Better to have loved and lost? Really?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Before I met my ex, I was definitely wanting to meet the right person. When we came together, we were both very willing partners. We both wanted to find love. She loved everything about me and I loved everything about her. It was a whirlwind romance to be certain. Sex in one week, I love you's in the first month. I feel I had a realistic perception of sacrifice and what it would take to build a future together. I value communication, collaboration, negotiation… Once we were married it was her way or no way at all. I was perplexed. She would get so angry with me. She was constantly disappointed with me. I told myself during our too-brief courtship that two people who love each other can get through anything together. I realized there were risks being taken and I took them whole heartedly. I’ve been happy with my life but have always wanted a family of my own. I love her two girls so much. When we first married she was taking prenatal vitamins. She wanted me to get a life insurance policy. She agreed it was a good idea I stopped smoking herb and drinking. We wanted a healthy child. I brought 25k into our marriage feeling like a superstar. I thought we’d be able to make a sweet little baby brother or sister, and that we could begin to build our future from there. I then find out, after our wedding, that she has far more than that in credit card debt. I put the money against our debt and our crib fund is gone. A month after our wedding she tells me that if I don’t see a future for the two of us without a child, maybe we should go separate ways. She’s already talking about divorce. I am being forced to choose between the woman I love and married, and having any children at all, something I have wanted for twenty years. It was a hard conversation and I was unprepared for it. I was not able to say that she was all I wanted and needed. I should have. But she knew I wanted more. We planned on it. It was her out. I don’t know if she wanted out at that time. I don’t want to believe it, but regardless, it was the beginning of the end.

She discounted my love for wanting children of our own, something I talked about from the very beginning, that she fully understood. She would say, “you ARE a father. You have two stepdaughters that love you”. And then if I ever had any feedback at all about her daughters she would lay into me with disgust and rage. How DARE I criticize! SHE didn’t ask for help with parenting!

Over the course of the few months that would follow, our conflict was constant. Her anger was relentless. She told me if we were to get pregnant by accident that “she would have no choice but to get an abortion”. This is because my income was 10k less than hers per year. She also said that if we ever had children and got divorced that she would file for 100% custody. We had no children. I asked her to please not even speak of divorce. But it came up regularly. I was always doing something wrong, not being a proper father figure, not saying the right things, not doing the right things. My mistakes all made her feel unloved. I moved into her house, but not really. She had no room for my things. She didn’t think they would mix well with her things. So I kept my things at my house. She hated my house. Made fun of it for how it looked. For how small it is. For how I had things up on the walls. She hadn’t communicated any of these opinions until after we were married. In the beginning, she LOVED my place. She thought it was cozy. In the end, she despised it, as it would be the place I would go if we ever split up. She hated that it was my “bachelor refuge”, which I  never wanted it to be. I married her with every intention of carrying through with my promises. I meant every word I said. But I had no idea that it would all need to happen on her terms. I assumed we would work together. I assumed we would both need to make sacrifices. Silly me! When we had our big blow up in July, she told me she would NEVER have children with me. She knew what buttons to push. She said this in the heat of conflict after treating me like dirty underwear, and I felt like I needed to take a stand. Instead, I took the bait. I for once mentioned divorce (after she had brought it up a dozen times at least). I triggered her elaborate escape mechanism. From that point forward she would not be willing to work on our relationship at all unless I said I didn’t want a child, which I could never bring myself to say. She said, what point would there be to work on our relationship if I was just going to “leave her” again in the future? And I thought to myself, why would I agree to a future with someone who isn’t even willing to work on our relationship?

And we would spend the next few weeks trying to work it out, but not really. We took a trip on my birthday, I asked her if we could try to get back in touch with the feelings we had in the beginning. I asked if we could NOT talk about our problems, or a baby, but enjoy each others company like we used to… And we did! It was bliss! But it was finite. We spent the night together, she woke me up in the middle of the night as elegantly as she does (did), aroused me, and we made love. I made love. The next morning I joked about how long it took me to awake from my slumber and she replied, “yeah, I thought you wouldn’t want to miss our last chance to have sex…”. So we weren’t working on anything. She was just digging the knife in deeper, twisting it a bit, so that I could be left with her wonderful sexy memory. I drove home from that trip in tears. Our marriage felt like Dead Man Walking. We held hands as I drove and she comforted me. How sweet that was?

