i do not understand the projection and mirroring

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

i do not get the projection and mirroring dynamics that is done by the BPDs and also nons during the idealization phase ? what was i projecting on her ? what was i mirroring in her ? what was she mirroring ? what was she projecting ?  was she mirroring me or the ideal woman i would like to be with ?

[antjs]

i do not get the projection and mirroring dynamics that is done by the BPDs and also nons during the idealization phase ? what was i projecting on her ? what was i mirroring in her ? what was she mirroring ? what was she projecting ?  was she mirroring me or the ideal woman i would like to be with ?

[Blimblam]

What you experienced throughout the relationship was your own self reflected back at you.  She was just a mirror you projected your own pride or fantasy onto her. Her experience was radically different than yours you were just a distraction to her.  What you were really bonding to was the idealized version of yourself you saw in her eyes that's why she felt like your soulmate.  All those moments where you soothed her activated your vulnerable narcissism and you felt an sense of pride when she was soothed conditioning you to maintain the fantasy. The illusion is that she the object you identify as the projection of your self is one and the same. You are not letting go of her she is already gone. You are reclaiming the part of yourself you think you lost wen you lost the object. You can already feel that part of yourself and it feels like a gaping hole in your chest you never lost that part of yourself though that is the illusion that is so painfull. Realizing all you thought was her was really you, it was your own projection, own it because that's just a part of you.

The pain is the conflict thinking you need the object to feel that part of you again. The pain is your body saying hey I'm right here HELLO! I AM RIGHT HERE.  Accept defeat and surrender to that feeling in your body. It is waiting for you

[Ventus2ct]

She would be mirroring you greatest desires, mirroring the other half of you to make you feel complete, so to you and I our other "halves" at the honeymoon period were nothing more than perfect in our eyes, sure, there prob were some red flags but we choose to ignore them or were so happy that we didn't notice them.

Projecting would I believe start appearing around the devaluation stage, she starts to project her weakness/fears/insecurities/low self esteem onto you, little by little you erode to dust.

I have come to understand that this "projection" stuff they spout out is little more than their inner thoughts/actions. For example anything my ex said to me regarding anything about me was in fact what she was thinking or feeling about herself.

Eg. All men are unfaithful really means, I am unfaithful.

I love you, means I love myself.

You're always …………... (insert any criticism you can think of) and they are usually talking about some related aspect of themselves, after all the LOVE talking about themselves!

All their insecurities they project onto you so they feel better and you feel unsure/confused and again your self esteem takes another dive, as long as they feel better that's all that simply matters to them, you certainly don't!

I do wonder how I became so so so blind to this and never noticed, suspect due to me having dropped all boundaries

It is so nice to see things for what they truly are now some time has passed.

Anything they seem to talk about to you, while you are listening, just think that they are in fact talking about themselves despite discussing someone else or you. I am convinced this is how they work.

[antjs]

blimbam i wrote this post because of reading your current reply in another post. i really do not get it. did she mirror my own self or did she mirror the ideal woman i would like to have in my dreams ?

the things i projected on to her. what does it say about me ?

[Ventus2ct]

blimbam i wrote this post because of reading your current reply in another post. i really do not get it. did she mirror my own self or did she mirror the ideal woman i would like to have in my dreams ?

the things i projected on to her. what does it say about me ?

I think she would have mirrored your own self, the things within you that you lack in order to feel complete, do we not all have these things? In so doing she (in your eyes) would then become the ideal woman, would she not?

I suspect we all projected our inner fears onto them. I recognized my situation was similar to a childhood situation, I saw this and guess I thought I could bring about a different outcome (as I had some semblance of control over the situation this time around) In my case I projected the needy little 6 year old that all he needed was love and reassurance. Why did i do this with this girl? Never done it with any others, maybe i saw perfection because in her I felt 100% complete?

[Blimblam]

blimbam i wrote this post because of reading your current reply in another post. i really do not get it. did she mirror my own self or did she mirror the ideal woman i would like to have in my dreams ?

the things i projected on to her. what does it say about me ?

