Do they love us or not?

[mjssmom]

I just don't get it.  To suddenly leave when you given them exactly what they asked for?  A commitment and an intimate and close emotional bond?  And then they just replace you overnight?  We were so close, so bonded.  I haven't felt so loved by anyone before.  Was that not real?

He was always super jealous also and told me being faithful was important to him and then overnight, just when he's getting what he wants, I'm history and he has cheated with someone else.  Who is he to be jealous and ask for faithfulness and then violate his own principles? 

I'm struggling today.  I really am.   To set it up and start looking for your replacement while continuing to try to draw you even closer to them at the same time?  I just don't get it.   I know several of you are trying to help me realize I'll never make this logical in my head but I just can't come to terms with it  it seems.  At least not today.  Today has been bad.  I've been getting EMRD treatments for PTSD this situation has brought back up and maybe that's making me finally release all these feelings I've had bottled up for so long about lots of things, not just this.

Today I've been obsessing and crying like this just happened.  It's been a full month now.   And of course I know they can only spend Fridays - Sundays together since they live so far apart so knowing that tonight they'll be together is probably a trigger for me.  I just feel alone.  I've been so isolated as a single mom in the country with no family or friends nearby.  He was my social life and now he's out having a good time as if I never existed and I'm home alone crying over this.  There's no one to turn to.

 I was doing okay the past week or so but today lots of anxiety and thinking and hurting.  I feel so lonely.  Rejection really hurts.  Thinking someone loves you and then just abandons you suddenly with no care in the world about your well being or like you were never an important part of their life, it still just stuns me.  How do they not feel for another person or remorse for what they do? We were so close.  I keep wondering if he'll try to recycle me because of that or if he'll ride off into the sunset with no looking back.  I miss him and I hate him right now.  Jesus how do I stop all this thinking?  When does this hurting stop?  I'm sorry.  I keep asking the same things it seems over and over.  I just needed to vent.  I'm so hurt and angry at the same time.

[Mr.R.Indignation]

I know you just need to vent, and this is a very very small consolation, but you're literally too good for him.

I think when they leave a good relationship where they're validated it's because you've become an embodiment of their fear - you're actually something they want, but if they have it, then they can lose it. The obsessive worry will trigger, so they'll abandon you before you can abandon them. Power play in a very raw form, they make you worthless because you're worth something.

Chin up, Mj - you're a jewel!

R . Indignation

[mjssmom]

Thank you!  I needed to hear something positive about me today.  It did help.

[Shedd]

Hey,

My ex was the same way. Always super jealous super needy, wanting me 24/7.  i did absolutely everything for her. 

She told me I was perfect and afraid to let me go, but she just couldn't stop wondering what it was like to be with other people.

I think there were a few triggers there for her to leave me. I had a couple emotional breakdowns and i think she took that as a sign i couldn't handle the relationship.

I will let you know it does get better. I do still miss her a lot, but it will make you a stronger person in the end.  I can tell how much I have grown from this relationship.  So if anything hopefully you'll realize all the good that has come out of it.  Missing them is the worst part tho.  Time will heal, I guess.

Hang in there.

[VeganButEatMyMea]

I just don't get it.

Well this is your (and our) biggest problem.  I will preface this by saying that they are not monsters.  Sure we make them out as monsters given how suddenly they leave and have zero care when they do and we are left with a massive hole because we have the ability to love.

Now back to our problem.  In this case 1+2=237.  Doesn't make sense right but this is how BPD's think... .not like a non. To try to make sense of what happened to you and the end of your BPD relationship is as futile as trying to understand the math problem above.  YOU WILL NEVER GET IT so stop trying to "get it". 

Next time you have those thoughts: how could he do this, how is he already with someone else, did he ever love me... .STOP YOURSELF, tell yourself "he is sick, he did what he did because he is sick, I cannot/will not continue with a sick person, if he does come back he is sick and will do it again... .I cannot make sense of it". 

I'm in the early stages too and this helps me.

[Claycrusher]

Hi,mjssmom,

I'll preface this by saying that I think they ARE "monsters."  They are so toxic to be around that plenty of licensed psychologists prefer to limit their exposure to them.  They leave behind a trail of emotional abuse with every instable relationship they attempt to engage in or sustain.

The world is filled with people willing to feel sorry for them.  I'd rather just avoid them going forward and dole my compassion out to the folks they have abused. 

