Father Figure To My 23 Year Old uBPD ex gf.

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I am just turned 48. My ex-girlfriend is almost 24. Our relationship ended six weeks ago when I realize she was still having an affair with a married man, whom she left me for as soon as he agreed to leave his wife. They had been dating off and on for about five weeks.

While I have tried to maintain no contact, my instincts have gotten the better of me on three occasions, mainly out of a desire for answers and to gain some semblance of closure. I am still trying to understand how a basically good year and a half long relationship could have ended through such betrayal and destruction.

The idealization phase was the most seductive experience of my life. Despite our age difference, I had never felt so emotionally and physically drawn to another person probably in my entire life. She reminded me of every girl and  woman I had crashed out on since grade school. She was absolutely beautiful, but also seemed sincere, sensitive, unguarded, and filled with warmth and kindness. We had intense conversations lasting way into the late hours of the night. She told me that she loved me after about three months and I wholeheartedly agreed. Almost until the affair began, we often spoke of feeling love at first sight, and found it amazing that we had met each other. So much warmth, so much flattery. After six months she became so incredibly needy and demanding that our relationship was under a severe strain. They suffer of anxiety and depression, she needed my assistance for simple things like shopping and writing a bus. She would text dozens of times a day and call four or five times even on the days I saw her. But at the start of the semester this January, she became more independent, less needy, seeming to grow up enormously over the course of six months. Her grades were excellent and she secured two internships, as well as lining up a position for a post graduate job.

Until the very end, she described me as her best boyfriend ever, her best lover, her best friend, and family to her, but if so how could she treat me so poorly The last month of our relationship?

I was 46 when we met. What was I thinking?

She began an affair with one of her college instructors, engaging in drug use their first date. Just friends, she insisted, and she really didn't have friends in town except for me. She left me for him, came back to me, left me for him again, and finally came back to me, claiming she had made a huge mistake and wanted to make things right. It wasn't until I discovered telephone text messages that I realize the affair head never stopped, and when I confronted her, she ended things. Now they are together. She may have even moved in with him.

I should mention that she had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, as do her mother, sister, and two brothers. However, she had been sober for two years, with three or four exceptions. At least that I knew about.

We have chatted three times on face book and spoken twice since the breakup. She had dozens of excuses for her behavior, telling me that she thought I understood that she needed to live her "young life". She told me I was the strong and independent one and didn't think I would be hurt. She asked me how I could expect her to give someone she fell for, when she claims those kind of connections are so rare. She blamed me for a lack of care and concern for her, even after I had spent many nights putting her needs above my own. Now she claims confusion, saying that perhaps she will wake up soon, sober, and realize she made a horrible mistake. She insisted on us maintaining a friendship, which would be on possible for me. She claims to still love me and consider us soul mates. It's maddening, because who would say these things after deciding to leave for another man? Yesterday, she told me I had been a father figure, and she thought I would love her unconditionally. Apparently, this included leaving me for him. I told her no one would under stand that. Her reply was, simply "a father would".

Apparently she viewed me as the ultimate white night. But as soon as her situation changed, as soon as this guy came along, she completely jettisoned me. She has never apologized or even admitted that her behaviors destroyed our relationship. She even blames me for enabling her childish dependence on another, rather than facing her responsibilities. I Ranick Lee, after leaving me, she received in unsatisfactory on her internship, and barely graduated from college. In fact, she begged extra credit simply to get a D in a required course. And now she is addicted to drugs. She also told me that her depression and anxiety scores are far worse now than a year ago.

It feels terrible to be blamed for her failures, and for ending our relationship, while ignoring the fact that my stability likely allowed her to do well in life. I always encourage her studies in professional development, as well as applying to graduate school, which would take her far away from me. I feel like I never tried to manipulate her, and when I told her of my reluctance to call for more commitment from her, she blamed me for that as well, although I told her I would support her decision to continue grad school here in town and maintain a relationship with me if she so decide.

I'm truly feeling despair every single day, and have been for weeks. I was even partially hospitalized– Three hours a day four days a week – for depression for a month while she was going back and forth between me and the other man. She told me that I did that to manipulate her.

What happened to the girlfriend I thought I knew? As soon as the drugs started, everything about her changed. Her speech, her interests, her moods, even the way she walked and her physical manner changed. In retrospect her borderline personality disorder and is fairly clear to see, but I am wondering how much her drug addiction changed her in to another. It's hard braking either way. Someone I love and adored became a cold, vicious, self centered monster.

I am new here. I would appreciate any comments you may have, especially if you have experienced something similar. From my reading, it seems that many of you have.

[Penumbra66]

I am just turned 48. My ex-girlfriend is almost 24. Our relationship ended six weeks ago when I realize she was still having an affair with a married man, whom she left me for as soon as he agreed to leave his wife. They had been dating off and on for about five weeks.

While I have tried to maintain no contact, my instincts have gotten the better of me on three occasions, mainly out of a desire for answers and to gain some semblance of closure. I am still trying to understand how a basically good year and a half long relationship could have ended through such betrayal and destruction.

