What was love?

[AwakenedOne]

My uBPDstbxw always described what love is in ways that seemed so strange to me.

Throughout my dating experience and marriage to my wife she told me that she loved me. When I asked her what she loved I only typically got a few things back from her. I am funny, I am a good guy and I am the one that will give her the baby she has wanted. Hearing this I would inquire more into her views of what love is in a relationship and marriage. Yet whenever we would discuss what love is I was always confused and had a uneasy feeling of how she described it.

This is my best attempt to describe or imagine what love meant to my wife as it relates to being in a relationship with me.

Love is doing things together with you and having fun.

Love is finding someone that will give me the baby I have always wanted.

Love is letting me decide exactly when we will have my baby, after all it comes out of my womb not yours.

Love is allowing and expecting you to buy me everything that I would like, because thats what you/men are supposed to do.

Love is allowing me to do anything I want or I will view that as you controlling me.

Love is not troubling me with your views and needs unless it's limited to a couple of minutes and then love is after the couple of minutes then time for you to stfu.

Love is showing others how happy you and I are.

Love is enjoying that others are envious of you and I.

Love is something people grow out of after they learn things or get bored and move on which is something you should keep aware of.

Love is you always remembering that I am a woman and I am entitled.

Love is something that if I get tired of providing to you I can take away and abandon you because if

that happens that would be your fault.

Love is something that if my girlfriends disagree with anything of our life, their opinions will be over yours in terms of value to me. My love for them is a higher love unfortunately for you on my scale of love.

Love is you telling me all of your secrets.

Love is demanding all of your secrets if you are not comfortable with telling them due to the fact I deserve to know everything so I can hold something against you to bring up in case you irritate me and get me mad one day due to your fault of course.

Love is me keeping whatever I want private from you, It's really none of your business.

Love is allowing me to rage at you, and then you are supposed to forgive me even if I say two lame words like "I'm sorry" with no passion because you are supposed to love me unconditionaly.

Through your BPD ex's perspective how did they view what love and loving you as a relationship partner means to them?

[Narellan]

I love this thread! Thanks AO. My exBPD said he'd never loved anyone before me. He'd waited his whole life for me. Then after a few months he casually mentioned he did love his ex, who he was still in LC with. (And who had come to stay with him over Xmas for a couple of weeks. We'd only known each other 2 weeks, and he created an argument to push me away while she was here. He also said she wanted to be intimate with him but after a few days they disengaged from each other) ( not so, I saw photos)

Anyway he said yes he had loved her . When I asked what he loved about her, he said the way she taught him about herbs. what the heck. Then he added he loved her so much he would go out and get her a hamburger late at night if she was hungry. And also that she could talk to anyone. That was it. That was what he based his concept of love on! He went on then to bag her and her family and tell me how unattractive this girl is.

I hadn't thought about any of that until you raised this question. I was happy he was sharing with me, but now looking back I realise what a ridiculous concept of love he had for her. God only knows what he's telling my ex best friend he liked about me. Probably nothing because I'm the bad guy, and probably the one that came between the two of them at the start.

[corraline]

Mine said that his love for me was different than the love he had for others in the past.  He said it was more mature.  He said he used to be too intense in the past.

He said he loved differently than me.  He told me that he loved who I was.  He loved my gentleness, my warmth and my honesty.  He said he loved me more than any other woman he has been with.

Sounds lovely really,

but it didn't feel that way... . they were nice words but the actions did not match.

[Mutt]

AO,

She's your ex, you would know this person better than any of us here.

This lesson helped me understand her perspective in the context of our relationship and marriage.

2) Belief that your BPD partner feels the same way that you feel

I fell in love with ex, but were we on the same level? No. The pendulum was swinging from fear of engulfment and fear of abandonment, because she is a person with a serious disorder. The relationship wasn't polarized throughout. Although, I do tend recall the more intense moments of the relationship, disassociation, verbal abuse, circular arguments etc. There were calmer moments that existed, and also I believe that were genuine. That could be disputed in how borderline personality disorder works. She displayed thoughtfulness, kindness in her actions not associated with a BPD behavior or attribution. That's how I associate love and what our relationship meant in that context, it's somewhere in the middle for me. Truthfully, it was an unhealthy and toxic relationship and I was enmeshed due to my co-dependency.

[LongGoneEx]

they were nice words but the actions did not match.

