Figuring out why I attract Crazy

[Notwendy]

I'm going to assume using "crazy" as a term is only a general one to mean disordered people and not to insult anyone.

 don't know if it's initial attraction or that someone stays in the relationship after attraction.

People who have emotionally healthy boundaries tend to feel a sense of discomfort around people who don't. People who don't have emotionally healthy boundaries might feel a sense of familiarity.

It's not just with romantic relationships but with others too. I recall meeting a woman at a party and she was disclosing TMI for just meeting her. I felt uneasy at that exchange. I also met someone who is very co-dependent and I don't feel comfortable around her.

I do know that I am better at this kind of "feeling uneasy" since I did some personal work on co-dependency.

There's a lot to being attractive besides the physical- a pleasant personality, confidence, I think it's possible that we can be initually attracted to, and attractive to, a number of people. But how far that goes is influenced by boundaries.

It may be that if someone needs to work on boundaries, they attract crazy and not crazy -- but the relationship progresses with the "crazy" if it feels like a match.

[SaltyDawg]

I'm going to assume using "crazy" as a term is only a general one to mean disordered people and not to insult anyone.

NW - I personally have a neutral view on the term "crazy".  Skip split this thread off from the 'gut feeling' thread, and used my words in the new subject line.  I can see how it might insult someone, and that was not my intention when posting in the previous thread on the topic. 

I am a child of the 1980's when the term was actually used as a term of endearment as given by the example of https://images.app.goo.gl/THkZFNkbSvg5ywLG9

don't know if it's initial attraction or that someone stays in the relationship after attraction.

This is exactly what I am trying to figure out on why someone stays in the relationship after attraction.  I personally believe this could have been instilled from my own childhood, where 'obligation' to take care, and follow through on a commitment, and not run on the first sign of trouble - unfortunately I feel that this sense of obligation that was instilled in me did not serve me well in my first BPD relationship, an exgf who was quite obviously had her own set of issues having symptoms of both BPD and NPD at disordered levels.

I am much more concerned with why and how I attracted my wife who has all 9 symptom groups of BPD (except self-mutilation); whereas the exgf only had 6, but had most if not all of NPD symptoms from the DSM IV / 5.  During our courtship, she seemed to be quite the opposite of the exgf.  The exgf was incredibly messy, my wife a neat freak.  The exgf could not hold down a decent job, my wife could hold down a good job; however, she changed departments/jobs almost like clockwork every 18 months to two years except for her most recent one where she has been reprimanded, like clockwork in the same timeframe.  The exgf was terrible with money, my wife is very good with money to the point of being cheap and miserly, except on a few occasions where she was quite impulsive and did the opposite up to the 5-figure range, which we could afford.  The exgf did TMI and shared her FOO story - very messed up, the wife indicated she didn't other than her dad had quite a temper and had an ultra regimented work ethic of a poor farmer.  The exgf wanted to marry me, I refused to commit, so she cheated on me twice - e-mail evidence in both cases, so it is irrefutable.

With both women I feel an obligation; however, the exgf crossed what seems to be my only boundary - being loyal, so it was easy to 'dump' her, even though I did ensure she was financially covered for the next several months when I did so with parting gifts of a used car, and cash to feed her children and animals.

People who have emotionally healthy boundaries tend to feel a sense of discomfort around people who don't. People who don't have emotionally healthy boundaries might feel a sense of familiarity.

For me, it was a sense of duty, or obligation/guilt, which did have a sense of familiarity.  Other than physical abuse, I did not feel as though I was being abused emotionally, verbally, psychologically until I read an article on the topic and discussed it with my individual therapists.  I like to think of myself more as a survivor who is rescuing myself emotionally from the situation, rather than maintaining a victim perspective from the logical mind perspective.

It's not just with romantic relationships but with others too. I recall meeting a woman at a party and she was disclosing TMI for just meeting her. I felt uneasy at that exchange. I also met someone who is very co-dependent and I don't feel comfortable around her.

With the help of my individual T I have been 'learning' to recognize these kinds of behaviors.  While I used to find it interesting to listen to TMI some of the time, it now makes me feel uneasy too.

With regards to codependency - I find that most of the patterns that I have from CoDA literature only are relevant when I am in a dedicated romantic relationship.  Others have noticed this too, while only a handful of core patterns/characteristics exist in my relationships outside of the romantic ones.  I am in the process of recovering from my own issues as shown in the following document https://coda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2011-Patterns-of-Recovery-2015.pdf and I too find certain codependent patterns to now trigger my 'gut feeling' that something is off, kind of like a 6th sense.

I had these feelings for both the exgf and the wife, I listened to my gut on the exgf as it was more obvious; however, I did not listen to my gut on my wife.  I went so far as to look it up on the Internet way back in 2002, as I was thinking my wife was/is "too good to be true".  So I got self-help books on the topic.  They told me what we now call 'love bombing' - some other term was used back then would last for a year or less, and only on rare occasions no more than a maximum of two years - so I waited until we were well beyond the two year mark before getting married.

Also, to logically justify the 'too good to be true' feeling, I also bought a 3 book set of 1001 questions to ask before you got married.  I had her answer 2/3 of the questions first, I answered 1/3 of the questions first, we had the same answers on 3001 out of 3003 questions - she completely mirrored my wants and needs, I now know this is another yellow or even red flag; however, at the time I thought it was 3001 green flags to proceed.

I do know that I am better at this kind of "feeling uneasy" since I did some personal work on co-dependency.

Same for me.  There are no other hard-core addictions like many who are codependent in myself, or either of these women which makes it that much harder to detect. 

There's a lot to being attractive besides the physical- a pleasant personality, confidence, I think it's possible that we can be initually attracted to, and attractive to, a number of people. But how far that goes is influenced by boundaries.

It may be that if someone needs to work on boundaries, they attract crazy and not crazy -- but the relationship progresses with the "crazy" if it feels like a match.

I am attracted to physical.  I am attracted to a good sense of humor.  I am attracted to loyalty.  I also have a check-list where there needs to be a majority of boxes ticked (>50%).  When my wife is regulated, she still hits most of those boxes, except emotional & physical intimacy categories back when we first met she was love bombing me, and it was >100% and seemed 'too good to be true'. 

The boundaries I have put in place to help manage her rages and dysregulation have also created more emotional distance in the intimacy department as I enforce the consequence by not JADEing or temporary stonewalling until she becomes re-regulated. 

I didn't have boundaries other than being faithful (exgf issue, left on 2nd after I gave her a warning on the 1st infraction), and no physical violence to a lesser extent (wife issue, have not left, but I will call 911 the next time this happens) - I did a an abuse profile ever category was 90+% greater than those who took the test except for physical violence which was 20% greater than average, because of my pre-existing boundary.  So, with the help of my therapist, I came up with a singular topic boundary of "all abuse must stop", which seems to work in my case, I retook this test, all categories have dropped, but it is still present instead of being 90%+ greater than others who have taken this assessment, it is now 40% greater than average and violence is less too.  Instead of being several times a week, it is now once every couple of months where she becomes severely dysregulated as she now knows I will not put up with her B.S. on this.

I also did a mosaic DV assessment and it scored an 8/10 which is high.

To summarize, I am developing a better recognition of being with pwPD's than I had before.  My gut feeling was right in both cases, I listened the first time, I didn't the 2nd time as she seemed 'too good to be true'.  I now know to listen to my gut feeling, recognize destructive patterns of caretaking / codependence and will now follow them in the future.

Outside of recognizing codependent patterns in myself and those in a potential partner, oversharing, developing and maintaining firm boundaries, is there anything else that I am missing?

I am aware of lists of red-flags, where there needs to be a lot of flags present not just one.  The SWOE book has a list of 10 issues where outside help is needed, it also has a nice assessment and several areas of issues to look out for. 

Thanks for letting me share.

Take care.

SD

[SaltyDawg]

I find that the kind of people I attract and allow into my inner circle reflect where ever I am in my personal development. For most of my life, my inner circle was mostly filled with disordered family members and disordered people And I was extremely  disordered myself. Now I am low contact/no contact with most of my disordered family members and do my best to set the boundaries I need to protect myself from disordered people while continuing to develop the self-esteem and self-respect I need to have healthier relationships with myself and other people.

On my side of the family, I am not seeing too much in the way of pwBPD, even though I do have a step-B with ASPD - sociopath, but I did not grow up with him, nor did I spend much time with him before he was incarcerated for his crimes.  However, on my wife's side of the family, especially on her father's side, it is really messed up in a cluster-b kind of way (BPD/HPD), my wife's grandfather, and grand-uncle were serial womanizers, and I just learned a few days ago, the grand-uncle shared the same woman with his father (great grand uncle) - ick.  There was and continues to be a lot of estrangement (NC) with extended family that are still living, most are deceased.  Even though there was NC in an attempt to break that chain, while infidelity was addressed, the other components were not recognized, nor addressed (anger management, even though my wife is currently working on that area with success), there is still the genetic component that the DSM talks about.

I have very few friends and the ones I do have are healthy people who challenge my disordered behaviors that I learned from growing up in an extremely disordered large extended family. Overall I am a happier healthier person while at times still very challenged by having poor boundaries with the wrong kind of people, though mostly the disordered people do not want to be around me when I set healthier boundaries. My number one rule is I do not continue social relationships with people who show no genuine interest in me or who abuse others.

I too have very few friends, as my wife would get jealous, first at females, with whom she told me to hang out with, and later guy friends too.  I allowed myself to be isolated from these friends as I put all my effort (at the time) into appeasing my wife's insatiable demand for the love language of service with almost nothing in return.  I have changed this, it is no longer >100:1 ratio, my goal is 50:50, but in reality it is more like 67:33, which is much more manageable than before.

The business relationships are much more complicated. Right now my neighbor is furious with me because I refused to bow down to her demands to join her in abusing the President of the HOA who does his best to be democratic and respectful to all the owners. I have been too nice to this neighbor for years while keeping my mouth shut about her disordered behaviors. She has been mad at me since Christmas, apparently because I sent the HOA President a present to thank him for all the work he does for the HOA.

The thing is, with any relationship outside of a romantic one, I really don't have these kinds of issues.  If I do not have an emotional investment in someone I am dealing with, I do have healthy boundaries, except when I become emotionally attached to someone in a romantic way.  If I disagree with someone, I will tell them to their face, and not hide it.  While I am generally a people pleaser; however, when it goes against written regulation, or what I perceive to be the establishment, I have no problem pushing back.  Now if it is a person in authority, I will quote regulation/rules/law/international standards, and give multiple examples.  I've been asked by neighbors when a local business wanted to convert a historical property into a parking lot.  This business openly admitted to supplying kickbacks (in the form of buying a fire trucks and equipment and donating it to the fire department in exchange of free services from the county) while committing a multitude of safety violations, so they thought they had a shoe in, they lost, as I and other drummed up support to block their corporate greed.

Likewise, when I was asked to break certain laws at work by a very high authority who created the law, I pushed back, and obtained a written waiver in order to do what I was asked to do.  On other occasions, I needed to think outside the box, to make things happen, get permission to do so, and make it happen.

I will first try a one on one approach, and if that doesn't work, I escalate the issue, by involving others.  As part of my job was homeland security, I am a firm believer in "if you see something, say something".  I suspect you did that with your neighbor lady, and now she doesn't like you since you stood up to her as she perceives you took the side of the HOA president by thanking him and giving him a gift.  I personally don't like HOA's so I do have one.  When I did, I was criticized for having a tasteful dark metal dolphin statue in our front yard that was received as a wedding gift.  Statues weren't allowed by HOA rules, I didn't know the rule at that time, until I was made aware.  We were going to move anyways, so I asked nicely to keep it, or I could do like another neighbor did and have obnoxious plastic pink flamingos with the backs cut-out into the form plant planters (which were allowed) to do a protest.  The HOA president saw my point, and allowed the tasteful statue, as I assured him, it would go with me when we moved, and it did.