Stick around in a "relationship" with a person with BPD long enough, and you will be marginalized in to a shadow of your former self; you WILL become a tool that a BPD will abuse, not care much about, and ultimately discard. 

I don't even know you, mjssmom, but I know all I need to in order to state that you DO deserve better than a relationship with a BPD because you're a human being -not a "tool."  Everybody deserves something better than the kind of treatment people with BPD can and do dish out.  What causes them to be pathological liars, manipulative in the extreme, lacking in ordinary empathy, lacking impulse control, lacking respect for accepted social and cultural boundaries, and possessing a labile sense of self that rapid-cycles from loathing to delusions of grandeur, is more important to THEM than to their victims.  All the victim needs to know is that they've been lied to, manipulated, and basically "used and abused."  Base your decision to stay or go on the behavior, not the cause of it.  That's the BPD's problem; not the non's.  Accurate diagnosis matters to them because it can lead to effective management of the symptoms of the disorder; it is largely irrelevant to the non's they abuse.

You DO deserve better than the kind of treatment a person with BPD dishes out.  Everyone does.

Instead of diagnosing your BPD, you'd be better off spending that energy on determining how much culpability YOU have for winding up in a relationship with one. 

I know fully well how I got in mine.   I'm not particularly co-dependent.  But with mine, I acted like it... .  She asked me out on our first date, She picked the place, date, and time... .  She initiated physical contact... .  She introduced sex in to our relationship.  She basically usurped the man's role in the dating game and I usurped the responsive feminine one.  I wound up marrying mine because I knocked her up.  I didn't know that until the day I determined to break up with her.  As I explained my desire to re-define the nature of our association, she told me that she understood where I was coming from, but there was something I needed to know:  She was over three months pregnant with our first child.  And she got that way because I have a highly addictive personality.  Sex with her provided the fix for the adrenaline addiction I developed during my tenure in law enforcement.  Once sex entered our relationship, she was a nymphomaniac and I became one, too, in short order.  And just as a pimp uses heroine or crack cocaine to keep his whores under control, so it was that my BPD used sex as another tool in her manipulative box, and she could do that because I told her that sex with her finally provided me the "fix" I needed.  I was slow on the uptake; too slow... .   But I had enough training in psychology and Cluster B personality disorders to eventually brand mine as symptomatic for BPD and once I drew that conclusion, I totally wanted out.  I didn't get out because I didn't want an innocent child to be exposed to disordered single parenting without a full-time moderating influence.

Because I can accept responsibility for winding up in a relationship with an emotionally abusive monster, I don't hate her for being one.  She can't help it any more than the Cookie Monster on Sesame Street can avoid eating cookies.  But "cookie" ain't the only thing that starts with "C".  "Crazy" does, too, and I'm content to identify it for what it is and run away from it.  I have a pretty fair idea of how tough it is to live with BPD because I lived with someone symptomatic for it for 17 years, and I also have the benefit of knowing how tough a time she's having with having to "adult" all on her own now, having the emotional maturity of a three year old, but not having me to ease the repercussions of her lack of impulse control, lack of ordinary empathy, and penchant for deceit and manipulation.  I also know how challenging it is to live with someone symptomatic for the disorder.  It's not a relationship.  It's walking a line of egg shells between adult day care and a de-humanizing existence as a "tool" who is used, abused, and will ultimately be discarded. 

That's what you're missing out on by your BPD abandoning you for some other victim.  Would you miss being with a monster on a mission to leave you a mere shadow of your former self?  If the answer is "no,"  don't feel sorry for yourself because he left.  He'd leave, eventually.  If his leaving makes you miserable now, imagine how miserable you might feel if you invested 17 years of your life in serving as his "tool," or 20 years, or 30, or more. 

I know it is really, really, really tough to look at the situation like this but he's doing you a favor.  Let him go, and you're free to find a romantic partner who loves you for you, rather than your capacity to be abused while being used as a tool. 

And I hear what you said about living in the country and being isolated.  Mine used isolation to her advantage, too.  But you know what?  Even people in really off the trod path places like rural Nevada manage to find romance and true, non-disordered love.  You can, too.

[Soulcrushed4]

I know it can feel isolating as a single mom.
Any chance you can hire a sitter or do a babysitting swap?

