The memories phase

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

So 7 days no contact, and in the 2 weeks prior to her leaving I just shut down and shut her out. I wasn't shunning her. I just couldn't do it anymore. 8 years of the same cycle only this time she hurt my son. He has disabilities and she just didn't want him to come over. She always tried to exclude him and even was plain about saying it. He picked up on it and just cried when we took a walk. When we made it back home and she was gone and didn't come back until the next day. And at that point, I just had nothing to say. I. Was. Done.  I just got on with my life. I visited friends, went to work, stopped any efforts to help her. I didn't do anything stupid like sabotage her stuff or cheat. I just ignored her and tried to enjoy my life.  She had lost another job and I bought her nothing.Two weeks of that and I come home, everything is packed, an hour later the movers arrive, another hour later she's gone. And I felt a huge relief. The 8 year roller coaster was over. Now a week later, and the good memories start popping in my head. I pass a woman in the grocery store who is wearing her perfume... .And I come home and crash into some useless melancholy mood. I can't within an eyelash of texting her... .But didn't. Instead I came here, read the boards and remembered what it was really like. I've had my kids all week and we're having a great time. My son's whole demeanor is better and he's successfully managing the behaviors related to his disability. So my question is how long does the good times memory phase last. There is no reconciliation. Even if I wanted it, I wouldn't put my kids through it again. I want this to be over. So how long will Ionly remember the good and what do I do to not break when I feel overwhelmed? Thanks and forgive any typos or autocorrect stuff.

[Callmemark]

So 7 days no contact, and in the 2 weeks prior to her leaving I just shut down and shut her out. I wasn't shunning her. I just couldn't do it anymore. 8 years of the same cycle only this time she hurt my son. He has disabilities and she just didn't want him to come over. She always tried to exclude him and even was plain about saying it. He picked up on it and just cried when we took a walk. When we made it back home and she was gone and didn't come back until the next day. And at that point, I just had nothing to say. I. Was. Done.  I just got on with my life. I visited friends, went to work, stopped any efforts to help her. I didn't do anything stupid like sabotage her stuff or cheat. I just ignored her and tried to enjoy my life.  She had lost another job and I bought her nothing.Two weeks of that and I come home, everything is packed, an hour later the movers arrive, another hour later she's gone. And I felt a huge relief. The 8 year roller coaster was over. Now a week later, and the good memories start popping in my head. I pass a woman in the grocery store who is wearing her perfume... .And I come home and crash into some useless melancholy mood. I can't within an eyelash of texting her... .But didn't. Instead I came here, read the boards and remembered what it was really like. I've had my kids all week and we're having a great time. My son's whole demeanor is better and he's successfully managing the behaviors related to his disability. So my question is how long does the good times memory phase last. There is no reconciliation. Even if I wanted it, I wouldn't put my kids through it again. I want this to be over. So how long will Ionly remember the good and what do I do to not break when I feel overwhelmed? Thanks and forgive any typos or autocorrect stuff.

[ShadowIntheNight]

So 7 days no contact, and in the 2 weeks prior to her leaving I just shut down and shut her out. I wasn't shunning her. I just couldn't do it anymore. 8 years of the same cycle only this time she hurt my son. He has disabilities and she just didn't want him to come over. She always tried to exclude him and even was plain about saying it. He picked up on it and just cried when we took a walk. When we made it back home and she was gone and didn't come back until the next day. And at that point, I just had nothing to say. I. Was. Done.  I just got on with my life. I visited friends, went to work, stopped any efforts to help her. I didn't do anything stupid like sabotage her stuff or cheat. I just ignored her and tried to enjoy my life.  She had lost another job and I bought her nothing.Two weeks of that and I come home, everything is packed, an hour later the movers arrive, another hour later she's gone. And I felt a huge relief. The 8 year roller coaster was over. Now a week later, and the good memories start popping in my head. I pass a woman in the grocery store who is wearing her perfume... .And I come home and crash into some useless melancholy mood. I can't within an eyelash of texting her... .But didn't. Instead I came here, read the boards and remembered what it was really like. I've had my kids all week and we're having a great time. My son's whole demeanor is better and he's successfully managing the behaviors related to his disability. So my question is how long does the good times memory phase last. There is no reconciliation. Even if I wanted it, I wouldn't put my kids through it again. I want this to be over. So how long will Ionly remember the good and what do I do to not break when I feel overwhelmed? Thanks and forgive any typos or autocorrect stuff.

