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Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits. Practicing lawyer, Senior Family Mediator, and former Licensed Clinical Social Worker with twelve years’ experience and an expert on navigating the Family Court process.
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Author Topic: Did your exBPD have strange thoughts on love?  (Read 1843 times)
NewStart
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« Reply #30 on: October 28, 2010, 09:40:11 PM »

Mine said all kinds of crazy things about love... .here are a couple... .

One time I said, "I love you... ." and her response was, "That doesn't mean anything, people just say that because they want someone to say I love you to them... ."

Another time I said, "We're going to be together forever... ." and her response was, "No one can really say that as you never know when someone else could steel someones heart away... ."
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« Reply #31 on: October 28, 2010, 09:44:07 PM »

I told my x I would stick by her through anything, she said ''no,you will be gone one day''

She actually knew it wouldnt last,not because of me but because of her driving me away eventually as she has done to every previous man she has been with.
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« Reply #32 on: October 29, 2010, 04:07:42 AM »

Artist,

Yes to your question. It always felt like she craved the attention from men and loved the honeymoon period before she got bored or the guys allegedly left. Quite a few it appears have ditched her on her birthday for some reason (Of course the reason is that they couldn't deal with her, but I did always wonder why her birthday was such a  focal point). I even asked her about the relationship with a guy from another country who worked on the cruise ship and she indicated that she loved the fantasy part of it.

Medical community has indicated that PwBPD lack the bonding chemicals or great enough quantity of them (I can't remember which) to develop long and sustained relationships and that sex does raise those levels that's why they can show some insight and depth after sex. However, absent continous sex, they don't trust their partners and they constantly chase relationships for the fill the void as they believe that will end their misery/pain.

In my case I too got the not attracted to you part as well and it's a bunch of crap really. It means that they realize that you've run your course and you don't give them those same feelings that they got at the beginning and they need the chase and chemical process of chasing a new relationship (i.e recycling). They're incapable of developing the chemical bonding that nons do so they're ultimately trapped into repeating the honeymoon period over and over again.

Thanks for that.  That is exactly what happened to me.  Our relationship never went to another level.  I could not trust or depend on him.
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gutzgutz
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« Reply #33 on: October 29, 2010, 04:54:58 AM »

Excerpt
They're incapable of developing the chemical bonding that nons do so they're ultimately trapped into repeating the honeymoon period over and over again.

I think this is ambivalent. They get bored and they want this feeling again.

I thought - in case of my ex and others I have read about here - that they also desperately want to bond when they fear abandonment. So they bond to some object that is here for them until they find another object.

I think it is more object than subject bonding. Sad thing is that people are somehow exchangeable. Not totally, my ex knows quite a lot about me and has some insights, and was quite sensible and thoughtful sometimes. He has got this desperation of needing to be needed. He has got a pattern in his relationships. He wanted his girl friends most when they had another boyfriend/or when they were going to see somebody else as he did not commit. Then the whole drama and hysteria set in. He made every effort to win them back. (I did not have another guy, so maybe he got bored, who knows?)  His current relationship is with a person who acts like him.
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« Reply #34 on: October 29, 2010, 06:40:56 AM »

I find it ironic that they valuate us just when we don't want it. At least, in this manner.  Telling someone their good points and value is a wonderful feeling, but having that rubber band slap back when its not meant genuinely for the relationship we're in... .it destroys the whole thought behind it, and ends up devaluating.

I know when I heard it, I eventually started thinking, 'sure... .but its not good enough for you.  I'm not worth it for anyone.'  Totally destructive to your self-worth.

It's not so bad now.  I know now, from this board, that she was just projecting her self-loathing.
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ArtistGuy70
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« Reply #35 on: October 29, 2010, 07:19:49 AM »

She saw being in love as more of a LUST definition. Having to be with someone, needing them, desiring them, etc. It was a perfect description of the HONEYMOON STAGE.

It cannot be sustained for long. But in their childlike, fantasy world, that is what they want. They long for it.
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« Reply #36 on: October 29, 2010, 09:03:18 AM »

I remember when we first met, before we were even dating.  Our knees touched under the table, and I literally felt an electric shock -- so did she.  We thought then it was destiny or some other overwhelming external message. 

