what is the universe trying to tell me?

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

It's been about 9 months of NC with my ex.

I stopped seeing my therapist and chose to keep moving forward because I couldn't stand the pain, the introspection - I know it will catch up with me but I have to do this right now. So I don't really think about my ex very much. Survival was more important.

However, this past Vday weekend was a mindscrew... .anniversary of my amazing man's first rage and after we broke up I also found out he cheated with his ex on vday.  I understand why I was triggered.  I felt sadness, I think the grief was acceptance that the man I loved did not exist, that the new guy I'm dating is not anything like my ex and that the fakedom was alluring and now my relationship is zzzzzzz.  

This is where the weirdness comes in... .

Right after I left (May 2015) I messaged an ex of his that he truly hated.  I think I wanted to know truth, if she had the same experience - validation, perhaps.  She moved in with him and a month later he legally evicted her.  Weird except we bought a house and his undiagnosed BPD showed up before we took possession. Patterns.  Anyway TODAY she responded saying she would be happy to discuss sorry for the delay in responding.  Why now?

Then, I go to the gym.  I haven't seen him physically since i left.  He lives with my replacement 1.5 hours away but still has "our" extreme fixer-upper.  I haven't been to the gym since I left.  He usually went in the am.  I left work late - I work over an hour away and traffic is dodgy.  I get to the gym and he is at the stop sign in front of it.  TODAY.  A delay in traffic, less work on my plate and that 3 second moment wouldn't have been there.

What is the universe trying to tell me?  I hate this feeling - now I miss him.

[gah]

It's been about 9 months of NC with my ex.

I stopped seeing my therapist and chose to keep moving forward because I couldn't stand the pain, the introspection - I know it will catch up with me but I have to do this right now. So I don't really think about my ex very much. Survival was more important.

However, this past Vday weekend was a mindscrew... .anniversary of my amazing man's first rage and after we broke up I also found out he cheated with his ex on vday.  I understand why I was triggered.  I felt sadness, I think the grief was acceptance that the man I loved did not exist, that the new guy I'm dating is not anything like my ex and that the fakedom was alluring and now my relationship is zzzzzzz.  

This is where the weirdness comes in... .

Right after I left (May 2015) I messaged an ex of his that he truly hated.  I think I wanted to know truth, if she had the same experience - validation, perhaps.  She moved in with him and a month later he legally evicted her.  Weird except we bought a house and his undiagnosed BPD showed up before we took possession. Patterns.  Anyway TODAY she responded saying she would be happy to discuss sorry for the delay in responding.  Why now?

Then, I go to the gym.  I haven't seen him physically since i left.  He lives with my replacement 1.5 hours away but still has "our" extreme fixer-upper.  I haven't been to the gym since I left.  He usually went in the am.  I left work late - I work over an hour away and traffic is dodgy.  I get to the gym and he is at the stop sign in front of it.  TODAY.  A delay in traffic, less work on my plate and that 3 second moment wouldn't have been there.

What is the universe trying to tell me?  I hate this feeling - now I miss him.

[Shale]

I know a lot of people may disagree with me on this, but it is far more likely that the universe isn't even aware of you... .so it isn't trying to tell you anything. This was a coincidence, nothing more. From my ex I picked up the disturbing habit of making these sorts of connections and actually thinking they mean something. Almost exactly 100% of the time they do not.

I know how you feel though. There is so much music I can't even listen to anymore because if I do I will pick up the phone and call her because I love her (though the "her" I loved didn't really exist) and miss her (though we weren't really in the same relationship and the "her" I miss is unattainable and possibly nonexistent).

Be strong. Maybe switch gyms.

[beatrixkiddo]

Hi Gah,

Sorry to hear your struggle. We've all been there. I agree with Shale. If there is any message from the universe, it is only a test for you to pass and understand that the "crazy" of the BPD relationship should never remain your "normal." It is time to grow and move on. When we are in it, a new "normal" develops. A very unhealthy new "normal." And it can be difficult to de-program and go back to the peace of what true "normal" should be.  It can be uncomfortable to trust that a new zzzz relationship is real. Focus on the peace and lack of turmoil, and contrast it with the reality of the horror we pretended wasn't happening when we were in the storm of the BPD relationship.  That old chaos can linger on, and it's important to look at it head on, and close that door. Otherwise, we can find ourselves almost enslaved to that chaos, and repeating the pattern. Talking/chatting about it really helps keep our feet firmly planted on the ground. Sending Love and prayers!

[Clearmind]

Trauma works in tricky ways. There is that part of the trauma where we can rationalise and process what we experienced. We can even ground truth what we experienced by sharing war stories with other posters here. It helps some. But until we get to the root cause of why we attached there is a part of the trauma that's awoken once we are triggered. Those feelings and thoughts and heady ruminations all flood back.

Flight mode helps us feel safe... .temporarily. In the long term we do need to dig deep to seek out why we attached.

I know my reasons and once I let it marinate I completely detached from my ex. Until such time as we process our stuff we will attract another Borderline.  The common denominator is us. We choose.

What is it you're holding onto? Is it not true that if we had self worth and felt worthy that we would run from a person who abused us?

[hope2727]

Well first of all I am sorry and hugs. I am of two minds on this. My scientific mind says that we all suffer from confirmation bias. We look for information to confirm our beliefs. So yes we will notice our ex's when we may have not noticed someone else we know in the same situation. Meanwhile the softer side of me feels like we have a connection to these people and they will keep appearing and disappearing in our life like an undulating sine wave. It freaks me out to be frank.

