BPDFamily.com

Huh. Interesting development: I took a risk today and asked her if she'd like to talk this weekend if she's free. I also mentioned that Sunday would be exactly two years since we first met in person, and that it might be nice to mark the occasion. She agreed! Just a light talk, not a heavy one, but with the intention of getting some good vibes built up before we have any real talk. She also seemed eager to tell me that they had signed and filed their divorce papers today, and I congratulated her sincerely.

That's great news and hopefully you can sleep well and have a some peace.  Seems like you caught her at a time when she had some relief of her stresses so she was more receptive to you.  Of course you are  optomistic for the weekend talk and hope to have some of your needs addressed. Just hoping for good vibes is not much to ask.  Have you thought of how you will respond to and handle possible scenarios come this weekend if it doesn't go as you hope?  She does have alot going on in her life so she may not be ready to discuss much of your relationship. 

Hopefully all goes well and you have a great talk that meets or exceeds all your expectations and needs!

No serious relationship talk this weekend, just connecting and probably reminiscing. So my expectations are low in terms of there being any long-term needs addressed. I'm just happy that she seemed pretty receptive. That makes three talks this month - that's more than one! (Yeah, you can see much I've lowered my expectations!)

This is progress, maplebob.  Just hold yourself down and don't get pulled into a relationship conversation.  I also suggest that you set your timer and get off the call after 20 minutes. Cutting it short (have a upbeat reason, like you are doing a cameo on Law and Order) without setting a time for the next call will start to open the pathway to you being able to initiate calls.

Hold yourself back. Don't swarm.  Do overdo it.

I did NOT expect progress, but yeah, I'm not going to put any pressure on it. The next call is already set up for shortly after Christmas, so I don't need to worry about that even. 20 minutes would be very short for us, so I don't know about that, but we both agreed that it would probably be shorter than usual, so I'll try. I want to reach for meaning, like "What's changed? Is she feeling sentimental? Is it for comfort? Is she feeling more positive?", but I'm trying to stop those thoughts and stay in the moment.

Maybe the goal, then, is for you to set a time in your mind and stick to it. When you're setting a boundary that's not easy, it can really help to say it at the start of the conversation. "I'm really glad we could talk today, and you sound good. Just a heads up, I can only talk for 30 min." Then, as you get 10 minutes away, remind her that you only have a few more minutes to chat.

If you have long marathon talks every time you talk, it's going to start to feel like a chore for her. Even if she likes talking to you, even if she's the one urging the call to last longer, even if she sounds ok during the call, things will start to get weird if they are always long calls.

Why's that? ("Things will start to get weird... ."

Given that we don't talk very often, why should I be cutting short a call that is going well?

I could be wrong. I'm looking at it from my own perspective, having been in a LDR.

Long calls are a short-game concern.

Short calls are a long-game concern.

Long calls are more likely to veer toward conversations about her ex-husband, for one. And two, if she can't count on you to have boundaries, that puts the burden on her, and she seems to be struggling with this skill in her life in general. So then you become a source of pressure. Three, if every time she peeks over the wall and sees that you are still there, and still there and still there and still there, she has no reason to change a thing. You're there, so why double down and think about doing things different? If you give her all the intense emotions of a relationship without her having to make it a relationship, then you're looking at status quo for a long time.

This may be only applicable to my situation, but I also resented the long calls. I wanted them, I resented them. So I started to avoid talking on the phone at all. They interrupted my life, I was really busy, and often I ended up getting off the call and felt irritated that I had all these other things still staring me down, all things I hadn't been doing because of our marathon calls. And probably most importantly, the calls reminded me how much he really wasn't a part of my life. 

Interesting thoughts! I'm not sure that I'm that much of a game-player, but she's definitely susceptible to "game", I think. I guess my worry about holding back is that it might establish a *new* status quo that is pretty casual (and she has claimed to want casual, even while acting very NOT casual), and I want things to be moving forward. But, for sure, it would be best for the forward momentum to be coming from her. I understand the difference between "pushing" and "pulling", so maybe creating a vacuum is a step to be taken.

Really, I'm trying to be safe and not lay on a lot of pressure, hoping that comfort will increase to the point that I can at least go and see her without her being afraid that things will go nuts.

