Making A List Helped Me

[tammym1972]

The other day I decided to make a list of all the bad and good things about my relationship with my exBPDbf. The bad list was long! Took up over half a journal page. I was surprised that the good list was very, very short! The only good things I could think of by the end of the relationship was that we liked to travel and I was comfortable. That's it!

The bad list just went on and on. I was quite surprised.

I think it may help others who have been abandoned by their BPD ex to really put things into perspective, to do something similar.

[fromheeltoheal]

Good move tammy.  And it's also helpful, if we are dealing with a conflict between our heads and our hearts once these relationships end, our head knows what's right for us but our heart protests, pulls us towards the relationship and we are missing our ex, it's helpful to review that list, use it as a tool, to adjust our focus and move forward with detachment, and our heart will eventually realign with our head.

[Duped 1]

I did the same as I have to remember just how bad it was and all the daily anxiety and walking on Eggshells when I'm missing her SO much. The good list was a little over a quarter of a page and the bad list was almost 4 pages.

[beggarsblanket]

Making a list helped me too. My list of good things is longer than the bad, but that is only because the relationship was short-lived. The seriousness of the bad still vastly outweighs the good. For example, nothing makes up for the fact that she tried to separate me from my friends, that she never admitted her wrongdoing or apologized for it, that she had no awareness of my feelings, that she minimized and disbelieved and even ridiculed my hurt when I expressed it, that she refused to talk about the relationship.

With time and distance I've become aware of another fact: people with an enduring presence in my life already provide most of the good things on the list. What made her so seem so special is that she provided all of these goods in one person, whereas I normally have to go to many different people to get my different needs met. I realize now that this seeming provision of all my needs is part of her disordered courtship ritual. It was an appearance only, and it was bound to unravel sooner or later. It is not reasonable for me to expect any one person with a mature and healthy psyche to meet all my needs in the way that she seemed to do.