xw appears confident and strong

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

Xw is so confident on the surface but when we were together she use to say, and she said it often " if I weighed 800 lbs would you still love me?" I always said yes, I would love you no matter what. It always baffled me as to why xw would ask me that question and no matter how much I reinforced or how much love I showed her, she just couldn't cross the line trusting I would always love her.

[bus boy]

Xw is so confident on the surface but when we were together she use to say, and she said it often " if I weighed 800 lbs would you still love me?" I always said yes, I would love you no matter what. It always baffled me as to why xw would ask me that question and no matter how much I reinforced or how much love I showed her, she just couldn't cross the line trusting I would always love her.

[gotbushels]

Hi bus boy 

I think it's quite common that pwBPDs require larger amounts of affirmation of their concept of "love" and feeling that love, than others.

The majority of us appreciate acts of love when we are the subject. It does seem that pwBPDs "need" this so much that it never seems "enough". It can feel good for us--to be wanted so much that we become the "need"--but after a while, it can get exhausting.

[bus boy]

It was exhausting to the point that I had a bad mental breakdown. I use to stop at the end or our road on my way home from work and prime my self up by saying " you can do this, she will see how much I love her, love will prevail". It did not prevail. Sometimes I would eat, pretend I was asleep, go to bed and not talk to her all evening for fear of saying the wrong thing or to try and avoid the never ending topic of abusing my family.

[gotbushels]

Yes, emotional exhaustion happens often with caretaker nons.

At that time, why did you choose "love will prevail" to guide your actions?

Fear of change, dialogue, or doing something can be seen as a form of tacit control. My experience of this is that despite not doing anything, going through this frequently has a very draining effect. It can be confusing because people usually feel drained from lots of action, but that's not the case with these situations.

[bus boy]

I can look back now and see that I probably mistaken the very intense feeling I had for love. I did make the mistake of expressing my love to her and said how happy I was to fall in love and know I will not be alone. I expressed my fear of being alone and Xw made it her mission to hurt me with that fear every chance she could, even after she left she brought that up to me several times, telling me " your alone, no body wants you that's why people leave your life bc nobody wants you, everyone hates you".

[gotbushels]

I expressed my fear of being alone and Xw made it her mission to hurt me with that fear every chance she could, even after she left she brought that up to me several times, telling me " your alone, no body wants you that's why people leave your life bc nobody wants you, everyone hates you".

This might be a silly question, but I think the answer is worth discussing. Why did you express this fear?

How do you feel about her attempting to use your fear to get what she wanted?

[bus boy]

I expressed this to her bc I was so happy she was in my life. I'm alone and have been for some time. My fear was growing old alone, no one to share my life and love with. I shared all of this and she walked all over it.

[lovenature]

PWBPD have an extreme fear of abandonment and constantly look for signs that you are going to leave them, being continually reassured that you won't sooths their fear. They don't trust us because when we get too close we trigger their fear of engulfment; we must be awful to love someone so unworthy of love as they feel they are, so their defences create a reality where we are doing something to hurt them, or they put us down, or they go NC etc. It all depends on their current emotion of the moment.

[blueblue12]

It is so weird bus boy. I felt exactly the same and did similar things. I wanted to be as open and honest as possible and used to tell my ex sincerely that I loved her that I adored her that I wanted so much to be together forever. As I was older I also felt good about that as I wanted a truly loving honest marriage. Now that I analyse it I see that all that was basically used against me and she gained a lot of power out of my honesty. The last year discardment I was basically bullied all year long. I remember walking on egg shells all day long, every day, not wanting to trigger anything bad, hoping she would be nice, but she was stern, cold and detached. I remember once breaking down as she was saying "we are done, you are in denial" etc... .and she just looked at me and said "you need help, get some medication" no empathy whatsoever, just a cold individual which I had trusted and had given my all to serve... .horrible stuff!

[gotbushels]

Yes bus boy, when we are happy we can be with someone, then we may feel more open to sharing our personal thoughts.

While it is our responsibility to face the consequences of what we say to our partners, know that at the time of your sharing these with her, you didn't know how the relationship was going to go--so there's not much reason to blame someone for how things actually occurred.

In fact, right now, let's suppose you blame her. What does that feel like?

Now blame yourself.

When you've felt that accusing someone, and that accusation--then what? Does anything come out of it for you? I'm simply curious if this act of blaming produces anything for you--practical or emotional.

