BPDFamily.com

Do BPD exs always make contact after a breakup?

Many do, some not, there is no rule out there. Time will tell.

How do you feel about the possibility she could contact you again?

It all depends what she texts, if the past is anything to go by then she will ask how I am, ask to be friends and then ask to meet up.

I am not bothered if she does contact me.

I go through days when I couldn't give a damn, days where I know it would destroy me and days where I long for it.

It will happen. I know that. I know him.

But you know yours better. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. All you can do is try and move through your healing, to your timetable. Try not to seek validation in how much they did or didn't love you based on contact.

That's the best you can do.

I cruised the first 6 months of our separation. It caught up and bit me in the ass. But thanks to being here, I have perspective and an objective viewpoint, and I figure if I can keep sight of that, I'll be ok.

Stay strong. Contact, or lack of, is no measure of anything in the big scheme of things.

My ex would cut herself off from any contact, or demand no contact from me. It would, and can still be hard although getting easier. Yet what was so hard was that she would say and do those things only to do what you said and within a day or less initiate some kind of contact, almost always. It was so painful for me. Over time I have gotten to the point of accepting that is how she is. My boundary is within myself and involves letting go of any expectation this time it will be different. That is my part in the insanity, "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" so if I can let that go it really helps.

Seven months to the day of my last contact with my ex, she sent me a text out of the blue. She had taken a picture of a city where I used to live and apparently she was there. All the text said was that the city was looking beautiful and was hoping everything was OK where I was at.

Receiving that text was bizarre and totally unexpected. It came in the middle of the day when I was working. I had no inkling it was coming and when I received it, my first thought was that it was an error on my cell company's part... .that somehow some wires got crossed or something. I couldn't believe that seven months out, she'd send such a matter-of-fact text, like we were still buddies or something.

This occurred a couple of months ago and at that point in time, I wanted nothing to do with her and as I stated, had zero contact with her since the day we broke up for good. I still feel that way.

But what I think is important for you to know is this: receiving the text was VERY unsettling. Receiving the text didn't make me want to be with her again or make me want to respond to her. However, it did pull at me. I've read so many times on this site that being with someone with BPD is like being on drugs and that is exactly how I felt when I received the text. She was giving me a small "hit" of her again because in her manipulative world, she knows things like that tend to work (not just with me, but however other many guys she has on her backburner). It was just a text message and to me, it was powerful.

Like I said, I didn't respond to her text. I expected something else to come, but nothing ever did. However, I wouldn't be shocked if something did in the future. It all depends on her needs. And that is exactly what is wrong with a relationship with those with BPD... .it's always about them and what they need. Although you may be hoping for contact (and yes, I'll admit it was a bit validating to receive the text) contact isn't really all it's cracked up to be. Those with BPD are very manipulative and know how to work us. Just remember if you do receive contact, it most likely isn't because they've "seen the light" or have suddenly changed. It's probably because they need something at that point in time and most likely, it has nothing to do with you.

Indeed, its not like a 'normal' ex partner realizing they made a mistake and are now regretting it and wanting to be given a second chance.

With a BPD partner it will end in the same way time after time again.

I am coping alright with the breakup so far, but its the dreams of her that are affecting me slightly.

JBT, can you expand in this? I am three months out from the breakup and I feel like I'm getting better with NC. I wouldn't say I am "cruising" but I feel okay, even though I do miss him. But I am guarded and fearing a setback. 

Hi Peas,

Yeah, sure.  :)

We had quite a protracted split. We'd been in that breakup/makeup cycle for a good 12 months when I finally asked him to leave. Then he stayed on in the spare room another 2 months so he could save some money to get his own place. (He never did get his own place, but that's another story).

At the end of February, when I told him we were really done and I wanted a divorce, it felt good, but only okay good. Good that I had reached my limit and chosen to draw a line.

But, it was still tense at home, even when he wasn't there, just knowing he was coming back. By then the atmosphere was pretty grim. So I had 2 months stuck in a kind of limbo. I used that time to get fit, start going out and making new friends and focus on my work, putting lots of positive things in place for myself.

