No Contant Support (Part ?)

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

I know that a lot of us here are doing No Contact (me included, almost three months), and I know that it's hard. Post here when you want to contact them, like I do today. Fighting the urge big-time, and I feel like a fool for missing her / longing for her this much after such a long time, and after so much crazy-making / sabotaging / pushing-away behavior.

[MapleBob]

I know that a lot of us here are doing No Contact (me included, almost three months), and I know that it's hard. Post here when you want to contact them, like I do today. Fighting the urge big-time, and I feel like a fool for missing her / longing for her this much after such a long time, and after so much crazy-making / sabotaging / pushing-away behavior.

[Confused?]

I don't want to contact my ex but I do want to tell you to stay strong. Some days are just really hard. When I'm depressed I often wish I had someone around. Someone to just be by my side and tell me that everything will be fine. The truth is my ex was never that person. The complete strangers on this forum have been there for me more than my ex ever was or ever will be.

[troisette]

I'm six months nc and was happier when he was away for the past two months. He's just returned and I got a glimpse a couple of days ago, it's unsettled me.

I don't want to contact him but it's unnerving to know he's six streets away and I could run into him.

He was never the person I thought he was, I make myself remember things he said and did that I should not have blinkered myself to, trying to avoid the good memories, making myself confront that they were illusory, not based on a sound relationship.

Still frustrates me so much that others see the charming waif (well, I think they do), not the person I experienced and cannot reveal to anyone.

[MapleBob]

Still frustrates me so much that others see the charming waif (well, I think they do), not the person I experienced and cannot reveal to anyone.

Isn't that SO FRUSTRATING? 

I know things about my ex that would absolutely ruin her life and relationships if they ever came to light (or at least be unrecoverably embarrassing). I would never ... .but I could. That's a tough burden to bear after so much crazy-making behavior, and especially after being so callously discarded and subjected to withholding.

[troisette]

Yes, incredibly frustrating Bob. But revealing those things would rebound I think. Would be interpreted as malice.

He's quiet and high functioning, skilled at mirroring and manipulation. I just hope that in the long term people will begin to notice the anomalies - and I bear in mind your comment on another thread about the quiet type's inability to express emotions.

He goes away a lot, I think it's a mechanism to avoid discovery. Relatively short bursts of time with friends and acquaintances and then off again.

Grrrrrr... .

[WoundedBibi]

Yes, grrrrrrrr.

To know this other side no one sees, that they don't want to see, knowing stuff that could damage him, but not saying anything because it isn't me to do so and because it would come back to bite me in my backside. To keep quiet hoping they will forget about the lies he told about me and some day will see this other side of him. Hoping he will just go back to his normal pattern and he will just leave this city and this country...

[Anez]

I remember these threads and they helped me a lot.

I work with my ex and i have said a total of one word to her in the last 4 weeks and that was just "yo" while passing by her. I'm done even thinking of texting her and if I do see her at work I will just keep it short with a yo or hi. no small talk. no nothing. it's the best thing for me.

I went on a first date last night with a really nice girl. She was easy to talk to, really good looking, and very, very, very sane. I like her but I still feel like a piece of me is still a little broken from my exBPD. I'm frustrated by that but will work through it and see where things go with this girl.

it was nice to sit across from the table and have a fun conversation with a person who had zero traits of BPD behavior. I've been on other dates the past few months where there were strong BPD traits and that made me flee from them.

Stay strong, Maple. you helped me so much over the past few months and continue to help people by posting threads like this one.

[MapleBob]

Stay strong, Maple. you helped me so much over the past few months and continue to help people by posting threads like this one.

Man, I'm tryin'! 

I think that today I just hit the end of where self-righteous "yeah, screw her!" thinking can take me. I'm not going to contact her (not yet anyway), but she's still often on my mind. And I'm seeing someone new too, who is great and warm and present, but it's just not the same. And, like you, I still have a little "brokenness" to work through.

Anyway, I want her to reach out to me! 

[Anez]

Mine reached out to me a few weeks ago after a big event in my life. I thought she might. I was out after the event celebrating with friends and was drunk when i saw her text. her first initiated text since oct. i said thanks for congratulating me ... .then our convo went down the path of me telling her she destroyed my heart and threw me away. she said she was broken and her life was a disaster right now and that I couldn't fix her or be her savior.

and since then we haven't texted at all or talked at all, except one word at work. Before that we hadn't texted or talked in a month.

she's a disaster. they're all disasters, really. gotta keep remembering that and seeing their whole picture.

connect all the dots in their lives.

