Did you love your ex?

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I've been in love before many years ago. I am not sure if in the story of my life my ex will be the second person I include on that short list. She told me she loved me while we dated, and I said I loved her too. I wonder, if I really loved her, why can't I let her go. When I was in love the first time and we split, it was hard, but I felt this confidence that we would both be just fine, and we would go back into the world and learn and grow more. With my expwBPD I am obsessed nowadays, not lovingly letting go. I think I love/loved her, but it defies a logic of what love means to me somehow. In hindsight, how did your thoughts about whether or not you loved your ex change? I am interested in other people's stories.

[vanx]

I've been in love before many years ago. I am not sure if in the story of my life my ex will be the second person I include on that short list. She told me she loved me while we dated, and I said I loved her too. I wonder, if I really loved her, why can't I let her go. When I was in love the first time and we split, it was hard, but I felt this confidence that we would both be just fine, and we would go back into the world and learn and grow more. With my expwBPD I am obsessed nowadays, not lovingly letting go. I think I love/loved her, but it defies a logic of what love means to me somehow. In hindsight, how did your thoughts about whether or not you loved your ex change? I am interested in other people's stories.

[roberto516]

I'm sure I did. What's funny is I find myself today questioning whether I still actually do love her. And I think that is a no.

So why did I love her? Because I did things a lot differently in this relationship. I did my best to offer support and look at myself for what I had to change to improve the relationship. I was eager for couples therapy and still wanted to go when she wanted to stop. And I didn't run like past relationships. I realized I was a runner when things got hard after my first BPD ex. She was worth it to me.

I know there was an addictive component to it. But I wouldn't have loved her if I didn't make the changes I did to improve us. I also wouldn't have raged at her when she left. If I didn't love her I wouldn't have felt the betrayal I felt. And I wouldn't have left her a mug of coffee by the nightstand as I left for work so she could wake up and have it right there for her every morning... .among 100 other things.

[Insom]

What is love anyway?  How do you define it?

I see love as a word with a range of meanings that changes as you go through life and gain experience.  Did I love my BPD-ex?  Yes, at the time I believed I did though my understanding of what love is, and what loving behavior looks like has grown quite a bit since I was with him.  While my feelings about him were strong, his behavior toward me wasn't loving, and in retrospect, nor was mine toward him.  We felt passionately but didn't behave lovingly toward each other. 

[takingandsending]

Hey vanx.

I think, like everything else in the world, love is not a static thing. The love we feel when we enter into a relationship is not the same love that we have decades later, because we and our partners are not the same people. It's also not the same love that we may hold as we leave the relationship.

There's a natural progression to grief. We start in crisis/chaos/shock, trying to deny and then normalize what is happening. Questioning the love, feeling like all of it was a lie is kind of a normal second phase. It's that sense that the ground we stand upon is not stable. We may feel anger/guilt/resentment. Gradually, we move on to recognition of what is and then grief. If we follow a healing trajectory, the grief can move us to act in a capacity that we ourselves or others not have to go through that journey we just made alone. Look at the board advisers and folks on this website. They found they wanted to help others in a similar boat. And we all bounce between these different phases of grief and letting go from day to day, moment to moment.

Some days, I still feel sadness about ending my marriage with my uBPDw. We have two young children together, so that sadness is fresh, reawakened as we make our way through life more or less apart though still connected. I have many opportunities to experience anger, as all the BPD behaviors are still and maybe more manifest now. But I feel a lot more hope and kindness inside of me than I did as I lingered in a very poorly functioning relationship. I still wish my wife well, hope that she finds happiness, but I don't pin my hopes on that happening the way that I used to. She is free to live her life as best she can, and more importantly, I am free to learn how to love myself and be there for my children. If I had known how to do that, I doubt I ever would have been attracted to my wife to the degree that I was.

[hope2727]

Yes I did love him. I do love him. I always will love him. I can't be a part of his life or him a part of mine but I hope he finds peace somehow. I miss who he pretended to be and love who he is. All his curves and all his edges as the song says.

[Sunfl0wer]

Way I currently see it is yes, loved my ex deeply.  I still love him innthe sense that I hope good things for him, wish him well and such... .mostly.  

