PART 1 - I guess I'm dating a chick with BPD, please help if you have experience

[AlexDP]

But is it always the case that all guys who fall for a BPD have issues as well? I feel this point is perhaps always overplayed and overanalysed. I accept sometimes this is the case but wonder why every time a guy falls for a BPD they are told to look into their own issues and problems.

I do accept that insecure guys will have a propensity to fall for the huge compliments etc that the BPD is happy to hand out - but what about the genuine allure and sexiness BPDs display as well by virtue of their BPD? I mean the fact that they are BPD, and the traits that they therefore display as BPD's are often their most alluring qualities that most men would fall for. I mean they can usually be pretty wild, fun and very charismatic as far as women go! Now add this to a body or face which if it is pretty would be a package that all guys would find irresistible.

You have to understand that almost every guy has issues. And a lot of people have issues that a borderline can use. Do you, by definition, have relationship problems if you get involved with a borderline? Yes, yes you do. You see, you know this woman isn't an emotional adult, you know this woman isn't going to catch you if you fall. Yet you still get involved with her. There are indeed many great traits a borderline possesses, but if I see one now, the attraction is gone.

In general you could say there are two major possibilities. One, you could be a caretaker. You could give yourself an identity by taking care of others. It's what makes you feel good about yourself. You want to fix the borderline and the fact that she is broken is part of the attraction. The other possibility is that you are afraid of adult love. You are afraid to get close with people. Therefore you select a partner who cannot truly love you. You choose someone who idealizes you, but who can never love you for who you are.

Having sex with a borderline is one thing, loving her another. And what's even worse: even if you didn't have issues when you fell in love, why would you have stayed in an abusive relationship for so long? No, IMO, everyone who is in a LTR with one has got issues.

 

[AlexDP]

What just scares me about this stuff is that every comment recounted from some guy's ex here is like ground hog day. My ex almost word for word fits the same stories and descriptions. Like everything that came out of her mouth was a script that they all read line for line and word for word. I find myself asking whether they have they all met? They all speak and behave to a formula. Its as if someone recounts a statement or story from their ex's, and my spine shivers as I think, "did these ladies prepare these same words together in their previous life". How do women of different sides of the globe utter almost exactly the same words and behaviours? The exact accuracy is freaky.

I really wonder this -do they ever take responsibility for the pain and hurt they bring to others? Do they always just get off scot free without responsibility?

It indeed looks like a script. If you study the disorder, it sometimes becomes hard to see the person behind it. There a lot of little quirks borderlines have too. For example, because they aren't able to soothe themselves, many like to touch cats. It's difficult to describe what it is exactly, but cats make them more relaxed. It's funny, because they resemble cats in so many ways. A cat could act as if she completely loved you and you were the only one that loved her, but in reality anyone who will pet her is good enough.

Borderlines do not get off scot free. They cannot take responsibility because that would mean facing themselves. Because they can only think in black or white they would have to split themselves black. This would hurt far too much. But they do have intense moments of self loathing. Some also have moments of clarity. I know that my ex experienced intense guilt at times. Back then I didn't understand, her ex was abusive, right? Now I know she abused him. With time apart a borderline is usually more able to see the relationship in a somewhat objective light. Either that or she paints the ex white again and he suddenly never did anything wrong. Either way, she hurts for what she did later on.

Also important: the blacker you are, the more intense the attachment in most cases. If she says her ex was extremely abusive, she is still very connected to him on an emotional level. He will most likely also know her very well. It is a sad disorder, because they keep losing people. They fulfill their own prophecy.

 

[deuce42]

Well there you go and this is absolutely legitimate, I am in not making this up at all- my ex was the president of her local area's cat owners club!!!! Her life revolved around those two little kittys.

This sh&t just scares me.

 

[Atom Smasher]

Borderlines are consumate masters at backwards-rationalization, and this enables them to avoid facing reality. They can't seem to function without rationalizing away their words and actions, so they find a way.

 

[49au]

Borderlines do not get off scot free. They cannot take responsibility because that would mean facing themselves. Because they can only think in black or white they would have to split themselves black. This would hurt far too much. But they do have intense moments of self loathing. Some also have moments of clarity. I know that my ex experienced intense guilt at times. Back then I didn't understand, her ex was abusive, right? Now I know she abused him. With time apart a borderline is usually more able to see the relationship in a somewhat objective light. Either that or she paints the ex white again and he suddenly never did anything wrong. Either way, she hurts for what she did later on.

Yeah, and I really don't get the hate and vitriol you see from even some of the older guys on this forum when it comes to BPD. These women aren't "evil" or "vampires" or whatever. They are people who have a broken system of emotional regulation. They are a complete mess of uncontrollable feeling.

In the honeymoon phase when they suck you in and tell you how in love they are, they really do think they are in love.

Honestly, how some of these guys think that these childlike women sit around for hours and scheme up the exact things to say and develop some masterful grand plan to hook you, is beyond me. These are people that cannot even understand or interpret their own thoughts and feelings; can they really have the capacity to knowingly manipulate? Their lies and historic revisions are mere coping and defense mechanisms. They are not trying to manipulate you; they are trying to avoid facing themselves.

They do not mirror us in the beginning because they are trying to manipulate; they mirror us because they have no sense of self and they genuinely think that "we" are the new "them."

Did my ex hurt me? Hell yes. And she has hurt and will continue to hurt men. But I am honestly not angry at her. These women have the horrible burden of a mental disease that will keep them shameful, unhappy, guilty, self-loathing, and emotionally unstable for the rest of their lives. And as their looks fade, they will become even more lonely, and the only men who will be sucked in are hopeless AFCs whom they can have absolutely no respect for. This will compound their frustration.

We, on the other hand, heal, accept, grow stronger, and move on. They never can, and never will. Their fate is a terrible thing.

 

[AlexDP]

They think like that because borderlines willingly manipulate. Once they decide you hurt them, they also willingly hurt you. Their actions can be very deliberate. However there is no grand scheme of things. Borderlines start relationships because they really believe they have found the one.

 

[Johnnyventana]

This is true: "Once they decide you hurt them, they also willingly hurt you. Their actions can be very deliberate. However there is no grand scheme of things." Yep, no no master plan. It is literally second by second, depending on how they FEEL. And they shyte test continuously. But not like normal chicks. They are testing to see if you will leave them, not comprehending that you weren't planning on leaving them until they tested the fk out of you and you had to leave them. That's their little self-fullfilling prophesy.

 

[bigneil]

They are testing to see if you will leave them

Normally a woman won't respect you if you let them mistreat you, but with BPD you win back some points for not saying mean things and not leaving them when they push you away.

 

[49au]

Normally a woman won't respect you if you let them mistreat you, but with BPD you win back some points for not saying mean things and not leaving them when they push you away.

It's kind of a catch-22, really.

Yes, they are testing you to see if you will give them the unconditional love they missed in childhood. They want to see if their behavior will drive you away.

If it does, they have successfully re-lived their abandonment fear and say, "See, I knew you didn't truly love me!"

Yet if we stay, then they start to loathe you and think, "I am a bad person, and they want to stay with me anyway? There is something wrong with them."

They eventually paint you black either way.

 

[Johnnyventana]

^^ Yep. It is the very definition of a no-win situation.