When Love Hurts: The Psychological Toll of Caring for Someone with a Personality Disorder
Relationships with individuals who live with personality disorders are often marked by intensity that can be both deeply moving and incredibly difficult to navigate. For many loved ones — partners, parents, siblings, or close friends — these relationships are defined by moments of extraordinary closeness, emotional openness, and care. And yet, those same relationships can also feel confusing, overwhelming, and chaotic.
People with personality disorders often experience relationships in heightened ways — seeking deep connection, fearing abandonment, struggling with trust, or reacting strongly to perceived slights. These dynamics don’t emerge in isolation; they take shape within the relational field, and those close to the person can find themselves swept into cycles that are hard to understand, let alone step outside of.
Loved ones may feel powerfully needed one moment and pushed away the next. They might find themselves drawn into intense emotional exchanges that can feel both intimate and disorienting. There can be a strong pull to care for or protect the other person, especially when their suffering is palpable. At the same time, boundaries may erode, and feelings of guilt, resentment, and helplessness can creep in.
Research shows that family members of individuals with personality disorders often struggle to make sense of these conflicting experiences. One study found that caregivers of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) reported high levels of emotional stress but also described profound loyalty, love, and hope for repair (Bailey & Grenyer, 2014). Another study highlighted that relatives frequently oscillate between compassion and exhaustion, describing a sense of being “pulled in too close” or “shut out completely” (Lawn & McMahon, 2015). This ambivalence — wanting to stay close, while needing to protect oneself — is at the heart of what makes these relationships so complex.
Rather than viewing loved ones as collateral damage or co-dependent bystanders, it can be more accurate — and more compassionate — to understand them as participants in a relational system that’s emotionally demanding and often under-supported. There may be unconscious enactments on both sides: roles taken, expectations projected, histories repeated. For some, being drawn into these patterns can evoke earlier relational wounds, making it even harder to know what feelings belong to the present moment.
Navigating these dynamics doesn’t mean choosing between connection and self-preservation. It means learning how to reflect on your own emotional experience, understand the relational patterns you may be caught in, and cultivate boundaries that make real intimacy possible.
It’s not about pathologizing the person you love. It’s about making room for the full complexity of the relationship — it’s tenderness and volatility, it’s intensity and unpredictability — and allowing yourself to make sense of your role within it. Because loving someone who struggles to love safely doesn’t mean you’ve failed; it means you’re human.
If you are a looking for support, please contact us. Are you a loved one of an individual with a personality disorder? Join our Psychotherapy Group for Loved Ones of Individuals with Personality Disorders.
References
Bailey, R. C., & Grenyer, B. F. S. (2014). Burden and support needs of carers of persons with borderline personality disorder: A systematic review. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 22(5), 248–258. https://doi.org/10.1097/HRP.0000000000000040
Lawn, S., & McMahon, J. (2015). Experiences of family caregivers of people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 22(4), 234–243. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpm.12185