I still don't know what it was, I've never felt it before or since, with anyone else, at any time.  But I've learned it was not necessarily a good thing, and certainly not a sign of good times to come. 

I've learned that electicity can burn and destroy. 
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« Reply #37 on: October 29, 2010, 10:24:45 AM »

Our knees touched under the table, and I literally felt an electric shock -- so did she.

Funny you said this. It happened to me once in my life. I was at a party as a teen and I touched the hand of one girl. I was handing her something but forgot what. Our fingertips touched and it was this electricity. I knew she felt it because her eyes got wide. And we looked at each other like, WTH? Nothing romantic started between us, and probably a good thing!
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« Reply #38 on: October 30, 2010, 05:48:47 AM »

ArtistGuy,

I can echo some of what you said and what others listed too. 

Fairly early on my ex asked me if I had ever been in love, and admitted she didn't know if she ever had.  This is after having several long term relationships where she lived with her SOs for years.  She didn't say it in so many words, but I did get the impression that "love" was associated with the infatuation and passion early on in a relationship.  Maybe to her since that feeling didn't last forever for her, she wasn't sure she had ever been in love. 

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ArtistGuy70
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« Reply #39 on: October 30, 2010, 06:23:13 AM »

ArtistGuy,

I can echo some of what you said and what others listed too. 

Fairly early on my ex asked me if I had ever been in love, and admitted she didn't know if she ever had.  This is after having several long term relationships where she lived with her SOs for years.  She didn't say it in so many words, but I did get the impression that "love" was associated with the infatuation and passion early on in a relationship.  Maybe to her since that feeling didn't last forever for her, she wasn't sure she had ever been in love. 

This is quite revealing (as the other posts as well) about the thought process in the borderline mind. They constantly question their own emotions and have no idea what love really is beyond the infactuation and honeymoon periods. Looking back, our best times were sexual. She seemed happy, content, loving, etc. They long for love and that honeymoon stage. Like a child, they expect that to last forever. If it does not, it was just not "right" in the end (like my ex said to me).
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innerspirit
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« Reply #40 on: October 30, 2010, 07:03:44 AM »

I remember when we first met, before we were even dating.  Our knees touched under the table, and I literally felt an electric shock -- so did she... .I've learned that electicity can burn and destroy. 

Is that why you chose the name Carbon?  (I'm sure scientists meant something else when they discovered carbon dating!)
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strings
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« Reply #41 on: October 30, 2010, 07:46:32 AM »

ArtistGuy,

I can echo some of what you said and what others listed too. 

Fairly early on my ex asked me if I had ever been in love, and admitted she didn't know if she ever had.  This is after having several long term relationships where she lived with her SOs for years.  She didn't say it in so many words, but I did get the impression that "love" was associated with the infatuation and passion early on in a relationship.  Maybe to her since that feeling didn't last forever for her, she wasn't sure she had ever been in love. 

This is quite revealing (as the other posts as well) about the thought process in the borderline mind. They constantly question their own emotions and have no idea what love really is beyond the infactuation and honeymoon periods. Looking back, our best times were sexual. She seemed happy, content, loving, etc. They long for love and that honeymoon stage. Like a child, they expect that to last forever. If it does not, it was just not "right" in the end (like my ex said to me).

Towards the end of our relationship, when she was justifying her actions and I was in the pleading stage, she would always counter my arguments of the two of us being in love once and chasing it again, with 'Were we ever in love? I don't think so, you hit__ (fill in slight of the moment)"  This at some other point after she had told me she loved me, but wasn't in love with me.  Boom... .affair line. She was on her honeymoon with someone else, not the guy she just married.
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ArtistGuy70
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« Reply #42 on: October 30, 2010, 07:50:11 AM »

ArtistGuy,

I can echo some of what you said and what others listed too. 

Fairly early on my ex asked me if I had ever been in love, and admitted she didn't know if she ever had.  This is after having several long term relationships where she lived with her SOs for years.  She didn't say it in so many words, but I did get the impression that "love" was associated with the infatuation and passion early on in a relationship.  Maybe to her since that feeling didn't last forever for her, she wasn't sure she had ever been in love. 

