Does this explain your relationship and your attachment?

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Does this article explain why to fell in love with your partner and why you struggle to let go?  :)oes it also explain why your partner felt their trust was betrayed and their emotions shifted?

What can you connect with here? What doesn't seem to fit your relationship?

Why You Fell In Love

Most partners of women (man) on the spectrum of BPD find that the experience of falling in love is different than any other relationship they have ever been in.

In order to understand why you may have fallen so hard for this individual, it might help to first take a look at a few interesting observations that social scientists have made in relation to the way human beings fall in love. As it turns out, one of the ways in which the chemicals that define our experience of falling in love can be artificially jump-started is through recreating certain behavior patterns that tend to happen naturally when people are romantically drawn to each other.

We now know that something as simple as staring into another?’s eyes for long periods of time is an emotionally moving experience that can help trigger falling in love. We can also observe that divulging certain kinds of deeply personal thoughts, beliefs or emotions to another person can create a bond that can trigger the process of falling in love if both people are naturally attracted.

It can be enlightening to look back to the beginning of your relationship with a partner on the spectrum of BPD to try to remember if there were times when you looked deeply into each others? eyes, communicating without words.

And when you think back, chances are high that you engaged in deep and meaningful sharing. We know that women on the spectrum of BPD can be very candid with their emotions and very encouraging of their love interests to tell them things they never told anyone else.

But in order for you to even more clearly understand the extreme nature of falling in love for romantic partners of BPD, we need to take a look at two behavior patterns that women on the spectrum unconsciously put into use during their initial phase of idealization that can in some cases cause men to fall head over heels in love with them.

The first aspect that can profoundly affect the speed and intensity which men fall in love with a woman on the spectrum of BPD is the way she makes her partner feel about themselves. In order to get her partner to focus obsessively on her needs, a woman on the spectrum of BPD will do whatever it takes to make her partner feel better about themselves than anyone has ever made them feel. This is often accomplished by shows of adoration, idolization and levels of care and kindness that the partner has never experienced before.

The woman on the spectrum of BPD will initially give the kind of love that is only possible to give when there is complete trust in a relationship. The way she accomplishes this without first building trust is by suspending all of her fears and willing herself to believe her partner is 100 percent trustworthy. And by suspending all of her fears she also gets her partner to in turn trust her completely. The end result is what we might describe a feeling of perfect love.

The second aspect that can profoundly affect the intensity and speed of falling in love with a woman on the spectrum of BPD is her ability to initially show exactly what she is thinking and feeling to her partner. We all have walls that we consciously put up in the presence of others. These invisible walls are very necessary for our self-protection. They are the healthy boundaries that we use to keep ourselves emotionally safe until we get to know whether the person we are with is going to accept who we really are without negative judgment.

Because all people suffer from insecurity around negative judgment from others, it is essential that we spend a great deal of time testing new people before we completely open up to them. Most people never pass all of our closeness tests that we subtly put them through. Yet we can still have a comfortable and healthy relationship without having to disclose our most private thoughts and feelings.

But in order to be in a long term romantic relationship we must develop the kind of trust where we can completely let down our guard with our partners. Although we will always have boundaries in place in terms of how we let our partners treat us, in order to feel safe enough to enter a permanent partnership we must feel certain that as long as we behave in the realm of respectful behavior, our differences, weaknesses and flaws will be accepted.

A woman on the spectrum of BPD, in order to get a love interest to devote themselves entirely to her, will let down all of her walls immediately without testing the waters of trust first. She will let her love interest see her most vulnerable side right away. This is not a conscious move on her part. In her panic to have her needs taken care of, she will throw caution to the wind. In her mind a new partner will inexplicably appear to be a person who seems incapable of hurting her.

Because we are very used to seeing people’s walls or boundaries, the experience of being allowed complete access to the inner world of someone we barely know can be quite a profound experience. When we encounter someone who has no walls up, no defenses, we may feel the same way we do when we encounter a young child or a helpless baby animal. We cannot help but want to protect and nurture them.

In addition to making us want to protect and nurture them, the act of another person dropping their defenses in front of us can often give us the freedom to drop our own defenses. Sharing on this unusual level of openness with a new acquaintance, particularly when there is a romantic element involved, can release us from our inhibitions and the feeling can be exhilarating.

Often this initial experience of interacting with a woman on the spectrum of BPD can be so powerful that despite the fortress of defenses she puts up in the later phase of this relationship which can include severe levels of mistreatment or abuse, her partner may not be able to stop trying to access the vulnerable person that they imagine must be trapped inside the walls of her defenses.

