dating a non after a pwBPD

[dobie]

I've had a fair amount of women and r/s in my life both before and after my high functioning  ex left but none of these women got me or were as interested in who I really am as she was. That adulation that awe of the things that make me, me its like a drug and I'm a junkie Ive  met / dated non women now after the BU and they just seem so bland so nondescript  they are more interested in themselves than who I am let alone get or admire the things I like . she touched a part of me and loved and admired me in a way no other woman has . I don't know how to not want that without finding myself with a partner with cluster B traits

How did you all transition to non women after your BPD r/s ?

[HappyNihilist]

dobie, I'm sorry you're struggling with this. I think it's a perfectly natural response after an intense, dysfunctional relationship with a disordered person.

No, relationships with non-disordered people don't have the same intensity and "rush." Those are signs of an unhealthy relationship; a healthy r/s isn't going to feel like that. Intimacy progresses much more slowly in a non-disordered relationship. There's some mirroring and love-bombing (these are just human nature), but it's nowhere on the scale of a Cluster B relationship. This can feel like a lack of "chemistry."

That idealization phase of a BPD relationship feels really good. The borderline is ensuring his/her attachment, and bonds as quickly as possible to avoid what they fear is emotional death.

I've had a fair amount of women and r/s in my life both before and after my high functioning  ex left but none of these women got me or were as interested in who I really am as she was.

The hard truth is that the borderline is never that interested in "who you really are." Their interest in you is because they feel you can fulfill their needs. The nature of the disorder forces the borderline to objectify people in their life.

It feels like they're deeply interested in who you are, due to the mirroring, idealization, and desperate attempts to attach. Part of manipulation and control (even when done subconsciously) involves extracting a lot of personal information from the partner. Also, borderlines are usually very emotionally intuitive and can "read" people extremely well, which further enforces the idea that this person "gets" you like no one else ever could.

That adulation that awe of the things that make me, me its like a drug and I'm a junkie

This is a lot closer to the heart of it - yes, these relationships/people can be addictive. And like many addictions, just because it feels good doesn't mean it's good for you.

Ive  met / dated non women now after the BU and they just seem so bland so nondescript  they are more interested in themselves than who I am let alone get or admire the things I like . she touched a part of me and loved and admired me in a way no other woman has .

It's true that no non-borderline can love in quite the same way as a borderline.

Borderline love is disordered. A person without a sense of self, with such deep psychic wounds, cannot ever achieve or sustain true intimacy. Instead, their love is more like a child's idea of intimacy (superficial, need-based) - and it is always, always trumped by their desperate need for survival.

Those of us who enter and stay in disordered relationships have our own issues with intimacy and relationships to work through, obviously. Part of the healing process is learning that, sometimes, what feels really right and familiar to us... .isn't necessarily healthy for us.

[clydegriffith]

I can somewhat relate as well. It was awesome being on that pedistal in the beginning of the BPD relationship. It's so awesome that you never really ask any questions. You never once stop to think that being worshipped in such a manner is not only strange but unhealthy; you just bask in all your glory until they inevitably turn on you- then it hits you like a ton of bricks and you're left dazed and confused.

[goateeki]

Dobie, this post is really interesting to me.  I divorced my diagnosed BPD wife in October 2014 after 19 years of marriage.  She was a person who had no interest at all in the world around her, save television shows.  She avoided current events, and insisted that everyone be "nice" to her and around her, which I see as a trait of children -- unable to understand that life and people are complex things, and people, events and relationships often have huge amounts of gray in them. 

My girlfriend of five months is one of the most capable people I've ever met, with an energetic and curious mind, a willingness to see things as they are, and generally a "happy warrior." She is tough in the best way people can be tough, a humane way. 

She also loves me and loves our relationship.  We calm and support each other, and I know that in her, I have someone who really can be in my corner when someone like that is needed. 

So, for me, it is the diagnosed pwBPD who was the sad sack with the flat and uninteresting personality, and it is the non who is the vibrant one who -- and I am a cynic -- loves me like no woman has ever loved me. 

Our situations are quite different, unless I misunderstand your post.

[Maternus]

she touched a part of me and loved and admired me in a way no other woman has .

No, she didn't. It was all about her. It was a game she played. It was not real. Falling in love with a pwBPD feels like this Hollywood kind of "Love at first sight". We are all programmed to believe in this kind of "magic love", because narcissism in all flavours is epidemic in our culture. And we like it, when we are not personally involved - we like to see James Bond breaking the heart of his lovers and kill bad people, we like to see Walter White breaking bad and become Heisenberg. This is what good stories are made off. And yes, we love this kind of drama, while we enjoy it in the idealisation phase. But it becomes hurtful - more than we expected - when we are devalued, painted black and discarded.

Being in a relationship with a pwBPD or another cluster-b-disorder feels like being the star in a Hollywood-romance in the  beginning, but in the end it feels like being the victim in a psycho-thriller. Being in a relationship with a normal person, has not this high up and downs, it's normal life, it's not Hollywood. But it is a much more safer place to be. 

[Blimblam]

Yeah the way they nurture your most tender parts and try to emulate you like a kid trying to be like dad.  It's not that it's not real but that other side of them is at play to at all times.  That impulsive child In control of their toys. 

But yes it is addictive like a drug.

Keep in mind whirlwind romances are still tornadoes.

[Madison66]

Like some of the others have posted, I too felt the intensity of the first few months of my r/s with uBPD/NPD ex gf.  I had never had the start of a r/s like that and I believed it had to be "true love".  Then, the emotional dysregulation started and I struggled with the chaos (highs and lows).  I knew in my gut that something was not right, but I didn't understand anything about PD's and I didn't listen to my gut.  As I look back, I remember telling some friends and family members of some of the emotional "weirdness", and they would tell me that it just didn't sound normal or healthy.  I loved her and wanted to hang in there in hopes that things would calm down, but they actually got worse.

I say all this and can tell you now that I'm in a healthy r/s with an emotionally mature non PD lady and I haven't seen any of the wackiness or unhealthy intensity I felt with my ex gf.  I also am clearly listening to my gut and am very happy to be living, loving, laughing and growing again.  It's fantastic!

Let me tell you, though that when I started dating a couple months after the b/u with my ex gf I was convinced that I needed to find someone with the same energy and edge as my ex.  That faded over time as I worked on my own issues and began to love my life free of chaos and abuse.  So, I was in an exact different place this time around than where I was when I entered the r/s with my ex gf.  My advice to you is to keep looking inward and take some time for "you".  When you start to feel that peace inside that many of us nons search for after these tumultuous breakups and you have released the energy surrounding the feelings of the b/u, then you may be ready to put yourself back out there in the dating scene. 

Good luck to you!

[Clearmind]

It was a drug for me and NC didn't fix it. I had to heal from own issues and it was only then that i truly became highly allergic of disordered people.

I no longer needed a disordered person to mask my own grief and abandonment issues. I didn't need a night in shining admour to shower me with praise and put me on a pedestal because I soon learnt it's not real.

Heal from your past, or ways of relating in a relationship and a whole world of dating prospects will open up. You'll no longer want or need a person who gives those drug inducing highs and lows. You'll no longer be wanting to clamber back to the top of that pedestal because the fall is hard and the climb back up addictive.

If I still needed the fix of a disordered person I knew I wasn't ready to date.