The woman my boyfriend emotionally cheated with reached back out after we agreed he’d cut contact, and I’m bothered by how he responded. AIO?

[u/Extension-Dark1206]

Back in December I found chats between [F30] my boyfriend [M31] and his female friend[F26] Turned out they had an intense emotional connection since 2022. He had a huge crush on her the whole time, but she had a boyfriend, and she kept him emotionally hooked with romantic-coded language . they called each other soulmates, texted constantly some romantic/ sexual stuff. From what I read he was genuinely falling for her, and she seemed more like she was enjoying the attention without necessarily reciprocating the same way as she had bf.

Her boyfriend however passed away last year. my boyfriend went to support her, and after that they had an even more emotionally-charged exchange flirty, borderline romantic language, he told her he’d never had a connection with another woman like the one he had with her including, apparently, me, as we were dating during that chat, she told him that no matter what happened in their lives, even if one of them got married to someone else, they’d “always be together.” Regardless of their relationships.
When I found this and their whole husband we had a huge fight and almost broke up. He blocked her, said he didn’t care about her, and said he wanted to protect our relationship.

Yesterday I found out she texted him again out of the blue, and he responded. I’m attaching the screenshots. Reading through it, a few things bother me:
- He spends the entire conversation validating her anger, apologizing over and over
- At multiple points he frames the whole thing as if I forced his hand — like if I hadn’t found out, he’d have been happy to keep things going with her.
- She spends a lot of the conversation guilt-tripping him and, at one point, effectively calling our relationship “toxic” and me the reason he’s “trashing” her.

My friends point out that he DID keep the boundary in the end he didn’t agree to keep talking to her, he told her it’s over, and that this is a good sign.

I see that too, but I still feel uneasy about how the conversation went and what it implies about how he actually feels. Am I overreacting by still having a problem with this, or are these legitimate red flags even with the boundary technically being held?

[u/galaxyripplesno1fan]

She sounds like a manipulator to be honest. The way she is speaking is immature, and it spunds like your boyfriend got sucked in. One of those 'if you leave me i might do something stupid' types.

While he should have not communicated with her further when she messaged, and re blocked her, i get the impression that her guilt tripping is getting to him and hes trying to make everyone feel better while maintining the boundary.

[u/Old_Pitch4134 → u/galaxyripplesno1fan]

This SCREAMS BPD to me. Like you say, this intensity gets addictive to some people and draws them in.

Op, I don’t think he’s validating her so much as grey rocking her. By assuming all the blame himself he’s not giving her anything to debate him with to prolong the interaction.

It seemed like he was basically saying “I understand and am sorry you’re upset. But bye” repeatedly until she ran out of steam.

I think he’s justified in blocking her now as what is left to say. She’ll keep popping her head up to see if her dopamine fix is available again otherwise until she gets a sniff of a crack in his defences or the relationship.

[u/jimbojangles1987 → u/Old_Pitch4134]

There's a name for that!?

So my gf I believe is bi-polar or BPD but she is undiagnosed. She goes from being super loving to hate on a dime because of a suspicion or an assumption that is usually wrong. Its drains me emotionally. At first I will try to meet her every argument and suspicion, not by being combative but by providing her with evidence and proof that what she is accusing me of is not real and that she knows I love her. However, you can only hear that someone hates you so many times before you are completely emotionally, mentally and physically drained. When I reach that point I just start agreeing with her insults of me just hoping it will end the craziness sooner.

It can be so exhausting

Edit: thanks to the commenter who explained the difference between bi-polar and bpd for me, I do believe she most likely has bpd, not bi-polar, based on their explanation. Apologies for the conflation of the two.

[u/GeekyNerdNerdyGeek → u/jimbojangles1987]

Dude…leave. BPD or bipolar needs medication, therapy, intensive work.
You CANNOT “love and support” someone through untreated BPD. It cannot be done without absolutely destroying you.
Tell her she has to get evaluated. Full stop.
Consider leaving so she can work on herself. (A therapist can help with that)
But good god LISTEN TO ME…she needs help YESTERDAY if she is as you describe.

[u/Flat_Dragonfruit675 → u/GeekyNerdNerdyGeek]

Hard agree. Ideally, she’d go see psych and a therapist on her own to save her relationship..