Oops, I just realized I said “personal experience with actual mental illness” which implied it was me who was ill. Apologies to anyone who misunderstood. I meant “personal experience with a friend/family member who had an actual mental illness”.
Yep. Been there, too.
I’ve experienced this once and a friend’s mother is just like that as well.
My friend dated Crazy for nearly three years, and then on/off for another year or so.
They were engaged for a good part of it too, mostly because he somehow got it into his head that she might get a little less jealous and controlling if he gave her a ring as proof of his love. Thankfully, he managed to extract himself from the situation before a wedding ever happened.
Crazy happened to be a six-foot tall leggy blonde, brilliant, well-read and, from all accounts, an absolute firecracker in bed… and then, as time went on, he started realising that she was also a raging mass of low self-esteem. Plus she had a massive drug habit that just got worse over the course of the relationship, so she’d alternate between manic fits of jealousy and suicidal depression complete with self-harming behaviour. It was like he had his own personal Amy Winehouse, minus the beehive and the talent.
Dating the crazy party girl is really fun for a few days, but if she’s like that even once you get your clothes back on and dust the coke off your coffee table, it’s not so fun anymore.
It can happen really really gradually, too. My father was in seminary for a while, and ended up going into social work. Either he really had an impulse to help others, or he went along with it because that’s what was expected of him (by his mom, his family, his community, or whatever… ancient history and there’s no way for me to ever really know). Either way, to all outward appearances, I imagine he seemed to be a nice guy, a helper/healer type – and he still puts on a good show for people he’s trying to impress. He and Mom got married shortly after college, so I imagine he was still apparently a nice guy then. However, by 15 years after seminary/college, he was already intolerable, nor did he care one whit about trying to impress his family with what a great guy he was. He saved the show for people on the outside. (I think he does it so he can manipulate them/get what he wants from them more easily, but who knows. So I suppose he doesn’t do this with family because he feels he’s invested enough time and “nice” into the deal, so now we owe him whatever he wants.)
Even 15 or so years ago, he was still the nice guy in the presence of extended family – very jovial whenever we visited his cousin and his wife. Now it’s 30+ years on, and he’s worse than ever. Cousin passed away, so about a year ago he made a point of belittling the hell out of the wife, after having picked away at her bit by bit until it all came to a head (they are no longer speaking). The world revolves around him, you see, and everyone else better tow the line. If you act like an independent agent in his presence, you are WRONG. Unless you’re outside the inner circle and he’s still trying to impress you – then you see the funny guy.
When one partner is crazy and the other is needy, that’s a potent combination. I have an uncle who’s stuck in an awful situation. He can’t stand to be alone, so he came crawling back to the crazy.
Her descent into Madworld took decades. She was pretty normal in the early years.
Boy, my crazy neighbor makes a good first impression and then introduces you to the crazy in increments until it is overwhelming.
My daughter, who I discussed in the link mentioned in the OP, had a boyfriend for almost a year a couple years ago. I think she was OK for a while with him, but after several months, he started backing away. I don’t know the complete dynamics of their relationship, but I do know that she would get very angry with him if he chose to spend an evening with his friends instead of her, or wouldn’t text or call her back RIGHT AWAY. Shortly before they broke up, they spend a week at the beach with friends, and she admitted to me that she got drunk one night and screamed at him, saying how much she hated him and what an asshole he was (he wasn’t; he was a sweetie). She also texted him after they broke up to let him know that the “anniversary” present he got for her was shit (it wasn’t).
She recently broke up with another guy, but since she’s no longer living with us, I don’t know what happened there. I suspect he saw how she really is and ran.
As for me and her father (my ex-husband), he was awesome at first, and I was 19 when I met him. He was a Marine, and looked hot in his uniform. We married a year later (mostly because I wanted to get out of my parents’ house; a lame excuse, but I was very immature and had had a lot of problems there) and he was almost immediately deployed to North Carolina and then Japan, and wives weren’t allowed. So we barely saw each other the first couple years of our marriage. When he got back, I got pregnant, then his enlistment was up and suddenly I was thrown into living with someone who turned out to be a complete nightmare. I stayed married to him for a couple more years, mostly because he had me so worn down and my self-esteem was crap. He had me convinced that nobody would want me because I was fat, gross (I wasn’t) and had a kid. I finally left when I realized I wanted one of us, I didn’t care which one, to die so the nightmare would be over. I wouldn’t have commited suicide, but I didn’t care if something happened to either of us.
I’ve been remarried for almost 16 years to a wonderful man and we have a happy and healthy marriage. My ex has been remarried twice and I have no idea how his current relationship is. He’s almost 43 now, so maybe he’s finally calming down, like it’s said that those with BPD can do.
I usually figured those that fall for it either; don’t have options, or cannot for one moment stand “being alone”… OMG!
There are exceptions of course, like not seeing the crazy and it came later in the relationship. Or if mental illness develops later too.
But for those people that I’ve known that knew their SO was crazy from the start? They didn’t have any other options, or could not stand to be alone. Kinda funny, because the ‘can’t stand being alone’ people IMO are the crazy.
And when I say that, I don’t mean people who long for a relationship. I’m talking about people in which after a bad breakup, they hop from one bad relationship to the next almost immediately, and do it often.
I am really glad to hear your wife is okay now. I remember reading the linked thread at the time.
