How we fall for the wrong person

[zachira]

I believe, and I am including myself in this critique of how we fall for the wrong person, that what we see as connection with a BPD person is not connection and a facade that we become infatuated with. At some point the facade drops, which can take weeks or years, especially when the BPD is under stress, and suddenly the non BPD goes from being worshiped to enduring uncomfortable feelings that the BPD cannot endure so they dump these feelings on their partner. If we (including myself) are going to make healthy relationships in the future, we need to see a person for who they truly are from the beginning, not for the temporary love bombing which is hiding behind a really dark side. People that form healthy relationships are open and honest about who they are from the beginning, and do not love bomb a potential partner so that the partner will become infatuated with them.
A good book to read on forming healthy relationships and avoiding people who cannot have healthy relationships is "Attached" by Levine and Heller and is sold on Amazon.com. I hope I am not being too heavy handed with what I am saying. I know that attractive women have a big advantage in attracting men, yet let's face it guys, there are many extremely attractive women who would make great long term partners, and as long as you are invested in going out with BPD women who provide the best sex you ever had in your life, you will not attract the right woman. I am looking at why I am attracted to the wrong men, and it is all about my dysfunctional programming from childhood which makes me seek out men to give me the love I never got in childhood who like my parents are incapable of providing me with love and caring. I admire you guys and everyone on this site who is willing to take a look at why they are involved with partners that can only hurt them. Let's keep this discussion going!

[Jeffree]

zachira,

How do we know there is a person hiding behind a mask if they are able to wear it long enough to trick us into being with them before revealing who they really are? By then it's too late and we're back castigating ourselves for being attracted to the wrong person all over again.

I wish there was a way that one could weigh the right person versus the wrong person and choose who they prefer to be with. I really doubt you or I or many people here who think they only make wrong choices would choose the wrong person in that case because you have the good person to weigh the wrong person against.

Most of the time the choice is person X (let's say the wrong person) who is giving us all this positive attention versus nobody. Hence, the wrong person can be much more readily seen as the right person when you have no other options and this is the first bit of attention you've received from anyone right or wrong in forever.

Imagine if instead of a sea of nobodies and trying to decide if someone is right or wrong for you, you were neck deep in an ocean of right choices trying to weigh a new person against. You'd have to be very determined to make a wrong choice in that case.

My history has been famine sprinkled in with the occasional wrong person, and looking back I have not gotten lucky enough to date a right person type.

J

[zachira]

Wickerman,
You are right about the red flags, and yes we need to pay attention to those even when we want to desperately believe otherwise. I also think it is confusing because depending on how needy we are in the moment, it can feel like real love, and people with BPD seem to be either in a hateful or loving mode, so the loving behaviors can feel genuine.
Jefree,
We can't see in others what we can't see in ourselves. I realize I need to develop my self esteem and awareness to see through the most charming men. As I start feeling better and more comfortable in my own skin, I am noticing that I attract better people into my life and the people who are not healthy attractions are not interested anymore. It is when I am feeling really stressed and unworthy that I can be   targeted by a manipulative man, though they can't affect me as much as they did in the past, as my self esteem and awareness have vastly improved over the years.

[once removed]

How do we know there is a person hiding behind a mask if they are able to wear it long enough to trick us into being with them before revealing who they really are?

do people really "trick" others into being with them? if so, why? and to what end?

i think everyone displays the best version of themselves in the beginning stages of a relationship in order to attract them. nothing malicious about it. just human nature, good strategy, and part of courting.

where a lot of us go wrong i think (myself included) is over investing in the intensity of that stage. the "soulmate" stuff, or the "great sex" or the "having everything in common", or the deep physical attraction is mistaken for a real, long lasting connection. relationships dont stay in this honeymoon/idealization/both parties love everything about each other stage. there are struggles, conflict, adversity. tests. heck, just basic every day getting on each others nerves.

