Radical acceptance and dealing with a BPD breakup

[Depression = 72% of members]

(split off from the thread Menopause and Other Factors)

Do you have more information on radical acceptance as it relates to dealing with a BPD breakup?  I still have moments of anger and betrayal and pain, even knowing she couldn’t control her behavior — or at least for the most part she couldn’t.  Radical acceptance, I believe, is one of the keys to accessing the final stages of the grieving process and ultimately dissolving the trauma bond.

While I don't personally have experience with radical acceptance as it specifically relates to a BPD breakup (the pwBPD in my life is my H's kids' mom, and as the kids are still minors, we can't be NC with her), let's get a discussion going about RA in general and how it can apply to the grief/detachment process here in particular.

I'll share my experience and let's see what resonates.

In the beginning, I thought that if H and I could explain to the kids' mom (uBPD) and her husband (uNPD) that what they were doing was hurtful to the kids, that the explanation would work, we could all get on the same page, Mom and Stepdad would see the wisdom of our perspective, and we could move forward cooperatively.

It took a long time to see that we weren't operating on the same playing field, despite their wonderful-sounding words to the contrary.

I had to accept that we could not get through to them. Their core needs to be superior and expert, and to occupy the privileged positions of "chosen and preferred by the kids", would always win over actually doing anything truly good for the kids. They would throw us under the bus to the kids to preserve their own self-images... and there was nothing we could do to change that.

I remember many years where almost the first thing I would think of in the morning was how angry I was at them, how furious for how they treated us and how they treated the kids, and how angry I was that there was nothing I could do to change it. Lots and lots of commutes where I would just be physically fuming the whole way, first thing a.m.

Radically accepting that I am powerless to change them has been part of why now, even though I still cope with frustration, it is easier not to let the anger about who they are take over my life.

From what I have learned, RA can involve noticing and accepting that the current situation is the way it is -- without judgment or "it should be/shouldn't be this way". We practice noticing and sitting with reality vs participating in judging or assessing the situation as "she should've done XYZ... it shouldn't be like this... it's bad that ABC is happening..."

I am not an expert on being great at RA. What I can share is that yesterday I practiced radically accepting some moments that were "starter moments" -- no huge emotional content. I practiced accepting "I am sitting in the truck. I am eating my rice bowl. My thought is that later on I might feel uncomfortable emotions. I accept that this is what is happening in this moment. I notice I am not making any judgments about my actions or thoughts. These are the things that are happening in reality".

So that was my practice run and it went okay. Again, I'll reiterate that I can't break up with my H's kids' mom  , so part of RA in that situation would be: "I accept that she is in my life. That is how it is."

I wonder how others might apply noticing what is going on in a moment in reality, without judgment, to things going on in the detachment process.

For example, does anyone notice and accept "feeling behind" in the detachment process? Or notice and accept having thoughts or ruminations about the ex?

Lots and lots to talk about here. I'm interested to learn more about others' individual experiences, perspectives, and application. I've really appreciated the original prompt to think more about RA and detachment.

-kells76

[kells76]

(split off from the thread Menopause and Other Factors)

Do you have more information on radical acceptance as it relates to dealing with a BPD breakup?  I still have moments of anger and betrayal and pain, even knowing she couldn’t control her behavior — or at least for the most part she couldn’t.  Radical acceptance, I believe, is one of the keys to accessing the final stages of the grieving process and ultimately dissolving the trauma bond.

While I don't personally have experience with radical acceptance as it specifically relates to a BPD breakup (the pwBPD in my life is my H's kids' mom, and as the kids are still minors, we can't be NC with her), let's get a discussion going about RA in general and how it can apply to the grief/detachment process here in particular.

I'll share my experience and let's see what resonates.

In the beginning, I thought that if H and I could explain to the kids' mom (uBPD) and her husband (uNPD) that what they were doing was hurtful to the kids, that the explanation would work, we could all get on the same page, Mom and Stepdad would see the wisdom of our perspective, and we could move forward cooperatively.

