BPDFamily.com

my ex rebounded with a guy on her friendlist in just over a week (he lives by her). she was, however, heavily commenting on his wall a few days prior to meeting him for a date. i know i shouldn't really be thinking about this, but 2 weeks before she dumped me she didn't want to talk on the phone and instead wanted to only text. i started to get it in my head that she was losing interest in me because she was talking/texting another guy (the guy she rebounded with), because she sent a text that didn't seem like it was intended for me. i don't know if this was the case, but i read an article which stated that it's very common for a BPD to begin a secret r/s with someone else just prior to letting you go, but, the article said, 'don't ever expect them to admit this, they never will'. I also found it odd the way they both already seemed so acquainted in their fb conversations when the r/s was official, yet they hardly ever spoke openly to eachother on fb prior to this. In fact she never even mentioned him before.

unfortunately johnny, this is par for the course, and pretty much what happened to me.

you're right that they very often have someone waiting in the wings, so when they rebound, and it seems shockingly fast, its USUALLY because they've already been working on it.

and during all of this, they tend to completely change toward us, and usually become profoundly distant, often over night. and often when it seems like you're on a major upswing, actually. i saw all of the above with 4 different borderlines.

here's a question. did she happen to get sick/ill around this time?

Contd... .(i have a txt limit on my phone, so apologies for breaking it up in 2 parts) all i want to say is, did you experience this, and do you think my ex was seeing this guy behind my back? she cheated twice before, but when drunk. would no alcohol make any difference with them cheating?

Thanks lucky, and yes she did get ill around that time - so bad in fact, that she had to go see the doctor who prescribed her anti-depressants. then when she took one she had a panic attack.

to answer your other questions:

i don't know if she was "seeing" him. and of course i don't know for sure at all. i would guess from experience that she was obviously communicating with him. possibly flirtatiously. did she cheat? no way to know, i'd trust your gut on that one. two of mine did. i believe another one was probably cuddling with the guy she got with. maybe more. and the other, if she didn't cheat on me with the guy she got with (it would have been difficult to do) she was definitely communicating and flirting with him. i had seen NO sign of him whatsoever. she threw him at me by flirting with him all over her wall. she even baited him into writing on her wall, because his is not public. looking back though, i can see minor signs. she'd mentioned listening to some bands she'd never heard before, all of whom im positive were related to him. but until i added it all up, there was otherwise absolutely no sign of the guy. and yes, i had the same impression you did, that they seemed quite "acquainted". they were. i even recalled her mentioning hanging out with him on new years. for some reason her mention of that, at the time, gave me a funny feeling.

when dealing with a borderline, its amazing how your gut never lies. trust it.

getting ill before they split, and/or rebound has happened to me twice. before i knew about BPD, something seemed really strange about that to me. but it seemed crazy to think it was anything other than coincidence. when i learned about BPD, and found out this had happened to others, i realized its fairly common.

that's scary and fascinating. because they've surely all been truly sick. that must be some frightening psychological stuff going on in their bodies and minds.

This is exactly what happened to me. My ex became cold, detached, and distant over one phone conversation, it left me in complete chaos and confusion over what was going on. I decided that we'd take a break because she was telling me she "needed space" and she was being very cold towards me, but only 4 days later she called me up crying and wanted to get back together. Things were normal again for about two days, then a few days later she broke up with me in person.

I was in complete shock as to how she could seemingly just stop caring about me, completely changing, and detaching herself from everything over night. It was the most traumatic thing I've ever experienced, to have my world turned upside down like that at the snap of a finger. My hopes, dreams, promises, passion, fantasies, and love all went down the drain right in front of me but completely catching me by surprise.

It was after two months of being in a confused, painful, and chaotic state that I finally bothered my ex enough for closure that she told me there was someone else. This someone else was a co-worker whom was a recovering heroin addict and was in a relationship himself. My ex apparently exchanged numbers with him about two weeks before she broke up with me.

To make matters worse, she kept stringing me along and tried to keep me waiting in the wings whilst she was securing a relationship with her new object of idealization. She had made plans with me to go see a movie but never got back to me, when I called one day to ask about it she asked me if I wanted to stay friends. After all the telling me she needed time, was confused, needed space, accused me of being controlling, being a complete btch to me, and all the "sincere" messages of love... .she wanted to just be friends. I said no, called her out on all of the above, and she cut me out of her life completely and hasn't even cared to look back.

Needless to say, I've been very hurt and angry for months now.

