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I am sure this is a topic that has been answered a multitude of times. But I can't let go of the thought that it is completely over. I don't want it to be. It's been a month of NC. I thought I would hear from her, but I haven't. Leading me to believe she is still in the idealisation of my replacement who she has been with last 5 months. So do they come back after they replaced you?

when things go bad they will consider jumping back to you

your response will decide their actions

you will be painted white or black depending on their feelings

Some don't come back so you have to be prepared for that. I know mine for example will never come back. She is in a validating environment with the replacement and he has done a very good job of not triggering her so they will probadly last so long that she won't even remember me when/if they have a falling out.

Hi throw me a bone. It is always very difficult to have someone we love, make a choice to leave.

What is it that you miss?

No one can say if she will or not.  Mine will never come back or even likely contact me again.  There is too much shame involved for her to reach out to me again, let alone want to have another go at it.

Perhaps the more appropriate question to ask here is why would you wait?  I can understand how you feel, in some ways I feel the same.  The important thing to remember though is where you are right now.  You can either choose to move forward or you can choose to hang on for a maybe ... .and if that maybe comes about just maybe you will also be right back in the same place you are now.  This is something I have to continuously remind myself of.  No matter how much I might miss my ex, the good parts, I can't ignore or forget the things she has done, the things I let her do, that put me into the lowest place I have ever been in my life.  This is reality and I have to accept it.  It does not matter how much I want it to be something other than it is. 

I spent two years holding onto hope, giving her every benefit of the doubt to only be replaced then thrown away like trash after she broke me.  I have now spent nearly a year trying to recover from this ... .to "forget" her.  Yet I still struggle with it all. 

THAT is my reality ... .why would I want to go back to that knowing that it could, and probably would happen again?  Why would you?

Hey Throw me a bone, Needless to say, whether she returns is something that is out of your control, right?  Trying to change an outcome over which we have little or no control is extremely frustrating and stressful, in my view.  Another approach, I suggest, is to focus on the things that are within your control (see: Serenity Prayer).  In general, what is under your control is YOU and your responses to things.  What can YOU do to make things better for yourself?  Then do it.

LuckyJim

Throw Me A Bone: At first I was sort of hoping she'd re-engage, even though I would have said no, like I had done a number of times before.  Now I really do not want her to make any contact, ever.  Time is the best way to heal.  You can speed that up by staying busy, finding other women to date, etc.  You may find yourself in a few months dreading contact from her.  If you kept a list of all the bad s**t she did, then refer back to that periodically. It helps.  Also, just because the replacement has not set her off, does not mean she won't go off at some point.  If he's weak, then he's being controlled, if he's strong, then he'll just stay in it longer and fall harder.  If your ex is truly BPD, then the it is inevitable.

I hear what everyone is saying and thanks. It's a challenge between what my head says and heart wants. I am not even sure it's love I have for her. And I know I can't go back as we were so toxic. But I just can't get her out of my head. I feel like I need her back for this to go. She really did a number on me. So from what I hear then in most cases they don't come back once replacement has happened? They only come back if there is no replacement and even that isn't necessarily true?

Yep, I know how you feel.

They might come back, might not.
But if they ever do, regardless of how we feel, we cannot ignore all thats happened or how easily they replaced us.

Yea how easily she replaced me showed me that she did not love me for me. She just loved the love I gave her

Wondering this myself,ex is with second replacement in about a months time and I haven't heard from her since the 6th or seen her since the first,everyone says she will but idk I don't feel it,never gone nc this long before and I'm out of the fog enough to know what's the point,nothing works let her be someone else's miserable problem.

It's also about rejecting them like they have us. I doubt I'll ever go back to her. But then again she was so talented at drawing me in.

Hey throw me a bone,

I'm going through some similar feelings and the board's advice has been really helpful.  From what I've read and been told, there really are no hard and fast rules.  I'd hazard to say there's a good chance she'll get in touch, but her motivations would definitely be suspect. 

I've had it happen.

In my experience once they know how easily obtainable you are, they don't want you anymore and it's a push/pull game.

