Confused about my relationship, need some guidance.

[chocobunches]

Hello, I wrote a post before about this before, but there have been a lot of updates, so I'm writing from a clean slate.

Currently, me and my partner have been in a relationship for 3-4 years now. We are long distance, but we meet in person time to time. She is FA attachment & BPD diagnosed (In therapy and medicated) and I'm ADHD & Anxiety/Panic Disorder diagnosed. I also have anxious tendencies (from trauma and past relationships), and I'm currently in the process of therapy and self care. I'm also an FP of hers.

We've had a good relationship, but we've had our ups and downs. We met when we were teenagers, and we bonded together over common interests we had. We got together almost 4 years ago almost, and it's been well. She does occasionally tend to take space whenever we have a disagreement or misunderstanding and talk to me in the morning about how it made her feel that way and how I felt a way and we come to a mutual ground about it. She does get anxious whenever I have to go to work or when I go on a trip, but she usually does tell me how she feels. We've never had any physical or verbal violence, the most is her avoiding me to not say anything she will regret. We've had a couple of times where she might read my tone or facial expression in a way and she gets upset thinking that I don't want to talk to her and that I'm forcing myself, but I clear that up with her by being direct. We would talk everyday, at first it was like everyday every hour, but slowly it shortened because we got busy, but we made time for each other still regardless. She also has a very short lived social battery, so sometimes she takes a nap or doesn't talk to anyone for a period of time in the day to recharge. I guess you could consider I'm one of the first people in her life to actually show that I care about her despite her BPD, so it was a new experience for her. I spent a lot of time with learning about her patterns and I've helped her through episodes, meltdowns, and a lot of other things. We were planning to move in together as well and we had some general ideas of where we wanted to live and she wanted to be it accessible for her to get more treatment as well.

We also did break up one time because I was at an extremely intense point of my life with my studies, my parents, my friends, and my health. I was really struggling a lot. During that time actually, my partner was pushing everyone because of a situation between her and a friend that I'll mention about in the next couple of paragraphs.

For the past few months , she's been going through a lot of stuff in her personal life (which triggered her fear of abandonment, her paranoia, and her fear of rejection). This led her to push everyone away, including me, for 2 weeks ish? Then she texted me and explained what was going through for the last couple of weeks when she was avoiding me, (which I knew from her social media) and the ultimatum she said was either to take a break or break up. She said that she doesn't think she can handle a relationship as of right now, and elaborated how she deals with SI, she's anxious, avoidant, she has paranoia and hallucinations and that she doesn't want me to have to deal with her through recovery and relapsing because it's an intense process and she doesn't want to take me down with her. As much as I was being understanding, it seemed like she was being really pushy about it regardless, like as if she was trying to get me to leave before I could leave. Kind of like she opened the door for me and wanted me to go out before I can go ahead and do it myself. She said that she's not the one for me and I deserve someone else. I care and love her a lot, and I didn't just want to leave her like that because I was fine with pursuing further in the relationship with her. She also did tell me that she feels like a burden because she can't do a lot of things because of her current living situation and her mental health, and I understand that because she's mentioned it multiple times and regardless of what I can tell her, she will still feel that way. I eventually came to terms with how she feels and I didn't try push her or anything in our relationship. I used that time validating and setting boundaries with her about it. 

In the end, she asked me if we could still stay in touch, talk, hangout, visit and I said that was okay.

When I was reading her messages though, it sounded like she didn't want to really break up, but was throwing it in the air that it's an option I can take.

I told her we can do a break and she can take her time to get better. I only chose to take a break because I still love her and care about her, and I'm totally fine with just pausing and have her focus on herself.

We did end up to do small conversations about like what we've been up to and common interests we have. Not for very long times, mostly very very short. I would say our me and my partner's contact have been very minimal and that's because of boundaries I set with her for when we talk and interact. She agreed on it and was glad to be talking with me again very slowly. She still has me on all her social medias, she still has stuff about our relationship on all her social medias, she also sends me stuff on social media, and occasionally sends me messages.

I think I enabled her to push me away a bit because I did happen to get a vulnerable with her about my physical health in a conversation a few days ago, and after that she seemed to have withdrawn herself, even after she told me she was okay with listening to me.

Through this situation though, I noticed that she's been really close with that friend of hers that I mentioned earlier on. They've been talking about wanting to move in with each other, wanting to hang out all the time and go explore the city, and basically mirroring that friend's behaviorism and interests. This is where I got caught off guard because seeing this was pretty out of nowhere. I will say that this person also has BPD.

My partner has had a lot of toxic experiences with this person, along with positives. The most notable one was probably the one that happened when me and my partner got close. I don't exactly remember how it went down, but I believe that person wasn't happy with the fact that me and my partner got close, which led to this friend of hers ruining their relationship. Her friend had a lot of people against my partner and they would all talk bad about her and make really snarky remarks about her mental health on social media. It went so far, my partner was almost hospitalized and almost filed a lawsuit for emotional distress. They just recently rekindled their relationship after 2 years of that situation going on, and I believe that because of the positives my partner is willing to keep trying with her constantly. They've been having these kinds of extreme up and downs even before I met my partner. Other people in my partner's life in the past have gotten involved with this person differently, but it would end up creating a toxic cycle.

With this context, I don't know what to think about at the moment. As of myself, I've been trying to take care of myself with the guidance of my therapist, and have been engaging myself in new hobbies and activities with friends, family or by myself. Even though with that, this runs in the back of my mind.

I'm curious to know if this related to the push/pull cycle, or like devaluation/idealization? Emotional discarding? It might just be my ADHD that makes it hard for me to understand these concepts, but I'd appreciate any guidance.

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