Question ? Do BPD really fall in love ? Do they ever experince a broken heart ?

[guy4caligirl]

I wonder if they really do ! That's why I am asking ?

[newlifeBPDfree]

I feel like their heart os broken all the time... .

[dagwoodbowser]

In a way I can understand why some people would wonder about this. I think we are all Damaged in one way or another and experience emotions such as joy, sadness, anger or disapointment at different levels of timing and intensity. I am not an expert, a shrink or psychologist, but I am Human. My BPDx was also human. As I came to know her she divulged much of the terrible abuse(including sexual molestation) and neglect from childhood.

I didnt live inside her head but I know that there were moments that she felt pain, joy and in her own dysfunctional way expressed and felt Love. However, these strong emotions are all over the map moment to moment, day to day. There could be an entire day I would imagine where they feel, crave and want Love but once they have a fairly good dose of it they pull away onto something else. Much like an infant who is being breast fed, that moment they are hungry they are all about mom and that breast. Once filled and stuffed (at least for a few hours) that breast no longer matters.

[leftconfused]

I struggle with this as well.  Mine fell in love with me quickly.  He told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him, I was everything he ever wanted in a woman.  He never felt this way about anyone before, not even his ex wife.  then a few months later telling me he wasn't in love with me anymore and we just weren't meant to be.  UH WHAT?  That was when I knew for sure something wasn't right.  Love just doesn't go away like that.  We continued to see each off and on for months a few times he would tell me he did love me, but then turn around and say he doesn't remember saying it.  For me personally, I think they experience infatuation and have a idealized view of what love and a relationship should look like and when the newness wears off there is nothing there.  I am not sure they experience what we know to be real love.

[dobie]

Mine only ever got dumped once and it was a bf with a gf which my x new about

In her words she was devastated because she had no one else at the time not because of him  (family , friends support )


Next one cheated on her so she left him for another man and couldn't understand why he was so upset

The man she left him for she picked because he was a nice guy and secure spent three years with him even though she stopped fancying him after two weeks and stayed only to finish her degree met me while she was with him and I had a gf pursued me and left him


Its not my ego when I say I was the closest r/s to love she has ever had and the longest 6 years

But her heart broken no!

[McGahee21]

i think they experience love, but for selfish reasons.  ie, the great need to be loved, and appreciated is what motivates there action towards you.  its not really about u, but there emotional need.  notice a BPD gets cold when you start to talk about whats going on in your life and lights up when you say and do things for them.

[cosmonaut]

This has to be one of the most common and one of the most controversial questions on the Leaving board, because it is so fundamental to know if we were loved or not.  Was it real?  Were we used?

Here's what I believe, and I will reinforce that this is a belief: we were loved.  I can't prove this, but it can't also be proven that we weren't.  Ultimately, each of us will have to decide that question for ourselves.  Why do I believe I was loved?  Because I don't believe that certain aspects of the relationship could be faked.  I felt the way that my ex kissed me in a deeply passionate and tender way.  It wasn't hot or seductive.  It was warm and heartfelt.  I felt the way she would nestle her head into my chest and the peaceful way she slept beside me.  I heard the fear and worry in her voice pleading for me to call her the one time I gave her the silent treatment and she was terrified that something had happened to me.  I saw how she listening and empathized with me when I was going through a difficult time myself.  I felt her give me the most amazing back rubs after a long day at work.  I saw the tears and pain in her face when I said something very hurtful to her about us, something I deeply regret.  I felt her forgiveness of that too. All of these and so much more have me convinced that this was very real.  It just wasn't sustainable.  She couldn't tolerate it long term, not because it was an act, but because it wasn't an act.  There was very real emotion involved, and that for her is overwhelming.  Eventually, it was more than she could take, and in a very resigned way she just gave up.

[lm911]

They loved us, they just can't sustain it for long time. As simple as that. All their emotions are intesive - like love. They love very much and hate very much.

[Blimblam]

What ever "love," is a pwBPD falls into it within the context of their reality.  So yes it is very real the contempt was very real too. All of it was real within the context of their own narrative.

[cosmonaut]

That must be the sweetest I've heard about BPD EXGF, , I believe your case is rare , I wish you the best .

In some ways she is a very unusual pwBPD, and in other ways she is so very BPD.  She's a wonderful and very special person to me - just a disordered one.

I wish you the best too.

