A Kind of Grieving: Losing the person I thought he was

[Depression = 72% of members]

As my therapist reminds me, "You chose him."

Yes, the codependent in me chose my BPDh. Yes, I grew up with a BPDmom and fell into the same hole in the road when I met my husband. I thought he was the very opposite of all the guys I'd been with. Affectionate, attentive, able to talk about things (didn't admit to myself he couldn't talk about us - thought it was always my fault). I had to force myself to stick with him because I wasn't used to being treated so well. Ironic.

For years I continued to question my own actions. I'd assert myself and he'd boomerang everything back plus more. I thought he and his family were better than me - better than my own family. It's a heck of an illusion to lose now that I've finally accepted it. I know it doesn't qualify as a bona fide loss - i think experts would term it an ambiguous loss. But I miss who I believed my husband was. It took me so many years to respect my own needs and feelings that sometimes now I just grieve for the way things used to feel before I learned how to feel. Does that make any sense?

[Daisy23]

As my therapist reminds me, "You chose him."

Yes, the codependent in me chose my BPDh. Yes, I grew up with a BPDmom and fell into the same hole in the road when I met my husband. I thought he was the very opposite of all the guys I'd been with. Affectionate, attentive, able to talk about things (didn't admit to myself he couldn't talk about us - thought it was always my fault). I had to force myself to stick with him because I wasn't used to being treated so well. Ironic.

For years I continued to question my own actions. I'd assert myself and he'd boomerang everything back plus more. I thought he and his family were better than me - better than my own family. It's a heck of an illusion to lose now that I've finally accepted it. I know it doesn't qualify as a bona fide loss - i think experts would term it an ambiguous loss. But I miss who I believed my husband was. It took me so many years to respect my own needs and feelings that sometimes now I just grieve for the way things used to feel before I learned how to feel. Does that make any sense?

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[Cat Familiar]

Daisy,

It makes complete sense to me. I, too, had a BPD mom and I also thought I was marrying into an incredible family. They are nice people and accomplished, more sophisticated than my family. It took me years so see the dysfunction there.

I still grieve the loss of the illusion I fell in love with. It takes a while to get over that. I thought I had won the lottery in terms of relationships, and there are still some wonderful pluses. However, once I saw behind the fantasy, I was angry at how I had been duped.

Now I realize that he had no bad intentions in presenting a false self. He is so accustomed to rejection that he feels he needs to present his ideal self to everyone else (but me). He now knows I see through the illusion. So this also pisses me off because he's so nice and overly accommodating to acquaintances and strangers.

Oh well, welcome to BPDland!

[Notwendy]

I can relate to this. My H has many great qualities and compared to my FOO,  his family appeared to be normal. However, growing up with a BPD mom and co-dependent dad who expected all of us to tow the line and take care of mom, I had no idea about co-dependency. I didn't know any other way to be.

Yes, my H is charming, intelligent,and can talk about anything unless it seems anything that is personal and intimate with me. I chose to overlook that hoping things would get better. We also used to have many friends together. Now, we literally don't- and this is something my H prefers, not me. It used to bother me more.  I wondered why, but I think I have found a reason that makes sense to me. The times we have socialized, I think " who is this guy?". I hardly recognize him. Then I remember this is the guy I used to date and it would make sense that he wouldn't want me there, because I can see it. Now, I think most of us put our best foot forward in public, but who he is in public is not someone I even know anymore.

Now, on my part, I fell in love with that guy. As your T said, we match each other, and honestly there is a lot of good in us together. But I was not prepared to be painted black for several years not long after we were married. At first, I tried so hard to get the guy I married back but if I said or did something "wrong" he wasn't that guy. The parallel was the sides of my mother. We would work so hard in hopes that good mommy would be there, as if we had control of it, and she blamed us so we assumed we did. Likewise, I easily assumed it was me that was causing the issues in my marriage.

I did grieve the loss of "that guy" and also sometimes the feelings I had. I do think there is a parallel hope on my H's part that I would also be that girl- that co-dependent girl who worked so hard to make him happy in hopes that she'd finally be loved. But I am not that girl anymore because she wasn't any more real than "that guy" was. Being co-dependent meant not acting as my authentic self either.

I don't grieve that guy anymore because, I don't want that guy. I just want a real human, one who is who they are just as I want to be who I am. He isn't perfect and neither am I. But I have found that when I act in an authentic manner, he has more space to be who he is. If both of us felt drama as the sparks in a relationship, then I would gladly trade sparks for less drama. However, by accepting that yes, it isn't easy for us to talk about personal things, and that he is trying his best, and not reacting has made a difference. Our best hope IMHO,is to recognize our part in this, and work on our own authenticity.

