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Sorry folks, another letter I won't send. You don't have to read them or reply, there is no answer. I am beside myself with loneliness and grief right now and don't know what else to do.

Dear ******

I have tried so hard. Every time I am going to see you. I make my skin nice, I smell nice, I dress nicely. All you ever do is criticise. That's too short, this is showing, that is showing. Are you going out dressed like that. Never ever do you say I look or smell nice. NEVER.   It's demoralising and degrading, then you wonder what has happened to the confident me. You f*****g killed her is what happened.  When I talk to you you shut me down, tell me you already knew that, tell me I'm talking rubbish or worse call me a liar. Then you ask me why I'm quiet, what happened to the interesting person I used to be. You f*****g crushed her, that's what you did.
You've lied to me, cheated on me, lied some more. Making me feel worthless makes you feel better. If only I could stop remembering, when we sat in those chairs in the firelight and talked all night. When we listened, when I could have opinions. When you raised your face for a kiss as we passed each other. When you held my hand walking down the street and said you were proud to be seen with me. When your arms around me made me feel safe and loved. If only I could stop remembering the loving goodnight texts and kisses. If only I could stop remembering when all that began to stop. The pain and confusion as you silently drew away from me. The accusations and unfounded anger. The loss. I welcome amnesia. My pain and loneliness is unbearable. Logic plays no part in my life right now.

I completely understand where you are now.  The anger and pain at what has happened eats away at you, then in an instant turns to immense sadness and sense of loss.  For myself I am angry at her for the things she did (and did not do), but I think now I am beginning to be mostly angry at myself for allowing it to happen.

I want to ask you something though.  Why are you tying your self-worth to him, or anyone for that matter?  How can you find a way to believe in yourself again?  :)o you really miss him or do you miss the person you were before you met him?  I know it is hard, I am having a hard time with it too.

I don't know, I truly don't know. I know I am angry at me for allowing this to continue. I know I am not angry at him because he is mentally ill. I have seen the confusion in his face, most of the time he doesn't even get that he is being hurtful and cruel, he doesn't register his safety mechanisms he is shoving into place for what they are. I do know he knows something is not quite right but he can't explore it too deeply.
I think I am angry at life or God or something for letting me have/believe in something that wasn't real. Something I thought I had waited all my life to feel and then say HA HA, only joking. I do miss him, even when I am with him I miss him. We share so much and love and laugh at the same things but without the physical touch or kiss or hand holding we used to have. It's like we are just best mates, I can't deal with it for long before I get sad then he gets angry. Then it's all my fault ? I said in my other letter it's like being a waiting room for him, until someone he really wants turns up, then I will be dropped like a hot rock, I know this. I do miss the me I was before I met him. I am so sad for his f****d up head and for the funny, loving person hidden away in there somewhere. Basically I am just so desperately sad and lonely. Sorry for going on.

First, no wonder you feel like crap, Sadly. To have the person who made you feel safe, wanted, understood, turn on you with that kind of cruelty does a profound number on our psyches. This is not because there's something wrong with you. Any human who was genuinely open and vulnerable with another person would find that very harmful. And very likely, traumatic--not using that word lightly. Akin to what happens when a parent whom a kid looks to for support and protection ends up being the source of violation or tells the kid they're worthless. It's the source that makes it so harmful.

Staying for a time to try to reconcile the two pieces and figure out what just doesn't make any surface sense is also a totally normal human reaction.

Staying too long where you are receiving such feedback is deeply damaging and takes a while to recover from. It starts to seep into our pysche. (My experience with those kind of remarks comes from a prior abusive r/ship, not from the man I post about here. His comments on how I was ugly etc are still unhelpful baggage I am dragging around years later that have not helped my confidence in processing the current BPD dynamics in my life, where my first theory about why he doesn't seem to want me is always that I'm not attractive enough. Objectively there is no basis for this in his actions but it's there just under the surface. Wasn't part of my self-concept before my prior partner decided to mine that vein of attack.)

When he says such things what do you do? Do you remove yourself from his company immediately and every time? That's what the Improving board would recommend and the behavior might eventually end if you do. I still would find it painful to know he said the things even if I communicated that they are unacceptable by physically leaving. But that step often seems to change the behavior.

More deeply this person is not someone who can be trusted not to say deeply harmful things to you. If you are not or cannot become indifferent to his views, that's important information for your long term well being.

I hope you realize it is not about you, what you're wearing, how you look. It's about his need for control, his own bad feelings and his need to externalize them, his ambivalence about whether he is loveable, etc.

My ex wBPD cannot stay in the closeness. He sabotages it in different ways (that make it impossible for me to stay with him) but the inability to tolerate all the good aspects you describe at the end of your letter is the same. He can't let it stay like that--doesn't trust it. Not to do with me. Or you.

My ex is very much the same.  At times she seemed completely confused.  Other times I believe she knew exactly what she was doing.  I have to keep reminding myself she is very much like a child as is your ex.  Borderlines are emotionally immature.  Like children, they will do and say things without any thought to the impact on others and when confronted will be genuinely confused.