In this regard, I have a very strong sense of self, except when I get emotionally attached to someone - that is my achilles heel.  In my previous post responding to NW, with the help of my individual T, and all those who have posted here on 'boundaries', I now have stronger boundaries with those that I am emotionally attached to whether it is my wife, and/or children.  Now that I have boundaries, they do complain that I will 'dig in' my heels.  With regards to boundaries, I am still working on them, especially when dealing with a person in authority as they have power over you. 

When we have a history of disordered relationships, we will sometimes get triggered by being the target of a  disordered person, which sometimes is partially our fault for having poor personal boundaries, and other times not our fault at all as we had no control over the situation. I see the biggest challenge is not to be so triggered by the interactions with disordered people while continuing to work on our boundaries. We are all a work in progress on this site. What I respect about most of the members on this site is their willingness to own their part in what happens to them while also being open to the fact that some people do not have the capacity to have reciprocal healthy relationships.

While working with my therapist, I realized that I have a repeated a pattern of being with two very different pwBPD, as I went for someone who had opposite traits that mattered to me at the time (as described in my previous post), yet still had BPD symptoms at a more disordered level than the previous one who was actually called out by a regional newspaper on her issues more than a year after I abandoned her.

I agree we are all a work in progress, I am determined not to make the same mistakes twice, so I am trying to understand why I attract pwBPD or other cluster-B type traits since I actually attracted them to me, even with a wedding band on my finger.  Right now I am able to recognize them, so I limit my interactions with them with boundaries.

For me, I have certain patterns/characteristics of codependence/caretaking that has allowed these types of people in my life.  My personal goal, is to close that door, and open more healthy doors in the future.  When I started to explore this in a different thread, it was locked.

I am worked on getting my wife to become self-aware (previously she wasn't) and she is partially self-aware (she recognizes 6 of the symptoms, and has worked on each of those areas with her own individual therapist - not DBT).  I promised my wife, I would not leave her as long as she worked on these issues - a boundary to not be abusive behavior by her.

So I am asking anyone to join in the discussion, on why they feel they attract them and/or attracted to them and more importantly - Why?

Thanks for letting me vent a bit more.

Take care with self care.

SD

[Notwendy]

SD- I'm OK with the "crazy" term- just being careful - and that is probably an aspect of my own co-dependency - thankfully less so after a lot of work. You say your tendencies are less with non romantic relationships and I think that is true with many people too- as we have less invested in less intimate relationships.

Identifying this was not instinctual. Co-dependency is the "norm" in my family growing up. My responses to my BPD mother are automatic- we were all her emotional caretakers and has led me to "overfunction". I can catch myself doing this but it has taken some work.

Our families of origin influence our sense of comfort and familiarity in a relationship. Perhaps a part of the "attraction" is that we feel a sense of purpose or even identity when we are overfunctioning or emotionally caretaking and so stay in a relationship in this pattern. This would attract someone who responds to that dynamic. There is also a sense of feeling safe in the dynamic when we are the ones overfunctioning.

I think we grow up "practicing" what aspect of ourselves are functional to get what we want. Being useful to BPD mother was a way to get approval.

My BPD mother seems to be good at attracting people- and so perhaps this is a practiced skill for her- maybe a way she felt approval growing up. Some people are drawn to her. It seems like someone is always doing things for her. I recognized later that these were people who were also "rescuers" and somehow were drawn to her need for caretaking- people with co-dependent traits. 

I also think my mother is good at hiding her BPD traits as a way to avoid shame. I would feel terrible to think someone wouldn't like her if they "knew". So this isn't a manipulation but fear- fear that someone would not want to be with her if they knew her issues- and so the behaviors are apparent to the people closest to her- who are more connected to her.

I think it takes some time to get to know someone well. We put our "best foot forward" when dating someone- and that is normal but for someone with BPD- that best foot forward is a protective one for them. I think my mother's "best foot forward" is impressive and until her elder years when she started acting out with caregivers, most people didn't have a clue about her BPD behaviors. However, relationships with her are not reciprocal and I have seen where some people are attracted to her initially and eventually draw back and the friendship didn't last.

So what would attract you to someone like my BPD mother? First, she's attractive- and also charming and most people are attracted to her. Then, if she asks you to do something for her, she is very appreciative and complimentary. If eventually you tried to have boundaries or need to say "no" to a request- she'd feel very hurt and you'd feel like a jerk. That would be uncomfortable for you. When my mother is in that mode, it's a horrible feeling to see her that unhappy and the tendency to fix it is strong. It is very difficult to say "no" to her and see that reaction. 

So maybe it's not only looking at red flags in another person but seeing the patterns between people that could be informative. How you are feeling and responding in the relationship might be a clue.

[EyesUp]

Attraction is super complicated - it's contextual, circumstantial, experiential...  there is no formula. It's also highly individual.

A few basics tend to stand out - we are attracted to what's familiar, and also to what we perceive to be different than ourselves. Sometimes this occurs consciously, sometimes not.

This stuff devolves into cliche very quickly - it's the stuff of one-liners in rom-coms...  our partners eventually remind us of mom or dad, somehow - in some way.

Well, of course they do... we spend our formative time with our parents, and that experience has a disproportionate impact on how we perceive, well, everything. More than we generally know...

I appreciate the impulse toward forensic analysis - and let's agree, analysis is often helpful, it's what many of us are here for.  That said...  it's very hard to achieve a crisp and conclusive understanding of most relationships, and I think it's fair to say that disordered relationships are even more difficult to, well, analyze.  

Freud implied that with some analysis, everything might appear in black and white on the page...  but if that was true, the science of relationships would be well established by now, and relationships would be a lot easier to understand at this point. There would be fewer therapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists in the world, and healthy relationships would be easier to form and maintain - because studying relationships would be more like geometry or calculus - repeatable, predictable, provable.  

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

My feeling is: relationships remain difficult to understand, and disordered relationships are, by definition, much harder to understand.

However...  

Individually, we may be able to make some sense of our own choices.  Why did we start a given relationship?  Why did we remain in a given relationship?  What did we willingly overlook, or what did we miss entirely?  etc.

On the flip side, it's almost impossible to understand a disordered partner's motivation.  Is it specific to us (i.e., on some level we fit into the usual patterns of familiarity - or something different, exotic, exciting)?  Or more generalized (i.e., we were... available)?

A bit of dark humor, but I'm reminded of Richard Pryor's joke about the psychopath:  
Q: "why did you kill everyone in the house?"
A: "they were home"

The question presumes that there is a rational motive...  you know, the good police detective is seeking an actual explanation.  But the answer doesn't include a rational explanation.  What's rational to the psychopath isn't a valid explanation for a horrific crime.  And yet, to the psychopath, it is, nonetheless, an explanation.

I feel it's the same with a lot of BPD relationships... one partner is looking for compatibility - you know, mutual attraction, shared values, similar tastes and preferences...   the other partner is, on some level, disordered.  Intuitively, the disordered partner knows how to adopt the appearance of compatibility, but with a typically weak sense of self, doesn't truly have a strong feeling about a, b, c., but knows that a, b, c are probably necessary in order to have a relationship. The disordered partner attempts to "fake it until you make it" - which, to the non-disordered partner, seems incredible, amazing:  we like the same music! the same food! insatiable libido!  etc...

And there's the attraction:
- one partner thinks things are lining up well organically
- the partner is working hard to make sure line things up well, but on some very basic level this effort is artificial - it's not sincere, authentic, organic - and this partner may not even be aware that what they are doing is misleading.

Eventually, over time - weeks, months, years... the fundamental misalignments become apparent in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  At which point it's become very difficult to make sense of the misalignments - for either partner.

So - Does anyone "attract crazy?" - I think it's possible, but it's also probable that some of us - for a variety of reasons - merely accept crazy.  i.e., we find ourselves in disordered relationships for all the reasons covered at this site, and elsewhere:  At a particular moment, we are vulnerable, susceptible, and available.

Ultimately, we can only control ourselves.

On some level, we're here because we didn't "listen to our gut" or "our picker wasn't calibrated" or we were effectively "love bombed" and didn't spot the "red flags" - etc.

Is that "attracting crazy" or is that merely accepting it, at a particular moment in time?

[Notwendy]

Good point about accepting "crazy" or even other aspects that aren't crazy but an uneven relationship or people not treating us well- which can go along with crazy or on their own.

I think there is a reason for BPD behaviors and it is to meet a need for them. The need is what is possibly irrational. Maybe a twist on the Ricard Pryor comment - why did you murder these people? - to release some feelings and they happened to be home.

An underlying motive for my BPD mother's behavior is to get relief for feelings that are personally hurtful for her. The irrationality is that we have no idea why she has them and so her behavior appears irrational and directed at people who have nothing to do with causing the feelings but she seems to believe they do.

She has a huge need for validation. Even the slightest suggestion can feel invalidating to her. She also has a need for control- and control is a way for people to reduce her anxiety.

One way she gets emotional needs met is to have people do things for her, even things she could do for herself. Since it's emotional needs the request can seem irrational but it's the "doing it" or "getting it" that is the need, not the actual solution. It also has to be done exactly to her specification or she feels slighted.  A mistake, or slight, is reacted to as if it is the "crime of the century" and her feelings are hurt by that.

I can see the pattern. People are attracted to her. She starts by requesting someone help her with something and she will be so appreciative and flattering and for some men, this has seemed to be an attraction- all this attention from this attractive woman when they help her.

But say "no" to her and you will feel like the biggest jerk. It also goes against morality to hurt someone like that. However, you aren't doing something hurtful- she is responding as if she is and to her, she feels that way.

So here is where the accepting part and not trusting your gut comes in. Her public persona is fake. You will eventually feel something is "off" but still, it feels good to be helping her. And when she's good, she's amazing. Eventually though, the relationship feels unbalanced and emotionally taxing. You try a boundary- she will first "feel hurt" but if that doesn't get you back into doing for her mode- you will then see the other side of her: the raging, the verbal abuse, and blaming you for that.

There was a time where some women in my community would just yell at me and I didn't know why. I finally asked one of them why she did that and her response was "because I can".

And she was correct. To get by in my family of origin, we had to be doormats- basically obey my mother and tolerate her behavior. Seeing that this woman also treated other people this way- I suspect now that she probably had BPD, but not then. She has since moved out of town Somehow I wanted her to accept me as a friend,  tolerated her behavior,  and kept trying to be her friend- while perhaps other people would have not done so.

People don't do this to me now since doing work on co-dependency. One of the sayings is that we "teach people how to treat us" by not accepting being treated poorly. We can't change another person but we can change what beaviors we tolerate and accept. 

 

[Skip]

I did a an abuse profile ever category was 90+% greater than those who took the test except for physical violence which was 20% greater than average, because of my pre-existing boundary.  So, with the help of my therapist, I came up with a singular topic boundary of "all abuse must stop", which seems to work in my case, I retook this test, all categories have dropped, but it is still present instead of being 90%+ greater than others who have taken this assessment, it is now 40% greater than average and violence is less too.  Instead of being several times a week, it is now once every couple of months where she becomes severely dysregulated as she now knows I will not put up with her B.S. on this.

I also did a mosaic DV assessment and it scored an 8/10 which is high.

Can you say more about the abuse you are facing?  Is it safe to be in the home with her? Does she know what you consider abuse? Does she think you are abusive?

8/10 is significant.

[SaltyDawg]

Can you say more about the abuse you are facing?  Is it safe to be in the home with her? Does she know what you consider abuse? Does she think you are abusive?

8/10 is significant.

Abuse I have faced.... There was limited hitting, punching, kicking of actual physical violence, none of them left a mark on my body, and the worst one I felt for 3 days physically - my wife is physically weaker than me, but this kind of behavior does not make it any more acceptable.  There have been two incidents of projected violence, smacking the crap out of a wall twice, and throwing a snow shovel at our daughter which I did not witness.  These have been stopped with the help of the two most recent couple's therapists and her individual therapist.  The next time physical violence happens, will result in a call to 911 as established by the former couple's therapist and reinforced by the current one.  I currently have and have had strong boundaries on physical violence, so there have only been 7 incidents of significance here, only 2 of which have occurred since the 911 boundary was put in place.