Thanks again, lucky. it's been some time since the split - just over 10 months, and i've come quite a long way in terms of healing, though she is still there in my head, but i don't really feel the pain as bad as i did. also interesting what you said in regards to them getting really ill around those times when you suspect something is going on. in fact it was the worst she'd ever been and she was going to call for an ambulance. prior to getting with me, she had an on off affair with a married man in her local area (this was secretly initiated on fb), and none of her close fb friends knew about any of this. so i wouldn't be surprised if she was meeting the rebound guy behind my back. well, if that was the case, if he gets burned (as he inevitably will do) he only has himself to blame.

@vicious cycle. what you experienced was exactly the same as me. mine became cold and detached, around the time she fell ill and when i suspected in my gut something was going on with another guy. next day i got the phone call to tell me it's over. 4 days later she obsessively tries to re-engage me. that was the final time i got recycled, because, like you, 2 days later she dumped me. then the smear campaign started, then commenting heavily on the guy's wall. interestingly she referred to him as tommy, even though his name on fb was thomas. usually, when we're well acquainted with someone, we use an abbreviated version of their name, so i found that quite suspicious also.

it doesn't require a personality disorder to rebound.

i work at a bar. i see people rebounding left and right. none of them have a mental illness. most of them just want reassurance they can still attract the opposite sex.

my BPDex also rebounded. quick. i understand they can't be alone. a lot of people can't be alone. that never bothered me. it bothered me when she would text me information about her rebound and attempted triangulation (read definition) (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=121673.0). that's when i pointed the finger to a personality disorder.

Yep yep yep.  Same stuff happened to me.  Cold and distant while he was secretly hooking the next victim.  When he felt like he was good and attached to her, he immediately broke up with me and cut me out of his life and latched on to her.  In hindsight i see it, at the time I never saw the breakup coming.  Just thought he was acting strange again.

I realized later that he tried to break up with me once before in the r/s a few months prior.  He was acting in the same way then--cold, distant, picking fights with me.  I found out later during that time he was cheating on me with multiple women.  My guess... . He was trying desperately to attach to one of them... .then give me the boot.  Fortunately, they figured out he was a nutcase and didn't want anything to do with him.  Apparently they were more perceptive than I was.  

Johnny, I'm sure mine involved alcohol but that really isn't an excuse.  All the alcohol allowed him to do was have the confidence to go through with the cheating.  Given the plans he made ahead of time, cheating was something he planned sober then got drunk and did it--more than once.  So alcohol really doesn't matter here.  If I had to put money on it, I'm sorry, but I'd say yours probably cheated too.  I think others here would agree, in some ways this disorder is VERY predictable.

Redberry, you're probably right about her cheating, if not that, she was certainly inboxing/texting this guy with the intention of cheating with him. i also found it interesting that, as soon as we split, guys who she slept with in the past, in addition to an ex, were all over her wall like a rash, yet she went with the guy she rebounded with, so it seems her mind must have been affixed on him for some time.

Johnny,

It's so easy to get hung up on the new woman or man in our ex's life!  I get the same way, have recently found out ex is seeing someone, not sure how serious it is.  I think something I need to learn, and really not sure if this would help you, but I let myself get jealous of new woman.  I let myself think I am not good enough, this woman is somehow better than me.  If there is a way to put that thought aside and say, hey, did I realllllly want to be in r/s with this person anyway?  If you're like me, there were so many more negatives than positives to being with him.  And by focusing on the new woman or my jealousy, I am really just distracting myself from the truth.

Does this make any sense at all? lol

oh and btw, facebook is THE DEVIL 

If you can at all block her and not look.  I am saying this from experience  :'(

Pinkdaisy, thanks for advice, i appreciate it. it's not jealousy over the new guy that i have an issue with, rather the fact that i have these residual thoughts since the split, that i was never good enough. it was all going great in the first month and a half, then i find out she cheated, then it all went downhill. i just don't understand why i was constantly dumped and recycled, and each time she snared me she would attack every aspect of my personality, when all i wanted to do was love her. yet, the new guy never got dumped once, since last time i checked around 3 months ago, and they'd been together about 7 months then. i haven't looked since, and i long deactivated fb, so idk if they're still together or not. but the fact that he didn't get dumped once, and i did several times makes me wonder if i'm not good enough, and if she was actually BPD or not (everything did fit). i can understand incompatibility issues, but why keep recycling me if every aspect of my being repulsed her? BPD or just selfish?

May I ask where you're getting your information from regarding her new r/s?

Is it possible that you don't have all of the story?

