Similarities between BPD and Partner Abuse Cycles?

[HurtinNW]

Hello all

I had asked my therapist for group recommendations, and she suggested a support group for victims of partner abuse. At first I was shocked, and heard myself saying things like my ex "only" got physical a few times, and "mostly" abused me verbally and emotionally. Then I had a little light bulb moment.

I started doing research for a group in the area, and reading up on partner abuse. I came across the cycle of abuse, which is all over the place. I've known about this idea for a long time, but never thought about it on context of this relationship. It is the cycle where there is the "honeymoon" stage, where the abuser apologizes, minimizes, and often denies the abuse, but courts and woos back to the relationship. This is followed by the "tension building" phase where the abuser finds fault, picks fights, and tension builds. Then comes the "explosion" of abuse, whether verbal, emotional or physical. The cycle repeats.

It really struck me how this is very much like the BPD cycle of idealization, devaluation and discard. It is exactly what my ex did, over and over again, and I kept returning for more. You could put these cycles side by side and they would seem the same, just different terminology.

Am I correct, or am I missing something? I realize not all BPD/NPD become abusive in the discard, but it seems most the stories here involve abuse.

[jhkbuzz]

Hello all

I had asked my therapist for group recommendations, and she suggested a support group for victims of partner abuse. At first I was shocked, and heard myself saying things like my ex "only" got physical a few times, and "mostly" abused me verbally and emotionally. Then I had a little light bulb moment.

I started doing research for a group in the area, and reading up on partner abuse. I came across the cycle of abuse, which is all over the place. I've known about this idea for a long time, but never thought about it on context of this relationship. It is the cycle where there is the "honeymoon" stage, where the abuser apologizes, minimizes, and often denies the abuse, but courts and woos back to the relationship. This is followed by the "tension building" phase where the abuser finds fault, picks fights, and tension builds. Then comes the "explosion" of abuse, whether verbal, emotional or physical. The cycle repeats.

It really struck me how this is very much like the BPD cycle of idealization, devaluation and discard. It is exactly what my ex did, over and over again, and I kept returning for more. You could put these cycles side by side and they would seem the same, just different terminology.

Am I correct, or am I missing something? I realize not all BPD/NPD become abusive in the discard, but it seems most the stories here involve abuse.

There are definite parallels, I think. The push/pull that my ex engaged in was emotionally abusive, for sure. I don't think any of it was done intentionally (with forethought) - but that doesn't make it any less abusive.

[WoundedBibi]

Let's look at it from the other side:

Abusers have issues, or they wouldn't be abusers, whether it be a PD or otherwise.

Abused have issues, or they wouldn't be staying, whether it's codependency, trauma bonding, Stockholm syndrome or whatever else there is.

So there is a relatively big chance a portion of abusers are pwBPD.

Abuse is abuse, whether it's emotional, verbal or physical. So it makes senses to go there, I think.

[patientandclear]

This has been a point of confusion for me. My BPDx did not ever use physical violence. He had a great deal of anger that he was very good at internalizing. He never, to my knowledge, let his anger play out physically.

But the sudden withdrawals and unwillingness to let our relationship evolve in any way that was about taking care of my feelings, the explanations of the withdrawals in terms of some defect of mine that was no different than when we first got together ... .It all felt abusive.

Yet because I know about BPD and have a fair amount of insight into how he feels inside, I have been reluctant to call it abusive.

Yet, I think the fact that it IS in fact abusive may be why I hit an interior stone wall on being able to try it or chance it again. I survived a seriously physically and emotionally abusive r/ship with my kid's dad. When I left, I promised myself I would never allow such a thing to happen again. Many many times I have wanted to give my ex another chance on terms he was offering, and I still feel bad for not saying yes--but there was something inside me that prevented that. I think it may have been the identification of the abuse cycle, and the fact that he had or offered zero insight and zero reason to believe it would actually be different.

I see people on the other boards become masters at radical acceptance and not having expectations of their pwBPD, not personalizing, not taking the bait ... .I posted there a few times when I was still engaged with my x asking what the difference was btwn radical acceptance plus staying, and abuse. There was no persuasive answer.

As Bibi says, most abusers have a reason. My exH is probably not BPD but he is something, trapped in patterns and reactions he has found it hard or impossible to change, even at great cost to himself and his r/ship with our kid. I know what he did was abusive.

Sometimes I think that knowing a lot about BPD has made it harder for me to react like other healthy partners would react to what my ex does. Maybe that is why I stayed longer than many others. Why I have a hard time reacting in a normal healthy fashion to the jerky things he says and does.

[hope2727]

Best website I ever ran across on the subject. Many pages to explore. Here is one of my favourite.

www.abuseandrelationships.org/Content/Behaviors/stonewalling.html

Explore it and you can see the abuse in its many forms.

Mental illness sucks. It is not an excuse to abuse. Learning that helped me a great deal.

[HurtinNW]

This has been a point of confusion for me. My BPDx did not ever use physical violence. He had a great deal of anger that he was very good at internalizing. He never, to my knowledge, let his anger play out physically.

But the sudden withdrawals and unwillingness to let our relationship evolve in any way that was about taking care of my feelings, the explanations of the withdrawals in terms of some defect of mine that was no different than when we first got together ... .It all felt abusive.

Yet because I know about BPD and have a fair amount of insight into how he feels inside, I have been reluctant to call it abusive.

