Recycled in my dream last night :(

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

8 Mo since breakup 4.5 NC

I had a weird pair of dreams about my ex. In the first one i sort of reconciled then we had sex, and it seemed so real and so much like it was when we were together but slowly as we were having sex a series of statements ran through my head that stated all the incompatibilities between us and the passion of the act went flat. In the dream after the sex we were just hanging out, and a friend came over (this is a good friend who got her her current job, and that i was always leery of their connection and suspect that something would happen between them eventually because of how flirty and touchy and energy matching they were (read as loud and showy and attention seeking) In the dream he was hugging her like they were a couple, and i asked them if they were together now, and he said "yeah, i guess we are" so i told him that i just had sex with her and he had a look of horror and betrayal on his face as i proceeded to call her out on the roster of BPD traits. (as far as i know she never actually cheated on me but we were really enmeshed and spent most of our time together.

after this dream i woke up and tried to walk off the really down feeling that i get after dreaming about her, and then went back to sleep.

The second dream about her was a long discussion about therapy, and DBT and seemed really adult and back and forth and well balanced and authentic, which in a way was even worse than the first because i woke up wanting more than anything to have that kind of conversation with her and having thoughts like "maybe as time passes she's having a similar set or revelations about her life" and "with the new way i feel and can communicate i would have been able to have a better relationship with her"

Ugh, i know she's still a wreck. Friends keep telling me about all her selfies and how she's not doing great at work, and i'm sure she hasn't done anything about anything regarding her finances or general responsibilities.

I'm actually starting to meet people that seem healthy right now. Pretty girls from my dance class are wanting to spend time with me, I'm meeting friends of friends that are starting to seem interesting and making my libido stir a little from being totally flat-lined in comparison to my ex. (who i still feel deep deep attraction just from seeing a photo of her)

I wonder if these dreams pop up when I'm getting somewhere. I remember having a dream about my ex while i was sleeping with a rebound i caved with for comfort. Or maybe it's because i'm getting interested in other people that my brain is throwing these teases out as a warning to not focus on these things? Dreams are so confusing to me. They seem so real and important but maybe they're just a mashup of all the deep stuff and they're just psychic vomit.

Thanks for letting me get this out. I feel on the verge of tears missing the kind part of a woman i spent 6 years with and hung my dreams on. That was all a dream too, and now i'm awake from all of it. Time for a healthy breakfast and off to the gym to pump the blues away.

Love to all.

[Xstaticaddict]

8 Mo since breakup 4.5 NC

I had a weird pair of dreams about my ex. In the first one i sort of reconciled then we had sex, and it seemed so real and so much like it was when we were together but slowly as we were having sex a series of statements ran through my head that stated all the incompatibilities between us and the passion of the act went flat. In the dream after the sex we were just hanging out, and a friend came over (this is a good friend who got her her current job, and that i was always leery of their connection and suspect that something would happen between them eventually because of how flirty and touchy and energy matching they were (read as loud and showy and attention seeking) In the dream he was hugging her like they were a couple, and i asked them if they were together now, and he said "yeah, i guess we are" so i told him that i just had sex with her and he had a look of horror and betrayal on his face as i proceeded to call her out on the roster of BPD traits. (as far as i know she never actually cheated on me but we were really enmeshed and spent most of our time together.

after this dream i woke up and tried to walk off the really down feeling that i get after dreaming about her, and then went back to sleep.

The second dream about her was a long discussion about therapy, and DBT and seemed really adult and back and forth and well balanced and authentic, which in a way was even worse than the first because i woke up wanting more than anything to have that kind of conversation with her and having thoughts like "maybe as time passes she's having a similar set or revelations about her life" and "with the new way i feel and can communicate i would have been able to have a better relationship with her"

Ugh, i know she's still a wreck. Friends keep telling me about all her selfies and how she's not doing great at work, and i'm sure she hasn't done anything about anything regarding her finances or general responsibilities.