I've recently done both and enjoyed some very recharging me time, adult time ... .laughed and chatted and spent time with people that were truly refreshing to be around.

It was a big hurdle to organize and come up with the energy for but it has made a world of difference in remembering who I am and who I was before losing myself in the nightmare of my one sided open relationship with my BPD ex.

I agree with a lot of what claycrusher said.

I am the one who finalized the end of the supposed relationship with my BPD ex but if truth be told I was simply formalizing THE END or my New Beginning.

As for loving us... .it's not my idea of love the way BPD diagnosed individuals behave... .certainly not healthy love.

[Claycrusher]

It was a big hurdle to organize and come up with the energy for but it has made a world of difference in remembering who I am and who I was before losing myself in the nightmare of my one sided open relationship with my BPD ex.

I had a "me" before there was an "us" in my relationship with my BPD ex-wife.  Sounds egotistical, but I liked that guy a lot.

It turns out that he is still me and I am still he; but it took getting out there and playing the "dating game" to realize that I hadn't lost "myself in the nightmare" of my relationship with my BPD ex. 

As for loving us... .it's not my idea of love the way BPD diagnosed individuals behave... .certainly not healthy love.

The non-disordered kind is MUCH better    ... . 

[eprogeny]

Hello!  I'm glad you posted this, because 6 months ago I was asking myself the same question and struggling to find the answer.  In time, I think you will find the same answer I did - which is that they did and didn't love us.  And it willl probably anger you and confuse you until maybe it even amuses you.

What I mean to say is - they love us in the only way they can, which is in a way none of us (non BPD people) would ever call love.  BPD love is a love trying to run a marathon with 2 broken legs and only half a lung. 

For the person with BPD love isn't beautiful and priceless.  Romance is. Maybe even chasing love is.  But love itself for them is horribly painful.  They crave love - especially the romantic intimate and selfless love of a true partner, and their undeniable agony is that the moment they find it with someone it sends them spiraling into psychological pain.  To truly risk all and entrust another in that way is a level of intimacy that confronts their core wound - and their predictable response to the pain of that confrontation is not to address that core wound but to cut us out because they see us, not their wound, as the source of the pain.  It's beyond tragic. 

I have come to understand the illness as being all-encompassing self-focus for them - to distract from their pain or to get an ego boost etc., and knowing that love requires selflessness it means they cannot truly love us as we love them.  The best they can do is their very self-focused form of love similar to that of a toddler's.  Put another way, we love as adults - they love as children playing dress up.  So, yes, it is love but no it isn't love.

The greater journey, the bigger questions and answers, are why is it that you think you fell for them?  When it became clear the relationship couldn't be healthy for you why did you keep trying?

I drilled into that sort of thing of thing to get to where I am now and I suspect many of us who are recovering from co-dependency did the same.  It is a sobering journey but well-worth it.

[apollotech]

mjssmom,

I think that they do love, as we all do in the "early stages" of a budding relationship, but the BPD prevents love from maturing into a deep, meaningful love. Idealization occurs at the beginning of all relationships as it serves as the bonding agent to "stick" (for lack of a better word) two people together (this is the addiction agent mentioned on these boards). In a normal relationship, if the interests between the two parties persists, that love will mature into something more meaningful and deeper. Enter BPD into the equation and the love cannot move beyond the idealization stage, because as we all have experienced, engulfment rears its ugly head and the wheels fall off. Now we're back to square one. If the pwBPD comes back around and the Non decides to re-engage and have another go at a relationship with the pwBPD, idealization begins anew (the recycle begins). Engulfment is next, which concludes a complete cycle.

Is it love, (in my opinion) yes. Is it a love that can be sustained and used to build a healthy relationship around, (again, in my opinion) no.

[SuperJew82]

I agree with claycrusher 100% on his analysis!

[lovenature]

They love us as much as they are capable of; BPD is a very sad disorder, the closer we get the more we are pushed away.

[blueblue12]

Greetings! Clay and others what great posts, so much insight. I am in my first months of nc after a ten year relationship/marriage. I have learned so much thus far also spending weekly time with a therapist who was the first to mention borderline, never had a clue. All those years in a strange up and down relationship, I just kept thinking (as I was also told), it's all my fault, I need to fix things in myself. So she would organise therapists along the way, always on me, too controlling, jealous guy! Yes I guess but... .there were so many signs along the way that my time with her was so wrong.

