Does it seem as if things never even happened in a BPD relationship?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Maybe we've talked about this before, but does it seem to anyone else that all the things that happen - the shared good experiences - never seem to add up to a common history that forms a kind of foundation for the relationship?

That's how it seems in my, now finished, relationship.  Many shared experiences are simply never referred to again.  It feels as if what should be a building of a common history just doesn't happen.  I thought it was just me and my reluctance to let myself go into the relationship (my own trust issues and an early awareness that something wasn't right) , but even after I dropped all that and really committed to it, it just seemed that nothing ever 'grew'.  Hardly any reference would ever be made, shared jokes hardly ever happened, photographs were not printed out and displayed, I don't know, nothing.

Very weird. As if the soil of the relationship was some kind of turf and rain and seeds just bounced off it, leaving it barren of life.

I guess I could figure it out and explain it to myself, but I'm very interested in other people's sense of this. I've not had that feeling before in my life in any relationship , no matter how short.

What is that? 

[VitaminC]

Maybe we've talked about this before, but does it seem to anyone else that all the things that happen - the shared good experiences - never seem to add up to a common history that forms a kind of foundation for the relationship?

That's how it seems in my, now finished, relationship.  Many shared experiences are simply never referred to again.  It feels as if what should be a building of a common history just doesn't happen.  I thought it was just me and my reluctance to let myself go into the relationship (my own trust issues and an early awareness that something wasn't right) , but even after I dropped all that and really committed to it, it just seemed that nothing ever 'grew'.  Hardly any reference would ever be made, shared jokes hardly ever happened, photographs were not printed out and displayed, I don't know, nothing.

Very weird. As if the soil of the relationship was some kind of turf and rain and seeds just bounced off it, leaving it barren of life.

I guess I could figure it out and explain it to myself, but I'm very interested in other people's sense of this. I've not had that feeling before in my life in any relationship , no matter how short.

What is that? 

[Rmbrworst]

I felt like I was invisible, and my ex BPD partner situated our lives so that when he did dump me, that nobody would even know or care.

[Itstopsnow]

I get what your saying... .In the very beginning there were "talks" of a future of life and marriage together kids and home schooling. Which I wanted no part in. But with all our trips and traveling . He never seemed to save any money to make that happen. It was like he just wanted to live for the moment. Like he knew this was all we had. I think it's partly their way of life. Never getting too established so they can't be held accountable for anything. It happened so fast for me. Our 18 months felt like 8 months together. It was a lot of excitement and fun. But life can't be like that 24/7. You have to grow up and become responsible . I also think it's due to their emptiness and boredom. They are like a petulant child. He would be happy going on vacations every month living hand to mouth. He just wanted fun and no real responsibility when it came to work, finances and the future. They never match what they say and they never mean what they say . Never have a met someone more out for themselves than I did when I realized who and what he was . BPD changes everything about a person! They have no sense of identity because it takes up too much of their core character . So sad to be a slave to that . They don't have to be though . They have free will

[woofbarkmeowbeep]

Pretty much. I just spent the last 2 months building what seemed to be a very coherent foundation with this girl. One that involved communication, honesty, trust etc... We talked for hours and days around all this stuff. It seemed as if she got it. Then last week she walked out the door and had sex with her ex. Apparently it was because she was scared I would abandon her. Then yesterday she told me she needed space and time alone (aka move out) - two weeks after telling me to come to her country and stay with her for 6 weeks (which I did - but was over within 2 weeks).

In short - yes. There comes a time where none of what was said seems to mean anything. The foundation that was built counts for nothing. Why? because I was in a relationship with a borderline personality disorder. It isn't meant to make sense.

[valet]

Hey VitaminC, I had a similar perspective after my relationship ended as well. I would still describe the experience and my recollection of it unusual. In some ways, yes, for me it felt like it almost never happened.

I think that this points to a couple of things. Firstly, our own core wounds regarding intimacy and our idealized view of relationship dynamics. And second, the nature of the push/pull cycle that we were brought into and contributed to as the relationship developed. It makes sense. When our view of things is constantly challenged, it makes it difficult for us to enjoy our experience and form lasting memories of it.

Here's a question. Are you hoping for acknowledgement from someone (mainly your ex) that what happened was real? And how so?

