Lesson 1 and what i'm struggling with the most...

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

It's such a very weird thought to me that I still do love my uBPDh having spent 38 years with him raising kids etc., but I know I can't live with him.

Choosing for my own health and healing is painful. i'm used to doing for others, taking care of others, but it got so painful to not have needs of my own taken care of, and to have him constantly poke at my old childhood trauma rather than help me to overcome it.

Will detachment get me to the point where I can feel less strongly about him? I hope? I know it's a process and i'm nowhere near through the process--in fact i'm barely beginning.

I avoid pain as best I can, so this is going to take a lot of will power to get through.

[Elpis]

It's such a very weird thought to me that I still do love my uBPDh having spent 38 years with him raising kids etc., but I know I can't live with him.

Choosing for my own health and healing is painful. i'm used to doing for others, taking care of others, but it got so painful to not have needs of my own taken care of, and to have him constantly poke at my old childhood trauma rather than help me to overcome it.

Will detachment get me to the point where I can feel less strongly about him? I hope? I know it's a process and i'm nowhere near through the process--in fact i'm barely beginning.

I avoid pain as best I can, so this is going to take a lot of will power to get through.

[Caredverymuch]

It's such a very weird thought to me that I still do love my uBPDh having spent 38 years with him raising kids etc., but I know I can't live with him.

Choosing for my own health and healing is painful. i'm used to doing for others, taking care of others, but it got so painful to not have needs of my own taken care of, and to have him constantly poke at my old childhood trauma rather than help me to overcome it.

Will detachment get me to the point where I can feel less strongly about him? I hope? I know it's a process and i'm nowhere near through the process--in fact i'm barely beginning.

I avoid pain as best I can, so this is going to take a lot of will power to get through.

Your situation and length if marriage understandable brings an uncomfortable journey but one that you've chosen to take.  I took the same choice. Finally. After struggling through a 25 yr marriage w who I now feel was a very high functioning BPD/NPD.  I traded my own happiness consciously to remain in the marriage to hold my family together and gave all the love I had and all the caregiving I had to every member but myself.  I dont regret that I stayed for those reasons and I dont regret that I finally got out of that very difficult and emotionally empty marriage but its difficult to embrace this new place without a sense of guilt.  In caring for myself finally.  In choosing happiness over struggle. In knowing I did all that I could and that is not enough for ppl w serious PDs. 

Yes, I too still love my ex but not in the way that could sustain a healthy r/s. 

I wish I had not meet another ( waif) BPD as as after gift and how these men were so different but as my t said " are the very same man. "

I dont regret a thing and I take the gift of intense self inventory and awareness as the benefit.  I would truly rather be alone than be in those types of entirely draining and drama making r/s ever again.

Sending support. I do know how you feel Elpis.

[Mutt]

Will detachment get me to the point where I can feel less strongly about him? I hope? I know it's a process and i'm nowhere near through the process--in fact i'm barely beginning.

It did for me. I had to emotionally detach to stop the cycle of hurt. My kids are still young and I didn't want to get stuck in a perpetual cycle of conflict and drama for years. The youngest is 3. I get the occasionnal waifish email or blaming email from ex. It's a significant difference than two years ago, or a year ago. I'm indifferent and I don't get a strong emotional reaction or trigger. I feel less strongly about our time together and how she thinks about me now. Much of her actions and behaviors were driven by the disorder. It wasn't personal. 

[Aussie JJ]

I get emotional every day at some point.  I think I am so much further along than when I first came here.  For me, the thing that kept me stuck initially was the "unspoken words" as my P called them.  He encouraged me to reach out and try if its what I needed to do, acknowledged that I still cared and loved her in every respect.  I reached out I tried, I took it all again and it was enough for me living through that again.  I don't have many unspoken words left, those that I do are the apologies I will offer one day to my son, I will offer them with knowledge that I did try, knowledge that I reached out.  I said my peace and I am at peace with the separation now, all I want is to have that relationship with him so one day I can apologise to him for not being able to help his mother like I thought I could and I thought she would want. 

It kept me stuck for so long just going constantly, I can get through this, we can make this change, I know it can work.  I promised to make it work, I promised to work through everything.  So I tried, it wasn't me that broke that promise, that guilt has lifted now. 

I've acknowledged that we can only change ourselves and I'm working on that daily now.  Latest round of e-mail tag got a flash of anger from me, the projection was so obvious.  I turned that anger into something positive and didn't ruminate or any of the other stuff for a change.  Tomorrow is a different day, what is thrown forward then will trigger me in some way.  I will deal with it tomorrow. 