And, for me, I might want to touch on our intentions for the *next* talk, which is supposed to be the "heavy talk" where we get into some future relationship status/goals/etc. Then I can come here and be like "we're going to talk about XYZ, how should I handle this to get to ABC... .?"

I also think there's a benefit to limiting your being available.

I mean, she should fight for you a little bit here.

I would tend to agree with you here DreamGirl, but I suspect that she thinks that she IS fighting for me, up to her current capacity. In a "this is the best I can do" kind of way. Which is a pretty lame amount of effort, but she seems to be giving me somewhat less pushback at the moment at least.

What do you attribute that to? Any chance this is a result of you taking some small steps to retreat?

Hard to say, really. I think there's a number of potential factors. I'm not retreating exactly, I'm just pushing less, and keeping things calmer - which she appreciates, but might interpret as "he's moving into friendship mode, awesome." (That's, ehhhh, not entirely true.) It could also be that, given her therapy/ex situation she's seen my value as a supportive force in her life, as someone she can talk to who knows the whole story and has seen it close-up. *That's* probably the place I need to pull back from, probably, because that's a total boyfriend role, and I'm not her boyfriend right now.

Is that a boyfriend role?

I hate talking about my husbands ex wife. Big, huge boundary for me actually. I leave that nonsense to him.

It is with her. That's definitely a qualifying factor for a boyfriend relationship with her: I have a kid, and I have an ongoing family relationship with her father. Granted, that relationship is a pain in the butt for me, but it's not going to go away. She's making more autonomy for herself within it, but it's still something that a serious partner will have to contend with, fair or not. If we were casual sex partners or friends it wouldn't be as big a deal, but on the boyfriend level he's a consideration.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not 100% sure why she talks to me at all, other than vague "I know I'm supposed to have you in my life" kind of things that she says. I kind of wonder what she'd do if I stopped trying.

My husband used to think he couldn't deal with his ex-wife on his own.

How empowering it was for him when he realized he could.  

I mean it's normal to discuss past relationships. But to be this pseudo therapist to bridge a gap between the two of them or help him figure out how to be less dysfunctional with her? No thanks.

Again, she's the mother of his children. Her OK-ness is very important to him. I respect that 100%. When he complains to me about her and all he does for her, I simply respond with "that must be rough. What do you want for dinner?"



I'm a completely separate relationship. I don't need to be a part of theirs and she certainly doesn't need to be a third party in my marriage.  

Really good point.


This is your fear - it would be over.

This the benefit - the relationship would be balanced. She would start to think of you in a more balanced way. You would find out what she wants and cares about.

I think the other posters are getting at a fundamental issue regarding the relationship dynamics - are you willing to let this be an equal relationship and not have the need to dominate her in order to feel safe.  Are you strong enough and confident enough to loosen your grip on her so that she can want to come to you on her terms rather than responding to your demands and expectations.

She hasn't spent face time with you in 9 months. She reduced phone calls to one a month. You fully expected her to end it last week.

Now you have backed off "a wee tiny bit" and it has helped. You will need to do a lot more before this is going to become a relationship where she wants you - pursues you - can't wait till your plane arrives.

First, I want to clarify that she doesn't want me to step in and "fix" anything with her ex-husband. It's just a fact that he's a part of her life, and will continue to be, and that his presence complicates matters. It's expected that I understand that, and that I'm supportive of that. He's "first Dad", I'm (potentially) "second Dad". I'm not trying to refute that the situation is complicated and weird - it sure is! - but it is what it is. I'm not her boyfriend right now, so maybe he shouldn't be my problem right now. But she IS, and this is a big deal thing in her life right now; I've gotta work with that.


Yes, I'm absolutely terrified that dropping my end of the rope will immediately result in her dropping hers. OR that it will result in less and less of a relationship as time goes on, until there's nothing left. OR that she'll go "great, now we're casual friends, I like this! I'm going to go find another boyfriend now, and still talk to good old MapleBob whenever I feel like it."

Then again, she HAS said things to the affect of "you always get in touch first, if you just waited I'd reach out to you instead eventually." So, sure, she's not trying to leave, but she's also not pursuing in any kind of a consistent or frequent way.

I get it: absence makes the heart grow fonder. But absence also makes the heart move on, if that's what the goal is. And I feel like that's what would happen with her.

I do get caught up in the stepparenting aspect of this (I've been there done that) and I have such a strong belief that you need to let their relationship be what it is. Your focus being on your own relationship.

