Coping with the aftermath

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Firstly, I feel so glad to have found this forum. I've just spent an hour or so reading other people's posts, and you've expressed feelings that I'm experiencing too, describing them exactly. It's a huge relief to find people who know what it's like, because it feels as though no one in my 'real life' understands my breakup and what it did to me. I also feel too ashamed to tell anyone the full story, because I feel as though they would judge me for putting up with so much for so long - why didn't I just say 'enough' and leave him?

He was a good friend for a few years before we became a couple. I noticed that there was something weird about his romantic relationships: they were all short-lived (never longer than four months) and they all ended in flames, usually with him visibly hurt and scared and saying that his ex had abused him. He had seven relationships before me and I've known him ever since the first one. Only in one case did he give a clear example of abuse (he was raped by one partner). In all the others he had no specific example to give, but he still kept talking about what horrible manipulative abusive people these women had been. He broke up with the girlfriend before me after three weeks because he discovered that she had been to a bar with a large group of friends that included his ex, and he decided that she must have been flirting with his ex and was probably planning to cheat on him. I tried to persuade him that he was jumping to some illogical conclusions, but he insisted he was right. Two weeks later we were a couple. I reasoned that it would be different with me. We'd been friends for a while, whereas he'd only known these other people for a few weeks at most before they started dating. Looking back on it, I don't know how I managed to kid myself.

Long before we became a couple he told me that his former psychiatrist had diagnosed him with BPD. I thought the psychiatrist had made an incorrect diagnosis, because I've worked in acute admissions wards with many BPD patients and their mental health difficulties made his look like a picnic. It was only when we became a couple that I saw it. The paranoia, the manipulative behaviour, the black-and-white thinking, the guilt trips ("I had to cut myself because of you", the irrational accusations, the gaslighting (he had a talent for accusing me of everything he was doing himself), the anger, the inability to resolve disputes and reconcile like a rational thinking adult - they all appeared within three months of the relationship, and after six months it was over in one giant blaze that has left me with third-degree burns. Surprise surprise, he accused me of abusing him. I was apparently "the worst abuser he'd ever met".

But it was not quite over. He continued telling me he loved me, he was confused, how precious I was to him. We continued sleeping together. We were a couple all but in name. Once the relationship was formally over and we no longer carried the 'couple' label his behaviour to me improved. Bizarrely he couldn't seem to remember any of the horrible things he had said. Sometimes I would cry over the pain, and he would be puzzled. I would tell him things he had said that had particularly hurt, and he would say confusedly, "I don't remember that." He would never apologise, but the fact that he didn't remember was enough for me - I assumed that because he didn't recall it, he couldn't really have meant it. We continued to be romantically and sexually involved for another year.

Four months ago he asked to meet me and told me without preamble that he's now dating his flatmate. I felt as though I had been hit in the chest by a ton of bricks. Physically winded. When I began to cry, he laughed as if in disbelief and said, "We broke up over a year ago." When I pointed out that we hadn't exactly behaved as though we'd broken up, he got angry and defensive and said, "You're being way more accusatory and aggressive than I'm willing to put up with." Maybe one day I'll make a separate post about that meeting, but talking about everything that happened that day hurts and I don't want to type it all out now. Now it's enough to say that I felt like a worn-out toy that got thrown in the trash when it wasn't wanted any more. I didn't understand why he couldn't have warned me in advance that he was growing interested in his flatmate, instead of springing it on me like this. It felt as though he had done it deliberately, in order to make 100% sure he had a nice shiny new toy before he chucked out the old one. I felt used. I still feel used. I also worry sometimes that he was right and the problem was with me and that I'm really the crazy one. He used to be so adamant about everything being my fault that often I would be apologising in tears for things I didn't even do, thoughts I'd never even thought, anything to make the cruel comments stop. I put up with so much, but I couldn't put up with this. I tried, but in the end I unfriended him on Facebook and wrote him a message saying that I need space from him and we can try to be friends again once he's ready to treat me as a person with feelings. We're in different countries now.

It hurts because it was not just a relationship I lost, but my closest friendship. It was his birthday recently and my head was crowded with memories of his other birthdays, before the bad time. I'm angry with myself for getting into a relationship with him when the warning signs were there. And I hate the fact that the relationship has hurt me so much. I feel like a different person now, and I don't like the person I've become. I want to get back to my old self. I don't know if it's even possible. Whether it is or it isn't, hopefully this forum will help me to feel better.