What I mean to say is, suppose the new guy has been dumped and chose to hide this.  We never really know what is going on in a relationship from the outside looking in.  Top that off with the very secretive ways of BPD and it really becomes a hidden situation.

Daisy, last time i looked was 3 months ago (his fb wall was public) and i occasionally checked his wall out during the 7 months they had been together. i think that he may be somewhat emotionally unavailable to her because i noticed that when she commented on his wall he ignored her, whereas he would always reply to other people. he never added any of her family or friends, which might denote that he's not that serious about her, which provides her with the thrill of the chase, which i'm told BPDs enjoy. i remember when i started to learn how to play her, and became indifferent to her, she then did a 180 turn around and was all over me, but i hated being like that because it all felt false. perhaps the new guy is playing her in the same way and just using her for sex idk.

We can never really figure out BPD's world, even when we are side by side with them on the daily, huh?  lol

I'm with you on the feeling insecure or not good enough thing.  I've even thought about what you said about "the chase" and wondered if I had been harder to get, if it would have made a difference.  I will never know.

You're right, you have to be true to yourself!   

No it does not make a difference. When my ex and I got together, she wanted in BPD fashion to go at lightening speed. I slowed things down extensively because I am a very cautious person by nature. All it did I think was prolong the inevitable. I wasted almost 7 yrs of my life on that woman... .years I will never get back.

Thank you, GOI,

I knew deep down that it probably wouldn't, but you know, sometimes it still made me question myself.

The weird part is that I am the girl who is ALMOST ALWAYS hard to get, because of my "emotional unavailability" lol.  I'm thinking I was so open and receptive to exBPDbf because deep down somewhere I knew he wasn't really available, anyway.  deep stuff

Yeh daisy, i recall each time i went NC on her she frantically tried to re-engage me - phoning and txting constantly. she became so enraged, that she resorted to calling me names and threatening to go on a date with a guy. i still stayed NC, but the phone didn't stop ringing until i caved in because she seemed suicidal. so... .i go to see her, then she dumps me, and says, she can't take being ignored and it's all about the chase. crazy stuff.

gettingoverit is exactly right. having dated three borderlines before, i had essentially just been learning how to manage and manipulate a borderline relationship. i was always willing to at least indicate that i could leave. i wasn't emotionally unavailable by any means, but i guess in some ways i was less emotionally available. this relationship lasted 3 years... .as opposed to 1-3 months. i was always perfect. she was never tired of me. always missed me. etc, etc, etc. if she had ever displayed any of that behavior, i would have just pulled away.

none of it mattered. same result. no johnny, and no pinkdaisy, it's not you and it never was. and johnny, they do behave a bit differently from relationship to relationship. as you say you learned to withdraw, and she'd show more affection. given how they mirror their attachments its kinda natural that they'd behave differently in different relationships. my previous ex dated nothing but puss. that's who she's dating now. she's pulled ALL KINDS of things on him that she never would have DARED pull on me, or i'd have kicked her to the curb. she's isolated him and gotten rid of every last one of his friends. i wasn't even willing to give up an internet friend that i rarely speak to for her.

playing hard to get, like gettingoverit said, at BEST, postpones the inevitable.

Lucky,you are so extremely well informed about BPD.Something you said caught my eye.Can you please elaborate about pwBPDs and them feeling ill when they are spliting or rebounding.I don't quite understand.Do pwBPD have a tendancy to have physical ailments alot.You see,the reason why I ask is because the guy that I was dating,who I seriously believe suffers from BPD(funny,I said he suffers from BPD,but somehow,I am the one that is really suffering at this point,not him),he always complained that he was sick from one type of ailment or another.He seemed like a freakin hypochondriac.You would not believe how many illnesses he was plagued with.So is that common?I know that GUILT can make people have what they consider to be real ailments.Is that what happens to people w BPD-they feel tremendous guilt and therefore they have these make believe illnesses?And if so,how does that correlate with the fact that they don't feel true remorse?

Lucky, i met this gal on fb, and she well and truly beguiled me. normally i'd never get involved with anyone off the internet because my gut always told me that most people who spend excessive amounts of time on social networking sites have deep issues. i came across a gal online prior to my ex, and without doubt, this gal was BPD... .really easy to spot. it was like that scene from Terminator were kyle reece is recapping on the future war, and he tells Sarah Connor that the early terminator models were easy to spot because of their rubber skin, but the later T800 models were undetectable because they looked so organic... .so human. that's how it was with my high functioning ex. she completely beguiled me, i dropped my guard and paid a major price for it. still... .at least i'm wiser from that experience and wont ever allow anything like that to happen again.