Professionals tend to advise that you step out of the muck. It causes undue strain on them and undue strain on you. I agree that he is a part of her life, therefore will be a part of yours. I'm not saying ignore his existence. I'm saying that each relationship is independent of the other.

I tell stepmoms all the time --- keep your bedroom a no-ex zone. There's a time and place for everything.

If I only had one day a month to talk to my husband, it certainly wouldn't be about her.   


I think disconnecting makes the heart move on. You're still connecting. 

Allowing space with your being something to pursue helps you, helps her.

Sometimes we try so hard to control these situations by guessing what the other person might or might not due. Usually it's better to control what we contribute and what may be better for us. 

Your being at her beck and call doesn't seem like it's benefiting your relationship at all.

Smothering her made her move on - you haven't seen her in 9 months. Backing off, just even a little, showed you more positive results.



It's not attractive to her.

Alright, well, I've got a "nice talk" scheduled for Sunday and a "processing talk" scheduled tentatively for the week after Christmas. What's my move? You're all getting through to me with the "make space for her to move in to" and "set boundaries around the ex-husband" advice. Let's get to the "how", the actual steps to take?

I'd just be a beam of sunlight for the holiday season. Upbeat. Happy. Real. Take all pressure off. Same as weak last week.

Have a nice call, keep it short so she will be motivated to call you to finish - let her make the next move.  Its the Holiday, it not much risk. Just, "this was a fun talking to you, gotta run, call me when you have time and lets finish this conversation"

Personally, I don't think a "relationship" talk is going to improve things, I think it will make it worse (cement the feelings she has now). I'd let it slide and deal with it only if she pursues it. You are better to cement things when the relationship is going better.

Giving her space to move in is a great way to phrase it.

Thanks for the thread split!


I think I can get behind this line of thinking. I don't want to cause any more damage or cause her to backpedal. Should I just come right out and say that we shouldn't have a more relationship talk after Christmas? Let that stuff go until *she* initiates something?

It still scares me that that might result in "welp, that's that then, I guess." I want to be moving forward.

Yes. For now.

I guess that's the move then. I might need to do a little of both - pulling back AND reaching out, because results have seemingly come from the combination of those. We wouldn't be talking again this weekend if I hadn't asked.

You don't know that - even she told you that she would have gotten back to you in the past except you're always ahead of her.

Well, I guess not, but I assume she would have waited until after Christmas, as was the plan.

It's probably pretty weird to talk to your ex on your would-have-been-anniversary, huh? This whole situation is bizarre. I kind of have to laugh sometimes!

Granted my moods are fairly labile too when it comes to her, but I kind of want to have the relationship talk. I think that a check-in at least could be helpful. One of the big problems in our relationship when we were together was sweeping things under the rug, mainly to keep the good vibes going over the long distance. That sounds pretty similar to my game plan of "letting things remain calm," which didn't work then. We both wound up developing these separate fantasy relationship perspectives. I see her as avoidant-attached, and I fear that she won't break the new status quo of all this distance.

On the other hand, it's true: me being a bit more enigmatic and detached might create more of a vacuum to suck her towards me, but yikes, it might not work!

And again: I don't understand why she even agrees to talk to me, or why she's still around at all. ?

My advice to you is exactly what Skip says.

I say this because you want to keep this relationship and are not in a place where you're ready to let it go. :)

She is in a one-foot-out-the-door place right now where she doesn't know what it is that she wants and a relationship is low on her list of priorities. Pressure will probably, definitely push her all the way out the door and close the door shut.

Keeping it light and short will keep the door open.

You're supportive, appealing, and you're something to pursue.

You want her to reassure you and make some sort of commitment. I don't think that's something she can do right now. So you're asking for something she can't give.

I just can't see how that will play out the way you want it to. 

I guess I should work on building attraction, as opposed to burdening her with expectation or forcing some kind of process on things. There's just this awful risk of things settling into a place where we're just friends, and I wait and I'm patient, and when she's ready to date someone, that guy isn't going to be me, her "friend". So it's this weird situation where I have to act like a friend and have that set of boundaries, but also attract/pull her. Dang, that's a precise play!

Sometimes this is counterintuitive.

When I was rebuilding my marriage (after infidelity) my marriage counselor told me to quit being a pathetic, angry, needy mess. Very pragmatically she explained to me that I need to keep connecting with my husband, but not on a level where I was making him feel terrible about himself. I mean who wants that?