It took a long time to see that we weren't operating on the same playing field, despite their wonderful-sounding words to the contrary.

I had to accept that we could not get through to them. Their core needs to be superior and expert, and to occupy the privileged positions of "chosen and preferred by the kids", would always win over actually doing anything truly good for the kids. They would throw us under the bus to the kids to preserve their own self-images... and there was nothing we could do to change that.

I remember many years where almost the first thing I would think of in the morning was how angry I was at them, how furious for how they treated us and how they treated the kids, and how angry I was that there was nothing I could do to change it. Lots and lots of commutes where I would just be physically fuming the whole way, first thing a.m.

Radically accepting that I am powerless to change them has been part of why now, even though I still cope with frustration, it is easier not to let the anger about who they are take over my life.

From what I have learned, RA can involve noticing and accepting that the current situation is the way it is -- without judgment or "it should be/shouldn't be this way". We practice noticing and sitting with reality vs participating in judging or assessing the situation as "she should've done XYZ... it shouldn't be like this... it's bad that ABC is happening..."

I am not an expert on being great at RA. What I can share is that yesterday I practiced radically accepting some moments that were "starter moments" -- no huge emotional content. I practiced accepting "I am sitting in the truck. I am eating my rice bowl. My thought is that later on I might feel uncomfortable emotions. I accept that this is what is happening in this moment. I notice I am not making any judgments about my actions or thoughts. These are the things that are happening in reality".

So that was my practice run and it went okay. Again, I'll reiterate that I can't break up with my H's kids' mom  , so part of RA in that situation would be: "I accept that she is in my life. That is how it is."

I wonder how others might apply noticing what is going on in a moment in reality, without judgment, to things going on in the detachment process.

For example, does anyone notice and accept "feeling behind" in the detachment process? Or notice and accept having thoughts or ruminations about the ex?

Lots and lots to talk about here. I'm interested to learn more about others' individual experiences, perspectives, and application. I've really appreciated the original prompt to think more about RA and detachment.

-kells76

[capecodling]

For example, does anyone notice and accept "feeling behind" in the detachment process? Or notice and accept having thoughts or ruminations about the ex?

First of all, thank you for posting this.   There are several parts I want to respond to, but I'll start with this because it really jumped out as an important question ---- its the thing everyone on this particular chat seems to be wondering (when will I finally get over this exceedingly difficult breakup?)

It's quite weird, actually, the amount of times I seem to have brushed up against BPD breakups in this lifetime both personally (3 times) and through friends and colleagues who dealt with the same.   One of my closest friends is himself dealing with a trauma-bonded relationship ending with a mentally ill ex as well.  Unknown if she had BPD or not, but many similarities to most of our stories on here.   He has been apart from her for a year, no contact for part of that time, and is now struggling with overpowering desires to reach out to her again.

To me it seems like he can't let go of the self-blame, the "what ifs" and the feeling like he lost something unreplaceable.  It keeps him locked in this state of fantasizing about ways he could save her, imagining reaching out to her, loving her enough to break through the veil of her mental illness.   And to be clear, this is a very self-aware individual, he's the one who told me about RA in the first place.  He has helped me a lot with my own processing of my breakup.

I feel like for my part I'm stuck in a different part of the process.  I've accepted that me and my ex can never be.   Its just too toxic.  Being with her is excruciating, her illness just finds ways to stick the knife in me, even early on during the "honeymoon" phase I realized this was a problem.   I'm mainly angry at all the things her illness did to me and am basically in a place of "that really hurt, it still does hurt, but I could see myself one day being happy in a relationship with a healthy non-BPD partner."  

Where I think I fall into the trap of resisting my breakup is that I want the pain to end.   I just want to get past it.   Every day I ask myself, "when will the pain end?"   It has certainly improved in the last 2.5 months since the final breakup, but I would be lying if I said the pain wasn't there.   Its definitely still there.   And it can spike up and hurt a lot sometimes.