Yet, I think the fact that it IS in fact abusive may be why I hit an interior stone wall on being able to try it or chance it again. I survived a seriously physically and emotionally abusive r/ship with my kid's dad. When I left, I promised myself I would never allow such a thing to happen again. Many many times I have wanted to give my ex another chance on terms he was offering, and I still feel bad for not saying yes--but there was something inside me that prevented that. I think it may have been the identification of the abuse cycle, and the fact that he had or offered zero insight and zero reason to believe it would actually be different.

I see people on the other boards become masters at radical acceptance and not having expectations of their pwBPD, not personalizing, not taking the bait ... .I posted there a few times when I was still engaged with my x asking what the difference was btwn radical acceptance plus staying, and abuse. There was no persuasive answer.

As Bibi says, most abusers have a reason. My exH is probably not BPD but he is something, trapped in patterns and reactions he has found it hard or impossible to change, even at great cost to himself and his r/ship with our kid. I know what he did was abusive.

Sometimes I think that knowing a lot about BPD has made it harder for me to react like other healthy partners would react to what my ex does. Maybe that is why I stayed longer than many others. Why I have a hard time reacting in a normal healthy fashion to the jerky things he says and does.

I think the posters on the other boards, where I also posted before, would say that when the partner becomes abusive they remove themselves from the abuse. Walk away, leave, and other methods to not be exposed to the abuse. I think being in relationship with an abusive BPD partner means radical acceptance that they will try to abuse you, and radical acceptance that you have to protect yourself from the abuse. Supposedly there are extinct bursts where the behavior will stop. I never experienced that with my ex, but everyone is different.

I believe if you experience something as abusive, then it is abusive to you. It sounds like your ex was someone who engaged in a lot of withholding, silent treatments and other forms of emotional punishment. Am I wrong about that? That would feel abusive to many people, especially if it is not admitted to, if he justifies it to himself and it feels in response to your needs.

I was struck at the cyclical nature of both the BPD idealization/discard cycle and the abuse cycle. Both seem to involve people cycling through acting out their internal anger and distress on their partner. Both seem to be what another poster here calls "accountability disorders."

[WoundedBibi]

This has been a point of confusion for me. My BPDx did not ever use physical violence. He had a great deal of anger that he was very good at internalizing. He never, to my knowledge, let his anger play out physically.

But the sudden withdrawals and unwillingness to let our relationship evolve in any way that was about taking care of my feelings, the explanations of the withdrawals in terms of some defect of mine that was no different than when we first got together ... .It all felt abusive.

Yet because I know about BPD and have a fair amount of insight into how he feels inside, I have been reluctant to call it abusive.

Yet, I think the fact that it IS in fact abusive may be why I hit an interior stone wall on being able to try it or chance it again. I survived a seriously physically and emotionally abusive r/ship with my kid's dad. When I left, I promised myself I would never allow such a thing to happen again. Many many times I have wanted to give my ex another chance on terms he was offering, and I still feel bad for not saying yes--but there was something inside me that prevented that. I think it may have been the identification of the abuse cycle, and the fact that he had or offered zero insight and zero reason to believe it would actually be different.

I see people on the other boards become masters at radical acceptance and not having expectations of their pwBPD, not personalizing, not taking the bait ... .I posted there a few times when I was still engaged with my x asking what the difference was btwn radical acceptance plus staying, and abuse. There was no persuasive answer.

As Bibi says, most abusers have a reason. My exH is probably not BPD but he is something, trapped in patterns and reactions he has found it hard or impossible to change, even at great cost to himself and his r/ship with our kid. I know what he did was abusive.

Sometimes I think that knowing a lot about BPD has made it harder for me to react like other healthy partners would react to what my ex does. Maybe that is why I stayed longer than many others. Why I have a hard time reacting in a normal healthy fashion to the jerky things he says and does.

So if you had a lot of knowledge about alcoholism and your ex didn't have BPD but was an alcoholic would you still have trouble seeing him emotionally withdrawing from you or in any way thinking about your needs as abuse? Would you still have a hard time reacting in a normal healthy fashion to the jerky things he says and does?

Because alcoholism is an illness too.

In my view the reason for the abuse shouldn't make any difference in calling it what it is: abuse. Whether it stems from a PD, an addiction as alcoholism, not having been taught how to be in a relationship without abuse, being traumatized or suffering from PTSD, being emotionally underdeveloped or whatever else there is.

It's the act and the result that makes it abuse not the cause for the act.

[Ab123]

I learned about BPD by googling the behavior, then reading about one thing, then another. I started with rages and a sudden break up. That lead me to information about fearful-avoidant attachment and related abusive relationships. I'm not really sure whether my ex is technically BPD, or just a severe case of fearful-avoidant attachment.  (I assume there is significant overlap between people so categorized. I'm not clear on how high that percentage might be, or what the real distinctions are, if any.).

I know I read somewhere that a very high percentage of males with fearful avoidant attachment style engage in domestic violence, at some point in their lives.

Given the high overlap between categories, similarities in descriptions are inevitable.

[rarsweet]

I think all abusers have some sort of mental illness, otherwise they wouldn't be abusive. Whether it be that they are narcissistic or BPD or alcoholics perpetuating their own childhood traumas. The excuses are just different, not the behaviors.