First Love?

[Ad Meliora]

I’m curious about what you remember about your “First Love” and how that relationship has possibly affected later relationships. I can see remnants of what I had in that relationship in many of my other relationships including my BPDx.  The latter I had hoped would be something great, and yeah, that didn’t happen.

My first “real” love was a sturdy farmgirl.  We got to know each other in Chemistry class our sophomore year.  I guess we kindled our interest over a bunson burner, or something like that.
We didn’t know each other from Kindergarden like some of the kids as her Catholic grade school merged with the secular system in middle school. I knew who she was, but it was in that class I got to know her.  She was an “A” student, where I was less than that and hung with the straight-laced students where I hung out with a mix of people including the burn-outs.

She lived on a small dairy farm (200 acres) which her family ran.  She had one sister about 8 years younger, but she was “boy” her dad never had.  She had to do heavy lifting and the cows had to be milked twice daily which tethered her to the farm.  Since she had chores after school I would often help her out, when I wasn’t working myself, so I could spend time with her.  In addition she had ailing grandparents she had to care for so many weekend nights I spent my time there so I could be with her, instead of having fun with friends.  After her grandparents went to bed and the oxygen machines were adjusted then the make-out sessions could begin, so it wasn’t all bad.

Her family was staunchly German Catholic and we were Lutheran.  My mom insisted that I go to church on Sundays, which was fine, but my girlfriend’s family insisted she would go Saturday nights.  I would often go to both services just so I could spend time with my girlfriend.  I was such a regular attendee that when she got confirmed the priest invited me up to receive an “honorary” pin.  It’s funny in hindsight.  The things we do for love, right?

We went to junior and senior prom together, but I’ll fast forward to college.  I went away to a state college that specialized in engineering which was what I wanted to study.  It was almost 3 hours away and in the corner of the state.  I had hoped we’d keep in touch because there weren’t many girls at that school and the mantra was “If you have a girlfriend, keep that girlfriend” because your options were limited there.  I was still in love, so it wasn’t a problem.  I wrote her often, daily sometimes.  I didn’t get as many letters back, but I treasured each one.  Long distance costed money and it wasn’t like now.  There was no internet, just a VAX system where the first interactive components were a game where you had to visualize all the interactions.  It’s kinda like texting or DM-ing in real time with strangers over made up scenarios.  Anyway, I’m not sure I spoke with her more than once a week.

I wanted her to visit.  She had reasons, maybe excuses, related to her family and staying on the farm.  There’s more to the story here, but in the interest of brevity I’ll get to the end.  We drifted apart and by the end of my sophomore year in college it was pretty much over.  And thus began my longest period of being single save this one.

Some takeaways from that relationship that maybe influenced future relationships.  She was brunette with brown eyes as physical attributes, I would continue to be attracted to those women.  She had a depressive streak, which didn’t seem too bad then, but who knows now.  She could be controlling and she was persistent in holding to her own ideas which would force me to come more her way than vice versa.  I would often compromise more than maybe was necessary to make relationships work.  I mean, love—it’s the outcome you’re looking for, right?

So how about you?  What do you remember about your first love?  Highlights/Lowlights?  Remnants in future relationships?  I’m curious.

[Cant breathe]

Sadly, my first love, 15 though 17, also became BPD abuser 30 years later.
That's one of the very sad parts of my situation. We loved each other, then lost each other for decades. We got back together, but it was five of periods where he was wonderful, then cruel.

He was so great when we were young, but the more I know about BPD the more I realize that his mental issue came on when he was 18 and I was 17. At that point, he became different. I thought it was just him being a teen and that we were on different paths. (I headed off to college; he wasn't into a career) But, now that I understand BPD, I see the inkling of BPD. He had suffered severe abandonment when he was a young child. In fact, I was the one, at 17, to help him reconnect with his mom. I didn't know that was the start of his change. During my late teens and into high school, he went back and forth between me and this other girl. There was never a warning, just hot one day cold the next. But I chalked this up to immaturity. I finally had enough and we lost contact. He eventually got her pregnant when she was 19 and they got married and had a tumultuous marriage. (He blames her -- no admission of fault for him, of course). For years when I thought of him, I joked I was lucky to have been smart enough not to get trapped in that chaos.