[balletomane]

Firstly, I feel so glad to have found this forum. I've just spent an hour or so reading other people's posts, and you've expressed feelings that I'm experiencing too, describing them exactly. It's a huge relief to find people who know what it's like, because it feels as though no one in my 'real life' understands my breakup and what it did to me. I also feel too ashamed to tell anyone the full story, because I feel as though they would judge me for putting up with so much for so long - why didn't I just say 'enough' and leave him?

He was a good friend for a few years before we became a couple. I noticed that there was something weird about his romantic relationships: they were all short-lived (never longer than four months) and they all ended in flames, usually with him visibly hurt and scared and saying that his ex had abused him. He had seven relationships before me and I've known him ever since the first one. Only in one case did he give a clear example of abuse (he was raped by one partner). In all the others he had no specific example to give, but he still kept talking about what horrible manipulative abusive people these women had been. He broke up with the girlfriend before me after three weeks because he discovered that she had been to a bar with a large group of friends that included his ex, and he decided that she must have been flirting with his ex and was probably planning to cheat on him. I tried to persuade him that he was jumping to some illogical conclusions, but he insisted he was right. Two weeks later we were a couple. I reasoned that it would be different with me. We'd been friends for a while, whereas he'd only known these other people for a few weeks at most before they started dating. Looking back on it, I don't know how I managed to kid myself.

Long before we became a couple he told me that his former psychiatrist had diagnosed him with BPD. I thought the psychiatrist had made an incorrect diagnosis, because I've worked in acute admissions wards with many BPD patients and their mental health difficulties made his look like a picnic. It was only when we became a couple that I saw it. The paranoia, the manipulative behaviour, the black-and-white thinking, the guilt trips ("I had to cut myself because of you", the irrational accusations, the gaslighting (he had a talent for accusing me of everything he was doing himself), the anger, the inability to resolve disputes and reconcile like a rational thinking adult - they all appeared within three months of the relationship, and after six months it was over in one giant blaze that has left me with third-degree burns. Surprise surprise, he accused me of abusing him. I was apparently "the worst abuser he'd ever met".

But it was not quite over. He continued telling me he loved me, he was confused, how precious I was to him. We continued sleeping together. We were a couple all but in name. Once the relationship was formally over and we no longer carried the 'couple' label his behaviour to me improved. Bizarrely he couldn't seem to remember any of the horrible things he had said. Sometimes I would cry over the pain, and he would be puzzled. I would tell him things he had said that had particularly hurt, and he would say confusedly, "I don't remember that." He would never apologise, but the fact that he didn't remember was enough for me - I assumed that because he didn't recall it, he couldn't really have meant it. We continued to be romantically and sexually involved for another year.

Four months ago he asked to meet me and told me without preamble that he's now dating his flatmate. I felt as though I had been hit in the chest by a ton of bricks. Physically winded. When I began to cry, he laughed as if in disbelief and said, "We broke up over a year ago." When I pointed out that we hadn't exactly behaved as though we'd broken up, he got angry and defensive and said, "You're being way more accusatory and aggressive than I'm willing to put up with." Maybe one day I'll make a separate post about that meeting, but talking about everything that happened that day hurts and I don't want to type it all out now. Now it's enough to say that I felt like a worn-out toy that got thrown in the trash when it wasn't wanted any more. I didn't understand why he couldn't have warned me in advance that he was growing interested in his flatmate, instead of springing it on me like this. It felt as though he had done it deliberately, in order to make 100% sure he had a nice shiny new toy before he chucked out the old one. I felt used. I still feel used. I also worry sometimes that he was right and the problem was with me and that I'm really the crazy one. He used to be so adamant about everything being my fault that often I would be apologising in tears for things I didn't even do, thoughts I'd never even thought, anything to make the cruel comments stop. I put up with so much, but I couldn't put up with this. I tried, but in the end I unfriended him on Facebook and wrote him a message saying that I need space from him and we can try to be friends again once he's ready to treat me as a person with feelings. We're in different countries now.

