oh dear, what now? (part 3)

[icky]

.

. i feel kind of tricked. like my partner "used" the idealisation phase to trick me into a relationship that seemed beautiful and now i've found out that actually, i've signed on to be his substitute-mum and his substitute-therapist.

. hmmmmm, I see your point, and I'm able to get into a very similar position--that I feel tricked--but I have an additional question: what the you know what is wrong with me? How come I couldn't see more clearly and know that the relationship was too good to be true? What's wrong with me in the sense that I ate up the idealization and changed everything in my life to make a future with my BPD partner? I moved cities, quit jobs, sold property, ended relationships . . . moved some heaven and some earth only to discover I may have fallen in love with an illusion. I do wonder about her and her inability to see what she's put and is putting me through, but how did I become such a fool? Worse, I'm so bloody confused I still feel love for her: she is somewhere in all this such a good human being. .

. hey renard : ). i think this has happened to pretty much all of us here. it's a powerful mix of stuff, this BPD stuff. sure, being idealised is sweet - it feels nice  : ). combine that with the bubbly-ness and liveliness and combine it with their need to be looked after - it's quite a potent mix. if you encounter it for the first time in your life, i'm not surprised many of us fall for it. so don't ask yourself those questions : ). if the same thing happens to you again - 12 months down the track, you meet another BPD woman and she idealises you, is bubbly and charming and needs to be looked after. i hope you will pick up on the warning signs. so if we talk to each other 2 years from now and THEN you said to me "oops, i did it again, how could i fall for someone with BPD a 2nd time and NOT notice what was going on.?". then i'll berate you too, haha : ). but the first time you encounter BPD, i think none of us are forewarned or prepared or know what is happening.

[icky]

Meili. thanks for your thoughts : ). Meili, Renard, Cat Familiar. yeah, i changed my entire world too - moved cities, changed jobs, spent my savings (sigh), rearranged my entire life. i'm not quite convinced yet that the "good" stuff was entirely real. just as we're learning to not take the negative stuff personally, cos it's "not about us", i do still wonder whether that's not true of a lot of the positive stuff. i'll give an example:. i think BPD people are incredibly good at mirroring and at picking up on subtle emotional clues und cues. so, in the beautiful phase, i wonder if he was just mirroring me a lot of the time, to create a connection. that he was agreeing with things i said, even tho he didn't factually agree - i think maybe he was just emotionally agreeing, saying yes to everything i suggested. also, maybe in that first phase he was hyper-aware of my needs and feelings, because it was his way of creating that initial bond between us. having someone be that aware of you feels lovely, certainly. but now, in retrospect, i think "of course he can't keep that up indefinitely"   : P. so i think in a sense the good stuff about him is "real" - he is someone who's good at mirroring, he is someone who's amazing at picking up subtle emotional clues. BUT . it doesn't follow from that that he actually thinks I'M wonderful. the mirroring and the being hyper-aware of people are just "skills" that he has. it felt very special to me - i felt incredibly seen and heard and cherished. now i think it is a real part of him, these skills. but they don't mean that he loves and adores me (which is what it felt like initially) and it doesn't mean there's some super-special bond between us. he does this to everyone he feels an emotional liking for, i think. and he's looking for someone who will put up with his weird BPD ways. and he's looking for someone he can dysregulate safely with. : /

[Renard]

hmmmmm,

I think we're pursuing similar questions--what was real. I wonder whether it's ever possible to actually sort this out? I know that what might be called normal is simply not a valid category in these relationships. I am quite amazed as I read your story and that of others and think on my own how much we do for love. "We" is humans, not some special category called the partners of BPD folk. That said, I think that the BPD stuff makes it easy to believe, that is, while things are good, that love is real.

You might be right about the mirroring. I do think that might be part of what makes versions of triangulating possible. While she was splitting me black my partner told me she had someone "just like you" [that is, just like me] as if that were justification for her to love him and to paint me black. I'm still reeling that it's even possible to talk like that: I could simultaneously be the paradigm for someone else loveable and good and the justification for her love for him and at the same time an awful person who she would be justified in leaving.

I admit that I have flirted with the idea of contacting the other guy and warning him, but I don't think I ever could and it wouldn't matter anyway. She would find someone else.

Whew, I feel a bit toxic this morning. 

