Why do you stay?

[Mazda]

Why do you stay with your SO? Is it love? Is it FOG? Is it for the children?  So you think you will leave one day?

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[coffees86]

I guess it's your own fear of having no one else around. And for me also the fear of really let her know that she will be left alone... .

Mainly fear... .

[froggy]

Obligation... . and enough love left to not do what he fears most... . after 33 years I'm really not sure I can be in a normal relationship.

[elemental]

I thought I was seeing improvement. I have been hoping there would be more as I learn the tools. I learned already that you can love someone but in terms of actually being able to have a relationship is the crux.

Can deal with some things but the lack of remorse he is inflicting for some things, while making  massive issues out of things I do that are about 1% as bad is kind of getting to me. I want to try the tools before I give up.

I am having a lot of resentment. It's telling me not to talk to him while he is being this way.

[Seneca]

our children. he is a loon, but a good dad and they adore him. i will not leave until it is appropriate, that will be when the balance shifts to the r/s being more HARMFUL than beneficial to my kids, or until our kids are emancipated. whichever comes first. i have told him i am romantically disengaged from him, however. we are business partners and acquaintances now. i encourage him in his healing, but do not give him anymore emotional power over me. he hates this, but just like most others with BPD, is incapable of leaving me... . no matter what he threatens. this means i have no romantic life for the foreseeable future. yes, this is sad. my children are worth it though. 

[PacifistMom]

I love him deeply and have since a few weeks after I met him, over 10 years ago.

If I can learn how to stop letting myself be hurt, and how to better enforce boundaries, it will be better.

If I can get him to go to therapy I have even greater hope. The fact that once every year or two he breaks down and his personal truths come out about his insecurities, how he directs his fears (most of all his fear of failure) onto me and blames me for shortcomings etc, gives me a glimmer of hope that he has the ability to translate his emotions more appropriately with professional help. Truly and wholly accepting that I am not the one to get him there is helping me feel a bit liberated.

As to leaving? If there is no improvement and it starts to affects my daughter, then I have to put her first. Too much for a developing mind and heart.  I've been working much harder on coming to terms with this, protecting myself and my daughter while exploring how I can love him better, since the little one came into the picture.

[sadinsweden]

I stay because I sold my house, my car, and all my belongings to move to Sweden to be with "the love of my life". What a wonderful life we were going to have. And then I got here. And after having known this man for 15 years, I found he had totally misrepresented himself. And now I'm in hell.

I'm struggling to maintain my own identity. To continue to reinvent myself in a new country and to run a business here. To learn a new language and a new culture. I committed to moving here to be with this guy and to make Sweden my new home. I can not, again, return to my home and reinvent myself AGAIN. I can't afford it.

If this were back in the U.S., I've leave him immediately... . or at the very least make sure we had our own separate apartments/homes. I've already taken care of a parent with Alzheimer's disease and I raised two sons as a single mom after my husband and I divorced. I've done the "care giver" thing. This was suppose to be a new life for me... . for us.

Ultimately, I see myself getting my own place. Maybe not abandoning the r/s, but living on my own again sounds mighty nice. He's impossible to live with and his BPD makes it nearly impossible for me to pursue my own goals... . not only pursue my goals, but to be the person I am. (Walking on Eggshells causes US to make adjustments to our own personalities. I'm never comfortable here.)

[empathic]

For the children.

For worries of how she will cope, she's not a person who likes being alone longer periods.

For the fear of loneliness.

And somewhat, for the fear of disappointing relatives and friends (this one is diminishing more and more with time though).

[waverider]

It starts as a default mode, then shock and disbelief that it is not individual issues but something deeper (tomorrow will be better delusions). Then you find out about the disorder and think now you can fix them. But you can't, but you learn more about yourself, this can hold you, you now have direction.

After a while you stay because "you have come this far" stubbornness. Finally you get to a crossroads were you have either minimized conflict or not. If you have acceptance becomes easier and the 'worst" of it is behind you. To walk now would just not seem right.

If you can't reduce the conflict then this brings the crisis that eventually breaks the last straw.

If you stay by clear choice rather than default, that makes staying easier.

[Tolou]

I think it is a good question. We all stay for different periods of time and through different ups and downs.  When do you choose to get off the roller-coaster, when is enough, enough?

I also think of the idealiztion stage, and all the kindness, the love and dreams that are shared, what you hope to one day have, your fears, insecurities, and the promises to protect this woman who seems to have suffered so much.  I stayed for me, I stayed for her, for guilt, for fear, for love because I like to be a man of my word... . but something was very wrong.  The relationship wasn't equal, because if it didn't revolve around her needs, non of mine were being met, complete dis-respect and disregard for what I was being put through.  I stayed because she is special, I left because she wasn't rational, her emotinal maturity was stuck in childs developmental level.

[Proud_Dad]

I have asked myself this question more times than I can even remember. I always come back to the same answer, the children. If the behavior I have seen in recent years had surfaced before the children were born I would have been gone in a second. The depression and insecurity began before the children came but it was minimal. I had no idea whrere the road we were on was leading. I do still love my uBPDgf, but that love will never be the same.

[Surrender]

Obligation... . and enough love left to not do what he fears most... . after 33 years I'm really not sure I can be in a normal relationship.

