I feel kicked in the gut

[Lifewriter16]

Hi All,

I met my BPDxbf for coffee and a 'casual chat' as arranged this morning and I found it very hard. In many ways it went okay, on the face of it. He didn't do anything out of turn. He didn't dysregulate. Indeed, he seemed quite well. We shared and chatted. He didn't try to get back with me, only suggested meeting up another time.

This is what's going on in my head:

He arranged to meet his parents just an hour after we met up. I'm thinking, he deliberately set it up so he wouldn't be with me very long. He wanted an escape route. I'm not that important to him. He doesn't want to be with me. He'd rather spend time with the man whom he said abused him and beat him up.

He told me he's going to encourage his wife to go to a centre that I go to (he uses it too) because it'll give her a break from a difficult situation. I don't think I can cope with that. It seems quite inconsiderate on his part, because I'm going to find it difficult to go there. I told him I was processing the prospect of his wife going there. He said, I coped with him going there.

He says he's got quite a rapport with his wife now and I'm jealous.

I asked him if he was intending to train to be a peer support group facilitator at another centre we have in common, if he's given the opportunity. I've registered my interest in this. It would be an ideal opportunity for me to develop my training and group facilitation work. He said he is going to do it. I told him my old flame is also likely to do it and that I could cope with doing the course of either of them were on it, but not if both of them were on it with me. He said it would be an opportunity to build more bridges. I just won't know how to interact with either of them if the other is there and feel I'll have to let the opportunity go. I've missed various opportunities because my old flame was also partaking and was unwilling to compromise so we could share the opportunities out.

I said, in passing, that I think neurotypical people (ie people without autism) don't have much empathy either. He said I only think that because I haven't got empathy. He then gave me a lecture based upon something he's learnt in his anti-violence course. I feel kicked in the gut. That comment has really struck home. It really hurts. It just hurts and hurts. It's probably true, but it hurts regardless. I'm thinking he doesn't actually care for me any more, he's just 'building bridges' for drill, but I don't know why he's bothered even meeting me.

He seems quite blase about when he sees me next. I think that my feelings for him are much stronger than his for me.

And I'm thinking what a fool I was for hoping... .I was so struck by how separate his life is to mine and how there's no place for me within it. I've had a series of emotional shocks in the space of the hour we spent together. He seemed absolutely fine. I bet he's not sitting and crying like I am.

Lifewriter x

[C.Stein]

And I'm thinking what a fool I was for hoping

What are you hoping for LW?

[Lifewriter16]

I want to live happily ever after with him, C.Stein. I sat opposite him in the crummy cafe, thinking how handsome he is and aware that I was staring at him like a teenager in love... .but there's no happy ending going to happen here.

[C.Stein]

I want to live happily ever after with him, C.Stein. I sat opposite him in the crummy cafe, thinking how handsome he is and aware that I was staring at him like a teenager in love... .but there's no happy ending going to happen here.

Isn't he married now?  

You know, if only the outside looks represented what is on the inside it would all be so much easier.  

[Lifewriter16]

He was married when I met him but has been separated for three years. They have a daughter in common and a lot on their plate because social services are involved now. The extent to which the focus is on him or her or the grandparents is hard to determine. He's not very forthcoming on that. I know that everything points to this relationship being a total non-starter that I should just walk away from. I'm just having a hard time accepting that because I waited so long to find him and had so much invested in meeting the love of my life. I am grieving the loss of my hopes as much as my loss of him. I've known for a long time that it was never going to be my happy ever after. Yet, I am struggling to let go... .

[C.Stein]

I'm just having a hard time accepting that because I waited so long to find him and had so much invested in meeting the love of my life. I am grieving the loss of my hopes as much as my loss of him. I've known for a long time that it was never going to be my happy ever after. Yet, I am struggling to let go... .

I had a lot of hope with my ex as well, hope that I don't think I ever had with anyone before.  It broke my heart when it all fell apart.  I held onto that hope for far longer than I should have and that does make it much harder to let it go.

What is it about him that has you stuck?  Certainly there must be other, better men out there for you?  Can you reinvest in moving towards a healthier relationship with someone who can truly be your partner?

[Lifewriter16]

Ironic as this sounds, my BPDxbf is the only man I have actually met who has any emotional intelligence or any interest in talking about things to do with emotional healing. I felt like I was meeting someone 'like me', someone with whom I have something significant in common. I felt like he understood the journey I've made in life and I his. That is what makes him feel like my soul mate, not simply all the crap... .though that's played a significant part too.

