Recycles?

[Larmoyant]

It’s often said, and in my experience seems to be true, that when you reunite with them it gets shorter each time before the nightmare begins. Why is this?

[once removed]

hi Larmoyant 

i imagine because at that point the relationship (and both parties personally) is already at a stage of breaking down. without (and sometimes even with) serious commitment by both parties to change, and see it through, such a breakdown is usually protracted. this tends to be the case with most relationship recycles. in the case of a relationship involving someone with BPD, the partner becomes a trigger. in layman terms, the partner is "less" of a trigger in the honeymoon stage, of the beginning of the relationship.

[fromheeltoheal]

It’s often said, and in my experience seems to be true, that when you reunite with them it gets shorter each time before the nightmare begins. Why is this?

Because when a relationship with a borderline ends, regardless of who ended it and what went down, the borderline interprets that as abandonment, the worst thing that can happen, and if you get back together, there's less trust, more fear.  So my experience, echoed many times here, is the idealization phase is shorter, as is the relationship, with each recycle.

[Mutt]

Hi Larmoyant,

That's a good question. I asked a similar question three years ago. I'd like to add what IronmanRises said that a pwBPD tries harder, the idealization / devaluation phases are more intense. That was enough to not have the inclination to go back.