[patientandclear]

Yes. I share that feeling--so unsettling. Things I remember so clearly, and also things he told me about his past life, would draw blank stares from my ex later on when I mentioned them. He has blacked out some of the most significant things that happened between us. And he would confuse things that happened with other women with things that happened with me, while forgetting what we did. Maybe too many hidden r/ships to keep straight.

But even more than the amnesia from dissociation or compartmentalization, which may contribute to the feeling you're talking about, I think it's the false front they are maintaining. Perhaps it's that a lot of what goes on btwn us isn't engaging their deeper self, so the events are ephemeral and slip away.

[burritoman]

I feel this way about my relationship as well. They have a deep rooted desire for love and stability, but they don't have the ability to create or sustain it. You're trying hard to keep things normal and they instinctively sabotage it. When they're done, they cast you aside and move on to the next flashy toy without giving you any respect or dignity for the time you spent together or the effort you put in, negating all of those experiences you created.

I feel like my relationship was just a series of events without building any foundation. We'd talk about love, marriage, and the future, which was usually then followed up by her telling me how much effort she's putting in whereas I'm not. She'd shout her needs in my face but ignore mine, then tell me she doesn't know what I want from her. Such a tornadic relationship.

If my ex is treating me the way she did with the poor souls before me, she IS indeed referencing our past experiences, but she's likely using them as a way to paint me black and make herself out to be the victim, almost as if she's giving herself the fuel she needs to sustain her network of friends and family so they don't abandon her.

In the end it was just a series of events. I think because of this it makes me feel as if this relationship lasted a week instead of 3 years. One good time followed by seven bad ones. If you compartmentalize the times you shared you could put the good times in a thimble and the bad ones in a swimming pool. When I crave those good times, it makes me think that I just met her last week instead of three years ago. Very strange, the effect a BPD relationship has on the brain.

[thisworld]

Hi VitaminC,

We had the jokes, we had the common language, I referred to stuff we did together more than him but he responded. This was a brief relationship though, so I don't know what would happen in the future. However, there seemed to be something lacking; like these wee there but the feelings associated with these were not (usually). Even when we were the good couple, very soon after the start, everything started to seem like a film. Characters were there, lines were there but the genuine feeling I know from other relationships weren't. There was a superficiality. Still, I think I may have played a role in this, too. Maybe my gut caused me to detach somehow (there were red flags right from the start), I felt like I was observing more than living. On a different note, my ex uses the past, references to good memories etc to manipulate his exes. As a manipulation form, some people call this reminiscing. It always works on his exes.

[VitaminC]

Thank you, everybody.

You did indeed get what I'm saying.  Things are ephemeral, his own revelations and insights don't last and just disappear, all that is remembered by him appears to be linked with his own fantasy about " us " and all the times I was angry and/or distant.

For me too it seems as if we just met, even though it had been 18 months that we were together. The only way to connect all those events,  the only thread i can identify strongly enough to stitch together the story of the " us "  is my constant and growing dissatisfaction and anxiety. It's the only clear line.  

I know it was real, valet, and no, I'm not wanting to hear that from my ex. We had talked about it and his memory seems to be episodic. How he connects the events / elements / threads is something I don't know - and not for lack of trying to find out.

I am only trying to make some kind of whole out of all the parts. To define a narrative. I've been trying to do that for .months. Maybe this is what I need to understand and close that door firmly enough. To know, really know, that there's no reason to open the door, just a crack, and peek into that weird little room I spent so much time in.

Really like a willing prisoner or hostage - accepting the physical confinement and making due with occasional walks in the yard ( and finding the sun so blinding and beautiful then ) and just living in crumbs and dreams the rest of the time.

[NCEA]

I feel like we're talking about the same girl. "Honesty" "growth" "developing together" "openness" "I'll never take you for granted". And then I almost moved to her country and got canceled because "she fell in love with someone else"'(in four days).

