Hi I previously posted on the similarities between MLC, Passive Aggressive behaviour and narcissism.
My son has pointed out that his mother exhibits all of the above and in doing so fits the bill for Borderline Personality Disorder (high functioning in her case). This is a lot more common in women than men.
The resource that validates all of my experiences in the last 22 years is www.Sharischreiber.com For me this is the final part of the jigsaw. A lightbulb moment and absolute clarity for the very first time. Wow. Unbelievable! Time just to get a life!
See the references to triangulation to understand the replay affair.
I hope this helps someone else understand the chaos.
Good luck to everyone, we none of us caused this or deserve this. We did not break them it is not our job to fix them. I hope this helps someone else ma
C told me in one of my last individual sessions with him X has a "borderline personality." During our R she readily admitted to having specific issues like controlling, hypochondria, phobias, some from her past she had overcome, some from her present I observed but couldn't connect the dots . She could be the sweet little girl or the cold stone heartless b*tch. I have a photo I took of her on a heartless day wearing an oriental dress I titled, "Dragon Lady." I knew she had issues (so does she) but C's diagnosis of Borderline Personality identified her problem specifically.
When I went to the site (thank you 4myfamily) so many things clicked one at a time as I read them it was like standing in a field full of crickets at night. I've said her MLC (if that's what happened) manifested itself as if her issues had gone on steroids. Same bad stuff, just lots more of it.
The kids suffer the most in this. They'll comment from time to time that X is "stressed" and they don't want to upset her.
I also saw myself in what I read. I'm "the rescuer" in a relationship. I think OMH may be too. His X wife was bipolar. It makes perfect sense he was attracted to and married a borderline personality who was in crisis.
Yep, we didn't break em, we can't fix em and we need to just get a life. D*mn, there's that song again:
"Picking up the pieces of my broken, shattered dreams...."
Jim Croche
"Fear is the mind-killer" Muad'Dib Me 53, XW 44, DD 14, DS 12 Bomb and OM 12/15/06 Separated 01/02/07 Divorced 05/13/08 X married OM(OMH) 08/2009 Married 06/09/13
I totally agree with Cadet. During my H's MLC I went to Shari's site and was astonished at how accurately it depicted my H's behaviour. I wondered, "Why did I never notice...? Yet, post-crisis, those behaviours are gone again.
It's quite sobering to realize how much pain the childhood abuse which caused this behaviour has left them in.
I can now see that my W has been like this our whole relationship. And I have been playing my part sometimes very consciously as well. I knew what was request to hold the relationship together, the real question for me is the truth of the reasons why I tolerated a lack of empathy and emotional connection.
I think that my wife has some elements of the Borderline Waif, I just felt so much empathy for all the things that happened to her and she said were not her fault/were imposed on her.
I fought my subconscious instincts, all the subliminal messages that 'something is not right here!,
After Our first night together my brain said 'something is not right'. I decided not to pursue, she pursued me. She is beautiful I was flattered, I fell for her charms.
Literally the day after we married, after my elation on e day of the wedding, my brain said 'something is not right here' she became distant and more controlling.
After having children, intimacy virtually stopped she actually said 'you should get a girlfriend' seemed like an odd remark at e time but after seeing those words con Shari Schreibers pages, a whole new meaning.
Teenage pregnancy, mistake or Borderline Waif behaviour.?
Definitely objectifies her relationships, you can go from being the 'only man I have ever really loved' to being trashed in an instant.
Etc etc.
This is possibly not her crisis but a crisis caused by my stopping enabling the old interactions between us.
She has seen a counsellor, will she be up front and honest ? Probably not but it is an acknowledgement by her that maybe it is not just everyone else's fault.
Wow once again you've supplied us with such valuable information. I went to the site this morning and I finally started to get just a little more of that validation that I needed to see things more clearly.
I too have had many red flags go up inside of me through the years thinking " oh dear, he just didn't do that did he? that's not right". But what I chose to do was put my blinders on so not to see. I rationalized to make it ok. But time and time again, it just kept happening more frequently.
I now can see how as time went by I became more and more co dependent with him. It happens and you don't even know it.
It's really a relief to have some answers to the behavior that has done nothing but baffle me for years and even practically drive me to the brink of insanity the last year.
Im still sad it had to end, but I realize it had to end, it had to. Im actually very fortunate it has ended, because I have no idea what would've become of me if it had not. After it's all said and done, Im still sad about losing my marriage. I think the hardest thing I've had to do was admit that xh is the things that he is. I don't want to admit that, and I don't want to believe he really is capable of the things he's done and still does. But he is. I don't want him to be this way. I want him to be an emotionally balanced and healthy person. I guess the co dependent person thought I could actually change that. Remembering the 3 c's... I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it.
I guess Im sad because I don't think xh will ever really become the person I thought he was.
I guess Im sad because I don't think xh will ever really become the person I thought he was.
I can fully empathize with you. My W is cool and aloof, can be very charming and very seductive and I could fall in love with her every fay. Sadly it's all an illusion and nothing stands the test of time. This is the false self and survival mode she has adopted. The reality is: no empathy, no emotional connection and the ability to seduce and easily move on to the next people pleaser who she can objectify.
She is still using her charms to try and 'hoover' me, I still find it hard to resist!!
I too am sad but it had to end, it is all to easy to say 'give it another six months, another six months' and find another 5 years have got behind you.
There are still many happy family memories which I try to keep in context. We were pretty good acquaintances most of the time just not intimates.
