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Hey guys. This may be a long post, if it is I apologize, but I've had a real rough week.  Divorced since August (she moved out in March) from an undiagnosed BPD. Married 5 years together for over 8. 

I don't know what all of a sudden happened, but I've been constantly thinking about her.  Rethinking how it went wrong.  It's like I'm in a rut.  Got to see her new boyfriend and I felt almost sick to my stomach. And the thing of it is, the first thing I thought was "I'm way better looking than that guy."  Which both bothered me and also made me feel relieved.

I was torn down for so long, one of the reasons I stayed was I was convinced that I would forever be alone. That she was the only one who would love me and if it didn't work out with her,then no one else would ever feel that way about me. So then we split and it's the exact opposite. I start dating like crazy, I'm having sex with different women. And for some reason in the back of my mind I am always thinking about her. Then today it snowballed.  Went out last night with a girl and we had a great night.  I had to see her today at my daughter's dance recital (she has the new guy there) and then when I go home I have this need to look at old pictures of us. So I start doing that which is always a bad idea.

I really don't know what to do. At first the dating and all this freedom made this feel easy. Now it's like that's not helping. I just don't want to start taking all these steps backwards. Getting depressed and wanting her when she was completely awful to me. That is what really gets me too. It was terrible, she said horrible things about me on Facebook, spread lies about me and whenever I see her treats me awful. She has made comments about me to my children and I am sitting here "missing" this person? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am sorry if I am all over the place and maybe this is just some sort of rut, but it's just been a tough week or so and I felt I needed to get this off my chest. Thank you

Trust me, I would feel sick to my stomach if I saw my BPDex with someone new.  What is in bold is exactly the reason you are hurt and also the reason why your BPDex chose YOU.  They are emotional predators and choose people who believe exactly what you believed in bold. 

That is where the focus of your healing should be: to realize that you should be the first source of your happiness.  You probably suffered emotional trauma as a child like many of us had-not feeling loved, tumultuous household etc.  You were drawn to this woman because you thought, finally, here is someone who will make all of that change and give you the love you never had.

The love you never had can only be replaced by the love you show to yourself.  Please realize that to heal you MUST reflect on the core trauma you faced which came way before meeting her.  Once you can heal that trauma you will reach a forever state of peace and happiness.

I'd guess that that feeling you're experiencing is not exactly missing her, but something more like feeling wounded at her abandonment of you & what seemed so special and good between you.  That wound may be very real and may need a lot of space and time to heal -- without you wanting her back.  You may be missing what you used to think & feel about her.

There's nothing wrong with that.  If you didn't, those feelings would not have been real.  If they were real, they are worth mourning, and of course it's more than mourning -- there is the shock that she would (or more likely, could) not cherish and safeguard that r/s.

As hopealways said, here's the core of it.  You and I are predisposed to believe that, and a borderline has great radar for folks wired that way.  A borderline's greatest fear is that of abandonment, so if they can help you believe no one else would want you, the motivation behind all the self-esteem and self-confidence erosion they are so good at, then you won't leave and they are in control.  Definitely true for me as long as I put up with it, you gotta decide if that rings true for you.

Also, a borderline does not have a fully formed "self"; they must attach to become whole, and oh boy do they get good at it, not surprising, since it's life-or-death mandatory to them, on a subconscious level.  That's why normal, well adjusted women seem somewhat hum-drum by comparison, there isn't that intense drive to worm into your psyche, and the whole thing feels like the buzz of an addiction.  Healing, growing, getting in touch with what we really need and want, and taking that out into the world, we will be better able to create the type of mutually supportive, respectful, trusting relationship we really want, which probably won't come with the buzz of an addiction, but we will be able to create sustainable contentment and happiness, something completely foreign to a borderline.  Take care of you.

Your story is similar to mine PM720. I'll add my two cents.

Get rid of the pictures. Store them in a box and put them away.

Your replacement is a downgrade. She's with him because he enables her crazy making behaviors.

Marriage for my ex uBPDw meant it was a piece of paper. It meant something else to me and it was painful to realize that. We were never on the same page.

I appreciate everyone's feedback and everyone makes good points. I think for myself I need to do the following things:

1) learn that's it's ok to be alone and that I am responsible for my own happiness. I've already disproven that others wouldn't want me, but even if it were true, I need to be happy with myself. Alone doesn't mean lonely and not being in a relationship is much better than being in that nightmare that i lived for so long. In fact the worst thing I could have done for myself and my children would have been to allow it to continue.

2)accept that yes there is a wound and it is going to take time to heal.  But also I need to realize that what I'm mourning isn't real. The person she first presented herself isn't who she truly is and she has shown that for years. I am missing an "idea" not reality and the only relationship that could have been is what I had been experiencing.

3) there will be good and bad days. The bad days will be fewer and far between. I am much better now than I was 1 year ago and will be even stronger 1 year from now.

And the pictures have been put into a box which is tucked away in the corner of the garage. Where they belong

this one makes my head go round in circles.  i can see how this can be true but OTOH isn't it also true that who she was in the beginning AND who she was in the middle/end/now are BOTH true of who she is?  i mean, i think the person my xBPDgf was to me, in the beginning, was real, but when the "psycho drama/trama" of everything involved in a r/s kicked in (love, vulnerability, fears, etc) kicked in, she couldn't cope with it and so this other side of her came out. and THAT person was real, too: the scared little girl side who had poor coping skills and made me hate her... the one who started acting in ways that left no chance for any other outcome except for the one she feared the most: abandonment... . 

glad you got the pictures put away ~ i think it'll help immensely!

Hi PM,

Our timelines are similar (separation February, he moved out in May, divorce almost complete - we were together almost 10 years).

I did great the first few months - it was only in August when I found out he was with someone else that it really hit me.

I still haven't gotten involved with anyone else, but I had distractions. Those eased and, with the triggering of finding out I'd been replaced so easily - I found myself ruminating, having awful bad dreams, feeling depressed.

You have possibly been so caught up in dating that you've not given yourself the time and space to truly mourn the end of your marriage. As you rightfully say, it's an illusion that you're mourning, but your experience of the relationship was real. Your sentiments were real. So that mourning is real and legitimate.

Your conclusions are pretty good. We all have ups and downs, but I think most of us that go NC or LC find that those bad weeks turn into days, then those days happen further and further apart.

Give it time and focus on you and what you need to do to process the loss of your marriage. Be kind to yourself. It doesn't happen overnight, unless you have some kind of PD that allows you to flick emotional switches and just turn it off. Work on you so that when you do meet someone truly worthy of you, you're in the best possible mental shape to create something that is truly worth having.