Memories of the Mess

[Cazz787]

Early in the idealization, madly obsessed with me stage, many years ago I was on a road trip with my ex. I handed her my wallet and asked her to retrieve a dollar for a toll since I was driving in heavy traffic. Then I saw out of the corner of my eye, her stealing a five dollar bill, she crunched it up to conceal it in her hand.  A FIVE DOLLAR BILL?

Then grabbed the additional one dollar for the toll to hand to me.

I always always always paid for E V E R Y T H I N G.

In fact, this past year when she paid for dinner for us, I almost fainted.

But I've always wondered how strange, needless, unnecessary that five dollar bill incident was. What do you make of it?

[JerryRG]

I'm guessing control or power?

Getting one over on you? Truly frightening that a person would think this way, narcissistic?

I had a cousin who would steal things and had money to pay for them, guess it was a challenge to steal? Rape is about control rather than sex? I don't understand either because my brain isn't wired that way.

My cousin got into politics, he embezzled a large sum of money and last I heard was headed to prison.

I never knew what made hit tic

[Hadlee]

I would say it was an impulsive act.  She saw it and had to have it.  Simple as that.  Remember that they lack impulse control. 

[rfriesen]

I agree with busygall - it sounds like lack of impulse control. I've known two people in my life who exhibit the symptoms that are associated with BPD - my ex from the past year, and my sister. Both lack impulse control. My sister twice stole considerable sums of money from our dad, the second time a year or so after they had patched things up following the first time. She stole using his credit cards. After the second time, our dad was convinced that my sister had just made up to him so she could steal again. But I really don't think that's it -- in the moments when they were patching things up, I think my sister truly was happy to be back on good terms with our dad, to laugh with him and joke around (both could be very outgoing, loud, sarcastic, and, when they were on good terms, they really got along well).

But when she saw an opportunity to take money and wanted it, she was completely unable to control that impulse. In the long run, it's a decision that brought her incomparably more pain than the money could have brought her happiness. But she has no ability to work through consequences like that.

Of course, everyone and every individual situation is different. But to me it also sounds like stealing the $5 was a complete lack of impulse control. And, if your ex is like my sister (or my ex from the past year), they push away any feelings of guilt -- it looks to me like they start to feel emotional discomfort that would turn into guilt for most people, but they have a capacity to block those feelings before they ever develop into a proper sense of guilt and responsibility. My sister to this day will deny or downplay or justify all kinds of behaviour that she would be better off acknowledging and apologising for. Same with my ex. But the effort they put into downplaying, denying, justifying looks exhausting and painful. I think they (and certainly everyone around them!) would feel so much better if they simply acknowledged and apologised for hurtful things they've done. But that comes very very hard to them.

[Fr4nz]

Early in the idealization, madly obsessed with me stage, many years ago I was on a road trip with my ex. I handed her my wallet and asked her to retrieve a dollar for a toll since I was driving in heavy traffic. Then I saw out of the corner of my eye, her stealing a five dollar bill, she crunched it up to conceal it in her hand.  A FIVE DOLLAR BILL?

Then grabbed the additional one dollar for the toll to hand to me.

I always always always paid for E V E R Y T H I N G.

In fact, this past year when she paid for dinner for us, I almost fainted.

But I've always wondered how strange, needless, unnecessary that five dollar bill incident was. What do you make of it?

So, once 50 euros magically disappeared from my wallet; when I noticed it, and asked to her and my family if they saw the banknote, it magically reappeared few hours later in the hands of my ex... .she told me she found it below the driving seat of my car. Very odd, to say the least

I agree with the others anyway, probably it was due to poor impulse control, since it happened only once.

In general, I had often to be the one offering her the dinner, the lunch, etc,, even if at that time I had a salary that was slightly less than hers... .

It's absolutely nice to be gentlemen and court your own woman, but when you're in a relationship, and you see that the partner earns less than you, a couple should behave like a team and help each other when needed. Instead, she had this odd idea that it is a shame to make explicitly a woman pay her own part of a dinner/lunch/grocery shopping/whatever... .

Even more: we had a medium-distance relationship, so each weekend I spent around 60 euros to visit her (multiply this by 4 per each month, and you get how much I spent just to see her)... .once I had minor financial troubles, mainly because I was always paying everything for her, and I told her that... .instead of understanding my condition, she told me: "then, don't come here and stay in your city!". So selfish!

Another red flag that I shouldn't have ignored during the r/s... .