The person we feel in love with was a mirror?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I read in another post that in time we will realise the person we fell in love with was a mirror, that we really fell in love with a mirror of ourselves (Caley). Could someone explain please

[Thegardiner]

I read in another post that in time we will realise the person we fell in love with was a mirror, that we really fell in love with a mirror of ourselves (Caley). Could someone explain please

[WoundedBibi]

I read in another post that in time we will realise the person we fell in love with was a mirror, that we really fell in love with a mirror of ourselves (Caley). Could someone explain please

A pwBPD is a chameleon. They lack a sense of self. They can adapt themselves to the person they are with. When they fall in love they mirror the person they are with. They present themselves as this persona. So basically you fall in love with a mirror image of yourself.

Example: my ex probably deep down does not want children at all. He is not responsible enough to take care of another human being that depends on him and they would take away attention and supply from him. But he told me I was the woman he wanted to have children with. To win me over. I'm the one who would want children. So he was mirroring my wish. I fell in love with my wish to be a parent, not his.

[once removed]

id put it this way: i dont think people fall in love with clones of themselves, exactly. in my case my ex mirrored what i wanted people to love about me. how i wanted people to see me. the reasons i thought i should be loved. that felt 'right' to me, and it was a powerful hook.

that is, in a nutshell, why i believed i loved her.

[balletomane]

I was slow to see my ex's mirroring at first, because it wasn't his strongest BPD trait. He is a big sci-fi fan, for instance, and I'm not and never have been. He never pretended to dislike sci-fi or tried to get me to like it as much as he does. He does have some distinct preferences and hobbies (and I think it's worth mentioning here that even though a person with BPD has a very fractured and unstable sense of self, they will have some consistent likes, ideas, etc. - even a chameleon itself has its core features). Now I see that the mirroring happened in areas where he felt emotionally unsafe, over things that he thought could cost him my liking and respect. Politics, for example. For quite a long time he mirrored my political views. Then one day, literally overnight, he took almost the opposite stance and was very aggressive about it, talking about how people with my politics had deceived and manipulated him into agreeing with them. I was bewildered. Then I realised that this was the 'real him', and he had just copied my views and ideas in the idealisation stage of our relationship, because he felt that it was necessary. Even though I had never expected him to think like me, in his head I had made him do it, hence the verbal aggression and resentment towards me when the mirroring ended.

[steelwork]

Yeah, I've always (as in since I've been on this board) felt it was a little pat to say, "You fell in love with yourself."

For one thing, as once removed says, it's natural to be attracted to someone who shares our values and tastes.

For another, I think that chameleon-like behavior is not always a matter of reflecting yourself back at you. For instance, maybe you project a strong-man type of personality. Your girl picks up on that, and unconsciously shapes herself into a damsel in distress. The next guy might like bad girls. She becomes a bad girl. It's like, the pwBPD wants to have the qualities what will work to hang onto a relationship with you.

[Ahoy]

Yeah, I've always (as in since I've been on this board) felt it was a little pat to say, "You fell in love with yourself."

For one thing, as once removed says, it's natural to be attracted to someone who shares our values and tastes.

For another, I think that chameleon-like behavior is not always a matter of reflecting yourself back at you. For instance, maybe you project a strong-man type of personality. Your girl picks up on that, and unconsciously shapes herself into a damsel in distress. The next guy might like bad girls. She becomes a bad girl. It's like, the pwBPD wants to have the qualities what will work to hang onto a relationship with you.

I think so too. I had a hard time understanding mirroring for a bit because she had her own hobbies (arts/craft) and had no interest in mine (gaming/ baseball/ scifi)

What I realised after is she mirrored my hopes and dreams which was doing all the hard work now so I can take it easier when I stared a family.

I remember the line that got me too "I've seen the world, I'm ready to settle down now, work hard and then have kids" um marry me!

I never thought it strange that she "felt" that way but after a while, talked about how we "must" visit a certain country every other week... .

In the end she didn't want this dream or kids, words, words, words.

[Anez]

When I met mine she knew nothing about sports. Like, zero. But before we got together, while I was married, she fell in love with our local NHL team because I loved our local NHL team. She'd watch games, bought a jersey, would have me explain the game to her.

then when we were later together this was a big red flag that i didn't see or know about BPD - she started to like watching GOLF on tv because I liked it so much! haha there's no way she liked or likes golf. She's just mentally ill.

She also fell in love with my favorite band and made a playlist with just that band and would discover songs on her own by the band and tell me about them.

