Is this good news?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I am seeing some small signs that my partner is warming up to me again. She sent me an email this Saturday that she missed me, and when I saw her on Sunday she told me she was glad to be home.

We talked briefly about where things stand. She said that she is feeling less confused about her sexual orientation and that she is able to commit to our relationship again, but that she feels we still need time to work on our own issues before truly resuming our relationship. I'm not really sure what this means, exactly, and when I asked for clarification she got frustrated with me, so we dropped the subject for the time being.

We went grocery shopping, went home, watched a video and had a nice uneventful evening together. Things are getting calmer and feeling more comfortable.

She's actively looking for work and has an interview on Thursday. I am expecting this will change the situation/shift dynamics as well.

Is this good news? I don't know. I don't trust it as she has been so unstable the last couple of months. And I really don't want to fall back into my old, familiar yet very dysfunctional patterns of obsessing about the r/s and its sickening ups and downs. 

I am watching for signs of push/pull as I think this is a factor lately too. She pulled me in when I started to set limits. Now that I am feeling better and wanting closeness she may push me away again.

At the same time I want to have hope... . I love her and don't want to lose the r/s after 10 long, mostly great years.

We'll see how the rest of this week goes but I am feeling ... . I am not sure. Encouraged? Guardedly hopeful? The most important thing is that I not let up and stop working on myself.

[cult]

I am seeing some small signs that my partner is warming up to me again. She sent me an email this Saturday that she missed me, and when I saw her on Sunday she told me she was glad to be home.

We talked briefly about where things stand. She said that she is feeling less confused about her sexual orientation and that she is able to commit to our relationship again, but that she feels we still need time to work on our own issues before truly resuming our relationship. I'm not really sure what this means, exactly, and when I asked for clarification she got frustrated with me, so we dropped the subject for the time being.

We went grocery shopping, went home, watched a video and had a nice uneventful evening together. Things are getting calmer and feeling more comfortable.

She's actively looking for work and has an interview on Thursday. I am expecting this will change the situation/shift dynamics as well.

Is this good news? I don't know. I don't trust it as she has been so unstable the last couple of months. And I really don't want to fall back into my old, familiar yet very dysfunctional patterns of obsessing about the r/s and its sickening ups and downs. 

I am watching for signs of push/pull as I think this is a factor lately too. She pulled me in when I started to set limits. Now that I am feeling better and wanting closeness she may push me away again.

At the same time I want to have hope... . I love her and don't want to lose the r/s after 10 long, mostly great years.

We'll see how the rest of this week goes but I am feeling ... . I am not sure. Encouraged? Guardedly hopeful? The most important thing is that I not let up and stop working on myself.

[Newton]

cult ... . it seems you have sure signs of a pull... . and you are engaging with it.

[SadWifeofBPD]

I don't know.  

When H left last fall to go to rehab and his family convinced him to divorce me, he came back 2 months later and was very glad to be back.  He told me that his older brother was mad at him for going back to me, but "he doesn't understand that he was expecting me to give up everything, my wife, my family, my pets, my home, while he (the brother) was getting to have all those things himself."   I told him that his brother has some sick obsession with seeing H fail (stems from childhood competition).  

Fast forward a couple months later, H started raging again, painting me black (again), and told his brother. His brother's only response was, get the divorce going.  I saw the email, those were the only words in the email... . his brother has one goal in life, to see H and me divorced and H broken.  (Quick background, H's older brother always thought of himself as the "more together" person.  However, the older brother has such extreme anxiety that he can't make friends, can't work, and can barely leave his home.  Plus, H is 100X better looking than his brother.  So, his brother has long been annoyed that H has maintained a very good job and has a much better looking wife and two very good-looking, high achieving kids (hard for me to write that because of modesty sake, but it's very true.)  So, as soon as his brother got a whiff that there was "trouble in paradise", he's been sounding the drums that H must divorce me.   The brother knows how needy H is and knows that H will not do well on his own, but that's really what his brother wants.  For the last 30 years, it's been a major thorn in his brother's side that H has been able to provide for his family (something his brother has NEVER done).  

Anyway, I've recently learned that while I was out of state for a short period of time, H blew off some plans he had made and (spur of the moment) drove 150 miles to our vacation home (where I had been staying).  He stayed there for a couple of days.    My sister, a T, says that it's very likely that he drove there hoping I'd be there.   H has "promised" his brother that he wouldn't call me, so this would have been a way to "accidentally" run into me.  H doesn't like breaking promises, soI don't know.  

When H left last fall to go to rehab and his family convinced him to divorce me, he came back 2 months later and was very glad to be back.  He told me that his older brother was mad at him for going back to me, but "he doesn't understand that he was expecting me to give up everything, my wife, my family, my pets, my home, while he (the brother) was getting to have all those things himself."   I told him that his brother has some sick obsession with seeing H fail (stems from childhood competition).  

Fast forward a couple months later, H started raging again, painting me black (again), and told his brother. His brother's only response was, get the divorce going.  I saw the email, those were the only words in the email... . his brother has one goal in life, to see H and me divorced and H broken.  

Anyways, it seems like pwBPD can be very conflicted, especially when you've been painted black.  If they've always depended on you (like H has), then

[cult]

Now life has thrown me a huge curve ball and I don't know what to do... .

In early April my partner announced she wanted to return to a city we lived in briefly 8 years ago. So I decided, in the spirit of codependency and also "what the hey", to apply for work in this place.

