How I'm working to accept he's with his new victim-I-mean-gf

[Escaped 30.Sept.2013]

My relationship was about 15 months or so - originally a college romantic fling in 1993, very dramatic, but ended when he left (without a degree... .). He got back in touch in 2010 and 2011, but I did not reply, then in June 2012 I believed that he'd changed from those days, got sober, gone through therapy, etc., etc. We lived 500 miles apart, but I trekked to his a few times, although we only managed 3 nights together in 15 months, mainly because arrangements kept being cancelled by him at the last minute, for what seemed valid reasons.

Six months of heaven, then 9 months of hell. Including 3 months denying anything with this other woman on Facebook (in another country... .), other than admitting he'd flown to spend a weekend with her in June (after knowing her 5 weeks on Facebook). Gaslighting all the way... .

Finally, just 5 days ago, 30th Sept I told him where to get off, told him to get some psychiatric help, told him I woudl not be contacting him ever again.

Cue 6 hours of emails and texts angrily ordering me never to contact him again... .so now he's split me black.


One of the things I find most difficult is the obsessive thinking that he "prefers" his new victim, that she's better than me, that he loves her more, that I wasn't good enough... .

My aim is not to care tuppence, but I'm a while off that yet... .

Meanwhile, I'm taking the view that she isn't his new girlfriend, she's his new victim. He's already defriended/refriended her on Facebook once, on Sept 17th, and when I contacted her directly on Monday to ask, politely and apologising for the intrusiveness, whether they were in a relationship so that I could get closure and move on, I got a reply from her that was couched in his wording, several word-for-word phrases of his, so he's directing what she says too. It won't be long, I reckon, before he starts messing her around. I've sent the link to this board's information to one of her friends I've known a long time (another old college friend, which is how the new victim got to know my ex), so she knows the signs to look for, if her friend starts getting distraught by the silent treatment, by arguments and wild accusations out of nowhere and nothing, by incredibly cruel comments, etc.

So, it's satisfying to me that there are already signs of his control over her - not because I want her to suffer, but because it confirms to me that she is nothing more to him than I was.

The other thing that helps me - I'd really appreciate others' views on this - is that our relationship seems to have been a true COdependency. ie, it wasn't only me dependent on him, but he seems to have been dependent on me also. His role was fixing me, saving me, being the knight in shining armour. I have a long history of abuse, and he really did help me - I would never have started therapy if he had not urged me to, over a long period, and if his initial mirroring in the honeymoon six months hadn't raised my self-esteem to a level where I finally thought I was worth it.

Ironically, I started seeing the therapist on July 5th, just a week after my ex dropped the bombshell about "I have to be honest - I just spent the weekend in Foreign-City with New Victim"... .and from the first session, the therapist identified what was going on, but it's taken three months for ME to accept it!

Anyway - it seems that the whole "only you truly know me" may actually in my case have been true. Since June, I've had the help of other old college friends, who have made enquiries amongst others, carefully, confidentially and without any leading questions... .he has in fact never stopped going on about me. The 19 year gap when we had no contact after college, when he met up with old pals, he talked about me, he talked about how much he cared, how he had never found another woman like me... .and these were people I didn't actually know.

So he's built this delusional obsession of me, a Myth of Me rather than actually me... .and finally he found me again and managed to make me love him... .only for it all to fall apart... .

He knows something is wrong with him - he knows that every time things are going well, it inexplicably falls apart by something stupid he does, that he seems to sabotage everything, that he is "... .not like other people  "

Anyway... .with regards to his New Victim - he has painted me black, and will be painting her very very white now. But she isn't me. And whilst at present that may make her extra-attractive, he can't possibly sustain the mirroring charm all the time, because he is suffering the loss of me every bit as much as I am suffering the loss of him.

If he comes back to contact me, will I give him another chance? Nope. And he'll have a bugger of a job making any contact because I've set up every known filtering and blocking system on the planet :D

I'm free. After months believing I was not coping, I was falling apart, I needed him to help me... .finally, I'm free.

She, poor victim, is in his clutches now and I don't envy her, I feel sorry for her.

Because not only is he already controlling her emotional responses, but he's going to be struggling with the loss of the Myth he is dependent on: me.

I'm dependent only on me now. The person who looks after me is me. My friends helps me, but they don't do it for me. I am the one living my life now. For 15 months he manipulated me into living his life, and he manipulated me into allowing him to live my life for me. But now I am living my own life... .

Thankyou for everything I've learnt in here.

[numbr3]

Hey 30,

You are doing great and have a ton of insight.

it confirms to me that she is nothing more to him than I was.

I think this will be my mantra for today (or maybe the week).  Thank you!

