Hi all. I'm a rare poster on this board, but my ex wuBPD is back in touch with me and I want to practice skills
Effective boundaries over three years have him accepting that the thing he is most comfortable with -- where he is my intimate "friend" and we are partners in all but name (oh, and no physical relationship), and he sometimes pursues romance with other women -- does not work for me. We've had long periods of no communication because he won't work with me on less than an intimate connection (constantly pushing for more in a way that is hard to draw lines around, though if I get to this point again, I'll be more hard line about that), and I won't proceed with the intimate dynamic he wants without some assurance that we are actually working on a real relationship.
Anyway, after nearly a year apart, he got back in touch recently and proposed that we explore where we could go together with no per se limitations out of the box. This is all I've asked, going back years. So I said yes (which is "opposite action" for me -- I usually would have a whole list of hoops he needed to jump through to prove to me that this was not going to fall apart, that he was really really sure, etc. I've done a lot of work on accepting who he is and what happens with him, and the truth is, he may never be "really really sure" and his feelings are going to change. I've been working on my own reactivity and tendency to jump to dire conclusions just because he has a moment of doubt. Anyway, this time, he offered what I needed, so I said yes).
We both said words about going slow, but he almost immediately began pushing to see each other (we live 4 hours apart), and to begin a physical relationship again. (We have not yet seen each other--that is planned for a couple weeks from now.) And now, predictably, he is getting cold feet, wondering if this is fated to fail, he thinks we are probably not compatible, and so on.
This is a good test of my "don't take it personally" skills and my radical acceptance skills and whether I've dealt with my own rejection anxiety. So far, so good. I am going to try to let him work this out on his own, without me jumping in to solve it or advise him or ... .
But I do have a thought that maybe I should offer that we don't need to have a weekend-long visit, not yet. To relieve the pressure that may be causing. However. In the past, I've done stuff like that, which created an easy way for him to resolve his feelings but put us in the very position I don't want to be in: effectively, intimate friends. Also, in the past, I have prematurely determined that things would go badly and so
I would not let things play out. I never just tried to trust my skills at navigating things as they come; I sort of tried to steer things to a premature conclusion based on my own fears.
So I guess my question is where you all think the best balance lies. Just let this unfold without trying to take control of it? Or make offers to step back, to lessen the pressure?
Obviously, if he says
he wants to change the plan, that's fine. I won't let the situation return to what it was before, where there is no express commitment to exploring a real relationship. If he wants to return there, I've told him I'll write him letters but I have to be at a greater distance -- I cannot be his de facto but unacknowledged partner anymore.
But if he doesn't change the plan, my current thought is to just allow it to play out, and not myself try to alleviate pressure by pre-empting and calling it off myself. Would appreciate any insights.
