Trying to make sense of failed reconciliation

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

Just wanted some help trying to make sense of a failed reconciliation with my ex-girlfriend and finding myself a bit "stuck".

The short intro is that we had a short but very intense relationship that lasted about 3 months in all. She's a very intense person and quite early on started to show some angry, aggressive behaviours. Like a lot of people here I think I ignored some of these probably obvious red flags.

As time went on the arguments got more intense to the point she was actively raging at me for perceived slights. It was always relatively minor issues that she would decide were catastrophes like not texting her "good morning" before 9am and forgetting things that she had told ("you should remember what I tell you the first time around its basic information").

It all came to a head when I got a new car and said that I could take her to work to make her day a bit easier. On the day when I picked her up she was incredibly angry and spent most of the journey in complete silence. When I asked her what the problem was she said she was tired and stressed with work. The journey was pretty miserable and I had completely underestimated the journey length. That day I spent 4 hours in the car as the traffic was totally insane - on the journey back I told her I wouldn't be able to attempt to give her a ride to work again because it was taking too out of my own work day (I was self-employed at the time).

When I dropped her off she was super cold and just walked into her apartment without saying anything. About 4 hours later I got dumped by text with her saying that I should have "continued to drive her" or "at least drive her for the rest of the week" or "at least discussed how it could be done rather than just saying 'no'" - she also said we weren't compatible because we had "different values".

Obviously I was pretty hurt by all of this but I wanted to retain some self-respect so I accepted the relationship was over and said I couldn't believe I was being punished for trying to do something nice and failing. A day later she got back in touch and said she had been too angry to make the decision and wanted to reconcile. I refused as I was still too hurt and thats when she admitted she had "a fear that people will just leave her" and "can't control my anger and I do stupid things" and was in therapy.

I told her I didn't want to be with her but she should continue her therapy and hopefully she would improve. About a week later she called me and said she wanted to get back together, I said I couldn't unless she had sorted herself in therapy and being in a relationship would probably be a distraction.

After this we didn't speak for about 8 weeks until I got in touch with her about returning some stuff that she had left at my place. After this we started talking about on and off about things.

About 4 weeks ago she got in touch as she had a dental emergency and needed some support seeing an emergency dentist. I managed to find her one and we started talking even more regularly at this point. Eventually it developed into talking about reconciliation, reminiscing about old times and getting more flirty.

A week ago she was messaging and sending pictures on a day out where the pictures clearly had a man in the reflection of some of them. I pointed this out to her and accepted she was (apparently) single and could do as she wanted but it wasn't fair to talk about reconciliation whilst not being honest about relationship status. She denied she was seeing anyone and said it was just a friend () but we carried on talking for a further week.

At that point she came clean to me the day she went "official" with this dude and started blasting happy photos of them all over social media. I was pretty hurt and angry by this and told her she could have handled the last month so much better by being honest and up front.

She said she couldn't be with me because I don't want to get married (she didn't either when we were dating) and that I can't cope with her anger. She said she is doing therapy but doesn't think she can be the version of herself that I want her to be. For clarity I don't want her to be anything other than someone who can control their rage and not blow up over trivial nonsense.

She said she loved me more than anyone she had but couldn't be with me because I wouldn't "stay with her forever" or "even get married so I have some protection". I pointed out that getting married doesn't mean you have to stay with someone forever but she didn't seem to accept this. She offered to be friends and "talk to he about anything any time" but I declined this as my emotions are all over the place. Afterward she blocked me on all social media but kept med unblocked on WhatsApp. I haven't attempted to contact her since.

So here I am alone whilst shes happily in a new relationship. I am struggling with a few things about this:

A) Why talk about reconciliation when shes clearly getting serious with someone else?

B) Why tell me she loves me and then 2 weeks later become official with a new guy and just ask me to be friends who is "in her life forever"?

C) Why blame me for not being able to deal with her issues, when she has had those issues for a long time?

