4 weeks NC, she's becoming a memory, I have mixed feelings

[Think About It...]

5.5 year relationship with my uBPDexgf, she left me 6 weeks ago, NC for 4 weeks now.

I've been a miserable wreck the last 6 weeks since she left me.  Some days a good day was getting out of bed by 5pm and actually eating something.  The first weeks were absolutely miserable.  

The last 2-3 days I've been feeling different though.  Instead of having her and the the failed relationship on my mind 90% of the day, I feel as if my grip is loosening on whatever I was desperately trying to hold onto.  As the weeks pass I'm realizing she's not reaching out to me and is not coming back.  I've been thinking about her a little less the last 2-3 days.  This morning I woke up and thought of her as I laid in bed and my pain felt different.  I felt that I missed her, but kind of like you miss an old high school best friend.  I realized that she's becoming just a memory stored away in my brain.  As more memories get laid on top she may even be buried one day, only to be thought of a few times each year.  

The realization that the person that was my EVERYTHING just 6 weeks ago is now becoming just a memory, both makes me feel good yet also saddens me.  I'm glad that for my own health I am detaching and that my psyche is adjusting to life without her, but I also realized that if I, the one that was rejected and took this break-up so hard, am feeling the detachment at 4 weeks NC...then what must she be feeling?  I must not even be a thought in her mind these days, after all she is the one with BPD traits and dumped me.  It's disheartening to think I mattered so little to her and that she was over me so fast.  

Although I am moving towards a better place in my life, the thought of the person I was ready to spend the rest of my life with and be the mother of my children being just a memory in my mind has me a bit down.  

[talkitout]

5.5 year relationship with my uBPDexgf, she left me 6 weeks ago, NC for 4 weeks now.

I've been a miserable wreck the last 6 weeks since she left me.  Some days a good day was getting out of bed by 5pm and actually eating something.  The first weeks were absolutely miserable.  

The last 2-3 days I've been feeling different though.  Instead of having her and the the failed relationship on my mind 90% of the day, I feel as if my grip is loosening on whatever I was desperately trying to hold onto.  As the weeks pass I'm realizing she's not reaching out to me and is not coming back.  I've been thinking about her a little less the last 2-3 days.  This morning I woke up and thought of her as I laid in bed and my pain felt different.  I felt that I missed her, but kind of like you miss an old high school best friend.  I realized that she's becoming just a memory stored away in my brain.  As more memories get laid on top she may even be buried one day, only to be thought of a few times each year.  

The realization that the person that was my EVERYTHING just 6 weeks ago is now becoming just a memory, both makes me feel good yet also saddens me.  I'm glad that for my own health I am detaching and that my psyche is adjusting to life without her, but I also realized that if I, the one that was rejected and took this break-up so hard, am feeling the detachment at 4 weeks NC...then what must she be feeling?  I must not even be a thought in her mind these days, after all she is the one with BPD traits and dumped me.  It's disheartening to think I mattered so little to her and that she was over me so fast.  

Although I am moving towards a better place in my life, the thought of the person I was ready to spend the rest of my life with and be the mother of my children being just a memory in my mind has me a bit down.  

[Sailskier]

I totally understand.  We are the ones who chose to let go...and it is so difficult to let go of something or someone that meant so much to us.  In my case, I know that I am very guilty of trying to keep a connection...he was done 2 weeks after he left me..six years of a r/s and six months of being engaged.  The more we keep ruminating, the closer we are to them...and the less guilty we feel about abandoning them...and the more we punish ourselves, the more we feed our low self-esteem.  We carry the problem...they deal w' the problem by discarding us...we feel the responsibilty of keeping the memory alive. The trick is not to keep the memory alive as much as to place it in it's proper content...just as we did with other past r/s. 