[guy4caligirl]

What ever "love," is a pwBPD falls into it within the context of their reality.  So yes it is very real the contempt was very real too. All of it was real within the context of their own narrative.

BlimBlam ,  can you rephrase what you wrote in easier English 

[Blimblam]

What ever "love," is a pwBPD falls into it within the context of their reality.  So yes it is very real the contempt was very real too. All of it was real within the context of their own narrative.

BlimBlam ,  can you rephrase what you wrote in easier English 

Sorry, I have poor grammar and a lot of typos often.

Emotions are emotions and they are just as real to a pwBPD as they are to a "non."

[confusedinWI]

This has to be one of the most common and one of the most controversial questions on the Leaving board, because it is so fundamental to know if we were loved or not.  Was it real?  Were we used?

Here's what I believe, and I will reinforce that this is a belief: we were loved.  I can't prove this, but it can't also be proven that we weren't.  Ultimately, each of us will have to decide that question for ourselves.  Why do I believe I was loved?  Because I don't believe that certain aspects of the relationship could be faked.  I felt the way that my ex kissed me in a deeply passionate and tender way.  It wasn't hot or seductive.  It was warm and heartfelt.  I felt the way she would nestle her head into my chest and the peaceful way she slept beside me.  I heard the fear and worry in her voice pleading for me to call her the one time I gave her the silent treatment and she was terrified that something had happened to me.  I saw how she listening and empathized with me when I was going through a difficult time myself.  I felt her give me the most amazing back rubs after a long day at work.  I saw the tears and pain in her face when I said something very hurtful to her about us, something I deeply regret.  I felt her forgiveness of that too. All of these and so much more have me convinced that this was very real.  It just wasn't sustainable.  She couldn't tolerate it long term, not because it was an act, but because it wasn't an act.  There was very real emotion involved, and that for her is overwhelming.  Eventually, it was more than she could take, and in a very resigned way she just gave up.

Wow I'm two months out from the end of my two year with my ex gf and I wonder this. The way you talked about the cuddling at night made me cry. Yes I miss what others say the passionate sex etc but right now as my kids are sleeping this is what I'm missing. I did find out thru a friend that she is already dating again after less than two months. New guy is a total downgrade. Just kills me we dated two years lived together seven months and now I'm just a distant memory. She would spoon me in a way that physically calmed me down and calmed her down... .how she just threw me away and my kids that she said she loved. The kids lived with us three nights a week. Now we are nothing. Ugh. I had to move in with my parents and she's in the apartment we shared. I thought she was the love I waited for. I had a marriage that wasn't fulfilling. My ex gf and I shared things I never shared with my ex wife. I hate this

[still_in_shock]

This is crazy, how identical our stories are - even the words they said. He too, fell in love with me head over toes so fast and married me only 4 mo after meeting online and second time seeing each other face to face. He said I was the best thing ever happened to him, he worshipped and adored me. He was showing me off as his trophy to friends, family, coworkers saying he's won a lottery, someone way out of his league, etc.

His mood swings started month 2 together, with me walking onto him while he was cursing me off to his friends (technically, we were on a honeymoon period), and hell of a rollercoaster ride with his turbulent emotions. By the end of year 1.5 (which he barely made to), he has cheated on me, said he wasn't romantically attracted to me anymore, that we weren't meant to be together, dumped me while I was in between jobs, took all the money and and had me vacate jointly leased apartment. And convinced everyone around him that I was a mentally ill woman that he only discovered after marrying. He even trashed me to his employer, which I am speechless about. He went to his boss and told her I am disillusioned and might come over their office with a scandal. This is plain crazy.

I struggle with this as well.  Mine fell in love with me quickly.  He told me I was the best thing that ever happened to him, I was everything he ever wanted in a woman.  He never felt this way about anyone before, not even his ex wife.  then a few months later telling me he wasn't in love with me anymore and we just weren't meant to be.  UH WHAT?  That was when I knew for sure something wasn't right.  Love just doesn't go away like that.  We continued to see each off and on for months a few times he would tell me he did love me, but then turn around and say he doesn't remember saying it.  For me personally, I think they experience infatuation and have a idealized view of what love and a relationship should look like and when the newness wears off there is nothing there.  I am not sure they experience what we know to be real love.

[FannyB]

For me personally, I think they experience infatuation and have a idealized view of what love and a relationship should look like and when the newness wears off there is nothing there.  I am not sure they experience what we know to be real love.