I had every flipping right to be all of those things and make him feel bad.

But I wanted my marriage more then I wanted to be vindicated.

So I listened. And it worked. And all the pieces fell into place.

lol

1. If you had the relationship conversation last week, what was the likelihood she was going to commit to opening a full line of communication and start seeing you?  5%?  20%

Do you think that has changed based on two "non-problematic" chats?  How much? 8%  26%

What are your percentages.

Flip to the other side.

2. What is the likelihood that pulling back will "make space for her to move more toward you"?  60% 80% 90%

What are your percentages.

3. If you have the "talk" and it goes bad, what is your next move? Plead for her to reconsider?  If you back off a bit and she is quiet, what is your next move? A text "hey, what going on?".

I'm not suggesting you go with my assessment here.  What percentages and options do you give?

I warned you that doing something different was hard. Its often obvious that what we are doing is not working, but for some reason, we can't find the strength and confidence to shift gears. This is love. And if you can't get behind doing it another way - then go with what is comfortable.  In the end, however this turns out, you want it to have been your best shot.


 

I'm glad you're here, Skip!  :)


1. Sheesh, probably 0%!

2. 100%! By definition it gives her space to reach across - I just don't know when, or to what extent, or if she would at all. I've never tried it. The fear I have is that the mixed messages she's given aren't all that mixed and that I'll appear to be doing exactly what she tells me to do at her most emotional: "go away and forget about this, go be happy (because I care about you), but do it over *there*, you're wasting your time."

3. There are a lot of options when it comes to the "relationship talk", so it's difficult to really assess how badly it could go. *Any* talk going badly between us right now is super bad news, but I'd guess that the probability of a "relationship" talk going badly is probably higher, so... .

I guess I need to be working back to higher percentages, one percent at a time, by making things emotionally safer/less demanding. I just can't escape the feeling that I'm fighting pretty hard to be potentially upgraded to "just friends" status, and not any farther. But the Cool Guy is more attractive than the Pressuring Guy, so there you go. Best I can do.

Hoo boy, I do have a pretty strong desire to be vindicated! She *wildly and exaggeratedly* misread me in many pretty insulting ways, and I'm definitely mad about that stuff. VERY mad at times.

But you're right: she's sideways-expressed that, yeah, she got a lot wrong, and she's realized that, but she doesn't want to hear about it anymore right now. She's not going to return to a relationship that reminds her all the time of how badly she screwed up!

Food for thought. I just have this belief that addressing matters directly gets them dealt with, but I guess there comes a time when you're just practicing those skills and you don't have to constantly analyze it and have your relationship turn into one long therapy session.

I'm sending a Christmas card. She's sending me one too, along with some strawberry jam she made last summer, and some books of mine that she still has (she held on to those for a LONG time). Made her a nice card, but kept the message pretty simple.

Alrighty, another talk coming up tonight. I'm going to play it cool and validating and playful/nice, but I *am* going to take a minute to mention that our next talk (which was supposed to be another "relationship" talk) probably doesn't really need to be another "relationship" talk. I'm going to leave it to her to bring that stuff up from now on. I've spent ten months trying to have that talk with her and it feels like spitting into the wind at this point. 

Hope it went well. :)

Just got off the phone with her. Didn't exactly keep it short (hour and a half), but kept it fairly light, just talking about holiday plans and life stuff and anecdotes. I specifically told her that we didn't need to have a heavy relationship talk after Christmas, but she still wants to. She "doesn't know what we're doing" or if "talking once a month" or however often is worth what we would get out of it. She said that "when (she) thinks about being more than friends, (she) still feels the same as (she) has," so that's not too promising. But I did what I could to be like "let's just DO this relationship and not worry so much about where it's going until some pieces fall into place." I'm not sure how the next talk will go - it sounds like she still thinks about bailing more often than she thinks about staying (or moving the relationship forward). But I definitely left the ball in her court. I guess I'm trying to focus on appreciating the fact that we still talk and get along.

You may still be too focused on the "short game". Nothing has changed. She is trying to unravel one, kinda dependent, relationship (i.e., husband) and struggling with it. You say she is trying to assert (or embrace) independence and struggling with it.  That is still the short term dynamic, even if things improved a bit on that front.

