I have been wondering today how many of you have been able to use your experience of being in a relationship with someone with BPD positively. What have you learned about yourself and how will you take that forward in your future relationships?
It's still early days for me and I am just beginning to explore all this as I begin to make sense of the last 2.5 years.
Hi Pavillion, this is a good topic bc we can ( and should) spend all the time we need trying to understand BPD but there comes a point when the focus must go inward regardless if you are staying or leaving. There is a reason we all we drawn to the pBPD or vise versa and that reason is not mere coincidence.
What I have learned from this experience is that whenever a r/s requires one partner to put all their needs aside for the emotional well being of the other, that's not a r/s. That's substitution of a missing parent. And much more. That's unhealthy and there is absolutely nothing we can do to change others in a r/s like this. Love does not fix others.
They say BPD's suppress in order to survive but the non's end up suppressing much as well to survive in that r/s. Bc having a need of your own triggers them. And the r/s has no in between. It goes from all good to all bad, overnight seemingly. It goes from mutual giving and caring to a one sided well of need with no bottom. That's the time we on the leaving board should have trusted our gut. When it began to feel very wrong and one sided and nothing you could do was enough. And you were not considered to have a need of your own. That's when a healthier person with better boundaries walks.
When you suppress your own needs for that of another, that's not a r/s. And it will always come to the surface in other ways.
Self love, better boundaries, trusting your gut instinct and the red flags which always knows the truth being denied, and walking away when any of those things are being disrespected. That's what I have learned.
And, in the few casual r/s I have had since this interaction, I have listened intuitively when a person is telling me who they are. When it didn't feel "right" to me. I have done just that.
No second chances when you have shown me who you are. You need to do your own inner work fully then listen clearly going forward. Hmmm, blaming the ex spouse for all that went wrong, bad r/s with your parents, talking only about yourself
And not that this was the intention, but doing this makes that person want and respect you much more from the start. if you so choose to remain there. Which I do not, unless it's healthy from the start.
