When "I love you" becomes a weapon in dysfunctional relationships

[cbm419]

As a man raised in the US (and many elsewhere) I was raised to embrace platitudes regarding the "power" of love and the supernatural, sacred ways romantic love pervades everything we do in a relationship.

Many here have written more articulately on "Real Love" than I probably could.  It has helped me come to understand how dysfunctional my BPD and I's relationship was.  Real love is about partnership, shared goals and aspirations.  It is often supported by and supportive to both partners roles in their greater family units.  Real love is also sometimes boring, but ever present in the partners' lives.

I was thinking on this subject recently and found myself visualizing a metaphor, one I think is germane to what I would like to discuss: "Love is not a thing.  It is a path that two people find together, and decide to walk together in life, hand in hand." So as to say, in this metaphor, real love is all of what I wrote in the previous paragraph, and what others have said before me, but should be viewed as a sustainable process.

When discussing my relationship break down with several counselors, many of them kept insisting I needed to accept, regardless of the gory things that transpired, that me and my BPD were growing apart.  But until recently, I always denied their portrayal with these ingrained platitudes.  Yes, it looks bad at this moment in time, but (insert lame platitude).  But, "he loves me."

In regard to my metaphor, in real love, the phrase "i love you" is an affirmation. It is an acknowledgement that as the path continues, these two hands are still firmly grasped together.  There may be a disagreement, where the held hands are stretched as two partners pull away briefly.  This still happens in real love.  Real love partners do disagree, they may not share all the same interests, hobbies, and hubbies obsession with sunday night football may sometimes annoy or confound the wife.  But in these moments, to say to the husband "I don't get how you and the guys are so into some stupid game, you invite them here every weekend, its a lot... .but I love you." This statement is an affirmation.  It shows that she may not enjoy the football fan ritual, but its not a big deal. She loves him.  And in this temporal event where they may widen their steps on the path of real love, she is reminding him of the path, and that she would like the space between their steps to close.

This is a basic example of the power of "I love you" in what I've come to observe and understand in real love relationships.

And as I continue to detach from the relationship with my BPD, I am coming to understand how in a dysfunctional relationship, "I love you" can be a subversive or overt weapon to thicken the FOG, to make either partner forget that not only are you quite far apart on this path, but you are no longer holding hands.

I found when our relationship was breaking down, me and my BPDex said "I love you" a helluva a lot.  More than was normal.  But I thought that was just a marker of how intense and how transcendent our love was (cultural platitudes). Looking back, I now see it was at many times a saving blow, an attempt to excuse XYZ boundary breach.  

"I know I get so angry and so lost sometimes when we disagree, BUT I love you!"
(explanation for a rage with dissociation, or emotional/physical abuse)

"I know my heart is truly yours, even if sometimes I can't control myself and make mistakes.  I love you!"
(explanation for cheating after a fight)

In these moments, saying "I love you" was a weapon.  It was as if my BPDex saw, on our path together, we were separate, no longer hand in hand, and he grabbed my wrist and shook my arm, looking for me to capitulate and let him take my hand back in his again.

"I love you" as the relationship faltered, was a weapon to make me forget, forgive, or idealize him in moments where any normal person would not want to.  Where any normal person would at best, need space to collect thoughts, or to finally detach altogether: To forget him and reimagine my life path as my own, without this toxic, unhealthy partner constantly breaking boundaries and wrestling their way back to me (this is what I should have done sooner). He wanted me to accept him as a partner who removes his hand from mine, runs off our path to indulge some selfish notion, and just expects me waiting where he left off, hand held open devoutly, despite his unacceptable detour.

Every time he hit me, he cheated on me, he pursued himself above our once shared goals, ideals... .he would  rely on "I love you"  (and the associated platitudes) in so many ways.  To attempt to make me acquiesce back onto a path I, looking back, very well know was right into a gutter.

But, when I was still attached. He would say "I love you so much, and true love conquers all"

Real Love needn't conquer, at all

because to conquer inside love is to breach one partners boundaries in favor of the other. its not:
"Our love against the world." Because love is intrinsically about the intimate, mutually respected bond between you and the partner, nobody else. Certainly not the world.

But I am a victim of platitudes. Inside this relationship, "I love you" was one of the most potent "pulls" my BPDex had. and re-configuring my view of love after mistaking it for what was an addiction, a toxic codepency, has been quite hard.

But every day it gets better.  As I have written recently, after 2 months fully broken up, I've had a few dates. and with only a few under my belt, i comfortably admit, with no shame or self hatred, that I was deluded before. I did not know what real love was.  But its not my fault, and with the lessons I've learned from my BPDex, I'm the best pathfinder I could ever have hoped to be.

Most of all, serious love for the bpdfamily! I owe so much to the fellowship here.

[ynwa]

Well said.  "The things we do for love". 

[earlyL]

This is absolutely true and something I am finding at the moment. Thank you for bringing some clarity for me, your words really help.

LW

[SoMadSoSad]

But what do you think of the idea that you can love someone and not be together?

[cbm419]

But what do you think of the idea that you can love someone and not be together?

This is absolutely possible.  When I was talking to my brother's wife (and they have pretty much a model marriage) I began listing all the way my ex was mentally ill, had suffered so much, how thoroughly I loved him.

After giving all these explanations, justifications, sympathetic reasons I was so in "love," she said

"wow, thats all so sad, and he's been through so much.  Doesn't mean you have to be with him though.  I love many of my exes still, you dont have to evict them from their small piece left in your heart to move on.  Your brother owns the majority share of it and all of me, but we all, including him, have a past."

shes a really smart lady and I wished I had listened more, because I stayed in my relationship for another 6 months.