Ithurts, i know you asked lucky the question, and i'm sure he will be able to give you a better answer, but it sounds like your ex is a BPD waif. from what i've read about waifs they have a myriad of ailments, so much so, that the non partner is bewildered by how many illnesses a single person can suffer from.

kind of a similar experience actually. i knew my recent ex for three years before i met her. we met through a mutual best friend, a female. our contact began as jokingly competing for this best friend. that was actually just a ploy on my part, i'd seen this girl and thought   and just HAD to talk to her. she lives about an hour away though, so like i said we hadn't met for 3 years.

unlike you however, i knew she was crazy. our best friend had told me plenty. and my ex (before i met her) made it pretty obvious. she would flirt with me in this totally over the top manner that one could reasonably dismiss as a joke (but it was clear it wasn't as she was kind of obsessive toward me) but then she'd go on about her ex and totally confuse me. my ex got me started saying "baby". that was part of the flirting. then, according to our friend, i'd sent my ex (again, this is before we met) a text that she ignored. she rolled her eyes and claimed i called her "baby" 700 times a day. given it was the complete and total opposite, i was pretty annoyed by this. later that night when i was talking to her she was obsessed as usual. i knew she'd stolen from the previous boyfriend. i HATE thieves. she wound up doing the same to me. anyway, about a week before we finally met, and i knew we were about to meet, i was writing in my journal about all the "red flags" as i called them EVEN THEN. it was quite an eye opener to come to this board and see everyone pose the question "why did we ignore the red flags?" i think for me, this crazy was familiar. i wanted to venture into the cave and finally slay the dragon. i thought i could conquer it. i didn't REALLY have an idea what i was REALLY dealing with. i say this often, but when i learned about BPD, i felt like austin powers discovering that vanessa was a fembot. that's essentially what she is to me. point is, i willingly chose to go for a crazy person. someone oughta shoot me :).

continuing the knight and dragon metaphor, i didn't slay the dragon, but i did leave a nice mark, and escaped with my life. the dragon won't ever forget me.

What r/s for a BPD ISN'T a rebound? Their entire LIVES are rebounds.

Even though a lot of people rebound, I think there is a pattern for pwBPD and it is discussed in the article how a BPD relationship evolves. Or some similar title.

The other is the triangulation (read definition) (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=121673.0), and the devaluation and discard-and yes, there is usually always someone waiting in the wings they have been seducing.

The biggest emotional hurdle I had to overcome was not that he moved on to a new object and lied to me and cheated on me, I know these are defects of character and reflect a poor moral conscience-it was not about me, but him. It hurt, oh of course it did since he pursued me and was discussing our future plans just the day before the break up as well as our Christmas plans.

So that was confusing and hurtful. But I knew-he could not be alone.

The biggest hurdle was his verbal abuse of me, his scorn of our relationship and his personal attack of me, my children and my livelihood. I am a social worker-he is a wealthy corporate type-and he always admired my work-up until that day. He loved my children up until that day.

It was one of the most heartbreaking and confusing conversations of my life.

The rebound is not about you, the devalue and discard is not about you. In time you will know this but right now it hurts to know they move on as easily as a cat in heat.

So you gotta ask yourself-do you want to stick around and herd cats-or do you want to figure out how to heal. Keep posting-you will get there, it just takes time.

C

I think this line best sums it up. No matter what there's never a happy ending with a borderline. They are sick in the head and heart and will sabotage any good that comes their way. We can't love them to wholeness and we can't fix them and make them see our worth. Our worth is what's really being discussed at hand here and its our job to find out why we believe that they have what we need. All the evidence in the world is pointing to how destructive and soul sucking they are and yet we can't accept that this is the real them. This is how we get caught up in the love triangles and rebounds and to this I say: SURRENDER. Wave your white flag and ask yourself: what am I worth? and what do I believe about myself?  Rebounds and triangles are all about exploitation and upping the ante on the game that they don't plan on losing.

And if there's one thing a person with BPD knows how to do: its exploit.

They will exploit the H.E double hockey stick out of anyone who thinks they're up to task at playing them at their own game. We can't beat them at a game they've been practicing their entire lives. The only way we win is when we take ourselves out of the equation. This is where our power is. When we end the game we win. When we love ourselves more than we love them: we win.

