Emotional cheating?

And coming from a world like that I can imagine how hard and painful it all must be to get to a full understanding. All self-recovery is definitely hard in anyones case though I think. Definitely doable though and I wish everyone the best in finding happiness and recovery.

I guess emotionally cheating could be falling in love with someone whom you're not in a relationship with, but you're in a romantic relationship with someone else. And you haven't told the person who you're in a romantic relationship with. Thats my guess.

conclave wrote:I feel like there's a lot of instances that pwBPD in the moment will reach out to another person out of need rather than out of caring or real intimacy for the other person. Not that pwBPD don't try to be caring however. All the symptoms of BPD seem to make it hard for the sufferer to know what they really want in the long term and it results in most behaviors being done to soothe their own emotional needs in the moment because it is such a painful disorder to live with.

I mostly agree but I take great exception to the real intimacy portion. I also still feel that fits within the 2 problems I listed. Reaching out to others out of need is still in need of something... often a need for validation and a sense of intimacy.... which means there is something occurring elsewhere that is preventing it from happening within the current relationship or you'd be reaching for your needs there.

In the case of emotionally cheating, there absolutely is intimacy; emotional attachment/bonding is the most intimate we can get as humans. We're on a BPD forum. Emotional vulnerability is felt to be a liability or risk for many people so building that form of attachment and trust is certainly intimate. There are a variety of BPD-related reasons why this can occur outside of a relationship but regardless of the reason, it still signifies an unhealthy relationship dynamic in the current one. The question is: which partner is holding back... and why?

So yes while I get why it is hard to see how anyone can do those things without secretly wanting more (because I have asked myself the same thing about pwBPD I've known), when you apply the premise I just described, it becomes very apparent that you can't even begin to place common BPD related thinking into mainstream interpersonal ideas of boundaries, because the reality for the sufferer when they haven't gotten enough treatment is so different from the average persons reality of interpersonal relations.

I'm not sure how to reply to this because you've written it around the idea that the act lacks true intimacy whereas I believe it is the truest form of intimacy (providing it's legitimate emotional bonding/attachment which is what emotionally cheating is) but then there's also kind of a blurred technicality in regards to BPD.

If you already have began building the truest form of intimacy with someone else, I do not believe you can do that without secretly wanting more. The circumstances, situations and fears we presently associate with are usually the reasons we don't act on those wants. (e.g., Someone may not want to leave a relationship for xx reason but keep the emotional relationship going because they don't have that in the other. The moment the other partner breaks up with them, where do they run? Yep. To the person with whom they have emotional attachment - even though they won't actively make the choice to go their on their own - but now circumstances have changed that offset the original fear).

Someone always wants more. Nobody bonds emotionally and intimately without that urge. It doesn't occur in more friendships because our boundaries (usually) prevent it from getting to that level of intimacy.

While I agree on what you said about the BPD related thinking, I feel there might be an exception here because this level of intimacy is based on the same emotional-style of thinking so, in a way, we're ALL using a form of BPD-style thinking in these situations. Unless someone with BPD can tell me they can attach emotionally and intimately without wanting a physically relationship or without wish that their current partner were more like the other person? (which to me is wishing for the other person).

Where I think it gets a bit technical and blurry in regards to BPD is whether it's actually an intimate emotional attachment with someone or an impulsive projection of intimacy. If it's been going on for 6 months or a year or more, I'd bet it now is real attachment. A few weeks or a month, maybe not.

Conclave while I agree with what you have to say many BPDs are very truly compassionate from a compassionate place

With a halfway functioning person, I would agree Empathy and I see it a lot too but in my instance, my ex had a screwed up relationship of 9 years with his ex and like I previously stated, was a committophobe and was emotional distancing because he could not invest in me like I could him.

I think many times its more about if someone has maladaptive behaviors, emotional cheating happens because transference allows them to repeat behaviors and feel justified to do it..Oh shes not giving me what I want...Ill get it somewhere else when in all actuality it should be..shes not able to give me what she wants because I AM NOT ABLE TO RECIEVE it..it scares me..

Cant speak on everyones behalf...I havent done a gazillion person survey, but thats just my experience..

Its a tricky give and take. I have experience it several times in the course of my relationships..If this happens one has to evaluate why one hangs onto committophobes in the first place

Just like they told me in family therapy..in relationships, you can not treat it as an invididual who needs to be diagnosed and treated..two or more people relationships have dynamics which allow them to act the way they do in enmeshed situations

Mellow your exactly right..EC allows one to fall in love with someone else without banging them

went through the same thing with my ex

she didnt really want to be with me anymore...but couldnt say it....started talking to someone behind my back...phone disappeared the last month(lying to me saying it was about an xmas present she had planned for me that involved my family and didnt want me to see it) instead of just saying it and telling me she became irritated and caused fights that were stupid and pointless and she knew id blow up on her...and when i did because of my frustration she found it as an excuse to exit.....she would be loving, caring, and cute....and at times when i tried it seemed like she wasnt even there......she even initiated sex the last week we were together and then cut it off right before actual act......

