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I may have some of my own issues, not saying I'm perfect or anything, but if I brought (according to you you) half of the problems that we had to the table, then explain why my current relationship with my current girlfriend has none of the issues that my BPD relationship had?

Hi FallenOne,

Why did you recycle with a pwBPD for 3 years? Why did you keep going back?

Regarding long term effects  there was a time that I was really angry at my ex after we broke up likely due to a narcisstic wound, i was hyper vigilant and went into a deep depression. I went to a GP three years after she left for depression and anxiety and they were long term moid disorders  prior to meeting my exuBPD.

That's simple. She was attractive, had a good sense of humor, fun and exciting, great in bed, similar interests, similar views and opinions, similar values, very focused on and invested in me... Who doesn't want that? Alas, it wasn't real and I was fooled, but didn't know something was seriously wrong until after 9 months into it... She did a good job at hiding her true self and I was too uneducated about mental health issues to know something was up... There's not really any secret answer or mystery to this question. It felt right in the beginning.


The new relationship has been just over 5 months and is NOTHING like my BPD relationship (that's a good thing). My BPD relationship ended (for the 4th time?) in December of 2016.


The point I was trying to make in my other post in response to you and SJ is that I see on these boards a lot of the time that both the BPD and their partners are both dysfunctional... Well, I disagree that I'm dysfunctional because all of my other relationships, friends or partners, have been normal... So if I'm dysfunctional then why are my other relationships perfectly normal?

Sorry for being late to the party!

Hey Fallen, I'm going to thank HQ's for talent in articulating ideas - and she hit the nail on the head on what I what I was trying to say.

So am I dysfunctional? Are you dysfunctional? For the sake of communication - let's take a look at the word itself.

Dys - Function - Al

It's very subjective. What's your function? Schoolhouse Rock put it best: Conjunction Junction, what's your function?

In your past relationship, both parties were likely incompatible with long-term happiness and satisfaction. The conjunction itself would be incompatible unless one or both parties made drastic behavioral modifications - so to be more accurate the RELATIONSHIP was dysfunctional - not really you.

Fallen, I think we have a lot in common. Maybe we shouldn't call it a dysfunction - but more of an exploit? We shine in some areas and we have some weaker areas ( like enforcing boundaries ).

If we meet someone who isn't going to exploit that weakness and is worthy of our type of unconditional love and trusting nature - we have all the potential in the world to be the happiest couple in the world!

We need to build our smart Firewalls and be mindful of who is deserving of our trust, love, and companionship.

We are worth more!

Thanks for your reply. I like how you worded your post and I think you made a good point. But I wanted to respond to this part ^^ because it brings up another question... Yes, the relationship was dysfunctional, more so than me specifically, but ALL of her relationships are dysfunctional. Would this mean that she's not compatible with anyone? Is the answer simply because she has BPD? Every relationship she has ever been in has been a disaster and it will always be that way, but yet she will always blame the partner for it failing... .

Yes, most likely.

It will depend on what the two people in the relationship are willing to do to see it succeed.

I was with my BPDx for 10 years, nobody except her parents ever lasted that long. Not friends, not jobs, not even her siblings. Even her kids stayed with me when she left me.

Work with a guy, he and his wife both started taking antidepressants so they could stand to be around each other. They have been married 15 years with no end in sight.
So there is an option, you could get medicated heavily to be able to stand her.

Interesting.

To play devils advocate... .if there was extreme emotional immaturity from both partners, is that a function of their interaction? Does partner A act extremely immature because partner B triggers that? Does partner B act extremely immature because partner A triggers that?


So this would take it a step further and say that:

• Partner A act extremely immature because partner B triggers it.

• Partner B act extremely immature because they are.

Put in another way, our emotional maturity stands until confronted with emotional immaturity and then we become emotionally immature, but it is about something outside of us.

