i feel like my partner is jekyl and hydish and i'm so torn: UPDATE

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

Update:

this last month has been filled with episodes and has made me realize that: 1) my gf doesn't seem to handle transitions well.  Whenever I travel, she gets dysregulated and pics fights with me.  Unfortunately, she knows what has hurt me in the past (because we have talked about past wounds) and she seems to be able to trigger that in me when she perceives something is unstable for her.  I think when I travel somehow it triggers an abandonment wound in her but I don't know why? At any rate, despite being on this site for awhile, I still Jade and do things reactively to protect myself.  Maybe on some level that is good (to protect myself)?
2)  The second thing that i realize is that when i see these behaviors it makes me scared to go forward in relationship with her.  But it also makes me realize why I'm afraid to lose her.  I have deep seated fears that she was able to sooth with her "good side".  But now as the relationship has developed, I feel manipulated by those things.  I also spoke with a friend who said, "maybe you're not ready to be in a long term committed relationship and you are just attracting someone who is not complete because of that?"  It was an interesting hypothesis.  I have heard this before.  Maybe she is right?  I have alot of life challenges right now but then i wonder how other people who go through challenges are able to find a secure person?  Am I just flawed?  Addicted to people who have these personalities? or just susceptible because i am overly understanding and compassionate and most people wouldn't take this kind of behavior but I do?

So most of my interaction on here has been to tell you what she has been doing in order to help evaluate whether i should stay or go.  I have to be honest, I'm afraid to make the choice.  Maybe on some deep level it's easier to find someone with bad behaviors so i don't have to make a choice? I don't know- just pondering all of this.  Because right now, i'm split.  On one hand I know what i'm seeing is not healthy and "normal" (whatever normal is), and on the other hand I can't see not having this crazy woman in my life.  When she isn't dysregulated she is very loving, compassionate and my best friend.   However, (and this is what is hardest of all), when she gets dysregulated, she becomes the antithesis of all of those qualities and hence my title to this thread "the jekly and hydish and I'm so torn".  

This past week we haven't spoken because she painted me black while i was on a trip to see my kids. I put up a boundary and simply said that i needed to go but we would talk tomorrow.  At first she was okay and wished me a good nite.  But then she called me when my phone died and when i finally got it charged before going to bed I saw all kinds of messages like "you blocked me didn't you".   This coupled with some other things led me to put up another boundary and because of some of things she said and the paranoia she was projecting onto me,  I did the complete opposite of what one should do with a person with suspected BPD.  I was jetlagged, scared because of how she was behaving etc and so i sent her an email (we agreed to send emails if we got flooded emotionally so that we could each read them without overreacting to seeing each other upset) that said, "if you think that i'm (all the things she told me i was in her dysregulation), then maybe i'm not the "one" for you."  I further went on to say that i want to be with a partner who trusts me and who doesn't think i'm (all the things she said i was).   If she really believes i am all those things then i have to decide if I want to continue being in this relationship.

She has reacted by pulling away but also by setting a date to talk when i got back from my trip.  

After a few days of being with my kids and family I had one day on my own to reflect before I travelled back home.  I tried to reach out and she was not interested in talking then and wanted to wait until i got back.  The thing is we are in a LDR and so getting back is not in person anyway.  We still have to video chat but she wasn't ready I guess.

Anyway, I got back yesterday and I noticed i am split :  part of me really misses the regular side of her and the other part of me wants to run.  I realized this is an Imago relationship for me.  My dad was my best friend growing up but also abusive to me.  After abuse he would be very friendly and act like nothing happened.  I would not want to engage with him until I had time to recover and forgive him.  I mostly always did.  I think i realized this relationship is similar to that.  She calls me her "primary attachment" but then when she is abusive or dysregulated and I perceive it as abuse I have a hard time staying in my secure self.  

I am getting very anxious about our upcoming talk because i have certainly enmeshed with her.  I notice that i'm afraid to lose her because the part of me that is wounded also knows her wounds and i don't want her to hurt either- I know what that feels like.  I know she is afraid of being abandoned and to end the relationship will just feed that.   And yet if i stay and let her be dysregulated or somewhat abusive with me then I am abandoning part of myself in favor of taking care of her.  It's a classic double bind.  Also, I spoke with others who have been in a similar situation with the student visa thing and they said they had never intended to stay in this country and then their partner asked them to marry them.  They told me they know other people in the same culture who want to marry only for the status.  They are warning me against her because she has told me that "the one who wants to marry me will be willing to deal with my behavior etc."  Also has said if I didn't want to marry her to let her know so she has time to find someone else before her visa expires.  The others that I spoke with told me to be careful with this.  However, there is a part of me that feels that I understand what she is saying and I know her situation and the trauma with her family that she has been through (from what she has told me).  So I'm very empathetic towards her plight and I do love her and care about her, but now that dysregulation has brought these things up again it makes me insecure about our future. 

