I did for awhile entertain the thought that she loved me

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

I did for awhile during a post relationship entertain the thought that she loved me, regardless of all the vitriol and the extreme behaviours.

what im more inclunied to believe nowadays is; the emotions are rooted more in self shame and guilt, and wanting to alleviate them by making reperations.

in short; nothing to do with me, or my suffering from it.

it is about escaping the inner narrative of seeing themselves as a "bad/evil" person, that is why the invites always came back for a recycle, everthing was great again - for awhile - until they realise that underneath the superifical act - they did betray, they did hurt, and I was just at those points a visible thorn in the eye for inciting her to look inwards again and confront shame. Instead of this, get painted black again, and a new era of abuse to follow the "real" bad person.

Self exercise in Guilt alleviation  - yes,

loved - nope

[Cromwell]

I did for awhile during a post relationship entertain the thought that she loved me, regardless of all the vitriol and the extreme behaviours.

what im more inclunied to believe nowadays is; the emotions are rooted more in self shame and guilt, and wanting to alleviate them by making reperations.

in short; nothing to do with me, or my suffering from it.

it is about escaping the inner narrative of seeing themselves as a "bad/evil" person, that is why the invites always came back for a recycle, everthing was great again - for awhile - until they realise that underneath the superifical act - they did betray, they did hurt, and I was just at those points a visible thorn in the eye for inciting her to look inwards again and confront shame. Instead of this, get painted black again, and a new era of abuse to follow the "real" bad person.

Self exercise in Guilt alleviation  - yes,

loved - nope

[Long_term_dad]

Hi Cromwell,

Sounds like a lot of drama, and I can relate.  I am exiting a very long married-with-kids relationship and what I experienced was a drawn out version of your relatively short relationship.  What struck me about your post was the pull you felt back towards the other (if I understood it correctly).  That is the issue I struggle with.  We have been separated for a year yet there's still a part of me that is afraid of her.  It's weird because it doesn't really withstand reality testing (ie there's no specific "thing" she would do to harm me).  I definitely know this is MY work, not about her, and this factor is my other half of the coin.  in my case I get that I was and in some ways still am very receptive to being involved with this sort of person.  I'm reading and re-reading and reinforcing and seeing a therapist and am, in fact, making progress but MAN is this hard.  I want to unstitch the part of me the primes me for this kind of crap.  Good luck on your journey. It really sounds like you're doing well and thank you for sharing your experience.

[Cromwell]

Hi Cromwell,

Sounds like a lot of drama, and I can relate.  I am exiting a very long married-with-kids relationship and what I experienced was a drawn out version of your relatively short relationship.  What struck me about your post was the pull you felt back towards the other (if I understood it correctly).  That is the issue I struggle with.  We have been separated for a year yet there's still a part of me that is afraid of her.  It's weird because it doesn't really withstand reality testing (ie there's no specific "thing" she would do to harm me).  I definitely know this is MY work, not about her, and this factor is my other half of the coin.  in my case I get that I was and in some ways still am very receptive to being involved with this sort of person.  I'm reading and re-reading and reinforcing and seeing a therapist and am, in fact, making progress but MAN is this hard.  I want to unstitch the part of me the primes me for this kind of crap.  Good luck on your journey. It really sounds like you're doing well and thank you for sharing your experience.

Hi Long_term_dad

I could not pinpoint any real reason that I couldnt have just walked away at the drop of a hat. On paper - just a girlfriend, no financial links, no kids, no marriage, what was the problem to walk away?

Each time I did split away, for short periods of times (the most was for 4 weeks), she would find me back, and present herself as suddenly changed for the better "Ive stopped the drugs, ive got a job" etc... .she talked the talk that she perceived or explained to herself was the issues that made me leave. Id been away enough to start to feel better, not long enough not to still feel disorientated in my thoughts, maybe she has changed? I wont ever know unless I try. Indeed, for a few months - everything on the surface was great again. and this is the seduction of it all, its like that Hyde character had vanished.

To relate more towards the end game; riddled with anxiety. There was so much incremntally worse drama she was doing, and also, the "good times" were more to do with Being good at hiding what she was up to in the background - not letting me discover the cheating, the drug use, sleeping with my work colleagues, it turned clandestine and surreptitious, the good times were me being kept in the dark and her being more savvy than she had been in the past.

End game was realising what sort of dangerous snake I had woke up to find around my neck and not wondering what I could do about it. I never managed to leave in the past without being stalked back - so whats the option? Stay anyway and at least feel I have some forewarning of what might happen next? That was part of it.

Would leaving her cause her to dsyregulate and do something catastrophic? A big risk to take; I wasnt so much convinced anymore of her suicide ideation as much as she was adamant to destroy my life, at least staying with her and continue to give her that feeling of control over an object, I made myself too "valuable" to destroy. Too useful. Those were the feelings.

Add becoming mentally un footed as each day passed, sleep deprived, anxiety ridden, not able to think clearly; I was almost turning into an automoton who would just do anything she asked. "to keep her happy" because too do otherwise, was to invite chaos.