That's really the essence of BPD "love". Their "love" isn't even love by any classical definition of the word. It's mostly verbal nonsense. By another name it's propaganda used in a game of power and it plays upon our hope of being loved. Radically accepting this shortens one's exposure to an abusive BPD/NPD relationship and gives closure after it's over.

[corraline]

It was hard cause as I probably mentioned before, when i spoke with him about it, he said its because i just did not have the capacity to understand that people love differently .  Basically said my lack of being able to look outside of myself was what was limiting my understanding and acceptance of his love. Said that it was an issue I had from my childhood that was operating (not believing i am loved by my significant other )... . and yes there is truth to this i know but he used that as an excuse.  He said he had to witness his mother doing this to his dad too. It was frustrating for him he said.

[Ihope2]

I can also relate to a lot of what others have written here:

He never loved someone the way he loves me;

I just don't understand the depth of his love for me:

Nobody understands how deeply he loves;

Nothing else matters to him except for love;

I will never find another man ever,who will love me the way he loves me;

It would not matter if we lost everything and were living on the street, he would still love me;

And yet, the actions did not match all the words... .

And also, how could it be that he hardly knew me really (nor I him), and yet he claimed to have fallen so deeply in love with me so instantly... . ?

I think his love was a very infantile, type of infatuation, an idealisation, a crush.  A deep sensation for him, no doubt. I have no doubt that I can't even begin to imagine how overwhelming all of his emotions were to him, as they probably are to all people struggling with emotional dysregulation.  But, just because it is an intense feeling for him, does not necessarily equate to a useful, wonderful, beautiful thing for me who is supposed to be the recipient of this great love. 

His "Love" seemed to me to be part of his "magical thinking" - something mysterious and unknown, and only he could speak of it.  I had no right to question it or comment about it. It just is by virtue of him saying so... .

[really]

Your list pretty much sums it up. 

Sh*te.

[going places]

Through your BPD ex's perspective how did they view what love and loving you as a relationship partner means to them?

I can only tell you based upon his actions, and VERY FEW words:

Him showing "love" is going to work, helping fix things when asked, and saying it on the phone before he hangs up.

How he thinks "love works"?

Sex all the time.

He can screw things up huge (like have an affair) and if he says "sorry" that word is a magic eraser that makes everything "ok" and we can just go back to the way things were.

Say "love you" on the phone before you hang up.

He didn't mature past the age of 13.

Honestly? I don't care what he thinks, or how his mind works, or WHY it works the way it does.

It's broken, he doesn't want to fix it, and I don't want it to drag me through hell and back.

So I don't care.

I don't care what he thinks, feels, etc.

I cannot wait till this house sells, and I am divorced so I can move 5 states away from him.

MY health (mental and physical) are THE most important things that *I* have to focus on.

MY Spiritual health is THE most important thing *I* have to focus on.

I cannot waste my time trying to 'figure him out / understand / empathize... . "

No.

It is a WASTE of my precious time.

I have ME to straighten out... . I am NOT responsible for him.

[BacknthSaddle]

I think your list is right on the money.  I know we are always told to focus on ourselves, and most of the time I believe this to be the case, but I do believe this issue was important for me to understand. For pwBPD, "I love you" is more or less equivalent to "you are currently meeting my needs."  Everyone has needs (emotional, physical, material), and your pwBPD will, at any given time, expect you to meet some subset if not all of them.  As long as you are meeting them, you are "loved."  If you meet needs quickly, you are loved quickly, which I think is part of why heard "I love you" so early on in the relationship.  When the needs change or when you fail to meet them or when someone else meets them, the "love" stops.

The point is that there is no "you" in "I love you" coming from a pwBPD.  They don't have the stable, fleshed-out concept of self that others have, and so they don't really even understand who "you" are; they only see you through the lens of their own needs. Again, this is why they can say "I love you" without taking the time and experience that most of us would take to make that statement. We would want to "get to know someone" before making this statement, but for them there really is no getting to know someone because there is no such thing as a separate, fully-formed "someone." 

So, again, when they "don't love you anymore," it's not about you, the way you conceive of you, at all.  And there is no reason to believe they have the capacity to love anyone else any differently.  This kind of understanding can put you on the road to freedom, as I see it.   