while things were sort of rocky...it seemed to happen so fast....because before this things were still pretty ok....and even during this period shed still drive over to my apartment and jump in my bed and give me kisses and kiss my penis as a loving gesture like she always had....

its a ###$ ill never get over...i understand these people just cant do it right and walk away....then go find something else if they arent happy......but it doesnt make it any easier...to this day i wonder why it just couldnt have been done the normal way especially when i asked her several times if she was sure this is what she wanted...i remember one day she went shopping with the girls in her family and we texted all day and i sent her a picture of a card she had sent me "i didnt think you saved any of those"...."ya of course i did they mean alot to me"

and even after when i knew...she did her best to try and hide it all....like i think she actually convinced herself it didnt happen like that....doing her best to protect her image....she would still fb my family members wish them happy birthdays....even recently commenting on one of my friends statuses about a local bar we used to go to......and she has no idea what kind of mental aggravation and trauma this has caused me....she cant understand it

i cant only imagine the convos "hes mean...hes an asshole...he doesnt really love me" "ill show you how much i want to be with you....ill show you how a woman should be treated" blah blah

it really hurts when you make sacrifices and pour alot into a relationship...and they toss you aside just like that and are happy....it could have been so simple...i guess in her distored view i wasnt showing enough love....wasnt making wild love to her anymore or treating her the way i used to....and she wanted that back....but it became difficult without getting much in return....and her never growing up or changing

in adding to my story...heres a girl who basically had no real responsiblities the whole 2.5 years....and when i left to go back home she didnt have a dollar to her name....she knew what she was doing and still let me help her with a cell bill....and when i left thinking it was my fault i left her my 2k couch which she then sold to her parents for money

i tried to believe she didnt do what she did for a little while and remain friends...i got things like "i miss you...i hate that we were best friends and that you know me better than my own family"...."if i had known things were going to end up like this i would have stayed(in my hometown where i had a good job and took care of almost everything)...one day her mother cussed her out and told her she was a terrible person because she had to borrow money from them before she got paid so she could pay bills....and she calls me crying...lolol....eventually i wanted honesty and asked for it and said id understand...but i got nothing and went off the handle on her and her family

i hate to wish anything bad on anyone....but i really do hope one day life hands her something bad ...so bad that it breaks her down....she is such a manipulator and a liar( i even had a talk on the phone with her grandmother about it....and she understood everything i said and even said i had a place to stay if i ever wanted to come visit)....yet no one will confront her about it.....they say all is fair in love and war....but i dont think thats true...there are "war crimes"....and there are love crimes too.....but some people dont see it that way and once they can push you out who cares how you feel ya know...just on to the next one she can manipulate with her charm and beauty and make them prove how special she thinks she is...all she wants is that proven by someone who will make her not have to lift a foot in regards to being a responsible adult

im a pretty shy guy...considered very good looking....my best friends girlfriend has girls that are always talking about me...but im reserved...a man of few words...sometimes not as confident as i could be....and this girl just came at me....and made me open up...made me feel so comfortable and confident......i took her to nice places...to do nice things....gave her shopping money....but when i did that it was "you never send me flowers" or "how come you dont post on fb about me".....i didnt need that...i knew where my heart was and everyone that knew me knew where i was.....but it was never really enough...always another hoop to jump through...i pray that this never changes and it wasnt just with me...but i can only imagine how this other guy feels "im the man...i stole this hot/charming girl from another man...she really loves me"....and look at how it makes me feel...right back to square one....i have girls interested and now im scared

the sad part for me is that before her i had girls who were hardworking and responsible that had huge crushes on me(as did this girl...we knew each other through family and she would always talk about me and they would tease her about me because she had a crush...i even visted them once with her uncle and i stayed at their house and she didnt know i was inside and her mom was talking to her "oh he can stay here thats more than fine with me" in this very seductive tone)....they were maybe less charming and pretty....and for me i took the bait....and got hosed big time....and here i am wishing i had a time machine

Don't have time to read all the posts just yet, but in response to some of the stuff so far I just find it hard to see it as true intimacy when relationships often trigger BPD behavior in someone with BPD, and then as someone said things happen like "oh they aren't giving me what I want so I will find it from someone else". When a thought like that can happen at the snap of a finger about someone you've been with for awhile I find it hard to see that as having true intimacy with that person. The fact that when it comes to someone a pwBPD tries to get close to that their needs can instantaneously override the relationship, doesn't seem like true intimacy to me... It is kind of hard as I said though because BPD triggered thoughts are based on such different premises. Will be back later to reply more if I missed anything!

overanxious wrote:it really hurts when you make sacrifices and pour alot into a relationship...and they toss you aside just like that and are happy

I'm sorry you're still healing from all of that, and I don't want to side-track from the original topic but I think that quote is the biggest misconception most people have. They're typically NOT happy; it's often a distraction from emotions they weren't able to handle effectively in the previous relationship - which is why it usually happens with the next person also. The often lack of problem-solving skills which can turn problems into crisis situations but they lack crisis survival skills so it snowballs and bad situations often become worse by the impulsive methods of coping.