I'm guessing now - we've been done since september - she doesn't even know our local hockey team just got eliminated from the playoffs. Probably doesn't even remember golf is a sport. And never listens to my favorite band.

She's probably falling in love with the things the new guy likes. And i'm guessing the new guy is already in a serious relationship with someone else and will suffer the same fate I have.

Man, i wish I knew about BPD before meeting her!

[AndrewS]

They are incredibly good at figuring out what really matters to you, a skill they have honed for their whole life. Don't even know they are doing it. My ex surprised me with statements out of the blue like "I'm a really tactile person, I love closeness and touch", "I think it's important for a relationship to have a healthy sex life". Now I had never said that because this was early on. She had "assessed" me and they were just 2 of many things she got right about me and mirrored them. Then they flood you with them and other traits until they become engulfed and hence terrified of dissolving into nothing. The real b___ is that then they have seen how much these mirrors mean to you and know just how incredibly painful it will be if they do the opposite, which my ex did. She used all of them to destroy me. If I said why do you never even want a hug when you told me you were such a tactile person, I got some twisted illogical answer that ended up in me being too demanding :-) However, to answer the question, if I look at what she mirrored and that is me, well I quite like me... . I think the statement means that they create what they know we will fall in love with.

[HurtinNW]

I realized over time that my ex mirrors to a lot of people. To give one example, I ran into one of his social friends who didn't know ex had broken up with me again, and she began burbling about all the cool stuff he was posting on Facebook about a certain politician. Now, two months ago he was saying he hated that politician. But most his friends like that politician, so now he likes the politician too.

Now, if he starts feeling better about himself, more cocky to be honest, he will decide he doesn't need to like that politician for attention, and go back to hating the politician. It all depends on his need for attention and approval.

I think the mirroring also happens for morals and values. For a long time I thought his values were similar to mine, because that is what he presented when mirroring me in the beginning. After a long time I realized he really doesn't have set morals or values. He will say he does, such as being against infidelity, and yet he carried on a ten year affair. So I think there is also an element of greater mirroring, or mirroring what he thinks a "good man" believes, not a sense of believing in a value because of committed reasons. This is how he so easily switches values or abandons them when he sees fit.

It truly is like an actor putting on different masks, eager to make the audience like him. But when they clap he is still the sad person inside, so he reacts with rage and anger. And finds another audience.

[WoundedBibi]

I realized over time that my ex mirrors to a lot of people. To give one example, I ran into one of his social friends who didn't know ex had broken up with me again, and she began burbling about all the cool stuff he was posting on Facebook about a certain politician. Now, two months ago he was saying he hated that politician. But most his friends like that politician, so now he likes the politician too.

Now, if he starts feeling better about himself, more cocky to be honest, he will decide he doesn't need to like that politician for attention, and go back to hating the politician. It all depends on his need for attention and approval.

I think the mirroring also happens for morals and values. For a long time I thought his values were similar to mine, because that is what he presented when mirroring me in the beginning. After a long time I realized he really doesn't have set morals or values. He will say he does, such as being against infidelity, and yet he carried on a ten year affair. So I think there is also an element of greater mirroring, or mirroring what he thinks a "good man" believes, not a sense of believing in a value because of committed reasons. This is how he so easily switches values or abandons them when he sees fit.

It truly is like an actor putting on different masks, eager to make the audience like him. But when they clap he is still the sad person inside, so he reacts with rage and anger. And finds another audience.

^^^^ again that

With a sour face ex said one night ':)on't do charity' and guess who organized a big charity thing 3 months later so he could be the sweet sensitive nice guy would always lends a helping hand?

And he kept changing from being very strict on fidelity to totally being into hedonism and back again more often than I change my socks.

[Hadlee]

My former friend has a new group of friends, who are now the replacements for her ex.  She has taken on their hobbies - one of which she has hated in the past.  If that's not enough of a head spin, she talks differently, uses completely different phrasings and sayings.  It really does make me shake my head

[JerryRG]

The only thing genuine about pwBPD is their disingenuousness

[Yaryar87]

Do we receive validation throughout that mirroring? Is that why we get so hooked to the pwBPD

[HurtinNW]

Do we receive validation throughout that mirroring? Is that why we get so hooked to the pwBPD

Yes. I think for many of us we took the love-bombing and mirroring as reality. We thought we had found our soul mates. I know I felt intensely validated for perhaps the first time in my life. I felt I was truly seen and heard and loved. Those first few months were truly incredible. Everything seemed bathed in a golden glow.

