BPDFamily.com

Hey everyone. I'm not very active on this forum, but it has and still is a very important source of support for me. My relationship ended almost 2 years ago, and I've been on NC for a year. Yesterday I heard some news about my exbf from a mutual friend.

Not only did he pair up with a new woman shortly after we broke up, he also has a 1 year old child. Not his first one, seems like he has a handful of children wherever he has been in.

I don't want him back or to have him in my life in any way, but this revelation felt odd and slightly disturbing. When we were together, he made jokes about wire hanger abortions and killing himself should I accidentally end up pregnant. Now he has another child with someone and is apparently trying his best. I never wanted children with him, but now I feel the cruel jokes and hints again. It feels like he just wanted to hurt me, it was not about having more children. It sucks, and it will sting again for a while. Being single feels lonely again, although I know it's the best way to be for now.

I hope he makes it this time and gets to keep the custody of this child. Hopefully this time he gets his sh*t together and stops hurting the people he has gathered around him. 

That's all, just wanted to vent. Eventually these revelations and memories get weaker and at some point I no longer care. I was just surprised I still do at this point.

I can relate.  My ex bf ended our romantic r/ship because, he said, he realized he couldn't deal with a woman with a kid. (I'm skipping all the pain I experienced around that.  Obviously, he knew I had a kid when we started.)  Shortly thereafter, I learned he was involved again with a young woman in my office whose bottom line included that she wanted to get married and have kids.  Her friends led me to understand that he was promising that.  It felt perhaps like what you're experiencing now -- the idea that someone else would get treated differently and better is quite wounding.

FWIW in my case, the young woman eventually was treated no better.  I would caution you not to read to much into what's happening at this one moment. Things are always going well -- until they're not.

Just remember you got off easy! Pity those poor women stuff with him in their lives . Remember they don't have what it takes to function normally in life. People with BPD . It's not a generalization . It's a fact. If he truly has this mental disorder he is not going to do any better but likely worse with added pressure that children can bring along. My ex really didn't feel comfortable around children.

I am at a similar stage now.

The relationship is just firing up to the heart of the honeymoon period.

They are doing things we could not because he is a Christian, which she requires in order to be public with someone, and he has money, so they can go on multi-day things more often.

I now heard she is taking him to her church recently, which I did also, but because he is of the faith he will fit right in with her world in a way I could not.

And so now I'm plagued by the idea that they will have a long and happy relationship, and that I was wrong about her, and that it was me all along.

And then I feel somewhat ashamed because I should be happy if she is now in a relationship that she will be happy and fulfilled in.

So, it's impossible to tell what's going on, especially in the honeymoon phase, but it's all very crushing to my sense of value.

She's gone off to this blissful perfect match and I'm just the guy that she tried and failed with.

I know she has an unstable sense of herself, low self esteem, a great ease at self-serving deception, and a serial cheater.

It's just another case of emotions overpowering my logic.

I'm trying not to focus on it, but I hear things.

Ah yeah, know the feeling. Found out over the holidays that my ex got engaged around Xmas. Like you, I don't want her back but still stung a bit, not sure how to explain it. But, as they say, that too shall pass.

my ExBPDgf left me 'cause I didn't believe in God the right way (the same way her church did) and she didn't want me giving her children and teaching them my heretical thoughts.

HOWEVER, remember that the "reason" is almost never the real reason -- it's engulfment fear or abandonment fear. Some fear. So, when they meet you, they pick out something you CANT change -- say you have a kid, or say you can't have kids -- then they play this card when exit time comes. For example, if you have a kid they will eventually say "I can't be with someone who already has kids" -- or you don't love God the right way or you're too old or you live too far away or you don't want to have kids or ... .anything that you can't fix, they will play this card when they know it's their "time to go"

Tim, that's what I think as well.

We were together for a year, and during that time she almost never mentioned religion, and we had sex all the time.

It was only when she needed space to date others did she trot out the religion thing, saying she felt guilty about premarital sex or she wanted to be with someone who put god first. It was a farce. But I knew that difference was there. There was no getting around it. I would have supported her religion, but that didn't matter. It was just a useful tool that I knew I couldn't do anything about.

You certainly know your ex and I don't, so this might be entirely wrong.  You know best.  One thing about some pwBPD, however, is that they can tend to repress their own wants and needs in order to form and maintain an attachment - even aspects of their identity.  Often this engenders deep resentment in the pwBPD even though they are the ones engaging in the behavior - many times needlessly.  It may be that your ex really did feel very uncomfortable or dirty for sleeping with you outside marriage, but did it anyway in order to please you.  She may have thought that you wouldn't be with her otherwise.  It's one of the ways they have learned to form attachments, unhealthy as this is.  This may be entirely invisible to us, and we of course never meant to cause this stress and pain in our partner.  It is a serious mental illness, and one often fraught with such pitfalls for partners.

That's a valid point, and I'm sure some of that is true.

But I tried to steer us away from having sex multiple times and she consistently pushed for it. If she had anything to drink, she had to have sex with me, regardless of how our relationship was at that point. A lot of times I felt that I was there to have sex with her and other than that I served no real function. The rest of the day was just humoring me so sex would eventually be there for her. I think part of her personality cared about religion, and another part of her personality had no idea what religion was. She will be religious with this guy, but her other personalty will not want anything to do with it if it is interfering with her need for sexual soothing and affirmation.

Thanks for the support, everyone. I try to remember that no matter how I feel now, I'm better off without him, even alone.

Especially the things tim and homefree shared reminded me why I really, REALLY am way better off and how my life is a lot more simple and stress-free now than what it was during our relationship. Still, in some oddly empathetic way it saddens me to think that he is probably going to make a mess of things again in one way or another and lose the relationship and/or the child. That in general is a horrible thing and there aren't too many people on this planet I wish to go through that.

Then again, this is probably an echo of me caring about him and being concerned of his well-being. I was a world league champion at that : P

tim27818:

HOWEVER, remember that the "reason" is almost never the real reason -- it's engulfment fear or abandonment fear. Some fear. So, when they meet you, they pick out something you CANT change -- say you have a kid, or say you can't have kids -- then they play this card when exit time comes. For example, if you have a kid they will eventually say "I can't be with someone who already has kids" -- or you don't love God the right way or you're too old or you live too far away or you don't want to have kids or ... .anything that you can't fix, they will play this card when they know it's their "time to go"

Exactly, the "no win scenario." Saw that one played against me and others during my BPD relationship. And what's described above is exactly how it was employed.