Why did you stay in an abusive relationship?

[downnout]

I have to agree with you meredith -

Some part of me was absolutely mesmerized by the craziness of it all and how a person could create it all as if it is completely normal and expect you to believe it as well.

I really did go through a period of time where I questioned my own sanity. That is a skill I don't think you can train a person to have - making others think they are crazy!

[JoannaK]

Just a note to tomyel:

You say that you were not abused, but the relationship that you describe sounds like it was full of ups and downs.  She was angry if you spent time with your kids, angry about various things in those five years.  She would pull you close then distance herself again.  It doesn't sound as though she ever called you names, threw things at you, stole your money (but you said she was a compulsive shopper... .whose money did she spent?), gaslit you, or cheated on you.

But... .  did you feel loved, valued, and appreciated in this relationship?  Or did you feel that if you said or did the wrong thing, she would pounce on you?  Were you watching your words and actions, even the expressions on your face, in the hopes that you could fend off her moods?  Did she often make you feel as though you were responsible for her mood changes and depression?  Did you often feel that you just weren't quite good enough...   that you couldn't measure up in some way?

Many people here were the victims of very subtle emotional abuse.  Often the BPD people involved were acting-in types, or at lest they were acting in while doing the abuse.  We weren't necessarily called names and usually there wasn't any physical abuse involved.  It doesn't mean that it wasn't abuse.  If you feel, over a period of months or years, that you really aren't very "good", that you simply don't say or do the right thing... .if your thoughts and actions are questioned or if you get the silent treatment for this or that, you were abused.  Emotional abuse is more insidious and more difficult to see than the other kinds of abuse. 

If my exh were more directly abusive, I would not have stayed with him.  He didn't get bad until the end.  But at the beginning, he was very hot and cold, and somehow, his hot and cold moods, his distance, his depressive episodes were my fault. 

[aikiboy2k]

My kids.

I knew the first day I met her, that something was not quite right, but I was naive and thought I could help her overcome her deeply troubled past. WRONG! The months wore on, the bizarre behavior and horror stories from her childhood mounted, but still I perservered in the name of being the 'White Knight'. We married and had a kid, I was still in bizarro land and took some uncalled-for verbal abuse from time to time, but I was ok with it. Just chalked it up to 'being married'. After my second kid, he was a difficult birth and difficult child, she blamed herself for his seemingly never being happy and went off the deep end. Her self-esteem plummeted even lower (I didn't think that was possible) and my beratings became much more frequent. Once he was five, I began asking her to think about finding a job since her spending sprees and refusal to cook (I didn't get home from work until 5 or 6), resulting in 4-5 nights eating out per week, were killing us financially. She refused to find a job saying she wanted another kid. We were already on the brink of divorce and I said to myself there was no way we were bringing another child into this mess. Not that it mattered much, we rarely had sex.

I should have known that one night, she was affectionate, for once. Her normal idea of foreplay was yelling down from the bedroom, "You coming up here or what?" First time we had sex in over two months, and the last time we would have sex for 11 months and viola! My third child was on the way. She had bought herself another 6 years from having to work.  :

For me, divorce was not an option. Especially with kids. How could I ever leave them behind, especially with her? But every year went by, her rages became more intense, I thought she hated me and was starting to really lash out at the kids so I thought the best thing would be for me to leave. After 12 years... .  ;== :

Now I kick myself for staying so long, but I spent a lot of time with my head buried in the sand hoping it would all stop someday. It didn't.

[aikiboy2k]

But... .  did you feel loved, valued, and appreciated in this relationship?  Or did you feel that if you said or did the wrong thing, she would pounce on you?  Were you watching your words and actions, even the expressions on your face, in the hopes that you could fend off her moods?  Did she often make you feel as though you were responsible for her mood changes and depression?  Did you often feel that you just weren't quite good enough...   that you couldn't measure up in some way?