Oops,

Isn't that just sick?  I've heard this several times, can one of the members more learned than me verify this behavior?

It's pretty crumby. She still does it. But we've been done for a little over a year. I don't feed into it anymore.

She'll ask to come over, not want to leave, kind of bait me to ask her to sleep over, she'll insist on sleeping on the couch, eventually make her way to my bed and take her clothes off and insist we are just friends but asks me to hold her.

It's messed up. I was in a relationship so I haven't let her do it for a while now. She still asks to come over but rarely shows up.

is she in a new relationship while she does this? Mine did it after our last break when she was in a rebound relationship but since she's been in this new one I haven't heard or seen her at all,she would do push and pull other times before a recycle but never has gone this far to be in a new legit relationship.

Hello oops,

You've received a lot of good guidance and information from the group here, Lucky Jim, & others. Lets be real & honest for a moment. If you've read any post here you'll see that an overwhelming majority of those in the group both men & women have had their pwBPD reach out to them. And as someone pointed out, they might not ever again ... .or so you think after a couple of years.

My first exBPDgf waited 16 years to contact me again. She had befriended my step mother & knew I had divorced my wife and reach out to me to tell me, "How sorry she was to hear that I had divorced". She then proceeded over a very short period of time to reengage me on a sexual level only to be rejected by me which then brought out all her flying monkey's for me to try to put back in their cages.

She continues to try and reengage me and I have no doubt that if I wanted to bed her down for a weekend all I would have to do is send her a text saying so since she has told me it's what she wants.

My most recent exBPDgf and I recycled over and over again. Sometimes her NC would last hours ... .sometimes her NC would last days or even weeks.  She painted me black in months ago ... .painted me deep black ... .no text ... .no email ... .no calls that I would send to her would encourage her to reach out to me. I knew she was with at least one of my replacements. It turned out to be a good moment for me ... .

I took that time to really, REALLY work on myself. Therapist, reading, exercising, dieting, getting some sleep, exploring and living my life again. I encourage you to do the very same thing as others here have suggested.  You are not in a position to reengage her on any level if she was to reach out to you.

I digress, so 6 months later she sends me a text ... .it took me some time to respond with a very simple response. NC for 3-4 weeks, she sends me another text ... .again I wait to respond with a simple response. I'm human, I know she has a Very Sever Cluster B Mental Illness. She text me a dozen lines of simple text & I respond with neutral responses but telling her I hope she is doing well as am I.

But as others have suggested here, what will you do when she reaches out?  What do you want?  o you want to continue the crazy train roller coaster ride that will be never ending with her flying monkey's running around causing havoc with your emotions?  

Take this time to work on yourself ... .focus all your energy & attention on YOU! Get some sleep, get some therapy, get some exercise. Make your mind & body strong. Find out why you're attracted to her and other BPD's like her.

Read the references at the top of the page and to the right of the page. Go to the library and read books on BPD, search the internet, have in-depth conversations with your therapist on your history, your past ... you might not like what you find but trust me, it'll help you find direction and meaning in your life going forward.

IMHO, she will reach out in time ... .no one can tell you when as everyone is different even without BPD & it is nearly impossible to know what someone is thinking especially a mind that suffers from a Very Serious Cluster B Mental Illness.

Remain strong ... .remain true to yourself ... .

J

Just my 2 cents... .

As many pointed out, in the end it depends on the individual BPD to come back or not... .some do, others are "cut-off" types (or they proclaim to be like this... .only to contact you, even after lots of years). Overall, there's a good probability they will contact you, even after a long time.

However, in the end, what it really counts is to recognize that the relationship we had with them was very dysfunctional, and it should be used as a tool to understand why we stayed in such relationships and improve ourselves.

