First post - Help figuring if I'm in the right place

[anothercasualty]

Hey all,

I guess it is not abnormal to wonder if I am in the right place and trying to make sense of something that makes no rational sense to me. First, admittedly, I am a technical person and live in a world of zero's and one's, but I do have emotions. I expect things to follow a logical progression, for the most part, and when they don't it can be very confusing to me. Please go easy on me, but I am here to learn if I can.

Involved with a woman for the past year or so. I had known her as an arms-length friend for several years and had observed her divorce from her 2nd husband from a distance. After she had been divorced for just over a year, we began dating and became serious very quick. All was good for the first couple of months, until she felt I had slighted her in some way. I honestly cannot remember what the slight was, but I remember thinking it was very miniscule. Her reaction was to immediately disappear for a couple of days. She would not answer her phone or texts. This behavior became a normal response as time went by whenever she felt slighted. (It became so normal, we had a name for it.)

As time went by, I found myself saying "I'm sorry" over and over again and later on wondering what the heck I was apologizing for. Looking back, I see the ratio of my apologies to her apologies to be at least 20:1. Now, I realize I am a man and can do some really dumb things, but I am pretty sure that ratio is skewed!

After about 6 months or so, we had a define the relationship discussion. At this point, she told me she could never be married. I stated plainly that I wished to be married again someday and if she wanted no part of being married, then we needed to part ways friendly at this point. Mind you, we had discussed the idea of marriage before and she offered no resistance other than she had two difficult marriages prior. She pondered the thought for a few minutes and stated she could see being married to me. Breakup averted and we were on the same page, or so it seemed.

After about 14 months, she came to me and said plainly, I can never be married. At this point, I recognized there was something deeper going on inside of her. I wasn't sure, but it appeared that she was depressed. Very down, low energy, no self-esteem, and deep-seated fears. I plainly stated I want to be with her, but we needed to get into counseling ASAP. She initially said yes, but when it came to pinning down a day to go, she hemmed and hawed. Eventually, she came back and said she could not go to counseling. At this point, I had a trip scheduled for myself to go on a long motorcycle ride for 8 days. She asked that I stay behind and just spend the time with her. I told her without counseling, we would just continue to go around and around. I felt like she was trying to control me to not go on my ride. Ultimately, I did do the trip, but just before I left, I broke up with her as counseling seemed to be the only chance we had. The hiding everytime a slight (perceived or real) occurred had taken a toll on me.

We came back together sort-of when she came back and said she could see being married, but it needed to be 10 plus years and she was entering individual counseling. That was short lived and I went NC to try and get myself back. At this point, my self esteem was in the toilet and it was affecting me, my family, and my friends greatly.

Last go round, we had gone a few weeks without talking and she reached out. "I miss you". In my language that meant, I made a mistake and want you back. In her language, I am not sure what it meant but it wasn't that. She always seemed to know when I was getting close to disengaging and would do/say things that she knew I would take as positive and I would stick it out. Ultimately, I allowed myself to have the most tortured month of back and forth to be told that our differences were too great to be a couple based on things she could not share or small things like what my daughter ate for dinner.

I love this woman very much and I sacrificed much hoping to grow together. I have issues about myself that have come out of this relationship. Many of them are new issues. I am no spring chicken (mid 40's) and have been through many relationships and have been through counseling for myself. Having said that, this relationship was very different. Very intense, and she could be the most loving person ever at times. She taught me to accept love. I hope I taught her some lessons as well. At the very least, I am happy she is in counseling and I hope it pays long-term dividends in her life. I honestly pray the best for her and forgive her.

Long post, I know. Any coping advice from those who have traveled this road already?

[C.Stein]

Welcome to the land of BPD discards.  It is not a fun place to be but eventually you will find the exit.  I also found I changed/suppressed many parts of myself as a result of my relationship, probably my self-esteem and self-worth taking the heaviest hit.  While you are stuck in the FOG it will be difficult to see anything clearly, but eventually the FOG will start lifting and you will see things for what they are.  It is not an easy path by any means.  Use this site to ground yourself and to help bring some clarity to what has happened, both by reading and participating.  It does help. 