and for those reasons, most relationships end between three and six months. it (the intensity) is also what many of us, and our exes invested so strongly in, and struggled (sometimes blamed the other) when it changed. to perhaps oversimplify, many of us stayed together (and struggled after it ended) because we clung to that stage, and tried to get back to it, and glimpses were enough to keep both parties going.

real intimacy, sustainability, endurance, trust, connection... .these things form slowly over time and grow as they are tested. no matter how intense the initial connection, those things dont exist in the beginning.

i had an ex (before the one that landed me here) that was a whirlwind romance. she was upbeat and positive compared to a previous ex. she was really into me, and vice versa. we often shared our over adulation. i told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world. she told me i was the best boyfriend in the world. yet at three months she dumped me. these are words people say. it happens all the time.

my takeaway was not that any girl who is really into me (however attractive she is) at the start of a relationship is bad for me or has malicious intent any more than i do. my takeaway is that this is par for the course, i should see it and be realistic about how well i know my partner, where the relationship is, and where its going, and not over invest in things that are temporary.

[Husband321]

do people really "trick" others into being with them? if so, why? and to what end?

i think everyone displays the best version of themselves in the beginning stages of a relationship in order to attract them. nothing malicious about it. just human nature, good strategy, and part of courting.

I would say my BPD ex, like many other BPD's  was a Trickster. My therapist actually coined that term for me when describing her.

Yes.  Of course all of us put our best foot forward in the beginning of a relationship. We might not pass gas in front of them.  Not yell at other cars on the road. Want to smell nice. Dress nice. Make jokes.  Etc etc.

but over time I found out my ex wife's entire previous life was a lie.  I found out while she was in love with me she was on sugar daddy dating sites.  I found out while texting me how much she loves me, she would text her ex husband the same thing later in Same day while telling him she is completely single. She told me she never cheated on him.  Come to find it she cheated on him with over 50 different men and women.  

So yes.  They lie to get your love, energy, and attention.   It's almost like a con artist to me who has a script.  While she would tell me "I was the only man that ever made love to her" she was looking for random sex online or with exes.  

If you are not in front of them, often times you don't exist to them. I bet many of us would be shocked if we had unfettered access to their emails. Apps.   Phone records.  Texts etc.  That's when you would see the real them, while at the same time they are professing life long love, monogamy, and to be the best wife ever.  That's is being a trickster.

[once removed]

yes, people are dishonest.

i think thats very different than a con artist, who typically wants access to say, financial gain or career advancement, etc. my point is that i dont think there are people who desperately (ie BPD) want to get into a romantic relationship in order to hurt someone, which is why attractiveness/hotness or words about how great we are arent really a threat to us unless we over invest in them.

thats beside the fact that people with BPD have weak relationship skills, are notoriously impulsive, and have poor executive functioning/control.

so yes, people are dishonest, and that really takes time to establish. i think the other point is that in spite of that dishonesty, we remained over invested in what we bought into in the beginning.

[Wicker Man]

so yes, people are dishonest

Honesty must be observed it cannot be explained.  As Harley Quinn said so eloquently  "Pay attention to actions not words'.

I was, as once removed mentioned, too invested in her words and was too quick to ignore her actions.  Ultimately, the congestive dissonance caught up with me.

[zachira]

Wicker Man is right about how everyone who has a mental illness is different and many times a mental illness is not diagnosed because the person has a milder form of it. BPD is thought to be caused by both genes, environment, and with mental illness it is a combination of genes, so basically there are big differences between people with BPD. For example, some people with BPD will have a few melt downs a year, where others may have daily meltdowns.
As far as whether people with BPD can love another, it seems that at times they can. My BPD mother seems to love her children at times, though she seems incapable of every letting up on the abuse. Maybe if she had gotten some help earlier, things might be different. My father tried to get her to go to therapy when I was a teenager and she refused to go.
All I know is sometimes people you don't think are capable of changing, do at some point seek help and actually improve significantly though I think the BPD behaviors will never completely disappear. I have two siblings and a parent with BPD, and all three of them have melt downs that seem to come out of nowhere, and there is zero accountability and it seems no memory of the bad behavior.

