Just Finding Out

[SockMonkey]

A man I was in love with broke up with me for the last time a year ago.  I’ve been grieving the loss of a relationship for a year, while he has moved on.  I tried to deal with the break up as a normal one, but found myself feeling like I had been used and abused and struggling with major depression.  did not really talk about the relationship b/c therapist wanted to focus on me.  After finding out that my ex was seeing someone else and appears to be in love, I told the therapist he had to hear my story.   After giving him the story with some of the detail, he put his hands up, said this is crazy--and said that he would bet  that I had been in a relationship with a borderline.   I just found that out on Wednesday night.  It is Saturday.   

I've been reading the literature on male borderlines.  I have wondered how he could be so insensitive and I am now understanding.  Of course, he also has a new attachment.  But, I am still reeling from it all.  And it does hurt that he loves someone else.  It just cuts me to the core.

I feel crazy when I type this. I simply could not see the flags or how insidious this was. Clearly, I have to check my issues, too.  It is clear that I was a fixer/rescuer and accommodate.  I have a lot of work to do.

My story:

When we met, we mutually captured each other in terms of imagination and attention. I talked to him for some time and then flew to see him. It was magical. The idealization after that visit was intoxicating. He came to see me a few months later, still idealizing. I got texts a million, cards in the mail, and skype calls for hours. I went to see him right before he had to go out of the country for a few months. Skyping every night. Within two weeks of his departure, he stopped communicating. I reached out, told him it was my final time trying to contact him, and he responded with “sorry–but I am losing my connection to you and my head is spinning b/c I do not want to”. He said all the emotional communication was too much and that Skyping was stupid. Well, that made mine spin as well. He started communicating again, though in texts, cards, and phone calls (no video).

Somehow, I ended up going across country to a nearby city for the summer to see if the relationship could work.  He told me he would spend the summer with me (when not working). He came and picked me up from airport. Spent about two weeks with me. When he returned, he wanted to initiate Skyping again. Then started back peddling about needing "time to himself", etc.

I had to leave for a health emergency. Sometimes I would reach out to him (late at night) when I was in her room alone--he would say he was out and could not talk.  One night, I discovered he lied about his whereabouts (early June 12)---he said he was working in London when he actually had already returned home. When I called him on this lie, he phoned me the next day to tell me that he just did not feel the same for me anymore. No apology for the lie but he felt as if he had to lie because he felt pressured to come see me. 

After a long email on my part, he decided to give a second chance.  This is where it just gets even more ugly.  I mean humiliating and degrading.

He left the country again and traveled for work for a month. I was also told that our communication had been too much and that he did not need to talk to me every day. Once he returned from abroad, he came in July 12  to visit me over an emotionally abusive weekend. He brought his narcissistic roommate with him that weekend. Totally oblivious to this abuse, he came back to see me again 10 days later.   Confused, I asked him why he came to see me.   His response? “I don’t know.”

The entire time I knew him (1 year) he bemoaned his finances, job situation, and his roommate. When he went NC—it was a 5 week “shut down”. Nothing.  I sent an email trying to understand what happened. Nothing. Five weeks later,  I got a cheap email telling me the relationship go to be too much and that he shut down b/c he needed a break and space from it all.  And, “I hope you will forgive me one day and be friends”.

I did not experience the crying and begging to get back together. I only experienced the constant wanting to leave.

It was crazy. And yet, I, like many here am stuck.  One year later and I do not know how to move forward.

[patientandclear]

SockMonkey,  .

Much you wrote resonates with me.  The sudden change in feelings, you painstakingly apologizing or trying to explain whatever the stated issue was so he would come back, the sudden silences, the cheap, trite email explanations, his sudden withdrawals coinciding with an incredibly hard time in other aspects of your life ... . and then him moving on while you are stuck long afterwards.  Yes, I recognize all of that from my own experience and so many others here.

I'll just say that being stuck in disbelief and horror that all this has happened, .still trying to figure out what hit you, many months afterward is pretty normal.  People on here differ -- some folks are able to dust themselves off relatively quickly, reject the whole experience as awful, and move forward without a lot of angst.  But many find it terribly and mysteriously debilitating for a long time, longer than with any other breakup, longer than anyone in real life thinks it should take because the behavior of this person was objectively abusive.

It takes as long as it takes, and it is so hard because it was traumatic to be made to feel cherished and essential, only to have everything change in an instant ... . and change back ... . and change back.  We get so panicky, anxious and hooked because the pleasure centers are sometimes being hit, sometimes not, and because the bond at first feels as secure as a primal safety bond (like with a parent), and then it ruptures, and nothing seems to be safe or make sense.

That's a wild story you told there -- the amazing thing is that it's so similar to so many here.

[SockMonkey]

Patientandclear,

Thank you for the kind welcome and the understanding response.  Whenever I tell this story "out loud", I realize what an abusive situation I got myself into, stayed, and then gave up all my power and dignity to save.  I did not know it then, but I was a sitting duck.    And, I am overwhelmed at the work I have to do.

I'm just now being exposed to the BPD lexicon and have so many labels to apply to behaviors that I did not understand while in it.  When my T told me he suspected BPD and/or NPD, it provided some relief.  Of course, there is no official diagnosis, but it makes sense. 

I certainly got some of the "textbook" behaviors.  For example, I got the guy who passed himself off as misunderstood, shy, never meeting smart and assertive women in his line of work, no women trust him due to his line of work, and women are shallow when they realize that he does not have a lot of money.  He also told me that his dad abandoned the family and his mom had to give them over to the grandparents to be raised.   Hook, line, sinker... .

What does not seem to coincide with BPD is that he never professed undying love for me.  He never once said he loved me.  In fact, from Feb on to his last initiated contact (6 months), he was trying to disengage.  I just do not understand why he kept coming back time after time.  That has been the most difficult to process. 

He even said--"out of sight, out of mind".   Funny, we would see each other and attach, then it would be mushy for two weeks, then he would go cold.  We would see each other and the cycle started again.

I am also hurt by the fact that he is in another long distance relationship.  That blows my mind.  He spent so much time telling me that he had never done a LDR and that it was difficult.  The woman he is dating now is beautiful, his age, and is from, and possibly lives, in his hometown.  But, he does not live there now. 

I can't help but wonder if he was/is in touch with his emotions.  He was clear that I was not the one for him.