Loved, valued, appreciated? What's that?  : I remember feeling during my marriage that I could have replaced by any warm body. I was just an object to provide her money security and help around the house and with the kids. Didn't matter who did this, just somebody had to do it. I never once heard anything 'special' about me that she loved or would miss or anything like that. And did I ever walk on eggshells and have to watch not only what I said, but how I said it, or how I looked at her. Anything could set her off. That's the abuse that is so hard to describe to someone. Everyone thinks of being beaten, molested, or totally verbally degraded. But try walking on eggshells for 12 years and feeling like your are interchangeable with any other person on this planet and learn what abuse really is.

[jdee]

even his weirdness was pretty ambiguously weird.  his craziness was like a watermark on paper:  it's genuinely, seriously there, but you have to look for it and you have to tilt the paper to find the focus that will show it to you.  even when you find a piece of it, it's the same colour as the rest of the paper it's printed on.  i really did need time and experience to let me get a grip on the nature of it, and understand where and how and why it was all wrong.  i couldn't have gained anything by leaving sooner.  

1) this was true for me too.  i think i stayed because i was over-confident in myself.  i thought i could study the colorful wierdness, understand it, fix it and make it go away. problem would be solved.  i thought that if you really want something -- hard work will payoff.  big error in judgement on my part.

2) like a lot of others who have relplied, i also got sucked into my own dream.  since i thought i could make him "get better"... .then nothing was standing in the way of realizing my dream relationship. 

given these two reasons, i looked the other way when he was emotionally hurtful.  i felt like i was strong enough to take it and he wasn't stable enough to help himself.  in a wierd way i think we both looked to me for emotional guidance.  in all, that was the most draining part.  it was abuse.

[Sapphire]

Again, Joanna has made some really good valid points concerning abuse... .

Jigsaw wasn't physically abusive, either. Nor did he "rage" alot. But he sure was an expert on emotional & mental cruelty. His family & the few "friends" that he had called him the "Manipulator". I'm a fairly intelligent person, and normally I can spot an abuser a mile away. But not w/ Jigsaw: he knew what he was doing, and he did it well... ;==

I won't say that physical abuse is any thing to sneeze at. But sometimes there are worse things; like having your mind & heart f***ed w/ so badly that you don't know which end is up... .

Abuse is abuse; whether it be physical or emotional or mental. It hurts you, and it leaves scars... .

~SD~

[Gulfstream]

Jo,

Thats exactly how it was for me, the way you describe it. Funny, one evening I'm sitting there, and had a notion after she ruined a great day for no apparent reason, and I said; "sniffles, you don't appreciate me, who I am, what I am." her immediate reply was; "yes I do." I said; Ok then, you say you love me, what is it you love about me?"

She sat there for a full two minutes in silence, with a blank expression on her face, with no answer she could muster up."  Funny thing, she would sit for hours and just listen to me whisper things about her, all her good points I projected onto her, it was just like smack to her, she never ever got enough of it, ever!

One day I said to her, Sniffles, I feel exactly like Cyrano, with you on the balcony above, me hidden in the shadows below where only my voice caresses your heart. God, how close to the truth was that! Should have listened to my gut then... .but I think I was hungry, and my gut was at Jack in the Box getting cheesy potatoes!

[JoannaK]

About emotional abuse... . I remember times that I wished he would hit me. Because it would have been more direct than just constant degridation and nasty talk.  The thing about emotional abuse is that the abuser knows all of the person's weaknesses and he/she can cut to the quick with a word or a comment.  When the house was messy (I was working more hours than he was... .maybe he should have done some of the cleaning instead of just complaining?), he would say things like, "I think I'll call and invite (names of coworkers) over here so they can see the mess that we live in.  Everybody over there thinks you are so wonderful.  What would they say if they saw this place now?"  Stuff like that.  It wasn't name calling... .it was just manipulation and nastiness.  

If he had hit me, I would have left him.  If he had cheated on me, I would have left him.  (I did leave him when it appeared that he was cheating on me.)  But the constant nagging feeling that I wasn't good enough or that I was some kind of a disappointment just continued.  His expression, his demeanor... . his tone of voice.  I remember thinking that it wasn't so much what he said as the way he said it.  It was like trying to grab a slippery fish.  It was sometimes hard to describe, and it was hard to describe it to him.  He would be so, so innocent when I tried to explain what he was saying that was so demeaning and difficult.  Then he would just accuse me of being too sensitive.

