Ending relationship with ex-fiance

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I posted this in the new member area, there has been a good convo there, however it was recommended I may get more thoughts here

So much to share don't know where to begin. I ended things with my fiancé about 6 months after we were engaged. I was madly in love with her, truly my best friend. But the chaos, splitting, fights with every friend and family member I had was constant. I enabled, made excuses, defended her endlessly to family and friends, all hoping things would magically get better. I walked on egg shells with her until one incident, that got so out of hand I couldn't do it anymore. We had been doin couples counseling, and it was then that our therapist diagnosed her with BPD. Now this had been brought up multiple times durin our relationship, but she never sought any help with it. We tried a couples dbt class because she refused to do it alone, and it was no help. Things kept getting worse, and eventually so bad I literally was incapable of being there anymore.   

We split, and she moved away. During this split she began to accept her diagnoses, and finally seemed to begin taking responsibility for herself. Few months went by before the everyday fighting, or chaotic nature of phone calls stopped, and I was capable of missing her and what we had. Went to visit, and all my feelings for her came back, it was as the months apart had erased the built up hurt, pain, and anger I had. She has been in a dbt class for roughly two months, and while I can tell she is making progress, she had a slight episode while I was visiting, and easy to tell how much work is left to do.

She is at a point where she needs to find her own place to live, stable job, heck stability in general. She needs to move back toward me, or move on for herself. Problem for me, a few months dbt I cant possibly imagine is enough to erase all that had been causing us almost daily problems. She really truly thinks she can move here and be fine, and will go as far to say if we aren't she will leave and move back away for good.

There are more reasons than I can list here why I want to be with her, and why a healthy happy relationship with her is all I want in this world. However I am realistic, I saw the episode just this past weekend, and for me to let her convince herself or me that magically things are going to be better now while she attempts to find and join a new dbt class, for us to be together while she is working on that for herself, I cant fathom it going good for us.

She wants/needs me to make a decision on this now. I think we all know nothing can be worse for someone with BPD than that up in the air, fear of abandonment and rejection from me. My heart tells me I want to be with her, but my gut and every part of our history tells me this cant happen. The pain of that feeling is worse than anything I can explain. Complete and total helplessnes. My family and friends are worried and scared for me when I mention giving this a chance. She is the one willing to move back across the country to try, and willing to go back if it fails. I really don't have to risk anything except the hurt of this failing. Even so, I cant imagine doing this to us knowing the facts of how she currently is.

Thanks for listening, and any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

[Eduardo15]

I posted this in the new member area, there has been a good convo there, however it was recommended I may get more thoughts here

So much to share don't know where to begin. I ended things with my fiancé about 6 months after we were engaged. I was madly in love with her, truly my best friend. But the chaos, splitting, fights with every friend and family member I had was constant. I enabled, made excuses, defended her endlessly to family and friends, all hoping things would magically get better. I walked on egg shells with her until one incident, that got so out of hand I couldn't do it anymore. We had been doin couples counseling, and it was then that our therapist diagnosed her with BPD. Now this had been brought up multiple times durin our relationship, but she never sought any help with it. We tried a couples dbt class because she refused to do it alone, and it was no help. Things kept getting worse, and eventually so bad I literally was incapable of being there anymore.   

We split, and she moved away. During this split she began to accept her diagnoses, and finally seemed to begin taking responsibility for herself. Few months went by before the everyday fighting, or chaotic nature of phone calls stopped, and I was capable of missing her and what we had. Went to visit, and all my feelings for her came back, it was as the months apart had erased the built up hurt, pain, and anger I had. She has been in a dbt class for roughly two months, and while I can tell she is making progress, she had a slight episode while I was visiting, and easy to tell how much work is left to do.

She is at a point where she needs to find her own place to live, stable job, heck stability in general. She needs to move back toward me, or move on for herself. Problem for me, a few months dbt I cant possibly imagine is enough to erase all that had been causing us almost daily problems. She really truly thinks she can move here and be fine, and will go as far to say if we aren't she will leave and move back away for good.