[icky]

i've had a lovely time with my BPD-bf these past 24 hours. gentle, calm, loving, peaceful. (i have to say a big thank you to everyone here for their sage, kind, supportive advice - because that's what's helped me to behave BPD-appropriately, which is why things are now becoming calmer and more gentle and loving between my bf and i). i think i've realised something quite healing, which will help him and me move forward. i'm going to stop viewing him as a 3 year old kid. instead, i'm going to view him as an adult, who has a wounded inner 3-year-old kid. and he, as an adult, is asking me as an adult for help in looking after his inner kid. which is totally okay. that feels a lot healthier than seeing him as a kid. (given that his BPD patterns/ behaviours are mild compared to a lot of the awful things many BPD people get up to, i think it's a valid approach). i think it will help me to regain the respect for him that i had lost in the past 6 months of dysregulation.

[Renard]

hmmmmm, your message is lovely. Thank you for taking time to write it. I really like what you say in it. I do think that's a beautiful way of looking at things and of accepting your partner with grace and goodness.

For what it's worth, some four emails went back and forth between my partner and me. We were able to keep things at the level of care and concern for one another. I do not know the future for us, but I am giving that over and simply working at my own ways of getting to a good place for myself and for us if there is to be an us for my partner and me.

These are still early days (even though it feels like an eternity has passed), but I think in the grand either/or I would like to choose staying not leaving. If it is staying then that will be the road of radical acceptance. Neither staying nor leaving is entirely my choice, yet I give over both futures to time's unfolding and will simply stay on the journey now of finding my own healing, come what may.

I mean not to go on and on about me. Let me say again how glad I am for you and your partner. May your day be a very good one and may you be well.

[icky]

hey renard. write as much as you need/ as is helpful to you! i think it's very kind of you to think of my situation, while you are going through such pain. please know that we all have to focus on our own pain, when it's intense - that doesn't make us selfish. if we try and repay the support we receive with support that we give, when we are able to give it - then that is all that is ever needed to not be selfish. i am very glad that you and your partner are exchanging calm, simple, sane emails at the moment. i think that is what is needed most in your situation right now. both of you have been through hell. you both need to ground yourselves and each other by focussing on calmness and simplicity and benevolence. give it time and use that time here to learn and to get so much stronger, so that you know you can face whatever will come with genuine strength and a feeling of inner safety and security. keep up the good work you are doing - i am certain that it will pay off, no matter how things develop

[Renard]

hmmmmm,

Thanks for your good words. Thanks especially for saying also that my partner has been through hell. I feel such compassion and love for her also, despite my need to blurt out my own pain and confusion, despite the hurt and chaos she has brought on us both.

hmmmmm, may you be well this day.

[icky]

i would like to share that i got a veiled (but very genuine and very definite) compliment from my partner today about how well i've been dealing with BPD stuff. he's still light-years away from "admitting" he has BPD (or that he has issues) and from admitting that he needs care and understanding and help in dealing with it. but he said a very quiet, gentle, solemn, grateful, honest thing today about me having done really well these past couple of weeks re the BPD/ relationship stuff we've been dealing with. it means a lot to me. i was worried he wouldn't even notice it - i thought he might take it for granted. but to have him gently reaching out to say "i see it and i get it - thank you" means a lot to me. it was a very trusting and honest gesture and a baby-baby-step. given that he doesn't feel able to talk about any of this stuff openly, i'm touched and grateful that he found a way to show me/ communicate it in a kind of sign language. (again, thank you to everyone here. you've all taught me what BPD is and how to respond to it in a way that makes it less dysregulated instead of responding in a way that inadvertently increases his dysregulation. how rewarding to see these new skills paying off!)

[icky]

