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Following on from the "did you do things you're not proud of" thread, I wondered also can they & do they bring you down to their level?

Reason I ask this is looking back in times when I was with her I would sometimes act in a way that was more characteristic of her than me like playing the victim, sulking, entitlement etc. It didn't happen very often but I can recall occasions when it did & it was out of character for me but it felt like I was kind of trying to play her at her own game, taste of her own medicine, tit for tat if you will.

Since the break up a year ago she had been together (on/off) with my replacement meanwhile I haven't got in to a relationship at all just a couple of flings. This got me thinking after being subjected to it for a decade has her ways rubbed off on me? Or maybe it was me that was the problem all along? Can they turn you in to them?

Hi reachingoutuk,

I have similar feelings. I'll reshare here because I don't think that I can express it more clearly.

Yes- I think I lowered to his unhealthy level at times and like you, I caught myself off guard.

I think the difference is that we were victims. so was it really at their level? I don't know. I still think I acted in ways that I normally haven't and wouldn't... .triggered and affected by him.

when you sleep with dogs, you catch fleas.

Yes, definitely.  I felt like I spent half of my time seeking validation from her.  It's incredibly tough not knowing where you stand from one day to the next, so I felt like I was constantly asking her how she felt about me.  I was afraid of being abandoned by her. 

I also texted her messages that I was not proud of, and those messages were the complete opposite of what I had told her in the beginning.  I said I understood her and that I would never judge her for her past.  A few months later, I called her crazy and told her she was a white trash pothead.  Not really my finest moment.

When she started the push/pull with me, I started it with her.  I think this was a reaction to not knowing where I stood.  I'd work so hard to get her attention, but as soon as I could sense that she was doubting her feelings for me again, I would become distant and would push her away. 

I think that it is true that we all have traits of various personality disorders but we can regulate the "dis" part of the order and go about our daily lives.  Sure, we may get down or angry or have a sense of entitlement about something but it doesnt affect us day in and day out like them.

But, I do believe in what Nietzsche wrote: And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.  Being in a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship breeds the behavior.  I will use myself as an example.  Before I re-entered a r/s with my pwBPD, I was happy.  Don't get me wrong, I had my own ups and downs (like we all do).  But, after a year of being in a r/s with her, I am much more bitter, angry, sad, paranoid, and generally untrusting of people than I was.  It is, partially, my fault for allowing it to have gone on for as long as I did.  I was simply chasing a ghost, my Moby Dick and it almost broke me.  I have been able to stand on that razor edge, but it was difficult.  At the very end of the "r/s", I looked in the mirror and I didn't like the "monster" that was staring back.

I, of course, didn't see it at first because I was in the FOG.  I am LC with my pwBPD.  While I feel I still love her (the "her" I know, anyway), I know that I can never be with her, either.  That is for my own sanity.  She still tries to pull me in by giving me fleeting moments of the her I "know", but standing back from the edge, I can see it more.  I am polite to her and she constantly tells me that she wants to talk to me about our r/s, but I don't take her words seriously (I feel it is a tactic to keep me around, in her mind.  Maybe it's intentional, maybe it's not... .but frankly I longer have time for games).

In the end, I believe they can bring us down with them, if we choose to let them.

I became 24/7 defensive. I was being attacked so much. Often times mimicking her behavior. If she was wild I was wild if she was cold and sociopathic esque I would become equally as cold. I'd do my best to not but she would push me every single day 7-12 hrs a day. It got so bad I would give anything for a good day. 1 in every 7-10 days. I hate some of my actions that should would be able to bring out in me.

Nailed it. I completely am in the same boat as you

I can relate.  I am currently in a roughly one month old chess match with her.  It's a one sided chess game, she just doesn't realize I am not playing anymore.  I have been pretty LC with her, but today she seemed more lucid.  She was all about seeing me after work today and talking to me.  I told her I would be fine with that, out of curiosity more so than anything else.  She always seems like she wants to get something off her chest, but never does.

Anyway, the time came for her to pony up and guess what?  She went Red October silent.  I could feel that "old" self in me boiling up full of rage and wanting to just tell her off (I mean, seriously, I took time out of my evening to wait for her).  But, that's not me.  Not the real me, anyway.  That's what she's made me into over the course of this year... .she's looking for an emotional response.  I didn't text her or otherwise engage her in why she didn't come see me.  I'm sure she'll give me some bs reason as to why she didn't see me (was to scared, her mom was throwing a hissy, whatever else).  At this point, I don't trust her any further than I can throw a Buick, so my presumption is that she had to be with her new fling tonight and was stringing me along.  I have a feeling the reason why she won't come face to face with me outside of work is because she feels shame/anger for sleeping with / seeing someone else and not ending it with me to do so.  I think she wants me to just blow up because she deserves it and is pushing me to validate her feelings for her.

I have to be honest though.  It's taking more and more restraint to not give in just one more time to the anger and come at her (verbally) like a bull in a china shop.  It would serve no legitimate purpose, but in the moment I would feel tons better.  I know that I have to go NC, which I will have to use the band aid tactic (just go cold turkey).  I keep saying I'm going to, I just have to hype myself up to feel that true moment of pain... .having to let go of the "what ifs" and "could've been".  Easier said than done.