I love You, But Am Not In Love With You...

[Think About It...]

I was told this by my exBPDgf just before I was dumped, and while she was lining up the next r/s
Anyone else hear this?

[saxon747]

I was told this by my exBPDgf just before I was dumped, and while she was lining up the next r/s
Anyone else hear this?

[johnc]

More times than I care to remember.

[Lukkien]

"I know I was in love with [ex], and I know I'm not in love with you. If that makes sense. From experience. And if it doesn't feel right now, no way will it last like 2 years like it did with [ex]"

Then a minute or so later: I do like you.

Not quite the same, but still.

[saxon747]

Actually while she was testing the new r/s waters about a week before she said that she was not sure if she was still "in love" with me. Slept with him and a week later said she was not "in love" with me for awhile but was afraid to tell me. Pretty obvious she had devalued me and was looking for a replacement.

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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you on the right board? This board is for members with failed or failing relationships that want to detach from their relationship and relationship wounds. If you are still analyzing the decision to stay, please post on Undecided: Staying or Leaving All members living with a pwBPD should learn to use the Stop the Bleeding tools - boundaries, timeouts and other basic tools - to better manage the day to day interactions with your partner. If you have questions on any of the tools, feel free to go over to Staying: Improving a Relationship with a Borderline Partner and ask for help. :-)

[C12P21]

The disorder has played itself out. The reality is this- a person with emotional integrity ends a r/s when they are conflicted about the r/s, takes time to figure it through and leaves without mortal wounding.
This cannot happen with someone that lives in a three year old mentality.
Sorry this happened to you, infidelity hurts and makes us question ourselves. This is her problem but it doesn't feel that way. It wasn't you, there was nothing you could have done to change her behavior.
Take care.
C

[hat123]

I heard it as well.

A few days before she said "i love you, im just not in love with you anymore" she said that she had never loved her ex and never saw a future with said ex.

I dont hold it against her though. I understand that my ex has a mental disorder, and im sorry that shes unwilling to do anything about it.
I dont hate her, in fact i will always love her.

When she said this she was of course trying to pull away from me and hearing things like that said would of course make me back off and start to think about things.
And i think if they say it enough to themselves, and if the repetitively say it to us ultimately making us believe it, they will believe it themselves.
My guess is that its part of the repression, they convince themselves that they dont love us and then maybe it wont hurt as much.

[saxon747]

And to add insult to injury, she was "in love" with the new guy in three weeks. I have to   now!

[C12P21]

Their emotional memory is brief. Mine was the same, head over heels, I was the love of his life then POOF onto someone new.
He then stated he could have give or taken our r/s from the beginning. 
It never changes..
C

[D]

Yep. Exactly those words.

Followed by claims of wanting to remain friends, best friends. Followed by complaints that "we never talk any more," and "I can't talk to you about (new relationship)," and nothing but silent-treatment alternating with insults about what a lousy spouse I make.

[JonnyJon42]

oh ya was told that on last bail but was more like i cant love you the way you love me i do love you just cant love you like a normal person its lies and jokes they grab ANY reason they can to run off when the switch is hit wait and see when the new guy fails for whatever reason you might get a call saying how much she is still in love with you and how much she wishes she never left you.

[C12P21]

"I can't talk to you about (new relationship),"

Gee...I wonder why..how can anyone expect that? 

nothing but silent-treatment alternating with insults about what a lousy spouse I make.

Hmm, I guess infidelity is not a deal breaker in her book but not handling cheating and brow beating is a lousy spouse.
Whew. Makes you wonder what universe they live in.
C

[D]

C12P21 --

Well, the infidelity was a deal-breaker to uBPD partner, BUT he didn't want to deal with being the person who broke the relationship, so he had to come up with a bunch of stupid reasons why I deserved it. So basically stuff that I hadn't done for years, or which had always been okay, were suddenly deal-breaker. Which is confusing in itself -- He left me now because eight years ago I smoked too much pot, and two years ago I didn't do enough cooking, but when those things were actually happening, they were okay. Left me me now because I never cuddled enough, but refused to let me touch him after making this complaint. And, of course, the 'we never talk,' thing, which was magically my fault, when any attempt on my part to draw him into conversation was ignored, or met with criticism (Y'see, saying things like "Sweetie!" or "How're you doing?" is repetitive and intrusive. I don't think the intrusive bit is true, but it sure is repetitive when you get no an answer and decide to try again in a little bit in the hopes that someday the person will feel like being actually responsive.)