It hurts because it was not just a relationship I lost, but my closest friendship. It was his birthday recently and my head was crowded with memories of his other birthdays, before the bad time. I'm angry with myself for getting into a relationship with him when the warning signs were there. And I hate the fact that the relationship has hurt me so much. I feel like a different person now, and I don't like the person I've become. I want to get back to my old self. I don't know if it's even possible. Whether it is or it isn't, hopefully this forum will help me to feel better.

[joeramabeme]

balletomane - Welcome to the family!

I also worry sometimes that he was right and the problem was with me and that I'm really the crazy one. He used to be so adamant about everything being my fault that often I would be apologising in tears for things I didn't even do

This is classic for the non-bp to feel.  I also felt crazy b/c the degree my wife could make me feel I was the one misaligned to the facts.  For a BP, feelings are facts.  Repeat that statement again, for the BP feelings are facts.  When they feel a certain way, the facts are constructed to match the affect.  Further, the feelings that are telling you are typically projections of what they feel about themselves.  It is all an avoidant behavior type that is part of the traits of BP.

You are not crazy, in fact you are probably quite healthy as here you are discussing your feelings in a place that you can be validated and get information.  Based on what you wrote about being diagnosed, he probably has the same information but has not been willing to face the facts about his condition.  That is not on you.  What is on you, is to sort out your feelings and the facts.  You sound like you are in a lot of emotional anguish about what has happened, which is very understandable.

You also asked if you would ever be the same.  You will and you are.  Going through a breakup with a pwBPD traits can be extremely disorienting.  It is like a tornado came through town and leveled everything.  The pwBPD is looking around saying it isn't windy at all and you are staring at the devastation saying I can't believe what has happened and that you can't see it.

How long ago was it that he told you he was dating someone else?  Did you tell him how you feel?

[balletomane]

balletomane - Welcome to the family!

I also worry sometimes that he was right and the problem was with me and that I'm really the crazy one. He used to be so adamant about everything being my fault that often I would be apologising in tears for things I didn't even do

This is classic for the non-bp to feel.  I also felt crazy b/c the degree my wife could make me feel I was the one misaligned to the facts.  For a BP, feelings are facts.  Repeat that statement again, for the BP feelings are facts.  When they feel a certain way, the facts are constructed to match the affect.  Further, the feelings that are telling you are typically projections of what they feel about themselves.  It is all an avoidant behavior type that is part of the traits of BP.

You are not crazy, in fact you are probably quite healthy as here you are discussing your feelings in a place that you can be validated and get information.  Based on what you wrote about being diagnosed, he probably has the same information but has not been willing to face the facts about his condition.  That is not on you.  What is on you, is to sort out your feelings and the facts.  You sound like you are in a lot of emotional anguish about what has happened, which is very understandable.

You also asked if you would ever be the same.  You will and you are.  Going through a breakup with a pwBPD traits can be extremely disorienting.  It is like a tornado came through town and leveled everything.  The pwBPD is looking around saying it isn't windy at all and you are staring at the devastation saying I can't believe what has happened and that you can't see it.

How long ago was it that he told you he was dating someone else?  Did you tell him how you feel?

Thank you for your kind post. I love the tornado analogy. That's exactly how it was.

He got together with his new girlfriend (his flatmate) four months ago and told me almost immediately. ("I knew I had to tell you soon because you can read me like an open book." I cut contact with him two months ago because I knew I would never stop hurting if I stayed where he could still manipulate me. On the day he told me about his new girlfriend, I was too stunned and shattered to say what I felt - I couldn't articulate it coherently even to myself, and I was so used to apologising to him and bending over backwards to meet his every need that expressing my own feelings felt alien. It was only after a couple of weeks had passed that I explained how I was feeling, in writing. He was furious with me and accused me of trying to ruin his happiness by "emotionally extorting" him. This was a guy who had been kissing me and telling me I was the most important person in his life the month before. He remembers our break-up as me hurting him and not apologising once, but him saying sorry countless times (it was the other way round!), and now he believes that I fabricated all the horrible incidents he doesn't recall in order to manipulate him into saying sorry.

