Ex is engaged

[cranmango]

Hi folks,

It’s been 10 months since the final breakup. We were friends for about 3 years, then in a committed relationship for 4 years. I lived with her half-time and helped raise her two kids. She wanted to get married from the very beginning. I wanted some stability. The constant criticism and verbal abuse wore me down. The jealousy and isolation. She would say awful things during rage blackouts and never apologize. Would kick me out of the house, then start missing me and demand I come back. I suspect she cheated on me but cannot confirm. My body was breaking down from the chronic stress. She broke up with me several times during the relationship. The last time was after she said a horrible thing about my daughter that I simply could not accept. She ended it, I gave her a final hug, and walked away.

We’ve stayed in low contact since because we work together and share a friend group. I’ve learned a lot about setting boundaries. I have been civil but distant. I suspected she would try to reconnect at some point. There were a few waves of late-night texting and chatting at work. We even traveled together for a work trip. My stuff is still at her house. She started treatment for herself, which was a huge step she was always afraid to take in the past. I was hopeful, rooting for her from a distance.

All the while she’s been with a new partner. She found him within a week of ending our relationship. I assumed it was likely a fling. Our mutual friends were shocked. They do not like him and do not understand the relationship. I have stayed out of it. I have not met him, and I am not on social media. I did not attend a few gatherings where I suspected she would bring him. This made her very upset. My friends have been encouraging me for a while now to go full NC and not look back. They hate how I’ve been treated and manipulated, and the toll it’s taken on me.

Now I just got word she is engaged to this new partner. I can’t say I’m surprised, given her history. I knew this day would come.
But it still hurts. For all the chaos and abuse during our relationship, there were good times, too. I was invested in that relationship. I tried my hardest to make it work. Those memories haunt me.

It’s hard to understand why she has remained in contact all these months. Why she has created opportunities to see me, makes up reasons to reach out. Sits next to me at work meetings whenever she gets the chance. Just the other day she brought to work a fancy handbag that I had gotten her as a gift two christmases back. I’ve remained civil but distant. Hoping she would figure out her life, and maybe we could try again. Or at least figure out how to peacefully coexist.

But now engaged? Intellectually I know she hasn’t changed. All the insecurity, jealousy, criticism, and rage that she brought to our relationship is still there. This current relationship will follow the same pattern as all of her previous relationships, including ours. Since the final breakup I have seen her burn bridges at work, alienate our shared friends. She complains that she’s lonely. She’s not doing well. But man, it hurts like hell to see her so “happy” in this new relationship. And now planning a wedding. I’m dreading seeing the ring on her finger.

In the small moments when I see her at work? She seems absolutely miserable. When I’m feeling clearheaded, the whole trajectory just seems bizarre. I feel sorry for her. She hurts everyone around her, particularly those who try to her close to her. But she cannot take accountability for anything. It dooms her work relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships. I’ve seen it play out time after time. What a lonely existence. I feel so sorry for her kids. I miss those kids.

I know I will heal in time. I just woke up from a pleasant dream where I met a nice new lady! My heart is slowly moving forward. I’m focused right now on being a good dad and investing in my friendships.

But it still hurts. :/

[keepitup]

Hey cranmango,

I am sorry you are going through this pain… After giving so much and having worked hard to make the relationship better, it is normal that it hurts to see your ex getting engaged so quickly. Even though I am not aware if my bpdex found a new girlfriend after the breakup since I don’t have contact with him anymore, he told me soon after the break up that he was going to sleep with other women… and it really hurt me since I was still weeping the loss of our relationship, feeling miserable and that I was not good enough to have another boyfriend in the future. The pain is real.

Even if it seems she is in a happy place, I doubt she really is or that it will stay that way for a long time. As you witnessed, her behaviors follow a pattern and it does not seem like she is getting any better or different from what you say.

I witnessed more contradictions from my ex too soon after the breakup. Your exgf is probably very confused and it is sad as you say. But without the work and the will to change, the only thing that will change is the people around her either because she will push them away or because they will run away.

