Did WE truly love them...

[goldylamont]

i believe i loved my ex, sure. i'm very slow to fall in love and to give myself fully to my partner (probably to a fault)... this is something i've noticed about myself and something several ex's (all healthy except BPD) have mentioned. but when i do say "i love you"... .i mean it. and i meant it with her. i've been in love both before and after xBPD and i felt much the same with her as i did with the other women i loved. i think she loved me too--and, while i do take this with a huuuge grain of salt  overall in our r/s there were more good times than bad. i left when this wasn't true any more. i question much of the time we were together, several years, and sure that her recollection of things would be different... .but i can't really speak for her. i showed my love and respect for her as much after the r/s ended as i did when we were together, in my opinion. my ex was pretty high functioning (well, at least when we were together... afterwards, not so much). and, sure i can see where and why i let things slide before that i thought i never would  i'm not calling that love, but there was genuine love there. many times she was there for me, caring, loving. i was the same. but for her it just wasn't sustainable, and by the time i started figuring out the root of the issue it was just too late. in a way i'm glad i didn't know about BPD during the r/s because if i did i'm sure i would have tried to work through things and stay with her, and this would have been a big mistake (for me at least).

[houseofswans]

I would to hear more if anyone can provide links that answer this question "professionally"

I've sent you a pm 

[Iwalk-Heruns]

BB12, you totally nailed it.  This is a recurring theme on this site and the last time I stated this point (far less succinctly) the thread was deluged with people saying there was no question they were in love, regardless of what someone else experienced.  I imagine the same response from posters and lurkers to this, as getting to the point of understanding this is a huge challenge.  The truth is, however, that it's what we have to accept if we want to ever fully recover from the toxicity of the r/s with a pwBPD.  Thanks for the clarity.

LT

I believe everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of love. Reading some of these post with all do respect I think it's being over analyzed. Making it too complicated and absolute. And a little bit of dangerous thinking. IMHO.

Although a lot of our exes have had the same behaviors and we have the same stories we are in the end all individuals. We have different backgrounds, different upbringings, different belief systems... .

I absolutely do not believe that just because they started exhibiting bad behavior and treatment we couldn't have loved them. Sometimes that behavior creeped in slowly after we were already in love. 

Having a hard time accepting the person they were definitely yes. Did it turn unhealthy absolutely. But never in love. No. I definitely loved him which is why his treatment of me was so painful. I wasted my love on someone who couldn't reciprocate but pretended he could.

It's the intermittent reinforcement that keeps us there longer than we should stay. And if your married and have children there is so many more issues involved. I was not but for those that are can't just walk away.

[Iwalk-Heruns]

"They filled a void in our life."  This is a reocurring theme in posts and I personally think it minimizes us as loving people and devalues us. Which is what they would do to us.  It makes it sound like love can only be needy. OF COURSE THEY FILLED A AVOID IN OUR LIFE! That's part of what real love is, even with healthy relationships. If we don't have love in our life there is a void. What is more important in life than our loving connections with others. I don't buy into this theory. I think it is detrimental to healing. Of course everyone is different and if you think you were in it only because they were an object to fill that void and they could have been anyone well that's a different story but again it's not absolute.

[ShadowDancer]

Fascinating Infatuation.

[Findingmysong723]

I realize my love for my Ex became unhealthy, I felt crazy by the end of that relationship! However, the love I gave to him was from a real and loving place!  I wanted to be a team, I wanted to be his biggest supporter in his sobriety and supportive to all the things he wanted to do in his life! I know I showed him love in many ways, by supporting the "family" I thought we were creating, with him, I and the cats (aka kids). Writing him long notes in cards telling him how much I cared about him and why etc. I can look myself in the eyes and say yes I made mistakes, but I was a great girlfriend to him that showed him love and care and he knows it somewhere deep down, but most importantly I know it!

[Perfidy]

... .Or was it the simple fact that they filled a void in our lives that was so desperately needing filled?

Something I am currently debating in my head right now.

My own feeling is that WE needed them and that is why most of us put up with the nightmare.