There are more reasons than I can list here why I want to be with her, and why a healthy happy relationship with her is all I want in this world. However I am realistic, I saw the episode just this past weekend, and for me to let her convince herself or me that magically things are going to be better now while she attempts to find and join a new dbt class, for us to be together while she is working on that for herself, I cant fathom it going good for us.

She wants/needs me to make a decision on this now. I think we all know nothing can be worse for someone with BPD than that up in the air, fear of abandonment and rejection from me. My heart tells me I want to be with her, but my gut and every part of our history tells me this cant happen. The pain of that feeling is worse than anything I can explain. Complete and total helplessnes. My family and friends are worried and scared for me when I mention giving this a chance. She is the one willing to move back across the country to try, and willing to go back if it fails. I really don't have to risk anything except the hurt of this failing. Even so, I cant imagine doing this to us knowing the facts of how she currently is.

Thanks for listening, and any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

[Clearmind]

Not sure what advice to provide Ed. The decision is ultimately yours. You know what is happening in your relationship. I guess the best advice anyone gave me was two fold

1) You cannot change them

2) We also have some healing to do of our own - not everyone attaches to a Borderline

How are you going otherwise? Keeping active, eating well, considered seeing a therapist?

[Eduardo15]

Completely understand I cannot change them, but I guess you have hope you can help them better themselves, make the necessary improvements for them to have a healthy, happy relationship, to have everything they say they want but aren't capable of themselves.

I stayed for so long because I held a blind hope that things could be different. We had so much good, and I just wanted nothing more for the chaos and bad to go away.

I'm doing good, I'm very settled in my life. I had a ton of built up anger, pain, and hurt when we first split (I was the one who ended things). However after a few months, and me cutting off contact when it involved the unnecessary fighting, that anger subsided, and I missed her, and planned a trip to visit. All my feelings came back, and I really wanted to believe her that she was improving, and things could be different. She wanted to move back across the country to try this again. I wanted to be with her, but had all the same hesitations I had before. First day back from the trip, which she wanted me to fully commit then but I couldn't, she sent a friend of mine an extremely innaproproate text out of anger, and I was right back where we started before.

So now the semi-peace I had previously due to my anger over everything is gone, and I am back in the mode where I miss what we had, and fantasize that things could change for her

[Frankcostello]

Completely understand I cannot change them, but I guess you have hope you can help them better themselves, make the necessary improvements for them to have a healthy, happy relationship, to have everything they say they want but aren't capable of themselves.

I stayed for so long because I held a blind hope that things could be different. We had so much good, and I just wanted nothing more for the chaos and bad to go away.

I'm doing good, I'm very settled in my life. I had a ton of built up anger, pain, and hurt when we first split (I was the one who ended things). However after a few months, and me cutting off contact when it involved the unnecessary fighting, that anger subsided, and I missed her, and planned a trip to visit. All my feelings came back, and I really wanted to believe her that she was improving, and things could be different. She wanted to move back across the country to try this again. I wanted to be with her, but had all the same hesitations I had before. First day back from the trip, which she wanted me to fully commit then but I couldn't, she sent a friend of mine an extremely innaproproate text out of anger, and I was right back where we started before.

So now the semi-peace I had previously due to my anger over everything is gone, and I am back in the mode where I miss what we had, and fantasize that things could change for her

Things got better for you when you have been apart.  Look at it from the outside what would you tell someone who told you that things were better when they were far apart from each other.  I noticed from your message that you want to help her get better.  However, they will end up resenting you for trying to help them.  The only people who can help them is themselves, you can't do it for them.  We sometimes overlook and blind ourselves because we want to hope for the best.  That is good, but when you've been drained emotionally and physically and have not had peace until you were apart that should tell you something.  It's up to you to decide if it's worth it.  But past experience is sometimes a good indicator of what the future looks like.  If she moves back with you, things will eventually get back to how they were and you will be on this board again a few months from now with the issues you will be having at that point.n

[Vexed]

Your decision.  But the therapy sounds promising, much more so than those of us who keep trying to be with a BPD who doesn't accept their issues / therapy.  But if you do try, you need to except that it will be slow progress and likely periods of regression where you can't get discouraged.