STOP labelling ourselves abusive. NOW

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

I've seen a few posts around the forum recently regarding how Nons were themselves abusive/controlling in the relationship.

... .   Stop it!

I think this is very counter productive. We are not inherently abusive people, and were likely pushed beyond our limits through some seriously fk'd up abuse perpetrated by our exBPD's. It is likely that we were quite the opposite throughotu thte magority of the relationship. Overwhelmingly caring, considerate, fair etc. Remember those times and how unappreciated they were. My T helped me realize this, that a few engendered emotional outbursts/misinformed coping mechanisms do NOT consitutue and abusive man/woman. Instead remember all of the broken promises to do better that

THEY chose to make. We tried to hold them accountable for their hipocrisy while not completely giving up on the r/s.

Our parteners are adults too, and I have no doubt that we ALL started out treating them that way.

Every man simpl has his breaking point.

Did you explicitly realize you were dealing with a covert 3 year old? Probably not explicitly but that was in fact the case! You were unwittingly thrown into a parent/child dynamic. The difference between us and people who dont enter into relationships with BPDs is mostly one of boundaries. they LEAVE when they realize they are dealing with a child. We stayed likely because we've been playing the paerent to some adult in our FOO since we were small children so it unwittingly felt natural! Are parents who try to control their childrens bad (and in this case insideous) behaviour necessarily controlling or abusive? No! They are usually exerciseing their experience and sense of responsibility.

I can't assume to much for anyone else but I can certaintly say that I have had other relationships with nonBPD's and never acted teh way I did with my BPDex. The way we are in these extremeand unusal relationships is not a proper mirror of who we really are as parteners in healthy r/s.

What I instead suggest is that we simply do what regular people do in the wake of a failed relationship: admit that we made some mistakes and do better the next go around. This whole labeling ourselves abusive tends only to put more of the responsibility for the failed relationship on our ends than need be. We have been doing that the entire time and it was faulty reasoning. Instead take less responsibility.

We are all here because we have a low opinion of oursleves. Taking on the burden of being "abusive" does not help this. This is not denial, it is ACCEPTANCE, but its acceptance of the mistakes from a wholistic point of view rather than a self defeating one

Just my two cents... .  

[TakeFlight]

I've seen a few posts around the forum recently regarding how Nons were themselves abusive/controlling in the relationship.

... .   Stop it!

I think this is very counter productive. We are not inherently abusive people, and were likely pushed beyond our limits through some seriously fk'd up abuse perpetrated by our exBPD's. It is likely that we were quite the opposite throughotu thte magority of the relationship. Overwhelmingly caring, considerate, fair etc. Remember those times and how unappreciated they were. My T helped me realize this, that a few engendered emotional outbursts/misinformed coping mechanisms do NOT consitutue and abusive man/woman. Instead remember all of the broken promises to do better that

THEY chose to make. We tried to hold them accountable for their hipocrisy while not completely giving up on the r/s.

Our parteners are adults too, and I have no doubt that we ALL started out treating them that way.

Every man simpl has his breaking point.

Did you explicitly realize you were dealing with a covert 3 year old? Probably not explicitly but that was in fact the case! You were unwittingly thrown into a parent/child dynamic. The difference between us and people who dont enter into relationships with BPDs is mostly one of boundaries. they LEAVE when they realize they are dealing with a child. We stayed likely because we've been playing the paerent to some adult in our FOO since we were small children so it unwittingly felt natural! Are parents who try to control their childrens bad (and in this case insideous) behaviour necessarily controlling or abusive? No! They are usually exerciseing their experience and sense of responsibility.

I can't assume to much for anyone else but I can certaintly say that I have had other relationships with nonBPD's and never acted teh way I did with my BPDex. The way we are in these extremeand unusal relationships is not a proper mirror of who we really are as parteners in healthy r/s.

What I instead suggest is that we simply do what regular people do in the wake of a failed relationship: admit that we made some mistakes and do better the next go around. This whole labeling ourselves abusive tends only to put more of the responsibility for the failed relationship on our ends than need be. We have been doing that the entire time and it was faulty reasoning. Instead take less responsibility.

We are all here because we have a low opinion of oursleves. Taking on the burden of being "abusive" does not help this. This is not denial, it is ACCEPTANCE, but its acceptance of the mistakes from a wholistic point of view rather than a self defeating one

Just my two cents... .  

