BPDFamily.com

I decided to go nc about a week ago. Got home tonight and there was mail for her. I sent her a simple email saying she has a letter here and who it was from. In the past she's responded with a simple "toss it".

Tonight she responded with a very short email which had nothing to do with her mail. I saw it as nothing more than a feeler out to see how I would respond.

It caught me off guard. At least I recognized it and handled it. It's always been easy to get her to run away so I think I'm in the clear for awhile again.

I hope you are right.  Somehow I think she'll be back. 

You're probably right. I'm guessing or at least hoping if I push her away enough times she'll find someone else to latch to.

That is one way to do it.  Another is to disengage by not being interested and calm.   Another is No Contact at all. 

I'm slowly disengaging. I'm actually very calm and think my responses through a little bit.

It's almost comical. I know what she wants to hear. When I don't say what she's hoping for she goes right into throwing daggers mode. I mean, she says she never wanted to be with me in the first place. I respond and say yeah sounds like we were both miserable the entire time and we should've broken up a long time ago. That just threw her into a bigger rage.

She's always claimed she's friends with a lot of guys and friends with many of the guys she's dated. If she can hold some form of an adult conversation with me at some point I have no problem speaking to her. When I mentioned I've started talking to another woman and looking forward to taking her out soon. That didn't go over well. She thought it was then time to tell me exactly when, where, what, how, her and her new man got it on. Then she said she will never speak to me again. She says that all the time. It's like talking to a kid.

I don't know why I respond to her. Maybe I'm bored. Maybe from reading this board I'm interested to see how she responds to certain things. I just don't know. Most likely I'll just stop responding to her at some point.

Could it be for the same reason as me?  I actually hope for kindness and peace with everyone.  I have a hard time as I know that there are some people that are toxic that I can't really be myself with.  Breaking up with other people in the past you both talked, got closure, moved on.  Genuinely happy for the other person and can maintain a very cordial friendship.  Nothing abnormal or unreasonable.  But with this guy (and your girl) it's the abuse cycle of really nice guy I think I can be friends with but when he doesn't get what he wants he turns into the mean guy.  I always hope that the mean guy was just an anomaly.  Sadly the cycle repeats.   Anyway I know I keep talking to him hoping for a better world. 

I think you nailed what I'm looking for eeyore. Unlike past relationships if we talk I can say what she wants to hear and she'll be nice or I can be honest and she'll go off the deep end.

I think the thing that gets me, maybe you can relate, I can kind of tell how she feels and/or what she'd like to say but when it comes out of her mouth it's all hate. It's like she just can't spit out what's really on her mind.

I haven't checked your situation. What are you motives with your ex? I assume friends? Are you seeing someone? How's it all working for you? Is it worth it to talk to your ex?

I ask because I just started speaking to someone recently. I knew her from the past and always wanted to take her out. Think she might have felt the same at some point. I don't know where it's going to go. I don't like to compare the women I've dated but I have to say this girl is hands down better in all categories than the ex. We haven't even been out yet so I have no issue with speaking to the ex and trying to form some sort of ex friendship. If things do progress I'm not going to ruin a good thing just to be friends with the ex.

Sorry, just kind of venting and spitting things out which are in my head right now!  |iiii

My assessment is he can't spit out what's really on his mind because he doesn't have the emotional development that allows him to self soothe and therefore see reality.  When he's upset he's delusional.  Once he argued with me that his car tires were being slashed.  I asked him to come look at the tires with me because I noticed problems on all the tires being cracked.  He told me I was crazy and didn't know what I was talking about.  Reality was the tires were dry rot-- per the car shop.  And all 4 had to be replaced.  He now minimizes the discussion.  

My situation is I am/was an independent person living my life happy when I met him.  I have a good career, no children, etc.  We have always had problems with the push/pull for various reasons.  Primarily his ex of 17 years.  We dated a year and he convinced me to sell my small but new home of 10 years and move into his mansion.  3 days after I move in he tells me I have to move out.  We get back together.  After another year we get engaged in front of about 45 friends and family.  A few months later he takes the ring back and says he NEVER asked me to marry him.  We stay together more years.  His ex gets dx with a serious medical condition and he turns into a crazy obsessed person wanting to help her.  Mind you she has family and her own boyfriend. He gives her thousands of dollars.  Helps her.  He's melodramatic that he asks if she needs hospice can she come live with us?  (She's a long way from needing hospice.)  I move out of his mansion because I can't take him obsessing over her medical care.

The rest is typical push pull.  He wants us but he calls and manipulates the conversation so it's all about what I could have done better. How things I did were wrong and hurt the relationship.  That all the things he did were a reaction to something I did wrong.  He acts like prince charming now.  Until he doesn't get the answer he wants.  This last time I told him what I would have done better was to take care of myself.  And that I would never be abused again.  He doesn't think any of his behavior has been emotionally abusive.  Over the last month we talk and when I tell him when he's being manipulative and abusive, he then gets mad and says he's never going to speak to me.  And he calls the next day.  However, I am finally 2 days of NC since I left him.  Meaning he hasn't contacted me.  

He has said he's sorry in the past, but at this point just saying sorry but not telling me how you are going to keep from doing hurtful things to me tells me it's more manipulation.  Putting me in the place he wants me and me not being happy because I compromised by accepting his apology but nothing changes in fact I get less and less of what I need in terms of love, affection, and commitment from him. I'm so over the push/pull pattern.   Sorry I tried to make it as short a story as I could.