How do you win back somebody with HPD? Does my ex have it?

shock_the_monkey wrote:

Younglife wrote:In sum, I miss the person, not the relationship.

... this is semantics. when you say you miss her, what you mean is you miss relating to her. in other words, you miss having a relationship with her.

and, before you tell me what you meant by a relationship, let me just point out that all forms of human contact are relationships of one kind or another. you liked her. you enjoyed her. it was a relationship. and it's one that you miss.

now, monkey rest his case, because monkey envisage the counsel for the defence will have a very long counter-argument!!!

No, only a short one. What I meant by "relationship" is specifically a romantic relationship, one defined when two people decide they are going to start "dating" or whatever you want to call it, and they start referring to one another as their girlfriend or boyfriend. I wish we had never entered into a romantic relationship to begin with, because that ruined the friendship that we had and the way we related to each other.

Younglife wrote:

shock_the_monkey wrote:

Younglife wrote:In sum, I miss the person, not the relationship.

... this is semantics. when you say you miss her, what you mean is you miss relating to her. in other words, you miss having a relationship with her.

and, before you tell me what you meant by a relationship, let me just point out that all forms of human contact are relationships of one kind or another. you liked her. you enjoyed her. it was a relationship. and it's one that you miss.

now, monkey rest his case, because monkey envisage the counsel for the defence will have a very long counter-argument!!!

No, only a short one. What I meant by "relationship" is specifically a romantic relationship, one defined when two people decide they are going to start "dating" or whatever you want to call it, and they start referring to one another as their girlfriend or boyfriend. I wish we had never entered into a romantic relationship to begin with, because that ruined the friendship that we had and the way we related to each other.

... what ruined this relationship was your need to parent her and limit her freedom. you thought that you could set out terms and conditions, and in so doing you drove her away. but you don't want to see this, and that's why you're now jumping through intellectual hoops rather than facing the emotional consequences.

i don't need to be right. but i do see what i see.

No, only a short one. What I meant by "relationship" is specifically a romantic relationship, one defined when two people decide they are going to start "dating" or whatever you want to call it, and they start referring to one another as their girlfriend or boyfriend. I wish we had never entered into a romantic relationship to begin with, because that ruined the friendship that we had and the way we related to each other.

... what ruined this relationship was your need to parent her and limit her freedom. you thought that you could set out terms and conditions, and in so doing you drove her away. but you don't want to see this, and that's why you're now jumping through intellectual hoops rather than facing the emotional consequences.

i don't need to be right. but i do see what i see.[/quote]
Terms and conditions are a perfectly normal part of a D/s relationship, you can look it up, and if she didn't want to agree to them, she shouldn't have entered into a D/s relationship in the first place. What ruined the relationship is exactly what our friend Roy said to her after we were talking about relationships: "You just want all the perks of a relationship without having to put any effort into it".
She wanted to be my submissive but without having to submit.
I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in that kind of relationship.
If she didn't want rules, she could have just stayed my play partner. It's very simple. I wasn't forcing her to do anything.

And if that's what drove her away, I don't give a crap. Like I said, I'm only interested in a relationship on my terms, and if she doesn't want to agree to those terms, I'm fine being single. I just wish I hadn't lost her as a friend and a play partner. I would be fine with relating to her on that level if that's what she wanted. She pretended to want something else entirely and then never followed through, and blamed me when it fell apart because she didn't put any effort into trying to negotiate and work out our problems instead of just bailing.

and now we're back to the child thing.

monkey say this as nicely as monkey possibly can. i don't have an axe to grind here. i'm just trying to tell you what's staring me in the face. you can say you don't see it but i do. you're trapped in your own world of rules and regulations, which is the prison that you hide away in from life. sure, you could argue this was a 50/50 ball but there's no point in me telling you what she got wrong when you already know.

i'll just add that, as you already know, my world is different to yours, and maybe they're irreconcilable. there are places that i hide away in from life, however, i know what i'm doing ... and i can see it in others too.

Something I do agree with shock about, and others have written about this, that adults with HPD can have a child-like mindset (at least at times), that can be attractive to others, but also can mean they do not always set adult boundaries. That's true for all or many of us, but it goes farther for people with HPD.

