For those who don't know, this has been my 2nd go around with my pwbpd. . I don't understand how this is the same human.
During our first break up, she strung me along for 4 months. She would never let me get too far away. There were promises by her that she loved me, wanted to get back together. And also episodes of complete meltdowns followed by days or weeks of ghosting me.she threatened to block me once, but never did that I know of. I blocked her Facebook because I knew how she liked to keep tabs on her ex's. In the end, me saying and meaning I was blocking her and moving on got her to come back
This time, it's completely different. It was colder, crueler and way more abrupt. It didn't seem to have the long slow devalue as the first time.looking back though, there were very subtle signs of devaluing. All leading to a blow out splitting episode and kicking me out. When I talked to her a couple days later she was cold, like the first time. But there was no illusion of getting back together. I called her out on how bad this is hurting her kids and that led to her blocking me. When she did it it almost was implied it was to punish me.
I don't get it. I'm not saying I want her back. I just don't understand. I thought pwbpd had a pattern? She knows the silent treatment drives me crazy. I also told her during the text fight that I wouldn't play the same game again as last time. I don't know if this is all just to punish me. Or she's escalating because I accepted her behavior the first time around. Or if I'm actually just cut off and dead to her and won't ever hear from her again. I'm just so damn confused.
There is a pattern with BPD but unfortunately, it is often hidden or we just can't see it.
My breakup last year was similar- my wife announced she was done and she never looked back. We did try to "reconcile" twice if you want to call it that, but it was basically her coming home for a day or two while completely ignoring whatever made her leave to begin with. She made zero effort...and this was a 24 year marriage.
More recently, we've become friends again (not actual normal friends, but we talk and get along). Between what she's told me and what I've learned on this site, I realized that she had been shutting down for years and slowly discarding me...without me ever realizing it. I mean, her distance hurt, but I figured that's normal in marriage and some people just need to go through stuff alone for awhile. I was literally clueless because I was still 100% invested and couldn't see her giving up.
If my wife were here defending herself, she'd say that she was struggling with depression and I stopped showing her love and compassion...which made her depression much worse (she's been informally diagnosed BPD but rejects it, so we just call it depression to avoid arguments). She couldn't talk to me about it though out of fear of rejection, abandonment, whatever, so she remained silent and slowly shut down. So I had no clue what she was going through and I had no way to reconnect to her, to try and fight for our marriage. She felt ending the relationship was a healthy and necessary move, because she couldn't fathom that we could possibly fix things.
Once she left, she almost immediately became a different person and I saw BPD for the first time. She lashed out at me and called me horrible things, bad-mouthed me to everyone, and did everything she could to turn our kids/family against me. It's like she transformed within a week's time and this monster emerged. I guess it was her finally having the courage to talk about things...it just happened well after the point of no return in her mind.
Does it make complete sense? No. But that's more or less what happens when BPD relationships implode. For them, it's self defense and taking the cataclysmic route because they just can't talk about their problems and let them go in a productive way. One of my daughters also has BPD and I've seen her repeat this cycle dozens of times throughout her life. She gets close with someone and idolizes, she crosses boundaries, the other person pushes back a little, and my kid goes nuclear.
I hope that helps a bit.