She would erupt often and out of the blue, I would always try and work out in my head as it was developing, how the f did this fight start again? But by then it was in full rage, did you guys have experiences of maniac arguments at 3am where upon your BPD is shouting at the top of their lungs and you cannot do anything to calm her down? Man she used to wake up the entire neibourhood I think! But she didn't care, she was caught up and she would just continue, I used to hate it so much!

But why did I stay in there? I don't know, felt sorry for her, felt like I could fix it all, I could get her to see reason, to see and understand that I was there for the long haul, that I truly loved her and was committed to her and our marriage.

At the end after many years where I thought of leaving but could not do it, she left me. Now after nc I feel relieved and also sad as I do miss aspects of what we had but as I read and read I was in a marriage with a woman who had not developed passed a child, she was irresponsible, selfish, controlling and at the end cold and detached. Horrible and cruel ending. I was the enabler, the care taker, mr fix it to no avail, my therapist said recently "look you are not the mechanic, the relationship contains two cars that should work well!"

[In a bad way]

         She would erupt often and out of the blue, I would always try and work out in my head as it was developing, how the f did this fight start again? But by then it was in full rage, did you guys have experiences of maniac arguments at 3am where upon your BPD is shouting at the top of their lungs and you cannot do anything to calm her down? Man she used to wake up the entire neibourhood I think! But she didn't care, she was caught up and she would just continue, I used to hate it so much!             

I can relate to that, she was like the incredible hulk she would not calm down and everything she said wasn't true but there was no talking/reasoning with her.
She would scream and shout at me and accuse me of doing it saying she wasn't!
Then she would open the front door and wake the street up screaming at me to F off out of her house.
Then an hour later or in the morning (after she had been asleep) send me a text asking where and why I had gone.
No recollection whatsoever.

[hope2727]

I truly believe they love us the best they are able. Mine loved me with all his heart... .until he didn't. For him those feelings were very real. Unfortunately they were not sustainable. His feelings were mercurial. And those mercurial feelings were facts in his mind.

He did the best he could with the tools he had and the life skills he had learned. As did I.

I love him still. I miss him always. I cannot un-love someone. I don't think on a deeper level he can un-love me either. Its just that his shame and cognitive dissonance over his own behaviours cannot allow him to examine his motivations or actions.

I wil continue to love him from afar. I hope someday he is able to remember he loves me too. Meanwhile I do not accept unacceptable behaviour and thus he cannot be a part of my daily life.

[earlyL]

I wil continue to love him from afar. I hope someday he is able to remember he loves me too. Meanwhile I do not accept unacceptable behaviour and thus he cannot be a part of my daily life.

This really sums up how I feel now, I have spent two months hoping for some kind of reconciliation but have now gone passed this point. Can I ask how did you leave it with your exBPD - is he aware of this decision or did you go NC?

LW

[hope2727]

"Can I ask how did you leave it with your exBPD - is he aware of this decision or did you go NC? "

I am not sure if this question is aimed at me. If it is the answer is that it was left in a mess. I didn't know what was wrong. By the time I understood it was to late. I tried to reach out unsuccessfully. He has texted me twice since and I used grey rock neutral responses. He is with someone else and I will not respond in anything less than a neutral way unless he is single and approaching me with something more than a baiting or tiny response. I am waiting for a true reaching out of contact or else I am not interested. He kind of cut me off and I then blocked him everywhere until I was able to heal. I have unblocked him now but I don't expect further contact. The last one was on the night of my dad's funeral. He had an excuse to reach but but no real content to his message. Anyway I hope this helps you. Maybe other people could contribute how they left things with their pwBPD.

[earlyL]

Thank you Hope2727, yes sorry I was asking about your situation, that makes sense, and feels a lot like the place I am in.

[mjssmom]

I'm setting boundaries too with my counselor's help hope2727 should he contact me again.  I do love him and miss him but I can't be with him except under certain conditions so my counselor and I wrote them up so I have something tangible to ground me should he seek me out again.  I'd be to vunerable right now to jump back into it again if I didn't have a plan in place.

Things on that list include things like:   He must get DBT treatment, no other women, take down his online dating profile (which is surprisingly still up despite him having replaced even though it's not being logged into), deactivate his FB account, and if need be, disconnect his internet until he is far into treatment, and no sexual r/s between us until he is in treatment and showing signs he's committed to it. 