I'm actually starting to meet people that seem healthy right now. Pretty girls from my dance class are wanting to spend time with me, I'm meeting friends of friends that are starting to seem interesting and making my libido stir a little from being totally flat-lined in comparison to my ex. (who i still feel deep deep attraction just from seeing a photo of her)

I wonder if these dreams pop up when I'm getting somewhere. I remember having a dream about my ex while i was sleeping with a rebound i caved with for comfort. Or maybe it's because i'm getting interested in other people that my brain is throwing these teases out as a warning to not focus on these things? Dreams are so confusing to me. They seem so real and important but maybe they're just a mashup of all the deep stuff and they're just psychic vomit.

Thanks for letting me get this out. I feel on the verge of tears missing the kind part of a woman i spent 6 years with and hung my dreams on. That was all a dream too, and now i'm awake from all of it. Time for a healthy breakfast and off to the gym to pump the blues away.

Love to all.

[Mutt]

Thanks for sharing your dreams Xstaticaddict it likely feels like it's good to get it off of your chest? You had two dreams about her in one night nonetheless   That has to be difficult while detaching, sleep was my fortress of solitude to get away from all of the pain I felt each and everyday and I still felt a lot of pain at 8 months.

Ugh, i know she's still a wreck. Friends keep telling me about all her selfies and how she's not doing great at work, and i'm sure she hasn't done anything about anything regarding her finances or general responsibilities.

You had a long history with her and you were enmeshed. Try not to worry about her. She'll survive and you're not caretaker anymore.

I'm actually starting to meet people that seem healthy right now. Pretty girls from my dance class are wanting to spend time with me, I'm meeting friends of friends that are starting to seem interesting and making my libido stir a little from being totally flat-lined in comparison to my ex. (who i still feel deep deep attraction just from seeing a photo of her)

My ex flat lined me as well when she was detaching in the r/s and projecting her detachment on me and telling me I wasn't sexually attracted to her anymore.

So your making social connections through friends and your participating and enjoying a hobby. You are meeting  new women, I'm glad to hear your getting out there and enjoying the company of others and they're enjoying your company  as well. It's going to take some time to detach and grieve this r/s Xstaticaddict you had a long history together. You will make new dreams when the time is ready, in the meantime process your feelings and heal. Hang in there brother.

[Xstaticaddict]

Thanks Mutt,

I know I'll be ok. I have little revelations every day and my mind creates new ways to look at it, like a 6 year masters course in how to make a ton of mistakes in a relationship so i don't make the same ones again. Some days i want to reach out and thank her genuinely for shattering me, some days like today the reflections on the people we were in the relationship seems surreal and like it happened to someone else. I don't even know who she is, while feeling like i know her better than anyone because i've decoded the mystery of her disorder. Which feels even more dangerous to my fixer self because i feel like once i man up and am rocking my life again that i could possibly help her one day, which i really don't want to do, and don't genuinely believe i can, but somewhere in there i don't let go of that as a possibility. Stupid thoughts float around my head that i think would be super romantic in that movie ending way, where i send her a note saying "every year on the day we met I'll be at a place we always said we wanted to go together and when you've done the work on yourself and can give and accept love meet me there."

Of course i know that if i do this i'd just end up being in that place alone year after year. Also I know in my heart that soon I'll have found a woman to love, hopefully more beautiful and kind and nurturing, and the whole idea of re-uniting with a healthy version of her will be the last thing on my mind because I'll be living a full and happy life disorder free. It's been a roller coaster. I'm glad I'll have a record through my journals and this site of all the swings and realizations.

The most shocking thing to me is finding that as much as her projections of frustration on me were just reflections of her own shortcomings, so i'm finding are my frustrations with her in her absence. How many times had i been frustrated with her about being needy, and focusing on me and what I'm doing instead of what she needed to do for herself and her kids and here i am spending days and days thinking about her now that she's gone. Granted I've done more in the last 6 months to better my situation than the last 3 years but it still feels like lame to let her have so much of my thoughts. Being emotionally reactive, overwrought, all the things I thought her imbalanced for doing i do daily, but now have a layer of mindfulness about so they never get too out of hand.