D) Why block me from seeing her social media and not block me on WhatsApp or messaging apps?

I am trying my best to detach but am struggling whilst I make sense of it all - sorry for the post length!.

getfree

[getfree]

Just wanted some help trying to make sense of a failed reconciliation with my ex-girlfriend and finding myself a bit "stuck".

The short intro is that we had a short but very intense relationship that lasted about 3 months in all. She's a very intense person and quite early on started to show some angry, aggressive behaviours. Like a lot of people here I think I ignored some of these probably obvious red flags.

As time went on the arguments got more intense to the point she was actively raging at me for perceived slights. It was always relatively minor issues that she would decide were catastrophes like not texting her "good morning" before 9am and forgetting things that she had told ("you should remember what I tell you the first time around its basic information").

It all came to a head when I got a new car and said that I could take her to work to make her day a bit easier. On the day when I picked her up she was incredibly angry and spent most of the journey in complete silence. When I asked her what the problem was she said she was tired and stressed with work. The journey was pretty miserable and I had completely underestimated the journey length. That day I spent 4 hours in the car as the traffic was totally insane - on the journey back I told her I wouldn't be able to attempt to give her a ride to work again because it was taking too out of my own work day (I was self-employed at the time).

When I dropped her off she was super cold and just walked into her apartment without saying anything. About 4 hours later I got dumped by text with her saying that I should have "continued to drive her" or "at least drive her for the rest of the week" or "at least discussed how it could be done rather than just saying 'no'" - she also said we weren't compatible because we had "different values".

Obviously I was pretty hurt by all of this but I wanted to retain some self-respect so I accepted the relationship was over and said I couldn't believe I was being punished for trying to do something nice and failing. A day later she got back in touch and said she had been too angry to make the decision and wanted to reconcile. I refused as I was still too hurt and thats when she admitted she had "a fear that people will just leave her" and "can't control my anger and I do stupid things" and was in therapy.

I told her I didn't want to be with her but she should continue her therapy and hopefully she would improve. About a week later she called me and said she wanted to get back together, I said I couldn't unless she had sorted herself in therapy and being in a relationship would probably be a distraction.

After this we didn't speak for about 8 weeks until I got in touch with her about returning some stuff that she had left at my place. After this we started talking about on and off about things.

About 4 weeks ago she got in touch as she had a dental emergency and needed some support seeing an emergency dentist. I managed to find her one and we started talking even more regularly at this point. Eventually it developed into talking about reconciliation, reminiscing about old times and getting more flirty.

A week ago she was messaging and sending pictures on a day out where the pictures clearly had a man in the reflection of some of them. I pointed this out to her and accepted she was (apparently) single and could do as she wanted but it wasn't fair to talk about reconciliation whilst not being honest about relationship status. She denied she was seeing anyone and said it was just a friend () but we carried on talking for a further week.

At that point she came clean to me the day she went "official" with this dude and started blasting happy photos of them all over social media. I was pretty hurt and angry by this and told her she could have handled the last month so much better by being honest and up front.

She said she couldn't be with me because I don't want to get married (she didn't either when we were dating) and that I can't cope with her anger. She said she is doing therapy but doesn't think she can be the version of herself that I want her to be. For clarity I don't want her to be anything other than someone who can control their rage and not blow up over trivial nonsense.

She said she loved me more than anyone she had but couldn't be with me because I wouldn't "stay with her forever" or "even get married so I have some protection". I pointed out that getting married doesn't mean you have to stay with someone forever but she didn't seem to accept this. She offered to be friends and "talk to he about anything any time" but I declined this as my emotions are all over the place. Afterward she blocked me on all social media but kept med unblocked on WhatsApp. I haven't attempted to contact her since.

So here I am alone whilst shes happily in a new relationship. I am struggling with a few things about this:

A) Why talk about reconciliation when shes clearly getting serious with someone else?

