Was I just her fantasy? What do/did you love about your pwBPD?

[Curiously1]

Even if my ex did love me, learning more about BPD, it wasn’t really me she loved, it was a fantasy she made up in her head when she was still idealising. It’s sad to know I wasn’t truly seen as a real separate person from that she had made me up to be and that I couldn’t possibly hold up to that ideal.

Does anyone ever feel like they weren't truly loved for who they really are? Had the feeling or noticed they weren't during idealisation or at any stage of the r/s? The way a pwBPD can just reattach to someone new, reidealise people and keep doing that in hopes they will finally find the one makes me feel less special for back of a better word. How does knowing the way they love make you feel?

I am feeling so sad and cheated in love. She was my first gf and I have yet to experience a 'normal' healthy and genuine kind of love. Makes me feel like I didn;t experience real love. I was not really loved by her (by our Non's definition of love) and still felt love for my ex despite feeling like I got the short end of the stick. I don't even know who I fell inlove with now which I now find disturbing as I reflect on why it is that I loved about her now. Especially when she plants the idea in my head every time that I said I cared and loved her that I didn't. Did I just fall for her sad life story and was just compassionate etc. Was it truly just a mirror? Did I just love the best qualities of myself she displayed for me?

These are the thoughts I have been having while trying to heal from my recent break up.

What are your thoughts about how a pwBPD loves someone and its genuineness?

What did you love about your pwBPD?

[troisette]

Hi Curiously - there's no simple answer to your questions because our ex's are as different as we are. There is diagnostic criteria for BPD but they are individuals too. Just as we nons have similar strands of vulnerability but we are all different.

So I can only speak from my experience.

When I was in an eighteen month relationship I thought he loved me, the indicators were there and I blinkered myself to behaviours I found hurtful. I went no contact seven months ago and have done a lot of reading since then. Nowadays I'm not at all sure if he loved me or if he was mirroring me. He did like me on his arm as I raised his status, that's not love. So I'm not sure if the person he presented himself as to me, was genuine or just a mirror of me that I found enticing. That's one of the big problems with a split from a BPD, we are left wondering.

I am clearer now about why I fell for him and this helps me move forward. My father died when I was three, it was a long death and I'm told (although I can't remember) that he adored me and during his illness spent much time cuddling me. My mother was a cold woman, possibly a covert narcissist - no cuddles or comfort from her, a lack of warmth and  touch.

My ex is the most tactile man I've ever met. The close intimacy of cuddles, strokes, closeness that I experienced, or I thought I experienced, was wonderful. That was my drug, I was addicted to it. Only recently have I realised that this hooked in to a childhood deprivation that I had been unaware of. I'm not recovered from my longing for that intimacy, he triggered, and then met, a childhood loss that I had buried. His fulfillment of that loss created an addiction that it's up to me to sort.

It's natural for you to feel sad and cheated, especially as she was your first girlfriend. But, there is an upside to this: that you've experienced the burn early on. If you read about BPD (because it's good to have  background knowledge of what you were dealing with), and, as importantly, do work on yourself - reflecting why she attracted you so much. Seek a good therapist who knows about Personality Disorders if you can, if not, read and reflect. The ahas won't come immediately but incrementally with time. And self-knowledge is always a good thing.  

[GoingBack2OC]

I was in love with the idea of what she could be. If she wasn't crazy.

[WoundedBibi]

PwBPD are physically attracted to many people as sexuality is important to them as a tool to regulate emotion.

PwBPD fall in love when they recognize someone on an unconscious level. "You. You're like me. You will understand me. Unlike all the others you will get me. You I will not have to explain myself to as I won't be able to. You are THE ONE. You will be my saviour. You will be the end to my pain. You will be with me forever."

Perhaps the "you're like me" can also be "you're like my mum" or dad. Or a mixture.

I think for my ex I was a mixture.

Something about me reminded him of himself and I think of his mum.

He suffers from severe depression as I did as a child. We're both hypersensitive. We're both very smart. We're both complex people with very different sides to our characters; we are strong but weak, tough yet soft, we like being around people and yet we don't.

He recognized himself and his troubled soul and his (I think) troubled relationship with his mum in me. And I recognized exactly the same in him.

