# Really Confused



## SummerWalk (Oct 24, 2011)

This is really hard to go through and I should have probably done it a long time ago.
It all began four years ago when I met my boyfriend on an online forum and we started talking. He was from a different country so the first year of the relationship all we did was talk on the internet and on the phone; all that time was great and we understood each other really well, we had the same views on life, he was emotionally available and caring.

After a year, he decided to come live with me and things were good for the most part, only that in the first few months there were a few occasions where he would get upset over any simple misunderstanding and he was acting really childish (turning his back on me, refusing to talk for about an hour, etc.). I made the mistake of not talking about those incidents even thigh inside I was growing a bit frustrated.

Then, things have progressed from that to us having moments in which we wouldn't agree on something and each time I tried to talk to him about something that bothered me he would avoid discussing it, which in turn made me raise my voice and then he would call me out of control or use the fact that I raised my voice as an excuse to ignore me, telling me that until I dropped the attitude he wouldn't talk. So things got more heated in that I was still talking about whatever I needed to talk about, yelling at him for ignoring me, he was yelling back too but he kept finding me the only one responsible for how things went - he became more and more verbally abusive and he kept making sarcastic comments about me and everything I was trying to tell him. Each time I was trying to open up to him, he would turn it against me with his comments mocking the way I felt. This lasted for a few months and all this time, each time we would fight, he would jolt like I was about to hit him even though I wasn't going to. I decided to talk to him about it and it seems that his ex girlfriend used to hit him when they fought, but he still would react like I was going to hit him, until one day when I eventually did, I slapped his face. And from there on, each time we would fight, I would slap his face, which made me feel like a horrible person and instead of stopping my behavior, I kept doing it. When we weren't fighting I talked to him about how I felt about everything, how I felt about myself slapping his face, and how I felt he was hurting me through his attitude. He was the most loving and understanding person up until we started having a conflict. Then things got even worse and as he was getting more verbally aggressive, I would get more violent. I wasn't just slapping him, but sometimes I would even bite his hands, especially when we used to struggle. Sometimes we were just fighting and I was getting closer to him, while we were still arguing, and he, thinking that I was going to hit him, would push me around which made me hit him.
Last year, after three years of being in a relationship, he confessed that while he was still in his country he cheated on me with his ex girlfriend, for like six or seven times, spread though almost all the period he was still there. He said he has to confess because he couldn't have secrets from me anymore, and when I asked him why it took him so long, his answer was that he first wanted me to know him really well and be sure that he loves me, so that I wouldn't leave him. This whole thing made me lose my trust in him completely, especially because while we were almost all day long talking on the phone or on the internet, he kept making up these stories about how much he thought it was important that we were completely honest with each other, that he would never lie to me or cheat on me, and that he wanted to make sure that I wouldn't cheat on him either. I talked to him about how I felt about him lying to me for so long and about how selfish I thought he was about how he handled things, and he pretty much seemed to agree and I was stupid enough to believe him.

After this, the fights got even worse, he would not accept listening to when I had to say whenever it was a matter of him simply forgetting to do something and me reminding him, or being upset over it. He would almost always find an excuse for everything, and the more I tried to show him he was being overly-defensive, the more he would find the weirdest things to say as an excuse. And then all the yelling and fighting. I ended up not knowing how to talk to him about more bothersome stuff, I started freaking about about the fact that I was still slapping him, and everything I would tell him that was related to something I knew he wouldn't like to hear about came out yelled... I tried to talk to him about the possibility of breaking up because I wasn't feeling happy with myself and the way I treated him anymore, I felt judged and mocked by him, and I felt that I simply couldn't take it anymore. He then promised he would change and not get defensive anymore, that he will listed to my concerns and simply accept that I can talk to him about things that made him feel uncomfortable. So we gave it another shot and it failed, more promises, more problems.

When we would fight, he'd take all his promises back saying that he didn't know what he was talking about, or blaming me for forcing him into making those promises. This is where I am at right now, feeling horrible about myself and the way I am hitting him when we fight, feeling completely unable to simply talk freely, feeling judged by him, and not being able to leave this relationship, I don't even know why. I don't even recognize myself anymore... I never used to be violent, I never used to feel in all the ways in which I feel when we are fighting. I don't even know what's my part of the responsibility and what isn't. I don't think it is justified to hit someone, no matter how verbally abusive they are, but I can't control my emotions anymore and this scares me. I never saw myself as an abusive person before and I feel really bad for not being able to control myself when he hurts me; I'm perfectly aware that no matter how hurtful he can be, I am still in control of my own emotions and actions, and yet I can't gain any seeling of control over myself when we start fighting. I keep fooling myself with the idea that he loves me, which he might in his own way, but when it comes to feeling any empathy from him whenever t is needed, all he know to do is hurm te where he knows it hurts most...

