"we are not good for them" what does that mean?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I have ever read in posts that "they were not good for us" and "we were not good for them". They abused us mentally and emotionally said and did sinister things to "us". I'm confused as to how we were not good for them or we played our roll. I drove my self crazy to proove my worth, I did crap that's for sure but nothing any normal r/s couldn't handle. What was our roll? We did not deserve to be treated like a dog. Did I trigger something in her that my replacement won't? Xw told me in crazy crying rages that I was crazy and was driving her crazy. No one is know even her extended family have never saw xw rage, only me. I would clamp up and say nothing, that would make her very mad, I learned techniques of coping from growing up in a verbally abusive home and I reverted right into that mode when xw started her abuse on me. Sometimes I think xw was just a very upfront strong personality and I miss took that for abuse. I could not be up front and honest with her like I was scared or her, I reverted into something different. Maybe I couldn't handle a totally up front facing problems head on type of r/s, I was internally weak xw was very strong. She has been totally out of my life for a year 1/2 so many questions pop into my mind about what was abuse and what wasnt. Xw demanded total respect nothing less than 100% and xw demanded 100%, 100% of the time in everything and those were her words so I was going out of my mind to be 100%.

[bus boy]

I have ever read in posts that "they were not good for us" and "we were not good for them". They abused us mentally and emotionally said and did sinister things to "us". I'm confused as to how we were not good for them or we played our roll. I drove my self crazy to proove my worth, I did crap that's for sure but nothing any normal r/s couldn't handle. What was our roll? We did not deserve to be treated like a dog. Did I trigger something in her that my replacement won't? Xw told me in crazy crying rages that I was crazy and was driving her crazy. No one is know even her extended family have never saw xw rage, only me. I would clamp up and say nothing, that would make her very mad, I learned techniques of coping from growing up in a verbally abusive home and I reverted right into that mode when xw started her abuse on me. Sometimes I think xw was just a very upfront strong personality and I miss took that for abuse. I could not be up front and honest with her like I was scared or her, I reverted into something different. Maybe I couldn't handle a totally up front facing problems head on type of r/s, I was internally weak xw was very strong. She has been totally out of my life for a year 1/2 so many questions pop into my mind about what was abuse and what wasnt. Xw demanded total respect nothing less than 100% and xw demanded 100%, 100% of the time in everything and those were her words so I was going out of my mind to be 100%.

[ShadowA]

Game is over once you figure them out.

[vortex of confusion]

I'm confused as to how we were not good for them or we played our roll. I drove my self crazy to proove my worth, I did crap that's for sure but nothing any normal r/s couldn't handle. What was our roll? We did not deserve to be treated like a dog.

That is how we were not good for them. I was NOT good for ex because I did not stand up to him. Instead of seeing that I wanted and deserved better, I stayed around trying to prove myself. All I did was enable him to continue living in his own little world. I didn't leave or do anything that said, "Hey, this isn't okay." Oh, I complained and moaned that I didn't like it and that I deserved better yet I did nothing to change it. I bent myself in all kinds of knots and then wondered why he couldn't see me. He couldn't see me because of living in his own world.

I tried to prove my worth to somebody and that is not cool. I would never be able to prove my worth to ex because in order to see MY worth, he would have to value himself. He would have to acknowledge his own worth.

One time in a discussion, he told me something very enlightening: "How can I love you when I can't even love myself?" He didn't have to love himself because he sought love from me. Because there was no self love on his part, it was a black hole that I don't think I could ever fill no matter how loving or how understanding I was. No matter how many times I looked the other way or tried to understand him or be compassionate with him, it wasn't going to work.

[once removed]

I'm confused as to how we were not good for them or we played our roll.

i dont see examining our role as the same thing as accepting blame, or what we or they deserved or not.

we had a romantic relationship with our exes. in clinical terms, we had an "interaction". that involves actions and reactions on both ends ie "my ex did _____ i responded _____ she responded _____" or "i did ____ my ex responded ______ and i responded ______".

we tend to have our own bias and fill in those blanks with our perception. i think examining our role is about taking a more objective, third person perspective, through reflection, information/knowledge, feedback from others, and being honest with ourselves and other members as we work through the relationship postmortem.

[Confused108]

My ex always said that she thought I was too good for her and that she felt like a nothing. She never once said that I wasn't good enough for her. Doesn't matter tho. She's said worse .

[Octy]

I actually believe that towards the end it's like they're reading break up articles in line at the grocery store about how awful we are. Mine told me we were musical soulmates in the beginning, and said we had no music in common at the end. Nothing had changed on my side. It's the black and white, idealize and discard most likely.

