Married ex misses me

[me757]

Tonight out of the blue I got a text from my uBPDex's sister saying my uBPDex has been crying and missing me like crazy. She got married 6 months after we broke up and now is supposed to move 6000 miles away with her husband in 2 weeks. I've been NC for the most part the last 3 months. Her sister asked if I could say goodbye to her before she leaves. Seems like she is freaking out from the engulfment or stress from moving away. Just another moment where I'm left speechless. I think its sad that none of her family seem to step in and tell her not to go. This marriage doesn't seem like its going to last if she is crying and missing me 2 months after getting married. I told her sister that things will probably get a lot worse if she actually moves away from all her friends and family. At this point I have no anger for her. I feel sad for her and her mental state. I don't know what her husband must be thinking.

[DragoN]

Married within 6 months? They are both in trouble. Feel sorry for her husband as well.

[Ironmanrises]

Tonight out of the blue I got a text from my uBPDex's sister saying my uBPDex has been crying and missing me like crazy. She got married 6 months after we broke up and now is supposed to move 6000 miles away with her husband in 2 weeks. I've been NC for the most part the last 3 months. Her sister asked if I could say goodbye to her before she leaves. Seems like she is freaking out from the engulfment or stress from moving away. Just another moment where I'm left speechless. I think its sad that none of her family seem to step in and tell her not to go. This marriage doesn't seem like its going to last if she is crying and missing me 2 months after getting married. I told her sister that things will probably get a lot worse if she actually moves away from all her friends and family. At this point I have no anger for her. I feel sad for her and her mental state. I don't know what her husband must be thinking.

In bold.

Devaluation is inbound for him.

Hell on earth.

[simplyasiam]

if you contact her it will lift her up she will know she has you and she will move 6000 miles away with a smile on her face and you will be left holding the bag and feeling bad

[me757]

I think its more like she wants to jump ship now that this marriage is getting real. Although, I think I've treated this breakup (thanks largely to this site) differently from past ex's and I went NC and never asked to get back together. So maybe she wants that validation more from me because I didn't hang around defeated after it ended like so many before.

[Learning_curve74]

me757, how detached do you feel from your uBPDex? If we think about the main reason for going NC, it's to give us space and time apart from our pwBPD in order to detach and heal ourselves. Your ex is probably looking for you to help soothe her fears and anxiety. If you are not far long in your path of detachment and healing, then contacting her can be like ripping the bandage off an oozy wound causing more pain and delaying healing. If you are far along in your detachment and healing, maybe there will be a scar as a reminder, but there's no wound that hurts anymore.

Did her sister or other family members engage you previously sort of as go-betweens with you and your ex? It seems a little awkward to me that her sister is calling you to ask that you call her and say goodbye. Are you trying to decide what you want to do? If you haven't decided for sure, are you leaning a lot towards one direction or another?

[Lady31]

I think simplyasiam is correct.  What are you going to do?

[goldylamont]

if you contact her it will lift her up she will know she has you and she will move 6000 miles away with a smile on her face and you will be left holding the bag and feeling bad

Exactly. me757, if you did indeed leave the r/s and keep some self respect then i think you ex is just contacting you to finish off the job of devaluing you further. I'm sure she'd like to hear nice words from you, so that she can feel good about herself, build you up to make you feel important, and then slyly tell you how you are less of a man than she would ever be with. She'd be crying at this point no matter who she was with. And sounds like she's using her sister just to gauge your reaction. Why not just contact you herself is she's soo missing you? She wants you to give her something (your self respect), and not give a damn thing in return is how i feel. Stay strong and steer clear and maybe jot down some canned responses that you can tell the sister that show you have moved on I think would be the best advice.

[Lady31]

I concur with goldylamont.

[me757]

me757, how detached do you feel from your uBPDex? If we think about the main reason for going NC, it's to give us space and time apart from our pwBPD in order to detach and heal ourselves. Your ex is probably looking for you to help soothe her fears and anxiety. If you are not far long in your path of detachment and healing, then contacting her can be like ripping the bandage off an oozy wound causing more pain and delaying healing. If you are far along in your detachment and healing, maybe there will be a scar as a reminder, but there's no wound that hurts anymore.

Did her sister or other family members engage you previously sort of as go-betweens with you and your ex? It seems a little awkward to me that her sister is calling you to ask that you call her and say goodbye. Are you trying to decide what you want to do? If you haven't decided for sure, are you leaning a lot towards one direction or another?

