BPDFamily.com

For those of you who do not know my story I won't rehash the relationship here. But a quick summary of my NC with my ex which began in earnest mid January: This had been the last email exchange for four months. I deleted my ex from FB early March, and honestly I have been doing much, much better.

Two weeks ago, seemingly out of the blue, my ex sent me a request to connect via LinkedIn. He sent two requests, first to my personal email, then literally two minutes later a second to my work email. He sent a personal note to me in the first request. I accepted the request, but was puzzled by it. He began a frenzy of connecting with various people, but his profile still showed him working for me. He left that job nine months ago. He finally did update his profile a week later to his current job.

Early this week, a former colleague of ours had a death in the family. She sent out an email, which I forwarded to my ex with a lead of "FYI, our colleague's father died." The forwarded email came from my work email. He replied early the next day twice. The first was a reply to me thanking me for the information. This email exactly mirrored mine in form. The second email was a personal note of condolence to our colleague. He cc'd me on the message to her.

And he has ceased activity in LinkedIn for now.

My therapist said this is much like a toddler, who ventures away from the safety and security of his mom, but becomes frightened, then runs back to her to touch her, and reassure himself she is still there and still cares, before he ventures out again. The fact I initiated contact by forwarding our colleague's email to him was proof that I have not forgotten him and still care. Now he is ok again, and can go on doing whatever he is doing, until he needs to run back to me for a shot of reassurance.

I believe your therapist. The description is accurate, as least as it pertains to my ex. He needs to have two women and when one pulls away he makes sure the other one is put through Hell until he has both of us in his grasp. It's painful. I completely agree with the therapist and the toddler analogy. At least it fits my situation.

Thanks for posting this.  That makes a lot of sense.

The toddler analogy certainly illustrates the arrested emotional development of pwBPD.  It's interesting to consider how a simple, F.Y.I. gesture (like forwarding an email) can satisfy them emotionally and yet be so  emotionally challenging for us.