I have a history of holding on for too long and taking far longer to let go than I should. It took me 13 years to let go of my first love and I was only able to do that because I got to the point that I 'knew' he wasn't coming back and I only started grieving the ending of that relationship 7 years after that. I don't think I had either the support or the sense of safety I needed to face the pain before that. When I got married, I found myself grieving past boyfriend after past boyfriend... .This is the first time that I have grieved for the ending of a relationship at the time it ended. I guess that I deserve a pat on the back for being able to do that now, even if it's taking me a long time to accept things. In comparison with how I have coped in the past, I am doing well.

Thanks for your support this afternoon, C.Stein.  I've been actively grieving and I have appreciated you being there at the other end of the ether, wherever you happen to be.

Lifewriter x

[Lifewriter16]

And for the record... .what a lot of thought distortion I was accepting as truth... .

[C.Stein]

Ironic as this sounds, my BPDxbf is the only man I have actually met who has any emotional intelligence or any interest in talking about things to do with emotional healing. I felt like I was meeting someone 'like me', someone with whom I have something significant in common. I felt like he understood the journey I've made in life and I his. That is what makes him feel like my soul mate, not simply all the crap... .though that's played a significant part too.

Try to believe he is not the only person who can understand you and be the one who finally gets you.  I can totally understand where you are coming from, I thought I had found a one-of-a-kind connection with my ex as well.  Perhaps I did on some level, but on others it was all just smoke and mirrors.  It is so very hard to let that go regardless of what has happened.

I have a history of holding on for too long and taking far longer to let go than I should. It took me 13 years to let go of my first love and I was only able to do that because I got to the point that I 'knew' he wasn't coming back and I only started grieving the ending of that relationship 7 years after that. I don't think I had either the support or the sense of safety I needed to face the pain before that. When I got married, I found myself grieving past boyfriend after past boyfriend... .This is the first time that I have grieved for the ending of a relationship at the time it ended. I guess that I deserve a pat on the back for being able to do that now, even if it's taking me a long time to accept things. In comparison with how I have coped in the past, I am doing well.

This is very good progress LW.  You deserve a big hug for your own personal growth here.  

Thanks for your support this afternoon, C.Stein.  I've been actively grieving and I have appreciated you being there at the other end of the ether, wherever you happen to be.

Anything I can do to help you past this makes my day a little brighter.    Keep believing in yourself, you can get through this and be stronger on the other side.

[eeks]

I said, in passing, that I think neurotypical people (ie people without autism) don't have much empathy either. He said I only think that because I haven't got empathy. He then gave me a lecture based upon something he's learnt in his anti-violence course. I feel kicked in the gut. That comment has really struck home. It really hurts. It just hurts and hurts. It's probably true, but it hurts regardless.

I would say that modern Western culture does have a lack of empathy.  We are taught to be practical problem-solvers, so there are a lot of people who jump straight to giving advice before they have "tuned in" with what is going on emotionally with the person.  And think about it this way... .if a neurotypical person had empathy, wouldn't they be able to be open to and curious about the person on the autism spectrum's experience of life, looking into and being aware of how they see things differently?  Hmm? 

Your ex scheduled other plans an hour after meeting you and to you, that means you're not important... .he suggested that you don't you don't have empathy, and you felt kicked in the gut... .it's totally legitimate for you to feel hurt or upset about other people's words or behaviour but I think what I'm seeing here is... .you "take in" the things other people say very deeply.  Like, really absorb it, and think about the implications, and figure that how people treat you MUST have something to do with you.

I do this too, and I have a good friend who is constantly saying to me "People are jerks!" (he has stronger language than that).  Now, that may be going to the opposite extreme in terms of judging people, but it works for me in that I've been slowly slowly conditioned out of the idea that how other people treat me is my fault!

[Grey Kitty]

LW, you've come a ways from this as this thread developed, but when I read the beginning, I was struck with one question:

"Where is Lifewrighter16 in this?"

[joeramabeme]

Ironic as this sounds, my BPDxbf is the only man I have actually met who has any emotional intelligence or any interest in talking about things to do with emotional healing. I felt like I was meeting someone 'like me', someone with whom I have something significant in common. I felt like he understood the journey I've made in life and I his. That is what makes him feel like my soul mate, not simply all the crap... .though that's played a significant part too.

LW, I have been reading through this posts and I jumped in on this part because I have had the exact same thought as you about not finding others that have these special traits. Like you, I have been in daily agonizing deep pain about a loss.  Not just the loss of my marriage, but the loss at a chance to have a full life.

