BPD/NPD

[charred]

By the way, in the beginning, mine told me "it's OK if I'm your rebound." 

Deep down, I think they know they have issues.

I think they know right at the surface... . my exBPDgf is quite aware of psychology in general and BPD and developmental psychology/attachment theory. What I didn't think to ask was WHY she knew all that stuff... . after the fact I understand.

If people know a lot about something... . there is a reason, they have an interest in it... . and if it is something odd, like BPD... . there is a reason. Few people just decide to learn about it one day. I managed to ignore a lot of  's.

Not even sure my hind sight is 20/20 at this point.

[Conundrum]

The anecdotal stories here contain a lot of suffering. Often those stories resemble emotional scorecards that articulate our pain. An itemized list of sorrows rooted in shame. We describe ourselves as being "drawn in, needy, fooled and manipulated." We not so subtly endorse the notion that attaching to a disordered person is shameful behavior. It isn’t shameful attaching to a person who winds up letting you down. What it does, is present a series of choices. If a person is suffering because they lingered too long in their relationship with a pwBPD, grant yourself absolution and grace. Tilting at windmills is an extremely common human characteristic when matters of the heart are involved. It doesn’t equate to being a lesser human being at all.     

The most debilitating aspect though, is when we shame ourselves for becoming vulnerable with a person who is disordered. Accordingly, we also shame the disordered person for failing to mirror our vulnerability indefinitely--though ab initio they lacked the capacity because of their relational disorder.     

I consider it inconsistent that when we expressed vulnerability with our pwBPD it felt amazingly appropriate, but ex post facto we consider it shameful. I think that is due to mischaracterizing the purpose of vulnerability--it is a state of being. It is both a choice and a gift. In sum total, it advances humanity. We did not debase ourselves by becoming vulnerable with someone who could not conventionally reciprocate. The contrary is true. We shared a humanizing personality trait with a person who suffered a core attachment wound as a young child. That positive act creates good karma. It only becomes a negative when we shame the gift.

[johnnyonthespot]

Just wow, conundrum. Thank you.

[fromheeltoheal]

We did not debase ourselves by becoming vulnerable with someone who could not conventionally reciprocate. The contrary is true. We shared a humanizing personality trait with a person who suffered a core attachment wound as a young child. That positive act creates good karma.

Yes.  I've reminded myself many times since the dissolution of our relationship that she got my best.  Especially important to remind myself of that when I lapsed into self doubt or feelings of inadequacy.  No.  She got my best.  Vulnerability is either there or it isn't, there is no half way for me, and when it is there it is honest and pure and beautiful.  And more than enough.  And I know she felt it, and I know she liked the way it made her feel.  Yeah, things didn't work out, but she felt that honest pure vulnerability and it helped her.  Yes it did, no regrets, no guilt, I was there all the way.

[charred]

The anecdotal stories here contain a lot of suffering. Often those stories resemble emotional scorecards that articulate our pain. An itemized list of sorrows rooted in shame. We describe ourselves as being "drawn in, needy, fooled and manipulated." We not so subtly endorse the notion that attaching to a disordered person is shameful behavior. It isn’t shameful attaching to a person who winds up letting you down. What it does, is present a series of choices. If a person is suffering because they lingered too long in their relationship with a pwBPD, grant yourself absolution and grace. Tilting at windmills is an extremely common human characteristic when matters of the heart are involved. It doesn’t equate to being a lesser human being at all.     

The most debilitating aspect though, is when we shame ourselves for becoming vulnerable with a person who is disordered. Accordingly, we also shame the disordered person for failing to mirror our vulnerability indefinitely--though ab initio they lacked the capacity because of their relational disorder.     

I consider it inconsistent that when we expressed vulnerability with our pwBPD it felt amazingly appropriate, but ex post facto we consider it shameful. I think that is due to mischaracterizing the purpose of vulnerability--it is a state of being. It is both a choice and a gift. In sum total, it advances humanity. We did not debase ourselves by becoming vulnerable with someone who could not conventionally reciprocate. The contrary is true. We shared a humanizing personality trait with a person who suffered a core attachment wound as a young child. That positive act creates good karma. It only becomes a negative when we shame the gift.

I disagree... . and feel shame is the right thing to feel.

If I had done it once... . it was forgivable. Twice... . I am stupidly forgiving of her, but hey its understandable. All told... . 8 times... . tried and recycled. Many of the people on here have done the same thing. By the later tries... . deep down I knew she lied to me and I rationalized taking her back and being able to "deal with it", but the it was a lack of integrity. I can't deal with the primary person in my life being a 24/7/365 liar at heart... . a manipulator.

And it isn't just that... . to go back and have it work out I would need to be a sort of caretaker for her, absorb even more abuse without returning it in kind... . be a floor mat to this disordered person.

When I first met my exBPDgf... . I was very confident, was an athlete, in a fraternity house, had a Corvette convertible and was president of a successful small chain of minor emergency centers... . I gave that all up when she dumped me the first time... . years later I had re-established myself, had a kid and a wife that I had been with 22 yrs... . and stupidly gave up my marriage, 1/2 of my stuff, a lot of money... . and lost a job due to trying to make an r/s with a disordered woman work... . and I couldn't do it, and despite trying harder than I have at anything... . I failed to accept that she was disordered... . to truly accept what that meant for me... . either abandoning my dreams/expectations and hopes and living a life of misery with her... . or take my lumps and get on with life.  I have been taking lumps... . and one is being humble enough to realize that I am needy enough deep down to have fallen for the lies she told me... . to have ignored the  's she put up, to have rationalized her circular screwball non-sense justifications for unjustifiable behavior.

So... . some people can and maybe should forgive themselves... . I don't and am driven to action by it, I was a fool, gave up people and relationships that mattered for someone that is essentially an emotional con-man. Now I am in my fifties, have little of my retirement money left (divorce)... . no wife, my family isn't living with me (daughter)... . and its my doing.

I have learned a lot from this ... . would never have been driven to address many of my issues were it not for the devastation she brought to me, and that I eagerly participated in.  What is there to be proud of in it?

[Conundrum]

The absence of shame does not beget pride but affords peace. You regret that your desire brought suffering in the form of consequences. Yet during the course of your 30-year relationship those consequences were foreseeable. You could not master your desire because want was confused with need. Therefore insatiable want drives the engine of desire, and the substances that we choose to abuse can be methamphetamine or a BPD woman. The pipe seduces with it's promise of pleasure, but do we blame the paraphernalia. The disordered woman seduces do we blame her or her disorder. We can blame ourselves for the addiction, but being addicted implies loss of volitional control. So as you can see when trying to make sense of irrational desire, blame serves little purpose because the desire is stronger than our free will.

Life is a continuum. It is good to learn and grow. It is not good to separate one' self into half's, declaring that the before will no longer exist in the after. All these are elements of  of our personas, and they remain inside of us even when we constrain them. To shame those parts is to deny our essential natures. To balance those parts brings harmony.