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My ex texted me today "I need to make peace.  I'm sorry."  I recognize this as FOG (and probably devaluing at that... .making it seem like severing ties wasn't my decision), and I have no intent to respond.  I can resist the urges.  But I wonder now: why do I even have these urges?  I saw the text and instinctually wanted to write "I am at peace" or "what does that mean?" or "why are you sorry?"  I experienced the urge (as Letting Go would suggest), felt it, saw my way through it.  But why are these urges still occurring? 

You loved her, it really is that simple.

When someone we once love reaches out, it is natural to want to see what it is all about.

Once you have more time and more closure the urge will dilute.

What about the urge has you feeling unbalanced?   Meaning, what emotion is opened up for you now?

Anxiety.  It's a not a typical emotion for me.  I suppose I fear getting into an argument, or I fear being made to feel small and insignificant by her, or I feel the guilt and obligation she will make me feel. 

What about this emotion is true for you?

Well if my r/s was similar, I think one reason is because you never got closure.  Closure in the sense that there was any understanding of the breakup.  I have a constant desire to explain to her why her feelings are wrong, fix her thinking, etc.  Its the lack of logic it just doesn't make any sense.  But I learned and am still learning the hard way, the more you keep in contact, the more pain.  They know (you have probably told them) how to hurt you the most and they will.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  Could you clarify?


There is some truth to this.  I felt good the other day by setting the NC boundary, felt like this was actually closure, although I knew she would test the boundary of course.  And you're right, I also have the fear that I will be baited into again trying to explain my side of the r/s, trying to correct her dissociated version, and this will just result in more devaluation and pain. 

I agree with SB. It comes down to love, I loved my wife.

No contact is difficult. I think that there is a lot of anxiety and stress attached to the idea that I have to be vigilant with no contact at all times. Is that what you mean BacknthSaddle?

I see it as learning process. You may slip and fire back something because you are triggered. Emotions are still vested. My voice wasn't being heard. I felt insulted and angry at her for walking away on our marriage - leaving me for another man without giving me a logical explanation. It gradually becomes easier to disengage as time passes and you become indifferent with the behaviors. Resisting the urge is hard, if you slip it's OK.

Are you feeling anger at her?

I think that is essentially what I mean.  Each day I have of NC, I feel a little more relaxed and consequently a little less vigilant. Then, something will come through, and my anxiety will be spike.  Additionally, once she contacts me, I have to work ACTIVELY on not contacting her, whereas previously I had no desire to contact and there was no effort involved.  Thus the frustration with the urges.

I'll say this: I'm not really feeling anger at her, but I anticipate that if I engage her, I will begin to feel anger (she will be condescending, make me sound "crazy" or "obsessive," something like that) and I really don't enjoy that angry feeling at all.  I don't want to feel that.  Which is why I continue to avoid the contact.

Just an addendum: completely blocking her is not a possibility b/c we work together: she can always contact my work email, my office extension, text my work phone, etc.  Frustrating. 

sure, glad you asked for clarification 


what about an argument has you afraid?


Good, digging deeper here.

How can she still do that to you?  Are you actually afraid that you do not have boundaries with her?


Good, obligation and guilt - for what exactly?  Taking care of yourself?

By challenging our fears we can begin to control the anxiety into what is actually real versus what we perceive to be real.

Regarding  your anger - anger is a natural emotion in grief... .whether she contacted you or stopped contacting you - anger is going to occur.  Anger is also a mask for hurt - leaning into this a bit more now - is her contacting you hurting you because it really reinforces that to take care of you, you must continue to let her go - and frankly that hurts? 

Well, when we have contact she inevitably makes comments that suggest that, despite our 1.5 year r/s, we were always "friends" and never "serious."  I know that this is dissociation and I know the reality, but these conversations always feel like a bit of a Chinese finger-trap: once I'm in them, it's impossible to get out, and the more I struggle to get out the harder it gets.  This metaphor conveys I hope the frustration I feel, the feeling of banging my head against a wall.  The best way to avoid this is not to fall into the trap at all. 