Do you ever get exhausted by all of this reflection and self care, where you want to just take a vacation from everything but feel like that would be losing ground because you have to stay really on top of things just to feel like a normal functional human being?

Thanks for being there Mutt, today was a really challenging day. Last few actually. I'm fighting my own brain which has had a program running constantly to try to figure out a way to break NC.

examples:

-text her a photo of us together from a past xmas where we both looked amazing and appeal to her vanity about how good we looked together

-text her simply asking "how's it going with finding yourself again?" as her standard line of blame is that when she's in a relationship she loses herself

-text her that i miss her

-invite her to a dance performance that I'll be doing next month (silver linings playbook style)

the list goes on and on, but i resist all of them and know that even if she did care, there's no way to make anything good again. Too much has happened, and it's all my fault in her eyes.

Time to sleep and hopefully dream of something different tonight.

Thanks again for the supportive words of encouragement.

[Reforming]

Hi Xstaticaddict,

I think a lot of us have had these dreams and they can be so devastating…

I felt like my mind was betraying me but I think it's part of the processing and eventually letting go.

Seeing her with someone else shows that you are beginning to accept the reality of what's happened and even though that's very painful it's a sign the you're moving forward.

For me this has come in waves; moving through anger and grief to radical acceptance takes time - it's been two steps forward one step back.

It's not long since you separated so be gentle on yourself and try not to judge your feelings or your dreams.

But don't ignore the grief either. You have to feel it to get to the other side.

It'll be two years in September since I separated but I still have periods of sadness and even the occasional dream but there's also much more brightness and hope.

I shared almost 16 years of my life with mine and I find it incredibly hard to completely disentangle who I am from this other person. She's gone now but she shaped who I am for good and bad I'm gradually learning to accept that.

For a long time I've really struggled to reconcile the good and the bad in her.

I was reading some posts here last week and I had  moment.

I know the things that I hated but for the first time I accepted that many of the things I loved about her were actually a byproduct of her illness.

That her personality, who she is has been irreparably shaped by BPD. The childlike qualities, the intensity, the sweetness and the vulnerability are as much a part of the illness as the rage, the confusion and her ability to wound me and those around her.

So if your ex or mine really committed to therapy and stuck with it would you still love the person they become? And would they still love you?

There are some brilliant posters on this board who have really helped me through the last year and a half. 2010, Skip and many more. Recently I've been reading thisblonde and she had great advice on moving forward.

It sounds like your doing all the right things. Stick with it but be kind to yourself. It's can be hellish at times but you can come through it and find happiness again

Reforming

[Perdita]

Xstaticaddict, sounds like your dreams are helping you to deal with and heal from the relationship with you ex.  I'd keep a journal of them if I were you.  It helps to have a voice recorder next to your bed so that you can quickly go over the dreams as soon as you wake up and the details are still fresh in your mind.  That's what I did at one stage.  You can then enter it into your journal when you have more time (which for most people is at the end of the day rather than the start). 

I dream a lot about my BPbf.  At the end of March we had another huge falling out over the same woman that keeps causing problems between us. Come to think of it, she has been at the center of every falling out we've had.  So for the past 3 1/2 months I can't recall a night that went by that I didn't have a nighmare about him.  She pops up constantly in those nightmares.

It sounds like you are moving forward and well on your way to becoming healthy again.  i wish you the best.

[Mutt]

Thanks for being there too Xstatixcaddict and helping me sort out my situation by sharing yours. I'm grateful for that it was a year of conflictual thoughts and you helped me with settling it. I feel like I'm getting to closure with my SD, let go for now and hopefully reestablish a connect on later.