Actually, for me, the infidelity wasn't a deal breaker. He spent a while lying about it and claiming to have just randomly fallen out of love. I was actually relieved when he finally admitted to this infatuation with somebody else, and said, "Oh! You want to have an affair. Okay, whatever, have an affair." That was the wrong thing, too. One is expected to be jealous that way, I guess. I'm pretty indifferent, or would have been if he'd actually been committed to the relationship with me. And then there was this bit where we were both supposed to have accepted that our relationship was over, and to be trying to build a friendship, so supposedly it would be okay to talk about her. Except he wouldn't talk about her without twisting the topic around to my worthlessness. (Actual conversation: Me: "You can talk about her. It's okay." Him: "But I'm leaving you for her! (Pause.) Well, I am leaving you for lots of reasons (insert insulting reasons.)")

(as if leaving me for her wasn't insulting enough, because she's actually unavailable and he didn't leave me to be with her, but to slobber at her heels and wait for her to get a divorce, which she has no intention of doing.)

Of course, someone less absurdly self-absorbed might have thought of something else to talk about anyway. It was this gross deal where since he's obsessed with this person, if he can't talk about her, there's nothing to talk about. Refusing to talk about anything but one's obsessions is rude enough without getting crazy complicated with "The only thing I want to talk about is something I refuse to talk about with you! But you suck as a partner because we never talk!"

not handling cheating and brow beating is a lousy spouse.

Handling cheating or not handling it appear to be equally bad. The brow beating thing, well, that was more than a lousy spouse. I was dangerous and likely to be violent because I, uh, cried too much.

[C12P21]

He sounds like a narcissist. You have been through an emotionally abusive ordeal. What were the   prior to the all out fall out of his behavior? Was there anything prior that kind of got you in the pit of your stomach?
Emotional abusers use the blame game to hurt you and make you believe somehow it is your fault because they cannot look at themselves or their behavior.
You might want to read some of 2010's posts as she explores the difference between PBD and NPD.
I suspect my npdbf is bisexual but uses his r/s with women to mask his sexuality and fill his need for NPD supply. I came to the realization about his sexuality during the push/pull of the wanting intimacy and then accusing me of too much desire.  When I backed off-as you did-he then was frustrated by not wanting enough.
The issue is their inability to recognize how confusing their demands and swinging pendulum of need. This left me confused, tired and drained.
You were accepting of his r/s, tried to maintain a friendship but the reality is once you have unmasked them, you are painted black.
Further the sting of the rejection is to be accused of being too far gone when you show emotional upset. Crying relieves  you of stress and hurt..it is a natural reaction to emotional pain. Their reaction is to seek out new sources of supply..and never face the pain.
When my ex would cry, it was for others, or for some reason he felt slighted but I never witnessed him crying over some life events that would cause one to cry. His son's drug use and pathological lying and stealing..no response. His fathers illness, nothing.
We were at a funeral of my friends death, someone he didn't know, he cried like a child.
Misplaced emotions, anger and sexuality. The maze continues but you are now coming out in the clear.

Hang in there...
C

[D]

What should have been a red flag is his inability to maintain friendships. He made me feel special and I never thought he'd treat me the way he treats most people -- which is to paint them black over something stupid thing and stop contact. Actually, that did happen once in our past and many years later we reconnected and I thought he'd determined that I was more important to him than that, or something.

What should have been a red flag was his isolating me. He almost never wanted to go out and socialize but he didn't want me to go out without him either. If I really wanted to go, enough to decide to do so without him, he'd be likely to come along in spite of me urging him to stay home, and then be a miserable drag. And quite possibly say, afterwards, that he hadn't really wanted to go, but had done so because I wanted him to. (Quite the contrary. There was much of our marriage where I loved his company, but encouraged him to skip social events because he made them tense experiences where I worried that he was miserable, and worried that he was going to be nasty to somebody.) I lost contact with most of my friends.

Really, most of the relationship (10 years) was actually pretty darn happy. The exception being the invasive, controlling, obnoxious influence of his (diagnosed) BPD mom and his nasty habit of failing to set boundaries with her, and then blaming me for her rages and/or undermining my efforts if I tried to set boundaries with her. Kinda classic deeply-enmeshed behavior.

