About 4 weeks ago, when given the option to either get therapy and stand up to her textbook BPD mom or move out of the house, my BPD ex chose to leave and we split up. We were together for 4 years. she had been behaving erratically for a couple of weeks and was triggered off by her BPD mom and little sister, whom I suspect also has some sort of personality disorder/ It is a very dysfunctional family and her mom is very controlling and does not like me (I suspect because I am much more stable than she is and my upbringing was vastly different; so, my ex's life has improved significantly in the 4 years we were together. We broke up once prior to this before we moved out of state and we were living in the same city she is from where her friends and family are. We moved to Florida back in early spring of 2014 to my hometown where I have friends (but actually most of family lives back in her home city now). She knows very few people here, aside from a mutual friend we have, coworkers at her new job she recently started, the former coworker she is currently using to stay with rent free, and a couple of equally unstable low life replacement attempts she just met within the last few weeks through the internet. I feel that being here in Florida away from her home city during this break up could attribute to her behavior being so out of control and unstable this time around.
I am trying my best to figure out how to summarize her behavior: basically she has went from having a stable, positive, upper middle class, happy life with a loving, supportive, spouse with a good career before she was triggered off by her mom and sister to throwing her life down the tubes and putting herself in financial danger; using a former coworker to live rent free with on a bad side of town in a crappy apartment when the lady is struggling financially herself (since she traded in her newly paid off car to buy a new car 2 weeks ago and now has more than half of her monthly income going towards bills, this lady has given my ex less than 2 months to find a new place); lost everything good in her life and blew her chances of going back to school; her mom cannot really help financially but is paying for her phone and has told her if she speaks to me she will take it away (my ex is 28.
. wow); and is seeking out replacements and conversing with a couple of people who are extreme losers and lowlifes and unstable themselves, the complete opposite of me really. She is also not in touch with reality and spending impulsively at times. Drinking alcohol again. Behaves almost like a teenager most of the time. Its sad to see how she self destructed in such little amount of time.
Since she took her stuff and left: she went up to hang out with a replacement attempt who lives an hour and a half away the day after she took her stuff and left. I think when she figured out this person is a psycho who is 34 and lives with their grandpa and has never had a home of their own, she decided that there is nothing to gain from this person and it is more or less a source of attention. I did not hear from her for 4 days until she began texting me. It went from texts asking if she got mail or where I put something in boxes of her things to I am struggling right now and freaking out to a phone call crying that ended in her asking to see me. The first time I saw her, she seemed more open to talking about what happened and admitted her mom's involvement in influencing her to leave and tried to provide insight on her behavior and thoughts... though she never took responsibility or apologized for how she had hurt me... she made an allusion to "if it works out in the future with us... ." one time during the conversation. I saw her the next day and she grabbed more of her things, leaving very little things behind and her behavior was cold rather than hot this time around... .over the past 4 weeks... .she has continued to text me and make a few short calls to me, requesting to see me and even showing up at my work once when I said no. Some of the times, she has a crisis she needs advice from me to help resolve, or needs me to help her figure out how to handle adult responsibilities but sometimes it is just to hang out. She has been really hot and cold... .going from almost flirting with me one day and bringing up past inside jokes, calling me pet names, getting jealous over who I talk to or hang out with... .to being ice cold, insisting she is not attracted to me anymore, saying she doesn't think of me like that, and shutting down and being dismissive the next. I know that she has gone to see a replacement attempt at least one other time from the first time she went to see this person, so that is 2 times in 4 weeks. I am not sure how regularly they speak, but I never see her on her phone texting when I am around her. Both times she went to see the replacement, she has broadcasted it on facebook where our friends and my family can see... .she did not make any comments to suggest they were seeing eachother romantically but did tag the lowlife person... .it is humiliating to me. She has complained a lot about where she is living now and the roommate she is living with and has expressed that she is anxious about where she will live when she gets kicked out... but she has not come out and said "I want to come home"... .she said that she will work 2 jobs if she has to (which I don't believe. she never has before. she always had her mom to move in with or fall back on before we were together and can be lazy)... .she would not go live with a replacement because this person is a functioning idiot who lives with their grandfather at age 34 an hour and a half away from us... .I have concern she may try to force a return home last minute when it gets down to the wire. I am between a rock and a hard place. I care for her but she has hurt and betrayed me. I do not want her back in my life again and in my home unless she is in therapy. She also refuses to give me back the house key, though her mom has helped her separate all of our bills and accounts and she has switched her mail to the lady's apartment from what is now my house.
