Do they still love you after they leave you?

by **FrayedEndOfSanity** » Mon Nov 16, 2009 6:32 am

TatteredKnight wrote:Nope, not to my knowledge. It seems (from Frayed's new avatar) that we're both fans of 4-dimensional geometry, though.

What can I say? Tesseracts are awesome. The movie wasn't bad either, although I prefer the original Cube.

Unfortunately, I can't think about them for too long or my brain cells start dying of forced labor... :mrgreen:

I am a BPD and I actually value their conversation. It isn't very often that men talk about emotions in the beginning but to be able to relate to a BPD scenario is great insight. With that said, I don't agree with their viewpoints since it seems they have been jaded by their exes and that might be skewing their view of things.
Reading the words above actually made me feel like a leper. I belong to a society of people that act like 4 yr. olds. :cry:

Ugghh, that hurts but maybe it is what I need to hear. If I really want to fix myself, I need to see the full spectrum of problems I cause. I obviously don't understand my own personal relationships so this is a good way for me to see the otherside's point of view.

by **marylynn** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 3:04 pm

i have a new question regarding this topic. it seems like my borderline in my life does this cycle of clinging to me, then distancing from me. (then it takes alot of time - several months - for the clinging portion to begin again) during the distancing times, i tend to be really sweet (although i am really sweet most of the time toward her). i also tend to not make many other plans with friends she is jealous of, because when i do, she gives me the silent treatment. i tend to always make myself available in hopes she will ask me to do something. here is my question: if i make these other plans, will she be jealous even when we are in a distancing part of our cycle? she always makes other plans. if she does get jealous, will that push her away more? that is the last thing i want, so that is why i avoid people who she does not seem to like. any advice?? [again, i know i am codependent, so i know i should not wait around for anyone. i am really just looking for advice on whether or not she will get jealous and will that make her push me away more]

by **DowntownDC** » Sat Nov 28, 2009 8:06 pm

I don't agree with their viewpoints since it seems they have been jaded by their exes and that might be skewing their view of things.

Truebesos, I'm sure you are right. As a nonBPD who was in a BPD relationship for 15 years, I can tell you there is no way we Nons can entirely undo the damage of those years, much of which we contributed to due to our codependent natures. It takes two willing people to establish such a toxic relationship. So, like you BPDs, we Nons have our issues to work on and our residual damage that we try to compensate for, knowing we cannot eliminate all of it.

When discussing a friend's GF with him, for example, I told him that her behavior sounds like it has strong aspects of BPD. To compensate for my skewed view, however, I quickly cautioned him to trust only his own judgement, explaining that I had been so burned by BPD -- by my own codependence, actually -- that I tend to see BPD everywhere. To make my point, I jokingly told him that I had even seen it in his dog's behavior last week.

Reading the words above actually made me feel like a leper. I belong to a society of people that act like 4 yr. olds.

If you know of a better way to explain it please tell us Nons how to do it. Because the nonBPDs on this forum likely have my codependent nature, it pains us to be hurting the feelings of a whole group of people -- the very people we are drawn to -- in order to discuss BPD inteligently. I am always aware, for example, that the advice I give to a "recovering Non" is likely to be read by one of the many teenage BPDs on this forum. I realize that BPDs have been suffering 24/7 since childhood and do not want to add to their pain.

Toward that end, I try to explain to their nonBPD spouses and partners that BPDs are not monsters, are not crazy, and are not from Mars. Instead, they have all the same feelings as the rest of us. That is why, especially with newbie Nons, I often take time to explain how they experience dissociation and splitting occassionally even as adults. I also explain how they cannot avoid doing black/white thinking when startled or extremely scared because our brains are hard-wired to do that.

What is most difficult to explain, however, is the question every Non most wants answered: Did she really love me or was it all just an act? The importance of that question is evident in the seven pages that this thread (started by Nyce) has accumulated in less than five weeks. I haven't found a better way to reassure a Non that he was really loved than to explain how a million fathers never question the love of their four-year-old daughters, all of whom exhibit the same love-you/hate-you behavior exhibited by adult BPDs.

Nor have I found a better way to explain to a Non that his BPD wife is not crazy but, rather, is using the very defense mechanisms we all relied on all day long when we were four years old -- and which she had to carry forward as she matured in order to survive childhood.

