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Hi

  My partner of a few years left me 2 weeks ago and I feel very upset. Before I switch to another board, I had a couple of issues/questions'=====

----He wanted to end it, and then said he wanted to just "take a break" because I got angry at him. I plan to keep it as a breakup, as I am no longer able to tolerate his pushing me away whenever I get mad, instead of work it out.

----During our last contact, he was angry and defensive, putting all blame on me , and alternated between that and a cold, distant demeanor. When I confronted him on the coldness he said he "switched off his feelings for the moment" as a defense.  Is that something BPs often do, or is it a total lack of feeling when they break up with us?  THen an hour later he was kind and chatty again (but I still refused to consider this a "break" and I see it as final goodbye.)  Any clarification on this----does the coldness mean he doesn't care? What's up with suddenly being chatty at the end of the discussion?

I guess it's alien to what I was doing/feeling, so it would help me to understand some of this, and I don't wish to call him to ask about it.

-----I have heard that when they end things, they devalue it, to protect themselves from the pain of the ending. He told me "we were just engaged, it's not like we were married", and I feel hurt by this. I wonder if it's like a kid losing a buddy and the kid says "He wasn't so great anyway" to lessen the pain of the loss? I'd feel shocked and hurt if this reducing things to a small loss is true!

Shatra

If I had to guess, I'd say the cold behavior is RAGE.  Anger is more passionate than that, but rage can be seething, cold, and deliberate than that if he has a desire to inflict agony on you.

As for the "chatty" stuff... .I'd suspect he's wanting to keep the door open just a little, and became frightened his nasty behavior might be enough to send you reeling away from him.

I don't think any of this indicates he doesn't care, it's just that his care comes with conditions.  Mainly, the condition is that you are required to eat whatever he dishes out, have no needs, no real emotional responses to his confusing behavior, and no mind of your own.

These are just guesses from the recently initiated.

Hi

  Yes those are good explanations. I feel hurt since in my "world", this detachment would =  lack of care. But the defenses the BPs have are so strong that it's likely the coldness was a cover up of the rage you described.

  I wonder if the devaluation and downplaying of the relationship at the end was also a defense----it hurts less to let go of a minimal relationship than to let go of a positive, strong one?

Shatra

   

It is. BPDers will throw anything at you that they think or know will hurt you. They lash out because they are so hurt... .that's how they handle it.

Yes, Ethyl, it seems like a defense. If he devalues the relationship, it doesn't hurt him as much to end it... .plus as an added "bonus" he gets to hurt me, as you said. They do react to being hurt by lashing out with anger.

  It's like that expression "Hurt people hurt people". 

Understanding this helps me not take it as personally, or take everything he says as an accurate reading of how upset and hurt he may really feel inside, under those defenses.

Shatra