Feeling good in drama.I’d like to add confusing [...]
Wow Mutt the memories. Thanks for sharing. I remember being told something like that verbatim. Yes! Those lines are really feel-gooders in the sense that they're also communicating all these things:
- 1. You are better than them. (perceived attractiveness ↑)
- 2. I want to be with you. (perceived attractiveness ↑)
- 3. But I can't be with you because see #1. (perceived attractiveness ↑)
I'm not saying it is these things—the breaking-up this person uses reminds me a lot of idealisation and triangling. #3 is a real damsel-in-distress—I'd feel like Rapunzel can't let down her hair for me.
Of course you'd feel confused and frustrated. I
know how that feels, dart on the cork board.
Choice of relationship style.[...] I took a long break and there was a part of me that had become scared with falling I to the sane trap like I did with my exuBPDw and the anxiety doesn’t help because it’s fearful, I feared getting I to another r/s.
Mutt, I'm with you, I know the dating after the relationship with pwBPD.
Anyways I struggle with that grey area with definition with love and relationships and the availability that you have.
A
lot of us struggle with this.
It’s not binary today relationships have a lot more grey area in contemporary culture.
I understand your approach here.
I think that I said that I wasn’t proud of it because I’m more traditional and I’m not judging anyone it’s the choices in r/s’s that I struggle with and I like to be committed to one person.
I know. It's not easy. Me too, I like to be committed to one person. I appreciate your situation in this way. With my ex it added to the confusion because you have this damsel in distress, you reach 'downward' for her, then when she has a relationship with someone 'above her' how can she not want a steady committed relationship. I mean if you have a offer this valuable, why not be more monogamous. This operation is inconsistent to me.
Me too, let's leave judging aside for a moment.
I think the issue with pursuit of non-traditional relationship building, here, seems simple. What you really want is this, "I’m more traditional", "I like to be committed to one person". If you two individuals end up creating a FWB (in substance), then that sets a poor stage for moving to a one-to-one relationship.
Let's say I don't lose my self respect from sleeping around. If I'm going to one-to-one with someone, I don't think it would be an FWB partner because:
1) I don't want kids with a mum like that (personal want).
2) If I can keep on getting more attractive bed partners, why want a woman that had to use FWB to keep a relationship.
Simply put; if you're going to build a FWB rather than a one-to-one relationship, I think that deal puts you in a lot of triangling/de-triangling drama. That's consistent with your point here:
I completely agree with the triangulation that made things a lot more difficult than it should have been.
I totally agree. Triangles are a nuisance. Embellishing; things stop being clean and simple. Your energy is directed toward fire-fighting instead of growing your relationship and your lives.
I'm not saying (1) do single-partner (2) do multiple-partners. I think the choice is yours, and we each have to live with the consequences of taking those—often mutually exclusive—paths. Not patronising, I do think you already know that, it's just that you're dating again.
Addition to dating strategy.I'd like to suggest an addition to your dating strategy here.
We learn from our pwBPD relationships we gotta be the emotional leader in that relationship. I think with people without the disorder, yes we can loose the reigns a bit (phew). The point is that let's take the skill of leading emotionally to our dating life. How that happens here is we lead on the relation type we want—
we create.
Then in the dating experiment, we see how our prospective partner comes back to us—do they create something that's mutually cooperative? Or do they want something else? I encourage you not to be afraid in taking the road where you
won't back down on what you want in your relationship.
Do acceptance if your prospect can't bring one-to-one. I think—what's the worst than can happen to you. At worst, you screen them out and decrease investment in them. At best, you do this and somehow they are happy for it too. At better, you screen other women in (I'm not saying at the same time btw). So I share hope with you it's OK to not back down on your wants for a relationship. You can choose not to tolerate the FWB+drama triangle—what a waste of time!
I share this with you. It's a tough road, but I think it's a road where the driver is aware, and 94%+ BPD-free. The issue is that it's a bit lonely because you see dysfunction (hit or miss) and you do actually want to keep it out of your life. Practically, this actually means saying no to a few attractive women that aren't bringing what you want on the emotional-maturity/communication side. But you want a companion (—plural if you like). I felt alone too. Don't necessarily 'hang in there' (I felt this lonely sometimes), but rather stick to what we've learned here, keep your river flowing, don't rely on people to validate you. If you feel in a vulnerable spot, self-care, don't rely on validation externally. If you pray, do that.
[...] also agreed to a r/s that was FWB to assuage both of our anxiety but neither one of us were ready for one of us finding someone else.
Yes. And consider too, being alone and on-market can be better than being with someone and off-market.
[...] it felt good that I could attract someone again [...]
Yes, totally get you. When I got positive attention from women after my BP relationship, that was a big 'phew' from me coming from a vulnerable place. And relative to us dating our respective individual BP's, that's a BIG up. I hold this out as a good thing. When you're on the market—it's easy to be
more vulnerable than we're used to, and that often means we lax our litmus tests to expand our pool. I think good on you taking this risk and getting experience of the triangulation issues in FWB-styled relationship.
Inventory.I should have been transparent about in the context of continuing some semblance of a r/s with my ex. Do I owe it to her [...]
Another way you can look at this is this; do you want to be transparent about continuing relations with you ex? If you were dating someone, will you seem emotionally available? Is there a way to be emotionally available
and be transparent about it?
It's tough figuring out things on your own. You came forward with your story and your desire to move forward—so I'll share I've seen people on the board and elsewhere do custody purely for 'administrative' purposes. To me that means the person is closed to re-doing a relationship with their ex, they may even be a responsible dad, they are on-market emotionally.
The BP in your life.[...] grieving the death of a parent her mom [...] because it’s too much right now for her.
Yes, grieving can be out of people's ability to handle sometimes. Another perspective here is it may be easier as an adult. Moreover, from the BP's perspective, if she has a mom she took her traits from, it may actually be easier for her to grieve her own loss.
One way you can give care rather than be the spouse with the shoulder to cry on, is give her the choice of processing her grief with a T. Help her find a T if she can't get one. I would do that with my best friend. I might give them the shoulder to cry on but I won't get intimate with them to help them process it. Why would I want to get intimate with a mentally disordered person / person with traits?
To put it bluntly, from her perspective, a shoulder to cry on that you can have sex with sounds good in the short term, but in the long term isn't necessarily better than a T's shoulder—especially for a BP.
I'm looking forward to your thoughts. Enjoy your week and your peace.