I think that as you get older the intimate bond becomes more desirable and necessary.
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I guess Im sad because I don't think xh will ever really become the person I thought he was
I hope you, like I have been too, are not sad over what ever was only an illusion.
Hopefully we will all find someone we can mutually depend on, someone who is emotionally available and together we can make those basic human connections. I like to think that if there is a next time all of my lessons have been learned, albeit the hard way. Next time it must feel right at each moment, (mindfulness), no compromises or expectations of future improvement.
Kimmerz remember nothing, really, nothing in creation lasts forever. We must all learn to embrace change and no one knows where life will lead us.
Ok I think I need a little help here. I need some input. I am horribly confused on some issues here.
I read the link you sent on the "death trap" for men married to Borderlines.
If my Xh were to read that info, he'd say that was his life married to me.
Every single thing my xh has accused me of, he has done exactly that. The projection he fires as me just leaves me floored.
Were you subjected to so much mass projection as well?
So Im still constantly saying to myself " Was it me, or was it him?".
Yet when I read it, that's what my life has been with him for the past 7 years on and off....especially after he began friendship with OW. And after reading on Shari's site, Im really picking up that OW is the BP/Waif. Many things add up over time. Im now getting information from reliable sources how OW and Xh's cousin had joined forces over the Holidays to really make me out to be the psycho and were beating my Xh over the head with it. My MIL caught wind of it and told XH not to listen to them and straighten up. FYI, XH cousin is one to stir the pot.....LIKE NO OTHER. Reliable sources tell me OW is the same way.
Now Im not placing all the blame on OW and cousin, but Im also remembering facts here. Xh, yes passive aggressive, but mainly a passive person has always been a very impressionable and gullable person....especially for women in distress! When friendship struck with OW, she was playing the oh poor me, Im in a horrible marriage type of song and dance with XH. She was always calling him for help with this and help with that. Then the tables turned from what I can tell, and XH was confiding in OW all his marital woes.
I am a seeker of truth, and I will claim full responsibility for the actions I take. Ok maybe this is the scariest part of being with a BP is how they learn everything about you in such detail and literally can take anything wrong you ever did, resolved, or not and bring it back up, rub it in your face and twist it so intensely you literally don't know how to walk a straight line???
I guess what Im curious about is if XH demonized me all on his own, or if his huge irrational behaviors and accusations were a big influence from OW and her demonizing me?
Hey if that's the case, XH will see the truth. It always comes out in the wash somehow.
If it truly is Xh and his own BP traits, well time will only prove that as well. Something will come up and some sort of irrational behavior will surface again.
Im trying to get a new perspective on things, not grasp any little thing to cling on to hope, or place blame on XH being negatively influenced and it brainwashing him or something. Hey he made his choices, plain and simple. The way I see it, well it could've gone either way.
However I question his actions because he seems to have changed. time will tell again, but I sense that change that we've all talked about when the MLCer comes out of the tunnel. Something is just different. That's what I've been picking up on. It's too early to tell. Only consistent proof and changes will really be the answer.
Wow! That link pretty much described my marriage. It seem to get off the rails right after we were married, but I started becoming codependent that i was too blind to see it.
She told me post 1st bomb that she would leave me and end the marriage before cheating on me. Then the 2nd bomb came 1 year later and I found out she cheated not once but twice. When I asked her not to expose D to the A, she said "Why not, you can have girlfriends if you want!" (I have always been faithful to this day). I know that that is a HUGE trap to WIN in HER game. I rarely use the words always and never in my vocabulary but, she has ALWAYS needed to win, whether it be a game or having disagreements with me or friends.
Ironically, 2 yrs ago she had a nightmare and woke up crying. When I asked her what was the matter she told me she dreamed that she told me I could go out and have an A if I want (because she was the only woman I was ever with), and I did it. I had to bring her back to reality because I guess the dream was so real to her.
I don't know what all this means. I know it won't matter in the present anyway because she is really trying to burn what I though was an unburnable bridge. I am talking using napalm, fire throwers, grenades, rocket launchers, missiles. Everything but the A bomb.
I am still working on me though and just venting. I need some time to stew once in a while, but then I get back to doing MY work.
M:35 W:33 M: 5 yrs. Daughter: 2 yr .7/11/10 D Final: 8/7/12
I have been subjected to some projection, but also if I am honest my relationship has altered my behavior too, so at times I have probably mirrored the borderline behavior as a coping/peacekeeping strategy. I think you cannot live with this and behave as you did prior to the relationship.
From reading these boards every MLC or sets of behaviors is unique to an individual, I personally have a tendency to assign personality traits to a particular label, it makes it easier for me to deal with in many ways.
My fundametal mistake was beleiving that no matter what my W's family of origin issues or subsequent life events she has dealt with it and coped well.
If I follow my basic instincts I think my W is at core a nice person who has been messed up by events since childhood.
She has never raged externally but acted out Passive Aggressively, through creating limited chaos and sabotaging.
She has externalized the cause of her unhappiness and looked externazlly for the things to make her happy.
Demonizing is all part of the black and white thinking one minute you are the answer to all their prayers and hopes next minute you are dismissed and demonized.
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However I question his actions because he seems to have changed. time will tell again, but I sense that change that we've all talked about when the MLCer comes out of the tunnel. Something is just different. That's what I've been picking up on. It's too early to tell. Only consistent proof and changes will really be the answer.
I pick up on some of this also. How much is a need to reconnect and how much is 'hoovering' or 'triangulation' who knows? we can only wait to see what transpires.