And I never met someone that was so like me. So contradictory. But despite being contradictory I'm more levelheaded. Yes I like the city and long for the countryside, my feelings need some destilling down and so on. But I need to communicate. I NEED to talk about what is on my mind. I NEED honesty. I need patience. I cannot handle aggression. I don't have the need to lash out, never have. I know far better who I am than he does. I have left the depression and the inner turmoil behind years ago. I'm not bitter. I see how beautiful life can be. I enjoy little things. I'm not fickle in love or friendship. I have principles that don't change. I like a drink but I never get drunk. I don't do drugs.

I liked the soft him, the sensitive smart man. I liked the childlike qualiities. I thought it could work because I understood because I had partially been there where he is. But I can't handle his view on the world and life. That he loves it when he is drunk or in love and hates it when he is sober. I can't handle his moodswings because I can set my mind to 'ok, today the mood will be X' but I couldn't keep up with his mood changing sometimes every few minutes. I hated his bitterness. I didn't have enough light to balance his darkness. I hated that he loved to gossip. I noticed that before we started our relationship and it goes against my principles. I hated how much he drinks. I hated he needs drugs. I hated his verbal aggression to me. It frightened me, ripped open my old wounds. I hated his passive aggressive behaviour. It's cowardice. It doesn't contribute to communication and to openness, to honesty. It's counterproductive.  I hated his need for flirtation with others. I hated his confusing and confused view on sexuality. I hated his confusing and confused view on women. I hated his confusing and confused view on love. I couldn't handle and hated his refusal to communicate. I couldn't understand his inability to understand simple human behaviour. I disliked if not hated all of his flying monkeys. I dislike the childish qualities. I couldn't handle the paranoia, the distrust, the different versions of what I was told whether that was down to BPD dissociation or processing, downright lying or boozing.

In short, I loved the parts of him that reflect who I am (ohhh... .nice and narcisstic... ) I could understand the parts of him I used to be but it didn't work because parts of him are either too much like my FOO which I have worked very hard to escape or because we are just not compatible.

[once removed]

Even if my ex did love me, learning more about BPD, it wasn’t really me she loved, it was a fantasy she made up in her head when she was still idealising. It’s sad to know I wasn’t truly seen as a real separate person from that she had made me up to be and that I couldn’t possibly hold up to that ideal.

i think it takes a lot of sting out of this kind of revelation when you realize how many people in the world do just that, and it includes many if not most of us.

as has been said, every person with BPD is different, so we can only speculate on whether any of our exes genuinely loved us, and its going to depend on our definition of "love" and "genuine". i believe my ex loved me the best she could with as much as she had in her. i believe it was not sustainable or consistent.

what did i love about her is difficult to answer and it was at the time. it was a feeling, really. the feeling that she was my soulmate, and the one. also the idea that she loved me. if she knew me, and got me, and loved me, that must be love, right 

so the truth is its really hard to paint my love any differently than hers.

[WoundedBibi]

what did i love about her is difficult to answer and it was at the time. it was a feeling, really. the feeling that she was my soulmate, and the one. also the idea that she loved me. if she knew me, and got me, and loved me, that must be love, right 

so the truth is its really hard to paint my love any differently than hers.

^^^^ that

I thought he was my soulmate, he thought I was his.

[HurtinNW]

I think my ex and I both created a very loaded relationship. We both put way too much power in the idea we had found our soul mates. It made the stakes so high. It made the highs higher and any difficulty even harder.

My ex loved me in his own way. I think his love is different in it doesn't involve a conscience, or empathy. It was a hopeful, very young sort of love. The love of a toddler who desperately wants his mother to comfort him but will strike out at her when she does.

I loved him too much. I put all my value and worth in his opinion of me. I was too hurt when he acted like a jerk, and I let my feelings overwhelm my sense of pride, what I was worth and deserved. I let him terrorize and traumatize me, and I confused my lack of self worth with love, as if trying again and again was love. I am starting to think it wasn't love on my part to keep recycling. That was my own trauma and pain.

I think we idealized each other in the beginning but I also think we did genuinely touch souls. There were a lot of wonderful commonalities. It wasn't all fantasy.

As the saying goes in domestic violence circles. "Love Doesn't Hurt." Both of us ignored that.