On Monday evening this week, my ex called me and we had almost a 40 minute phone conversation that seemed good... .she never likes speaking on the phone not even to her own family and we hadn't spoken like this since we broke up. I thought maybe she was going to come around on coming back and agreeing to therapy, since her behavior was changing towards me... .the next day, she asked me to print things out for her and stopped by my work, wanted my guidance on how to fill the papers out because she says that I "know everything" and was wearing my t-shirt. She actually wears my shirts most of the time I see her, which is odd. But, I got into an argument with her Wednesday evening about her using me for emotional support and being so hot and cold and she responded by shutting down, minimizing our lengthy co-habituating relationship, telling me to move on and get over it and saying she lost feelings for me every time we fought and she hasn't been happy for some time and that her mom says I am controlling. I do not buy that she has not been happy. Just a week before we broke up, she was intimate with me, was talking excitedly about our future... telling me I am the love of her life, that I am it for her. She said she is not going to get back together with me ever. I told her that I do not want a friendship and she seemed upset asking what happens if she is gone from my life, would I care? I told her maybe that is for the best. I told her it is ok if we do not get back together because that would never ever happen anyhow unless she gets help and therapy. After that, I shut down on her. she tried calling me a nickname she used to call me when we are together and I asked her to stop but she did it again. her answer to fix me being upset was to try and buy a starbucks coffee for me (
) and she even told me she just wants me to be proud of her for trying to do things on her own, to which I responded that I am not proud of her right now because she does not have her stuff together and her life is a mess. I told her that I am disappointed in her. She said she was going to call me in a few days about something she needs help with (really?I thought she and I went over this... .) and I told her don't bother and I would see her around... she looked stunned. but, I just got in my car and left.
Yesterday, she contacted me asking her to have dinner with her after work tonight... .SERIOUSLY? IM REALLY CONFUSED.
Does she just want to be friends? what the heck does she want from me? She cannot go more than 3 days without talking to me and initiates 90% of all the post-breakup contact. I have only asked her to come work out with me maybe one or two times. She has seen me 2 to 4 days a week, each of the 4 weeks that we have been broken up. Even when I have said no a couple of times, she just showed up. She even bugged and bugged me to see her right after she got home from seeing the replacement attempt the second time. Seriously? The behavior is very push pull and she seems to be extremely emotionally shut down. She does not open up to anyone... I used to be the only one she could open up to aside from maybe one of her friends back in her hometown. If she was invested in a replacement, would she not discard me and not be this reliant on me and insist on seeing and talking to me so often? I am on the fence because I do care for her and do not want to see her wreck her life but I also know that I do not deserve this chaos and abuse from her and that I will need to do what is best for me overall.
I think that, because she has told me she never wants to get back together, that means I am safe from her trying to recycle or charm and come back home when she gets kicked out... .or am I totally naïve? Last time we broke up, we got back together within a month and it is past a month now and she hasn't expressed an interest in getting back together like she did before 3 weeks into the break up... .
I am perplexed as to how I should handle her... .I thought I knew this woman I shared my bed with for 3.5 years and have been together with for 4, but I feel like she is a stranger now... .I do not know what to expect next.
Can borderlines only be friends with an ex? Or should I be on guard and expect her to try and return home? Help!
