When detachment means a disconnection from oneself

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

My uBPDxw and I have been apart for nearly 5 years and divorced for 2. During that time we have lived on different continents, her where we lived together last, me where I grew up and started my career.

Following our abrupt and devastating break up, I returned to my childhood home to recuperate and be around family.

She kept the kids but sent them to me a month or so later. Fast forward 5 years and I've been raising them on my own with help from my extended family. They are thriving and my life is going well at an objective level.

However, I feel disconnected from myself.  When we broke up, I intended to come home on a temporary basis. But when she sent our kids, it became apparent staying close to my family and providing the kids stability was best. It has worked and as a parent, I don't regret it. But in the process I had to give up the exciting international job and life I worked hard for and planned since college. I changed jobs and am focused on a different geogrpahic area in my profession. People around me aren't wordly, etc. I feel I am living a life that doesn't honor who I am and I deal with it for the sake of my kids.

Just curious if anyone has had similar feelings where your loss isn't just your SO, but due to circumstances beyond your control, your entire life and identity.

Also, what if the good parts of your past were fading in the rearview mirror and the only true connection left was your ex. I like to keep her at arm's length (we only communicate by email about the kids every few months). But whenever I feel that nostalgia, I want to reach out and share those feelings, if only to prove they are real, or to make them more real. But given our past and her behavior, I also don't want to open a door for her to feel connected.  Has anyone had a similar experience? How have you handled it?

[strong9]

My uBPDxw and I have been apart for nearly 5 years and divorced for 2. During that time we have lived on different continents, her where we lived together last, me where I grew up and started my career.

Following our abrupt and devastating break up, I returned to my childhood home to recuperate and be around family.

She kept the kids but sent them to me a month or so later. Fast forward 5 years and I've been raising them on my own with help from my extended family. They are thriving and my life is going well at an objective level.

However, I feel disconnected from myself.  When we broke up, I intended to come home on a temporary basis. But when she sent our kids, it became apparent staying close to my family and providing the kids stability was best. It has worked and as a parent, I don't regret it. But in the process I had to give up the exciting international job and life I worked hard for and planned since college. I changed jobs and am focused on a different geogrpahic area in my profession. People around me aren't wordly, etc. I feel I am living a life that doesn't honor who I am and I deal with it for the sake of my kids.

Just curious if anyone has had similar feelings where your loss isn't just your SO, but due to circumstances beyond your control, your entire life and identity.

Also, what if the good parts of your past were fading in the rearview mirror and the only true connection left was your ex. I like to keep her at arm's length (we only communicate by email about the kids every few months). But whenever I feel that nostalgia, I want to reach out and share those feelings, if only to prove they are real, or to make them more real. But given our past and her behavior, I also don't want to open a door for her to feel connected.  Has anyone had a similar experience? How have you handled it?

[Wicker Man]

Just curious if anyone has had similar feelings where your loss isn't just your SO, but due to circumstances beyond your control, your entire life and identity.

I do understand the feeling, but please consider, it is all too easy to focus on losses and not see the blessings in our lives.  If I may be so bold, you have retained, nurtured, and excelled in your roll as a father -you have created a home, a healthy environment where your children can thrive.  You have your career.  This is an identity and one of which you can be incredibly proud.

Happiness is a choice, what we choose to value, and where we put our focus.  It seems to be human nature to take blessings for granted, health, a roof over our heads, food in the pantry, family both nuclear and extended.  The simple joy of feeling the sun on our shoulder while working in the garden.

I have found some help from:

A Road Less Travelled (Peck) I don't care for the author's voice, but there is some good advice.

Is it Love or is it Addiction (Schaeffer)

12 Rules for Life -an Antidote to Chaos (Peterson) a little preachy, but once again some good advice.

Also, what if the good parts of your past were fading in the rearview mirror and the only true connection left was your ex... .   ... .But whenever I feel that nostalgia, I want to reach out and share those feelings, if only to prove they are real, or to make them more real. But given our past and her behavior, I also don't want to open a door for her to feel connected.  Has anyone had a similar experience? How have you handled it?

Here my perception seems to differ from yours.  I have to take great care daily to remember the destructive parts of my relationship -they are fading and fading quickly.  The warmth, love, the laughs and smiles seem to be bubbling up through my psyche -rising up above, and smothering out, the pain and endured while we were together.  I have to keep a weather eye on the dysfunctional to not get drawn back in what I thought and the time would have been a beautiful future --not put myself back on the road to my destruction.

I saved a text message and have to look at it once in a while -just to keep myself in check.  I wrote 'You are putting me through hell' She answered 'I know'.  Most of us on this board can imagine the tableaux for such a discourse.

If I may, once again be perilously bold -I would like to suggest, what you felt was real, and deep and important. Pursuant your comment "I also don't want to open a door for her to feel connected". --Perhaps discuss your feelings and memories with family and friends if you have any concern about being drawn into an uncomfortable situation with your ex-wife.

I hope you find this missive somehow helpful.  In my opinion, it sounds like you have done wonderfully well and should be very proud of your accomplishments.