[steelwork]

Shoot, did he love me? If not, he was the world's greatest actor. I never had anyone look at me the way he used to look at me: with complete, abject adoration. Or he would grin crazily at me, seemingly unable to control it. I used to think of that look with longing. Now it haunts me in a different way.

He shut me down  over email: he froze me out and blocked me everywhere, and then we had one more phone call a month later, and then a few more emails before he stopped communicating entirely. That was almost 2 years ago. At first, I would remember the look, go over all the things he said when he still loved me, and I would wonder: how can this be? How can someone genuinely have those feelings, and then they are gone? When I love someone, I love them always. I mean friends or lovers--anyone who meant something to me once will always mean something to me. Things may cool, and I may no longer need to be in constant contact, but the feeling doesn't evaporate or (as it seemed to in his case) turn itself inside-out into contempt.

Sorry. I'm babbling. I just wanted to say that it was a crazy-making mental and emotional puzzle for me for so long: how could his love just go away when I was still the same person?

Here's something he said to me the last time we talked. He said: "I never hurt so bad over someone. I ran 8 miles a day and did online CBT, and never worked so hard to get over someone, but I did it. I feel like I'm not the same person anymore."

Two years later, I can only conclude that love works differently for me than it does for him. Love for him was apparently a brain state, independent of its object. I am still me, the person he loved, but that's irrelevant to him, since he has changed.

Now when I think of him looking at me with love and adoration and compare it to the contempt that replaced those things, it gives me the heebie-jeebies. There is a kind of horror in it. He essentially forced himself to dehumanize me to get over me. When someone is able to dehumanize you, there is nothing they can't justify.

[steelwork]

Now ask me if I'm detached.

Hah. Nope.

[mjssmom]

Wow Steelwork if you didn't exactly hit the nail on the head in exactly how I feel, I don't know that anyone could.  Seriously, I can't help but be convinced this man deeply loved me right up until the day he totally and completely cut me off.  I couldn't do anything to contact him right now if I wanted to except to message his unused online dating profile while he's distracted by my replacement or write a letter and send it to his house.  He cut everything off.  FB, phone, etc... .

As I learn and start to understand this illness, one of the hardest parts is believing the love and affection, the constant need for him to feel connected to me, the sweet words... .meant absolutely nothing to him.   I can't believe his last rage when he said he hated me and then disappeared, was really true.  Just the day before he told me he wanted a life with me, a future.  Is it possible he really is just over it that suddenly and let it go forever?  Or does he still love me or think about me and maybe someday will return when this r/s he's in burns out and he realizes he's alone again and never anyone else to count on?  I was his rock, his steadiness.  But he's forgotten me? 

From what I read here it's true.   I mean nothing. I'm black now.  But deep in my heart I hope it's not true.  I hope deep in his heart he'll find love for me he's buried because he just is hurting so bad right now.  I miss him so much.  But then again... .I don't know now if he ever really felt real love for me even though in the moment, in the entire relationship, it never once seemed an act or forced on his part.  It always, 100% appeared genuine and true.  You just can't stop loving someone overnight.

Most people yearn for someone they've lost or let go, think of all the good memories, miss them... .I don't know if I'm capable of believing he isn't experiencing these things like I am.  How can that be completely absent?  We had an excellent relationship right up until he ended it an fled.  Never any real fights and those were smoothed over easily.  We had so much fun together.  I did everything I could to be a loving and supportive and generous partner and he seemed to really appreciate it.  Did he really forget all that?  For him, he really can't see the good overwhelmingly outweighed the few bad times we had?

The sad part is, we were only together for 9 months.  We were mostly in the stage still of the honeymoon transitioning into the next stage of that would occur in a "healthy" relationship.  I didn't know though he had BPD until after the fact.  Both he and I knew something wasn't right about how he behaved, but neither of us knew about this until his final rage and me seeking help.  I just wish I could help him.  I miss him so much and I'm so worried about him.  It's only going on a month and a half.

[steelwork]

Is it possible he really is just over it that suddenly and let it go forever?  Or does he still love me or think about me and maybe someday will return when this r/s he's in burns out and he realizes he's alone again and never anyone else to count on?  I was his rock, his steadiness.  But he's forgotten me?  