She parroted some of your behaviors. But the main thing is the way she looked at you like you were the best thing that ever happened and any little thing you did was a miracle. This inspired in you the way you wish you saw yourself and encouraged a sense of pride.  You felt the pride as your own but it was the was she looked at you that inspired it.  You bonded to the pride she inspired in you.  She needed you to be prideful and you projected a sense of pride and she attached to that pride.  She just was an object that inspired pride in you and that is what fueled the fantasy you attached to.  You thought you were bonding to her and on some levels you were but it was her in the context of the prideful fantasy she inspired in you.  She was just a mirror a muse an object.  The bond that is hard to break is not to her it is to the idea you need her to feel that part of yourself.  But it just feels like her.  When you realize the memories of her are really all about you and it was your own projection and it came from you and it's still there. 

[Blimblam]

She just provided looking at you like your a god.  And the feeling you felt was your projection. But it came from you it is a part of you and when you look back it is what you are really remembering. 

[BuildingFromScratch]

Yeah, mine just placated to me, into oblivion at first. And I suppose I did somewhat too. And then our lies unraveled. Unfortunately she was almost all a lie and I was only partially a lie. This happens in all delusional love based relationships, it's just more extreme with BPD.

[Caredverymuch]

blimbam i wrote this post because of reading your current reply in another post. i really do not get it. did she mirror my own self or did she mirror the ideal woman i would like to have in my dreams ?

the things i projected on to her. what does it say about me ?

AJ, she mirrored behaviors she knew were attractive to you. She assessed you and gained a quick knowing of the man you are. Your character.  What you were missing within your self. What you love about life.  What you like to eat. Drink. Wear. How you sit. How you take your coffee.  What songs you like.  Your sexual appetite. 

BPDs are adapt at very quickly reading others.  They needed to perfect this skill very early on in life during the dysfunctional parenting with their likely BPD or NPD parent.  They had to quickly assess that parents mood and needs so they could become that child.  To try to get that unconditional love they yearned for. And never got.  They are repeating this very very function during idealization when they mirror us.  Who ever we are.  They will now be.  Can you recall times your ex may have taken her coffee " just like you" or loved the same foods. The same ideals in life.  Etc?  This is exactly why.

So we wont abandon them like their parent did. We are the parent they so desperately needed. They are becoming the perfect child all over again.

We are not projecting anything bad ON THEM. We are projecting the ideal parent, partner, best friend WE never really had in a someway unconscious way.  They " become" all of those ppl now. TO US.  THAT is the trauma bond now formed.

D/d is all about THEM projecting the punitive parents voice within them telling them all of the ways they are bad. Unlovable. Broken.  Not good enough.  Ugly. Deceitful.  Stupid. Unfaithful.  This is far too shameful for them to process. It always was. And bc they suppressed their emotional needs their entire lives they became " empty".  They never developed an identity of their own.  Why they fall " in love" so quickly. Each time thinking they are finding the " real love" of their life.   Why they say that all the time as adults.  "I felt so empty and alone until I met you."

You get too close after idealization. The reality in a logic r/s is that this is the time true intimacy is growing.  This scares the hell out of the abandoned child.  They never had that.  It threatens them and awakes that punitive parent inside full force.  They are replaying all those ugly projections deep within that kept them from being the perfect child.  The perfect child would have gotten that parents love if only they weren't stupid, ugly, etc.   This are far too much to continue to listen too. To relive in any way.  So they give them over to you now to carry.  After all, you are going to leave them, just like their parent, and all the others before you " left them."

And this is how they recreate the fact to fit THEIR emotion.  They hate you now because you are all those things they have always not only thought but truly believe they are.  Deep under all the repression you awoke.

[BuildingFromScratch]

Cared very much. You really made me empathize with them a lot. I mean, their inner world truly is hell. And sometimes they deny reality just long enough to find a shred of happiness. But the truth always gets them. I really feel sorry for my ex. I hope she gets help someday, but I doubt it.

[Blimblam]

Wow cared that is so well put!   It makes so much sense.   I guess I was putting my focus on what it is we attach to.  What kind of helped me stop seeing her as my soulmate.  

I remember times I saw her change masks it was so weird.  

I think the focus on letting go of my ex kept me stuck on her even more.  

[Caredverymuch]

Cared very much. You really made me empathize with them a lot. I mean, their inner world truly is hell. And sometimes they deny reality just long enough to find a shred of happiness. But the truth always gets them. I really feel sorry for my ex. I hope she gets help someday, but I doubt it.

Building, their inner world is hell.  We think its all gone and all better bc they so quickly found someone else who we believe is better than we were.  Now they are truly happy. It was us that was the problem.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  My post is exactly the inner hell they relive over and over.  Why do you think they have such high suicide rates. 