Yesterday I received a job offer in this city. It is in my field, in a much better situation than where I work presently, with better working conditions. The pay, due to the area of the country where it is located, is significantly less, but the move would be predicated on my partner going back to work so our household income would actually be about double what it is today.  So from a career perspective it is exciting and potentially very good news.

My partner does not have a job yet so all of this could be moot.  But if she gets a job offer as well... . this could become a very real possibility.

HOWEVER, the r/s is hardly stable. As difficult as the last couple of months have been I cannot even imagine how awful life would be if I relocated primarily to save the r/s only to have it end while we were out there. I would need some kind of assurance from her that she would commit to working on us for at least one year... . although what good are her assurances when she seems to be changing her mind so frequently?

[allibaba]

I would need some kind of assurance from her that she would commit to working on us for at least one year... . although what good are her assurances when she seems to be changing her mind so frequently?

You hit the nail right on the head.  What good are her assurances?  They don't mean anything.  I don't ask for commitments from my husband because they stress him out. 

If its a good move for you... . then do it!   Make sure to make this decision for you... . my husband tells me that he wants to move about once every three months... . I relocated with him once... . and now we are in a good spot and I'm done with moving.  Whenever he says he wants to relocate... . I tell him, well... . I'm not moving so make sure to come back and visit 

[schwing]

In early April my partner announced she wanted to return to a city we lived in briefly 8 years ago. So I decided, in the spirit of codependency and also "what the hey", to apply for work in this place.

She just "announced" that this was her desire?  Why there?  What is there draw for her?

It's great for you that you can make this transition.  But what is her motivation to go there?

HOWEVER, the r/s is hardly stable. As difficult as the last couple of months have been I cannot even imagine how awful life would be if I relocated primarily to save the r/s only to have it end while we were out there.

This is my concern as well.  She clearly has a reason to go there.  You might not like that reason.  And she might not be forthcoming about that reason.

How attached is she to move to that city?  As an experiment, how flexible is she about going to another city that meets her expressed criteria?

I would need some kind of assurance from her that she would commit to working on us for at least one year... . although what good are her assurances when she seems to be changing her mind so frequently?

That is the rub, isn't it?

[cult]

Flash back to April of this year... . I told her that I could no longer afford to carry us financially and that she would need to go back to work... . her response was,I want to return to Old City because that was the last place she felt confident in her ability to work. She had a good job there, left it to move back here with me because I was so unhappy with no job and no career at that time... . now I have a career and a job offer that seems really promising, and she is talking to some of her old friends and it appears that she too may soon have a job offer.

But I'm making excuses for her and I know it. She had a good job once we moved home, too, and she lost it because of her own stubbornness and immaturity. She refused to do what her supervisors asked.  Ever since then she's pined for Old City and has pretty much refused to get her ^%&&** together on the grounds that if she was in Old City, none of this (her unemployment, etc) would have ever happened. The bottom line is my partner is a big baby and I have put up with it, justified it, enabled it, even made excuses for it. However, there is no excuse if I am honest.

One of her old friends from the last job she had here went through the same situation (layoff under dubious circumstances) and the contrast between this woman and my partner is striking. This other woman immediately started working part time and temporary jobs to get her foot back in the door of their field. My partner sat in our bedroom and sulked for three years. Then after her unemployment ran out, she sat in our bedroom and raged silently for two more years.

Wow, my partner has a lot of psychological problems!  

[Newton]

cult ... . it sounds like she is associating her feelings of the old city with being in a good place (emotions=facts... . ie: "if I am there, things will work out like they did before"... .

Are you buying into this?... .

[recoil]

I moved twice for my ex.  Luckily, within the same area.  I lost tens of thousands of dollars doing this.  Ultimately, it was my decision each time so I take the responsibility.  Looking back though, I knew moving wasn't the answer.  I did it anyway.  Lesson learned.

[cult]

Recoil, you raise a good point. Moving won't erase the problems in the r/s, and it won't erase my partner's mental illness. It won't erase the fact that she's in a mid life crisis.

I was thinking today, "Can I live in New City with her AS SHE IS RIGHT NOW?" I don't know the answer to that question. Yesterday she pretty much ignored me for the hour that we had to spend together.  I tried to just honor the silence and sit with her without saying much. Very, very hard for me to do and I did not do a perfect job of it.

She did say that she made some calls about getting a job in Possible New City, and that this zapped all the energy she had. Yet she somehow found the energy to go out for coffee with the married man she sees as a father figure (he is her dad's age, and she used to work with him). She did this while I was at my CoDA meeting.

She has an interview tomorrow for a position where we live now. She is very nervous about it. Really, it's all she can do to get through each hour of the day. And I hate that because of my work schedule I am never home. We have very little opportunity to build renewed closeness because I am gone or sleeping 17 hours a day. New position in new city looks very appealing for this reason alone. I hate my job, and in my area there are very few jobs in my field (or at all). Though I would leave my field to get a position closer to home and with better hours/less pressure. I would do that in a second.

I'm starting to get in better touch with my own feelings and needs. I am starting to accept that the r/s I knew, and that comforted and sustained me emotionally for 10 years, is definitely over and is not coming back... . and that I do not yet know whether my partner and I can build a new r/s. She is so unstable, and so unreliable, and she is so incapable of making me happy. She used to make me so happy, and it used to be so easy. That person, and that r/s, is gone.