8 months of no contact and still missing her immensely

[ShowingUp4me]

Maybe others are feeling this way too and maybe it’s amplified because of the holidays but I am missing my ex fiercely. I thought by now (8 months of no contact) I would be more healed and stronger but I am realizing I’m still very broken.
She messaged me the other day to ask randomly for a vacation recommendation and I feel like it was just her checking to see if I still had her blocked. I have not responded at all but it’s been on my mind since. It all feels heavy and I keep reminding myself that nothing has changed with her and if I attempt to make contact and get sucked in again it will be the same and wreak havoc. How do I find strength to steer clear? How do I release my heartstrings that still feel so attached to her?

[Under The Bridge]

Hi, I understand what you're feeling. It can take a long time - sometimes a very long time - to get back into normal life again and it's different for everyone.

It took a while for me to get used to it after my ex g/f had her final - and worst - splitting episode but after 4 rocky years I decided 'enough is enough'. Normally after her splits we'd be apart for a while then she'd start coming back into the pub we went to and it always ended with me - the innocent one - talking to her again and we'd get back together.. until the next time she did it.

The last time, I decided 'enough is enough' and went full no-contact. It was hard for a couple of months but you do find that life goes on and that there are more better-suited people out there for you. Not easy though at the time.

The question to be asked is; how far are you prepared to continue things? Assuming your ex won't seek help for her condition, are you prepared to endure the break-up cycles - and it does become a cycle - for the sake of the few happy times?  If I could go back in time I'd have stayed broken up the first time she split on me, and saved myself years of grief and repeating the same pattern over and over.

The fact she's contacted you on an apparently innocent subject may mean she's just sounding you out as still being 'available', in case she can't get anyone else. She also may be hoping you'll contact her and try to get her back. It's impossible to know what's going though a BPD's mind at any time, as they often don't know themselves.

Being broken up now may be hurting, but it may be the best thing in the long run if it avoids a potential lifetime of problems. Best wishes, whatever you decide.

[seekingtheway]

Hi there,

It sounds like you've done the hard work of maintaining no contact, and you were hoping you'd have released her emotionally and healed in that time. It certainly can be very unsettling when an ex makes contact if you're still in that space of being emotionally vulnerable and not properly healed. It can bring up many thoughts, feelings and what-if's.

I'm not sure how your relationship ended, but if there was a period of back and forth/ on and off, as many relationships with someone with BPD tend to go towards the end, then it can be hard to know when done is actually done. There can be an element of 'waiting and hoping'... whether that's for them to make contact, come back, or for them to apologise, to begin therapy... whatever it is, we can subconsciously be waiting for something else to happen without realising it, simply because there was always 'something else' happening within the relationship.

I think it's very normal for some people to still have feelings towards their ex in the timeframe you mentioned. My psychologist recommended I expect a two-year healing period, and I can see why she said that. I made the final break from my ex around the same time as you did, and I'm not over it yet. Far from it. I know logically it's totally done and I trust myself to never go back to him now. But emotionally, he is still taking up real estate in my brain. The thing that keeps me stuck in hurt and pain is partly because he lives so close to me, so I often see him, which always stirs up emotions and makes me feel unsettled (if not fearful if the truth be told) because he was telling lies about me in the community and posting nasty things about me online, and I haven't yet let that go. But I recognise I need to get to a point where I say, enough is enough, I'm done with this, and severe the emotional cords I still have to him in my head.

I think we finally let go when we're ready... and I think that time is usually when we've given up and dissolved all hope (hope of them coming back, hope of them changing, hope of a peaceful ending), and that can take time as well as some intention. It's different for everyone. But you've got to want to get there.