The powerful combination of a person making you feel better than you ever have plus the experience of being let in past every boundary can create a feeling of love so strong that no amount of negative treatment can convince the partner to leave. It is the woman on the spectrum of BPD’s siren-like effect that can keep partners in unhealthy relationships for decades.

Not knowing what has attracted them so strongly, most partners of women on the spectrum of BPD believe that she must be a special match for them and that their unique connection synergistically created the perfect relationship. But what they may not realize is that the perfect love that is created when both partners have 100 percent trust is not sustainable, nor is it particularly healthy in a relationship.

As human beings we can never be completely trustworthy. We all share universal character traits of selfishness as well as fear of the negative judgment of others that makes us all flawed partners. For this reason, in order to be healthy in a relationship we must already know how to take care of our own emotional needs. That way we can enjoy the wonderful feeling of another person taking care of our emotional needs from time to time without having to fear that without our partner we will not be capable of survival.

Although every one of us has a childlike wish to be loved as a perfect parent would love a young child, once we reach adulthood we must find a way to be content with respect over adoration and a mature and lasting love over the euphoric highs of the head-over-heels type of love that is the hallmark of women on the spectrum of BPD.


Joanna Nicola graduated from New York University with a B.F.A. in 1979. She has taught Linklater Technique, a method that allows people to work through emotional blocks, at Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, Hofstra University, Hebrew Union College and Mills College.

[Skip]

Does this article explain why to fell in love with your partner and why you struggle to let go?  :)oes it also explain why your partner felt their trust was betrayed and their emotions shifted?

What can you connect with here? What doesn't seem to fit your relationship?

Why You Fell In Love

Most partners of women (man) on the spectrum of BPD find that the experience of falling in love is different than any other relationship they have ever been in.

In order to understand why you may have fallen so hard for this individual, it might help to first take a look at a few interesting observations that social scientists have made in relation to the way human beings fall in love. As it turns out, one of the ways in which the chemicals that define our experience of falling in love can be artificially jump-started is through recreating certain behavior patterns that tend to happen naturally when people are romantically drawn to each other.

We now know that something as simple as staring into another?’s eyes for long periods of time is an emotionally moving experience that can help trigger falling in love. We can also observe that divulging certain kinds of deeply personal thoughts, beliefs or emotions to another person can create a bond that can trigger the process of falling in love if both people are naturally attracted.

It can be enlightening to look back to the beginning of your relationship with a partner on the spectrum of BPD to try to remember if there were times when you looked deeply into each others? eyes, communicating without words.

And when you think back, chances are high that you engaged in deep and meaningful sharing. We know that women on the spectrum of BPD can be very candid with their emotions and very encouraging of their love interests to tell them things they never told anyone else.

But in order for you to even more clearly understand the extreme nature of falling in love for romantic partners of BPD, we need to take a look at two behavior patterns that women on the spectrum unconsciously put into use during their initial phase of idealization that can in some cases cause men to fall head over heels in love with them.

The first aspect that can profoundly affect the speed and intensity which men fall in love with a woman on the spectrum of BPD is the way she makes her partner feel about themselves. In order to get her partner to focus obsessively on her needs, a woman on the spectrum of BPD will do whatever it takes to make her partner feel better about themselves than anyone has ever made them feel. This is often accomplished by shows of adoration, idolization and levels of care and kindness that the partner has never experienced before.

The woman on the spectrum of BPD will initially give the kind of love that is only possible to give when there is complete trust in a relationship. The way she accomplishes this without first building trust is by suspending all of her fears and willing herself to believe her partner is 100 percent trustworthy. And by suspending all of her fears she also gets her partner to in turn trust her completely. The end result is what we might describe a feeling of perfect love.

The second aspect that can profoundly affect the intensity and speed of falling in love with a woman on the spectrum of BPD is her ability to initially show exactly what she is thinking and feeling to her partner. We all have walls that we consciously put up in the presence of others. These invisible walls are very necessary for our self-protection. They are the healthy boundaries that we use to keep ourselves emotionally safe until we get to know whether the person we are with is going to accept who we really are without negative judgment.

Because all people suffer from insecurity around negative judgment from others, it is essential that we spend a great deal of time testing new people before we completely open up to them. Most people never pass all of our closeness tests that we subtly put them through. Yet we can still have a comfortable and healthy relationship without having to disclose our most private thoughts and feelings.

But in order to be in a long term romantic relationship we must develop the kind of trust where we can completely let down our guard with our partners. Although we will always have boundaries in place in terms of how we let our partners treat us, in order to feel safe enough to enter a permanent partnership we must feel certain that as long as we behave in the realm of respectful behavior, our differences, weaknesses and flaws will be accepted.