We know we are fully detaching when we can fully empathize. See our role in all of it.  And fully realize the depth of the work that they would have to do to " get better."  Rarely happens.

[BuildingFromScratch]

All this talk of suicide has me worried. I did something crappy and sent like 10000 facebook messages to my ex about a year ago. Decoding her and our relationship. I hope she never kills herself over it. Never would have imagined myself doing so many crappy things before I was with her. But I gotta be honest, I've hurt a lot of people because of how toxic my relationship was with her. I became so freaking neurotic and devoid of trust and hope.

[Reforming]

You've already been given lots insights.

My understanding of the mirroring phase is;

BPD's lack a defined or consistent sense of self so they are constantly seeking this in others.

When they find a suitable partner / host they attach to us in a desperate attempt to share our sense of self.  They do this by mirroring back an idealised image of our self image - how we want the world see is (false self). Strong, loyal, clever, capable

Whatever qualities we most value and want to project.

For many of us this idealised self, or false self was a coping mechanism or armour that we developed to protect ourselves from childhood injury and vulnerability.

It's not to say that we may not have any of these qualities but for a while BPDs almost embrue them and us with a divine fire of perfection.

For us (and there are reasons why we end up these relationships) this mirroring / idealisation of how we want the world to see us (not how we actually are) is incredibly powerful and addictive

Depending on our narcissistic traits we not only feel that we've finally met someone who can see us for who we really are (or want to be)  - we feel that we're even better than we ever imagined.

Either way this mirroring fills a deep need or emptiness in us.

But it's not real

Eventually when the relationship deteriorates, and it always does  (engulfment, fear of abandonment, unstable sense of self and all the other dynamics which define a relationship with BPD) they began to devalue us.

And this glorious reflection of our idealised self (which was never real) begins to crack. 

[Caredverymuch]

Wow cared that is so well put!   It makes so much sense.   I guess I was putting my focus on what it is we attach to.  What kind of helped me stop seeing her as my soulmate. 

I remember times I saw her change masks it was so weird. 

I think the focus on letting go of my ex kept me stuck on her even more. 

Blim, they can only hold that mask up for too long during idealization.  Its too heavy after a while.  And we are getting too close.  This is the trigger that initiates the d/d.  The d/d behaviors hurt US as we are now trauma bonded to our own idealized parent, partner, best friend wrapped all in one in our " soulmate" triggering our then reactions to hold onto that which we so desperately wanted in our core child . And never got. We are holding on for dear life to our idealized parent, partner, best friend " soulmate" who was never real.

We are trauma bonded and left in TRAUMA BETRAYAL to a fantasy.  That we DESPERATELY not only want back.  Now that we "FINALLY  found it "  in our " soulmate". We NEED it back. Its now mothers milk.  We are now becoming not only the lonely child in our core, we are truly becoming the abandoned child now too. 

If we don't take the time to reverse the effort of being the forever victim of this interaction and only concentrate on ruminating on all of our present hurt from the end of the BPD r/a we will indeed repeat the pattern. We will indeed attract another who needs rescuing.  We will indeed attempt to rescue and rewrite the ending with another emotionally unavailable partner we cannot fix. We will continue to put the effort into the why me? Again? And forever stay stuck feeling attracted to those very same partners who appeal to us with the very same inner needs.

And end up feeling just like we have while here.

[antjs]

blimbam i wrote this post because of reading your current reply in another post. i really do not get it. did she mirror my own self or did she mirror the ideal woman i would like to have in my dreams ?

the things i projected on to her. what does it say about me ?

She parroted some of your behaviors. But the main thing is the way she looked at you like you were the best thing that ever happened and any little thing you did was a miracle. This inspired in you the way you wish you saw yourself and encouraged a sense of pride.  You felt the pride as your own but it was the was she looked at you that inspired it.  You bonded to the pride she inspired in you.  She needed you to be prideful and you projected a sense of pride and she attached to that pride.  She just was an object that inspired pride in you and that is what fueled the fantasy you attached to.  You thought you were bonding to her and on some levels you were but it was her in the context of the prideful fantasy she inspired in you.  She was just a mirror a muse an object.  The bond that is hard to break is not to her it is to the idea you need her to feel that part of yourself.  But it just feels like her.  When you realize the memories of her are really all about you and it was your own projection and it came from you and it's still there. 