The idealization phase was the most seductive experience of my life. Despite our age difference, I had never felt so emotionally and physically drawn to another person probably in my entire life. She reminded me of every girl and  woman I had crashed out on since grade school. She was absolutely beautiful, but also seemed sincere, sensitive, unguarded, and filled with warmth and kindness. We had intense conversations lasting way into the late hours of the night. She told me that she loved me after about three months and I wholeheartedly agreed. Almost until the affair began, we often spoke of feeling love at first sight, and found it amazing that we had met each other. So much warmth, so much flattery. After six months she became so incredibly needy and demanding that our relationship was under a severe strain. They suffer of anxiety and depression, she needed my assistance for simple things like shopping and writing a bus. She would text dozens of times a day and call four or five times even on the days I saw her. But at the start of the semester this January, she became more independent, less needy, seeming to grow up enormously over the course of six months. Her grades were excellent and she secured two internships, as well as lining up a position for a post graduate job.

Until the very end, she described me as her best boyfriend ever, her best lover, her best friend, and family to her, but if so how could she treat me so poorly The last month of our relationship?

I was 46 when we met. What was I thinking?

She began an affair with one of her college instructors, engaging in drug use their first date. Just friends, she insisted, and she really didn't have friends in town except for me. She left me for him, came back to me, left me for him again, and finally came back to me, claiming she had made a huge mistake and wanted to make things right. It wasn't until I discovered telephone text messages that I realize the affair head never stopped, and when I confronted her, she ended things. Now they are together. She may have even moved in with him.

I should mention that she had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, as do her mother, sister, and two brothers. However, she had been sober for two years, with three or four exceptions. At least that I knew about.

We have chatted three times on face book and spoken twice since the breakup. She had dozens of excuses for her behavior, telling me that she thought I understood that she needed to live her "young life". She told me I was the strong and independent one and didn't think I would be hurt. She asked me how I could expect her to give someone she fell for, when she claims those kind of connections are so rare. She blamed me for a lack of care and concern for her, even after I had spent many nights putting her needs above my own. Now she claims confusion, saying that perhaps she will wake up soon, sober, and realize she made a horrible mistake. She insisted on us maintaining a friendship, which would be on possible for me. She claims to still love me and consider us soul mates. It's maddening, because who would say these things after deciding to leave for another man? Yesterday, she told me I had been a father figure, and she thought I would love her unconditionally. Apparently, this included leaving me for him. I told her no one would under stand that. Her reply was, simply "a father would".

Apparently she viewed me as the ultimate white night. But as soon as her situation changed, as soon as this guy came along, she completely jettisoned me. She has never apologized or even admitted that her behaviors destroyed our relationship. She even blames me for enabling her childish dependence on another, rather than facing her responsibilities. I Ranick Lee, after leaving me, she received in unsatisfactory on her internship, and barely graduated from college. In fact, she begged extra credit simply to get a D in a required course. And now she is addicted to drugs. She also told me that her depression and anxiety scores are far worse now than a year ago.

It feels terrible to be blamed for her failures, and for ending our relationship, while ignoring the fact that my stability likely allowed her to do well in life. I always encourage her studies in professional development, as well as applying to graduate school, which would take her far away from me. I feel like I never tried to manipulate her, and when I told her of my reluctance to call for more commitment from her, she blamed me for that as well, although I told her I would support her decision to continue grad school here in town and maintain a relationship with me if she so decide.

I'm truly feeling despair every single day, and have been for weeks. I was even partially hospitalized– Three hours a day four days a week – for depression for a month while she was going back and forth between me and the other man. She told me that I did that to manipulate her.

What happened to the girlfriend I thought I knew? As soon as the drugs started, everything about her changed. Her speech, her interests, her moods, even the way she walked and her physical manner changed. In retrospect her borderline personality disorder and is fairly clear to see, but I am wondering how much her drug addiction changed her in to another. It's hard braking either way. Someone I love and adored became a cold, vicious, self centered monster.

I am new here. I would appreciate any comments you may have, especially if you have experienced something similar. From my reading, it seems that many of you have.

[LettingGo14]

Welcome Penumbra66.  Thank you for sharing your story.  You have come to a good place for healing, with a community of members who have shared similar experiences.

I am sorry you are suffering right now.  We do experience trauma, and I'm going to quote a post from a respected member, 2010, who posted it in a thread a while back.  It resonated for many, and perhaps it will for you too.  Other members will also be able to give you perspective as well.

Borderlines don’t pretend to be victimized. They are at a stage of arrested development that promotes disordered thought about their inability to become whole. That’s a fancy way of saying they are immature and are showing you the age of development where they are stuck.

Because of the failure to separate and individuate during development, they often attract people who have “ideas of reference” about who they are. Borderlines then turn these people into pseudo-parents which further reinforces their unstable sense of self and causes them to flee. The easiest and most life affirming connection they make is with people who place them in “one-down” positions. Those are the rescuers, saviors and white knights as well as the voice hogs and self centered.