This suggests that a perfectly mature partner can enter into a relationship with a immature partner, act immature themselves, be spurned from the relationship and then go on to have excellent and mature relationship skills going forward.

So my question in this would be, what happens when this "mature partner" finds themselves confronted with new challenge in the future? Do they operate at the level of the partner... .Is that the definition of emotional maturity?

Matt, this is a support group and its anonymous so that we can share difficult things.

I've followed your story and I can easily say that your partner is on the high end of the spectrum of BPD - far more ill than most member's partners.

At the same time, I can say that you struggle to see your own relationship skills deficits, there is a lot of denial going on. When people try to help you, you shut them down. You have a long history here of opening threads, not liking what people said, abandoning the thread, and opening another to ask the same question. You do this until you get the answer you want to hear. Denial.

You made the comment recently, that you recycled in this relationship because you were fooled by your ex. The last time you recycled was after she was released from and extended stay in a mental heath hospital - having spend more than a year of her life in mental health hospitals by the age of 25.

You have many posts trying to understand why she rejected you so vehemently you for a same sex partner, changed her looks, etc. Members have told you that breaking up with her when she went to the hospital had a profound affect on her (anyone). You have rejected that. Denial.

After she moved on, you went on a smear campaign contacting people and telling them that she was a mental mess. She went on to file restraining orders against you.  You really struggled to see why she did that and have communicated this as abusive actions by her. Denial.

The title of this thread says a lot:
Explain why my [new] relationship has none of the issues that my BPD relationship had?

Getting along with a new lover for 20 weeks is not a statement of your mental health. You said in your posts earlier, that you got along well with you ex for 50 weeks before you started having problems.

We would all like to help you work through this, but you have to decide that you want it.

Everything you said about me is true, but I'm not looking for help working through anything... I've already worked through my breakup. I'm over it. I'm with someone else. It's not an issue for me anymore. I am only here now to try and help others who have experienced what I did.

I'm merely trying to say that while I may have been with someone who was dysfunctional, I don't believe that I myself am dysfunctional, but rather like SJ said, the dynamics of the relationship were dysfunctional and how we responded to one another was dysfunctional... I'm not emotionally immature... I'm not dealing with some unknown childhood issues... I'm not in need of therapy... I'm not not broken in a close or similar way to my BPD ex. These are things that she tried to convince me of when  she was still a toxic influence on my life... I mean, she tried to convince me that I was a sociopath and I had to ask myself if she was right... Now that I'm in a healthy relationship with someone who has a healthy mind, none of these problems exist anymore, so I know that whatever issues I may have, they don't contribute to a toxic relationship... BPD's are toxic people and the assumption here is that the people they involve themselves with must also be toxic on some level, but I disagree with that... Just because someone enters into a relationship with a BPD does not mean that person has their own issues. I see myself as just a perfectly normal, average person who bought into the con.

This is good to know. We can all drop it.  :)

Thanks.


Your advice to others has been "get over it, they're toxic". This has upset some members.

Do you understand why?

I believe that yes, we can enter into a relationship with a pwBPD. This could easily happen to anybody. What is indicative of an unhealthy mindset is staying in a toxic relationship, one that proves to make you unhappy and had little hope of getting better.

If I would have been wiser and healthier before I met my ex, I would have known that keeping No Contact after I first kicked her out for flirting with her ex-boyfriend (father of her child) while she was in my bed - or perhaps would she stole my prescription medication and lied about it.

That would have been four months and done... .Instead of a dozen recycles and 2 years into it. I was not prepared for the onslaught of emails, messages, and calls that proceeded the breakup. Instead, I did the unhealthy thing and thought to myself - I really love her and she has many great qualities, next time will be different. She will change.

In the end, the only person who was changing was me. My boundaries were getting more degraded with each passing day. My anxiety levels were out there, I was always distracted by the unhealthy constant childish texting.

So my friend Matt, if you don't accept there are unhealthy things about yourself that kept you in that situation - you might not ever improve and become more mindful of them.

