I think I devalue...

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

Whenever obstacles to becoming close to someone come down I seem to devalue them.   i became agonizingly aware of this recently, as I had to finally admit to myself that I had fallen in love with my uBPDex.  After three years of trying to detach and let go, and pretend that he didn't mean so much to me.  While I managed to "detach" thoughts of him kept creeping back inside me... .until I recently realized I had to simply accept I had fallen in love with him.  When I finally accepted that in myself, I dreamt THAT very night that he was horribly disfigured (or rather looked like a horse)... .even though he is the most attractive person I have ever known.   

Other examples:

I once was very attracted to someone (before meeting my BPDex).  After pursuing him for a while, he finally agreed to a date and then invited himself back to my house.  As I sat there with him, I watched him and this feeling of complete strangeness swept over me and he suddenly became incredibly ugly in my eyes... .it was so bizarre, because objectively I know this guy is good looking, and in the end, after so much obsessing on my part, nothing happened that night ( I didn't want it too)... .but then I continued to have a crush on him.

And again, back in Highschool I had a crush on a boy for two years.  I was really attracted to him, and he was incredibly good looking (and many women were pursuing him much to my distress.) He eventually became my boyfriend, and while I was still attracted to him, I no longer saw "beauty" in him.  In fact I no longer found him to be "good looking" - I found him to be quite ordinary.   This has happenned with every boyfriend I've had, where the moment there is closeness, that person's "value" in my eyes seems to fall.  :'(  Does anyone have advice on how I can work on this?

[hotncold]

Whenever obstacles to becoming close to someone come down I seem to devalue them.   i became agonizingly aware of this recently, as I had to finally admit to myself that I had fallen in love with my uBPDex.  After three years of trying to detach and let go, and pretend that he didn't mean so much to me.  While I managed to "detach" thoughts of him kept creeping back inside me... .until I recently realized I had to simply accept I had fallen in love with him.  When I finally accepted that in myself, I dreamt THAT very night that he was horribly disfigured (or rather looked like a horse)... .even though he is the most attractive person I have ever known.   

Other examples:

I once was very attracted to someone (before meeting my BPDex).  After pursuing him for a while, he finally agreed to a date and then invited himself back to my house.  As I sat there with him, I watched him and this feeling of complete strangeness swept over me and he suddenly became incredibly ugly in my eyes... .it was so bizarre, because objectively I know this guy is good looking, and in the end, after so much obsessing on my part, nothing happened that night ( I didn't want it too)... .but then I continued to have a crush on him.

And again, back in Highschool I had a crush on a boy for two years.  I was really attracted to him, and he was incredibly good looking (and many women were pursuing him much to my distress.) He eventually became my boyfriend, and while I was still attracted to him, I no longer saw "beauty" in him.  In fact I no longer found him to be "good looking" - I found him to be quite ordinary.   This has happenned with every boyfriend I've had, where the moment there is closeness, that person's "value" in my eyes seems to fall.  :'(  Does anyone have advice on how I can work on this?

[Lucky Jim]

Hey hotncold, This sounds like a romantic version of "buyer's remorse," i.e., that feeling after we buy something like a new car that makes us regret spending the money and causes us to devalue our new purchase.  So I would say that this pattern is normal.  Maybe it comes down to figuring out what you really like and find attractive in a BF?  Not as easy as it sounds and it's not based on whether other women might find some guy "incredibly good lucking" or handsome.  It's about what YOU find attractive and intriguing.  Got it?

LuckyJim

[fromheeltoheal]

Hey HnC-

When I finally accepted that in myself, I dreamt THAT very night that he was horribly disfigured (or rather looked like a horse)... .even though he is the most attractive person I have ever known.   

We always do that, don't we?  We can make anyone or anything incredibly beautiful or massively ugly depending on what we focus on, yes?  That's why the "good ol' days" seem good; what really happened is they were a collection of good days and shtty days, just like any stretch of time, but with time we tend to selectively edit what we remember, keep the good and out with the bad, so the past takes on a rosy glow.  I choose to believe that's an asset of human nature, an inherent optimism, a bias towards keeping the good and out with the bad; that trait has survived evolution and natural selection because it helps us through life and allows us to move forward contentedly.

Extra credit points: we can always do that.  Yesterday and today can be the 'good ol' days' or a living hell, depending on what we choose to focus on.  The challenge can be that the memories are fresher, so brighter and louder, and we may need to employ some heavy focus skills to focus on what's good.  What's good is always available.  An extreme example is folks who've ended up in concentration camps: some commit suicide, some are scarred for life, and some find a way to make it a gift and carry on empowered.  Same experience, different focus.

Does anyone have advice on how I can work on this?

Well, as mentioned it's not necessarily a problem, although I do notice that all your examples are about physical attractiveness, which could be a little shallow when we consider who a person "is" is not what they look like, might be something to look at there, but I can relate.  I wouldn't call by ex stunningly beautiful, but she was very cute, fit and spunky, when things were good, and as a detachment tool I consciously focused on her fat, out of shape, and not taking care of herself, which was pretty true at the end, and that helped; again it's a focus thing: make something we want out of our lives unattractive so we move away from it mentally and emotionally, make things we want in our lives big and bright so we move towards them.  Bliss is a choice, and creating an empowered starts with that selective focus.  Take care of you!

