Broken up and pregnant after (possibly) BPD-ex

[moscas]

I'm not sure where to start. I've been checking out this site for quite some time and now I feel I finally need to come forward too and share my situation. Be prepared for a minor essay... (it's hard to just sum up the relationship).
Some background;I'm 26 and I moved home last year after six years of studying in a different country. I was mentally exhausted and hadn't finished my last thesis so temporarily moving back to my old home town and starting to look for jobs felt like an escape route. Luckily I did get a job pretty quickly and felt some solid ground under my feet again. On the downside, I lost a lot of my friends and connections after moving, I still had contact with some, but I felt pretty alone moving back home, I didn't have much of a social outlet besides family and one or two friends. Add to that that I had only dated guys briefly before and never really been involved in a more serious relationship up to that point. I think this is important to point out since I think it's one reason I had such a hard time letting this relationship go. So in december I met this 30 year old guy I had run into on a night out before. He's from my town also so we recognized each other but never got to really know each other during past years. We met up some weeks later and had coffee, talked the whole day, then in the evening went out and had a couple of beers, talked some more, then spent the night at my place.
So this was a pretty lonely period in my life, socially, and romantically, so I was just thrilled to meet someone where everything was so easy, we could talk about anything, and there was just an easy and straightforward connection. I had no idea or expectations on the whole thing. I was prepared that the whole thing would just turn into a one-night stand and nothing more. But then a couple of days after that we started texting, and then see each other more, and when he rented a room and had his own place we started to spend all the time we could together. I remember that first month as pretty blissful, we really fell in love and just wanted to do everything together.
And then came the first break-up. I think it was perhaps two months in, where he one night confessed to me that he had frequent intrusive fantasies about me cheating on him, and that I shouldn't take it personally since this is something he always suffers from when he gets into a relationship with someone, but it's starting to get unbearable and makes him want to break up with me.
I was shocked and sad that whole night. Next morning he was his usual kind self but was worried about me being so sad and I explained to him that I can't continue if what he said last night was true and he said that he understood.
Well, this break-up lasted maybe two days, bc I couldn't get over the fact a mental problem like this would ruin the relationship which was so fulfilling otherwise - and you know, not having much to compare with, fulfilling for me was being in love, have someone I felt I could share everything with, we understood each other, great sex. I really wanted to be with him and give this whole thing another go. So we got back together.  We moved forward pretty quickly after that. We had been a couple for only three months when I moved into a new apartment and offered him to move in with me, since we spent so much time in the room he rented already, and thought maybe we could give it a go.
But the relationship WAS rocky at this point. It wasn't just fantasies about cheating. He would frequently have bouts of anxiety and dark thoughts (usually late in the night). It usually revolved around a lot of self-hate, he had no job, no friends, loathed his family (I know his dad had been abusive). One night he was convinced that I hated him, that I would leave him. I was usually very calm when he turned like this and just reassured that I loved him very much and wanted to be with him. Then in the morning he was always his usual self. He sometimes apologized for these bouts and told me that it wasn't my fault, just that he had very strong feelings sometimes and believed things in the moment, but it was only temporary.
We moved in together. But it didn't take long before we established a pattern of frequent break-ups, always on my initiative. But the "break-ups" only lasted one or two days each time and then we would be back together again. After a while he started to display explosive anger too. And it could be over very mundane things (but in hindsight I can see it was usually in situations where he felt neglected somehow).
After a while we had a very toxic pattern. We would have horrible fights that usually started with him saying that "something was wrong" and we needed to solve it, and I had NO CLUE what he was talking about. He very often projected things at me too, said I didn't understand him, that something felt off, that I must have done something. So it would start with discussion because I wanted to understand what it all was about, and in the end it turned into intense tearful fights, I had STILL NO CLUE what we were fighting about afterwards, cause it always started with him having an inexplicable bad feeling. Other times he would confront me outright with his cheating fantasies and wanted me to "tell him the truth". Those were really scary moments cause he really seemed to believe that I was cheating, and I couldn't convince him otherwise, no matter how many times I said no and explained to him why it was impossible for me cheat on him. Nothing helped, only that he would sort of snap out of it after a while. So these things, horrible fights, or outright confrontation with paranoid thoughts made me frequently break up with him. The other problem was drinking, which I really saw the extent of when we moved in together. It was infrequent, he could go days or weeks on end without drinking, but then he would have one evening or weekend or afternoon when he drank a lot. There were also a couple of times when I made a trip or visited friends. He was always anxious beforehand (he never told me not to leave, but I could always see that me leaving made him insecure/anxious), and when I returned he was always drunk. So I started to realize that he was using alcohol to soothe himself or to self-medicate.
So either fights and tantrums made me break-up with him, or the drinking. Or, to be clear, I always tried to discuss everything with him, but he was always adamant on not wanting to seek help, and that always made me give up and wanting to end the relationship. Then came the regret, hurt, missing him, and we were back together. I could never say no for long, and he never wanted to break up in the first place, so it turned into this exhausting cycle. Each time we got together all was forgotten (well, at least that's what we said, I was a bit more emotionally damaged each time), we had a couple of good days, where only the good parts of the relationship were present (sex, doing things together, talking, share interests, hanging out, making plans together), and then slowly, either drinking or tantrum or a huge fight would come around the corner and make us break up again. Rinse and repeat.
He was physically abusive once. This was actually by the time I had googled "my boyfriend feels like dr jekyll and mr hyde" and read about borderline for the first time. OH MY GOD. He was like a textbook-example. Almost ALL the symptoms fit (except idealizing/devaluing (or so I thought) bc I hadn't experienced devaluing yet). So I started to read about ways to cope. And I really fell for trying to empathize with what he's feeling, not the things he's saying. So this was one night when we had been staying at his childhood home and he went out for a smoke. I had been reading a book, and now I realize he probably got triggered by me not being super-attentive. Bc the next thing I know, he was coming in and said to me: "It's over." (this was the first time ever he said something like this, I was always the one breaking up before). No fight, nothing, he was very collected. I felt this small shock but I also instantly realized that he was in one of his bouts. So instead of starting to act on my emotions I just said: "No." but he just nodded he's head and repeated that it's over. And then I just asked him if he was afraid (by then I had started to read up on fear of abandonment). At first he said nothing, but after a long silence something changed and he just said yes, he's afraid all the time.
And then he just relaxed, and didn't want me to leave anymore, or ending the relationship. I was drained afterwards. I realized that this could have turned into another big fight, instead we actually got to the root of that he was feeling and solved something that could have turned into a conflict(?). Well not really, when we went to bed that night he suddenly got up and said again "I can't do this, I'll drive you home, you have to leave" (we didn't even have a car there). By then I was really tired and I just insisted that we should sleep and talk about this tomorrow. He calmed down after a while and we slept. The next morning I was feeling down and still drained after the whole thing and he picked up on this and started to interpret it as me not wanting to be with him anymore. And I tried to explain what it really was about, that I had to have some time to recover after yesterday and couldn't do it as quickly as him. Anyway, this was turning into a fight and he didn't want to come back home to our shared apartment and I just decided that I would go on my own and said we could sort this out later (I just wanted to avoid a conflict). He was pretty angry by then and as I was leaving he went to take out the trash and shut the door closed really hard behind him and I was irritated too and just said something like "real mature". The next thing I know he's running after me and pushing/holding me down on the ground, wanting to know what I said. I was shocked and angry at this and he let me go pretty quickly and I just left.
I texted him a lot afterwards and said that I had enough and I can't forgive him for being physically aggressive like this. And he said he knows it was a bad thing to do and that he doesn't want to hurt me and that I don't deserve ___ like this and I'm right to break up with him again.