B) Why tell me she loves me and then 2 weeks later become official with a new guy and just ask me to be friends who is "in her life forever"?

C) Why blame me for not being able to deal with her issues, when she has had those issues for a long time?

D) Why block me from seeing her social media and not block me on WhatsApp or messaging apps?

I am trying my best to detach but am struggling whilst I make sense of it all - sorry for the post length!.

getfree

[Silverdash]

I've no practical advice. I wanted to acknowledge how hard, confusing and upsetting your situation is. It hurts. Bpdfamily is the right place to get support from people who understand, have unique insight and who truly care. They know how tough it is. Sending you virtual comfort.

[getfree]

Thanks, really appreciate it - just feel like my brain has been scooped out, scrambled, and put back where it used to be.

[getfree]

Just an addendum:
 
E) I'm also pretty jealous that the new dude is going to get the happy ever after I could have had.

F) Is it possible to go through therapy and still date? If so, why didn't she suggest that to me - she just "told" me I couldn't deal with her anger/rage episodes.

[drumdog4M]

I'm sorry you experienced this. Though it doesn't help alleviate your pain, her behavior seems so typical of pwBPD. It's also similar to things I went through with my ex-pwBPD when I thought we were reconciling and she was / had already moved on with someone else. Much of what happened during that period for me was more emotionally destabilizing than even the break-up.

Though there are clinical explanations for their behaviors (which I'm sure you know), that knowledge doesn't make it any less painful to live through as a person trying to love them. And, their behaviors just are not emotionally logical to those of us without the disorder. It is like they do not adhere to the norms of human behavior, and it totally throws those of us who do out of whack when we fall in love and try to maintain a relationship with them.

Trying to let go is very hard but the only thing that is beginning to bring me some measure of peace. Trying to hold on to her in so many different ways, yet failing over and over again was driving me crazy.

We are all here for you. Please be well.

[drumdog4M]

With regard to your question (E) -- I feel the same thing about my ex. It can sometimes be all consuming, and I never have viewed myself as being a jealous person.

Based on what you wrote, I do not think he will enjoy "happily ever after" by any stretch of imagination. I think you are far more likely in time to find happiness for yourself and with a healthy woman, much more so than he will with her or that she will find within herself. She might portray an illusion of happiness or be distracted with a new supply until the cycle repeats.

[Good Intentions]

hey there @getfree - sorry to hear you're going through this. I'm going to provide a ton of thoughts...apologies in advance for the long post.

@drumdog is absolutely right, and although I still continue to struggle with feelings of longing for my ex-pwBPD (discarded 3 months ago after almost 4 years together), I also know that for as much as I miss the "love-bombing" / infatuation / idealization by her towards me, on the other side of the same coin is an incredibly hurtful, manipulative, abusive person who did not, and still does not, possess the skill set to be a committed partner in a healthy relationship.

And that has been an extremely difficult reality for me to accept, especially because my ex-pwBPD is a very high functioning, successful, charismatic individual...and yet, she grew up in a completely toxic household with genetical predisposition towards a disorder - absent dad who displayed various types of violence, mentally-unhinged mother who neglected & mistreated my ex like it was her job, unkind siblings who put the idea in her head that she was a "burden", and several instances of diagnosed mental health issues on both sides of her family. So I have to stop ignoring the obvious to hold onto hope for who she could (or in my mind, "should") be in the future if she were ever to be able to accept the reality of who she is at this point in her life.

Regarding your other questions...I'm going to give you my answers, but others can probably respond just as well as I can. I'm essentially just restating things I've learned on this site!
A) Why talk about reconciliation when shes clearly getting serious with someone else?

As I'm sure you know, one of the core aspects of BPD is the fear of abandonment (leading to unstable interpersonal relationships). It is frequently the case that pwBPD impulsively move from one relationship because if they're the ones "leaving", then their worst fear - that fear of being abandoned (just as they were neglected so habitually as a child) - cannot come true. So it's their attempt to control their own emotional experience & in some way to try to protect themselves that leads to pwBPD discarding their partners.