[tonyel]

Greetings all,

I was traveling today and it seems as if this has been a pretty hot thread!  Sorry I missed all the action!

JoannaK... .You're right, point well taken.  The money part and her spending was all hers.  I guess I did somewhat help facilitate it though because of all the restaurant bills that I paid during our time together.  I guess she pretty much didn't have much of a grocery bill during that period of time.  With regard to the pouncing on me... .there really wasn't any 'pouncing" but if I said the wrong things or my opinions differed from hers I was wrong... .in a subtle sort of way.  We had a conversation about the Bible one time and I tend to lean more to the old testament way of thinking... .you know, an eye for an eye and we should do what's right from a "God fearing" point of view.  I was wrong... .period... .God was all forgiving in her eyes and there was no room for deviation.  You'd of thought that I was defending pagan beliefs as opposed to us believing in the same God.

I guess, in retrospect, it may have been subtle but it was there.  With regard to the did I feel loved point of view.  I thought I did but now I'm wondering if it was ll part of the act.  Some days she loved me then if we had kids issues she would suggest that we should break up because there was no room in my life or my heart for anyone but my kids.  Then almost in the same breath she would say that if I didn't want to break up that would be great.  I always felt that she was wrestling with her thoughts in her e-mails to me.  Almost like there was a debate going on inside her own mind. 

Thanks for your insight.  Sometimes abuse comes in many forms and levels.  I alwasy treated her like a queen and looking back I guess I wasn't treated with the same degree of royalty.

Tonyel

[meredith]

1) this was true for me too.  i think i stayed because i was over-confident in myself.  i thought i could study the colorful wierdness, understand it, fix it and make it go away. problem would be solved.  i thought that if you really want something -- hard work will payoff.  big error in judgement on my part.

it was kind of true of me too.  i truly don't do 'helper', it grosses me out.  i don't know that i ever wanted to fix him, and he did try pretty hard to offload that responsibility onto me. but the idea of having to construct your own partner is insulting.  i was already raising a kid; i wasn't going to sleep with anyone who was even a little bit my own creation.  that's gross; it's proto-incestuous.  it also felt like blackmail, like he had me over a barrel in a way that would be gravy for him no matter what happened.  'well, you're the one who has the most to lose from me being unevolved, so if i stick with you i'll get a free ride and a free upgrade, and you'll do all the work.' 

anne cameron retells a (i think) haida legend about copper woman.  she's the first being, and after a while she creates a sort of homonid out of her own snot and spit, to keep her company, but as you can imagine it's not exactly ideal.  then a while after that she encounters another human, a man who was created entirely separately from her.  i kept using 'snot boy' as a shorthand way of giving my ex a reality check about us - i never contracted to spend the rest of my life building and maintaining a snot boy.  never pretended i was going to; there's just no way he could have claimed not to know where i stood about that.  and if he'd had any self-respect at all he wouldn't have wanted to settle for being a snot boy and bullying his immediate 'family' into pretending he was a real human.

but i am pretty interested in human psychology, and compulsively curious, and i have a hell of a time walking away from anything difficult, or keeping my mouth shut about things that interest me.  i don't always get daunted when i should, and it took a while for me to realise how one-sided it was all becoming.  even when i'm daunted i want to understand things.  'just because' are such fighting words to me.  i kept standing on my ex's feet while he tried to escape, to tell the truth, demanding that he account for his darned self.  people should clean up their own mess, and he'd made a heck of a mess in my life.  i didn't see any darned reason why he should be allowed to just shrug and step backwards and leave me with it when it got inconvenient to him.   i wouldn't put up with that from a doctor or a dentist or a home contractor or a baseball coach or an accountant or a recruiter or a pharmacist or a physiotherapist or a programmer or a car mechanic.  i wasn't inclined to put up with it from him.  it took me a really long time to get to the point where i just didn't care anymore about that.