A woman on the spectrum of BPD, in order to get a love interest to devote themselves entirely to her, will let down all of her walls immediately without testing the waters of trust first. She will let her love interest see her most vulnerable side right away. This is not a conscious move on her part. In her panic to have her needs taken care of, she will throw caution to the wind. In her mind a new partner will inexplicably appear to be a person who seems incapable of hurting her.

Because we are very used to seeing people’s walls or boundaries, the experience of being allowed complete access to the inner world of someone we barely know can be quite a profound experience. When we encounter someone who has no walls up, no defenses, we may feel the same way we do when we encounter a young child or a helpless baby animal. We cannot help but want to protect and nurture them.

In addition to making us want to protect and nurture them, the act of another person dropping their defenses in front of us can often give us the freedom to drop our own defenses. Sharing on this unusual level of openness with a new acquaintance, particularly when there is a romantic element involved, can release us from our inhibitions and the feeling can be exhilarating.

Often this initial experience of interacting with a woman on the spectrum of BPD can be so powerful that despite the fortress of defenses she puts up in the later phase of this relationship which can include severe levels of mistreatment or abuse, her partner may not be able to stop trying to access the vulnerable person that they imagine must be trapped inside the walls of her defenses.

The powerful combination of a person making you feel better than you ever have plus the experience of being let in past every boundary can create a feeling of love so strong that no amount of negative treatment can convince the partner to leave. It is the woman on the spectrum of BPD’s siren-like effect that can keep partners in unhealthy relationships for decades.

Not knowing what has attracted them so strongly, most partners of women on the spectrum of BPD believe that she must be a special match for them and that their unique connection synergistically created the perfect relationship. But what they may not realize is that the perfect love that is created when both partners have 100 percent trust is not sustainable, nor is it particularly healthy in a relationship.

As human beings we can never be completely trustworthy. We all share universal character traits of selfishness as well as fear of the negative judgment of others that makes us all flawed partners. For this reason, in order to be healthy in a relationship we must already know how to take care of our own emotional needs. That way we can enjoy the wonderful feeling of another person taking care of our emotional needs from time to time without having to fear that without our partner we will not be capable of survival.

Although every one of us has a childlike wish to be loved as a perfect parent would love a young child, once we reach adulthood we must find a way to be content with respect over adoration and a mature and lasting love over the euphoric highs of the head-over-heels type of love that is the hallmark of women on the spectrum of BPD.


Joanna Nicola graduated from New York University with a B.F.A. in 1979. She has taught Linklater Technique, a method that allows people to work through emotional blocks, at Carnegie Mellon University, New York University, Hofstra University, Hebrew Union College and Mills College.

[RomanticFool]

Skip,

A very interesting article. I don't think she did the full on kind of love-bombing that others describe. She is older and more reserved but there was some. At the beginning of the recycle she said: 'When I found out you were married I cried on the way home.' I remember our first meeting (of the recycle) and she was very attentive and empathic - she had never been either of those things before. Our first incarnation of the r/s was founded in alcohol and sex and so I can't honestly remember whether there was any love-bombing. She also invited me back to her home that night (first time round) - something that I have always found to be out of character with her - or rather I just don't really know her is more likely.

Although every one of us has a childlike wish to be loved as a perfect parent would love a young child, once we reach adulthood we must find a way to be content with respect over adoration and a mature and lasting love over the euphoric highs of the head-over-heels type of love that is the hallmark of women on the spectrum of BPD.

Nobody told me this! I didn't know we were supposed to look after ourselves emotionally. This in a nutshell has been my problem in life. I watched my parents co-dependent combative r/s and that was my template for life. I obviously adapted throughout the years but in times of stress the above was my default setting, which is why I always felt abandoned because I thought women were supposed to provide unconditional love. I never grew up emotionally. Ironically, I don't have that kind of r/s with my wife - and I'm bored.

[stimpy]

This article very accurately sums up my relationship with my exgfwBPD. I had forgotten the "eyes" communication, and for us it was a lovely and wonderful thing, something I had never experienced before, or indeed since. That it gets a significant mention in the article is uncanny.

The rest of the article for me captures the essence of what happened, and reminds me (I'm over 2 years out now) of the dynamics of the relationship, the easy way we were together, that some other people noticed as well.

With reference to respect... .I did initially respect my ex, she told me of all the troubles she had experienced in her life and still she had on the surface at least come through as a good person, brought up two children, and held down a job in one if the caring professions for many years. I resepcted her and trusted her implicitly. As time went by though, the respect gradually declined and so did the trust, to the point where I didn't trust or respect her anymore.