This is quite revealing (as the other posts as well) about the thought process in the borderline mind. They constantly question their own emotions and have no idea what love really is beyond the infactuation and honeymoon periods. Looking back, our best times were sexual. She seemed happy, content, loving, etc. They long for love and that honeymoon stage. Like a child, they expect that to last forever. If it does not, it was just not "right" in the end (like my ex said to me).

Towards the end of our relationship, when she was justifying her actions and I was in the pleading stage, she would always counter my arguments of the two of us being in love once and chasing it again, with 'Were we ever in love? I don't think so, you hit__ (fill in slight of the moment)"  This at some other point after she had told me she loved me, but wasn't in love with me.  Boom... .affair line. She was on her honeymoon with someone else, not the guy she just married.

Yep, I got that line too. I believe when she had her doubts like this, she ran to her boss or some guy to get that FIX she needed to feel loved (to get that high). We did not have much sex the last six months of the r/s due to her depression meds (and who knows what else).
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strings
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« Reply #43 on: October 30, 2010, 08:13:10 AM »

For some odd reason, she told me the minute she slept with him, she stopped with me.  She had moved to the other bedroom at this time, and I only got one minor sexual act after that.  She said she had felt sorry for me not having gotten any in a while.  This was six weeks away from our wedding.

I had a gut feeling right then, while it was going on, that this was going to be the last time.  I should have listened to that inner voice and get the disengagement going with her.  I ignored it.  We were getting married, and I had hoped she was only having cold feet, and we would turn the page during the honeymoon.

She did mention once a few months before that she had wanted to stop having sex until we were married.  That little tidbit kept whispering in my ear the whole time, soothing my fears.  Hard to trust that inner voice sometimes.
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innerspirit
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« Reply #44 on: October 30, 2010, 10:28:27 AM »

Mine says and said the same. It is about the lust and falling in love thing, the madness. It is a bit like a drug.

It is a bit like addiction.

It changes over time because you get to know the person - love develops into something more profound, deeper. It is somehow superficial. It is about the feeling and not so much about the person... .I am quite astonished that he could last 11 years without cheating on me. He said it was lack of opportunity.

It's astounding that the things they say, often to sound so hurtful to us, are so revealing about themselves.

Ideally the narcotic effect of emfatuation would change over time to something more profound and deeper -- that's how love is supposed to mature.  However he was describing his own superficiality, that he wanted the feeling, not so much the particular person.  Had he the opportunity to cheat, that is to get more of a fix of the initial lust and falling in love, he would have leapt at the chance -- and can you feel the dig? -- it might have been even more of a high for him to do it and know that he was getting away with it without your suspecting anything.  Even to bring home more of a smile and have you enjoy his better mood.
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« Reply #45 on: October 30, 2010, 11:05:25 AM »

Mine said once, I know I love you, I think about how fantastic sex is with you all the time. Laugh out loud (click to insert in post)  His thoughts were strange and he was strange, Im starting to get the idea, Im even more strange then him for accepting his nonsense.
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ArtistGuy70
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« Reply #46 on: October 31, 2010, 06:16:11 AM »

It's like they have no common sense. These things just were not developed at a young age.
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« Reply #47 on: October 31, 2010, 08:17:48 AM »

Excerpt
Even to bring home more of a smile and have you enjoy his better mood.

He has done that during the last 2 or so years. He came back satisfied like a cat having licked a pot of cream. He was nice to me, verbally and was whistling and listening to love songs on the computer.

He had seen this other women during some weekends, sneaked away from work and had (so he had told me) sex with her in the shower of his work place, in a disabled toilet in a restaurant, etc.

He was so satisfied.

When he took her on holiday (without me knowing it), he had to tell me at the morning of a job interview. Of course, I was not good at the interview. I asked him why he could not have waited until after my job interview. He said he had to say it immediately, because he had felt guilty.

IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT HIM, no thought about the effects and timings of his 'confessions'.

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« Reply #48 on: November 02, 2010, 01:00:47 PM »

My exBPDgf (diagnosed?) was obsessed with the concept of love and spouted dozens of bizarre ideas that resonate with these posts.