[Reforming]

Hi HnC

I think a lot of us can devalue when we feel threatened or hurt. I know I've done it in the past though I've learned to understand why I did it and stop it.

It's not healthy but it's defence mechanism - a way of coping with painful feelings by making the other person smaller and less powerful and important. That way they can't hurt you

There are a bunch of reasons why we might idealise someone from a distance and then devalue them when we get close.

I suppose fear of intimacy is a big one. If your self esteem isn't healthy and you have a deep fear - often unacknowledged - of being abandoned or rejected - then devaluing is a way of trying to insulate or protect yourself from that perceived risk.

And if you don't really love yourself - it's very hard to accept love from someone else.

If they love you or are interested in you there must be something wrong with them because you're not worth loving

Reforming

[fromheeltoheal]

And if you don't really love yourself - it's very hard to accept love from someone else.

Yes, and it's very hard to love someone else too, when we go into it looking to take love instead of give it, because we don't have it and need it.

And how exactly do you do that?  How do you love yourself?  Confusing and elusive sometimes.  One thing that works is to imagine our inner 5 year old, easy to do since the kid in us never dies, and love him or her.  Easy to love a 5 year old.  Another way is to look yourself in the eye in the mirror and say "I love you" with conviction, a little goofy, works for some, not for others.

And what really works is to not focus on love especially, focus on self-abandonment and self-protection.  When we put other people's needs ahead of our own we abandon ourselves and our needs.  When we allow other people to bust our boundaries we're not protecting ourselves.  When we get in a mode of continuously reacting instead of acting we've abandoned ourselves and aren't protecting ourselves. And all kind of crap comes out of that: we're not good enough, we'll never matter, we're defective, if only I could be _______ that wouldn't happen anymore, if only i could be different people would love me, blah, blah, blah.  NO!  When we focus on not abandoning ourselves and our emotions, and our emotions are never wrong, and focus on protecting ourselves, a whole bunch of sht becomes completely unacceptable, especially if we've been abandoning ourselves and not protecting ourselves for a while, and then a thorough housecleaning is in order, as we populate our lives with empowering people, people who want us to love ourselves, expect us to even, and help us.  And after a while we discover that hey, I love myself, and that feels good!

[hotncold]

Hi,

Thanks all for your responses.  I'm glad to hear that this is not so uncommon.  After writing the post, I decided that maybe the best way to overcome this is to stop being "afraid of the ugliness".  Embrace it, since maybe it's part of the person, or my perception of the person and loving someone includes loving their "ugly" sides... .  In that way I would simply need to work on full acceptance.  I have done a great deal of work on myself regarding love, and realized that I did not want to be in love with my uBPD ex because of his "ugliness" (and by this I do not mean physical, but more his really bad behaviour, even if deep down I felt something magical and wonderful in him).  I think this goes a little bit towards the concept of "radical acceptance".  Denying to myself that I did love him caused the greatest pain for me, because in a way I was rejecting me, my feelings, my gut instincts.  Loving someone does not mean living happily ever after with them, or that it is reciprocated, or that they are beautiful, or well behaved, or... .etc.  It simply means that we love them.  I still have quite a few moments of self doubt, but the flip side is I experience moments of feeling extremely peaceful, that no one can take away what is inside me.  That is peaceful and powerful!   

[Reforming]

HnC,

It's sounds like you're doing some good work.

While I understand why you use the word ugly - and I agree that some behaviour can feel very ugly - I wonder if there's better way to define.

While there are obviously various types of behaviour that are universally destructive and hurtful our responses are often very personal.

Some couples manage to tolerate behaviour in each that others would find intolerable.

Some couples can handle an open relationship - I don't think I could. The important thing is to respect and be true to yourself.

I suppose at the end of the day it's about knowing ourselves and find the self respect and strength to assert a boundary or walk away from behaviour that we find unacceptable. It's a tricky balance between tolerance and self respect but I don't think any love - apart from parental - is unconditional. To my mind it grows and thrives in an environment where there's mutual self respect, trust, shared values and honesty.

It's great that you're finding moments of piece. Self knowledge and inner peace is a great foundation for happiness

Reforming

[valet]

Hey hotncold, I think that all people devalue others (and also ourselves) at times and that it is a perfectly normal behavior. I've done the same with friends and romantic partners, and there is nothing wrong with having these feelings.

My spin on it is that I reckon the root of these perceptions hinges on our ability to know what/who we want. As we grow older and mature emotionally we make mistakes, but these mistakes can be valuable pieces of knowledge that teach us what we really need to remain content with life. So, you're thinking you've devalued previous relationships. Would you be willing to say that perhaps those people weren't right for you, and that maybe you really only perceived an imagine of something in those other people that you might have considered ideal?

In order to have fulfilling relationships, we need to be able to see the truth in our situation(s). Let me put it this way, a machine will only work if all of the gears and moving parts of it are actually there—not simply perceived to be there by the person that builds it. Recovering from a dysfunctional relationship is an involved process, but it can accelerate our perceptions and make us far better self-technicians than we were before. It is totally possible to have stable and loving partnerships. We just have to be more aware of the work these kinds of things take and how we can best put ourselves in a position to make them happen!