I agree that the best way to view them is as if they're 12 years old. When I was 12 I forced my parents to buy me a telescope. I used it once, then wanted something else. They're the same, but with people. And they're not 12

Pretty much. I just spent the last 2 months building what seemed to be a very coherent foundation with this girl. One that involved communication, honesty, trust etc... We talked for hours and days around all this stuff. It seemed as if she got it. Then last week she walked out the door and had sex with her ex. Apparently it was because she was scared I would abandon her. Then yesterday she told me she needed space and time alone (aka move out) - two weeks after telling me to come to her country and stay with her for 6 weeks (which I did - but was over within 2 weeks).

In short - yes. There comes a time where none of what was said seems to mean anything. The foundation that was built counts for nothing. Why? because I was in a relationship with a borderline personality disorder. It isn't meant to make sense.

[FannyB]

In short - yes. There comes a time where none of what was said seems to mean anything. The foundation that was built counts for nothing. Why? because I was in a relationship with a borderline personality disorder. It isn't meant to make sense.

This is an interesting take on things. Instead of saying you were in a relationship with a pwBPD you said you were in a relationship with the disorder itself.  Given that the behaviours described on these boards seem so strikingly similar I guess this makes sense.

Fanny

[GoingBack2OC]

If I had to sum it up, I'd have to say in many ways I was just in denial... .That I for whatever reason believed that we could again be lovers like we were during that first year.

I posted a short photo essay over in the member's lounge thread that is very personal to me, but if you watch it, it's basically "that" which I was "so desperately" holding on to. Hoping, wishing, praying, that I could get us back to "there".

But it never happened. And many years of pain followed.

In conclusion; it can feel that those memories, were not real at all; and when I watch that film I see a me that no longer exists; even though it wasnt that long ago.

Sad.

[shatra]

rmbrworst wrote

I felt like I was invisible, and my ex BPD partner situated our lives so that when he did dump me, that nobody would even know or care.

-----Do u mean invisible to your ex?  Did your ex situate your lives so that when it ended "nobody would know or care"====meaning he didn't allow you to get close to people your ex knows?  Or am I wrong?

[.cup.car]

OP nailed it.

I met my ex in a fashion similar to the movie "It's Kind of a Funny Story." We were part of a social circle with the other patients. We all kept in contact once discharged. A huge portion of our relationship centered around where and how we met - two depressed kids thrown into psychiatric assessment when they should have been in high school. Mental illness was openly talked about in our text messages. Memories and inside jokes from the hospital were commonly referenced.

Then, we break up. She cuts all contact with our little social circle and pretends the story of us ever knowing each other is something I made up for attention after being rejected three times.

Of course, in true BPD fashion she'd gone around telling people we were an item when we first got together, so nobody aside from her beta orbiters bought this.

One of the girls invites us to a Christmas party, assuming we were still dating. My ex tells her off and blocks her. In her online tirades about me, she accuses me of being some creep that was in a psych ward and how nobody should believe a word I say.

Medical Records prove we were in there together. I'll probably dig those up if I hear from her again.

So yeah, they do this.

[klacey3]

I think I know what you are talking about. My ex was addicted to football and watched it every single day without fail and I worked in the week so I feel like I have barely any memories of fun times as all we seemed to do was watch football. Also, he created an argument out of nothing on christmas day and new years eve so I don't have anything to remember about that. He once said "was it you I slept with in the lounge?" It wasn't... .I was so disappointed he didn't know the difference.

I can only vaguely remember the very few times we did go out and have fun or times when he was actually sweet and romantic. I know there were times but it doesnt feel real. I had also kind of forgotten why I got so angry and sad when I was with him, then I remembered after looking back at previous conversations.

[Fr4nz]

Maybe we've talked about this before, but does it seem to anyone else that all the things that happen - the shared good experiences - never seem to add up to a common history that forms a kind of foundation for the relationship?

That's how it seems in my, now finished, relationship.  Many shared experiences are simply never referred to again.  It feels as if what should be a building of a common history just doesn't happen.  I thought it was just me and my reluctance to let myself go into the relationship (my own trust issues and an early awareness that something wasn't right) , but even after I dropped all that and really committed to it, it just seemed that nothing ever 'grew'.  Hardly any reference would ever be made, shared jokes hardly ever happened, photographs were not printed out and displayed, I don't know, nothing.

Very weird. As if the soil of the relationship was some kind of turf and rain and seeds just bounced off it, leaving it barren of life.

