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So a few recent threads has got me thinking about why some of us wish misfortune on our exes, and what exactly does that mean.

I know that earlier I had wished for something bad to happen to her. After our breakup I remember being happy that her new bf broke up with her in less than a month in.

I can say that I've been past that for a while now. But I want to explore my reasons behind feeling that way.

A lot of people think its over revenge or because we have been hurt. But I think it is a little deeper than that.

Looking back I can't say I loved my ex, with my new learned definition of love. I can however say I cared about her a lot, which is why I don't understand why I would wish something bad to happen just to revenge.

I think that instead of wanting them to feel pain, we want them to feel regret from what they did to us. All of our egos are bruised, and we want to feel like we are missed or were the best partner for our ex.

By having something bad happen to them, we maybe believe that eventually they will see the light and miss us, or realize how bad they hurt us.

What are your thoughts on this?

It comes from narcism.

I do not care if I wasn't the best choice. 6 years later, He met another girl and I am happy for him. I hope he is happy. Who knows.


" There is nothing that will save you from a love that's blind " Just be glad the mismatch is over.

Well I feel its natural and necessary to feel the anger towards someone that's harmed you especially when you are only guilty of falling for the wrong person. In my experience and current breakup (NC!) when I start to feel the anger shift to wishing bad in her I stop and realize this is exactly what she wants. I will not lower myself to their level that's what all of us have been doing . I'm 40 and have seen this before believe me- you do not need to wish them the ill will. No matter what has caused them the hurt in their life it's absolutely no excuse to harm and manipulate and leave a trail of hurt on others. These actions can and will come back on you one way or another BPD or not. Just be nice and it gives you the power.

Anger is one of the stages of grief. It is also natural for people to bite back when they were hurt by somebody else. We all are just animals after all, not matter how evolved and what not we are trying to be. You don't see too many dogs who were bitten by another dog and don't try to bite back. You also mostly see this in the very early stages of a break up when nothing makes sense (as it is the case with the vast majority of these kind of relationships). With time, all that goes away.

Wonderfully said.

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"

It's about not accepting this. It's about taking a 2nd test and instead of failing - getting an A.

I don't wish revenge or ill will against my ex. Sure, I got hurt. We all got hurt. Remember though that if they choose to ignore the root of their issues and remain untreated, they'll continue this pattern of pain and disappointment for the rest of their lives. As J. Peterman told Elaine in Seinfeld, "I have a feeling what you're about to go through is punishment enough."

Hi Schermarhorn

Perceptive words: "I think that instead of wanting them to feel pain, we want them to feel regret from what they did to us. All of our egos are bruised, and we want to feel like we are missed or were the best partner for our ex.

By having something bad happen to them, we maybe believe that eventually they will see the light and miss us, or realize how bad they hurt us."

I agree and I think this is part of our psychological make-up as nons. We need to learn not to be nons. To understand what drew us to them - what was validated in us that was then invalidated,causing the painful reaction you describe. I share your feelings, even though I know it's at best pointless, at worst, dangerous if they do see the light, because it may trigger an attempt at recycling. Not good.

Schermarhorn,

I don't think I was ever "in love" with my Ex. Maybe this relates similarly to how you feel. It's certainly different than how a lot of members here express how they felt. I've only seen a few people here over the years say that they felt similarly.

I loved and cared for her, but maybe I loved her by caring for her. Maybe that was a form of love. Maybe it was love. But maybe it didn't meet her definition of love. Tough things to ponder.

I don't want revenge, exactly, but I want her to experience the consequences of her choices.  Leaving was fine, but the way in which she did it was horrible both to me, and to our kids...

My T said, "can you accept that your Ex is an independent entity, free to make her own choices?"

That's radical acceptance. Perhaps detaching is not only accepting them for who they are, but accepting ourselves for who we are, apart from anyone else.

At the time and a few months after the breakup I really thought I loved her. After the fog lifted, I saw there were a lot of qualities about her that I did not find desirable.

And to be clear, I don't feel like I want something to happen to her. I did months ago, now I am leaning more on not even caring. She's starting to feel like a stranger at this point.

Do you feel guilty about not caring, or is it just is?

Yes, that's the idea behind "healing with giving it time". In truth it's not healing at all, it's simply forgetting. People can do all kinds of therapies and reading and venting but in the end of the day it's simply the distance. If it wasn't that, people would have been able to "heal" much quicker. Can you find me someone who healed after 1-2 weeks? No... .now people will say "because it's a process and it needs time".

What I'm saying is that the only real process is the process of forgetting, and that's the only reason it takes so long. And that's why NC is the only REAL therapy.

Working on ourselves and our own issues is a different story, but it has nothing to do with letting go of the other person.

That's why I advocate action... .;-)

Imo Radical Acceptance is the precise opposite of 'forgetting'... .it takes absolute presence of mind (mindfulness) to acheive... .understanding of this concept and putting it into effect doesn't take very long at all in my experience and is a very effective tool in healing and recovery.

