Hi cult,
(Sigh) This is my first time posting to the Leaving board. Here is a quick summary of my situation.
I'm sorry you have to post here. Sometimes detaching/leaving can feel more difficult than staying, but at least when you detach, there is an end in sight even if it is far in the distance.
- In a same sex relationship for 10 years. Idyllic in the beginning. Beginning in 2009, when my partner lost her job, things started to go downhill. I went into codependent/caretaker mode and my partner retreated into herself.
- Partner has lost her identity and sense of self-worth as a result of unemployment. I have enabled that by not insisting she get a job.
As I understand BPD, people with BPD (pwBPD) have no solid sense of identity to begin with. Who they are, depends in large part on to whom they attach themselves. I'm only saying this to help you brace for the possibly that if/when in the future you should see her again, she might take on qualities and characteristics you might not recognize. She might have shaped herself into the mode of being codependent and the recipient of care because that was the most stable manner in which she would associate herself with you.
- Last year I stumbled on a blog my partner created where she talked about being unhappy in the r/s and wanting to end it but not knowing how to do so. I confronted her and told her she could go if she wanted to; she took back everything she said, denied she still wanted to leave and said she wanted to be with me. I forgave but never dealt with the emotional ramifications to me and our relationship.
My understanding of BPD, is that feelings of intimacy and familiarity trigger in them a disordered fear of abandonment. As she depended upon you more and more as family, she may have also been dealing with an irrational fear that you would up and leave her. When you caught her blog and confronted her, it was probably her fear of (actual) abandonment that drove her to deny everything and insist that she still wanted to be with her. I don't think she ever actually got over her disordered fear of abandonment; perhaps she only got better at hiding it from you.
- This year several things have happened at once: partner lost 100 pounds (this was a culmination of several years worth of effort); partner turned 40; and the financial load of carrying us broke me. To top that off, partner is also just starting to deal with the effects of a rape she suffered 20 years ago. She is in therapy three times weekly.
My observation of pwBPD, is that with the co-dependent of us, whenever the relationship gets more difficult or dysfunctional, they tend to find a way of escalating their personal issues. This serves to trigger our co-dependent nature to put aside our personal needs and desires and to become more focused on their difficulties. In my BPD relationship, whenever I started to become discerning of the nature of our relationship (and my unhappiness), my xBPDgf always found herself in a crisis from which I all too eagerly rescued her. I kept expecting her to pull her weight in our relationship when she got back on her feet so to speak... . and that never happened. I suspect you and I both have been dealing with the "waif" variety of BPD.
- Beginning in late March her behavior started to turn erratic and very BPD-ish. Hot and cold, off and on. This was very unlike her. She was always predictably loving and comforting, a wonderful and beautiful companion. In early April I did my taxes. Because we are a same sex couple, own nothing, and cannot legally marry, I was unable to claim much. I ended up owing a significant amount of money. I told her that she needed to go back to work to help with the bills.
I suspect that before when she was "predictably loving and comforting," she was still fully dependent upon you and actively hiding her devaluations of you for fear of "abandonment." Perhaps when she was not longer fully dependent upon you, she was not as vigilante in her hiding of these devaluations. This doesn't necessarily mean she cheated on you with someone else. But I do think she probably started to become attached to someone else such that she was not so emotionally dependent upon you.
- Soon after this she abruptly and without explanation ceased all affection and sex, and started spending more and more time away from me - going on solo weekend trips out of town where we used to always go as a couple, etc. This has been the state of things for the past two months. This weekend she told me she is unsure of her sexual identity, that it is too hard to be a lesbian and she is tired of living like a second class citizen. She says she loves me, needs me and depends on me but is no longer sure she's gay. She told me I deserve to be with someone who wants to be with me unequivocally, that she cannot fulfill my needs right now and that she feels she "cannot find the answers she wants" while involved with me.
In "splitting" behavior everything is "all in" or "all out." All affection, sex, and time spent together diminished because emotionally she was no longer "all in" her relationship with you. And as I see it, she could have been "all in" another relationship. Maybe she became emotionally dependent on her therapist, but if the therapist is good with their boundary, she would then search for a new attachment with whom she would enmesh, thus explaining her new outgoing nature.
She claims her decision to be a lesbian is a rational decision, but I doubt this very much. "Who she is depends upon to whom she attaches herself."
She offered to move out. She has no money, no job and nowhere to go. I told her to go, then went back on it ten minutes later because I love her more than I love myself, and cannot let her go. We drafted a separation agreement which I then threw away because after this conversation we had a good day together. We held hands, kissed and hugged. I cling to the physical contact as a promise that things might not be as bad as they seem. I love her. I do not want to break up. I want to get through this together.
I think at this point, you will be the one who has a much more difficult time. For pwBPD, their attachments are like light switches: either on or off. I think in time you will see it is "off" right now. It might switch back on if her new attachment doesn't work out. But if it does, it may be like you've ceased to exist to her; because in a sense the identity with which she related to you no longer exist in her mind.
But when I look at this objectively it all ends up in the same place: apart. She says she does not know what is going on with her and doesn't know how to make it better. She has intense psychological issues, a lot of self hatred obviously. And I don't know what to do.
She has self-hatred. And perhaps she is learning how to deal with some of that self-hatred in her therapy. But for unrecovered pwBPD, they often project their self-hatred as a coping mechanism. Her hatred towards herself can easily turn into hatred towards you. Be wary.
I feel that if I were healthier and stronger I would have been gone last year when she wrote that blog. But I love her so much... . I don't want to lose her, but part of me recognizes that I already have, and that we do not have the relationship we once did.
Maybe. But you did not. There is nothing to be gained by beating yourself up over past choices you cannot change. I know you love her very much. And she loved/loves you as much as she can, but she is broken in a way that makes it nearly impossible for her to love you for too much longer. Right now it seems that she has not overtly hurt you in a way that makes it impossible for you to stay with her. :)o not wait until that moment comes. At least not if you wish to avoid more pain than you are already going through.
It is so hard. I don't know how I am managing to function.
It is very hard. Probably one of the harder things you will ever have to do in your life. You will do what you can. :)o not be too proud or embarrassed or afraid to ask for help.
Best wishes, Schwing