Two quick thoughts going forward:

1. It works against you to respond "let's just DO this relationship and not worry". Its like a car salesman saying, "if your not sure if you can afford the payments, just buy it and see how it drives"  What does this communicate? It's about the salesman's needs and not the buyer. It's invalidating. A smart car salesman says, I certainly don't want to get you into a car that your are not comfortable with - you make the decision that is best for your family. Lets go look at this ugly cheaper car over here. Going forward, try to avoid slipping into this. It's really hard. We have to be very self-aware.

2. "I specifically told her that we didn't need to have a heavy relationship talk after Christmas". This is a bit of the same. I think you will do better not try to overtly control the narrative. This might work better if nothing is said. There is driving it - a voiding it - being agreeable and letting the other person drive.


More importantly, did it end short enough that she wanted more... .or was it more than enough for now? What happens next?

That's a good tactic. I wrote that up last night, not in the most awake mind - I didn't actually SAY "let's just DO this relationship", it was more like "I know you've got stuff that you're working on, I don't need to have a heavy talk or push anything in any particular direction right now." I was trying to let her off the hook on having some kind of process-heavy talk, which... .


... .she clearly wants to have anyway! My attitude was one OF "letting her drive". I said, "sure, we can talk about whatever you like, just let me know what and when after you get back from your trip."


Well, I'd like to think we ended it with her wanting more. At one point she said "okay, I've gotta get to bed in twenty minutes, work in the morning... ." and I said something to the effect of, "if you've gotta go, let's just say goodnight" and she said "oh no no, I want to keep talking to you," so we wound out the twenty minutes. I do try to respond positively when she's responding positively!

I don't know what happens next. We have whatever talk she wants to have. I think she's still on the fence about A LOT of things.

That sounds like another small step forward.

Are you OK to just go quiet now and let her come to you?

Yeah, I think so. I've seen well enough what effect the opposite of that has.

She was more inquisitive too, and it seemed like she also shared more. When I said the stuff about "maybe we can skip the heavy talk for a bit longer" and she moved forward on still having that talk, she DID say that things felt pretty good right now, and that it was nice to have a break from the drama.

My worry is that I'm going to hear "I can't see getting into a romantic relationship again with you, and this long-distance friendship isn't paying off much for the effort, so I'd rather we both just move on and maybe check in once a year or whatever and catch up if we feel like it. You know, be exes instead of friends."

I agree with skip on :

Are you OK to just go quiet now and let her come to you?

After many consideration and support , I am in that stage right now , we talk I listen and validate when needed and voice softly my opinion , and get off when I feel it's going to trigger her .

I am not pressuring just lay it out on the table gently ask her to take a self inventory and asset her situation without me influence her , she is the one to initiate reconciling not me and I know better ... .

hope that helps you  Maplebob

Maybe I'm just getting fearful here, but what if she comes back after Christmas and lays the "hey, it's been great knowing you, but I feel like the right thing now is to move on and not talk anymore, wish you the best, yadda yadda... ." on me? How do I handle that? It isn't unlikely. I feel like THAT is exactly what I need to be prepared for.

Ideally, I want to work towards an in-person meeting, without appearing to work towards an in-person meeting until we're on the road to that already.

You're tying yourself in knots trying to figure out how to manipulate someone into doing what you want them to do without them knowing that you're manipulating them. This isn't healthy. It's not even particularly nice.

I think that if she says she doesn't want a relationship with you, your best and healthiest and most respectful move is to graciously accept that.

Alright, flourdust, (harsh) point taken. You're right.

To some degree I misspoke, from weakness. I don't want to manipulate her, I guess I'm really asking if it's better to put in the effort to try to keep her, or if I should just say goodbye to this one (assuming that's what she wants).

Bob,

It's obvious you care for this woman and I hope it works out the best for you.  You can never make someone love you or care for you, or desire to be with you.  Maybe if they're in a bad place in their life you could convince them to be with you but that won't last.  Also, there shouldn't have to be this great effort on your part, just letting her know how you feel about her and what part you desire her to be in your life, or are willing to accept is doing your part of the effort.  The rest is up to her.  It's obvious what you want so you need to decide what you can accept.  If she just can just give you friendship at this time, an occasional call with no promise of any future, are you ok with this?  Whatever she says you need to accept it and move forward.  I wish you the best!

