[....]
You will see that she simply isn't fulfilling you, and thats okay, chances are you aren't fulfilling her needs either.
So is it fair to either of you? Is it what either of you want?
Get healthy mentally, work on yourself every day, always try improve.
Realistically though can you "make" her be what you want?
Or at the end, are you settling still for something that doesn't fulfill you?
And can you live with that?
All the questions that are so hard to answer.
One of the things I wanted counseling to help answer was whether she could and will ever be what I want. Obviously no one can know, but I was hoping for some probabilities.
Ironically, since my counselor hounds me about my childhood issues, I believe our SM is a direct result of her childhood. She was abandoned in a Russian orphanage at three years old, and adopted by a generous but emotionally cold family in the US at age fourteen. She hardly spoke about her childhood, even to me, and insisted it was in the past and had no bearing on our present. She refused my gentle, carefully worded and timed requests to see a counselor. My amateur opinion, after being as close to her as she's let anyone is that she has serious attachment issues, issues with understanding emotions, and---God forbid but probably true---a history of abuse of which she may not even be conscious. (I could detail all the markers I see, and the statistics I've read on abuse in those institutions are shocking.)
So my questions are more like: Can she ever understand emotions? Can she ever desire sex? Can I ever love her out of it? If I can't, what should I do? Is this like leaving a spouse just because they've got cancer (she's suggested this one---better or worse, you know)?
I loved her, and still do at least in some ways. It absolutely breaks me to think of her childhood.
I've always wanted and tried to be her rescuer. I've suffered through fifteen years under the idea that she deserved someone to love her out of it, I wanted to be that someone, and that it wouldn't be right to leave. (Not to mention our beautiful children, etc.) But I eventually crumbled under that weight, and here I am two and a half years later, still wondering whether things will ever be different.
(Sorry, I got on a roll here.)
God Ted, I am so sorry you have gone through so much. It is difficult to know what the solution is but there is a lot of good advise here. I found out there was a personality disorder possible for people who are "caregivers, rescuers, or fixers".
Let me tell you about my first marriage. I married the first (and only) girl I ever kissed. Looking back on it now I can say what attracted her most to me is I am a nice, solid, give the shirt off my back if you needed it guy. She was really emotionally screwed up by her family, mostly her mother, and needed a nice, solid, give the shirt off your back guy. She confided her problems in me and I felt I could so help her and she would love me so much for it. I did not know it but I was the rescuer in my first marriage. Because you used the term above, have you considered you may also have this problem?
I cut this out from:
www.bpdcentral.com/blog/?Are-You-an-Emotional-Caretaker-34 take a look and consider if it is you?
Are you who are overly empathetic, self-sacrificing, generous, perfectionistic, deferential, more willing to put other's needs before your own, and uncomfortable with conflict? Then you are more vulnerable to being emotional caretaker, according to Margalis Fjelstad's new book, Stop Caretaking The Borderline/Narcissist In Your Life: Let Go Of Their Life And get a Life of Your Own (Rowman & Littlefield, Feb 2013).
"Yes" answers to these questions may indicate you're an emotional caretaker:
Do you hope that sacrificing yourself will make your partner want to fill your needs?
Do you believe that your love can heal your partner?
Do you see your job as fixing others and/or making them happy?
Do you aspire to perfection you never can seem to reach?
Is "selfish" the worst thing a person could can say about you?
Do you feel like nothing without a partner? Is a bad relationship better than none at all?
Do you have low self-esteem; unworthy as you are?
Do you distrust your partner, even though you think trust is essential for good relationships?
Do you need to be needed, or are you attracted to needy people?
Do you seek approval from others?
Do fear, obligation and guilt guide the way you behave in relationships?
Do you have more empathy for your partner than she has for you?
Do you feel responsible for other people's emotions?
Do you obsess about your partner?
Do you feel isolated, depressed, hopeless, or helpless?
Do you feel guilty for having thoughts and feelings that are different from those of your partner?
Do you love your partner for who they are right now, or who you wish them to be?
Are you preoccupied with dreams and wishes that could be rather than the reality of your relationship now?
Do you detest conflict and try to avoid it?
Do you routinely give more than you get in relationships in an effort to try to please?
Do you ignore your own needs or have trouble taking care of yourself?
Have you ever lied or kept secrets about your partner' behavior?
Do you usually defer to your partner's wants even though he rare does the same for you?
Do you usually bow to your partner's demands even when it hurts, such as cutting people out of your life?
Do you protect your partner from the consequences of his negative behaviors?
Do other people tell you that you shouldn't put up with your partner's behavior?
Do you distrust this advice, even though you agree with them about most things?
Do you make excuses for your partner's behavior?
When the excuse no longer applies, do you come up with a new one?
Do you assume most of the responsibility for household chores and daily responsibilities?
As a caretaker, she says, it is your job to please and take care of the BP/NP first and foremost. To do this you will have learned to ignore your own needs, adapted to a highly emotional tense and chaotic environment, and become hyper-vigilant to the BP emotional reactions. Your job is to do everything that the BP/NP is not willing or able to do, give in to whatever the BP/NP wants, and carefully monitor the family's image in the community.
When you become the caretaker you take on the role of making the BP/NP feel safe, secure and loved at all times. In addition you may also feel it is your job to "teach" the BP/NP to act more appropriately and to help the BP/NP "get better".
While emotional caretakers take pride in their self-sacrifice, it is a double edged sword. Partners who are emotional caretakers usually come from a family in which some of their basic emotional needs were unmet. Unconsciously, as adults they compensate by finding and nurturing others who seem very needy. They see attempts to change their partners as we wish them to be not as controlling, but as gestures of love—even when they've made it clear they don't want to change.
Being a caretaker can lead to a heady feeling of being a strong, wise, and needed person. Playing this role as a child can make you feel equal or even superior to the adults in the family. Unfortunately, being a caretaker means learning to be overly vigilant of the needs of others and pretty much ignorant of your own feelings, needs and reactions. But you may not even notice that since you are so focused on the BP/NP.
Whenever the borderline acts normally, you become immensely elated believing, time and time again, that now "everything will be better," only to be let down when the s/he returns to his dysfunctional thinking and behaving again. This makes you vulnerable to over-functioning in relationships and putting up with a partner who is severely under-functioning.
When the narcissist does something especially thoughtful, you think that s/he has "turned a corner," matured, and will now be the loving partner you want. It seems so logical.
But none of these changes lasts longer than a few days or hours.
The BP/NP has had many rejections in love before you came along. Others have experienced the BP/NP's controlling and even selfish behaviors in relationship and have left.
You, however, see the clues but don't leave. Instead you feel drawn in, you may feel normal, you may feel the BP/NP needs you, and you may feel rewarded for your Rescuer responsibilities. You feel a level of excitement and hope. You see a match. At first this seems like a comfortable relationship. To you nothing seems particularly amiss. Somehow you know all the corresponding moves in this relationship dance and you feel like you have a wonderful chance to make life better for the BP/NP. However, this is not intimacy. It is the familiar Drama Triangle of Victim/Persecutor/Rescuer.
Getting Better
Here are some links to articles that discuss overcoming caretaking:
www.coda.org/www.thebridgetorecovery.com/overcoming-codependency.htmlsciencedaily.healthology.com/mental-health/article1095.htmThese are excellent resources. Sorry about the length.
Good luck Ted.