That does not only resonate with me. I felt an earthquake inside while reading this

[antjs]

Blimblam so what do you think about this ? The part of me that she has mirrored and made me feel proud. Was that the false self or was that really good characteristics in me that i could not see because of lack of confidence and self assurance ?

[Reforming]

This is an interesting discussion.

For me the hard thing is to redirect my focus on myself.

I would say we both wore masks

Ours was the idealised self that we built up and presented to the world long before we ever met our respective BPDs

Where did our idealised self come from? Why did we need it? And what's underneath

I don't think our false self is the product of pride. It's a reaction to injury

It's body armour, a shield, a coping mechanism that we've created to protect some deep wound or injury to our vulnerable real self.

And we built it block by block to try and make the others love and accept us and protect us from further injury

But if you build a wall around yourself it's hard to see out. And deep down in us, the deep longing for love and acceptance for our true selves is still unanswered.

When a BPD mirrors and idealises our false self it's like someone throwing a match at bonfire soaked in gas

Miraculously, probably for the first time in our lives it feels like our wound has been healed and for a while our deep longing for love and acceptance appears to be filled.

It's not their fault. They're probably more damaged than we are but neither of us was healthy to begin with. You don't end up in relationship with BPD by accident

[Caredverymuch]

This is an interesting discussion.

For me the hard thing is to redirect my focus on myself.

I would say we both wore masks

Ours was the idealised self that we built up and presented to the world long before we ever met our respective BPDs

Where did our idealised self come from? Why did we need it? And what's underneath

I don't think our false self is the product of pride. It's a reaction to injury

It's body armour, a shield, a coping mechanism that we've created to protect some deep wound or injury to our vulnerable real self.

And we built it block by block to try and make the others love and accept us and protect us from further injury

But if you build a wall around yourself it's hard to see out. And deep down in us, the deep longing for love and acceptance for our true selves is still unanswered.

When a BPD mirrors and idealises our false self it's like someone throwing a match at bonfire soaked in gas

Miraculously, probably for the first time in our lives it feels like our wound has been healed and for a while our deep longing for love and acceptance appears to be filled.

It's not their fault. They're probably more damaged than we are but neither of us was healthy to begin with. You don't end up in relationship with BPD by accident

This all is correct Reforming. The BPD causes a great deal of destruction and pain as result of their patterns.   We can use the experience as the learning tool it should be for those of us here, stay a victim, go back for more, repeat it again, or chose to make this traumatic experience as the turning point to rewind our lives and do it better moving forward. 

[LostGhost]

Two quick questions about this. This is an insightful discussion... .

1) I didn't have much of an identity when she came along. My marriage to my previous partner just ended (13 year relationship) and my whole world was obliterated. I was literally trying new hobbies, foods, clothing... .trying to piece together some semblance of a person again. I guess it would be an exaggeration to say I had no identity. I'm sure some of my inherent values remained intact. But she had her work cut out for her to mirror whatever I was at that time.

It makes me want to say to her, "I want you to understand... .this lack of identity you feel inside. It's not real. Because I had no identity when you came along. You created me and brought out all of the amazing qualities and characteristics that everybody else sees and comments on all the time. That wasn't me. That was you. Take ownership and pride over who you are because without you, this "great person" I am, wouldn't exist."

I suppose it would have no effect.

2) What happens when two people with BPD end up in a relationship other than the apocalypse? How can they each mirror what doesn't exist in the other?

[antjs]

You don't end up in relationship with BPD by accident

a healthy person has self love, self acceptance,... .etc but a "good" (at least appears so initially) relationship still feels good. thats why people get into relationships and marriage. there is an instinct to love and be loved, to be understood and have somebody to feel compassionate about you.

would not a healthy person like the idealization phase (the acceptance and love and feeling that you are being totally understood) apart from the red flags ?

[Ventus2ct]

Wow, I have missed a great thread this afternoon. I relate to so much of what you say Reforming and CaredveryMuch, a great post.

I felt normal before I had a relationship with my ex, can't sat as I had any other bad relationships apart from one other who was Bi-polar with a drug issue. I must say I was taken in by it all hook line and sinker.

The things I didn't notice at the time that I see now are:

The speed of it all, she'd moved in after 2 months 

She only finished with her ex(9 month relationship) 2 weeks before we first went out 

We started having unprotected sex as we both wished to have children 

I was deliriously happy 

Instead of a relationship she wanted just FWB until I put my foot down 

The list goes on but I IGNORED them all and the outcome we all know!

