BPD or ACoA?

[GreenEyedMonster]

The fact that, in practice, he was annoyed when dealing with these things (especially my anxiety disorder) was perhaps the giveaway of something really wrong.

GEM,

I would think so! I think no matter what our ex partners were suffering from, we may certainly be suffering from giving too much credit of doubt to people sometimes - in my case, this doesn't happen innocently. I rationalize for my own inner purposes . I mean, someone else in this situation could think "Hey, it's obvious that even if he is sad or worried about me (or feels guilty) and that's probably why he is reacting negatively, it SURE shows me that he doesn't know how to deal with negative emotions and here I am in practice getting punished for having anxiety. I don't need this." And then, they would maybe share the problem and maybe expect some action or maybe they would just remove themselves from this situation depending on how much they are ready to have this in their lives.

When I look back, personally, I can be very good at "understanding" the causes of negative behaviour I receive but maybe not so good at expecting some change in behaviour and taking quick action if change is not there. I personally am guilty of spotting these but staying for too long, constantly analyzing and understanding new stuff life throws my way. (And, boy, does it ever end with highly conflicted personalities.) I even think that in a previous relationship with a cerebral narcissist, I actually related to my own analyses of the guy than relating to him as a person - as a person, he was not attractive after a while, as a "case work" helping me understand human behaviour, he was fantastic. I remained in this thing for 8 months and fell really ill, physically became a wreck.

What did you do when he reacted negatively to your anxiety?    

I really described the worst of it to him, sparing no details.  I told him that when I'm anxious, he can expect me to be a real handful, and that I might even get paranoid and accuse him of things that other people have done in my past.  I told him that he could expect me to get angry at him for reasons that weren't really personal, and that to stay with me, he had to be prepared to weather it and know that it would be brief and we'd make it out the other side.  I always, always apologize when my anxiety causes me to hurt other people, and I try to keep a handle on it as much as humanly possible.  It's just that, like anyone else, I'm not perfect.  I normally have the self-awareness to handle my anxiety without my partner even knowing it, but in high-stress situations, I lose sight of the situation.  Basically, I have PTSD-like symptoms from a very terrible thing that happened to me earlier in my life.  I told my ex about this situation and its effects on me up front, nothing held back, and he claimed what had happened to me was so awful and he had so much empathy.

He ultimately responded by saying, "You're such an amazing person.   You're stuck with me.  I'm not going to break up with you over this."

Then he passive-aggressively planned a SECOND vacation with his female friends without me when I had told him I wanted to go, and on the trip he was already on, "accidentally" failed to call me until hours after I expected him to (and didn't text to let me know this), and when I talked to him later, he still "didn't have time" for a conversation because he was with other people.  (He was having a beer fight with the other girls around a campfire, and staying up until 3 in the morning talking to them . . . )  Then, when this caused me to have an anxiety attack, just as expected, he broke up with me.  This was 24 hours after he told me I was "amazing."  I think, frankly, that he was annoyed that he had to work around my needs.  I made it clear when he left on his trip what he would have to do to prevent my anxiety attacks, and it was nothing that hard.  If he didn't want to do it, he had the option of dumping me right then and there.

Point being, he couldn't handle my anxiety disorder, and if he had been objectively listening to my description of my abandonment anxiety, he would have known this.  But he idealized me and idealized himself and imagined it would be easy.

So basically, he responded to my anxiety in the most un-empathetic way possible -- by doing things that obviously would increase it.  Then he was shocked by the consequences.  It ripped open my PTSD wound and he wound up with a very un-fun girlfriend.

On some level he knows this, which is why he is terrified to see me.  He should have put the pieces together and acted more deferential to me in the situation, or admitted to me up front that this was not for him.

When this happened, obviously I was very angry with him, but as he terminated our relationship by shutting off his phone while on vacation, there wasn't much to be done.

