BPDFamily.com

I first posted here a week ago and am posting again to solicit advice as my thinking evolves. I'd like advice on what to do that has a chance of SUSTAINABLY reversing the breakup.

Situation:

1. I was with my undiagnosed, untreated BPD ex for 25 years.

2. Last year her son, who probably also has BPD, became addicted to meth and homeless. He ended up in circumstances that threatened his life. In response to the stress, my ex destabilized, exhibiting behaviors and thought patterns I'd never observed in her before. And she split me black.

3. A married ex-lover, who lives in another city, began pursuing and love bombing her at the peak of her son's crisis. She split him white. As I found out later, he volunteered himself to act as her "trauma therapist". This led to an affair starting 6.5 months ago. 4.5 months ago, she informed me of the affair and broke up with me to pursue a relationship with her lover. There have not been prior infidelities on her part.

4. Her boyfriend appears to pretty clearly be a covert narcissist. Smooth, confident, manipulative, and high status. His "business trips" provide cover for liasons between him and my ex. His wife doesn't know of his affair. I believe he's very unlikely to leave his wife, though the affair could go on indefinitely.

5. I finally realized she had BPD only two weeks ago. She unambiguously meets criteria.

6. During our relationship, my ex said we were "over" at least a hundred times over the years, but only actually broke up with me once, a decade ago, and we reconciled relatively quickly that time.

7. We share responsibility for problems in the relationship. We first got together when I was separated from my ex-wife. I then briefly got back together with my ex-wife, then returned (betrayal 1). Several years into the relationship, I got emotionally entangled with a woman I was trying to help (betrayal 2).

8. Other major legitimate complaints my ex had: I have cPTSD (for which I'm in therapy), which manifests in large part as workaholism, leaving me too often physically and emotionally unavailable. The cPTSD also contributed to me shutting down emotionally in the face of rage. Also, I was prone to try to correct statements by my ex that I perceived to be untrue (resulting in a feeling of rejection/invalidation). But overall, I'm an exceptionally empathetic and supportive guy.

9. Thoughout our relationship, she had difficulties with many normal life tasks and I would rescue her. She would often rage at me abusively. She was paranoid. She stopped being receptive to sex with me 15 years ago. And she would often turn cold and stonewall, and often failed to express her needs (expecting me to mind-read). She never acknowledged or apologized for her part in conflicts between us.

10. Someone might ask, why would I stay under those circumstances? We enjoyed common activities, such as hiking, gardening, etc. and somehow, with her and I, those activities felt magical (which was true all the way through the relationship). We also shared fundamental values, political views, aesthetic tastes, etc. (and this wasn't due to mirroring). And we're intellectually well-matched. And throughout, there were acts of real love and tenderness, including from her toward me.

11. We saw a couples therapist a few years into the relationship, but my ex bailed on that, claiming (incorrectly) that the therapist blamed her for everything. I frequently begged her to go to a couples therapist over the last decade, but she would always refuse.

12. When young, she was hypersexual and highly promiscuous. She was hypersexual at the beginning of our relationship and I'm sure she is now with her boyfriend. She also has a long history of romantic relationships with narcissists, resulting in a great deal of trauma (until she and I got involved).

13. The initial pure idealization phase with her boyfriend appeared to end a couple months ago. She initially described him to me as someone who walks on water, and said he gave her "unconditional love". There was a subsequent period of turbulence between them, with apparently successful gaslighting/blameshifting by the boyfriend, and what may be subsequent re-idealization. She is obviously very, very emotionally invested in that relationship.

14. I've continud spending a lot of time with her, although it's painful, and she currently perceives me pretty positively. We've been having fun in our activities together. And some of our current conversations exhibit a great deal of emotional intimacy. There's apparent triangulation occuring with me and her boyfriend.

15. This past week, she and her boyfriend spent the full week together, mostly at her home. I feel in a world of hurt over that.

16. I'm seeing a therapist weekly, just completed an online course on Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, have worked through a book on cPTSD, etc. My ex has commented on the remarkable changes in my behavior and demeanor that have resulted from therapy.

17. She's pretty isolated. The only people she's having truly meaningful conversations with these days are myself and her boyfriend. There's reduced contact with family and other friends, because of their judgements about her affair.

Here are some of the huge challenges I see:

A. I know that restoration of our relationship can't be sustainable unless my ex is willing to do therapy for her BPD. At this point, she has refused therapy, but sometimes expresses potential openness to it (ambivalence). She knows she has cPTSD (self-diagnosed) but not that she is a pwBPD.

B. It's much harder to reverse this breakup because she's in love with someone else. A relationship between a pwBPD and a pwNPD is almost certain to turn toxic. But their relationship could last a long time - especially because it's long distance and because it's only an affair (as opposed to people who are actually living together, etc.). She's clearly very, very hooked on him right now.

C. If she and her boyfriend were to break up, there would always be the hanging threat that they'd resume the affair. It seems likely that at some point, the narcissist would try to suck her back in.

D. Because I've continued to fix her problems and hang out with her, I've been assigned to the role of a celibate companionate figure (so she currently can have her cake and eat it too). And the "threat" posed by my continuing involvement may be resulting in her boyfriend continuing to love-bomb (delaying devaluation).