What is hard to separate out is the truth from the fiction. Because while I think my ex does mirror, there is a real person in there, and part of what I fell in love with was the real him, hidden deep inside.

I'm not sure if I will ever know what parts were real and what parts were mirroring. I do know there is a soul inside there, and it is hurting.

[JerryRG]

Fragments? Did we fall in love with the good they really were and they hide their demons as long as they could and once revealed we were confused? Both real but seperate? Once they see our reaction to their pain/hurt our reaction is to push away or deny their dark side?

They in their immaturity and inexperience believe we won't tolerate the darkness with the good so abandonment fears overwhelm them?

Good grief I'm doing it again, pushing my limits and digging into a mental ill persons mind

Better find relaxation

[HurtinNW]

I realized over time that my ex mirrors to a lot of people. To give one example, I ran into one of his social friends who didn't know ex had broken up with me again, and she began burbling about all the cool stuff he was posting on Facebook about a certain politician. Now, two months ago he was saying he hated that politician. But most his friends like that politician, so now he likes the politician too.

Now, if he starts feeling better about himself, more cocky to be honest, he will decide he doesn't need to like that politician for attention, and go back to hating the politician. It all depends on his need for attention and approval.

I think the mirroring also happens for morals and values. For a long time I thought his values were similar to mine, because that is what he presented when mirroring me in the beginning. After a long time I realized he really doesn't have set morals or values. He will say he does, such as being against infidelity, and yet he carried on a ten year affair. So I think there is also an element of greater mirroring, or mirroring what he thinks a "good man" believes, not a sense of believing in a value because of committed reasons. This is how he so easily switches values or abandons them when he sees fit.

It truly is like an actor putting on different masks, eager to make the audience like him. But when they clap he is still the sad person inside, so he reacts with rage and anger. And finds another audience.

^^^^ again that

With a sour face ex said one night ':)on't do charity' and guess who organized a big charity thing 3 months later so he could be the sweet sensitive nice guy would always lends a helping hand?

And he kept changing from being very strict on fidelity to totally being into hedonism and back again more often than I change my socks.

I remember being really shocked when I found out—years into the relationship—that my ex had carried on an affair for so long. The worst part was how horribly he had treated that woman, and for ten years. I also found out that despite his claims to revere women and be very sexually chaste, he had behaved anything but that way. Even now I can remember the cold water shock of finding that out. It really was like the scene in the Wizard of Oz, when the curtain is pulled back and the man is revealed, and you find out he was not what you thought.

My ex had very strong opinions about anything and everything, and yet those strong opinions would miraculously change if someone with status had a different opinion. After I was devalued it was never me, I got attacked. One memory that jumps out is how many times he got angry over how I load the dishwasher. He would get all angry and re-load it, with lots of angry grunts and sighs. I heard many lectures about how my way was the wrong way. But then one night we were visiting some old friends of his, whom he is always eager to impress. The wife was loading the dishwasher... .JUST LIKE I DO. I saw his eyes track it, and then he cautiously asked her why she did it that way. She replied why it made sense. And just like that he agreed with her.

I will admit I wanted to smack him at the time.

[JerryRG]

I got that too HurtingNW

I couldn't do anything right, dish washer, washing bottles, changing diapers, folding clothes, driving, walking, talking, breathing, thinking all wrong wrong wrong... .I have 3 children and before our son was born she would tell me she had superior parenting skills, huh?

[HurtinNW]

I got that too HurtingNW

I couldn't do anything right, dish washer, washing bottles, changing diapers, folding clothes, driving, walking, talking, breathing, thinking all wrong wrong wrong... .I have 3 children and before our son was born she would tell me she had superior parenting skills, huh?

Yes, exactly, and in some ways this was more corrosive for our relationship than his rages. It was just relentless, and always characterized as his superior knowledge.

I'm also the parent of three. I adopted mine from foster care and have raised awesome kids for 20 years. I know how to parent. It was really mind boggling to be informed by someone who has never parented how many ways I was doing it wrong. How I feed my kids. My rules. Their chores. The way they clean. Even the way my daughter talked to the cat, and the way my oldest son whistled. I am serious.

What I need to examine is why I not only put up with it, my radar didn't go off in red alert when it started happening. I remember early the relationship he went to the store with me and my kids. That was the beginning of the devaluation, not that I saw it at the time. I just didn't get why we went to the store and suddenly he was critical because I bought one of my kids a Lunchable. He criticized everything we got on that trip, as a matter of fact, and I recall later gently asking him why. He was unable to see it wasn't appropriate or nice. He dug in his heels that *everyone* knew this and there is only one *right* way to do things.