No, the family never has. Her sister even said she doesn't think its right to do, which makes me think my ex told her to text me that stuff. I've made huge strides in recovery in the last month actually. I went on a vacation abroad for 10 days which really helped me see that there is a lot more in this world than BPD bs. I don't think I'd ever meet her to say goodbye. Maybe email. Seeing her would be a very awkward and weird situation. As long as she's married, hanging out with her feels really rotten.

if you contact her it will lift her up she will know she has you and she will move 6000 miles away with a smile on her face and you will be left holding the bag and feeling bad

Exactly. me757, if you did indeed leave the r/s and keep some self respect then i think you ex is just contacting you to finish off the job of devaluing you further. I'm sure she'd like to hear nice words from you, so that she can feel good about herself, build you up to make you feel important, and then slyly tell you how you are less of a man than she would ever be with. She'd be crying at this point no matter who she was with. And sounds like she's using her sister just to gauge your reaction. Why not just contact you herself is she's soo missing you? She wants you to give her something (your self respect), and not give a damn thing in return is how i feel. Stay strong and steer clear and maybe jot down some canned responses that you can tell the sister that show you have moved on I think would be the best advice.

I told her to stop contacting me a few months ago and I never answered any of her calls. I didn't even pick up her sister's call because I thought it might be her - I texted back. I think you could be right about wanting to devalue you me to make herself feel better for the move but I'm also thinking that she's looking for a new rescuer and her husband is now the one she is against. It's a trap for sure. I know her. Traveling just 2 hours away for a weekend got her anxiety attacks, moving 6000 miles away from all that she knows must be doing her in. I think her family, sadly, is so tired of her bs that they are trying to unload her with this guy and that's why they aren't stepping in and stopping this because it will blow up. She's going to freak out.

I find myself constantly shocked that she keeps going further down this path aimlessly hoping that it will solve her problems. She tried to call me a few days before the wedding and was crying and missing me back then but still got married. Now she is doing this crap... just to take a deeper plunge even though you shouldn't be crying and missing an ex and wanting to see them when you are 2 months married and about to move far away. I've never seen some one live so chaotically and blindly.

[mitchell16]

if you contact her it will lift her up she will know she has you and she will move 6000 miles away with a smile on her face and you will be left holding the bag and feeling bad

yep. Mine contact me a few weeks ago, just some randon text about how good I looked when she saw me. I repsonded with thank you and havent heard a word cince. So she got her fix and was off again. but this time it didnt bother me. It the past It would have tore me up. BUt i went on my merry way.

[slimmiller]

if you contact her it will lift her up she will know she has you and she will move 6000 miles away with a smile on her face and you will be left holding the bag and feeling bad

I wish I was in your shoes. What I mean is I wish I had the opportunity to ignore mine.

If you so much as acknowledge her existence, you are validating her and all the pain she ever caused you will only well up and again hurt you. She will feed off of the fact you acknowledged her and use it as the fuel to move forward. In other words she will twist the knife (metaphorically) and leave you hanging again all over. Plus it will give her a moment of feeling (sadness in this case) and she may even miss you but its only her going through the motions. Like everything about BPD, its just empty motions.

I would not even tell her sister anything that she can repeat to her at all. Just that she is in the past and the past is the past

[goldylamont]

crying can simply be a learned behavior for an adult BPD to get what they want; doesn't always mean that they are actually sad or fraught with emotion, could just be that she wants something. i've seen mine stop crying on a dime one time when she figured out it wasn't working. i don't think you should feel like your ex is walking around all the time missing you, although i'm sure from time to time she does very strongly miss you. but, from time to time she's also fooling another person into marrying her. it takes a lot to accept this level of... .relationship sociopathy?

and also keep in mind that if the shoe was on the other foot, and she had married you, she would be devaluing you to her family and secretly pining over some other man.

our importance is not -- while at the same time we have to realize we're not so important to our ex's behaviors, it's freeing to know that we weren't the root cause of their problems either.

[maxen]

i also concur with goldylamont.

if you did indeed leave the r/s and keep some self respect then i think you ex is just contacting you to finish off the job of devaluing you further.

me757, you handled this bravely (no asking back) and you now have your dignity. contacting her will i think just give this away.

[bpdspell]

Me757,

More than likely you are feeling more than a bit validated with the information that your ex misses you. But be careful. Stroking our own egos because they made contact is emotionally dangerous territory. It doesn't mean what we WANT it to mean.

Like many others on here have mentioned what happens from here is all on you. Are you still attached to the idealized version of who your ex is?

And honestly. Who cares if she's unhappy? Who cares if marriage isn't what she thought it would be? What about you? Your feelings? Your heart?

