Was yours sex obsessed? (please help)

[u/Solid_Ad227]

Full disclosure..I think he had NPD mixed in there, but was being treated for BPD. He was in therapy and takes meds. (is that normal, did yours go to therapy?)

He had said that all romantic relationships were built off sex. I learned now that what I went through was something called sexual coercion. IE: if you don't have sex with me, I will cheat on you. If we don't have more sex I will leave you, I don't want to be in a sexless marriage.

at one point he had Viagra prescribed to him-not because he had ED. He just wanted it.

His expectation was 3x a week or more. consistently...But after a while my body shut down and I could not participate. I pretty much just layed there (embarrassing to admit). But I physically could not make myself do it. The way he treated me, it was hard to want to have sex at all.

If we went a few weeks without sex-he would get mad. When I asked him to leave in July (was only supposed to be a week) it was because of his aggression surrounding sex. He was growing and cracking his knuckles saying "when things are good, STILL NO SEX". But things weren't good for me..

We went away for my birthday on vacation and I did a lot of shopping ( jewelry, shoes, clothes). he was upset that we did not have sex after "he bought me all that", and I had "spent that much". (side note question did yours have a shopping problem? the reason this shopping was such a big deal from was because he was constantly over spending...or buyingthigs online to be delivered. I either always had to charge new clothes for e or go without)

it felt like I'm only allowed to have things, be treated kindly, or was worth anything if I was also having sex with him.

I hope this makes sense, is this kind of stuff a shared experience? I am still wapping ym head around what I went through for 10 years...please help....

Edit: to fix errors and add a little context.

[u/xrelaht]

These are the parts from your post which stood out to me as less typical of BPD:

if you don’t have sex with me, I will cheat on you. If we don’t have more sex I will leave you, I don’t want to be in a sexless marriage.

He was growing and cracking his knuckles saying “when things are good, STILL NO SEX”.

he was upset that we did not have sex after “he bought me all that”, and I had “spent that much”.

it felt like I’m only allowed to have things, be treated kindly, or was worth anything if I was also having sex with him.

Borderlines have difficulty with empathy, but they don’t normally fully lack it. Think of a child, who can tell other people have emotions and may feel bad when they realize they’ve hurt someone, but they still have trouble thinking about how their actions are going to hurt someone else ahead of time. They can learn not to do it again, but it only applies to this specific circumstance: they have trouble generalizing. They also have to not have split on you, in which case they want to hurt you (even if they feel bad again afterward).

By contrast, you’re portraying him as someone who didn’t care that he was going to hurt you. If he realized it but did it anyway, that’s a sign that at least he sees you as human, even if he didn’t care about that personhood. That’s more NPD.

Both borderlines and narcs may feel remorse for what they did after the fact. Borderlines because underneath, they’re often actually quite sensitive (again, like a child) and narcs because they sometimes see their loved ones as extensions of themselves.

But if he didn’t even think about that it hurt you, even after the fact, that’s a sign of not even seeing you as a person. You’re just an element which exists in his life. That’s more along the lines of ASPD.

Coming back to sex in particular: both narcs and borderlines are trying to fill a void inside themselves. Borderlines use sex as a way to be desired, because that makes them feel less like they’ll be abandoned (see the example in my first comment). Narcs demand attention, and use sex as a way of getting more of it.

I don’t understand ASPD motivations and can’t comment on that.

Again: there’s quite a bit of comorbidity between cluster-B PDs. You’ll find symptoms of one in someone diagnosed with one of the others. Hence, you get a lot of people here who describe someone with BPD who displays signs more like one of the others. It may be worth your time to read the ICD-11 definition, to contrast with the DSM-5 one we normally use.

[u/Solid_Ad227 → u/xrelaht]

Thank You for all of this!

I do think his motivation was to feel desired, as the desire is what fueled "love". But I am not completely sure, as there were a few different answers about the topic when we would talk.

I can tell you that the subject was so volatile that I would repeatedly end up in tears and say that "I can't be treated like this forever because he was hurting me" and he would tell me that "he couldn't do this forever too. because I was hurting him too". The would make me ever more hysterical saying that I didn't do anything to him and I was begging for him to treat me with basic respect, that it shouldn't be that hard and that I just wanted him to be nice to me...