[Wicker Man]

All I know is sometimes people you don't think are capable of changing, do at some point seek help and actually improve significantly though I think the BPD behaviors will never completely disappear.

@zachira From what I have learned from my therapist, who currently treats a few patients with BPD, your statement is correct.  Personality disorders are usually life long and take constant and difficult work to mitigate and contain.  I should guess, because of the genetic component, the B-cluster disorders are even more difficult than others to treat.

I was uneasy with the tone of a couple of the last posts and wanted to offer a softer view at the risk of playing devil's advocate.


Thank you @zachira for your further enlightenment and thoughts on the discussion.


Wicker Man

[once removed]

what we see as connection with a BPD person is not connection and a facade that we become infatuated with. At some point the facade drops, which can take weeks or years, especially when the BPD is under stress, and suddenly the non BPD goes from being worshiped to enduring uncomfortable feelings that the BPD cannot endure so they dump these feelings on their partner.

i suspect my ex (many of our exes) see this the same way. its that classic struggle, post idealization stage of a relationship, where both parties try to get back to the way things were, and frankly, feel a little robbed. most relationships end there. many, like for most of us, continue in spite of it, but are over before they end, and i think learning to spot that is a vital part of making healthy decisions/future relationships in the future.

[Cromwell]

zachira,

How do we know there is a person hiding behind a mask if they are able to wear it long enough to trick us into being with them before revealing who they really are? By then it's too late and we're back castigating ourselves for being attracted to the wrong person all over again.

I wish there was a way that one could weigh the right person versus the wrong person and choose who they prefer to be with. I really doubt you or I or many people here who think they only make wrong choices would choose the wrong person in that case because you have the good person to weigh the wrong person against.

Most of the time the choice is person X (let's say the wrong person) who is giving us all this positive attention versus nobody. Hence, the wrong person can be much more readily seen as the right person when you have no other options and this is the first bit of attention you've received from anyone right or wrong in forever.

Imagine if instead of a sea of nobodies and trying to decide if someone is right or wrong for you, you were neck deep in an ocean of right choices trying to weigh a new person against. You'd have to be very determined to make a wrong choice in that case.

My history has been famine sprinkled in with the occasional wrong person, and looking back I have not gotten lucky enough to date a right person type.

J

Yes in that situation you dont have much bargaining power and the decision is put up with the behaviour you dislike or be alone, not healthy, I often wondered how marriages lasted when ive seen how much they couldnt stand each other.

There is also the Halo effect that comes to mind, first impression of my ex was to a great extent overwhelmed by her looks and sensuality. I wasnt looking for a girlfriend at that point but that first impression along with slowly getting to know each other from a healthy distance, led to that Halo effect being created. Its why I didnt pay attention to the red flags later on as they arrived, always went back to that first impression I was swayed by it.

When I convinced myself that I had found "the one", it wasnt about bargaining power anymore, there were other women interested in me and who treated me far better, but when I weighed it all up, she was still "the one" that I wanted, and it didnt seem that anything could shake this (fault ridden) perception.

[Skip]

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

Corollary: You can't trick a person who understands what a meaningful relationship is?

Are these concepts at all true? I think there may be more truth than most of us think. None of us are buying into that email from a relative of a Nigeria prince that needs to move millions into the USA.

I think if we have a clear robust model of a healthy relationship in our minds and hearts, we will seek out people who can be healthy partners and not throw caution to the wind for someone who's primary appeal is one-dimensional or an ego boost - gorgeous, or adoring, or young, or a minx, or rich... .

Let's face it - many of these broken relationship started when we were in a down state of mind and/or attracted to something pretty superficial.

