Four months divorced now, NC, moving on... ?

[MiddleEastMike]

It has been nearly a year since I posted here. In the end, I had to file for divorce. I recognized that our marriage could never be "normal". Just before I filed, I met her one last time in Dubai (UAE). She told me that "You've never done anything for me (?) but I forgive you for it." I never id anything for her? I had spent the past three years trying to win her favor! I gave her a brand new car, US$13,000 in cash (which she later lost most of it in a Ponzi scheme I tried to talk her out of, but she refused to listen to me), and I meekly gave in to nearly every demand she had made of me. But in the end, of course, I got no credit for anything I had done; thus her comment that "You didn't do anything for me."

I went to Ethiopia (where we had married in 2009) in April and I filed for divorce. Shortly before I departed for Addis Ababa, I emailed her and told her about my plan. She sent me numerous tearful emails, pleading with me not to divorce her. I ignored her and filed the papers anyway with the help of an Ethiopian lawyer. The Family Court judge granted my request for a divorce in late July. We didn't have any children, nor any joint property in Ethiopia, so it was a pretty cut-and-dried case.

I have gone to counseling for help with the emotional damage these past three years have done to my psyche. It has helped but sometimes I still hear her words in my head: "You're weak", "You're not a real man", "If I'd known what a geek you are I'd have never married you", and the countless other insults she hurled at me on a nearly daily basis for almost three years. I am trying to get past it and move on with my life.

What I'd really like to know now is, How do I avoid getting into a relationship with another BPD in the future? Do I naturally attract these kinds of women?

[livednlearned]

I think it's more that we're attracted to them. Seems like lots of people here have some kind of core wound that makes it hard to spot abusive behavior. Lots of people who get in r/s with pwBPD are not very assertive, at least in our intimate r/s. We might be strong, and can tolerate a lot, but we aren't assertive. Or maybe we don't have a healthy sense of who we are, so someone BPD comes along and fills everything empty in us, and we don't see the  . By the time we do, we're back in some script we learned in our family of origin (FOO).

That's how it's been for me, anyway. When I ended up in therapy at the end of my marriage, I realized that the relationship with N/BPDx became what it was because of my family, particularly by dad (NPD traits) and my mother (codependent).

It took me a few years to heal enough to have my heart and head in the right place to date. Give yourself time. Learn to take care of yourself. The "building healthy relationships" board has a lot of great people asking the exact same question you're asking. It made it much easier when I started dating, having peer support for something that felt nervewracking.

[MiddleEastMike]

Yes I get you. I knew that she had had a bad childhood, that her father had abused her, she had run away from home, etc. There were lots of red flags that she gave me before we married but I ignored them. I wanted be the knight in white shiny armor who could "save" her - take her away from Ethiopia, get her a great job in her field (she is an engineer), provide her with love and acceptance and understanding, etc... .Well so much for THAT plan. At first she worshiped the ground I walked on ("I am so lucky that I have you for a husband!" "Thank you for coming to meet me and marry me!" etc), but a year after the marriage, she suddenly turned on me and the devaluation phase began and I became lower than dirt. I really wish that I could find a good loving partner in life but I have been so burned, emotionally and financially, that I have a tremendous fear of repeating the same mistakes over again. I have learned that we can never "fix" somebody. It was a costly lesson for me.

[livednlearned]

I really wish that I could find a good loving partner in life but I have been so burned, emotionally and financially, that I have a tremendous fear of repeating the same mistakes over again. I have learned that we can never "fix" somebody. It was a costly lesson for me.

I read somewhere here that it takes two months for every year of marriage to heal from our high-conflict marriages. It worked out to be almost exactly that for me. Married 10 years, and about 2 years after the r/s, I trusted myself enough to date. During those two years, I worked on my own issues. Figured out why I rushed into a r/s with someone like N/BPDx, why him, why did I stay so long. Why did I endure that kind of abuse.

Once you stop focusing on them, and start focusing on you, the fear of repeating the same mistakes over again kinda goes away. Because something else shows up in you that wasn't there before. Self-respect, no more of that white-in-shining armor stuff.

We can't control them, or fix them, or rescue them. We can barely do that for ourselves! Figure out why you needed to rescue someone -- that's where the riches are.

Also, the insults she hurled at you -- no doubt she knew exactly what to say to inflict the greatest damage. I only listened to the insults that I actually believed. He just sprayed anything and was happy when he found ones that really hurt. The insults aren't real, but the belief you have that they are -- those beliefs are real. If that makes sense?

N/BPDx told me I was awful in bed. Then, about a year after I left the r/s, I realized "Hey, wait a sec. He was awful in bed." Then I started working on that stuff in therapy and learned where all that insecurity came from. I'm in a relationship now and he's awesome in bed, and so am I  

Our BPD partners were awful at figuring out what was real and what wasn't, but for some reason, when it came to insulting us, we believed their version of reality.

Fortunately, that reality was just plain wrong.