He expected so much from me but was willing to give nothing back. On the day he told me about his new girlfriend, he said I was his best friend and he hoped I would remain so, because "I need you". He told me that he doesn't feel able to confide in his new girlfriend about his self-harm. I remember thinking dazedly, "And when you do feel able to tell her, what happens to my listening ear? Does it get thrown on the scrap heap with the rest of me?" But I couldn't say that to him at the time. I am in the final stages of my PhD and feeling pretty isolated by the intense workload, which means I don't get to see as much of my friends as I'd like, and I did manage to tell him that losing him during this stressful time was hard. His reply? "Well, I had to spend most of my life alone. You'll get used to it." So while he expected me to be on hand to support him in whatever way he still needed, I had to "get used to it". This is our whole relationship in a nutshell. Sometimes I feel angry at myself for tolerating such an unequal arrangement for so long. Before he and I got together, I thought I had everything together - my career was on the right track, my studies were going well, I had a good group of friends, I was confident, happy. Now I feel as though that cheerful, confident person had every bone in her body broken and was left in a heap in the street. I feel cut off from my friends by what has happened. No one who hasn't been in a BPD relationship can understand what it's like, and many of them think it was just a bad breakup. I carry what happened inside me like an invisible weight and it's always there. To lessen it, I'm trying to keep myself busy by arranging to meet friends when I can, trying new hobbies, practising my cello more, swimming, working long hours. I am no longer feeling as awful as I was, but it's still not fun. Is there anything specific people have found that helps or do you just wait for time to heal the wound?

[joeramabeme]

Sometimes I feel angry at myself for tolerating such an unequal arrangement for so long.

Yes, this too is what most Nons report feeling.  I was married for 10 years.  It took the last few to really get a clear grip that something was seriously wrong and it wasn't just me.  Even after I confronted her about abuse she blamed me and decided to leave b/c it was not tolerable for her.  I was then accused of wanting to divorce her and hiding money as part of my plan.  As we discussed earlier, it is the feelings that drive the perceptions, not the facts.  

R/S with a BPD is very unequal.  pwBPD traits are emotionally immature and underdeveloped.  Think of a child whose parents run around all day caring for their needs and then when the child doesn't get to watch their tv show, they accuse the parent of not doing anything for them and get angry.  It sounds a bit extreme but then again, if you look at the facts, not so far fetched.  

Is there anything specific people have found that helps or do you just wait for time to heal the wound?

Yes, start by reading some of the available literature and posts here.  There are book suggestions and Lessons on this site that are extremely valuable.  It sounds like you have your mind full of PhD work so a book is probably the last thing you want to relax with.  But if you can bring yourself to it, there are some extremely valuable insights in the literature on this site.  It will help you to start or continue the healing process .  

I had no idea about BP when I got here.  Reading about all of it helped me to contextualize so many crazy events that I could not place in any context I was familiar with.  Even after I read the material, I kept thinking "was it me"?  Those questions will continue to haunt you.  Armed with knowledge you will slowly begin to see that you were not at fault and that the pwBPD has a mental illness.  I like to use the 3 C's to help me: I didn't Cause it, I cant Cure it and I cant Control it.  My T asked me once, of all the times that I altered my behavior to go a desired effect from her, how many times did it work.  WOW!  Thought I would fall on the floor after she asked b/c I immediately new the answer was none!

Your comment about why did you "tolerate this for so long" is a worthy question.  Your answer will help bring the healing you are seeking.  Further, this knowledge will help guide you in future relationships.  For me, it had a lot to do with family of origin (FOO) stuff.  I am still sifting through a lot of it but have the fundamental understanding of it.

Do you think that your FOO had to do with selecting this person?

[balletomane]

I know a bit about BPD from working in an acute admissions psychiatric ward. (Paradoxically is why I thought my partner's psychiatrist must have made an incorrect diagnosis at first - I was used to seeing BPD symptoms in a very severe form and was slow to see how they can look when less severe.) I don't doubt that my ex is mentally ill. But even though I know this, I still doubt myself - especially when I consider that his flatmate, who is lovely, was able to live with him and not see anything wrong. More than that, she fell for him. I have to keep reminding myself that I was friends with him for three years before the relationship and I didn't see anything wrong either (well, I did, but I deliberately ignored the signs).