[Skippy]

but i am pretty interested in human psychology, and compulsively curious, and i have a hell of a time walking away from anything difficult, or keeping my mouth shut about things that interest me.

i kept standing on my ex's feet while he tried to escape, to tell the truth, demanding that he account for his darned self.  people should clean up their own mess, and he'd made a heck of a mess in my life.  i didn't see any darned reason why he should be allowed to just shrug and step backwards and leave me with it when it got inconvenient to him.   it took me a really long time to get to the point where i just didn't care anymore about that.

Mer... .

Am I reading this correctly... .you stayed because you were curious about his struggles and you wanted to prevent him from leaving (escaping) to make him accountable for his behavior?  It took you "a really long time" to get past that point?

Did you have the "proto-incestuous" ,  "sort of homid out of spit" ,  and " demanding that he account for his darned self" thoughts while you were in the relationship and holding on to him?

Does this mean you weren't so much obsessed with your feelings for him (love) but rather with your anger?

It's a very interesting/honest post.

Skip

[meredith]

Does this mean you weren't so much obsessed with your feelings for him (love) but rather with your anger?

It's a very interesting/honest post.

Skip

i don't know if i would say i was obsessed with anything, but i was extremely angry, no question.  my kid and i were out on a serious limb by the time he went strange, and i was just not having someone change our lives so casually and irresponsibly.  especially not my kid's life, and especially not when the idea of moving out only seemed to occur to him when a) i wasn't cooperating and b) i would have had something substantial to lose by the move.  ideological scorn   girls aren't supposed to have it.

he'd try it on, but he never really argued that much when i called him on the underlying dynamics of it.  back in the day before we moved in together, my beloved car was rear-ended, and he was the one who suggested i think twice about taking the insurance company's payout to write it off.  he knew how my mind works, and '[driver's name] should not be able to change anything in your life so easily' is what he said.  he was probably sorry he'd said it later, when i used it as an example and he had to admit that the story fit

but the other aspect of that anger was part of the hope, i suppose.  he didn't fall in love with me for being inarticulate or wishy-washy or dumber than him, or playing a girly subservient part, diplomatically pulling my punches and pretending the naked emperor was nicely dressed up.  it took me a long time to get as clear about myself as i was when i met him, and i wasn't faking any of the character traits.  that's who i was, and how he felt about it was the thing that i lost when the rest of his story came out.  really i was so stunned by the change that i didn't have anybody to be but myself anyway.  back when i did think that maybe this could be got through, staying myself was like holding onto a rope in a blizzard as the only way of making sure you're not going to get lost - an act of faith in both of us and the kind of relationship worth working for.  and i don't think i've ever met another whack job who knew his own 'other side' as clearly as he did, or despised it as comprehensively and violently.  so to make it really confusing he was actually of the same mind as me about it. 

and part of it was the boundaries thing, which also goes with the hope.  i was also too hurt and shocked to breathe, but you know there's no point in putting that on the table with a BPD.  even if they 'respond' to it, they find a way to make it a widening of the power gap.  it becomes you in a weakened position and them in a stronger one, being benevolent and still feeling like they have all the control - because they do.  you gain nothing; it's just the same tune played with a new orchestra.  we never had that kind of relationship in the first place.  you need something deeper than hurt or hope or wanting, more ideological and more principle-based, to set boundaries, and you need the anger of those principles to hold them.  at least i did.  they have to be what you believe, not just what you want.  i believed it wasn't okay to act like that.  i believed it's not the kind of sht a person should take.  i still do.  and i loved him enough to put in the time to see what writing would end up on the wall.

i did tell him the snot-boy metaphor, but the rude name wasn't the point i was making or the part that he paid attention to.  the point was the dynamic behind the story.  he got it; he just couldn't live up to it even though he wanted to for his own sake.

[meredith]

Did you have the "proto-incestuous" ,  "sort of homid out of spit" ,  and " demanding that he account for his darned self" thoughts while you were in the relationship and holding on to him?

oy.  i knew i'd probably get in trouble for that one.  i should explain a bit more:

sure i had them while i was in there.  i knew which directions i didn't want to go in with him, and i knew why i didn't want to go there, that's all.  i mention them as explanations for why i refused to do certain things or go down certain paths he pressured for, not as descriptions of how i saw things i DID do.  make sense?  like saying 'he wanted to go to florida, but i said nah, cause i don't like alligators'. 