Flash forward 30 years. He's divorced, I'm widowed. When I met him again, I thought he had matured. and he certainly presented himself to be thoughtful and caring. He talked about how he'd been his best self at 16 and 17. So, all good. Lots of long talks, lots of promises. He told me he loved me on the first night we spoke. (yeah, I know)

But, the pattern. Kept leaving me for this other woman. In fact, he moved her into his house the night of their first date! He kept coming back and telling me it was over and that I was his future. It was ALWAYS good up until the very moment he was gone again. And by gone, I mean he just cut me from his life, no explanation. Or, if there was a chance to talk, I'd find  the voice that was soft and warm the day before was now wooden. Once he dropped me while I had cancer. He re-entered my life a year later. Another time, I realized he was leaving me during a phone call while I was standing in the parking lot of a hospital while my mother was having heart surgery. It was his vocie that gave it away. The last time, in August, I was headed to his house because we were going on vacation. I suddenly got a four line text telling me she was in his house and they were together now. Nothing about me. No compassion. He never called and has never apologized for stranding me after I travelled five hours to meet him.

I was thinking today that this has wiped out all good memories I ever had of my first love. I am grateful to my therapist and to those in this forum for helping me get healthier.
 

[once removed]

my first love was unrequited. it was between 5th-9th grade.

we were close friends, but she never had any romantic interest in me. maybe she could have. i was such a spaz at that age, and a total turnoff to girls. i came on WAY too strong (something i still have to mindfully check). we had a mutual gal friend, who knew about my feelings, and whom i would confide in, and she kind of alerted me to that, and it began to sink in and i started to have better luck in love. the unrequited love and i largely fell out after that, so it didnt make any difference there.

i remember that i kind of just decided one day that i loved her, almost out of nowhere.

i thought that we were alike (we really werent, in pretty much any way). i thought that she was superficial and kinda phony with others, but "real" with me. i thought i understood her, and i wanted to be understood by her. that was the draw. i wouldnt say i was a "fixer" in the most obvious sense of how thats typically understood, but thats ultimately what it was about, and that is where it started. i wanted to fix her/save her, fix myself through her too. she could be a fairly depressive type. she cut, too, for a time.

a lot of that changed for me, over the years. i was no longer, specifically, attracted to sob stories and "brokenness", or, for that matter, unrequited love. but that draw, of wanting to show how much i understand a girl, and to be understood about it and validated, was there in my other relationships, my bpd relationship, and is still there.

great thread. ones first love tends to provide something of a blueprint for the relationships theyll choose later on.

[Ad Meliora]

Only 2 first loves, I guess everyone moved directly to second [base]! Ha ha.

Can't Breathe, thanks for posting and putting all the pieces together in your story here.  I know about the hospital parking lot, as you've mentioned that a couple of times, and some of the other segments.  This is a much more complete picture so thanks for sharing.  The good news...if you had 100 suitors in a room 94 of them would treat you better than your BPDex.  For 80 of them, it would seem like day and night compared to what you went through the last 3 decades.  I am trying to say it only gets better from here once you're ready to seek out a new relationship.  You got the un-luck of the draw.  I know it can be extra hard because we form a special bond with that first person we are intimate with.  That's why I'm interested in exploring this for with people like you who are brave enough to put it out there.

There are plenty of fish in the sea, as the saying goes.  But I think the problem is we're often dropping a line in the same shallow tide pools and expecting something other than Cray-Cray-Fish (the disordered ones).  I'm cutting bait.  I'll spend some time on my own contemplating new lures and maybe even take up fly fishing instead.  Something different, a different approach maybe.

OnceRem I was thinking along the lines of the first person you were intimate with, but a love is a love.  My first crush was a girl in the 2nd grade, I was always trying to beat her at flash cards in math class, we were equally matched.  Things kinda fell apart in the fourth grade when I accidentally drooled on her arm while watching her open my paper valentine.  I mean, it was just before lunch--haha

As you pointed out, there's things at play in later relationships stemming from those early experiences.  I'm just trying to understand it better, trying to understand myself better and see if other people had some similar experiences that I can relate too.  My BPDex didn't put a gun to my head and say "Go ahead punk, try to run..." No.  I entered into it willingly.  Consensually.  I just wondered how that happened.

In many ways my relationship with my BPDex was unrequited.  I was in love with her, in many cases from afar.  I thought she was in love we me, she said she was in love with me, but when it comes down to it she really wasn't.  Not in any way I can point to as real, or "true love".

I'm well past the societal pressures or familial pressures to marry or even have a partner at this point.  Those were drivers in the past though.  I do enjoy sharing my life with someone, and all my long-term relationships provided that.  My BPDex was like clapping with one hand, so that was completely unfulfilling ultimately.

Thanks for sharing you two. 