She punched me in the arm over me not moving 'elf on the shelf' but immediately apologized profusely, and we had a couple's therapy session about 45 minutes later, where it was discussed ad nauseam - I used my judgement not to call 911 in this situation, as she immediately recognized her error, otherwise I would have - this is the only incident of physical violence since the 911 boundary was put into place.  I also 'allowed' my wife to describe it as a 'shoving' incident, to which the couple's therapist agreed in spite of acknowledging the behavior (I believe she knowingly bended her mandated reporter requirement, as she was former CPS involved well versed in these kinds of behaviors).  The other incident occurred out of my line of sight against our daughter with a snow shovel being thrown near her.  Daughter was inside of her car, and the shovel did not hit the car - this too was brought up to the therapist and discussed at length.  I know my wife would never *intentionally* do this; however, as she can put mind over matter, and control herself, most of the time, and has improving greatly in the past 14 months on her physical violence and abusive behaviors.  However, she *still* does have the capability to explode with the littlest of stressors.

The first time physical violence happened, I contacted the local DV shelter - they politely told me F- off, as I was a man and I had a 'good head on' my shoulders and offered no help at all (2009) - this made me feel so alone in this, so I remained silent, and afraid to talk about it until 20 months ago.  My wife scared herself straight, as the 2nd incident was witnessed by our toddler daughter at the time and she didn't want to do that in front of our daughter. 

It was 13 years later for the 3rd (several punches in my back) incident and a 4th (a singular kick to my 'good' knee) 88 minutes later, which was not reported as I had written a letter to our couple's therapist indicating the first two incidents and a litany of false narratives that were being levied against me by my wife that therapist believed my wife and not me.  Ironically, these two closely spaced incidents was only hours prior to our weekly session (the letter had been written a few days before), so the therapist confirmed what I wrote was true, and proceeded to read my wife the riot act on physical violence, and informed her that those incidents were being reported (the T is a mandated reporter), but indicated because of the age of the incident, nothing was likely to happen - the T did not realize it was only hours earlier that my wife was also physically violent with me.  I did not want to get my wife into any further trouble than she was already in, so I kept quiet, as I was totally surprised that my wife was being reported for the incidents more than a decade old.  Retrospectively, I was protecting my wife from her physically abusive behaviors.  I had escalated it to the therapists, but I have yet to escalate it to 911/police.

However, the psychological abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, are countless, and by extrapolation I can safely say that this number is deep into the 10's of thousands once I logically realized that this was occuring to me over a year ago.  I did not think of it being abuse, as most of it was very subtle, and I didn't let it phase me emotionally as I had grown to accept these behaviors, at that time.  My individual T shared it with me, and several medically reviewed (by licensed professionals) websites have a vast array of articles on the topic, I predominately use verywellmind and psychologytoday as both have some really good articles on the subject - I'd say I  have been on the receiving end of well over 80% of the abuses described even though I do not feel abused that way except in the more extreme cases where I was repeatedly threatened with divorce, false allegations, DARVO, among others, at least a hundred but less than two hundred in total from an emotional perspective, when examined logically the number is in the tens of thousands, a couple orders of magnitude difference - I try not to keep count as 'love ... does not keep a record of wrongs' (1 Cor 13:5b) and I attend church regularly.  I have only kept count on physical violence real (5) or projected (2), and a hard count on the number of suicide attempts/gestures (6).  Everything else, I don't, even though I should have looking at it retrospectively if she were to have followed through on one of her dozens and dozens of divorce threats.

At the current time, I feel it is physically safe to be home with her, and if it isn't I can manage it with training and calling 911. 

I will touch upon if she recognizes what I consider abuse - the short answer is 'yes,' but at a very dysregulated level for some of the issues I called attention to.

About 11 months, ago, my wife wanted me to share everything that I perceived she has done wrong towards me...  At the  time I was working on introducing one new issue per week with her.  I was taken aback, as I didn't think she was capable of doing this; however, as she was asking, it was likely one of her homework assignments from her individual therapist as she had only recently started to apologize for things she had done to me and our children.  I worked with my therapist on this, and she recommended that I focus on a singular all encompassing phrase to which "all abuse must stop" was derived.  I was able to distill it into 7 distinct categories, 5 of which I knew she had addressed or was addressing, leaving only two areas where she needed to work on, the more subtle varieties along with the abuse of 'neglect', or not doing what a 'normal' person should do for the other within the institution of marriage.

I initially turned her question around, and asked her to first define any abuses I have done to her, so I can ask her for apologies and forgiveness in order to 'lead by example'.  She did, which leads into an answer to your next question... Yes, my wife has accused me of abusing her, emotionally and financially.  In contrast, I personally feel like it is comparing a nuclear weapon, to a stone being thrown.  She has accused me of being passive aggressive, making sarcastic comments, and says I cannot be trusted.

The passive aggressive parts, I used to appease her during her rages by agreeing to some ridiculous demand, under duress, just to get her to shut up, and then not do it is being abusive - guilty as charged.  In the present, I will not agree with her ridiculous demands, and tell her that we can talk about it tomorrow morning, after we 'both' have a chance to cool down - she normally resets emotionally to baseline after a sleep cycle.  By asking her to put a pause on it, doing a temporary stonewall of do not JADE for several hours to no more than 36 hours, this still pisses her off, but I am no longer accused of being abusive in this area.

Making sarcastic comments, I used to make some really smart ass remarks towards some of the very baffling things she accused me of, and then I would also, in retaliation, find something she did wrong, and shine a spotlight on her errors - this was predominately done in the form of reactive abuse, and occasionally out of frustration on my part in the form of 'needling' according to our couple's therapist - an older junk psychology term that can be more currently be described as 'death by a thousand paper cuts', another junk psychology term.  My reactive abuse in this form is the only one I still do, from time to time, after it was being pointed out to me.  It is so hard to stop something that is so ingrained in me.

I'd like to think I have incredible patience, before I retired, I was the leader at my organization, and had to be cool, calm, collected at all times - when dealing with a variety of situations ranging from science experiments, hosting diplomatic meetings, providing tours, to responding to a variety of incidents, many of which were under intense scrutiny of the media - and have been specifically trained with a variety of certificates, so I think I know how to handle myself better than most in high stress situations.  The only outlet for me, when dealing with my wife's behaviors, in private, was making sarcastic comments in a neutral tone of voice that would set her off in a retaliatory manner - this was before I knew about BPD.  I have since changed to doing a lot less, but occasionally, I still am accused of doing this, whenever I use BIFF - the only time I don't get accused of this, when I use the very long winded and inefficient SET communication.  If the "T" is in the SET communication is used, I still get accused of being abusive - now I am accused of talking like a politician instead - I am as I am deliberately not validating her invalid statements - these are all things I have learned with my own individual therapist, here on BPD Family, and reading many articles on the topic.  I have never raised my voice in anger towards her (I have yelled to get her attention on the other side of a ball field, or some other situation involving some distance).

She does not trust me...  here are a few examples...

She tells me to take our daughter to playdates at the library and do activities and the library with her   I take our D to the library, meet up with mothers of other children, grand moms, and a dad    After the library we all go to a local park with picnic lunches and watch the kids play, always as group activity, at no ones home - I shared this every time I did this with my wife and our daughter would talk about it   When my wife got upset with me on an unrelated topic, I get accused of "fu**ing all of the other moms" and I cannot be trusted because of her false allegation on this.  I had and maintained boundaries while I was doing exactly what my wife had instructed me to do with our daughter.  in response to these ludacris allegations, I took it upon myself to stop maintaining the friendships I had, first females, and then males - biggest mistake in my life, I have done to date, to allow myself to be manipulated in such a manner become isolated from friends.

On the topic of the first serious threat of divorce my wife made towards me, after I came back from a mission overseas.    Thinking my wife is serious, I start to take precautions by working overtime, and getting paid in cash, wife never sees it, and set aside enough for a divorce attorney retainer fee.  I did give her all of my pay stubs, and 'technically' did not hide this money from her; however, I did not call attention to it either   when my wife found out after a decade, after being asked, I admitted to it, and the reasoning for it    I was labelled financially abusive and could not be trusted since I hid money from her.  I can see her perspective on this, although this would never have occurred if she had not threatened divorce in the first place, while I did share my pay stubs, I did not call attention to this cash which amounted to substantially less than 1% of my income during that time frame.

She has told me who I can be friends with at church and who I cannot, she's very controlling even though she says she isn't, I did point this out to her and she changed her stance on it.  However, as I do not know when she will act irrationally in front of others, so I do keep my distance (still walking on eggshells, and I express this every opportunity in front of our couple's therapist).

Our then 1st grader son acts up at an elementary school assembly.     After our son cannot calm down, I escort him out of the school by his hand, which I was gripping just strong enough for him not to escape (the alternative was to put him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry), this was done in front of the principle and other school teachers, all mandated reporters.     I get accused repeatedly by my wife, I was intentionally hurting our son, and intentionally abusing him and threatened to report me for this.     I put an end to this, after realizing our couple's therapist is a former CPS LCSW, and let my wife share her story of this, told T all who was present, which my wife verified - and the T determined there was 'no issue'.  There are 3 other supposed incidents, 2 of which were in front of mandated reporters - a non issue for me; however, my wife does get carried away at exaggerating her truth and indicates, when she is triggered, I cannot be trusted when it is her trying to be manipulative by black mailing me from her perspective, but I know she if full of .  On the flip side, she then trusts me with our children, and their friends explicitly to take them across multiple state lines for some activities.  Her behaviors when she is triggered and not, it simply was mind boggling to me until I understood how the borderline mind works.

To address the mosaic score is about 14 months old, I should update it, but most of the answers will not change, except on the most recent behavior, and the outcome would be very similar.  My wife knows of her anger management issues, and is actively addressing them.  I have managed my behaviors of triggering her (walking on eggshells), where others are much more likely to trigger her than I am like in the most recent full blown borderline episode several weeks ago (used to be a few times per week).  The most recent incident was January 16, 2024, and the previous one was December 6, 2022 - I perceive no intentional immediate threat from physical violence.  If it were to occur, I will call 911, and I have been trained in self-defense to use the minimum force to neutralize a situation like I have done in each of her suicide gestures/attempts where I disarmed her of deadly weapons by grabbing them out of her hands (she offered no resistance).

In summary, with the 10's of thousands of things my wife does to me, somewhere between 100 and 200 incidents have actually triggered me enough to elicit a response on my part - averaging less than 10 per year, the rest do not even phase me emotionally since I have grown so accustomed to them with her, I only know that they are there since I observe them, and can logically process this behavior through the lens of a borderline.  For just about everything I use a variation on the 'radical acceptance' tool, which I call 'radical forgiveness' - I forgive her for her behaviors; however, I will hold her accountable, by bringing them up in a moderated forum of couples therapy, in order to help her become self-aware enough to stop or reduce them - this has been done with a lot of success in the past year; however, we still have a ways to go, so I press on...

[SaltyDawg]

Attraction is super complicated - it's contextual, circumstantial, experiential...  there is no formula. It's also highly individual.

EyesUp,

I agree it is complicated; however, several have offered up formulas that apparently work - wingman for example, and I see plenty of ads and self-help books on topics on how to attract a certain kind of person.  Even though I was unaware of the wingman at the time, my wife's ex-boss who is a mutual acquaintance/family friend hooked my wife and me up together - much like the wingman would do in wingman dating - so, I will gently disagree that there is 'no formula' on this 'slang' term for a dating formula.

A few basics tend to stand out - we are attracted to what's familiar, and also to what we perceive to be different than ourselves. Sometimes this occurs consciously, sometimes not.

This stuff devolves into cliche very quickly - it's the stuff of one-liners in rom-coms...  our partners eventually remind us of mom or dad, somehow - in some way.

Well, of course they do... we spend our formative time with our parents, and that experience has a disproportionate impact on how we perceive, well, everything. More than we generally know...

I agree 100% with you.  My wife has quipped on several occasions "I have married my dad"; likewise, I have also made the observation that several of my wife's baseline personality traits are very similar to my mother's. 

While my 'gut' feeling said there was something off, it did not become obvious to me until after we were married in the case of my wife, and my exgf prior, it was quite obvious from the day we first met in person.