[Traveler]

Skip,

I think in the end, we nons, being more balanced and in contact with who we are, are the givers. Something in us identifies with being able to help, or heal or balance. What ends up happening is that there were just enough good qualities to stay in and we ignore the bad. When we bring up the bad in someone else, it hurts them. So what do we do? We stop making them accountable for their actions. The Irony is sometimes we were enablers. Then one day we wake up with our own loss of self and then say "Hey I need a karmic check from you to fix me now!" Unfortunately they only go to our bank to make withdrawals.

I also think that a lot of times we are so conditioned to giving we just keep fulfilling that role.

My friends say I should write a book on Dominant Society Programming. If you think about how most of us were brought up. Its to give, give, give and to expect anything in return is "Selfish". Where in reality the best thing we can do is give to ourselves, Shine this outward and keep our energy in tact.

Thus we truly have a garden of energy of our own creation. Now we can give.

One of my sayings is: Always tend your garden. If you don't you will have nothing truly yummy to offer. When you find yourself offering the seeds of your garden to someone else to eat. You better stop pretty quickly or you will soon have two people starving.

Traveler

[inthelight]

Well, I had a dream about my mother last night, and it got me thinking... .

Mom was alcoholic, thus emotionally very unavailable.  Not a raging drunk, just drink till she passed out every night.  She finally drank herself to death when I was 23. 

Fast-forward 20 years... .I found a wonderful book called Motherless Daughters, about how we deal with not having mothering through emotional distance and/or death - I highly recommend it to many Nookies!

Fast-forward another 8 years (yes, I am 51 now)... .In crazy relationship with ubpgf, most of which does not really fit my patterns in relationships, but of course some does.  Trying hard to take responsibility for my part in this and learn and grow from it all.  Currently, the question most on my mind is *why do I stay?*

Back to the dream last night... .it caused me to go back and revisit Motherless Daughters for the first time in many years.  WOW!  A few quotes jumped out at me!

We tend to grab for intimcay as a form of narcissistic need.  "When a motherless woman attaches to a romantic partner so quickly and completely, her attraction often derives not from mutual affection but from what she hopes HE can give to HER."  She goes on to state that ALL people feel this to some degree, but motherless women feel the deprivation that causes this more profoundly than others.  People who were well-mothered have an emotional foundation that is lacking in the less-mothered.  So we begin romantic relationships one step behind, looking to establish an emotional base. 

Here is interesting stuff... .

Attachment theorists (is that a JOB description?  :D) divide us into three groups: 1) secure attachments, 2) anxious/ambivalent attachements and 3) avoidant attachements.  Some studies (old, 1987) found that in normal population, 55% are secure, 20% anxious/ambivalent and 25% avoidant.  BUT in a group who had lost parents during childhood/adolescence... .46% secure, 37% anxious/ambivalent and 17% avoidant.  In other words, lacking parenting we are more vulnerable to feelings of abandonment and worthlessness, and both fear and desire relationships as adults.  We then often deny or ignore signs of a troubled relationship (understatement here on bpdfamily!), insisting that we can be special and worthwhile enough to make it work... .the child's cry for the absent parent to remain.

There is lots more that really speaks to me, but not for this thread. 

So, to the topic, for me... .

I guess I stay trying to prove myself lovable enough for my mother/partner to stay. 

Sounds like I have lots of work to do in therapy!   

In th Light

[inthelight]

And one more related thought just jumpd out at me... .

If I am trying to recreate the relationship with my mother in order to get it right, which may be true... .

WHO WOULD EVER CHOOSE TO LEAVE THEIR MOTHER, even if the relationship was bad?

Boy, that seems to explain a lot, for me anyway.

Back to therapy!