I understand...I'm struggling with the not wanting to let go as well.  But, you are absolutely correct, new memories will occupy your mind and the memory of her will eventually find it's proper placement...it won't be gone, simply properly filed away

[jacksondog]

Hey Talkinout, I'm almost 3 months out, My feelings are up and down.I see a T once a week which helps a lot. I'm just trying to work on myself and knowing what I have read, things should fall into place. I was also discarded like you. Very difficult for me being 55 years old thinking I would be with her the rest of my life. I feel like I;m in a bad dream. But I have had some good days. I think lately I have been having a hard time because we did so many things together that I always did, like golf and fish  I have been doing them both and it triggers ugly emotions. But I'm still NC sticking to it. knowing that that person I cared for so much will never be apart of my life. Like you said very disheartening.We got to hang in there, and trust the Fact that we cant have healthy relationships with a BPD, heck when you think about it one of the top  if not the top things in a relationship is trust. They cant even be trusted. I'm not going to live like that. I have to keep reminding myself that  there traits are so immoral, unfeeling, Il let you add on a few because I don,t want to get worked up and angry. Hang in there Brother, One day soon you will find someone and your going to wonder why you have been in that relationship for 5 plus years. Peace Out.

[luckystrikes]

well, of course it has you down. this is pretty painful stuff, of the sort we may very well only experience once in our lives.

first of all, i wanta stress that i think 4 weeks is ridiculously early. i dont even want to think about where i was in 4 weeks, or even three months. so on a large level, youre actually doing really great. i was also only in it for 3 years, as opposed to your 5 and a half. in a lot of ways, i was getting worse, at 5 or 6 months. some, if not many, are still having a very hard time after a year. so, i can attest to the fact that this is serious progress.

now for the comforting thoughts. yes, your psyche is healing, and will heal, in spite of you. thats the good news. i was having some pretty painful dreams for several weeks, but i began to notice some major changes as the dreams progressed, that i took as a sign of my psyche healing. the dreams stopped a long time ago.

people will tell you not to focus on what the other person is thinking/doing, which isnt always possible, though you certainly dont seem to be doing too much of this.

but heres the thing. when you say " It's disheartening to think I mattered so little to her and that she was over me so fast." i dont think its that simple, and i dont think you need to look at it quite so painfully. just like learning about the disorder will help you depersonalize the actions, it will help you see her recent behavior for what it is as well.

she may be thinking of you, and she may not, its not really possible to tell. it is likely she is doing everything in her power not to, which is telling in itself. look at it this way though, and reverse it a bit. if youre going through this, and she isnt, that speaks far more powerfully to what SHE is actually going through, and its not pretty. theres quite a volcano of pain in there, and it just gets compounded. my mother told me NO ONE emerges from a three year (or 5 year) relationship unscathed, and its true, whether they appear that way or not. its the fact that they ARENT going through what were going through, that is so telling, of precisely what they ARE going through. its far, far from normal.

not to get your hopes up in a bad way, but its also not usually as simple as it looks. it is quite possible that she keeps tabs on you. mine did, and likely still does. i discovered this, before i learned about BPD, when i was agonizing over whether she was even giving me a thought. at the time i thought it was a positive sign. it wasnt.

you didnt matter so little to her. you mattered enough that she literally cant handle it, and cant deal with it now.

a lot of this will take some time to sink in. like i said, the more you learn about the disorder, the more you depersonalize it all, and the more you can decide for yourself what was "real" and what wasnt. i settle on the idea that whatever they felt, call it love, call it an illusion, whatever you want, whatever they felt cannot be sustained. either negative or positive. its...in some ways, its kind of like, the more you matter, the harder you get dumped on your ass.

but its that dynamic of the most important person in your life, now seeming like a stranger, or more aptly, almost like the living dead. its...i dont know if the brain can really comprehend such a thing. but thats the world of BPD.

you will get there, i promise. this turns your entire world upside down, and shows you things you never experienced, and may never again. i think it gives us a kind of pain/wisdom that most will never know, and that can evolve into a very beautiful thing. the painful, and troubling thoughts will adjust, and youll see things for what they are, in a way that you can deal with. for me, i dont go back and call most of it a fantasy. on the contrary, i think it was very real at the time. but i do, on some level, look at my ex as "not a real person". not literally, but i presume you know what i mean. the more that sinks in, it takes a lot of the pain out. you dont long for this person, because you just dont even see them the same way. my ex is a completely different person now, almost unrecognizable. there is nothing for me to long for.