I should have seen that as one of may  that came up at the time, and instead I kept trying to make it work, kept trying to be accepting. As a result I heard many, many times over the next few years how there is only one *right* way to do things. Funny how it was never my way.

I think if I had been a healthier person myself back then it would have responded differently. I really did accept a lot from him that I should not have accepted, especially with all the recycles.

[JerryRG]

Don't beat yourself up, pwBPD do this so subtly and use techniques we never think of and we are completely caught in the web before we realize it. They do not like themselves and take that self hatred out on us, knowing by this time we are loving and caring and commited and willing to adjust our behaviours to help the relationship work. They count on our decency and sense of fairness and use our greatest assets against us.

Only disturbed people deliberately harm others and then never accept responsibility

[HurtinNW]

Don't beat yourself up, pwBPD do this so subtly and use techniques we never think of and we are completely caught in the web before we realize it. They do not like themselves and take that self hatred out on us, knowing by this time we are loving and caring and commited and willing to adjust our behaviours to help the relationship work. They count on our decency and sense of fairness and use our greatest assets against us.

Only disturbed people deliberately harm others and then never accept responsibility

I do want to learn from this and not repeat the same mistakes. My opinion is it takes two, and I know there is a lot I overlooked, and also a role I played in the relationship too. I want this to be a learning experience for me that makes me stronger and happier and healthier.

I don't think my ex was one who wants to deliberately harm people. In his mind he is the victim. That's the hard part to understand. He doesn't wake up in the morning and want to hurt people. He's capable of it and he does hurt others badly, but I think that is ironically mostly because he refuses to believe he can ever be wrong or bad. That refusal to take personal responsibility leads him to do more harm than someone who can admit fault.

Thank you for the kind words!

[JerryRG]

You're wekcome

And thank you for pointing out my faulty thinking, I seen my ex as deliberately hurting me, maybe she couldn't hold her own suffering inside any longer and she trusted that since I love her she could let it out on me. I do have a tendency to blame others, it does take two

[troisette]

I found the mirroring seductive for all the reasons described in previous posts. Couldn't believe I'd met someone who shared so many of my experiences and views and tastes.

My first sense of oddity, that something was not quite right, was about three months in when he started to introduce me to his group. Then I noticed that he was mirroring with them in ways that contradicted what he'd previously mirrored to me. And so it went on with other people. He'd be cultured around some, geezer with others, liberal with some, anti-immigration and anti-semitic with others.

It caused confusion for me. Reading what I've written, it sounds obvious and easy to identify at the time. But it wasn't because I didn't want to believe that he wasn't the person I thought I loved.

It was like room of distorting mirrors and I remember the cold feeling in my gut when I began to twig that all was not as wonderful as I had imagined.

[GreenEyedMonster]

I don't think mirroring is an intentional "strategy" on the part of the pwBPD.  Like others have said, they lack a sense of self, and it feels good to literally become part of you when they fall in love.  In other words, I think mirroring is more about filling the needs of the pwBPD to feel like there is substance to them, rather than trying to manipulate us.  I always think of it kind of like Barbie and her many incarnations -- Nurse Barbie, Hawaiian Barbie, Biker Barbie, whatever.  pwBPD are like Barbie and take on all these different personas.

My ex had a strange way of PHYSICALLY mirroring me, and he did it to a degree that I had never seen before in another person.  Sometimes when I was with him, I felt like I was in that comedy routine with Lucille Ball and Harpo Marx copying each other's gestures.  If I'd take a drink, he'd take a drink.  If I'd gesture, he'd gesture.  Spooky.

My ex and I genuinely had a lot of things in common from our upbringings.  Our parents both worked in the same professions, we had the same kind of pet growing up, played the same instrument in high school, and worked in the same profession with literally identical areas of focus.  None of this was contrived to set a trap for me, as it was backed up by plenty of evidence.  The reality of the situation was that he didn't exactly go out of his way to take an interest in any of my activities or passions.  He thought it was annoying when I asked him to.  The one exception would be photography, which he would post about on Facebook plenty.  Generally, though, he was a narcissist and just didn't have time for anything that wasn't personally relevant to him.

[Fogclearing]

I read in another post that in time we will realise the person we fell in love with was a mirror, that we really fell in love with a mirror of ourselves (Caley). Could someone explain please

A pwBPD is a chameleon. They lack a sense of self. They can adapt themselves to the person they are with. When they fall in love they mirror the person they are with. They present themselves as this persona. So basically you fall in love with a mirror image of yourself.

