Unresolved grief - impact on partner.

[Hawk Ridge]

I have been thinking about grief today.  Over the last 9.5 months, I would like to say I "allowed" myself to grieve but the reality is there was nothing voluntary about it. I had been brought to my knees without my desire to be there. I finally started dating 2 months ago but I keep it on more of a friendship basis as I am not ready for anything more than that right now.  My expwBPD was "in love" again within 2 months.   Throughout out whole relationship, all I ever heard about was her ex who left her.   When she left me both times, she stated it was to grieve the ex.  The first time she came back to me.  The 2nd time, she went into the arms of my replacement.   My question is this... .do BPD's grieve and, if they don't (as becoming involved with someone else right away makes me suspect), how do they treat the replacement when another loss occurs in their lives that they don't take time to grieve? Will it cause further dysregulation? Thoughts are appreciated - just trying to sort through this

[Elpis]

The tough part of your question is that we can't ever really know what's in the pwBPD's heart, we can only see their actions. And we can only truly know how their actions make us feel.

There's a really interesting workshop here on the site started by a recovered pwBPD that talks about what "love" meant when she was still in her full BPD state, and how "love" means something quite different to a pwBPD. Feelings of whatever--love, grief, pain, etc.--all come back to their deeply held but faulty beliefs about themselves and others. The perceptions they have will always come back to a basis of self-protection, rather than the reciprocal sort of relationship you or I want to have as non-sufferers of BPD. And like other things in the BPD's life, love/hate/grief/pain will be very all or nothing.

So I guess what i'm trying to say to you is that your idea of grief is probably entirely different from her idea of grief. Her loss will be more about what of her needs are not being filled, while yours will be more of the loss of what you gave and received and of what you thought your future looked like. Yours likely takes much longer to heal.

This is that workshop I mentioned:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=68978.0

I'm like you, a ponderer, and I can get stuck in wondering what's going on in my uBPDh's head. The best gift we can give ourselves is to care for our own mental and emotional and physical well-being and begin putting our energy into our own healthier future. We'll never really know what's going on for the other person, BPD or not.

Hope that helps some... . 

[Copperfox]

I saw mine seem to grieve (or at least dysregulate as I understand it now) around certain times, like her wedding anniversary date (she was divorced).  Seems like their grieving can be triggered by certain moments, certain acts, things that cause them to remember past events. Sometimes she'd cry for no reason when certain things happened. But for the life of me I could never understand exactly when or why.  It didn't follow a normal timeline.  

Disordered thinking I guess.  But she definitely grieved, in her own way.

[Trog]

My ex would get crazy at certain times like anniversaries of deaths. That's fine for anyone to be upset but she would be so angry and starting fights all day and not tell me till the end of the day what was wrong.

I could never understand why she didn't tell me what 'today is'. I would be sympathetic, it would end in terrible rows where we may even end up breaking up or leaving the home and in the end it would be my fault because I hadn't remembered the date from last year. The problem was there was a death or anniversary every month of some kind.

[myself]

I think that a pwBPD is usually the person who has done the most to 'kill' the relationship. As if they 'won the game'. The roots of this may well be disordered, for some of our exes, which can also lead to subsequent actions often being done intentionally (sometimes the most damage comes from neglect). When you spend your life avoiding intimacy, this way of relating would also seem to fall in that category. What kind of closeness/connection is even there to face? So there wouldn't be such a grieving process. It would be shame, if so, in addition to realizing the loss. Or feeling justified in the relationship-destroying behaviors which would be more of a "Why grieve? They had it coming." That said, we each face things differently, BPD or not.