A good friend of mine married the crazy. I met him before they ever got married and he really was a top notch person. Really sweet, funny, a great guy. They got married kind of young (she was, I think, 22, he was 24) but they had been together for years, no one realized that one day he would go INSANE. It was very uncool. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I lived in another state and only saw them 2-3 times a year and the difference from my POV was dramatic. Once, he and I were out without my friend and he told me he wanted to commit suicide. Note to people: don’t tell your wife’s friend that you want to commit suicide. I am not a therapist. I had no idea what to say to that and I was pretty upset. When we got back to my apartment, I took my friend aside and told her that, and far from looking upset, she seemed fit to kill him for dumping that one me, forget suicide.
Still, it took her another three years to leave him. She had a lot of guilt over leaving someone in such obviously bad mental health, but finally realized that his illness was consuming her as well. I was with her when she got the call from the attorney that the divorce was finalized; it was a good day.
We have been watching a VGF’s ex wife ( a Dysfuctional Tornado of BPD if there ever was one) sleep around with one of her closest friends husband. The husband said to his wife ( who told me and any other female that would listen.)
" After I stood up for her in the divorce and stood by her side, and helped her when she was at her lowest, she lures my husband away and he wants to start his life over again with this…( I provide " Proven Trainwreck") Proven TRAINWRECK and I asked him , " Why would you throw away nearly 20 years of us for her?"
“Because I can fix her.”
Trust me, she ain’t that pretty or hot. Fake boobs and a bad hair job. But, from our VGF, the ex of this trainwreck, she likes The Sex. Alot. Which, when you are young and horny, it is easy to overlook other gaping holes of personality and mental health issues.
As of right now, the wife thinks he is moving out of state with her and the family in a few weeks. (All to get away from the Trainwreck and because there are no jobs here in Michigan.) All of us are holding our breath and see if he actually goes along. His home here is in foreclosure due to some serious debt issues brought on by him.
I never liked this guy. Ever. Frankly. I want to see him ruin his life by leaving his wife and kids and just farking crash and burn when she dumps him for whomever is shiney and new. ( Because while she is waiting for this to happen, she is screwing a neighbor’s husband.)
Small town life, the reason why I don’t watch night time TV. I get it in real time.
I really need to start chronicalizing this stuff for a book.
I’m going to have to be a little vague on who the crazy is, but the situation someone I know who is married to the crazy went roughly:
- Meet cool, easygoing, friendly girl at the tail end of a bitter relationship. Fall madly, instantly in love
- Move in with cool, easygoing, friendly girl way too quickly, but rebound relationships are generally characterised by intense emotions and in this one they took the reins.
- Cool, easygoing, friendly girl’s friends and family make lots of comments about her that seem disparaging, and also in no way resemble the cool, easygoing, friendly personality that is his only experience of her so far. Feel she’s getting a bad rap from the people who ought to care about her, feelings of protectiveness towards this misunderstood girl.
- Girl’s mother tells him upon second (first? can’t remember) meeting that he would have her blessing if he wants to marry her daughter. Subtle pushing from the family ensues.
- Swept away in this glorious rebound relationship that’s so different from his previous relationship, and with the nudging of her family, gets engaged way too soon.
- As part of the whirlwind, wedding planned way too soon too, and they are married less than 15 months before they first met.
- Wakes up one morning to find cool, easygoing, friendly girl is gone and demanding, paranoid, insecure girl has taken her place. Suddenly the woman her friends and family were describing is real, and that other girl is gone, never to be seen again.
Honestly, he says that’s how quick the transformation was - he remembers the morning he woke up to find she’d become a stranger. And of course there were signs that she maybe had a case of the crazy before they got married, but they were little tells, not big fat flashing red warning signs, and swept away by the excitement and feelings of contentment that come with a new relationship he failed to recognise how important they’d become. Sometimes The Crazy masquerades as fun, wild and exciting, and they sweep you along in doing things that you really ought to know better than do, but by the time you figure that out, sometimes it’s too late.
Also, as with so many things, sometimes the whole picture only becomes clear when you step back from it. From where we sat, we could see things the girl said and did that were worrying and inconsistent, but from his place – by her side – he couldn’t see that. He got her side of the story, her interpretation of things and didn’t have enough space to take an objective view. We tried to tactfully raise some things with him, but he was so happy that we didn’t want to hurt him, and he was so blinded that he didn’t pay attention and it all got by him.
Shit, I’m there now. 
Cazzle, you pretty much described my marriage. The sad thing is, I thought I could fix him.
I was wrong. 
Well, with my record, I need to consider that maybe, just maybe, I drive them crazy.
The level of ‘crazy’ a person is not constant and there is no safe point where, if they aren’t crazy yet, they never will be. So you marry someone and maybe it is the fact that they ‘relax’ and really let their hair down, or some people think, gee, when I get married I’ll be a real grown-up and I won’t do this shit anymore’ but marriage is NOT the Blue Fairy, if you kiss the beast, he does not transform into a prince, love does not conquer all, nor is it all you need.
I didn’t read the other thread and only just skimmed this one. But the person who is getting divorced is not the most objective person to assess the mental stability of their ex. While some people might certainly be “crazy” as in illness, there might be others where some perception goes along with that. Just a thought.
This and what Zebra said are definitely valid. Again, not where legitimate, diagnosed mental illness is concerned, but sometimes the ‘S/He was crazy!’ claims post-break up are applied just a tad too liberally.
My cousin has a theory that some people think “drama” = “passion” and are thusly more prone to date the crazy.
Which this behavior is reinforced on so many different levels by watching…what?
TV.
All the night time stuff is headcase TV. (We won’t even discuss the retardedness of Soaps because I would like to maintain the delusion that Dopers are above such crap. Don’t pop my bubble. Because nobody wants to watch somebody who makes a rational decision or balance a checkbook.
That would be dull.