Example: my ex probably deep down does not want children at all. He is not responsible enough to take care of another human being that depends on him and they would take away attention and supply from him. But he told me I was the woman he wanted to have children with. To win me over. I'm the one who would want children. So he was mirroring my wish. I fell in love with my wish to be a parent, not his.

This wanting children thing is a classic, I think. And it is so devastating both if you are a person who doesn't have kids and wants to have them or if you are a single parent who has the hope to start a functioning blended family.

I have three kids. She had no kids. Before she moved in with us she spent years of courting me telling me how much she loved children - especially MY children - and how it was her greatest wish in life to "become family" with us and that she would see the kids as her own. A dream to a single mom. Then she moved in and when she felt "secure" and the devaluation started she suddenly HATED kids, never wanted them and my kids were suddenly her biggest "trigger" and that they suddenly were "very annoying".

I think she mirrored my wish to have a co-parent that loved my children and would be there for them, for me, for us. WHen she moved in she didn't have to mirror that anymore. Her love of children wasn't hers. It was a way to get me hooked.

[SummerStorm]

My BPD friend's mom said to me once, "No one knows the real her.  Even she doesn't know the real her.  She's taken on the interests of so many people over the years that she no longer knows what she actually likes."

I once asked her what she likes, and she replied, "My interests change depending on my mood, but my top two things are Pokemon and napping."  I thought that was incredibly sad.  If someone asks me what I enjoy doing, I can immediately list dozens of things, most of which I've enjoyed doing for years (hiking, photography, guitar, etc.).  

Once in the middle of me talking about something, she mildly made fun of me for listening to records.  But then, I kept talking about it and said I was listening to Janis Joplin, and I was suddenly "so freaking cool" and she completely changed her opinion of it.  A few weeks later, she was in my car, and I was playing a Janis Joplin CD.  She turned it off and said, "I can't stand your hippie music."  That was the first crack in the mirror(ing) that I noticed.  When she realized how into women's soccer I am, she said she wanted to go to a game with me, but she kept coming up with excuses for why she couldn't go.  When she is depressed and in one of her "Miss you" moods, she just wants to talk about my cats and see pictures of my cats.  I love cats, so she loves cats.  

Her ex-boyfriend noticed it, too.  After their breakup, he told me that she would act like she was really into things that he liked but then would suddenly lose interest in them.  She even went with him to meet his favorite band and told a co-worker how much she loved the band.  I had never heard her mention that band before, and she hasn't mentioned it since.  The guy she briefly dated near the end of last year loved this one rapper, and within days of meeting him, she was posting to his FB timeline about the rapper and his posse, like she had been a fan for years.  

She once posted a picture of her and the guy she was dating back in February, and she had styled her hair the same way as him.  This was just days after she met him.  Her mom even said something to me about it.  

The new guy is very normal, works at a cafe, and seems to be very mature.  So, she's been eating at nice restaurants with him (generally speaking, her diet usually consists of pizza, Doritos, and other junk food) and has been wearing dresses and acting very mature.  Of course, in the meantime, she also spent an evening with one of her friends who is a total druggie, and they were getting high and drinking all night.  

Her friends really vary in terms of age, interests, education, etc.  I would imagine it must be exhausting for her to basically slip on a new persona every day.  

[teapay]

Alot of the mirroring and morphing emerge out of the fear of abandonment and their instability of self and identity.  It is the same skills used by cons, mindreaders, fortune tellers, mentalists and brown-nosers and the like.  The motives may be different, but alot of the techniques (observations, probings, gleaning ) are a variant.  For them it is a survival skill.

I've thought of my wife sometimes as a body snatcher because she try to almost cop someone's identity.

Mirroring played a big part in us getting married.  We had so much in common and had common aspirations for family and life.  We went through premarital counseling with our pastors, did couples workbooks, bible studies,  ect... .).  Much of that was mirroring me out of fear of abanonment.  Over the course of the marriage I could see her instability emerge.  She wrote alot to me during our marrage.  As you read the letters she wrote you can see her swinging back on forth from what we planned to want she wanted at that moment to what we planned to  something else.  Praising me and encouraging me then bashing me and condemning me.  Pretty much all that mirror unravelled.  There was nothing of substance to it.  BPD deprives suffers of any substance.  Inside is nothing but a drain hole that can never be filled.

[AndrewS]

Hi Tea Pay, " Inside is nothing but a drain hole that can never be filled." so we could call it Bottomless Pit Disorder :-)