Has this happened to anyone? Advice needed

[patientandclear]

Kim, his insecurity stems from events and experiences way before you. There likely is no amount of reassurance and allowing him to invade your space and privacy that would resolve it.

People who attempt to stay long term in such relationships don't arrive at relative stability by perfect reassurance. They survive by caring less that their BWD partner is upset. They let the BPD partner have their uncomfortable or terrible feelings, and let the BPD partner learn to regulate or soothe those feelings without undue reliance on assistance from the non partner. You can respect that someone else has very unpleasant feelings without trying to resolve those feelings for them.

I believe with the intensely controlling practices your guy had normalized and the fantasies of violence it likely was not safe for you to practice those skills in the relationship. But if you wanted to indulge in "I could have done differently," please know that the skills taught here about improving a relationship with someone with BPD are not about appeasement and never triggering the person. They are about standing still while their dysregulation erupts and subsides and not being particularly fazed by it.

That can "work" when the dysregulation consists of verbal rages (though I do question whether those can be experienced repeatedly without significant damage to the soul of the other partner), but some of the BPD folks we encounter have other behaviors that cannot just be outlasted and endured. In some cases violence, in some cases cheating, in some cases mistreatment of other loved ones/kids. Your guy has very concrete and specific control strategies, ones which you did not initially balk at or refuse because to you they were part of how much he "adored" you and his "insecurity." So you got way down the road of his plan to control your every action very fast. Backing out of that would likely change every aspect of your relationship. This is not a dynamic that could readily be managed. And in any event, managing it would entail heading the exact opposite direction that your desire for him is suggesting to you--which is to appease him even more.

You have the gift of time during this period in which he is saying he is done. Maybe he is, maybe that will shift. While he is apart from you, I hope you will work with a mental health professional and explore how his adoration was a package that got you to accept some aspects that are quite scary and stalker-ish, and how you might ensure you are less vulnerable to the adoration card in the future.

My own BPD r/ship was quite different (though I had a prior r/ship with similar control issues with a scary guy who ultimately used physical violence to try to prevent me from hurting his feelings so I deeply relate to some of the inklings your guy was displaying). But in my BPD r/ship my exwBPD was astonishingly good at making women feel super special and cherished. Eventually for reasons that don't matter to this story, I came to learn that that was a technique he used to cement loyalty to him. When our relationship advanced and I knew him better, I began to see behind the stated adoration and it came to appear almost mechanical. He knew the things to say that hit my pleasure centers and he would deploy those almost lazily. At the beginning he seemed super sincere and there is no way I could have detected it. What I saw later however made me understand more about myself than him.  There is something about me that made me incredibly susceptible to such blandishments. It made it hard to protect myself from mistreatment.  It may be worth examining why that adoration was so valuable to you that it made installing a security camera and phone spying devices seem reasonable and like something you wanted to participate in.

[jhkbuzz]

JHKbuzz,

The thing is I was very happy when I was with him. This thing spiraled almost overnight. Yes, I had to reassure frequently, but that was such a small part of our relationship. The rest was happy, full of love, and beautiful.

I was often happy with her, too. The need for reassurance (and the concomitant child-like self centeredness) grew over time. At first I found it sweet and charming - she was like a little wounded bird. Over time it became a monstrous burden - one I tried to bear because I loved her.

I also recognize your thinking - it's sort of black and white. All or nothing. I engaged in that thinking too, at the beginning. Time and distance allowed me to see the shades of gray again.

So remembering the bad times is hard. I have to keep reading these posts over and over again until it sinks in. It does for about an hour and then the guilt of "if I only ... ." kicks in.

For the first year of my b/u, I wrestled with the "two sides" of her. I was sad when I thought of her "good" side; and those thoughts involved a TON of self-recrimination. But I became angry when I thought of her "bad" side and all of the really horrible things she did. But I couldn't hold both in my head at the same time; I'd go back and forth and back and forth. It took time (and therapy) to integrate it all her "sides"; to emotionally accept that someone who could appear (and often be) sweet, gentle and charming could also be capable of such terrible emotional abuse.

Despite his evil side and the mask falling off, I miss him and there is a huge void that I wonder will ever get filled again.

That "void" isn't all about him. One of the things I realized over time was that my r/s with my ex mirrored my relationship with my mother; my always anxious, often raging mother. During my childhood "I felt responsible for her feelings. If she was feeling badly, it was my responsibility to "fix" it." I repeated this dynamic with my ex. Recognizing this enabled me to take my focus off of her and put it squarely where it belonged - on me. That's when I started to take my life back.