Spot on Leftconfused. It is their version of love though, as that's all they know. My ex talked about how she loved her ex husband at the time. She wasn't lying - but it wasn't sustainable. When their feelings change their  reflexive defence mechanism is to manufacture some 'wrong' that the non has done to absolve themselves of responsibility for exiting the relationship. 

It seems to me that many on these boards get all this, but they still struggle to really come to terms with it all. I guess it just takes time.

[Blimblam]

Yall

The whole process of discrediting the pwBPD is a function of your own shame it's splitting. 

[FannyB]

Blimblam

There is a subtle difference between rationalizing what has happened and discrediting your ex. These were not 'normal' relationships and people need to make sense of what happened as a precursor to any introspective self-analysis that may follow.  I also think that many of us have some pd traits. It's when those traits dominate our thinking that dysfunctionality inevitably follows. 

[Blimblam]

Emotions like love are not rational.  Rationalizing the irrational is limited it needs to be understood within its own context.

But that's the thing when we think of things in terms of Pd traits, the act of doing that prevents self reflection.  The underlying patterns and defence mechenisms are universal.

[Infared]

I do not believe that mine ever did experience anything like a broken heart.  Her history was line-up someone else, secure new relationship and then abandon old relationship. She had done this repeatedly and then did it with me, lying all-the-while.

Old person is to blame for all problems. New person is white shiney knight.

Mix and repeat.

Just the facts.

[PaintedBlack28]

Nope. This abhorrent manipulation had nothing to do with love.

[FannyB]

BPD is a spectrum. At the more extreme end the behaviours are so destructively bizarre that the 'victim' couldn't possibly believe that their BPDex loved them. At the opposite end of the spectrum it's wholely believable IMO.

[Reforming]

Hi all,

This is a really worthwhile discussion.

You may have already have read this older thread, which explore the same topic, but it's got some really interesting posts from some of the other members, including some fascinating insights from two BPDs, Oceanheart and AJ Mahari.

BPD Behaviours: Did she every love me?

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=68978.0

I found it really helpful and enlightening

Reforming

[newtothis28]

They fall in love way too hard. They fall tremendously in love.  It's a really good question.  A BPD's love is so ephemeral.  They fall in love with new people all the time.  They don't know how to stick to one person.  They are always changing their mind.  It has to be a horrible way to live.  What they want to do with their life, who they are in love with, and, often times, they only stay with someone because they couldn't find something better.  It's a really horrible mental disorder.     

[jhkbuzz]

They fall in love way too hard. They fall tremendously in love.  It's a really good question.  A BPD's love is so ephemeral.  They fall in love with new people all the time.  They don't know how to stick to one person.  They are always changing their mind.  It has to be a horrible way to live.  What they want to do with their life, who they are in love with, and, often times, they only stay with someone because they couldn't find something better.  It's a really horrible mental disorder.     

What you just described ^ is emotional dysregulation, and it's a hallmark symptom of BPD.  It is not intentional or manipulative for the most part.  Some people are involved with people with NPD (Narcissist Personality Disorder) and THOSE relationships can feel very manipulative and purposely destructive.

The link that Reforming provided includes a post written by a pwBPD about what it feels like to fall in love - it opened my eyes quite a bit when I first read it.

[Irish Pride]

This has to be one of the most common and one of the most controversial questions on the Leaving board, because it is so fundamental to know if we were loved or not.  Was it real?  Were we used?

Here's what I believe, and I will reinforce that this is a belief: we were loved.  I can't prove this, but it can't also be proven that we weren't.  Ultimately, each of us will have to decide that question for ourselves.  Why do I believe I was loved?  Because I don't believe that certain aspects of the relationship could be faked.  I felt the way that my ex kissed me in a deeply passionate and tender way.  It wasn't hot or seductive.  It was warm and heartfelt.  I felt the way she would nestle her head into my chest and the peaceful way she slept beside me.  I heard the fear and worry in her voice pleading for me to call her the one time I gave her the silent treatment and she was terrified that something had happened to me.  I saw how she listening and empathized with me when I was going through a difficult time myself.  I felt her give me the most amazing back rubs after a long day at work.  I saw the tears and pain in her face when I said something very hurtful to her about us, something I deeply regret.  I felt her forgiveness of that too. All of these and so much more have me convinced that this was very real.  It just wasn't sustainable.  She couldn't tolerate it long term, not because it was an act, but because it wasn't an act.  There was very real emotion involved, and that for her is overwhelming.  Eventually, it was more than she could take, and in a very resigned way she just gave up.