It's a little more complicated than that, or it can be, because it really isn't a question of just "ask her what she wants, assess, if that doesn't line up with what you want, be done."  People wBPD may be quite unclear about what they want, or rather, they may say they want one thing and act in ways that are more in line with something else.  If you have a tremendous tolerance for ambiguity, it may be that just not calling the question, allowing things to unfold, not having status checks every few days/weeks, will allow things to unfold in ways she would not currently say she wants.

That said, MapleBob, I don't know any way to get any certainty about that.  The more you seek certainty the more elusive the road ahead gets, it seems to me.

Yes, exactly! Pursuing without pursuing - maybe that's manipulative because I have a goal in mind, but I'm not completely closed off to just being in touch with her and seeing how things develop. She's often done and said things that were counterintuitive, or manipulative. And now that I've backed off a bit she seems to be coming forward in her actions (more regular contact, probing questions, pressing forward independently on having "the talk", which would lead me to believe that things are progressing, but she ALSO says "I don't know what we're doing" and "maybe we should say goodbye" and things like that. I know that relationship matters are never simple, but this is *decidedly* not simple.

I'm okay with a certain degree of ambiguity, for the time being at least.

flourdust, can you explain this a bit more.

I agree that manipulating someone, as a general statement, is not a good thing.

Manipulating means:

• To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously or

• To tamper with or falsify for personal gain

Can you direct this more specifically to what you feel that is being done is shrewd, devious, tampering, false or otherwise.

What did MapleBob do that he should not be doing?

I will try. I am actually not trying to be harsh here, so I apologize if that's how it comes off. Have I mentioned before that validation isn't my strongest suit? 

My perception is that MapleBob wants to have a romantic relationship with his ex.

His ex has verbally expressed that she doesn't want that relationship. There may be some "mixed signals" in how she communicates. Looking at her actions, she seems to like MapleBob as a friend and confidant and may be leaning on him a bit inappropriately (for an ex-romantic partner) for emotional support while she works on her relationship with her ex-husband. She hasn't acted in any way to change their relationship to a more romantic one.

Where I see the manipulation is that MapleBob is presenting himself falsely to her. My impression is that he is not interested in just having friendship with his ex, unless that is a deliberate part of a plan to reattach to her romantically. However, he is trying to figure out how to present himself as just a friend while surreptitiously nudging her back toward a romantic connection. Most of his posts on these threads have been about how to act or speak to present the "friendship" face while secretly working on the "romance" goal. In this discussion, I don't see him really taking into account her desires other than fear that they might not be as malleable as he would like.

What would I recommend MapleBob do?

Well... .

First, be honest with both himself and her. If he doesn't want friendship without romance, or he feels that it would only make him jealous or upset to be in contact with her without the closeness he wants, then he needs to break off the relationship. He can make excuses to save face, but he shouldn't be a false friend or hang around hoping for change and making himself miserable in the process.

If he can accept that their relationship is just one of friendship, then he needs to let go of the manipulation and simply be her friend. That might change at some point in the future, but he shouldn't be making plans for that to happen (or holding off on developing other relationships). But he has to really ask himself if he can do this or if he would just be trying to fool himself.

I'm not MapleBob -- but that's what I would see what my choices were in his situation. They're the choices that align with my values and demonstrate the most respect for myself and for her.

Not YET anyway. She, as far as I know, isn't pursuing romantic relationships right now - not with me, not with anyone else - because she's working on her mental health, and on making reasonable space for a relationship in her life, and on her terms (not her ex-husband's). She's not directly asking me to wait and see - because she wouldn't, she knows that that would be messed-up and unreasonable - but she's indirectly giving me signals to wait. I hear A LOT of "for right now", "somewhere down the road", "confused", etc. Sure, there are no actions being taken on her part that indicate more than friendship, and that's a big deal important observation. Pragmatically, I should probably be saying "I'm going to leave you alone until you get clear about whether you want romantic, platonic, or nothing-at-all." I'm letting her keep her option on me open for the time being, but sure, I have a preference towards a romantic relationship with her.


