Can pwBPD learn from experience?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi all,

One of the many questions going through my mind ... .why does it seem that pwBPD don't seem to learn from experience?  Can they?

My uBPD exbf seemed to have a fairly good level of insight into some of his behaviors and where things were going wrong during/after he broke up with me, but since then, I have found out about some of the relationships he has been in and it appears that he has just repeated the same cycle of behaviors over and over again.

He said to me when he was ending the relationship that he wanted to do things differently this time, but it turned out he couldn't.  A few months later, he has gone into yet another relationship.

It makes me think that he can't possibly be processing his experience rationally as most people would?

Any ideas?

[Pets]

Hi all,

One of the many questions going through my mind ... .why does it seem that pwBPD don't seem to learn from experience?  Can they?

My uBPD exbf seemed to have a fairly good level of insight into some of his behaviors and where things were going wrong during/after he broke up with me, but since then, I have found out about some of the relationships he has been in and it appears that he has just repeated the same cycle of behaviors over and over again.

He said to me when he was ending the relationship that he wanted to do things differently this time, but it turned out he couldn't.  A few months later, he has gone into yet another relationship.

It makes me think that he can't possibly be processing his experience rationally as most people would?

Any ideas?

[Infern0]

I think when they are fairly regulated,  yes they do see the mistakes they have made but when the disorder gets triggered then all bets are off.

There are people out there who know they have BPD,  are aware of it but still can't help themselves at all.

[maxen]

hi Pets. first, i'm sorry to read about your experience with your exbf. r/ss with pwBPD can be very, very confusing experiences. that's why we're all here, so welcome!

pwBPD are individuals too. some have no insight, some have insight with no desire to address their behaviors, some have insight with desire to address their behaviors but cannot, some have insight with desire to address their behaviors and can. it sounds like your ex fits into the third of those categories; my wife fits (barely) into the second. "i don't forget, i don't forgive, and that's just way i am," she said in the one lucid moment i ever saw. she and the other members of her family are arrogant people.

so no, he's not likely processing his experiences rationally, or at least not as rationally as the average. BPD is a disorder of impulse control (among other things), and we're faced with the sad prospect that he may be aware of his incapacity to control his patterns. that would be a very painful situation to be in. it would not excuse his behaviors, but it would explain them.

how have you coped since?

[patientandclear]

Hi Pets.  To me, the phenomenon you are pointing out is one of the best indicators that this is a VERY entrenched very resilient dysfunction.

95% of the time, my ex is telling himself and telling relevant others (current romantic interests, potential girlfriends he is trying to engage, close friends) a story about not having found the right partner.  He told that story to me -- it was so potent -- he made me feel like obviously all the prior women had just been poor matches, but luckily, we had finally found each other, etc.

But like you, when (after he broke up with me) I realized the breathtaking number of identical relationship cycles he's had (swift passionate beginning, abrupt cold ending, devastated woman, multiply by ... .20? more?), it became really hard to believe that HE can believe this story.  How many times can you recite "I knew you were out there and I was willing to be by myself until I found you," "I don't know that what you've awakened in me was completely dead, but ... ." ... .before the pattern becomes clear to you?  It really defies understanding how they can do that.

I do think there is some latent understanding running through all the cover stories they get caught up in.  In my ex's case, he had anxiety that I was going to discover his "reputation" with respect to relationships.  Like an idiot at the time, I did not pursue that (like asking "what reputation?" but I really had no idea what he was talking about.  I mean, who has a "reputation" for patterned bad relationship behavior?  I didn't know about BPD then obviously.  Anyway, he obviously wouldn't have been anxious about this if he hadn't realized that at least in the eyes of others, there was something patterned and wrong.

But.

I had an astonishing experience with him about a year ago that was revealing on this point.  He was in some sort of crisis and I could tell while we were texting.  I asked what was up.  He hesitated and then said he had been watching a movie about someone with an attachment disorder (he did not use that term) and was really destroyed watching the way things played out for that person.  Meaning, relationships.  We texted about it for a bit and then he sort of freaked out and said that was as far as he could go for the time being.

Flash forward a week or so when I sent him info on two trauma recovery therapy approaches I have been using (I didn't fill him in that the trauma I was dealing with had to do with him! he thought it referred to past abusive relationships I've been in) and asked whether he might find them useful.  He responded that he had thought for a few hours about the lessons from that movie, and processed the lessons, but now ... ."I'm off!"  He said "there is nothing to fix."

Really.  There is nothing to fix.  So he had this brief aperture through which he could see how profound the wreckage is and that it is tragic and not OK.  But then his defenses took hold and everything was as it should be, and, "I'm off!"  A week later, he was in a new relationship.  (Just like after we broke up, when he said he was going to dig into his intimacy issues in therapy and then, just as your guy did, he pursued another r/ship instead.)

I am not one to try to fix him, but a few times in the course of our several years of close engagement, I flagged that maybe his horrific childhood abuse experiences might have made it hard for him to trust people he lets in close.  Or something like that.  Each time he sort of looked at me blankly like that was the craziest idea he'd ever heard.  And he said I was naive to excuse his behaviors in those terms.  No, the real reason he did what he did was the stated (irrational, impulsive) reason he had already identified ... .

So in his case, the answer really seems to be no, he cannot learn from experience.  He is not uninterested in the project.  He regularly does a little bit of therapy because of a worry that he is screwing up relationships.  But he doesn't sustain it and he develops apparently ZERO insight that he is able to work with to change his behavior.  I think his defenses are far too powerful to allow that.

[Algae]

Hi all,

One of the many questions going through my mind ... .why does it seem that pwBPD don't seem to learn from experience?  Can they?

My uBPD exbf seemed to have a fairly good level of insight into some of his behaviors and where things were going wrong during/after he broke up with me, but since then, I have found out about some of the relationships he has been in and it appears that he has just repeated the same cycle of behaviors over and over again.

He said to me when he was ending the relationship that he wanted to do things differently this time, but it turned out he couldn't.  A few months later, he has gone into yet another relationship.

It makes me think that he can't possibly be processing his experience rationally as most people would?

Any ideas?

I'm going to say NO.  They do not learn.

Ive been splitted with 5-7 times.  Each time she just stops talking to me without saying anything and blocks all social media.  Goes from "I love you "  to never hearing from her again.  The a couple months later she comes back crying and begging and saying shes sorry.

She then tries to make it all better but the more i resist... the more she goes "I"M TRYING HERE OK ;-; THIS IS HARD".  She gets impatient.  She usually learns from experience when she has me in the idolization phase... .but after im out of that phase, she forgets all her past experience with hurting me and does it again.

[Rise]

Personally in my experience with my ex, I'd say, yeah, pwBPD can learn from their mistakes. But there's a giant gap between being able to learn a lesson and implementing it in their lives. The problem is one of the defining characteristics of BPD is unstable, powerful emotions. And emotions are the exact opposite of rational thoughts. My ex knows better in a lot of circumstances when she is calm and collected. The second her emotions get involved though, any sense of rationality goes out the window. It didn't matter at all what she knows, only what she feels.

[myself]

To change course means admitting being off course. So they plow ahead.