Well, that evening I went out with a friend and got drunk and he got drunk elsewhere and later that night we got back together again. I'm not sure we would have if I weren't drunk cause after that morning I was determined not to give the whole thing a new chance again.
So, it was the same pattern all over again, but I also started to try to make him get help, and see a psychiatrist, but it never really worked, he could be persuaded two times, but he always gave up after one meeting and told me that those people couldn't help him.
Anyway, we moved apart for good in the summer, in June. After that we still got back together but I wanted to have some boundaries. Not living together, him not taking out tantrums on me, that we should only see each other when we could communicate around things. This was easier said than done. Couple of weeks went by and we had a particularly bad break-up (over drinking this time) and this time I was determined to not get back together again. We still did, one week later, euphoric days all over again, summer, staying at a house in the country, lots of sex. I feel crazy when I think about this. I also think I was desperate by that time. I saw no hope in our relationship anymore, I knew it would never change, I knew he would always be unwilling to seek proper help, still I fell in love all over again, and during those days just created this bubble that everything was fine, that we could still make it as a couple. After this, we had a new break-up, one stressful morning and it wasn't even a big fight, I think he just said something I thought was immature but somehow made me fed-up with everything. So it was pretty straight-forward and emotionless this time. We decided we can't go on (he was helping me out with the dishes as we discussed this). One week after that I discovered I was pregnant. I just knew I couldn't have an abortion. But I also knew that the relationship really is over now, cause I could never bring a child into this.
We had a long discussion about it and he thought I should decide since it's my body, and that he will be a dad and do his best if I want to keep it. I stressed that he really needs to get help if he wants to stay involved.
I had very little hope, and for a while it got worse. The pregnancy seemed to trigger everything; he wanted a paternity test (the fantasies again). He started drinking more. He was worried he was gonna be left out and that I would leave him. This was a horrible period and in the end I managed to convince him and we went to a psychiatrist together.He got a prescription for sleeping pills and anxiety meds and also got new appointments and a treatment plan.
For the first time in a long time I felt some kind of hope. Finally, he could at least a begin a road to recovery. I said I would support him in everything. I felt I had to. And by then I was thinking a lot about this future kid and just trying to avoid a total crisis and get him help so he at least could be an involved father, even if our relationship wouldn't work.