[thisworld]

Wow, MapleBob, I have just written more or less the same thing about my relationship in my awareness board post. Here is how I've just put it there:

"I tried to think of my relationship with the BPDex. It was brief but very tumultous. He was an addict but I still think things got tumultous particularly because of BPD, not addiction – though of course BPD triggering addiction resulted in chaos.  I think what made it so tumultous was constant boundary busting. There wasn’t a single, single boundary that wasn’t busted. Boundary here does not mean clearly stated boundaries. I think a preference was seen as a boundary, a like was seen as a boundary. Basically everything that could mean like a blurred definition of my existence –  a self-confident ameiboid!  grin - was busted. I have rarely seen something more emotionally exhausting than this in life." The ameiboid thing is a reference to something by Melodie Beatty.

So, OK, perhaps people with BPD feel better with boundaries actually as this gives them a sense of self and contains them - because they are emotionally immature. And people say it actually gets worse before it gets better. I think this is what I was exposed to as well as a lot of attacks on my self-worth or the way he believed I perceived myself as a woman - like I HAD TO be jealous of younger females. (Again, wrong. Of course I get threatened by some female presence in my relationship if that's the kind of presence my ex encourages but to me that is not related with age. For one thing, I know how attractive, how tremendous some people can be regardless of their age so I'm not age-selective when I'm in my jealous mode. But, alas, no. As we spoke before, my ex didn't accept this about me. basically, I knew nothing about my own jealousy.) 

I also feel that if I was completely submissive he would lose the last bits of attraction for me. He liked being with what he deemed a "strong" woman whose boundaries should nevertheless be tried. Maybe, some stereotypical gender roles are at play here, too.

Ultimately, yes, my relationship also ended because I didn't completely submit. However, in the end of the day, I still see myself as someone in between. I stated my boundaries clearly but did not follow-up at the speed I believe I should have. I still wanted to get to know him I suppose and didn't want to finish the relationship that quickly. So, I was confidently stating boundaries but not taking the ultimate action. So, I blended in the conditions of his world. This was me as a confident amiboid:)) I traded my boundary action for my wish to know him more. We went on for three months. Emotionally we were over in two months for me at least. And covertly, I knew this would never work and started detaching at the first romantic triangulation - day 10 or something. I had my first suspicion probably on day 3 of our co-habiting. I can't say this was an emotionally 100% honest relationship on my behalf. I've taken inventory for this. I had lots of uncomfortable feelings that one doesn't get at all in healthy relationships.

Another mistake I made was my crazy confidence in my "analysis" abilities. Because I attributed his narcissistic behaviours/comments to his addiction - or all those losses he experienced due to addiction- I actually agreed to be in his normalcy pot! I encouraged him in this! I enabled it and it got worse. I found myself sharing the same home with a full-fledged somatic narcissist, not an addict who felt slightly better about himself or something. But there was something wrong. That's how I discovered BPD. 

Life lesson for me: I can never truly attribute reasons to others' behaviours in everything. I can only truly know what I want and don't want and act on that. For one thing, in intimate relationships, the ego protective things will always be between partners until some real trust is established. I knew this, I slipped after 8 years. I paid for this assumption of mine dearly. I still am and will be paying financially for a while as well. 

Stay strong!

[MapleBob]

Ultimately, yes, my relationship also ended because I didn't completely submit. However, in the end of the day, I still see myself as someone in between. I stated my boundaries clearly but did not follow-up at the speed I believe I should have. I still wanted to get to know him I suppose and didn't want to finish the relationship that quickly. So, I was confidently stating boundaries but not taking the ultimate action. So, I blended in the conditions of his world.

Yes, pretty similar, and still very hard to tell what behaviors are BPD or ACoA or addict or just being a jerk or what!

I think that, in addition to not being generally codependent enough, I probably wasn't vocal enough about boundaries or expectations. I assumed I was dealing with a healthy person because that was what was presented to me at first, so I assumed that healthy boundaries could be mostly unspoken until they were crossed. She did the same thing; I guess that was our unspoken agreement. The difference was that I (rarely, but occasionally) had to set a boundary, and she didn't like that, and saw it as invalidating. She didn't set any boundaries at all, she just stuffed anything that she didn't like that I was doing until it exploded. It's near impossible to come back from that.

[thisworld]

Yes, pretty similar, and still very hard to tell what behaviors are BPD or ACoA or addict or just being a jerk or what!