But! At the same time, they also don't want to be alone because then they're stuck dealing with the deeper-rooted feelings of shame & self-loathing & unstable sense of self, and if they're in a relationship with someone, at least initially those feelings are hidden by the "honeymoon phase" love & affection. So it's pretty uncommon for them to not be dating someone, and I view her stringing you along / wanting you to be there "on standby" for her in case the new r/s doesn't work out as evidence that she's just wanting to have a "back-up" to avoid being alone.

B) Why tell me she loves me and then 2 weeks later become official with a new guy and just ask me to be friends who is "in her life forever"?
Another sad part of my experience as I've become more aware of how my ex-pwBPD's disorder affected our relationship has been realizing how truly selfish she was...and again, it's almost no fault of her own (I blame the disorder), but if she's not going to do anything about accepting the disorder then I can't be with her. A couple things jump out to me in this question: 1) telling you she loves you just before starting to talk to a new guy - I'm not the only one to suggest that pwBPD are perceptive and can understand our "love languages" / what we want to hear better or before we can...telling you she loves you may have been about telling you "what you want to hear" to keep you "on the hook" while she chases down her next guy
2) she wants you to be "in her life forever" - I've heard similarly childish phrases from my ex-pwBPD and to me, it does speak to the level of "arrested development". it's as if she truly thinks there's an outcome where you - a fellow human being with emotions & feelings & a desire to find happiness in a relationship for your self - would be ok existing in this role where you're a pawn in her life, not in the role you would want (her partner), but in whatever role she wants at any given moment. and maybe I'm reading the tea leaves way too deeply, but I do see a little bit of that blind selfishness that I was referring to earlier in that phrase.

C) Why blame me for not being able to deal with her issues, when she has had those issues for a long time?
Another hallmark of BPD is the inability to accept responsibility / deal with feelings of shame / expressing remorse & asking for forgiveness. Blaming you, projecting her issues on you, etc. is exactly how she is able to continue living in her delusional world where she's not broken, she's not at fault, everything is someone else's fault and she doesn't need to change.

D) Why block me from seeing her social media and not block me on WhatsApp or messaging apps?
Control. Control. Control. She wants you to be able to get in touch with her, but on her terms. She wants to wipe you from her public profile (social media) so she can attract other suitors, but she wants to leave you with that bit of access to her, and if you utilize it, it'll only send the message to her "I can have this guy back any time I want".

I know some of my viewpoints may sounds harshly negative, and I'm happy to discuss anything I've mentioned more fully with any of you. I promise there's additional context & background that I can provide to bolster my beliefs/opinions...roughly 4 years worth of data to be exact

[drumdog4M]

Good Intentions,

What a thoughtful insightful response. Thank you for posting it. It certainly reminded me of some really important points, which I know but forget when focused on my own past relationship. I hope it is helpful to @getfree too.

[getfree]

With regard to your question (E) -- I feel the same thing about my ex. It can sometimes be all consuming, and I never have viewed myself as being a jealous person.

Based on what you wrote, I do not think he will enjoy "happily ever after" by any stretch of imagination. I think you are far more likely in time to find happiness for yourself and with a healthy woman, much more so than he will with her or that she will find within herself. She might portray an illusion of happiness or be distracted with a new supply until the cycle repeats.

Thanks so much for the response and sorry you have experienced the same pain. Similarly I have never been a very jealous person, the most painful aspect was that she was texting me loving messages whilst out with this dude (and said she'd told him about me) but maintained he was just a friend.

I suppose I might have answered my question on E because it's pretty clear his problems have already started.

[getfree]

Good Intentions,

Thanks so much for the long reply it was very helpful indeed. I am sorry so many other people have experienced this but it's also validating that I am not the only one.