[AwakenedOne]

I think your list is right on the money.  I know we are always told to focus on ourselves, and most of the time I believe this to be the case, but I do believe this issue was important for me to understand. For pwBPD, "I love you" is more or less equivalent to "you are currently meeting my needs."  Everyone has needs (emotional, physical, material), and your pwBPD will, at any given time, expect you to meet some subset if not all of them.  As long as you are meeting them, you are "loved."  If you meet needs quickly, you are loved quickly, which I think is part of why heard "I love you" so early on in the relationship.  When the needs change or when you fail to meet them or when someone else meets them, the "love" stops.

The point is that there is no "you" in "I love you" coming from a pwBPD.  They don't have the stable, fleshed-out concept of self that others have, and so they don't really even understand who "you" are; they only see you through the lens of their own needs. Again, this is why they can say "I love you" without taking the time and experience that most of us would take to make that statement. We would want to "get to know someone" before making this statement, but for them there really is no getting to know someone because there is no such thing as a separate, fully-formed "someone."  

So, again, when they "don't love you anymore," it's not about you, the way you conceive of you, at all.  And there is no reason to believe they have the capacity to love anyone else any differently.  This kind of understanding can put you on the road to freedom, as I see it.    

BacknthSaddle - your take on BPD "love" is so helpful to me in understanding what is really going on.  

I appreciate everyone else sharing as well. Thx

[Banshee]

My ex said he was happy that we didn't see each other in the past 30 years  because he couldn't ever love me then the way he does now  

I think I would have liked 30 years ago better... I was young and could bounce back a lot easier and run a whole lot faster...

[AwakenedOne]

This is my best attempt to describe or imagine what love meant to my wife as it relates to being in a relationship with me. Part 2

This is a bonus love list that was not included in yesterdays post. I have tried to come up with a title for the second post of love. Below are some working titles I have so far. No decision has yet made on a title among those, under consideration are:

Her Love Part 2:

Revenge of the... . "'name to be determined later"

Attack of the... . "name to be determined later"

The... . "name to be determined later" Strikes Back

Return of the ... . "name to be determined later"

"name to be determined later"... . Unleashed


Love is you letting me sleep late on the weekend while you do laundry for me because of course I need clean clothes available and this would be sweet for you to do, even though it's involuntary.

Love is allowing me to say stfu I want to sleep when you ask me to help with the laundry and not talking back because that would take minutes away from my sleep time.

Love is me letting my mom tell you off all the time and not saying a word back to her because I have known my mom longer than you.

Love is preventing you from escaping the car when I drive like a lunatic to lash out at you (oops, I meant to say express myself to you), I just wouldn't want you to get hurt, if you die in a psycho car crash due to me though instead that would be more loving I feel, we would be together.

Love is spending quality time together with you in a way that is deemed by me as what quality time is for me.

Love is you allowing me to take more trips with my family than I take with you even though we are married together.

Love is you allowing me to be me, which means letting me call you any curse word I would like.

Love is you understanding that my other relative's spouses understand it when they are cursed and how that is a normal thing.

Love is you never making suggestions for me, I know what the heck I want in life there is no need for me to hear it. talk to the hand (insert the hand gesture here).

Love is you understanding my job is tough therefore when I see you at night it is then understandable I take things out on you because you are here for me boo.

Love is you believing everything I say even though I lie constantly,  I will consider it quite offensive that you would accuse me of lying, especially immediately following a lie to you.

Love is like the Janet Jackson song "What Have You Done For Me Lately", that is a nonfiction song that is meant to help us women get what we need/deserve.

Love is allowing me to spend all of our money on stupid cr*p.

Love is having sex whenever I want it, even if I just called you a f'ker 2 minutes before that.

Love is not refusing sex after being called a f'er two minutes before or you will be viewed as not a man with normal needs.

Love is you allowing us to spend more time with my family which is the real family that matters and less time with your family.

Love is me volunteering you to do moving and chores for my family and then showing no appreciation for me doing it.

Love is me always thinking about myself in this relationship. Hey it's a full time job you need to respect this. If you dont' that is really disrespectful to me.

Love is when we take a walk together for me to quiz you on did you ever walk on this road with another girl?, our love depends on obtaining this type of info so the love will flourish.

Love is you allowing me to decorate the whole house so it looks like a mix between an indoor psychedilic junkyard and a haunted house.

Love is me pretending to like things that I really hate and then I will explode later and punish you for not being able to read my mind from the start. you know there is books on developing your enter mind reading ability skills. They have seminars too sometimes on this.

Love is when I get sick, not letting you care for me but instead saying my family takes good care of me when I'm sick I want them instead and then letting me tell you to stfu.

