RESIGNATION VS RESOLUTION: THE CONFLICT CONUNDRUM.

Clients have said, “how can I ever get closure with my dead parent (or ex)?”

We experience a NEED for "closure" with somebody, to help ourselves feel more comfort and inner peace. We want all the tough, difficult feelings to diminish, and be tied up neatly in a little box with a lovely ribbon on top, so they don't keep intruding on our daily life. THIS IS NORMAL, HUMAN NATURE, unfortunately…

But when we're dealing with someone supremely narcissistic and/or who has BPD traits, it's easy to forget that real closure and resolution are not possible, because we don't (first) consider the SOURCE of our unrest! Another’s incapacity for feeling remorse, their lack of rationale, absence of empathy and their refusal to OWN their shortcomings, mistakes or faults makes it literally impossible for us to reach any sense of closure with ‘em.

If you know a Borderline who comes anywhere close to having developed a capacity for these things, you're got yourself a VERY RARE BIRD! Still, this does not ensure clear sailing in your relationship, for these deficits are those of an underdeveloped being who thinks, behaves and reacts to every life experience, like a young child.

We feel turned upside-down and inside-out, when dealing with people who have BPD traits, due to our inability to achieve RESOLUTION with 'em when a misunderstanding erupts. When we've grown up with parents who had these issues, we’ve grown to accept that this type of conflict and torment in a relationship is "normal," and we are RESIGNED to letting it pass, until the next time it intrudes like a 'wrecking ball' that lands squarely on our otherwise copasetic relationship bond.

Resignation is nothing like Resolution. Healing and growth are possible thru resolution, whereas these can’t happen with resignation, because we haven't gotten to feel finished, complete or at peace with having healed a relationship rupture with another. We've merely accepted it's a good as it's gonna get, and resign ourselves to living with a sense of Unfinished Business.

Many can manage this sense of emotional incompleteness and mild to moderate unrest. Emotionally healthy, whole, self-actualized humans cannot. It sits like a little simmering pot on the back-burner of their range, which nags at ‘em daily and robs ‘em of precious mental and physical energy they could be putting to much better use in other domains of their life.

Resolution CAN be accomplished more easily with a dead person, than one who's still alive and kicking. If this were UNTRUE, millions of adult abused children wouldn't emotionally experience an overriding sense of relief and peace after the passing of a toxic, tormenting mom or dad. At long last, they feel relieved of the task of trying to please a (generally unhappy) parent, or get their acceptance, approval or love.

If you ask me, it’s a gift that’s hard won. Sadly, it arrives far too late in one’s life.

Perhaps our fierce determination to 'get it right' with a lover or life partner, is at its baseline, all about never having been able to secure a sense of RESOLUTION with our toxic, neglectful and/or emotionally abusive parental unit, and we indulge ourselves in thinking we can finally accomplish this with a significant other, who’s cut from the same cloth as the parent with whom we had the most difficulties, whether we consciously recognize this, or not.

Yeah, that makes sense, doesn’t it?? UGH! Here’s an inalienable truth for ya: Who we grow up loving, whether they returned our adoration or not, is who we automatically bond with and marry in adulthood.

Solid, meaningful inner-work is needed to mend the heart injuries that keep us attracted to people who are incapable of reciprocating our care and love for them. True resolution and healing in this context, has very little to do with one’s mind.