When things were going well for the first several months, she would turn to me with a beatific expression each day and say "hey (me)" ... .dramatic pause ... ."i love you." She appended a "so much" on the best days. It was very cheesy, and I found it irritating when I noticed she would invariably use this device to interrupt conversations. When I was away, this was sporadically paired with very odd emails where she would describe a person, supposedly me, in an idolatrous way, as if I were the hero in a cheap novel based loosely on my life. It was as if she were more interested in the feeling she derived from this image of me than in what we were actually doing together at the moment.

She often would ask me about the nature of love, and my love for her, which never went well. I'd explain how an initial infatuation and excitement over some months would stabilize into a steady commitment of mutual respect, trust, and desire, with less extreme feelings. This appeared to fluster her, as she apparently needed her infatuation and obsession to last forever or it would never work. Her barometer of a relationship was whether she saw herself getting married to whomever she was with; it was over when she lost that "vision." I got the impression she wanted to marry me within about a month, held it about six months longer, and then dumped me within a few weeks of its dissipation.

Her own idea of love was best revealed in an animated rant a few days before she broke up with me (apparently for "not loving me enough". We had both read Lolita recently on her urging, which I thought odd because she often insisted that she never reads any classic fiction. I told her about how disturbing a portrait of obsession the book reveals, and how destructive and selfish the narrator is in his pursuit of a feckless little girl. But before I could finish, exgf launched into her view that the book perfectly captured the essence of "love." It was clear to me that she identified with the narrator, which horrified me.

Putting aside the nauseating immorality of the Lolita story, clearly for her love was about the possession and manipulation of a mindless object, like Lolita, that was nonetheless difficult to pursue.

So maybe BPD love is more like a fetish?

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ArtistGuy70
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« Reply #49 on: November 02, 2010, 01:07:45 PM »

I believe they "long for love." They want to love but once they have it, they become bored and want to long for it again. They grew up in households where love was not always available. They had early relationships growing up that were abusive or traumatic perhaps (early boyfriends, friends, etc.). So they are used to the chaos. The longing for love (unrequited love) seems like real love to them.

The passion, desire, honeymoon stage - that's love to them. Once it fades away, they lose interest and believe they are no longer in love. Sad but true.
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« Reply #50 on: November 02, 2010, 01:16:16 PM »

Mine did not like stability and he did not appreciate a "normal" everyday love relationship. I think they get bored and they have unrealistic goals driven by the internal emotional turbulence.

My ex loved the honeymoon infatuation state and he wanted to get married after a month! He had a history of many failed relationships (where he got bored), 1 marriage, 2 engagements, quite a few girlfriends (including me, I guess I was the 9th).

Love was me giving him love, but nothing in return.
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« Reply #51 on: November 03, 2010, 04:58:03 AM »

I believe they "long for love." They want to love but once they have it, they become bored and want to long for it again. They grew up in households where love was not always available. They had early relationships growing up that were abusive or traumatic perhaps (early boyfriends, friends, etc.). So they are used to the chaos. The longing for love (unrequited love) seems like real love to them.

The passion, desire, honeymoon stage - that's love to them. Once it fades away, they lose interest and believe they are no longer in love. Sad but true.

Exactly my experience and perception.  When the relationship was ready to move beyond that, or maybe before, she started doubting whether she was in love.
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ArtistGuy70
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« Reply #52 on: November 03, 2010, 06:17:13 AM »

I believe they "long for love." They want to love but once they have it, they become bored and want to long for it again. They grew up in households where love was not always available. They had early relationships growing up that were abusive or traumatic perhaps (early boyfriends, friends, etc.). So they are used to the chaos. The longing for love (unrequited love) seems like real love to them.

The passion, desire, honeymoon stage - that's love to them. Once it fades away, they lose interest and believe they are no longer in love. Sad but true.

Exactly my experience and perception.  When the relationship was ready to move beyond that, or maybe before, she started doubting whether she was in love.