[ynwa]

Hey Octy,

If you look at the bigger picture. Her actions overall, especially in moments a person in a "normal" relationship would have been able to "handle".  Her words in one place, or situation might completely be out of place in another.

What she says is far less important than what she does. They are justifying feelings and actions, rationalizing them so they don't have to actually be responsible.

Anyone who becomes close to them will feel their attacks and anger, the closer you get, the worse it gets.  It really isn't about you, you didn't "cause" it, it was already there and you bore the brunt of it.

So if you are asking if it is your fault simply by being in a relationship and loving her?  What do you think?

[Sunfl0wer]

I drove my self crazy to proove my worth,... .

See, this is just it... .
Trying to "prove" your worth is actually in fact a form of JADE and really as long as we are confident in our worth, we would have no need to defend or prove it.

The act of proving it actually validates that the worth is to be questioned.

For example... .
You didn't have to ddrive yourself crazy trying to "prove" you are female or male right?  No, because it is an undisputable fact.

Why should our worth be any different than any other undesputable fact?

Actually defending ones self worth, is actually showing you doubt it.

You don't ever point out your adam's apple, breasts, etc to anyone stating you are not male or female right? And if you do once or twice, you certainly would not do it for any period of days, weeks, or years!  It would be obsurd to try to convince someone of a fact that they decide to turn away from.

It is not our job to change the perception of others.
We have to live our proof.
If we behave like we are of value,
Then there is no way to reasonably question that.
There is no reason to JADE our value... .
And JADEing it makes it seem like a reasonable doubt for another to have.
That alone is NOT behaving our truth.
It validates the invalid: that we are of lesser value

Idk, I have certainly done this too.
I certainly feel that next time around, KNOWing my worth, behaving my worth... .is the key.  
Whereas defending it is the opposite of being secure in my worth... .never convincing.

[Aesir]

I tried for a very long time to prove that I was a good person and trust worthy. She always found small areas to criticize. I should never have tried to persuade her like that, especially if the criticism is one way and unfair. After several years we were still at square one. She was the martyr and I was Ming The Merciless.

[Mutt]

We did not deserve to be treated like a dog

We didn't deserve to be treated the way that we were but what compelled you to stay? I'd like to echo what 2010 said in a post about how our exes teach us to stop putting up with abuse, I think that the most difficult people that are in our lives are there to teach us about ourselves.

I drove my self crazy to proove my worth

Again, i'd like to echo vortex of confusion and Sunfl0wer this time, my self esteem or lack of self esteem was established a long time before I met my ex wife. You mentioned your childhood, my dad suffers from an anxiety disorder and ADHD, traits of both, he doesn't take care of himself and was never diagnosed, he was and still is to this day incredibly self absorbed and he was really tough as a kid. That being said, the lack of validation that I received from him as a kid affected mme in interpersonal r/s's later on in life. the idealization from my ex wife was an ultra high.

That being said' I can't blame my dad or my ex today, I guess I could but what can I learn from that? It is important to validate your experience and examine your feelings but it's detrimental to you if you stay stuck there. Neither my dad or my ex are aware of their behaviors and the impact that they have on others and the anger that I especially felt towards my dad was counter productive, I think somem of the anger was a component of my depressive moods. My point is, they can't hear or validate the pain that they caused, that validation was found elsewhere, here from others members that can relate with these experiences but we also need to self manage and validate ourselves.

There's good and bad in these r/s's, grieve the bad and learn and grow from the positive and you can become better at r s's, both interpersonal and romantic ones in the future. I'm speaking for myself when I say this but I value myself today and I certainly wouldn't put up with the treatment today that I got from my ex wife, I don't think that it would go that far honestly because of the self care stage, by taking care of myself and boundaries I would likely not attract another unhealthy r/s and that I learned from my ex wife, don't put up with abuse! I hope that helps.

[vortex of confusion]

I had another thought about this. In a healthy relationship, the ideal is for BOTH partners to benefit from the relationship. A healthy relationship should add to a person's life in positive ways. That isn't to say that there won't be ups and downs on both sides. If the overall relationship is NOT adding something positive to BOTH parties, then the relationship isn't healthy and should end. The biggest mistake that I made was staying in the relationship too long. I think a lot of the craziness on both sides came from the fact that the relationship was NOT healthy and we were both trying to make it work in our own weird ways. Yes, ex is needy and has self hatred and shame and all sorts of other issues. I have issues of my own too.

