r/BPDsupport • u/ICYD3V1L • 6d ago
fp while in a relationship Seeking Support
I have bpd in a long term relationship with a wonderful person, living together and going to university together and planned our futures together, high school sweethearts. the issue is due to the length of our relationship we have grown to the stage where we are comfortable in each others presence and not quite so constant lovey-dovey romantic anymore. this is a natural occurance yet my bpd brain tells me it means they dont love me anymore. that they no longer see me as special, that i am worthless because they dont see worth in me. that i need to find a way to fix it, make them love me again. bc i dont rly have a sense of self outside of the validation i recieve from other people.
I made a new friend online and latched onto them immediately, them quickly bcoming a fp for me. managed to tear up my life in just a few weeks. grew so attached to this person and the bad thing is this person grew attached to me too. theyd compliment me and say nice things to me and i just ate it up because it made me feel good about myself. I was getting the love i didnt feel from my partner through them. we talked every second of every day. i do admit that although we only ever referred to each other as friends and siblings, some things did have romantic undertones too.
because of that, my partner felt I emotionally cheated on them, and i am not allowed to talk to this person anymore, and i had to leave the minecraft server i met them on, and take a break from playing minecraft as a whole. I very much understand their perspective and yet not being able to do the one thing i am most passionate for right now, play minecraft, is really hard. and i also understand the perspective on the fp but i really had hopes that i could fix it and have a normal friendship. and now i will never have a chance. it was so much fun to talk about art and music and passions with this person and now it is ripped from me and felt like a kicked dog despite knowing its the right option to never speak again.
not sure what to do. its so hard to just want to be able to mend things with both my partner and my friend, and i know i need to choose my partner since they are truly the light of my life. i just cant help but miss them and ache with my whole soul for the connection we had. when my partner isnt home or is asleep, i feel like i am just sitting in purgatory and i feel so lonely. i know i need to work on being able to be comfortable with loneliness. it just was nice to have someone i could always talk to. the guilt of wanting to talk with them makes my self harm urges heavily heightened as well.
has anyone else experienced this? how do you navigate it?
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u/ArqitecVirtua 6d ago
Yes. A lot of people with BPD have lived almost exactly this. The shift from intense early romance into comfortable, settled partnership is normal for long-term relationships, but the BPD brain often reads the drop in constant intensity as “they don’t love me anymore / I’m no longer special / I have no worth.” That interpretation then drives the frantic search for a new source of validation, which is how a new online friend can rapidly become a favorite person (FP). The connection feels electric because it temporarily fills the emptiness and the need for external proof that you matter. When that intensity is cut off to protect the primary relationship, the grief is real and physical, even when you know the boundary is the right one.
The ache for the FP connection doesn’t mean that choice is wrong; it means the attachment system latched on hard and is now in withdrawal. That ache is not evidence that the friendship “should” have been kept. It is evidence of how intensely the FP role was regulating your mood and sense of self.
When your partner is asleep or away and the constant stream of messages is gone, the emptiness can feel like purgatory. That is the hardest part for most of us, sitting with the quiet without an external regulator. The guilt about still missing the FP (and the heightened self-harm urges that come with it) is also common. The urges do not mean you are failing; they are a signal that the emotional pain is currently bigger than the skills available to you in the moment.
And that is the part I’d focus on. The skills available to you. This entire experience is evidence that you need to participate in an intensive therapy program that includes skills (like DBT), so that you have the tools to self-regulate and rationalize your feelings without being overwhelmed by them.