Recognizing and Understanding Abuse in a Borderline Personality Disorder Relationship

The topic of abuse in a Borderline Personality Disorder relationship is a sensitive and complicated one. Recognizing and understanding this type of abuse may be helpful, for both people in the relationship.

There are no reliable statistics for the percentage of emotional and/or physical abuse that is directly linked to personality disorders in general or Borderline Personality Disorder in specific. However, according to Dr. Donald Dutton, a leading researcher into the connection between domestic violence and personality disorders, "There is strong evidence that the majority of men who are either court-referred or self-referred for wife assault do have diagnosable psychological pathology.”

“In general,” says Dr. Dutton, “about 80% of both court-referred and self-referred men,” in his studies, “exhibited diagnosable psychopathology, typically personality disorders."

Unfortunately, it is frustrating for both the therapist and loved ones of the person who has Borderline Personality Disorder when the psychological defense mechanisms of dissociation, projection, and splitting keep the borderline from recognizing his/her own abusive nature and behavior.

It is very common for people with Borderline Personality Disorder to dissociate during periods of stress and behave in abusive ways that are perceived as a necessary defense against imagined physical, sexual or emotional assaults on their own well-being or safety. They tend to relive past experiences of traumatic child abuse or neglect, and to project feelings related to these experiences onto their present loved ones (relationships).

A person with Borderline Personality Disorder may feel that they are totally dependent upon their loved one for their very survival, and yet display extremes of anger or rage against this very same person, pushing them away. “Love-hate” relationships are characteristic of Borderline Personality Disorder relationships, and any perceived act of criticism or indication of abandonment on the part of a loved one will trigger a negative (abusive) response from the person with Borderline Personality Disorder.

For the non-borderline loved one, these abusive behaviors can be very frustrating, if not downright frightening. They may have no idea why they seem to be the frequent targets of the borderline’s anger and rage. Most frustrating of all is the inconsistency of the emotions of the person who has Borderline Personality Disorder – although they may proclaim their undying love, their actions seem to contradict their words as, at the same time, they push away their loved one. At best, their behavior is simply confusing to the non-borderline. At worst, it is not only emotionally abusive, but can become physically abusive as well.

Aside from the physical danger to the non-borderline partner in the relationship, the psychological danger is the resultant destruction of their own well-being and stability. There is also particular danger to the children of a person who has Borderline Personality Disorder. A review by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control found that up to 50% of those people who engaged in domestic violence against a spouse had also physically abused the children in the home.

Typically, whether in a borderline relationship or not, abusers are often former victims themselves. This is not an excuse for their abusive behavior, however, any more than the fact that they have Borderline Personality Disorder; although people with Borderline Personality Disorder who experienced abusive childhoods are statistically more likely to re-enact this history by entering abusive relationships themselves in adult life.

The non-borderline partner, in the face of their own sometimes enormous pain caused by these abusive behaviors, may feel caught between blaming the person with Borderline Personality Disorder for being the abuser, and wanting to comfort them for being the abused (the victim).

If you are an adult partner of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, remember that you did not cause their disorder and it is not your burden to cure it. Your role is to support, guide and offer your help without enduring intolerable abuse. The decision to heal, as with alcoholics, for example, must ultimately lie with the borderline him/herself.

About the Author

David Oliver is the founder of BorderlineCentral.com a one stop source of information on how to cope and deal with borderline personality disorder.

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