I'm still not over my BPD ex and I don't want to give up..

[Crushedandconfus]

I thought for most of this last year that my ex was a covert narcissists until about 2 weeks ago. Now I'm not so sure. He and I have had a rollercoaster relationship for the last 2.5 years and I just don't know what to do to get things back to normal. I'm not a doctor and I don't pretend to be. There is no official documentation or diagnosis that I am aware of to confirm or deny anything but something is definitely off in his personality.
He grew up in a single parent home. His dad passed away when he was just a baby and his mother became an alcoholic. She never remarried. He was her life (aside from alcohol). She managed what little money she had well though and kept a roof over their head and a stable environment and he has always been a very organized and goal oriented person. After he graduated high school he went into the Marines and his own drinking gradually worsened until it was out of control. He was in the military for 10 years until he made some bad enough choices that he found himself in prison. He spent 10 years in prison and the day he was released into his sober-living program is the day I met him. I was there to facilitate one of the meetings as I was a recovering addict who had gone through the same program but as an out-patient.
He stood out to me. He didn't look at all like someone who had just spent the last decade in prison and I was clueless about cluster b personalities so I never saw anything coming. The fact that he had never done my drug of choice was such a pleasant thing by itself to me that I became fascinated by him. He was a fascinating person but being around him made me really want to stay sober. I wasn't attracted to him romantically at all though. Not initially. At the time I was married to an active addict and even though he was a nice guy, our marriage was falling apart due to an injury he was not interested in getting repaired even though it was at the expense of our intimacy and emotional connection. It was devastating for me.
I ultimately ended up asking him to leave and gave up on the marriage but it had nothing to do with the BPD..
The significance in me sharing anything about the marriage is that it ended at about the same time that the BPD moved into my house as a roommate.
The only reason that happened was because I had a 3 bedroom home and was only using one room plus the BPD had completed the program, was working full time, had just purchased a car, and was needing a place to live for about a year as was recommended by his sponsor.. the BPD had the funds to buy a house but was following his sponsors recommendation to have roommates for a year first (his mother had passed away in her alcoholism while he was in prison so he had inherited everything she had).
 The BPD honestly had no idea my marriage was about dead or that I had started using again. I didn't want to tell him because I had hoped him being there would help me to stop. It didn't work that way though.
I got my ex-husband out and another guy I had known from years prior moved in and the BPD got into a relationship and was rarely ever there. This is how it was for the next 9 months until the BPD's relationship ended. Mine was not going well and our friendship grew stronger stronger until about a year later when we were both single and had gotten so close it was unavoidable. I was afraid of how strongly I felt about him. Before we decided to make anything official, I sat him down and through tears I confessed to my struggle with addiction and told him I desperately wanted to stop for good and my fears about what that would look like and told him I would completely understand if he changed his mind and didn't want to move forward but I had to be honest before letting him move forward into a relationship with me. It was only fair.
He sat there and thought about it for a few minutes and then said he forgave me and wanted to be there in any way he possibly could because he knew he loved me and that we had something different and unmistakable.
I believed every word.
I had never heard of love bombing at that time or idealization as part of a common 3 stage phase for those with a cluster b personality disorder.
I didn't even realize he had a personality disorder.
He was literally the only thing in almost 9 years that I had ever wanted in my life more than my next high. He was more important to me than using and since this love bombing phase was in full swing at the same time I'm really walking out the 12 steps and doing the meetings and taking it very seriously, I hardly had any withdrawal symptoms. The natural high of being in love and feeling truly loved trumped the comedown. It was bizarre.
Unfortunately, it was also short-lived and almost 5 months later, he found an old pipe buried in my house somewhere and decided he could no longer trust me and I had obviously continued using behind his back and all sorts of way out things and up and moved out. There was nothing I could do or say to change his mind. Every attempt was met with such contempt and merciless cruelty that I just could not believe was coming out of this man's mouth. I had no idea he could be so heartless. I was shocked..