I appreciate the impulse toward forensic analysis - and let's agree, analysis is often helpful, it's what many of us are here for.  That said...  it's very hard to achieve a crisp and conclusive understanding of most relationships, and I think it's fair to say that disordered relationships are even more difficult to, well, analyze.

 

I agree, you are preaching the choir, my goal is to understand why the disordered seem to actively seek me out.  I have some theories on this...

Freud implied that with some analysis, everything might appear in black and white on the page...  but if that was true, the science of relationships would be well established by now, and relationships would be a lot easier to understand at this point. There would be fewer therapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists in the world, and healthy relationships would be easier to form and maintain - because studying relationships would be more like geometry or calculus - repeatable, predictable, provable.

There is normal behavior, then there is disordered behavior.  I find normal behavior much harder to predict than disordered behavior now that I have studied it in my wife, and have observed it in others as well.  Borderline behavior is perhaps the most predictable behavior when in a relationship - this part I have for the most part have figured this out with my wife, and many other members here as they seem to use the same 'playbook'.  However, what I am trying to figure out is why they are so attracted to me, and seemingly actively seek me out, when I am deliberately unattractive, or don't feel attractive.

I am very much overweight, so that should not be a factor in attracting anyone.  However, I do project confidence, a strong sense of self, compassion, empathy, listening, caring, etc (the confidence is similar to someone who is NPD, yet very different in the other qualities) and that can be attractive to someone who is disordered.  I also live well in comparison to most, except celebrities, that too is attractive to just about anyone - so I generally dress down in somewhat humble clothing, drive a mini-van, exercise on an e-bike as I have a bad knee that I am nursing so it doesn't get worse, so I do wear very bright colors as I wish to be seen, from a safety standpoint while riding on roads.

Individually, we may be able to make some sense of our own choices.  Why did we start a given relationship?  Why did we remain in a given relationship?  What did we willingly overlook, or what did we miss entirely?  etc.

'Start' - An excessive level of interest was being shown to me, by another...  100% of my romantic relationships have started this way.

'Remain' - Predominately out of obligation to be nice to that person

'Overlook' - I overlook faults, bad habits, as no one is perfect. 

On the flip side, it's almost impossible to understand a disordered partner's motivation.  Is it specific to us (i.e., on some level we fit into the usual patterns of familiarity - or something different, exotic, exciting)?  Or more generalized (i.e., we were... available)?

That is what I am trying to figure out, the 'specific to us' reason why a disordered person finds me attractive, and seeks me out, in spite of me displaying a wedding band indicating I am unavailable. 

One occurance happened at an indoor water-park, where I was sitting at the bar, with a frozen drink in hand, watching people wipe out on the flo-rider (a stationary surfing wave powered by some very powerful water pumps) which can be quite comical at times.  A petite young woman rode this in a bikini (not recommended) and had a younger guy at least twice my size, at least a quarter ton in weight, video her on this ride who I thought might be her boyfriend.  After this guy left, she came over to me and made a pass, asked me out, I declined, then she immediately went over to another guy sitting on the other side of the bar, and did the same thing, he too declined - it was like she was on a hunt to hookup with someone.  While my wife was in the water park, she was not with me at the time of this incident.

On another occasion, I had a woman come up to me at my son's first football practice, in front of my wife - I was carrying my chair, my wife's chair, and a cooler of drinks.  She just started talking to me and being very flirty, a women whom I never met before, somewhat emotionally distraught, told me she was in her 40's but looked much younger in her 20's - I politely confirmed that she looked like she was in her twenties, but snubbed her by telling her "I have at least a decade on you, and I am in my mid 50's..." strongly implying I was not interested in her, but I did want to validate her as she appeared to me 'fishing for validation on her appearance'.  My wife didn't say anything, as she knew I had not met her before (we live in a small town), but wife's behavior changed for a couple of days where she was continuously by my side at level which I had only seen before during her love-bombing phase level of physical enmeshment (which was the first time since 2006, this was 2022)

A bit of dark humor, but I'm reminded of Richard Pryor's joke about the psychopath:  
Q: "why did you kill everyone in the house?"
A: "they were home"

The question presumes that there is a rational motive...  you know, the good police detective is seeking an actual explanation.  But the answer doesn't include a rational explanation.  What's rational to the psychopath isn't a valid explanation for a horrific crime.  And yet, to the psychopath, it is, nonetheless, an explanation.

There is 'truth' in that humor.  I have experienced that many times, albeit in a different manner.  The thing is that I want to understand the irrational explanation, and for the most part I can now, so I can better meet her needs.  However, I also want to understand this 'reasoning', so I know what to avoid, if my marriage ultimately fails.

I feel it's the same with a lot of BPD relationships... one partner is looking for compatibility - you know, mutual attraction, shared values, similar tastes and preferences...   the other partner is, on some level, disordered.  Intuitively, the disordered partner knows how to adopt the appearance of compatibility, but with a typically weak sense of self, doesn't truly have a strong feeling about a, b, c., but knows that a, b, c are probably necessary in order to have a relationship. The disordered partner attempts to "fake it until you make it" - which, to the non-disordered partner, seems incredible, amazing:  we like the same music! the same food! insatiable libido!  etc...

I understand that part too right now, how love bombing works, it is intuitive for them, especially if they are incredibly intelligent.  It had me fooled, as we matched 3001/3003 questions, a number that I now know is impossible to match, but it happened.

And there's the attraction:
- one partner thinks things are lining up well organically
- the partner is working hard to make sure line things up well, but on some very basic level this effort is artificial - it's not sincere, authentic, organic - and this partner may not even be aware that what they are doing is misleading.

Eventually, over time - weeks, months, years... the fundamental misalignments become apparent in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  At which point it's become very difficult to make sense of the misalignments - for either partner.

With the exgf it was obvious; however with my wife, it felt sincere, authentic, and they were not intentionally misleading - I liked to think of myself as a good judge of character, boy was I fooled.  I also knew it was 'too good to be true', and I did everything I could to poke holes in my gut, and I couldn't.  That's what makes it so painful to me. 

So - Does anyone "attract crazy?" - I think it's possible, but it's also probable that some of us - for a variety of reasons - merely accept crazy.  i.e., we find ourselves in disordered relationships for all the reasons covered at this site, and elsewhere:  At a particular moment, we are vulnerable, susceptible, and available.

I think I attract disordered people.  I don't readily accept crazy behavior, I pushback on it (until I was beaten down by the former couple's therapist without an individual therapist to understand what was happening), as I am communicating this to my wife, to her therapist, and to our couple's therapist.  I am not accepting crazy, but for the benefit of our children, I am only tolerating crazy, as long as crazy is getting better, while enacting firm boundaries and methodologies to counteract her behaviours in order to reverse the emotional damage to our children - so far there have been good results.

With my wife's individual therapist, my wife is mostly on target where it comes to our children as well, almost to the point of not being disordered (it has been described as a 'miracle' by others at the NAMI meeting I attend).  It may be a miracle, but she didn't get there without a lot of hard work on herself, a lot of intentionally manipulating nudging on my part (once I educated myself on what was really happening, which took my first individual therapist to identify) to have my wife become self-aware, so she can do the right thing, as I believe in her heart of hearts, her intentions are genuine, sincere, and authentic.

Ultimately, we can only control ourselves.

True, but we can suggest, persuade, nudge, push, manipulate, to the point where we can only hope that they take the path of least resistance - hard work on themselves or the alternative to leave the relationship - I would have preferred the latter as that would have been far easier; however, she is doing the former which is not what normally happens here - she is definitely the exception, rather than the rule.

I am asking this question, in case the latter happens, we do split up, as I do not like repeating my mistakes.  So, I want to understand why crazy people are attracted to me, in spite of deliberately making myself not available, so I do not fall for the next when I have a moment of vulnerability.  This question is part of "planning for the worst" while "praying/hoping for the best", so I have a better understanding of what the **** is going on here.

On some level, we're here because we didn't "listen to our gut" or "our picker wasn't calibrated" or we were effectively "love bombed" and didn't spot the "red flags" - etc.

Is that "attracting crazy" or is that merely accepting it, at a particular moment in time?

No, I think that is 'staying with crazy,' which is a lot harder to stop once you have become ?trauma? bonded with love bombing.  I want to have a 'calibrated picker', recognize love bombing as soon as it starts, and I have learned a very important lesson on listening to my 'gut' - but also not to prematurely jump to conclusions based on a very limited set of flags which is what I had done before.  I think I have, for the most part.  But I want to make sure I am not missing anything.  Before 2022, I knew nothing of BPD and other cluster B, except sociopath (ASPD), and there are similarities in personality traits there too.

So, can you possibly expand on talking about not doing enough when it comes to flags?  I seem to give the benefit of doubt when it comes to this, as I see mostly yellow flags not necessarily attributable to any kind of PD, not red ones which are either attributable to PD's or are so against my moral compass that I cannot tolerate those kinds of behaviors.

Opinions? 

[Notwendy]

'Start' - An excessive level of interest was being shown to me, by another...  100% of my romantic relationships have started this way.

'Remain' - Predominately out of obligation to be nice to that person

'Overlook' - I overlook faults, bad habits, as no one is perfect. 


That is what I am trying to figure out, the 'specific to us' reason why a disordered person finds me attractive, and seeks me out, in spite of me displaying a wedding band indicating I am unavailable. 

One occurance happened at an indoor water-park, where I was sitting at the bar, with a frozen drink in hand, watching people wipe out on the flo-rider (a stationary surfing wave powered by some very powerful water pumps) which can be quite comical at times.  A petite young woman rode this in a bikini (not recommended) and had a younger guy at least twice my size, at least a quarter ton in weight, video her on this ride who I thought might be her boyfriend.  After this guy left, she came over to me and made a pass, asked me out, I declined, then she immediately went over to another guy sitting on the other side of the bar, and did the same thing, he too declined - it was like she was on a hunt to hookup with someone.  While my wife was in the water park, she was not with me at the time of this incident.

On another occasion, I had a woman come up to me at my son's first football practice, in front of my wife - I was carrying my chair, my wife's chair, and a cooler of drinks.  She just started talking to me and being very flirty.

Opinions? 

I have read several books on BPD over time and while I am not in the dating pool, if there are chapters on dating- I read them as part of the book.

One idea that I found interesting is about boundaries. Boundaries can be too weak or too strong and if people's boundaries are disordered, they may have some of each. Someone who is too defensive can still end up in a disordered relationship but why?

A sense of boundaries is somewhat unconscious too. If someone has emotionally healthy boundaries and senses that someone has strong boundaries, they will stay away but someone who doesn't respect boundaries will not- they will go there anyway since they don't respect boundaries and so, if boundaries are too strong- people who respect them will stay away and only "crazy" will go through.

It may be as if you sitting at the pool, with your wedding ring on, may have a fiter effect. Women who have boundaries wouldn't think of approaching you. However, this woman who did, doesn't respect that boundary. So it may not be that you attract "crazy" but that only "crazy" approaches you.

I have a friend from childhood who people are attracted to. He has a some of the qualities you describe- empathetic, caring. Physically, he's overweight and has a pleasant appearance but there's more to why people are attracted to him and it's hard to pin point exactly what that is. His personality is a part of it. It may also be that due to his physique, he's more approachable than if he was built like a movie star. People might feel he's just like them rather than out of reach. He is married to a lovely wife and so, probably for other reasons, didn't end up in a disordered relationship but probably did attract crazy and not crazy.

So, one idea is that- you are a friendly, nice and approachable guy. People may be generally attracted to you. However with that wedding band on- people who respect boundaries won't approach you and only people who don't respect them do. So you have filtered "not crazy" out and only "crazy" remains?

I also wonder about picking up on subtle signals. Could it be that some people tend to be less socially savvy than their BPD partners? My father was a social person but also was the "brainy" type while my BPD mother was the pretty popular girl whose social skills are sharp. It may be that "crazy" at the pool did pick you over someone else who can "read" her signals and is putting out different ones. 

[EyesUp]

@SD,

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed comments.  