One other thing that struck me was the reference to "perfect love", she mentioned this to me as well, the idea of perfect love, and looking back, this idea is something that now I would regard as a red flag.

In final comment, I'd be interested if anyone could elaborate on this comment in the article... .

we must already know how to take care of our own emotional needs

I take this as meaning that we can as individuals feel complete and happy within ourselves, without being in a relationship with someone else and that we can self soothe and return to emotional equilibrium, even when life knocks us off balance, or we are hurt, or even when something really good happens. Anyone else have a comment on this?

[AnuDay]

All I have to say is whoa! That article was a bomb... .just when I thought I was becoming comfortable with what BPD was all about... .now I learn that it's a spectrum disorder.  This was the most profound article that I have read in a while.  So how do people such as Tact, myself, and our otherfellow members make it through when the pwBPD start treating us so bad?  I had no choice but to end it.  It felt like she was in a battle constantly seeing how much crap I would take.  It seems like other people in crises here are also put through the most inordinate circumstances too.  Personally, I can't even forgive the behavior now that my exgfwBPD is out of that phase, not without treatment.  I just can't imagine going through another one of those cycles.  I have been able to think much more clearly now.  I know that others have chosen to stay with their pwBPD through the various crisises and some of you were even happy afterward.

Thank you for posting this article.  It explained my attachment to a T... .not to mention the fact that she caught me at a lonely time.  She also caught her new bf at a vulnerable time.

[Hopefulgirl]

Thank you for posting this Skip. It certainly makes sense of how I attached to my BPD friend. The article was written with "she" but I suppose it works the same way with male Borderlines too.

[Jami]

Thank you for posting this Skip. A brilliant article that exposes quite a few essential dynamics.

Throughout my recovery process, which is still intense (4 months since breakup), i've thoroughly questioned my own mental and emotional wiring. I try not to, but i can't help to feel angry at myself for having enabled such a damaging relationship to unfold. I've invested true love, sincerity, hope and respect up to the end, when it was rationally obvious that nothing good could ever come out of it. I stubbornly kept committing, until the masks fell and all that was left was an ugly and devastating truth. I wish i would never have seen it. I wish i'd detached earlier and avoided myself the trauma of confronting the dark, frightening depths of flawed human nature. Much like a soldier going to war, who can't erase what his eyes have seen from his memory. That's probably why PTSD keeps nailing me down.

I very much connected to this paragraph:

A woman on the spectrum of BPD, in order to get a love interest to devote themselves entirely to her, will let down all of her walls immediately without testing the waters of trust first. She will let her love interest see her most vulnerable side right away. This is not a conscious move on her part. In her panic to have her needs taken care of, she will throw caution to the wind. In her mind a new partner will inexplicably appear to be a person who seems incapable of hurting her.

It could be describing my inner approach to a potential lover, which has caused me much damage over the years. I can link this unhealthy tendency to another statement in the article:

Although every one of us has a childlike wish to be loved as a perfect parent would love a young child... .

This is, precisely, what triggers the lowering of my defenses way too soon in a new relationship. The search for the protection, nurturing and unconditional love i was not able to receive as a child, is what causes me to hurl myself unprotected into the arms of a promising lover. I, too, just as the BPD woman described, tend to idealise my new mate. I trust him prematurely, project my wishful thinking onto him and forget that it takes time and positive experiences to acquire true intimacy. These inner, primitive emotional needs to be held and protected and loved have made me the perfect prey for all kinds of emotional manipulators. The latest trauma might finally - i hope - provide me with the tools to conquer these dynamics and foster a healthier approach to relationships. For the time being, i just can't seem to figure out how to truly soothe that inner child.

[Seenowayout]

Wow!  Very helpful!  There was an impactful night early on when my ex shared with me all of her past. I remember it clear as day, we were sitting on a curb of an alley in a city and she told me the most amazing things, sad things, terrible things -- things I wouldn't tell anyone I hadn't known for a long time. I remember the smell of the alley and the look in her face. And I fell deeply in love at that moment -- even though some of those things implicated bad choices on her part, other stories truly were how she was victimized. It's just like the article said -- I wanted to wrap my arms around her and take care of her forever

The flip side I wasn't able to download my life that easily to her.  And as innocent bits came out she resented I didn't tell her all right away, thought I was lying to her, thought there was more. Let the shaming begin!  The beginning of the end.

I felt special that I was the only one who knew these things. But now I'm sure she tells all her guys her story. It's odd how we nons all have such similar experiences. Is the problem out unique reaction to this stimulus or them stimulating us that way. I would have protected her and loved her forever if she only belivedbme. I guess that's where the problem is

Thanks skip