What if it wasn't love?

[HurtinNW]

I've been re-reading The Journey from Abandonment to Healing. A lot of it is helpful to me, because of my abandonment history before and during my ex.

This quote really jumped out at me. It is from a section about how sometimes we meet people who set off our amygdala response: "People who can set off this deep sense of longing are pushing your love buttons, the emotional triggers established by childhood attachments. You don't need to be conscious of these physiological connections to feel emotionally drawn to this person, just as you once looked to your mother or father.  This complex process is what you have come to feel is an attraction. So off you go, pursuing those who arouse some of your most negatively charged emotional memories, feelings you have come to associate with the right chemistry for love."

I think this was very true of my response to my ex. My response to him was so strong. It felt very much like love: head over heels soul mate love. He aroused my strongest emotional memories, and I thought what I was feeling was love.

But what if it wasn't love? What if it was really this powerful emotional response left over from childhood conditioning? As she writes in another section, the panic and rush of my "fear of abandonment has become confused with the yearnings of love."

The entire relationship I felt I was madly, deeply in love with him. Now I am questioning exactly what my feelings were, and are. One question this brought up in me was seemingly odd, but felt right: if I took away the love feelings would I even like this person?

And I have to say I am not sure I would. I think I might feel he is immature, childish, and self-absorbed. I would probably find him rather shallow. Mind you, he has great qualities. I'd probably like his intelligence, his talent, and his humor. But if I took away the feelings of soul-mate familiarity, there would not be much there.  That's hard for me to admit, because it isn't driven by my feelings of anger and hurt, but more an admission on my part of how my "love" feelings colored my perceptions about him as a person.

So... .what if it wasn't really love after all? What if I have confused my childhood emotional responses—that hunger, that desire to finally be seen—with love?

Has anyone ever processed this regarding their relationship?

[misuniadziubek]

You know what? This post is amazing. I didn't know how much I'd relate to it when I first clicked it.

Back story, my pwBPD and I did a 30 day therapeutic separation approximately 9 months ago with very low contact. One conversation a week for about 10 minutes. I spent a big chunk of that reading this very book and it made me realize just how much of my own self and identity I had abandoned through 2 years of this relationship.

This quote really jumped out at me. It is from a section about how sometimes we meet people who set off our amygdala response: "People who can set off this deep sense of longing are pushing your love buttons, the emotional triggers established by childhood attachments. You don't need to be conscious of these physiological connections to feel emotionally drawn to this person, just as you once looked to your mother or father.  This complex process is what you have come to feel is an attraction. So off you go, pursuing those who arouse some of your most negatively charged emotional memories, feelings you have come to associate with the right chemistry for love."

This is exactly why I ended up with my pwBPD. We were pretty close friends beforehand, but as a boyfriend, I found him immensely attractive. He was pretty much the content of both my fantasies and my nightmares. Someone who showered me with affection and idealisation, and then went into full criticism and emotional abuse of the core of my being. He aroused pretty much every negative memory of my childhood in my relationship with my father and my mother. He created the same tension from my mother's verbal abuse and my father's criticism of my entire life in a nutshell.

He felt like my soulmate. I fell quickly in love. He was everything I wanted, alongside the punishment I felt I deserved for being innately flawed.

The entire relationship I felt I was madly, deeply in love with him. Now I am questioning exactly what my feelings were, and are. One question this brought up in me was seemingly odd, but felt right: if I took away the love feelings would I even like this person?

In my case, there was definitely love, but it was very immature and underdeveloped love that was overshadowed by everything else. I was purely addicted to him. He was like my heroin. I spent every moment I had obsessing about him. I wrote him long texts about how much he meant to me and how much I loved him. Until one day, he told me to stop. The stuff I wrote was superficial and repetitive and he was bored of getting it all the time. If I didnt' have anything constructive to tell him, then don't bother texting.

That was so strange. Because all of a sudden, I had barely anything to say to him.

We had stopped being friends. Our relationship had turned into this toxic gooey b.s. that had no real base. I blamed all the issues on his BPD. It was constant verbal and emotional abuse and I was the non-stop caretaker. I tried to win his love repeatedly by doing things for him so he would feel like he needed me. I wanted recognition for how much I loved him. I was constantly buying him things and dropping every single plan to be with him.