I'm definitely afraid that my boundaries are not yet adequately strong.  She has a way, as an earlier commenter noted, of finding my weakest points and attacking them.  Truthfully if anyone attacked those points (points related to my own self-worth), I would be hurt and triggered.  It's just a guarantee that she will take aim at them.


I will feel guilt for not providing her with the support I have provided her with in the past.  It's an automatic thought, and I can withstand it and have it pass quickly, but it's still unpleasant.  You are probably right to suggest that I also feel guilt for putting my own feelings ahead of hers. 


Honestly no. I am completely ready to let go.  The boundary challenges make this more difficult than I would like it to be.

The main thing right now is definitely having to face her talk, subtle and digging as it may be, about how the relationship wasn't really the very serious encounter we discussed it as at the time (loves of each others' lives, having a life together, blah blah blah).  I would like to just have that in my memory banks as what it was at the time, and not constantly have to hear it re-interpreted, which causes me to question myself, my value, etc. 

I feel pretty good about myself when she's leaving me be. 

Tell us more about your work relationship - is it critical to either of your jobs that you communicate or is it a rather large organization and you are in different departments?

What is a reasonable boundary?

No, we are in different areas and it is definitely no longer critical that we communicate. I haven't seen her physically at work in months, and I don't have to take any specific efforts to avoid her.  There is always the chance that our paths will cross, but it is a small chance. 

My point was more just that there is no way to completely prevent contact through technological means. 

Thanks for clarifying the work scenerio  |iiii


I don't know, but I think I would be angry if someone who hurt me continued to contact me when I had asked them to stop, especially when you worked together. 

Are you sure you are not angry and that is the uncomfortable urge like Mutt suggested?

I suppose I'm not sure.  You are right, there is something very anger-inducing about telling someone you are no longer interested in communicating and having them push.  I feel like though if she had just contacted me and said "my dog died" or "I'm moving to Iowa" or "there's a work-related issue you should know about," I wouldn't really be angry.  It's the particular way in which she contacts that is galling, the "I need to make peace."  Knowing her there is something high-and-mighty about it, condescending, and that particular tone makes me angry, yes. 

I will say that, with respect to our relationship history, she and I inhabit alternate realities.  Hearing about her version of reality impairs my ability to process my own, and if there is contact, I will always hear about it.  So hence the anxiety and, yes, anger.

BacknthSaddle forgive me if I'm wrong but do you mean this in the reverse? We tend to forgo ourselves and not take care of ourselves, we tend to take care of all of her needs and emotions and neglect ourselves.

I thought I was selfish for trying to take care of my needs and putting up boundaries. I'm entitled to that. What I'm getting at is that I was fused with her, enmeshed. Detaching from the enmeshment was tough - because we had become one and not two entities (two separate people knowing where the lines are a healthy r/s)

Not so much that I mean it in reverse.  Rather, I automatically feel guilt that I am not living up to the "perfect standards" of understanding I previously set. Then I reality test that quickly, and I start to feel the guilt for setting boundaries and taking my own feelings into consideration. 

Enmeshment is at the center of this, I agree. I made the point recently when I made NC clear (why I'm still trying to "make points," I don't know) that, even if we both wanted to be "friends," we don't fight like friends: we fight like people in a collapsing romantic relationship, despite the fact that that relationship has long ago collapsed.  I don't need that continued stress in my life. 

Go easy on yourself BacknthSaddle. It's very hard to accept that someone we love is mentally ill. It takes time to sink in. The heart needs time to catch up to the head    By making points with her, do you think it could be because you are approaching this in the context that she is a person of a healthy mind? You reason from a logical and healthy mind and try to make a point with her expecting her to perhaps respond in a healthy way?

Yes, most definitely this is a problem.  I will say: because of the nature of our relationship (which was largely illicit and inappropriate), I was walled off from the vast majority of her personal life, family, contacts, etc.  As a result, I don't have the observations and experiences of others to supplement my own observations that she is indeed personality disordered. This remains a problem for me. My own observations should be enough, but in moments of doubt, I think "well how do I know this isn't just me over-pathologizing, attempting to explain away the r/s failure, etc."  I know we all have those moments, but the fact that I can't turn to others for their observations makes the process of acceptance more difficult. 