I was married 20yrs, divorced 6, NC 4.  Now I am struggling with hearing he is getting married. He is bringing the new gf to visit my kids out of town.  He is their stepdad and I resent that he had taken his past gf to visit them also.  He would hardly visit the kids when we were married.  I feel he is being vindictive towards me with this behavior and also putting on a front to the gf that he has this great relationship with my kids. Oh and that I was the crazy one. (I divorced him)

My xH has a rather volitive relationship with his own son, his family, his coworkers.

In between girlfriends he is truly alone which to a BPD that is Hell.  I do rather feel sorry for these woman as I would be uncomfortable if I were dating someone and he asked me to meet and stay with his xW kids.  Seems akward to me.

This new relationship will probably go down in flames also-I am sure he was going to marry the last gf.

I see the signs of his lies,

manipulation and control.

I know the xH is the one pursuing the relationship.  My kids will visit here and not contact him or just see him for a dinner.

I am past wanting to be with him but my struggle is my self esteem which he totally pulverized.

he is suffering the loss of me every bit as much as I am suffering the loss of him.

  BPDs just replace that "suffering" with another person asp while we truly feel the pain of suffering.  Post divorce I told him I missed him-his reply:  "I don't miss you.  I miss the cats. the house, my garage, the car, the kids but I don't miss YOU"  Knife to the Heart.

Nubr3

[Escaped 30.Sept.2013]

" I am past wanting to be with him but my struggle is my self esteem which he totally pulverized."

Yes. This.

I'm incredibly lucky that I was in therapy the whole three months that he was really seriously gaslighting (as opposed to the 6 months before that of occaisonal mild gaslighting, or the 6 months before that of mirroring heaven which still involved occaisonal gaslighting).

If I had not had a therapist telling me each week that I am not going mad then I don't think i'd have made it through alive.

But I have made it, and I'm going to keep making it. I miss him, I love him, and I can never speak to him again.

It's a form of widowhood, my friends think. I'm not so sure, having a close friend who has been twice widowed, once in her teens and once in her 50s. I'm pretty sure having the person you love die in your arms and desperately try CPR until the ambulance arrives is worse by far. Even if this did nearly kill me and is still messing with my sanity.

But it's probably more closely related to widowhood than to "break-up of a relationship". Before finding this forum, the most useful advice I was finding was for people surviving the death of their partner/spouse.

[fiddlestix]

"It's a form of widowhood, my friends think."

I agree, Escaped.  There has been a death. I told my therapist the other day that it may have been easier if my wife had died of cancer (a disease that takes over life like BPD).  At least I would have had a corpse to bury, mourn over, and move on.  But her "corpse" is walking around, with a new boy-toy (victim?).  It is a continuous reminder of the death of my 25 year relationship. yet I feel no closure.   It is so hard to accept that they (our pwBPD) move on to the next person (victim) so quickly, without remorse.

We suffer together, Escaped.

Fiddlestix

[Siamese Rescue]

The gaslighting is one of the worst forms of mental abuse. It's the most frustrating for me, what makes me the most angry and unstable.

I agree with your assessment and drew a lot of inspiration from your post. They can never stay in love with anyone for too long before they turn against that person. I know that for a fact. I've wasted so much of my life in this crazy mad hamster wheel.

[Escaped 30.Sept.2013]

I am countering the gaslighting, and also destroying the Pavlovian response that my ex-bf set up in me, with a method my therapist helped me devise.

I have ten friends and my father all helping me by sending me emails or texts or saying to me, all day and evening ‘PAVLOV” to break the mental conditioning that my ex-bf imposed on me over 15 months.

I am learning a lot about ‘Cluster B” personality disorders - he may have BPD or he may have Bipolar, or both, or whatever, but all of these disorders have a highly predictable pattern of behaviour in relationships, which is unconscious on their part but results in the partner becoming horribly mentally conditioned. Some people spend years in thrall to their ex, letting them back in over and again, but I am determined that this ends here, and never again will anyone control my very mind. It’s is horrible when you think of it - and scary.

The same methods are used - deliberately - in cults. Effectively I have been living in a cult for 15 months. Scary, isn’t it?

But my friends and Dad are all yelling ‘PAVLOV” at me multiple times a day, and at that point I call up the anger, and I rage against having my thoughts and behaviours controlled by anyone except me.

This is breaking the connection between the bell ringing and food arriving, and so slowly I am salivating less on hearing the bell ring. Eventually the bell will ring and all it will mean to me is that a bell has rung.

I knew he had become damaging, but it’s only this week I understand just how damaging. I have set up every filter and block known so that contact from him is impossible. He doesn’t even know he does this, but that, although sad, does not mean I have to continue allowing it to happen.

So… PAVLOV!