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So this afternoon, out of the blue, I received a text apology, "I'm sorry for everything that has happened," I replied "Thank you." My best friend says that means my legal team is getting to him--that he has tried every other power play, and now he needs to go back to the vulnerable me: the one who loves and cares for all strays: including him. Also he knows I've found him on dating sites this week. So our shape shifter has changed his online profile once again. My hopes were dashed--not that I thought there was an "us" but maybe there is a him. Maybe not.

I'm hurting very badly right now. I think it's my queue not to let down my resolve.

I can imagine this is very confusing. 

When I experience the confusion of fog these days it takes a week or two to settle to be worked through and processed.

Please create the space you need to heal and forgive yourself for the intense emotions you experience.

Thank you for sharing with us. 

How do you feel?

Blim--my first answer is thankful that I'm here and that you replied; secondly--I can't believe I don't have a better immune system to this drug--in truth, I'm so hurt, because while he writes that he's sorry he's out looking for another "love of his life"--so what does that make me? We never broke up--weeks before he left, he wanted to "make me a staple" in his sons' lives. Yes. Confusion.

Your welcome loveoflife.

The confusion is very difficult but you have experienced it before and worked through it and you can and will do it again!

"This too shall pass"

Something I've began doing recently is stoping now and then and asking myself "how do you feel?"  I find that it helps tremendously. I nottice that their are layers and as I get more familiar with the layers and nottice patterns it gets a little less scary each time.

Thank you--I know you his too shall pass--but not if I keep ripping off my own band aids--I think that's what looking at his online dating profiles is doing to me. I guess that's another "layer" of NC... .

Loveofhislife, don't go to his dating sites, what information can you glean? Do this for you and hang in there 

I think what a lot of us need to do is internalize that we are dealing with mentally ill people and quit beating ourselves up. 

peiper."I think what a lot of us need to do is internalize that we are dealing with mentally ill people and quit beating ourselves up."

YES!

All the apologies,twisted explanations,answers from our Borderline-ex-partners about their sick behaviour... .FORGET IT.

THERE ARE NO... .

TO EVERYBODY: Forgive yourself,move on.

I agree completely. My deal was she had been gas lighting me so well that there was still a part of myself that thought it was me. Which left me full of whys, what ifs and what do I do now's. More or less stuck.

LOHL, I think we can safely say he is very confused, doesn't know what he "really" feels, and doesn't know why.  He's a mess :/

I don't think it's a mistake that you are looking on his dating site(s) -- until you have enough information not to fool yourself that is. Imagine if you had received his apology text and had NOT seen that he was on a dating site. Wouldn't it be much easier to consider workif toward reconciliation?  I think information is not the enemy, not till you get to the point where you know enough and new iterations are not going to change anything.

The fact that you are sad and hurt doesn't mean you are doing something wrong. This is grief and it takes a while. You have to process that things are different than you thought, in this core and tender place in your life. It's just very hard.

Back to him--Try to stay away from speculating about what each of his actions really "means." That's a futile endeavor. You don't know why he is on that website, you only know that he is.

For me, eventually I learned about actions my ex was taking that he made big efforts to keep from me. They hurt me. There was material from which I could make a case that I was still really important to him, yada yada, and there's no way I can distill his "true feelings" which shift all the time anyway. But I knew what I needed to know at a certain point, and from that point I just had to decide my own course in light of what I'd learned.

This is super hard stuff. They break things that shouldn't be broken, and all we have left are hard choices.

Saw someone say this in a movie recently, thinking if it was me the person was 'apologizing' to, I'd want them to be more specific. Which could lead to an actual conversation, and really dealing with the situation. It's good you're seeing through it, these minimal attempts while wearing masks. Some of our feelings while detaching are growing pains. Growing more sure of ourselves.

Thank you for insightful and caring thoughts--especially when I was stricken with grief and confusion last night. So, not even knowing we were broken up, I saw him on the dating site and confronted him through the messaging mechanism: though my friends told me not to, below is an excerpt:

"Well well well--I figured I might find you on here.  Looks like you've been very busy since storming out with no explanation August 1 when you were reminded that you owed me the last year of your lifestyle, livlihood, and a large amount of money:  a significant portion you used to pay off a car loan. 

WOW. I really like the new profile pictures--especially since they all are in shirts I procured for you on our vacations together. Thanks for the memories.  Good to read that you're "starting the next chapter of your life," especially when you texted Tuesday that you had become a recluse and monk--but how many monks are on dating sites?

Prior to your new beach acquisition, I funded four beach weekends in July: XYZ Beach [where you never had been]. How coincidental that is where you have chosen to live and lure others who could be the next "best friend you've ever had", "love of your life," and "most supportive person in your life."

That was the first confrontation since August 1 when he disappeared. I know it's not kind, and I tried to delete it, but it was too late.

So yesterday, I get the random apology on text, and he completely changed his dating site profile: different clothes, misspelled words, very different "projections." Sounded like a completely different person.

My daughter told me today that when her boyfriend saw exbfBPD last week, he looked like a completely different person. None of us had seen or heard from him in months--after he and I had spent the last year in a committed relationship.

Then the random apology after making digs at me all week in correspondence to my attorney. I'm inclined to think the new look, the new profile, and the apology are tactical changes in response to my unwillingness to disappear and backdown.

I am very sorry you are hurting, but there is only 1 layer of NC. That is no phone, text, email, Facebook, snail mail , Twitter , dating sites... nothing nada ... erase them from your world like they don't exist

I just heard the apology in a movie--"I'm sorry for everything that has happened, but you must not live in the past" Splinter said, "You must think of the future... .you must help in defeating the Shredder... ."

I had to share this--I am LMAO--TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES! I needed to laugh... .

Reading this thread made me connect once again with a borderline's unstable sense of self, which manifests as one false self after the other, presented as attachment bait, and how obvious on a dating site.  No wonder these relationships are so confusing and we get off balance and stay there; trying to navigate that is like playing emotional Whack-A-Mole.  And it's not the borderline really, for most of us there we plenty of red flags early that we ignored, it's what we made it mean, and how long we stayed; detaching and healing is about discovering how and why we made it mean what we did and changing that meaning.

Well said, Heal. I think it just freaked me out to see his dating profile change so quickly and so thoroughly. I don't think he changed it for my sake. Yes, it served as a great reminder of who and what I have been dealing with. There were red flags for sure, and I especially have no excuse for blindness. However, my heart is broken and letting in the light; my eyes are open; and I am on a path to healing: hoping to prevent and build an immune system from pwpd's.

Looks like your on the right road Love