[Knight]

Hi.  Just to let you know you're not the only one... .  Mine would fight to the death if she ever felt she was wronged in any way, and like you say, I hardly knew what I did wrong because often times the 'wronging' was in her imagination.  But one slight criticism out of my mouth could start a war.  I tried to reason with her saying to look at the big picture and is it worth fighting over such tiny infractions when the fighting could harm the entire relationship.  It went on deaf ears.  Also, same as you, she had almost zero capacity to apologize.  Type this into google.  "people who have no remorse"  I did that when I was wondering how someone who got caught lying so much could have no remorse.  The first result is BPD.  She would stick in 'I'm sorry."  into the middle of her ranting and she considered that to be an apology.

You are not alone.  I am a logical analytical thinker, and none of what we go through makes any sense logically.  I am sorry you experienced this behavior.  I hope you learn what happened and can move on.

[anothercasualty]

You are not alone.  I am a logical analytical thinker, and none of what we go through makes any sense logically.  I am sorry you experienced this behavior.  I hope you learn what happened and can move on.

It certainly seems like being logical helps with the feeling of being ensnared. I told a friend the other day that nothing confuses me more than irrational actions/words. And she has certainly been acting irrational!

Thank you for the responses. I have been enlightened by much of what I have read already.

[C.Stein]

I think you will quickly realize there is nothing logical about BPD or the people that suffer from it.  If you are a logical person by default this will likely be your biggest hurdle.   You will need to let go of logic and just accept you will never really make sense of it all.  BTW, I'm still struggling with this 5 months after final discard.

[VeraTrue]

Hey Anothercasualty, welcome. I just started posting here a couple weeks ago (or less?) and already it has been so helpful. I'm betting you'll find similar relief. You, like all of us here, been through something truly awful that hit you at your core. The lack of logic thing has been incredibly difficult for me, and I'm not especially logical, really. I'm not a computer person, although I deeply value science and research, and I'm more prone to liberal arts, creative stuff, and music. (And I actually see math and science as incredibly creative, but that's another subject.) My point is, emotional ambiguity is a comfortable place for me. EVEN SO, holy sh*t, did the logic thing break me. For me it was because at the end, nothing made sense, nothing added up... .and so to grieve I basically had to grieve all the possible stories. Which seemed infinite. Here, I've been able to replace the missing logic there with an overarching logic: the relationship was marked by a stunning lack of rationality because my ex had a disorder that asserts itself in intimate relationships. The disorder itself was the framework for the relationship. It replaced any normally-held common frame of reference that could be expected between two relatively sane people from roughly the same culture engaging in a romance. The usual expectations simply did not apply. But nobody told you or me or any of us non's. So here we were, trying to operate from a paradigm that any normal person would expect, but the paradigm simply wasn't present. When I viewed my relationship with that overlay, all the missing pieces appeared and it all started to make sense. It is a process. I encourage you to keep reading the materials on this website (the articles and such) and elsewhere about the disorder and learn how it works. This alone has given me more relief than a year of therapy. Hang in there. The pain you're feeling is to be expected so go slow and be patient with yourself. This is not a regular breakup. But you'll get there.

[apollotech]

I expect things to follow a logical progression, for the most part, and when they don't it can be very confusing to me.

Hi another,

Welcome to the boards! If your ex is afflicted with BPD there are excellent resources here to help you understand exactly who and what you were dealing with. There are also many very knowledgeable people on the boards that will contribute their wisdom and experiences to your cause in helping you understand exactly who and what you were dealing with.

As you learn about the disorder (assuming it was/is BPD), you'll see that the relationship actually did follow a logical path; unfortunately, that path was dictated by someone with a mental disorder. To see/understand what happened, you'll have to put yourself aside and view the relationship through the eyes of your disordered exSO. Primarily, that is where the problems and answers reside.