one of the last things I said was that she had all the power and that I need to stop talking to her to heal myself.
This is a huge step in healing.
To recognize that the status quo of your relationship is tilted way too far in her favor -- it's not healthy for either of you, although because of her BPD, she will feel compelled to tilt it her way, even if that is not the healthy choice, and even if at the end of the day she does not want to have that power.
So you recognized that, and are now taking steps to reclaim that focus back for yourself.
It will likely be a moment to moment, day by day struggle to do this, and you will (in all likelihood, and understandably) be tempted to feel that your healing is contingent on future choices in regard to her, and what she does or does not do. It's human nature to do this, and it's also a distraction from the work.
I'm struggling because I can't go back to the marriage I was in, but I want to give us a chance. I just don't know if I'm wasting my time
BPD relationships can bring us to the deepest source of pain in ourselves. Once we touch that pain, what we do with that pain is a choice we make. Ultimately, it is about evolving your personality to a point where you may not recognize your old self. You may one day look back with compassion on who you were when all of this started. It will feel like everything was about her and you may see that the relationship, while painful, did not necessarily have to hurt as much.
Will she be the same? It's hard to say. Will you be the same? Also hard to say. You cannot count on her to change, though your own changes, -- that is in your control.
Even if the relationship is over as she says, would you want to date right now? I have seen a formula here on the boards that for every year of marriage, it takes a month to heal from the divorce. For a high-conflict marriage, the months can double. So for 10 years of marriage, 20 months of healing. The difference between healing from a detaching perspective, and one from a saving perspective, is that both include taking care of yourself, whereas saving skills push you to look at relationship dynamics. Not just BPD dynamics, though they tend to push us harder because the emotional dysregulation is more extreme.
You are NC right now and probably want certainty? It is painful to not have that, and makes sense that you want to have answers, now, so you can move forward with a plan.
For me, I find that certainty can shortcut some of the important healing work. It's part of the pain x resistance = suffering equation they talk about in mindfulness classes.
It used to drive me nuts when my T said to "lean into the pain," and here I am suggesting the very same thing. For me, it eventually did work, though it hurt like nothing I'd experienced before.