Then he actually left. (I had to force the issue, or I swear, he'd still be here now). That was obviously sad. I was sad for a few days, but actually, I was already used to being on my own and doing my own thing, so it wasn't as traumatic as I'd imagined it was going to be. And all my positive stuff for me continued. I worked hard, saw friends, exercised, ate well. Life was pretty positive.

I did have the question in the back of my mind if I was going to crash and burn, but because it didn't happen in the first 3 months, I kinda figured it wasn't going to.

Then, about mid-August, I was talking to an old friend who is getting involved with a guy who reminds me very much of my ex. She started saying how much he used to adore me, and I started ruminating on all the good things that I'd lost. How great some of the times he and I had had been.

At the same time, he and I had been communicating more often (hadn't discovered this place then, so didn't know or understand what NC was). So I'd started thinking maybe I'd been wrong to end it. out of nowhere I was missing him. Badly. I wanted my marriage back.

Fast forward about 10 days into that, and he told me he'd met someone else. It devastated me. That's when I came here and saw my story was the same as so many others and the outcome could never be what I wanted between he and I.

I'm sure if I'd found this place sooner, I'd have still gone through that tough time of missing him and feeling lonely without him around. I believe life comes with ups and downs and you just have to push through the bad times, knowing they won't last forever. But I wish I'd gone NC a long time before. I think I would have spared myself a major crash and burn if I'd have know then what I know now from being here. I wouldn't have let him reel me back in, so he could get another blow in to hurt me.

He still has stuff here at my house. I am currently 14 days NC and rather than being available, I'm unavailable. He reached out on FB last week, but I just deleted his msg and didn't reply. At some point he will want something from here (he usually goes a few weeks before remembering something he 'needs' to collect). What was left here of his has been packed, and when he does want to collect something, he will be taking everything that is here of his with him. But it will be at a time when I feel strong enough to go through that, not when it's convenient to him.

I have 6 weeks to wait before the final divorce papers can be filed, by then his things will be gone and I feel I've gone through enough. I'm hoping by then I can draw a line and truly move on with my life.

Blips are normal I think. It set me back a bit, but I wouldn't be human if they didn't happen. That you are already here and doing the NC means you are better prepared to deal with any if and when they come than I was.

And really, in the big scheme of things, I've had a few bad weeks, compared to a number of good, positive months. It's not the end of the world. And I'm back on the upward trajectory right now.

"always" can never be quantified and not all people with BPD are alike. Some do and some don't.

Strikeforce,

Before I left, I constantly told my uBPDex that once I leave from a bad relationship, my partners never hear from me (I was prepping her up). She has contacted me once on my birthday almost a year ago but besides that, it's been roughly a year and half and NC from either side. I speculate she knows not to contact me because I won't pick up her calls or deal with her nonsense, so it's off to the next guy, and the next, and the next and it goes on and on ononononononn

I assume I pop up in+ her mind sometimes but I;m just a distant forgotten memory. Believe me when I say that I would of loved to have her call me or show up in my house so I can tell her a piece of my mind. I've prepared speeches! and 1 liners that will stump her silly. However this will bring nothing good.  Consider yourself BLESSED. Perhaps you may not see it like that because I for example, wanted to feel validated by her so I longed for contact. Trust me, you don't want the devil knocking at your door. IF she contacted me this past year, I would honestly be filled with all these negative emotions, and you will go back to square one. why would you want that?

What will you do?

How will you react?

I was one told that past behavior often dictates future behavior.  So far the pattern with my ex is the same, has not changed but at SOME point it really can so I don't "expect" contact from her at this point - but it would not shock me either... .

If they have returned once and manage to successfully reel you back in... .

Chances are very high that they will try again.

Why wouldn't they try and return to someone whom they know already let them back in before?

They already know what buttons to push.

That is where you have to be healed enough to resist that at all costs.

Otherwise you are just setting yourself up for the same exact outcome.

Some people on here have been re engaged over a dozen times spanning years.

Read some of their accounts.

Well she contacted me today, I have posted the update in my other thread.

"Then he actually left. (I had to force the issue, or I swear, he'd still be here now)."   

That is a good point.  My ex wife kept saying that she "didn't feel close to me anymore" and as soon as she had enough money saved up she was going to get an apartment.  But even when I caught her and one of her boyfriends together, she came home and started playing computer games.  That was when I told her to get out.  I am not sure she ever really would have left. 