Okay, well, I am NOT being a false friend to her (if anything I'm being TOO good a friend to her) - and the line between the two is often not that cut-and-dry. It's really six of one, half-dozen of the other. I could eventually be just her friend, but it would take work. I'm not given a lot of opportunity to solidify ANY kind of relationship with her, and things have been VERY dramatic up until a couple of months ago, when things have settled slightly. I'm casually dating other people, I have a life, and I get through without her. I'd rather get through with her, and I'm not duplicitous about that. I know that I can't *trick* her into a relationship, but there ARE probably things that I can do to maintain that possibility, and things that I can do to ruin that possibility.

And let's put this on her for a second: it could just as easily be HER that finally draws a line, but she hasn't really. I've been dumped before, and dumped people: you're supposed to disappear, maybe do one closure-type talk. She's far from disappeared.

But really, flourdust, I hear you. You've basically summed up my whole struggle here: how much "working towards the relationship that you want" vs. "accepting the relationship you have" is morally correct in a situation with at least some ambiguity?

One thing we don't want to do is encourage or enable manipulation. I agree.

I certainly don't know the words or tone of any of the conversations, but my sense of this is not one of a false posturing or false face (for the sake of manipulation), but rather an attempt to become less intense/pressuring and be a more attractive suitor to someone who hasn't severed the threads of the relationship.  

MB, does she see the relationship as a friendship right now and that you have accepted that fate?  Or does she see this as two estranged lovers, distant, but not ready to completely close the door?


And the hardest question: All of the above could be polite and "not in your face", I'm letting you go. Nothing in this really suggests a mixed message. Is it possible that there is no mixed message?

I'm actually unclear about what she thinks is going on, and I think she is too. Last time we talked she literally said "I don't know what we're doing here." I knows that she doesn't want me gone; that much I'm really clear about. I know that she has thoughts about completely severing the relationship, and wonders if that might be the "right" thing to do. If I had to wager a guess: it feels like, reading between the lines (as we do with our BPD's), she knows that she could do a "friendship/chosen family" type of relationship with me, but not more than that right now. And maybe not ever.

She knows that I still have feelings for her, she knows that I'm trying to accept the fate of "friends for now", but it seems to me that "friends" is a default safe position to buy time to see what happens. "What happens" being either "we stay friends because that works", "we eventually walk away from each other completely because it doesn't", or "something changes (who knows what?) and we get back together."


Maybe "mixed message" isn't quite the way to put it. It's more like "mixed signals," and a general unpredictability in her moods and behavior towards me.

Here's an example: we had a fairly high contact pattern during the summer - texting every day, talking probably once a week, with a mix of fun talks and serious talks about our relationship. She had some angry feelings towards me come up during the end of that time, to the point that she wound up sending me flowers because she felt so bad about starting drama and acting out. We talked about it, and agreed that there were actually A LOT of negative feelings that we were BOTH still carrying around, so we decided to write each other angry letters to get the hard stuff out on the table, then we'd talk about it, and then we'd write nice letters about nice things to each other, to balance and palette-cleanse, if you will. (This is a common therapy practice.) She got super sweet after the angry letters, and then got really angry and pushed me away after the nice letters. (That's when "let's talk once a month" started.) All of that summer she was saying that we wouldn't get back together, that that was not on the table, that we were trying to figure things out and stay close without pressing any intentions, etc. ... .but when I asked her about her unexpected reactions to hearing/reading those letters, and about WHY she had even agreed to do them in the first place, she said "I wanted to make sure that they wouldn't change my mind." After one of our brief breakups a year ago, she said that she had wanted and expected me to show up on her doorstep with flowers to try to get her back!

She has a pattern of pushing away when things get hard, and then regretting it, and then apologizing and thanking me for "putting up with her s**t." I'm trying to break that pattern by just not letting things get hard for a while, and not pressing anything in any particular direction. It's like she wants to feel differently, but has walls up to feeling differently. It's like it's not a lack of love that's the problem, it's an excess of anger/sadness/fear that she wants to be able to get rid of. "Part of me wants to be allowed to love you, but another part of me just won't let go of feeling angry/sad/scared... ." and "I'm trying to let go of that, but it's sloowwwwww."

Or maybe I'm completely delusional. Sometimes I'm almost convinced of that. 

This is really important, I've realized since writing it. That is definitely the pattern that I'm working with.

Pretty decent Christmas contact today. She's in Vegas with family, but still took some time today to text and check in. We're supposed to talk when she gets back home. Kinda nervous about it, but things have stabilized, so I'm trying not to psych myself out.

Merry Christmas everybody. 

And to you!