Awesome summation. In my experience, this is spot on, but these true moments were fleeting. Not so much in the beginning, but definitely at the end. I do believe I was loved, in her own way. In fact, she'd often tell me "I love you the best way I know how". I believe it.

[cosmonaut]

Wow I'm two months out from the end of my two year with my ex gf and I wonder this. The way you talked about the cuddling at night made me cry. Yes I miss what others say the passionate sex etc but right now as my kids are sleeping this is what I'm missing. I did find out thru a friend that she is already dating again after less than two months. New guy is a total downgrade. Just kills me we dated two years lived together seven months and now I'm just a distant memory. She would spoon me in a way that physically calmed me down and calmed her down... .how she just threw me away and my kids that she said she loved. The kids lived with us three nights a week. Now we are nothing. Ugh. I had to move in with my parents and she's in the apartment we shared. I thought she was the love I waited for. I had a marriage that wasn't fulfilling. My ex gf and I shared things I never shared with my ex wife. I hate this

Hey confused



That's what I miss most too - just being together.  I deeply love my ex.  We were once as close as two people could be, and now we can't even talk.  It's very hard to deal with, and it's very hard to understand.  This is all so completely unnatural.  Until I discovered BPD, nothing made sense about what had happened.  Learning about the disorder has allowed me to see with new eyes all that I had previously seen, and yet not at all seen.  Healing has been hard and it's been a long journey - over a year - and one I'm still on, to be honest.  It is not a fast process, but an absolutely critical one.

I'm so sorry you are going through this experience, confused.  I can hear the pain and sadness in your words.  I know how hard this is - we all do.  We've all been through this.  I'm really glad that you are here, though.  I think you will find that you're among friends and we can both relate to your struggle, and help you to work through it.  Keep posting.  We're here for you.  

Maybe when you feel ready you might post a new thread and let us know some more about yourself.  How did you come to be here and what aspects cause you to suspect your ex has BPD?  We'd love to know more about you and how we can help.

[Reforming]

This has to be one of the most common and one of the most controversial questions on the Leaving board, because it is so fundamental to know if we were loved or not.  Was it real?  Were we used?

Here's what I believe, and I will reinforce that this is a belief: we were loved.  I can't prove this, but it can't also be proven that we weren't.  Ultimately, each of us will have to decide that question for ourselves.  Why do I believe I was loved?  Because I don't believe that certain aspects of the relationship could be faked.  I felt the way that my ex kissed me in a deeply passionate and tender way.  It wasn't hot or seductive.  It was warm and heartfelt.  I felt the way she would nestle her head into my chest and the peaceful way she slept beside me.  I heard the fear and worry in her voice pleading for me to call her the one time I gave her the silent treatment and she was terrified that something had happened to me.  I saw how she listening and empathized with me when I was going through a difficult time myself.  I felt her give me the most amazing back rubs after a long day at work.  I saw the tears and pain in her face when I said something very hurtful to her about us, something I deeply regret.  I felt her forgiveness of that too. All of these and so much more have me convinced that this was very real.  It just wasn't sustainable.  She couldn't tolerate it long term, not because it was an act, but because it wasn't an act.  There was very real emotion involved, and that for her is overwhelming.  Eventually, it was more than she could take, and in a very resigned way she just gave up.

Awesome summation. In my experience, this is spot on, but these true moments were fleeting. Not so much in the beginning, but definitely at the end. I do believe I was loved, in her own way. In fact, she'd often tell me "I love you the best way I know how". I believe it.

I think there's a spectrum of experience and opinion on this, but as Cosmanaut says in his post it is one of the fundamental questions that almost all of us have at the end of our relationships

In the words of Oceanheart, a recovering BPD

"Perhaps it would be more truthful to say that there is love, but with the inherent, fundamental, pervasive fear that is part&parcel of (full-blown) BPD, it isn't a stable emotion. It isn't steady-state, it fluctuates in inverse proportion to the amount of fear.

How can you love if you're afraid the love will leave? How can you love if you're afraid you yourself are not loveable? It's like asking an animal caught in a trap to be capable of caretaking its young or something - the energy of the animal is cuaght up in doing something else, namely, surviving. The panic of fear - which I've seen people with BPD show when they feel they might be abandoned - blinds the organism to all else."