How could anyone love someone that throws so much abuse at you?

They made us feel like we had met our soulmate from the very moment we met. The intimacy that we all needed and was missing?


I felt that I had met her before I had really even met her. First time I ever laid eyes on her I felt like I had known her forever. I didn't even know her but I had known her forever. Yes call it weird. The universe is us. We are the universe. We are made from the same matter that was present when the universe was born.

[Perfidy]

The answer for me is yes. I did love her. It changed. I realized I loved her and fulfilled her needs. When it came to my needs it changed. I cared for her like a sick child. When I really needed her in my corner she bailed. Lopsided yes. I expected her love. It never happened. I loved her without the condition of her loving me. Much the same as god loves us.

[goldylamont]

"They filled a void in our life."  This is a reocurring theme in posts and I personally think it minimizes us as loving people and devalues us. Which is what they would do to us.  It makes it sound like love can only be needy. OF COURSE THEY FILLED A AVOID IN OUR LIFE! That's part of what real love is, even with healthy relationships. If we don't have love in our life there is a void. What is more important in life than our loving connections with others. I don't buy into this theory. I think it is detrimental to healing. Of course everyone is different and if you think you were in it only because they were an object to fill that void and they could have been anyone well that's a different story but again it's not absolute.

Thank you Iwalk-Heruns! I needed this, sometimes I feel like odd man out as my experience is different than most. I agree, I think after much reflection and time each of us comes to different conclusions. For some they see any "love" they gave or received as non-existent. I feel like there was true love exchanged in both directions in my case, and I appreciate the efforts on my ex's part for this (at least). I'm not a needy lover and wasn't with her. But of course I want and need a loving and honest relationship.

[bb12]

hmmmm... .my take on all of this is that we matched the emotional maturity of our xBPD. And given the borderline condition itself involves a level of stunted emotional development, then whatever we thought was love was actually a bit under-cooked. At the time, my relationship felt like love... .especially when things were good. But knowing what I do now about codependency and my own self-sacrifice schema, I put my own needs last and barely knew what I wanted in life or love - let alone how to negotiate getting them within the relationship. And knowing what I do now about BPD and my partner's issues with both abandonment and intimacy, the love he had to give was a loaded and precarious one. I absolutely respect that these relationships are not cookie cut replicas and that a deeper and more mature love was experienced by some of the members on here but for mine, there was too much unspoken and unconscious fear from each of us, to ever describe what we had as love.

bb12

[HarmKrakow]

"They filled a void in our life."  This is a reocurring theme in posts and I personally think it minimizes us as loving people and devalues us. Which is what they would do to us.  It makes it sound like love can only be needy. OF COURSE THEY FILLED A AVOID IN OUR LIFE! That's part of what real love is, even with healthy relationships. If we don't have love in our life there is a void. What is more important in life than our loving connections with others. I don't buy into this theory. I think it is detrimental to healing. Of course everyone is different and if you think you were in it only because they were an object to fill that void and they could have been anyone well that's a different story but again it's not absolute.

I'm sorry but this is the biggest load of hogwash i've read on this forum in a long time.

[Iwalk-Heruns]

"They filled a void in our life."  This is a reocurring theme in posts and I personally think it minimizes us as loving people and devalues us. Which is what they would do to us.  It makes it sound like love can only be needy. OF COURSE THEY FILLED A AVOID IN OUR LIFE! That's part of what real love is, even with healthy relationships. If we don't have love in our life there is a void. What is more important in life than our loving connections with others. I don't buy into this theory. I think it is detrimental to healing. Of course everyone is different and if you think you were in it only because they were an object to fill that void and they could have been anyone well that's a different story but again it's not absolute.

I'm sorry but this is the biggest load of hogwash i've read on this forum in a long time.

That's ok harm krakow. When I saw you had responded I knew it was going to be negative. I prepared myself for a mean response.

[Iwalk-Heruns]

The answer for me is yes. I did love her. It changed. I realized I loved her and fulfilled her needs. When it came to my needs it changed. I cared for her like a sick child. When I really needed her in my corner she bailed. Lopsided yes. I expected her love. It never happened. I loved her without the condition of her loving me. Much the same as god loves us.

