have you ever had a "NORMAL" relationship

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

I mean, not with your pwBPD, because obviously, that s%^t ain't normal. I mean, with another person? When I look back at my dating history before my H, I have:

- a verbally abusive, violent alcoholic

- a sociopathic heavy drug abuser

- a narcissitic sex addict

There were a couple other folks, but never long term. These, including my BPDh, are the only ones that meant anything to me, and really captivated me. OBVIOUSLY I am co-dependent, and actively sought people like this. But because of my 16 years of bad experiences, it is all I can see and all I can fathom really. Not only do I doubt my ability to even recognize an emotionally and mentally healthy person, I am not even sure they exist. Is that nuts? I really can't fathom being treated like how I see people treated in movies and such. For example, I was watching a reality/ makeover TV show... nothing special, average chick show. And a woman got weepy over something. Her husband was standing beside her, reached out and protectively put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. She leaned into him, laying her head on his shoulder.

This was a moment that sounds normal, or run of the mill. But I can say pretty confidently that it has virtually NEVER happened to me. It struck me at that moment. Are people really like that? Are men really like that? During this marriage my tears have been met with indifference, disdain, anger or mocking. I have not experienced that more than a few times. That moment of " I got you", or that feeling, that someone has your back. I suppose I have convinced myself that those sorts of things are an act, that they don't come from a genuine place.

So, can you confirm to me, from personal experience, that there are good people to be had out there? I am older now, and will be older still when this is over. I have come to realize that I'd rather have nothing than abuse, but just in case I am willing again - What are my odds of finding one of them? 

[Seneca]

I mean, not with your pwBPD, because obviously, that s%^t ain't normal. I mean, with another person? When I look back at my dating history before my H, I have:

- a verbally abusive, violent alcoholic

- a sociopathic heavy drug abuser

- a narcissitic sex addict

There were a couple other folks, but never long term. These, including my BPDh, are the only ones that meant anything to me, and really captivated me. OBVIOUSLY I am co-dependent, and actively sought people like this. But because of my 16 years of bad experiences, it is all I can see and all I can fathom really. Not only do I doubt my ability to even recognize an emotionally and mentally healthy person, I am not even sure they exist. Is that nuts? I really can't fathom being treated like how I see people treated in movies and such. For example, I was watching a reality/ makeover TV show... nothing special, average chick show. And a woman got weepy over something. Her husband was standing beside her, reached out and protectively put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. She leaned into him, laying her head on his shoulder.

This was a moment that sounds normal, or run of the mill. But I can say pretty confidently that it has virtually NEVER happened to me. It struck me at that moment. Are people really like that? Are men really like that? During this marriage my tears have been met with indifference, disdain, anger or mocking. I have not experienced that more than a few times. That moment of " I got you", or that feeling, that someone has your back. I suppose I have convinced myself that those sorts of things are an act, that they don't come from a genuine place.

So, can you confirm to me, from personal experience, that there are good people to be had out there? I am older now, and will be older still when this is over. I have come to realize that I'd rather have nothing than abuse, but just in case I am willing again - What are my odds of finding one of them? 

[charred]

Well, I wanted to have a lot of relationships with hot sex addicts... but it hasn't worked out for me... . yet.

I dated two other girls long term... and both were excellent/normal relationships. I was married for 22 yrs and have a daughter with my exwife... and she and my daughter just moved back in with me. The other people I dated, varied but I wasn't in but one other disordered r/s... . and it was never bad for me... the girl had more    than China... . sex was great, she was pretty irrational and I heeded the   .

Her fiancée didn't... they ended up divorced after she sprayed lighter fluid on the bed and lit it with him in it. He wasn't hurt, but chose wisely to end the r/s... . she declared herself a lesbian shortly after that... she was pretty unstable.

