01/27/2026
She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not
From the Couples Therapy archive at
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. Partners and family members of people with BPD often describe the relationship as an emotional roller coaster with no end in sight. You may feel like you’re at the mercy of your loved one’s BPD symptoms—trapped unless you leave the relationship or the person takes steps to get treatment. But you have more power than you think.
You can change the relationship by managing your own reactions, establishing firm limits, and improving communication between you and your loved one. There’s no magic cure but with the right treatment and support, many people with BPD can and do get better and their relationships can become more stable and rewarding. In fact, patients with the most support and stability at home tend to show improvements sooner than those whose relationships are more chaotic and insecure.
Whether it’s your partner, parent, child, sibling, friend, or other loved one with BPD, you can improve both the relationship and your own quality of life, even if the person with BPD isn’t ready to acknowledge the problem or seek treatment.
-Being in relationships with someone with BPD
Being in a romantic relationship with someone with borderline personality disorder can be stormy to say the least. Their spontaneity and the intensity of their love can draw you in, but then their destructive behavior and black-and-white thinking (either you’re “perfect,” the only one they can count on, or you’re “selfish” and never truly loved them) can push you away.
Your partner with BPD may be extremely sensitive, so small things can trigger intense reactions. You having to work late or deciding to go out with friends, for example, could trigger devastating feelings of abandonment and rapid shifts between emotional extremes. One moment they may be raging at the imagined betrayal, the next they feel despondent and isolated, even suicidal, and then they’re terrified that the relationship is over, begging you to stay.
To them, the panic and fear is real and overwhelming. But to you, the guilt and irrational behavior can feel like manipulation. You may think that you just can’t win—anything you say or do will be twisted and used against you. And you have to walk on eggshells to avoid setting them off. You might even hide what you really think or feel in order to avoid fights, but because your partner’s expectations are constantly changing, you’re never sure how to keep the peace.
In many cases, you’ll know that there’s something wrong with your loved one, but may have no idea what it is or if there is even a name for it. Recognizing it as borderline personality disorder can come as a source of both relief and hope.
-Living with a spouse or partner with BPD
Is everything always your fault? Do you feel constantly criticized and blamed for things that don’t even make sense? Does your spouse or partner accuse you of doing and saying things you didn’t do? Do you feel misunderstood whenever you try to explain or reassure them?
Someone with BPD tends to rage hardest at the person they’re closest to— YOU. That can make for an exhausting relationship. It can also create a lot of tension in the home, tension that’s hard to escape because as soon as you try to get time on your own, your partner’s fear of abandonment kicks in and another fight ensues. Trying to end a long-term relationship with someone with BPD can be even more challenging.
Whether you’re dating or married to someone with BPD, it’s important to recognize that your partner is suffering. The destructive and hurtful behaviors are a reaction to deep emotional pain. In other words, they’re not about you. When your loved one does or says something hurtful towards you, understand that the behavior is motivated by the desire to stop the pain they are experiencing; it’s rarely deliberate.
Learn all you can about BPD and any co-occurring conditions your partner may have. The more you understand, the better you’ll be able to handle relationship difficulties in constructive ways.
Your support and encouragement can make a huge difference. Help your partner explore professional treatment options and encourage them to stick with therapy.
Set boundaries on the behaviors you won’t tolerate and be firm in the repercussions for breaching them.
Practice self-care, pursue your own interests and hobbies, and build your own support network of family, friends, or a skilled therapist.
Recognize if your partner’s anger and impulsivity have become emotionally or physically abusive. There are ways to protect yourself and your family from domestic violence and abuse.

-BPD relationship cycles
A BPD relationship cycle outlines the stages some couples experience when one of them has untreated borderline personality disorder. Of course, everyone with BPD is unique, no two people behave in exactly the same way, and not everyone with BPD has difficulty maintaining healthy relationships. Your partner with BPD may also be suffering from different co-occurring disorders, which can make their behavior even harder to predict.