Yes! I believe this fully perfidy. I think sometimes it's thought that if someone didn't or couldn't love us back or were not good to us we could not have loved them. True love does not expect anything in return. Of course we need certain things from our partners in order to have a healthy relationship and stay but that is a completely different issue than did we actually love them.

I think people mix up romantic love with true love. I'm not sure how anyone can judge anyone whether they loved someone or not. Only the giver can know this for sure.

Sometimes my son can act really crappy and not treat me with respect. (Although, most times he does) should I not love him because of this?

Love is a decision not a feeling!

[Lao Tzu]

My Dear Family (that's what we are, you know),

    I suggest we agree to define love operationally; it's what you think it is.  Harm, I feel your anger and, personally, I'm glad you feel comfortable enough with us to let it be expressed a little.  We can take it.  I've read that if you scratch the surface of an angry person you find a hurt person, and we all know a lot about that end of things.  I tend to reject what I see as a fantasy-based approach to understanding, but we should understand that fantasy and anger are both defenses against the world of hurt we've been feeling.  My personal foible is probably that I'm certainly more guilty than most of the 'arm chair psychology' thing that has been complained about (rightly) above, but we all want to help each other with whatever tools we have to help us understand what we're going through. I take what I can to help myself and try to 'pay forward' in the only way I can.  I think we're all doing that, aren't we?

LT

[Iwalk-Heruns]

I'm with you Iwalk-Heruns.

HarmKrakow post is bit grouchy, but I've seen his sentiment expressed often on this site. Usually it's someone who is co-dependent and with lots of family/childhood issues expressing that they know, beyond a doubt,  , that anyone else who could ever be in a r/s a pwBPD has to be a serious co-dependent with family issues just like them. there's a rumor going around i suppose that it must be true. this is why i call it projecting b/c it reminds me how my ex used to project all her ill behaviors onto me (she acts narcissistic, so i *must* be narcissistic. i'm codependent, so you *must* be codependent... .). it does seem though that the majority of people posting do feel they have issues such as these, but most people posting are always cordial and refrain from such absolutes. just not grouchy  

later on when i have time i'll start a post to see if there are others who don't feel they aren't co-dependent or needy (not that this is so bad, we all have issues, trust i've got mine  ) so we can explore what issues we actually do have without the extra noise.

Cool! That would be great. I look forward to seeing it goldylamont. Thanks!

[Turkish]

For the record, not to go off on a tangent, but: 1 Corinthians 13:

"If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

"13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

As humans, we obviously miss the mark.

[Learning_curve74]

I believe there are many types and faces to love. Do you love your dog, your children, your parents, and your friends? It is a challenge to define love simply in a way that encompasses the love we have for all these, and it is love that we experience for all these, of that I have no doubt.

Everybody's story here is similar but different too. I have no doubt that I loved my exBPDgf, and I also have no doubt that she loved me. I also have no doubt that we also fulfilled an unhealthy need in each other.

Imagine my exBPDgf was my daughter instead. And in many ways our relationship was loaded with this type of parent-child dynamic, but I digress... .If I decide that I can no longer have contact with my adult daughter, that our relationship and interactions are unhealthy, that all my hopes and dreams for her will likely never come to pass, that she will never be the person that I hoped she would be, does that mean I never loved her to begin with?

[Ironmanrises]

I think we all need a group hug here. We are all hurting, we are all in our own hell. And we all love/ed our exPwBPD in our own particular way. It is why we are here. Some of us struggling more then others, but struggling nonetheless. Including me. 

[ShadowDancer]

There is nothing you can know that isn't known

Nothing you can see that isn't shown

There is nowhere you can be that isn't where

You are meant to be

It's easy

All you need is love love.

Love is all you need. Love is all you need.

Thanks John Lennon!