I get that same thing from yourself with the other post, wanting to try, those unspoken words that you have.  These were the hardest for me to process, hardest to acknowledge that they were words for myself not for her. 


AJJ. 

[Blimblam]

Hi Elpis

I can identify with your unwavering compassion and guilt. I feel much the same and what has been helping me was identifying the projections as parts of my own psyche. And reconciling between them.  Fear vs creativity.  So an exercise I have been doing is transferring the projections into objects.  So invoking all the anger and fear you feel and projecting it onto an external object perhaps a doll or something.  Then projecting creativity compassion and unconditional love too another object. Taking each object in each hand as I hold in my mind both energy fields and then moving my hands together.

To really give that power, making a totem you carry around that you you can associate with those emotions when they arise will make it more powerful and easier to associate the object with your projections.

[Elpis]

So lovely to have the support of all of you!

Caredverymuch,

It sounds like we both have taken the same journey--working to keep the family together, etc. My uBPDh also being very high-functioning. That hides some of the bad parts, I think. (heck, I have to tell myself something for having taken 38 years to take care of myself! ) And I totally get the idea of the guilt we feel for what we can so easily see as "abandoning the r/s" when really what we were doing was abandoning OURSELVES. We didn't pay attention to our own needs as a human. Such a weird concept that i'm still getting used to.

Mutt,

you are clearly a more grounded person than I have been. I do hope to get to a point where I can stop taking things personally and recognize them as merely a function of the disorder. And that's where my stinking childhood trauma comes in--I took everything from my uBPDh very personally because he played quite skillfully on my weaknesses and childhood triggers. Now i'm working to put those to rest, but it's a bit of a long haul. I do see my increasing ability to remain more detached in the "conversation" I had with him over coffee as I was able to keep from JADEing all over the place. I used to JADE like it was blood from an opened artery! And I think it was unsettling to him that I was able to keep from buying into his poisonous words... .he wrote some uncharacteristic stuff to me the next day or two that seemed like he felt off balance rather than so self-assured. I answered very basically and non-emotionally.

Aussie JJ,

Does it sound weird to say that I'm glad to hear you get emotional every day at some point? I've always judged myself for being "too sensitive" or "too emotional" and learning to just ride out the emotions is a work in progress for me. So it's good to hear i'm normal!

"Unspoken words." That makes so much sense to me. When I wrote out in my other post about what I said to him, what I wanted to get across to him, later I thought "oh--I should have said it THIS way" and worried about having used the wrong words. But I do know that I've said them all a million times before, back when we were still living together. That I didn't feel "safe" emotionally and then finally physically. That I felt disrespected. That I was so wounded that he would continue to make me suffer my old childhood pain rather than helping me mend it. I guess maybe all the words have been said... .I just second guess myself. It's what I do for fun.

And breaking the promise to "make it work" even though that wasn't a promise I could keep all by myself--it would take him being a part of that. Me thinking I was That Powerful!

Blimblam,

That unwavering compassion of ours can sure get us into trouble!

i'm not sure what you mean by "the projections as parts of my own psyche." What are you referring to as the projections? Psyche I get!  I am a stinking fearful person. Changes are so hard for me. I kept wishing that somehow life would make the decisions, like my h would meet somebody else while he was binge shopping at Ikea. But no, God seems to think I should grow up at 61, so i'm trying.  

[vortex of confusion]

I am a stinking fearful person. Changes are so hard for me. I kept wishing that somehow life would make the decisions, like my h would meet somebody else while he was binge shopping at Ikea. But no, God seems to think I should grow up at 61, so i'm trying.  

<sigh>

I need to follow all of your threads as you seem to have a lot of similarities with me. Underneath it all, I am still a very scared little child that wants life to make decisions for her. Your statement above really spoke to me as have most of your recent posts. Thank you so much for sharing!

[Blimblam]

Elpis

What I mean is that we all project aspects of our psyche onto objects in the external all the time.  Think of all the times when somone introduces someone or something as their "pride and joy," or ego. Or the way people use an object like a phone as a source of validation.  I know my ex was a phone addict and I have to admit I am too. My ex "needs" her phone to get validation from others to get her through her day. When I think of it this way it is like all the people she is in touch with on her phone are like the voices in her head.  So whoever takes on the voice that provides validation is interchangeable because they are just an extension of the phone as a soothing object.

I have compassion for my ex I love her and always will. What I am trying to detach from is relying on her to define my self worth and to not let my fears and pain have power over me. So projecting these emotions into objects symbolically and psychicly then reconciling between them is a way to manage my mind. Basically it is the Lego movie, .

