BPDFamily.com

Learned something I thought was really important today.   We tend to like to show mercy to our BPD partners.   Even with my wife separated she asks me for things.   I tend to want to show her mercy and help her.

It is like the homeless guy begging for money on the street corner.   The merciful thing might be to give him money, but in all likely hood you would just be enabling him to buy drugs.

I really saw clearly today how you have to be balanced when showing mercy.   I can't be an enabler to her poor decisions.   I think in many cases they need to be left to suffer.   You can't really help them.

I think you are right, and I think it is great that you have had this realization.  It is one that I think we must come to if we are truly committed to letting go and moving on with our lives.

Each time I went back to my BPDex after she cheated on me she told me how sorry she was, how it just happened so fast, how she got it this time and could do it for real.  And then each time she went and did the same thing, only she applied the lessons she learned in getting caught each time to be sneakier about it. If these people were easily fixed, so many of us NON's would not find ourselves in therapy and/or feeling like the world is in shades of gray instead of color. 

You hit it on the head when we said you can't be an enabler to her poor decisions.  A little bit of peace can come to us when we accept that it is not within our power to fix them or save them.  I have met several people from my BPDex's hometown since we split, and most all of them I have talked to know of her or her family and the reaction is almost the same across the board: "Oh my god, you DATED her? She is CRAZY!".  Her reputation and her actions were set in stone long before I ever got my hands on her, and by all accounts she is doing the same stuff now that we have split.  Even knowing that though, it doesn't make all of the hurt go away.

You are right in every way SP! I became a female version of a white knight! I can't blame my ex at all for placing me in that role. I did it all by myself.

Any ideas why you think you played that role? And who you emulated that role from?

This is aexactly what I was thinking also. I was actually starting to feel sorry for her that my ex fiance life is going pretty bad and was about to go to her house and tell her that I stilled cared for her. I quickly caught myself, she made her decision and I can't keep diving overboard to help her when she comes running back. I'm back to being a hermit again. Isolation is really becoming my best friend lately. If only she knew how much she hurt me, its a shame she never will.

Maybe its me who needs mercy from her. Its just so hard without her  . I sound pathetic. sigh

I had a couple conversations like this with current friends of my ex, while we were dating. It's a bad sign when your friends aren't feeling it, but when even their friends saying so, RUN.

Mercy is a tough concept because I think it is easily confused with obligation or guilt. And we feel like we're doing the "right thing", as opposed to being twisted into putting ourselves in situations we don't belong in. It's a fine line, and when you're struggling see the truth as opposed to fiction, its easy to miss the line entirely.

What about mercy for yourself? At what point do we have to say that I acknowledge my own mistakes, but I am forgiving myself and getting out of the toxic situation that led me here - and not allowing my feelings of "morality" stop me from doing what I know is right, even if it doesn't feel that way right now.

This was my first relationship like this.   At the time of meeting her I was really doing well.   She was "splitting" from her first marriage.

I really thought I could help her.   I was successful at most things I did.    What drew me in for sure was how beautiful she was.   She was also so much fun at first.   Even after four kids she is a knockout and men line up.   She keeps sending me sexy pictures including to my kids to try to hurt me.  

Once we had kids I would do *anything* to try to hold the marriage together.   My only line was adultery.

I have learned though over 12 years and a lot of work trying to make it work.    The best illustration of this:

You have a moldy piece of cheese in the fridge.   Can you take a good piece of cheese - put it in the same container as the moldy piece and expect it to get rid of the mold?   Of course not the good piece of cheese just turns moldy too.

That is where we end up.   They damage us in major ways.

I think that's a fair analogy in most instances, aside from those where someone is truly trying to help themselves. Of course, it is hard to tell who is actively working on it, and who is just saying it until the next time they want to rage.

I will say this though; my ex put me through a lot, and it probably isn't over yet but even though I'm hurting right now, and will most likely have some mental scars for the rest of my life, I'm a better person for having gone through all of this. Doesn't mean I'm happy I went through it, but I think accepting the silver linings when they present themselves is important.

I'm damaged, but that is going to show me where I need to improve myself for the future, you know?