27 female here. I spent this weekend at my boyfriend's place. He had made plans to shop for a pair of jeans (he had never owned a pair of jeans until he bought them that day. I know...hard to believe). Anyway, he had also invited a few of his coworkers to come along. One of them was a girl (let's call her Brenda) and the other, a guy (let's call him Peter).



My boyfriend (let's call him Joe), was eager for my coworkers to meet me because he had talked about me to them for a while and I also had heard stories about them as well. I was pretty excited for the shopping day too.


So we go and finally meet up with them and things started off fine. Said hi, shook hands, and we were off on our way to go shop for Joe.


I'm going to jump right into the conflict:


We only went to stores that Brenda wanted to go to. We only looked at the styles of clothes that Brenda liked. Whatever Brenda picked for Joe, he had to try on. I didn't mind so much and since I don't have that big of a fashion sense, I just went along with it.


However, there were a few times where I picked out something I wanted Joe to try on. Every time I brought something to him to try on, Brenda would roll her eyes or frown. She'd look at Joe and say, "I don't like that." When she did this about two or more times, I started to realize she was being a tad passive aggressive towards me. She didn't make eye contact and didn't explain why she didn't like the things I picked out for my own boyfriend. 


Peter had no opinion and tagged along this shopping trip for the sake of tagging along. He also made a lot of effort to talk to me and get to know me. Very friendly.


There was even a time where Brenda wanted to go into the fitting room herself and wanted total control over what Joe tried on. Peter and I also were in the fitting room (all 4 of us basically), but after a minute, he stepped out because he felt it was too crowded. I had brought a coat for Joe to try on and realized I had grabbed the wrong size, so I went back out to grab the right one. As I was walking out, I heard Brenda tell Peter to come back inside the fitting room.


Joe's a gamer. He's a casual person. He's not into name brands. He doesn't care about dressing as if he owns a yacht. He's not preppy. He's not into looking wealthy. All he wanted was to buy clothes that were comfortable, but not too sloppy looking.


Joe ended up only buying things that Brenda forced him to buy. She physically did force him to buy her choices and even shoved clothes into his hands. Out of pressure, he spent close to 300 dollars on 2 pairs of jeans and 2 shirts. 



After a while, I felt extremely emotional, uncomfortable, and annoyed. I did a really great job of not showing it because Joe had no idea how upset I was until I told him. He didn't really know what to say and it's not like he did anything wrong really. He pretty much said that he didn't know why Brenda acted that way and was clueless himself. He thought she'd be friendlier towards me.


After going back to the apartment, it was clear that I still felt a little bothered by something, but I kept ignoring it and telling myself that I don't have to see Brenda ever again. Things seemed to calm down and I felt okay. I had things to study for in school so my mind was more set on that for the time being.


However now that I'm back home after the weekend, I'm feeling my bpd start to really kick in about this situation. Some thoughts going through my head:



-Joe is going to be wearing clothes that Brenda picked out for him. I feel rejected. I am not adequate enough.



-I want Joe to return some of the clothes he bought and go shopping with just the two of us so he could at least wear 1 thing I picked out.


-A lot of the clothes that Brenda picked out were hideous.


-I hate Brenda.


-I'm going to cancel all my Valentine's Day plans with Joe this weekend. I want to be alone.



Joe is aware I have bpd and tries his best to be there for me. Should I show him this post? It is my 100% honest self.


edit: Thank you to those who have pmed me and replied here. It really helped and I am truly grateful. This is why I love this subreddit. It has been the most helpful for my bpd. I feel that this situation is also impacting me so much because similar scenarios like this has happened to me before. Perhaps it's kind of bringing back those old events and causing more anxiety/fear. I will continue working on myself so that I won't be so fearful of situations like this as much anymore.