One of the other posters up from here summarised it by saying"

"And now these are some of the things I need to reconcile.

I was loved... .just not the way she needed to love me... .and not the way I need to be loved and I did love her... .just not the way she needed to be loved... .and not the way I needed to love her."

Reforming

[Mutt]

For me personally, I think they experience infatuation and have a idealized view of what love and a relationship should look like and when the newness wears off there is nothing there.  I am not sure they experience what we know to be real love.

Spot on Leftconfused. It is their version of love though, as that's all they know. My ex talked about how she loved her ex husband at the time. She wasn't lying - but it wasn't sustainable. When their feelings change their  reflexive defence mechanism is to manufacture some 'wrong' that the non has done to absolve themselves of responsibility for exiting the relationship. 

It seems to me that many on these boards get all this, but they still struggle to really come to terms with it all. I guess it just takes time.

Well said , I totally agree !

How did it make you feel guy that she was talking about how she loved her ex husband when she was with you?

Where you the rebound?

[Achaya]

I am totally struggling with this question right now as well. I want to think that my ex is suffering as much as I am from the grief of our parting, but I am afraid to talk to her because I know that she does not feel the same way I do about the relationship.

I have been asking myself why it is so important to me to clarify whether she "really" loved me in the way I thought she did. I need to feel like she was as attached to me as I was and still am to her, but I don't know why. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, before I became involved with her, I doubted that anyone could love me. The intense love she gave me enabled me to overcome a negative self-image as an unlovable person. Now I am questioning again whether I have any evidence for my lovability.

I think there is something more though, about needing to believe in the connection between us. It feels like a need to know from experience that connections that beautiful are possible and have existed in my life. I do believe that my partner and I connected in those ways, and that it was very real at the time for both of us. I think that many pwBPDs are in fact especially gifted at connecting in intimate, emotional ways with people, and that is one of the reasons I fell in love with my ex-partner.

In reality I think that relationships can't be reduced to a choice between "she (or he) loved me or didn't." I think that people who have been involved with BPDs struggle more with this question because our ex partners showed us two extremes of love and its absence, and we non-BPD's can't make sense out of that. Maybe those of us who fall in love with pwBPDs get sucked into believing that their polarized, unrealistic, rigid representations of their feelings represent the emotional reality of the relationship. As part of my recovery, I think I will try to break down the all-or-nothing categories my ex offered me into a more realistic view of the relationship, with the wonderful, beautiful stuff, the painful, ugly stuff, and the moments of mutual indifference and boredom all mixed together.

[Reforming]

I am totally struggling with this question right now as well. I want to think that my ex is suffering as much as I am from the grief of our parting, but I am afraid to talk to her because I know that she does not feel the same way I do about the relationship.

I have been asking myself why it is so important to me to clarify whether she "really" loved me in the way I thought she did. I need to feel like she was as attached to me as I was and still am to her, but I don't know why. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, before I became involved with her, I doubted that anyone could love me. The intense love she gave me enabled me to overcome a negative self-image as an unlovable person. Now I am questioning again whether I have any evidence for my lovability.

I think there is something more though, about needing to believe in the connection between us. It feels like a need to know from experience that connections that beautiful are possible and have existed in my life. I do believe that my partner and I connected in those ways, and that it was very real at the time for both of us. I think that many pwBPDs are in fact especially gifted at connecting in intimate, emotional ways with people, and that is one of the reasons I fell in love with my ex-partner.

In reality I think that relationships can't be reduced to a choice between "she (or he) loved me or didn't." I think that people who have been involved with BPDs struggle more with this question because our ex partners showed us two extremes of love and its absence, and we non-BPD's can't make sense out of that. Maybe those of us who fall in love with pwBPDs get sucked into believing that their polarized, unrealistic, rigid representations of their feelings represent the emotional reality of the relationship. As part of my recovery, I think I will try to break down the all-or-nothing categories my ex offered me into a more realistic view of the relationship, with the wonderful, beautiful stuff, the painful, ugly stuff, and the moments of mutual indifference and boredom all mixed together.

Achaya I think it's very healthy to try and reframe our relationships is much more nuanced and less black and white way. It helps us to accept that good and the bad and heal.

I know what you mean about BPDs gift for connecting in intimate, emotional ways, but I wonder whether a big part of that is their idealisation of us. It's very seductive, but it also makes the other extreme, devaluation harder to accept.

Good post

Reforming