Yeah. The problem was definitely me in so many ways. And then the idyllic fantasy bubble burst. We did that therapeutic separation.

I remember seeing him come onto a group skype call at one point and seeing someone completely different. He wasn't this confident, charming attractive guy anymore. I saw an insecure child trying as hard as he could to gain acceptance in any way possible. Was this the guy that I had put on a pedestal for 2 years?

During this time period, I started writing him letters that he would never receive. Reflections and thoughts and emotions drawn out deeply from inside. I started to recognize my own needs. I started talking to other guys and realizing that they consistently treated me much better than my pwBPD. I started having dreams that pretty much summarized every toxic thing in our relationship. I became comfortable with being alone.

I finally felt confident enough on my own to set real boundaries on his verbal abuse. And they were actually effective.

All in all, I got to see a clear view of my pwBPD and I was able to soberly decide that I wanted to continue the relationship, but only under the condition that our friendship developed into something real. He was no longer this monster in my life, but someone with a lot of the same childhood wounds as me, and someone who was a very good trigger for my complex PTSD. And with that he was also an interesting and intelligent guy that I eventually started to call my best friend.

With these healthier perspectives, our relationship became far more healthier. I had my own life outside of him, and developed my own sense of identity and he started to show me real affection through loving and supportive actions.

He still has BPD. That's still something that creates barriers to communication, but our fights rarely last as long as they used to (minutes compared to hours and days before) and we have our own private language of love and affection towards each other that is very unique and special to us as a way to reassure each other that we aren't abandoning one another.

If I take the love away now, I definitely like him and his personality. If you asked me the same question a year ago, he'd be someone that seriously intimidates me with whom I can barely hold a full conversation.

So thank  you for sharing this.  It was definitely the desire to be seen at first. Thankfully it's developed into an actual loving relationship.

[doubleAries]

EXCELLENT!

I deeply relate to both your posts above (except for misuniaziubek's changing the relationship into a healthy one--wasn't able to do that in mine).

When I started detaching my childhood stuff from my ex (and we were still pretty enmeshed even after our divorce 3 years ago, and up until fairly recently) he looked totally different to me. When I wasn't scared to death of rejection and abandonment, and looking to him to save me from that, I had to ask myself "how can I say I "love" someone who has been so extremely abusive to me?" and the answer was clear--that's what I did as a kid. I loved my mother and father, both of whom abused me in every way possible. And maybe that wasn't actually love either. Maybe it was desperate dependence. Same as what I've still been calling "love" since then.

[doubleAries]

this is a really cool short video my counselor turned me onto, called "The Big O meets the missing piece" that goes right along with all this, and even shows the only true way to break the cycle.

www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+story+of+o+and+the+missing+piece&view=detail&&mid=FC78E6A502E7C1C40614FC78E6A502E7C1C40614&rvsmid=B81FC86E4289B2AD9E14B81FC86E4289B2AD9E14&fsscr=0

[HurtinNW]

 misuniadziubek: your response led to sorrow for me, because that is the happy ending I wanted with my guy. He was my fantasies and nightmares, as you say. I so wanted the chance for redemption and healing. But it is impossible to have a relationship with someone who breaks up with you every few weeks. By my count he recycled me at least 20 times in the past four years. I am not proud of that, I am ashamed.

I so wish my ex was able to reassure me he wouldn't abandon me, and let me reassure him. It is so terribly sad he cannot or will not see that potential. As I have said elsewhere, his greatest need (as he presents his own psyche) is to not be needed. During one of our several attempts at couples counseling, the therapist asked me point blank: "why do you think you can change someone who doesn't think he needs changing?"

What a sad place to live in, bereft of change. My grief over him is combined with anger. (Get up and change!)

DoubleAries: wow. Yes, how can I keep saying I love you to someone who hurt me so badly? What charge am I getting out of it? Desperate dependence is perhaps the best way I have ever heard it described. As a child my idea of love was my desperate love for my mother, who was so hurtful and cruel, and for the pedophiles who abused me, a softer, poisonous love, like the skin over a wound. My entire life I have hungered for a love that saw all those parts of me and still could make it whole and healthy.

[anon72]

I've been re-reading The Journey from Abandonment to Healing. A lot of it is helpful to me, because of my abandonment history before and during my ex.