In the Light

[Krakatoa]

I stayed because I "thought" or was "conditioned"  to believe that I was the one. She told me that ALL her other relationships ( in the 3 years of knowing her prior to our intimate relationship) were meaningless and were stop-gaps to finally getting together with me. It was ME she had wanted all along .I was just too daft to have not seen it etc etc. Once I was interested she immediately dumped her then current beau. Flattered, you bet, even though I clearly remember thinking that her treatment of her boyfriend was  unbelievably harsh and I initially balked at the whole thing and told her I really did not wish to be involved and really had a moral dilemma about the state of affairs. She insisted that he was weak and spineless and that all she was doing was "mothering" .She needed a real man not a boy. Someone like me. Yes, like a jackass I fell for it, hook,line and sinker.

The first six months were incredible it has to be said. The meeting of minds , the sameness, the quite incredible sex... .exquisite and probably never to be re-visited. Then it began to addle... .rapidly .

End of story.

That's why we stay, because we fell in love with a facade. We didn't know it at the time and we can't believe that when the change happens  the person you thought you fell in love with has seemingly disappeared. I fell in love with a beautiful, funny , witty , caring,challenging soul-mate. So much a potential partner in life and someone I committed to wholly.

As the facade crumbled I ended up with a screaming banshee. Someone who confessed to thoughts of killing me, someone who abused me regularly, blamed me for all our ills and left me/returned ( after much scrabbling, admittedly by me ) to me on a regular basis.

Yet still you hope that  all this chaos can become calm as the initial period was so , so wondrous. That is what one holds onto. Your ideal and also theirs.

They cannot seemingly have calm.

We want stability and reliability and a base to work from. ( I think)

They seem to need and thrive on conflict , be it with us, another, or an institution.

I stayed because I stupidly thought  my phlegmatic nature might rub off on her and that because I'd done alright in life by being ( I hope) decent. I could maybe make a difference.

That difference... .the thing that attracted her to me and me to her ( she said it so many times... .) in the first instance will now be held forever against me.

Such a waste... .

[downnout]

Krakatoa  - very well put. Pretty much sums it up for most, I'm sure.

[Skippy]

I stayed because I ... .was "conditioned"  to believe that I was the one. She told me that ALL her other relationships (... .prior to our... relationship) were meaningless... .

... .she immediately dumped her then current beau. Flattered, you bet, ... .and I initially balked at the whole thing and told her I really did not wish to be involved and really had a moral dilemma about the state of affairs. ... .She needed a real man not a boy.

That's why we stay, because we fell in love with a facade. We didn't know it at the time and we can't believe that when the change happens the person you thought you fell in love with has seemingly disappeared.

Yet... .you hope... .all this chaos can become calm as the initial period was so , so wondrous. That is what one holds onto. Your ideal and also theirs.

I stayed because I stupidly thought... .  I could maybe make a difference.

... the thing that attracted her to me and me to her ( she said it so many times... .) in the first instance will now be held forever against me.

Perfect description, frighteningly similar to mine... .right down to the "real man" statement which seems to appear in many other posts. 

I think it's helpful to understand where we were just victimized and where we were, as you say, "stupid"; acting inappropriately.

I think I had an over simplistic view love... .but it is naive thinking that life not a more sophisticated than that... .

I was naive... .and too and and too experienced to even think that was part of it.

"When a motherless woman attaches to a romantic partner so quickly and completely, her attraction often derives not from mutual affection but from what she hopes HE can give to HER." 

She [author] goes on to state that ALL people feel this to some degree.   [but] People who were well-mothered have an emotional foundation that is lacking in the less-mothered.  They tend to grab for intimacy as a form of narcissistic need.

I was absent from school the day they taught this.  Wish I wasn't... .it would have saved me a lot of pain.

Really goods posts... .thanks inthelight and Krakatoa

[meredith]

She goes on to state that ALL people feel this to some degree, but motherless women feel the deprivation that causes this more profoundly than others. 

hmm.  than other women?  or than all other people?  i guess the book was about women, so i shouldn't make too much of it.  but i note that the stats you quote further down don't specify a female population, just a 'population'. 

People who were well-mothered have an emotional foundation that is lacking in the less-mothered. 

that sounds like john bowlby's theory of attachment.  it also sounds like something someone told me once about 'bulletproof kids'.  she said that when people studied those who had survived emotionally through meat-grinder childhoods, the two near-universal common factors were found to be high intelligence and 'the existence of any stable, reliable adult somewhere in their lives.'  didn't have to be a mother or even a parent, actually.  i infer that the point is the presence of that stable base.

