Do they all hate everything we love?

[Think About It...]

I am wondering how common is it for BP's to really despise something that we as Non's enjoy? For example: I love Bon Jovi, I have since I was 11 years old (I am 28 now.) I love to go to their concerts, collect things etc. It is a passion of mine. It doesn't hurt anyone. My xbf at first told me he liked them, he even brought me to his house and played one of their songs for me to slow dance with him. Over time, all I hear about is how much Bon Jovi sucks. How corporate they how, how ridiculous is it that I like them, blah blah. I think its disgusting. Why should he despise them so much, if I like them who cares? I am not making him go to the concerts with me. That's just one example, there are plenty more. Does anyone else have any stories to share like this?

[deeplyaffected]

I am wondering how common is it for BP's to really despise something that we as Non's enjoy? For example: I love Bon Jovi, I have since I was 11 years old (I am 28 now.) I love to go to their concerts, collect things etc. It is a passion of mine. It doesn't hurt anyone. My xbf at first told me he liked them, he even brought me to his house and played one of their songs for me to slow dance with him. Over time, all I hear about is how much Bon Jovi sucks. How corporate they how, how ridiculous is it that I like them, blah blah. I think its disgusting. Why should he despise them so much, if I like them who cares? I am not making him go to the concerts with me. That's just one example, there are plenty more. Does anyone else have any stories to share like this?

[BrianaUk]

Yes!, well, my ex seemed to anyway...

So many examples it'd be hard to list em all...

Firstly we met camping at an outdoor party/rave. I love dancing particularly in a festie type setting. A marquee in a muddy field and good thumpy music and im happy. He was involved with Glastonbury music festival for over 20 years, was part of the original free festival movement and was camping out in a big van. it seemed we had so much in common.

Turns out after about 18 months that he hated festies and musicians and camping?  ?

Intially he loved my taste in music but gradually went off anything I liked, said it was too hippy dippy, would sigh and sulk if I put my music on. Then suddenly got into metal and biker stuff, which he knew I wasnt really into?  ?

Food, at first loved my cooking, where we went to eat out. Then turns out im a bad cook and his ex partner was fabulous. [the one that threw away everything he ever owned when he walked out on her, didnt know this till earlier this year] Would criticise my cooking as boring and then spend hours telling me how his son was such a fabulous cook.

Conversation. At first would agree with me on everything, said we were like soul mates?  ;== Then started deliberately taking the oppositional view and wanting to always argue till i gave up exhausted. If I ever hear anyone say "im just going to play devils advocate" again I swear i'll scream!

So to answer your question?  Deeplyaffected, yes my ex partner did end up hating just about everything I loved. Tiring and very bloody immature.

Oh, just to rub it in. The girl he cheated on me with early this year. Hippie chick. He said and I quote " I just want to do the festie thing and be a hippie again" <bangs head against wall>

Briana x

[supermom]

Hi all, my expbdbf despised activities and hobbies I enjoyed and would verbally run down it all.  For example, I have been a huge Madonna fan (and I'll have a copy of her fab new CD in my hands today) for over 20 years and I have live CDs of hers, collectors items, rare DVDs and my exBPDbf would comment on how he hated her, blah blah.  I enjoy reading a wide variety of books and he'd yap at me for that and tell me it was not educational (in the five years he and I were together I never saw him read one book), if I suggested we go to dinner that was out of the question.  To a movie?  Forget it.  Then he'd whine about how bored he was and I'd inform him that he would be unless he developed interests.  Throughout our relationship, I continued to enjoy all the things I did when I was a single gal (my sewing, reading, music, hanging with friends, movies, dinners out).  I found someone else (my sisters or my friend, Angela) to do them with.  Then he'd complain about how he never saw me.  Well what did he expect.  He wouldn't go anywhere.  His idea of fun was hanging out in bars getting hammered.  Totally irresponsible in my opinion and childish and definitely not on my to do list.  I have never drank and never will.

[supermom]

I forget to mention that I was expected to like everything he did though.  For example, one Friday I had been at work all day, had a bad cold, and felt just dandy and he came home with a new Tragically Hip DVD which I didn't mind him listening to.  They're not my cup of tea, but I didn't have a problem if he wanted to listen to it at his leisure.  He btched at me for hours that night, informing me how I wasn't interested in his music when I told him I was goind to bed to rest.  I reminded him that I was ill, that I had worked all day and to him that was irrelevant.  How did I handle the situation?  I looked after me and went to bed.  I figured if he had a problem with that then it was just that, his problem.

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[mark]

Same subject came up the other day...

They say they like this or that and see if you express the same or different feelings.  They now have information which they can use later in the process of gaining emotional control over you (which an abuser has to have to be effective). 