Anyway, I don't know what to do.  I'm trying to stall our talk.  I am afraid i will either break up with her or make up with her and then continue this ongoing cycle but there's a chance that if I do that and don't marry her it could end even worse.  I am an adult and yet i feel myself slipping back into my wounded child mode where i was with my dad in that abusive cycle.  I feel like i'm doomed in relationship land and also letting her go feels like losing or giving up on part of myself that wants to heal.  I had hoped we could heal together?  Am I giving up prematurely because of my past wounds? Am i finally taking care of myself?   She doesn't have money for therapy and yet she has shown signs of trying to work things out with me and improve her behavior.  This time she has not been apologetic like she has in the past- maybe because i eluded to NOT being the one for her is she was believing what she said during the painting black mode of hers.

This relationship is also re-enforcement of why i have a hard time with difficult decisions in my life (because i have been raised by pwBPD or some part of the traits and keep finding partners with these traits ) and it's hard to feel confident in what choices I'm making; especially with choosing a life partner.  

Right now i'm feeling sorry for myself.  Right now i'm feeling a huge loss and i hate having to be the one to inflict pain (on both myself and my partner) if I should break things off.

thanks for reading this and please feel free to comment if you have been here before and/or have found a way to overcome these situations.

[truthbeknown]

Update:

this last month has been filled with episodes and has made me realize that: 1) my gf doesn't seem to handle transitions well.  Whenever I travel, she gets dysregulated and pics fights with me.  Unfortunately, she knows what has hurt me in the past (because we have talked about past wounds) and she seems to be able to trigger that in me when she perceives something is unstable for her.  I think when I travel somehow it triggers an abandonment wound in her but I don't know why? At any rate, despite being on this site for awhile, I still Jade and do things reactively to protect myself.  Maybe on some level that is good (to protect myself)?
2)  The second thing that i realize is that when i see these behaviors it makes me scared to go forward in relationship with her.  But it also makes me realize why I'm afraid to lose her.  I have deep seated fears that she was able to sooth with her "good side".  But now as the relationship has developed, I feel manipulated by those things.  I also spoke with a friend who said, "maybe you're not ready to be in a long term committed relationship and you are just attracting someone who is not complete because of that?"  It was an interesting hypothesis.  I have heard this before.  Maybe she is right?  I have alot of life challenges right now but then i wonder how other people who go through challenges are able to find a secure person?  Am I just flawed?  Addicted to people who have these personalities? or just susceptible because i am overly understanding and compassionate and most people wouldn't take this kind of behavior but I do?

So most of my interaction on here has been to tell you what she has been doing in order to help evaluate whether i should stay or go.  I have to be honest, I'm afraid to make the choice.  Maybe on some deep level it's easier to find someone with bad behaviors so i don't have to make a choice? I don't know- just pondering all of this.  Because right now, i'm split.  On one hand I know what i'm seeing is not healthy and "normal" (whatever normal is), and on the other hand I can't see not having this crazy woman in my life.  When she isn't dysregulated she is very loving, compassionate and my best friend.   However, (and this is what is hardest of all), when she gets dysregulated, she becomes the antithesis of all of those qualities and hence my title to this thread "the jekly and hydish and I'm so torn".  

This past week we haven't spoken because she painted me black while i was on a trip to see my kids. I put up a boundary and simply said that i needed to go but we would talk tomorrow.  At first she was okay and wished me a good nite.  But then she called me when my phone died and when i finally got it charged before going to bed I saw all kinds of messages like "you blocked me didn't you".   This coupled with some other things led me to put up another boundary and because of some of things she said and the paranoia she was projecting onto me,  I did the complete opposite of what one should do with a person with suspected BPD.  I was jetlagged, scared because of how she was behaving etc and so i sent her an email (we agreed to send emails if we got flooded emotionally so that we could each read them without overreacting to seeing each other upset) that said, "if you think that i'm (all the things she told me i was in her dysregulation), then maybe i'm not the "one" for you."  I further went on to say that i want to be with a partner who trusts me and who doesn't think i'm (all the things she said i was).   If she really believes i am all those things then i have to decide if I want to continue being in this relationship.

She has reacted by pulling away but also by setting a date to talk when i got back from my trip.  

After a few days of being with my kids and family I had one day on my own to reflect before I travelled back home.  I tried to reach out and she was not interested in talking then and wanted to wait until i got back.  The thing is we are in a LDR and so getting back is not in person anyway.  We still have to video chat but she wasn't ready I guess.

Anyway, I got back yesterday and I noticed i am split :  part of me really misses the regular side of her and the other part of me wants to run.  I realized this is an Imago relationship for me.  My dad was my best friend growing up but also abusive to me.  After abuse he would be very friendly and act like nothing happened.  I would not want to engage with him until I had time to recover and forgive him.  I mostly always did.  I think i realized this relationship is similar to that.  She calls me her "primary attachment" but then when she is abusive or dysregulated and I perceive it as abuse I have a hard time staying in my secure self.  

