Can a relationship with a PD partner ever work?

[Sh1vers]

I feel silly writing this, but I am actually not sure where else to write this. Please move this to a more suitable forum if I picked the wrong one.
I'm with my boyfriend a bit more than a year, and I am having doubts, but I also think that I am the one who is unfair here :(

I recently found out that my partner has a personality disorder, and it is freaking me out. At the same time I know that I am being super judgmental and I don't want to be this person. I started googling things and everything sounds doomed, and I am just so sad about it.

Some years ago I left a very toxic and abusive relationship, and I swore never to let this happen to me again. Yet here I am, wondering about my every choice and whether to trust my judgement.

I really hope reading this won't upset anyone who suffers from a personality disorder, because it's not my intention to judge. I'm just not in a very good place myself (depression and anxiety), and I think I am wondering if this is a combination that can ever work, even though I really want it to.

You did NOT destroy anything and you should definitely not feel guilty AT ALL!! He is making you feel this way.
This is the turning point for you - if you go back to him now, you may unfortunately come to regret this missed opportunity. You need to take time for YOU and heal at your sister's. Don't think about him or worry about how he is, because in all likelihood, he is absolutely fine!
You say you generally only see each other at weekends..do you normally talk through the week or is it just texting?

The thing is though, when he turned in you that time, you'd probably have left him if he didn't have a disorder as a reason for that behavior.
You were frightened by it.
He checks on you when you are on nights out. Have you tested to see what happens if you don't answer or text him?
When things are casual it can be manageable. When someone with his difficulties gets into a closer relationship or moves in with someone the stakes might get higher. The person can feel more insecure and feel the need to start controlling more over time rather than less.
Because they have bought into the relationship and they don't trust easily at all. Another part of this is his gleefulness about manipulating others. What happens when you challenge this behavior and say you don't like that part of him? Think about if a female friend of yours was telling you she behaved like that at work, would you react the same?
If he lived with you he wouldn't be able to go somewhere to be alone with his dog to destress.
So yes he may be able to manage things currently in the relationship with the weekend meetings, but he simply may not be able to deliver the sort of future together that you might be expecting.

@irene9 the meltdown was almost a year ago and I didn’t know about it then. I actually still have no idea what happened in his head that day. I only learned about the disorder now.
I have never considered him checking on me as being controlling. I live in a house share but the place is quite remote and the only ways there are either past a railway line or park and some wooded area, so it gets quite dark and he insists that it isn’t that safe to cycle there at night. I have forgotten to let him know when I got home before, and saw that he had tried to call me. He was fine though and not angry or so.
He did live with his ex for 8 years and they are still friends, so I guess he can adjust. I don’t have an issue with decompression time as I need my own as well.
I guess none or this matters now as I am not sure if I can deal with this all even though it looks like other people could.

We also talk during the week, but not every day.
My sister said the same as you, that he deliberately made me feel guilty. I am not sure but it’s possible because I don’t trust my own judgement much at this time. I am not staying with my sister because I won’t get any thinking time here, which is something I need.
The conversation hadn’t been pleasant and I am going back through situations and conversations to see if I had misinterpreted everything.
I go from feeling upset, to feeling angry, guilty, and missing him. But I will take this time to stay away from him and take time for myself.
It’s not his fault, but it’s not mine either.

You are allowed to say no at any time.
To make decisions for your own best interest.

Having guilt feelings/feeling bad/responsible for saying no or putting ourselves first is a codependant trait.

Does this show up in other relationships (work, family, friendships) or just in partnership relationships?

Don't feel you have to answer but maybe answer to yourself.
What is at the bottom of that? Where did it come from?
At times you may have been shamed or punished for thinking of yourself.
As you have been in DV previously you may have weakend boundaries, or a weakend sense of self.

It's not your fault.

Something to consider maybe, so you can move towards strength and health.

Love your last line op.
"It's not his fault, but it's not mine either".

Yes.
You are responsible for you, only you.

I have the same problem with other relationships (especially my family). My father uses the guilt trip and my siblings do it too at times. I am the youngest and somehow I continue to be treated that way. Ironically it was my boyfriend who pointed out their guilt tripping and that I should just tell them to F off, but I actually just try to avoid them when they are being annoying.

OP I am reading this with shivers down my spine. I was with someone who had an early incident like you describe - a really frightening slip of the mask. I forgave him and got swept up and married him very quickly. Now we've got two kids, I'm really frightened except it's taken a decade's toll on my body and mind, and I am finding it very hard to work out how to leave.

It is so hard because to people like you and I they seem almost extra loveable because of their problems. It gives you a role and the secret and shared experience of it, despite negative, feels like extra intimacy.