I guess I could figure it out and explain it to myself, but I'm very interested in other people's sense of this. I've not had that feeling before in my life in any relationship , no matter how short.

What is that?  

I guess that when you're painted "black" they pretend to ignore/forget the good moments they had with you. Indeed, this happened to me just after the breakup... .she denied the numerous good moments we had togheter. Probably it's part of their defense mechanisms. You can read the same pattern in many other stories as well.

Yet, I clearly remember that, during the relationship, she recalled - from time to time - the good moments she had with her exes. So, in my opinion they don't forget at all... .they just compartimentalize and pretend there was no good time when they paint you black. Oftentimes BPDs are emotionally compared to 3 years old babies... .when babies are angry at someone, they don't want to talk with such person; maybe this can help to understand this behaviour

[klacey3]

Maybe we've talked about this before, but does it seem to anyone else that all the things that happen - the shared good experiences - never seem to add up to a common history that forms a kind of foundation for the relationship?

That's how it seems in my, now finished, relationship.  Many shared experiences are simply never referred to again.  It feels as if what should be a building of a common history just doesn't happen.  I thought it was just me and my reluctance to let myself go into the relationship (my own trust issues and an early awareness that something wasn't right) , but even after I dropped all that and really committed to it, it just seemed that nothing ever 'grew'.  Hardly any reference would ever be made, shared jokes hardly ever happened, photographs were not printed out and displayed, I don't know, nothing.

Very weird. As if the soil of the relationship was some kind of turf and rain and seeds just bounced off it, leaving it barren of life.

I guess I could figure it out and explain it to myself, but I'm very interested in other people's sense of this. I've not had that feeling before in my life in any relationship , no matter how short.

What is that?  

I guess that when you're painted "black" they pretend to ignore/forget the good moments they had with you. Indeed, this happened to me just after the breakup... .she denied the numerous good moments we had togheter. Probably it's part of their defense mechanisms. You can read the same pattern in many other stories as well.

Yet, I clearly remember that, during the relationship, she recalled - from time to time - the good moments she had with her exes. So, in my opinion they don't forget at all... .they just compartimentalize and pretend there was no good time when they paint you black. Oftentimes BPDs are emotionally compared to 3 years old babies... .when babies are angry at someone, they don't want to talk with such person; maybe this can help to understand this behaviour

Oh my gosh thats just reminded me that my ex used to always say positive things about his exs. Especially when he was angry with me, he even compared them to me and threatened to  get back with them if i "wouldn't stop being a ****" on occasions. I have just realised this might not have actually been to just manipulate or hurt me, but because he actually meant it at the time

[shatra]

cup car wrote

Then, we break up. She cuts all contact with our little social circle and pretends the story of us ever knowing each other is something I made up for attention after being rejected three times.

------Was she devaluing the relationship?  Because to say out loud that it was a relationship that counted for a lot, would be painful for her, since it's now a loss... .so to pretend it didn't happen is a defense against feeling upset that it was lost

[woofbarkmeowbeep]

I feel like we're talking about the same girl. "Honesty" "growth" "developing together" "openness" "I'll never take you for granted". And then I almost moved to her country and got canceled because "she fell in love with someone else"'(in four days).

I agree that the best way to view them is as if they're 12 years old. When I was 12 I forced my parents to buy me a telescope. I used it once, then wanted something else. They're the same, but with people. And they're not 12

Pretty much. I just spent the last 2 months building what seemed to be a very coherent foundation with this girl. One that involved communication, honesty, trust etc... We talked for hours and days around all this stuff. It seemed as if she got it. Then last week she walked out the door and had sex with her ex. Apparently it was because she was scared I would abandon her. Then yesterday she told me she needed space and time alone (aka move out) - two weeks after telling me to come to her country and stay with her for 6 weeks (which I did - but was over within 2 weeks).

In short - yes. There comes a time where none of what was said seems to mean anything. The foundation that was built counts for nothing. Why? because I was in a relationship with a borderline personality disorder. It isn't meant to make sense.

Wow... sucks so much eh... all the bull______ she said to me... All these promises... all this begging me to come bull___... then ___ing two weeks into it I'm kicked out... Now im in this ___ing country for another 4 weeks for no point whatsoever! You lucky you didnt have to waste your time going to live with her.