[Skip]

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

"13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The 1 Corthians Epistle is one I have revisited many times since my healing.  It's good reading regardless of your faith.  Paul addressed this young Corinthian church that was located in the midst of a large, decadent seaport city, a city deeply immersed in pagan idolatry and immorality. The believers were primarily Gentiles converted by Paul on his second missionary journey. In Paul's absence the church had fallen into serious problems of disunity, sexual immorality, confusion over matters involving holy living.

They were asking questions much like we are asking in this thread.   

I've come to embrace what is written above as my blue print for how to love.

I think I did reasonably well in my past relationship except in one area - love is not self-seeking.  When our relationship was was failing, I should have stopped trying to control the outcome and let her go with grace.  When I finally did, I believe I was really showing my love.  It hurt and it was hard and I couldn't do it at first.  I loved her.  I loved her boys.  And they loved me.  It seemed like a great loss for everyone and I cried like a mother dog who lost her pups.  I loved those kids.

But holding a relationship together is both parties responsibility... .and if one party can't or won't... .I believe we need to accept that... .with grace.

I read this last week.  After all the reading I have done, that last place I expected to find a psychology gem was WedMD.  I think this followed the section on colitis. 

"Codependency, by definition, means ... .you're trying to make the relationship work with someone else who's not."

www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/signs-of-a-codependent-relationship

[ShadowDancer]

Skip,

The ability to let go is truly a "graceful" act. Perhaps the greatest act of compassion known to humans. The concept of "let go and let God" is so simple and yet at times so difficult. A quote that clarifies this for me is, "when the last shall come first and the first will come last". The first being myself. Placing myself there is humbling to say the least but it helps me to stay in that place of "for the grace of God there go I".

A little BPD humor if I may:

If you let go of a thing that you love and it comes back, that just means no one else wanted it... .yet!  

[MindfulJavaJoe]

... .Or was it the simple fact that they filled a void in our lives that was so desperately needing filled?

Something I am currently debating in my head right now.

My own feeling is that WE needed them and that is why most of us put up with the nightmare.

How could anyone love someone that throws so much abuse at you?

They made us feel like we had met our soulmate from the very moment we met. The intimacy that we all needed and was missing?

An interesting question and one to which I would have said "yes" to unreservedly a couple of years ago.

On further reflection I see the answer is far more complex.

We met, I was mirrored on the night we met,  we talked for hours. We had so much in common (by definition she did a good job of mirroring me). Was I falling in love with her or was I falling for some idealised woman. I suspect the latter.

So what were my needs? Why did I feel the need to fall for this woman? Why did I feel the need to rescue her from her dreadful past and the emptiness which seem to haunt her? By definition she was satisfying a need in me. As with most things in life it was necessary to take a long hard look at myself, to look at my childhood and my relationship with my parents and primary care givers. 

Once hooked I then held firm this fantasy of having met the perfect soul-mate despite intermittent demonstrations to the contrary. Emotional bombs, verbal abuse and belittling. What need had I inside me to hold onto this fantasy?

As time went on the scale and depth of my fantasy became profound. This is something which we struggle to come to terms with as we learn to detach from our ex-BPD partners. Unless we look ourselves in the face see who we truly are and why we needed to hold on so tightly to our fantasy even when all good may have gone from the relationship then we risk either being recycled or worse falling into another BPD relationship (not as uncommon as you might think).

I think we are capable of great love, great compassion, great generosity, great tolerance and great forgiveness. These are strengths that we should be proud of but they are also weaknesses that we need to recognise. Did we love too much, show too much compassion, were too generous, too tolerant and too forgiving?

If we lost ourselves in our BPD relationship then it is almost certain that we did the latter. We failed to look after ourselves first and foremost and we failed to set boundaries and failed to recognise when boundaries were crossed.

Did you fall in love with a fantasy and fall in love with being in love, sacrificing perspective, losing touch with reality?

Being honest with one's past. Open to one's needs and how they were met to some degree in a dysfunctional relationship then we are in a position to do the work to begin to detachment and to take the steps towards freedom.

The path to freedom is long and painful to negotiate but once taken you will know yourself as never before. Stay focused and do not lose your resolve to completely detach from your past experience.