You say your mother was very strong and ignored your father's outbursts but she could have unwittingly taught you to have a too-high threshold for this kind of behaviour, which must have been very frightening to child you. Be kind to yourself. You deserve to be safe.

Sorry not read all the replies but to be officially diagnosed he must have displayed some very obvious and damaging behaviours to start with. Was he disagreed as a child or did he self refer for diagnoses? I think this information would be key to understand what's happened so far

• diagnosed as a child

You say your mother was very strong and ignored your father's outbursts but she could have unwittingly taught you to have a too-high threshold for this kind of behaviour, which must have been very frightening to child you. Be kind to yourself. You deserve to be safe.

This is the stuff!
Taught to over ride our signals... Have worked through this in therapy myself.

I'm glad you have taken a time out OP. To look at yourself, and care for yourself.
To put the brakes on what could be a really damaging situation for you.
We don't have to wait until someone is overtly and undeniably damaging.
We can exit on the evidence of things not being quite right for us, or less.

This PD cannot love or connect. You deserve love and connection.

Really good point from pp. Tolerating abuse is not strength. Abusers want you to feel like you are overreacting/oversensitive/crazy/weak when you don't tolerate their abuse. They may even call us these things.

So we often adopt that mindset ourselves. This mindset that we should let everything slide in order not to be looked upon as weak (and also, in the hope that it'll prevent any backlash from them)
But it's not strong to forgive or put up with people hurting us.

Strong is to say 'this isn't good enough for me' and to walk away when people treat us with disrespect, unkindness or cruelty.

I don’t think he has been abusive, unless I am genuinely not seeing something really obvious here.
But he has confirmed masks (plural) without which he can’t fit in. I think this is the bit that I am really struggling with, because I can understand why he needs this, but it also makes it so difficult to see what is real. He did offer that we could have a conversation at his therapist’s, who he claims to have discussed the “coming clean” discussion with.
I think I won’t hear from him this week as he will be busy being adored at this work event, but I could be wrong.
I am going to keep this week to myself though, even though I keep thinking about stuff. I bought a new dress and I will go out.
As others pointed out I seem to be putting everyone before me at times and I will try to put myself first for now and hope that I won’t get a bad conscience again. I had never thought about it that way, so I will give it a go :)

I don’t think I can just walk away without having given him a chance so I will give it a go. I don’t know if this can work or if we are just too different, but I don’t want to be one who walked off when he admitted to having issues. I’ll continue to see the councillor though to hopefully work on my boundaries, which I probably need to do anyway.

I guess I should have listened. He broke up with me now because I am apparently holding him back and a downer to be around. I guess that makes sense. He also said other things that were just unnecessarily cruel though.
I should have listened so this is my own fault now. I just thought I’d let people know who had tried to help.

I’m sorry

Ah I’m sorry @Sh1vers. I hope you’re ok. It’s not your fault. You don’t want someone who’s cruel to you.

Sounds like a lucky escape to me, @Sh1vers. I hope seeing the counsellor helps you with healing and learning to trust your instincts/develop healthy boundaries in the future. He showed you who he is in that early incident - that’s what’s behind the masks.

Thank you. I just feel hurt and so stupid, but it’s deserved.

It’s not deserved at all. People with ASPD are known for being completely and utterly charming, it is all a mask though as others have said - they know exactly how to act to draw people in that’s the scary part.

Lesson learned and hopefully you can heal with the aid of therapy and definitely do the freedom program

Yes I am going to look at therapy again. I wouldn’t want to get dragged back in case he changes his mind. Thank you all.

Honey you need to unpick why you entertained the thought of pursuing an intimate relationship with him, as if you owed him that. You've had a very very lucky escape. Most of us here who have had relationships with npd/aspd were stuck in the web for decades. I'm not saying he should be shunned by everyone in his life but his brain makes him a hurt machine but he lacks the empathy to realise it would be kinder to not pursue intimate relationships.

I know why I thought I “owed” it. I’d be heartbroken if I got rejected for my own issues, so I don’t want to be that person. But I guess I got rejected for it anyway, so yeah. Lesson learned I guess.

Would you feel people owed you intimate relationships if you knew you would hurt them and not care? You're not stupid, you're learning and your past makes you vulnerable to people who lack empathy because you have poor self esteem. Therapy is definitely the way to go not just about relationships with men but your relationship with yourself, that's where the healing is needed.

God no. But I’d feel crushed if people discarded me for having issues without having given it second thought. And I don’t want to be like that.
But anyway, the ship has sailed, I hope others don’t make the same mistakes.