This quote really jumped out at me. It is from a section about how sometimes we meet people who set off our amygdala response: "People who can set off this deep sense of longing are pushing your love buttons, the emotional triggers established by childhood attachments. You don't need to be conscious of these physiological connections to feel emotionally drawn to this person, just as you once looked to your mother or father.  This complex process is what you have come to feel is an attraction. So off you go, pursuing those who arouse some of your most negatively charged emotional memories, feelings you have come to associate with the right chemistry for love."

I think this was very true of my response to my ex. My response to him was so strong. It felt very much like love: head over heels soul mate love. He aroused my strongest emotional memories, and I thought what I was feeling was love.

But what if it wasn't love? What if it was really this powerful emotional response left over from childhood conditioning? As she writes in another section, the panic and rush of my "fear of abandonment has become confused with the yearnings of love."

The entire relationship I felt I was madly, deeply in love with him. Now I am questioning exactly what my feelings were, and are. One question this brought up in me was seemingly odd, but felt right: if I took away the love feelings would I even like this person?

And I have to say I am not sure I would. I think I might feel he is immature, childish, and self-absorbed. I would probably find him rather shallow. Mind you, he has great qualities. I'd probably like his intelligence, his talent, and his humor. But if I took away the feelings of soul-mate familiarity, there would not be much there.  That's hard for me to admit, because it isn't driven by my feelings of anger and hurt, but more an admission on my part of how my "love" feelings colored my perceptions about him as a person.

So... .what if it wasn't really love after all? What if I have confused my childhood emotional responses—that hunger, that desire to finally be seen—with love?

Has anyone ever processed this regarding their relationship?

Hey there, very interesting comments, although my relationship was not with a BPD, but with emotionally unavailable women.  However, I would say that I confused my childhood emotional responses - that hunger - with love.  In other words, most of them pushed my "love buttons", brought up my fear of abandonment at the same time as intense "love" - the whole "push-pull" thing.  So as soon as someone is really full-on and then can be really emotionally distant shortly thereafter - I confuse it with love - wow.  Have done this on and off for years - until I finally realized this recently at 44.  Most importantly, at least I realized this.

Interesting how emotionally unavailable women (who remind me of my mother) can be really attractive to me - when actually - I hate that sort of thing more than anything.  In my last relationship - there were times when she was really distant and unavailable that totally freaked me out - more than I can ever before - and that was when some things started to "click" for me slowly but surely.  

Really weird, because I almost ended up thinking about marrying two emotionally unavailable women, who really are quite superficial and not the sort of people who make me happy.  However, the whole "push-pull" thing seemed to be like "crack" to me - something that I wanted more than anything - even though it had its "lows"!.

However, on a positive note (apologies for hijacking this thread), I am really proud of myself that:

1.  I broke up with my last gf who was emotionally unavailable (and decided that we didn't need to be in contact anymore - as it wasn't helping - even though I did care about her);

2.  My ex-ex gf who was very emotionally abusive got back in contact with me after almost 5 years because she wanted to borrow a significant sum of money (after her father had died - well that was the story anyways).  She was a horrible person - and I never responded - as I knew that she was just trying to suck me back in.  The previous emails were either over the top - I miss you - or what a horrible person I was etc. etc.  So at least I learnt my lesson - and am proud of myself for that

[hergestridge]

Exactly this. For most of the time I was with my BPDxw I was attached to her because I felt that we *could* have it good. It was the longing. Not enjoying her company. Probably I kept complaining that if only she was like this and that we could have a great time together. It was as if I thought she could be my perfect partner if she just got her act together. I thought that was faith and tough love, but in reality it was just me refusing to see her as she was. Probably because she wasn't a very nice person. So in conclusion... .the longing was it. She triggered that in me.

[misuniadziubek]

When I started detaching my childhood stuff from my ex (and we were still pretty enmeshed even after our divorce 3 years ago, and up until fairly recently) he looked totally different to me. When I wasn't scared to death of rejection and abandonment, and looking to him to save me from that, I had to ask myself "how can I say I "love" someone who has been so extremely abusive to me?" and the answer was clear--that's what I did as a kid. I loved my mother and father, both of whom abused me in every way possible. And maybe that wasn't actually love either. Maybe it was desperate dependence. Same as what I've still been calling "love" since then.