Good to hear that you are not alone and see friends and are present for your kids. Take the time to take care of yourself too.

I wish you the best and I hope that in time you will get some peace of mind.

[cranmango]

I witnessed more contradictions from my ex too soon after the breakup. Your exgf is probably very confused and it is sad as you say. But without the work and the will to change, the only thing that will change is the people around her either because she will push them away or because they will run away.

Thanks for the support, keepitup. This is well said. I remind myself daily that her behavior is confusing because she is confused. The messes that she makes for herself are sad. But the hurt that she causes those around her is unacceptable.

Her only real coping skills are numbing, distraction, and avoidance. I suspect that this engagement is just a temporary distraction from the larger problems in her life. Once the dust settles and she is faced with the reality of a new marriage with a partner she doesn't know all that well, there will be trouble. There always is. I saw this pattern play out with her ex before me. It played out several times with me over the years, across multiple break-ups. And it's likely playing out again, with the new partner.

I do hope in my heart that she finds the will to change one day. Otherwise this pattern will continue.

[OKrunch]

Her only real coping skills are numbing, distraction, and avoidance. I suspect that this engagement is just a temporary distraction from the larger problems in her life. Once the dust settles and she is faced with the reality of a new marriage with a partner she doesn't know all that well, there will be trouble. There always is. I saw this pattern play out with her ex before me. It played out several times with me over the years, across multiple break-ups. And it's likely playing out again, with the new partner.

I do hope in my heart that she finds the will to change one day. Otherwise this pattern will continue.

This rang true very very close to home for me.
Definitley needed to read this, and you are 1000% correct. Spot on assesment Cran.
Im literally saving this, because its so accurate to my own situation (and many others im sure)

[SinisterComplex]

Thanks for the support, keepitup. This is well said. I remind myself daily that her behavior is confusing because she is confused. The messes that she makes for herself are sad. But the hurt that she causes those around her is unacceptable.

Her only real coping skills are numbing, distraction, and avoidance. I suspect that this engagement is just a temporary distraction from the larger problems in her life. Once the dust settles and she is faced with the reality of a new marriage with a partner she doesn't know all that well, there will be trouble. There always is. I saw this pattern play out with her ex before me. It played out several times with me over the years, across multiple break-ups. And it's likely playing out again, with the new partner.

I do hope in my heart that she finds the will to change one day. Otherwise this pattern will continue.

And typically the patterns continue because the sufferer literally does not know any better and it becomes instinct basically. Think of it how athletes play sports...you practice, practice, practice and train, train, train almost in a maniacal fashion. How does this apply? Well there is an interesting thought that many athletes have their own demon which shares traits with BPD...Obssessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD).

Anyway, a BPD sufferer essentially practices their behaviors and how they go about relationships. A big part of that is tied to trauma. The trauma causes the sufferer to stay stunted in their growth and stuck in an almost snow globe like reality...everything can get shaken up, but it always settles back down and goes back to the way it has always been. Many BPD sufferers will sometimes say they are big believers that nothing ever changes. If someone comes along and is nice to them and challenges that notion their world becomes unstable and they have to self-destruct to mess it up. To neurotypicals it is impossible for you to understand because you logically see the pain and destruction and you naturally want to help and protect. However, to BPD sufferers destruction and chaos are their domain and norm and they need to be in control and the only way to assure that happens is for them to be in chaos and thus push you away. They cannot deal with the weight of the fear of the something different and unknown. It is too overwhelming. 

Now to be clear...that is not all BPD...no. However, there will be many who follow this script. 

As you say the messes she makes for herself are indeed sad. It sucks. However, I am glad you can clearly see the patterns and you can keep your distance and you have your head focused on progressing and moving forward.

Please be kind to you and take care of yourself.

Cheers and Best Wishes!

-SC-

[tina7868]

Now I just got word she is engaged to this new partner. I can’t say I’m surprised, given her history. I knew this day would come. But it still hurts. For all the chaos and abuse during our relationship, there were good times, too. I was invested in that relationship. I tried my hardest to make it work. Those memories haunt me.

