Do they believe it?

[Bunnyme]

My stbxUNBPDh blames me for all of his problems and lies constantly.  True to form, he makes me out to be the enemy...even through imagined transgressions.  My question is, is he putting up the front that I'm the bad guy for fear of being found out for who he really is, or does he actually believe that I am really the cause of everything?  Does he lie to make himself look better or does he actually believe what he is saying?  For instance, he swore up and down that he paid the electric bill.  Questioned him about it again after the phone got shut off.  Nope, taken care of...how could I possibly accuse him of not paying, blah, blah, blah.  Electricity gets cut.  Like, he cant actually believe I'm somehow to blame for it.  Or truly believe he isnt responsible, right?  He wont ever admit he is responsible, but I just dont get it if he actually thinks that he is not.

[Boat Babe]

We can go round in circles trying to understand this. My exuPDbf was utterly delusional at times. The first PDbf I had many years previously seemed utterly sane on the surface but was also utterly malevolent (not a word I use lightly). Part of my FOG  was spent trying to work out what was what  With hindsight this was a complete waste of my valuable time

Whether the toxic behaviour is deliberate or not, it still remains toxic. Hurtful, damaging, dysfunctional behaviour is the problem.   At the end of the day, what does it matter if it is deliberately chosen (a moral/ethical choice)  or driven by deep emotional and psychological illness?  The questions are: is this person going to change their behaviour? Can I be happy and fulfilled living with this person? 

Sending hugs.

[Bunnyme]

Thank you.  I agree 100%.  There are times I find myself falling back into G because "it is an illness."  I absolutely cannot be married to him for the reasons you eloquently stated.  I guess I'm just really curious.  Has anything been written on it?  Then again, trying to think rationally about irrational behavior... 

[Bunnyme]

I may have answered my own question.  This is a really good article that I found on the topic. https://www.businessinsider.com/do-narcissists-mean-to-hurt-their-partners-2018-1

[GettingOOTF]

This is a complicated question. PDs and addicts build their lives around not having to acknowledge and address their issues, which high-level are that they don’t feel that they are good enough and they are pathologically scared of any kind of rejection. There has been a lot written about this and there is plenty of accessible info available if you are interested in digging deeper.

They believe what they say as to believe otherwise would destroy them.

There is a growing school of thought that addiction is the result of trauma. Different people cope with trauma in different ways and of course the word “trauma” covers a range of things from what you may consider “silly” all the way to what is more generally considered traumatic e.g. live combat situations.

PDs and addictions are very complicated and deeply ingrained behaviors. It’s difficult for people who are not PDs or have never experienced addiction to understand how these people think. They simply see the world differently.

My ex was diagnosed with BPD and I grew up with an alcoholic parent. When I was deep in my codependent FOG I spoke to many experts in BPD, got my ex into one of the best out patient DBT programs in the country and read up a ton trying to understand why he did and said the things he did and how I could “help” him. What I came to see is that he is simply the way he is. There was nothing I could do to change how he saw himself or the world. We simply saw things differently.

A few years after the divorce I had to see him. He blamed me for him not getting a job a few weeks earlier. We’d been divorced for years, I was pretty much NC and had no idea about the job. He was really angry at me and genuinely thought I was responsible. If you heard the story you’d see that it was 100% his fault and that he sabotaged the interview. It was in that exact moment I knew he had been the cause of all his past failures, it was never me or anyone else, and most importantly I saw that he would never change.

For me I had to let go of trying to understand him and look at his actions. This finally freed me.

Addiction adds another layer of complication over any other preexisting condition.

It’s always easier to blame someone else than it is to look within and accept that we are the reason we are where we are. This is magnified for PDs and addicts.

My ex shirked every single responsibility in his life. I feel sick and ashamed at how I bought in to so much of it, how I made excuses and felt bad for him.

I am NC but things about him slip through. He hasn’t changed one bit. I truly believe though that he is happier without me as he is with someone who is more accepting of who he is than I ever was. I’m sure this is combination of things. He once said to me that I’d really like her as she was just like me. The thing is she was just like me, but the me he met and married who was still stuck in FOG and deep deep codependency.

With some time and distance I have come to see that my ex didn’t do the things he did to be mean or because he was a bad person. He did them simply because that’s who he is and how he sees the world.