Explain the push and pull to me.

[fred6]

Is the push and pull breaking up and recycling. Or is it a more subtle get along good for a certain amount of time and then a arguement/ST/disassociation and then getting along good again? Rinse and repeat.

With my ex wife, we did the break up make up thing 2-3 times over 15 years. But I consider her a somewhat normal relationship that just didn't work out in the end. With my exBPD, it seemed that we got along great for a certain amount of time and then she would rage about something silly and give me ST for 1-3 days and then she was fine again. But when the r/s was over, IT WAS OVER!

[Rise]

I think it is the same thing, just to different extents. Some times the push is so hard it ends the relationship, and the pull comes in the form of a recycle. Other times, it's just a matter of fighting and making up.

[Infern0]

It covers a lot.

Even down to little things such as physical contact. For example my ex would sometimes be like "don't touch me" if I went to put my arm round her.  But then later on she'd want to come and sit in my lap and smother me with affection.

It's all part of the disorder but it's confusing and leaves you in a weird place where you never know what you are supposed to do

[fromheeltoheal]

Borderlines have an unstable sense of self, a result of not having a fully formed 'self' of their own, so they must attach to someone else, not in a 'you complete me' romantic sense, but in an unhealthy merging of psyches sense, to create one complete person out of two.  Problem is when they get too close they feel engulfed, like they will lose themselves in the other person, so they push that person away to try and gain a feeling of independence.  And then, when they get too far away emotionally they feel abandoned, so they pull the person back.  That is an ongoing chaos that is a result of the disorder, the only stability being straddling the fence between engulfment and abandonment, short lived since the fence is always moving.

For those of us with a more developed and stable sense of self, trying to navigate that dynamic with any sense of stability is futile and crazymaking.  You probably noticed.