It’s hard to understand why she has remained in contact all these months. Why she has created opportunities to see me, makes up reasons to reach out. Sits next to me at work meetings whenever she gets the chance. Just the other day she brought to work a fancy handbag that I had gotten her as a gift two christmases back. I’ve remained civil but distant. Hoping she would figure out her life, and maybe we could try again. Or at least figure out how to peacefully coexist.

I can relate to these particular aspects of what your wrote. My heart goes out to you.

To me, it's admirable that you put effort into something that you cared about. The other end of the stick, unfortunately, is that it doesn't always work out, sometimes that effort is put into a relationship with the wrong person. It's normal to feel hurt about it. You can take comfort in knowing that you were authentic, you tried your best, you didn't hold back.

How have you been feeling?

[cranmango]

Thanks for checking in, Tina. Your words are comforting today. I wasn’t perfect in the relationship. I made mistakes. But I kept learning and growing, and I always took responsibility for my missteps. I think I can find some peace in that.

This week has been up and down. Some moments I feel calm. I know that this behavior is just a manifestation of her illness. She’s riding high on the proposal for now, but there will be more messes for her ahead. And they are not my messes anymore.

Other moments my heart breaks in half. I grieve the death of the dream we shared together.

Other moments I am angry at her for being so cavalier. For orbiting around me still. For constantly testing boundaries.

As I type this, she’s sending me work messages after disappearing for the past week. No real reason, just an ambiguous temperature check as usual. I’m not replying. I’m going home for the weekend and am going to focus on my daughter.

[tina7868]

This week has been up and down. Some moments I feel calm. I know that this behavior is just a manifestation of her illness. She’s riding high on the proposal for now, but there will be more messes for her ahead. And they are not my messes anymore.

Other moments my heart breaks in half. I grieve the death of the dream we shared together.

Other moments I am angry at her for being so cavalier. For orbiting around me still. For constantly testing boundaries.

You describe your feelings so clearly. Remember whenever you feel the anger and sadness that they are also valid, albeit uncomfortable, emotions, and they too will pass. The ups and downs are a natural part of grief. And you are allowed to grieve. Give yourself the time you need. Her actions have nothing to do with you. You deserve better. You seem to aware of all of this, but I'm just writing it out as a reminder.

As I type this, she’s sending me work messages after disappearing for the past week. No real reason, just an ambiguous temperature check as usual. I’m not replying. I’m going home for the weekend and am going to focus on my daughter.

Now that's progress   . Focus back in the present moment when you feel your thoughts getting away from you. Be gentle with yourself, and have a lovely time with your daughter. Reach out if ever.

[Turkish]

As my T once said, "personalities typically don't change." It both dashed my hopes while likely said to comfort me at the same time.

Counting the time she lived with us, she had 1.5 years of teenage dream romance with her Beau before he proposed to her on a Eurotrip they took together while I took care of the kids for 10 days, a lot of her custody time. How romantic, proposing in Switzerland in the winter! They married in June and started cohabitation. It killed me to drop off the kids with him to watch. He got his "insta-family" with no work other than chatting up a mother at a club while daddy was at home with a baby and toddler.

We had lunch in August, when she said to me, "living together is hard." I was so angry, I wanted to yell "YA THINK?" It took a year for her to separate from him, then another year or so to finally divorce him. As they say in sit-com scripts, "drama ensues." Mutual DV, cops (twice), late night calls to me crying "I never should have left you!" Ya think?

Yet i was so tired and exhausted of it all, even before I found out she was cheating, for which she blamed me at the time, natch.

You and others are right. Your ex is the same person. In the beginning, she reached out to me for help because our S4 was angry at her. She'd introduced the kids to her Beau pretty much right away. Clueless and lacking empathy for our kids. This was while she posted pics of all of them on Facebook, so I was told. I had blocked her while she was still living with us.

This week has been up and down. Some moments I feel calm. I know that this behavior is just a manifestation of her illness. She’s riding high on the proposal for now, but there will be more messes for her ahead. And they are not my messes anymore.