In my case I don't think of the good times. I consider our 10 years as nothing but one huge lie. Won't go into the details of how it happened, but you can read my earlier posts. So I don't even think really about our life together anymore and certainly not in the context of good or bad. Just fiction.

But let me help you with getting you past the good memories: this is a woman who did not want to be around your disabled son. That should make you feel nothing but anger. Don't know any of the ages in this, but there is no one I would be with or even have a single pleasant memory of if she made my child, disabled or not, feel unwanted. Having a disability makes his life hard enough without having to deal with a thoughtless, selfish adult.

Good riddance.

[LimboFL]

I was on my way to bed and decided to jump on the board for my reality check.

Callmemark, those memories will last a while but you have to fight against them. I won't get into my own story, but I understand exactly where you are and have lived it, despite so many very difficult memories of my exBPDgf, whom I spent 4 years with. The eggshells I had to walk on the weeks that I had my son. She wasn't outwardly to him and tried but it was a constant source of anguish for me. Especially when she spent most of her time judging me as a Father. She wasn't able to have kids and I felt tremendous empathy for that fact but I allowed her to impact his life too hard.

Two pieces of advice on kicking the good memories out, at least until you can accept them without pain or sadness. One, as you likely know, NC... .but this includes getting rid of everything that you have that might remind you of her. Pictures, emails, her phone number (I don't need to block her, she won't reach out, ever). Do not seek her out in the social media sphere, EVER! Do not communicate! This is for you, no one else. Just stay away. Note, I still love and miss my ex, despite everything, I want to hear from her but then I know that her respecting my boundary never to contact me again, has kept me sane through all of it.

I am almost 6 months out and trust me it will get easier but you have to stay strong and resist.

The second thing that helped me and still does, to a much lesser degree is to curse her under you breath, regularly. Anytime a good thought pops into your head, counter it with a string of insults "you... .your nothing but a... ." It works but it isn't a magic pill. Allow the pain to flow out. There will be many tears, at least there was for me, tons. It is catastrophically painful and you will never understand why. Your heart is jousting with your mind and this is a battle that won't go away tomorrow. It is completely normal what you are going through. We all go through it. The bottom line is that, while they hurt us in so many ways, we loved/love them and there were beautiful kind moments, those are what we want back and miss. Empathy is also going to play a role in your recovery. If you are here you know about BPD, you know how much our partners must have gone through to push them to this point, beyond the genetics.

How long? It is a process. It has taken me a good three months after the last flash in the pan recycle that I cut very short. That is when all hope was lost in my mind and I suffered a great deal, knowing that I would likely never talk to her again. Your ex was a huge part of the fabric of your life. We excused lots of poor treatment and behavior because we fell in love with them. We saw the good and we know that children and BPD don't mix, especially if a child requires extra attention. I will avoid the the clinical outlines because there are people better equipped on this site who can bring you up to speed on the condition. I know it inside and out, spent four years trying to get things right, after finding out about BPD. She never admitted.

You are going to transition from deeply sad to internally angry. The anger has so many sources, one of which is the anger that we can't beat the horrible side of them,even if we know that there is so much good.

If you do things right, like NC, your mind will beat your heart, in maybe 3 months, so long as there is zero contact. Some have to block their phones and facebook, etc. I asked to be removed as a friend, a year into the relationship or less. Facebook is great for friendship, not so good for relationships. Maybe with the right person... .either way not important, except that you stay away.

It can only be done if you allow yourself no other choice but to completely block contact, no matter how much you wish to hear from her, want to speak with her, want to hug and kiss the good person inside. It is a big psychological adjustment even without the disorder.

Keep inching forward, day by day. I won't spray "it will get better" all over you because you will be in pain for sometime. You had hopes and desires. You wanted to spend the rest of your life with her, as I did mine. You can't just switch that off. Again, it is critical to let all of your emotions out and more importantly to force feed your brain with persistent negative thoughts, those memories that you simply do not miss.

