So Confused...

[willy45]

I am really, really confused. Does my ex have BPD or not? Does it matter? I guess it helps if I think she does because it explains a lot of stuff. Having a label helps. But maybe she was just 'dysfunctional'? Maybe I'm 'dysfunctional'. Maybe we just had a 'toxic' relationship. I don't know. This is a confusing mess in my brain.

I've been going to therapy and my therapist has been clear that I should own the fact that my ex was deeply emotionally abusive. She would rage uncontrollably. I would walk on eggshells. Everything was always my fault for my 'tone' or for 'not being nice to her' or for a myriad of other reasons.

But, I screwed up too, maybe. I don't know. I never committed to her. I found someone else to be with while I was with her. I never moved in. I was scared of her. Her raging was never appropriate. She would rage at me for not liking a movie that much, for my expressing my feelings, for being groggy, for rolling over in the bed, for petting a dog. And on and on. It was kind of unbearable.

But I am wracked with guilt. I didn't have the guts to tell her to F off. I would always try to reason with her. And after that didn't work. I got involved with someone else. But I never cut her off. I kept going back and trying to reason with her. I kept trying to get her to see my point of view. But that never happened. But I would keep trying. It was madness on my part.

I am really worried about myself. I am worried about my own abilities to make decisions. I am worried that I am going to continue to make horrible mistakes. I am worried that I made a terrible mistake in breaking up with my ex. There are so many things I miss. But those things I miss don't even seem real. It is like these things I miss are just constructs in my mind. We had great times together. Sure. And we had horrible, horrible times. And the horrible times seemed to far outweigh the good times. The good times were random. I never knew when they were coming. The terrible times were the same way. I never knew when they were coming. All I knew is that they would. And they would be terrible.

I seem to be in a deeper mess than I have ever been.

Did I make the right decision? Did I cause all these problems? Am I the one who is mentally ill?

[hithere]

Does it matter?

Not really, you are looking for closure and you will never get it if she has BPD.

But I am wracked with guilt. I didn't have the guts to tell her to F off.

Don't sweat it, moving on with your life to be happy with someone else is the best way to get revenge.

I got involved with someone else.

This I would consider a character flaw, but you are in therapy, work through this, try and understand why you did this.

I am worried that I am going to continue to make horrible mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes throughout their lives, just learn from your mistakes and try not to make them again.

I am worried that I made a terrible mistake in breaking up with my ex.

If she has BPD you did the right thing, if she just treated you badly then you did the right thing - even if you made mistakes you still deserve to be happy.

Am I the one who is mentally ill?

What does your therapist say?

[lockedout]

You probably did the right thing by not committing to her or moving in. Seeing another person before ending it may not have been the best way to handle things; especially of she found out about it; as opposed to you telling her or successfully keeping it from her altogether.

Cheating (emotional or physical) is a symptom of the failure of a relationship, rarely the cause. You may not have had an "excuse" for it, but your reason was legitimate. Intimacy, appreciation, companionship, validation, etc are basic if not primitive human needs. In a weak but salvageable relationship, there's a deficiency of these things and they will be sought elsewhere. In a healthy relationship, the faithful partner has a right to be hurt and upset, but as long as the cheater is repentant and delivers on a promise not to do it again, it is often repaired. The faithful one is also willing to reflect and work on their part that led up to the affair.The relationship ends up stronger than it would have without the affair.

A BPDer can't do that. No humility. They live in constant fear that they will be "abandoned" for another. Through rages, gaslighting, projecting, control tactics, passive-aggressive, manpulating, attacking, and abusing you an affair never happens. You self esteem is too shattered to approach others seeking to have your needs fulfilled. You can't ask her to do a better job, because it's "abuse". She may know that you're faithful but doesn't care. You're such a "rotten btch" to her that it "doesn't matter". You mistake your fear for calling her out on holding up her end of the bargain and resisting temptation (EVERYONE is subject to this) as love. It's fear.

People in North Korea don't sing praises to their great leader because they love him. If they don't, they get shipped off to a prison camp where they're tortured and killed. Because they've been separated from their dignity and identities for so long, they really can't tell the difference. They've also been kept isolated so well that they really don't know understand the concept of "freedom" - I learned that from first hand experience when I was there. A BPDer will alienate you from friends and family for the same reason. After a while, you just don't know the difference.

