I'm the one that needs to heal

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I don't really know how to start this... .I've fallen in "love" (enmeshment) with a lady with BPD. It's not the first time, and I'm only now able to see and start to address my emotional wounds. My daughter's mom also has BPD and is incarcerated for crimes against myself, my daughter and another man that she entrapped through pregnancy. I am still dealing with her stalking us from jail. I thought I had recovered from it. I went to PTSD counseling and often mentioned to the counselor that something must be wrong with me to have fallen in with this woman. He brushed it off. Here I am again, and this beautifully and seemingly perfect nurse who I fell hard for over the last 7-8 months has shown her colors. She is the classic waif. I am still deeply enmeshed with her. I still can't differentiate it from love. Her erratic moods, cheating, lying, cutting, jealousy, and suicidal type threats have emerged. I have allowed myself to yet again become the codependent rescuer. Fixer... .I have been enraged, jealous, depressed, controlling, and ever changing to meet her needs. I have engaged in very kinky and sadomasachistic sexual episodes with her where she has asked me to do things I'm still trying to process. Really, I'm afraid that she'll go on a smear campaign like she did with me regarding her ex and she'll distort the truth or outright lie like she probably did about her ex. I still feel intensely drawn to her and I've refrained from contacting her in the last 10 days. I still read her texts/emails and listen to her voicemails. She is currently telling me how wrong she was to cheat and how she wishes she could take it back. She says she can't make it without me and she would give her left arm just to hug me. I know it's bs but that doesn't make my pain and loss any less real. I'm grieving hard and fighting my own loneliness and desires to have someone around.  There's so much more to write and so much I still have to learn about me.

[Welgrow]

I don't really know how to start this... .I've fallen in "love" (enmeshment) with a lady with BPD. It's not the first time, and I'm only now able to see and start to address my emotional wounds. My daughter's mom also has BPD and is incarcerated for crimes against myself, my daughter and another man that she entrapped through pregnancy. I am still dealing with her stalking us from jail. I thought I had recovered from it. I went to PTSD counseling and often mentioned to the counselor that something must be wrong with me to have fallen in with this woman. He brushed it off. Here I am again, and this beautifully and seemingly perfect nurse who I fell hard for over the last 7-8 months has shown her colors. She is the classic waif. I am still deeply enmeshed with her. I still can't differentiate it from love. Her erratic moods, cheating, lying, cutting, jealousy, and suicidal type threats have emerged. I have allowed myself to yet again become the codependent rescuer. Fixer... .I have been enraged, jealous, depressed, controlling, and ever changing to meet her needs. I have engaged in very kinky and sadomasachistic sexual episodes with her where she has asked me to do things I'm still trying to process. Really, I'm afraid that she'll go on a smear campaign like she did with me regarding her ex and she'll distort the truth or outright lie like she probably did about her ex. I still feel intensely drawn to her and I've refrained from contacting her in the last 10 days. I still read her texts/emails and listen to her voicemails. She is currently telling me how wrong she was to cheat and how she wishes she could take it back. She says she can't make it without me and she would give her left arm just to hug me. I know it's bs but that doesn't make my pain and loss any less real. I'm grieving hard and fighting my own loneliness and desires to have someone around.  There's so much more to write and so much I still have to learn about me.

[Mutt]

Hi welcham,



I understand. It sounds like she's not triggered by you if she is ask you to take her back. A pwBPD see people as all good or all bad and have difficulties with seeing someone as integrated whole or the grey area in people. For now, you're not split black and it's not likely that you're not going to go through a smear campaign. Some and not all pwBPD when they are triggered with a lot of anxiety and stress will have a smear campaign. I know that there's a history of a smear campaign with her ex. Do you feel like maybe he reacted to her differently than you did?

[Welgrow]

Hey Mutt,

She has split me to black during a number of episodes during our relationship. She split this same ex to black a number of times and told me he was abusive physically, sexually and verbally. However, she wanted to keep home around as a friend. I guess I could've seen the writing on the wall. She ultimately continued an emotional affair with him that I discovered a month ago. $1500 that I got from selling my truck went missing, and when I confronted her she blew up at me and broke it off. After discovering the text msg affairs with her ex and another man, I wasn't willing to keep trying very hard at all. I started distancing from her even though she immediately tried to reinstate the relationship after breaking it off. After a few days of distance she started eluding to some more lies she wanted to come clean with and eventually baited me into emotional reinvolvement by telling me her ex tried to sleep with her during our committed relationship. Something felt off about her story and she kept changing it until claiming that he raped her... .It just got more convoluted from there and ultimately I reached a point where I don't believe anything she says. For all I know she made it all up, or maybe she had been screwing other guys the whole time. I'm baffled and can't make sense of it all. Like a classic codependent rescuer, my self-esteem is rocked because I tied her to my self worth. She claims she wants to make it all better and treat me like a king but only because I'm not responding to her. She has cycled once in the last week or so from saying that I'm basically the whore who has already moved on to another vagina, and I'm mad because somebody else touched my toy(her). Then she moved right back to gifts and love cards in my mailbox and daily texts and voicemails saying she can't live without me. I just want someone I don't have to fix/rescue. I want someone who is capable of reciprocating my love. Can you relate?