And by the way, his "mask" didn't fall off. As the disorder progresses you increasingly see below the surface. I can remember feeling (at about year 4 of our 8 year r/s) that I had woken up next to a stranger - and was flabbergasted to discover that someone I thought I knew inside and out I never actually knew at all.

You appear to be in the "bargaining" stage of the five stages of grief. You believe that you could have bargained with the disorder in order to ensure the outcome that you wanted. You can't bargain with a disorder - that's magical thinking.

Try to put some distance between yourself and your thoughts. Verbalize if necessary. "Hmmmm... .I just told myself for the thousandth time that if I had only (fill in the blank) that we would still be together. That's interesting - it's almost as if I believe that the power to heal the r/s was solely mine. As if there weren't things that he could have done as well, especially given his r/s history. Plus I'm beating myself up again. Why do I do that?"

Much of the time we are sad because of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves - but don't recognize that we have the power to change the story.

[kim2017]

Thank you, JHKbuzz and Patientandclear (and everyone else) for your such helpful and insightful responses. The time you spent writing me these posts have truly helped - more than therapy, more than reading, more than anything.

Now I guess the question I have to ask, which i hope someone here can help is - what next? How do I truly learn about myself and recover from this. I am not so thrilled about traditional weekly therapy. I feel like I just talk, repeat the same things and get nowhere.

I believe I am co-dependent and have some self esteem issues.

Any recommendations as to what I can do?
What I can read that will help me understand my co-dependency more? (I have read co-dependent no more)
What I can I do to help me with the fear, that i bet so many have, that I will never find love again or be happy with anyone else again.

His "adoration" of me was a bit much. Something inside of me must have longed for it. I think before I can move on to anyone else I need to find out why I needed that in the first place. Why did I need all that attention? I keep thinking he is right and I do have NPD.

Any advice is appreciated. This group is so amazing and I believe that reading these posts have been the most helpful part of my recovery process.

Thank you again, everyone who responded to me, for taking the time to make a perfect stranger's life a little better. I am very grateful.

[RealizationBPD]

Kim,

This statement resonated with me:

He repeatedly said he felt like I was "too good" for him. He said he wanted to have a lavish wedding to "announce to the world" I was his and that he landed such a prize (I enjoyed being so wanted).

My wife would tell me that she didn't feel worthy of me.  She would also displace her own feelings about herself on to me, as feelings I had about her.  For instance if she didn't feel good about her physical appearance, she thought I wasn't attracted to her, no matter how many times I told her opposite.  If she didn't feel intelligent, she thought I believed she was stupid.  She would go as far as to argue with me that these were things I felt about her.  When she was able to have a moment of reflection, she would admit that she was transferring those feeling of herself to me and then use them as ammunition against me.  Screwed up right?

I stilll feel you are accepting too much blame for not reassuring him.

By nature, I am very friendly. I like to take care of myself. My job required a lot of interaction with men and woman. Does it open doors to be friendly, dress nice, talkative, be social? Yes. Does it piss off an insecure guy? Yes.

I presume he met you while you were working that job.  Nevertheless, were you being friendly or flirtatious?  If only the former, one has to be diplomatic to achieve goals in most jobs.  Would he prefer you to be rude and standoffish.  Will that further your career?  If you can say that you weren't/had no intent of being flirtatious, then this is his problem not yours.  What you describe of your ex-husband sounds healthy and that he was secure with himself and you.  A healthy relationship should have partners that promote each other to be their best (making friends, being likable, not monitoring you).

BTW is a heightened sex drive an element of BPD? Because I often wonder if he was taking something. That was just too much drive for his age.

To try to answer this question, I would say it is quite possible. The reason I say it this way is that I have spent hundreds of hours reading and watching materials about BPD, when I discovered this disorder and how it fit so closely with what I was experiencing with my wife. This particular aspect it is usually discussed from the viewpoint of the woman being the BPD. It is thought that about approx. 6% of the population has BPD and of those, 75% are women.  So it is often described that in the beginning of the relationship that the sex with a BPD is wild, intense, and for many described as some of the best sex they had in their life.  The other narrative is that as the relationship progresses that it becomes the opposite, with little sex at all, and is used as a weapon against the non-BPD, but that's another topic.  In my experience men in general naturally have a higher sex drive than women.  So when I first discovered many narratives about the beginning stage wild sex with BPD women in particular, it really struck a cord.  I met my wife at 28. I had what I thought was a pretty high sex drive, but she was the first women I had met that I felt I couldn't keep up with.  Which I can say as a guy is pretty awesome to complain about, because it is usually the opposite with women.  One day she got upset with me because she wanted to have sex for the third time that day, in a week where we had had sex two to three times a day.  At the moment, I just couldn't do it, I had no urge. So jokingly I more or less told her no and said she was a 'nympho'.  She was offended by that for years.  When our sex life cooled off and I was upset that she didn't want sex, she would go back to this event over and over and remind me how I called her a 'nympho'.  The thing is most people I know sometimes use that term in the way that I used it, as a complement--a way to indicate someones high sex drive.  However, for her it was an insult.  So to answer your question I would say yes, however, I'm a little unsure how that fits into the reversal role with the male being a BPD, since men tend to have higher sex drives and women tend to use sex as a tool to secure a relationship with a man.