. oof. a new day, a new BPD issue to deal with.   : /. now that things have calmed down between my partner and i and we are slowly becoming closer and more relaxed and more loving and caring again. i can feel that addiction thing starting to happen, that so many people here post about. the past 6 months of dysregulation have stripped my nerves and my defenses raw. common sense and self-protection told me to just walk away and not look back. on the day i'd decided to leave, i suddenly had a clearer, less intensely emotional headspace and realised "wow, BPD is the only thing that explains what's been going on these past 6 + 18 months". realising it was BPD is what stopped me from just walking away and never looking back. what i've learned here so far has equipped me well for dealing with the negative BPD stuff - i feel strong and capable to deal with all of that healthily. NOW i'm starting to notice something else. that i'm not yet well-equipped to deal with the addictively-positive side of the BPD stuff. it's been worrying me a bit today and i just had an epiphany about it in my lunch break... i think what happens is this:. pwBPD are so desperately trying to form that crucial, deep, human bond that they never got to make during infancy. getting that to work in adult life, with someone other than a skilled and highly-trained therapist is a pretty haphazard process and more likely to fail than to succeed. to try and get the bonding process to work, i think pwBPD throw about 20 times the normal amount of bonding attempts at the relationship. and still they don't get it to work. so... in this relationship between the non and the pwBPD, there's 20 times the normal level of bonding behaviour going on. the non is becoming totally over-bonded to their partner (to the point where it's becoming addictive). while the pwBPD is still un-bonded despite the 20 time higher-than-usual levels of bonding activity. i think that's why the relationship becomes so skewiff. as a non, we are super-hyper-massively-over-bonded with our BPD partner. while our BPD partner is still floating round, like we're just acquaintances (and hence can walk off at the drop of a hat), cos bonding just isn't working for them, despit the massive effort they are putting in. currently, i feel like this is starting to happen to me. i was getting all that hyper-super-mega-ultra-bonding behaviour in the first 18 months of our relationship (idealisation phase). it was gone for the 6 months of dysregulation, but i can feel it starting up again now. like any non, of course my emotional system responds to all this massively intense bonding behaviour. so i can feel myself starting to slide into an utterly over-bonded state (to the point where i think he's the centre of my universe, i can't live or breathe without him)    : /. which i think is ludicrous, unhealthy, dumb and predictable (but i can feel it starting to happen, nonetheless). and even as this is happening to me, i presume he's as unbonded as ever and at the slightest cause will start up reproaches along the lines of "you aren't bonded to me enough" (of course that's not how he expresses it) when what he actually is describing is that he's not bonded enough. so... .i need to put some skills and tools in the way of me becoming over-bonded. it's NOT a healthy thing to have happening in a BPD relationship. i need to consciously make sure that my level of bonding corresponds to his. and i need to be ABSOLUTELY aware that his efforts of wooing me are about him trying to establish a bond with me - not some kind of sign of romance   : P. i must not allow his wooing to over-bond me to him (especially as he's not bonded at all). i must let him go through his bonding struggle - allow him to try and woo me (while making sure i remain innerly calm) - as he tries to internally establish a bond between us.

[Renard]

hmmmmm, thanks for writing out what you're thinking. What you write sounds pretty accurate because boiled down to pretty simplistic terms, what else explains the ability of the BPD person to walk away so easily while it utterly shatters the non-BPD partner?

That's the most reductive way I can put it, but I know things are a lot more complicated than that. Despite the possibility of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy (of putting so much work into bonding that one becomes irrevocably bonded with and to one's partner) it is possible to genuinely love one's BPD partner. But, given the profound asymmetry in your relationship (and even then you have called your partner high functioning) it becomes incredibly important to know thyself.

I tried an interesting exercise this morning in my journal: I put down a hypothesis that when all the work of caring is stripped away there may not be that much of a relationship. I am not settled on my answers and call my responses provisional, but I find they are useful at helping me figure out boundaries. It's worth saying that the whole exercise is pretty hypothetical because I don't know if I'll ever be together again with my partner, but I wonder if you might find something worthwhile in pursuing your remark about matching your level of bonding corresponds to his. If that's the case then what can you learn by really thinking on that situation?

I don't know that there's any takeaway for you in my remarks and I mean not to foist anything unhelpful on you. I do know that in my case if I had not worked so hard there may not have been that much of relationship. The part that scuttles all my rationale insight? I find her loveable. I have found it possible to love her in all that is difficult. Perhaps that's the balance to mere rationality: love is about radical acceptance and trust and commitment but it is not without wisdom around boundaries and knowledge of one's own limits.

[icky]

. yeah : ). i think what i want to do is slow my bonding down. and then my partner and i can bond slowly, at a similar pace, and i can let him take the lead and let him decide what speed he wants to go at and we want to go at. i think it will just be healthier, if we are more symetrically bonded. so i will dance a slow, loving, gentle dance with him, taking my cues from him and just being there, so that if he feels he wants to and is able to bond, then he can. but i'll protect myself against the addiction potential of a BPD relationship.

[Cat Familiar]

hmmm,
I like your thoughts on bonding. I'm also an animal person: horses, cats, donkeys, goats, sheep. I tend to apply the wisdom I learn from animals to human relationships, rather than the other way around since humans can be so damn confusing. Animals are honest (mostly) and what you see is what you get.

I missed out on role models for healthy bonding because my mother had undiagnosed BPD. I became a psychology major to figure out my dysfunctional childhood (and adulthood) and it wasn't until I came to this site that I realized she was textbook BPD. Now, decades later, I'm realizing that my dad was high functioning Asperger's and I AM TOO!