Wicker Man

[Mutt]

Hi strong9,

Also, what if the good parts of your past were fading in the rearview mirror and the only true connection left was your ex... .  ... .But whenever I feel that nostalgia, I want to reach out and share those feelings, if only to prove they are real, or to make them more real. But given our past and her behavior, I also don't want to open a door for her to feel connected.  Has anyone had a similar experience? How have you handled it?

Do you feel like what you like about the relationship won’t be recaptured? Do you fear that you’re not going to meet someone else? Are you seeing someone?

[strong9]

Thanks, Wicker Man. It is a fair point. The grass is always greener.

Mutt, thanks for responding. It isn't the relationship that I long for. I don't miss that at all. I'm in a good relationship 2 years strong and have truly moved on relationally. It is everything else that I had during the time of the marriage that I miss. My job, the part of the world I lived in, my life, etc.

I guess I'm like the small town boy that found himself in the big city, only to be forced by events back to the small town. And the only real connection I have left to the big city and the person I became there is my uBPDxw.  And I'm tempted to call her only to access big city me. Not for her, but through her. I'm looking to her as a conduit to transport me back in time. I was just wondering if anyone else has ever had that type of nostalgic irony - where your ex is the only connection you have to your past, but is also the one who helped tear it down. She hasn't matured enough where that is something she could meaningfully gift to me.

Wicker Man is probably right, just a state of nostalgia I need to move past.

[Wicker Man]

I guess I'm like the small town boy that found himself in the big city, only to be forced by events back to the small town.

Ok... .Ironically speaking of the 'big city' my relationship was going to move me to Beijing, swing my career over to the Chinese market, I was learning Mandarin on an intimate level and ultimately looked forward to starting a family. 

So, yes I understand your yearning on both a literal as well as a metaphoric level.  What I miss is the dream of this perceived future living 'in the big city' -which was just that, a dream. 

'We don't find love by chasing after it; we simply open our hearts and find it within us'

--Charlotte Kasl

This had been my error.  I was chasing love -I thought I had caught the sent of 'true love' and chased it hard and fast.  Creating this lovely fantasy for us -once again this was just a dream and not based in reality.  Oh! the things I over looked, forgave, and ignored to keep this dream construct alive!

... .just a state of nostalgia I need to move past.

It is painfully hard to let this nostalgia go --in the light of day my dream had been nothing more than elaborate denial and self deception -I had been making a desperate attempt to protect myself from the truth. 


Wicker Man

[Cromwell]

my BPDx had a sand-shifting sense of her own identity. Can you imagine how difficult it is to look back and try and make sense of what role I actually had the more I got closer to "her" and lost myself in her, by having to adapt to such a huge extent. I think I can partially relate, except that I managed to get back easier by not having any dependents or roped too deep in with marriage and finances. What I do relate to is the magnitude of the outfall of the R/S how it took me a long time to get back to where I wanted to be. Leaving my ex gave me the chance to prioritise my own needs again and although I didnt lose a professional career for it, I do look back and think just how far she was becoming the orchestrator of my life due to the intensity of the emotional enmeshment. It could also be a mix of underlying resentment towards her that you have lost these things that were an important part of your identity before and that you worked hard for. I often harboured the resentment because ultimately I didnt want to sully the happy times I had, but in time I did take a more objective and quantifiable and qualitative look at how much those "happy" moments cost me.

[Starfire]

Thanks, Wicker Man. It is a fair point. The grass is always greener.

Mutt, thanks for responding. It isn't the relationship that I long for. I don't miss that at all. I'm in a good relationship 2 years strong and have truly moved on relationally. It is everything else that I had during the time of the marriage that I miss. My job, the part of the world I lived in, my life, etc.

I guess I'm like the small town boy that found himself in the big city, only to be forced by events back to the small town. And the only real connection I have left to the big city and the person I became there is my uBPDxw.  And I'm tempted to call her only to access big city me. Not for her, but through her. I'm looking to her as a conduit to transport me back in time. I was just wondering if anyone else has ever had that type of nostalgic irony - where your ex is the only connection you have to your past, but is also the one who helped tear it down. She hasn't matured enough where that is something she could meaningfully gift to me.

Wicker Man is probably right, just a state of nostalgia I need to move past.

Aside from your children, what is holding you back from chasing those dreams?  For that matter, is it really inconceivable for you to go back to that life with your children in tow?  Do you really require any other person, your ex or otherwise, in order to change jobs and live internationally? 

You seem to think that everything you achieved during that time period was because of her.  I'm guessing those were your accomplishments that you would have pursued even without her in your life.  You're still that person who did that.  You can do it again.

[strong9]

Thanks again, Wicker Man.  It helps to know someone else has been in a similar situation and understands it, and the way to move past it.  Empathy is precisely what I set out to find when I created this topic and you provided it.    

Same applies to you Cromwell.  And I did resent her for some time, but quickly realized she would never make amends for (or even acknowledge) the pain she caused, so I let it go.  But I felt the same way you did about my "happy" memories, so thank you for sharing that.

