Would WE be attracted to each other?

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Gosh, I am soo not interested in dating... .    Not that i don't feel attracted and interested in men, its just the whole idea feels soo wrong for me right now.

the one thing tho is , its encouraging to listen to so many men that have alot of depth, insight , honesty and wisdom.   its restoring my faith that i will meet someone wonderful one day. yeah !

[corraline]

Gosh, I am soo not interested in dating... .    Not that i don't feel attracted and interested in men, its just the whole idea feels soo wrong for me right now.

the one thing tho is , its encouraging to listen to so many men that have alot of depth, insight , honesty and wisdom.   its restoring my faith that i will meet someone wonderful one day. yeah !

[letmeout]

I am not interested in dating right now either. I haven't dated in a year and the longer I stay single the more I like it. Or maybe the longer I stay single, the more afraid I am to date again? Afraid to being sucked in by a disordered.

However, my T recently said that I am growing a backbone! I guess that is good 

[StayOrLeave15]

  at NONBPDMINGLE.COM

Sounds like a great site to me.  I think that the interactions between members would mostly be about their experiences with their BPDx. But I wonder if that would help to build a healthy relationship or just keep bringing back the pain. 

[Panda39]

"I too sometimes wonder if a relationship between two codependent, rescuers might work out very well."

My current SO and I are exactly this, minus the co-dependence.  I lived in co-dependence with my alcoholic ex-husband for 20 years and my SO lived in co-dependence for 17 years with his uBPDx.  Both of us trying to rescue, care take, fix... . our ex's. (so exhausting it's like being a single parent with an extra kid)

During our separate journey's we came to recognize our co-dependence and we were finally able to separate ourselves from these unhealthy relationships. 

We currently live our own lives and are good about avoiding the co-dependent/caretaker behaviors which we have a predisposition for. We set healthy boundaries and have even pointed it out to each other when we do occasionally slip into rescuer mode   

We do however take very good care of each other, and it is such a blessing to be the recipient of that care instead of always being the giver.  I might also add because of our history and our own behaviors we have an extremely good understanding of each other.

[BoreasXIV]

I have to admit, the thought crossed my mind. I do agree that I feel like most of here seem to care deeply about helping others, which is probably why we all fall for these type of attractions. Thanks for sharing!

[Dutched]

A really interesting subject!

Well,

1st I am not co dependent

2nd I am not a rescuer

3rd Yes, my role, which I intensively discussed with my Psychiatrist ended up with the conclusion that I took my responsibility towards my family “to serious” whatever the costs=> special for me… mainly due to my upbringing ( as she analysed an I can agree with) in which in every brain cell is printed to take responsibility for my sister (Down Syndrome) and therefore maintain strong boundaries for whomever undermines it.

4th concluded also that when I feel to trust one completely (as exw) then my boundaries can be bend in order to maintain my trust.  Oeps, as I noticed... .

So in this treat I find loving and caring people that trusted a SO with all their hart, with all they had to give, willing to give even more.

It gives me hope that there are enough people around that could be a good match.

   So, who wants to spent their holidays in Western Europe… 

Although more that 3 yrs. post break up, mid 50 now, I never dated. Don’t feel to do so, don’t see other women yet as “attractive” and  betray myself for eye contact in order to see “something”  (seen a lot of “them” already).

BPDs are not the least of these, the least of these are humble, meek, poor folks. The least of these is more likely to be innocent children than spoilt brats who spend their lives leeching off others - PURPOSELY AND KNOWLEDGABLY. Who are arrogant, self centred, repress their empathy, have NO CARE for others, expect appreciation for the littlest of good deeds and will exaggerate their good deeds to make themselves seem better. Nowhere does the bible place people like my ex, and my ex best friend as the 'least of these'.

To clarify this, they don't repress their empathy. Healthy empathic capacity stems from integrated self- abd object representations. With the lack of this, it's severely impaired.

What I essentially meant was a severe disregard for the feelintgs of others. Indeed empathy is 'repressed', the ability is there it's just not used. Yes impaired, but it IS there. Its just not used. As children these emotions and abilities existed. They are just held back (repressed).

How can a child of 4, in the middle of emotional development, without ANY further help form a parent grow into a whole self? Therefore the emotion is not “not used” or repressed, it is NOT FULLY developed.

So how could we help a person with Down Syndrome to see the world as we do? Now, that is extreme but BPD is an emotional (attachment) disorder, not an illness. In therapy much can be “restored”. 

[Arminius]

When I met her, she seemed independent, confident, an achiever, capable and clever, funny and fun to be around.

She was the perfect antidote to my failing marriage.

The first sign that I should have picked up on was a very early, like first coffee date, misinterpretation of hers regarding something I said.

We were flirting and I'd said I was more of a butt guy that a boobs guy ( she had smaller breasts and was self conscious about this) . Her interpretation of my innocent if a little forward comment was a shocker to me. She later admitted that she'd taken that to mean I was in to an 'alternative' sexual practice and that she had then gone home and 'prepared myself' for that activity so that ' it would be easier in the future'.

I'm not trying to be inappropriate here, but rather I'm trying to show how they hang on our words and make their own interpretations.

[Turkish]

In the old days on this board, it's happened: dating, marriage, divorce.

We are a diverse group, but we are all at various stages of pain and healing. A quarter or more of us probably qualify as clinically depressed, and something like 15% of us are diagnosed with some kind of MI, if I remember correctly. Not exactly the healthiest bunch, but that's understandable. We're here for each other, and that's an attraction in general, and I wouldn't necessarily say an unhealthy one.

Turkish

[fortunes_fool]

Would exes of BPD individuals be attracted to one another? Maybe. Would I, personally, feel safer dating an ex of a BPD individual than I would dating someone who'd never heard of BPD? Absolutely. I feel incompetent explaining my ex and the entire relationship to potential partners, considering how ridiculous it ends up sounding. Further than that, though, I worry now that anyone I enter into a relationship with might have BPD, considering my ex was undiagnosed when we got together, and I have suspicions that my ex-wife, who was my relationship prior to mine with my BPD ex, may have BPD, APD, or NPD (kind of hard to tell exactly which). I'm not at all codependent, but I'm definitely the rescuer type; therapist in training, and ever the bleeding heart. I've heard it said many times before that two individuals suffering from mental illness should never be in a relationship with one another, but I tend to disagree; I think two individuals recovering from (or managing) mental illness can be more compatible than most, considering their understanding of the conditions. But what do I know? I'm still afraid to date, and I'm a year out of my relationship with the aforementioned ex.

[Red Sky]

I would LOVE to date again. It's been almost a year since I had any kind of romantic entanglement - unless you include the BPDex who didn't quite get the message that we weren't dating any more... . Unfortunately circumstances mean that a relationship is impractical for me at the moment.

Would I rather date someone with some knowledge of PDs? Not sure it matters to me. Is that a sign of desperation? 

In all seriousness, dating someone who kind of understands might be nice, but I don't like the person I was in previous relationships and I very much want to put that person behind me. I'm not 100% certain I want or need a future partner to understand, because I just want to carry the good things/lessons I've learned in the past few years forward with me and let go of the rest. Either way, I guess I won't be choosing my partner based on whether they have experience with BPD/NPD, so it'll play out how it plays out.