I am getting very anxious about our upcoming talk because i have certainly enmeshed with her.  I notice that i'm afraid to lose her because the part of me that is wounded also knows her wounds and i don't want her to hurt either- I know what that feels like.  I know she is afraid of being abandoned and to end the relationship will just feed that.   And yet if i stay and let her be dysregulated or somewhat abusive with me then I am abandoning part of myself in favor of taking care of her.  It's a classic double bind.  Also, I spoke with others who have been in a similar situation with the student visa thing and they said they had never intended to stay in this country and then their partner asked them to marry them.  They told me they know other people in the same culture who want to marry only for the status.  They are warning me against her because she has told me that "the one who wants to marry me will be willing to deal with my behavior etc."  Also has said if I didn't want to marry her to let her know so she has time to find someone else before her visa expires.  The others that I spoke with told me to be careful with this.  However, there is a part of me that feels that I understand what she is saying and I know her situation and the trauma with her family that she has been through (from what she has told me).  So I'm very empathetic towards her plight and I do love her and care about her, but now that dysregulation has brought these things up again it makes me insecure about our future. 

Anyway, I don't know what to do.  I'm trying to stall our talk.  I am afraid i will either break up with her or make up with her and then continue this ongoing cycle but there's a chance that if I do that and don't marry her it could end even worse.  I am an adult and yet i feel myself slipping back into my wounded child mode where i was with my dad in that abusive cycle.  I feel like i'm doomed in relationship land and also letting her go feels like losing or giving up on part of myself that wants to heal.  I had hoped we could heal together?  Am I giving up prematurely because of my past wounds? Am i finally taking care of myself?   She doesn't have money for therapy and yet she has shown signs of trying to work things out with me and improve her behavior.  This time she has not been apologetic like she has in the past- maybe because i eluded to NOT being the one for her is she was believing what she said during the painting black mode of hers.

This relationship is also re-enforcement of why i have a hard time with difficult decisions in my life (because i have been raised by pwBPD or some part of the traits and keep finding partners with these traits ) and it's hard to feel confident in what choices I'm making; especially with choosing a life partner.  

Right now i'm feeling sorry for myself.  Right now i'm feeling a huge loss and i hate having to be the one to inflict pain (on both myself and my partner) if I should break things off.

thanks for reading this and please feel free to comment if you have been here before and/or have found a way to overcome these situations.

[formflier]

 I'm trying to stall our talk.  

Very wise...

I would suggest trying to "schedule a talk when you are at your best.."

Can you rank the top three things you want to communicate to your pwBPD?

What are the top three things you believe they will try to communicate to you?

Try to simplify it..one sentence each.  My goal is to coach you to form a succinct message that is "actually heard".

Best,

FF

[truthbeknown]

FF:

the top 3 things that I want to communicate:
it's confusing even to me- here is what i want to say:

1.  I love you, everything will be okay; we will work it out
2.  I felt that you hurt me by saying xyz and i want you to acknowledge that (which if i ask she will)
3.  I am feeling that marrying someone on a visa is too difficult for me in my current life circumstances and that sucks because i really do love you and want to be with you.

her:
1. will probably want me to acknowledge that pulling away just because she said something that hurt me really hurt her and she'll want me to acknowledge her hurt feelings over that even though she might have sabotaged.
2.  She'll want to wait until she hears what i say and responds to that but she may address me saying "maybe I'm not the one for you" because i told her that maybe i can't give her what she needs.  She's already said, "it sucks that we have found each other at what seems to be the wrong time- you with all your wounds from past partners and me with needing to find someone who wants to marry me so i can stay here (which btw is the wrong reason to marry someone in an intercountry relationship).
3. she will probably have to go after i say that and may even block me? i'm not sure yet but she will not react very well if i say my number three.

[Cat Familiar]

If you feel you cannot be truly open and honest with her, why would you even consider marrying her?

Are you in therapy currently? That would be very helpful. So many of us here have had a parent with a personality disorder. Because of that, we tend to attract partners with similar dysfunctions. If you can heal the wounds of childhood, you're more likely to create healthy relationships.

[truthbeknown]

cat: it's not that I can't or won't be open with her- when I am she takes things the wrong way.   What i'm saying about point 3 is that if I mention that I cannot marry her then that will be the deal killer and she probably won't talk to me anymore.  It's confusing because I wanted to be with her but lately the BPD traits have been kicking in big time and it is scaring me away.  I bet others on here feel the same way that if I had a wish it would be that she wouldn't have these traits and then considering marriage would be more a down the road process that we could talk about and I wouldn't be so concerned.

I was in therapy to someone who was married to a person with BPD and knows a lot about it.  He asked me to watch out for these types of signs and then decide if that is going to be something I can handle since I still have to deal with an ex wife with these traits.  He asked me to consider if juggling 2 people with this disorder was something I could handle. 

So i'm remembering what we talked about and following up on here because I needed some space that was safe to express my worries, fears, and concerns.  Thank you for listening.

[Cat Familiar]

it's not that I can't or won't be open with her- when I am she takes things the wrong way.   

So you have to censor what you say to her?