So interesting that you reflect that after 33 long years you don't think you can be in a normal relationship. After 3 years I am thinking that very thought. I don't know what that says about us or our own need to be with them but I suspect that we live something of our own need and fears through their own as well. At least that is what it feels like. My own imperfections and traumas have found a place of acceptance in my ill Lover... . he doesn't expect me to change anything but in his way has found a way to love me and I him even though it is all highly dysfunctional and often terribly destructive. We always return to our 'nirvana' where we are still together and have found something I've never found with anyone else. In this place he and I have discovered a peace even if it's just for a while... . and that peace has become the very thing that stabilizes us both. In a strange way I feel that we are opposite sides of the same coin and cling to the same needs in one another.

I can't make sense of it all... . it is so contradictory and so extreme both heaven and hell. I just know that when he isn't in my world I feel lost, empty, scared and totally utterly and completely terrified in the Void of life.

[SweetCharlotte]

I've been on the verge of leaving him a few times, but I always make the choice to stay because I love him. For me, it's like the song from Camelot, "How to Handle a Woman" (though this is a man). The only way to handle a pwBPD is to love him/her.

Of course, if he had crossed any of my boundaries or non-negotiables, such as infidelity, endangering my financial or legal welfare, or physical abuse, that would be a different story. However, as long as I can give him my love and we both benefit, and he loves me too, I'll choose to be in it. So, another song I have to reference is one from the musical Oliver, sung by Shani Wallis/Nancy Sikes, "As Long As He Needs Me (I know just where I'll be)."

[Aburn4827]

I can say, that I have asked myself that many many times.  In some ways, I wonder, and probably most of all hope, that it will get better.  That with treatment and therapy for the both of us, one day it will become a more stable relationship.  I also feel like, for myself at least, I don't want to give up until I have done everything I know to do.  I don't want to leave and then feel regret, like what if I had only done this or that.  I know my feelings towards her have not changed.  I do love her.  But I know this is not healthy for me, for her, or our son.  But I don't want to feel like I just gave up.  I know that's an issue I have with myself.  I just don't want to give up hope.

[Love Is Not Enough]

The children. Assisting her with day to day life so as to keep her stress down, thus reducing her dysregulations and subsequent verbal abuse of the children.

I do wonder if I will leave one day. I am sure I would if any of my major boundaries were crossed. As for now, it is my choice to stay rather than the default. So that is where I find comfort. She has improved, but I no longer feel any closeness to her and I doubt I will ever trust her again. I also do not think I could ever function in a "normal" relationship either. Whatever that is. At least with this I know what I am dealing with now and have reached some sort of healthy apathy or detachment. Although it is lonely, I feel it is probably better for me. It keeps me grounded and off of my own emotional roller coaster. This experience has forced me to grow and fix things within myself and I believe I am a better person for it. I am no longer depressed as I had been for most of my life, but I am not really all that happy either. Almost like I figured the secret of life too late. Some kind of strange catch-22 or cosmic joke I guess. I do enjoy my relationship with the children and that gives me a positive goal to focus on.

[waverider]

This experience has forced me to grow and fix things within myself and I believe I am a better person for it. I am no longer depressed as I had been for most of my life, but I am not really all that happy either. Almost like I figured the secret of life too late. Some kind of strange catch-22 or cosmic joke I guess. I do enjoy my relationship with the children and that gives me a positive goal to focus on.

This is easy to understand, almost as though you have just missed life's bus, instead you have a long walk, which is not ideal, but you have direction and are not lost. You are resigned to just getting on with it.

Do you feel like you have run out of options?

[Love Is Not Enough]

This is easy to understand, almost as though you have just missed life's bus, instead you have a long walk, which is not ideal, but you have direction and are not lost. You are resigned to just getting on with it.

Do you feel like you have run out of options?

I like your analogy and I do try to focus as much as I can on the fact that I am not lost. Logically I know that I have options. I do not feel as trapped as I once did. I know that I could leave if I had to for my own well being. Maybe I am hoping that I will fall back in love with her one day. I just do not see it at the present time.

[Foreverhopefull]

For me, it's love. I still love him passionately.

We still love each other very much, I work hard to respect his limitations and not push the buttons; and he works hard on getting better.

We have set guidelines that both of us must respect (i.e. taking medications, attend actively therapy, no violence, no "pushing buttons", respect of needed space/safe zone, etc.), the more we respect them, the easier life has gotten between us.

[joethemechanic]

I know this sounds crazy as all hell but,,

We met when she was 11 and I was 15. Well maybe "met" isn't the right word. I was on the stage crew at school, and she came in with a dance studio to dance in The Nutcracker.

I was running the curtain and felt that feeling you get when someone is staring at you. I looked over and there was this little girl in a bumblebee costume staring at me. I met her glance and we held eye contact for what seemed like a really long time. It was really strange, not a word or a nod or anything. I never saw her after that.

About 6 years later she came walking into my garage and I knew it was her. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I fell in love.

She is 48 now and still is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

To answer the question, all I can say is I love her

[Vindi]

mine would have to be FOG... . waiting for the his next explosion... . very sad on my part, i need to work on my self esteem... . I mean, WE do get along great when things are great... . I just wish there were alot more great times... . I am so used to the fighting, his mood swings, etc... . I have put up some good boundaries, but sometimes I think i settle... . Yep, just venting out loud