What started to feel narcissistic-of-him really was seven years into the relationship. I've had insomnia problems all my life and sleeping with him made it worse, because he'd snore, kick, and grab parts of my body in his sleep. I used to just lie there miserable beside him. Then I stopped and started sleeping on the couch. He whinged about how lonely and cold it was, and so on. I'd cuddle him until he fell asleep and then go sleep on the couch and he'd complain that he'd woken up without me, or just act all stick-lower-lip-out pouty-sad about it when he found me in the living room in the morning. He knew I couldn't sleep, because I told him. But he never once offered to sleep on the couch sometimes and let me take the bed, or to try any kind of anti-snoring remedy. He acted like his snoring/kicking/grabbing was some sort of harmless joke, but my leaving the bed was a hurtful thing to do.

I don't know much about NPD. At this point, the diagnosis doesn't matter. If there even is one. But I wondered about it. Something that just blew me away when he finally told me he wanted to leave me was how much appearances mattered to him. He said a lot of things about how, basically, our relationship used to make him feel cool, and he wanted to be seen in public with me, but now it wasn't cool to be with me, and he didn't want people to see us as a couple. Or even about how he'd be sitting there, perfectly happy with me on the couch, and then suddenly he'd realize, 'Oh, yeah, this is gay,' and be unhappy. He'd decided he didn't want to be gay, and that it was embarrassing to be seen as gay. I had never realised that for him, so very much of the value of our relationship was attached to the idea that it made him seem 'cool.' For an audience that didn't exist, at that.

[tzwong]

D, 

The stuff that you had been doign for years which suddenly became extremely annoying deal breakers. That one happened with me too and caught me totally off guard.

For example, I used to steal her slippers and wear them inside the house (because I usually just leave mine all over the place). That got listed as a deal breaker for a 5 year relationship.

Or how when Icooked steaks, I seared them hot on a cast iron pan. The new bf does it over gentler heat on a stainless steel pan. Apparently, she has always thought that mine tasted slightly burnt and his steak is the most wonderful and amazing thing ever.

Or, I used to tease her by being annoying by replacing song lyrics with the word "moo" (that was our nickname for each other). She didn't hate that behaviour until after we broke up. She caught herself singing a song with the "moo" in it by accident the otherday and made a show of being annoyed by it.

It is more hurtful than it should be, until we look at all of it put together and realize that there is absolutely NO way whatever they are upset about is our fault, because they are upset about EVERYTHING.

[D]

re: Moo.

Yeah. I had this pet name for him. He used to love it when I said it. Or there were these meaningless little things we'd just say back and forth.

Then he stopped responding to that stuff, and when the "We don't talk any more," complaints surfaced, he listed those things, stuff he used to just go all ga-ga for, and ask me for ("Call me ____, I love i when you say that,") were listed as the "annoying baby-talk" that all my conversation had somehow degenerated to.

I hate that. If somebody is going to change the rules, they should say so. Otherwise, it's crazymaking. Of course, not as crazymaking as finding out that something you haven't done for years is a deal-breaker now when it was fine when it was actually happening. I still can't wrap my head around that one.

[Confuzzled12]

In regards to that phrase - I heard it, but I left before it could be used on me. It was used on her ex. She apparently still loves me more than she has loved anyone else. In her version of love, that might be true. I'm the one who fell the quickest and the furthest! I may have been the one who satisfied the most of her needs at once. Notice I say 'may'. I'm not kidding myself, I just know this relationship went further in terms of commitment than any of her others.
It's a way of keeping options open - keep that in mind. Saying "I don't love you" is a phrase with some finality in it.
If she says that - there's a greater chance you can cope with it, as much as it hurts. I'm thinking the only time you'll hear that is maybe when it truly is over. That being said, there's a million justifications they'll use for changing their mind. Here's a few goldies:
"My opinions are subject to change"
"I am a woman, and as you know we are known to change our minds"

"I love you, I'm just not in love with you" - that leaves you on the hook. She still loves you, right? Much harder to deal with and accept for a non-BPD pov.

[cc2]

the default quote "I love you, but love it not enough, it is all just too complex"

[yianks69]

It means ‘I don’t really love you, but you should not leave me as I cannot deal by myself’.

When a pwBPD says this phrase is all about her again and the confusion she adores creating to the other person.

Furthermore, it proves how superficial she feels inside as a more logical phrase would have been ‘I feel I am not in love with you but I am willing to work on it’……..but then again I probably ask too much out of a pwBPD.

[cc2]

@yianks69

Wow that is an eye opener... (and it stings like a wasp)

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