Regarding texts,  I won't hear from my ex for a long time.  Then, out of the blue, one will come.  The tone will be casual, common... .like nothing weird is happening.  She even inserts emoticons like smiley faces etc... .  I will never fully understand the way she thinks.

Fiddlestix

"Some people on here have been re engaged over a dozen times spanning years.

Read some of their accounts."   

Very true, ironman.  I am one of those spineless men who let her walk on me dozens of times.  I now see that my own fears of abandonment kept me in the stew far too long.  She may try to reel me in again when her current affair collapses.  While it will validate me in a weird way, I pray for the strength to resist her siren calls. 

Fiddlestix

Amen, Deleted.   I really needed to hear/see someone else say that.   I also have those exact same speeches and 1 liners already thought through in my mind.   I also catch myself when I am giving her space in mind rent free just by thinking about those speeches and 1 liners and realize I am continuing to allow her to win and further hurt me.  Also, like you, my friend, I know if I stoop to doing that it will be a relapse for me and I will once again be right back to square one.

It still never ceases to amaze me how myself and others can be so enamored of people who hurt us so badly.

I don't get it either and it's beyond upsetting. Why do I want -- need? -- this particular ex to want me so bad?

Maybe it's as simple as we want what we can't have. That's all I can chalk it up to.

Fiddle,

You are not spineless.

You are dealing with the toxic after effects of being with someone who has that mental disorder.

Stay strong.

Peas, well said.  Why do we crave these corrupt people?  If someone described the following person to me I would not want to spend any time with that person:

Lies

Cheats

Steals

Argues

Swears

Mocks others' shortcomings

Commits adultery (countless times)

Gets fired from work over and over

Has fallings out with every member of her family

Pouts when she loses a game

Insults me

Overeats

Drinks heavily

Does drugs

Smokes and coughs constantly

Desperately tries to act like a 22 year old (she is 47)

Smug sense of grandiosity

Sound familiar?

Yet, my heart skips when she texts.  Who is the sick one?

Fiddlestix

In bold.

That is codependency... .

Plus not really remembering the devaluation accurately when compared to idealization... .

Almost like we forget how god awful we were treated and allowed to be treated(myself included)... .

It is most likely why so many of us crave to be re engaged without really taking into account... .

What will follow.

It's weird how I can look at this list and see a perfectly painted picture of my exBPDgf.  It's only been three days of NC for me, after 7 or so months of sometimes-awesome-but-usually-not-awesome LOVE.  I'm still trying to get a grip on everything.  I think the most important thing is to take care of YOURSELF.  Go see a therapist, or at least call a therapy phone line (about $50 for an hour).  They are totally worth it.  Also, there are lots of groups you can meet with if you live in the bigger cities. Regardless, you should talk to someone healthy about how you're feeling.  It will get better with time and hard work.   ... .   I hope. 

For me that is highly debatable! Something was going on with me to ever get involved in the first place - I have come to the conclusion that I cannot ever claim to be 100% healthy if I dated and stayed with a Borderline!

Fiddle, that is quite the list of undesirable traits in your exSO.

A friend told me a story about how in love she was with a guy who treated her badly. She said the breakup was excruciating, which is something we all here can identify with, but what lifted me was she said after several years something changed in her, like a switch flipped, and suddenly that guy was repulsive to her.

She told me this story as I was turning to her for support after the BPD b/u I had three months ago. So maybe some day you and I can look at our exes and be completely turned off.

As for my ex, I think he is adorable despite being:

an alcoholic

emotionally stunted

cruel (to me)

small-minded

dishonest

status-conscious

irrationally jealous

competitive

narcissistic

selfish

Peas, I think I will amend your list to the list I made earlier LOL.  My ex was really only jealous early in our relationship.  She did not even like me jamming in a band with a female singer.  In recent years... .not so much.  About 12 years ago, I knew we were in trouble when she told me I was "free to do whatever I want when I am in Minneapolis."  I used to travel to the city for grad school and I was gone for a couple nights a week.  I knew she was cheating at that point and was projecting onto me her wrongdoings.  The last 12 years have been a weird roller coaster... .  Her wanting out of the marriage, then back in, then out, in, out... .  She went to treatment several times for sex addiction.  But I don't think she ever really surrendered.  She always harbored some plans/secrets... . 