She's an adult. It's her life and what she does with it is no longer your concern. Do you really want to be recycled by someone who has abandoned you and uses you as a prop to soothe her mental illness?

I'll take a stab and guess that you miss her and are feeling nostalgic about what you once shared with her. This is fine but it will help a great deal if you're simply honest about what you really want from your ex.

I fully understand the emotional difficulty and struggle that comes with detaching from these intense bonds but this woman is mentally ill and you cannot rescue her. Don't get caught up in her "third party" antics and the triangulation of you, her husband and the booby prize (your ex).

Spell

[Turkish]

if you contact her it will lift her up she will know she has you and she will move 6000 miles away with a smile on her face and you will be left holding the bag and feeling bad

Agreed. Does her sister suspect anything like BPD or something else? No matter.

Don't do it. And if the guy is that stupid, resist contacting him, too (I already have this scenario going around in my head... .to "rescue" her future beaus from my pwBPDex!).

Her pain is her own. Don't let her back in.

[me757]

I told her sister that I suspected she might have BPD but she didn't really bother to look it up. I don't know what her family thinks. They might be just as crazy, who knows? There is no way I'm going to say goodbye in person. If she needs an email... maybe. Is it common for people with BPD to fluctuate in intensity? She didn't seem this crazy when I dated her.

[crazytrain2]

I don't think she is going to send you an email to 'say goodbye'.  That does not seem to be where her state 'o mind is right now. 

If she sends you an email telling you how torn up she is and how she misses you, what would you say?  That you miss her too, but you guys can't be together so good bye? Maybe that would be the mature thing to do, but you are dealling with a pwBPD or at least the traits so they will see the 'missing her too' as an opportunity to just keep at it.

You could tell her to get lost, but that would probably hurt her as well.  Seems somewhat no-win and also intermittent reinforcement she needs to keep contacting you.

Along the same vein as what Spell said... .unfortunately she wants her favorite binky (you).  So these contacts by them if they are personality disordered are less of a compliment and telling of some romantic unrequitted love tradgedy. 

Along my several years and recycles with my ex... .I used to take these overtures as he really does love me and now he sees it since he's lost me.  Now, its almost insulting because it is really about having put off or pissed off the people around them (again), or things aren't going that swell.  It has nothing to do with me and our 'undying love'.  That is what I see happening here too.

[goldylamont]

Is it common for people with BPD to fluctuate in intensity? She didn't seem this crazy when I dated her.

me757, i can identify with this. my ex was really difficult at times, sometimes just flat out unfair during our r/s. but it wasn't until we broke up and i saw her behavior afterward, towards other men and women/friends that left me shocked and reeling. even though i knew by then that "something was wrong" the whole thing didn't seem to fully blossom until after our break. but i get the feeling that this isn't so common? i'm not sure.

and also me757, i think the consensus is that NC is the strongest and best position to take... .but then again many of us saying this have broken NC  so, some want to protect you from the pain of recycling or being devalued. i have to admit thought that for me i think i needed a certain amount of contact with the ex to really and truly settle for myself who she was as a person. it was hard for me to accept, and at the time i had zero understanding from friends as no one (yet) thought she had a mental issue, and i didn't even know BPD existed. i find that now, even a year later i don't regret at all pursuing the r/s again and trying to go for it again, even though this failed--but i think it was my approach. even without knowing about BPD i knew something was up, so i prepared myself for this possibility. in a sense i went in knowing i was walking a mine field, so i accepted the worse case scenario so when it happened, for me it was more like "ok, well now i know without a doubt" rather than "why have you forsaken meeee!"   All of this is to say that if you can, hold strong with NC, but if you do anything, email/phone/meet, anything--please protect yourself and realize you are meeting with someone who is mentally ill and means you harm (manage your expectations).

[Learning_curve74]

I've made huge strides in recovery in the last month actually. I went on a vacation abroad for 10 days which really helped me see that there is a lot more in this world than BPD bs. I don't think I'd ever meet her to say goodbye. Maybe email. Seeing her would be a very awkward and weird situation. As long as she's married, hanging out with her feels really rotten.

Sounds great, I would like to take a couple weeks off myself, but there's too much going on for me at work and other personal stuff. I'm jealous! Also kudos to you on your progress in healing. 

As far as not meeting in person, that's understandable. If you do offer a "goodbye", my suggestion would be to keep it as neutral and flat as possible. So that probably precludes meeting in person and maybe even a phone call if you feel that you couldn't stay unemotional. Be boring and businesslike... .less likely to trigger you or her.