[PullToEject]

I have had a "normal" relationship - I was with a girlfriend that we fought 4 times in the 3 years we were together.  Not big fights, arguments of any kind.  Even the break up was totally mature, but certainly not easy on either of our sides.  She was amazing, she really was, most capable loving woman I ever met.  BUT STUPID ASS ME  - she wasn't hot enough.   Now I have a beautiful disaster.  Men, be careful what you wish for, beauty really is only skin deep.

[maxen]

3 serious r/ss.

first to a smart and funny woman, a little difficult to take and a bit needy, but perfectly normal. i did her wrong and i cannot and, frankly, should not forgive myself for it.

second to a uNPD. i mean, really really N. violent once too.

third was this marriage to a BPD.

so: i had a r/s with someone who responded to me, and i didn't realize what i had. then two to people for whom others are emotional punching bags. i'm well aware of it and it's a topic in therapy.

So, can you confirm to me, from personal experience, that there are good people to be had out there?

yes, my first g/f was a good person. i also have friends who are married to good people, really good people. there are good people to be met. but i'm older too seneca and it's bit scary.

[karma_gal]

Afraid not... . although one of these days I want to try it out.  I always wonder if it would be too boring for me and that's why I have always been involved with crazy people? 

My first serious relationship was my oldest son's father.  I thought he was normal... . until his anger issues came out and he pulled a gun on a homeless man in a parking lot, and stalked me, and tried to kidnap our son during the custody battle.  Nope, he wasn't normal.

And then we have H... . who takes the cake for abnormal.  Ain't nothing normal about him, actually.  In fact, we were both in the restroom the other day -- we only have one bathroom in this really old house.  I was using the toilet and he was at the sink shaving after a shower.  He takes his towel off from around his waist to wipe the shaving cream off his face, so his a$$ is like two feet away from me.  The first thing I thought was, "Jesus, even his a$$ looks like a three-year-old."  Seriously, it was like a baby's butt that you just wanted to powder and slap cream on and then cover up with a diaper. 

After that and the washing machine incident, I will never be able to look at him like an adult again.

Did I ever tell that story?  I'm going to do it here while I'm thinking about.

So our washing machine was broke and it wouldn't go into the spin cycle.  I asked him to come downstairs and look at it to see if he knew what was wrong or could fix it.  He told me to show him what it was doing, so I hit the button to make the basin fill with water.  As it was filling, he grabbed his private area and started hopping up and down going, "Stop.  Stop.  It's making me have to peeeeee" -- drawing pee out like it was 15 syllables.  I remember just staring at him, I'm sure my jaw dropped, and I was like What the heck ever and walking away. 

[Calm Waters]

there is no such thing as normal! we are complex and bring a whole rag bag of history both conscious and unconscious to a relationship every person and coupling is unique and infinitely labyrinthine. The task is to recognise, I believe that, there is no ' normal' and that little is under our control

[thicker skin]

I was only 19/20 when we got together, but the boyfriends I had before him were gentlemen, sober, motivated and treated me well. I valued myself and was a hard nut to crack.

I suffered a tragedy ( my twin brother died ) and my life turned upside down. I fell pregnant, married and then my husband left me at 34 wks pregnant for a woman he'd met in the USA on a training course. Years later, he confessed that he'd found cocaine whilst there and he made a huge mistake.

I accepted that it would take a lot for a man to take two of us on, felt that life just had one blow after another for me and I didn't expect too much for myself. The loss of my twin floored me and it took me a long time come to terms with my grief.

I thought I deserved my lot.

[Seneca]

Thickerskin, i am so so sorry about your brother. And no, this is not your lot... . you deserve better. 

[Samuel S.]

Seneca, I can empathize with you about having doubts about the possibility of a better SO. I basically have had some really nice, compatible relationships on a long term basis, although my first wife was rather stubborn and competitive and although my current BPDw is the way she is.

Seneca, I am sure there are normal, healthy relationships to encounter, and one must realize that we are all human. We can make mistakes. It is just a question if we learn from these mistakes, whether we become that much more sensitive and learn how to compromise. If these individuals continue making mistakes over and over again, we have to try to make decisions for our own well-being. For you, other nonBPDs, and me, it is very scary to make a major move, though.