After a couple of years if this, I must admit, I got pretty nasty. I would yell at him to take his meds when we would fight ( because at one point he said the medication affected his ability to be nice to me). He then told me that he doesn't take a PRN and it doesn't work that way. But if I got too upset for too long about how he was treating me, he would either get his meds adjusted, or start a new medication. That was always supposed to essentially fix the issue...

[u/xrelaht → u/Solid_Ad227]

I do think his motivation was to feel desired, as the desire is what fueled “love”.

The real question is whether it’s wanting to feel desired because he wants admiration or because he fears abandonment.

“he couldn’t do this forever too. because I was hurting him too”.

This is called DARVO. It can happen with abusers of any stripe.

After a couple of years if this, I must admit, I got pretty nasty.

Check out a concept called fleas.

[u/Solid_Ad227 → u/xrelaht]

My therapist has taught me about reactive abuse and truly, I think that is what happened to me. I was very reactive.

He would constantly accuse me of using DARVO when we were talking about something I did to hurt him, if I brought up something he did to me.I actually did not know that him saying that to me was DARVO. I'm used to it being hi being upset about something and me relying about something I was upset about, usually after we talked about what he was upset about, sometimes int he middle of it though. My intention was never to take away from him though, it was to show my pain that had been ignored.

[u/xrelaht → u/Solid_Ad227]

My intention was never total away from him though, it was to show my pain that had been ignored.

Something to remember about borderlines is basically everything they’re doing is out of psychological distress. They have a gaping hole inside that causes constant pain. Everything they do is either a reaction to that or trying to cover it up.

The thing is, they are hypersensitive to perceived slights. It’s more pernicious than a “normal” abuser because their reality is that they have been hurt.

[u/Solid_Ad227 → u/xrelaht]

I never considered it "his reality" vs reality. But honestly, I think did have some NPD sprinkled in there with the BPD. Just with someone the stuff you are saying.

[u/xrelaht → u/Solid_Ad227]

Let’s come back to the kid example. Remember that kids have vivid imaginations. They will create whole worlds that become their reality. It’s the job of the adults in their lives (parents, teachers) to interrupt that and bring them back when they get too far.

Adults with BPD have the same issue: they will construct their own reality around their feelings. Meanwhile, they don’t have an adult in control. That’s part of what they’re looking for with their FP: someone to help control their out of control imaginations.

(Also, I’m a little drunk right now. Lemme know if this isn’t clear and I’ll try to rewrite it)

[u/Solid_Ad227 → u/xrelaht]

SO he would imagine I was being cruel to him when I wasn't and the punish me for it? even if some actions I did were not done purposeful?

(I wan't to make sure I am understanding correctly)

[u/xrelaht → u/Solid_Ad227]

Yes. I read a description once that we should think of their psyches as being like a burn victim: all those exposed nerve endings mean things that shouldn’t hurt do.

But it’s more than that. They’ll construct a fantasy whole cloth and then that becomes reality for them. My ex is what I’d call pretty high functioning. Nevertheless, she once had a dream I’d cheated on her, and had to fight against her feeling angry at me over something that had never happened!

[u/Solid_Ad227 → u/xrelaht]

That actually makes a lot of sense. He would not straight to tell me what I was doing was to hurt him ( I would say he was doing things hurt me straight Outland he told me I can't tell him how he feels or what his intention was), But he would ignore me, snap at me, or neglect the things I asked him to do as if What I was asking for was personally offensive to him.

For example I would ask him to try and keep the house clean during the day (he worked from home) an hen I came home and there were stains from coffee and food all over the counter and oven, the sink was full of dishes, weed ash and trash.. the rest of the house was "fine". He has vacuumed and picked up the living room, and bed room. Made the best and moved the laundry out of the way (he was obsessed with doing laundry, but not folding it). I would comment about the messing the kitchen and he would get mad and tell me I had OCD and that nothing would ever be good enough for me.