I know that the best thing to do is to leave this relationship and then resolve this problem I created for myself on my own, but I can't break up with him because I love him too much and because when we're not fighting we're really close and we can talk about anything and do anything we want together, but this obviously isn't enough and I am destroying myself...


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## DanF (Sep 27, 2010)

If you are hitting him, then you don't love him.
You started hitting him a few months into your cohabitation? I have been with my wife for 30 years and neither of us has laid a hand on the other in anger.


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## Shooboomafoo (Mar 30, 2011)

Welcome to the Talk About "Marriage" website.
You know, that period of having invested your life thru legal and spiritual committment to someone, with all intent of spending the rest of your life with them?
"Living together" is not the same thing. There's no "promise" you have to work thru the deepest darkest sh!t together to keep your life together for.
Is he that kind of man for you? 
And you are right, the hitting, is not remotely acceptable.
I would talk to a counselor of some sort to see if you need to work out some issues before you do settle down and devote your life to a marriage with someone.


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Summer, welcome to the TAM forum. I am sorry to hear that you are in such emotional pain. I strongly recommend that you see a clinical psychologist by yourself -- for at least a few sessions -- to get a professional opinion on what you are dealing with. I say this because the BF behavior you are describing -- verbal abuse, an endless cycle of push-you-away and pull-you-back, lack of impulse control, distrustful, emotional immaturity, emotional instability, and black-white thinking -- are most of the classic traits of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), which my exW has. 

Whether those traits are so severe as to satisfy 100% of the criteria for having full-blown BPD is a determination that only a professional can make. Yet, even when the traits fall well short of that diagnostic threshold, they can make your life miserable and undermine a relationship. Hence, for the purpose of deciding whether to remain in the relationship, it does not matter whether your BF's traits reach the diagnostic threshold. 


SummerWalk said:


> We understood each other really well, we had the same views on life, he was emotionally available and caring.


That is usually the case with high functioning BPDers (i.e., people who have strong BPD traits, even if they fall short of the diagnostic level). During the infatuation period, a BPDer's twin fears (of abandonment and engulfment) are held at bay by his idealization of you. Because you do not pose a threat to him during that period, he can be extremely caring and emotionally available. 

On top of that, he will mirror the best aspects of your personality -- to the point that you both likely will be convinced you've met your soul mate. This mirroring is done because, lacking a strong sense of who he is, the BPDer will use your strong personality as an emotional anchor -- to stabilize and ground him. Yet, as soon as the infatuation evaporates (within 3 to 6 months tops if you are both living in the same city), his anger and lack of impulse control will start showing themselves because you will start triggering that anger he's been carrying since childhood.


> After a year, he decided to come live with me and things were good for the most part, only that in the first few months there were a few occasions where he would get upset over any simple misunderstanding


Like I said, the infatuation protects you against his anger for only a few months. Because the anger has been there since early childhood, you do not have to do anything to create it. Rather, you only have to make some idle comment or minor action that triggers a sudden release of that anger. This is why his temper tantrums and rages usually start in only ten seconds -- and, if he is a BPDer, they typically will last a few hours (only rarely as long as two days).


> He was acting really childish (turning his back on me, refusing to talk for about an hour, etc.).


If your BF is a BPDer, he behaves childishly because he has the emotional development of a four year old. This is why, when he is angry, it is impossible to reason with him. You are trying to reason with the hurt, angry little child in him. And, because he is always ten seconds away from being angry, you rarely can sit down with him and have any calm, adult discussion of any sensitive issues. Even if you catch him in a calm, friendly mood, any attempt to raise a serious issue will likely trigger a release of that enormous anger and hurt he carries inside. At that point, he will punish you by acting out (e.g., verbal abuse) or -- less frequently -- by "acting in" (e.g., passive aggressive snide remarks and cold withdrawal).


> He would avoid discussing it, which in turn made me raise my voice


No, no. Nothing "made" you raise your voice. You chose to do it. It takes TWO willing people to remain in a toxic relationship for three years. Hence, the toxicity is not something that HE is doing to you. Rather, it is something you are BOTH doing to each other. His toxic contribution is easy to see. Yours is much less so if, as I suspect, you are a codependent caregiver like I am.

We codependents want to take care of people and fix things. Our desire to be needed far exceeds our desire to be loved. This is why we are loath to walk away from a sick loved one. I say this because, if your BF is a high functioning BPDer, he is emotionally sick.


> He became more and more verbally abusive and he kept making sarcastic comments about me


Because BPDers are emotionally immature and lack impulse control, verbal abuse is one of the hallmarks of their behavior. But verbal abuse, by itself, does not mean a person has a pattern of strong BPD traits. They must have most of the nine BPD traits to have such a pattern.