When I told her that I wasn’t going to sign the papers, that I knew we still loved each other, that we needed to NOT rush through our divorce, that we could see each other infrequently and talk… She said I was harassing her and threatened me with a restraining order. I was so angry I drove to the attorneys office and signed in a rage. I couldn’t salvage our marriage by myself. Screw her I thought! Then once I signed I regretted it. I have continued to regret it, even though I believe the outcome would not have changed if I had tried harder or differently at any moment. On a couple occasions after our divorce, I tried again to salvage it. I figured, it was just paper. We could get married at the courthouse the second time. Our trials could become our strengths. We could learn about each other and grow and become a better couple. I was ready to consider a future without kids. I figured it at least didn’t hurt to reach out and try? We were already divorced, so what harm could be done. BAM! OUCH! She treats me with hatred and judgement and disrespect and ABSOLUTE BLAME. She discounts our short marriage, tells me how great she’s been since I am out of her life, accuses me of being a narcissist because I thought, like me, that she may have been feeling a more clarified sense of loss from our two months of no contact. And worse, she gets angry that I kept a golf club her parents gave me for Christmas the previous year. Because “they gave it to me so I would feel like I was part of the family” (which I was) but that it was really intended for both of us, and that because she had always loved golf  I was being selfish for keeping it. She said that I felt “entitled” for keeping this gift (which was given to me). I was so angry, I returned her golf club, I never wanted to see it again. Left it on her back porch. Never mind the fact that I never saw the 25k again. Never mind the fact that she felt entitled to keep that!

I could go on and on. Did she know what she was doing? Is she blind to her hypocrisies? Is she just a victim of her own childhood neglect? NO! Is she projecting her ugliness onto me? YES! I could write a book. I should write a book. I’ve got thousands of twisted text messages and emails that are still too painful to read. Is there a market for books about personal experiences with highly manipulative, self serving, dishonest people? It seems like a black hole I could lose myself in. But anyways, here I am, in it.

And despite all of this. I love her. My therapist makes fun of me when I say this… He says I have a “sick romantic attachment” but I do not “love” her. All I can say to this is, okay. I realize I fell in love with a fantasy, the pretend person she was in the beginning. She is definitely different from the person I divorced. I understand this. But somehow I still feel love. I guess I am in the fog? Perhaps it’s FLOG? Maybe I’m just flogging myself… I miss her and her girls. I loved our precious time together. I wish my needs and desires had been better respected. Not necessarily fulfilled, but at least recognized and valued. Maybe I don’t know what love is. Gosh, I can’t wait to find out someday!

There is so much more to it. I could write volumes. Her manipulations, lies, half truths, it’s all continuing to come into sharper focus. I didn’t realize I was playing a game with her. And she outsmarted me big time.  And now she treats ME with hatred. She accused me of spinning a “deranged narrative” and this is exactly what she did with everyone in her circle. All I want is to have a reasonable conversation, but we cannot. She says my truth is my truth and hers is hers. She says I am ridiculous for thinking we could agree on a common truth. I am a terrible husband, a terrible person, and I left her, and she is just picking up the pieces and doing her best to move on… So it’s no closure or validation for me, and back to NC. I am only 30 days into this one. There will be no more contact. And though I miss her more than I ever thought possible, we will never be together again. And that hurts, in so many ways.

All I could say to her now is…  I don’t care how much you hate me or how adept you are at belittling my feelings or discounting our relationship or manipulating others or perfecting your appearance. I am a good man who loves you dearly, and I miss you. I refuse to fight your ugliness with ugliness. I refuse to fight hatred with hatred. And I refuse to pretend that I don’t love you. So be you. And I’ll be me. And you won’t have me, and I won’t have you, and it’s going to suck. And it does. And it will.