To be fair though, it can be confusing for other adults too. The person looks like an adult, and so it's reasonable to assume adult thinking.

It's also confusing for other adults because people with HPD have dramatic shifts in persona, and beliefs. Which one is the real them? Often even they don't know. A lot of HPD does come down to just that though, they don't know who they are, or what they want. That drive for approval/attention results in them shifting personalities to get an approval/attention fix, but the deeper who they are, what they are really comfortable with, can get buried, until it comes out... explosively, anger, and so on.

I suggest just giving her some space, and hopefully you two can do a sort of reset. Sort of because it's hard for people with cluster B personalities to let things go once there are soured memories behind, but that part is up to her.

now, of freedom, i would ask this: should people be free to choose to be enslaved, or free to choose to no longer be free. my answer would be 'no'. i believe true freedom is about empowering people, not disempowering them. now, i've no doubt you've got the drop on me regarding BDSM. nevertheless, that's my fundamental objection to the concept of dominant/submissive relationships, and all those terms and conditions. i feel they run counter to the notion of equality, and thereby freedom, in a relationship. over to you. this should be interesting!

On a personal level, the woman I got involved with that appeared to match the criteria for HPD thought she was into BDSM (i.e., she thought she wanted to engage in a submissive role) We tried, but it wasn't my thing, and turns out wasn't hers (as she would become upset, distant, emotional, etc.). I have no interest in being submissive, and not really any in being dominant either. Much prefer essentially equitable roles.

Again though, people with HPD struggle with their sense of identity, so just because a fragment of her personality is agreeable, there is more going on once you get to know them better. My intuition is is that for her to be submissive is almost surely going to trigger the much deeper what is behind HPD, loss of self, loss of identity, to appease someone else. Even if she was willing to try, it doesn't mean it's good for her.

If you two can re-establish a relationship, personally I suggest keep it equitable, and keep it real. She'll appreciate that in the long run.

shock_the_monkey wrote:and now we're back to the child thing.

monkey say this as nicely as monkey possibly can. i don't have an axe to grind here. i'm just trying to tell you what's staring me in the face. you can say you don't see it but i do. you're trapped in your own world of rules and regulations, which is the prison that you hide away in from life. sure, you could argue this was a 50/50 ball but there's no point in me telling you what she got wrong when you already know.

i'll just add that, as you already know, my world is different to yours, and maybe they're irreconcilable. there are places that i hide away in from life, however, i know what i'm doing ... and i can see it in others too.

You can disagree with me all you want, because as you say, we see things very differently. But at the end of the day, what I want is what I want, and I know that's not what you would want, but it's what I want. And I have a right to want what I want and to try to find it, because that's what would make me happy (er). You can't argue me into wanting something else. I don't feel trapped, as I said, I feel content. If I were miserable, that would be another story, but I'm not. I'm happy being single and if I want to find a relationship, this is the kind of one I would want. If somebody else wants the same thing, cool. If not, then I'm perfectly happy staying as I am, and it's perfectly within my rights to not settle for anything less than what I want or something that would not make me happy. That may be hard for some people to understand, but that's ok-you don't have to understand it, because it's not your choice to make, it's mine.

And a person can never choose to no longer be free. They always have the choice to walk away from a relationship if they don't like it. People choose freely to enter into these relationships because they like it. You may not understand or want a D/s relationship, fortunately, you have the choice to not enter into one. You can't force others to not want it either. Those who do want one, have every right to seek one. That's all there is to it, and I don't feel any need to argue my point any further. We want what we want. I can go into the psychology of that and point out how power dynamics are inherent in nature and how it works, but I don't feel a need to convince you because ultimately it doesn't matter how you feel about it.

xdude wrote:On a personal level, the woman I got involved with that appeared to match the criteria for HPD thought she was into BDSM (i.e., she thought she wanted to engage in a submissive role) We tried, but it wasn't my thing, and turns out wasn't hers (as she would become upset, distant, emotional, etc.). I have no interest in being submissive, and not really any in being dominant either. Much prefer essentially equitable roles.

Again though, people with HPD struggle with their sense of identity, so just because a fragment of her personality is agreeable, there is more going on once you get to know them better. My intuition is is that for her to be submissive is almost surely going to trigger the much deeper what is behind HPD, loss of self, loss of identity, to appease someone else. Even if she was willing to try, it doesn't mean it's good for her.

