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I started seeing T a month ago.  It turns out I have an issue with "emotional intimacy".  A month ago, I would have said no. But after going over it with my T, there's no question.  It explains a lot.

I have avoided getting in a r/s for years.  Dated but never got attached.  Ran before it could even be called a r/s.  When I finally decide to give someone a chance is someone that is clearly unstable and impulsive.
 
Here is the logic,
Get in a r/s with a pwBPD and you won't have to worry about emotional intimacy.  :thought:   I detected her weaknesses therefore, don't worry I would be the strong one.  I put the focus on her.  Which means, I could proceed with ignoring my own fears.

I'm not referring to physical intimacy.  That, I happen to be an expert on. It is emotional intimacy. It's like I perceived that the r/s with my ex was not going to survive bc of her obvious/known emotional instability.  That's why i put myself through that.  If she haven't done what she did, I think I wouldn't have let her go that easy.  T said is bc that's what feels normal to me; disappointments.  I'm working on accepting the fact that healthy r/s are not so scary.  :)

Talk about finding out your own issues before you can move forward.  Just want the folks who have tried to help me here, see that I am doing my homework. I am working on myself.

I'm asking myself, was it her fantasy or mine?

Can anyone else relate to this?

I totally get what you're saying, FallBackMonster and I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

The short answer is: I believe that we both had a fantasy element to the relationship but it was how we managed these expectations as reasonable/mature adults that differed.

To her, the fantasy was me being her prince charming, someone who could solve all of her problems and temper her incredibly unstable emotions. Her fantasy was that the amazing highs of the honeymoon period (first 6-8 months) would be how the relationship would be forever. She would always tell me how perfect I was, how we were going to get married someday, where we were going to live etc. Her fantasy involved me being 100% interested in her and only her, not having my own hobbies or passions or even my own values and opinions. Her fantasy cracked when I was no longer a convenient source of supply for her, when I stood by my goals & virtues and continued to be my own person while not spending every waking hour of the day doing something romantic for her or paying attention to her. Infatuation is an immature emotion and something that pwBPD excel at exploiting and once the relationship evolved in the way that any relationship does and goes from infatuation to a true partnership that requires mature love/commitment/caring, she dropped me without a second thought.

For me, the fantasy was caused by me believing all of the gaslighting that she was doing. I allowed myself to be controlled and manipulated because she was reflecting all of the things that she knew I wanted in a life partner. My fantasy was that this person and I had a connection that could never be replicated with anyone else, that we would alway be there for each other and have each other's back no matter what. I took her immature emotions of infatuation and how she projected them out to be real mature emotions of love without ever asking any questions because it really did seem so real. I couldn't for even a second imagine this person not being with me or doing something to hurt me. When the relationship moved past the infatuation state, I was so excited to spend time with this person and grow together as a couple. I was ecstatic to move in with this person, to start planning our life, to discover what made her tick and how I could be the best possible partner for her forever.

In the end, it really comes down to intentions. This person has a sordid history with a trail of destruction behind her of men whom she has made out to be the love of her life only to abandon them for seemingly no reason. I even knew this early on but didn't think it to be a red flag at all, I truly believed that what we had was different, that it was real; and I can almost certainly say that this is how all of her other exes also felt just as how all of her future partners will feel as well. My intentions were to stick with this person and support them until the day I died no matter what faced, her intentions were to have enough control over me to cause me to have such strong feelings so that she could abandon me and hurt me in the worst way possible.

I'm sorry you're hurting. I don't really know why I'm saying I'm sorry.  you just sound like you're in so much pain.  I'm not sure I could find the right words to make anyone on this forum see the light, when I'm looking for it myself.

The only thing I could come up with is searching myself.  I sort of knew it was a fantasy.  After the break up is when I started to wonder if it was hers or mine.

I'm to this day confused as to if I was ever hurting or just confused about the whole thing.  The one thing I can say is, when she finally detached I could almost not believe it.  It was surreal.

Her actions never matched her words.  But the look in her eyes made it all seem real.  But you're right about something else. She did have a history of abandoning others w/o a good reason.  She did however say that she was tired of changing feelings so often.  That she wished she could just love one person and have a stable r/s.  We know that is never going to happen.  No matter how much we give or not give.  I know now that my pain may not have mattered to her, and my existence may not matter to her now that she has found another attachment.  But the confusion that I feel right now will not be felt forever.

Try and work on you and lets try to forget how little we mean/meant to the ex

Excellent work, FallBack!Monster.  |iiii Yes, I can relate very much to what you wrote. I have also chosen people with whom I knew (subconsciously) that I wouldn't be able to get emotionally intimate, not realizing at the time that the reason we weren't going to be able to do that was most likely because of me.     Choosing a person who also seemed to have difficulties in that area for whatever reason (it could even be just an external life situation) made it easy for me to blame him for what I felt was lacking in the relationship. After all, I had the evidence, and other people to agree with me!

Well, like you, it dawned on me that I was afraid of getting too close for various reasons. This realization happened many years ago, though, so how did I end up here? I think because being aware of one's issues is not always enough. I have to "practice" by putting myself into situations where I'll feel my own fears around emotional intimacy, dependency, etc. I had carefully avoided that for quite awhile until pwBPD's fantasy and my own fantasy merged, which made me feel like I could really go there. And I DID go there to some extent, until it imploded. I got out relatively quickly. And of course, learned and *felt* a lot in the process. I think we gotta keep getting back on that horse.  *) Each time we're a little braver and wiser.

heartandwhole

hi

sorry for you it was a fantasy that you couldn't see, but they created.

with hindsight you know this now.

but they lied about everything to ignore pain.

had the lies not been there you would have realized and moved on

not your fault 

this may be the bargaining part of grief