Why is it so hard to let go of the Fantasy?

[jhkbuzz]

Reading your post something just occurred to me. I don't think my ex did the lying! The night after she first met me, after a week of texting, she told the guy she had been living with that its over, just like that, a complete bolt out of the blue to him, she did nothing behind his back. This now has me thinking. At least with a liar they know what they are doing is wrong and are trying to hide it but perhaps with my ex she was so totally devoid of any empathy that she simply didn't care, which would push her towards psychopath status!

The level of calculation and coldness, countered with this unbelievable lack of ability to take any responsibility for the lying, cheating, etc... .and then constantly playing victim on top of it all will have my head spinning for the rest of my life. It all still remains incomprehensible to me.

... .but if a person cheats and lies to everyone (me, him, her families , her therapist about me, about him), and then puts blame and then plays victim... .how can you be a victim of your own indiscretion?

... .doesn't that qualify for psychopathic status?     

Don't forget - compartmentalization is a very powerful defense mechanism.

When I found out about my exBPDgf's affair, I realized that at the same time the affair was happening her daughter was dealing with the fact that her boyfriend (who was her first serious r/s) had cheated on her. She was talking to her mother about how devastated she was over his continually lying and the fact that he had cheated - at the very same time her mother was continually lying and cheating on me.

I asked my ex how she could have these conversations with her daughter at that time, and she basically described compartmentalizing her life.  Compartmentalization is disconnection at a profound level.

My T said to me last week, "How can you expect her to be honest with you when she isn't even honest with herself?"

And yes, it should be incomprehensible to us because it's a personality disorder. Disorder. Dis-order. Chaos.

[going places]

I say fantasy, because deep down I know that a normal relationship with my exBPDgf is a fantasy

Being 'real, true' with myself, and honest with my 'reality' helped me to move past all the 'feeling' and 'emotions'.

What I clung to was a lie. That's no way to live.

As I finally tell my story and the whole story to my friends and family, they all say the same thing. Wow, why did you stay so long? I always wanted to believe that it could work because of love. My ex used to ask me if I was strong enough to be her man. I used to be, but couldn't hold on after the recycling, coldness, giving and taking love, cheating, abuse and so forth that we have all felt.

Mine made everyone believe it was me. I was the problem... .

He's so deceitful and devious, he even had a Pastor convinced that I was "jealous" of his picture friends on the internet. Uh, no, quite the opposite; disgusted, repulsed, and hurt. BUT ex was very convincing / manipulative.

I don't care what anyone thinks; me and the kids are away from him, and they lived in the house with him, so THEY know the truth. I don't care what anyone else thinks.

Yet, at times I find myself wondering if it was me who was the problem and that I didn't try hard enough, or that I was blowing things out of proportion.

When I was deep deep in depression; I would say to him "Why am I not enough? It seems like no matter what I do, it's just not enough"... .well... .that's because the ex is the Dead Sea. Always taking, never giving.

I used to blame myself, heck, I allowed him to heap blame on me for his adultery! I was MORE than happy to take the blame for it... .I look back and shake my head and think "how sad. I was so totally brainwashed".

We are no longer together because she kicked me out during one of her raging periods, but of course days later she was begging me to come back. I told her that I needed time. In her mind, I was rejecting her and so she found my replacement because he wanted her when supposedly I didnt. How quickly they forget how we stood by them through all the crap for so many years. I guess it is my pride and just wishing that she could one day see what she had. We could have had a really good thing because I was doing my part.

Do whatever you can to never ever return to that relationship OR get into another relationship like it.

YOU CAN have a 'really good thing'... .find a healthy woman, and it will be good AND real!

My ex will NEVER see what he 'had was good' because of his insatiable appetite for self.

And today?

I don't care. I don't care one single bit.

He is my past.

I will live life to its fullest from this day forward... .and it's SO much easier to live when I do not have the ex as and anchor around my neck dragging me down.