Attachment theorists (is that a JOB description? 

sort of, but more like a philosophy-description. it's roughly equivalent to saying 'oedipal theorists' or 'behavioural theorists' - they're all streams of thought and practice in the psychiatric world.  google 'john bowlby' or 'attachment theory'.  it's a great theory; at least it's the one i like best of all the ones i've heard of.  i don't know if attachment disorder is another formally-recognised diagnosis in the dsm.  but if you check it out, you'll probably find that the general concept shades itself well to secondary diagnoses of NPD and apd, more than explanations of people like us.

so that's what interests me.  i like bowlby's theory very much; it makes human sense rather than clinical sense to me.  but the odd thing is that if you look at it and the descriptions of how it affects people, the case histories and examples sound to me more like people with BPD than people who stick with them.  so . . . what makes it that one person with x type of childhood background comes out of it more or less with all their faculties basically intact and functioning properly, but another one gets mutated?

i know that part of what walked me into the relationship with my ex was a huge level of similarity between his early experiences and mine.  we basically had a lot in common; a lot of common vocabulary and language.  and frankly, i think that in a lot of ways i just didn't get it when i heard about him.  i recognised a lot of the details, but i just didn't get the style of his reactions to it.  he'd say (wrist to brow) 'you just don't understand what it's like . . . when i was a kid my mom used to . . . x . . . y . . . z, and poor poor pitiful me!' and i'd say ' . . . yeah . . . ?  i get that angle on it.  been there.  the part i don't get is how you go from [formative experience] to [current nutjob behaviour style].  explain me that.'  that's about when he'd start sulking and giving up.  i still don't get it, but something was different between him and me.

it is very interesting. 

[Gulfstream]

Well, you can get caught up in unproven theories and send yourself into a spin with them, and you are no farther along than if you went swimming.  It doesn't matter what the heck happened to change him, just understand that you can't, he is mentally disordered, and you may be deluding your self that he is like you. They are chameleon like; they color themselves to the environment. All you know is what you saw, and that was a lie.

I think trying to figure him is not at all productive to healing, because you are not N/C, not really, are you?

[LAnn]

Well, Meredith, that was a perfect metaphor -- the watermark.  And JoAnnaK mentioned the subtlety of emotional abuse, all which remind me of a therapist's comment that such relationships are the most dangerous.  Whereas he stated that physical abuse is easier to see and separate from.   It is true that many here did suffer from physical abuse and other terrors and stayed for reasons I don't understand unless it is the familiar... .how one was raised?  However, for many it is probably the illusiveness of BPD in-acting behavior that took some time to sort out.  And many people have qualities of perseverance; they like to see a task to completion and don't give up easily.  When in a commitment these qualities are applied until enough time passes that a different and shocking reality of the insidious nature of BPD dawns. This was true for me.   When I did learn about BPD, it was intellectual; it took more time to understand on a deeper level how dangerous it is, and that the illness was more powerful than any strengths I brought to the relationship.

[LAnn]

Skip,

  My exbf left me, but as I look back, I remember thinking that at some point if he were to begin another cycle I wouldn't fight to prevent him from the consequences.  For a long time here on bpdfamily I felt guilty about not fighting for the relationship when he got involved with another woman.  Now I remember my earlier thought and feel better:  although I was hurt and confused and ego-bruised about the other woman, I didn't fight to keep the relationship or to try to reason with him about the symptoms of BPD he was cycling through again.   Oh, I complained and remonstrated with him.  But I was exhausted and spent, and knew trying further would only destroy me.  The relationship was poisonous, and while my pride suffered, at some level I was relieved.  That didn't make the pain any less.  I still had to process the why and how and what if's and should have's... .and struggle with the emotional turmoil while my rational mind informed me it was best.  That reconciliation of mind and emotions has been the hardest for me.   I've  finally reached enough equilibrium where I can strengthen the neglected parts of me. It may have taken me longer than others; we all go through our various paces of grief and anger before attention to our deeper selves (other than tending our fresh wounds) is possible.