Our reality is the one we choose to perceive it to be... .

I like that it def helps to see the person the hurt you in a realistic light( as not t all that and a bad person regardless of a diagnosis) but it t can be hard when the reality is having t actually see the person everyday. It alters your concept of recovery and healing like stated to where you feel "getting over it" is trying to forget instead of getting stronger and learning. I fell back with the same type of girl 3 times in life because of this.

Everyone has undesirable qualities, it is unavoidable.   The question here is are those undesirable qualities overshadowing the good qualities and can you live with them?  I think when these undesirables are core character issues then it becomes a much bigger problem.

Are we still discussing BPD? Because after the healing when I look back on my 3 BPD relationships I can't find one desirable quality. I've yet to read about a desirable quality in and of our BPD relationships on here. That's why everyone is here these people that have hurt us show no signs of positive qualities. The undesirable qualities are the core of pwBpd that's why we're having trouble and are hurt. That seems to be the basis of the mental disorder is all the thing we perceive as bad or dangerous or irrational , undesirable the pwBPD see as normal. This is just based on my experience maybe i dated more "witchy" type of BPD but it seem to fit every other post I've read on here. I apologize for being so direct but no matter what hurt and pain has been inflicted on someone that does not give them the right to hurt others.

I was talking about the person not the relationship.  If our ex's had no good qualities or characteristics then why did we get together with them in the first place?   These are two very different issues here, qualities of a relationship vs. the person.

Relationships take two people, the dynamic is generated through the contributions of each person.  You can't really judge the qualities of a relationship without looking at both people in it. 

I think so much of our felt pain from these breakups is due to the amount of cognitive dissonance we experience.  We were sold an illusion of a person... .and for a variety of reasons we chose to buy into it.  Once their mask dropped, rather than accepting that this is a fundamentally broken individual/dysfunctional relationship we struggled with ourselves... .and them in a futile attempt to return to the 'dream reality' of how things could, should, would have looked if only x, y, z... .had occured or wasn't the case. This in itself is controlling behaviour... .an attempt to change another person and/or compromise our own desires, values and morals so they'll accept us whilst holding anger and resentment towards them for us having (choice) to do so... .

Our fundamental truth is that they are who they are, their behaviour shows us this. We have power over how we think/feel/act with this information... .it's the only thing we have power over... .and it's all the power we need to recover.

It appears that radical acceptance presents a dichotomy, in my experience it doesn't.  The less I try to do it, the more it manifests itself.  |iiii  Observer consciousness is key to this... .I have a personal choice to perceive how people act towards me and to A/... swim around in a right brain butt-hurt quagmire acting out towards them, wishing future misfortune or consuming myself with negativity ... .B/... accept that their behaviour has very little to do with who I know myself to be... .and move on.

 

This question:

"Can you find me someone who healed after 1-2 weeks? No... .now people will say "because it's a process and it needs time".

Yes, a lot, actually. And there are millions of others who don't even get wounded, they have simply left the BPD, talked to a couple of their friends and are carrying on with their lives rather happily. Then there are people who were attracted to them for a day or 15 days and then decided to disappear on them and change their phone numbers. Then there are second-rounders, third-rounders and it's relatively easier for them, too. Not everyone who had a form of contact, a kind of relationship with the BPD is here on this website. Some are probably celebrating somewhere. People vary.

Like many psychiatric disorders, hurt also depends on the length of the relationship, the level of psychological intimacy built between partners before the illness started to manifest more overtly and of course, our personal stuff that we bring into these relationships. All these parameters give us hints about how long healing may take, as well as one's individual capacity to "heal." Some of us have trauma-bonding with our ex partners. Of course, it takes long.

I'm not saying that we were responsible for the abuse. For one thing, being exposed to emotional abuse (especially if you are sharing space with them) erodes self-confidence slowly and that's what makes people stay - some people's self-confidence has been eroded so badly that they are even grateful for the presence of the abuser in their lives, they believe they don't deserve better.)

I'm not saying that these relationships don't hurt. They do. Sometimes they wreck people. However, because it is a dynamic, the wrecked person's psychological make-up has a role in it, too. If healing takes a lot of time, that's because someone with a certain psychological make-up has done certain things that resulted in a very hurtful emotional load for them. Someone else would have reacted differently. To me, healing means owning ourselves and approaching ourselves lovingly, compassionately. It means saying "I'll approach myself with love and care. If it takes long, it takes long. I'll neither feel guilty, nor will I judge or blame myself over this." Many of us were badly hurt because we somehow lost this somewhere in the middle of the chaos created by the BPD. To me, saying that healing takes time is first and foremost a practice of this self-care, this acceptance. There is no standard healing time for everyone. Neither is there a standard description. To me, healing ultimately means not feeling bitter or afraid toward the world because of Cluster B.

Still, there are possible scenarios:

People with a dismissive make-up may not feel many emotional effects. Do they need "healing"? Only they can decide.