[waverider]

This is perfectly normal. we all project our dreams forward, we put a lot of time and commitment into realizing them the best we can. It is heart rendering to realize we are simply chasing a mirage.

An anology of life with a pwBPD:

Imagine you are driving in a desert, and your car breaks down you are burning up dying of thirst, but you have a will to live, so you walk on getting more and more exhausting but your will keeps you going, you believe salvation is just over the next dune. Eventually when you feel like you have reached your limit you see a car in the distance. People! nearly there. as you approach the car you recognize your own car. You have gone around in circles, and all that desperate effort was for nothing. The despair is unimaginable, you just want to give up.

The moral here is to be more aware of where you are in life and don't allow your life to be driven into the desert.  Help is harder to find when you have isolated yourself in these relationships, which can be emotionally devoid apart from occasional mirages to tempt you further. Your live is devoid of healthy benchmarks so it is hard to find your way. You have become to dependent on the vehicle(person) who got you there in the first place. when that breaks down you are stuck.

I have now learned that no one is perfect, and that when a family is so determined to appear so then there is a good chance they are papering over cracks. People who are proud and self confident of who they are typically dont care about cracks showing through, as on the balance they are not trying to hide anything, they have humility.

Loss of dreams and a denied future brings with it the emotions of grief for the loss. Ironically many pwBPD do not suffer from grief the same as future plans and dreams are often never more than that. They are used to not achieving their dreams, as a result they "get over" disappointments quicker

[Chilibean13]

Grief is a part of this process. IT's perfectly normal to grieve for the hopes you had for your marriage, the life you wanted to have with him. It's important to work through each phase of the grieving process so that you can come to a place of acceptance of what your life will be like if you continue to stay.

It took me almost 2 months. And it was very hard couple of month. Two months of crying in the car because that was the only private place I had (after all, how do you explain that you are crying over your relationship with your pwBPD). A couple months of yelling "Why me?" "I don't want this." ":)O I want to live this way?" Months of being depressed and hopeless about the future. And finally acceptance of this is my life and I have to set new dreams for us.

[waverider]

I have to set new dreams for us.

This is important, to let something go you need to replace it with something else otherwise resentment sets in.

Trying to endlessly hammer a square peg into a round hole is fruitless, you have to start looking for a round peg. It might be a different shape but its still a peg. Life goes on but in a different shape

[Daisy23]

I have to set new dreams for us.

This is important, to let something go you need to replace it with something else otherwise resentment sets in.

I've never heard this before and it really hits home! I fall apart whenever I get into my "But I wanted a healthy kind of marriage, not this" frame of mind. I'm just starting to look at what I have instead of what I don't - and to look at how my life can still be good - just not the kind of good I thought it would be.

[Cat Familiar]

I've never heard this before and it really hits home! I fall apart whenever I get into my "But I wanted a healthy kind of marriage, not this" frame of mind. I'm just starting to look at what I have instead of what I don't - and to look at how my life can still be good - just not the kind of good I thought it would be.

It helps when we look on the bright side and see what we've actually got. I thought I was marrying "the love of my life" and it felt that way for several years until the personality disorder fully surfaced.

On the plus side, my husband inherited a lot of money a few years ago. I never was someone who would "marry for money" but now that's the situation I find myself in. Though I'm still living a middle class lifestyle while he lives extravagantly, I now feel a sense of financial security that I haven't felt since I was a child.

Sometimes we get the icing on the cake, but no cake!   

[waverider]

On the plus side, my husband inherited a lot of money a few years ago. I never was someone who would "marry for money" but now that's the situation I find myself in. Though I'm still living a middle class lifestyle while he lives extravagantly, I now feel a sense of financial security that I haven't felt since I was a child.

Sometimes we get the icing on the cake, but no cake!   

Sometimes it is good to keep these more material things in mind, especially for those times when you can't hold the emotional pluses together. Sounds callous but if it gets you through those emotional dry spells, then its whatever works.

You have to be aware though that it can fuel codependency if you are not careful. Like everything its all about balancing the big picture

[Cat Familiar]

I could never imagine how on earth those "black widow" women coped with their day to day reality. You know the ones who married really old guys and waited for them to die so they could inherit the company, farm, racetrack, portfolio, casino, whatever.

I wondered how could they possibly put up with those cantankerous old relics. Not that I'm in that camp, but honestly, dealing with a self absorbed pwBPD truly gets fatiguing.

My husband does have some wonderful qualities and is a kind human being. If he were to return to the guy that originally showed up and who made me fall madly in love with him, I would be so overjoyed. However, that ain't gonna happen.