Love is when you get sick allowing me to tell you how bored I am because its so boring to be around you and hear you cough or sneeze even though I have the tv loud because that gets on my nerves and the high volume is giving you a headache, I still need to tell you this due to love communications.

Love is when you make a mistake, for me to never let you live it down and punish you for it. Its not really punishing you though in my opinion, I am just reminding you of some things. After all I thought you were my white knight. White nights are not f ups like you so its loving to explain to you how you are a f up to me so you can correct this my beloved.

Love is first bragging to people that you have helped me to eat healthy, then tell you in private you are a control freak just because you say maybe we should take a mulitvitamin daily.

Love is letting me take out my frustrations by way of me attacking you when your sleeping, I know this isn't right, but out of love you should allow me this release, or at least not hold it against me by screaming and calling me a violent lunatic. That is really disrespectful to say after being hit while your sleeping in the am hours. I am your wife after all.

Love is me talking about us helping people and then not doing cr*p instead while they are unhelped because my time is more valuable

Love is allowing me to keep screaming in a car even though you say its piercing your f'kn eardrums. I need a release of emotions. I deserve things, many things and all things.

Love is when you tell me I am beautiful.

Love is when I tell you one day you are a Greek god, then the next day your Quasimdo. This helps you know who you are.

Love is you allowing and expecting my opinions to change depending on my mood.

Love is you knowing when  i am hungry so I don't get agitated and rageful. Keeping track of meal times is a priority that a husband should have for me.

Love is me allowing you to have ideas for fun that we can do, then after we do whatever was your idea to then say it sucked even though I had no ideas.

Love is you allowing me not to put foot powder in my shoes, if they stink and are beside our bed at night, love is you just dealing with it and maybe put a clothspin on your nose instead at night.

Love is allowing me to complain in extreme detail about you spending more money on something that you did that day than I did like an item at a restaurant that is really a dollar difference so later I can justify blowing 500 dollars on some stupid cr*p.

Love is letting me complain if we use a coupon on something ever, you should understand I am ashamed to use a coupon for whatever unknown reason that I will not relay to you that in reality is non existant gibberish such as we won't look Donald Trumpish while using the coupon.

Love is allowing me to badmouth you to my family so I can gain their love somehow in a way only I would know of how it benefits me.

Love is allowing me to lie to you with about 90% of my words out of my mouth. "I need to keep it spicy", whatever that means to me maybe one day I will know.

Love is you allowing my family to bother us all the time on the phone at all hours about stupid cr@p without opening your f'kn mouth or I will accuse you of hating them.

Love is allowing me to talk about my ex's and my sex life with them, even though you tell me to not do it because its makes you feel uncomfortable and grossed out. I feel I need to say what's on my mind even if it grosses you out about me talking about being with them even though there is absolutely no point of me saying this cr*p at all but for me to enjoy hearing my own voice.

Love is letting me constantly say I will leave you if you don't do this or that for me. It helps our loving marriage if you are aware of my opinions and where I stand as your loving wife.

l

Peace,

AO

[Turkish]

The point is that there is no "you" in "I love you" coming from a pwBPD.  They don't have the stable, fleshed-out concept of self that others have, and so they don't really even understand who "you" are; they only see you through the lens of their own needs. Again, this is why they can say "I love you" without taking the time and experience that most of us would take to make that statement. We would want to "get to know someone" before making this statement, but for them there really is no getting to know someone because there is no such thing as a separate, fully-formed "someone." 

That's due to the emotional immaturity, and that they love as little children. My four year old son split me black this weekend throwing a tantrum at a restaurant. We were 2.5 hours out of town. We were staying at my brother's house a mile away. It started when he refused to give playing a video game on my phone when the food came (I should have known better, but it took forever to get our food). He started crying loudly. People were looking at us. I had to pick him up and carry him out into the parking lot. He cried, "I don't want to go back to Uncle Tommy's house, I want to go to my new apartment!" (mom's house). So he was basically telling me that he was going to "cheat" on me because I wasn't care-taking his needs properly. I replied, "ok, fine, then let's go home," to which replied, "no, I don't wanna go home, I want to go to Uncle Tommy's house!" This back and forth exchange lasted for 5 mins until I put him on a time out in the car, and then sat outside, pretty angry myself.