My pwBPD was the second relationship I've had that followed that pattern, but during that break when I started talking to other people and making friends platonically (other people are very healing) I started asking myself those very things. How did I allow someone to mistreat me for so long and make me feel so broken and flawed? How did I put up with so much emotional abuse even after I recognised it as such? I knew it was related to my mother. I spent years trying to win her love until one day i just gave up.

These friends were happy to have conversations with me and didn't criticize every other thing I said or overreact when I said the wrong thing. I sat there and thought, this is what I want in a relationship. Compassion and support. To feel respected as a person.

And so somewhere in the middle of that break my pwBPD he called me up to talk. Except he started yelling at me. I didn't react. " If you're going to yell, I'm hanging up." He continued, so I hung up. Then he called again. So I told him I wouldn't talk if he was yelling. Had to hang up again. 2 hours later he called once more. This time he was calm and started talking about the things that he needed from the relationship and me and how the things I did and said made him feel. Whoa.  

I was very neutral in every conversation we had for the rest of the break. I wasn't worried about losing him, I had solid proof that I could not only survive, but also be happy on my own. That scared him. He felt like I was cold and disconnected. I had just lost the enmeshment and the love addiction, the desperation.

For most of the time I was with my BPDxw I was attached to her because I felt that we *could* have it good. It was the longing. Not enjoying her company. Probably I kept complaining that if only she was like this and that we could have a great time together. It was as if I thought she could be my perfect partner if she just got her act together. I thought that was faith and tough love, but in reality it was just me refusing to see her as she was. Probably because she wasn't a very nice person. So in conclusion... .the longing was it. She triggered that in me.

I can relate to this so much. Since I was a kid, I had a fantasy of someone coming in and saving me from the abuse of my parents. Someone that would fix all my flaws and make me whole. It's so silly too, because I came into this relationship with very childish and immature views on everything. PwBPD saw my flaws. Saw through my lies and so I lived in the fantasy that he was that person. I ignored him as a person and just went with it. If only I read enough books about BPD, I could fix him and he would be my dream. *face palm*. In fact, at some point when I started recognizing some of my delusions, I wrote a post on my beliefs and how I've fixed them.


I'm also pretty lucky because during that break, he ended up trying to replace me for the time being and ended up with someone that had more issues than him.

[HurtinNW]

Exactly this. For most of the time I was with my BPDxw I was attached to her because I felt that we *could* have it good. It was the longing. Not enjoying her company. Probably I kept complaining that if only she was like this and that we could have a great time together. It was as if I thought she could be my perfect partner if she just got her act together. I thought that was faith and tough love, but in reality it was just me refusing to see her as she was. Probably because she wasn't a very nice person. So in conclusion... .the longing was it. She triggered that in me.

You just made me realize my ex was doing his own version of this. In fact, he was constantly complaining if only I did this, or did that. If only I was tidier, if only I didn't leave messes, if only I didn't get sad, if only the kids did this or did that... .and so forth. He was attached to the longing for me, not the reality of a relationship with me. I must have represented something to him too. I must have triggered something in him. (though unlike your ex I am a nice person!)

Thinking about it, I must have triggered something in him from his waif BPDish mother, who played the martyr and engaged in covert incest with him, and his hugely NPD cold father, who was imperious, scornful and unfaithful. My ex often said he vowed not to be like his father. He idealized his mother. Yet he ended up acting a lot like his father, and putting me in the role of his mother.

I think my emotional vulnerability must have really triggered him. It made him long for me and yet scared the beejezus out of him. I probably brought up all the longing of his childhood in him, and the fears.

Interesting how emotionally unavailable women (who remind me of my mother) can be really attractive to me - when actually - I hate that sort of thing more than anything.  In my last relationship - there were times when she was really distant and unavailable that totally freaked me out - more than I can ever before - and that was when some things started to "click" for me slowly but surely. 

Really weird, because I almost ended up thinking about marrying two emotionally unavailable women, who really are quite superficial and not the sort of people who make me happy.  However, the whole "push-pull" thing seemed to be like "crack" to me - something that I wanted more than anything - even though it had its "lows"!.