We need to "get" that they don't have the magic keys to our happiness and they won't be magically cured nor healed with someone else. My BPDex was picking fights with me and testing out new replacements and each time I told him to go screw himself cause I know he wanted me to play "rescuer." I never chased him so I felt like I had a modicum of self-respect but at the time I didn't know about BPD or emotional dsyregulation. And I most certainly didn't understand how stunted and emotionally sick he really was. I played tough girl but the result ending was still the same. I didn't win the honeymoon version of him back and all the trust I had in him fell into a deep abyss.

The point of it all is this: they can only rebound and triangulate when they have willing participants.

HG

they sure as hell know how to find willing participants. like nobodies i've ever seen.

great posts. i knew that when i was playing hard to get that it would only have a degree of success in keeping my ex yearning for me, before she'd then flip it around and accuse me of not loving her, then triangulating (read definition) (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=121673.0) the r/s. when she friendzoned me, i decided to delay answering her texts, then her attraction levels for me went sky high. she was like, 'are you playing hard to get? i like it!' then she begged me to get back with her. but i recall the guy before me, and how he ignored her texts, so she made sure he got paid back. she went on fb and began flirting/sex talking with a number of guys. she then arranged to go spend the week with a guy friend. the ex went nuts and dumped her. idk if i'm correct in my assertion, but it seems to me that the borderline is secretly resentful towards anyone who makes them chase after them, although it initially gives them excitement. so they retaliate... .eventually. this was certainly the case with the guy before me. i didn't want to be drawn into silly psyche games.

PS Lucky, that luckystrikes thread i accidentally created, was supposed to be a PM, i don't know how that happened! lol

I have really gotten some good information from this thread.  I am, I believe FINALLY ready to surrender, HG.  I can't do this anymore.  I don't like who I've become, I'm ashamed, I have lost all pride in myself.  I have GIVEN him this power.  I've been out of the Honeymoon phase for some time now.  There have been some (brief) wonderful idealization modes, then it's always back to devaluation.  I'm thinking I'm not going to leave it up to him to do the DISCARDING.

Johnny, you sound like you have a good understanding of what your ex is about.  It's a sad tragic thing that she will always be like that (unless she seeks help of course) but I'm so glad you're moving on!  When can we honestly say we were EVER really content and happy with our exes except for in the honeymoon phase?  I wasn't, after the very first devaluation.  Knot in my stomach for months now.

Knowing that the whole "hard to get" thing doesn't ultimately make a difference in the end helps my peace of mind, thank you all.   

Xxx

Yeh daisy, although my ex sure fitted the description of a BPD, it may have just been incompatibility issues. see, we'd already 'bonded' on fb and phone months before we met, and, when we met she seemed really into me, but soon realized that 'it didn't feel right in the first week' (her words). so she ended it a month later. it hurt a bit, but i was adult about it and wanted to move on, but she wouldn't let me go and asked if we could be friends, i initially agreed, but felt uneasy about it and told her, but she kept engaging me, and started telling me i'm the man of her dreams and she wanted me back. to cut a long story short, because of that bonding process on fb and phone, i think she became attached to me and found it hard to lose me from her life. she always offered to be friends, when that failed she begged me to get back with her, but the r/s kept failing eachtime. so despite her nasty behaviour, it might have been that she couldn't bear to lose me as a friend, and was afraid of being alone. Perhaps.

To add to my previous post, and at the risk of sounding egotistical, being friendzoned is a humiliating and emasculating experience, and i'd never dream of doing that to an ex. once it's over, i believe you should move on. i couldn't have an ex in the friendzone and have them go through the pain of seeing me with a new woman. and nor would i like to experience it either. my ex would have been just fine to subject me to this (as she wasted no time in trying to do first time i got friendzoned), but if the boot was on the other foot, i know she would have went insane.

Maybe its my own narcissism but I thought my ex would never be able to cope without me (I always took care of her and the kids). So that's what I usually said when she took me for granted.

Little did I know that when I could not take it anymore she already had someone waiting.

The reason why I am so confused is that I thought I was the one that did everything to "save" her and just was discarded a month before it ended. The new guy is doing exactly the same and sometimes I am jealous because I am the saving type and tried everything to save her. I have the angst that he WILL be able to save her and I never could.

Is this strange? Next to that he is already integrated in her home and my kids which is the most hard thing to see "happy" family a month after I moved out. Can someone please tell me why? Was she done with me long before it ended? Or how does that work?

I keep blaming myself that it ended (I also got that from my ex because "I" was always  grumpy and moody at the end).

Look forward to your feedback.


Thanks