They will switch their opinions, their feelings, their beliefs when they know that you are expecting them to be in accordance with you.  They x-x-x-x with your reality.  There's a part in "SWOE" about brainwashing.  They build up your hopes and expectations and then have a sudden change of mind.  My gf was just so excited about moving in with me...but the day before, she was just having soo much trouble getting things into boxes.

In my opinion, what they say they like or don't like is important to their purposes in the relationship, and used to gauge the 'non's' positions -- especially emotional positions.

[Bob58]

I wouldn't say "they" necessarily hate everything "we" love, but I do think they grow to hate anything they feel you love more than them... no matter how inane.

[goochiegirl]

I have to wonder if this is because of that lack of identity issue.  If they don't quite know who they are, perhaps they try on, take on, the things that we love, and then later come to find that it doesn't fit them after all.  Or, even if they do like it, they feel they have to establish a separate identiy from us and so they then say they don't like it.

[scarlett]

I think goochie girl hit the nail on the head.

BPD is a disorder characterized by lack of true identity. Things like musical tastes, hobbies, food likes and dislikes and preferred reading materials are clues to identity. I think many times, when people begin dating someone with BPD they are thrilled to have met a "soul mate" who shares their interests and is so willing to try and embrace those things which are important to them.

The sad truth, too often, is that the person with BPD isn't so much a perfect match, with the same likes and dislikes. Instead, they were trying on their partner's identity. And found that contrary to their deep hopes, that new identity couldn't make them happy.

Well, the problem must then be with the identity, and the partner who first had it. Consequently, all that was good becomes bad. And suddenly there is a new partner on the scene and the non is left wondering how their BPD could be so into ballroom dancing when they were embracing speed metal only a few weeks earlier.

In my experience, sometimes pieces of identity do stick and the partner with BPD might take the yoga they learned from one partner into their relationship with another partner.

My BPDad has no strong likes or dislikes, at least not genuine ones that I can determine. His tastes change according to who he is emulating at the time. I suspect that even if he claimed a strong dislike to something, he could be convinced to change his mind if he was told it was something that educated and wealthy people liked. My BPD SIL is similar.

Scarlett

[Janthina]

Same subject came up the other day...

They say they like this or that and see if you express the same or different feelings.?  They now have information which they can use later in the process of gaining emotional control over you (which an abuser has to have to be effective).?  

They will switch their opinions, their feelings, their beliefs when they know that you are expecting them to be in accordance with you.?  They x-x-x-x with your reality.?  There's a part in "SWOE" about brainwashing.?  They build up your hopes and expectations and then have a sudden change of mind.?  My gf was just so excited about moving in with me...but the day before, she was just having soo much trouble getting things into boxes.

In my opinion, what they say they like or don't like is important to their purposes in the relationship, and used to gauge the 'non's' positions -- especially emotional positions.

I think there is a lot of truth to this. Yep, there is that lack of identity thing. And there is that honeymoon period. But do they really not know if they like and admire what you like, or are they actually just mirroring to reel you in? More and more I suspect the latter.

I come from a place and a culture where education is valued. I like to know things, to learn things. I read. I've always read a lot. Not as much so now, but I'm a reader. At first all of this was just great.

Her behavior over the years we were together makes no logical sense and all and seems totally devoid of a pattern, until you try on the abuser hypothesis. Then all the puzzle pieces fall into place. She did everything she could to stress me out and to undermine me. She played with me. She tortured me. All the while I'm worrying if she's okay, and fretting over how stressed she is and the fact that she doesn't seem to be able to cope with much of anything. All, all, all a game.

It was a game and she won. Her last move was Trog, she picked up a creep who was my absolute opposite in every conceivable way. All of the sudden I was the elitist, whilst this ape represented the salt of the earth. I can see how she had all kinds of reasons for finding him an acceptable new partner/supply. I've gone into them in many posts.

But I don't always mention that I firmly believe that part of the reason she chose such a slimeball was to punish me, to show me that everything that mattered to me, did not matter to her. She wanted to show me that she valued me so little, that even a drunken little toady jank-ass loser was more desirable than I was.

She didn't just hate what I loved. She hated me.

[kaarekrok]

I agree with Bob58. I don't think it is so much that they hate everything we love. It is much more that they feel threathened by anything we may spend the slightest of interest, time or energy on that doesn't circle around them!

My UBPDW dislikes/critizes me for wanting to talk to my brother, for reading a book, for wanting to make my own bread, for wanting to go out to play badmington with my colleauges (the list is long). I am not good at setting limits and I am sure I do a lot of other things wrong also, but I am not getting into that now.