I can tell you that I had similar thoughts in the months after he ghosted. Even a year later I was hoping he'd come back. On some level I still am. But here's the important thing about what I wrote above: he turned cold on me. He treated me with contempt. That might have been a defense mechanism, or it might indeed (as he hinted) have been through a concerted brain-training effort to "get over" me. The point is that his heart changed. If it can happen once, it can happen again. Trust is shattered, and I can't imagine what would ever make me feel emotionally safe with him again. I can never forget how he treated me.

But that is me.

And it took me a long, long time to reach this point.

And I still miss him like hell.

[mjssmom]

Your right.  He went from overnight loving me and wanting me to move in to replacing me the next day and two days later calling me in a furious rage saying he hated me and never wanted to see me again and that he found someone new and that if I were in front of him, he'd bash my face in.   Everything, all the good our entire relationship before that no longer means anything with an ending in that context.  He had such rage, such anger at me and I don't know why.  I don't know what prompted it or lining up my replacement.  And I guess I'll never know.  I wonder almost  1 1/2 months later if I'll be like yourself, not having heard from him again, or like the stats where they try to recycle you.  I'm hoping yet anxious and scared not knowing how he'll be and if I can fight giving in to him if he should reappear and at the same time, I really want to see him again and talk to him.

[steelwork]

Of course I can't say if or when he will reach out and with what story, but I strongly advise you to think about what has already happened between you, and what effect it's had on you. I think your best tool in dealing with him in the future is your own clear understanding of what transpired.

And please know that I understand. I'm really very lucky he's left me alone.

[blueblue12]

Hi steelwork,
I understand completely your stance on this, it also happened to me. My ex decided that she was done, but that went on for a complete year. She detached and went competency cold. Had arguments with me, called me a monster. Asked me to send her an apology letter for being controlling and jealous and proceeded to treat me with contempt the whole year.

She would be at home on the phone all day, communicating with the world but zero with me, if we went anywhere together it was hell, she would sit in the car in silence. We would go and visit her mum, an hours drive, eeary silence for the entire trip unless I tried to engage her in small talk, it was so hurtful, this from a woman for whom I was originally the saviour, her hero. She would sleep I'm different rooms, go out most nights, sometimes not come home at all. Then say she stayed at her mums or at a girlfriends house.

In the meantime I was going to therapy for my 'controlling and jealous' ways. I had no idea of BPD although once analysed the traits were there from childhood, real ones. It was not until my therapist said "from what you describe she sounds borderline" that I started to research it and it all suddenly made sense.

Now I think the controlling part was her 'excuse' as I now feel that the relationship was going through all the stages of BPD and she could not stop that. I certainly tried all year through and could not stop its progress. Even towards the end of that terrible year she would hint to that by saying "I can't believe where we are at, we were meant to be together forever" or "I can't really show you or tell how I really feel inside as I am struggling with these changes" in the meantime though she had decided we were separating and we would sell the house.

As this went through she went on a trip to a conference and I was left with the tasks of selling and packing my bits. Irresponsible to the core and always, she made sure to put me in a parental, taking care of her and things right through our time together. Somehow I was happy to follow that, my own people pleasing issues that I need to address. Before she came back, I sent her a goodbye letter and this is what ensued texts such: "please don't say goodbye, I just can't cope xx", "my heart is broken. I cried and cried and cried after reading your message. Please don't do this xx"

Crazy stuff right? I went NC since then, 5 weeks now, it is so hard as it leaves you without closure. I miss her, but there is really nothing for me to do. And the way I was treated which sounds like the way you were treated at the end steelwork leaves you with a strange feeling that you could really not take or trust ever again.

[earlyL]

 He essentially forced himself to dehumanize me to get over me. When someone is able to dehumanize you, there is nothing they can't justify.

I spent six weeks living with my ex while I felt like I watched her break up by de-humanising me. She bought a new phone and made sure I was aware she had my name in full, she would shut doors in the flat that I had never seen her do, and yet she would hold me at night in bed. I had never seen her look at that way before, it felt like torture.
3 weeks ago we broke up for sure, and now we have to work together. I can honestly say it is the most confusing thing I have ever been through - today she looked like she might cry when I wouldn't look at her for more than a second, she is desperate for me to now validate her. It's like she has totally forgotten the six weeks over xmas of hell  - plus we are no longer together. I get text messages or emails every day, sometimes about work stuff, sometimes to say just the word love, it is cruelty. My ex does think she loves me, but this is not love for me. Someone wrote on another board, love is what eases the pain, not what causes it. I hold onto that each day.