At the moment I am really struggling with the possibility she's perfect for the new guy which I think is quite common but my rational brain is telling me she'll probably start doing the same things to him pretty quickly.

In fact since I told her in clear terms we wouldn't have a friendship it's possible she's on less secure ground already as she doesn't have me as a safety net.

I suppose one "good" thing she has done is admit that she has "issues" as she calls them and she knows that I "can't handle them". She also said (I didn't mention) that I'd just leave her again when she "got angry" and she'd be left with nothing. In some ways she's relatively clued up on her condition.

From that angle what she's doing with the new guy is hoping that he will put up with her "issues".

[LaRonge]

@getfree: You're still in the Maze, trying to navigate and make sense of the impossible. Around and around your mind goes trying to figure it all out. Eventually, with some time and distance, you'll see that the only way out of the Maze is to stop thinking about it and focus on yourself.

@GoodIntentions & @Drumdog: I'm still constantly amazed at how similar these patterns are from person to person, how much of a template there is to these relationships. Understanding that has been so crucial for alleviating the heartbreak and confusion, and I'm sure it will be the same for you too, @getfree, the more you read about it and understand.

[getfree]

@getfree: You're still in the Maze, trying to navigate and make sense of the impossible. Around and around your mind goes trying to figure it all out. Eventually, with some time and distance, you'll see that the only way out of the Maze is to stop thinking about it and focus on yourself.

Thanks @LaRonge - yeah I feel like a rat in an experiment maze designed to test my cognitive and emotional strength. It's a very difficult place to be but I suppose I need to focus on letting go now as hard as that is.

I suspect it's going to take some time for me to get over her being with someone new and happy.

It is very heartening (in a sad way) that the patterns play out so similarly in other situations.

getfree

[drumdog4M]

I too feel like reading the eerily similar stories, though sad, is really validating. It's almost as if they and we have a script that is played out over and over -- with us or someone new.

Part of my going very LC with her is in part because I do not want to be her emotional support or fallback plan. If she thinks he is the one for now, then let him rise to the challenge. In a prior cycle with a different guy when I was less educated, I was her emotional support. He got the sex, and I got to be her free therapist. No thanks!

[getfree]

@drumdog4M I think you and I have similar thinking on this. Currently she's with the new guy and I am trying to rebuild my self-esteem and make sense of it all. I have said I won't be friends and wished her all the best in her new r/ship so I guess that would be LC - precisely because it makes him the sole focus of everything.

Part of me thinks she thought she could have a r/ship with him by using me as emotional support which would help her stay calm/grounded but "no thanks" as you say.

[getfree]

UPDATE:
 
As mentioned above she has turned all her social media private except WhatsApp where she posted a status of herself and her new boyfriend. She was smiling in a way she had never smiled when we were together and she clearly really needed me to see it.

The worst thing was they had gone on a date to a place she had already asked me to take her when we were talking about reconcilling.

Good Intentions: It's like she needs me to see that she has replaced me entirely and this new guy has even taking over doing the dates I was going to take her on.

I assume I am painted completely black now but it seems pretty cruel to do this.  I was keen to show that she hadn't got to me so I sent her a neutral "you look very happy, hope you had a good time" and left it at that. She read this response but didn't reply.

-getfree

[LDRStrugglebus]

As time went on the arguments got more intense to the point she was actively raging at me for perceived slights. It was always relatively minor issues that she would decide were catastrophes like not texting her "good morning" before 9am and forgetting things that she had told ("you should remember what I tell you the first time around its basic information").

Hi getfree,

I just wanted to comment on this quote because it struck such a cord within me. My ex has said the exact same thing, word for word about not messaging him early enough in the day (and calling me a lazy child to boot). Same thing as forgetting "basic information" and then telling me I don't remember because I dont care about him.

My ex is extremely petty and cruel as well, like yours. All I can say is don't let it get to you! If she's posting it to get your reaction, don't give her the satisfaction and don't give her the power. She will always paint herself as a victim and responding to her will make her feel like she's "winning" whatever immature game she's playing out in her head.