I had tremendous “honeymoon" love with my BPDish partner - she was fantastic and far better at it than I. I don't think either of us had a meaningful model of what to nurture it into. I lead in these later stages and I had a better model in mind than her, and I tried my hardest to lead, but frankly, I wasn't as good a leader as I thought at the time, nor did I have a good concept of love and longevity. She was even less up to the task than I. Between the two of us, we just didn't have the right stuff as a couple.

I could blame the failure of her or "BPD", and I did to an extent for a while. But I slowly came to realize that I really had a lot to learn  about what love is, and how to love, and what the components of long term love are.

Learning was a rocky road, but it significantly changed what I looked for in a partner. I'm on a much better path now.

29% of the population has an active mental illness or addiction. Can I spot that? Much better now. Can I co-exist with troubled people and work with them and not get sucked into a morass? Much much better now.

But this is not the key to a great long term relationship. - not anymore than learning how not to throw gutter-balls is the key to being a pro bowler.

It's all about knowing what a truly good relationship is... .when we do, we have a much clearer understanding of what to look for in a good partner.

[Cromwell]

im not too convinced about the "wearing a mask" theory, to do so implies that there is something to hide. In moments of open ness, and im talking, during times my ex became unguarded with me, her revelations were "i have no soul".

her wearing a mask was to the extent of hyper analysing my personality and reflecting back the behaviour what she believed I wanted, in doing so, giving myself the impression of having fallen for someone that was so congruent with my own values.

if the mask ever slipped, all it unveiled to me was a reflection of my own image. If she was with anyone else, it would be theirs. If she would be alone, there would be nothing.

the manifestation of her condition; an identity disturbance.

if I can address the subject title of this post, It would be "how I fell for a non-person[ality]"

my ex was and is, the sum total of the company she is with at any given moment.

if that sounds hard to comprehend, its because it is. It wasnt a manipulation.

does that give me much comfort? no, not really. it actually makes it more bizarre and disturbing to me than if I had been actively deceived by someone who had something to hide, it would have made some sense.

[Husband321]

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

Corollary: You can't trick a person who understands what a meaningful relationship is?

Are these concepts at all true? I think there may be more truth than most of us think. None of us are buying into that email from a relative of a Nigeria prince that needs to move millions into the USA.

I think if we have a clear robust model of a healthy relationship in our minds and hearts, we will seek out people who can be healthy partners and not throw caution to the wind for someone who's primary appeal is one-dimensional or an ego boost - gorgeous, or adoring, or young, or a minx, or rich... .

Let's face it - many of these broken relationship started when we were in a down state of mind and/or attracted to something pretty superficial.

I think of it as the opposite...

In the beginning, since they mirror you, you have everything in common. Conversation, sex, goals, aspirations, ideas... .We would kiss for hours, talk all night, and nothing else existed. If we haven't came across this before, why would our guard be up against it?  Many common mantras in life are "love at first kiss" "love at first sight" etc.

If it was one dimensional then it might be an attractive girl you have nothing in common with, but she looks good in public. Or someone you cant talk to, but sex is good... Or someone you love to talk to, but not attracted to... Etc...

[Turkish]

My ex's elder brother actually fell for the African Princess scam.  He sent "her" money.  My ex told me when her mom told her that he had told their mom that he was going to ask us (me) if they could move into our 3rd room and rent it out.  I think he had kind of convinced their mom,  and due to the family guilt/narcissistic family dynamic  (you support family no matter what even at the expense of the individual members) my ex might have believed it a little.  

Of course I said no, and that he was being scammed.  I think my ex was relieved that I took the lead on that one.  Of course said princess never showed up at the airport as promised and we thereafter never heard about the matter again.  He moved on to a real life woman in Mexico with several kids.  He'd take a bus across the border every few months to visit her.  Sent her money.  Supposedly married her and was going to bring them all to the USA,  then it dropped.  

Of course we can all see how ridiculous that all was, but we're on the outside looking in.

If something's too good to be true, it's neither good nor true.  