[bus boy]

As I move along through the healing process I am learning that blaming only held me back or at least that is how I am looking at it. I held on to resentment and blaming for so long even Xw said, the second something goes wrong, you blame me". So much was wrong in the r/s, I see I was an enabler I see how her BF is an enabler. Now I look at this as a sickness, for some reason I can accept it better if I say Xw has an emotional disorder. I still struggle with the sickness concept and say she is just pure evil but those thoughts don't last like they use to. I am slowly changing my thinking to the emotional disorder. My dad was verbally anusive so I was all ready damaged material when I met Xw, she was just the straw that broke the camels back. Xw was on a whole different playing feild of cruel hearted viciousness. Xw was exposed to a horrific child molester by her own mother, in fact her mothers molester so I feel this is where it begins. My T said even if Xw wasn't molested, the trauma alone of knowing your protector, your parent, would expose you to a molester. It all came out in court, Xw mother testified she was molested many people were molested by this monster. Of course I say if Xw was molested but my T stops me and says, no bus boy she was molested.

[marti644]

"My dad was verbally anusive so I was all ready damaged material when I met Xw, she was just the straw that broke the camels back."

bus boy, this strikes a cord for me. I feel the same way. Now that I can look back my unhealthy relationship was nearing its end a month before. I had already begun withdrawing before she left. And because my BPD-ex is so emotionally aware it makes alot more sense why she bailed. She sensed that I was not going to put up with it anymore. More importantly though a huge well of repressed emotions came out of the whole experience that go back to my time as a young child and things my parents did that left me emotionally stunted in several ways.

In a funny way it feels like destiny (not trying to be dramatic here) that this was meant to happen to wake me from my unhealthy emotion slumber. Each day now I come across thoughts and  make behavioural connections about how I acted in this and other relationships. Both my parents are open to talking about the childhood issues so we are slowly unravelling the emotional cords. Truly such a rewarding (albeit extremely painful) experience.

[gotbushels]

Okay--the blaming held you back. Did it do anything helpful for you?

Sometimes when we see the other person as having an illness, it makes it easier for us to pardon. The other person doesn't function like we do, in fact they are probably impaired, and it feels easier sometimes to pardon someone who is impaired in some way.

It's good that you're moving away from the label of evil to the description of disorder. I think it makes things more tangible and therefore easier to deal with.

Yes, the trauma that can come out of such a horrible childhood experience can have tragic effects during the victim's adult life. It can feel painful when we try to see how childhood factors play a role in creating BPD traits. This is a hard one to process because it's so horrible.

[marti644]

gotbushels,

Can you clarify a little more what you mean by this question:

"Okay--the blaming held you back. Did it do anything helpful for you?"

Want to answer it properly.

[gotbushels]

Sure. 

Sometimes, blaming can serve a purpose beyond the logic of denoting fault. When it does, then that's helpful in some way.

E.g., if I blame my ex for a problem then --regardless of her true responsibility--the act of blaming helps me to feel good. If I feel superior = helpful. If I'm not responsible for the problem = helpful. It can also be a few steps: if I'm not responsible for the problem → then she caused my loneliness → then I don't need to look at why I may be alone = helpful.

[marti644]

ah I think I see what you mean gotbushels.

To answer your question, it was helpful to blame because it covered my own inadequacies and my issues at the end. This helped to protect myself from taking a look inside myself (not that different than her I think). This was too painful at the time.

This covering action was helpful in justifying my actions and hers and helped me to remain superior. I am trying (trying being the operative word) to look at my own stuff and let hers go. I need to just accept that her stuff was not mine. I'm not quite at the point where I can do that as I am still processing this whole experience but I am working on it.

[marti644]

also I should add that blaming also made me avoid my own feelings, feelings of wanting to be needed and trying to make myself indispensible. Totally unfair on my part.

[patientandclear]

For the future, it may be worth considering that few of us want to feel our partner loves us because they are terrified of the alternative. "Because I found you I don't have to be alone" may be our real feeling but it can make our partner feel like an object.

Many pwBPD seem particularly acutely attuned to a feeling that they are being used, that their surface appealing qualities are being taken or used by others to make the others feel better; and while they may initially actively participate in that dynamic and seem to cultivate it, ultimately it feels bad and promotes deep resentment, and doubt about whether we love the "real" them ("if i weighed 800 lbs" or just what they can do for us.

Even if our future partners are not BPD and aren't ultra sensitive to this feeling of being used/needed, one thing we can do to foster successful connection is find a way to be less afraid of the alternative, if that makes sense; to be satisfied in ourselves and not need the relationship so much.

[marti644]

Patientandclear,

This is beautifully said. For reasons I am just beginning to understand I don't feel like I want to be loved. I'm working on why and need to make sure I don't objectify my partners. I'm writing down what you said. This needs to stick.