All the pain aside, I have been dating someone for 6 months that has the emotional and intellectual intelligence that I sought (and still miss) with my ex.  She is into emotional healing, talking deeply about the substance of her life and has a clear understanding of who she is and that is all contained within a person who has had a deeply troubling childhood background.  She is also healthy enough to see things about me, that I try and conceal (fears etc), and is able to recognize that I am not out to get her or mislead her (like my ex thought) and can still validate to me that I am a wonderful person.  I have a very significant bond with this woman.  We call each other our kindred souls.

I won't paint a rose-colored picture and say I have found true love like I felt for my ex, I have not.  However, I have found someone that values all the traits you mention here, which I value too.  She has her own dark past and is recovered enough from that so that I could truly consider a long term r/s with her.

All that said, it takes nothing away from the stinging pain you feel, I still feel it too - daily.  But having met one other person that has these traits makes me think; where there is one there are others.  There is hope, however faint it may seem.

Blessings

[HurtinNW]

I am so sorry 

I could picture you, sitting there in the cafe. I have been there so many times. There have been so many times I met with boyfriend weeks or months after he had broken up with me, following his apology email. I'd spend all this time on my appearance, making sure I looked good, picking the right outfit, my heart aching and hopeful and anxious, having spent 28 out of the last 24 hours of every day during the break up thinking about him. He would show up late, in whatever grungy thing he was wearing that day, clearly not having really planned the meeting at all, or made much if any progress within himself.

I won't quote a bunch from your post, but he doesn't just seem oblivious. He seems hurtful. Having his wife go to your centre is just plain callous. And him saying you lack empathy is mean. Someone who had empathy wouldn't say something like that. I think it is projection.

I totally get the feeling of waiting your entire life for your kindred soul and having it blown to smithereens. It is a searing ache. I am deep in those waters myself. I come from an unusual cultural background and my boyfriend seemed to fit in so many ways, not just trauma related. I felt like he understood parts of me no one else had or ever will.

It is an awful hurt to feel that you don't matter to someone whom you love dearly. It brings up all the rejections of childhood. I'm sorry. Please take care of yourself, however that works for you... .a walk, a cry, a hot bubble bath, a drink with friends.

[Lifewriter16]

Thanks everyone for your support. I think there's some valuable insight here along with some real understanding of how I am feeling. I am very grateful to all of you for reading my threads and taking the time to post.

Big hugs to you all.

Lifewriter

[patientandclear]

LW -- I really identify with your reaction to the fact that he set a meeting with his parents just after your meeting.  I had a very similar reaction a year ago when my ex wanted to try to restore our relationship, and we scheduled a series of talks.  The first talk was fantastic -- and long (3.5 hours on the phone).  We had planned the talks to be once a week.  When the second week rolled around, as soon as he got on the phone, he told me he had scheduled to meet someone in 90 minutes so we would have to end "on time."

In a sense, that was the beginning of the end of our reconciliation attempt.  I felt as you wrote here -- if he cared about me, he would not have put a hard stop on the talk; when we were first together, he would never have done that; and also, it invoked for me the very issues that had caused us to part initially: he kept me in a little fenced away place in his life, wouldn't let the relationship grow, and was constantly turning to new people in his new city who brought excitement, glitz, etc. (the person he had arranged to meet was a woman   who owned the same kind of business the woman he had started seeing the year before owned   and it just all felt familiar and painful, like the very thing I had needed to get away from was surrounding me again, so quickly, and just after I'd made a huge effort to participate and be open with him in a non-threatening way).

In my hurt, which was not really about that moment (90 minutes is a long time to talk and I don't in generally have a problem with my partner heading off to do other stuff -- I am not normally clingy or possessive), I reacted in ways that ultimately sent our effort down the tubes.  But that is not the point of this story.

The point is that, looking back, what I ascribed to his decision to put a "hard stop" on our second conversation was my own fears talking, not necessarily what it meant to him.  Our first talk was very important to him and it took him a long time to process.  I suspect it was flooding to him and felt threatening in inchoate BPD ways.  His reaction was to get a handle on that by not letting it expand and become SO IMPORTANT so fast.  He needed to balance it and create a limit he knew he could count on, in order not to feel dread walking into the second call.  All of that is about BPD and him trying to manage his emotions.  None of it is about how much he cared about me versus the woman he was planning to meet.  She was just a convenient hard stop.