Rescuers, saviors, white knights are all “false selves.” They are all coats of armor to protect the “true self” from being hurt. Borderlines are attracted to the “false selves” of others because of their ability to value the needs of the Borderline *and* in return, Borderlines adapt themselves according to whatever the “false self” of the partner projects.

Confused? That’s OK. It will take some understanding of your identity which is now suffering a crisis.

Here’s probably what happened: The lack of stable self (the Borderline) bought protection out of weakness by attaching to the stronger “false” self, but this formed a false bond out of neediness for both parties. People who need helpless people to feel better about themselves, (hereafter known as vulnerable narcissists) pair up resplendently with Borderlines, whose compulsions involve attaching to people who have strong opinions about how they should live and then hating them for those opinions. This activates intra-psychic scapegoating and persecution fears which further fuel engulfment fears and create the need to escape. In effect, finalizing the distorted belief that BOTH PARTIES have that they have BOTH been victimized and cannot trust anyone.

Borderlines will impulsively find a new person with strong opinions and repeat the process or they will become hermits and never leave the house. Vulnerable Narcissists will also find a new rewarding mirror ball to feel better about the carefully constructed "false self."

That bears repeating: The Borderline lack of stable self bought protection out of weakness. The “false self” presented strength and offered it in exchange for the weakness. This is an immature, fantasy based scenario for both parties that could not be maintained because all humans need to be autonomous and act on their own free will before they can be healthy adults. A person with Borderline personality will be constantly struggling with this.

All good relationships have an element of childlike wonder in them. However, if a fantasy role (supported by the false self of the narcissist and the true self of the Borderline) was the majority of the relationship, then one person is using the other to remain in a one-up parent position while the other remains in a childlike or irresponsible state.  For her to become mature means putting away childish expectations of being carried like a child in life or having a pseudo-parent for a partner.

And being a pseudo-parent is going to cause some demons to trigger in the mind of a Borderline. This is a person with an extremely fragile sense of self which causes her to have a need to displace blame for her anxiety concerning her failure to become “whole.”

In blame, people cast distorted perceptions about *others responsibility* for their painful, fractious self, which causes the recipients of their blame to become defensive and then reflect blame in return. That goes against exactly what Borderlines don’t want *intellectually* to happen; their abandonment. It does, however, do exactly what the *disordered belief* wants and needs concerning persecution, scapegoating and splitting.

Contrary to much of what is written by misinformed people who are still knee deep in their own pain, people suffering from Borderline aren’t doing this to you on purpose. This is a disorder.

Blame disallows any self-introspection to occur- for both parties. So let’s take a look at this again.

Borderlines borrow aspects of “others” to strengthen themselves. They do this with idealization of personality strength, in what can appear to the “other” like a soul mate bond. This causes projective identification on the part of the partner who projects “good” onto the other. Projecting good can also mean that the bad parts of the self are disowned and projected onto the other in order to be resolved.

That means that a younger woman who is doing her best to avoid growing up, may look for an older man who will encourage her helplessness but not her feelings about helplessness. If that young woman has Borderline personality disorder, she may even prefer a large age gap between her partner to balance the neediness of *both people* and make what she has to offer more viable. Youth and sex become a personalized commodity in the evaluation of the partner’s “needs.”

These two things can be very appealing to an older Man, but they are dependent upon an exchange. These relationships are not about equality and growing old together - they are about fighting growing old, for both parties. Feelings come out of this.

When the Borderline fear, which is defuse and pervasive, is displaced onto the attachment bond and the partner receives an attack on the false self without warning, two things happen- the partner either withdraws or feels forced to defend the “false” self. At this juncture, both parties are participants in maladaptive coping measures- especially those concerning identity.

How will you know and recognize your false self? When it doesn’t work anymore. Whatever was presented in strength has now become a weakness. If you started out as a rescuer, you will eventually become a victim. If you started out in a one up position, you will end up at the same level. Because your false self involves fantasy thinking rather than reality testing; it has not survived. As they say, the mask comes off.  Not theirs- YOURS.

If you are continually finding yourself in one-up positions in your relationships rather than a stance of equality, therein lies your need (to overcome.) Your drive toward these unequal partners supports your false self. You've got to stop repeating the lessons that you should have learned from previous failures of rescuing needy women and then feeling used by them. That’s further entrenching your armor.

You want a person to love you, not for what you can give them, but for who you are. Not your false self. Not the car you drive, the money you spend, your physique or appearance, but the true you. That little kid inside that’s behind all that armor, who you keep hidden, that just wants to be loved.

Let it happen but first let go of the need to pretend and fix your false self. It’s broken for a reason.  

[Penumbra66]

LettingGo14:

Thank you for your post. I think I definitely had/have some aspects of codependency, although I was not prepared for the level of care needed for much of the relationship. It's a pity that I began to feel more comfortable in the relationship as my uBpd ex gf became more and more independent. We had spoken briefly about this after the breakup, and she insisted her increasing independence was due to my lack of support in the relationship. She explained that she was beginning to feel overly invested, and thus a need to pull away from me. However, she later claimed that I was enabling her and actually preventing her growth.

It's hard to accept, but I realize that her current emotions become her reality. I guess I will never know the truth.