But all this quickly went down the drain. I had a much harder time coping with everything as newly pregnant and just worrying about how everything would turn out. We broke-up again. He didn't take his pills. He didn't show up for his appointments. He started drinking more.
We still had a couple of good days here and there. He really started to look forward to the baby and promised he would get better (but never did anything).
Almost all of my sex-drive disappeared after getting pregnant. We had sex maybe a few times and I explained to him how I felt, that it wasn't personal, just my whole body felt different. He didn't have a problem with this at first. Until one day when he got really fed up. I didn't want to have sex. I didn't want give him a hand-job or do anything sexual. I also said that I get it's hard on him, cause we used to have so much sex before. But he just turned really nasty and said he had enough and I started crying and he just left. I felt angry, and hurt and hopeless. I wrote him a lot of angry texts and said I was breaking up for good if this is how he's gonna behave from now on. He didn't answer much.
Later that evening I started to panic over the relationship really ending and I wrote something conciliatory.

And then, later that night, drunk, he started texting me. I woke up to more than 20 text messages. Death threats. Calling me a whore and slut (words he had never used before). More death threats. He told me I should kill myself and my "freak baby". And then wrote that he would kill me.
As I was reading his texts (early morning), he was still writing and the last text he sent was that I should never contact him again, that he still hates me.

I filed a police report on the death threats. I also got a restraining order. I felt like he had crossed all boundaries now, and had no idea what he would do next.

Turns out he was prepared to cycle back again. One week later, and up until the date I got the restraining order against him, he tried to contact me, visited me, said he was sorry, said he regretted it, that he never meant those texts. I said that he should get treatment and that I want no more contact. Since the restraining order he hasn't made any. I'm seeing a psychiatrist and have contacted child services in advance for support and guidance. I'm still at a loss. I still worry about him. I feel emotionally ___ed up. Some days I still miss him but I know it's hopeless.I know I need to go on. I'm reading boards here about no contact and moving on. The pregnancy complicates things of course. So how do you move on in a situation like this? What strategies should I have?

