It's been two months since I broke it off with my BPD(?) ex-girlfriend, and I can say I've finally gotten my head sorted out. A lot of posts I read here that really helped me to wrap my head around just what the heck happened, and I'm really thankful to all the people who shared their experiences here. I want to do the same, because I know what it's like and maybe my experience and thoughts can help the next poor soul that wanders in here lurking for answers to all the questions that do not make any sense (at the time anyway).
I suppose I should start at the beginning... .We've met through online gaming (of all things), at the time I was young (23) in a serious long term relationship and she (29) "supposedly" just got out of a really bad abusive relationship. We were friends for a year or so, but it got out of hand with flirting. We ended up talking a lot, and through talking with her I got the feeling we shared a lot of same interests and desires in life. Suddenly she became this person who understood everything and said all the "right" things.
I ended up breaking my long term relationship - which I don't regret but that's a different story - because I wanted to be honest and not lead someone on, and booking a flight to the UK to go visit her. We spent two weeks together during which she did and said all the "right" things. If I was falling for her as a person before seeing her, I definitely fell in love with her by the end of week 1 in the UK.
I was more then happy to not care about her physical problems (she is severely physically disabled, trouble walking, needs a mobility scooter, etc) and I accepted that down the line when (not if) her disability got worse, I would have to shoulder pretty much everything. Love tends to do that to people, and I was in love over my ears.
What I notice now in hindsight is that even then, everything around her was surrounded with extreme drama. Her sisters hated her. Her father was a horrible person. Her ex-ex-boyfriend was extremely abusive and a rapist. Her ex-boyfriend had asbergers. Her landlord tried to poison her cat and physically pushed her around.
Anyway, after a few months of talking and skyping, we ended up deciding the best step forward was that she moves to my country in the EU, since in the UK she was on disability & incapacity welfare and I'm financially well off in my country. It seemed a little bit too soon, but I was in love and it seemed like the most logical decision.
I didn't consciously notice it at the time, but (again in hindsight) every time I took her out somewhere she always seemed much happier to stay home. I assumed it was because of her disability and after a few weeks stopped making suggestions about her going out. For some reason, maybe I uncosciously felt pity, but I was always aware in the back of my mind of the story about the abusive psycho rapist boyfriend, and wanted to give her all freedom in the world to be who she is and help her feel relaxed.
On the other hand, every time I went out to have coffee with friends or to work, or uni or to the gym (pretty much anywhere) I almost always got poked with subtle hints that I'll find someone else who's much more attractive and dump her. At first it was very puzzling to me because at the start of our relationship, I felt like she knew me intimately as a person and I felt like she should have known I don't purposefully go out with the mindset of meeting people to hook up with, but there was always the "you did that for me" line that I couldn't argue against. I didn't consciously plan for it, but over time it happened that I took the easy road and stopped making a conscious effort to stay in touch with friends, and socialize with others outside of work/uni.
During the 4 years we were together, I've slowly but steadily changed for the worse as a person. Feeling anxious all the time, but insomnia was by far the worst debilitating experience. I was walking on egg shells trying not to say or do the wrong thing, not out of fear of some episode of rage - quite the opposite she was never outwardly expressing negative emotions, she seemed more afraid of how I would react and would always talk to me as if she's the poor victim I've wronged by something trivial (like not buying her an iphone). I think what really pushed my buttons was the constant reminders of how much she "sacrificed" to come live with me (in retrospect, selling her stuff to afford a plane ticket is nothing considering when I left the UK I left her enough money for one).
I wrote it all off as cultural differences, even when she shared with me that her family teased her if they would get a ransom note and how many goats they would have to trade for her; although when one of her brother-in-laws condescendingly told me I should try talking to the dog in my native language to see if the dog understood me, I made it very clear I never want to interact with him again to avoid conflict in a foreign country.
If you asked me 4 months ago, I would have honestly told you that it's a wonderful relationship and that we're planning to get married in a few months. Even if the sex was boring, repetitive and lacklustre, I spent years talking to her and trying to help her understand she can express her fantasies and just relax. I always had the feeling she was doing everything in her power to make "it" end as fast as possible, it felt like she was just doing a job (I dismissed my feelings as just petty insecurities on my part).
Consciously I wasn't aware of any of it, a lot of my thoughts right now come out of hindsight and reflection. Anyway, at the beginning of September she woke up one morning and told me she "needs some space". Naturally, I've said it myself to girlfriends and had it said to me by girlfriends before, I knew where that was heading. I sat down with her and tried to talk about things with her like any normal adult would, but she was insistent that nothing was wrong and that it's all in her head (
!), long long talks of how much we love each other, taking my hand putting it on her stomach and telling me she wants our child to grow in there, etc... .You get the idea.
Honestly that month of talking to her when my brain was telling me something was wrong, and my heart was telling me that nothing is wrong, was the worst part of the whole ordeal. I've never before experienced that level of disconnected deception.
Anyway like I was saying I kept trying to work things out with her for the duration of September. She was due to go back to the UK for a few weeks in October to appear in court because I guess the government didn't appreciate she was receiving benefits while living in another country for 4 years. That was the story anyway, only reason I put a shred of trust into it is because I'm still receiving court invitations by mail.
Halfway through September, the story suddenly changes. Now she's first flying to the US because her parents suprised her with a $30k stem-cell treatment for her disability in San Francisco, then going to the UK to appear in court, and she would be back in a month. When I look back now, I believe that story 'clicked' something in my subconscious, it might not make any sense but I started to feel like I was waking up from a coma and I started remembering who I was before I met her.