[Faith16]

I have NEVER had a man tell me he loves me as much as my BPD ex-husband. Literally would say it five times before he left for work each day, said it at the end (as well as sometimes mid-convo) of every phone call & the end of every text. And if I didn't say it back (because eventually it just became so "routine" to me & therefore lost the meaning), look out. It was "don't you have something to say" or "what? You don't love me?".

[vortex of confusion]

But what do you think of the idea that you can love someone and not be together?

I think this is very possible. I don't see myself ever not loving my ex. Even when I have feelings of hatred towards him, I still love him. Because I love him, I could not sit around and watch him self destruct. I love myself and my kids too much to continue to allow him to tear us down. I think about it as two different ways of loving. One is an active love where it is reciprocated and both people turn towards each other and look out for each other. The other is passive love. It is a feeling that I choose not to act on.

I also wanted to comment about "I love you" being a weapon. I love you was said so much that it became meaningless. I was tired of hearing "I love you" in all honesty. It was fine at times but there were other times when it seemed hollow and meaningless. This is coming from somebody that believes in saying "I love you" often. I think ex had to out "I love you" me, which meant that if I said it 5 times, he had to say it 10. The problem was that his actions didn't back up his words. If I didn't say "I love you" on cue as expected, he would get butt hurt. How could he say "I love you" in some of the contexts that he did. It was like that was supposed to magically cure everything and make me okay with everything.

[Roselee]

Wow!  Very Powerful indeed Cbm!
Lost count on the many, many times that when I didn't say "I love you" on cue it became an issue.

Every time he was awful and screamed and verbally abused me, afterwards he would always use the "but I love you". Which is perfect to say those words were used as a weapon towards me, and then my guilt to forgive him.

Now, I've been learning and realizing that he doesn't know what love is... .and apparently at the time, I guess my definition of it was faltering.  Love needs to be based and grown on having complete Respect, and Trust. Neither of those did my exBPDbf have towards me.  If he did... .it surely wasn't shown.

All those times that I took him back and forgave, because he said "But I Love You"... .and I thought him saying that was all that was really needed (again this time) and he would prove (this time) he loves me by not being so cruel to me any longer.  How naive I was.  How blinded he made me. I am looking forward to fully recovering and finding myself again, and being the woman I was.

Thank you Cbm for your words and thoughts on this!  Truly opened yet another avenue that I hadn't thought of before, and rings so true for me!

[cbm419]

Im really so thrilled that folks here on bpdfamily find value in the sort of inner meditation I had on this subject.

The use of "I love you" for coercion is something people deal with in relationships with non disordered partners as well.

However, we here trod a different path, a more chaotic balancing act act than the average relationship.  Because the phrase became a "pull" back to a relationship that was so entirely dysfunctional, harmful; yet the combination of pop culture ethos and our own, hopeful hearts, kept us coming back.

"I love you" is truly worthless when the partner isn't capable of healthily expressing what love is altogether, as roselee alluded to.  But I dont think "our "definitions of love were inherently flawed- As roselee points out- they faltered inside these relationships.  When we find someone we share this energy and passion with- that oh so hypnotic idealization/honeymoon phase, we begin to make compromises with our own value systems as the relationships progress into abject chaos.

willfully, we undermine our own once steadfast ideals, our standards become corrupt, and soon the lowest common denomination plummets ever lower.

I was speaking with my therapist recently on this.  On how people like us ex-partners of BPDs must be flawed.  I spoke with him, detailing my past long before I met my BPD, on how I was always such a romantic person... .I never enjoyed casual dalliances, I always preferred a candlelit first date with no kiss at the end, I have had fewer partners than most my peers sexually, but value my chastity as a marker of my serene and sacred respect for sex as a physical expression of love.  

But I often bemoan my notions... .surrounded by a constant "hook up" culture.  Where men and women alike spend time between long term relationships piling numbers up of casual sex partners, play mental "games" in dating, "play" hard to get... .instead of actually BEING hard to get like me. My peers would "try on" potnetial partners like a manic shopaholic tries dresses at the local mall, leave their dating profiles intact, always looking for the next best fit.  I tell my therapist how I can fall into self-hatred at times- for not being like my peers.  for not embracing this culture I've been submersed in.

I am so glad that in a couple of (no sexual activity) dates I've been fortunate to meet someone who is like me.  Who's numbers are low, who has strong boundaries, who isnt out there for fun.  It has helped me, in tandem with my work in therapy, accept that I am not an oddity, I am not a "freak." My ideals on dating and love are not outdated or unreasonable... .they are special. They are virtuous.

Meanwhile, my BPDex's body count piles up further and further every day.  He has informed me he is spending a few days in manhattan to "see friends" and he will engage in as much casual sex as possible unless I "take him back."  well, have at it ex. I am not like you.  I enjoy sophisticated dinner dates, with no expectation of even a peck at the end.  I am hard to get. I dont play games. and its taken a lot of work to learn to love myself for exactly who I am.

[Roselee]

willfully, we undermine our own once steadfast ideals, our standards become corrupt, and soon the lowest common denomination plummets ever lower.
 

That statement alone pretty much sums up my own personal transformation during my relationship! 

Truly words to learn from and heal to.   



 

[Movin-on]

"wow, thats all so sad, and he's been through so much.  Doesn't mean you have to be with him though.  I love many of my exes still, you dont have to evict them from their small piece left in your heart to move on.  Your brother owns the majority share of it and all of me, but we all, including him, have a past."