You're grieving Xstaticaddict, it takes time to get to acceptance and you may feel different about trying to help her once that you reach this stage. It also takes time for your head to catch up to your heart. I can hear the difficulties that you had yesterday and I'm sorry  

They're not stupid thoughts. You cared and loved this woman deeply. I felt the same for my ex and after discovering about the disorder and its complexities, it took me a long time to accept that she is mentally ill. She likely wouldn't choose to be this way had she a choice for the pain and suffering that she feels? We're both men with huge hearts and it's a really tough pill to swallow I know. Acceptance takes time, but she has defense mechanisms and a lack of self awareness, hopefully someday our exes will realize there's something wrong inside, seek help for themselves. I don't hate my wife and I can't say that I love her anymore but I care. I don't want to enable her inappropriate actions rescuing her will prolong that possibility for her to get help. That day isn't now for now. I care from afar but I have a right to be happy and rediscover new things and a new relationship. I remember this popular term in my late teens " tough love".

You cannot change other people. Change has to come from you. I had to let her go because I was undervaluing myself and overvaluing her and the relationship. I was enmeshed and disregarding my needs and looking out for everyone elses needs. I didn't know where she ended and I began.

We both deserve better. I kept hitting the snooze button and she was a wake-up call, no doubt and for that I'm grateful. It's something that she will never know and it makes me sad. I can't help this woman and letting go was the hardest thing I think I had done in my life. For myself, I left it to destiny and to a higher power to watch over her. We both have a right to be treated much better and loved again but this disorder is bigger than both of us, our love cannot cure it.

Have you considered writing down a letter and getting these feelings out? Write her exactly how you feel and put it away, store it somewhere in your house?

Do you ever get exhausted by all of this reflection and self care, where you want to just take a vacation from everything but feel like that would be losing ground because you have to stay really on top of things just to feel like a normal functional human being?

Yes i have and i let myself break because it's OK.

"To be whole, let yourself break.

To be straight, let yourself bend.

To be full, let yourself be empty.

To be new, let yourself wear out.

To have everything, give everything up.

Knowing others is a kind of knowledge;

knowing yourself is wisdom.

Conquering others requires strength;

conquering yourself is true power.

To realize that you have enough is true wealth.

Pushing ahead may succeed,

but staying put brings endurance.

Die without perishing, and find the eternal.

To know that you do not know is strength.

Not knowing that you do not know is a sickness.

The cure begins with the recognition of the sickness.

Knowing what is permanent: enlightenment.

Not knowing what is permanent: disaster.

Knowing what is permanent opens the mind.

Open mind, open heart.

Open heart, magnanimity."

~ Tao de Ching

[Xstaticaddict]

That her personality, who she is has been irreparably shaped by BPD. The childlike qualities, the intensity, the sweetness and the vulnerability are as much a part of the illness as the rage, the confusion and her ability to wound me and those around her.

So if your ex or mine really committed to therapy and stuck with it would you still love the person they become? And would they still love you?

Thanks Reforming. I too am coming to terms with the fact that what i thought was a genuine person was a bunch of disordered coping mechanisms and dramatic constructs. Your last question is one i've been playing with as a means of exploring what it is i'm actually looking for in a relationship. Where i'm at in my head right now, i don't want to engage in the surely heartbreaking process of therapy and healing with her even if she magically realized she wanted to change but it feels like that's because I'm scared that I'd get sucked into her chaos because I'm still not great at setting my boundaries that keep my life stable and keep my happiness my own responsibility. I realize i was attempting it by resisting living with her until she showed she could support her kids without her baby-daddy's money or the government's. I never truly trusted that she could be a good partner but she triggered my fixer something awful and wore me down. One thing i always saw though, past all her chaos and BPD, was the sad lonely hurt child that reminded me so much of myself in her. I would LOVE to be in a relationship with her where we were able to work on our stuff and grow together even if that meant going dull and passionless for a period until we could make it healthy expressions of real love. I'd feel like i had a partner that i had actually seen at their most vulnerable, and same with me. It would be real. I don't think it would ever make sense to do that with my ex, and would probably be shortchanging myself by taking that on instead of finding someone more at my own level to enjoy life with.

