Cause of leaving

[dangoldfool]

Reading an article, it seemed to say, if you just keep the BPD person in the helpless rescuing mode. The relation would continue on without problems. It's only when you challenge them to take on responsibility. That they shut down and start looking for new partners, and dump you. It this right?   

[Octoberfest]

Is that a relationship you would really like to be in anyways?

The Characteristics of Healthy Relationships

Respect - listening to one another, valuing each other's opinions, and listening in a non-judgmental manner. Respect also involves attempting to understand and affirm the other's emotions.

Trust and support - supporting each other's goals in life, and respecting each other's right to his/her own feelings, opinions, friends, activities and interest. It is valuing one's partner as an individual.

Honesty and accountability - communicating openly and truthfully, admitting mistakes or being wrong, acknowledging past use of violence, and accepting responsibility for one's self.

Shared responsibility - making family/relationship decisions together, mutually agreeing on a distribution of work which is fair to both partners. If parents, the couple shares parental responsibilities and acts as positive, non-violent role models for the children.

Economic partnership - in marriage or cohabitation, making financial decisions together, and making sure both partners benefit from financial arrangements.

Negotiation and fairness - being willing to compromise, accepting change, and seeking mutually satisfying solutions to conflict.

Non-threatening behavior - talking and acting in a way that promotes both partners' feelings of safety in the relationship. Both should feel comfortable and safe in expressing him/herself and in engaging in activities.

[Hazelrah]

Octoberfest makes a good point.

DOF, I can say that I experienced exactly the opposite situation.  In the early course of our relationship, and then into our marriage, I really tried to provide motivation and encouragement for my wife to find a 'real' job.  She has a college degree and she'd had a good job when I first met her (which she was quickly fired from)... . she'd even taught English overseas in South Korea for a few years.  Yet she couldn't settle into anything the first few years we were together--she was either fired from her menial jobs, or simply left after very short periods of time.  I eventually reverted to rescuer mode and realized maybe unemployment (or at least part-time employement) was simply better for her mental health.  I make a good living, though her inability to manage money often put us in difficult situations from time to time, but I felt her peace of mind was more important than anything else by that point in time.

Now that she's gone, she's supposedly looking for a job again, though I have no idea how she will be able to keep it should she get hired.  Her job history is simply ridiculous for a 36 year-old woman.   

[dangoldfool]

Is that a relationship you would really like to be in anyways?

At the time I was in it. I guess I was fine with the way thing were. And maybe if someone would have advised me, hey do this, and the relation will last. Do that, and she will be gone in a flash.

Now looking back. I want a healthy relationship. Like, I even know what that is.

The more you read. the more down the rabbit hole you go. And discover your just as bad if not worse. The only difference seem to be, most of us want to get some help.

[Sunny2013]

That was my experience.  I was married to my uBPDh for four years before the kids came along and all was well for those four years.  Once my daughter came along he disassociated himself and rarely spent time with me or my daughter.  Then two years later when my son came along that's when the raging and verbal abuse started and got worse as the kids grew into toddlers and parenting became more demanding.

Would you mind posting that article?

[dangoldfool]

    Re: The man, the mirror and possibly acceptance?

« Reply #12 on: July 14, 2010, 10:13:12 PM »    Quote

________________________

Quote

The person *you thought you were* - the person who no longer exists. It has been replaced by an ~authentic~ human being, with a greater self-realization of reality and awareness of the pitfalls of fantasy. In truth- we are becoming wisdom.

This is what therapy is all about. You go in to an office and talk to a complete stranger about perceptions of reality and methods of dealing with difficulty. For most of us, the intimacy in a one hour chat isn't enough to trigger a complete breakdown of who you think you are. It's only in the self trusting, complete intimacy of mirroring- that we let down our guard. And we do that when we think people understand us. When we come across a person who idealizes, mirrors and unfortunately has a hidden personalized (its all about them!) agenda in mind- it shakes our very foundations of who we are and who we trust. And it is exactly the reason why we get pulled in and involved with a person that mirrors us, idealizes us, and then devalues us. They steal our false self and then deride it, but we've allowed it to happen. They shame us.

Because our false self served us so well in the past, we fight to get it back and clean it up- and the fight and struggle is what nearly kills us.

It is a transference that normally would have taken place in a therapist's office- If it would have happened at all- after *decades* of therapy. The speed involved is frightening (often after a few months)- and the loss of control is demoralizing. That's why some people think of this as a great gift. It's almost as though they peeled off a great scab that had covered a pre-existing wound. A wound that we thought we had taken care of a long time ago. We can only have this happen IF we allow someone to get very, VERY close.

The good news is- you transferred your reaction formation of a false self onto the BPD and came away with a realization. The bad news is: Your BPD partner did *not* learn a thing.

James F. Masterson says, that the Borderline is *not able* to respond to analysis, because they are *not able* to form a transference relationship with the therapist. I would add, that they are not able to be in healthy relationships, because they are not able to complete a transference with the partner without regressing.

In other words, they could project onto you, but "could not see you as a separate, complete individual with both postive and negative qualities." You however, could see positive and negative in them. And in spite of that false persona they may have mirrored- you've now come away from this and are able to see things in a completely different light.

According to Masterson, "A pre-requisite for a relationship was "an alliance" with the explicit understanding that two people are working together to help achieve a mature insight into any problems and the means to alleviate them."

But this is impossible to accomplish with a mirrored false self that's shared between two people. While your false self (listen, no one is *that* perfect) is being idealized by your partner, it's also being placed further and further from reality. And the further and further it's placed from reality- the more YOU become aware that it's not really *who you are.*

"The Borderlines problem arises from the developmental arrest of the ego and from defenses constructed against the abandonment depression when the real self emerges."  That's their own real self- but it also applies to you as well. Their fear of their own true self is what keeps them focused on your false self. By mirroring you and idealizing you, they undermine your real self and force you to defend your false self when things start to go downhill.

There is a withdrawing persona and a rewarding persona in Borderline. The rewarding persona is concerned with immediate pleasure rather than long term stability- and it reverts to regressive behavior that is activated by your "borrowed" false self. *THEIR* false self is so much more baby-like, infantile, submissive, masochistic, clinging. And concentrating on fantasy keeps them away from recognizing their own true reality (being.)

"The partner is not treated as a separate person upon whom the BPD displaces infantile feelings for the purpose of understanding them and working them out- but as a kind of maternal figure on who the BPD can engage in a kind of instant replay of the abandonment scenarios from childhood. Without realizing it, the BPD drags past and present and projects them onto the partner."

So your false self is very valuable- and they work it in a form of "reunion fantasy" whenever you have limited contact and they fear you are taking it away. This gives you the hope that you will become shared keepers of the false self again. But it's only a matter of time before reality sets in and hits you over the head. The false self has to go... . it cannot be maintained. It has to be shelved- this time for good. You are no longer that person anymore.

I hope I explained this well enough to understand. Most of it can be found in Masterson's book, "The search for the real self." His explanations, I'm sure, are much better than mine.   

Further reading and the best BPD starter book I would recommend by Masterson: James F. Masterson, M.D. The search for the Real Self. Unmasking the personality disorders of our age.

[Moonie75]

That explains recycling more to me than anything else.

I took from reading that, They have a 'reunion fantasy' to do with their original abandonment. Would explain a little of why they push us away, to live out the 'reunion' in the recycle that maybe never happened after the original event in their childhood.

Or something like that anyway.