Nor have I found a better way to explain to a Non that his wife is not a damned b*tch but, rather, a person who suffers from an inability to regulate emotions, the very same problem he had all through his early childhood and still experiences when he gets tired or drinks too much.

Nor have I found a better way to explain to a Non that his wife is not hopelessly lost but, rather, a person who can learn to regulate her emotions like most adults do if she is strong enough to endure the emotional pain of becoming more self aware. But, if you come across a better way to explain these things, Truebesos, I encourage you to share it with us. You likely will find that I am the first to adopt it.

by **Truebesos** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 1:17 am

DowntownDC wrote:
I don't agree with their viewpoints since it seems they have been jaded by their exes and that might be skewing their view of things.
Truebesos, I'm sure you are right. As a nonBPD who was in a BPD relationship for 15 years, I can tell you there is no way we Nons can entirely undo the damage of those years, much of which we contributed to due to our codependent natures. It takes two willing people to establish such a toxic relationship. So, like you BPDs, we Nons have our issues to work on and our residual damage that we try to compensate for, knowing we cannot eliminate all of it.

When discussing a friend's GF with him, for example, I told him that her behavior sounds like it has strong aspects of BPD. To compensate for my skewed view, however, I quickly cautioned him to trust only his own judgement, explaining that I had been so burned by BPD -- by my own codependence, actually -- that I tend to see BPD everywhere. To make my point, I jokingly told him that I had even seen it in his dog's behavior last week.
Reading the words above actually made me feel like a leper. I belong to a society of people that act like 4 yr. olds.
If you know of a better way to explain it please tell us Nons how to do it. Because the nonBPDs on this forum likely have my codependent nature, it pains us to be hurting the feelings of a whole group of people -- the very people we are drawn to -- in order to discuss BPD inteligently. I am always aware, for example, that the advice I give to a "recovering Non" is likely to be read by one of the many teenage BPDs on this forum. I realize that BPDs have been suffering 24/7 since childhood and do not want to add to their pain.

Toward that end, I try to explain to their nonBPD spouses and partners that BPDs are not monsters, are not crazy, and are not from Mars. Instead, they have all the same feelings as the rest of us. That is why, especially with newbie Nons, I often take time to explain how they experience dissociation and splitting occassionally even as adults. I also explain how they cannot avoid doing black/white thinking when startled or extremely scared because our brains are hard-wired to do that.

What is most difficult to explain, however, is the question every Non most wants answered: Did she really love me or was it all just an act? The importance of that question is evident in the seven pages that this thread (started by Nyce) has accumulated in less than five weeks. I haven't found a better way to reassure a Non that he was really loved than to explain how a million fathers never question the love of their four-year-old daughters, all of whom exhibit the same love-you/hate-you behavior exhibited by adult BPDs.

Nor have I found a better way to explain to a Non that his BPD wife is not crazy but, rather, is using the very defense mechanisms we all relied on all day long when we were four years old -- and which she had to carry forward as she matured in order to survive childhood.

Nor have I found a better way to explain to a Non that his wife is not a damned b*tch but, rather, a person who suffers from an inability to regulate emotions, the very same problem he had all through his early childhood and still experiences when he gets tired or drinks too much.

Nor have I found a better way to explain to a Non that his wife is not hopelessly lost but, rather, a person who can learn to regulate her emotions like most adults do if she is strong enough to endure the emotional pain of becoming more self aware. But, if you come across a better way to explain these things, Truebesos, I encourage you to share it with us. You likely will find that I am the first to adopt it.

Downtown DC, I have spent over a week thinking about this thread. I can't seem to find any other words to describe the cycle that BPDs feel every day. It may hurt to say we are similar to four year olds but it is very accurate and in fact it has helped me through some splitting issues this last week. Almost jokingly, I would ask myself if my five year old would act any different and it seemed to give some perceptive to the situation!

by **KMTTP** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:16 am

AGCDEFG wrote:I've been diagnosed with BPD and I would disagree with all of you (I'm in treatment and have already had years of treatment so I'm better). Maybe I was different because I never abused substances and had some insight into myself from the time I was little. I knew I was different and had trouble putting the screws on my emotions, but I didn't know why. I felt crazy. However, when I loved somebody it did not go away just because I left them or they left me. It really hurt. Embarassingly, sometimes I would even threaten suicide if a man left me, although I never intended on doing it. I blush at the old me and the manipulations I tried just to "get back" at somebody who had hurt me. I seemed to have a much harder time accepting "it's over" than others, but I still felt deep love.