I think tho there was a special intuition he had for me, and I for him.  He and I were able to speak from some core place within us and connect with age old vulnerable spots in us.  This is what I see as, not just missing him, cause yes, that is part of it, but also missing this deep hurt Part within my soul that he was able to reach and play and interact with.

So... .
Part of me misses him, yes.
Part of me misses this core part he filled within me.
This hole/core part or whatnot, (for lack of a better word) that has now revealed itself to me is the Part that had longed for him so strongly... . cause the hurt comes from an original core wound that existed before him, but has resurfaced because he touched it and brought that area to life again... .helped me to find more of me.

Losing him, sure I miss him... .
But I also have missed the Me that we discovered together... .and parts of me within my Core that were awakened and played with once again.

[Harley Quinn]

Yes.  I loved my ex with all that I had, all that I am and for the first time in my life I didn't hold back at all.  I think that he was the exact right person for me at the exact right time and I loved him for everything that I saw inside of him.  For his pain, his fear, his anguish.  For the man he was inspite of his illness.  He was the catalyst for me that revealed my deepest fears, my deepest scars and the open wounds that had been long buried without ever coming close to healing. 

Despite all that happened between us, how extremely traumatic the events were that unfolded and the ongoing trials I face as a result of our r/s, I love him still.  However now I love him as a fellow human being and, more than that, another soul whom I recognise the same wounds within.  In floods of tears I had begged the Universe to make him better and send him back to me, out loud and repeatedly.  One day I stopped.  Things were falling into place.  I was realising things and learning about myself.  Eventually peace came.  I will always have love for him and I hope that he in time becomes the person I believe he can be.  But for him, not for me.  Our paths intertwined for a reason and they were never meant to stay that way.  We each served our purpose for one another.

Happiness comes from within.  Nothing and no one outside of ourselves can create that for us.  We have to do that for ourselves.  It's possible to choose to be happy right now, with exactly what we have - and what we don't.  Even if it hurts.

Love and light x     

[vanx]

I am very moved by what people have shared and reminded of the kind nature of the people on this forum. I am grateful to hear about your perspectives as I resolve my own. Thank you!

[patientandclear]

I did. However, when I understood better who he is, my love changed. When he violated a series of spoken and unspoken bonds and commitments, it broke.

[Harley Quinn]

I did. However, when I understood better who he is, my love changed. When he violated a series of spoken and unspoken bonds and commitments, it broke.

I can relate to this.  When things became truly ugly, violent, destructive, psychologically abusive and damaging to my family (affecting my son) these were breaking point for me.  The emotional stuff had been enough in itself but from some things there are no return so yes my love broke too.  In some ways perhaps that was a blessing in itself.  Had things not reached this stage perhaps I'd still be persisting and allowing my weak or non existent boundaries to be stomped all over... .May sound nuts but I thank my lucky stars things really did get as bad as they did for this reason.  It really made me stop and look at what I was prepared to accept and what that meant about my own self worth.  What I have learned is priceless.  That letting go means loving ourselves enough to.  That's the hard part.  

Love and light x  

[enlighten me]

Ive become a cynic where love is involved. I no longer have the romanticised view of what love is but now see it as a form of addiction.

In a healthy relationship then that love/ addiction is a good thing that bonds people together when it is mutual. In an unhealthy relationship it is a cruel means of bondage that keeps us involved when every nerve ending is telling us that we should run.

Just my cynical opinion 

[Aesir]

I loved her very much and all I really wanted was her to love me too. Over the years I saw a lot red flags that told me that she was not capable of that. Her low self esteem and self loathing were the most evident of them but I ignored them. I just wanted to believe that this person that I identified with and accepted felt the same way. Love at first sight or near first sight is a real thing imo.

During those years she broke up with me twice for selfish and inexplicable reasons mainly it was her blaming me for her life direction. She didn't put enough time or effort into the relationship but thought I should do even more than I was doing. She made excuses on her part and then blamed me later. Over the last few years she became more mentally and emotionally  abusive to a point the love I felt for all of those years faded.

Even after I knew it was hopeless I held on out of fear of being alone and the prospect of facing the fact  that I had made a terrible mistake. All that I had given was for nothing.  Do I love her still? NO. But I do still have feeling for her on some level. That's partly why I'm here. I don't wish her ill and I hope she gets help and will live a happy life. As for myself?

I'm broken inside and I don't think I can love like that again.