Now my personal experience: I stayed NC with my ex for 13 months. One night, I happened to be in her city, and I found her in a bar, completely by chance!
She asked me to sit down and have a little chat: overall, we had a very nice 40 minutes talk... .she painted me white, apparently, so much that she asked me to spend the evening with her (and not attend the birthday of a friend of mine, that was the reason I was in her city).
In the end I politely refused, since 1) I was shocked to see her after such a long time, (2) see that she painted me white when she proclaimed to be a cut-off type (so this was somehow unexpected) and (3) I preferred to protect my own emotional sanity.

Anyway, we agreed to meet the day after, at her workplace, so we could talk a little bit more. The day after came, I went to her workplace... .she seemed quite cold, detached. In the end, after some chit-chat, we greeted and had a final hug, but I perceived that something was definitely off in her mind.

1 month passed, without any sort of contact; at that point I thought that, maybe, it was possible to spend some nice time with her (as friends), so I wrote her asking if she wanted to spend some time with me; not so unsurprisingly (given what I perceived that day after), she answered telling me that she didn't want to spend time with me, since she basically realized (that day at her workplace) that the reasons behind our breakup were still valid (mind that nothing bad happened during that meeting!). Mind-boggling, as usual, but pretty textbook in terms of BPD.

So, apparently, I was black again, lol! And no contact again, since then.

All in all, the lesson to be learnt is that BPDs do not change, they are going to treat you badly again due to their psychological issues.
Better to move on and never look back, in case you don't spot any noticeable effort (from their side) to improve their condition or have, at least, some introspection.

I am trying to work out why I even want her to come back. She is nuts, but can't get her out of my mind. What she has done, if it were anyone else, I would have run and not looked back. With this nutcase it's all I'm doing... .looking back.

If and how they come back is based on a wide range of variables.

some dont ever try to reconnect.  Some do.

some will want to try again where as others just want to know your still there.

some want to reconnect but feel to guilty to try. Others may feel that they're not good enough for you.

In my experience they only try to reconnect when things arent going well for them and things are going well for you.

Hi Throw Me A Bone,

That is the place to start. Why do you want her to come back? It's probably not to repeat any hurtful and confusing behaviours that you experienced. It's to repeat the things that made you feel good.

Since you are dealing with someone who is not capable of staying balanced, you know that if she were to come back, you might get either of the scenarios. Most likely, a little of the good, quickly followed by a lot of the bad. And so it would go.

Once you really believe / accept that, that whatever the patterns and dynamics of your relationship were will just continue for ever if you let them, you will be in a stronger place.

I asked myself those kinds of questions for about a year. "Why do I keep wanting him back? What am I getting from all this? What do I still need to have proven to me? What do I still think I need to learn? Why do I insist to myself that I need this person and the deep drama they bring into my life? Why am I prepared to ignore that I am not happy at all? Why am I addicted to what I know is poison for me? "

I came up with all kinds of creative answers, but in the end the one that released me was the realisation that I was trying to fix things with him, because he reminded me of my father, and in fixing things with him I would prove to myself that I could fix the past and so fix myself.

Even once I had figured that out, I still needed to see more proof that truly all I was getting was a lack of love, a lack of respect, a lack of care. My dad might have been emotionally a bit young to have a child and so failed me in some respects, but he genuinely did the best he could at the time and I know that he loves me. And loving someone means wanting good for them, and trying to do good for them.

I kept wanting my pwBPD back because I hadn't figured those things out enough. I was hungry for the connection, for how it fed my need to be important to someone. I lusted for the short term infusion of those feelings; just like a smoker lusts for a cigarette, an alcoholic for a drink, a junkie for a fix.

At some point, I wanted a nourishing meal. A proper drink of water instead of a shot of espresso that just jangled my nerves. I like having my nerves jangled, I'm kind of extreme in some ways but I was jangling them to the point of self-destruction.

See what I mean?

Why do you want her back? What do you miss, as Moselle already asked?  What did you get from your relationship with this person?

That's the irony. Once you crawl out of the pit, appear strong and lively again, and do better then them, you suddenly are attractive to them.

While at the core, it was the non-BPD dynamic that sucked the life out of you and made you become "unattractive" to begin with.

What you say may be true for some, but definitely not all pwBPD. It is more the case that if the non signals in any way that they are open to a re-connection, that that may be seen as a way in.