Some things come to mind:

I will gently disagree that there is 'no formula' on this 'slang' term for a dating formula.

Can you direct us to the formula? I know that there are many generalizations, frameworks, theories, and studies - some more clinical and with more validation than others - however I'm not aware of a proven formula. Certainly not a proven universal formula.

While my 'gut' feeling said there was something off, it did not become obvious to me until after we were married in the case of my wife, and my exgf prior, it was quite obvious from the day we first met in person.

This seems to happen to a lot of us. And by "us" I mean almost everyone... even people in relationships where no PD is present. At some point, we realize that we married one of our parents.

'Start' - An excessive level of interest was being shown to me, by another...  100% of my romantic relationships have started this way.

It sounds like in your major relationships, you have responded to women who have taken initiative. This isn't an unusual thing, is it?  The premise of some dating apps is that women make the first move. It's not universal, but it is an established archetype. So maybe you simply fall in this archetype? In fact, in 100% of relationships, someone had to make the first move. If you're working to better your marriage, understanding your preferences and attitudes as well as your wife's might be helpful, i.e., who takes initiative - and for what...  might be helpful. If your marriage ended and you were inclined to seek a new relationship, what would you do differently? Would you make the first move? Do you feel that this is a critical action, for you? If so, why?

Waterpark... "it was like she was on a hunt to hookup with someone"
It sounds like you answered your own question.  She wasn't on the hunt for you. She was on the hunt for someone.  Like the R. Pryor example:  You were there.  It wasn't you - it was her.  If you weren't there, it would have been someone else.

On another occasion, I had a woman come up to me at my son's first football practice, in front of my wife

SD, the situation you describe happens all. the. time. Some people are extroverted. Some people are extra-extroverted. Some people use social settings like school football games to behave as if there is already some common interest - not necessarily romantic. This happens at concerts, conferences, events of all kinds where the event itself establishes some shared experience - some people go to watch their kid, other people are less interested in the game, and want to connect, make friends, find customers, evangelize, or maybe find a new romantic partner. I'm on the PTO at my kid's school - one of the few dads - there are a lot of moms who like to chat. I don't assume that means they are interested in me in any way outside of the PTO.

I'm not following how these two experiences are unique to you, SD.  What am I missing?  Can you elaborate?

However, I also want to understand this 'reasoning', so I know what to avoid, if my marriage ultimately fails.

Yup, that's the million-dollar question that brings a lot of us here. I know you've seen this here many times, and I bet if I go back and read your posts - you've probably said it, too:  You can only know your own mind. You can only control yourself.  

Cutting to the chase: What does this mean for your marriage or for potential future relationships?  It means that we need to take responsibility and accept or not accept a, b, c, consistent with our personal values and preferences.

So, I want to understand why crazy people are attracted to me, in spite of deliberately making myself not available, so I do not fall for the next when I have a moment of vulnerability.  This question is part of "planning for the worst" while "praying/hoping for the best", so I have a better understanding of what the **** is going on here.

In my case, I never cracked that nut. I got to a point where I accepted that divorce was necessary and now my pwBPD is my uBPDxw.  I generally don't dwell on how I got here, however I accept that I am here, and I mainly try to look forward.  I think our Ts would tell us that it's hard to look back and move forward at the same time.

So, can you possibly expand on talking about not doing enough when it comes to flags?  I seem to give the benefit of doubt when it comes to this, as I see mostly yellow flags not necessarily attributable to any kind of PD, not red ones which are either attributable to PD's or are so against my moral compass that I cannot tolerate those kinds of behaviors.

If there was a guidebook that said to treat yellow flags as red flags, would that be helpful?

Taking it back to the top, there are frameworks and guidelines and theories.  Yet we are all individuals with our unique histories and perceptions.  Even if you find a book with strict definitions of "yellow" and "red" flags, it's not going to apply 100% of the time.  People are not like assembly lines - we don't have operational procedure manuals.  We don't have a high degree of consistency built in.  In fact, most people love surprises - that's why we watch dramas and thrillers, and why we generally appreciate an unexpected punchline.  

As you said, we might need to politely agree to disagree on some things.

Do I think that you can better understand your own choices and role in relationships?  100% yes.

Do I think that you can establish ground truth for another person's choices? No.

That said, I think that you can allow yourself to recognize and either accept or not accept someone else's behavior, and how you want to respond or not respond to it.

The funny (well, sometimes not so funny) aspect of this is:  It's the great existential dilemma we all face, with or without PDs in our relationships:  What is truth?

Some people conclude that the only way to avoid repeating past mistakes to avoid relationships entirely.  That seems a bit like binary thinking to me - black and white.  On one hand, it's hard to argue against it:  Can't have a bad relationship if you're not in a relationship.  On the other hand, we cannot completely eliminate uncertainty in all areas of our lives...

Hope this discussion is helpful in some way...  

[Skip]

No, I think that is 'staying with crazy,' which is a lot harder to stop once you have become ?trauma? bonded with love bombing.  I want to have a 'calibrated picker', recognize love bombing as soon as it starts, and I have learned a very important lesson on listening to my 'gut' - but also not to prematurely jump to conclusions based on a very limited set of flags which is what I had done before.  I think I have, for the most part.  But I want to make sure I am not missing anything.  Before 2022, I knew nothing of BPD and other cluster B, except sociopath (ASPD), and there are similarities in personality traits there too.

Dawg,

The general public knew very little about mental illnesses 20 years ago and that was to many's peril. Today, however, the pendulum has swung very far to the right and now its commonplace to label any difficult person as a having a mental illness/personality disorder and to look at any difficult relationship transaction as abuse.

Is this extreme shift healthy for us? Is it helpful to finding a better life?

I suggest that we are best served to stay centered in our assessment of our life and the world around us and to analyze things from that balanced perspective.

So in that vein, how would you describe your relationship with your wife for the last year and how would you characterize how you have treated each other (both good and bad)?

I read and understand the thoughts that she has been abusive "10 of thousands of times" in the last 15 years and that you contacted a domestic abuse shelter, and the you present with an 8/10 (high risk) for domestic violence. You also said you feel no risk or danger and things are progressing... and you have stayed married for a long time.

I'm purposely asking you to shorten the time window and to characterize the good and bad in a balanced way.

Skip

PS: I know you are asking dating questions... we can split the thread if you like.

[Pook075]

Just to chime in on the dating- I started meeting women online on an international Christian dating site maybe 7 months ago.  The first few revealed BPD traits within a few weeks of conversations and video calls.  Then one I really liked at first turned out to be the worst of them all; highly unstable and would lash out over the most trivial things.  If she called and I didn't answer, it was because I must have been having sex with another woman at that particular moment.

I wondered the same thing- am I just attracted to crazy?  Again, this was a "Christian" dating site and I couldn't understand why this kept happening.

Then I met my current girlfriend, who's open and honest and holds me accountable in productive ways.  Daily I am amazed by how loving and caring she is; not with love bombing, but simply with kindness and compassion.  When one of us messes up, we own it and move on...it's the most bizarre thing in the world because it's the opposite of what I'm used to.  Not once has she brought up something from our past to seek revenge in an argument.

I think every single one of us has some levels of "crazy", so if we look for it then it won't be too hard to find.  I will say though that using the affirmation techniques we learn while studying BPD, it makes for an amazing relationship.  These are life lessons we're picking up here that apply to just about anything.

[SaltyDawg]

I have read several books on BPD over time and while I am not in the dating pool, if there are chapters on dating- I read them as part of the book.

One idea that I found interesting is about boundaries. Boundaries can be too weak or too strong and if people's boundaries are disordered, they may have some of each. Someone who is too defensive can still end up in a disordered relationship but why?

A sense of boundaries is somewhat unconscious too. If someone has emotionally healthy boundaries and senses that someone has strong boundaries, they will stay away but someone who doesn't respect boundaries will not- they will go there anyway since they don't respect boundaries and so, if boundaries are too strong- people who respect them will stay away and only "crazy" will go through.

It may be as if you sitting at the pool, with your wedding ring on, may have a fiter effect. Women who have boundaries wouldn't think of approaching you. However, this woman who did, doesn't respect that boundary. So it may not be that you attract "crazy" but that only "crazy" approaches you.

So, one idea is that- you are a friendly, nice and approachable guy. People may be generally attracted to you. However with that wedding band on- people who respect boundaries won't approach you and only people who don't respect them do. So you have filtered "not crazy" out and only "crazy" remains?

I am not in the dating pool either, at least while I am separated/divorced from my BPDw which should not happen unless my wife changes her mind, or stops seeking meaningful therapy for her own issues.

Boundaries - previously, being faithful, was one of my few healthy boundaries.  Anything not really specified in law, rules, or doctrine - I had no boundaries, so I tolerated/accepted things a normal person would not find acceptable with regards to affection or lack thereof from the three intimate partners I've had (sequentially, not concurrently) in the past 35 years, two of which shown symptoms of being BPD.

I do like your reframe of 'only "crazy" approaches" me especially in light of where the 'wedding band' would 'filter' out those with healthy, leaving only 'crazy' not necessarily BPD.  I think that observations are an accurate assessment for me, even though I do find that synonymous with attracting "crazy".
 

I also wonder about picking up on subtle signals. Could it be that some people tend to be less socially savvy than their BPD partners? My father was a social person but also was the "brainy" type while my BPD mother was the pretty popular girl whose social skills are sharp. It may be that "crazy" at the pool did pick you over someone else who can "read" her signals and is putting out different ones.

Before I knew about BPD, I probably missed many 'subtle' signals.  Now, that I have studied it for the past 20 months after I have learned about it, these 'subtle' signals, are no longer 'subtle' to me.  I have seen no less than 3 different posts listing hundreds of red flags - many of which are not specific to BPD; however, when grouped together, indicates that something is wrong emotionally, not necessarily BPD - somewhere on the 'not right' spectrum, which I neutrally refer to as 'crazy'. 

Of the dozen I've had approaching me in the past two years, two actually confirmed that they were BPD, one I asked, and the other volunteered the information.  Four of them, could have been considered normal; however, something felt very 'off' when I interacted with them - kind of like a 6th sense that I have developed in my 'gut' feeling.

When I first started to date my wife, my wife often commented on how I could make friends anywhere and was well liked.  However, after getting married, and the very wild allegations of "f**king the other moms" at out daughter's playdate in the park and other crazy-making behaviors in front of my friends - I thought I was being supportive of my wife, which only served to isolate me from my friends, both men and women - biggest mistake in my life I ever did.  It is crazy how I went from an extrovert to an introvert only while in the presence of my wife - another topic to do a deep dive on with my T.  Logically, I am still likely an extrovert, as I seem to attract more than my fair share of people who talk to me, and I them.

Thanks for listening, and I do enjoy your insight on my issue, along with your insights as a daughter to a borderline mother which allows me to have additional empathy and understanding what my own daughter is going through.

Take care.

SD

[Notwendy]

Thanks SD- It helps me to understand my father better from reading about the men in relationships and like you and several others here, he was a responsible and caring person.

A wedding ring is a big boundary so it makes sense to wonder about anyone who would approach you with one on.

[SaltyDawg]

I will gently disagree that there is 'no formula' on this 'slang' term for a dating formula.

Can you direct us to the formula? I know that there are many generalizations, frameworks, theories, and studies - some more clinical and with more validation than others - however I'm not aware of a proven formula. Certainly not a proven universal formula.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingman_(social) is the one that comes to mind.  I have read a very misogynistic ebook on it a number of years ago, ironically it targets women with a high degree of impulsivity -  cluster-B traits (HPD & BPD) - the name of the book escapes me, nor would I post it here as it as it is a bit too predatory in nature and exploits the psychological weaknesses of these individuals.

In case you are wondering why I was reading this, my wife had recently gone from hypersexuality to hyposexuality, and I was reading on how to reverse this, this was about a decade ago when I read this book and others like it on the topic.

And by "us" I mean almost everyone... even people in relationships where no PD is present. At some point, we realize that we married one of our parents.

