Playing tennis

[Bair]

One of the counselers we went to on time used the illustration of tennis players on a cruise ship. If they all played eachother, by the end of the cruise groups of players would be formed where skill levels were about the same and they would mostly play with folks in or near their own skill level.  Point being, my wife and I were pretty much on the same emotional level. I think he saw she was most likely had BPD.

So the question for me is : What is my malfunction? Over the years I've learner that I have ADD.

Is that that the sort of thing that keeps us together? I mean does her BPD traits and my ADD traits keep us "playing tennis" with each other?

[empathic]

Good analogy, makes a lot of sense. I definitely have my own share of issues to deal with. There have been some threads on here that have dealt with the NONs having issues themselves.

I can say for sure that a "normal" person would not have put up with what I've been through, especially early on after we had kids. That person would have been able to enforce some boundaries.

Then there is the issue of overcoming limitations to please them, which can be even harder when living with a BPD while having issues yourself. For example, my wife and I have different standards of what constitutes a "mess". I have so far adapted to her view, making more of an effort on tidying up than I would have otherwise (and I'm by no means a "messy" person). I also tend to procrastinate, it can be a problem but it never had any major impact on my life before meeting my wife. Now I feel a great deal of anxiety if I would miss a payment on something (which rarely happens) because to my wife that is a disaster.

[Pingo]

My T basically told me the same thing and I remember feeling like holy crap, I'm nuts too?  Well, no, I don't have a mental illness but I do have many attachment issues, FOO issues that I have not dealt with, many different compulsive coping mechanisms over the years (relationships being just one of them)... .basically I have been trying to self-medicate all my adult life and run away from my FOO.  I have numbed so much pain without even realising it.  Now I am in my mid-forties and feel like I'm just finally 'growing up'.  This realisation that I may have equally dysfunctional emotional issues has helped motivate me to really dig deep and heal the past, quit running away from it.  It's the only hope to have a healthy r/s in the future (play tennis with someone emotionally healthy).