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I hadn't spoken to my ex since she finished paying me back some money she owed me. We were on good terms, but I had been clear with her that I needed significant space before we could be "friends".

Anyway, she texted me yesterday just to say hi and that she hoped I was doing well. It was very cordial. I said hi back and asked how she was doing. She told me she was prepping to take the GRE. I told her that was awesome and asked her what she was planning on studying in grad school/where she wanted to go. She told me she had been planning to go to grad school, but she just got a job offer in South America, so now she has to weigh her options.

I told her how exciting that sounded and that no matter what she chose I was sure it would be great either way.

End of conversation.

I had a couple of thoughts after the brief conversation.

1) It made me feel better to hear that she was going to grad school or South America because even if our relationship had continued it would always have had an expiration date. She's always wanted to keep traveling and live in another city or go back to school. Don't get me wrong, there were serious reasons I HAD to leave that relationship regardless, but it might help with the ruminating to think about the fact that she most likely always would have been leaving at some point.

2) The conversation crystallized how despite all of the toxic behavior and circumstances I eventually had to run away from, that I wanted other things from her on even more fundamental levels. Specifically, the way conversation played out... .she reached out, and I tried to engage her on how she was doing, she told me but then didn't want to ask me anything about my life. I don't mean that in an angry way, not everyone does that, but it is indicative of how she was with me in general. Particularly towards the end of the relationship, I didn't feel appreciated or engaged at all despite the fact that I felt I was always making efforts to make her feel those ways. Things were generally ALL about her during the relationship. At the end of the relationship I don't even really remember asking me any questions about me at all unless it pertained to something about her. Again, she is who she is and I think there is a lot to admire about her, but that's not what I want in a relationship certainly.

Anyway, just my thoughts. I can't deny that I react very sensitively to communicating with her still. For instance, in this case after she reached out and I congratulated her on all the cool things she had going on, I was slightly hurt that she didn't want to know anything that was going on with me. The conversation did seem somewhat abrupt in that sense, but that's okay. I know a lot of that is just that I'm still overly sensitive to those kinds of things with her, and I still need space.

It seems you handled this interaction very well. Good job. This really resonated with me:


That's totally my experience. I think my ex mirroring me through most of our 10 year relationship gave me the affirmation I needed to feel respected and wanted; and I think there probably were stretches of time when she was truly curious in what I had going on. But at some point I think her narcissism triumphed and there was no genuine empathy or sustained interest in me there - certainly not the kind that long-lasting bonds are made of.

As a result of the interactions since our break up, I've come to see that over the last 6 - 9 months of the relationship I'd begun to intuit that something was really quite wrong: there was absolutely no room for me in the relationship anymore; indeed, it was no longer a relationship because it was all about her arranging things to her liking.

My experience isn't one of violence, cheating, etc. - more a series of gradual but increasingly vocal demands that I drop all my boundaries to accommodate her needs, and increasingly blatant indications that she didn't really care about my needs at all. But I think as it was going on I was in denial about its consequences: I wanted to think we could manage it with counseling, that she was in a funk owing to some external stressors and would come around eventually, that we'd fallen off the same page. I did not want to believe that it had to mean the end of the relationship. Now I can see, though, that she was not able to sustain the interdependent, reciprocal relationship I ultimately would like to be able to have with a partner - which is an empowering and positive way to define things going forward. You seem to have arrived at a similar place.

Now on to the next challenge - opening ourselves up to people who can truly deliver what we say we want!

Interesting topic.  In the past four months as our relationship waned, my ex and I have texted each other multiple times, talked on the phone several times and seen each other a couple of times.  The last time we met a week ago (for lunch, not dinner, by my request) I had become pretty indifferent to her behavior and could observe much more objectively her "modus operandi".  It is stunning how time and distance can provide clarity.  Very little interest in my life (and there were plenty of topics to discuss) while almost immediately launching into the victim role, how her ex-husband was being so uncooperative, how she would be effectively "forced" to spend the week between Christmas and New Year's with the kids in Miami (at the Ritz Carlton of all places) and how no one really understood how difficult her life had become.  I looked straight at her and said "BPD, you are the one who initiated the divorce years ago and now your bemoaning the repercussions?".  She was speechless as she'd never heard that come out of my mouth before.

Truthfully, I really think that they want to know what is going on our lives (mine had a incredible memory as is common for those with the disorder and has been poking around about my coming and goings) but the pain and shame of revisiting the relationship prevents them from inquiring.  I do feel that is why they ask others---much like immaturity drives a child or adolescent to ask about someone they care about thru an intermediary---as it makes it easier for them to maintain the facade that could crumble if they approached us directly.

As complex as these BPD relationships seem to be, they all sound so eerily similar and predictable.