I agree with statement; however, my mother had a lot of OCPD traits, so my wife does too; however, this does not explain the BPD part of it, which is the common thread between my current partner (BPD/OCPD wife), or my previous partner (BPD/NPD exgf).

'Start' - An excessive level of interest was being shown to me, by another...  100% of my romantic relationships have started this way.

It sounds like in your major relationships, you have responded to women who have taken initiative. This isn't an unusual thing, is it?  The premise of some dating apps is that women make the first move. It's not universal, but it is an established archetype. So maybe you simply fall in this archetype? In fact, in 100% of relationships, someone had to make the first move.

I will readily admit, I enjoy being seduced.  I would say that I fall into this 'archetype' as you have postulated.

If you're working to better your marriage, understanding your preferences and attitudes as well as your wife's might be helpful, i.e., who takes initiative - and for what...  might be helpful. If your marriage ended and you were inclined to seek a new relationship, what would you do differently? Would you make the first move? Do you feel that this is a critical action, for you? If so, why?

I am working to better my marriage, but I am also making contingency plans where it might fail.  I want to understand why I attract a certain type of woman, and not the emotionally healthier ones. 

One time in high school, I did ask a girl to the senior prom.  It took her 5 days to very thoughtfully and politely decline my invite - I didn't think anything of it as I knew it was a 'long shot' for her to accept - I wasn't into romance then.  She was very sweet, and I really didn't know her that well, even though I shared a class with her brother.

Waterpark... "it was like she was on a hunt to hookup with someone"
It sounds like you answered your own question.  She wasn't on the hunt for you. She was on the hunt for someone.  Like the R. Pryor example:  You were there.  It wasn't you - it was her.  If you weren't there, it would have been someone else.

That part really doesn't bother me so much, but I was at the bar with my SIL, and she waited for her to leave, before approaching me.

On another occasion, I had a woman come up to me at my son's first football practice, in front of my wife

SD, the situation you describe happens all. the. time. Some people are extroverted. Some people are extra-extroverted. Some people use social settings like school football games to behave as if there is already some common interest - not necessarily romantic. This happens at concerts, conferences, events of all kinds where the event itself establishes some shared experience - some people go to watch their kid, other people are less interested in the game, and want to connect, make friends, find customers, evangelize, or maybe find a new romantic partner. I'm on the PTO at my kid's school - one of the few dads - there are a lot of moms who like to chat. I don't assume that means they are interested in me in any way outside of the PTO.

I'm not following how these two experiences are unique to you, SD.  What am I missing?  Can you elaborate?

I am going to push back on that assessment a bit, and I will elaborate.  Normally I would say you are correct, people come up to me all the time and talk at these kinds of events.  However, in this instance, it was in front of my wife, and my wife was visibly uncomfortable with the level of flirting this complete stranger, who was very physically attractive, was doing towards me.  It was out of the blue and totally unexpected, and this other woman, I could tell was emotionally distraught (body language), from what I don't know, so I didn't want to reject her outright, so I had to tactfully validate her concern of her looks and attractiveness (as she was focused on appearing like a 20-something when she was a 40-something) as I didn't want to destroy her self-worth/esteem as I knew she was going through some kind emotional turmoil, and I didn't want to make it worse for her, but I also rejected her advance on me in a manner that my wife could appreciate and not feel jealous.

I must admit, on a primal emotional level it does feel good having having some very physically attractive women find me interesting; however, logically, I know there is something amiss - from my 'gut' feeling on this interaction which I now find repulsive, but wouldn't have prior to knowing about BPD and other mental health issues that these women might have.

However, I also want to understand this 'reasoning', so I know what to avoid, if my marriage ultimately fails.

Yup, that's the million-dollar question that brings a lot of us here. I know you've seen this here many times, and I bet if I go back and read your posts - you've probably said it, too:  You can only know your own mind. You can only control yourself.

Follow my gut - I call it a 'slang' term of CRAYDAR - Crazy RADAR, very similar to what the LGBTQ+ community calls GAYDAR where they can find like-minded individuals.  I am just looking to improve my 'picker' or whatever term one wants to use.

Cutting to the chase: What does this mean for your marriage or for potential future relationships?  It means that we need to take responsibility and accept or not accept a, b, c, consistent with our personal values and preferences.

That's to my question - I want to refine what I can and cannot accept with my own personal value and preferences.  I also want to project what I am looking for, and have a better ability to see past the initial mask of a relationship prior to becoming fully invested (fall hard for...) in a particular person.  I was able to avoid the BPD/NPDexgf, as I recognized her modus operandi straight away; whereas, I didn't with my wife, initially, and by the time she did exhibit really big red flags with her first manipulative suicide attempt - my wife pivoted and shifted back to full blown love bombing, as I expressed that she 'baited and switched on me' and I alluded to having 2nd thoughts on the marriage.  It wasn't until we became pregnant with our first child, and then and only then did her mask fully come off to reveal the true nature of her personality.

So, I want to understand why crazy people are attracted to me, in spite of deliberately making myself not available, so I do not fall for the next when I have a moment of vulnerability.  This question is part of "planning for the worst" while "praying/hoping for the best", so I have a better understanding of what the **** is going on here.

In my case, I never cracked that nut. I got to a point where I accepted that divorce was necessary and now my pwBPD is my uBPDxw.  I generally don't dwell on how I got here, however I accept that I am here, and I mainly try to look forward.  I think our Ts would tell us that it's hard to look back and move forward at the same time.

My wife knows she is messed up in the head, and is actively making significant improvements, thinks it is enough, and I am pushing back that it isn't.  I am unsure if she has the 'will' to put her outward BPD symptoms into full remission like our daughter has done with an similarly difficult mental illness.  I know she has the capability of doing so.

So, can you possibly expand on talking about not doing enough when it comes to flags?  I seem to give the benefit of doubt when it comes to this, as I see mostly yellow flags not necessarily attributable to any kind of PD, not red ones which are either attributable to PD's or are so against my moral compass that I cannot tolerate those kinds of behaviors.

If there was a guidebook that said to treat yellow flags as red flags, would that be helpful?

No, it wouldn't be.   If I followed that advice, I would be a hermit.  Everyone has yellow flags, myself included.  A for one person might be a for another, and a green one for someone else.  It is a matter of perspective. 

That said, I think that you can allow yourself to recognize and either accept or not accept someone else's behavior, and how you want to respond or not respond to it.

In the honeymoon phase or love bombing phase when your person of interest in on 'best behavior', very similar starts but different outcomes - how does one detect the difference between the two?  I feel as though I was fooled/duped by the best of the best, I was following my 'gut' and still could not see I was being fooled by my wife, until it was too late.

Some people conclude that the only way to avoid repeating past mistakes to avoid relationships entirely.  That seems a bit like binary thinking to me - black and white.  On one hand, it's hard to argue against it:  Can't have a bad relationship if you're not in a relationship.  On the other hand, we cannot completely eliminate uncertainty in all areas of our lives...

I can see that perspective, but that is not me.  I do want to be in a 'healthy' relationship without being duped initially until the mask came off some years later.  I understand that most will reveal their true nature much sooner than mine did - I was counting on this, and it didn't happen, and when it did happen, it seemed like a bad dream where I was too emotionally invested to see straight especially as it immediately returned with the mask going on, it wasn't until 5 years and 2 months after we started dating where the mask fully came off, well in excess of the 2 year textbook maximum, and most would show their true colors within the first year, that I read about way back in 2001.

Hope this discussion is helpful in some way...

 

Yes, it is helpful, and if you have any more insight, it would be appreciated.

SD

[SaltyDawg]

If your marriage ended and you were inclined to seek a new relationship, what would you do differently? Would you make the first move? Do you feel that this is a critical action, for you? If so, why?

After reading what I had posted, I realized I did not answer these questions - as I am still not thinking along these lines in earnest, yet.

Differently - I would likely utilize a dating app, they weren't really around at the turn of the century/millennium when I was last in the dating pool.  Prior to using, I would do my research before selecting a specific platform to figure out which of these 'tools' would best suit my personal needs.  It really doesn't matter who makes the first move and is not a critical action for me as anyone who is using one of these platforms is mutually making the first move on the other.

I did meet the BPD/NPDexgf online via IRC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC) in 1998; however, my BPD/OCPD wife was a setup from a mutual friend/acquaintance - very much like the 'wingman' approach I alluded to in my previous post which I did not know about yet.  I have had an acquaintance back in 1986 (not a typo, that is eighty-six, on a platform similar to IRC but predates it) who met and married his wife back then on the ARPAnet (the predecessor to the Internet), it was a resounding success - I know of success stories both on and off the net, so I have no specific affinity for either.

Knowing what I know now, I will likely look at their older social media postings, do a background search, among a few other precautions because at my age, one would have to wonder why they are in the dating pool, and take it slowly, and keep my eyes open for any red-flags, and monitor the yellow-flags closely.

[Pook075]

Differently - I would likely utilize a dating app, they weren't really around at the turn of the century/millennium when I was last in the dating pool.  Prior to using, I would do my research before selecting a specific platform to figure out which of these 'tools' would best suit my personal needs. 

I was excited to join the online dating revolution and I was sorely disappointed. 

At 50, those apps weren't made for my age group.  The singles I met in the 40-50 range fell into two categories- the partying/casual sex crowd, and the extreme emotional baggage crowd.  Some were actually comedy gold where they'd list everything they hated about men and wouldn't tolerate...it was a surreal experience.

My advice- stay married!

[EyesUp]

@Salty,

Thanks for your response.  That said, please accept my apologies - My question wasn't really clear.  I meant to ask "what would you do differently to make sure you don't pick another disordered partner?" - but I think the question came across as "how would you find a new partner?"

I didn't intend to go down the path of how to start dating or where to find a date - I feel like I've unintentionally launched a tangent.  Again, my apologies.

Perhaps you answered anyway - I hear you re: background checks and related diligence. That said, some people have private profiles or simply don't participate in social media. 

In that case, can you think of anything else?  What are some other ways to establish rapport, trust, and ultimately conviction that there's a good match and a real connection, based on mutual understanding and appreciation? 

Based on everything you've learned about BPD, what can be done to avoid getting into another BPD relationship?  I realize that we're in "detaching" so just want to say: if your goal isn't necessarily to detach, please don't feel obligated to respond.

[SinisterComplex]

I was excited to join the online dating revolution and I was sorely disappointed. 

At 50, those apps weren't made for my age group.  The singles I met in the 40-50 range fell into two categories- the partying/casual sex crowd, and the extreme emotional baggage crowd.  Some were actually comedy gold where they'd list everything they hated about men and wouldn't tolerate...it was a surreal experience.

My advice- stay married!

I would provide a disclaimer here...stay married if you are happy. Always choose what makes YOU happy. Marriage is not for everyone. I am a happily divorced man for example and the thought of being married again actually makes me cringe...I love freedom and marriage is like a cage to me. I don't necessarily seek out a partner, but if the right one comes along I'm open to it, but it is not a priority for me. Too many things to do in this world, too many goals to shoot for and not enough time to check off all the boxes. In truth I prefer profound friendships...more fulfilling. 

However, I can also agree that the dating scene is a total S Show, but it all depends on what you make of it at the same time and what your goals, expectations are, etc.

The internet dating thing...its a crap shoot of course, but no different than the real physical world. I am also the type though that if I am interested in someone it will probably be something that happened organically in person and there is a mutual interest and conversation goes from there because I'm quite nonchalant in that regard...I am happy with someone or without someone, it doesn't really make difference to me because I have some very good friends and lots of interests so I am never lacking or bored. Romantic relationships are not the end all be all. I've had plenty and honestly I've never been happier than being single and doing my own thing. So much less BS to put up with and so much more time to get things done and do the things I want to do.

Now granted, I am a different kind of cat and I do not necessarily fit in with the majority, but felt I would provide a different perspective here. I just say do what is in your best interests, what makes you happy and allows you to feel fulfilled. That is the beauty of life...we all have the power to choose and free will.   

Cheers and Best Wishes!

-SC-

[SaltyDawg]

Skip,

   You have come up with some really good questions... I will try and answer from my individual perspective...