I ask myself "How important is it?" In the end of the day, I think we all have life experiences that have added something to our personality and they are sort of intertwined. I mean, I don't know where exactly each behaviour of mine stems from. Like, I'm the adult child of a narcissist, someone who has worked on her boundaries to some degree and a woman socially conditioned by gender roles in her society. Probably, there are two thousand other factors that have contributed to who I am. When I exhibit difficult behaviour, I'll not always know where that's coming from unless I really focus on it - sometimes with external support. Is it because I'm getting triggered because of FOO, are more recent boundaries crossed too much, am I reacting to what I think is a burden of a warped society on my shoulders? I will not know at that time, and later I'll be making a narrative about myself - maybe even that is not my ultimate reality, maybe just a sign post. I'm not 100 per cent transparent to myself.

And I don't think anybody can read me 100 per cent accurately, either. Like, they are finding a reason from what I have told them, but then maybe I'm triggered because of something completely different, something that I actually didn't feel the need to even share with them.

So, to me, there is no way of knowing for sure but that's only natural, for everybody.

My need to "understand" occurs when I'm very hurt - or traumatized even. I feel like I have to make sense of what's happening. That's only natural, too. But it stops when I feel better. Then I can tolerate "not knowing." My focus is on myself. I can let go. This actually gives me a clue about my detachment and my feelings in general - I may not always have direct access to them.

When I feel like I have to know, it means I'm very hurt. When I can say, "Just a highly conflicted person", it means I'm feeling better.

Do you have an emotional relationship with your need to know like this?

If my partner was receiving therapy, I'd relate to this differently perhaps. But then there would be some cooperative work on these issues and also their effects on me.

On my own, there is only so much I can do with information.

Believe me though, I know the shock of believing that you were communicating with a healthy person and then, wow.

Still I think, my partner set a lot of boundaries. I think he has inflexible boundaries actually. They are so strong that he can't even tolerate any information (from me about myself) that would somehow contradict with what existed within those boundaries. Only, he didn't speak about them the way I did. On top of it, I think  he somehow "trained" me not to ask for anything from him with everyday behaviours like dismissing, explosive emotional reactions etc. I don't think he did these to train me consciously. But I learnt this somehow and stopped sharing my inner self with him. That's why I believe there was something very controlling in our relationship.

You say it's near impossible to come back from that. With my partner, it is not. If he wants to recycle, he is able to come back from anything - his own explosions. Would you like to salvage your relationship yourself?

   

[MapleBob]

When I feel like I have to know, it means I'm very hurt. When I can say, "Just a highly conflicted person", it means I'm feeling better.

Do you have an emotional relationship with your need to know like this?

I do, for sure. I do ultimately know that the "why" doesn't matter as much as the "what", but I also have a general desire to figure things out in order to come to terms with them, especially if I'm hurt. I also recognize that, for me, anger is usually really sadness, and sadness is usually really hurt.

I also related to your experience with your ex and boundaries. I think you're talking about what I've learned to call "unspoken agreements". I think my ex and I had a lot of them, and they were detrimental to our relationship and I certainly had my part in maintaining them, because there were payoffs there for me. I'm a non and I'm probably still at least mildly codependent in certain situations, but I'm generally capable of seeing a problem dynamic, finding my payoffs, and then finding other ways getting those needs met that aren't so detrimental. My ex just isn't as skilled at doing that, and I don't really blame her for it. I'd like to try to understand it.

You say it's near impossible to come back from that. With my partner, it is not. If he wants to recycle, he is able to come back from anything - his own explosions. Would you like to salvage your relationship yourself?

That's a tough question. I'd like the opportunity to start salvaging the relationship. I'm not 100% convinced that my conditions could ever be met by her, but I'd be open to giving her a chance to prove it to me one way or the other. And vice versa - I'd have things to work on too - and I'm sure she'd have her own conditions that I'd have to assess. We're not in contact, and the boundary as it stands is that she'll reach out to me again if/when she decides to. I'm respecting that. I'd definitely be nervous that she'd continue to find ways to sabotage the relationship. She recently admitted (now! too late!) that she had been subconsciously doing that for months.