I am so sorry for what you went thru, I spent 25 years with my ex.

Focus on healing yourself, and learning what a healthy relationship looks like... .and it WILL happen!

[downnout98]

I say fantasy, because deep down I know that a normal relationship with my exBPDgf is a fantasy

Being 'real, true' with myself, and honest with my 'reality' helped me to move past all the 'feeling' and 'emotions'.

What I clung to was a lie. That's no way to live.

As I finally tell my story and the whole story to my friends and family, they all say the same thing. Wow, why did you stay so long? I always wanted to believe that it could work because of love. My ex used to ask me if I was strong enough to be her man. I used to be, but couldn't hold on after the recycling, coldness, giving and taking love, cheating, abuse and so forth that we have all felt.

Mine made everyone believe it was me. I was the problem... .

He's so deceitful and devious, he even had a Pastor convinced that I was "jealous" of his picture friends on the internet. Uh, no, quite the opposite; disgusted, repulsed, and hurt. BUT ex was very convincing / manipulative.

I don't care what anyone thinks; me and the kids are away from him, and they lived in the house with him, so THEY know the truth. I don't care what anyone else thinks.

Yet, at times I find myself wondering if it was me who was the problem and that I didn't try hard enough, or that I was blowing things out of proportion.

When I was deep deep in depression; I would say to him "Why am I not enough? It seems like no matter what I do, it's just not enough"... .well... .that's because the ex is the Dead Sea. Always taking, never giving.

I used to blame myself, heck, I allowed him to heap blame on me for his adultery! I was MORE than happy to take the blame for it... .I look back and shake my head and think "how sad. I was so totally brainwashed".

We are no longer together because she kicked me out during one of her raging periods, but of course days later she was begging me to come back. I told her that I needed time. In her mind, I was rejecting her and so she found my replacement because he wanted her when supposedly I didnt. How quickly they forget how we stood by them through all the crap for so many years. I guess it is my pride and just wishing that she could one day see what she had. We could have had a really good thing because I was doing my part.

Do whatever you can to never ever return to that relationship OR get into another relationship like it.

YOU CAN have a 'really good thing'... .find a healthy woman, and it will be good AND real!

My ex will NEVER see what he 'had was good' because of his insatiable appetite for self.

And today?

I don't care. I don't care one single bit.

He is my past.

I will live life to its fullest from this day forward... .and it's SO much easier to live when I do not have the ex as and anchor around my neck dragging me down.

I am so sorry for what you went thru, I spent 25 years with my ex.

Focus on healing yourself, and learning what a healthy relationship looks like... .and it WILL happen!

Thank you "going places". I am looking forward to having a really good thing with a healthy woman. I am looking forward to getting past all this and to the point that you are in.

[rlhmm]

Because a borderline saw something in you she wanted, so she mirrored it, which works to create an attachment, yes, but she's also taking those traits on as her own parasitically, because she doesn't have a fully formed self of her own and doesn't like herself much.  So what you get mirrored back to you is an idealized version of yourself, the person you've been trying to be your whole life and the one she saw, a self you put forth that is a result of everything you've learned about yourself and the world since birth.  So of course you're going to fall in love with that, you fell in love with a perfect version of yourself, the problem is that there is no depth to a borderline's mirroring, they don't have the history of why you are the way you are, why you present yourself the way you do, so it's all fantasy.

And once she's taken that idealized self from you, stripped you of it, and started devaluing you, the final stage in the borderline cycle, you were left defenseless; the 'self' that you'd developed and had been using your whole life was no longer available to you, she took it, which is why we feel so devastated and also why we want to get back with an abuser once it ends.  We want our self back.  Insidious this mental illness, but once we get shaken to our core, everything stripped away, we get to rebuild anew, wiser and more self aware, and realize that the borderline was never something we wanted, and we get to fall in love with ourselves all over again, authentically.  It's a brand new world.

  i absolutely love this! this is good stuff! thanks for posting this.