But I trust that continued No Contact will flush the toxins from my soul.  If I contact her it does more damage than if she texts me because I know have caved.  I do miss her good qualities; she had many of those too: funny, she could be sweet, smart, we had many inside jokes and memories... .I miss that. 

Fiddlestix

They all have their good qualities - otherwise we wouldn't stay with them, let them put us through hell and still forgive them for their terrible behaviour!

Got messages from her again today. Saying that she had changed her number and that she didn't have mine, then another message saying ''is that a hint you want my new number?'' Then followed an hour later by '' please send me your number so I can text you''

The reason I stayed so long was because she said she knew she had issues and was actually going through therapy and counseling. It wasn't until I began studying BPD that I realized it was a lost cause.

Mine first went through anger management fairly early in our marriage - helped for a while.

Ffwd 5 years - marriage counselling together - he quit after 6 sessions because he needed things to change *now* and it was taking too long 

A few months after that, individual T, lasted about 6 sessions too. That's where they identified his NPD & BPD, but he decided there was nothing wrong with him after all... .

About 6 months after that, everything just imploded.

Took a long time to really internalize that truth.


True, they come back to the host to feed off. It is nothing to do with love or caring about you. It's all about what they can get out of you.


A normal ex will talk about the r/s. And you can maybe try again. A pwBPD wants to jump right back in as though nothing happened. That they abused you or cheated on you as a reason for the end of the r/s can not be ever discussed. Nothing sane or even close to a realization of accountability nor the pain inflicted on the partner is  recognized.


Maybe for many, we did not know the depth of the depravity? The lying, the cheating and the denials. Once you can see it for what it is, then things change internally and it still remains painful. The promises to change, the gas lighting and of course the cognitive dissonance along the way.


Took years to really recognize how much of a lost cause that would really be. Fortunately, learned a great deal along the way. Silver lining in there somewhere.

Looking back on it, the only redeemable qualities she had were beauty and in the beginning the sex was fantastic.  There was absolutely nothing else redeeming about her.   The lists the other folks posted pretty much sums my exBPDgf up to a tee.

I still think I may have been the sick one.   I have hauled butt from relationships in the past for a heck of a lot less reasons than she gave me to... .

I once asked my ex if she could think of one good quality about herself.

Looks - I thought she looked good. I've dated much prettier women but was very satisfied

sex - was fine.

loyalty - none

trust - none

communication - none

Her qualities really only qualified her for a one night stand.

Yeah, that's so true. If ever I dared bring up any of his misdemeanours they miraculously became my fault, somehow. But mostly they went unspoken.

Horrible we'd put ourselves through that, isn't it?

Why do we miss them so much?

My therapist says the deluge of over-the-top wonderful romance and sex in the early/good times results in a massive wave of opiate-like endorphins.

A really healthy well-adjusted person is conditioned to normal levels of endorphins... .you get raised levels with happy times, sex, exercise, etc, and lower levels with sadness or illness, etc., but it's not a huge variation.

People who are what he nicknames "chronically under-loved" - those of us likely to end up in codependent relationships with BPDs - are not used to stable levels of endorphins, and so we react strongly to the huge waves of it.

Then the 'dance' of push-pull-push-pull begins, with the BPD withdrawing affection, then deluging you with a great flood of it. This completely knackers your ability to cope without it.

Like diet-controlled diabetes... .a non-diabetic person has stable blood-sugar because it's regulated normally. It goes a bit up, a bit down.

We "chronically under-loved" people are the equivalent of a diabetic, in that if we eat a load of sugar, it affects us dramatically, and if we go without food, it affects us dramatically.

Basically, he says my BPD ex-bf has pretty much set up an opiate-addiction in my brain's neurochemistry.

this helps me cope with the yearnings, to understand that it's a physiological withdrawal symptom and NC will eventually help me ditch the 'habit'.

My therapist says the best treatment he knows is for me to spend as much time as possible with my lovely friends - my well-adjusted, healthy friends who do not try to control or manipulate me, who do not endlessly deluge or starve me of endorphins, but whose steady, normal affectionate behaviour will steadily and slowly allow my brain to re-learn how this stuff works.

