BPDFamily.com

So as most of you know my friendship with an ex boyfriend of my youth went south over 5 weeks ago.  I'm ok, I have days when I am like 'meh, you lost a good friend in me', to 'how dare he mess with my feelings', to 'I miss his friendship'.

Anyway, I am married, have been for 8 years and with my husband for coming up to 13 years.  My friend knows I am married with a daughter, he also knows me and my husband split up for a year due to his infidelity (which included a child being born - don't ask) but we had got back together 4 years before me and my friend made contact again.  I confided in my friend about quite a lot of things such as the problem with my marriage and my heartbreak of enduring my husband fathering a child outside of our marriage, work, family etc. and he also confided in me with things about his life too.  So I thought we had a good friendship; he even said to me 'you are a good friend'.  So why as friends would he go to great lengths to do the push/pull and triangulate me at times with another ex of his who supposedly made contact with him not long after we had started speaking again after one of his previous discards.  He knows I am married so why did he feel he needed to play head games with a 'good friend' and destroy our friendship to the point where we've now pretty much ended up hating one another?  I say hate because that's what if feels like to me; he hates and despise my very being and I don't particular like the person behind the mask.

I know, he has a mental illness, but does this level of intensity still apply to friendships?  Of course there was attraction there on both sides (or attachment on his) but it was never going to be a relationship and we both knew that.

Hi Izzy,
I'm sorry to hear you're having bad days ... .but it's good to hear you're also having not-so-bad days now too :)


But did you both know that? As you know, people with BPD, or with BPD traits, tend to bust boundaries and won't necessarily approach a category like "friendship" with the same respect others would. You confided in him about your husband's infidelity, you note there was attraction on both sides, he's an ex boyfriend of your youth, it sounds like there were very intense feelings involved ... .so it's a potentially combustible mix and even someone without BPD might wonder where it could lead. I'm not at all suggesting you were wanting more than friendship, but from your friend's perspective, it might not have felt as cut-and-dry as a friendship that "was never going to be" any more than that.


Do you have other friends or family you feel you can confide in? How much did that longing for someone to confide in drive your feelings for your friend?


What kind of answer are you hoping to find to these questions? You're not likely to find any explanation of his "need to play head games" that would leave you feeling, "ok now I see what his motivation was and why it was rational for him to play head games with me". He may be suffering from inner pain and feelings of shame/fear of intimacy that leave you on the receiving end of erratic behaviour through which he tries in various ways to cope with his inner world.

It's natural to want answers and explanations that will satisfy us and stop our minds from spinning in confusion and our emotions from churning in turmoil. What if the questions you're asking about his motivations don't have satisfying answers? Are you able to gently start turning your focus to asking what makes you crave those answers? Why do you feel you need them to move forward?


That is what it feels like to you. It's natural then to assume that it's what he intended. It's a natural assumption, but we're very often wrong when we make it. He has his own inner world to contend with and you have yours. It's hard when someone we care about causes us such pain and turmoil in our inner world, and it can create such confusion when that person just disappears or doesn't seem to care about reaching some understanding and trying to resolve the pain. All of us here know that pain and confusion. Yet your friend's inner world is filled with its own baggage that causes his behaviour, and even though the pain you're feeling now might convince you that he must have intended to cause you pain, his baggage isn't about you. You didn't create all the difficulties he has with pushing and pulling and disappearing, etc. And you can't fix that for him.

What you can do is gently bring your focus to your own inner world and begin to explore and heal there. How do you feel about that?

It applies to almost any situation that requires being vulnerable and having emotionally intimate interactions with people. Essentially an emotional overload—and this is seen as requiring a third (or more) individual(s) to mediate and provide a sense of correctness on the pwBPD's part. It's likely hard for him to feel confident in himself if he doesn't have someone ferociously taking his side. He doesn't realize it, probably, nor have the insight required to change his thought patterns to be more independent and less worrying about the opinions of others.

I'm sorry for what you're going through. I know how not fun all of this must be.

It seems like you're thinking pretty clearly here though. Working through this will be a process, and I think you're on the right path as far as doing what's best for yourself. You should be proud of that. That's a valuable outlook to have.

So, the big question: do you want the friendship or not?

Hi rfriesen

I did type out a long response last night on my phone which promptly died and I lost the whole thing!

Thank you for responding so fully to my questions.  I feel I did get a lot out of his friendship; I felt very comfortable and at ease with him.  I thought he felt the same and that we became each others confidante where we could tell each other stuff about our pasts and lament on how bad a deal life had dealt us at times.  He seemed to trust me with things I knew he found difficult to discuss and I thought he valued my friendship like I did his.  He may well had seen me opening up about my marriage problem as a way in as he did ask me several times how was my marriage going etc.  He was quite explicit at times about what he would like to do to me even though he knew it would never happen.

I suppose I'm just lamenting on how me trying to show somebody I care about them can make them get angry and discard me.  I know about engulfment so maybe it was that, but I was trying so hard not to engulf him.

Its a shame that BPD friendships tend to go the same way as romantic ones.

With regards to my husband and his infidelity, I have had two lots of counselling and have pretty much got over it as it was 5 years ago now.

Valet - thank you for responding.  I tried so hard to make him feel ok about himself, I was his cheerleader and made sure I said positive things to him about his accomplishments (such as being drug and alcohol free for 10 years) and would even say when he mentioned this other ex getting back in touch to go for it as life was too short to miss opportunities. I also tried to encourage him to contact his estranged daughter.

As for wanting his friendship; yes I would love him to be in my life as for some reason he fills a void in my heart.  Not romantically but I definitely get something out of the friendship.  However I do feel like I've burned my bridges as my last email to him was scathing and hateful due to being so angry and hurt.

This might be something to explore. What is that void in your heart and why does it feel as though he alone can fill it? This is something I have struggled with as well in the aftermath of my relationship ending with my ex. And it seems to be a common struggle described on this site. Once we're forced to accept that the person who seemed uniquely able to fill that void, well, for whatever reasons cannot truly fill that void for us, or cannot do it in a healthy way, without it causing us too much pain ... .then we're left to try to examine the void we feel and ask whether there are other ways to heal it or fill it or transform it. You might even find that what feels like a void now can become something that drives you to search for a more fulfilling life and a fuller sense of self.

But these are definitely hard questions to start exploring and to get our hearts and minds around. What is it that he touched in you, and why does he seem so uniquely able to reach that part of you?

I think that rfrieson makes a valid point. That feeling that your ex fills a whole is worth exploration.

I'd also like to mention that there are also resources here available to build communication skills that might serve as useful if you are indeed genuine in your desire to maintain a friendship.

Let me caution you though: I've gone down this same road before, and it ended up causing me a lot of distress and pain. I thought I had the tools to handle it and was pretty confident in that realization, but in the end there were no stakes for me to stay invested. So really consider the situation.

Best wishes.