[itgetsbetter94]

Dear moscas, congratulations, first and foremost  
Your decision to keep the baby was brave.

I'm so glad that you're seeing a therapist.  That's the best decision you could've made after all of the emotional turmoil you experienced with him.

Now, you have to make yourself your own priority. Not him- you are now No.1.
Pregnancy is challenging as it is, having a partner who is a loose cannon, refuses therapy, changing his mind one second to the next, sends multiple death threats, only to want to reconcile the next day... .for goodness sake, that would drive any person insanse, especially someone who is vulnerable due to the pregnancy. I' ll suggest to keep him out of the picture for now. He was abusive once, he is obviously capable of physically harming you. If the pregnancy is his trigger, and it is, it puts you in even more dangerous position. He is simply not the person who should be around you right now and I'm glad you've already taken the necessary measures to secure that.

I'm a lawyer and if you need any legal help regarding this situation, send me a private message and I'll be happy to reply.

[moscas]

Dear moscas, congratulations, first and foremost  
Your decision to keep the baby was brave.

I'm so glad that you're seeing a therapist.  That's the best decision you could've made after all of the emotional turmoil you experienced with him.

Now, you have to make yourself your own priority. Not him- you are now No.1.
Pregnancy is challenging as it is, having a partner who is a loose cannon, refuses therapy, changing his mind one second to the next, sends multiple death threats, only to want to reconcile the next day... .for goodness sake, that would drive any person insanse, especially someone who is vulnerable due to the pregnancy. I' ll suggest to keep him out of the picture for now. He was abusive once, he is obviously capable of physically harming you. If the pregnancy is his trigger, and it is, it puts you in even more dangerous position. He is simply not the person who should be around you right now and I'm glad you've already taken the necessary measures to secure that.

I'm a lawyer and if you need any legal help regarding this situation, send me a private message and I'll be happy to reply.

Thank you for your kind words and support!   Yes, two things have really sobered me in this - the pregnancy, and the death threats. The pregnancy forced me to realize how doomed the relationship was and that I needed to get out for good, sooner or later. The death threats made "sooner" possible. I could finally emotionally detach enough to take the hard steps of setting a clear boundary with him and protecting myself.
I have made no contact with him since the death threats - that's almost two months now. It feels like miracle, since I always broke down after one or two days previously. There has been three weeks since I got the restraining order and he stopped making contact with me. That feels like a miracle too, since he wouldn't take no for an answer after the death threats and kept seeking  me out, trying to contact me through family, through phone calls, always apologizing and regretful. And that's when I thought ENOUGH. As you said, anyone would turn insane. I also felt it's a good boundary FOR HIM to realize that you can't just get back together after sending death threats to someone you said you loved. I realized he has no emotional boundaries in this and he will go god knows how far if I let him.

So I'm trying to cope now. I've a pretty good relationship with his siblings and his family overall have been very supportive and they also made me realize that I need to prioritize myself now. It helps reading boards here and about similar experiences. Some days I'm still afraid my other emotions (all the 'soft' ones) will get the better of me. I still don't know how I'll react if I see him on the street and he tries to talk. But it also helps to realize that we probably weren't on the same page, emotion- and relationshipwise, to begin with. It hurts to realize, but I think I need to remind myself of that to be able to move on for real.

[itgetsbetter94]

It's completely normal to be unsure of our "soft" emotions getting the best of us, I often find myself fantasizing about meeting him accidentally one day, and how I would react... .Brain does that, it takes us to such places.
But, shortly after I find myself in such daydreaming, I recall what ACTUALLY happened and put things into perspective.
Putting things into perspective is what makes this whole detachment precess possible and easier.
What I want and what it is are two completely different things.
What I want is what I saw during the first two months, the promises that were made, future that was promised, love that was the highest priority, man that was supposed to be my soulmate.
What it is is a personality disorder, emotional disability, potential physical abuse, guaranteed emotional, mental and psychological abuse, person who today is and tomorrow isn't, who can't regulate his act and emotions, who can't stand behind his words, a rationship with whom leads to inevitable harm.