My discarding her was not prompted by some courage, it got to the point I felt I was ready to crack up - she forced my hand, it wasnt anymore a rational choice but a self preservation one; things couldnt go on the way they were going.

I highlighted the word "afraid" in your post, it stood out to me, I can relate deeply, "fear" as well. Of what? The unpredictability, not knowing just how much she is capable of doing, just how dangerous a person she is. A fair assessment in hindsight! She was a nightmare to her exs, as much as she didnt make it easy for me to leave. It only worked because I started to get so mentally unbalanced that I believe the coin started to turn towards me becoming dangerous.

Sometimes you have to make war to find peace, when you push someone to their breaking point, they are no longer fully in control of their actions, its a recipie for disaster but i think she picked up on it and in the end, its where I got my peace finally. At the core of that built up image they present is extreme cowardice contained inside, that is why it is built up. In order to escape these people there has to be a newfound sense of "no more BS - im in charge here, new lesson, new script" and make it unshakeable. Decisive, not like I did, mixed messages of going back and forth like a yo-yo. it makes it more difficult to find closure when they get the impression "if only I try hard enough, he will give up in the end"

its like training a puppy, get off to a bad start, its hugely difficult to recondition. I let her walk all over me during the r/s in the name of "love" - no wonder she got in her mind we would be "together forever" - a dangerous inner narrative to then later have to tackle head on.

if you want to stay, you at least need to learn the tools that I see as equivalent to being a hostage negotiatior level. F that, I wanted out - yet doing so did need every ounce of guile and slowly fade out, I say I was together for 3 years, 2.5 years was subconcious trying to engineer a way out as best I could, with lack of knowing how.

thank you for your best wishes - in the end people cant beat themselves up, what more did anyone do but the best they could in the circumstances? Chances are I could have done a lot worse. Its a serious disorder rooted in psychosis, not some average walk in the park difficult clingy girlfriend.

when you say you want to be "involved with this sort of person" - is it because of the biochemical high that it induces? There was an element of associating that andrenaline rush of danger and conflating it with love for her. They say that a first date to the cinema, choose a scary movie, for that very reason.

wishing you the best LongTermDad in your goals to find more fulfillment

[Long_term_dad]

when you say you want to be "involved with this sort of person" - is it because of the biochemical high that it induces? There was an element of associating that andrenaline rush of danger and conflating it with love for her.

Hi Cromwell,

Thank you for your good wishes.  I have no intention of going back, but am I aware of the pull and yes, I think in my case there's an early psychologically-based pull.  I grew up youngest in a very dysfunctional family and I learned to survive around such people, and others, by wrapping myself in a mirrored invisibility cloak (reflecting back whatever the BPD or narcissist or alcoholic wanted to see.  Conveniently that gave me cover to be in a relationship that was all about them therefore requiring very little of me and in that way I protected myself.  Pretty F*d up... .

I wish you the best too and thank you for taking the time to reply.

[Cromwell]

It is a tricky situation; put up with a tirade of abusive behaviours, as a trade off to staying with a person we claim to "love"

whilst at the same time, showing in that process, a lack of love for oneself.

Little wonder my ex would have reason to doubt if they were loved - they create an environment where it becomes almost impossible to do. It is engineered/sabotaged to the point where they cant love you because everything has been indicated to show that lack of self love.

Pull away as an indicator you do have that self love and wont tolerate it anymore, and they come running. Not only was my ex so pathologically insecure that any friend, family member, even former relationship was a source of unsettlement, even to love myself before her, which is the base requirement to loving anyone - was a threat.

So I can relate to this "Invisibility cloak" it comes at the expense of the erosion of the self. and once you go down that route it is little mystery that everything becomes centred around them, walking on eggshells; for them. I woke up one day and didnt know myself anymore, I had became an extension of another. not the intertwining of 2 souls, an objectified extension.

Thank you for sharing your experience Long_Term_Dad, im sorry you felt the best option was to pander to those needs to such a level you felt you had to do so. It was hard for me to recognise whilst in the midst of it.

[Husband321]

Hi Long_term_dad

I could not pinpoint any real reason that I couldnt have just walked away at the drop of a hat. On paper - just a girlfriend, no financial links, no kids, no marriage, what was the problem to walk away?

Each time I did split away, for short periods of times (the most was for 4 weeks), she would find me back, and present herself as suddenly changed for the better "Ive stopped the drugs, ive got a job" etc... .she talked the talk that she perceived or explained to herself was the issues that made me leave. Id been away enough to start to feel better, not long enough not to still feel disorientated in my thoughts, maybe she has changed? I wont ever know unless I try. Indeed, for a few months - everything on the surface was great again. and this is the seduction of it all, its like that Hyde character had vanished.

To relate more towards the end game; riddled with anxiety. There was so much incremntally worse drama she was doing, and also, the "good times" were more to do with Being good at hiding what she was up to in the background - not letting me discover the cheating, the drug use, sleeping with my work colleagues, it turned clandestine and surreptitious, the good times were me being kept in the dark and her being more savvy than she had been in the past.

