My therapist put my mind at ease about her "retirement". She's not quitting yet, just reducing her office days to three days a week, which she says she has been doing for months. She was very kind to say that if she does retire permanently, she will do so with at least a year's notice to her clients. And she agrees, we've been through a lot together, and she considers us her family also.
I brought that issue up first thing, since I wanted to be sure she knows how much she means to me. I really can't say how important she is. Earlier in the day, while talking by phone with my daughter, I mentioned needing to talk with our T about the issue. My daughter's response was, "She can't do that! She's timeless. She's like Meryl Streep!"
So I'm not panicked about that. I then told my T about starting this thread. She was happy that I have and that I've had some worthwhile suggestions. She also said that she has had a long list of guys like me who have had the tendency to fall for BPD women, sometimes marrying one after another.
She said that there is a nearly consistent thread among men in my situation. We often share general characteristics: care givers of course, very often artistic, educated, liberal thinkers, somewhat adventurers or risk takers, passionate, self-critical and some other traits I don't recall, but there's the general pattern. I identify with all of those.
She said that we first are attracted to the passion, intelligence, beauty or glamour in a woman, and quickly learn that our search for a passionate partner has paid off. We become blind to possible red flags of instability, so by the time we should begin to suspect serious problems ahead, we minimize the danger as something we can help overcome. Then we are trapped in never quite being generous or thoughtful enough.
So we invest more and more of ourselves, making concessions and overlooking our own boundaries on the diminishing hope of a turn-around, some kind of repayment or reward which never comes.
But my original question is still unanswered. I think I have been exposed to a greater proportion of seriously disordered women than most guys I know. Like most people, I start in a relationship based on physical and intellectual attraction. It is only later that there are any clues to instability. So how come? Why me? Do I turn women into predators?