[letmeout]

I married in high school to my BPdex so I didn't have any former relationships.

I do know people who are in wonderful loving and supportive relationships. I really want one of those type of relationships!

It seems the older I get, the harder it is to find available people to date that are not disordered. They are spattered all over the dating sites; red flags flying high. LOL

[Kabooma]

Wow, I feel for you OP, and agree.  I often wonder if anyone is "normal".

Of all my notable 'serious' relationships here's the stats:

#1 - HS GF, my 'first love'.  She was loving at first, then cold and distant- cheated on me with several others before finally giving me the boot, it desroyed me.  She never admitted the cheating, but it was obvious (in hindsight).

#2 - insane narcissistic who liked to invoke pain and humiliation.  I should have known she cheated on her ex to be with me, did the same to me, and right in front of me to make it hurt. 

#3 - Her parents met in a mental ward... should have run screaming, but I was still young and foolish.  It was love at first sight, and still to this day I love her deeply, but she was clinically insane, emotionally paranoid, incredibly resentful at times, and insecure as it gets.  I eventually left her after several years.  I sort of regret it simply because she did truly love me, as I did her- but I was young and thought I could find better.

#4 - amazingly cute and innocent looking succubus.  She moved in, drained my finances into bankruptcy, then left when it was all gone.  She had no reservations about dragging me through emotional hell to distract me from the fact she was robbing me blind

#5 - Loved dangerous men... the kind who would kill out of jealousy.  I simply wasn't living up to those standards, she was simply gone one morning, which explained why she was acting so remorseful the night before... .

And then my current BPD wife, #6, and clearly she's 1-5 all rolled up into one satanic being.

I somehow know that I attract and go for these types, but cannot figure out why/how or how to change that.  All I really want is a smart and independent woman who wants to be with me, but doesn't NEED me to hold their hand for them 24/7, cause I'm drained.

I'm so entirely scorned and resentful that I doubt I'm much good to any woman anyways.

[Seneca]

holy crap kabooma, that's quite a list. i hope you (and by you, i mean all of us) are doing the work to figure out what draws us towards these dysfunctional people! for you sake i hope one day there is a #7 and she is a perfect angel!

[maxsterling]

Haven't had too many relationships, and until now, none lasting more than a year.  I'm more of the type who would pursue a woman who was basically unavailable for a year while ignoring what was in front of me, until I was finally put to my senses.  Some of the women I pursued but never dated obviously had issues.

But of the relationships I have had, the first was a pothead whom didn't seem to know what she wanted in life (except pot).  It was a semi-long distance relationship for most of it.  We got along great, she just didn't understand love or know if she wanted anything serious.  I'd classify this relationship as mostly normal with the exception that it was a dead-ended one from her end.  And while she was never mean to me, I think she was often indifferent.  So, if I gave her something nice or took her someplace nice, she would appreciate it, but it would not really be special to her.  But at least the moment she knew I wanted more, she backed out.  Of course, she broke it off by ignoring me rather than telling me... .

The next relationship was one that had so many  from the start, that felt great for all of about a month, then she got drunk, and I started to realize just how screwed up she is.  she fits the description for NPD perfectly, plus she was also a paranoid pothead who would have weird visions about stuff, and one of those extremely invalidating abusive controllers who rarely raised her voice or cursed.  And I hear that can be typical of pwNPD - very charming and appear so self-confident and full of direction.  So no, that relationship was not normal.  Interestingly, my girlfriend and I randomly ran into her and her son on Monday in a very out of the way place, and my girlfriend is now having a nervous breakdown over it. 

And now there is the current relationship, that is clearly abusive at times, clearly abnormal, and in some ways not any better than the one with the pwNPD.  But my current girlfriend does respect who I am, and clearly has a strong emotional attachment to me, something I don't think I had in the previous relationships.   