be kind to yourself right now. 4 weeks is so, so very early, especially in a 5 year+ relationship. advice to me at the time was along the lines of "doing the bare minimum to survive is okay". i did not budge from my bed for months, and i was in emotional agony. couldnt eat for months, though thats great cause i lost a lot of weight and kept it off . youre still showing a will to live, that i didnt have much of at the time. i was so obsessive and panicky and insane 4 weeks out. youre really doing great. hang in there, and use this board as the god send it is.

[GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you on the right board?]

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Are you on the right board? This board is for members with failed or failing relationships that want to detach from their relationship and relationship wounds. If you are still analyzing the decision to stay, please post on Undecided: Staying or Leaving All members living with a pwBPD should learn to use the Stop the Bleeding tools - boundaries, timeouts and other basic tools - to better manage the day to day interactions with your partner. If you have questions on any of the tools, feel free to go over to Staying: Improving a Relationship with a Borderline Partner and ask for help. :-)

[Sailskier]

you didnt matter so little to her. you mattered enough that she literally cant handle it, and cant deal with it now.

Thank you Lucky...I needed to hear that today.

[backontop]

It's the grieving process!  It's normal, it's healthy...  and it's okay to feel it.  We as non's go through it, which MAKES us Non's!  I'm thankful I am capable of grieving, it means I'm learning something healthy.  So are you!   

[luckystrikes]

you didnt matter so little to her. you mattered enough that she literally cant handle it, and cant deal with it now.

Thank you Lucky...I needed to hear that today.

well, its very true, i think. i believe i got the idea from 2010, who pointed out that in a lot of ways, we were VERY important. i mean, these people were to the point of taking on our identities. we were thought to be the thing they were searching for all their life, they thought we could fill their bottomless pit, they thought we were the answer. they thought the entire world of us. it just so happens that filling their bottomless pit is impossible.

being dropped like most of us were does not make us disposable, quite the contrary. really think about how flabbergastingly abnormal their process is...or the fact that they dont even process. they cant. it would emotionally destroy them. its the only way they could do it. and that doesnt mean the pain isnt there, either.  if you were meaningless, it wouldnt happen that way. they dont emerge from these relationships unscathed, and in fact their pain is probably greater than ours, thats why we are ultimately able to deal with it. not to mention, in plenty of cases, the breakup does more or less emotionally destroy them, whether they acknowledge the cause or not.

[jacksondog]

Luckystrikes, That is some really fine writings you gave us . I really enjoyed how you put all that pain in perspective. Thanx

[talkitout]

Thank you everyone for your advice and feedback.  I know deep inside I did everything in my power to make the relationship work.  I never left her, not even once.  Meanwhile, she left me numerous times and I realize I would never have been able to live a stable life with her.  I miss her but I don't miss the drama.

[yianks69]

if you were meaningless, it wouldnt happen that way. they dont emerge from these relationships unscathed, and in fact their pain is probably greater than ours, thats why we are ultimately able to deal with it. not to mention, in plenty of cases, the breakup does more or less emotionally destroy them, whether they acknowledge the cause or not.

Will agree with luckystrikes as well stating the following different perspective:

We were not meaningless to pwBPD because it takes so much effort and energy to paint us black, undergo silent treatment and rage at every chance we give them. For example, silent treatment = punishment…no one would want to punish someone who means nothing to him/her.

In my dictionary meaningless = indifference which means don’t really care about the other person, act cool around him/her and not rage because of the emotional pain.

Of course, part of why they behave badly is due to the disorder but certainly another big portion of it is the meaning they place on us. However, the disorder’s characteristic of engulfment prevails and their natural mechanisms kick in and behave in the known BPD mean ways.