The objective for a pwBPD is to attach, remember. Attachment, however brief, makes them feel good because it is a distraction from themselves. Here's a good synopsis of different attachment styles: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=279028.0

I am certain in my case, that my doing well would either frighten my ex into keeping away or, more likely, have no impact on him at all.

The more fruitful and healing focus is on oneself. I think about my own attachment style and how I can grow to have a healthier one.

Like I said it was my experience with my two uBPD exs that this is based on.

In itself the dynamics fundimentally are normal. If we are doing bad and an ex that we had feelings for is doing well then we may reminisc and think what if.

The difference with BPD is how the act on those feelings. Whether they try to win you back or paint you blacker.

My exs see me or saw me as a comfort blanket when things go wrong.  i havent discouraged this behaviour as i have children with them. That said i have firm boudaries and will never get sucked back in.

Fair enough.


Boundaries are the key. Very good point.

Thank you for all your replies. I can intellectualise it all and it makes sense. But the feelings are what I am struggling with. I know how bad she is for me. I know that even if she were to come back it end up the same if not worse. That I am trying to repair relationships of the past through her. Yet understanding provides no relief to the longing I have for her. My feelings to have her again just won't go. 7 months and she is still the first thing I think about in the morning and the last before I go to bed. Some days are better than others, typically when I'm busy. But one cannot be busy 24/7. Those moments of alone time are dominated by thoughts of her & the associated feelings of longing. Even when I am busy & working on myself she pops up. It's torturous... .I thought it would have gone by now.

I hear you, ThrowMeABone.

Are you in therapy? Do you think that would help focus you on some of your own issues you think are bound up in your longing for your ex?

I can tell you that I am a first class analyzer and that it took me years to learn that knowing something intellectually is quite different to knowing it in yourself. There's a way to connect your brain to your heart, but it takes a conscious effort, some re-wiring so to speak, gentle inquiry into yourself, letting yourself feel the painful feelings.

All of this is easier if supported by someone else - whether a therapist, a spiritual guide of some sort, a calm and non-judgemental friend even.

I can echo VitC on this. The emotional core is where most of the trauma sits. Its helps to talk it out, with someone who understands.

"Focussing" was the tool that has helped me the most.

There's a book called "The Power of Focusing" by Ann Weiser Cornell. It was a great help to me in learning to connect with my feelings, after being numb for many years.

I echo everything you said verbatim. I know she is toxic, I know she is a liar/manipulator and just a downright cruel person with no empathy yet I still find myself sitting here thinking about her all day and reminiscing about the good times.

In my case, I'm almost 100% she won't reach out to me ever again and while I know that would be for the best, there are still those feelings of wishing that she would and I can't get rid of those thoughts. I instituted NC ~5 weeks ago and it has been flawless in terms of neither of us reaching out. I know she already has one or more replacements so I'm just assuming that she has no reason to contact me since she is getting her supply from other men now. The only conceivable reason I could see for her to reach out to me is if her preferred replacement is a stronger person than me and cuts her off early / doesn't allow himself to be manipulated by her but because she is so incredibly proficient at it, I don't think that will happen for a while if ever.

Hey pjstock, You described that well.  You could say that you have "BPD-itis"!  It's weird how a pwBPD can get such a hold over us Nons.  Sometimes I think my BPDxW put a spell on me!  Maybe I should have kissed a Frog?  Seriously, I suspect it involves a chemical reaction in one's brain, because there is nothing logical about it.  Why do we become Pod People?

LuckyJim

I agree lucky jim. It is a form of addiction. Like with drugs it provided us a high. Both chemical and psycological. As well as all the serotonin and endorphines the relationship released we all found our dream or so we thought. After a lot of soul searching I realised that what my uBPD exgf promised was everything that I ever wanted. It was a false promise made up with her lies and my own fantasies. Once youve glimpsed that potential its hard to let go of. You have to peel away the layers of fantasy slowly for it to truely sink in. Part of me still mourns the loss but not my ex just the loss of a dream.