Also, thank you all for your time and extremely valuable input.

I understand that you feel isolated because of the nature of the r/s. I don't think that your over-patholigizing this. I think you may be trying to rationalize that she is not mentally ill. It's OK it's an invisible disorder and leaves us in self doubt thinking that we're the ones with issues.

Let's take the pathology out of the equation and look at behaviors - toxic ones? A toxic relationship.

I suppose I am fortunate that NC is not that hard for me. Not now at least.

I would only want to contact her so as to vilify her for lying pig, drunk whore she is. After saying those words, I could walk away and not care if she had a response or not.

Remember that NC most likely does not hurt them---but at some point they have to find an excuse to re-establish contact. At THAT moment, you have the power to break them, or allow them to break you.

Hopefully we all choose the right thing when that moment comes.

I remember Schwing point blank telling me when I made a similar statement - you lived it, you know it.  Disordered or Unhealthy, however you label it, this relationship is not healthy for YOU... .right?


Learning to trust ourselves takes time.  Take comfort in the stories here, the patterns you read about here... .there are very similar patterns.

Let's pretend for a minute it is you - ok, so what, you are working on you and yet she is still the one trampling your boundaries... .not the other way around, right?

At the end of the day, we all have the right to take care of ourselves - and from what I am hearing from you, you need her to leave you alone and you have told her point blank, yet she is contacting you.  Of course you should be mad - rational people get mad when people violate boundaries... .nothing to feel guilty about.

I know you cannot block her work stuff, but you can block personal - if she chooses to contact you through work inappropriately you do have HR to help.  I know this option is not a fun one, honestly, I do. 

Going back to your original question - it seems like maybe anger is more of what is true about the emotions you are experiencing and anxiety or guilt might be your "go to" since those might be more familiar?

This is something that I do have to remind myself of often.  It is easy to get caught up in the label and lose sight of the behaviors.   Yes, there have been many toxic behaviors really since the beginning: manipulations, devaluations, boundary violations, emotional blackmail, etc.  Even without using clinical language: she has told me she loved me then intentionally tried to make me feel bad about myself; she has lied; she has been unreliable; and she has been self-absorbed.  That should be enough without convincing myself about BPD specifically.  And I think you're right Mutt: I actually expended so much mental energy ignoring red flags at the beginning that now reorienting to the idea of her being mentally ill is more challenging than it should be.

And yes: there are many patterns, and seeing them on this site is of great help.  And you are right: I made a very reasonable claim, that I did not want to fight anymore and that the fighting was clearly inevitable, and I set up a boundary as a result, which she fought about and then respected for all of one week.  Her violations are more subtle than some members: she's not going to show up at my door, not going to threaten to kill herself if I don't call her.  But they are violations nonetheless.

I am very comfortable with anger, perhaps too comfortable, but I'm thinking maybe not in this kind of r/s.  I have read a lot here and elsewhere about how romances with pwBPD are stand-ins for primary relationships rather than proper secondary ones, and in my primary relationships guilt is much more familiar.

An example: I wanted to note on the thread that part of the reason I felt guilt when she texted and I didn't respond is that I feel what you would feel if your baby was crying, screaming in the other room and you didn't attend to her.  Then I thought: the mere fact that I would think of that metaphor shows how enmeshed I've been. 

I understand the isolation and the site is of great help. Your ex is triggered by intimacy. Bosses, co-workers, friends etc aren't intimate with her and don't see the acting out.


Seeking Balance raised a good point that you told her point blank and of course it is going to make you angry. She is not validating your need and it's disrespectul. Contacting HR if she is being innapproriate in the workplace is a very good idea and it may be difficult for you to do it. When serious boundaries are put down she will eventually get the picture and this will peter off. It's up to us to be consistent with our message that this is not acceptable - it takes time. It is a process changing our habits of floating boundaries and having to put up boundaries because of someone's emotional immaturity. A healthy person should understand - you normally don't have to keep defending the same boundaries repeatedly.

