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I think a lot of the pain that I have been experiencing after the breakup is regretting giving up on the fantasy of who I wanted my ex to be, the fantasy that I keep tricking myself into believing is real.

I think this may be the same for a lot of us, but the reason we stayed with them was because we saw so much potential, and sat there battling through it all hoping that they would become the person we imagined in our minds, but its someone they are not, and are incapable of ever being.

The one thing that plagues my mind and I think many others is that, maybe the replacement has done something I haven't, maybe she is this great woman, and now I've lost her, if only I had have done something different, what have I let slip through my fingers? I need to realise more often that is just an imagination, this person is not real, I am torturing myself with the thought of a myth instead of getting out there and attracting good things into my life that are real.

If I really think hard, I can see how I am just conjuring up nonsense about her in my mind, she was never mature, she was never capable of having a proper relationship, so much of, if not all of her behaviour was that of a child. I think it really helps to detach upon the acceptance that this person is no more than a child, they were never on the same level, and never will be. I always thought it was just a huge intelligence gap, but moreso it was really just that she is an eternal lost little girl.

Treat them as a child, and accept them as a child, and the anger and loss really starts to lessen. They need looking after in a parental way, not a partner. Its not something anyone should have to deal with in a partner, its not natural, and its disabling to you as a person.

This helps me detach, bungenstein, but then I start to wonder, how much of this was I attracted to in the first place?

My Ex s almost 11 years younger than me. I incorrectly bought into the mantra that "girls mature faster than boys." Maybe there's some validity to that, I'm not going to make an arguement.

What I felt from the very beginning was that she was putting me into a mold of how she thought guys should act or do. We had conflict over this from the beginning.

During the detachment, a friend of mine observed that our r/s was very much father-daughter. I had figured it out by then, and resented both me and her for that. Though this helps me detach, as much as I am frustrated with myself for continuing for 6 years with a woman who triggeted "run!" intincts in me after the first date, I wonder, "why was I attracted to her so much in the first place?"

I own that.

After the bliss of the idealization phase I spent two years quietly wondering where the woman I loved disappeared too.  Attempts to communicate deep feelings or find recirocal emotions were futile.

It didn't kill me (much) so I can walk away from this wiser.  Initially when this girl was fishing for my attention, I trusted my guts and hid after a little contact.  Two years later I took the love bomb bait; hook, line and sinker.

Sure most of the relationship was soul_crushingly unfulfilling but at least the brief honeymoon was fun.

I accept that my ex is emotionally immature. I don't have to stoop to that level if she engages.  It's arrested development and I'm emotionally more mature. A pwBPD need to work on their trauma. Parenting enables.