[VeryFree]

I agree with you totally... .  

but I think it is good to see what happened to us, during our relationship. We all saw another side of ourselves because of our r/s. Let us be warned!

[TakeFlight]

Very true, veryscarred. We are human, and we all have a dark side. But that doesn't make us abusers as our exBPDs would have us believe!

[Hurt llama]

I agree, it is a slippery slope to start labeling yourself as abusive... . and that many or maybe most Nons should be careful not to take to much responsibility but at the same time to carefully examine themselves to look for hints of similar behaviour prior to the relationship and post.

I have read some threads in which I have a sense that there might be an overly 'inward' look and I spent a very long time doing the same myself.

The reason I feel mostly as you do now is that now I can see the connection with introspection and looking inward, as admirable as that might be, as a borderline (forgive the pun) way of taking too much responsibility and maybe some continued 'wish' that if only we were different, they might have been.

It's not a 'one size fits all' thing. This is very tricky stuff and even after years of unrelated and very positive experiences in therapy for life stuff, I found that seeing my therapist to constantly work on myself in relation to what I was experiencing when i was with my BPD ex fiancee, quickly reached a point of diminishing returns and in fact kept me from really understanding what was going on.

I was the one to diagnose (for myself) my ex... . It took a long time... . But once I locked it in and it's more than obvious, everything started to change (for the better).

It's been almost 6 years since we met and we were engaged and ended about 3 years ago... . and even though looking back I used almost all the same descriptive words such as 'idealizing', putting on a pedestal, and so forth, without a definitive understanding about what was at play, I had no chance and I was constantly in a crazed state.

I get uneasy feelings at times, just as you do when I read about these very introspective therapy sessions when our ex's might have done things that can only be described as well... .   insane.

But again, unless you walked away and were able to avoid the relationship in the first place, you are effected and probably a bit damaged by it... . Asking the question of your own culpability is important but with so many therapists out there how do not delve in deeper to figure out the dynamics and isolate the BPD aspect, very often i feel we are not only spinning our wheels but possibly causing unintentional collateral damage.

[MaybeSo]

Part of my growth has been my own  self acceptance that I'm not a perfect relationship partner as a non, that I am far from perfect, and that some of my reactions were abusive.

I dont accept this as a form of self flagellation or as self punishment or even shame, or blame... .   though at first all those things came up for me and it felt really scary

But i think the lesson for me was to see and accept all of me, even my dark side, with compassion for all my humanity in total.  And with that self compassion i accept that, yes, I too have the capacity under certain circumstances to act abusively and controlling, and with that acceptsnce I can understand myself better and I think today I'd be much less likely to repeat that reactive behavior. I am thankful for the insight, but I don't imagine my actions made all the difference in the relationship; still, I don't want to act abusively as it's not my value system and it's also unproductive and breaks connection-I want to do better than that.

It's not helpful to beat ourselves up; sometimes heightened awareness is scary, but it doesn't need to be about self-punishment or self-blame. That certainly can slip into the comforting and unrealistic notion that we are all powerful and everything happens because of us. No, it doesn't. We are not that powerful. We are only human.

[theboro504]

Excellent post! Thank you for writing this.

[GreenMango]

Looking at both parts of the dynamic can help to grow - and help to not get into another bad relationship.

It's a dynamic - two parts.  Like gasoline and match - not mixed together they are pretty predictable and have their good and bad qualities.  But together its a problem.

Like Maybeso said it isn't about beating yourself up.  It's about changing the parts that are destructive or detrimental to longterm happiness.

[Hurt llama]

^ I agree of course.

And do recognize I can be the gasoline or the match in the pairing but I do make sure to remind myself that my problems in relationships (and I do have them) has not kept me from having successful ones that did not contain the elements of a clear and sad mental illness.

I say this to remind myself, not that it's her not me but that she has never been about to have a steady safe nurturing relationship and never will unless she makes some massive changes or as she gets older finds ways of adapting (she's in her 40's).

I prefer to think of both parties having culpability and yes 100% that's true... . but it's been extremely difficult to finally start to remember more who I was and reconnecting that I am capable of a relationship that does contain some excitement but doesn't push so far into territory that is just purely toxic.

I think healing from the damage requires us to understand both how we were and how we weren't as responsible as we thought we are... . but that's neither a 'get out of jail free card' or being either the match or the gas.