I'm not saying you aren't supposed to hurt. That was the worst hurt I've ever experienced do I know it hurts. Assuming your ex has BPD, from all those with the disorder whom I have spoken with, it does hurt them as well. We just don't observe that part and because the communication had so many problems, so it makes it harder to understand all of it and easier to wonder some pretty awful things.

But I know you also post in the NPD forum about your ex so perhaps you're trying to slap a label on her behavior and she's just a bad person in general? Without knowing she was dx'd, it would be wrong to assume she is BPD and wrong to assume anyone with the disorder is like she is. If she has N traits, that's a whole different set of 'rules' and this conversation doesn't really apply.

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Angie,

In regards specifically to your ex, you see Narc traits (well, all of us see Narc traits) in him so it's sort of a different set of rules there because a Narc cannot build intimacy. Where a BPD can build it and the disorder may try to sabotage the efforts, a Narc lacks the capacity to even do that - except perhaps intimacy with their sexy super-ego?

So in the case of someone with N traits, it's more about control, power and possessing objects than it will ever be about intimacy and emotional bonding. In some cases, this type of act is punishment towards a different "possession".

I understand NPD intensely after researching to find reasons behind what happened to me..but its not just NARCS

commitphobes in general are not open to intimacy in anyway shape or form, hence emotional distance and emotional cheating with others..They bounce from emotional cheaters to emotional cheaters when it becomes too scary.

I don't disagree where people do it to fullfill a need but in my experience many exes emotionally cheat because true committed intimacy is scary

whoever said emotional vulnerability? EXACTLY!

Yes we are in a BPD forum where we exhibit intimacy but S.O intimacy is something way deeper and hard to comprehend for some. My mom explained it sometime as two becoming one. And in a way shes right

-- Fri May 31, 2013 10:16 pm --

to put my last part into persepctive

I have encounter several people who a parent has died and there remaining partner can't deal with the lack of that intense emotional intimacy that they start treating a favored child in that aspect and it becomes "weird" fast..NOW great theres probably a lot of maladaption there but my point is that is how much people crave emotional intimacy and can feel jaded when someone "cheats"

msangeedepp wrote:I understand NPD intensely after researching to find reasons behind what happened to me..but its not just NARCS

commitphobes in general are not open to intimacy in anyway shape or form, hence emotional distance and emotional cheating with others..They bounce from emotional cheaters to emotional cheaters when it becomes too scary.

I don't disagree where people do it to fullfill a need but in my experience many exes emotionally cheat because true committed intimacy is scary

whoever said emotional vulnerability? EXACTLY!

Yes we are in a BPD forum where we exhibit intimacy but S.O intimacy is something way deeper and hard to comprehend for some. My mom explained it sometime as two becoming one. And in a way shes right

-- Fri May 31, 2013 10:16 pm --

to put my last part into persepctive

I have encounter several people who a parent has died and there remaining partner can't deal with the lack of that intense emotional intimacy that they start treating a favored child in that aspect and it becomes "weird" fast..NOW great theres probably a lot of maladaption there but my point is that is how much people crave emotional intimacy and can feel jaded when someone "cheats"

Narcs, Aspies, Sociopaths, commitmentphobs, etc. They all lack emotional availability.

I think you absolutely must have a level of intimacy, which requires emotional availability, in order for it to actually BE emotional cheating, otherwise it's just cheating -- which is often void of emotion/intimacy. The person who goes out with friends and cheats on their SO, are they doing it because they love/care for that one-nighter? No. Even if they sweet talk that person a few times before it happens, they're doing it for the sex - or something they associate with the sex. It's not emotional. It's being disloyal, unfaithful and simply cheating. People who try to arrange sex like that but whose behavior is discovered prior to it happening weren't emotionally cheating on their SO, they were attempting to be unfaithful because they are unfaithful. That person... is a cheater.

Perhaps my view is unique to me but that's how I see it and to me those are two different things being squeezed into the same category during this conversation. I'm morally against both but when it's emotionally cheating, there's a level of love, intimacy, infatuation and/or expressed genuine emotion occurring; you are basically falling in love with or already in love with someone you aren't physically with. People tend to feel even more betrayed when it's truly emotional cheating. On the other end, if those elements are missing but there's a "someone else", you're plain 'ole screwing around and messing with two people you don't really care about. Quite the contrast there.

I'm not sure I follow the grieving parent scenario. I don't feel that's about intimacy at all. To me that's about grief and loneliness and a trauma so severe that it's understandable how one would feel they lost their place in the world (and potentially cling to a child because they are what remains of that previous place). That's not to say it can't get weird in certain circumstances where that same parent might project a spouse-type role onto the child. But I know quite a few people who have lost a spouse and I'm unfamiliar with that occurring.


I understand what your mom was saying and I see it very similar. To me it's like two people sharing (or linking) each other souls: different people with the same dreams; same goals; same concerns; both equally wanting the other to be as happy as they deserve to be and trying to make that happen; the problems and triumphs of one are the problems and triumphs of the other. I think most emotionally available people strive for something like that. And we could use this (my version or your mothers) to illustrate the difference between emotional cheating and cheating. If the person is trying to find "this" in that other/third person, it's emotional cheating. If not, it's just cheating. And yes, cheating is related to running from/avoiding problems rather than being mature and handling them effectively.