Dawg,

The general public knew very little about mental illnesses 20 years ago and that was to many's peril. Today, however, the pendulum has swung very far to the right and now its commonplace to label any difficult person as a having a mental illness/personality disorder and to look at any difficult relationship transaction as abuse.

I was exposed in the 1990's with an exgf who through retroactive personal analysis I believe was both NPD and BPD with other issues going on as well, that I will not label.  I had met her online in an IRC chat room, and my previous exposure to a match like this was extremely positive, as mentioned in my previous post.  After I left her after dating her briefly, she got in trouble with the law after she couldn't pay her bills due to her impulsive spending, and they found a lot more than missing money, she was front page news on a regional scale for the abuses she did, at least 57 counts of charges.

With my wife, she had repeated suicide gestures/attempts, that I found to be very coercive or manipulative in nature - I  had no clue as to mental health issues as the only one I had been formally trained in was Stockholm syndrome, and that was within the context of a ship hijacking so I would know how to respond in a hostage scenario.

I agree it is way too easy to label any difficult relationship issue as abuse or is abusive.  I feel that one needs to fully understand, at a minimum what the law defines as abuse, and ideally at a level a licensed professional understands - rather than what pop culture indicates as abuse.  If one partner hits, kicks, punches, bites, etc. the law clearly defines this as physical abuse (domestic violence) - there is no room for misinterpretation for physical abuse as it is codified into law.  Also, my wife was reported by a mandated reporter, our former couple's therapist, for this kind of behavior, I had no idea that this would happen, neither did she.

If one is subjected to coercion, blackmail, duress, threats, slander, defamation, libel, etc. these too are codified in law and are considered illegal, these too leave very little doubt if the person on the receiving end is being abused.

Likewise being on the receiving end of a rage, that involves yelling, threats of harm, etc.  While not clear-cut as physical abuse or other codified illegal behaviors, most would consider this to be abusive in nature too.

However, it is the more grey terms, like gaslighting, DARVO, needling, sarcasm, etc. where one says they are joking, when in fact they are not - the intent of the said 'joke' needs to be determined before it can be labelled as abusive, especially as a lot of comedians use these tools in their comedy routines.

Circling back to your comment of swinging too far to the right -- having been in a profession that was under-regulated to one being over-regulated, I would definitely say the over-regulated one is far more preferable to the environment and safety of the workers - there is no doubt in my mind this has been an overall benefit to everyone even if it means a lot more paperwork is involved. 

Using a similar mindset, I also feel that the school children learning about mental health, specifically bullying is a huge benefit to children, along with being educated on potentially abusive behaviors at home, like sexual abuse.  While this can be abused by the children, I feel that society has benefited greatly from this kind of education for our children, even if 988 is swamped with 80% of all of the calls/texts are received from children calling the crisis line.

I feel the benefits of having too much information far outweigh the inconvenience of having too much information.

Is this extreme shift healthy for us?

I feel that this shift is mostly healthy for society, as it shines a well deserved light on abuse that was previously hidden and the consequences to this ignorance can be extreme.  In my personal extended family dynamic this includes a serial killer where one of my SIL's paid with her life for her ignorance in this matter.  Had she known more about his past, and his abusive behavior (which both my wife and I witnessed first hand on one occasion), it could have saved her life.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

Having a individual licensed therapist/psychologist clue me in to BPD, I too feel it has become a much healthier family dynamic for my wife, who is on a road to recovery, my daughter who has recovered, my son who no longer fears his mother and is more like a healthy kid.

Is it helpful to finding a better life?

Most definitely for my children, and for my wife too - the level of abuse has been greatly reduced - not quite at remission levels, yet, as it is still a work in progress.  The amount of violence and yelling has substantially dropped in my home to manageable levels.  It is getting better, but it is far from ideal, but we are a whole lot closer to the ideal than we were a year ago, but we still have a long ways to go - we are about half way there, give or take.  As far as I know, there is no 'perfect' family; however, it is a goal to strive for.

I suggest that we are best served to stay centered in our assessment of our life and the world around us and to analyze things from that balanced perspective.

Speaking of assessments, the SWOE book (3rd edition) has an excellent assessment tool in it, my wife scored very high in it, low 20's.  I did a deep dive with the PhD-T, and the one who trained him too.  Even though each of them had not assessed my wife, and were extremely hesitant, they questioned me extensively on why I was thinking BPD, and they eventually agreed with my assessment based on circumstantial evidence.

I agree, the best way is to stay centered, I feel is to read and UNDERSTAND the DSM 5 / IDC 10 that lists the specific symptoms and how they apply to one's unique situation and the different ways on how each symptom presents to a specific individual.

So in that vein, how would you describe your relationship with your wife for the last year and how would you characterize how you have treated each other (both good and bad)?

Improving dramatically from an abuse perspective, but we are not there yet.  Her and our relationship with the children have dramatically improved too.  From a romantic perspective, not much progress here, as I have been focused on the safety of our children and my own safety as I am the one steering the recovery effort and I am the target of blame.  Currently in progress to expand the focus to the relationship as well after several non-starter attempts, and so far there has been some, but limited improvement - I need more of a buy in from my wife on this - so the couple's therapy continues. 

I had some reactive abuse, that was identified by the couple's therapist, and I have corrected those.  Likewise, my wife has made apologies for most of her past abuses, except neglect which is very vague, and is the hardest abuse to identify and rectify.

I read and understand the thoughts that she has been abusive "10 of thousands of times" in the last 15 years and that you contacted a domestic abuse shelter, and the you present with an 8/10 (high risk) for domestic violence. You also said you feel no risk or danger and things are progressing... and you have stayed married for a long time.

I'm purposely asking you to shorten the time window and to characterize the good and bad in a balanced way.

Yes, I have stayed a long time.  I had wishful thinking things would get better, and when we were apart (due to my job on a ship) things were better.  However, when we got back together it got worse for me.  I can only imagine what my daughter went through to cause her eating disorder, which is now in full remission, combined with a knee injury that pretty much ended my ocean going career rapidly followed by COVID, created a perfect BPD storm which escalated her stress and resulting symptoms.

Back in 2019, just after our daughter came home from her stay for her mental illness, my wife blamed me for everything bad, and drug me to couple's therapy for the first time. 

Previously I drug her, the therapists throughout the years, and all of them focused 90% on her, but she eventually fired all of those, and I eventually gave up after arranging for no less than 8 different couple's therapists over the years.  So, even though the 2019 therapist believed my wife's false narrative, I stuck with it even though this weakened my sense of self to the point where I thought I was the primary problem as I was thinking some therapy is better than the alternative of no therapy.  It didn't help matters that this therapist reminded me too much of my previous exgf who without any doubt had mental health issues.  This therapist got my wife into individual therapy in 2021, and got me into individual therapy by ultimatum in May/June 2022 shortly after my wife's most recent suicide attempt, where I was first told about BPD about 40 minutes into the first session with my individual therapist - it was that obvious to my therapist.

For the first 90 days, I explored BPD, and had to reverse the transference, projection of my wife with the combined countertransference of the couple's therapist in order to regain my sense of self.  By August 2022, I started to push back on my wife's false narrative that she had been saying about me since August 2019 - three years of 'no progress'.  Week after week, I picked a topic that would highlight a primary symptom of BPD in my wife, after the couple's therapist told me she did not have BPD.  By the end of September, the couple's therapist fired us after my wife became physically violent with a wall, and the therapist told me 'maybe, just maybe', and gave me several tools to move forward with my wife's abusive behaviors towards me and our children.

I use the extensive history to learn about BPD; however, my focus shifted from reconnecting with my wife, to the safety of our family.  Now that the 'safety' portion has mostly been accomplished, where our children can actually be children, rather than scared of mom.  I can once again be inclusive on focusing on the relationship aspect as well.

PS: I know you are asking dating questions... we can split the thread if you like.

I would prefer to stay focused on my wife's recovery; however, divorcing and dating is a 'backup plan' in case my primary focus fails, as I am "Hoping/Praying for the best; but, planning for the worst".  I am being realistic.  I would like this thread to remain singular in nature so it can be more easily followed, even if I have dual thought processes or best and worst case scenarios. 

I want to learn, so I don't trigger my wife with crazy hitting on me, in front of her on two occasions in the past two years.

I also realize that recovery is not linear, and there will be lapses, like the one on January 16th where my wife had a full borderline-like episode exhibiting all but two symptoms in the episode, where she first openly used the DBT fact checking tool (or equivalent), when she split our daughter completely black.  Even though it was a failure in maintaining her anger, it was a success in utilizing a fact checking tool.  As long as my wife's recovery is trending upward overall (measured month to month, not daily or weekly which can be too volatile) I promised I would stay by her side.  However, if the upward trend stops or reverses, then I will escalate the situation after my youngest goes to college in a few years time.

Whatever I learn now, I want to apply to my current relationship, and if that fails, then any future relationships as well.  Make sense?

Thank you for those provocative questions, I am focused more on the present, specifically the past two years, as that is the metric I've read on the NIH for remission.  However, it would be negligent of me not to consider all past behaviors of my current and previous partner to help me figure out why I have been involved with two different BPD women from seemingly opposite character traits (due to differing comorbidities, which occurs in most pwBPD according to several NIH studies).

I am also focusing on myself, and what I  have brought to the table in order to attract 'crazy', and looking if these are learned behaviors in response to my eggshell caretaking responses, or if they are more deeply rooted from childhood wounds - from what I have found so far, it is a combination of the two.

Take care.

SD

[SaltyDawg]

At 50, those apps weren't made for my age group.  The singles I met in the 40-50 range fell into two categories- the partying/casual sex crowd, and the extreme emotional baggage crowd.  Some were actually comedy gold where they'd list everything they hated about men and wouldn't tolerate...it was a surreal experience.

My advice- stay married!

Pook,

   Thank you for your insight, I suspected as much for our age group.

   It is my intent on staying married, or separated if it doesn't work out in accordance with doctrine which we have discussed on other threads, unless she does something similar that your wife did.

   I know my wife's heart is in the right place and she is slowly getting better through therapy (not typical therapy for BPD).  Only time will tell how successful it will be.  I am hoping to employ Murphy's Law in reverse, where if I plan for the worst (the splinter topic of this thread), it won't happen.

   As always, your advice is much appreciated.

   Take care.

SD

[SaltyDawg]

SC,

   I very much agree with you and your perspective.  However, right now, my marriage has not been a happy one, since 2006 when her mask came off.  There have been a few bread crumbs, hopefully these will become bread slices, and hopefully a full meal at a 1/4 to 1/2 fraction of the love bombing phase - perhaps ('most likely' from what I have read) wishful thinking on my part, and build it from the ashes as a healthy relationship like the mythical phoenix - that's where couple's therapy comes in after I have used it to highlight the symptoms and get her to become self-aware of her issues so she can do the right thing and fix them.

   I am realistic, I cannot fix her, only she can.  However, I am here to focus on fixing my side of the street.  I will not seek out new romance - never have, if things ultimately fail here, as I too like action/adventure, and I have already experienced several lifetimes worth in my job and travels, yet there is still more to do.

   Your perspective is always valued. 

   Take care.

SD

[SaltyDawg]

EyesUp,

   Thank you for the clarification.  I see the 'tangent' more as a 'splinter' or a different angle to examine the same issue of why I attract the 'crazy' ones without any personal boundaries.

Thanks for your response.  That said, please accept my apologies - My question wasn't really clear.  I meant to ask "what would you do differently to make sure you don't pick another disordered partner?" - but I think the question came across as "how would you find a new partner?"

I didn't intend to go down the path of how to start dating or where to find a date - I feel like I've unintentionally launched a tangent.  Again, my apologies.

No apology needed, it is a valid perspective on this question. 

I don't think I would 'intentionally pick' another disordered partner again, I can now recognize these issues literally a mile away from their body language in some cases, while others are very subtle, as is my wife, so I would keep my eyes open, and hold reasonable boundaries that are neither too hard, nor too soft, but 'just right' for my value system.  I have tuned up my 'picker' as I previously indicated in this thread - the school of 'hard knocks' is a very unforgiving, but very motivating teacher in this regard.

