Strangest relationship ending to date. What’s going on?

[Depression = 72% of members]

I’ve been with my (d)BPD for 18 months. We’ve had a relationship before, about 8 years ago, which had the typical BPD cycles. It ended when he started another relationship and I didn’t hear from him for five years, after which he got in touch and told me about his diagnosis and all the therapy he’d had etc. He said that the reason we’d split up before was that he’d pushed me away as he couldn’t cope with the relationship at the time.

I’m 45, he’s 50. We have never lived together or anything like that. Everything was fine until about a year in, when he started going a bit hot and cold again, and felt like he was withdrawing / stonewalling. I did attempt to talk about it once or twice, but he stonewalled me so on the occasions he went cold and froze me out, I just shrugged and ignored it, and carried on with my life as it is, deciding that the relationship was fine for the odd meetup, day out etc, but that it had gone as far as it was ever going to go. It happened about three times. The pattern tended to be that he would for some reason turn against me, freeze me out, thaw out after a few weeks or a month and then tentatively get back in touch. The last time it happened, I explained that I thought it was better to just meet up occasionally and keep things light. He helped me to move house (VERY stressful) and I’ve busy settling in and getting my life sorted.

Then a few weeks later (about two months ago), he sent me a series of totally unprovoked messages on FB messenger full of verbal abuse. A real attack on my character, just totally out of the blue. I didn’t respond to any of them, they just kept coming, one after the other. It was such an onslaught that I pressed the ‘ignore’ function on messenger and didn’t respond. It was just a list of stuff he didn’t like about me and how contemptuous he found me, so I preferred to draw a boundary and keep myself safe from further abuse. I didn’t reply to any of the messages and left the conversation as ‘ignored’. He didn’t message me again after he’d finished saying what he had to say.

His adult daughter (who I get on very well with) has since told me that he explained to her what had happened, saying that he was annoyed about how I’d said to him that I found the house move really stressful, and that the reason he got so angry with me was that I hadn’t asked him how he was that day (I definitely had, I’d talked to him that day a lot about him and his stuff, in fact it felt like all we ever talked about was him).

Two weeks after this onslaught, and after total radio silence, he started dating another woman. She’s 20 years old. He’s showing all our mutual friends photos of her, bragging about how well he’s done. He de-friended me on social media last weekend, which is fine but I’m not sure why he bothered as we weren’t contacting each other anyway.

I have no intention of un-ignoring him on messenger as I don’t want to talk to someone who unleashed that amount of contempt on me and I prefer not knowing if he’s tried to get in touch. But I want to understand what happened here. It feels like he’s almost doing all this in some kind of rage or revenge for something, but I’m not sure what. Within the last few weeks he seems to have decided that I have turned his daughter against him (I haven’t) and now him and his family have stopped talking to both her and me. We’re both pretty confused.
Anyone got any idea what might have happened here?

[Suspicious1]

I’ve been with my (d)BPD for 18 months. We’ve had a relationship before, about 8 years ago, which had the typical BPD cycles. It ended when he started another relationship and I didn’t hear from him for five years, after which he got in touch and told me about his diagnosis and all the therapy he’d had etc. He said that the reason we’d split up before was that he’d pushed me away as he couldn’t cope with the relationship at the time.

I’m 45, he’s 50. We have never lived together or anything like that. Everything was fine until about a year in, when he started going a bit hot and cold again, and felt like he was withdrawing / stonewalling. I did attempt to talk about it once or twice, but he stonewalled me so on the occasions he went cold and froze me out, I just shrugged and ignored it, and carried on with my life as it is, deciding that the relationship was fine for the odd meetup, day out etc, but that it had gone as far as it was ever going to go. It happened about three times. The pattern tended to be that he would for some reason turn against me, freeze me out, thaw out after a few weeks or a month and then tentatively get back in touch. The last time it happened, I explained that I thought it was better to just meet up occasionally and keep things light. He helped me to move house (VERY stressful) and I’ve busy settling in and getting my life sorted.

Then a few weeks later (about two months ago), he sent me a series of totally unprovoked messages on FB messenger full of verbal abuse. A real attack on my character, just totally out of the blue. I didn’t respond to any of them, they just kept coming, one after the other. It was such an onslaught that I pressed the ‘ignore’ function on messenger and didn’t respond. It was just a list of stuff he didn’t like about me and how contemptuous he found me, so I preferred to draw a boundary and keep myself safe from further abuse. I didn’t reply to any of the messages and left the conversation as ‘ignored’. He didn’t message me again after he’d finished saying what he had to say.

His adult daughter (who I get on very well with) has since told me that he explained to her what had happened, saying that he was annoyed about how I’d said to him that I found the house move really stressful, and that the reason he got so angry with me was that I hadn’t asked him how he was that day (I definitely had, I’d talked to him that day a lot about him and his stuff, in fact it felt like all we ever talked about was him).

Two weeks after this onslaught, and after total radio silence, he started dating another woman. She’s 20 years old. He’s showing all our mutual friends photos of her, bragging about how well he’s done. He de-friended me on social media last weekend, which is fine but I’m not sure why he bothered as we weren’t contacting each other anyway.

I have no intention of un-ignoring him on messenger as I don’t want to talk to someone who unleashed that amount of contempt on me and I prefer not knowing if he’s tried to get in touch. But I want to understand what happened here. It feels like he’s almost doing all this in some kind of rage or revenge for something, but I’m not sure what. Within the last few weeks he seems to have decided that I have turned his daughter against him (I haven’t) and now him and his family have stopped talking to both her and me. We’re both pretty confused.
Anyone got any idea what might have happened here?

[Cromwell]

Did you ever get opportunity to talk with him what his daughter mentioned about the house move being the reason for falling out previously?

[Selfishsally]

I'm sorry you have been going through this. There are many people on here with more wisdom then me that I am sure can be some help. Certain books on bpd have showed me a pwbpd processes things different then a non.  In my own expierence my ubpd/npd H would be very quick to attack me or say negative things about my character if I did or said anything that would suggest he were to blame or failed at something.
I would suggest when you said him helping you move was stressful he felt that you were blaming him and even ungrateful for all he did and sacrificed(in his mind anyway) to help you. Frustrating, I know!
My H also puts myself and our children in the trophy wife/trophy children category. If we are not always "perfect" we most likely will have a fall out from him. So, his daughter showing you sympathy or even just talking you could be seen as not acting as the perfect D she is supposed to be. It sounds like you are not having contact with your ex, which sounds good and healthy. You will hopefully be able to move on and fill your life with people who love you and understand you. His D needs to have this man in her life. Thank her for her friendship, but push her on her way so she can get back in his good graces.
And hopefully you can vent here and get some encouragement from us!

[Suspicious1]

Thanks both. I didn’t talk to my ex about what his daughter mentioned, no, as that was after his verbal onslaught and I’d drawn a boundary. I knew any attempt to talk at that point would have been met with a further onslaught (he’s still in that place now).

It may well be correct that he felt criticised in some way; that he’d helped me move and I still wasn’t happy - something like that. Which is incorrect of course. That said, I know that when he wants to cut someone off he looks for an excuse to do it, so he has something to blame. He has told me this. So I guess if it hadn’t been that statement, it would have been something else.