Xstaticaddict, sounds like your dreams are helping you to deal with and heal from the relationship with you ex.  I'd keep a journal of them if I were you.

Thanks Perdita, I do keep track of my dreams and a lot of other thoughts that I've been having about this process of discovery. I've always written as my main form of expression as far back as childhood, so I've been given a lot of material to get down on digital paper these days. I'm sorry you're having bad dreams too. Are you committed to staying with your bf? That must be incredibly hard to read all the things on this site WHILE with someone with a PD. I'd probably have started treating my gf almost like a patient or an alien and with so much more paranoia.

We both deserve better. I kept hitting the snooze button and she was a wake-up call, no doubt and for that I'm grateful. It's something that she will never know and it makes me sad.

Have you considered writing down a letter and getting these feelings out? Write her exactly how you feel and put it away, store it somewhere in your house?

Thanks Mutt. I actually have been writing consistently in an "estrangement journal" where i keep track of how i feel from time to time or when i have dreams or realizations. Sometimes it's many days in a row, sometimes 1 every couple weeks. When I started this journal i had it in mind to make a book out of it that was half love letter to my disordered ex, and half DIY self help guide for dealing with a borderline relationship. A lot of it is written as if i was talking directly to my ex, and i find it interesting the way i flow in and out of doing this. It will be an interesting read in a year or two i'm sure.

It was weird, one of the last things she said to me while leaving was "keep writing" because that was something she always said she loved about me. I didn't write a thing creatively for months after we broke up and if i did it was all about her and us. I felt very hijacked and depressed about that. Now however i feel like I'm on the verge of inspiration to do a music concept album about our relationship and BPD, which was something that i'd talked about for years but never knew what i'd write it about because nothing felt real or personal enough, but this sure as hell does.

Thank you everyone. Y'all help me feel sane and safe.

[Mutt]

It was weird, one of the last things she said to me while leaving was "keep writing" because that was something she always said she loved about me. I didn't write a thing creatively for months after we broke up and if i did it was all about her and us. I felt very hijacked and depressed about that. Now however i feel like I'm on the verge of inspiration to do a music concept album about our relationship and BPD.

A concept album? Do you mean like a concept album like Pink Floyd The Wall? That's a neat idea. I am an artist. I was thinking of doing abstract paintings on BPD. To get a visualization on canvas of how I feel about BPD, I'm curious how the piece will turn out.

[Reforming]

Hi Xstatixcaddict

I know what you mean about the connection with her lonely hurt child. I felt same and still do at times

2010 is very good on this. Read her posts

I don't know if you've read the recent post by Julia but even at my angriest I never forget that this is a terrible illness.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=228688.msg12460429#msg12460429

My heart goes out to her, to him and to their child.

For me letting go of the dream of healing my ex, which is really a fantasy of living with the best parts of them, the parts you love , was and is very hard.

But I'm finally recognising that the woman I loved is inseparable from the woman who shattered me.

It's not her fault, she didn't chose to be this way - she was terribly hurt and wounded as a child.  And at a deep, almost cellular level her disorder has shaped both the good and bad in her.

And this is one of the reasons why it's so difficult to treat.

It began in early childhood and it's touched every part of her.

I hope that she can find the strength to be healed but now that I understand more about the disorder I recognise that the odds are heavily against this.

And even if she did commit to long term therapy, DBT or Schema, and come through the other side she would still have to catch up on all those years of lost emotional development.

She would would become a very different person to the person I fell in love with.

And if she was genuinely healthy she would be attracted to a very different partner as well

It's the same for us I think.

When we have worked through our own issues and got healthier we realise that we need to be with someone very different too.

That's good. In fact it's healthy

We were both damaged in our different ways and that magnetic pull that drew us to each other and kept us together was never healthy or good for either of us.

We were both lonely hurt children looking for something that neither of us could give.

The good news for us is that if we're brave enough to face ourselves and put in the work we have a much better chance of really healing and being happy

Good luck

Reforming (slowly)