Not sure how it will go, speaking of going...

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hello All,

First post!  Guess I need to just dive in.  Sorry for the length, but here it goes.

About 3 years ago I was romantically involved with a woman (we'll call her Jane) who was diagnosed with BPD.  It didn't really end well (in fact it just *poof* ended, more or less).  I spent the next several months in therapy and reading everything I could about BPD.  I did not speak to Jane for 3 years.  It tremendously sucked to see Jane everyday as we worked (and still do) together.  We had contact of course, but it was strictly business (and minimal).  A few months after our "breakup", she started dating a guy and they got married.  They were engaged almost a year.  She actually seemed to be having a normal life and I was happy for her (she didn't seem erratic, no rumors of her sleeping around, no flirting with people, etc) and sad that I wasn't experiencing life with her at the same time.  I never really got over Jane, even with all the stuff she did to me 3 years ago. 

We were forced to attend a conference together that required us to travel in the same car (company owned), which I dreaded.  It was a somewhat awkward ride, but we managed to talk about what had happened.  She told me about how she had taken therapy seriously and how much our 'relationship' had caused her to realize that she needed help.  She told me she was now on medication and attending therapy on a regular basis and felt better about herself and so on.  She answered all my questions openly, even about 'cheating' on me when we were together the first time (a guy named Nick).  Consequently, she had cheated on her ex husband (Mike) during a "rough patch" as she called it with Nick, just before her and Mike were engaged.  She told me she had admitted it to Mike and he continued on, ultimately marrying her.  But I did truly believe that she had gotten help and was doing better.  After the conference, we began to small talk again.  That was almost a year ago that we started talking, November is when things took a serious turn.  At the start, I had several long, serious conversations with her and I would swear it was like talking to a different person than 3 years ago.  So, why am I here, you ask?

Well, interesting story.  She has been going through her divorce from Mike now for almost that entire year.  They have no kids and are fighting over stuff (dishes, cabinets, money accounts, etc.) according to her.  We have been romantically involved (practically secretly) because of the dragged out nature of the divorce.  She's living with her parents because of it and is keeping me a secret from her mother (she claims her father knows about me, though Ive never met him) because her mother has "issues" and is emotionally and physically violent.  Jane believes that her mother is part of the cause of her BPD, as she suffered various traumas growing up.  She has told me that she is afraid of her ex as well because he was violent (abusive) to her (and still is verbally abusive) and feels her safety is in jeopardy if he were to find out she was seeing someone else.  Although she has not kept me completely from the public eye, which is different from the last romance we had (she'd never go to dinner with me or anything of the like which she does now).  I guess its a strange situation - half in and half out.  We try to keep the office romance to a minimum due to the fact it would be frowned upon.

Anyway, the past couple of months I have noticed the mask cracking.  Maybe I'm ultrasensative to it.  Maybe it's because I don't fully trust her word on most of everything.  It's sad, but true.  I find myself following up or independently verifying what she's telling me.  I have had several odd things pop up, which when confronted, she always has an excuse.  I have almost walked away several times because my spidey sense has been tingling.  For example, we would text each other every morning like most couples do.  I have varying work hours (conference calls, meetings, etc.), which often have me up very early.  Sometimes I would wake up and have an urge to drive by her parent’s house and see if she was there.  Over the course of a few months, I did it maybe 5 times.  Her car was never there.  When I asked about it, she always had an excuse: she had just left, she had went to her ex's (who works night shift, was out of town, etc) to pack but fell asleep, she spent the night at her grandmothers because she had been ill, once she said her dad took her car out to get gas before he left for work because bad weather was expected... .the list goes on.  For me, it was a red flag.  She didn't attempt to gaslight me or denied not being home- she just always had a reason.  That reminded me terribly of the past.

