BPDFamily.com

My reasons for being back on these boards are two fold. My current gf is diagnosed BPD and though there are struggles (especially right now) for the most part she manages quite well.

The second part is that my exBPDw is in full flow, stopping at nothing and has opened old wounds. Wounds, I haven't allowed to heal because I have a daughter in the middle of all this. I have been NC for around a year now and healing well. I have a good T who has been through all of this with me as he was initially T to my exBPDw and knows exactly what I'm up against. It's the constant bombardment I'm struggling with, no sooner do I plug a hole in one place, she appears somewhere else and is now going after my family.

Someone from my exBPDw side of the family contacted my sister out of concern for me because things aren't exactly going to plan and I seem to be the target of the rage.

When I first met exBPDw, she had filed sexual harassment charges against colleagues at work, charges against her boss for not taking her side. Her ex had abandoned her and her child, she had been in hospital after a breakdown. However, all of that hidden until we were engaged. I admired the strength she had to go through all of that and still keep smiling, should have seen the flags waving away in my face.

She already had a replacement lined up before I had even left her country, a colleague at work who was a therapist. She had started her own school for disadvantaged youth and he was working there with the children. Only it didn't take him as long as me to identify that there was something seriously wrong and he ended things almost immediately. He basically told her the exact same thing her exbf had told her and what I knew but didn't tell her. She filed charges against him and tried to have his job taken from him. Only it backfired on her.

She lost her school, demoted, in jeopardy of losing her job and has managed to create friction between all of her friends and colleagues. In the past I was the pushover who carried all of her responsibility for her. Only this time I'm not allowing her through so she has gone after my family and they aren't letting her through either.

Spoken to my T tonight and he has a list of lawyers who deal with PD's and is willing himself to get up in court if she opts to take that route. In the meantime, I have a lawyer who is writing up a cease and desist order to stop the harrassment and based on what he has found in the emails, he is going to kindly explain that blackmail is a criminal offence should she opt to continue down this road.

I pity her and through everything that I allowed her to throw at me, the only thing I ever wanted for her was to be happy and still do. I'm so thankful to be out of there and as my T says, it was perhaps the best decision of my entire life. I totally agree

I'm so thankful to be out of there and as my T says, it was perhaps the best decision of my entire life. I totally agree

God, Murbay, I 'm 5 weeks out.  I only hope I can get there one day.

I have fears though.

I fear that I had a major role to play in it, and that because of that I am the one to blame for the RS ending. 

I also fear that she will live with my replacement for the rest of her life in pure and utter happiness bc he can give her the things I could never afford to give her.  It sucks bc I know how much I loved her and wished her the best, she just made it impossible to stay sane while doing it.  Sometimes I doubt she is BPD.

I guess seeing your exBPDw's RS breakdowns gives you some validation?  It sucks but I hope to see the same, so I know I am not the crazy one.

Arn

 Arn

Congrats on 5 weeks. That is a huge accomplishment. The fears are normal I have the same fears. If she happy that means I was/am the problem or we failed them.(we are not the problem we didnt fail) But I have come to realize thats toxic thinking. It only does you harm. Just because she smiles in pictures, come off as happy.  Doesn't mean ___ . Its one 100 % fake.  She still the same tortured soul she always is. Any this r/s will explode. I have no doubt.

You been on this board awhile have you heard of any succes stories here. I havnt .  Even in the slimest of slim chances it does work out her being" happy" with the replacement  it will benifit children that there mom is happy. (Most important right). They way I see it is the only way it will work is if the replacement puts up with her crap for the rest of his life. And thats not a good life my friend. You know it to your core. You lived it. This is one of the hardest thing I've ever lived through. Im still alive im happier than I have been in awhile, & im getting happier all the time. Yeah I have set backs constantly but that part of the healing process. 

Think about yourself more, love yourself more and you will be ok brother. I promise you this.

Arn,

Congrats on getting to week 5 and please know that you will get out. Your fears are very legitimate and very normal. It took my T several appointments to convince me that I wasn't the problem. I believed I was, simply because of my own issues and because I was being told daily by my exBPDw that I was the problem and not her. We take responsibility and ownership of their issues and there lies a problem.

Don't think for one moment that we didn't have a role to play in all of this. Of course we did and we have to keep our own responsibilities but give theirs back to them. It might take therapy to help you to unravel the mess, reading or meditation. Be rest assured that you are not to blame and the outcome will repeat itself over and over again for your ex, regardless of who it is. The great news is that you have the opportunity to grow and become the person you want to be.

You really seem to have come a long way arn. At 5 weeks, I was desperately holding out in case my ex contacted me and would have gone back in a heartbeat. Stay strong and just focus on yourself, find the points in you that you wish to strengthen, take each day as a lesson that you can learn something positive about yourself, work with your emotions and every day will seem a lot brighter.

A few red flags in your post too. "He can give her things I could never afford to give her" Love should really be enough and as for anything else, it's a team effort. If someone is materialistic, do you really want them in your life? The best gift you can have is happy memories and they don't cost anything so that in itself is a red flag that says you were not the issue.

I too had doubts about my ex having BPD, some things were textbook and then she would do something completely different. That is down to how enmeshed we get and our own flaws. Again, it took a lot of convincing from my T but he would outline what was going to happen next. Not necessarily immediately but everything he said would happen has happened and the more it does, the more it affirms it in my own head. It took forever to convince me I was being controlled and abused, even when some of that abuse turned physical. She attacked me twice and both times was able to explain why I was the one at fault and I believed it. It's amazing how much truth you see the further out of it you become.

You mention having a fear that she will live in happiness with her replacement? With my ex now, I really hope she does for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because I want nothing more than happiness for her and if she finds someone who does that for her then that's good. Sadly, the truth is that won't ever happen because she will never face her own issues. The second reason, a little more selfish, is that if she finds that happiness, she can stop trying to put her unhappiness on me and move on with her life. Finally, it means she is someone elses issue.

I suspect that your fear comes from your own doubts about whether the issue was you or her. Having been told by her that I was the issue and that men would be lining up for a shot with her, she managed to sow enough seeds of doubt in my head. I had similar fears that she would meet the next person and spend the rest of her life being happy and that it would prove to me that I was the issue. A couple of things I found wrong with that. I wasn't the first and I won't be the last, the same pattern occurred several times and last night was confirmation that things haven't changed. So yes, validation in that sense but to be honest, it was a surprise. What I did learn was that I had to stop thinking about it. Whilst you are sat waiting for something to happen to validate or disprove your own fears, you never truly let go and that will keep you in a cycle.

My T told me that if I ever find myself sliding or struggling with my emotions over my ex, to think back to how I felt right at the very end of the marriage and use that as a grounding point to stop me running back. That was the reality of the situation and while you have setbacks, the positive is that you have learned a lot about yourself and you can move forward making the changes that you want to make towards a better and brighter future.