The only time I had a black split was when my beloved grandmother passed away. I didn't grieve. I have never grieved. Yet I feel her spirit with me every day (I'm a believer in the paranormal and life after this world). I miss her a lot, but I blocked out her death successfully so that I just didn't think about it because it was so horrifying that I couldn't or I'd really lose it. Now that I believe in the next world, I feel her with me a lot and I remember her often, but I still have never grieved.

I have a really good understanding of my own disorder now. I'm really appalled at some of the things I did when I felt that somebody crossed me or rejected me. I was never a bad person either, which is hard for non-borderlines to accept. I always had a good heart and would give money to beggars on the street and rescue animals and cry when somebody told me a sad story and go out of my way to help people. I just have a disorder that sometimes makes my emotions completely take over my logic and, what should be, my normal restraints. Once the borderline is aware of his/her emotional dysregulation, this can be controlled most of the time, although it is a lifelong struggle.

I've been married twice. The first time it lasted seventeen years and was full of drama, but we also had lots of long stretches of normalcy. I never cheated on him or did some immoral stuff that some borderlines do. I did love him. Long story why we divorced, but we're friends now. My current marriage has lasted fourteen years so far and going strong. Hub hasn't seen the borderline side of me at all. He knows I have more anxiety than some folks, but I've really learned to control myself a lot. If I feel like "going borderline" as I call it, I ring up my therapist and she talks me through it and we usually end up laughing. It's nice to be able to see when I'm being silly.

By the way, I never picked men based on how much I could manipulate them. I picked men who seemed to actually like me. I felt so unlovable that I accepted the love of anyone I was halfway attracted to who I felt may care. Money didn't matter at all either. I just had such poor self-esteem that I married the first man who I was attracted to and who asked me to be his wife. When he would verbally abuse me, and he did (A LOT), I thought I deserved it. I cried and sometimes fought back in borderline fashion, but I stayed with him a long time and had children with him. In retrospect, I think both of us agree we had problems and did not understand one another. Amazingly, our grown children are doing well.

I don't even know why I posted all this...lol. I guess I wanted you to understand that not all borderlines are the same. Just as not all autistic children are identical there is no blatant "all borderlines." There are some sicker than others. There are some that are mean under their disorder and some who really don't like the way they are and understand when they are being obnoxious and want to be better. And some of us who do try hard and DO better. Some of us make amends to those we have hurt, if they are willing to allow it. So...yeah...there is no one way a borderline feels or behaves. Some may block you out and some may want to but be unable to. Depends on the borderline because beyond the borderline, we are all unique people.

I guess I just wanted to talk to you as a borderline who was a bit irked at "they all." Maybe I was just venting. Have a nice night

I agree...my ex is an awesome person...big heart, kind and just overall caring. She never cheated on me or wanted to be with me for money (as i am broke...lol). I just wanted to say that...i do realize that us non bpd's can generalize with the best of them...a lot of us are just hurt. It is true...some people are just mean underneath it all as a person. I know my ex felt bad...i sensed it. I know she was hurting...and could not control her emotions. love her...always will...

by **DowntownDC** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:38 am

Truebesos wrote:Downtown DC, I have spent over a week thinking about this thread. I can't seem to find any other words to describe the cycle that BPDs feel every day. It may hurt to say we are similar to four year olds but it is very accurate and in fact it has helped me through some splitting issues this last week. Almost jokingly, I would ask myself if my five year old would act any different and it seemed to give some perceptive to the situation!

Truebesos, thanks so much for taking time to consider this important matter. And thanks, especially, for your warm and gracious response to my question. As I understand it, the problem is not that your inner child is largely in control -- that is true for all of us -- but, rather, that your inner child's emotional development is frozen at a younger age (perhaps four years?) instead of the more mature level (8 or 10 years?) attained by the inner child of a nonBPD, who is able to better regulate his emotions.

For all human beings, it seems true that the inner child makes at least 90% (if not 95%) of the important decisions. I was 50 years old before I understood that simple notion. And it took me 12 years to do it.

What happened was that, for 12 years, I took my bipolar foster son to a weekly family group meeting with the psychologist who was treating him. Whenever the psychologist challenged me on something, I always had an elaborate well-thought-out explanation for doing whatever I had chosen to do. Never mind that what I had chosen was not working with my foster son and never mind that I kept repeating the same pattern year after year.