I have experienced similar appearances. 9m out I sign up for online dating and boom first match is him.   creepy. I go on a date, hiking in a large unfamiliar park and when we pop out of one paths we end up right in front of his neighbourhood. Like right by his house. Then 12m EXACTLY I show up for work and ALL my patients have cancelled. I am left on the sadest day of my life with nothing to distract me.  :'( Luckily my friend took me on a day trip of girlfriend crazy and we had a blast. Then his work coat falls off the back of the spare room door and scares the crap out of me late one night, I didn't even know it was left there. Then about 18m out I try a different dating site and get matched to his uNPD best friend.   Then I get a letter from his work at the house. Then I sign up for music lessons on the extreme far side of the city, get turned around on my drive home in the dark on my first lesson, and end up in the weirdest little access road that turns into the back of the parking lot of his work.   Then one week later take a different route home from music lesson and end up on the opposite side of his work in a construction zone that feeds me right past his main office door.  So yeah I get it.

The bottom line is what do we do with it. Long ago I dated a wonderful man. He was great but we went separate ways. Fine. No hard feelings. His new girlfriend HATED me. Whatever. One day I am in a wonderful mood heading to the gym. I am stopped at a red light singing my lungs out to the radio and a truck pulls up beside mine. I glance left and there she is glaring at me. So I smile and wave, he looks around her and laughs. We (he and I) drove off laughing hysterically because he totally knew that I had been busting a move and singing off key at the top of my lungs. We handled it well. She did not.  (side note they didn't last)  So its up to us how we handle it. Its upsetting and emotional but I refuse to let my ex have anymore of my awesomeness.

So breathe and go enjoy that gym time. And most of all don't forget to sing and dance to the radio. You never know who may be watching.

[steelwork]

Really sorry you're having a hard time. But it sounds like you're doing your best not to wallow, which is great.

It's been about 9 months of NC with my ex.

About 11 months for me (except for a brief one-line housekeeping email, returned in kind, four months ago).

I stopped seeing my therapist and chose to keep moving forward because I couldn't stand the pain, the introspection - I know it will catch up with me but I have to do this right now. So I don't really think about my ex very much. Survival was more important.

The pain/introspection, whatever you think of their importance, has taken up a huge portion of my life/energy/concentration for the last year, so I understand. You can always go back to it, right? I had 8 weeks off from therapy last summer and did feel better on a certain level. I wonder, as do many here, whether I'm prolonging my heartache by addressing it head on. I don't know... .I guess I have a lot of other reasons for being in therapy, and my uBPDx sometimes barely comes up for weeks at a time now. Sorry. Rambling.

Right after I left (May 2015) I messaged an ex of his that he truly hated.  I think I wanted to know truth, if she had the same experience - validation, perhaps.  She moved in with him and a month later he legally evicted her.  Weird except we bought a house and his undiagnosed BPD showed up before we took possession. Patterns.  Anyway TODAY she responded saying she would be happy to discuss sorry for the delay in responding.  Why now?

I have had strong urges to do contact his ex wife but have not. If you feel like letting us know what happened, I know many would be interested.

[Fr4nz]

Right after I left (May 2015) I messaged an ex of his that he truly hated.  I think I wanted to know truth, if she had the same experience - validation, perhaps.  She moved in with him and a month later he legally evicted her.  Weird except we bought a house and his undiagnosed BPD showed up before we took possession. Patterns.  Anyway TODAY she responded saying she would be happy to discuss sorry for the delay in responding.  Why now?

For what is worth, I recently contacted an ex of my uBPD/HPD ex gf (you can read the story here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=290255.0) and it gave me the final, definitive closure.

He was the guy with whom she stayed for the longest time in any relationship (3 years). Basically, he confirmed me all the behavioural patterns, alcoholism, rages, unbelievable and unacceptable behaviours, etc. I experienced during the relationship; BPD is a disorder characterized by behavioural patterns that repeat across ALL the relationships - even if we're not perfect, since we're just humans, it wasn't our fault if things went horribly.

So my suggestion is: go for it, it may provide you the final, definitive closure.

About the coincidences: as others pointed out they are just coincidences, do not interpret non-existing stuff out of it

[Fr4nz]

Trauma works in tricky ways. There is that part of the trauma where we can rationalise and process what we experienced. We can even ground truth what we experienced by sharing war stories with other posters here. It helps some. But until we get to the root cause of why we attached there is a part of the trauma that's awoken once we are triggered. Those feelings and thoughts and heady ruminations all flood back.

Flight mode helps us feel safe... .temporarily. In the long term we do need to dig deep to seek out why we attached.

I know my reasons and once I let it marinate I completely detached from my ex. Until such time as we process our stuff we will attract another Borderline.  The common denominator is us. We choose.

What is it you're holding onto? Is it not true that if we had self worth and felt worthy that we would run from a person who abused us?

I completely second what Clearmind said; first of all, we have to understand that we usually are amazing people, however we stayed in these dysfunctional relationship because something in the BPD's personality attracted us, or we somehow pretended to fix the "broken parts" of our broken exes. Or a combination of these two things.

Indeed, often people that end up here are codependent (these are the "fixer" types) or have BPD/NPD/OCPD traits (these are people who were somehow attracted to the "dark side" of our exes - I have BPD and NPD traits, so I belong to this second category).

Once you tackle the reasons that brought you to enter and stay in your dysfunctional relationship, you'll tackle your own weak points (don't worry, we're humans so it's normal to have weak points; we can work on them! ) and you'll realize how a sane relationship should be structured.

In any case, take your time to complete this process, and be gentle towards yourself: it was not your fault.

A big hug!