[Glutton4punishment]

Before I met my ex, I was definitely wanting to meet the right person. When we came together, we were both very willing partners. We both wanted to find love. She loved everything about me and I loved everything about her. It was a whirlwind romance to be certain. Sex in one week, I love you's in the first month. I feel I had a realistic perception of sacrifice and what it would take to build a future together. I value communication, collaboration, negotiation… Once we were married it was her way or no way at all. I was perplexed. She would get so angry with me. She was constantly disappointed with me. I told myself during our too-brief courtship that two people who love each other can get through anything together. I realized there were risks being taken and I took them whole heartedly. I’ve been happy with my life but have always wanted a family of my own. I love her two girls so much. When we first married she was taking prenatal vitamins. She wanted me to get a life insurance policy. She agreed it was a good idea I stopped smoking herb and drinking. We wanted a healthy child. I brought 25k into our marriage feeling like a superstar. I thought we’d be able to make a sweet little baby brother or sister, and that we could begin to build our future from there. I then find out, after our wedding, that she has far more than that in credit card debt. I put the money against our debt and our crib fund is gone. A month after our wedding she tells me that if I don’t see a future for the two of us without a child, maybe we should go separate ways. She’s already talking about divorce. I am being forced to choose between the woman I love and married, and having any children at all, something I have wanted for twenty years. It was a hard conversation and I was unprepared for it. I was not able to say that she was all I wanted and needed. I should have. But she knew I wanted more. We planned on it. It was her out. I don’t know if she wanted out at that time. I don’t want to believe it, but regardless, it was the beginning of the end.

She discounted my love for wanting children of our own, something I talked about from the very beginning, that she fully understood. She would say, “you ARE a father. You have two stepdaughters that love you”. And then if I ever had any feedback at all about her daughters she would lay into me with disgust and rage. How DARE I criticize! SHE didn’t ask for help with parenting!

Over the course of the few months that would follow, our conflict was constant. Her anger was relentless. She told me if we were to get pregnant by accident that “she would have no choice but to get an abortion”. This is because my income was 10k less than hers per year. She also said that if we ever had children and got divorced that she would file for 100% custody. We had no children. I asked her to please not even speak of divorce. But it came up regularly. I was always doing something wrong, not being a proper father figure, not saying the right things, not doing the right things. My mistakes all made her feel unloved. I moved into her house, but not really. She had no room for my things. She didn’t think they would mix well with her things. So I kept my things at my house. She hated my house. Made fun of it for how it looked. For how small it is. For how I had things up on the walls. She hadn’t communicated any of these opinions until after we were married. In the beginning, she LOVED my place. She thought it was cozy. In the end, she despised it, as it would be the place I would go if we ever split up. She hated that it was my “bachelor refuge”, which I  never wanted it to be. I married her with every intention of carrying through with my promises. I meant every word I said. But I had no idea that it would all need to happen on her terms. I assumed we would work together. I assumed we would both need to make sacrifices. Silly me! When we had our big blow up in July, she told me she would NEVER have children with me. She knew what buttons to push. She said this in the heat of conflict after treating me like dirty underwear, and I felt like I needed to take a stand. Instead, I took the bait. I for once mentioned divorce (after she had brought it up a dozen times at least). I triggered her elaborate escape mechanism. From that point forward she would not be willing to work on our relationship at all unless I said I didn’t want a child, which I could never bring myself to say. She said, what point would there be to work on our relationship if I was just going to “leave her” again in the future? And I thought to myself, why would I agree to a future with someone who isn’t even willing to work on our relationship?

And we would spend the next few weeks trying to work it out, but not really. We took a trip on my birthday, I asked her if we could try to get back in touch with the feelings we had in the beginning. I asked if we could NOT talk about our problems, or a baby, but enjoy each others company like we used to… And we did! It was bliss! But it was finite. We spent the night together, she woke me up in the middle of the night as elegantly as she does (did), aroused me, and we made love. I made love. The next morning I joked about how long it took me to awake from my slumber and she replied, “yeah, I thought you wouldn’t want to miss our last chance to have sex…”. So we weren’t working on anything. She was just digging the knife in deeper, twisting it a bit, so that I could be left with her wonderful sexy memory. I drove home from that trip in tears. Our marriage felt like Dead Man Walking. We held hands as I drove and she comforted me. How sweet that was?

