Hi Larmoyant,
He’d frequently tell me they did not like me and did not want him having a girlfriend despite being separated from their mother for years.
You are familiar with projection behavior that people with BPD (pwBPD), and also nonBPD, often seem to do. The idea is that when you have a thought or a feeling that you are uncomfortable with associating with yourself, you then "project" those thoughts and feelings to someone else.
For pwBPD, they often idealize and then devalue us. I sometimes wonder, when we are not around if they do not devalue us only to idealize us once we are around. And when they idealize us, perhaps they need to "project" those devaluing thoughts they previously entertained.
So I wonder, if his reports that his daughters "did not like you" and "did not want him having a girlfriend" is not just him projecting his own devaluing thoughts towards you onto his daughters? After all, did you ever give his daughters cause to dislike you?
He said he hated their mother, she’d cheated on him with half the town, had abandoned him when he was ill, but spent Christmas Days with her and the girls and all birthdays. The eldest daughter’s boyfriend was allowed to attend these events, but I was always excluded.
Here you indicate that he hated his ex-wife. But yet he was willing to spend these significant family occasions with someone he supposedly hated. And he was not willing to include you.
I would argue that while he was with you, he devalued his ex-wife. And possibly when you were not around, he devalued you -- and perhaps idealized his ex-wife (or maybe one of the daughters). This kind of game of "hot potato" allowed him to stay in relationship with all of you without projecting all his disordered feelings onto any one person (and thus causing them to leave him).
*Also* pwBPD can have issues with "identity disturbances." What I have noticed is that pwBPD will often try to separate those he/she is closest to (if possible), I believe, in order to limit the chance that others might observe that they can in fact behave like very different people in the presence of others.
He had one identity associated with his ex-wife and daughters and he had perhaps another identity associated with you. He could be around them without conflict. And he could be with you (and perhaps with people of limited acquaintance). But if he were ever to put you in the same room with someone who was also close to him, this might present too confusing a situation for him. After all, who would he be in that situation?
Also, sometimes I’d express a desire to attend an exhibition, concert, an event of some kind and he’d agree. But, then without me knowing take one of his daughters instead. We could have perhaps all gone together. I never understood it and still don’t.
Isn't it like got confused which loved one said what? Have you never had an occasion that he insisted you liked something that you did not?
While he was with you and you expressed that you'd like to do something, he only registered that the person who he is currently attached to would like to do something. And then on another occasion, while he was attached to someone else (who happened to be a family member) he decided to do that thing.
It's like has only has one special relationship, only the face of that special person keeps changing.
A painful moment was when he asked me to get engaged and instead of making plans for our future he moved his adult daughter in who already had a place to live with her mother, but was intending on spending half the week there and the other with him. He never even discussed this with me.
Another behavior that pwBPD tend to exhibit is fear of real or imagined abandonment and efforts to avoid this perceived abandonment. And as I understand it, on occasions of strong intimacy/familiarity, this fear is particularly triggered.
So after he got engaged to you (i.e. strong occasion of intimacy) he probably got overwhelmed by the subsequent imagined fear that you would abandon him (i.e. imagined abandonment). And in order to avoid this imagined abandonment, he had to abandon you first and did so by moving his daughter in.
He seemed to enjoy creating this situation.
In all these situations he was creating in reaction to one or another of his disordered feelings. I would guess he is in denial about these disordered feelings. And one of the "pay-offs" is to see you (or someone else) in distress -- because, then - in his mind, it is not he who is in distress, it is you (or someone else).
I hope some of this helps.
Best wishes,
Schwing