[wakingfirst]

I relate.  I'm so sorry you are going through this.  I feel like I can tell you I think you should give up on this person, but really that has to come from you.  You sound like a person with so much to offer.

I know that, for me, all that topsy turvy up and down push and pull is what I thought love looked like.  I knew I was in love if I was in agony part of the time.  Then I stumbled into a relationship with a sane guy, who loved me and was patient with me while I realized I loved him.  It was easy with him, calm, not scary.  And because of that I almost didn't get that this was love!  I'm so grateful to him for hanging around until I figured it out.

There is nothing 'wrong' with you, you've been conditioned to expect certain things.  Real love contains respect, kindness, gentleness. You deserve these things.  And you can have them.  Concentrate on yourself.  I'm wishing you a peaceful, contented holiday.

[babyducks]

hi welcham,

the black/white thinking and push/pull is damaging and toxic.   it's too easy to get suck into it and become over responsive to it.

I'm baffled and can't make sense of it all. Like a classic codependent rescuer, my self-esteem is rocked because I tied her to my self worth.

I think these are great insights.         It's impressive that you can identify that.   

take care of yourself and be gentle with yourself.   you've been through a lot.

'ducks

[Welgrow]

Wakingfirst,

It's hard to think about giving up on her. Tonight I desperately wanted to see her. I know she's not good for me and that I deserve better. She even told me the same thing during one of her seemingly lucid moments. She seemed to feel extremely guilty. I can understand it when you say that you thought that agony is part of love. I'm realizing that based on my childhood I am conditioned to connect "love" with my own sense of uneasiness, pain and abandonment. I see that my father taking off and being self-centered, and my mother being overwhelmed, depressed and co-dependent has all set me up to relive this horror in my relationships. I find myself with unavailable women, and more than one of them are people with borderline. I just hope that finally seeing these things will point me on a path to my own health and happiness. I hope that one day I will find someone like you have found, and will be able to recognize love without the agony.

Babyducks,

Thanks for your kind words. I'm very hard on myself and my internal conversation rarely allows room for gentleness. It mostly sounds like harsh criticism. I noticed that your status say that you are still with your Borderline partner, and I try not to romance the notion that my lil former love have a chance. That hope seems alluring and alarming to me all at once. I finally blocked her number and email yesterday, and I missed her desperately tonight. I romanced the idea that she might choose tonight to perform one of her dramatic attempts to win me back. I hoped that she would show up and see how much I miss her even though I'm not responding to her. I even went so far as to unblock her number for about 30 minutes. I feel like such a loser and here is probably where I need to be gentle and good to myself. I don't really know how... .

[babyducks]

  I romanced the idea that she might choose tonight to perform one of her dramatic attempts to win me back. I hoped that she would show up and see how much I miss her even though I'm not responding to her. I even went so far as to unblock her number for about 30 minutes. I feel like such a loser and here is probably where I need to be gentle and good to myself. I don't really know how... .

Hi welcham,

these are not normal relationships,   they are fraught with complex and difficult emotions.    I think it may be fair to say that many of us were initially attracted to our pwBPD by the over the top incredible idealization we first experience in the honeymoon phase.    having someone look at me with rapt adoration was certainly intoxicating.   when that rapt adoration went away I was beyond crushed.  and my Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS)  took over marching one by one.

what I was told here was that when the ANTs started marching to find a way to interrupt them.   Turn on music.   Read a book.  Call a friend.   Take a walk.   Try Not To Ruminate.   Develop thought blocking strategies that work for you.   

what do you think? 

'ducks

[Welgrow]

':)ucks,

Thanks, I do need to develope some strategies for interrupting those thought patterns. I also feel the same about that stage of idealization. It felt wonderful. It felt like I had finally found someone who was into me regardless of my faults. Perhaps the things I should use to interrupt my "ANT" trains should be self-worth and self-esteem building activities. Thanks again.