When I told her that I wasn’t going to sign the papers, that I knew we still loved each other, that we needed to NOT rush through our divorce, that we could see each other infrequently and talk… She said I was harassing her and threatened me with a restraining order. I was so angry I drove to the attorneys office and signed in a rage. I couldn’t salvage our marriage by myself. Screw her I thought! Then once I signed I regretted it. I have continued to regret it, even though I believe the outcome would not have changed if I had tried harder or differently at any moment. On a couple occasions after our divorce, I tried again to salvage it. I figured, it was just paper. We could get married at the courthouse the second time. Our trials could become our strengths. We could learn about each other and grow and become a better couple. I was ready to consider a future without kids. I figured it at least didn’t hurt to reach out and try? We were already divorced, so what harm could be done. BAM! OUCH! She treats me with hatred and judgement and disrespect and ABSOLUTE BLAME. She discounts our short marriage, tells me how great she’s been since I am out of her life, accuses me of being a narcissist because I thought, like me, that she may have been feeling a more clarified sense of loss from our two months of no contact. And worse, she gets angry that I kept a golf club her parents gave me for Christmas the previous year. Because “they gave it to me so I would feel like I was part of the family” (which I was) but that it was really intended for both of us, and that because she had always loved golf  I was being selfish for keeping it. She said that I felt “entitled” for keeping this gift (which was given to me). I was so angry, I returned her golf club, I never wanted to see it again. Left it on her back porch. Never mind the fact that I never saw the 25k again. Never mind the fact that she felt entitled to keep that!

I could go on and on. Did she know what she was doing? Is she blind to her hypocrisies? Is she just a victim of her own childhood neglect? NO! Is she projecting her ugliness onto me? YES! I could write a book. I should write a book. I’ve got thousands of twisted text messages and emails that are still too painful to read. Is there a market for books about personal experiences with highly manipulative, self serving, dishonest people? It seems like a black hole I could lose myself in. But anyways, here I am, in it.

And despite all of this. I love her. My therapist makes fun of me when I say this… He says I have a “sick romantic attachment” but I do not “love” her. All I can say to this is, okay. I realize I fell in love with a fantasy, the pretend person she was in the beginning. She is definitely different from the person I divorced. I understand this. But somehow I still feel love. I guess I am in the fog? Perhaps it’s FLOG? Maybe I’m just flogging myself… I miss her and her girls. I loved our precious time together. I wish my needs and desires had been better respected. Not necessarily fulfilled, but at least recognized and valued. Maybe I don’t know what love is. Gosh, I can’t wait to find out someday!

There is so much more to it. I could write volumes. Her manipulations, lies, half truths, it’s all continuing to come into sharper focus. I didn’t realize I was playing a game with her. And she outsmarted me big time.  And now she treats ME with hatred. She accused me of spinning a “deranged narrative” and this is exactly what she did with everyone in her circle. All I want is to have a reasonable conversation, but we cannot. She says my truth is my truth and hers is hers. She says I am ridiculous for thinking we could agree on a common truth. I am a terrible husband, a terrible person, and I left her, and she is just picking up the pieces and doing her best to move on… So it’s no closure or validation for me, and back to NC. I am only 30 days into this one. There will be no more contact. And though I miss her more than I ever thought possible, we will never be together again. And that hurts, in so many ways.

All I could say to her now is…  I don’t care how much you hate me or how adept you are at belittling my feelings or discounting our relationship or manipulating others or perfecting your appearance. I am a good man who loves you dearly, and I miss you. I refuse to fight your ugliness with ugliness. I refuse to fight hatred with hatred. And I refuse to pretend that I don’t love you. So be you. And I’ll be me. And you won’t have me, and I won’t have you, and it’s going to suck. And it does. And it will.

[AwakenedOne]

"Better to have loved and lost? Really?"

I don't think who ever made up that one knew much about BPD. So my friend, I think you can just throw that old saying right out the window.

I am in the somewhat rare camp here of those who say they wish they had never met their ex. I was married also to mine for four years. The abuse and hell outweighed anything of use.

I'm sorry you have gone through all that you have endured.

Time heals. I know that sounds just like another nonsense/fluff saying that people just say to one another. It's true though. Well, maybe not actually heal but time lessens the pain and while we wait for the pain to go away we have an opportunity to replace the damage done with something else. Maybe greater self love, a new positivity in life, new goals, new hobbies and being more picky in choosing who we date now. I'm casually attempting to find a normal woman. I know they are out there, or at least that's what I have heard. I guess we'll see. If somebody tells you when you date them "I know we will never argue" Run! I kept telling her when we were dating we will argue sometimes because that it is just part of what comes with being in a relationship. She just looked at me and said "I know we won't argue though".