Thank you for posting. I wish you well.

MJJ

[Conundrum]

Success in love is a quixotic benchmark, when having loved a pwBPD. A scorched aftertaste may linger, long after loving moments become cobwebs within the attics of our minds. It is a righteous defense. For does it not feel better to burn the witch, than acknowledge susceptibility to her spell. A spell which is a contrivance may still possess essential materials from the conjurers soul. Yet in our dreams (or nightmares), that spell is woven again--and both conjurer and supplicant merge--indistinguishable--neither black, nor white, nor shade of gray--ethereal, and unworldly. And then you awake, to face the daily grind--with many choices. Smile. All things change... . 

[goldylamont]

Success in love is a quixotic benchmark, when having loved a pwBPD. A scorched aftertaste may linger, long after loving moments become cobwebs within the attics of our minds. It is a righteous defense. For does it not feel better to burn the witch, than acknowledge susceptibility to her spell. A spell which is a contrivance may still possess essential materials from the conjurers soul. Yet in our dreams (or nightmares), that spell is woven again--and both conjurer and supplicant merge--indistinguishable--neither black, nor white, nor shade of gray--ethereal, and unworldly. And then you awake, to face the daily grind--with many choices. Smile. All things change... . 

well that was nice. thanks for sharing.

[Conundrum]

well that was nice. thanks for sharing.

Your welcome.

[findingmyselfagain]

Lots of insightful posts here. My r/s was relatively short, engaged in 4 months, broken up after 9 months... .just before the wedding date. No recycling. Basically a textbook borderline r/s. I'd have to say that I did love her, but I fell in love with the Mirror. In a way I guess I'm lucky I didn't have as much time to see as much of the devaluing behavior as others, but detaching hasn't been easy for me. So I'd say I loved someone, but it wasn't her. She is insecure, temperamental, depressed, and very hard to deal with. If I moved slower, or even paid attention to a few red flags, I wouldn't have jumped in head first.

[OTH]

I loved her. Letting go was so hard. I had so much hope for her even when I knew something was horribly wrong. She truly exposed my worst weaknesses and made clear the effects that my own dysfunctional family had on my relationship patterns. I was no good for her though. I was her crutch. I helped her manage her emotions and when I wasn't there for her she fell apart. I couldn't be with her 24/7. We both needed to grow separately. On our own.

"Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you."

Wayne Dyer

I'm recently back from India(work). I haven't posted in a long time and I won't be around too long. I see things haven't changed much. Glad people are still finding help here. Life is a great blessing and there are truly many wonderful people in this world. I've met some of them on these pages

[Phoenix.Rising]

This is a good thread.  I echo what I read about having the grace to let go with love.  For me, has been and is one of the greatest tests of any love that I may have. 

She is not the enemy, or the devil, or a witch, or subhuman, or any of these other things I hear people saying on these boards.  She is a human, like myself, and she deserves my love, which in my case means leaving her alone.

[goldylamont]

Success in love is a quixotic benchmark, when having loved a pwBPD. A scorched aftertaste may linger, long after loving moments become cobwebs within the attics of our minds. It is a righteous defense. For does it not feel better to burn the witch, than acknowledge susceptibility to her spell. A spell which is a contrivance may still possess essential materials from the conjurers soul. Yet in our dreams (or nightmares), that spell is woven again--and both conjurer and supplicant merge--indistinguishable--neither black, nor white, nor shade of gray--ethereal, and unworldly. And then you awake, to face the daily grind--with many choices. Smile. All things change... . 

well that was nice. thanks for sharing.

Hello all, wanted to clear something up as a side note--my comment above about Conundrum's quote was truly heartfelt and not meant to be snarky. The truth is, I'm a musician and songwriter and I really enjoyed the fact that Conundrum wrote something poetic and intellectual about the situation. My intention was to compliment and encourage this. But perhaps the brevity of my comment could be confused for being a smart arse comment--which it was *not* intended to be. Just wanted to clear that up in case it came across the wrong way. Conundrum, please do keep sharing artful words, I love this stuff and hope you keep it up.