Yes, I have also found myself angry, bitter and negative ... .about almost everything.  Feeling this way frustrates me to no end because this is not who I am.  When I met my ex I was the opposite of all those ... .and it does make me angry at her and myself.  


I know what a struggle it is to let go of the good.  You want so much to believe in that person you fell in love with, in the potential future you might have shared.  Now you are beginning to realize you weren't getting the complete picture and struggle with accepting the whole person, good and bad.  You fell in love with the superficial projection of the person he wants to be ... .or perhaps even can be on a superficial level.  My ex was very much this way.  I remember even asking her on several occasions why she couldn't be the same person she was with everyone else.  She was never able to answer that question and your ex can probably not answer that question either.

How do you think you might start getting back to that person you were before?  What can you do to help restore your self-confidence and self-worth?

Sadly, we cross posted. I was responding to the piece in this letter about the mean things he says, and the incongruity with when it was good; but from your last post, I see there are even deeper wounding dynamics: that waiting room arrangement and the withdrawal of physical touch and affection.

This is pretty much exactly what happened in my BPD r/ship and several others I've learned the details of from these boards. You have my deepest solidarity. I think in some ways these dynamics are harder to deal with than when the BPD person withdraws from your life entirely. When they stay to extract this sort of "best mates" closeness it can create incredible confusion. Nothing was wrong. Yet they are no longer willing to participate in a full relationship. Or call it what it is. Yet the part they ARE participating in (the best mates part) just keeps getting better and better.

This was exactly my situation. I stuck with it till he actually started seeing other women (which he was not open with me about BTW). Since then he has repeatedly tried to restore the r/ship but he can never manage to get across the divide. Some people it seems just cannot combine physical and emotional closeness. It's too much. Too exposed, too vulnerable. I can understand it intellectually. But in real life it's just terrible because the piece of the r/ship that is still alive can be so vibrant.

No wonder you're having a hard time breaking away. Did you post the waiting room letter on another thread? I haven't seen that. But I get it.

Three years ago I told him I can no longer be emotionally intimate with him unless he is in some fashion choosing me as his person. Not pursuing others. It appears he can't. Recently he even tried. But he lacks the insight or skills or it's just too overwhelming for him to put it all together. We both miss what is gone as a result. It's a huge loss and he articulates it that way; he has begged for me to change my boundary, and if your guy also pushes for you to come back into contact because what is good is really good, I completely understand why you find it hard to stay apart. I am, but it hurts a ton.

Hello CS and P&C
Thank you both. Everything you both say is to the point and so very very true. When he does get vile, sometimes I just ignore it, that's when I know he knows he is wrong, he lets it be ignored. Then he doesn't have to admit or apologise for anything. Sometimes I walk away, like this time, then I get a no kisses text the next day asking if I am ok. My response no I am not will get a sorry to hear it, naturally not a sorry for what I did/said. Then a do you want to meet up text. Depending on how I am feeling I will say yes and then the whole thing gets swept under the carpet and life carries on in its usual unloving but mates fashion (very lonely) or I say no, like this time and I spend days like this again (still lonely). And so it continues. Ad infinitum.Then I get another text and I give in. Pathetic.  Am so very tired, I don't know what I want anymore. I don't know how to get my confidence back. I am going to the doctors in the morning, no doubt he will give me anti depressants. Therapy is really hard to get in the uk but I can ask again. These boards and you guys are lifelines I cling to like a drowning woman. Thank you. Xx

P&C
Got your post. Yep, a few posts down there is one called a letter I'll never send, the waiting room bit is in there. It's awful isn't it. We do seem to have found similar people to love don't we. Love to you, you seem so strong, pray I get there soon. xx

Like I wrote you a while back, while I was figuring out how to get my feet back under me, I drew a lot of strength from things you wrote about how you needed to get away from this dynamic.   

This was very much the way my relationship was.  Do something hurtful/selfish/uncaring/unloving/cruel then pretend/act like it never happen and expect you to do the same.

I can understand not wanting to keep bringing up your own mistakes, no one wants to do that.  However it is one thing to not continue bringing something hurtful they did to your attention and another thing to completely ignore it like it never happened, or even worse that it was your fault.  Avoidance of the consequences of behavior/actions is something that is reported here frequently and understandably so given the nature of the disorder.

As understandable as it may be, it doesn't take into account the damage done to us (the non) and how the cumulative damage slowly eats away at your own personal self and psyche.   We allow this to happen initially because we are in the idealization stage ... .later on because we love them ... .and then finally as a matter of obligation.  As it continues to happen I think we become conditioned to allow it to happen ... .it is the FOG.  The more conditioned we become and the deeper we are in the FOG the harder it is to find our own foundation again because we ourselves have lost our way.  Our entire lives became centered around our respective borderlines needs because it is what they demanded, be it literally or not.  When we are tossed aside it is like all purpose in our lives is gone because all our energy and focus was on them and now there is a big empty void where they once were. 

It takes time to get out of the FOG, to find your foundation again, but it will happen eventually.  Take the time you need to rediscover yourself again, to rebuild your foundation.