People with strong codependent traits may blame themselves for a long time, ready to try once more and once more (sometimes, there is also something narcissistic in this.)      

People with NPD or strong narcissistic traits usually do two things: a) they keep this at their façade and they don't "feel" hurt b) This gives them a serious narcissistic wound similar to that of BPD and they go crazy. The reasonable anger (the reptilian brain thing) is carried beyond healthy proportions and they turn malignant and act out to restore the wound. How could anyone do this to them? (Some of our exes get the same wound when we drop them). Some go delusional. If they still get no response and if the hurt is no restored, funny things happen.

People with  FOO issues discover that they were dating their childhood wounds:))

Some people discover a lot about their own attachment style and start working on it.

Some people want to remain in "healing" or "understanding" forever so that they won't have to take the risk of being hurt again. (I personally feel I'm prone to this in the sense that if trying to "understand" my partner's illness turns into something very long, it may be a factor that "protects" me from facing the hurt of the sexual trauma I experienced in this relationship. I have a lot of anger with myself about this.)

So yes, people vary, healing varies.

Looking back at an old relationship that hurt me a lot, who was messed up but not BPD, I did get pleasure about her relationships going bad, but after a while I stopped caring that much, and now just wish her happiness at the same level as I wish happiness for every person I have known. It's not a strong feeling, more like benign well wishing. I have no idea how I will feel about my recent ex, since this has been so different on many levels, but I hope that is how it ends up.

Funny story... .About a month after my ex out of nowhere ghosted me and I still couldn't understand what the bleepity bleep bleep just happened to me, I had a spectacular break down in front of my sisters, crying uncontrollably and repeating "How could she do this to me?" non stop like a complete nut job. And it wasn't meant as "How could anybody do this to this perfect guy that I am?". It was more meant as "How could she make such an illusion of being soo much into me, stayed in touch for 6 month straight on a daily basis with 100+ texts every single day, traveled to see me, kept on saying that she couldn't wait till I come visit her, introduced me to her parents, made plans for my next visit, acted all excited, felt like she is my "soulmate"... .how could she one day just switch it all off literally over night, and simply disappear like I never existed without an explanation or anything resembling a break up conversation?" At that point, I already read up a whole lot about personality disorders and knew the theory behind all that, but still, it made sense on paper but it was just pretty much impossible to reconcile in my head or in my heart. I kept on thinking - "What just happened to me? Was any of this real? Who is she? Was it even her parents she introduced me to? Am I a part of some spectacular scam or something?" That's what made it so tough on me. I had to reconcile the reality of unreal, so to speak.

Invictus01, I think this may be one of the best descriptions of what I went through, too. My "partner" was unfolded in front of me through his e-mails and FB messages he wrote to his exes. Before that lots of things were there (dropping rehab and restarting drug abuse/self-soothing, lots of difficult behaviours, triangulations, hints of narcissism) and I had detached to a great degree. However, I attributed all his craziness to vulnerabilities related to drug use. Then I discovered one incident about an emotional affair attempt, and he raged, showed violence and decided to leave. He packed his stuff but left them in my place and disappeared. I was worried about an overdose, tried to look for him. Then I decided to "snoop" his FB hoping that he was with someone or something, I wished he was having an affair. (I didn't want to worry his mother - who was waiting for him at that time- saying he was lost, the woman has cancer.) Then BAM, this character on FB was someone so completely different from the guy I was living with! The writing style, jokes, his opinions about life, a completely different person!

This was when I had to reconcile the reality of the unreal. It threw me miles away emotionally. The next day, when I found him at a hospital 30 miles away, I was looking at my vulnerable boyfriend who was also a total stranger. It was difficult.

I think any reasonable person - especially without prior experience of abuse- thinks "How could they do this to me?". I think this is because we have a basic understanding of appreciation in regard to human actions. Social life and individual experiences have taught that if we are good, if we put effort into things etc, other people will probably appreciate it and not do these horrible things to us. It's almost like a social contract shatters at that point. The "Me" there is not narcissistic.

And questions evolve anyway - like you are describing in your post. In the end, we are able to let go. This is because we are able to process our feelings and grieve. Grief is courageous because we can face hurt. NPD, BPD etc. cannot do that. They get stuck and do anything but facing their pain. That's when the abused becomes the abuser.

 

There are so many mentions of Facebook on these threads.

There are positives, being in touch with news of distant friends is one. But I see the confections of unreality posted by friends; smiley selfies, happy families, supportive friendships - I can't but compare these to the realities lurking behind the self publicity.

I'm not claiming all are like this but it is dangerous to believe all you see constructed is a reality. My ex uses Facebook to promote himself as Mr Nice Guy, carefully selecting public posts he likes and personal stuff that he posts. He supports an extreme right wing political organisation but is careful never to like their posts. A local therapist, a friend, left wing, posted that he is one of the nicest men she knows... .hmmmm. He's clever but then, he's also an ad man!