How to Prevent History Repeating Itself

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

Looking back I feel so stupid for ignoring all the red flags.
My ex husband had BPD with serious impulsive and destructive behaviour. I went from him to a new partner with BPD with serious splitting tendencies and high anxiety. I saw similarities in both but at the same time they were very different.

I’m terrified at the very thought of ever getting into a relationship again. The first 6 months of this relationship were so intense and physical. After that, and he admits it, the honeymoon period was over. His anxiety was like nothing I’ve ever known. He worried about everything and COVID made things worse. I’m not a needy person so I let a lot slide. I may be independent but even I could see something wasn’t right.

My question is : how do I make sure I don’t attract and I am not attracted to a BPD again? These are some things I eventually noticed and I called it off a few months after the honeymoon phase wore off.

1. No friends
2. No hobbies
3. Twice divorced and no relationship with his son
4. Gaslighting to the extent it was embarrassing
5. Hated that I couldn’t agree with everything he said
6. Inability to offer any kind of support at all
7. Needed days to calm down after an argument that he started
8. Extreme measures to make me jealous and imbalanced
9. Wanted to marry me weekend and 2 weeks gave me a long list of things he didn’t like.
10. Actually imagined things I’d said so he could pick a fight with me and dislike me for it.
11. One of the best days of his life was sitting in his tiny apartment watching the same movie 3 times.
12. He was always lazy in bed but we had a lot of passion for each other. After 6 months it seemed like he could take it or leave it.

[So Relieved]

Looking back I feel so stupid for ignoring all the red flags.
My ex husband had BPD with serious impulsive and destructive behaviour. I went from him to a new partner with BPD with serious splitting tendencies and high anxiety. I saw similarities in both but at the same time they were very different.

I’m terrified at the very thought of ever getting into a relationship again. The first 6 months of this relationship were so intense and physical. After that, and he admits it, the honeymoon period was over. His anxiety was like nothing I’ve ever known. He worried about everything and COVID made things worse. I’m not a needy person so I let a lot slide. I may be independent but even I could see something wasn’t right.

My question is : how do I make sure I don’t attract and I am not attracted to a BPD again? These are some things I eventually noticed and I called it off a few months after the honeymoon phase wore off.

1. No friends
2. No hobbies
3. Twice divorced and no relationship with his son
4. Gaslighting to the extent it was embarrassing
5. Hated that I couldn’t agree with everything he said
6. Inability to offer any kind of support at all
7. Needed days to calm down after an argument that he started
8. Extreme measures to make me jealous and imbalanced
9. Wanted to marry me weekend and 2 weeks gave me a long list of things he didn’t like.
10. Actually imagined things I’d said so he could pick a fight with me and dislike me for it.
11. One of the best days of his life was sitting in his tiny apartment watching the same movie 3 times.
12. He was always lazy in bed but we had a lot of passion for each other. After 6 months it seemed like he could take it or leave it.

[grumpydonut]

To ensure you don't date another one, you need to learn what attracted to you to them in the first place. What unmet need - if any - did they meet.

In terms of how you stop them being drawn to you, I have no idea. I've been without my ex for 9 months. In that time I've been on a date with 2x BPDs. If you find the answer, let me know!

[dindin]

I struggle with the same fears and disussed these in therapy.

Disclaimer: I understand the topic of codependency and personal responsibility in rs with BPD people is an extremely difficult one, and often a taboo one. So here goes my experience, a completely subjective perspective, which may resonate with you, or which completely misses the pecularities of your experience. So feel free to discard it.

And what I got from all this for myself is this: You are afraid of attracting another person with BPD into your life. But as a matter of fact, people with BPD are one of the least "powerful" people to walk the earth. They are no vampires like NPD, who can charm you into a relationship if you aren't gaurded against it. Far from it. People with BPD are more like "missing puzzle pieces" for people who actively seek for it.

For myself I recognised I was an active participant in that dance. I needed perfect mirroring because that was a missing piece in my own psychological makeup. A need that wasn't met in my childhood. I saw that mirroring as a holy grail of all relationships. The function of relationships, for me, was that I can be. I can exist. I can be, so to speak, reborn with all the missing unconditional love I was denied in childhood ready to be taken.

But the problem was, there is no such thing as unconditional love in adult relationships. It's a fantasy that screamed: "here I am" to all cluster B personality types that I met. I attracted them, because I had a shattered self. We both completed our delusion of a fantasy bond that would somehow heal us. It was a two-way transaction.

Once I recognise that and heal from that, I can honestly say I will be completely immune to these types of relationships. Not because I somehow guard against it, but simply because I will not need it.

I understand other people have different stories and truths about it, but this is what works for me.