Forgiving myself for marrying him

[Kailin]

Since my H of 17yrs was diagnosed with BPD a couple of months ago I have been trying to find a way to forgive myself for, in spite of my best efforts, marrying someone who is like my abusive parents. As a young person I saw so many people marry into the same craziness that they escaped as children and I was determined not to make the same mistake. It seemed so easy, this quiet, kind, christian man was nothing like my raging alcoholic BPD mother or my Narcissistic personality disorder father. After seven years I discover he has a secret sex addiction. After another ten years I finally learn that he has BPD. He has all three of the major issues of my parents, the BPD traits, the addiction, and the narcissists inability to see me as a person or have any ability to understand my feelings or care about them.
So here is my latest breakthrough: I am not so much smarter than everyone else as I thought I was. I am just like everyone else, and those psychological forces that compel us to marry our parents are almost irresistible without some serious therapy. I now think considering the severe abuse of my childhood that it was inevitable that I would enter an abusive relationship. And thinking about my desperate loneliness and desire to be taken care of that there was no way I could have possibly stayed single and worked through my issues before getting married as I wish now I had done.
Most of the symptoms of BPD didn't show up until years into the relationship. He has gotten gradually worse over the years. It seems almost like magic to me that somehow my subconscious knew that he was this sick of a person. The man he is today is unrecognizable from the man I married.

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[Notwendy]

Kailin-
This is some impressive hindsight and I could have written it, especially the part about the desperate loneliness experienced as a young adult that seems to be the result of growing up with parents who could not love us the way we wanted them too.

My H isn't diagnosed with anything. He's very functional and also nothing like my BPD mother. However, early on in our marriage - I found myself in an eerie repeat of the issues my parents had. It took me years to figure out what was going on. At the time, I didn't know about male BPD and how it could be different than females. How on earth could my H, who didn't behave anything like my BPD mother somehow made me feel as if I was with her.

I spent years thinking it was only me to blame. I had the dysfunctional family growing up. It must be me. In addition, during those seemingly endless night time circular discussions ( that didn't lead to resolution) - he would remain logical while I would get so frustrated being unable to resolve things or have any kind of discussion that didn't deteriorate - I would be the one who got emotional and cried. I feared I was acting like my mother.

Until one time, when I was being accused of something that I know did not happen, and was not true, I realized the disconnect between what happened and his interpretation. It was actually bizarre the way my every day actions that had nothing to do with him were twisted into some kind of criticism or rejection to him. Then he'd accuse me of something - I would take it at face value and then JADE- and off to the races we would go. I also recognized my part in this. I was co-dependent. Whatever was going on with him- BPD or traits, or just twisted thinking- I was managing it, being co-dependent, walking on eggshells ( to try to reduce the rages and accusations). I had to learn that whatever he was thinking, I could not control it. I had enough of my own stuff to work on, and working on co-dependency did change things for the better.

BPD exists on a spectrum. My mother is at the severe end. I do think there are people who function quite well - but have difficulties with the most intimate relationships. All people with BPD have the most difficulty in their intimate relationships. Perhaps the most mild end would mean very functional people who would not ever be diagnosed, and only have difficulty with intimate relationships. How would anyone know when dating? Even my mother can hold it together and be quite charming with people outside the family.

Marriage books tell us we do seek out people with whom we play out our childhood FOO issues with the hope of resolution. That deep longing for connection with our parents would seem to inevitably draw us to people with similarities at an unconscious level. We also have to realize there is something about us that drew them to us. They are also playing out some childhood issue. This is also why they say- if someone leaves a relationship and does not do considerable work on the issues in that relationship before getting into another one- they may inevitably repeat the same issues with someone else.

That's an incentive to do the work to improve the current relationship- and also if that doesn't work out, to do the work so that you don't repeat the problems. Either way, I decided to do it- but it had to be to work on me. I may as well as had a neon sign over my head that said " Doormat, co-dependent-will do anything to be loved by someone" on me. Who was that going to attract?

It comes down to us. Understanding this can be a great tool for working on improvement and those of us with parents have more ways to learn skills. BPD mom is relationship skill boot camp! Once we have better relationship skills, they are ours to help in all relationships. So yes forgive yourself, and your parents too. They did the best they could with what they knew, and so do you. But now you have more knowledge of what to do and can move forward from here.

[Kailin]

Hi Notwendy, thanks so much for your inciteful comments! Its shocking to me to see now what a huge impact codependency and enmeshment have had on me. I agree that the solution is to focus on healing myself now, helping my relationship to improve within the boundaries of dealing with a pd mate, and looking to the future. I still can't picture myself as being satisfied as a single person and I can see that as an indication of a continuing problem in myself.

[Notwendy]

I'm not single, so I can't know how I would feel if I was single now. I think it is normal to seek companionship- and not want to be alone, but I also think a good place to be is to not be afraid of being single- if I were, I am not afraid that I would not be able to handle it. What does scare me is the idea of dating- I am not sure I would want to test my dysfunction radar. I am married and not looking to date, so this isn't relevant, but the idea is scary to me

I think it does help to not have that fear of being single when working on a relationship. It doesn't mean I threaten it ,it just means that I am not afraid to say no, or to not be co-dependent for fear of my H not liking it. The reality is that we do have choices. If we change and our partner doesn't like it, he or she can choose to leave- they always have had that choice. Fear leads us to WOE and that isn't good for the relationship.