> The more I tried to show him he was being overly-defensive, the more he would find the weirdest things to say as an excuse.


It is common for BPDers to come up with such ridiculous, illogical arguments that you marvel that any adult could say such a stupid thing while keeping a straight face. This creation of false arguments -- in a desperate attempt to control you to prevent abandonment -- is so well known that ex-partners and ex-spouses have given it a name: "gaslighting." 

It is named after the classic 1944 movie _Gaslight,_ in which a husband (Charles Boyer) tries to drive his new bride (Ingrid Bergman) crazy so as to get her institutionalized, allowing him to run off with her family jewels. One of his tricks in the movie is to keep turning the house gas lights down a tiny bit each day -- all the while pretending that he is able to see and read just fine.


> When we would fight, he'd take all his promises back saying that he didn't know what he was talking about, or blaming me for forcing him into making those promises.


A BPDer is convinced he is an eternal victim. During the infatuation period, you validate that false self image by being "the savior" whom he adores and idealizes. That is validating because, if you are "the savior," he by default must be "the victim" whom you are saving. As soon as that honeymoon period ends, however, the only way you can continue to validate that false self image is by becoming "the perpetrator" in his eyes, making you responsible for every misfortune that befalls him. 

My exW was the same way. Like your BF, when she would decide to break a promise, she would "reason" that I had somehow forced her into making it to begin with. Similarly, when she bought $6,000 worth of sewing machines she would not use, she reasoned that she has always bought the cheaper, inferior machine because she was "afraid" that I would not approve of her getting a more expense machine. In that way, she ran through four different machines -- none of which she liked after two weeks -- and blamed it all on me.


> I don't even know why. I don't even recognize myself anymore... I never used to be violent, I never used to feel in all the ways in which I feel when we are fighting. I don't even know what's my part of the responsibility and what isn't.


It is common for the partner of a BPDer to feel extremely confused due to the gaslighting. It also is common for a partner to have the feeling she is losing herself. This is attributable mainly to the walking on eggshells -- not being yourself -- to avoid triggering the BPDer's anger. This is why the #1 best selling BPD book (targeted to the nonBPD partners) is called _Stop Walking on Eggshells._ 

Moreover, your confusion likely is exacerbated by your being codependent -- which means that you have trouble telling where YOU leaves off and HE begins. We codependents are so empathetic and in tune with our partner's feelings that we have trouble separating his problems and feelings from our own. We also have difficulty telling the difference between being needed and being loved. Indeed, we have difficulty feeling that we are being loved if the person does not also desperately need us. This is why, if you manage to stay away from your toxic BF, you likely are at great risk of running right into the arms of another man just like him. We caregivers will walk right past all of the emotionally available, stable people (BORING) and keep walking until we find someone who desperately needs us. That is, we are attracted to vulnerability (which BPDers are masters at projecting) like cats are to catnip.


> I keep fooling myself with the idea that he loves me, which he might in his own way,


He likely does love you, in a very immature way. If you've ever been around four year olds, you know that they will adore mother for part of the day -- interspersed with temper tantrums during which they may say "I hate you, I hate you." At that young age, we all do black-white thinking all day long -- during which we categorize everyone as "all good" or "all bad." And, based solely on a minor comment or the withholding of a toy, we can flip in ten seconds from one extreme view to the polar opposite. Well, BPDers do that frequently all through adulthood. Hence, while BPDers are capable of being in touch with their good feelings toward you and loving you (i.e., "splitting you white"), it is not the type of mature love that is needed in order to sustain close LTRs.


> but when it comes to feeling any empathy from him whenever it is needed, all he know to do is hurt me...


Generally, high functioning BPDers can be very empathetic for short periods but are unable to sustain it for very long. Moreover, it is impossible to build up any store of good will that you can draw on during the bad times.


> I can't break up with him because I love him too much and because when we're not fighting we're really close and we can talk about anything and do anything we want together


When a BPDer is splitting you white (adoring you), he is very VERY good. Conversely, when he is splitting you black, he will be abusive and terrible. Consequently, the good periods are the equivalent to heroine highs and the bad periods are equivalent to withdrawal from the drug. This is one reason that a relationship with a BPDer quickly becomes so addictive for caregivers like us. Moreover, we are mistakenly convinced that -- if only we can figure out what it is we are doing wrong -- we can restore the BPDer to that wonderful, adoring person we knew during the honeymoon period -- an impossible task.

Summer, if this discussion rings a bell, I suggest you read more about the nine BPD traits to see if most sound very familiar to you. On this forum, an easy place to start is my description of them in Blacksmith's thread. My posts there start at http://talkaboutmarriage.com/genera...-complicated-marriage-dynamic.html#post358403. If you have any questions, I would be glad to try to answer them or point you to online resources that can. Take care, Caregiver.


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