BPDFamily.com

I'm still emerging from the FOG.  I'm 5.5 weeks out of a 16yr r/s with my exuBPDh.

Tonight I had an epiphany.

Ex lives on his own now.  I noticed a few days ago he posted a pic of a friend of ours in my ex's new apartment.  When we stopped by his apartment a few days ago (to sign some paperwork), I noticed one of my old coffee mugs on the table, with lipstick stains around the lip of the mug (I don't wear lipstick, ex said he despised lipstick).

He called tonight.  Not to talk to the kids, but to talk to me.  I'm staying LC with him as I can having 2 kids with him.  I was heading into a fast food joint for a mother/son dinner date (daughter at a friends house).  Ex calls, first thing out of his mouth is "why are you being so mean to me?"  I calmly ask what he's talking about. He says that since I moved, I haven't initiated contact with him unless it's child related.  He starts ranting and yelling that he hates being alone and no one ever visits him.  Instead of responding with my facts, I just validated that this is a big change for him.  He continued to rant and I calmly told him that I was having some fun with our son since our daughter wasn't home so I wasn't going to continue allowing him to yell at me.  He yelled again and I hung up.

I get a text a few minutes later, saying he was sorry and hoped I had fun with our son.  I texted back thank you and accepted his apology.  It's been silent since then.

My epiphany is three fold.  One - even though he's not been dx BPD, my interactions with him are like textbook. And the tools I'm learning here are effective when dealing with him.  Two - I'm not a heartless b___.  I try to use my "calm, rational tone" with him.  I'm a counselor and all of my clients react very positively to this, but with my ex he called it my "heartless b___ tone".  I generally reserved that tone for when he starts raging.  Raging back or defending myself with emotion only escalated it.  And three - he's still a liar.  He's not been alone, he's obviously had company but to him alone is a prison sentence.

I knew everyone here would "get" my epiphanies.  Please share yours.

My epiphanies:

1.You can't change anyone but yourself (for all the white knights like me  

2.Some people are honestly happy with their dysfunctional lives

3.Before embarking on fixing someone else - fix yourself and then see number-1 above

4.When one has had a bad string of relationships maybe a Borderline was not entirely wrong

5.Until we are healed and have dealt with our own stuff, likely any baggage is carried forward into other relationships

6.Before thinking a relationship will make us complete, get complete with ourselves first

7.If I can't stand to live alone, how can I expect someone to live with me  

8. Being "nice" doesn't necessarily equate to being healthy or having healthy boundaries

Peace

My epiphany moment? Oh, idk where to start. I’ve had many that I’ve denied, ignored, and/or blatantly defied.

I remember one time when the kids were very little (son was still in diapers) my H was leaving, again…and I was crying, again…after he left I took a note book (I’d stopped keeping a journal by this time as it wasn’t private anyway so I didn’t see the point) and wrote my thoughts and feelings down…I clearly recall writing “this is not my life, this is not my life, this is not my life…” over and over. There are lots of other times like this one, where I’ve refused to see.

What’s made me open my eyes to this reality? It’s been a long slow process…I guess the real change in my started about 10 yrs ago when I decided I wanted to be happy. I didn’t want fake happy but real happy so I started looking for it, educating myself on what ‘happy’ really means. This has changed me somehow. When I found ‘happy’ it seemed unstable. It’s like a mist in the wind…fragile…and I wondered why…so I had to dig deeper inside myself. I realized that it’s fragile because it depends on external factors. So, then I decided I wanted to be ‘content’ within….and that’s a much different quest then finding happy. Contentment is…or it seems to me…it’s about a person’s inner mind, heart, soul….I’m trying to figure that out.

I guess, I realized that it’s up to me to live a life that I love. I can’t control anyone else just my own thoughts and reactions to external forces. My H’s freaking out because I’m not the same woman I was…and I’ve tried to explain this to him, my quests for happy and now contentment…and he simply is unwilling to entertain the idea that this is real for me.

During all of my personal growth work it’s like my eyes and my mind slowly opened up and was able to see that this IS my life. I can’t deny it. I can only work towards a brighter future. I got real, real with myself and accepted that my H is the only person in my life that treats me badly. I realized that I’ve cut many people out of my life because they couldn’t treat me with respect. That got me thinking and wondering…why is that?

I then further realized that I have literally put my entire life on hold for a very long time to be here with him in this marriage. There are a lot of things I’ve wanted to do as an individual, as a couple, and as a family that hasn’t happened because he didn’t want to do those things. I realized that my dreams are on hold and I have a finite amount of time to realize any of my dreams….and when talking to my H about my dreams there is always something that holds *us* back…it’s always logical but sometimes irrational.

So, yes, I’ve had many epiphany moments over many years…I remember one time when our family was still young I was trying to explain to him that I wanted our kids to have happy memories, that I wanted us to have happy memories…that when I get older and I look back on my life I want to have good things to remember. Yes, there’s lots of good but there’s also lots of bad…and as long as I’m weight the good against the bad I’m keeping score. I don’t want to live my life like that.

I've always been attracted to troubled women, waifs. My uBPDx and mother of our children is a decade younger than me, but I have been attracted to much older women also who were waifs. I rejected the advances of older waif at work (it was very tempting!), patted myself on the back for being healthier, than a few months later ended up in a r/s with uBPDx.

I realized that the mother of our children was mirroring her own parents' dysfunctional marriage with us and finally cut her loose. Later, I realized that I was mirroring my childhood reactions with my BPD-like mom due to uBPDx's behaviors.

1. I won't define my core worth by "rescuing" anyone anymore (still working on this a lot!). If it means some think I may be a bit cold, then so be it. I have to protect me now.

2. I am more than my roles or attachments (father, engineer, son, friend). I am me, defined by my core values.

3. I take input from others, because my previous thinking was a bit solipsistic, but knowing my core values, I have learned to reject that which I know not to be true. No more FOG. From anyone!

4. I am learning not to be angry when others say good things about me. I previously rejected both the good and bad (which in itself is black and white thinking, but an unhealthy defense mechanism I developed due to my mom's splitting of me). I am learning to accept what is, not twisting it to be that which I think it should be.

5. Live by my core values, and care even less if others have a problem with it. That;s them, not me.