[heartandwhole]

Hi mjssmom,

I can understand your questioning this. I think we all have been there, and it's difficult to wrap our heads around what happened after such an emotionally intense relationship. I suspect that the EMDR treatments are also playing a role in evoking your feelings.

You are doing the right thing getting professional help and sharing your feelings with us. I commend you for being able to look more objectively at things so early out of the relationship—that takes a lot of strength and self-awareness. Keep taking good care of yourself and you will see that things DO change and get better. They have for me and they can for you, too. 

I am in the camp that believes pwBPD loved me in the way that he defined love. That his feelings were real when he said he loved me, and also when he said he didn't love me that way. What love is to him is hard to say, but it felt like love to me—until it didn't. That led me to investigate what love means to me, and that opened my eyes to issues that I needed to work on.

Here is a thread that you may find beneficial to read. Just substitute your preferred pronoun:

BPD Behaviors: Did s/he ever love me?

heartandwhole

[FallenOne]

I don't know... .

Does someone who truly loves you for years just leave you overnight like a piece of garbage? Does that sound like "love"?

Doesn't sound like love to me... Sounds like lies and deception.

How could I have meant anything to her if she was willing to drop me so easily and suddenly? Doesn't appear as if I meant anything to her... I might as well have been in a dream the past 4 years...

[Careca9]

Your right.  He went from overnight loving me and wanting me to move in to replacing me the next day and two days later calling me in a furious rage saying he hated me and never wanted to see me again and that he found someone new and that if I were in front of him, he'd bash my face in.   Everything, all the good our entire relationship before that no longer means anything with an ending in that context.  He had such rage, such anger at me and I don't know why.  I don't know what prompted it or lining up my replacement.  And I guess I'll never know.  I wonder almost  1 1/2 months later if I'll be like yourself, not having heard from him again, or like the stats where they try to recycle you.  I'm hoping yet anxious and scared not knowing how he'll be and if I can fight giving in to him if he should reappear and at the same time, I really want to see him again and talk to him.

Hi mjssmom,

really glad you asked these questions, and are slowly working your way back to a stable footing through better understanding. some of the replies on your thread are really good you should def take note as being in a similar position i know how you are feeling

i too was just cast aside days after being told the warmest and loving messages. my relationship too had no issues/arguments and i was literally blindsided with what came just before xmas. i was too left thinking how could someone who had told me they loved me and looked at me with such lust literally cut me from their life as if i meant nothing. How could she be coping at a time like xmas when im a total mess. did she actually love me has been a question i have had running through my head for week. you, prob like me, would never react or do something as cold and horrible to someone i love like they have done to us.

i believe like a number of people comment that they do in the way they know how. ive read a lot on this and ask yourself if you had grown up loving your caregivers but they dont meet your needs and you get hurt over and over whether you would be able to see love as anything other than feeling pain like your caregivers gave to you when you were young. you wouldnt know the feeling we have as its likely never been in your life. like most things we learn off our parents, things arent always in built in us.

most of us go for injections when we are young and in later life some of us develop huge phobias over having injections because there early memories remind them pain is about to come. Most of these people are fine talking about going, they can even talk to nurses outside rooms where the injections occur, but when they see the needle in the hand of the nurse they literally faint or run out usually in extreme anxious states. thinking about a suitable analogy i think that is the closest to what happens. Up to that point of trigger i feel as though they loved as i do, but anxiety comes when feelings as strong as they have with caregivers comes along and the anxiety literally bashed this out of them to protect them from the pain they will expect to receive from you. that fear must make it easy to cast aside someone because that overwhelming relief that pain will not come trumps the feeling that they have for you/us

as for the reconnect, well you will have to see. prepare yourself as best you can for both a positive (pull) or negative outcome, it really helped me have in my head that i knew how id respond whatever the outcome. for me the pull hasn't come, a distorted refelction of the relationship still stands and an unknows to the trigger. it looks like i wont be recycled just yet but the fact i have read and set myself for this outcome was certainly better than not doing.

hope you get the response you want