This is a very complicated situation and I really encourage you to be open to let go of some of your conclusions and work through your situation with members here.

I'm really sorry you are going through this.

One thing that I read in your story is that the other man is cheating on his wife and your wife is enabling that. And, to some extent, your wife is cheating on you and you are enabling that.

What do I mean by that?

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For the other guy, an affair is like a three legged stool with the marriage/kids typically being 2 legs and the affair being 1. Or put another way, the affair is like icing on a cake. His marriage is OK, but lacking in one or two really important things to make it great, and the affair provides that supplement.

This dynamic is rarely understood by the participants, but it is really significant. Why? Because if you cut off a leg of that and everything starts falling to the ground as the married participants scramble for dear life to restore the stool, often without success.

You, of course, can do things to topple the stool or you can fortify it or something in the middle.

Another consideration is, if the stool were to fall, would she turn back to the marriage or would she go into an extended limbo, or would she move on.

You, of course, can easily do things that would enable the latter two for sure. Harder of course is knowing what to do to encourage the former or not discourage the former.

These are very complex dynamics and very difficult decisions. Talking this all out with members should help.

Skip

PS: I'm don't think "trying to convince her that he is mentally ill" or you thinking that "the relationship is doomed and will fail because it is a possible BPD/NPD pairing" or that betting that "if their relationship fails, she will commit herself to your marriage" are reliable expectations. This is more complicated than that.

Thanks for your input Skip. It's appreciated.

Yeah, I buy that the affair provides a supplement to the guy's marriage. I think my ex views it somewhat differently from him. She recently said "I doesn't know how long the relationship will last, or if it might turn into something else. Or if we [she and the other guy] could end up a couple. Or if we would even be compatible as a couple. Right now, I doesn't think I'm ready to be a couple with anyone. I'm appreciating the autonomy I have." She said that she arranged having a week with him to "check out the relationship."

I recently decided to cut back on the amount of time I'm spending with her. I think I'll also try to pull back from fixing all her problems, though I expect that will upset her and be somewhat awkward. The role I've been playing so far stabilizes the stool. As my therapist said "Why should she change? She's getting everything she wants."

My ex sees almost all the problems over the course of our relationship as being my fault; doesn't appear to see how her behaviors/choices affected our relationship. For example, in her mind, sex between us stopped because I'm a bad lover (even though early in the relationship, she would say that sex between us was the best she ever had). That makes it hard to fix things. Though the changes purely from my end, given therapy and insight into her condition, have greatly improved the quality of our interactions.

Long before I knew her, she was in an affair with a predatory married guy that lasted many years. There was an extreme power imbalance and she ended up hating him, but had a very difficult time breaking it off. Like many pwBPD, she has very poor boundaries.

The other tiny bit of information I'll add, in case it has any relevance for what I should do.

Though my ex and her current boyfriend were lovers when younger, she has complete dissociative amnesia for all sexual or romantic interaction with him during that time period, though nonsexual memories of him are preserved in detail. And when they were first going to sleep together in the current affair, she went into an extreme dissociated state marked by terror and loss of sight and hearing.

Behaviors have consequences. You’re providing her none.

It’s the classic “having one’s cake and eating it too” situation.

You don’t feel good about what she’s doing, yet you are continuously there for support. Why the heck do you know anything about her emotional state leading to intercourse with her lover? That she would tell you this is totally inappropriate. That you would be her confidante is equally inappropriate.

Focus on what makes you feel healthy and centered. Establish some boundaries with her. She’s using you as a *best friend* while she’s having sex with her lover. Figure out what is OK with you. The current situation doesn’t seem to be that.

re: "It’s the classic 'having one’s cake and eating it too' situation."

Yeah, I recognize that.

re: "Establish some boundaries with her."

Yeah, I'm trying to work on that. Though I don't have adequate clarity on exactly what boundaries to establish. As I noted, I'm substantially reducing the amount of time I'm spending with her (rejecting some of her requests to spend time together), and I'm spending a lot more time with friends. I'm also working on not rescuing her from problems she creates.

I'd like to set boundaries that optimize chances of us getting back together. Again, I don't have good clarity on what those boundaries would be. And I know that criterion (i.e., optimizing chances of sustainably reversing the breakup) is not the same as a criterion of what would leave me feeling the most OK.

I strongly suspect that she's letting her lover know about time that she and I are spending together, and that this may be causing him to treat her better than he otherwise would (since he would see me as a threat/competitor, and feel that he doesn't securely have her). That would stabilize the stool - the opposite of what I'd want. Based on stuff she's told me, as well as online videos, the guy appears highly narcissistic, and that's the type she has historically gone for.

At the point she started the affair, I was split black. That's no longer the case, and her behavior toward me is now far warmer and much more trusting. For a long time, her body language toward me had been very cold and distant. After she announced the breakup, she maintained physical distance - moving away if I even sat too close to her. Now, we're kind of snuggling as she shows me stuff on her phone, she's stroked the side of my face, etc. But I don't really know what's going through her mind in those circumstances.