My pwBPD and I had a lot of intense and dramatic ups and downs, including repeatedly splitting up and getting back together. That is nothing anyone here is unfamiliar with. But over the last year or so, things have been...stable. He made some healthy changes in his life and stuck to them. It took me a long time to believe that he wasn't going to break up with me out of the blue, or that he'd stick to his lifestyle changes, or that he wasn't dead when I wouldn't hear from him for awhile. We started to have productive and vulnerable conversations, and he wouldn't melt down about it.

But things never felt as good as they once did when things had been going well. There was a level of intimacy that was simply missing. We still hadn't directly addressed the pain he caused me and I was still holding on to that. I didn't think we could have a truly deep relationship without that acknowledgement from him. It was so, so difficult for me to bring up topics that I knew would rock the boat like impending changes in my life. I had so much anxiety based on his past reactions and with the shallowness of our relationship, I didn't really see him as a life partner who needed to be deeply involved in these choices.

Shockingly, around two months ago, we finally discussed what happened between us and specific examples of how he hurt me. It was incredibly cathartic for me, and he seemed to really recognize the pain he caused and how and why it affected my ability to trust him. He seemed to understand why I hadn't felt comfortable inviting him in when figuring out next steps in my life. I thought we could move on and go from there, and make joint decisions as partners moving forward.

But instead it feels like we regressed. He was mad he didn't get included in a decision making process that happened when I didn't even know if it was accurate to describe him as my boyfriend. He wanted me to give up an opportunity I had to move in with him, and didn't like any compromises I came up with. I asked if we could continue discussing some issues from the past that still bothered me, and he was no longer open to it.

He broke up with me, again, last night. I am heartbroken, because just when I thought we had a real chance, where he was stable enough to be a true partner, where he could provide me with grace as I worked through my trust issues, where he could maybe for once support me when it would be inconvenient for him to do so, he decides to end it.

We agreed that we have trust issues. I struggle to trust him to react in an ok way and to bring up sensitive but important topics, and he doesn't trust me to let him in. And he doesn't want to work on it or be patient with me or anything.

The truth is, I haven't really trusted him in years. Too much drama, pain, you name it. I thought this was the last hurdle - if he could just accept that I wanted to do something that made it more challenging to do what he wanted, that we would be at the point of really making life decisions together. That we wouldn't have these communication fuckups moving forward. This doesn't happen to me with other people.

I guess the lesson is you can't ignore the lack of trust. It's insidious, it's destabilizing, it fragments communication. Love doesn't compensate for broken trust. I don't know how to fix broken trust, but if it's gone that fact can't be ignored.

Thanks to anyone who read this, it was helpful to write regardless.