[GaGrl]

I have a unique situation, because my First Love and I met when I was 12 and he was 15, and we reunited in our 50s, 40 years later, and married. He was literally the boy next door. I asked his sister (my age) if she had any brothers or sisters, and she pointed to him -- I can still see him standing there and can describe exactly what he was wearing. The thunderbolt hit. He later was my first date, and we stayed in touch until he went into the Army and I went to college. His later marriage to a uBPD/NPD woman is what led me to this site.

A professor of sociology in Washington State does extensive research on Lost Loves and First Loves and reuninifications. She describes the intensity of a First Love as having been an imprint of love that does not leave the body and mind. I believe this to be accurate -- it explains why reunifications are passionate, as well as why we might respond to other partners, even after the First Love is long gone.

[ILMBPDC]

I have been contemplating your question since you posted it.
My first love was my daughter's father. I met him at 20, we had a child at 23 and he died when I was 26 (he was 2 years older).  When I met him he was getting divorced. Throughout our relationship, he would swing back and forth between his ex-wife and me. I put up with it, even when he got her pregnant while I was pregnant. What he really wanted was for us to be a thruple, though that wasn't a "thing" in the 90s, basically he couldn't choose - and I put up with it (and so did his ex, both of us were broken/traumatized children who just wanted to be loved). The worst part - the absolute worst - was that when he died, I found out at the funeral that he had remarried his ex-wife and they had yet another child while he was overseas. All the while, telling me he loved me and wanted to marry me (I was in college at the time and couldn't join him, I guess he didn't want to be alone overseas). My takeaway from that relationship was that I would never allow cheating, even once - and that is one thing I have been staunch about ever since.

The thing is, my issues - the ones that caused me to put up with his philandering - all stem from childhood. It wasn't my first love that informed my subsequent relationships, it was my childhood trauma that has informed all of my romantic relationships - including an alcoholic father, a codependent, covertly narcissistic mother, molestation by more than one relative and being given responsibility for my younger sisters at a young age (I basically didn't have a childhood). I have spent my entire life just wanting to be loved, to be cared for, to be wanted, to be chosen...and I have put up with a lot of sh*t trying to get there.  Acknowledging and understanding why I am like I am has been a huge step for me. Now its just trying to figure out how to repair the damage as much as I can so I can move forward.

[Ad Meliora]

Thanks for posting, ILM, and thinking about it.  I was hoping that in thinking about one's "first love" some good things would be conjured up here on this thread.  Hopes = Dashed.  Other than Gagrl most don't have too many uplifting components.

Just looking at your situation with your exes, ILM, and I'm no psychologist, it seems that there is a pretty strong pattern.  You meet a guy, he's seems pretty great (maybe even too good to be true), he lies, cheats, and steals (or some variation of the three) and then disappears leaving you holding the bag (raising a child alone, broke, or with some bad BPD thoughts).  It's not too good of a deal if you ask me.

So then your examples get me to step back even further and look at the thread asking who thinks they are ready to date. I like what you said about fast-forwarding 5 years.  I can see that as we get older. Like you, I don't want to 'die alone', unpartnered is probably a better term. I look at your situation and would like to ask you as you look back on the past relationships you've shared here and going forward would it be better to:

a) be in another relationship, but the person again lies and cons you or cheats prolifically or is another Mr.BPD. Or...

b) be alone, and not in a relationship where you miss out on companionship, but don't have the worries associated with the above.

I don't know what the answer is, but my choice (if forced to choose) would be option "b".

I have the idea that someone will again enter my life.  Maybe not in the time or way I am hoping or wanting, but maybe in the right way that works.

[ILMBPDC]

Just looking at your situation with your exes, ILM, and I'm no psychologist, it seems that there is a pretty strong pattern.  You meet a guy, he's seems pretty great (maybe even too good to be true), he lies, cheats, and steals (or some variation of the three) and then disappears leaving you holding the bag (raising a child alone, broke, or with some bad BPD thoughts).  It's not too good of a deal if you ask me.

Yep, pretty much exactly this. They always seem great at first but when it starts to go bad I can't seem to let go and it goes on way too long.

So then your examples get me to step back even further and look at the thread asking who thinks they are ready to date. I like what you said about fast-forwarding 5 years.  I can see that as we get older. Like you, I don't want to 'die alone', unpartnered is probably a better term. I look at your situation and would like to ask you as you look back on the past relationships you've shared here and going forward would it be better to:

a) be in another relationship, but the person again lies and cons you or cheats prolifically or is another Mr.BPD. Or...

b) be alone, and not in a relationship where you miss out on companionship, but don't have the worries associated with the above.