[Silverdash]

They test us : (

[getfree]

I just wanted to comment on this quote because it struck such a cord within me. My ex has said the exact same thing, word for word about not messaging him early enough in the day (and calling me a lazy child to boot). Same thing as forgetting "basic information" and then telling me I don't remember because I dont care about him.

Hi LDRStrugglebus - sorry you had to go through this as well. It is very interesting how they seem to operate from a "playbook" and lots of the folks here heard the same stuff word.

This behaviour was constant with me, like she was constantly testing for a sign I didn't care and was going to leave her. Totally self-fulfilling prophecy because it's not possible for a person to remember a myriad of relatively mundane information.

My struggle at the moment is that her new boyfriend seems to be doing "just fine" with her. She's flooding the messaging apps with cute photos of them doing activities. Something she literally never did when we were together (possibly because she had been single for some time).

The latest (today) was that my ex is now posting cutesy photos of her and the new boyfriend which obviously were not taken today seemingly to make me upset and jealous.

It makes zero sense - I wanted to reconcile with her and she said "she was too scared this time" because I might leave her again. Okay fine, that's her position - but what is the point of now trying to make me jealous?

She is the one who didn't want me, it's not like I rejected her?

-getfree

[grumpydonut]

He absolutely isn't going to get the happy ending you could have had.

[getfree]

Thanks @grumpydonut - one of those things I know rationally but the heart won't agree.

Doesn't help that she's waving the new relationship in my face. Weirdly I think she is "happier" with the new man because she can put all her hate on me, so he is oddly benefiting !

-getfree

[Skip]

We certainly don't know the actual answers to any of this, but can speculate a bit based on what you posted...

A) Why talk about reconciliation when shes clearly getting serious with someone else?
Maybe (likely) she wasn't getting serious at the time. When people are broken up, they often pursue new relationships and that process often includes dating and talking to numerous people... and that process can be pretty fluid with things changing every day. That's just the dating world... not necessarily BPD. Most likely something happened between them... not anything to do with the parallel path you two were on.

B) Why tell me she loves me and then 2 weeks later become official with a new guy and just ask me to be friends who is "in her life forever"?
This is "BPDish". It's common to "over emote" - both in positive things and negative things. This is the part that is hardest for all of us to navigate.

C) Why blame me for not being able to deal with her issues, when she has had those issues for a long time?
Word salad for the most part - people say weird things in the dating world when they walk away from a viable partner, #2. It's much harder to say the truth. Not a good thing, but not a BPD thing.

D) Why block me from seeing her social media and not block me on WhatsApp or messaging apps?
She didn't want you seeing her social media. Not BPD-ish. Leaving the messaging apps open is also normal - closing it would be, too. She probably didn't respond to your comment about the photo because its was awkward.

Why am I trying to make the distinctions here regarding normal, messy, and pathological?

I think it helps us better understand what happened and be in a better place to work through it. From what I have read in this thread, it's the over-emoting that has really thrown you. While a person with BPD traits has these emotional swells (and actually feels in the moment these intense feeling of love (or hate)... her love in the balance over the months that you have been together and the through the instability (on/off) is probably not unlike yours... there are things you really liked, things you had serious pause about, and in the instability you didn't rise to a "love of my life" position.

But when someone hits us with all that intensity in words and affection, we don't know how to understand it. Our compass for how we feel about ourselves even gets blown off. Our perspective becomes distorted.

[getfree]

Thanks Skip. And you are right, the intense emotions she has expressed has thrown me massively - especially as she seems to find it so easy to detach from them.

If she had been upfront about everything then it would have made it far easier (in my mind). To my mind, it's not normal to cycle from "I love you romantically" and talking about marriage to "I have met someone and I love you like a friend".

It's definitely been a tough month or so for me but I am working on detachment from it all.

-getfree