As mentioned above, one thing that has helped me get through those earlier stages of "what if" and "it was all my fault" and "am I the crazy one" is that I've had 2 other BPD breakups before this one.   Both of them were nightmares.  Especially the second one, it was harrowing 10 out of 10 emotional pain for 6 solid weeks post breakup.   I also had never even heard of a trauma bond back then, didn't really know what BPD was, and so that made it extra scary.    

Even with these 2 previous breakups with BPDs as solid reference experiences to draw on -- and I'm actually at a point where I am grateful for both of them -- in my current breakup, I still find myself unsure and frightened with thoughts like "maybe its different this time." Even though I know its not different this time.  

One of the things that's actually positive about a BPD breakup is how similar the behaviors and circumstances are to what everyone else went through.   Even though a BPD breakup is a nightmare I would never wish on anybody, its also thoroughly documented, researched, with many other people who have been through the same ----- so i've found it helpful to ground myself to the experiences of others who have come before.   Including my own experiences.   With other non-BPD breakups they haven't been as bad in my experience, not even anywhere remotely close, but you don't really have widely researched support communities like this to explain what you're going through.

So yes, am definitely making a lot of progress on accepting this breakup, but am also still stuck on: "ok, ok, enough already, can I just get to forgetting about her and being happy again."  This is the place I need to do the most work right now.

[Pook075]

Maybe at the 7 month mark, I started to accept that my wife was sick, on a destructive path, and there was nothing I could do to reverse course with her.  I still love her and at times I miss the little stuff every couple does that's just between them (inside jokes, favorite places, favorite foods, etc).  That alone made it hard to fully give up though and in a way I still remained chained to her.

The radical acceptance that was really meaningful was realizing that my wife was never truly there for me like a wife should be.  Could I wait things out and eventually reconcile?  Sure, I probably could.  

But would she ever love me for me and be there for me like a spouse is meant to be?  Nope, it's never ever ever going to happen and I was always going to feel some levels of depression and loneliness in that relationship.  I was always going to be judged harshly and not allowed to judge her because of her fragile ego.  I was always going to have to handle all the "adult stuff" on my own- the bills, the insurance, the taxes, the groceries, cleaning the house, putting food on the table, etc.  I was always going to have to put her on a pedestal while my feelings really didn't matter- is that in my best interests because I love her?

Heck no.  I had to stop that foolish, self-sacrificing pursuit.  That's what broke my co-dependence and set me free from it all.

That's not saying she was a bad person, an unloving person, or anything like that...it's saying she was a bad wife that could never put me first in any capacity.  All of us deserve better than that.

[Augustine]

Intuitively, it occurred in the final year when the discordant behaviour was now occurring with a frequency that didn’t align with factors outside of the relationship.

Intellectually, it wasn’t until a month after I had reached a safe objective distance after the breakup that all the accumulated evidence pointed to a distinct cause.

In the relationship, all that I could gather was that her emotions were now governing her, and she was frequently in great distress.  In most instances, it was clear that there was nothing that I could do to draw her away from her distress. 

As with everyone else, it was also becoming apparent that my partner was no longer looking at me, but through me, as I simply became an entity to her that was responsible for accomplishing everything, and was no longer a human being.

So, in time, it just reached a stage when this peculiar arrangement is tacitly understood to be unexceptional.

To sustain the subterfuge, she would extend the odd pretence of interest in me, but her efforts were always paltry, and I could tell by her expression that she preferred to be doing something else.

Looking back, I can see that we didn’t have a single adult conversation in two years, as she would only want to talk about things that she had read in the news. I accommodated her taking zero interest in me.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I was saved from ruin when my instinct for self preservation kicked in one night, and I sent the whole wretched artifice crashing down around us. 

Given the unworkable and unsustainable nature of the relationship, healing from its influence hasn’t been exceptionally difficult. 