I have a lot if compassion for my ex so it is difficult for me to hate her or be overly angry. Yet anger is healthy.  I find myself looking for someone to put the blame on. That's why something like a voodoo doll or pin cushion can be useful. It would symbolically represent pushing those negative emotions into the shadow of our psyche. This gives the object an association with the function of the shadow of ones psyche and how we relate to that object is how we relate to this aspect of ourselves. The finding another object to project our compassion and creativity onto the savior. Them the interactions between the savior and the shadow can interact in that space, which is a projection of our own psyche.

[Kwamina]

Hi Elpis

And that's where my stinking childhood trauma comes in--I took everything from my uBPDh very personally because he played quite skillfully on my weaknesses and childhood triggers. Now i'm working to put those to rest, but it's a bit of a long haul.

You seem to be at the beginning of a new journey. You mention your childhood here and also in another thread so that's why I hopped over from coping and healing to share some insights  Based on how you describe things, it becomes clear that you were in a situation in which you needed to do two things at the same time: heal your childhood wounds and at the same time protect yourself from your husband's abusive behavior. I can see why you would have struggled with this because it's nearly impossible to heal yourself when you're in a constantly hostile environment. In fact the abuse your husband subjected you to, was the total opposite of what you needed to heal your old inner wounds from childhood. Now that the two of you are separated you are finally out of that 'toxic' environment and can try to create a new safer environment for yourself in which the healing process can truly begin.

I am a stinking fearful person. Changes are so hard for me. I kept wishing that somehow life would make the decisions, like my h would meet somebody else while he was binge shopping at Ikea. But no, God seems to think I should grow up at 61, so i'm trying.

I would like to say that you probably shouldn't be too hard on yourself now. A lot of years have passed but in those 38 years of marriage you didn't get the chance to heal from all your old wounds but in fact only got wounded more. Only now that you're out of that environment will it be possible to truly start healing yourself.

[Elpis]

Kwamina,

Such great words of wisdom--thank you so much! I guess I kept thinking that my uBPDh would want to help me heal, but instead he stuck his dirty ol' finger in the wound and stirred. And I just kept doing the same things over again and getting the same result, I was just so busy for most of those years with raising a family I could keep my mind off of it for the most part. I didn't see how everything was only good when it was about him, which is weird because my mother was the same way. But it looked enough different, and so many of the things we each wanted to do overlapped often enough to keep me happy. It's been an awful time realizing how much I allowed myself to put up with, seeing how many years he just kept doing the same things that hurt me badly over and over again (and me letting him!) He always has had a good way with words, and I would believe him rather than weigh out the truth of the matter. So yes, i'm starting late on healing the oldest of my wounds, all while I deal with his babyish behavior about me leaving.

I can see my slow detaching, i'm much less prone to jump on any text he sends and try to defend myself, in fact taking care of myself and getting to that safer place where I can heal tells me that I can't get pulled into his word games. Today we were both at the Thanksgiving celebration at our oldest daughter's, and I minimized my time around him as much as possible (my grandkids are more interesting anyway.) I said goodbye to him as I was going to the door in just a casual way (not a married way since I don't want to be that same wife I was) and after he got back home he texted me one word: "Ouch." He tries to bait me, but i'm not goin' there anymore if I can help it.

So definitely, a twofold issue here. Out of the toxic environment and learning to build myself a safe environment so I can heal from childhood and heal from him. I'll get there. You put that so simply it's really helpful. And I don't feel quite so stupid for not being further ahead on the childhood healing, so thanks for that!

Blimbam--

You think in such a different way than my brain works! That's really interesting, what you describe. In a way it is bringing the thoughts into a concrete place and retraining your brain by what you do with those concrete items. Really interesting... .i'll have to think on that some more!

and Vortex I have that same feeling when I read your stuff, how alike our brains are and our reactions. Kinda freaky, right?

[Blimblam]

Lol, my Meyrs Briggs type is INFP so my dominant function is introverted feelings, with extraverted intuition and introverted sensing.  So I make intuitive connections between things i experience to my emotions and internal bodily sensations.

So when watched the Lego movie and saw a car comercial. I made a connection between Tibetten visualization meditation, projection, worry stones, the shadow archetype and it's psychological function, a book I read called song lines where they explain how the aboriginals project their religion through song as a map of the land to be able to survive and how the ancients projected their psychological understanding of the unconcious mind onto the stars.

[Elpis]

That's quite the leap!