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It's two weeks shy of one year since my BPDexgf of six years dumped me out of the blue and distanced herself without real explanation. As if that one year "anniversary" is not a big enough trigger, today's her birthday.

I've had very little contact with her in the past year, and what contact I've had has largely been fake sincerity on her part, or maybe it's rapid cycling black to white to black. Whatever it is, it's totally misleading, manipulative and treacherous. Like sending a gift last summer and telling me it was OK to come over onto her block and then shooting me down when I did.

She did later send me a nice birthday card in the fall. She certainly knows how to make things look so thoughtful and genuine!

Over the holidays I ran into her by accident and on went the mask! She was sweet, funny, engaging... . like she had never crushed the person she was now standing face to face with. She even managed to whine about some of her old issues, as though I could give a crap. She expressed great interest in finally meeting and talking in the new year, but despite her promise, she's never followed through on that and therefore I've stayed NC.

She picked up with a new guy almost immediately after she dumped me, and from what I'm told she returns his kindness and devotion by treating hiim like crap and has been telling her "friends" and neighbors for weeks a bunch of reasons why she's going to end it with him, even to the point of critiquing his lack of performance in the bedroom!

That's just WRONG! 

The past year I've learned lots of really depressing stuff about her character, stuff she largely concealed from me. I guess she just couldn't stand wearing that mask any longer. She sounds like someone I don't know and don't want to know.

What I want to know is this:

Why, knowing what a rat this woman has been to me in the past year, am I feeling so much unease at not sending her a card, or merely an e-mail, on her birthday? I've read so much about BPD in the past year and I guess I'm torn between ignoring her because she's been a rat or showing a little class, caring, and compassion for someone who has a serious issue but once meant the world to me.

Can you, should you, justifiably despise someone like this? Pity them? Try to just erase them? I wrestle with that every day. I never walked a mile in her shoes. I never had a mother abandon me as a child, had a stern and distant father or was dealt the genetic makeup she has to live with.

Do people who care mean anything worthwhile to them in the grand scheme, or are they just fools? Is a gesture of kindness received as such or just a confirmation to them that they maintain power over someone?

I'm pretty sure I know what most of the feedback will be but I really need to hear it anyway. I've been struggling this weekend.

BPD... . the gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you, my friends.




!

HI, me and my exBPDgf ended a 12 year realationship 10 weeks ago., we have gone NC since 3 weeks ago. Her birthday is this friday. I have been celebrating her birthday for the past 12 years and she celebrate mine 10 weeks ago, we broke up on my birthday. It was devastating.

I plan to text her a simple Happy birthday as a return for mine this year but not from next year onwards because I feel that I owe it to her this time. Regardless of how bad she treated me or the cheating that I just found out about when we were together. This is me and I am not her, I  have feelings of my own.

She was my world too 10 weeks ago for 12 years, whatever she did, right or wrong, its her own doing. Even she packed up and left me like she was going for holiday is wrong and many more things that she did was also wrong, that is her. I do not want to do anything wrong anymore and I will stand up for myself.

Day2day, it will be a struggle, if you think you are not doing anything wrong, please hold your ground and not get trashed or hurt knowing what you did or will do is not wrong.

The choice is yours

Happy Birthday messages and sentiments are saved for those that enrich my life.

Be mindful of your motivation to send such a message.

Because we want to be people who care about other people.  Wanting to send a nice gesture is about us.  But that doesn't mean, necessarily, we should send a message.  Especially if it triggers us, or someone else.  Here's the message I repeat over and over to myself (i.e., an UNSENT message to my ex via the universe):  "I release you to your greatest and highest good."   

I releases me too, and it's consistent with a core value I am developing -- compassion for self and others.   


I quote this all the time, but will again: "anger is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die."   

Trying to erase someone only makes them stronger in our minds.  If we are told not to think about pink elephants, we think about pink elephants.

Everything I have read since I was abandoned by my ex suggests one starting place:   we start with ourselves.  We start by embracing our feelings and tending to ourselves.   If we are angry, we accept the anger, and we tend to it with compassion.   If we are lonely, we accept the loneliness, and we learn techniques to self-soothe.

Hope that helps.  Keep posting.  We're here for you.