You and I are at the same NC period- around 2 months. So, I imagine you've somewhat distanced and emotionaly detached yourself and can see the bigger picture.

I really hope that your bf is using this NC period for getting help, rethinking his behaviour, quitting drinking and doing some hard inner work. If this situation, where he's expecting a child, doesn't wake him up to reality that he needs help and that he needs it now, I don't know what else will.

But at this point, don't count on him. On his regard, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

[moscas]

It's completely normal to be unsure of our "soft" emotions getting the best of us, I often find myself fantasizing about meeting him accidentally one day, and how I would react... .Brain does that, it takes us to such places.
But, shortly after I find myself in such daydreaming, I recall what ACTUALLY happened and put things into perspective.
Putting things into perspective is what makes this whole detachment precess possible and easier.
What I want and what it is are two completely different things.
What I want is what I saw during the first two months, the promises that were made, future that was promised, love that was the highest priority, man that was supposed to be my soulmate.
What it is is a personality disorder, emotional disability, potential physical abuse, guaranteed emotional, mental and psychological abuse, person who today is and tomorrow isn't, who can't regulate his act and emotions, who can't stand behind his words, a rationship with whom leads to inevitable harm.

You and I are at the same NC period- around 2 months. So, I imagine you've somewhat distanced and emotionaly detached yourself and can see the bigger picture.

I really hope that your bf is using this NC period for getting help, rethinking his behaviour, quitting drinking and doing some hard inner work. If this situation, where he's expecting a child, doesn't wake him up to reality that he needs help and that he needs it now, I don't know what else will.

But at this point, don't count on him. On his regard, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Yes, you're absolutely right.
What I want and what is - important distinction! I still struggle with this on the vulnerable days. In my case I feel twisted in wanting, - it's not just those first two months, it's all those alternating 'good times' further in (despite the escalating dysfunctions), when we got to know each other more, when he was loving, caring, kind, we had interesting conversations and I felt truly relaxed and accepted with him. All those moments when it felt like a normal relationship with someone I loved and felt loved by. It sounds insane and it's a hell hole cause that's what pulled me back in each and every time, knowing there would be good moments, and living in denial until all the dysfunctions were around the corner again.
But yes, the mere fact that I've maintained NC is possible because I've found a firm resolve, I've been able to detach emotionally, in some parts. I also re-read his death threats whenever I get emotional fantasies or too nostalgic. That usually does the trick.

And yes I hope for the best but prepare for the worst. I've gleaned from his family that there's no big change, he continues drinking and seems be as self-destructive as ever. But I try to not ask too many questions bc I don't want to get emotionally involved. I know there's nothing I can do for him now.

Hey, and congrats on your 2 months NC! It's such a huge step.

[itgetsbetter94]

Yup, congratulations to us both!

You're strong, you got this. You already showed a strength of character  and determination to live on your terms and cut the dysfunction out of your life. Protect yourself the best you can, legally, emotionally, therapeutically, mentaly. If I were your best friend or a sister, I would advise you to indulge yourself now the best way you can- get a massage, treat yourself, be your own best friend, take care of yourself on all levels, continue with therapy, read books, watch funny movies, distract yourself, socialise with people that love you... .really put in practice being your own priority.

The last thing my ex's psychiatrist told him regarding us was "be each other's best friends" and "be each other's cure". Unfortunately, encouraging words weren't enough to prevent his (inevitable) breakdown. Not that he wasn't my best friend any more, he began treating me like his worst enemy. And he definitely wasn't my cure, but became deadliest poison. But, still I found some silver lining in his therapist's words- I became my own best friend and my own cure. That's really the best thing we can take from this situation.