[Skippy]

That reconciliation of mind and emotions has been the hardest for me. 

This is what I struggle with now.

I find, with time, that I am willing to test myself with more painful realism's and shed the copping tools I learned here... .they are great, but they are like "training wheels"... .the point is to learn to "ride" without them.

I find myself doing all the things I need to do to go forward.  New interests.  New romantic encounters.  And cleaning up any carnage from the relationship.

But when I catch myself, I realize that my laugh is shallow, my taste buds never impressed, my hope a little dim, my zeal for being alive, tempered, my eyes not as bright. 

I think I'm on a bell curve* that started upward about 2 years ago, peaked in the period after the break-up (6 months ago), and now I'm past the midpoint slipping downward.  Boy, I hope this curve isn't symetrical.

It's a very interesting comment.

Skip


P.S. What was the methaphor referenced in your previous post?  Can you PM or post back?


*Bell curve www.ap.buffalo.edu/idea/udny/Sec1images/1-12.jpg

[Krakatoa]

I fought seriously hard for her several times  but by the last time I too felt an underlying sense of relief. I didn't have the mental wherewithall to go any further. I'd basically lost a good deal of myself to her and the madness, I was exhausted, so to an extent unclenched everything and finally went with the inevitable. Kind of like those war films where the wounded guy stops and says " Leave me here... .You go on without me , I'm just a burden now."

I think Skip, that those reconciliations mentioned by LAnn are incredibly difficult to reinstate, as our original mindset has been knocked out of us. That pleasing jigsaw puzzle ( albeit with a few pieces missing!)that attracted them to us has been kicked all over our mental living rooms . That's what we have to re-construct. Not easy because it's no thousand piecer... .it's many more than that.

As an example... .I've just received an e-mail from her entitled "Here's something that'll make you smile"

Her one and only 'friend" who lives in a different country is getting married. She was badly starved of oxygen at birth and as a result is both physically and mentally slightly impaired. My ex is mocking her efforts to make food and freeze it for the wedding. My ex cannot stand it. She's insanely jealous.

I just cannot even bring myself to respond.

I am not smiling.

Why did I go there ?

[lml]

The underlying basis for both the attraction we feel and the difficulty in letting go of these relationships are very complex.  I personally have made a multi-year study of it in my own life and am still not sure I have the answer.  Some combination of unmet needs/behaviors from earlier life experiences, parental relationship patterns, self-esteem issues, fear of being alone, fear of being wrong, a highly romanticized version of love, an errant belief that we can "fix" it, an underlying belief that the situation is our fault, and a host of other potential issues are at play.

In the end, I think that understanding is less important than behavior.  I still see my bp occasionally and despite all I know, I feel an attraction after spending time together.  That is almost unbelievable to me after all I've been through.  Since I don't think I am insane or personality disordered, I think it just reflects just how strongly I am wired in a way that this particular person triggers.  It doesn't matter though.  Regardless of how I feel, there is no way that I would act on those feelings and that's the bottom line.  If I hadn't eventually found the strength to act against my feelings, I would have been stuck in this mess for many, many, more years than I actually was.

[LAnn]

Skip,

About the "watermark" metaphor, it is on the 2nd page and by Meredith, posted again here below:

even his weirdness was pretty ambiguously weird.  his craziness was like a watermark on paper:  it's genuinely, seriously there, but you have to look for it and you have to tilt the paper to find the focus that will show it to you.  even when you find a piece of it, it's the same colour as the rest of the paper it's printed on.  i really did need time and experience to let me get a grip on the nature of it, and understand where and how and why it was all wrong.  i couldn't have gained anything by leaving soon.

I think this is a great description of how subtle the BPD behavior can be, and how difficult to recognize... .why it may take us so long to really "see" it, or why we feel "gaslighted" or that we are going crazy!

[blade]

For me it was/is a combo of a loss of love with her child... .And my addiction to constant sex with the beautiful BPD mom, and me playing the male role of the perfect family. But it wasn't real, except for the kid.

[Marcie]

great thread, love the watermark comment & the comment about leaving sooner wouldn't have done anything for me