BPDFamily.com

Recap:
- BPD cheated on me with co-worker.
- BPD begged for me to take her back.
- 6 months later, she ghosted me, strung me along for 3 months.
- I found out that she had been seeing the co-cheater the entire time.
- She left me for him. Been dating him for 1.5 years.

Like many here, I've struggled with the idea that my ex was able to hurt me beyond measure, but then live happily ever after with the person she moved on with. I struggled with the social media posts that made it look like their life was perfect. I struggled with believing the wisdom of others on the forum who declared "you can't believe social media". I didn't believe you. "My story is different", I told myself.

Fast forward to now....I have been receiving abusive, anonymous messages on my social media accounts for two months. I believed it was my ex. I contacted her on Whatsapp to warn her to stop. The messages continued. I contacted her mother to tell her, so that it might stop. She came back with a bunch of things that suggested that this wasn't my ex, but rather that the messages were likely being sent from her old friendship group with whom she had dramatically departed from. She said that my ex had also received abusive messages over the past few months.

So...I contacted the two girls I was being told were responsible.

What did I learn from them?

- They are not involved.
- My ex's boyfriend has cheated on my ex with two other women - both girls, multiple times.
- One of the girls was another member of their friendship group, and my ex introduced her bf to that girl...
- My ex found out about the double cheating via her BF's ex girlfriend. She called her to tell her that she, too, had been sleeping with him and that there was one other girl.
- My ex found the identity of the other girl was her friend through stealing her bf's phone.
- My ex went ballistic.
- My ex went to the house of one of the girls that slept with her bf and vandalised her property, chucked things from a twenty-story building...
- My ex took him back (hilarious), but lost her entire friendship group. She now only hangs with her bf.

Moral of the story: They never live happily ever after. No matter what you see.

Drama follows them whereever they go. In fact, her staying with a man who cheated on her with two women, on multiple occasions with each, shows that half the reason they left us is because we were stable and normal. They need drama to feel alive. Mine used to say "my life is ups and down, at the moment everything is normal AND I FEEL NOTHING". If you're in a spot right now where you are pining for your ex, or perhaps blaming yourself for their behaviour, do you really want to have to  be in a relationship where you are judged for not providing drama?

Last little thing to mention that I find hilarious: In my last message to her, prior to this, I said to her "he went out of his way to steal you from me when you admitted he told you he was in love with someone else (his now ex), so you can never be sure he won't do the same to you".

He did. Twice.

You are right in that this is a common struggle. I also went though this. It took a few years for me to get validation when my exes marriage to the young guy she left me for imploded (with a restraining order against his brother, mutual DV and cops).

What do you get from her experiencing not what she initially expected from her new life, free of you?

Thank you for this post. I am in the very first stage of being left by a BPD Spouse after 24 years. I am trying to unravel the barrage of entangled emotion, truth and lies. This has really helped me and it rings true. He always said he hated drama. But he was so dramatic and never saw it.

I am "the other woman" in such a story.

My ex left his girlfriend of eight years to be in a relationship with me. At the time I thought it very decent of him to leave her before beginning anything romantic with another woman. I did have a bad conscience from the start, and kept telling him that there was no guarantee that it was going to work out with us, that he should think carefully about sacrificing his relationship, etc., but admittedly my heart was not set on discouraging him, he knew it, and he broke it off with her. He even gave all sorts of reasons: that they had never been right for one another, that he had never been in love with her, that he didn't want to keep her from being in a relationship with someone who's a better fit for her, etc.

Well, apart from four weeks of idealisation, our relationship turned out to be a complete shambles. I've gone through all sorts of trauma in my life and have come out unscathed (blessed be genetic resilience), but this relationship turned me into a codependent, anxious, empty shell. My relationships before this one had been good and had all ended amicably, so I had no idea what was going on until after it ended for good (after two breakups and one terrible recycle).

The girlfriend he had left for me was a constant contention point in our relationship. They'd officially broken up, but he couldn't let go of her. They lived under the same roof for four more months. She came to all family functions, while I wasn't even invited. He even cried to me about how much he missed her, and I took it in stride, because he assured me that they were over romantically. At the end of our relationship I realised that they had been in constant contact the entire time; in what spirit, I don't know.

His ex and I couldn't have been more different. She was very docile, simple-minded, had no personality or friends of her own, went along with everything he did and said and tolerated everything (including him hitting her and cheating on her with a prostitute, which she allegedly encouraged -- according to him). He dominated her with abandon and they were completely enmeshed. On the other hand, I'm rather resolute, do have my own life, managed to set at least some boundaries, but also gave up far too many, letting go of many things I loved for this controlling, narcissistic boyfriend, and ended up being discarded anyway.

My best friend, who knows us both, keeps saying that he'll likely go back to her sooner rather than later... her friends still stalk me on social media, so Heaven knows what's going on.

tl;dr The thread title is true, it's not pretty for the new partner either. I'm living proof.

Fully agree about the need to supply drama. Many of them statistically over represented in jails.

I agree not to dwell on the perceived success of the replacement. It is entirely different and not only entirely pointless for that reason to try and compare, but can also unnecessarily cause upset.

i say this gently grumpydonut: i think you are still struggling with that idea. it isnt a judgment. at 1.5 years, i was, too.

breakup hurts/wounds have a risk of festering, and showing up in future relationships. i know that hurt. i know that wound. my ex and i were together for three years. she had someone lined up that she got with within a week or two of our breakup. it devastated me. this was someone that made me feel so special for three years, and then treated me like dirt. it also felt incredibly unfair. i hurt for a long time. it didnt seem like she did.

can you heal that sort of wound by knowing or believing that your ex is not doing well? i couldnt. it made me feel better, dont get me wrong; i was privy to a lot of details, and my exs new relationship didnt sound like anything i wanted to be a part of. for better or worse, it lasted longer than my relationship with her did. i dont necessarily take that to mean that their relationship was better by any means, but i spent several months, at least, expecting it to crash and burn, hoping for the vindication of seeing it, and it never came.

if you dedicate a huge chunk of your time to join a sports team - or lets take it a step higher, dedicate your life to trying to make the olympics - and you dont make the cut, do you heal from that by watching the team have a bad season?

@once

Sadistically, I want her life to fall apart so that she feels the same pain that she caused. I love that the man she cheated on me with and left me for has cheated on her with two women, and I love that she feels justified in playing the victim in that scenario. I also love that I warned her that he would cheat on her.

It's not moral from me, but that's just where I'm currently at. I want justice. And, since I can't do anything to get it, I'm enjoying the knowledge that some divine force is seemingly giving it to me.

I have hated two people in my entire life. And she is one. For once, I'm just letting myself embrace how I feel rather than bottling it for social desireability.