[MapleBob]

Mine reached out to me a few weeks ago after a big event in my life. I thought she might. I was out after the event celebrating with friends and was drunk when i saw her text. her first initiated text since oct. i said thanks for congratulating me ... .then our convo went down the path of me telling her she destroyed my heart and threw me away. she said she was broken and her life was a disaster right now and that I couldn't fix her or be her savior.

I have a birthday coming up at the end of the month and my ex is BIG on birthdays, so I'm hoping/fearing that I'll hear from her then. My reaction would kind of depend on the nature of if/what she says/doesn't say. I think that not hearing from her is a pretty big message - I know she'll notice the date and think of me.

she's a disaster. they're all disasters, really. gotta keep remembering that and seeing their whole picture.

connect all the dots in their lives.

I apparently have too much of a capacity for forgiveness and too much empathy and hope for people's ability to change to get what they want to just write someone off. I mean, I guess that's what she did, and that makes her not on my level, but... .ugh, circular thinking. 

[Anez]

I apparently have too much of a capacity for forgiveness and too much empathy and hope for people's ability to change to get what they want to just write someone off. I mean, I guess that's what she did, and that makes her not on my level, but... .ugh, circular thinking. 

And that's what makes you a good person. Believe, I know how you feel. I just saw my ex from across the office and had feelings pop into my head. even after all this time. but I'm able to process those a little better now.

You're a good man, Maple. And these feelings you have are normal and shared by many people on this board, including me.

We're just dealing with people who are mentally ill and there really is nothing we can do for them except wish them well and move on with our lives, as tough as that can be.

[MapleBob]

I apparently have too much of a capacity for forgiveness and too much empathy and hope for people's ability to change to get what they want to just write someone off. I mean, I guess that's what she did, and that makes her not on my level, but... .ugh, circular thinking.  

And that's what makes you a good person. Believe, I know how you feel. I just saw my ex from across the office and had feelings pop into my head. even after all this time. but I'm able to process those a little better now.

You're a good man, Maple. And these feelings you have are normal and shared by many people on this board, including me.

We're just dealing with people who are mentally ill and there really is nothing we can do for them except wish them well and move on with our lives, as tough as that can be.

It's hard to accept that they're just not better than this. My ex couldn't even really fault me anymore by the end, she was just tired of being made crazy by all of this intensity. Couldn't do it anymore. So I don't know if that's an "indefinite hiatus" (in her mind), or a "let's never again" kind of thing.

[Anez]

how you doing, maple?

[MapleBob]

how you doing, maple?

Hanging in there, Anez, better than yesterday. You?

[Anez]

good to hear, maple. the ups and downs of this are crazy. I had some old feelings pop up yesterday - anger, frustration, more anger - but i'm better equipped to deal with them now. So weird how they can pop back up. i think i was just triggered by seeing her across the office talking to people like she used to talk to me. But I know now that she is a disaster and not good for me so i go through the steps of reminding myself of all the bad that she did to me.

[MapleBob]

good to hear, maple. the ups and downs of this are crazy... .

But I know now that she is a disaster and not good for me so i go through the steps of reminding myself of all the bad that she did to me.

The ups and downs ARE crazy, and I really wish I was already at the point where I wasn't still renting her space in my head. But it's less as time goes on... .These relationships are like us making a nice healthy salad and then all of a sudden "woops, the salad is a bomb!" It makes about that much sense.

I was medium-long-distance with mine, so I literally have documentation (texts, emails, letters) of all of the horrible things she's said and done. But I'm still not getting the point? 

[Anez]

Your brain will get the point eventually. It's all about re-wiring it. These relationships were like addictions to us, at least to me, anyways. And parts of our brains still see them as a reward. It's like a smoker who just quit smoking. From time to time your brain wants that cigarette even though you know it's bad for you. Eventually over time you see cigarettes at the gas station and your brain doesn't even think of them.

None of that is breaking news to you, of course. But it's good to hear it from time to time. It will get better. your brain will be wiped clean of it all eventually.