Maybe a more balanced individual without issues would notice these issues and stick solidly to their boundaries and as such would never have had a relationship with such a person.

[Reforming]

Hi antony It's a good  question.

A healthy person would be self aware enough and accepting of who they really are to recognise that the idealised reflection was too good to be true and wasn't real.

I've got friends who began relationships where they were immediately put on pedestal but who quickly sensed something askew, unhealthy about the attachment.

Their reality testing skills told them that the person who this potential partner was reflecting / falling in love wasn't really them.

And as soon as the typical red flags appeared they walked away

I'm not saying this to criticise NONs (I don't like that term) but to help myself and others acknowledge our own vulnerability to these attachments.

I was drawn to that idealisation. For the first time in my life I truly felt blessed and accepted. 

Now I working to learn to love who I really am, warts and all.

[moving1]

aj , I have just had to log in as my ex BPD contacted me recently & I still get support/reassurance here.  Read the responses to your post ... .they are spot on  

[antjs]

well my interaction with my ex did not last long. all in all it lasted 5 weeks. but i ignored the red flags. i moved in with her after one week. i received a gift from her after 8 days. i had unprotected sex with her the second or the third time. i told her "i love you" too early.  i left her after 6 days of devaluation and crazy making. i did not take her crap. i did not normalize the abuse but i loved the honeymoon phase. i felt revived (like nothing before in my life) during the idealization phase and i mourned this short interaction for long. most of the comments here resonates a lot so i am not healthy as i should be. i acknowledge now that i did not love myself enough and i took pride in her idealization of me. i am digging deep to find out why i was not self loving and accepting myself in the past. why did i numb and dissociate from my feelings ? every time foo comes up i feel clueless. i was not significantly abused as a child that i can spot on. maybe subtly. i mean my parents did the best they knew of but they were hard on me. my dad was not compassionate. he does not seek to talk to me or validate anything i am feeling. my mom is over protective because she "loves" me.

[Caredverymuch]

Two quick questions about this. This is an insightful discussion... .

1) I didn't have much of an identity when she came along. My marriage to my previous partner just ended (13 year relationship) and my whole world was obliterated. I was literally trying new hobbies, foods, clothing... .trying to piece together some semblance of a person again. I guess it would be an exaggeration to say I had no identity. I'm sure some of my inherent values remained intact. But she had her work cut out for her to mirror whatever I was at that time.

It makes me want to say to her, "I want you to understand... .this lack of identity you feel inside. It's not real. Because I had no identity when you came along. You created me and brought out all of the amazing qualities and characteristics that everybody else sees and comments on all the time. That wasn't me. That was you. Take ownership and pride over who you are because without you, this "great person" I am, wouldn't exist."

I suppose it would have no effect.

2) What happens when two people with BPD end up in a relationship other than the apocalypse? How can they each mirror what doesn't exist in the other?

Lost, it sounds like you were going through a difficult time when you met your pBPD.  A break up of a marriage takes time  to recover from. Keeping busy and trying new things is all part of the rediscovery of single life and fun.  But maybe you hadn't been promoted by your break up or really any other time in life to look inward instead outward for an our identity.  I was guilty of this when I met my pBPD.  I was doing all those things you were. But didnt have a need to look deep inside.  Likely none of us did before the BPD destruction.

Would you say we may have been vulnerable as such? Willing to yolk within all that idealization while ignoring some of the red flags to recreate a new ending than the one before? I can see this now for me. Retrospectively.  I couldn't see it then.

Two BPDs in a r/s would likely end the same way our situation did.  The BPD has no identity and clings fearing abandonment.  They need someone to give them that identity. Perhaps why their unions with NPDs fit together well.  The NPD controls and never gets too close to the BPD intimately having her own issues with that.  The BPD constantly feeds into the NPDs  control and need for adoration in a never ending attempt to keep a sense of identity and security. Its as unhealthy of a r/s as any other but somewhat safe as both feed into one another's insecurities and avoid true intimacy.

Regardless, the BPD will never have healthy interpersonal r/s with anyone without the desire and full commitment of a lot of core work.