I had to chuckle at the above.  I fell for it so many times. "I improved
Myself. I changed.  I stopped smoking weed.  I now know what I want in life. I'm starting a business.  I will be the best wife ever" etc.

I suppose I kept going back as I would think "well she must be sincere.  She certainly seems sincere.  Why else would she make this sort of presentation.  Let's try again"

I think they view us as objects to keep them from being alone.  But while with us they are constantly open to anyone new or different. They always have exes in the picture, old flings, and with technology it is very easy for them to find new ones, covertly. 

It's like their entire existence is based around never having to be alone, with themselves, even one night.  After divorcing my ex, I would find out she would even set up dates when flying across the country to see her kids for a week. 1 week would be too long to be single to spend time alone with her minor children.

This last year she tried hard to recycle me again.  "Let's stay together this summer". She had her children all summer.  So did she love me? And miss me? Or just not want to be alone with her kids, and not want to keep introducing new men to her kids?

[Cromwell]

This last year she tried hard to recycle me again.  "Let's stay together this summer". She had her children all summer.  So did she love me? And miss me? Or just not want to be alone with her kids, and not want to keep introducing new men to her kids?

Its tricky if you are in that mindset to place yourself in a position of putting all eggs in one basket.

regardless of how much you may have loved and commited to her; there is no guarantee that you couldnt leave. Where would that leave someone, who as you say (and I relate entirely) cant be alone for 5minutes?

I dont take it personally anymore, my ex was risk averse to the extreme. She didnt expect me to catch her cheating on me, she was just disinhibited not to cover her tracks well enough. In the end, "object" is the term I relate to; she lost a reliable source. Nothing more nothing less and has had to do her best to find a substitute(s).

The times I have seen my ex properly upset, or at least, what didnt appear contrived stage drama. was mourning for those exs who discarded her completely and never kept any line of contact. Having LC regardless of whatever happened is fine, its still "contact". A potential to send a text or call can be soothing, I know when I first met her as a 'friend', I must have been in the 4 to 5am category.

what better way to validate oneself as being a "good" person, by proclaiming to have such a multitude of "friends".

she didnt portray this when I met her, she portrayed herself as the loneliest soul in existence, I brought it up to her once, (honeymoon period) she said its true, she just wanted to be with me. As you said, there was always a network out there being tapped into, as I went with that carefree spring in my step to what should have been a 10 to 12 hour arduous shift. Right on cue when I finished, the calls came in.

She was well organised, time manager, multi tasker, ill give her credit for that, something I could never emulate.

Therein resides the clue of why it (always destined to) fall apart.

[Husband321]

what better way to validate oneself as being a "good" person, by proclaiming to have such a multitude of "friends".

she didnt portray this when I met her, she portrayed herself as the loneliest soul in existence, I brought it up to her once, (honeymoon period) she said its true, she just wanted to be with me. As you said, there was always a network out there being tapped into, as I went with that carefree spring in my step to what should have been a 10 to 12 hour arduous shift. Right on cue when I finished, the calls came in.

She was well organised, time manager, multi tasker, ill give her credit for that, something I could never emulate.

Therein resides the clue of why it (always destined to) fall apart.

My ex was so much the same.

Over a couple years some random names would pop up. Or people would contact her.   James.  John. Eric. Etc. and she always referred to them as "friends" in stories.  Which led me to believe they all knew each other in high school or something.

These "friends" were old guys she met in sugar daddy sites.

And much the same, when I met her she was 100 percent single. Has not dated anyone since her ex husband.  Etc. but also she was poor at covering her tracks and I came to find out she was with a different guy every night I was not with her.

With mine atleast , the scary part was that she was a woman, but sexually more like a man.  So you have the package that is a female, and getting all the offers that come along with that, but something wrong in her brain that overrides being a bit more picky like a typical female would.

[Long_term_dad]

It is a tricky situation; put up with a tirade of abusive behaviours, as a trade off to staying with a person we claim to "love"

whilst at the same time, showing in that process, a lack of love for oneself.

Little wonder my ex would have reason to doubt if they were loved - they create an environment where it becomes almost impossible to do. It is engineered/sabotaged to the point where they cant love you because everything has been indicated to show that lack of self love.
... .

So I can relate to this "Invisibility cloak" it comes at the expense of the erosion of the self. and once you go down that route it is little mystery that everything becomes centred around them, walking on eggshells; for them. I woke up one day and didnt know myself anymore, I had became an extension of another. not the intertwining of 2 souls, an objectified extension.

Hi Cromwell,

Yep, you nailed it.  Therein is a big piece of my work, which is to understand how and why I did that, to mourn the decades I spent having made that choice, to take responsibility (internally) for it, and to make sure I don't do it again.  Intuitively I am sensing that by communicating, by allowing myself to feel and to feel vulnerable, and by accepting responsiblity for my past, present, and future choices, things going forward will be better.

Thanks!