I’ll give you a long history, but my biggest concern is text messaging at this point. My partner has left me, but texts me every day. It seems like there is always a right or wrong answer to each text. One causes her to punish my and disappear for a few days, the other makes her feel loved. I don’t know how to handle this. Her texts are usually also ambivalent, saying nothing and only expecting a desired response: “I love you but I’m sorry;” “I miss your hugs but can’t be with you because you are no longer the man I fell in love with;” “I don’t know what I am doing, you tell me what to do;” “Don’t tell me what to do, you don’t understand.”

I am walking on eggshells and don’t know what to do. Any advice?

The long story: I think I’ve been devalued. I did not know that she had BPD, though I’m gradually becoming sure of it. When we met, we left our other relationships to be together, as we felt like soulmates. And it felt like that for a while, before I began getting picked on: for my family’s relative wealth compared to her, my having very close relationships with friends, my having studied abroad for many years. This all happened just before I was leaving the country to carry on with my studies. I pushed my flight back for her the first time, because she said she didn’t know what to do with me gone, that she was even afraid she’d go back to her ex if I am gone two long (I was supposed to be gone for only two months). 

Then, more nitpicking until I one day lost it and gave in to her arguments. I fought by justifying myself against all that she blamed me for. I told her that her ex still being actively in her life (and wanting to get back with her) is disrespectful to me, her new partner. I left the house.  The argument reoccurred the next day, ending with me crying. Suddenly, for the next week, everything was fine. She was loving, vulnerable, as sweet as when I met her. 

Then, she disappeared again just as I was about to catch my next flight abroad. She would call only sometimes, refusing to see me but crying and blaming it on her PMS. Then, she suddenly broke the news that she was planning on leaving me. That all I had said to her had caused her to not trust me anymore and forget who she was. That she loved me but she no longer be with me as she did not know who to be anymore. “I’m afraid I’ll insult you and make you mad at me again” was one of her arguments. Another: “If you had told me what you said in three months, I wouldn’t have been so bothered. By then, I’d have proven myself to you.”

Then came to NC, and every day she’d text and say “I love you and I’m sorry,” to which I’d always reply with something very neutral but positive. The next day, she’s call and explain why she couldn’t be with me, how she’d have to teach herself not to depend on men so much, only to say after “I miss the sound of your breath” or “I can’t live in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”

The next day, absolute silence again. Then a random text in the morning. This time, it was about a number for a OBGYN who is a relative of ours. I told her that I can’t give the number away, as the man is the head of the hospital and does not take in patients. 

Then silence again. 

Two days later, paranoid that she’d gotten back together with the ex she’d always threatened me with, I drove by her house, saw her dancing by the window (she was having a party), and sent her a text saying I missed her. 

The next day, she blamed me for not giving her the number for the OBGYN and told me she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. I immediately told her I’d support her throughout this process, extremely concerned, only for her to say: “I don’t want you to. I shouldn’t had told you any of it. I just told you so you’d leave me alone.”

I had also gotten her an appointment with the OBGYN immediately, and she got angry at me immediately. She then revealed that she was going on a trip by plane the next day and did not know when she’d come back. “I’m running away from you,” she said multiple times, before proceeding to have sex with me. 

Afterwards, she told me I had to leave her house, and when I did, she called and flirted with me as though everything was normal. Then the next day, she disappeared completely, leaving me a wreck.

Today, I woke up to texts of her on a train (she had even given my her flight times, and it’s worrying that she even lied about her mode of transport), wearing my t-shirt and saying “I brought you along with me,” before deleting the text, then repeating the text, then telling me that she doesn’t know what to do at all. 

A part of me thinks that she even lied about the cancer to get my back to her house, worried and assertive. To receive news about such a thing only to party and then go to a vacation twenty hours away is just such a strange thing to do.