Anyway, don't want to derail your thread, but I needed to bring all this up in order to get back to "bonding". My mother and I had an extremely close bond, but it wasn't a healthy one. She competed with my dad to be bonded with me. 

In my romantic relationships, I tried to re-create the closeness I had with her, which I mistakenly equated with "love". Thereby I was good bait for BPD suitors.

Perhaps you have some similar attraction to these persons.

[Renard]

yeah : )

i think what i want to do is slow *my* bonding down

and then my partner and i can bond slowly, at a similar pace, and i can let him take the lead and let him decide what speed he wants to go at and we want to go at

i think it will just be healthier, if we are more symetrically bonded

so i will dance a slow, loving, gentle dance with him, taking my cues from him and just being there, so that if he feels he wants to and is able to bond, then he can

but i'll protect myself against the *addiction potential* of a BPD relationship

hmmmmm, there's some insight in what you say. It seems to fit your context nicely, which I think is crucial. I find that all of us in such relationships generalize to some degree because BPD is a common denominator, yet each relationship and individual has its own nuances that calls for good specific wisdom.

[Grey Kitty]

in this relationship between the non and the pwBPD, there's 20 times the normal level of bonding behaviour going on

the non is becoming totally over-bonded to their partner (to the point where it's becoming addictive)

while the pwBPD is still un-bonded *despite* the 20 time higher-than-usual levels of bonding activity

Yes and no. I'd draw a big distinction between the bonding activity/efforts and the actual bond that results.

A pwBPD starting a r/s will show 20X the normal level of mirroring and love bombing and other bonding behaviors. Not "normal" or "healthy" but it happens.

You (the non) will be powerfully drawn to this, even though it is way too much.

Side note: A healthier person would find it unappealing/uncomfortable because it is sorta crazy and pushes their boundaries... .at least coming on that strong out of nowhere!

The resulting bond is a different issue entirely.

What is missing from this kind of bond is a healthy understanding that the two people bonded are separate people who are choose to be connected... .with separate feelings, etc. Or at least this cannot go very deep with a pwBPD.

It is really easy to confuse the intensity (and addictive quality of it) with depth. Especially if you have few or no examples of this.


hmmmm, I'm suggesting that you would do well to look at your reactions here--what is it that is compelling to you. You have real feelings, real desires, real needs. Work on seeing and understanding them in you, and accepting that they are there. Try not to judge them as being "wrong" or "unhealthy" as you do so--that isn't the way to get where you want to be. And as you understand, you will likely see you just need to shift a little bit to be headed exactly where you want to go.

[icky]

Cat Familiar  . Grey Kitty. ooh yeh - i do realise there are plenty of "underlying issues" here which need to be examined. however, at the moment, i'm still in the phase where i'm just doing (BPD relationship) first aid. currently, i'm still just trying to stop the haemorrhaging - so the only "why" and "how" questions i'm asking pertain to that. i'm just doing the basic keeping-everyone-safe and stopping-the-bleeding first aid basics. once those are done, i'm totally aware i'll need to look at the underlying issues, to get truly good results. i'm just not quite there yet. still stopping the bleeding and will then hopefully take a few breaths and think about what to do next. all those deeper questions do keep popping up in my mind tho - i do want to know the answers to them and will begin exploring them as soon as things are no longer in that initial first aid stage. thank you for the nudge!  : ). you're both absolutely right!

[Zinnia21]

Hi hmmm
Your binding theory does ring true to me. I did get a sense of my pwBPD trying quite frantically to bond with me , and then as you say, they're not sure the bonding has occurred on a deep enough level.
... or they don't know whether to trust your enthusiastic and loving responses as being 'real'.
 I think potentially you feel suspicious of this phase because you've seen it before. You recognise that this is the initial part of the cycle with all the loved up, clinging behaviour, and that down the track, another part of the cycle might kick in, the part where he is upset or becoming withdrawn.

Just as he is frantically bonding, as much as it's enjoyable, you are probably frantically trying to keep the boat steady! keep it on an even keel. Forgive me if I'm wrong, perhaps this is not the case. But I do remember that feeling, of liking the attention and love during an idealising / bonding phase, but starting to feel worried it was too fast and unsustainable, and entirely on his timetable!
It's a nice phase to be in, but also feels a little out of your control... .is it something like that... ?

[Cat Familiar]

With regard to the BPD person's suspiciousness of whether the bonding is "real", I've felt quite insulted when my husband has questioned whether or not I really love him. Now I know it's due to the BPD and never feeling totally secure, but beforehand, it was like he was doubting my sincerity, which really irritated me.