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Sappho11
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« on: May 20, 2021, 10:26:23 AM » |
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Before I begin, I would like to thank whoever created this board, and all of the lovely, good people contributing to it. I've been reading thread after thread for the past couple of days and it has given me a great sense of consolation.
It's been a little over two weeks that my boyfriend (29) and I (31f) broke up for the second time. We were together for eight months and our relationship followed the classic model to a tee: Idealisation, clinging, devaluation, discardment; the first breakup (which he initiated); then a recycle; and finally the recent breakup.
There were other complications. I grew up without a family and have no support network except for one close friend (who was my voice of reason during all this time, and for whom I am very grateful). My ex BPDbf had a history of depression, and a small, crumbling circle of acquaintances rather than friends. He was my music student for two years, very attractive, and though I initially didn't think much of it, something shifted in me last July. Quite suddenly, I became heavily infatuated with him and can't really point out, why. I think it happened in increments; we started chatting about personal things before and after the lessons, and I took him along to excursions with other students. I suppose I fell in love with his vulnerability, his sensitivity for music, and (what I thought was) his high empathy. I consider myself to be very rational for a woman, I've always had to do everything in life alone, and he just seemed like the perfect complement, tender, sensitive and caring.
However, I knew he had a girlfriend; I later learnt that it was a gf of eight years (!). I don't exactly know how it happened, but within the final two months of lessons and banter, things got more and more intense. We got into an unnecessarily heated argument about his playing and arranged to talk it over outside the rehearsal room, in private.
It was then that he confessed he had been infatuated with me the entire two years of our music lessons, that I had been his sole "driving force" for at least the past half year, and that he was ready to split up with his girlfriend if I was willing to give him a chance. He said he was in a reasonably content relationship with her, but she wasn't his equal intellectually and in many other ways (which, from certain details, I do infer to be true). I was torn between heavy moral qualms and a years-long emotional hunger for closeness (I hadn't been in a romantic relationship for several years). In the end, emotions won, and I gave in. (Those who believe in karma might find the following to be justified.)
The first four weeks or so together with him were paradise. I really thought I had found my soulmate. Feelings ran high, it was pure euphoria, a zest for life I had never known. Then the cracks started to show.
He told me he had broken up with his girlfriend, but she continued living under the same roof as him for the next four months. I was unhappy about this, of course, but he always told me "I can't kick her out, I owe her that". He even promised she could remain living there for another year, or two, however long it would take... when I told him I was skeptical of such "charity", he would get angry at me and yell "I broke up with her to be with you! What more do you want?"
I thought I could stick it out, that it would simply take a bit of time, but that things would be all right in the end. I also figured he simply needed to get closure on his old relationship, and some more time to work things out in his mind.
Again, the first four weeks or so were pure bliss. I thought I had found my perfect match. Nobody had ever looked at me the way he had. He told me he loved me after barely a week together. It was intense. I confided in him about my core problem: That due to my lack of family, a lover would have to be a bedrock to me, someone with the emotional capabilities to fill that role. He promised me the world and more, that this was EXACTLY what he envisioned a relationship to be, that he would "take care" of me, that I was "at home now".
Slowly but surely I noticed his affections dwindling. In fact, he was only happy when I was 100% doting on him with everything I had. I'm naturally affectionate, so this was easy for me to do. But after a while, even that wasn't enough anymore.
He started picking fights over nothing. Often, when we were at our best, he would say something to antagonise me. I was unfazed the first couple of times, even when he confessed to things that would have been a dealbreaker if anyone else had said them. But it seemed that every time, the fights would be about an issue more trivial than the last, and it reached the point where even my honest encouragement was perceived as hurtful criticism. He had all those plans and grandiose ideas what he wanted to do with his future, but nothing ever manifested; he sometimes made plans, but he somehow always failed at taking any meaningful steps. I tried to be as nurturing as I could, while he grew colder and colder by the day.
Sometimes, we'd have great, intimate moments. I thought we were back to the beginning. But everytime we had had a great connection, he would unfailingly withdraw the very same or the next day. I tried to raise the issue with him in a calm moment, rationally and warmly telling him how it made me feel without accusing him of anything, but he would call me dramatic and smothering for even the smallest of requests. Huge fights would ensue about how I could be hurting him so much with my "accusations".
I made the mistake of trying to win back the man I had fallen in love with, knowing full well that this was a losing game for any woman. But I couldn't help myself at this point; I felt I needed him. I, who had been independent since early childhood! He had awakened in me a desire to merge; but as soon as I obliged, he didn't want anything to do with me. He broke up with me shortly after the New Year, telling me he didn't love me anymore, that he felt he was losing control over his life, that I shouldn't get my hopes up about us ever being together again.
I was absolutely destroyed. I've lost everyone I love in my life, my entire family, my first love -- and lived regardless; but nothing had ever devasted me as much as the breakup with him. I felt like a dead woman walking for two weeks.
A week later, he called, tearfully telling me he had tried to re-connect with some of his former love interests, but none of them had replied. He asked whether we could at least be friends...? I was angry at him and curtly told him I had to think about it.