The analogy that comes to mind is only having a hammer. If all you have is a hammer, then it is going to be really difficult when you encounter a screw or the need to cut something. It doesn't work and you end up frustrated. Ex only had a hammer and he wasn't resourceful enough to go find other tools. He was as frustrated as I was, probably moreso, because he didn't have the right tools and he couldn't even begin to think about where to find the right tools. He had no reason to go look for more tools because I hung around and spun my wheels hoping that some day he would figure out that he needed a screw driver rather than a hammer.

By staying in the relationship, I was invalidating the invalid. I would complain and grouse about ex's actions yet I didn't DO anything that said, "This is NOT okay" thereby encouraging him to pretty much continue repeating the same patterns. MY actions were not in line with my words. My words were that I wasn't happy with what he was doing. MY words were that I didn't like what he was doing yet I continued to hang around and wonder why nothing changed. I imagine he must have been as confused as I was because I was suddenly doing something rather than just sitting around grousing about it.

[Octy]

YNWA
It was not my "fault" exactly, it's that at the time I accepted that I was the "cause" of their switch to blame for events that could not be fixed by me. Like my accepted failures were cause for unreasonable blame in all events. For instance, a store being out of her favorite food, so I might buy her second favorite until they restocked. That answer was not sufficient. Could I have taken over stocking duties at the store? Was it on purpose? Was I forgetful? No, no, no. Yet the desperate explaining was ugly I'm sure.

 I've learned it could have been almost anyone. That is why a lot of us wonder whether someone will come along and remain "perfect" for them. What once made them happy let them down a day later. It's like the abuse (the things said we're near sadistic in their humiliation) for things that while in no reasonable sense were fixable, was our "fault", and as sunflower said we became pathetic it trying to prove our worth. Somebody who could barely take care of themselves at times was attaching blame to the one person always and unconditionally in their corner. It was sad when they could switch to thinking that we thought low of them when all they did was belittle us. In a court the facts would be so on our side, but our brains would be so jumbled we would be questioning our own sanity.

[Aesir]

This is a great topic.  In my situation I think my reaction was delayed. I sat there and argued and defended myself for years and didn't get anywhere.  Near the end I had  reached my limit and I thought. "I may be flawed but I am better than this and I certainly don't deserve this". "Why did I need HER to validate Me?" I thought to myself? "You already know or should know what type of person you are. If SHE doesn't something is wrong with her NOT you". I thought those very things.

A particular rage episode really hurt me and I felt that I had betrayed myself by not leaving her right then. I felt stupid but I did gradually move towards leaving. She raged more but that just pushed me further away.

[ynwa]

I mentioned he blame and fault.  What I should have said was responsibility.  I know deep down, even in the most angry and clumsy responses, I was just trying to show her I was right in front of her. That I had no idea what I was doing and needed help.  Being attacked in those moments was blinding, and I put it away.

It comes back now, and I'm doing my best to not let it come out in anger.  I don't contact her because I have nothing to say. Even yelling and screaming vengeance at her is nothing to say.  When I feel helpless and crying, I know I can't go to her even though she is both the cause and relief of my pain. 

She hurt me because she could over and over. But she left and everyday sucks, but it's another day I dont have to feel I failed someone.   She takes no responsibility outwardly to me. And it's my breaking point.

I barely 2 months out.  I know I'm raw and barely out of it.  But I need to be.  I want to enjoy a day, 1/2 a day and never think about her.  I want to learn to be feel ok being alone in my apartment.   

[Octy]

YNWA
It's (almost)funny and I hope you move away from the continuous loop faster than me, but I was expressing myself so well two months out. I actually began dating until I was aware that I was not ready and It wasn't fair to a girl who started to really like me. The whole lets just have "fun" until someone caught feelings. I was honest with myself and her immediately.

 It's been about a yr out now. I've said I had began drinking towards the end. I have the whole, "if I had just been sober that last night and said the right things". I called her an assh&#!e for showing up 13 hrs late for a planned time to start a hiking day trip. She looked so confused like she had told me she was helping a friend whose car had broken down(confirmed). It was just a build up of the lack of communication and that she was treating me awful and lying about everything else. It's toxic self shame I know.
I can see how someone who lied and cheated so much could believe that everyone was capable of it even through confessed love. They did it. It was easier than communication. I gave her so many outs. Then I was hooked. I acted petty in the end and ruined  the chance at friendship that would have been as unhealthy as her keeping all her exes in the picture was for us. Yet I lost even the chance for closure although explaining anything to her was moot.