His new partner and I have something in common. In fact, we have so much in common that I felt doubly devastated when he got together with her, because it seemed like he was upgrading me for a better, more competent version. She is a children's therapist and social worker, and I am a children's therapist, specialising in work with developmentally disabled children. We both like to help others, we're problem-solvers, we're both drawn to caring professions. I think this is why we've ended up with him, because he can seem both very vulnerable and very sweet - someone who needs looking after. In the early stages of our relationship he told me that my friendship had probably saved his life when he was suicidal, that no one understood him like me, that he had never experienced love before I came along. He was obviously idealising and idolising me like mad, but I didn't see it at the time - I wanted to believe that I was finally the partner he could be happy with.

I don't think my choice of partner had much to do with my family, but the reason I stayed for so long might be partly to do with how I grew up. I actually had a very peaceful and loving home. One of the things that my parents impressed on me and my siblings from childhood was that if we argued, we should try and make it up before we went to bed, and never go to sleep still angry. My dad said to me once, "It's more important to be kind than to insist on being right all the time," and that stuck in my head. This is a good principle to live by as a general rule, but not when you're dealing with someone who has BPD - I ended up doing literally everything I could to keep the peace, which isn't how it's supposed to work. There needs to be some reciprocity.

My ex had a completely different childhood home. His parents were forever arguing and the first time he took me there to visit I felt as though I were walking on eggshells. The atmosphere in that house was never good. Once I told him about my parents' principle of always reconciling before the end of the day and never letting a fight spill over into the next, and he announced that this was obviously about "faking sorry" because who would really be sorry on the same day? This should have been another neon warning sign: he never could accept apologies as sincere, only as attempts to manipulate him, and he always prized being 100% right above maintaining a good relationship with others. He had no grasp of compromise at all.

Your therapist's question is incredibly insightful. I tried so hard to head off his outbursts and mood swings by modifying my own behaviour, to the point where I didn't even feel like me any more. Towards the end I was wondering unhappily how long I could exist like this, squashing myself down for the sake of an uneasy relationship. I used to have to hide other friendships because he would get angry at me for hanging out with other people (bizarrely because he thought they were treating me badly - they weren't). It is a relief that he ditched me, in a way, because I had lost the emotional strength and resilience to pull myself out of the situation. At least now I can focus on healing.

[Suspicious1]

Goodness, all that sounds just horribly traumatic. I do recognise a few things in your post, so just wanted to reach out and say "me too!".

I dated a diagnosed BPD guy years and years ago, and he told me that part of his condition was that he would apparently go crazy at people when he was upset with them, but that he couldn't really remember it. He said he would just feel like he'd been annoyed or angry and expressed that feeling, but that even days after the other person would still seem shocked and upset by it, and he would always think "what's all the fuss about, I was just a bit annoyed". We didn't date long, but I was on the receiving end of ONE of these outbursts and subsequent "what's the fuss about?", and can confirm that his "I was just a bit annoyed" took the form of him locking himself upstairs in my bedroom for five hours, rolling around in my duvet screaming, moaning, thumping and clawing the walls (literally - the neighbours were even alarmed by what was going on). As well as telling me I'd stolen his life, or something. I was still in shock the next day when I insisted he leave, and he seemed just sheepish and seemed genuinely to have forgotten all the details.

Similarly, my last BPD ex (the one who I am still in the process of recovering from) could send me relentless abusive messages constantly and for days on end, and then when he'd calmed down and I was still shell-shocked by the barrage, say "what, I was just upset and I was saying I was upset. That's what people do. It wasn't that bad", genuinely a bit puzzled as to why I would think it extreme.

The former boyfriend said that he preferred not to get into actual relationships with women. He said if he considered himself to be in a relationship, then all his BPD traits would come out. He would deliberately push his partner away to see if she abandoned him, then of course get upset when she eventually did. His coping strategy was to have "friends with benefits" arrangements, which was essentially a relationship in all but name. Then I guess he could trick himself into thinking it wasn't a real relationship, and he was less likely to do the splitting / push-pull stuff. He said he had learned that being in a relationship brought out the worst of his traits, so he avoided it. He's still single (and still a friend of mine) fifteen years later.