[Collaguazo]

To me it seems like he can't let go of the self-blame, the "what ifs" and the feeling like he lost something unreplaceable.  It keeps him locked in this state of fantasizing about ways he could save her, imagining reaching out to her, loving her enough to break through the veil of her mental illness.   And to be clear, this is a very self-aware individual, he's the one who told me about RA in the first place.  He has helped me a lot with my own processing of my breakup.

I feel like for my part I'm stuck in a different part of the process.  I've accepted that me and my ex can never be.   Its just too toxic.  Being with her is excruciating, her illness just finds ways to stick the knife in me, even early on during the "honeymoon" phase I realized this was a problem.   I'm mainly angry at all the things her illness did to me and am basically in a place of "that really hurt, it still does hurt, but I could see myself one day being happy in a relationship with a healthy non-BPD partner."   

Where I think I fall into the trap of resisting my breakup is that I want the pain to end.   I just want to get past it.   Every day I ask myself, "when will the pain end?"   It has certainly improved in the last 2.5 months since the final breakup, but I would be lying if I said the pain wasn't there.   Its definitely still there.   And it can spike up and hurt a lot sometimes.   

The “what if’s” are killing me right now. I keep going over and over in my head thinking about the events of the weeks before the break-up. And I suddenly get this spike in pain thinking that I lost her over some irrelevant events. How easy could have been to avoid them.. Then, of course, when BPD comes into the equation the logic says they were not irrelevant and they were gonna happen no matter what.

But, at least for me, I am having trouble keeping the BPD lenses on when thinking about the relationship. It’s like my thoughts and feelings are in some sort of autopilot in the back of my mind, causing pain, and then something happens (for example I see and ad of a movie that we were planning to see together) that activate the alarms causing those thoughts and feelings to come forward and inflict more pain. First reaction is I miss her, I want to contact her but as I am struggling to take control of the situation I remember BPD and I go back to my base level of pain.

All logic says I made the right the decision, we were heading down on a path of destruction but my heart refuses to let her go. I am also feeling guilty the way I ended things. Maybe I should have had a final conversation with her, end in more amicable terms. In part, I did it because I wanted to protect myself but I also did it because I was angry and didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of leaving on her own terms.

But what if…. Indeed

[Tangled mangled]

Radical acceptance for me was realising that my ex husband was ill and was going to destroy my life and that of our children if I didn’t leave.

I had begged him to see a doctor and at one point I begged him to agree to an amicable separation. All he had to do was stonewall every conversation to keep me stuck. I felt like I was begging a parasite or virus to leave me and I knew it was never going to happen- he wasn’t interested and at that point he was enjoying the fact that the relationship served as a punishment to me.
I felt my life was being scammed from me and all my wounds from my childhood trauma were being cut into. I was bleeding and my heart was literally broken ( discovered I developed a heart condition- though benign but still a condition that could get worse)

He was the caring type, the domestic god ( goddess usually) type of bpd. But can be very messy at the same time- leaving his clothes and even underwear in the hallway at the entrance of our home ( after he split me black). I now understand that the kind of care he is capable of giving is the same care a predator gives to its prey and nothing more. The way he felt entitled to own every aspect of my life even my future was very unsettling.

The 2020 lockdown widened the cracks in our relationship- I realised I was stuck with someone I couldn’t have a descent adult conversation with. By end of 2021 , my children were taking cover whenever their dad and I started talking because they knew an argument was on the way. My then 4 year old made a comment to me that stuck- he said when his teachers at nursery have a conversation they chat and are happy because they are friends but not daddy and mummy.

At thesame time I had to go away due to the course I was in and he started weaponising my guilt at having to leave my children behind for my career.
It dawned on me that I was not leaving my children with a competent adult because he had to be taught everything and I had to come back home to cut my 4 year old finger nails ( over 200 miles journey). It was absurd and my older sons education was suffering while my ex was busy obsessing about being fit and working out excessively.
He was dead weight that I didn’t sign up for