[Jeffree]

It's all about knowing what a truly good relationship is... .when we do, we have a much clearer understanding of what to look for in a good partner.

There is soo much grey area in the dating/relationship dance.

I tend to hearken back to, and maybe a little too much mind you, that what we look for in a "good" partner in theory tends to work out to us accepting to be with the "best partner available" in reality. We all have some semblance of the person we would love to be with. Pros and cons; do's and don'ts; yes and no; green, yellow, red, and checkered flags.

Buuuuuut... .the pursuit of someone is always fluid and so is the dating process. Most of the time we are getting to know someone and measuring our experiences of and with them against all our other experiences and our checklist of wants and needs.

Ultimately, I think we need to be easier on ourselves and learn to accept that 1) We took a chance on love and lost, 2) Accepted some behaviors in a partner we probably shouldn't have, 3) Edited what we were experiencing with our pwBPD a little too positively, and 4) Gave passes early on to differences between us that   we didn't realize would turn so ugly in the end.

What we do with those lessons is up to us. The quicker we learn the faster we will make better choices.

J

[heartandwhole]

Great topic! Lots to think about.

One things I've noticed since my breakup is that the very intense feeling of connection I had with pwBPD is something I internally shun now. I don't want that feeling of being lost in another person, or the extreme intensity of emotions and physical attraction.

No thanks.    I want a slow burn that will stand the test of time and won't collapse if one of us is having a bad day.

heartandwhole

[Skip]

what we look for in a "good" partner in theory tends to work out to us accepting to be with the "best partner available" in reality. We all have some semblance of the person we would love to be with. Pros and cons; do's and don'ts; yes and no; green, yellow, red, and checkered flags.

Your points are very valid.

This is why we often get in trouble when we jump into another relationship quickly... .

I think many of us don't have a firm idea on what is the best partner for us... .we focus more on what to avoid... .that is important, but you can't paint a masterpiece by just avoiding mistakes.

It's not full proof. It's not easy. But if we don't have a good idea on what we want, or don't go far beyond physical attraction, we may never find it. I don't mean a wish list either - a practical idea of what we want.

And I ask, what is "best partner available"?  :)oesn't that have something to do with our attractiveness? If we are an emotional or physical wreck, or emotionally immature, it will be hard to attract someone healthy.

This is why working on ourselves is important.

[Jeffree]

And I ask, what is "best partner available"?

It is the person who best encompasses as many of the pros and as few of the cons we reasonably think we can find in a partner.

Nobody is going to have every single one of the traits we attribute to the best partner for us. That being said, you have to pick and choose what you can try to deal with versus what you absolutely won't accept.

Maybe the person is just a little more messy than you would like, or maybe they're more forgetful, or not as generous, or as successful, or make less money, or spend a little more money than you're comfortable with, or whatever. While some of these things can seem nitpicky, depending on the person they can either be or become much bigger issues down the line.

For instance, going back to the deal breaker subject posted elsewhere, I can make a pretty compelling argument that both my exes left me when their earning prospects outshone mine. When my first ex wife was on the verge of receiving her first big commission check during the whole time we were together, she then up and left the week it was supposed to hit our account. My second ex left two months after being unemployed for 7 months the best job I could find paid me 50% less than what I was accustomed to earning and I was thusly making significantly less than she and taking early distributions from my 401k to make ends meet.

Sometimes you just don't know who you're REALLY dealing with until the relationship faces adversity.

J

[once removed]

Sometimes you just don't know who you're REALLY dealing with until the relationship faces adversity.  

this is true. its why im an advocate for the good ol fashioned "take it slow" approach. its only one aspect of "falling for the wrong person", but if we know what we are looking for, and dont rush headlong into the relationship, we can get a feel for the persons character and commitment over time.

i dated my ex for just shy of three years. we spoke often of marriage. i never thought the relationship was in a healthy enough state that that could move forward. i stayed long past the point that there were serious questions about our ability to overcome adversity together.