Please remember

[jambley]

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Jamesss, Thanks for the quotation, which is a good reminder in the aftermath of a BPD r/s.  In my view, the starting point is learning to love and accept oneself, which you could say is a prerequisite for a healthy r/s.  LJ

[BlackHoleSun]

Its a nice quote from the bible and a lovely bit of poetry but the fact is "love", is entirely subjective. What do I mean?

Ask yourself this question - What is love?

Now ask yourself the same question again and REALLY think about!

What is love?

Hmmmmm, it's not easy to come up with an answer is it! In fact, it's almost impossible to say what "love" itself is! You could ask 100 people and they'd all struggle and probably eventually come up with 100 different answers! Why is that? Well, because "love" is actually a set of learned values, behaviours etc that we are shown and taught by our parents/guardians throughout our early years. We are essentially conditioned to "love".

So how does that relate to BPD? Well, fundamentally, that is the core of the disorder itself. People suffering with BPD were never shown how to "love" (in the "classic" sense of the word) or taught how to "love" as children. Chances were they encountered verbal, emotional, physical and often sexual abuse. They were conditioned to believe "love hurts".

Do they know how to "love"? Yes, but it's their version of what love is, just as everyone else has their own concept of what love is and neither one is more valid than the other.

The simple fact is that, if you REALLY think about the question "What is Love?"... .then you begin to see that "love", does not even really exist at all, outside of an abstract concept.

[Wits End Woman]

So true.  I needed to read that.  Thank you for posting it. 

[marti644]

I read this quote over and over again when I was first discarded. It's funny at first I was reading it in terms of how I had treated her, how I had loved her, even through all the abuse. As time has gone on I see it for how I should love myself, for the first time in my life. Interesting how this healing process flips after awhile.