Moving On

[Ihope2]

BPDexh left end of March 2014, divorce went through on 20 June 2014.  I received the divorce papers 3 weeks later, and posted a copy to his last known forwarding address.  I have now received acknowledgment from him, and he thanks me for everything I did for him.  He is living in town X, and has a job earning a small salary now.  He is off all his medication exept for a small dosage of Suboxone and Tegretol. He is excited about his new life and moving on.

He wants to stick to this new job, as he very much wants to "have a wife and take care of her". "You were very kind to me, Ihope2, and I must be honest I am truly sorry to no longer be in  your life.  But I understand that it must have been hard with me. I so hope that there are no hard feelings and that one day we many even talk again, but if not, I understand.  You will always be welcome in my life.  I so wish I could have been as I am now when I was with you.  You deserve a good man and I would love to have been that man."

I am not going to reply to this email. I did not even want to read it at first, but curiousity got the better of me. 

I am not going to over-analyse and involve myself emotionally in how his life may be proceeding right now.   I feel relieved to hear that things are not dire and desperate for him any more.

It is really true that a person with BPD does not think and feel the way a non personality disordered individual may think and feel.  A few weeks and months ago, the situation was really dire.  He was threatening to shoot himself and told me that the bullet that goes through his brain has my name written on it.

I was the personification of everything bad in his life, and he was frantic and paranoid and delusional, to the point that he thought I was going to accuse him of assaulting me and have him locked in jail.  He reported  to me in an email of an attempted suicide (overdose on pills) and that again this had not worked to end his life.

Now, things are calm again in his life, as if the storms and trauma and chaos of our brief time together and the weeks after our split, had never happened.

I will leave it at that. I see so clearly now that we lived in parallel universes:  we were never really real with each other.  It was all a painful illusion, a game, a farce.

I needed this man to come into my life and I needed to go through the things I did with him.  I am free now.  I am freeing myself of the burden of my childhood wounds, and I am freeing myself of this dynamic where I gravitated to relationships with damaged men who had a persecutory complex and pulled me into their chaos and suffering.

I am glad that I read this email.  It just helps me understand that we were never on the same wavelength.  I continue to wish him well on his way and I continue to pray for his healing and protection as I    continue to walk away on my own path.

[MommaBear]

It's absolutely terrifying how they can exhibit what looks like emotional maturity and rational thinking one minute, then go absolutely bananas the next, isn't it? I mean, they can really fool people with emails of this kind, and playing these weird twisted games.

I wouldn't answer either. Sometimes I think the hardest thing is to be indifferent to their words, but it's where we need to be.

I'm sorry you had to go through all this, but I have to ask, how on EARTH did you get your divorce settled so quickly? I would give anything to get mine fast-tracked like this!

[Ventus2ct]

Emails, texts, all the same, they hide behind keyboards, they state but then their actions never ever live up to what they write do they? Actions are what counts, as has been said here a million times.

I wouldn't reply either.

Maybe it is just another calm rational period before the next storm starts. Mine was as ration, calm and even spoke (typed) such clear truthful things only to be completely at odds to it when you saw her.

Thank the Lord I'm free of it.

[Ihope2]

It is priceless to me that there are people here who understand the bizareness which comes with being in a relationship with a person with BPD.

Anybody else reading those extracts of his email to me would think that he is a well-balanced, emotionally mature man and that I was a short-sighted fool to leave such a man!

MommaBear, I am in South Africa.  I have an idea that our divorce process in this country is very different to that in other countries.

I mean, I have read here of people's struggles to institute divorce proceedings, and that it takes many years to get a divorce finalised, and my heart bleeds for them.  How can you heal and move on when the legal system keeps you so stuck?

I think the fact that we married very hastily, were only married for 11 months, and the fact that my exBPDh moved out right away, had a lot to do with the speed of my divorce.  Also, we managed to reach a settlement agreement on paper (even though that was a rollercoaster process).  I had defaulted into a marriage regime where he was entitled to 50% of everything of mine, which was a big mistake, but legally that is how it defaulted because we failed to register an Antenuptial Contract in the stipulated three months after wedding date.  So potentially, the divorce could have become very complicated and it could have ruined me financially.  I also think I had an excellent lawyer on my side, as she seemed to make things move along speedily.  She is very experienced in high conflict marriages and divorces and family law in general.  Once my divorce was finalised, she said that she is so glad that I went through with it, because the marriage to such a person would have destroyed me in the long term.