Hey LuckyJim,

it's not weird at all once you start to look at the dynamics of the relationship and begin to figure out what you got from it. It's not easy, at first. At least it wasn't for me.

No one has some kind of magical hold over anyone else. There's no mystery - the answer is in yourself, if you are wondering how your ex pwBPD "got such a hold". Find out what she gave you in the parts of the relationship and you will find, most likely, something that you were not giving yourself.

I don't think it's healthy, in the sense that it IS disempowering, to think about the dynamic as one in which one person cast some kind of spell. That's one way of talking about, sure, and as a metaphor it may feel very true.

But it's a metaphor. They are powerful things and should be used with care  *)

How are you doing there, ThrowMeABone? How are things with you today?

I think of it this way: She had the potential to be everything i wanted in a woman. She showed that and i believed her.

But... .she didn't live up to that potential

And used any possible external excuse and blame as to why not

I rather believed her then to see the actual truth.

That potential just was too much work to keep up.

I've had a BPD female friend and also a male romantic partner with what I assume has BPD in my life. Currently I am NC from the ex, but I went a good year NC from the female friend and eventually I ran into her almost a year later in person, and she reached out via text minutes after that run in. I don't think she would've reached out at all if I had not run in to her. So it's hard to say if they come back into your life or try to. I think she probably feared the rejection of my silence had she reached out before seeing me. I was pleasant during the run in which probably gave her enough motive to text, but I'm still not willing to let her back into my life the same way I had before.

I often wonder if the ex will attempt contact but I keep telling myself that it's better if he never did, for my health and sanity. It's hard pushing through each day with NC but it's gotta get easier eventually:) hang in there!

And what was that, WoundedPhoenix? What is everything you want in a woman?

I ask myself the same question all the time, in case you think I am being a smartypants. I'm not. But it's one of the key questions.  

Find out what she gave you in the parts of the relationship and you will find, most likely, something that you were not giving yourself.

This is something that I've been thinking about a lot and for me I think it comes down to a few things such as validation, companionship, mutual caring, love etc. While I agree that being introspective is the right way to do this, the conflict arises in my head when I can't figure out how I could possibly provide some of these things to myself. Validation is one that I've focused on because I do know that I can provide that to myself and I hope I will accomplish that in time. However; how am I supposed to provide myself with companionship, mutual care etc? I know there probably isn't really an answer to that but it's something that I'm having a hard time processing.

This is a great way to put it. Because they don't feel love in the same way we do, they love us in the only way they know how and in a healthy mind it's not enough.

She initially was kind, sensitive, vulnerable, helpfull, resourceful, understanding and well... .extremely attractive.
And the stories about her past made it almost unbelievable that such a wonderful person could come out on the other end... . 

But deep down, i think what really hooked me is that this person valued me. that this person choose me. it really muted all my underlying self esteem issues.

Great question, pjstock42!

It's true that some things we can only get and experience through others and in a particular kind of relationship. Humans are not meant to be alone, very few of us can handle true and complete solitude.

We get companionship and mutual care through our pets, our friends, our family, our neighbours, our co-workers, random people we encounter in our lives. The companionship may be brief, but it is no less lovely for that. It's something I have been thinking about too!
We also get mutual care from all the above. And I've probably not thought of some other sources of these things.

The thing is to notice when it happens, to stop and say to oneself "ah, I just got a nice sense of companionship there, with that person who waited at the bus stop with me for 5 mintues". Or whatever, you know what I mean.

The problem is that our needs in these, and other, areas may be huge and deep and there may be things we are not aware of that are bound up with them. And if we expect one person to fulfill too many of our needs or expectations, or do it too much, then we can get hooked on someone who appears to do exactly that.

Whether they have a personality disorder or not, we need to be aware of what we need and what we get and what we give. And keep all the things in balance.

It IS a bit confusing, but not so much, for me anyway, when I think of how reliant I used to be on the applause of the crowd and how I now put far more emphasis on the pat on the back from a few close people in my life.  

What do you think?

