Is someone always painted black for them?

[Take2]

This is something I'm wondering this morning and I can't remember if I've read about this previously.  With my ex, I do get the sense that he always must have to being painting someone black (usually me).  His anger and rage seem to need an outlet.  It has made me wonder if when we were first dating if he was raging with his ex then without me having any idea.  By always having someone to paint black, it allows him the outlet for his often psychotic rages and then he can present the "normal guy" image to the current partner or anyone else in the world. 

[fromheeltoheal]

His anger and rage seem to need an outlet.

It's not so much an outlet as an offloading.  Borderlines take their shame and project it on someone else, so it is literally no longer their shame and the other person becomes shameful, suitable for raging.  Irrational yes, but we all do that to some extent, which is where sayings like the more we don't like something in someone else, the more likely it's something we don't like in ourselves.  It's interesting and enlightening to catch ourselves doing it, although with a borderline it's turned on full blast and is absolute, to deal with the pain imposed by their wiring.

[hergestridge]

Sure. During the 20 years I spent with my wife it was usually the only way I could make the situation manageable with her when she was tense and wound up - to agree on a common "enemy", i e someone who could badmouth for a while. After that she was ok for a while. It was like an adrenalin rush and she was addicted to it.

From what I know this started early in life and since her parents did not "play along" when she painted teachers and playmates black she started to paint her parents black too; it was their "betrayal" that they didn't support her in her battle against everybody.

When I met her she was at the throat of her brother and her parents mostly. When she started to paint black her bosses and collegues I started questioning her because I didn't want her to loser her job. That is when I "betrayed" her basically when I was painted black too. And that was the beginning of the end.

It is very sad, because it is a pattern she cannot break. She has shunned friends and family and I'm quite sure she will ___ up the relationship with her daughter too when she's old enough to have an opinion of her own.

[hergestridge]

His anger and rage seem to need an outlet.

It's not so much an outlet as an offloading.  Borderlines take their shame and project it on someone else, so it is literally no longer their shame and the other person becomes shameful, suitable for raging.  Irrational yes, but we all do that to some extent, which is where sayings like the more we don't like something in someone else, the more likely it's something we don't like in ourselves.  It's interesting and enlightening to catch ourselves doing it, although with a borderline it's turned on full blast and is absolute, to deal with the pain imposed by their wiring.

[/quote

It's interesting that you say that, because I always found myself defending, developing and refining moral standards during my 20yr relationship that I don't think I would have otherwise. Especially during the later half, when the conflicts escalated and the differences between me and my wife became apparent.

"You think you're such a ___ing saint, don't you?". That's what she used to tell me. But that was the position she was forcing me to take in a way. It was her manipulations and accusations that had me deconstruct every little action I made and question the validity and righteousness of everything I did or said.

I think I tread very very carefully now, when I meet other people.

[fromheeltoheal]

It was her manipulations and accusations that had me deconstruct every little action I made and question the validity and righteousness of everything I did or said.

I think I tread very very carefully now, when I meet other people.

Yes, and deconstructing ourselves is a good thing to a point, but when we've convinced ourselves we're doing what's right for us and right in general, other people become either supportive or unsupportive of that.  Treading carefully is good too, it's boundary preservation, and sometimes the only way to preserve boundaries with someone is remove them from our lives, although boundaries can be a prison too, gotta let the good ones in, and where we draw the line if an ongoing process.

[Blimblam]

My ex always had someone painted black. Often multiple people.  She would trash talk them one week then have someone new painted black and trash talk someone else behind their back. My ex didn't want me to know she was doing this because I think she didn't want to loose me as an attachment.