A couple of days later he pleaded me to go for a walk with him. I reluctantly agreed. He looked terrible; he told me of his grandiose plans, of what he was going to do with his life, how he wanted to better himself. It didn't take long before he promised me the world again: How he felt sorry that we hadn't had a proper chance, that he was going to work on himself, that his ex-girlfriend had finally moved out of the house, that he had been confused, that he wanted nothing more than to show me how well he could protect me and be there for me... and I, starved for affection, took him back.
The next four months were a complete hell of intermittent reinforcement. He would be kind and loving for a week, then cold and nasty for another. I consider my psychological resilience to be above average (got through a rough childhood and adolescence with no sustained trauma), but this relationship turned me into an anxious, panicked wreck. It brought out the worst in me and I feel I behaved much worse than I did the first time around; I had lost my natural non-chalance in dealing with him, and this new anxiety of mine made things even worse than they had been.
We could have a wonderful, intimate weekend, only for him to pick a brutal fight over the phone the very same night -- but of course, those fights somehow were always my fault. He forbade me to see male colleagues (I'm self-employed) and questioned my relationship with my gay (!) best friend (aforementioned voice of reason). But I stuck with it, because the time we spent together was frequently heavenly -- when we didn't argue. In arguments however, he would act like a child; even when I had long relented and given in to his point, he would be unable to see it, and only ever "come around" to seeing my point very partially and hours later. He also never apologised, ever. In matters of actions, he always got what he wanted, even when he knew that it would hurt me gravely. And when I dared to mention my emotional needs, I was "hurting him", despite "everything" he was allegedly doing for me.
Seven months in and he hadn't introduced me to any of his friends, and I still had never stayed over at his place. (I know for a fact that the relationship with his ex-gf had long ended, because he had introduced me to his lovely, reasonable parents after two months.) Eventually, he invited me over. I took it as a sign that things were finally going well even though my best friend warned me that it was very little very late.
Eventually, I had a string of bad days. I get these every couple of months, and they usually last a day or two: Days when the grief about all the people I've lost in life becomes overwhelming. I usually deal with this myself, following a structured routine, doing sports, etc., but since BPDbf had always told me I should lean on him during such times, I did. Only that, he wasn't there for me. And it occurred to me that this had been a pattern for the past eight months; that I had sometimes asked for his assistance, but that he somehow had always reacted with disdain and disgust to my pleas.
I told him I'd had had a couple of bad days and that I needed him. He said he had a lot going on and that he was sorry he couldn't be there for me. Everyone around me was telling me: "Get rid of that loser!" I couldn't. Or rather, I didn't want to.
During the last couple of weeks, we had had a few chats about his inconsistent communication habits. I calmly said that it was OK if he had lots going on (though I failed to see what it should be, seeing as he only works 30 hours a week and spends the rest of the time playing video games -- this I only thought), but that after seven months, it shouldn't be too much to ask two spend two nights a week together, and to exchange a message or two during the day -- especially considering since I was his official girlfriend. He said that this was too much to ask and that I was smothering him.
I thought about breaking up with him and wrote him a long letter about his pattern of drawing me close and pushing me away. He came over the same (!) night, apologised, was tender and caring for a couple of days. Then it was all back to the same hell of "come closer -- leave me alone" again.
In the meantime, he had broken every promise he had made to me: no contact with the ex for a year (they were in constant touch), that he would find himself a new apartment (he postponed and finally quit the search for flimsy reasons), that he would go to therapy (he kept cancelling sessions), that he would prove how well he could be there for me (but somehow meeting twice a week and sending a text a day was too much for him).
Two weeks ago we broke up again. It came somewhat out of the blue; a week ago he had told me "I love you, losing you is the last thing I would want." It seemed as if everything was fine. He was holding me close, comforting me, but he suddenly went very stiff and said: "I told you in January I need to get my life back on track. This simply didn't happen. It didn't work when we saw one another almost every other day; and it doesn't work now though we barely see one another. I have a feeling I can EITHER be there for your OR get my life back on track."
In other words: I had been there for him unconditionally, had given him both the comfort and the space whenever he had needed it (though he would generally have breakdowns over the space that he himself had requested), but now everything was still somehow my fault.
I told him this simply wasn't enough. He made a few half-hearted attempts to stop me from going. But as soon as I reciprocated and signalled to him that I wanted to reconcile, he recoiled. So I left.
He sent me a long email a couple of days later telling me that even though we wanted the same things in life, it was impossible for him to be there for me without "destroying" himself. He wrote that he still loved me and that he would miss me tremendously. And that he wished me the best, whatever that might be.
I am still heartbroken as I write this. I've read other people's stories and I realise that things would likely only have got worse, not better; that every recycle starts with a week or so of bliss, but then the abuse resumes, and worse than before. I feel lucky that I got out relatively unscathed after eight months as opposed to a decade or more of marriage with children; but a part of me still misses him and hopes he would come to his senses and come back.
It's hard to accept that the man I loved might never have existed.
How do you cope? Any advice is appreciated.
(And if you read through this entire novella, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's good to get things out there.)
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