Yes, and ditto for many of us here.

Look at the underlying self esteem issues, start to pay attention to those and where they come from and what you can do about them.

The rest falls into place. Not immediately, of course not, but in time that is different for everyone.

VitaminC,

I think my biggest issue is that the things that I have placed the most value in are those things that can only be accomplished within a committed relationship, if that makes sense. My relationship with my BPD ex made me feel like I had figured everything out, it was such a sense of pride and fulfillment thinking that I had everything I could ever want and the idea of it no longer existing seemed like such an unrealistic possibility to me. I expect one person to fulfill all of these important needs/wants/desires of mine because I had one person providing all of that so it's like my subconscious knows that this is possible and the only way to truly bring me fulfillment in regards to these things.

I agree when you say that we get what we give and for me, the giving part was hugely meaningful to me as well. Caring for her, providing for her, being there for her etc. all gave me that same sense of fulfillment that receiving those things from her did and I placed a lot of my own value on my ability to do these things for another person. Being discarded has made me feel so useless & aimless since so much of my energy had been devoted to providing the best possible life that I could to my BPD ex and now I just feel like I have no real purpose since I'm not needed by her anymore. I liken it to being fired from a job that you had for an extended period of time and enjoyed. You start to place a lot of your self worth in the value you add to the company, the results you produce and the camaraderie formed with your coworkers. You also become reliant and derive self-worth out of how the company needs you & how they provide for you financially, then one day they tell you that you aren't needed anymore. I've never been fired before but I can imagine that these two scenarios would be pretty similar in terms of the things we lose and how easy it is to begin thinking of ourselves as worthless.

I hear you, I really do. I am sorry you are going through this, pjstock42. I know it's a deep sense of loss and it takes time to heal from that.


Being needed is important. I agree. Feeling useful, special, particular. Being able to give to another human being. I guess that's what I'm saying, in a way, we can choose to give to others and then, at some point, we may have a particular person to whom we give something of ourselves that is reserved just for them.

I see that your own break-up is quite recent. I see that you have reached out to others on this board to share your own story and have given generously of yourself to help others. That is what helped me; being here, reading, thinking, talking to the good folks here, and paying attention, as you clearly are, to those who have worked hard and gained perspective on their situations.  

You are doing the right things.

You said " My only hope is that this anger eventually transforms into motivation to heal and also awareness to prevent myself from ever becoming involved with a person like this again."

To that, I want to say: It does, as long as you keep doing what you're doing. And you will.

There are, as you know, stages to grieving. And that is a necessary process. To pass through them at our own pace.

Even in looking at this calmly, we are doing ourselves some good. It's part of the notion of self-care that is fizzing on many of these threads.

We'll keep it going together, yes?

I hope you're right and even though fully healing from this seems like an impossibility at this point, I'm going to keep trying to accomplish that.

One thing that does scare me is how this could potentially change me in a negative way in the future. What if I do find myself in a situation again where I'm really clicking with someone, we seem to connect on a deep level and I feel like they care about me. I fear that this experience may make me incapable of ever opening myself up to this again because I will instead be approaching this situation like a minefield and examining this person with a fine-tooth comb to find any semblance of a red flag that I missed/ignored in the beginning with my BPD ex. Having a meaningful, life-long relationship with woman of quality is still a big goal of mine and it is scary that I may never be able to accomplish this because of how scarred this experience will have left me. I don't want to give this person free rent in my head and allow them to permanently change who I am and what I want but it seems like that may be what happens. It will be very difficult for me to willingly make myself vulnerable to someone again and I know that this is necessary for a relationship to really blossom but after what I've been through, I'm going to have incredibly thick walls around myself as a defense mechanism. If I was so incredibly wrong about this person, what is to say that I won't be wrong again?

This is a different topic but it plays into this a bit from a man's perspective at least. 50%+ divorce rate, 70%+ of those initiated by women and the financial/life implications of divorce being a huge danger to men, all of this stuff adds another layer of fear on top of what I mentioned already. It's like there's this seemingly impossible goal that facts/logic/reason/experience are telling me would be a losing proposition to pursue but there's still a big part of me that believes I can beat the odds. It's a tough place to be in and it will probably take a long time for me to reconcile this and be OK with whatever path I decide to take.