[Caredverymuch]

well my interaction with my ex did not last long. all in all it lasted 5 weeks. but i ignored the red flags. i moved in with her after one week. i received a gift from her after 8 days. i had unprotected sex with her the second or the third time. i told her "i love you" too early.  i left her after 6 days of devaluation and crazy making. i did not take her crap. i did not normalize the abuse but i loved the honeymoon phase. i felt revived (like nothing before in my life) during the idealization phase and i mourned this short interaction for long. most of the comments here resonates a lot so i am not healthy as i should be. i acknowledge now that i did not love myself enough and i took pride in her idealization of me. i am digging deep to find out why i was not self loving and accepting myself in the past. why did i numb and dissociate from my feelings ? every time foo comes up i feel clueless. i was not significantly abused as a child that i can spot on. maybe subtly. i mean my parents did the best they knew of but they were hard on me. my dad was not compassionate. he does not seek to talk to me or validate anything i am feeling. my mom is over protective because she "loves" me.

.

AJ i read somewhere the following.  When we had an emotionally absent parent we got used to looking for validation in a source that couldn't provide it.  So we unconsciously then began looking for that missing love and validation in others. We unconsciously were attracted to partners who needed fixing.  Because we felt we could provide that fixing to our emotionally unavailable partner and recreate the ending to the loss we got used.   Does that make any sense? I still think about this.  It really has helped me understand a great deal.

[Blimblam]

Blimblam so what do you think about this ? The part of me that she has mirrored and made me feel proud. Was that the false self or was that really good characteristics in me that i could not see because of lack of confidence and self assurance ?

Well I think it was a part of you taken out of context.  It feels like the missig piece of the puzzle for many of is because we had insecurities.  Even npds have insecurities deep down so the borderline  inspires our pride and self worth in us and we repress our own fears and parts of ourself that are inconsistent with what we want to see in the interaction.  I think that is why we ignore the red flags.  

In our interaction with them we become conditioned to repress our fears because it feels so good to become the role they want for us as a sort of parent figure so we have to be strong and consistant and lead the way.  And we like to see ourselves in this way.  

A big part of the pattern I realized was the is repressing our own fears to fill that role they want us to fill while we feel needed and also to be consistant with the way we like to see ourselves in their eyes.  In order to achieve all of this we have to lie to ourselves.

I kind if stopped thinking about it in terms of false self and true self and more in terms of the pride she inspired in me

And how pride has the potential to blind people.  

And how how what the missing price she inspired in me is not gone and I don't need her to feel it again it is just a part of me.  All the pain is an illusion. 

The illusion is that she the object I projected the idea of myself onto are one and the same. That when I lost her I lost that part of myself.  So what I was really experiencing most of the relationship was really my own projection it was an illusion a fantasy. I was experiencing a part of my self she inspired to create so she could attach to it. 

I'm not trying to let go of her at all and I couldn't do it because that would mean to loose that part of myself. 

She's not who I thought she was and what i experienced as her that I yearn for is my own projection my own fantasy the missing piece it was me the whole time but just a part of me.

[BacknthSaddle]

You don't end up in relationship with BPD by accident

would not a healthy person like the idealization phase (the acceptance and love and feeling that you are being totally understood) apart from the red flags ?

I think a "healthy person" would be more wary of the red flags and wouldn't be overpowered by the idealization.  I know in my case my ex had numerous red flags, and when she told me early in the relationship that she "loved me" (a feeling I did not reciprocate at the time), I thought uh oh, I should probably get out of this.  But, I was so intoxicated by the idealization that I decided it was reasonable to stick with her anyway.  Of course by the end I had "fallen in love" and she had split me black. 

Let me put it this way: I have been in relationships before with healthy women who told me they loved me, and I have said to them that I did not reciprocate and that it probably wasn't fair to them to stay together.  And they have agreed.  On the face of it, the situation with my ex was no different, so if I was truly "healthy" I should have treated it like all of those other cases.  But I got drunk on the idealization.

I've noticed that a lot of people here are very wary of being labeled as "unhealthy," and I suppose that word does carry some pretty negative connotations.  Maybe a better way to put it is that we were "vulnerable" or "at risk" with respect to this type of relationship, and we need to figure out what these vulnerabilities are.  It really isn't the case that everyone is vulnerable to entering into an emotionally intimate relationship with a clearly fragile/broken person with a ton of red flags.  I don't think there's anything "wrong" with the fact that we were, but it certainly merits investigation. 

[Blimblam]

Backnthesaddle

I don't like the healthy unhealthy either it is too black and white


I think it is more about ballance.  And how when we feel we need somone else to validate our experience this is out of ballance and wen things are out of ballance we are often in denial of it. And our pride covers our denial In a fancy presentation so nobody knows not even us.