Yes, we would hit points over the five years when there was talk about the next step (moving in, etc.). She would have her doubts then. The fears set in. They panic.
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lookingin

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« Reply #53 on: November 03, 2010, 11:15:42 AM »

My ex loved the honeymoon infatuation state and he wanted to get married after a month! He had a history of many failed relationships (where he got bored), 1 marriage, 2 engagements, quite a few girlfriends (including me, I guess I was the 9th).

Love was me giving him love, but nothing in return.

Mine asked me to marry him after 6 months, then when I discovered his (first) affair not long after that, he told me that I "left him alone too much"  His idea of love was HOW much time we spent together, not the QUALITY of the time we spent together.  He came out of a 25 year marriage (with one confessed affair, one that I found out about and countless number of unknown) and claimed to be the victim since his wife cheated on him.  Very early on in our relationship, he asked me to never cheat on him since that was what he was recovering from in his first marriage; and very frequently accused me (wrongly) of being with other men throughout our relationship.  Not a very strong concept of love.
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strings
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« Reply #54 on: November 03, 2010, 11:23:16 AM »

Excerpt
I "left him alone too much"  His idea of love was HOW much time we spent together, not the QUALITY of the time we spent together.

I wholeheartedly concur with this comment.  It always seemed to be a necessity to be available, in the same room, doing whatever the hell they were doing whether I liked it or not, to feel loved. The moment I asked her to do something I wanted (near the end of our r/s), it was met with the heaviest of resistance and sometimes rage or browbeating.

And if I did something in compromise - i.e. reading or writing on the laptop while she slept because I couldn't sleep - I got ripped for that. She had to be held, on her terms, on her time.  She was still 'alone'.  Sigh.  God forbid should I roll away from her in my sleep!
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O'Maria
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« Reply #55 on: November 03, 2010, 11:33:35 AM »

Interesting. I had to face him when we were asleep or he got upset. He had a constant need of attention and assurance of love. He expected me to call him 4 times a day! I think its about control, not love.
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lookingin

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« Reply #56 on: November 03, 2010, 11:40:32 AM »

Yes, the same here.  I was bored stiff sitting on the couch with his arm around me watching some show I wasn't interested in... .and not able to do something else.  Then, if he was tired and wanted to go to sleep, I had to be tired too.  Watching TV wasn't a problem, mind you - as long as we didn't watch Jeopardy - since "he felt so dumb because everyone else knew the answers"  Same thing with any board game - we couldn't play them because I was "too competitive and took the fun out of them" I didn't know the rule was  he had to win all the time... .  saga continued with exercise - treadmill couldn't be faster than his... .or a browbeating would follow saying I was trying to embarrass him in front of the other people at the health club.  Togetherness is great until it is distorted into a bizarre reality.  I can't count how many times he would just show up at my house in a panic claiming that he couldn't reach me by phone and he was worried about me.
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« Reply #57 on: November 03, 2010, 11:56:23 AM »

Lookingin,

Can't believe it! Mine did the same.

He showed up at my place several times just because I did not answer the phone when he called 5 times a day. He claimed it was because he cared (!) but I know it was control, not care. Then he said all the other girlfriends always called him several times a day... .they were always so much better... . 
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strings
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« Reply #58 on: November 03, 2010, 01:33:27 PM »

Hey O'Maria, when mine had left to live with her AP right after we got married, she would call and call constantly.  In the dozens of times a day.  She eventually just started showing up back at the house at 5 AM, under the excuse of a shower and getting changed for work.  First thing she would do is check the phones for strange numbers and then accuse me of having a girlfriend for one, and having her over for another.  I broke out laughing right in her face after a couple months of this, considering she's saying this as she just came over from her boyfriends house.

I was able to set a clock by when she'd call after a while.

Lookingin, mine was impossible to play board games with.  Her son and I had to deliberately lose in order to shut her up.  Then she'd be a poor winner, too, dancing and hollering like she won the Super Bowl singlehandedly.  Can't win for losing.
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« Reply #59 on: November 03, 2010, 02:51:20 PM »

Mine took my phone when I was asleep and he even called people listed as contacts. Especially when he was drunk, he became dangerously jealous and physically violent. But it was all because he cared so much (!)... .
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