While there’s limited research on the BPD relationship cycle, many clinical experts recognize the patterns of behavior occurring in some (but not all) romantic relationships when one partner has BPD. Each phase can feature dramatic highs and lows and wild swings between love and hate. The duration and severity of each stage can vary depending on your partner’s specific symptoms and your own coping skills.
Stage 1: Idealization
This is the “honeymoon phase” of the relationship. Your partner is sensitive and enthusiastic, fascinated by you and your interests. They may idealize you as the perfect person or their “soul mate.” And you can’t help but be caught up in this, enjoying having someone love and admire so deeply.
Stage 2: Obsessive neediness
Your partner’s insecurities and fears of abandonment start to appear. If you pursue interests outside of the relationship or fail to respond to a text or a call, for example, it can trigger your partner’s fear of rejection. They may become hypersensitive and feel that you’re no longer interested in the relationship.
Stage 3: Provocation
Your partner craves your affection so begins to test your commitment to the relationship. They may provoke or manipulate you into arguments to gauge how much you care about them. If you fail a test, they may withdraw and withhold affection in an attempt to gain more attention from you.
Stage 4: Devaluation
The partner with BPD swings from adoring you to devaluing you in the blink of an eye. They may criticize you, your friends, your family. If black-and-white thinking or “splitting” occurs, they see you as either all good or all bad, with no middle ground. You may feel confused and hurt by these sudden swings.
Stage 5: Ending the relationship
Your partner may suddenly announce that they want to break up or simply “ghost” you and leave. To you, it may seem that it’s all coming out of nowhere.
Stage 6: Repair and recycle
Your partner may just as suddenly return and try to save the relationship. If that fails and the relationship ends, they’re like to spiral into a downward cycle of depression or self-destructive behavior. If the relationship doesn’t end—and they don’t seek treatment—the cycle will often restart again.
-Communication tips
Communication is a key part of any relationship but communicating with a borderline person can be especially challenging. People in a close relationship with a borderline adult often liken talking with their loved one to arguing with a small child. People with BPD have trouble reading body language or understanding the nonverbal content of a conversation. PD expert and author, Randi Kreger, likens it to “having ‘oral dyslexia,’ in which they hear words and sentences backwards, inside out, sideways, and devoid of context.” This can lead to very confusing communication where both the individual with BPD as well as their partner have no idea what just happened or what was actually said.
Listening to your loved one and acknowledging their feelings is one of the best ways to help someone with BPD calm down. When you appreciate how a borderline person hears you and adjust how you communicate with them, you can help diffuse the attacks and rages and build a stronger, closer relationship. Once they’re calm, you can employ these communication techniques:
Listen actively and be sympathetic. You don’t have to agree with what the person is saying to make it clear that you’re listening and sympathetic.
Focus on the emotions, not the words. The feelings of the person with BPD communicate much more than what the words they’re using. Your loved one needs validation and acknowledgement of the pain they’re struggling with.
Try to make the person with BPD feel heard. Don’t try to win the argument, or invalidate their feelings, even when what they’re saying is totally irrational.
Do your best to stay calm, even when your loved one is acting out. Defending yourself will only make your loved one angrier. Walk away if you need to give yourself time and space to cool down.
Seek to distract your loved one when emotions rise. Try exercising, sipping hot tea, listening to music, grooming a pet, painting, gardening, or completing household chores.
Talk about things other than the disorder. You and your loved one’s lives aren’t solely defined by BPD, so make the time to explore and discuss other interests.
Encourage professional help. There are different strategies in therapy used with individuals who have borderline personality disorder, including dialectical behavior, therapy, or DBT, or acceptance and commitment therapy, which is mindfulness based, or ACT. Focus in therapy for borderline personality includes emotion, regulation, skills, interpersonal, and communication, skills, coping skills, stress, reduction, anxiety, management, and mindfulness to help them stay in the present moment. All of these can be applied to a Couples format as well. Therapy for BPD can be intensive, and requires a minimum of one year of individual therapy, often accompanied by a skills group and between session support.
Read:
https://embolden.world/when-a-loved-one-has-bpd/