[willy45]

I guess I'm worried that all the abusive stuff that was hurled at me was my fault for not committing to her and for leaving her for someone else.

[lockedout]

Abuse is not your fault. You were under no obligation to commit to her and she had no right to be upset with her as long as you were honest about it. A healthy person who wants a commitment but a partner who isn't reciprocating may become disappointed or even hurt, but when that's past they'll sit you down and tell you in a compassionate way that they can't keep doing this without a commitment. They're willing to acknowledge that their intimate feelings have reached a point that they can't continue without exclusivity. In this case they normally part ways on amicable turns and possibly stay friends. I'm still friends with a girl who broke up with me ten years ago in a similar fashion.

They don't stay around and treat you like crap, hoping that if they control, manipulate, and diminish your self-esteem enough that you'll finally see things their way and become who and what you want them to be. Her crazy behavior would not have ended with committing to her. It would have re-emerged with every little thing you did "wrong" in her oblique perception of the world and she would have justified her behavior by being "right".

You can compare what you were doing to the fairy tale "Rumplestilsken". An angry little hermit who knew his name but made the girl guess it until she got it right. The only difference is that he didn't change it right before she got it. That's why she'll never see your point of view.

[willy45]

Yeah. Thanks for that.

I guess I am having a hard time accepting the label of 'abuse'. My therapist has been trying to tell me that her behavior was extremely emotionally abusive and has been encouraging me to own that label. The difficult thing to accept for me is that I did so many things wrong in terms of not committing to her to the point where I found someone else and then had a mess of a time untangling myself from it all. She never new that I found someone else. She still doesn't know. After one of her final ragings in the middle of the night, I finally told her to f' off.

I'm just having a hard time not thinking that if I had done something differently, that things would have turned out differently. My therapist says that things probably would have turned out even worse. My life is really terrible right now it is hard to imagine how it could have been worse.

[Alvino]

Don't second guess yourself. Abusers are typically very good at making their victims feel that it's their own fault - if only you hadn't done X, then she would not have had to rage at you.

Work through this with your therapist, but stop running crazy with "what if" scenarios.

[turtle]

I'm just having a hard time not thinking that if I had done something differently, that things would have turned out differently. My therapist says that things probably would have turned out even worse. My life is really terrible right now it is hard to imagine how it could have been worse.

Your therapist is right.  Whether she has BPD or not isn't really that important.  The important thing is that her behavior is intolerable.  If you had committed to her, moved in, and all the other "what if's" you're tossing around, things would have been much, much worse.

Just take one thing --- let's say her raging at you for petting the dog.  This is an inappropriate reaction.  Period.  No one wants to be around that kind of behavior.  No one is required to be around that behavior.  And this is just ONE thing.

Imagine if you had married her and had a child.  The raging is confusing to us and we're adults. Would you have wanted your innocent child to be subjected to her random, inappropriate raging?  So yes.  It would have gotten much worse.

Don't second guess yourself. Abusers are typically very good at making their victims feel that it's their own fault - if only you hadn't done X, then she would not have had to rage at you.

This is exactly right.  HER poor behavior is not YOUR fault.  

It doesn't excuse the things you did -- and it seems as though you are owning that and looking at the reasons for your part.  That shows that you are capable of self examination and that you want to be a better person.  Be proud of yourself for this.

turtle

[lockedout]

BPDers love to wear the label of abuse. It goes from being inattentive to uncaring to neglectful to bashing to attacking to abuse. Abuse is the first one that they can attach a label to and they like to have it a tattooed on their forehead in a bright flourescent color.

The truth is that you have been abuse and unfortunately comes with a label. People who are mentally healthy (aside from the untoward effects of this kind of a relationship) don't like labels. It really depends on where you display that label. You may or not need to wear it around friends and family. Certain people you definitely don't want it shown (there's a large percentage of the population that only men can be abusive and if a woman says she's abused, it's automatically true). But in your therapist's office and on this forum it's perfectly OK to wear it.

As far as doing things differently: this was a relationship that was designed to fail. The longer you waited, the closer you got, the worse things would have been.