Perhaps you answered anyway - I hear you re: background checks and related diligence. That said, some people have private profiles or simply don't participate in social media.

 

I'm one of those ones that don't, it was frowned upon to have an active profile in my job.

In that case, can you think of anything else?  What are some other ways to establish rapport, trust, and ultimately conviction that there's a good match and a real connection, based on mutual understanding and appreciation?

 

Like SC indicated, it will have to happen naturally (organically), and I will take my time on it.  I will follow my 'gut' instinct more closely, as I was clearly blinded by love bombing and did it anyways in spite of my gut telling me otherwise.  This is a very painful, costly, and time consuming lesson that I have learned.

Based on everything you've learned about BPD, what can be done to avoid getting into another BPD relationship?  I realize that we're in "detaching" so just want to say: if your goal isn't necessarily to detach, please don't feel obligated to respond.

This thread was split from another on the detaching board, although my primary intent is 'bettering'; however, 'detaching' is also being considered if my primary goal fails.  I feel better and more thought provoking questions can be had in the 'detaching' board.

That said, here is my perspective to answer to your question...  In addition to maintaining boundaries and following my 'gut feeling' that I have already mentioned, I have studied the behavior patterns of my wife, and a therapist who is a diagnosed borderline who expressed nearly identical feelings towards her husband that my wife has expressed towards me along with several members here who have had similar experiences with their romantic partners.  I was able to pick this therapist's brain, to gain a better understanding of my wife.  From my personal observations, there are two obvious traits, or red flags to look out for.

#1 - Any partner who does physical violence (actual or projected) is a (assuming you don't hit back).  This is especially true of women who hit their partners according to Randi Kreger in one of her follow-on books.
#2 - They become dysregulated, if you are late in returning a call, text, arriving home, etc. - this varies from person to person for the ones I have dealt with it is 15 to 30 minutes late and they will start to dysregulate especially if they are stressed and accuse you of cheating on them.

  Not every BPD does these, my exgf didn't but she was predominantly NPD with BPD and more, so these cannot be relied on if they are not present.  There are other things like 'oversharing', have a tendency to blame shift on others, especially all of their exes, instead of taking responsibility for their own stuff, among other things.  I find the assessment tool in the SWOE 3rd edition by Randi Kreger along with her other checklists in that book would be very helpful.  I don't want to reinvent the wheel here, I just want to be aware of being able to identify potential BPD partners or other disorders, and then avoid them.  I find most are very easy to spot, like my exgf.  However, others are not so easy, and may not have a PD at all, but some other issues going on (with all the baggage that Pook & SC has alluded to).

Even though my wife is the ultra-rare exception at 29 months, from what I have observed and learned in a variety of books and articles, nearly all pwBPD will exhibit a sufficient number of symptoms well before 2 years into a relationship and most by 1 year, if not sooner, in my exgf I knew something was amiss the moment we met in person, and retrospectively looking back, there were enough symptoms to be observed within a month or two of meeting her.  I have personal experience on both ends of this spectrum, and observed experience with points in between.

I am mainly exploring this area to learn about myself on why I have been in two romantic relationships where BPD is most likely present along with attracting at least two other BPDs along with several others that have some kind of mental health issue going on (codependency, attachment issues, etc.).  I also hope to identify my own traits which attract these people to me, much like moths to a flame, so I can modify my behaviors and/or traits to reduce this which may or may not help with my current relationship with my wife.

Thanks for responding, and I look forward to more thought provoking questions.

Take care.

SD

[SinisterComplex]

SC,

   I very much agree with you and your perspective.  However, right now, my marriage has not been a happy one, since 2006 when her mask came off.  There have been a few bread crumbs, hopefully these will become bread slices, and hopefully a full meal at a 1/4 to 1/2 fraction of the love bombing phase - perhaps ('most likely' from what I have read) wishful thinking on my part, and build it from the ashes as a healthy relationship like the mythical phoenix - that's where couple's therapy comes in after I have used it to highlight the symptoms and get her to become self-aware of her issues so she can do the right thing and fix them.

   I am realistic, I cannot fix her, only she can.  However, I am here to focus on fixing my side of the street.  I will not seek out new romance - never have, if things ultimately fail here, as I too like action/adventure, and I have already experienced several lifetimes worth in my job and travels, yet there is still more to do.

   Your perspective is always valued. 

   Take care.

SD

You gotta do you. My response was definitely more for the membership at large. More along the lines of big picture and providing a different avenue of thought.

It wasn't necessarily specific to your own situation. I respect you trying to put in the work and doing what you have to do. That you can never be faulted for. The only part to your situation which I will comment on is that if it comes to a point when you have done everything you can do and you have exhausted your resources do not be afraid to choose yourself and walk away if that is ultimately what you have to do. Whatever puts you in the best position to succeed and what truly makes you happy is what I support.

Cheers and Best Wishes!

-SC-

[SaltyDawg]

You gotta do you. My response was definitely more for the membership at large. More along the lines of big picture and providing a different avenue of thought.

It wasn't necessarily specific to your own situation. I respect you trying to put in the work and doing what you have to do. That you can never be faulted for. The only part to your situation which I will comment on is that if it comes to a point when you have done everything you can do and you have exhausted your resources do not be afraid to choose yourself and walk away if that is ultimately what you have to do. Whatever puts you in the best position to succeed and what truly makes you happy is what I support.

I agree, each person here, needs to 'do you' as you put it so elegantly simple.

I also agree, and have already come to the conclusion about not being 'afraid to choose yourself and walk away if that is ultimately what you have to do' when I finally called my wife's 'bluff' on divorce threats and threats of separation - which shifted the balance of power in the relationship from her to me.

However, for the time being, I will prioritize our children over myself - they did not ask to be in this situation.  Our daughter has fully recovered from her mental health illness based on what she shared with us earlier this week and I now consider her in full remission - I won't say cured, but it sure feels like it as she is no longer battling her inner thoughts on it like she was as recently as a few months ago, even though there have been no physical symptoms for years.  Our son, still has anger issues; however, they are far less than what they were a year ago, major improvement there too - I am hoping that he will fully 'grow out of it' or at least self-manage it, and I think he will - still a work in progress.  I will do what is best for both of them, until they are both out of the house and in college/university/trade school. 

My wife benefits too from my leadership, and boundary which is a bit of manipulation to do the 'right thing' for all those involved in removing all forms of previously unrecognized abusive behaviors by everyone involved.  My wife is also making progress, it seems to be working, so I will stay the course that I have found that works effectively in my scenario, more significant progress since my last post - I don't want to 'jinx' it, so I will talk about it in a different thread in the upcoming weeks and months, it definitely looks promising and that gives me hope except to say, she was actually poking fun at her own issues that would previously trigger her, and was a previously forbidden topic as it would almost certainly result in her being triggered - one less carton of eggshells to maneuver around.  I also know there will be a lapse or few in the future.  The recovery from the more recent lapses have been good, time will tell if this is fully successful.

However, circling back to the original topic of this thread, this question was asked as a ' contingency plan' in case of why I attract 'crazy'.  It is part of one of my many mantras of "Hope/Pray for the Best; however, plan for the worst".  This is part of my planning for the worst, where I hope to employ Murphy's Law in reverse, where it will ward off the 'worst' as I have planned for it, that way it won't happen - call it superstition - it works for me.

I gave my logic in a previous post on how to identify 'crazy'; however, I am interested in how others identify crazy as well?

Take care.

SD

[Pook075]

This is part of my planning for the worst, where I hope to employ Murphy's Law in reverse, where it will ward off the 'worst' as I have planned for it, that way it won't happen - call it superstition - it works for me.

Here's the thing buddy, you don't need a contingency plan.  I did the same thing, planning stuff out in my head, and I'm not doing a single one of those things because that's not where my life ended up leading.  Even if you do break up at some point, she's going to be a part of your daily life because of the kids.  There's no such thing as a clean break with family involved.

To answer your main question, we'd all define crazy differently and I genuinely believe we all have varying levels of crazy within us.  For example, I've been depressed lately working around the house preparing it to sell.  There's some things I can't do myself...and I don't have any help...but I've let those things knock me off track when I could have done several other things.  Is that a little bit of crazy?  Yup.  Depression and self sabotage because I was too focused on feeling sorry for myself.  It's passed though since that's what healthy minds do; they self-regulate and move on.

As I started online dating, I was hyper focused on spotting crazy, and I found it often.  What I realized though as I tried to protect myself from a million different scary traits and symptoms is that there's only one thing that truly mattered, and that's being able to talk through things when they're not ideal, to have the hard conversations where we genuinely disagree but still manage to find a middle ground that works for everyone.  As long as you find that, then you don't have to be scared of crazy anymore.

No matter what happens in your marriage, you're going to come out of this okay.  Just remember that this is not only about you, but four people total.  Your decisions will have lasting impacts no matter what path you choose, and you're going to have to deal with that for the rest of your life regardless.

If I could go back and do everything over once again, with what I understand today, I'd save my marriage for the family's sake and for my relationship with God.  I'll be happier divorced and eventually with a new bride, but what my family of four went through to get here was a very steep price to pay.  Divorce is terrible- that's why God hates it, and it should only be a last resort when everything else has failed.

Only you can decide the appropriate path for your life, and I do realize how impossible the choice can feel at times.  BPD is debilitating in relationships and there's a price to pay there as well.

[zachira]

I like to use the word disordered instead of crazy. Crazy to me sounds very harsh and like we are making fun of the person. Disordered to me means that the person sadly gets in their own way by making their problems worse by blaming others AND has little self-awareness about how their behaviors affect others and their own role in making themselves so unhappy. 

[SaltyDawg]

I like to use the word disordered instead of crazy. Crazy to me sounds very harsh and like we are making fun of the person. Disordered to me means that the person sadly gets in their own way by making their problems worse by blaming others AND has little self-awareness about how their behaviors affect others and their own role in making themselves so unhappy. 

I am a child of the 70's-80's where it actually had a positive connotation, and to me it is a neutral word.  Unfortunately I do not have editing power, otherwise I would change the word 'Crazy' to disorded.

However, if I did that, then I would not be able to call myself 'crazy', as I perceive myself as being crazy for being in such relationships - crazy making.  I use it as a very general descriptor that is either positive (crazy 4 u, crazy in love, etc.), neutral to somewhat negative (I'm crazy for having been in two borderline relationships and not realizing it until recently - "Crazy isn't it?" or "That's crazy!") to describe myself, or negative (s/he is bats**t crazy).

I agree it is a poor choice of words on my part, as it has been triggering for a few of our members - my apologies to those members.  In my future postings, I will use the term 'disordered,' or possibly even 'neurodivergent' (as clearly defined by this medically reviewed article at https://www.verywellhealth.com/neurodivergent-5216749) to describe someone who is on the spectrum, but not at as severe as a disordered (https://www.verywellmind.com/a-list-of-psychological-disorders-2794776) person.  Both of these terms I personally find have more negative connotations to the word 'crazy'; however, I will adjust my usage of the term.

I will not initiate the use of the word outside of this post here on BPD-Family as it is apparently too triggering for others on these boards unless someone else uses it first, and I want to be mindful of all of our members some of whom are hypersensitive to the use of this word.  I made a mistake, and I'm owning it.

Take care.

SD


P.S.  Partial-Disclaimer:  While I have openly use the word as I did not object to the use of the term in the subject line ascribed to me; however, I was not the one who originally selected the 'subject' line directly as it was split from another posting by one of the moderators/admins here who chose the subject line containing this word for me.  Since this word was chosen by a moderator/admin in the subject line - I thought it was fine to use this descriptor in my posts - obviously I thought wrongly about this.

Again, I will apologize for using this term as it was not my intention of triggering others.

[Augustine]

My preference is to not recalibrate the definitions of words when there is utterly no basis for the reconfiguration.

Crazy; Insane; Deranged.

adjective
1.
in a state of mind which prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill.

This is an accurate description of BPD behaviours to the same degree that the word “Road” accurately describes…

noun
1.
a wide way leading from one place to another, especially one with a specially prepared surface which vehicles can use.