BPDFamily.com

Little background; talked with T about my Mother having BPD traits.  Conversation moved to why I got involved with partner that had these traits.  I had originally seen my choice as an unconscious desire to resolve old conflicts.  T's comment was that I receive an emotional “payoff” in being with pwBPD traits in the form of familiarity and comfort with my own past.  AKA a homecoming

An example he gave was; her push/pull behavior was exactly what I was emotionally comfortable with even if it was externally difficult to deal with.  So her BP traits fit my Non traits hand and glove.

Do other people have this perspective of their r/s?  

Is there any breaking the homecoming cycle?  Or am I destined to keep repeating?  

Philosophically/Psychologically, do we ever meaningfully change the emotional parental imprint from childhood to the degree that we would not be comfortable with the type of behavior that we grew up with?  Or if we were imprinted with this at an early age will likely maintain that impression in seeking others.  If the answer is we cannot break it, then the implication is that we will continue to more or less choose pwBPD as much as they choose us the NON.

hi joeramabeme.


i've had this conversation also with my T. in the marriage (and in one other r/s before it) i found myself in situations that were familiar from my upbringing; however awful the patterns were at least i knew them. perhaps i thought i could "fix" my FOO experience by re-enacting it and having it come out right this time? well, i failed. my mother didn't have BPD, but both the mother and the w (and the woman in the other r/s too) were very devaluing people. i would protest and get nowhere, and this was very familiar territory. i would protest because it didn't occur to me that i could just refuse such treatment and leave.

imho you needn't repeat. you can come to see both the traits in others and the reactions in yourself, and reach awareness. in my case, i'm discovering ways i'd internalized the devaluation (automatic negative thinking) that i didn't even realize i'd done. the change doesn't happen overnight, but it comes. i've being seeing a T weekly since my marriage exploded, and expect to for a while more. do you think you'll be able to keep up the T visits?

Maxen

Good insights.  The devaluing that I experienced was most impactful in the areas of my life that I had pre-existing weaknesses; money, intimacy and trust. 

In my FOO, I was the rescuer, the 5th child that calmed the waters of a warring family of 8.  I was really good at placating angry parties and getting them to see where each needed to adjust.  Kind of interesting that one of the younger children could do that with the adults.  However, when I stepped into owning my own observations and feelings and questioned the high degree of insanity of my home life, the result was always the same, I saw things incorrectly.  Highly rational counterpoints were made to my observations and my own manhood (boyhood) questioned.

My internal processor constantly worked in overdrive to make sense of what I was missing.  I perpetually questioned my perceptions; replay after replay.  Once in awhile I got the courage to really step it up a notch and try to claim what my truth was, that was met with very bad results.  The lasting feeling for me was like a chard of glass stuck that had stuck in my brain.  I could feel it there, always, but everyone told me it wasn’t and I could not remove it myself.

My uBPDw’s traits grabbed hold of that glass chard.  She wiggled it and told me there was nothing there.  All my attempts to address her behavior were met with her staunch denial and counter blame.  All of it had me feeling a profound and deep self-doubt and an internal struggle to validate what all others told me was not true. 

Ironically, my uBPDw only did this with my interactions with her.  As far as it related to my perceptions of family, friends and other situations I struggled with, she was very validating and helped me remove those chards; but not hers. 

So, my home coming question was really about can I ever remove this chard of glass from my behavioral components.  Always questioning myself comes so natural.  Being involved with someone that can raise that doubt is very thin ice for me.  Perhaps this is my final home coming.  So much of who I was when I met my wife has now changed, for the better.  One of the deep ironies and struggles I have had with the ending of my marriage; how could she have helped me to progress so far and yet she not really.  It is almost as if our marriage ending and her telling me that she could never be happy was the last test I had to self-remove the chard.  I think I have got it.  But I don’t have a high degree of confidence, no surprise.

I feel so sad that so much of my life has gone by in this struggle and it has so driven me that it has really been almost my exclusive focus at the expense of living a full life.  I want that full life.  A dream a boy had, then a young man and now a middle aged man. 

I say no, we can't change our 'imprinting' because it was done so early in our development that it's hardwired, but it doesn't matter.  Like maxen says, we can reach a state of awareness of it, motivated in part by the 'experience' of our relationships with a borderline, and that motivation is the gift of the relationship, and with that awareness we are not doomed to repeat it, by any stretch.  We got a strong does of what we don't want in a relationship and a partner, but what do we want?  Once we get clear on what traits our partner must have, and what traits they absolutely must not, and then we focus on it, along with focusing on our own traits and how they would mesh with that ideal partner, attachment theory is a handy tool for that, then we can take that focus out into the world and not only recognize what is right for us when we see it, but also attract it into our lives.

H2H, always love reading what you write.

The last part of what you said is spot on;  but also attract it into our lives.

I can't attract what I don't know that I want.  Going to start a new thread on this topic.

Thanks both you and Maxen

Hi Joe,

You got good advice from maxen and fromheeltoheal with awarness and the gift of the borderline.

I can see that you may of been a person in your family unit known as the "peace keeper" a person that takes the responsibility for everyone to get along.

Thanks Mutt,

Does the "Peace Keeper" personality type fit a list of types that make them prone to partner with pwBPD traits?

Absolutely our FOO can make us prone. I think understanding our role that we played in our FOO can help us; it can help us understand how we relate to other people in our adult life :) If we know what role we played in our FOO we have a powerful tool that can change our lives and relationships.