I got him back out, and dragged him reluctantly inside. He stood behind me, chomping on his food. Refused to face everybody else due to shame. After his food, he put on a spiderman mask Uncle gave him, and refused to take it off because he was "hiding." Then we got to Uncle Tommy's house 20 mins later, he started playing with my kids, and S4 was back to his cheerful, irreverent self, no harm done. Got him to bed without incident, and he's been fine.

Sound familiar? I can deal with it, because he's a barely 4 year old child. Add adult intellect, experiences and physical stature, and you have a pwBPD. I'd be walking on eggshells awaiting the next blow up.

[AwakenedOne]

double post / void

[AwakenedOne]

The point is that there is no "you" in "I love you" coming from a pwBPD.  They don't have the stable, fleshed-out concept of self that others have, and so they don't really even understand who "you" are; they only see you through the lens of their own needs. Again, this is why they can say "I love you" without taking the time and experience that most of us would take to make that statement. We would want to "get to know someone" before making this statement, but for them there really is no getting to know someone because there is no such thing as a separate, fully-formed "someone."  

That's due to the emotional immaturity, and that they love as little children. My four year old son split me black this weekend throwing a tantrum at a restaurant. We were 2.5 hours out of town. We were staying at my brother's house a mile away. It started when he refused to give playing a video game on my phone when the food came (I should have known better, but it took forever to get our food). He started crying loudly. People were looking at us. I had to pick him up and carry him out into the parking lot. He cried, "I don't want to go back to Uncle Tommy's house, I want to go to my new apartment!" (mom's house). So he was basically telling me that he was going to "cheat" on me because I wasn't care-taking his needs properly. I replied, "ok, fine, then let's go home," to which replied, "no, I don't wanna go home, I want to go to Uncle Tommy's house!" This back and forth exchange lasted for 5 mins until I put him on a time out in the car, and then sat outside, pretty angry myself.

I got him back out, and dragged him reluctantly inside. He stood behind me, chomping on his food. Refused to face everybody else due to shame. After his food, he put on a spiderman mask Uncle gave him, and refused to take it off because he was "hiding." Then we got to Uncle Tommy's house 20 mins later, he started playing with my kids, and S4 was back to his cheerful, irreverent self, no harm done. Got him to bed without incident, and he's been fine.

Sound familiar? I can deal with it, because he's a barely 4 year old child. Add adult intellect, experiences and physical stature, and you have a pwBPD. I'd be walking on eggshells awaiting the next blow up.

Turkish,

Thanks for that helpful example and explanation, that adds a lot to getting an understanding of "BPD love". I appreciate It.

Whew... . I feel after typing all the list I got a huge venting release. I never have been able to talk to anybody about any of this stuff ever until I came here. After typing that and getting it out I feel kind of like a cancer is removed from my back. Or at the very least a large amount of the cancer is gone.

Thanks all for this helpful website.

Peace,

AO

[Hogue era]

One evening My udBPDexgf told me she loved me. I asked her 'what do you love about me'? She replied "We'll, you're reliable"

Enough said... .

[WhatTheFrank]

I remember asking my BPDex during an argument, what she loved about me (since nothing I did ever made her happy), and it was all the normal platitudes that I was handsome, funny, smart, etc.

When she asked me what I loved about her, I drew a total blank... .

[BacknthSaddle]

I remember asking my BPDex during an argument, what she loved about me (since nothing I did ever made her happy), and it was all the normal platitudes that I was handsome, funny, smart, etc.

This also relates to the inability to understand fully-formed selves.  Because pwBPD have difficulty understanding the idea of a "whole person," people often become reduced to lists of superficial characteristics. 

I think most healthy people would actually have great difficulty answering the question "why do you love me?" as it is a very, very complex question, the answer to which relates to all facets of one's partner.  Only when someone doesn't understand this complexity can love be reduced to a list. 

[Ziggiddy]

This thread absolutely took my breath away. So so useful. SO enlightening. I guess it has been my idea that love equals 'this' and now I see that for the dysregulated love cannot ever equal 'this'.

"Is love a fancy or a feeling? No it is an ever fixed mark" (think that was Shakespeare.)

For the BPD, it is an ever changing mark in an ever fluid environment. It maybe runs like watercolours with their mood.

Ihope2

I think his love was a very infantile, type of infatuation, an idealisation, a crush.  A deep sensation for him, no doubt. I have no doubt that I can't even begin to imagine how overwhelming all of his emotions were to him, as they probably are to all people struggling with emotional dysregulation. 

Well said <applauds>

Z