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I had a thought that I am still working on.  Christmas has been hard as I miss her, her family, our friends.  I miss feeling like I belong.  Having said that, I don't miss the unpredictability, the feeling like an object to moved about the table, the uncertainty of plans, the moods, the holiday dysregulation... .i just miss belonging. BUT, this am while reading some very wise thoughts of others on this site, it occurred to me if she was mirroring me during the first phase and the person I miss is the one I fell in love with during the first phase, the one who mirrored the best me there is... .maybe I miss me.  In the devaluation, I lost my self esteem and my self confidence.  After she left, I lost myself for several months and I am slowly coming back to myself.  I continue to like the line, "the disease" won as it stops my anger toward myself and her and now, with this new revelation, I feel like I have less missing of her but more of a desire to know what is the best she brought out in me in that first stage and embrace it. Does that make sense?  Any thoughts?  Thank you

Good insight Hawk.  I make it mean something a little different: yes, the person I fell in love with, if she's a perfect mirror, was me, that's a very good thing, and I still love me, that's something I got to take with me and keep.  And what I missed is the fantasy, the relationship of my dreams that was between my ears and nowhere else; the real her and the real relationship never measured up to that fantasy.  And the other thing I missed is the aliveness I felt in the relationship, especially since before I met her I was feeling dead inside, so there was a lot of contrast, with someone coming at me full-steam, calling me all day every day and telling me she 'loved' me.  And even when she was fully triggered and it was chaos, it was always exciting, never a dull moment, always a lot of intensity, always fully alive, probably like soldiers feel in combat.

So the keys are to keep the love for ourselves, valuable, and remember what that feeling of aliveness feels like, so we can create it elsewhere in our lives in sustainable, healthful relationships; that wake-up can be the gift of the relationship.

Hi Hawk Ridge,

I can relate.

I recall thinking very early in the r/s "wow she really resembles my qualities and feels like my soul mate" I struggled with esteem issues.

I'd like to also echo fromheeltoheal.

I would like to add one small thing. As I did the work here I came across a Lao Tzu quote.

I saw my positive qualities and owned them.

Wow.  That is a great observation.  Thank you for sharing it. 

Thank you for putting this into words... .it's exactly how I'm feeling this week.  I miss my stepdaughter.  I miss exBPDgf's family.  I know I will miss the things we did together on the holidays.  It's hard to feel "cast out" - I lost many more people than my BPDgf in this breakup.

Four months out of the r/s and I have really started thinking about what has made the end of this r/s so much harder than others.  I have recently begun thinking about how, in the beginning of the relationship, I saw myself... .through her eyes, as you so aptly put it.  I realized that I loved the version of me that she was seeing - as strong, as intelligent, as able to give freely in a relationship to someone I was in love with.  Much of this version of me is true and was exactly who I was... .and it was nice to think someone else appreciated that in me.  

But it is also the 'truth' of me that I lost as the relationship progressed. I feel as though I became weaker... .that I was not (intelligently) processing what was happening as it happened... .that I kept giving and forgiving as I was receiving less and less in return.  I lost myself along the way.  I think you may be on to something here.