[sadinsweden]

My entire life, up until the point I moved to Sweden, was "normal". My parents were normal hardworking upper middle class folks. They adored each other. They did things together and loved doing that. There was never a hand raised or alcohol abused. I was raised in a supportive affectionate environment. There was, later in their life, the issue of Alzheimer's disease, but that is what it is.

Every single guy I dated in high school, college, and after was normal. My girlfriends were normal. My first husband ... . totally normal. Well, he was very very smart and a bit of a guitar playing hippy who smoked a lot of pot, but otherwise. Normal. He went to work every day and practiced tai chi every morning in the backyard. We watched baseball together and went for walks on the beach. We were absolutely poor. A struggling young family but neither of us ever raised a hand to the other or verbally or mentally abused each other in any way. We had two sons together. Also normal. Our marriage dissolved because it just did. I didn't want to be married anymore and wanted independence.

I raised my two sons as a single mom from the time they were 13 and 15. Tough but normal. My kids moved out when they were 20 years old (respectively). My mom passed away from Alzheimer's disease in 2008.

Up until moving to Sweden, I had never experienced living with abuse. I had never experienced the life of living with someone who is an alcoholic or drug dependent. My life was absolutely totally normal, loving ... . normal! I'm not saying that there were not rough patches or challenges or career or financial concerns, because those thing are normal. But, I came here completely and utterly unprepared for abnormal. I had never even heard of BPD. I expected that my life would continue to be normal ... . happy, loving, supportive. I knew no other way. What an eye opener for me.

So yes, normal is out there. I lived 50 years of it.

[maxen]

#5 - Loved dangerous men... the kind who would kill out of jealousy.  I simply wasn't living up to those standards

All I really want is a smart and independent woman who wants to be with me, but doesn't NEED me to hold their hand for them 24/7, cause I'm drained.

me too. is it too much to ask? 

[goldylamont]

I've had 4 major r/s in my life. first 2 were healthy, then BPDx for several years, then another healthy r/s after that. not sure how long it will be before i fall in love again. but no i don't think i have a history of being in r/s with disordered people although now knowing what i know i can see that there were some women i may have dated in the past that may have had similar issues. the vast majority of my life has been "normal" i think. i don't know if normal is the right word, but i would say i would consider 3.5 out of 4 of my r/s as healthy--and yes i'm saying 3.5 as in 3 1/2   because i do consider some of my r/s with my uBPDxgf as healthy until she went batisht crazy 

sadinsweden i looveed your post! sometimes i feel like i don't meet the qualifications to be on this site b/c my other experiences are too 'normal' or boring 

i would like to know also, i just got out of a 3.5 year relationship with my BPD ex girlfriend. the thing is she was my first real long term relationship. And we were together throughout most of college. So she is my baseline for a relationships. The one i will compare other relationships. Which sucks because she was a horrible girlfriend, im still trying to figure out if other girls are like this. Like i can't tell the difference between mentally health and unhealthy. It is like i dont know what a normal relationship should be like.

PP18 -- people with mental illnesses to this degree are only a small portion of the population. it's perfectly normal to not feel trusting about women now PP18 but just give yourself time to heal. there are beautiful and healthy women out there in fact the majority of women don't behave like your ex. so, so sorry that this was your first r/s experience, i know it's tough. just make sure to take your time and remember you have a long wonderful life ahead of you. don't let one sour grape of a woman taint your idea of the rest--because the good women out there *deserve* to find good men who have faith in them as much as us good guys deserve women to have faith in us. take a break until you can truly see good in whoever you choose to date.

[tabular]

I had 3 'normal' relationships (2 years, 2.5 years and 4.5 years) and the last one lasted only 6 months and was most possibly with a BPD men.

I know the feeling of having a true partnership, of mutual respect and forgiveness, when one has a bad day the other one's there (being supportive, not resentful), when one snaps at the other there are instant apologies, when fights don't escalate or even if they escalate you can trust in the foundation of the relationship and you can have an honest conversation about it. When break-ups occur - the pain, but being able to make sense of it somehow or at least see it coming. Yeah… I know that feeling.