But who I have to deal with is still a pretty nice person despite all the self focused crap. It sure isn't what I thought I signed up for, but it's still a pretty good deal.

[Daisy23]

Finances and loving our neighborhood, our neighbors, are pluses for me. I have berated myself for putting practical matters ahead of breaking free and hoping to maybe find a healthier relationship. I would love to have an emotionally healthy marriage and feel truly at ease in my home. But what I do have is a pretty good deal - a marriage my female ancestors would have thought was good - except for the rages, which haven't occurred in four years. Like many women I'm learning to meet my emotional needs through friendships.

My therapist has told me how sad it is that my marriage is so emotionally unfulfilling. But marriage is such a uniquely co-constructed relationship - it's hard for others to understand why it might work for us. And vice versa. One example is that I grew up without affection so the open and generous affection of my husband and his family is a plus for me. I now understand it's connected to their neediness and control and have constructed better boundaries for myself but I still am glad I know where I can get a hug when I need one. I'm glad to know I can talk about my feelings and be listened to, even if I have to draw the line at talking about how I feel about our relationship.

Marriage is always going to be complicated in some way. I'm reminded of the story of a group of people who were so tired of their personal problems that one day they decided to all get together and organize a way to trade their problems so they each could choose one they might find easier to live with. In the end each person went home keeping the same problem they'd had.

The grieving part is so connected to my disbelief about how different my husband seemed in the early years - how different his whole family seemed. I dealt with a serious illness several years ago and that was when everyone's BPD surfaced. I couldn't believe these "sweet, wonderful, special" people could be so egocentric and needy at a time when I so clearly needed (and was worthy of) their support. For the first time, thanks to my illness, I was able to let myself see my husband and his family as they really were. I have made a lot of changes in and around myself since then and my husband has shown signs of healing through going to therapy. But I still need to grieve what I thought I had in "the good days."

Thank you for listening and for sharing - this has become my home base!

[Cat Familiar]

Finances and loving our neighborhood, our neighbors, are pluses for me. I have berated myself for putting practical matters ahead of breaking free and hoping to maybe find a healthier relationship. I would love to have an emotionally healthy marriage and feel truly at ease in my home. But what I do have is a pretty good deal - a marriage my female ancestors would have thought was good - except for the rages, which haven't occurred in four years. Like many women I'm learning to meet my emotional needs through friendships.

I think part of the problem is that our culture and our fairy tales tell us that there's a "perfect" person out there with whom we can live "happily ever after." It sets up unreasonable expectations and everyone has baggage.

This is not to day that I condone remaining in unfulfilling relationships, no matter what. When there's violence, infidelity, unkindness, abuse or even if you're totally fed up with something about your partner, it's probably a good time to close the book on that relationship.

For me, the problem was that I grew up with a BPD mother and that I had no critical judgment skills about how to determine just exactly what a healthy relationship is. Now that I look back upon my relationship history, probably most of my significant relationships, as few as they were, were with men who had a personality disorder. My first husband was definitely BPD/NPD and maybe ASPD and I lived with infidelity, violence and abuse. It was a wonderful taste of freedom when I was finally rid of him.

Then I dated someone who was very nice, but he had PTSD and probably a touch of BPD as well. The man I'm married to seemed like the answer to my dreams for several years until the BPD surfaced. How could I have missed the cues? If I look back, there were definitely hints of BPD from the beginning. It's just not having those good role models to learn from as a child.

I don't know what the statistical likelihood of running into a personality disorder in a potential mate is, but I sure seemed like a magnet for them. At least the husband I now have is a good and kind person, mostly. Quite different from my first husband.

[Daisy23]

I can relate to feeling like a magnet for mates - and other relationships (friends, toxic bosses) in my case - who suffer with PDs. Not knowing what healthy is and not being aware that I didn't know. Just learning to trust myself to see people honestly now. Probably why animals offer me so much peace.

As I read your words I realized that part of my desire to stay and continue working on what we have is because  I need to learn to be healthy as much as my H does.    My husband and his family have not been my biggest problem - my codependency has. Even if we separated, which I can see is important to do for some couples, I'd be taking so much of my suffering with me because it's in me.

[waverider]

Just a thought for the day:



The grass may look greener because under the surface is a thick coat of fertilizer.

ie Everything is not always as it seems. Appearances often come with hidden baggage.

Prospect for the nugget on your own land, you can be surprised at what can be found under the surface

[Notwendy]

The grass may look greener because under the surface is a thick coat of fertilizer.


A wise thought!