In time, I will be used to normal levels of endorphins, and I won't miss the huge excitements of the deluges, nor will I have to cope with the starvation withdrawal periods.

Hope that helps.

^^^ Very good point Sept 30.

www.weavertargetrecoverymodel.com/documents/CompulsiontoRepeattheTrauma.pdf (http://www.weavertargetrecoverymodel.com/documents/CompulsiontoRepeattheTrauma.pdf)


Embarrassed to admit the same.

Mine was never physically attractive - well, 20 years ago he was stunningly beautiful, and told me before we met up again last year that he had barely changed except that he kept his hair "cropped short now because it was starting to thin on top" - er, no, that would be about 80% completely bald, just a 1.5" band of stubble round the back above his collar! (and not a good head for baldness, either, kind of big and round and pale)

And paunchy and double-chinned, rather than "in as good shape now as when I played for the college sports teams - maybe a little leaner, even".

And saggy ill-fitting jeans and crumpled shirt, usually buttoned up crooked or coming unbuttoned. That was "I dress 'smart casual' for work these days".

BUT... .he spun a web with words.

And he did do me a huge amount of good in the early days, including - massive MASSIVE irony - urging and encouraging me into major therapy, the first appt of which came through days after he exploded my life with a bombshell confession of having spent the weekend with someone he'd previosuly told me he barely knew on Facebook and thought was 'dumb'. From that first appt, the therapist as coaching me to independence, but it's taken three months of weekly sesisons to get me to truly admit that I can only save what I can, and that means saving myself. No Contact.

So I felt looked after for the first time ever, cared about, loved, for the first time ever... .(I'm in my mid-forties... .).

I started vulnerable, and although he's nearly killed me in recent months, ironically I'm less vulnerable than before I met him.

Interesting how the BPD never re-engage with a true apology, sign of remorse, assurances that they will get help etc.  It is always the classic phishing strategy of "how are you" or "i miss you".  They just want validation that they have you as their emotional slave. Don't bite, have the respect that you will be the only man who let her go.

When my BPD xBF broke up with me he was "done".  And I believed it heart and soul.  I never expected to hear from him.  He had moved on.  Well... .not so much.  We just can't predict their behavior and we torture ourselves trying.

This is where I am in all of this. Trying to accept things for what they are. Not wishing for or waiting for the what if's to happen. Every time I re-engage with him I get hooked back in to thinking that possibly he could stay clear minded... .but without fail our closeness always triggers him to disengage.

I think in life it is very important to take responsibility for our own happiness and this situation has really tested that resolve. To look after myself no matter what happens with other people, with my romantic life.

The only ones the BPD truly long for and consider "the one that got away" is the one guy who wouldn't take them back.  It's all about the chase for the BPD.  They devalue you partly because you are putting up with their abuse and they feel nobody with high self worth would put up with that. 

You are right, but I don't think they even reason that far.

BPD suck you in with Love Bombing and blowing sunshine up your butt, which infuses the self esteem, then the devaluation sets in. Get dropped on your head, heart smashed and then they pull away or you pull away and then the recycle starts all over again. Sometimes it's the grand , I am leaving, I want a divorce, packs bags and makes big noises about buggering off. Or, it's the push/ pull, silent treatment bs.

I'm pretty sure mine just never reasoned at all.

I think everything he did to me was simple reactive behaviour. I don't think he plotted evilly to make me think I was insane - I think he probably genuinely believed that he was the only one who knew me well enough to help me. The fact that it was HIS behaviour that collapsed my world just escaped him. The fact that the reason I kept fretting and puzzling over him was because every time I tried to say "ok, we're just friends now and you'll be with other women and I shall work to be fine with that" he came back with pouring love-bombing onto me, that fact escaped him too.

I think the only thing he had in his mind was "stop her! she's trying to get away! stop her!"

I got rugby-tackled by a mental condition. I'm just lucky I didn't get my neck broken in the process... .

Peas... .That is where I am at too. Maybe it's because we love them and want to have that person we fell in love with back so badly that we are willing to put up with all of the bad stuff.