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I posted on here about my uBPD ex wife. She was diagnosed with BP and unmedicated with all of the BPD traits including father abandonment issues and cutting herself. I told her that being friends wouldn't work out and she completely kicked me out of her life over a year ago. I'd understand if I was a boyfriend but I was her husband although we had no kids but we had a 5 year history and I was
willing to stick with her forever eventhough we both wanted the divorce. And I did try to reconcile after. I will admit my excessive drinking at the time to get away from her did not help. I would get very angry at her, yell insults at her, and break things. Shame on me. I decided to foolishly snoop around on social media and found a picture that her brother's girlfriend had posted with all of them sitting at the thanksgiving table including my ex wife and some guy sitting around the corner from her which is probably her new boyfriend. I was in absolute shock. Her hair a completely different color and weight gain. Either way it completely opened up fresh and new wounds. Especially since she recycled me before we got married and she was sleeping around right after we broke up the first time which crushed me. I'm back on my meds for depression and seeing a therapist who said I have like an emotional ptsd. My therapist did say I was lucky to get away the way I did eventhough I'm very wounded emotionally. I just can't believe that I've been cut off like this and it hurts. And yes I do want her to contact me again but I'm terrified that she will or that she won't! I'm terrified of seeing her out in public! I just don't know what's going on in my brain or if I will ever see or talk to this woman again and possibly have her attempt another recycle years later. I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Hi DPG-

I'm sorry you're going through that, but you are going through it.  First, social media is not your friend in these situations, and notice how cyberstalking made you feel, maybe it's best to not do that anymore?  And then, it's been over year, which is a decent amount of time after a 5 year relationship; how is your detachment going?  Have you looked at the stages of detachment over there? --------->

Detachment is a project, the best kind because it's your life, and the things we can learn about ourselves as we detach can be profound.  One thing most of us do in these relationships is give our exes a lot of power, and a big part of detaching is taking that power back.  And it's a matter of shifting the focus from her to you and from the past to the future, as we see what we can learn about ourselves, how we can use it, and what a bright future of our own design looks like; are you getting closer to that mindset?  Take care of you!

Yes I've stayed off of social media and I haven't exactly been working on the detachment but I've been taking care of myself as best as I can and I actually just started seeing a therapist after I saw the picture on social media and we will be working on greiving. The main problem is that I'm still holding on to wanting her to contact me again.

Nice!  Good for you!


Do you know why?  Have you dug into your feelings and motivations behind that?

Yes and it's because I want validation/closure and I think my self esteem is suffering wondering about her being happy with someone else but it's just the way that I was cut off that also really hurts.

I understand DPG.  Most of us end up here in that place, no real closure and a borderline moves on as if nothing happened, very difficult to live with at first.  But the good news is we get to find a way to give ourselves closure, which ends up being more powerful in the end, and also, we can learn to self-validate again so we're not dependent on someone else.  Can you see yourself moving in those directions?

Yes I do. I just literally feel sick.