Other moments my heart breaks in half. I grieve the death of the dream we shared together.

I felt like this for years. Lean into it and accept that you have a right to feel the way you do, especially in the beginning.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Hey cranmango, I remember seeing my ex post her marriage certificate on her Facebook, broke my heart for so long. You’re right not to be fooled by the facade. She likes the attention you give her, she wants your adore, to rub it in your face, to bread crumb. It’s normal to miss her. Focusing on the rest of your life and moving forward is a good strategy. Hope you feel better.

[cranmango]

Turkish—thank you for sharing your story. I went back and read many of your older posts. I am so sorry for the pain you endured over many years with your ex. You are a good man and a good father. I am impressed that through it all you stayed true to yourself. And I am in awe at the number of people you have helped here over the years, too. You can add one more to the list. Thank you.

I will never understand her relationship with this new person. It started explicitly as a ploy to make me jealous (so she told our mutual friends). He was the first guy to write her back on a dating app, and she pursued him hard. From what little I’ve gathered, he has his own red flags, too. I refused to get pulled into the chaos. I kept my distance.

But I never abandoned her. I showed up to our joint meetings at work every week. I was polite. Even friendly, when I could stand it! I have continued to support our shared staff. I have moved shared projects forward.  Because when I make a commitment, I see it through.

Meanwhile, her life continues to crumble. I got word that she discontinued treatment (again). She’s given up on sobriety (again). She’s been formally reprimanded at work.

I suspect deep down she is ashamed. She so badly wants everyone to approve of her new man, and for us all to be friends. She even wants my approval of him, which is nuts! And I know what it’s like to be in the eye of that hurricane. I remember when she desperately wanted her friends (at the time) to approve of us. And whenever a friend would cut her off, she blamed me for not being good enough. It chipped away at my self-confidence, despite the fact that I’ve never had trouble making friends.

Will she ever hit bottom? Will she ever see her own role in all this? And why do I still care? A part of me still feels the urge to protect her.

The new man has no idea what he’s getting into. They aren’t living together yet, so perhaps she has maintained the facade. But I know she pressured him to marry from the very beginning (one week after leaving me). I have overheard her making offhand disparaging comments about him. I know those signals.

What I don’t see is genuine love. For him, for herself, for anyone. I only see performative acts to keep the void at bay for a moment. I see desperation, clinginess, and reckless behavior. If she was genuinely happy, I could be happy for her. Because I love her. But not like this.

My engineer brain has an unquenchable need to understand. I am trained to find patterns in chaos, and I am good at it. I suspect that she will push for a quick wedding, so there’s no room for second-guessing. I expect that they will separate within the first year or two. And when they do, she might show up on my doorstep, looking to be soothed and reassured.

But for now, I get to see her at work. She announced her engagement on social media and told a few friends last week, but did not tell me. She messaged me at work a few times last week to test the waters, but did not mention the engagement. It’s like dealing with a teenager who knows they messed up and is afraid of being in trouble. Somewhere along the way, I morphed from her love interest into her father figure.

For all the chaos, I know that this engagement might be the only thing propping her up right now. It won’t last. It’s not healthy coping. It’s not a mature relationship. It’s not growth. It’s just her trying to survive. I feel sorry for her. My heart breaks for her.

[cranmango]

NE—thanks for the encouragement. It helps so much to know that I’m not alone. These boards have helped me find my sanity again.

[i-need-love]

It really doesn't matter whether she gets married or not. Being married won't cure her and her wanting to marry this new guy doesn't necessary mean he's got to offer her this soothing comfort, peace and love to quiet her heart that she ultimately refused to accept from you.