I was triggered due to my very real past hurts -- not FOO hurts, hurts with him.  Understandable.  But I was still putting a meaning on his actions that came from my head -- it wasn't really accurate about what he was going through.

It wasn't completely inaccurate either, of course, which is what makes it confusing.  He DOES have a tendency to run from deep emotional connection and to put me in a little box and to triangulate with others to reduce the pressure and ... .his coping strategies for emotional overload do threaten a deep meaningful relationship.  So I'm not saying this to be critical of you or me -- there are reasons why we react to such behavior as a warning indicator of greater hurt.  But I'm just saying you don't know for sure that he doesn't care about you, you're not very important, and that's why he scheduled to meet with his family.  It really could be the opposite, once it gets processed through the BPD filter.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi patientandclear,

LW -- I really identify with your reaction to the fact that he set a meeting with his parents just after your meeting. I had a very similar reaction a year ago... .I'm just saying you don't know for sure that he doesn't care about you, you're not very important, and that's why he scheduled to meet with his family.  It really could be the opposite, once it gets processed through the BPD filter.

It turns out that you're right. As I was typing out everything I was feeling, I could see that my own thinking processes were dysfunctional even as the pain and sadness was deep and very real. My BPDxbf emailed me the same night to say that the meet-up had been difficult for him, that he'd found me cold towards him. I didn't argue with him over just why that might have been, nor did I argue with him when he said I sounded angry and bitter. Normally, I would be so incensed that I was being misunderstood that a fight would ensue so this is a big success for me. A matter of being willing to lose the battle to win the war. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he wants to try a version of I-don't-want-or-expect-anything-from-you-nor-you-from-me-so-we'll-just-get-together-and-enjoy- each-other-approach to renewing our relationship, in the hope that it will help him to circumvent his massive fear around getting close and being loved. I'm reserving judgement on this, I'm not sure whether the arrangement is beneficial for me or just a cop-out, but it already feels a bit better than the previous arrangement because he's not bombarding me with needy texts that require immediate answers. I think he may actually be saying that it was having too high expectations and wanting too much from me that caused our problems and led him to dysregulate and so he's deliberately trying to be less demanding. That's got to be an improvement and is an outcome of the course he's doing at a local project that works with perpetrators of domestic violence (which was an issue with his wife).

For me, I feel scared. This morning it was bordering on terror, temporarily. The pair of us have issues around relationships that are seriously impeding our individual abilities to have decent relationships. And, I want to take care of my side of it.

Thanks for posting.

Lifewriter x

[patientandclear]

Hi patientandclear,

LW -- I really identify with your reaction to the fact that he set a meeting with his parents just after your meeting. I had a very similar reaction a year ago... .I'm just saying you don't know for sure that he doesn't care about you, you're not very important, and that's why he scheduled to meet with his family.  It really could be the opposite, once it gets processed through the BPD filter.

It turns out that you're right. As I was typing out everything I was feeling, I could see that my own thinking processes were dysfunctional even as the pain and sadness was deep and very real. My BPDxbf emailed me the same night to say that the meet-up had been difficult for him, that he'd found me cold towards him. I didn't argue with him over just why that might have been, nor did I argue with him when he said I sounded angry and bitter. Normally, I would be so incensed that I was being misunderstood that a fight would ensue so this is a big success for me. A matter of being willing to lose the battle to win the war. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he wants to try a version of I-don't-want-or-expect-anything-from-you-nor-you-from-me-so-we'll-just-get-together-and-enjoy- each-other-approach to renewing our relationship, in the hope that it will help him to circumvent his massive fear around getting close and being loved. I'm reserving judgement on this, I'm not sure whether the arrangement is beneficial for me or just a cop-out, but it already feels a bit better than the previous arrangement because he's not bombarding me with needy texts that require immediate answers. I think he may actually be saying that it was having too high expectations and wanting too much from me that caused our problems and led him to dysregulate and so he's deliberately trying to be less demanding. That's got to be an improvement and is an outcome of the course he's doing at a local project that works with perpetrators of domestic violence (which was an issue with his wife).

For me, I feel scared. This morning it was bordering on terror, temporarily. The pair of us have issues around relationships that are seriously impeding our individual abilities to have decent relationships. And, I want to take care of my side of it.

Thanks for posting.

Lifewriter x

Just ... .good for you.  That all sounds good.  His proposal seems like a reasonable plan given where he is, and your analysis of it feels pretty grounded.  Note that this time you are NOT interpreting the "no assumptions" as him not caring enough about you to commit, etc.  That's a big difference and an important shift.