Sabotaging the relationship

[Narkiss]

Back on this board again. After three months of increasing stability (at least when it came to this relationship) and closeness, he has sabotaged the relationship again. He did something that he knew would upset and hurt me and when I told him how I felt, he said he that he doesn't know if he can deal with my kids -- and I haven't heard from him. For more than a year, he's been telling me that it's ok I have kids and imagining himself as their step-father.

This has happened before. And will happen again. And again. And again. And always exactly at the moment that I begin to think that it really can work out. Looking at the pattern helps me stay away from him, at least so far. For a while I deluded myself that he would sabotage other things in his life -- like his job -- but not our relationship. That, I told myself, was too important to him. It's not. I don't even thinking he fully knows what he is doing but something in him drives him. Do your SOs sabotage your relationship? How? When?

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[schwing]

Hi Narkiss,

For more than a year, he's been telling me that it's ok I have kids and imagining himself as their step-father.

Don't trust what they say.  Trust what they do.  If his actions demonstrate that he cannot handle being a step-father, don't put him in the position.

Do your SOs sabotage your relationship? How? When?

When I was dating my uBPDgf, everytime after we had an amazing period of closeness and happiness, she would pull back and say that she didn't think things were working out.  It always baffled me.  And whenever I had asked for an explanation, or an identification of what the problem was so that perhaps I could fix it, she could never identify or describe exactly what the problem was.

Then I would start to distance myself, which would trigger her fear of abandonment and she would pull me closer by more or less re-seducing me.  The pattern when on and on with a few variations for five years until it stopped.

[Hopeful07]

I definitely felt like things were always really great right before the other shoe dropped and he'd want to separate or do something completely awful to hurt me. A lot of times he'd do things near special days like anniversary or birthdays.

[Narkiss]

Why do they do that? It was a period of closeness and intimacy and I really thought some very important things were resolved and we were moving forward together. Scheming, Hopeful, did it end at that point or did you go back?

[schwing]

Why do they do that? It was a period of closeness and intimacy and I really thought some very important things were resolved and we were moving forward together. Scheming, Hopeful, did it end at that point or did you go back?

I believe that for people with BPD, closeness and intimacy triggers, in them, their disordered fear of abandonment.  And so the closer they feel towards you, the more they have to deal with their irrational fear that we will abandon them.  Sometimes this is only *imagined*.  Sometimes this is an over reaction to any appearance that we are distancing ourselves from them.

Why does intimacy trigger their fear?  Because I believe what is at the heart of their condition (at least for some pwBPD) is an abandonment or betrayal trauma (or perhaps denigration) (real or perceived) from which they have not yet resolved.  And so like in PTSD, the right trigger causes them to relive their trauma.  Sufficient intimacy/familiarity might just cause them to relive their abandonment/betrayal trauma.

In my case, I think my exBPDgf got overwhelmed by her disordered fear and actively sought to replace me during the last year of our relationship.  By then I was so habituated to the on again/off again pattern than I always expected her to come back and to a degree I felt obligated to marry her.  I was incapable of leaving her.  Never did I suspect she would leave me.