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patientandclear
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« Reply #34 on: September 26, 2013, 10:51:27 PM » |
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Gosh Emelie. I identify with your situation so much, as I think I've said before.
First, about how he is behaving. Reminds me so much of my exbf. The passivity. He later said the "ordeal" of us splitting up changed him "permanently & profoundly." But he didn't do anything about it, you know? It wouldn't have taken all that much -- a few words of regret, doubt, indicating that he wanted to talk it through & see what we could figure out. But he did none of that. Just seemed to sit there waiting for me to try to undo what he had done.
So long as I was trying to undo it ... .he was solid in his rejection of the r/s.
Ironically, or not, as soon as I accepted his decision (my logic was "any r/s you are so eager to leave isn't the r/s I thought it was", he made me responsible for the breakup. In his mind, it was my decision we weren't talking about getting back together. Even though he left me & gave no indication he was changing or open to changing his mind.
Even as I type out those words I can feel again the mind-warping quality of these situations. Is down up? Your guy acts as though the last thing in the world he wants it to be split up -- so long as you seem as adamant about splitting up as he does. If you were to try to persuade him to try again, my guess is that within 48 hours, he'd suddenly be able to articulate again why you need to be apart. It's like he can see everything that's good between you, and is just cannot bring himself to risk and try, in the way he'd need to to continue to be committed to that.
And then, your own decision about being friends. As someone who's spent the last year on that road, I can say -- it can be excruciating. It's one of those things where the better you do, the worse you do, because let's say the friendship goes great, without the stress and pressure of having to maintain a romantic commitment. You guys like each other, get each other ... .then what? What does that mean? In normal life it means you're in love & you move heaven & earth to be together. Not with BPD. The better you do, the scarier you are, because you pose a fundamental question that is very uncomfortable for him.
I am pretty sure my ex is now seeing someone else. But not completely sure. And it's not supposed to matter, because we are "just friends." But it does matter, because it displaces the intimacy of our amazing friendship, except the days when he's back "with" me for some reason, when the emotional intimacy is all still there. It is phenomenally confusing and requires you maintaining a line in your head and heart, when your head & heart are screaming that there is not supposed to be a line there.
And there is a destructive feedback loop in my head that says if I were just more valuable or better somehow, he would try harder with me, and not look to someone else.
If you are going to do the friends route, you're right, it is going to hurt. I found writing him & us off to hurt phenomenally as well, so I realize there may not be a non-hurting option.
If you stick with the friends plan though, just be aware that there is almost a mini-betrayal every time you have a good interaction with him. It feels like a betrayal (to me) when he then goes on his way. You have to have phenomenal discipline over what you are doing & why, to avoid getting sucked into that confusion. I cannot exaggerate the necessity of radical acceptance of the limits, the need to commit to reality over illusion, the need to abandon all hope that things will be other than as they are. I thought I was up to that, but it is so hard when you are caught between your memories of things being otherwise, on the one hand, and an important, meaningful connection that you have built with this person post r/s. It is so hard to understand that it cannot be more.
I don't think you are wrong not to walk away. But it is going to require a lot of clarity not to get chewed up by being in such proximity to someone you love, who also in his way loves you, and not to be able to bridge that gap.
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