My uBPD friend and then briefly a lover kept comparing herself to other people, her family members, everyone around her, never really appreciating who she was or what she had, all the help, love and care she receieved from people around her. Always envious, always a victim, always unhappy, always depressed, always in pain. Always not enough of something. She wanted to be like other people and have what other people had, and she absolutely refused to try and find some comfort, stability or happiness at where she was now. Social status, looks, image, trends, wealth were all very important to her and seemed to constitute some of the key pillars of a happy life. She would always ultimately refuse to accept any thought of happiness without those hallmarks of a normal life as she perceived it. Even though she came from a wealthy family, wasn't living below average, had very supportive siblings, a father who serviced her car whenever necessary, a modern flat in a beautiful area, and a loving friend in me who was able to put up forever with her bursts of anger, cursing me, ignoring and pushing me off – all of that was not even enough. It all seemed to have very little value to her. All of that didn't count most of the time. It was like nothing to her. She would very seldom and only temporarily appreciate any of those good things that happend in her life. She wasn't willing to keep on living or try and find happiness without her having all those things that rich and normal people typically have. A "proper" husband was one of those prerequisites for her to feel normal, happy, to be like most other people around her.

Not long before our break up and going LC she told me she wanted to have someone who would serve her a cup of water when she got old and she would no longer be picky and choosy, and will marry just anyone who comes by. I noticed she would say things like that usually after Christmas or other holidays when she was spending time with her family and watching this blissful image of her parents and siblings in deep love (which was a fake, they fought on a daily basis, but at Christmas time they would make peace).

Then she met a new guy like immediately. She looks awesome and is extremely sexy, so that was no big problem for her. The strange thing was that despite having met this new man she was still feeling very depressed and wanted desperately to stay in touch with me, but on her terms, for me to love her crazy, comfort her, put up with her bad moods, etc.

No guy, no human being will ever make her happy. Maybe temporarily and only to a limited extent – and I mean people who absolutely love her and care for her. Next, there is this problem with her feelings. Somehow, she heavily relies on her feelings, she's not really able to rekindle her passion, and she won't even try, as she constantly feels pressured into things. She always has to do only what she feels like. Always. As a result, when her feelings die it's like all over. No feelings, no happiness. Just nothing. She needs to proceed somewhere else, because the old source has just dried up.

And finally there are her childish and impossible expectations. She has enormous requirements that no single human being is ever able to meet in full, so she will devalue any man. None of us knows everything, none has all the necessary skills, intelligence or whatever. But she expects her man to be like a superman. With time she came to understand I'm not perfect and she could cope with that. The problem is, she doesn't want to change, she's not willing to change, she has always wanted me to love her and accept her with all her constant grumbling, cursing her mother, wishing her death and the like. Even if you are able to put up with all this bitter soup for some time the poison will eventually start to take it's toll on you unless you refuse to listen to all the hate. And that's when you become her worst enemy. If you don't accept her as she is, with all the evil stuff in her mind that she just blantly refuses to let go off, then you are no longer her true friend. You are an enemy. That would happen over and over again.

No human being is able to tolerate that long enough. Such people simply do not exist. And even if they did, she would eventually leave them anyway, because her feelings would dry up, and she would have to find her comfort somewhere else. And I don't think she would ever be happy with what she has as long as there exist people that have more or who are better off than her.

She might keep remarrying forever and never be happy, unless one day she somehow stops and makes a decision to appreciate, be grateful, enjoy what she has now and where she is now. Unless she decides to yield and submit to your loving suggestions. Unless she stops feeding on bitterness. Unless she decides to break out of this victim mode.

This new guy will not make her happy. Only temporarily and to a limited extent. That's all. When she's done with him, she'll keep searching for a new Prince, unless she becomes too old for that.

You have not been able to give your BPD partner things she needed to maker her feel permanently happy. And no wonder. No human being can fulfil the emptiness that's inside her. She just doesn't know that and refuses to accept it. So she keeps looking. In vain.

[CipherNinja]

I worked with my ex too (I suppose I still do just opposite shifts).
A while after she broke up with me and only after I found of about her bpd  she started flirting with every other guy at work. Really obvious fake flirting and only when she knew I was in earshot. Then she started seeing some other guy and talking to him all day long on her blutooth while on the sales floor I could hear her bad mouthing me to him. it became clear she is doing to me what she did to her ex and will eventually do with this poor new guy.