However, on a positive note (apologies for hijacking this thread), I am really proud of myself that:

1.  I broke up with my last gf who was emotionally unavailable (and decided that we didn't need to be in contact anymore - as it wasn't helping - even though I did care about her);

2.  My ex-ex gf who was very emotionally abusive got back in contact with me after almost 5 years because she wanted to borrow a significant sum of money (after her father had died - well that was the story anyways).  She was a horrible person - and I never responded - as I knew that she was just trying to suck me back in.  The previous emails were either over the top - I miss you - or what a horrible person I was etc. etc.  So at least I learnt my lesson - and am proud of myself for that

You should be proud! I am hoping these insights lead me to more mindful actions in the future. Those feelings are like crack. It is an addiction and it is really, really hard to break!

Hugs!

[doubleAries]

I think sometimes about the fact that that "hunger longing" wasn't just for the nurturing and love I needed and didn't get as a kid, but also became the love affair I had with "how I wish it was" fantasy in my head. Which is also who I tried to change my ex into (and boy--wasn't he resistant to *that*! )

[HurtinNW]

I think sometimes about the fact that that "hunger longing" wasn't just for the nurturing and love I needed and didn't get as a kid, but also became the love affair I had with "how I wish it was" fantasy in my head. Which is also who I tried to change my ex into (and boy--wasn't he resistant to *that*! )

For me it was also for someone to finally be truly sorry for hurting me.

[Narkiss]

Yes, I am trying to figure out the content of my feelings for my pwBPD. And where they come from. They are incredibly strong, but are they love? Or a combination of affection, anxiety, pain, fear. I am avoiding him now, because I am getting afraid of the pain. (ex. I told him of an arts event i was invited to by a friend, a painter. He told me to send me the invitation and he'd try to come up and go with me. I sent him the info. A day or two later I got a sarcastic response). And yes, when I am with him, sometimes I see him clearly and realize that he can be shallow, selfish, unreliable and not always very interesting -- and that I probably would not even like him very much if these strong feelings would clear. He evokes some response in me and I do not know why. I am afraid of confronting him or telling him how I feel, because I am so scared he will disappear. At first, I would try to talk with him, but nothing would ever be resolved. No way to be in a relationship.

Anyway, misuniaziubek, how did you manage to develop a healthy relationship with you BPD

[doubleAries]

"He evokes some response in me and I do not know why. I am afraid of confronting him or telling him how I feel, because I am so scared he will disappear."



Narkiss, I think you answered your own question... .

One of the things we have all been discussing here is our own unresolved childhood fears of abandonment. And seeking out relationships we can "relive" our childhood issues with, in an unconscious attempt to resolve those fears. That particular fear (of abandonment) is strong enough to keep us glued to the hot seat far longer than we consciously want to be.

[HurtinNW]

"He evokes some response in me and I do not know why. I am afraid of confronting him or telling him how I feel, because I am so scared he will disappear."



Narkiss, I think you answered your own question... .

One of the things we have all been discussing here is our own unresolved childhood fears of abandonment. And seeking out relationships we can "relive" our childhood issues with, in an unconscious attempt to resolve those fears. That particular fear (of abandonment) is strong enough to keep us glued to the hot seat far longer than we consciously want to be.

And when the experiment goes wrong, and you have staked your emotional life on the outcome, what is left on the other side? I feel like I am in free-fall here. I am no longer in the hot seat of fearing his abandonment: I am experiencing it and committed to seeing it through.

The fear is pretty overwhelming.

[doubleAries]

HurtinNW--I have those days too. It helps to keep soothing that scared inner child (which is the one afraid of the abandonment). Out loud if you have to. Tell her that you're there for her, that you won't desert her, that you will protect her--and that's why you are turning down her request to cling to her abuser/deserter, that turning to cruel people for comfort was a necessity as a child but isn't any longer. Tell her as many times as you have to. It helps a lot, it really does.

[anon72]

HurtinNW: 

1.  The free-fall feeling, I can totally relate (although it was not a romantic relationship - but the relationship with my uBPD mother - who I thought I could rely on for almost 20 years - until I finally realized that I couldn't.  It scared the living daylights out of me.

2.   Thanks for your comment, yes, I am proud!  However, the most important thing for me is to stop looking for that drug in another person (which is not love), but to learn from my mistakes and look for someone who can actually meet my needs, that is my goal.

3.  Re trying to change an ex into something, yeh - have been there also, if only they would do this or that.  Yeh, right.  Perhaps it would work if I chose someone who was emotionally available in the first place