This board would not be near as popular if none of us needed improvement! The typical message would look like: I dated this gal/guy for a few months - and she started sabotaging our relationship so I walked away and blocked her... .and that was it.

-sj

SJ82 hit the nail on the head.

Some of us may have gotten into relationships with pwBPD because we made bad choices at the outset. Some of us did not see or recognize red flags, or the problem behaviors did not occur until later.

Where all of us went wrong is that we chose to stay in those relationships long past the point at which a person with healthy, centered self-esteem would have said "Nope, not putting up with this treatment, bye!"

... .until we were kicked out

     ... .and we still hung on

          ... .and we continued to struggle for months afterward.

If you were only lucky enough to be kicked out... .Trust me on this, you never wanted to be pursued by a pwBPD. I couldn't keep my fence tall enough. DISCIPLINED No Contact ( almost to the point of restraining orders ) is where I won my battle.

She finally stopped emailing me not that long ago ( I suspect she has a new target, and the weight has been lifted from my shoulders )

I agree with Flourdust. I was on the rebound when I met my current BPD wife back in October 1994. I had just gotten a divorce from a lady whom had some emotional issues herself. I also had significant issues then, mostly OCD that kept unhealthy thoughts running in my mind. I didn't know that at the time. Also had a bad temper if things didn't go my way.

There were lots of warning signs right up front but I ignored them.

Now my anger is well under control, thanks to my BPD wife. I wouldn't have survived with a BPD wife for 23 years without an anger modification. Also I'm on prozac, which has my OCD under control.

So I think Flourdust hit the nail on the head. We all have issues. We just have to accept that and make corrections.

However, we can't fix our BPD partner. There lays the problem for me.

I've heard we all have a tendency to find another person to date just like our last spouse. I'm not even sure I wanna date again. Fear I guess.            

You guys are right, we chose to hang on.

But don't forget the manipulating. I was lead to believe all of our troubles were caused by me. So I needed to fix them.

It is not always easy to just stop and go hey, this isn't right. Many of us were made to feel like we deserved the misery we were getting.

His account - exactly. Everything you said. My situation exactly.

Someone else mentioned self esteem, my issues with self esteem were there way before I met my exuBPDw, I can't blame that on her, that came from my FOO. If I had healthy self esteem, I wouldn't have felt  that it was my fault for getting treated badly.

I feel like " birds of a feather "

Oh man... .things change once you gain the ability to look at yourself. This ability doesn't seem to come easily.

I carried my share of heavy baggage during the period I met my BPD BF (now ex again, tho' he may not know this) four years ago.  And he pursued me full tilt boogie.  I was so scared after my horrid divorce and the abusive end of my 19-year marriage.  All of my friends (none where I was now living) and family pushed me to accept this man into my life.  To accept his offers of help around my home.  To accept his travel invitations.  And he said, "Gems... .please open the door".  He seemed too good to be true.  That was a correct assessment.

And when he had his first unprovoked rage, I was stunned.  And silenced.  And I shut the door on him.  At the strong urging of the 2 friends and one family member I told, I finally accepted his tearful apologies.  I allowed this to continue for 3.5  more years.  There wasn't much to me when we met, but I was beginning to heal from my divorce.  There's much less left of me now.  And I know he's waiting for my call saying I forgive his latest cruelty.

But the thing is... .after all of the pain and the rage and the blame he inflicted and the follow-up apologies, his heart is cold.  I know that.  It's just my quiet arrogance to think I could help him feel "something".  I can't make him feel.   His repeated promises to get help need to become irrelevant to my healing.  The good things he did for me are NOTHING compared with the harm he did TO me.  And maybe once i really see that, I will understand that the only path to take is the one without him.  This is a man who would carry the keys, while I carry both his and my baggage.  I'm simply not strong enough for that... .

And until I lose his baggage, I'll be good for no one else.

Gemsforeyes