The psychologist was always greatly amused by my explanations. He would laugh and point out, in his kindly fashion, that my elaborate rationalizations could not disguise the fact that my inner child -- not my adult -- was calling all the shots, making nearly all the decisions. In any contest between the adult and child, he claimed, the child would almost always win. But I just could not swallow that concept.

Yet, after twelve years of his gentle rebukes, it dawned on me one night -- right as I was about to drift into sleep -- why he had to be right. My inner child, I suddenly realized, is the sole judge of what is fun and what is not fun. That decision is all powerful. The adult part of my mind will nearly always conclude that it makes no sense -- indeed, would be preposterous -- to do something, go somewhere, or date someone I do not enjoy. My adult logic thus nearly always has to end up in the lap of my inner child.

This is why, as I tried to explain on another thread, learning about my exW's problem (BPD) and my problem (codependency) is the easy part. What is difficult is internalizing that understanding, i.e., transforming knowledge into wisdom, which requires that my feelings catch up with my intellectual thoughts.

Simply stated, I must persuade my child that my adult views of my ex's illness and my own codependency are correct -- an objective I have mostly attained because I've been working on it for the past three years. Had I failed in that effort, I would remain stuck in a destructive pattern, repeating my past mistakes over and over, because my child will be calling nearly all the shots.

by **dbruning** » Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:36 pm

Love to hook you back in and use you to keep them from being alone and having to face any abandonment issues they struggle with. Am I being harsh, yes but maybe I'm bitter. Despite (now I know it's twelve men) she slept with and/or dated while we were together (first casually, then dating/breakup/dating, etc), there was even a pattern where she would goto this other guy she had initially met as a one night stand (who basically used her, he is a real creep) whenever things were not "ok" with us. This hurt me very deeply and when I explained this to her I got the response that haunts me still:

"If you had not hurt me, I would have not had to go to him." Let's not forget the email her friend shared with me where my ex (12 days after she moved out) was telling how she had been lying to me about seeing Ian. Then another dated a month later where she was iffy about dating him because his friends hit on her whenever he left the room and told her he was a creep and cheated on his other gf's. Her response...well at least I don't have to feel bad about not having anything further going on and I can just have fun. Really, a year and a half of us dating and only 2 months after the breakup?

I do need to add that she has added the following statement after our breakups, "I don't think I'll ever be able to 'trust' anyone ever again." but she sure can jump into new sexual relationships right away and be claiming she's dating 'nice' guys. And her response to seeing another guy each time we got back together? She just stopped all communication and ignored them, no follow up or explanation but did keep there numbers and as friends on facebook.

Haha it's just all so freakin ridiculus!

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Love_vs_Lust

I really like the 'lust attribute: Caring about some thing or some person because of what it or he or she can offer us, sounds really close to how nons who become addicted (yes I'm replacing love with addiction) with a borderline and who are also codependant react to the relationship. Face it if we didn't feel love by doing for others why would we have stayed though all the repeated ups and downs. Oh how I envy the men she slept with that were able to just have a nice sexual encounter and move on without her hooking them in...

by **SmileXx** » Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:49 pm

I didn't read all of the thread, so maybe I'm slightly off topic here.

But in general, they don't love you for a while, and then they need you, whether you ever find that part out is debatable.
The actions are just actions. There's not need to justify something happening at that moment.
At least in my experience, I never think that far. I just do what I do and deal with the consequences later.

-shrug-

by **marylynn** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:16 am

in-recovery wrote:I am a borderline and i have just managed to break up my relationship with all my nonsense. I have driven away partner after partner and all my friends too. I just wanted you to know.. that even when im splitting... feeling as much hatred as i can feel.. overwhelmed and drowning in it... underneath.. yes-there is still love. and a desperate wish to stop being so mean... but once its started i dont know how to stop it. im crying as i type this because you seem like a good person.. and i know its hard... but please keep on loving her. just keep on.
She loves you even when she hates you. And she doesnt want to be this way, i promise.

when you state that "she loves you even when she hates you", could you please elaborate. i am also curious why my friend with bpd always tries to get me jealous and mad when we are getting along. could you please give me some insight? lastly, what do you REALLY want your friend or partner to do even when you push them away? thank you in advance for any additional insight...

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