Thank you all for sharing so much. It helps so much and I can tell that each and every one of us did our best and had no idea what we were dealing with. It hurts so much to see someone we loved and trusted, and laid ourselves on the line for time and time again, continue to make such poor and dangerous choices. I had so much pain and anguish from my pwBPD marriage, and we didn't have any kids. I can't even fathom the pain that you all must feel that have kids with your pwBPD. Those poor kids, and to be forced to watch them being abused by your expwBPD and not be able to do anything about it. Just tragic.
I think I am starting to really come out of the FOG and realize that the relationship never was what I thought. She was always experiencing things, and me, through a BPD lens, which is a very scary, painful, and dark toxic place. While I was falling in love, fighting for the ideals of loyalty, honor, commitment, love, she was just trying to survive and constantly self sabotaging. I know she cheated on me at the end, I suspect she did at some other point, too.
She is not who I thought she was, and probably never will be. Like you said above, if THIS is who she presented as when I met her, I would have slammed the door or directed her to the nearest mental hospital.
It has helped so much to have this site. Sometimes y'all are the only people who really get it. It's helped me to talk with an excellent therapist every week. He has decades of experience dealing with pwBPD and their victims. Not that they are intending to leave victims in their wake, but they do. It's also helped me to go through our relationship, on paper, make a timeline, really realize what I was feeling at different times. She had alot more breakdowns and abusing me than my initial memory. And alot of times I confused fear of losing her with love. I was scared of her alot, including scared she would succeed in killing herself and/or me one day, terrified even. And that's no way to live and no home to bring a child into.
Anyways, it does get better. Stay active, stay reading and posting on here, get a therapist who has helped victims of pwBPD before, reconnect with family and friends, stay physically active, go to work, pray if you are a believer.
And finally, I decided one Saturday night after she left, I was feeling so sad and honestly suicidal. Not that I wanted to die but just that I was in so much pain and felt so lost and hopeless. But I decided that that was going to be my rock bottom. Since then, as hard as it has been, and sometimes I have not wanted to get out of bed, not even wanted to hope, but I haven't let myself sink down to that level. Every month gets a little better, and there are good days and bad days but I'm learning to be compassionate to myself.
A dear friend and mentor told me that all of that love and light and energy that I had been pouring into her for years I had to pour into myself now. We can only save ourselves, and it was now time to save myself.
Stay strong everyone, much love to you all. We have survived one of the hardest things emotionally that a human can go through, and if I can do it you can, too. There are brighter times ahead.
I think I am starting to really come out of the FOG and realize that the relationship never was what I thought. She was always experiencing things, and me, through a BPD lens, which is a very scary, painful, and dark toxic place. While I was falling in love, fighting for the ideals of loyalty, honor, commitment, love, she was just trying to survive and constantly self sabotaging. I know she cheated on me at the end, I suspect she did at some other point, too.
She is not who I thought she was, and probably never will be. Like you said above, if THIS is who she presented as when I met her, I would have slammed the door or directed her to the nearest mental hospital.
It has helped so much to have this site. Sometimes y'all are the only people who really get it. It's helped me to talk with an excellent therapist every week. He has decades of experience dealing with pwBPD and their victims. Not that they are intending to leave victims in their wake, but they do. It's also helped me to go through our relationship, on paper, make a timeline, really realize what I was feeling at different times. She had alot more breakdowns and abusing me than my initial memory. And alot of times I confused fear of losing her with love. I was scared of her alot, including scared she would succeed in killing herself and/or me one day, terrified even. And that's no way to live and no home to bring a child into.
Anyways, it does get better. Stay active, stay reading and posting on here, get a therapist who has helped victims of pwBPD before, reconnect with family and friends, stay physically active, go to work, pray if you are a believer.
And finally, I decided one Saturday night after she left, I was feeling so sad and honestly suicidal. Not that I wanted to die but just that I was in so much pain and felt so lost and hopeless. But I decided that that was going to be my rock bottom. Since then, as hard as it has been, and sometimes I have not wanted to get out of bed, not even wanted to hope, but I haven't let myself sink down to that level. Every month gets a little better, and there are good days and bad days but I'm learning to be compassionate to myself.
A dear friend and mentor told me that all of that love and light and energy that I had been pouring into her for years I had to pour into myself now. We can only save ourselves, and it was now time to save myself.
Stay strong everyone, much love to you all. We have survived one of the hardest things emotionally that a human can go through, and if I can do it you can, too. There are brighter times ahead.
Your post really hit me - I went through / am going through ALL of these things. I was in a VERY dark place early on - somewhere I’ve never been in my life.
I’m now realizing everything you stated. The love I desperately drove myself into the ground to get was never and will never be what I thought it was. While I’m realizing what actually was happening in our relationship, she never will. I’m sure I’m a distant memory already and, more than likely, she’s had my replacement for quite some time.
Every day I feel a bit of the old me coming back. Not the defeated POS I felt like at the end of this relationship. In the back of my mind, I’m keeping the thought that this experience, while horribly painful, will ultimately make me a better person.