If you two can re-establish a relationship, personally I suggest keep it equitable, and keep it real. She'll appreciate that in the long run.

xdude, may I ask you if this is the same woman that had ASPD thinking? I read that 2/3 of people with HPD match criteria for ASPD too.

I wonder because with my ex, her mom (who had minored in psychology) and her boss both called her a sociopath. And she would ask me about that and wonder if they were right, because she said she didn't feel emotions like other people. I would tell her I didn't think she was a sociopath, just depressed, but the more I got to know her, the more it became apparent that what they were saying about her was true, that she was manipulative and lacked empathy, and also, apparently, a pathological liar.

It just occurred to me today that she lied to me again about something. She told me recently that she never talked to anybody about our relationship, only asked general kink questions, and she said that in order to condemn me for talking to other people about our relationship, saying I was gossiping and calling me a "horrible person". But I just remembered today how she told me she was talking to my mentor about the argument we had and asking if he could talk to me and convince me for her because I would listen to him because I was a lot like him. So in what context is she having that discussion with him?? Obviously she was talking about us to him! That's like the third time I've caught her lying.

What ended the D/s relationship with your ex? I feel like people with HPD may be drawn to the submissive role, and on some level, they are submissive, because they are easily influenced, but on another level, they can be controlling.

This quote from this article seems to really sum up this complexity:
"Individuals with histrionic personality disorder may have difficulty achieving emotional intimacy in romantic or sexual relationships. Without being aware of it, they often act out a role (e.g., “victim” or “princess”) in their relationships to others. They may seek to control their partner through emotional manipulation or seductiveness on one level, yet displaying a marked dependency on them at another level."
https://psychcentral.com/disorders/hist ... -disorder/

It was a mistake to get into a D/s relationship with her so soon, if we do make up, which is unlikely, because I'm super pissed at her and she seems to hate me too, then I won't be entering into anything like that again. I'll just keep it casual.

Younglife wrote:You can disagree with me all you want, because as you say, we see things very differently. But at the end of the day, what I want is what I want, and I know that's not what you would want, but it's what I want. And I have a right to want what I want and to try to find it, because that's what would make me happy (er). You can't argue me into wanting something else. I don't feel trapped, as I said, I feel content. If I were miserable, that would be another story, but I'm not. I'm happy being single and if I want to find a relationship, this is the kind of one I would want. If somebody else wants the same thing, cool. If not, then I'm perfectly happy staying as I am, and it's perfectly within my rights to not settle for anything less than what I want or something that would not make me happy. That may be hard for some people to understand, but that's ok-you don't have to understand it, because it's not your choice to make, it's mine.

... i happen to have a very refined OS. trust me on this: i don't waste my time on people. i didn't think i was here but you're proving me wrong. your language is betraying you. i'm not arguing with you. and i'm not making any choices for you. all i've done here is try to offer you another perspective.

Younglife wrote:And a person can never choose to no longer be free. They always have the choice to walk away from a relationship if they don't like it. People choose freely to enter into these relationships because they like it. You may not understand or want a D/s relationship, fortunately, you have the choice to not enter into one. You can't force others to not want it either. Those who do want one, have every right to seek one. That's all there is to it, and I don't feel any need to argue my point any further. We want what we want. I can go into the psychology of that and point out how power dynamics are inherent in nature and how it works, but I don't feel a need to convince you because ultimately it doesn't matter how you feel about it.

... people don't always choose what's best for them. you should know that. and taking advantage of such choices is, to me, pretty despicable.

Hey Younglife,

Yes, but it's just what I believed. Actually getting a diagnosis of HPD / AsPD is unlikely to happen. Most people with those disorders don't seek professional help, and because they can present well, not all professionals will see what someone close gets to see. All others can do is act and react based on what they see, regardless of diagnosis/cause.

Anyway, it's normal enough that when you first meet someone you act/react based on what you see and reasonably expect of self and the other person (i.e., they look like an adult, so reasonable to assume what you see is what you get). The rest came out later, and really threw my sense of what was going on off balance for a long time. That includes the BDSM phase.

If she does have HPD then I think it's understandable that you wouldn't necessarily know that until you two got more intimately involved.