brothers were hard Npd and loved to fight and beat their wives yet they were afraid of her. Nephews the same and niece is like her clone. Her son has some problem I can't quite get but he took me aside a few times to stress how ""really, really unstable" his mom was. Listen to the family.

Lying.....I can tell you there are liars and dam liars. Mine always told me how honest she was and never lied.....thinking back I remember her head turned or eyes averted during the statement. Minor to middling things she would never lie iabout. Caught dead to rights in a major transgression......brought some guy home she would confess in a way but excuse it away.....obsessed, couldn't help herself, was drunk. She would tailor her stories to look innocent but she was busier than I knew.

AA does not help bpd......may enable it. They seek out crutches. A pdoc specializing in bpd is needed for dx and therapy. Other possibility is Npd. Not as common in women and the actions and reactions are different. Do some reading that compares the two. And a bpd will present as Npd in rages. Bpd has feelings.....but the nerves are rubbed raw and they fear them. Google "bpd relationship" and read the part about the ship. Closeness panics a bpd. Npd presents in an alpha male pattern. Npd can get their source elsewhere and truly don't give a **** about a partner unless they need a place "warm and soft" to sleep.

Npd and bpd often hook up.....sometimes for years as they feed one another's weakness. Worst case I saw was the chapter pres. Of my mc club. Raging alpha that had one or two new women every week and his wife would tell him he could f around but "please don't leave me". How sad is that? Google "Pink please don't leave me".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eocCPDxKq1o

.good read....

http://www.bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a101.htm

thank you Chump. she is really into AA and wants me to get involved and attend meetings and work the steps. i am also a recovering addict but she has soured me on AA because i keep thinking that if this is what AA does, no thanks. i know that its not right thinking because she is a mess and not a representative of AA but thats how i feel. plus she has been in AA in this area for four years and is very outgoing, personable and who knows how many guys in AA she's slept with before we met so i just stay away. anyway, she does basically fit all of the BPD criteria but alot of the "symptoms" of BPD she's done in her past, not since ive known her..things like "self harm" "promiscuous" and i honestly dont see her as a "liar" although she is human and ive caught her in a few but nothing out of the ordinary. idk, maybe she is a BPD and is just recovering a little through her AA work. either way, she is toxic to me and i should move on. the thing is, we have kids together and its gonna break my heart to leave her, i really hate the thought of her being with someone else, even though i dont particularly want to be around her, other than sex. i need to see a shrink myself to get over alot of the issues that i just mentioned but the one basic thought im having is the fact that we have kids and i dont want to leave her, thinking that she is BPD and will never get better...if infact thats not the case...and basically leave or split our kids up from being with their parents together...idk, tough choice i have. thanks Chump. anything else you can add would be appreciated.

Oh yeah... the sex.