When you love someone you CHOOSE not to do things that you know will hurt them

[Candace30]

     Sometimes I get SO angry because I feel that if my ex REALLY loved me, he would CHOOSE NOT to do things that he knew would hurt me!

     When I love someone, I CONSIDER them.  I consider their feelings.  I consider them in my choices.  I choose my words carefully.  I think about them before I do things, and I choose not to do things that would hurt them.

     My ex BPD bf told me he loved me.  But his actions never showed it.  I feel like he didn't/doesn't consider me.  From the pictures he posted all of the time on facebook and instagram of him with other women (which he KNEW I could view), flirtations, open disrespect, going out of town with telling me, giving me the silent treatment for days/weeks at a time whenever I expressed any kind of outrage at his actions, never complimenting me/always making me feel "less than", making up stories to get emotional reactions out of me or make me mad when he was mad, to always keeping me at a distance.  I would never do things things to someone I cared about.  Or to ANYONE for that matter.  So, how could he tell me he that he loved me, and then turn around and do these things?

     He says over and over again that he can't control himself.  He says he has zero control over his behavior and there is something within him that causes him to hurt the people he loves.

     It makes me so angry, because if you were to meet him initially, he presents as someone completely normal - confidant, charismatic, very intelligent.  So much so, that sometimes "I" think I have made up this whole BPD thing in my mind.  But I know that I haven't because I can't deny what I've seen over the past 3 years.

    I still love him but I am disgusted by him.  I love him, but I don't want to be around him.  Is that possible?  I just don't get it.  Everything he has told me sounds like a piss poor excuse to me.  When you love someone, you CHOOSE not to hurt them.  Anything else does not make any type of sense to me.   

[charred]

Few things... . first, real love takes a while to develop, its a genuine response to your values being shown in the other person... . most the time the infatuation we get with a pwBPD isn't real love on either side, it is mirroring on the pwBPD's side and feeling like we met our perfect match... . person that gives us unconditional love which we severely crave... . BUT WHICH THEY ARE NOT... . on our side. Or more simply its needyness on both sides.

Second, a pwBPD is disordered, they have an arrested emotional development... . arrested at a very early age, like 2-3 yrs old... . they haven't hit stage of having empathy, little object constancy (out of sight really is out of mind)... . and they lack integrity... . in the sense that they are not integrated, they do not act consistently as they have disordered defense mechanisms that kick in and cause issues.

When you love someone you consider them, consider their feelings, etc... . a pwBPD... . might at times, but you can't count on it, and when they are under stress in the r/s they will manipulate, flip, push/pull and generally make you crazy.

You want to be nice and give the benefit of the doubt to him and see him as your equal/partner, but hold him to reality, to your standards of truth/fairplay... . and you will see that he doesn't belong on a pedestal, but rather in therapy for a long long time.

[MaybeSo]

When you love someone you choose not to do things that you know will hurt them.

This is generally true if you are not mentally ill (other than the fact that all people who love others do sometimes hurt or disappoint a loved one).

But, it's much different with a mentally ill person. It's not the occasional mistake; it's a whole other can of worms.

So, it's really important to gain radical acceptance of what YOU are choosing when you choose a mentally ill person for a partner. 

And keep examining YOUR choices based on reality.

Healthy people generally choose other healthy people to partner with.  If we are not doing that, we have to really start examining ourselves.   

[ObiRedKenobi]

No normal people don't do things to hurt the people they love. We tend to pull our punches a bit so to speak just to avoid hurting feelings too bad. I went round and round with my ex over this.

She would tell me how insensitive I would be and how I hurt her feelings. I would admit that I had been a little insensitive or could have done some things better. And truth is some times I could be a bone head but I never did anything intentionally to hurt her feelings. I would ask her why then did she intentionally go out of her way to do things she knew would hurt me. Her response was always that she wanted me to hurt the way she hurt. None of it makes any sense because she would always go over the top usually berating me till I would just sit there and shake. Sometimes she would break things I cared about.

I just have to keep reminding myself that this was not a normal relationship. I tell myself that it won't make sense may never make sense. I think anger is good at least it is in my case. It seems to be what shook me out of the funk I was in.

[Cooper10]

I benefited a lot from this thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=204876.0

[bpdspell]

When I love someone, I CONSIDER them.  I consider their feelings.  I consider them in my choices.  I choose my words carefully.  I think about them before I do things, and I choose not to do things that would hurt them.

... . My ex BPD bf told me he loved me.  But his actions never showed it.  

Well that's the thing Candance. You are not him and you are not mentally ill; he is.

People with BPD lack empathy. It's a part of the disorder of narcissism. Do not get caught up in the "if I can do it... . he can do it" emotional trap. It's very tempting to believe that they are capable of changing their hardwired core with the ease of turning on a lamp but this is not true.

He is not you and thankfully you are not him. Mentally ill people have a history, a narrative and a childhood that have shaped them to be the persons that they are today. When we come into the picture we tend to focus on what's in front of us instead of the history of this person. We focus on what we feel we need from the person instead of accepting the totality of the person.

He behaves this way because it is how he has learned to survive and live his entire life... . way before you came into the picture. You are taking his behavior personal because you want him to love you the way you crave to be loved. The truth is that he behaves this way because he's sick and you will have to learn to accept that and make a better choice for yourself.

He is not the one for you because he is hurting you. If you stay he will continue to hurt you because his disorder is in control of him. Your love cannot change HIM.

They say they love us but their disorder will make their words feel empty. Our challenge is accepting that their capacity to meet the needs of others is limited.

I thought I could teach my ex how to love me because I desperately believed that I could fix him and model to him how to love me. That is our way of trying to be in control so that we can be loved and it doesn't work because love cannot fix a mental illness.

Spell

[seeking balance]

It helped me understand the disorder by defining love a bit differently.

Love as an emotion - a noun - we all can feel this.  It doesn't require much effort really.

Love as an action - a verb - requires self awareness and discipline.  It requires the ability to "act" sometime in ways not aligned with our impulse emotions.  pwBPD have very strong emotions that fluctuate often.  As such, their actions are sometimes designed to cope with these emotions that over-ride what you might define as love. 

Keep remembering - those actions that feel unloving to you are really about your ex soothing some other emotion, NOT about you or even loving you.

Be angry - this is an important phase of grief and anger opens the door for the hurt.  Ultimately, it is pain and hurt we process because you are right... . it isn't fair.  Nothing about BPD is fair on either side.

Peace,

SB