I (23F) am dating the most amazing guy. He knows of my bpd and is so calm, patient, caring, and understanding of me and splitting. He gives me constant random reassurance, never leaves me guessing, and is very communicative with me. He is literally my dream partner, but I feel like I’m always messing it up.

I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve claimed (ie. he doesn’t love me, he doesn’t care about me, he’s using me) when I rationally know, when I’m not splitting, that is absolutely not true. I’m a quiet borderline so I tend to shut down whenever I split and pull away/push him away. But I don’t want to continue to do that. I used to struggle with this with my friends a lot. I don’t know what changed, but now I rarely split on my friends if ever. But I feel as though I’m splitting on him constantly.

I’ve dated people who essentially “ignored the elephant in the room” (my bpd lol) so this feels like the first relationship where I’m actually trying to navigate healthily with the support of my partner. We have a lot of talks about my bpd and ways to better communicate and things which I guess is a good start. I am in therapy btw, so I’ve learned a lot of good skills but considering I’ve been receiving CBT instead of DBT I’m probably not where I could be.

I guess the goal isn’t to stop splitting right away because that’s not realistic. But I want to know how you guys deal with it in a “healthy” way or are at least trying to. I’m unsure of how to communicate without shutting down or being passive aggressive. Sometimes I feel that shutting down is the best bet because other times I can be very mean when I’m upset and I hate myself for it. Once the black and white thinking starts, I can’t be convinced of anything. I become the most stubborn person. 

He is never aggressive when I tell him I’m upset. He’s always ready to fix things, always willing to listen. He would rather me communicate rather than shut down. It feels when I split I hold onto things with an iron grip. Obviously the problem is me, not him. He’s not trying to fight me, but it seems I’m always trying to fight him.  

I have conversations with myself when I’m splitting to try to rationalize my emotions. A lot of times I come to the conclusion that what I’m upset about makes absolutely no sense and is not based in reality. So that has been helping. Trying to identify the emotions behind me splitting has always been a big help. I’ve noticed that I split typically when I feel hurt, dismissed, ignored, or rejected. But I’m looking for other perspectives on how to better handle splitting in relationships. Would love to hear how you guys handle it!

tl;dr: i’m struggling to stop splitting in my relationship and would love to hear how you guys handle splitting in the most constructive way one can