LoveHimCantLeave
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Relationship status: On a break
Posts: 9
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« on: August 29, 2020, 12:21:50 PM » |
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Hello everyone,
Finding this community has been such a blessing. I cannot thank you enough for this. I apologize for how long this is in advance.
I am convinced my (undiagnosed) BP and I are soul-mates. We've known one another for about eleven years, but met too young to have a serious relationship. I was ready but he was not. He told me so and I respected that and backed off. He is also from another country, religion, language, everything, and my background is very conservative and high-stakes, so I knew that in order for this to work, he had to be 100% devoted as there is no room for flip-flopping.
He continued to send love letters and gifts and whatnot thru the years, which I enjoyed but paid little heed, especially considering that he seemed to still not know what he wanted. About eight years after we first met, we reconnected in person and found we were both ready this time. Me to confront family and him to commit. He is lovely in so many ways and we have such an intellectual, physical and sexual synergy.
Emotional was the problem.
A few months into it, I began noticing something like a "switch" go off in his moods. I kept asking him why he could never give me the benefit of the doubt over any little thing. Why my boundaries were so difficult to respect. Why it did not bother or humiliate him to rage in public. Why he was so indecisive in major life decisions. Why he blamed me for any and everything. I never got any answers except that I needed therapy. I really wanted this to work, so I went to therapy. Many, many times. Therapy worked in ways I think he did not anticipate. I began trying to live my own life and insisting on the boundaries, self-care and pushing back without abandoning.
Keep in mind, we got engaged by then and I had already confronted my family, society, even my job (like I said, very high-stakes to be with him.) By the time I started pushing back, admittedly in ways less gentle or affirming as I am starting to learn about here, he began to pull away. He was never an "easy" fella, and before that, his heart was always into it and I could tell he was trying his hardest. Not by then. I could not understand what it was but he was never present, very contemptuous, the nit-picking was on overdrive. It was like the switch became permanent. No longer on and off every other month like before, just stuck on "off" when it came to me. It baffled me coz he was the same guy with his friends and family just sort of resentful and punishing towards me. I could not understand a thing he was doing.
By the earlier part of the year he called off the engagement (!) saying he will not move forward until "we fix our communication," then he admitted to downloading a dating app "because I feel so lonely in this relationship."
I was lost, confused, angry and afraid. I did not know what was going on as I did nothing to deserve any of this. At this point, I was actually the only one keeping the relationship going at great, great cost to myself. I figured he was maybe going thru a depression or something of the like. I tried to talk him into going to therapy, and we ended up going to couple's therapy. It was a disaster. The therapist ended up walking on eggshells with him too! I felt pressured by them both to admit to some sort of wrongdoing, when save for a few annoying traits like being over-involved with my siblings, or being self conscious there was nothing really "deserving" of the horrible blowback and hurt of withdrawing from such a high-stakes commitment and teasing me with infidelity.
The odd part was he wouldn't go away either. I needed space and I needed a break from being the receptacle of all his negativity and I needed clarity to understand just what he was blowing back at? He wanted to continue down the same trajectory, he wanted access to my care and love, just without any stakes on his part...which at that point, I swear his physical presence was *barely* all that he even contributed. Mind you, he's a very giving gentleman with a lot of redeeming traits, so this was very odd. He was like a ghost but one that wouldn't go away already.
After about 6 months of separation and just trying to figure out my own life without him, he has come back in contact. He keeps saying he does not want to give up on us. We went to another couple's therapist and I am very grateful to him because despite the fact that he makes at least 9/10 couples stay together and work on it, he immediately noticed that there is some trauma on his part that no couple's therapy can fix. "He needs to fix it on his own," he told me. "And if he does, then and only then can you begin to see some improvement.
I broke up with him right then and there.
I love him a lot but I have to protect myself from someone who just has zero awareness as to the damage he is inflicting on my life. He does not know half the pressure I am under as a woman from a certain religion/society/country and I worked really, really hard to build a life of freedom and strength within it and he nearly destroyed alllllll of it in less than a year. I can't allow that kind of wrecking-ball back in, but I do admit that there is a history and a love and a yearning for him.
A friend suggested he may have narcissistic personality disorder and that he had reached the "discard" phase because he ran out of narc supply, but the more I read about it, the more it made no sense. He is far too sensitive and needy and he does not even hide how needy he is. Crying, raging meltdowns followed by lavish gift giving and shame followed by resentment that "I'd only have him if he's perfect." What a roller coaster...but certainly no narcissist.
Somehow I found out about Borderline Personality Disorder and all of a sudden it all began to click. I hate to diagnose him myself as I am certainly no professional, but he fulfills about 6 (if not 7) of the criteria in the DSM.
Suddenly, I felt so much relief. Like it all makes sense now! I remember him constantly comparing my "neglect" and "rejection" to that of his mother's and his family (this was whether I went on a work trip or if I even went to my sister's house for kid's birthday party a few hours!) I also recalled that as an adolescent, he struggled with anorexia, not for a pressure to appear thinner, he called it "a rebellion" against his mother. I recalled how difficult it was to have any conversations about the future and how I often had to make decisions for the both of us.
Frankly, I wondered how he was decisive in proposing to me in such an elaborate way, changing his religion for me and traveling half-way across the world to seek myhand from my father, when he unravels at a hint of decision making most of the time. But then I realized it made sense that he needed to do that from a BPD perspective. It was his way of ensuring I don't abandon him. Prior to the engagement, I kind of kept him "in the closet" so to speak, which means I kept mum on the relationship as it is considered unlawful to date in my religion and culture. I suppose that such a decision needed to be made for his survival's sake from a BPD perspective.
He has been contacting me non-stop for about a month now saying he's ready to move forward now and wants to give this another go. He has sent flowers and has said all the things I dreamt of him saying earlier. At first, I engaged and tried to explain that I need to see results first as I've asked him so many times to get therapy that at this point, if he hasn't, he wants to continue to just use me as a receptacle for all of this.
I don't know if he has indeed sought therapy but I doubt it because he still reaches out in neediness and angst. Like if I don't answer that instant, he will die. In an attempt at tough love -- and to clear the air for myself to breathe and gain strength after a difficult year-- I have cut off all contact. It's not easy as I deeply care for him but I think me sticking around was not helping me or him. He is high functioning and all-around a very intelligent man. I know just a little bit of therapy would go a long way but I do not know how else to ask him to do this for us.
If you're still reading...is there any hope? Does this ever work? Oh how I wish I did not care for him as much as I do :-(
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