PJ stock. Your fears are valid and healthy coming out of a BPD relationship. If you were over optimistic about recovery it would likely have concerned me more

However you've just said the one thing that guarantees your recovery. "I'm going to keep trying".  |iii That's all it takes. So keep that up.

You stated that you would like a meaningful life long relationship with a quality woman. What are the things you can do right now in your life to achieve this?

Bear in mind that she is already out there somewhere. What can you do to make sure when you both meet, your side of the equation is "quality" and it matches her.

Is there anything else at the moment which excites you?

I do understand your concerns, pj. Many of us have them initially and for a while. But there are success stories on this site too! People who have learned a great deal about themselves and come out clearer and stronger because of a relationship like this. Confronting what in us led us to become and stay involved, is what will protect us naturally from a similar involvement in the future.

As you work through it all, at your own pace, you will see that there were many moments in which you "knew" something was wrong or could lead to something being wrong. Probably you chose to ignore them or explain them to yourself in a way that allowed you to stay in the relationship. The reasons you did that are the interesting ones and the ones to get to the bottom of. Once you understand them in a deep way, you won't be the same person anymore, but a stronger and clearer one.

I wonder how ThrowMeABone is doing! :)  Is this discussion, in your absence, useful to you, TMAB?  

I hear your pain, I've recently split from my undiagnosed Cluster B GF... .She's in intensive therapy to work out her issues... .We were NC and I broke it to handle moving the last of her belongings out.

She's already in hyper replacement mode... .It hurts...

To move forward, i learned to focus on my own healing and find happiness alone... .

I learned to let go by knowing that i will meet someone else one day... .I also work hard at knowing my own self as a tool to understand why I subjected myself to a relationship filled with BPD drama... .

To truly let her go, I focused on all parts of the relationship... .The Good and the bad... .And through this, and with time apart from her I was able to see through her human mask to the real dysfunctional person that she is... .

This allowed me to see how incapable a healthy relationship would be with her... And that the only path to having a healthy relationship with her was to engage in a lengthy period of  Counselling and therapy. I decided to go the therapy route without her to know myself so that I will have a firm foundation when I meet someone else.

As of now, I have compassion for her and also understand that I could not be in a healthy relationship with her at this time... .

This realization makes letting go healthy and possible... .I keep my time by connecting with friends and family and with exercise and maintaining a healthy diet.

Best of luck,
TG

Thought I would chime in on this point as I think it is important.

There ARE LOTS of reasons why you would want her back.  IMO, there is a tendency to learn all about BPD, have the veil of confusion lifted and then see so much of it all as a completely dark scenario.  It is true, there is a large dose of things that were not right in these relationships.  Conversely, if there were no good things at all, this board would really be for masochists rather than non-BPDs.

In my situation, my ex touched my heart and soul at critical places and brought a lot of love and happiness to my days. ALSO, she brought a lot of confusion and frequently unnecessary chaos.  

In a way, this type of question and the responses tends to subtly villainize our ex pwBPD partners as inhuman.  For example saying I simply can't even think of why I would want to go back.  That is not the case - at least not for me - and I suspect many of us here had some truly wonderful experiences.

The answer, for me, to this question is that I would want to go back - without all the problems and that is just not the reality of the situation.  It is like wanting ice cream 3 meals a day and saying I want to be totally healthy - it is an irreconcilable contradiction.  Wanting to go back is natural.  Accepting that going back would be potentially harmful to yourself is healthy.

May seem like I am teasing out too much detail, but I find that having the correct information ordered in my mind helps me when I feel down and blue and really do want to reach out to her - and at times I really do - and why not, she is a beautiful person - with an emotional disorder that prevents us from having a life that could have been great.


It does take time to come to this truth, and perhaps feels like a more difficult path to follow for those of us who were left, versus leaving.

JRB