Blindsided in Texas

[Confused in TX]

Thank you for listening.  My boyfriend recently proposed to me and ended the relationship on the same day and I believe he may have BPD.  Long story short... .We are in our 40's, everything started out beautifully but he was very intense early on.  He told me he loved me in 10 days, showered me with gifts, tattooed my name on his arm after three months (to show me he would love me forever), asked me to move in after four months and proposed on our 6 month anniversary and ended it that same night.  This was two weeks ago. I'm shocked, blindsided and feel completely obliterated.  I do not know much about BPD but during our six months I noticed this: perceived slights that blew up and control issues, ending it severely and abruptly with absolutely no explanation twice (and fed exing my belongings in the mail).  I chased after him to understand and there was no remorse at all.  He lacks empathy and is frequently irritable and gets moreso if I ask about it.  Keep in mind he is very successful, was very generous and loving in so many ways but these other instances were just so "off."  He gave me the silent treatment each time he broke it off with me and this final time is devastating.  He asked me to pick out a ring on Memorial Day, gave it to me on our 6th month anniversary and called it off that night.  We never even argue or fight!  I work hard to make him feel special and loved 24 -7 including photo albums of our trips, pictures of he and his deceased brothers as kids into artwork, notes on his pillow etc.  I finally got him on the phone a week after he ended our engagement and he said the reason he ended it was because I was "ungrateful."  What?  If you were feeling this way how come we never talked about it and P.S. I am not ungrateful.  He also said he wanted to be single and was having resentment about getting engaged.  What?  You were the one that demanded I pick out a ring and proposed.  He will no longer speak to me and has moved on.  He told me that he absolutely has no feelings for me anymore.  He did say that he was going to speak to a counselor to help him understand these "events," but would not elaborate.  I'm sitting here demolished wondering what just happened.  He sent me texts every day saying I was the love of his life and that I "owned" his soul, including the day he proposed!  I just feel so crazy and lost.  Any advice, feedback, observations are appreciated more than you will ever know.  I can't really figure out how to get over this or if I want to.  I want to believe that man I fell in love with is real.  Why doesn't he miss me or even want to talk about it if I was the "love of his life?"  So very lost and heartbroken.

[Invictus01]

Bad news is that you probably can't really talk about all this to anybody you know. I bet all your friends and family have absolutely zero understanding of what just happened to you and think that you all the sudden went insane. I had a very similar experience (well, minus the engagement but a pretty similar bizarre ending) and the minuscule amount of understanding I received from friends and family was astonishing. One even suggested that maybe I just misunderstood everything and she just wanted to be friends and I took it as something more than that (you know, a friend who was sending me 130-150 texts a day for 6 months straight, we all have those friends, right?)

Good news is that you are in the right place. We all know this story, we all went through it. Hang around, vent when you feel like it, put your thoughts on paper so to speak. The first a couple of months are the toughest, but things get better after a while.

[Confused in TX]

Thank you so much. I think that's what I'm needing the most right now is validation.  I'm still in such a state of shock and absolutely NO ONE can relate.  I've been living is so much shame the first couple of weeks wondering, "that just came out of NOWHERE, I MUST have done something wrong."  I'm only beginning to understand what just happened but still can't come to terms.  Thank you so very much for taking a minute to write.  It means a lot to know that others understand or have been there, it really does.

[Invictus01]

Yep, when "the love of your life" leaves just like that, without a warning or a sign of it coming, I think any normal person would think that it is something they did to run him/her off. I have often compared the way I was left with an abused woman just snapping one day and leaving out of nowhere and just erasing any memory of the abuser out of her mind. And that's when your brain starts going insane because you KNOW none of that happened... .yet, the way you got thrown out of her life is completely impossible to explain otherwise. That's the toughest thing in all this - being able to reconcile what your eyes are seeing and the completely inability to explain WHY.

[JRT]

WOW TX! Its almost like yours is the male version of my ex! There are many similarities between the two stories.

I can elaborate on mine if you would like but I think that the thing that is the most instructive and helpful for you right now is to know that it is NOT you, it is him and more specifically his (likely) disorder. There is little or nothing that you could have said or done to effect a different outcome; this probably happened to other relationships of his and will very likely happen to future relationships.

He doesn't have logical explanations for his behavior because it is not our logic that caused the behavior, its the illness so its important to not spend too much time in a good faith effort to understand the meaning of what he told you - none of i will make any sense whatsoever.

I am really sure that it is very painful for you to deal with and I think all here will agree that your primary focus is on 'feeling better' even though it seems impossible right now. While it is a slow process, you have all of the resources you will need in order to help do so right here and people who REALLY care and will give you support and answers. I don't know what I would have done without this site!

Its also very important that you maintain strict no contact for your own benefit. This includes phone, text, social media and so on. All of this activities can act like triggers that can delay or interrupt your emotional healing and should be avoided even though it seems like asking the impossible right now. Also, because of the push/pull dynamic of the disorder, contacting him will serve to further push him away if you make the attempt. If there is a happy ending that's possible, attempting contact will likely serve to spoil any possibility of that.

I hope that this was helpful... .