It is going to remain very difficult for you but come here often and read everything. You will be amazed how similar all of our stories are. I repeatedly say, our ex's are humans, with emotions and a history. None of our partners are the same, but there are traits that can't be ignored, in common. I read a great deal here and it isn't every day by every so often I read somebody else's story where they are recounting very obscure thoughts and what they went through with specifics and I am floored.

Come here often, write it all out, read and fight against the current. The internal dialogue is critical. A good thought pops in combat it with a bad thought about her, curse and say things that you would never say to her personally because they would be very hurtful.

Unfortunately, there simply is no standard time frame. Don't ever play with fire or you will get burned. You desperately want to but it will only stall your recovery and end up being so much more painful. Trust me, none of this is said flippantly. It is one of the hardest battles that you will have to fight. It will break you down but fight to get back up.

Write often and fight every positive thought.

Good luck and stay strong.

[fromheeltoheal]

The memories will stay, but the emotion tied to them will dissipate.  We have a conflict between our head and our heart once these relationships end, our head knows what's right but or heart protests.  One way to help your head win is to make a list of all the crap she pulled, which will grow as you remember things, and read it as often as you need to, not just read but fully associate to the feelings that come up.  With time, distance and a conscious focus on the negative, your heart will eventually align with your head in a place where peace is found.

[once removed]

hey callmemark,

im sorry youve been through this. her treatment of your son is some ugly stuff. some pwBPD may have difficulty sharing your love and attention, and youve displayed firm boundaries in that regard. good for you.

the good memories are hitting you like they are because you are processing eight years of a romantic relationship, and at that, a volatile one. its not a contest and there is no timeline. your psyche must process this; try to let it. it isnt "wrong" for you to feel conflicted, in that regard. in my opinion, youre on the right track: visiting friends, going to work, hitting the boards for centering, cherishing good times with your family. those things will help get you through. but this is very tough stuff, and its going to take time.

fromheeltoheal suggested making a list, and i think its a good idea; it served me very well. in my case, i hadnt forgotten the bad in my head, but writing it out helped, as fromheeltoheal said, catch up in that conflict between my head and my heart. at times, either your heart or your head may be your greatest enemy. you may expect your head to be centered, but in this case, your brain may deliberately dig up the most painful thoughts that it can. this might be useful:

www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/DEPRESSION%20-%20Causes,%20Symptoms,%20and%20Treatment.html

"6. As your mind speed picks up, the "garbage truck" will arrive. While the brain is already torturing you with the past, it will create/invent new ideas/thoughts to torture you. In every case of depression, if the depression stays long enough, you will receive the same "garbage" thoughts from your mind."

knowing what you can expect can be very helpful once it comes. try, (easier said than done) to look at it as progress, because it is. to reiterate, it is the psyches way of processing things. it doesnt tend to go at the pace we wish it would. you may have flashbacks, you may have troubled dreams. your psyche will likely recall the relationship in imbalanced bits and pieces. time, and really engaging in the recovery process, will help the psyche along as it hits multiple stages.

hang in there 

[Callmemark]

So busy today, and that's a good thing but I do want to take a moment to thank all of you for the very helpful direction. I will be writing the garbage list today which as best as I can tell is something I'll need to counter the impulse for contact, and that's all that's left, impulses, and they are either love or hate and neither is where I want to be for very long. It's not constant like an obsession but when it does hit, its very strong. I'm treating this relationship like an addiction and knowing that when the "cravings" or impulses hit, it's a type of withdrawal and it means I'm getting better.

[fromheeltoheal]

So busy today, and that's a good thing but I do want to take a moment to thank all of you for the very helpful direction. I will be writing the garbage list today which as best as I can tell is something I'll need to counter the impulse for contact, and that's all that's left, impulses, and they are either love or hate and neither is where I want to be for very long. It's not constant like an obsession but when it does hit, its very strong. I'm treating this relationship like an addiction and knowing that when the "cravings" or impulses hit, it's a type of withdrawal and it means I'm getting better.

