BPDFamily.com

   Being in a relationship for 25 years and knowing my exBPD's family and family background (both parents highly abusive with PD's), seeing the interaction between them and hearing the things they did and said which was absolutely unconscionable at best, it was very devastating when I had the epiphany that my ex had never seen me for the person I was but who she created me to be... .her parents. I was accused of the very things they did, said, how the treated her etc., as if I was a clone of them. Everything went through the filter of abuse. I realized she was never out of her past but that it truly was super -imposed onto everything. 

  If you are in a long term relationship and you are privy to the intimate details of the abuse I can almost guarantee you are being seen as the parent(s). You talk about projection. She was punishing them by proxy through me and she was totally convinced that I was cut from the same piece of cloth as them. I was the parent that never met her needs and the more love I showed the more hateful and abusive she became. Such a cruel paradox... .desperate to be loved, to feel worthy to be loved but when the love is there she couldn't trust it, see it or believe in it. That is the depth of damage that abuse can do and that is 'core' damage to the soul.

  As for me. She left me, accused me of having an affair, told me I was sick,I needed help, I was hateful,  sold our land that we worked on together for twenty five years, took all of the money, invalidated me, half of my life, my love, our relationship and said things to me that cut me so deep that I literally though I would die. She moved back to NY to her dysfunctional family, still trying to get the love and approval from her mother before she dies.

    I lost everything I loved and cherished, half of my life's work, half of my life erased by her and I was told to 'get over it' as if I had stumped my toe... .invalidated to the point I felt I didn't exist. And as I was trying to just breath she ask me the day before she left... ."What is wrong with you, do you have some terminal disease or something that you haven't told me about'?  And that my friends was the icing on the cake.

    I'm eight months out and she still calls me on occasion and acts like nothing is wrong. The last time I talked to her, I cried and she told me I needed to grow a spine. She is her parents incarnate. Thanks for listening. I needed to get this out.

   

I can relate to a lot of what you say, including the hurt of she being oblivious to your pain.

Are you more mad at her or yourself? Or are you even at the angry stage yet?

Oh so true.  My uBPDxW described being physically and psychologically (her words) abused by witch/queen MIL. One of the angriest, most evil people I have ever met, which made me even more determined to save xW from her... .      

Over two decades of watching the daily toxic enmeshment, like watching someone you loved in a boxing ring with Mike Tyson, but refusing to put up their gloves to protect themselves, much less fight back.  I was the one who tried to set boundaries, and while these worked superficially, they served to push MIL even further to her land of hate.

Before I was finally painted black, xW painted her FOO black - including MIL. Interesting that this was when I was closest   with her family, but now I see it as just their need for intel.

I then get painted black (don't mention the lesbian thing... .) and next thing you know the FOO is back in her good graces, and I never hear another word from them.

I think once xW was able to project her Mommy feelings onto me (I was controlling, my advice was demeaning, telling the kids it was bedtime was tantamount to abuse), it gave her the opening to revisit what she never had in her childhood.  MIL's resentment of me made her all the more open to this reapproachment.

So they have come full circle, now with my children sucked into it also. 

FOO issues don't go away - if unaddressed they will almost certainly rear their ugly head again.  As intimate family issues, they will normally target whoever is closest to them.

So yes - you are now the monster.

My ex was neglected as a child by his mother, who was mentally ill herself. I found the situation very sad, because now she is largely recovered and whenever I stayed at his family home with him it was obvious that she was trying so hard to get on with him and to be good to me, but he couldn't forgive her for the past. He doesn't believe that people ever really change, and he has no concept of forgiveness. He also sees her illness as just an excuse - and is adamant that he is not ill, even though he has diagnoses of various stuff; he only got those diagnoses because his mother 'poisoned' the psychiatrist against him. The PD diagnosis he received as an adult, when his mum wasn't there, he just shrugged off.

And yes, he did seem to conflate me with his mother at times. I got the feeling he was saying to me all the hurtful punishing stuff he wanted to say to her.

My husband has definitely projected his mother onto me, it's very weird and very sad.

The most troubling (to me) was when he passed out on the couch one night.  We weren't getting along at the time (heck, are we getting along now?) and I was planning on being in the guest bedroom, so I thought that I should get him into the master bedroom, which had a brand new, very comfy mattress.

I ended up rolling him onto the floor unexpectedly because he was more passed out than I thought he was.  Unfortunately his arm was pinned under him at an uncomfortable angle, so I decided to roll him over onto his back since there was no way I could carry him up the stairs or get him back on the couch.

In rolling him over, the wristband on his health monitor popped off.  He woke up and accused me of breaking it.  I said, no, it was an accident, give it to me and I'll fix it.  He flew into a rage, saying that I was going to sabotage his health monitor and throw it out.  This went back and forth for a bit, and something dawned on me to ask, ":)id your mom throw your things out when you were a kid?" He responded, "Yes, if we didn't pick up our toys she would throw them out."  I was stunned. (What kind of mom does that, even if you are a neat freak? Just put the toys in a bin and put it in a closet)

He and his mom don't exactly have the healthiest relationship, and the more I read about FOO and BPD his early childhood did not set him up well.  If you asked him he would claim his childhood was "perfect".

He does have ED, and at this point the rare times he attempts intimacy I shrug it off and say "let's just cuddle and try again some other time" when the plumbing doesn't work.

There is something with him where falling asleep is an exit or escape from whatever trauma his is experiencing or reliving.  We have been in full blown arguments where he will just stop, close his eyes, and instantly be asleep, to the point of snoring a minute later.  This is even with me shaking his shoulder and talking to him.

I had an interesting quote from the ex last week saying...

''I went to a course/group thing and i realised that my parents 'emotionally' abused me but i've also realised you've 'emotionally' abused me to, you might think i have aswell, well i know you think that but yeah''

 

Should i be shocked anymore, he says it in such a nice way aswell, no raging, its like its general convo, that you don't realise and break it down until his out of my presence.

Hi gingin,

I'm sorry you had to go through all that. It sounds like PTSD, BPD and PTSD are often comorbid. A core feature with BPD psychopathology is insecure attachment patterns and lack of object constancy with lacking the ability with recalling memories of a nurturing caregiving to self sooth their emotions.

I share similar feelings with my ex wife and her misdirected anger at me, sometimes I felt like it was directed at a parental figure from her past. Everyone's ex partner here is different and my experience is not necessarily the same as yours but my ex wife experienced sexual abuse in early childhood.

Some people with BPD tend to re-enact past traumatic sexual, physical, emotional events until the sense of justice and fear of retribution is clarified and validated ( Perry et al 1990  p 40 )

Childhood Trauma in the Etiology of Borderline Personality Disorder (http://www.google.ca/url?q=www.hakomiinstitute.com/Forum/Issue19-21/4Linda%2520Baird,%2520Childhood%2520Trauma2.pdf&sa=U&ved=0CBAQFjAAahUKEwjD2Pf09IPJAhVFpIgKHcYkAHY&sig2=hE5dSWYSM7m3MDpFOGY__A&usg=AFQjCNGCL9wVu-L3rVbAv3L8eMK5vafj0A)

Mutt, this is a great link.  The article is somewhat scientific in nature but for anyone interested, it is worth reading to understand the connection between PTSD and BPD and how the mind developmentally creates these conditions when impacted at early ages.

As someone who has been personally impacted by PTSD I can see much of what I experienced in this article.  Further it helped me to gain a deeper understanding and sympathy for my uBPDw.

Thanks