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Has anyone else on here felt the same? You have left your BPD ex because it all got too much for you and yet feel guilty for hurting them? Am I weird? I feel like I broke his heart by leaving as I don't think he realises why I haven't come back still! Do I have too much empathy for my own good?

No, you're not weird.  Well, you might be, you decide, but not because you feel guilty.   

Guilt is common, it's the G in FOG, it even made it to acronym status, for several reasons.  One, if we're a caretaker, people pleaser type, the ones who mesh in an especially dysfunctional way with a borderline, we are used to putting other people's needs before ours, and when we finally stand up for ourselves, put our needs first, we feel guilty about it; that probably has origins in our upbringing and is a fertile field for growth as we detach and heal.

For another, borderlines are expert at projection and blame, and if yours was anything like mine everything is your fault and there was a systematic attack on your self esteem, so you're primed to think anything amiss in the borderline's world, which you've been assigned to make perfect, you will feel guilty.  And if you feel guilty you will have lower self esteem, so you won't leave, the primary goal of a borderline.

And then there's the good reason.  In the beginning it was perfect, a fantasy granted, but perfect nonetheless.  The honeymoon was bliss, we'd finally found our soul mate after all these years, we were primed for riding off into the sunset with string music playing to live happily ever after.  And then thud.  And then the endless, fruitless uphill battle to get back there.  Someone we love and had an awesome relationship with is hurting, we care, we want to make it right.  Maybe sadness that it didn't work is a better emotional path, but that guilt creeps back in, if we'd just done something differently, everything differently.  But our heart was in the right place before the wheels fell off.

Sometimes... . a simple summary is posted that condenses all the spinning and whirling around of the inner confusion... . your post did that for me HtoH... . thank you.

Sometimes, it just isn't all that complicated.

The guilt is definitely part of the game to maintain control. I tried to break up several times before I was just done, every time I told myself I wouldn't get pulled back in. She just had a way of making me feel guilty and obligated and never acknowledging her own errors. Your not weird, you are just the only one between the two of you who cares about the others feelings.

You're*