[GreenEyedMonster]

Ultimately, yes, my relationship also ended because I didn't completely submit. However, in the end of the day, I still see myself as someone in between. I stated my boundaries clearly but did not follow-up at the speed I believe I should have. I still wanted to get to know him I suppose and didn't want to finish the relationship that quickly. So, I was confidently stating boundaries but not taking the ultimate action. So, I blended in the conditions of his world. This was me as a confident amiboid:)) I traded my boundary action for my wish to know him more. We went on for three months. Emotionally we were over in two months for me at least. And covertly, I knew this would never work and started detaching at the first romantic triangulation - day 10 or something. I had my first suspicion probably on day 3 of our co-habiting. I can't say this was an emotionally 100% honest relationship on my behalf. I've taken inventory for this. I had lots of uncomfortable feelings that one doesn't get at all in healthy relationships.

Another mistake I made was my crazy confidence in my "analysis" abilities. Because I attributed his narcissistic behaviours/comments to his addiction - or all those losses he experienced due to addiction- I actually agreed to be in his normalcy pot! I encouraged him in this! I enabled it and it got worse. I found myself sharing the same home with a full-fledged somatic narcissist, not an addict who felt slightly better about himself or something. But there was something wrong. That's how I discovered BPD.  

I really relate to this, thisworld.  Our relationship was emotionally functional for less than two months as well.  It really terminated when he didn't come to an event that was important to me, choosing to go out with his friends instead.  I have a hard time telling if that was an appropriate expectation, if I was right to feel abandoned in that scenario.  I decided that ultimately it was how he handled it that broke the deal for me.  He told me via text, making it difficult to discuss (intentional I'm guessing).  He knew my activity had been short and that I'd be available when his friends went to a bar in the city, but he didn't bother to call, knowingly leaving me in my apartment alone.  These kinds of situations make me jealous, whether justified or not.  I am aware of this and made clear to my ex that communication and consistency will help me adjust.  It turns out that he wasn't the person to provide those things.  "You don't want me to see my friends," is always the accusation.  No, that's not it.  I'm fine with a boyfriend going out with friends.  But when it's a group that includes single female friends, and the activity or interest is one that I share, I definitely begin to wonder why I'm being left at home.  I think in that scenario, there should be a good reason.  "I just decided not to take you," is not the attitude of someone looking for a long-term commitment.  "I'm doing this with Michelle instead because we have a common interest," is also a very fishy explanation.  I always feel like if I settle for someone who wants me there at his convenience at the beginning of a relationship, that's what I'll end up with.  He called me "childish" when I brought this up for discussion.  If he wanted to socialize without me, I'm fine with him going to a movie with his brother, hanging out with his band, going out for a drink with his buddies.  I don't expect to be there.  But if he's going out to the place he used to troll for dates before he met me . . . and he's with a group of girls . . . that looks to me like a man who wants the benefits of being single and having a girlfriend at the same time.

I fell for my ex's claims of normalcy, too, though I did begin to question them when they got more extravagant.  I don't think this is a flaw on our part so much as just the way the disease works.  My ex's florid descriptions of his previous girlfriend and her mental illness were extreme, but not impossible.  I didn't want to label him a kook or a liar at the beginning.  I've had some pretty crazy things happen to me, after all, and I wouldn't want someone to disbelieve me.  When he described his girlfriend as a sociopath who was going to murder him, I knew that he had a faulty and extreme idea of sociopathy, but it wasn't worth commenting on.  When he looked me in the eye and told me that she was going to keep him as a sex slave and kill him later, I knew that he was not playing with a full deck.  By then I was thinking about terminating the relationship.  Before his true nature became apparent, though, I did validate his experiences.  What on earth was I supposed to do?

I wrote it off as him dramatizing the situation to get my sympathy.  I didn't think he actually BELIEVED all that!  Frighteningly, I realize in hindsight, he probably did.  But there are so many other reasons that someone would say something like that, like you, thisworld, I could explain it all away.  And I think most people probably would.