When you're tempted to say "is this really all about me?", look at your friendships and other relationships as your barometer. Do your friends and colleagues find you difficult to get on with? Have they accused you of being abusive? Did your past relationships follow this kind of pattern? Because it seems to me that the consistency in the unhealthy behaviour is with him. Anyone who claims to have had nothing but abusive past relationships tends to raise a red flag for me. Ok it could be true, but what are the odds? Has he even had ONE happy relationship in his past? If not, (and without wanting to victim blame) that might say more about him than the people he's been with.

My (recent) ex bf was married for 20 years before he met me, so I do have a huge wobble now and again when I wonder if the fault was all mine and whether I'm the disordered one. Then I remember that apart from that marriage, ours was his longest relationship, with most being over within the year. And that during that 20 year marriage, he had multiple short-term relationships anyway. He told me his ex wife was abusive. And when he was splitting me black, guess what? I was "abusive and controlling". What form did this abuse and control take? I refused to give him the green light to go and beat up my ex husband. The reason he wanted to beat up my ex husband, incidentally, was because he wanted a prison term for GBH because he needed a council house and he was of the understanding that people who had been recently released from prison were placed further up the priority list. Seriously.

When you're in the FOG, it all seems so confusing. With retrospect and with the ability to break down the individual issues, things do get clearer. I'm so sorry you're in pain now, the shock of his new relationship must be awful, and the fact that he can't even see what he's done must be dreadful. It must feel like such a betrayal. I guess, to him, what he feels at this given time is his truth, however distorted and illogical.

Of course you know that there's a strong likelihood he'll be out of this new relationship within three or four months, and when that happens he'll be looking for a shoulder to cry on about his latest "abuser". If you can, accept these next three months as the gift that they are - a chance to build up some defences in readiness. I know you're already well aware of the disorder, but perhaps what you could do is grab some counselling and work through the way in which all those BPD traits applied to him and his behaviour while he was with you. It might give you some comfort and understanding that no, it wasn't you, and that the hurtful things he's done have been down to the disorder. Just a thought.

[joeramabeme]

Ballet, I want to point something out to you.

I know a bit about BPD from working in an acute admissions psychiatric ward. (Paradoxically is why I thought my partner's psychiatrist must have made an incorrect diagnosis at first - I was used to seeing BPD symptoms in a very severe form and was slow to see how they can look when less severe.)

My T has a similar background and exposure to BPD as yours.  Her logic for why my wife is not BPD is the same as yours.  I have found that there are scales of BPD all the way from neurotic to invisible (only seen by those closest to the impacted person).  My point is, do not let your pre-existing knowledge be a deterrent to learning.  BPD, can be just as damaging even in its subtler forms.  It may manifest into extreme behaviors, but not always.

You mention that you have some rescuing tendencies.  Do you see where you went from feeling like rescuer to needing to be rescued (figuratively)? 

it seemed like he was upgrading me for a better, more competent version.

Highly doubtful.  If I read back what you said in a different way this is what I hear.  My bf is mentally ill and I ignored all the obvious warning signs and allowed myself to become attached.  When his illness ended our r/s, because I could not, he went off and found someone to replace me with.  They must be a more competent person than me. 

Do you really think this is true?  Can you see that your personal limits were bypassed and that anyone involved with this person would have to do the same in order to stay with him?  Is this a sign of your competence?  Or is it a sign of where you allow your limits to go?

[soar]

Hi, I just wanted to say that I can relate to your post... .

Especially stuff like your ex never saying sorry... .I noticed that my ex never said sorry, it makes everything so painful... it leaves so many open wounds.

And also your ex's disbelief at you being so upset... it's ridiculously painful but is his bad 100%. Saying that I truely believe it's so important to always remember your ex is unwell. You can't hold these things against him because they will never change. Just keep telling yourself that he is ill.

And lastly about you not feeling like your old self. I'm sorry you feel like that, this sort of sh*t knocks your confidence big time unfortunately. I went 2.5 years without even knowing about BPD. Keep talking to people on this forum and learning about the illness. All the best. 

[rotiroti]

It hurts because it was not just a relationship I lost, but my closest friendship

I know exactly how you feel, I don't know why I overlooked the red flags to get engaged to a best friend of 10 years. As unhealthy and toxic the relationship was, it took two to tango.

You have great insight into your situation and the motivation to learn from this experience. As you become emotionally detached with time, you'll be able to think more rationally and integrate the new found knowledge into your new future.