Starfire, my two older children are in high school and I can't in good conscience make them move schools, much less continents, at such a crucial time.  They were forced to follow me through 5 different moves across 3 continents over the first decade plus of their lives and the past 4-1/2 years we have spent where we are now is the longest they have ever lived in one place.  Plus, if I move now, they will need to come right back in a few years for college anyways and would then be half the world away not only from their mom, but their father and youngest sibling as well.  Putting them through that to recapture my personal glory just doesn't sit well with me.    

Hopefully one day... .just not today.  Until then, I've got to develop ties to that world in a way that isn't reliant on nostalgic memories of days past... .   

Thanks again, all.  

[Wicker Man]

Thanks again, Wicker Man.  It helps to know someone else has been in a similar situation and understands it, and the way to move past it.  Empathy is precisely what I set out to find when I created this topic and you provided it.

   

Thank you for your kind words.  I am glad I was able to off some solace, even if only on a small level.  My short tryst with BPD has left me feeling very confused, lost and listless. 

After experiencing the 'idealization' phase, or as one person put it 'Love bombing'  I feel like I am trying to recover from a schedule 1 drug addiction.  After feeling such a high the rest of life feels a bit grey.  Day by day it is getting better -but ugh!

It will take a lot of time and therapy to come back down to Terra firma.


Wicker Man

[LilMe]

Strong9,

I can totally relate!  Unfortunately, I do not have an easy solution.  I left behind my farm and the business I had worked for 20 years to build and moved to my ex's farm to be a housewife. After our chaotic 10 year relationship, I was forced to leave everything behind and start over with nothing. I am stuck living in this area for my children and can't find a property I can afford so am living in town.

I have to take the children to visitation to what was 'our' farm and it hurts every time. I am slowly accepting my new life and trying to make the best of it. I run a non-profit that a friend started and that somewhat fills my longing for my business back. I have a tiny garden and a few tiny chickens, but know I may never have a cow or horse again. It doubly hurts having to return to all I left behind twice a week. I do have a job that I love with great friends and family.

I mostly try to enjoy my children while I can and remind myself how terrible life was with my ex.  But it is hard to not remember the good and mourn what could have been. I have been gone for 3 years and I'm not sure if I am yet ready for a relationship or how I would even go about finding someone. I don't even think I will ever trust anyone again, but at the same time long for an intimate friend.

I can't offer any advice or solution, but agree that we must focus on the good in our lives and look forward, not back.  I look forward to reading more responses from others who have overcome!  Hugs to you!  

[zachira]

I hear how frustrating that must be to give up your exciting international job and feel disconnected from those around you because you really don't have similar interests. Living and working abroad is so exciting and interesting and if that is your cup of tea it never feels right to be settled in one place. I know because I have spent many years abroad, and I am looking for ways to do so again. I would say don't feel you have to give this up forever, and look for ways to do this either now or in the future.

[Insom]

Hi,  strong9.   

Could this feeling of disconnection you've described be a normal part of being a parent?  FWIW, I work in a creative field and have heard many of my women friends/colleagues with kids describe a similar feeling of disconnection and painful identity loss that came on once their kiddos entered the picture.  One friend described the experience as grief.  She had to mourn the loss of the person she was before her son arrived before finding a way to accept her new identity as his mom.
 
The good new is, things change and get easier as the kids grow older and your ability to reconnect with those pieces of yourself that feel lost to you now will increase gradually as they gain independence.  Your kids are super-fortunate to be in under your stable care with loving family around to support. 

I hear that this is hard.  I also hear that you associate feeling connected with yourself to being with your ex.  While she may have catalyzed some of this for you, remember, it's not about her.  The qualities you've described that you like about yourself, qualities you expressed when she was in the picture, are still in you.

[heartandwhole]

Hi strong9,

I lived in a very cosmopolitan and exciting city when I met pwBPD. He lived in another country not far away, in another exciting and cosmopolitan city. We were making plans to live closer to one another, to work together (we had similar interests), and things like that.

It was a fantasy, and it blew up in my face rather quickly. I realized later that I was looking for change in my life. He provided more than enough of that.

Part of my recovery was moving to a small town in the mountains, in yet another country (the place I was born but didn't grow up in). All the "dreams" that I had discussed with pwBPD went out the window, but I've found something else: stability, peace, a sense of community.

I don't know how long I'll stay here, but while I'm here I'm enjoying everything this place and the people here have to offer. And I'm trying to give back. It's a challenge sometimes, and I do often feel like an outsider, but it's also been good for me.

All that to say that you are not alone.  I can really understand your feelings and trading the excitement that you had with pwBPD for the well-being of yourself and your family  As others have said, you can definitely make big changes later in life. I have, and I don't regret them.

Do you have professional and personal contacts at your previous place of residence that you can stay connected with?

Thanks for sharing your feelings. It helps me to continue to grow and know that what I've been through hasn't been in vain.

heartandwhole