Yes, and everyone, including borderlines, are a mix of good and bad traits, of things we like and things we don't.  Consciously focusing on the negative things, which are pretty easy to find in these relationships, is a tool to allow us to move towards detachment, emotional detachment, hard to do at first because of the 'impulses' that encourage us to act, which would be moving backwards if we've decided that ending the relationship is the right thing for us.  And with time, distance, education, processing and new interpretations of things the impulses will become more manageable, at which point we can start shifting our focus away from our ex and towards ourselves, and away from the past and towards the future.  But for now, best to focus on the negative full time, to give our brain reassurance and quash the impulse, which we've decided is misguided anyway.

[zipline]

The memories will stay, but the emotion tied to them will dissipate.  We have a conflict between our head and our heart once these relationships end, our head knows what's right but or heart protests.  One way to help your head win is to make a list of all the crap she pulled, which will grow as you remember things, and read it as often as you need to, not just read but fully associate to the feelings that come up.  With time, distance and a conscious focus on the negative, your heart will eventually align with your head in a place where peace is found.

This has been so important for me.  And I've had to work to maintain the reality of the negative in the blinding light of the positive fantasy. My relationship was largely fantasy and I chose to ignore many behaviors that were caustic and damaging.  In a better world, if I had been a healthier person, it's likely our relationship only would have lasted 2 months, tops.  It's been three months since the end of this relationship and two months since we last communicated. I had a tough time sleeping last night and had many dreams about my ex -- us talking, us engaging.  I woke up thinking "this was such an awful and dysfunctional relationship and I am so glad that I'm not in it anymore." I am starting to take responsibility for why I stayed.

Callmemark: the truth of this person lies in how she treated your son. This is possibly the clearest view you'll ever get of who this person really is. Don't forget it and keep it in the fore of your mind.  The truth of my ex lay in how she treated me and my family when my father died -- she walked away and cut me off completely. Who does that?  My therapist told me this was a gift -- that I had all the evidence I'd ever need as to how broken and disturbed this person is. It's been a daily struggle to keep this "gift" from fading. But being on this board and writing about it has helped me so much. I'm not trying to obsess on the negative so much as balance fantasy with reality.

I am so sorry you're going through this. As LimboFL said, our situations are different, but there are many similarities in all of our stories.  Strength to you.   

[UserName69]

Those memories will fade away only if you let them to. I have isolated her completely fro my life, I got rid of everything that reminded me of her and that made everything a little bit easier.

[Callmemark]

It's now 14 days of NC and I'm amazed at how much better I feel. For me, the "good memory" phase was very short lived. There are tough moments, but they are only moments. I find that I'm not obsessing with practiced conversations explaining how to understand basic right from wrong in the latest manufactured crisis. I'm sleeping well. My colleagues tell me I seem so optimistic and worry free.

Over the weekend I had a couple of hours when I just became so angry over it all. Whenever I thought about her it was a memory of red flag, and it just made me furious at her and myself for ignoring it. A friend talked me down and then the emotion was just over. I went to sleep and woke up in a great mood. If she showed up right now, I'd ignore her knocking completely.

I'm reasonably sure I've been replaced and I honest to God don't care. I think I'd be happy so she would hasten the divorce. But there is a part of me that's wondering if this is just some sort of subconscious defense, if I'm out of the blue all the grief is going to hit me at once and I'll be back at square one.

Does the "good memories" phase come back like I'm afraid it will?

[fromheeltoheal]

I say don't bum your high by fearing it leaving, just enjoy the buzz, you earned it.  And there is no back to square one, it's all forward progress; we go through several stages in detachment, and cycle back through them sometimes, but as long as we focus on a bright future a little bit, the light at the end of the tunnel, it's always forward progress, even 2 steps forward and one back is still one step forward.  The main thing is don't avoid or distract yourself from any feelings, feel all of them all the way and they will pass, even the good ones, but enjoy the hell out of those while they're here.

[zundertowz]

I can tell you when I first left my ex there was an immediate sense of peace and relief... .i like you dont really care if im replaced and she was not the love of my life... .but over the past few weeks I have been really struggling and im not sure why... .maybe its my slow social life, maybe bad memories have faded, I find myself wanting some sort of closure and its nawing at me.