B, 100%. And this is where I have been for a very long time - before Mr BPD, I was single for 10 years and had assumed I always would be. I had already recognized that I don't end up in the best relationships and had resigned myself to being alone. Then he came along and I had hope again, for the first time in a decade. Even though it wasn't a long relationship, I think this is part of why it hurt me so badly.

I don't know what the answer is, but my choice (if forced to choose) would be option "b".

I have the idea that someone will again enter my life.  Maybe not in the time or way I am hoping or wanting, but maybe in the right way that works.

Some part of me figures at some point I will find someone again, but the cynical side of me figures that it will just be as bad as the rest of them always have been**.  I honestly don't know how many more rounds I can deal with. I am so done with it all.  And yet I don't want to die alone.  The loneliness is killing me, but so are the relationships. Its like being between a rock and a hard place.

**I recognize that the reason I end up in bad relationships has as much to do with me as them. I am attracted to broken people. I have codependency issues and zero boundaries. I am working on myself, trying to deal with this stuff but I can't really see a light at the end.  Right now all I am hoping for is that one day I will be OK alone. The funny thing is that once I am OK being alone, I will be less likely to put up with sh*t from men and may do better within a relationship. I will also likely be 70 years old LOL

[Ad Meliora]

  The loneliness is killing me, but so are the relationships. Its like being between a rock and a hard place.

Yeah ILM, I hear you.  I didn't mean to pick on you about it.  I was in a somewhat co-dependent relationship with my BiPDex, and that's why I'm feeling the need to take a pause here.  Especially after Ms. BPD turned my emotional life upside down.

I think we're all in the same place you said above: the proverbial "rock" and "hard place".  They all mean different things to different people, but I'm feeling that way too.

It seems to me you have a lot going for you.  You have some work you like.  You've helped your daughter deal with her BPD.  You know the genesis of some of your issues with relationships and are currently working through them.  You must be a decent woman (and likely attractive) because you have "coffee date guy" who was interested in you.  I don't think it's a bad thing to want to help people.  I wrote in another thread about being attracted to the "sparrow with the broken wing" or at least feeling compelled to help it (which is a "her" in the metaphor).

I've heard you beat yourself up quite a bit.  None of us are perfect, but you seem to be handling it alright.  Let's chuck this old narrative and create a new one, right?  How about this...(below)?

"Yeah, my last couple of relationships were real doozies.  I got mixed up with a con-man who took me for a ride and afterwards I pretty much swore off dating for a decade.  Then this young buck comes along and starts giving me some attention.  I blow it off at first, but then I sense some hope of a new start.  Turns out that joker had a personality disorder and was full of crap!  Jeesh.  I sure knew how to pick them.  Thankfully, that's in the past now.  I've taken a personal inventory and look at where I'm at and feel pretty good for the moment.  I don't want to die alone, no sir, but I think I'm all the wiser now.  When the right thing comes along I'll be better prepared than I've been in all my life.  And when the wrong thing comes along...well...I'll know to run!"

[ILMBPDC]

I've heard you beat yourself up quite a bit.  None of us are perfect, but you seem to be handling it alright.  Let's chuck this old narrative and create a new one, right?  How about this...(below)?

"Yeah, my last couple of relationships were real doozies.  I got mixed up with a con-man who took me for a ride and afterwards I pretty much swore off dating for a decade.  Then this young buck comes along and starts giving me some attention.  I blow it off at first, but then I sense some hope of a new start.  Turns out that joker had a personality disorder and was full of crap!  Jeesh.  I sure knew how to pick them.  Thankfully, that's in the past now.  I've taken a personal inventory and look at where I'm at and feel pretty good for the moment.  I don't want to die alone, no sir, but I think I'm all the wiser now.  When the right thing comes along I'll be better prepared than I've been in all my life.  And when the wrong thing comes along...well...I'll know to run!"

You forgot the father of my daughter who repeatedly cheated on me and then re-married his ex-wife when he was overseas without telling me. And that was 20+ years ago.  I really don't get into good relationships which is why I am at the point of swearing them off again. (Plus if I am being 100% honest I really am only attracted to men who are emotionally unavailable, much like my father. Gotta love childhood trauma)
I know you are trying to help and I am so grateful. You are right, I have a lot of things going for me, and I need to learn to have that self-esteem and self-worth (and learn to trust myself to actually pick a decent man!). It is one of the hardest things I've ever done, after nearly 47 years of feeling worthless.
I do learn, though - after all these awful relationships I have learned what I don't want, so that's a start.