Within a day or two of him leaving, every bit of the heartache of being abandoned was accompanied with the side effects of coming down off a 9 year meth addiction and I was in the darkest and scariest and most agonizing place I had ever been to. It was a nightmare. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, my whole body hurt and I couldn't pull out of it. I couldn't bring myself to take my own life but I was pleading with God to take it. I was being spiritually tormented and the only response I was getting from the BPD was emotionless, cold, unempathetic comments that were meant to tear me down more.
As luck would have it, a month later I discover I'm pregnant. This was the last thing I wanted or needed. I invite the BPD over to discuss this and was stunned at his response in saying he'd be willing to pay for an abortion if I was willing to go that route.
I wasn't. My beliefs are very much pro-life. However, four days later I miscarried which I'm sure had a lot to do with the trauma that was never-ending...
Well, this was all about 2 years ago now and in that time he's had two relationships. The first one he denied repeatedly. There were several reasons for the denial but no doubt part of the reason was because he and I continued sleeping together.
It was his idea but I agreed because I had hoped that would bring him back. That part of our connection was incredible from the beginning. However, when a little over a year later I realized he had to be seeing someone, I sent her texts proving that he and I had been sleeping together since he left and she ended the relationship. Her and I weren't the only ones he had been sleeping with though and I had no idea until a month later when he blasts it all over social media that he's in a relationship with this third woman.. I felt like my heart was ripped from my chest all over again.
I tried to warn her too but he had already discredited me and she wouldn't listen.
He'd give me the silent treatment for a month or so, then out of nowhere he'd reach out to me, we would end up sleeping together for a week or so, then he'd ghost me again and the cycle repeated three times until a few weeks ago, I finally got her attention. And she could no longer defend or deny what I was telling her was true.
In all honesty, I do feel bad because she has self-confidence issues and she's a really nice person and fell for him hard. She was under the same spell. I had to actually go so low as to actually record he and I without his knowledge or consent and send her a 10 second clip of it time stamped just to get through his lies and his story telling and get her attention. It worked. She left him.
Here's the purpose for my sharing all of this... It's been over two weeks now since I've noticed a complete change in his demeanor.
Suddenly he is willing to work with me on me getting any kind of closure, he's admitting that he has been the problem and the damage he's done. He's admitting that this time he's hurting because of his choices. It's as if the man I fell in love with is back. He doesn't want to reconcile or anything. He realizes he has a lot of work to do in himself so that he doesn't hurt anyone else. I can respect that. So far, neither of the other two want anything to do with him. In fact the woman he started seeing after me is now a very dear friend to me. She doesn't care where he is at with anything and wants nothing to do with him. She's convinced it's just a phase and he will never change. Okay, understandable. This last one, I'm not sure where she's at with things but I know she's hurt and needs space from him for the time being.
Meanwhile, I can't bring myself to give up on him. I've invested too much to walk away now. The last two weekends have been amazing despite accepting the reality that he's not in love with me anymore. He's back and forth between this notion that the last two relationships are proof that he and I are toxic for each other and being so happy to know someone still has faith in him despite is mistakes... I'm so confused. Will he ever see that I'm not toxic for him at all? That maybe he should have stayed two years ago like he promised he would and all this would have be avoided?  I know it's a long post. I apologize. It's as shortened as I could make it.

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[once removed]

hi Crushedandconfus, and

boy, it sounds like youve been through it 

I'm so confused. Will he ever see that I'm not toxic for him at all? That maybe he should have stayed two years ago like he promised he would and all this would have be avoided?

these are really difficult, and complex circumstances. there are a lot of moving parts.

the two of you had a relationship that ended badly. there are resentments, hurts, baggage.

interfering in his subsequent relationships would have been seen by him as a huge violation. it would add to the resentments, and distrust. the fact that you are friends with some of these women would complicate things enormously.

on some level, youre going to need to reconcile the things you have said about him to these women, and the fact that you want him back.

the fact that he is eager to seek some help is a positive. its the kind of thing though, that would need to be demonstrated for a significant length of time, with concrete actions and steps.

lastly, if he were to jump into a relationship with you right now, it would be a rebound; thats the last thing you want, and things would probably deteriorate very quickly.

i cant understate that reconciling, and doing so on a much healthier and sustainable trajectory would be an undertaking of enormous magnitude. right now, you are chasing something fleeting, at any cost.

in short, you would need to approach things in a radically different way.

are you up for it?