 


 

[RealizationBPD]

I forgot to comment on something you brought up on your last post, regarding you're concern about being NPD.  Like someone else mentioned, this is interesting that your exBPD brought this up.  Sounds like he has be doing some exploration and knows theirs a problem. The question is does he think it is with you or with him?

During my exploration into my relationship problems and BPD, I have had to be honest with myself as to my problems as well.  Part of the BPD narrative is that BPD's often seek out narcissist.  When I was younger, I had some people problems and my interactions with them.  I can now admit I was responsible or at least largely responsible for the breakdown in those relationships due to my own narcissistic tendencies.  I didn't know that then and this journey has helped me reflect on that.  I was much more abrasive back then and I chalked it up to being straight forward.  What I was being was grandiose and self-centered.  

I have learned over the years how to preserve and build relationships from those mistakes, but I had no insight until this journey, that I was being a narcissist.  I find myself still being narcissistic on occasion.  Being narcissistic and being NPD are two different things however.  Remember all disorders are made up of traits. Those psychological traits are what make us up as human beings.  No one trait alone makes anyone to be classified as having a disorder.  Also everyone at times will exhibit most human traits, even negative ones.  It's the persistence and re-occurrence of a trait in one's life, combined with other traits that make someone classified as having a disorder.  So I think it is fair for you to explore your role in the relationship and as a person, in order to better yourself, no matter where that takes.  Just be careful not to blame yourself for the problems he is responsible to own.

Where to go from here?  I am still dealing with my own struggles and I'm only 5 months out from my discarding as well, so I'm sure others have more to offer. I have read/watched so much stuff over the years on BPD, however, as I became aware of the problem about four years ago. Recently I read Buddha and the Borderline, which is from the perspective of a recovered BPD.  The first couple of chapters, I thought were really helpful.  This website has helpful articles.

[jhkbuzz]

Now I guess the question I have to ask, which i hope someone here can help is - what next? How do I truly learn about myself and recover from this. I am not so thrilled about traditional weekly therapy. I feel like I just talk, repeat the same things and get nowhere.

I believe I am co-dependent and have some self esteem issues.

I can understand your reluctance for weekly therapy, but it made all the difference in the world to me. Especially helpful was my second therapist, who specializes in trauma. She saw trauma as not simply something that needed to be "talked" about, but as events that happened, were remembered by the nervous system, and "held" by the body. My therapy included lots of visualization - and movement - to try to resolve the trauma. I'm probably not explaining it very well, but it was really useful. (Here's an example: I was talking about how I was sexually molested and she pointed out that as I was talking, my right leg started to kick slightly. I noticed it after she pointed it out - but I couldn't stop it. She described it as a thwarted "flight" response - I couldn't run away when I really needed to - so my body remembers and still tries to run.)

Your co-dependent and self esteem issues come from event(s) in your past. You have to take a look at them to resolve them, and I don't know how to do that without therapy.

His "adoration" of me was a bit much. Something inside of me must have longed for it. I think before I can move on to anyone else I need to find out why I needed that in the first place. Why did I need all that attention? I keep thinking he is right and I do have NPD.

Nah. Don't pathologize everything. It's nice to be appreciated, adored, loved. Here's the REAL problem: your low self esteem probably blinded you to the red flags that would have sent a woman with healthier self esteem running. Having healthy self-esteem will help you recognize the flags; that's what you need to work on now.

[kim2017]

RealizationBPI - thank you for the links. In fact a couple of
months ago I was so distraught, I called AJ Mahri and did a phone session with her. Unlike most of what I have read on this message board, she told me once I've been painted black, I will be permanently remain black and he's likely not going to look back. However I have read countless stories here where they recycle and show up out of the blue.

The previous post gave me great advice - that I have the gift of time to look within myself. BPD or not, I will never put all the blame on him. I am certain I have more than my fair share to work on and I am planning to do so - however much work it takes. I'm certain I have NPD traits, even BPD traits, low self esteem, co-dependent and whatever else may be wrong with me.

I hope to learn from this journey and from other people's experiences how I can be a better person through this.