All of the behaviors that you stated are considered from someone that is emotionally immature? It's also very difficult to break the pattern of conflict when buttons are pushed and we get caught up in an unhealthy cycle. But if we falter aren't we allowed a redo? Start NC again and give ourselves a break.


I'm not sure that I understand primary and secondary relationships. I felt like I was eventually put into a position of a parental role - a punitive parent. Her emotional immaturity often felt like I had become a father to her and she was fighting with me as if she were a child - not a significant other.

Sorry, to clarify:

By "primary," I mean relationships such as parent-child or sibling-sibling, relationships that exist literally since the time of birth and for which the permanence of the bond is understood and implicit.  Assuming that these relationships function as they are supposed to (reliably, with needs reliably met, with understanding and empathy), then it is possible to have a healthy secondary relationship.  These are romantic relationships or friendships, relationships in which the bonds to not exist at first and have to be built over time through mutual respect, trust, affection, understanding, and so forth.  If vulnerability proves safe in primary relationships then exposing vulnerabilities will be possible in secondary relationships, and so forth.

My understanding is that, with pwBPD and often with the "lonely children" who are attracted to them as well, there are often flaws in the primary relationship that lead people to try to re-create these relationships in their romantic lives rather than building healthy,mutual relationships between fully developed people.  Thus the pwBPD will expect their partner to meet all of his/her needs on demand the way a reliable parent would, they will view the partner as either omnipotent and flawless or as punitive and evil, etc.  The "lonely child" partners will often willingly accept this role. 

Thus my comment that, when I see my ex's texts as I would see the cries of a baby, needing to respond right away, it's evidence of the warped nature of the r/s.

I am not doing this justice but you get the idea.  The problem of course is that you are never in a r/s with a parent in which vulnerability is modeled as safe, it never will be safe in the future, etc.  I remember telling my ex that I never felt "safe" with her and her telling me that she wanted me to.  Of course, she couldn't make anyone feel "safe" in a r/s (her ex-husband said that she "always had one foot out the door" because she never felt safe herself, and she never felt safe because she was not safe in her primary relationships (a distant father, a cold and mercurial mother, etc). 

I hope my understanding of this stuff makes sense.

As an aside, I realize that this is very true.  I suppose it is true of many pwBPD.  I suppose this is why many describe sex with BPD partners as either transactional or manipulative, rather than truly intimate. 

I understand it makes sense  :)

No contact since the text yesterday morning.  I feel some relief and some pride.  I thought about the text again: "I need to make peace. I'm sorry," and I thought about what you all said.  There it is again: need.  She's really saying "I need you to make this ok for me."  And yes, I think I felt guilt because, by not returning the contact, I was attending to my own needs over hers.  Something I have not been very good at.

Why is resisting so hard?

IMHO, it's because I'm a full blown BPD addict.  

Think about it, a Heroin junkie  becomes agitated when he thinks about smack.  Live feels empty and pointless with the junk.  If he sees baggies or a rig, his entire system is triggered in a gamut of intense emotional reactions.  Ruminations of picking up again continue long after getting clean.  And recollection of highs are indescribable and are almost impossible to let go.  

We have NO day counts.  Every AA/NA groups counts days abstinent.

Think about your reactions and think about a junkie trying to stay clean.  

Tell me how's it different?

I obviously have the same problem. I set a boundary and she busts right through. She keeps hammering away, over and over. And I collapse. Why?

Now I've really realized that this person is sick. Why do I 'love' her. I don't get it. She's very psychologically ill. And she will destroy me. She doesn't care about me. She doesn't care about herself. She told me she knows I don't want the contact and that the rejection of my reestablishing the NC boundary is terrible for her, yet she keeps contacting. She told me she is impulsive and won't ever stop. She literally can't.

I am seeking that high. I am seeking the validation.

Hello, my name is amigo, and I am a BPD addict too.

And it happened from just trying it once... .

Yes, the addiction, the triggering when we see, hear, remember anything related to the "drug", it's all so very true. So incredibly hard to give up.

I don't think I will ever get validation. But I do still crave that hit.

BINGO for me!  Hell ya!  Although I never thought of it that way before... .eeek.  TY S.B.