[roberto516]

I'm broken inside and I don't think I can love like that again.

I know it's early for me but I have resigned myself to this same belief as a real possibility. And right now, it looks lonely but it's a small price to pay for being able to know myself and do what I want to do with this one life. Whether that's alone or with someone. Honestly, like you, I can't ever see myself loving someone again like that. I got hurt twice because of my bad decisions about who to love. I don't think I'm ever gonna get on a carousel again.

[jambley]

Yes, I loved my ex once very much.That's all I want to say.

[vanx]

I think I wish I didn't, because it hurts, but I think I did love mine too. I still do. If I can release all judgement for a moment, the simple truth is I love her very very much.

[Jazzy]

I  loved him with all  my heart.   I still love him. I don't think I will ever stop loving him .

[Reforming]

Good thread Vanx

Yes I loved my ex - I think part of me always will and I'm ok with that.

I also accept that it's very unlikely that she feels anything similar.

One of the hardest and most painful lessons was accepting that she could detach much faster than I.

I don't think I could love someone else in the same way again - recklessly and without boundaries.

But I think that's healthy and appropriate. I'm a very different person now than I was when I first met my ex.

Less naive and more grown up... .

I think that one of the hardest parts of grieving a relationship is letting go of the fantasy future you imagined. And when there's a PD involved the idealisation and trauma it can leave a deep mark.

But it also creates unique opportunities for real growth

Thanks for sharing

Reforming

[marti644]

I loved my BPD-ex to the best of my ability, and I believe she loved me to the best of her ability to.

It's interesting how different my emotional connection has been to various past partners. The first which lasted for four years, was a slow progression to realizing I loved her. It was a relatively mature relationship I think looking back although I made many mistakes.

My second relationship, which lasted around two years, was much quicker and was much more hot and cold "love", with intense times of push/pull, but really in the end became more of a very unhealthy dynamic that made me realize that both of us wanted very different things out of the relationship and our love language was very different. She thought marriage/things=love while I thought that actions=love.

My relationship with my BPD-ex was very intense physically and emotionally from the start, and my feelings were (I thought) much deeper, although I now know that the mirroring dynamic we had meant that I was really loving myself (as reflected through her) more than her characteristics themselves.

In the end I know I loved them all, it was just different, and aside from the first relationship, I would say that the 'love' dynamics I had were largely unhealthy, and my expectations and wants and needs I had in the relationship were unrealistic considering the person I was with. In the end the attachment styles my two last exes had were very different then mine. While I suffered for years and months after both relationships, they moved on within weeks. Not saying that is right or wrong, we were just different although I really like who I am and the types of values and ethics I espouse.

Now the work is to figure out how to deal with my own attachment problems and move on and be happy with myself.

marti

[Pretty Woman]

I loved her but not in a mature, healthy way. She cheated on me so many times, threatened police involvement, all things that a healthy person would have ran from... .that by the final discard I loathed her in many ways and also loathed myself. I was angry I wasted three years on this person. Angry I gave up having children to end up taking care of a woman-child who eventually abandoned me, never looking back.  

That wasn't her fault. She didn't force me to stay. That was my choice. I was trying to save her from herself and put all my effort into that  and that was not my place to do so.

We had a non romantic mother child relationship. In the end I was her parent and she was the rebellious teen. She did terrible things to me, said things that almost got me fired from a very, very good position with a great company, a leader in its industry. She turned people against me, people thought and think imndangerous, that I'm evil and abused her.

Yet I still care. I still don't want to see her suffer even though I have suffered the past six years. . Someday I know she's going to tick off someone with a short fuse and be murdered, or fly off the deep end like she did with me and actually bash someone's head into a wall and end up in prison. When she rages you cannot rationalize with her, it only fuels her anger.

Impulsivity and irrationality are hard to "change" in someone.

So yes, I loved my ex but now I'm focusing on loving me which is something I wasn't doing and led me into that union which changed my life.

[StayStrongNow]

Thanks to many who helped me realize this, it was not love but merely infatuation, addiction and obsession.  This is why it was so hard to break away from the uxBPDw and took so much time.

We had a 9 1/2 year marriage and 4 children together so I have to keep LC. Now she does not turn me on whatsoever. I am so turned off by her I just want to have as little time with her as possible. I truly never loved her but I just got caught up in the BPD Dance.