About 4 days before she was due to leave on her flight, I walked in the bedroom (she was bedridden for pretty much the whole of september, claiming her leg was hurting but adamantly refused going to the hospital to see a doctor) and since the internet was down that evening I saw her phone next to her and recognized that skype was turned on and there was some picture there of some person. I think that was the last 'click' my head needed, I went back in the office room and lit a cigarette while I added up all the dots in my head.
When I went back to talk to her, I could hear her talking to someone through the door so I walked in and asked her to shut her phone off for a second because I wanted to talk to her alone. I flat out asked her to for once tell me the truth, because either I was wrong and then I need to see someone because then I've lost my marbles, or I was right and she's having some internet affair. I'm not sure what she saw in my eyes but I guess she realized the gig is up, and she told me I was right. In that precise moment, it was like a completely different person emerged and someone else was wearing her face. I asked her for more information, and she finally confessed that there is no stem-cell treatment, that she doesn't know what "it" is but she thinks she's fallen in love with some guy she met online and that she's going to the US to see what it is. That's almost word for word actually. I got the impression she wanted to go over there and check the guy out and sleep around before deciding if she wanted to come back.
Funny enough, in that moment I felt really relieved like a huge weight dropped off my back. The month I spent fighting myself and trying to talk to her was without a doubt the worst part of my life - I really started doubting my own sanity. Anyway, I told her that when it's like that, she can stay in the house until her flight, we're definitely breaking up, and I didn't want any 'lets-stay-friends' stories, just a clean break and no communication whatsoever afterwards. The next morning she started changing the story, saying I kicked her out of the house so she booked a motel and dramatically packed her suitcases, but by that time I wasn't falling for any more stories, just took her suitcases down the stairs and said my goodbyes.
Later on I got in touch with a lot of our mutual friends... .I've heard from most of them almost word for word the stories about how she was trapped, being abused, forced to have sex, in very... .very morbid detail, I've read most of it and it's frankly disgustingly imaginative. A good friend of ours who broke off all contact with her 2 years prior to that, shared with me that when my ex visited her she was constantly talking about me one moment in the best light, an hour later in the worst light, word for word and just going around in circles while trying to seduce her husband. I was a little bit upset with my friends because nobody told me anything, but a good friend of mine put it very succintly that helped me understand - when a girl tells you she's being abused and raped, you don't tend to disbelieve it and go talk about it to the guy she's accusing.
I think thats when the realization sank in that I've spent 4 years with a person that never really existed. Suddenly everything she ever told me had a big question mark above it. I don't think people who haven't gone through something similar can really understand what a profound effect it can have on you as a person, particularly if like me you've never heard of BPD before. I didn't understand the behavior either at first, none of it was normal in the slightest.
If you're going through something similar, only word of advice I can give you is to embrace your self-respect and be selfish when it comes to doing what you feel you need to do to get through it. If you feel you need to or that it would help have meaningless sex with other people, don't judge yourself just go and do it. If you feel the need to reconnect to friends and family, go and do it. If you feel something will help YOU feel better or that you need to do something, go and do it.
By embracing your self-respect, I mean that I advise to realistically assess yourself and your ex as persons. Do you deserve what they did to you? What havet you done to deserve to be put through THAT? Accept that you deserve better. Judge yourself and them by their actions, not by their words.
For whats it worth, you might not know me but I understand you. I've been where you are. A lot of people have. But I believe with every fibre of my being that nobody can help you, except you. Accepting the person you love(d) doesn't exist isn't easy, and accepting that someone you cared for was capable of lying to you and fooling you is even harder. In fact it's one of the hardest things you will have to do.
And you will have to do it from the bottom of your heart. The damage can shatter your perception of your world. I remember the first thing I felt was that I was waking up into a nightmare and that everything is dislocated, fundamentally wrong. Only later with hindsight did I realize that I was waking up from a nightmare. Don't leave any "what ifs" in your mind, get the whole depth of the story out from friends and family if needed.
The alternative to that is consciously choosing to be the victim of a sick person because of a persona they acted out, a persona that doesn't exist. If you feel guilty because you didn't do X, or try harder to Y, don't. I've said it all to myself, it doesn't get you anywhere because you don't perceive the effort you put in objectively, you take it for granted because it is "normal". Think of the real sacrifices and considerations you made. Don't make excuses or beat yourself up. If you need to feel guilty, the only you can feel guilty about is allowing that person to brutalize the person inside of you like that. An animal wouldn't do "that" to another animal, nevermind a human being.
Just remember... .Don't judge other people by the actions of your ex. Remember that everyone is different, and nobody should be put on trial for someone elses crime. By all means, be suspicious and cynical if it helps - but don't do yourself the disservice of doing to others what has been done to you.
In my case I feel like I've dodged a bullet. The worst thing that could have happened, would have been if she either came back pregnant or came back and got pregnant and we married, the second worst thing would be that she came back and that we married. Knowing what I know now, I really feel like I won the lottery. Must be someone up there looking out for me.
I hope my words will help someone, and I want to thank from the bottom of my heart all of you guys and gals for posting on these boards. You've helped me process and understand the last 4 years of my life, and no matter how horrible the experience might have been I wouldn't have it any other way, because as corny as it sounds it really has helped me grow as a person.
Keep posting. It might help someone somewhere.