The other thing that has bothered me is it appears that she doesn't actually live with her parents.  I've been to their house several times (they were never there, obviously) and her bedroom was always perfect.  It didn't looked lived in by someone who was a separated person crashing somewhere.  I also noted that it didn't appear any of her clothes were there.  I did ask about it, to which she told me that her clothes were in various closets but never did show them to me.  I didn't ask to see them because I felt like I was accusing her of lying if I had.  But, my trust issues with her didn't cease because it did appear she had been lying about something (the something I was unsure of, but my instinct told me she was and I just hadn't discovered it yet).

About a month ago, she claims to have fled her parents house because her mom suddenly attacked her in her sleep over a friend who had temporarily taken refuge with Jane after she had suddenly been evicted from her home (a domestic related thing).  This girl would go on to move into her parent’s home as Jane had to 'kick out' her friend.  Jane fled to that girls' parents home as well.  That's when things really started to go down.  Jane was down all the time but would talk about it.  She felt homeless and unloved (she said she was trying to fight it but knew her BPD wasn't helping her feelings) and cried many times about her mom hating her.  I did the best I could to comfort her.  I offered several times to let her stay with me and asked her why she simply didn't go rent an apartment.  She refused my offer because of the divorce and said she was broke and couldn't afford rent anywhere.  That, to me, was understandable.  She eventually moved back into her parent’s house after a few weeks of staying with her friend.  During that time, she had gotten upset about my apparent lack of moving forward with the relationship (I know, it didn't make much sense to me either) and the Snoop in me came out.  I called the courthouse to see if she had actually filed for divorce or not.  No. Such. Name. On. File.  Yes my friends, there was no record of filing.  I immediately confronted her with this information, which was met with "I have no idea why!  I wonder who his mom is f___ing at the courthouse to not file it!  My parents have paid my attorney almost $6,000 in this divorce already!"  By the way, she always speaks of Mike as a dirtbag who's still attached at the hind of his mother.  Ironically, I've met his mother before and she was nice to me, but I don't dare tell Jane that.  Anyway I, of course, didn't believe that anyone had refused to file it, I knew it was because nothings been filed.  I flat out asked her if she was lying to me (she denied).  She claimed to have proof of the filings, but as of me writing this she has yet to show me.  However, the strange thing is that within a week or so of me confronting her about it, I have seen movement on that front.  She has all sorts of items at her parent’s house (furniture, TVs, a bed, etc).  I even drove by the other morning and her car was there.  I think she has, indeed, left Mike.  But I still feel like I've been the other guy.  It's just a feeling.

So, lets fast-forward some.  I have been under a tremendous amount of pressure lately.  I’m not using it as an excuse just stating a fact.  I've had to move several times this year, I've had family issues to deal with (my mom is bi-polar), I've had insane deadlines at work and they have been writing up/ firing people like crazy, plus I've been dealing with the increasing frustration of not being able to 'be with' Jane openly and having this mountain of evidence that she's been lying to me which hasn't helped my mood.  During this, Jane has been extremely depressed.  She said that she feels like her meds aren't working anymore and made an appointment to get them adjusted.  She had to cancel one appointment due to a work conflict, but told me she had scheduled another one for a few days later (she was to go on a Tues, had to move it to a Thurs - which she didn't go to because she went to dinner with her parents and grandmother- odd since they always seem to be fighting one second and loving each other the next to me - and I haven't even tried to ask as to what happened to the Dr appointment).  It has been eggshells since she told me about the meds not working (she went from texting back every 10-15mins to several hours claiming fighting with her mom - a tactic she did 3 years ago while she was doing God knows what -).  It's basically opened a lot of old wounds for me.  I've tried to tell her this, but she gets mad and accuses me of thinking she's still that person she was 3 years ago (even though the similarities are so strikingly so I had to check the stock market to make sure I had, in fact, not time warped to 3 years ago).

So, I've sort of just been on eggshells since the 'meds have worn off'.  This is the part of the story we've all been waiting for: my meltdown this past Friday.  We were at a local park having lunch.  I had been in a mood all day because I had been chewed out at work and all my other stressors and I was on a rant about it.  I'm one of those people that bottle it all up and then explode.  When I explode, it isn't pretty.  I am not violent, I will just rant like crazy.  I don't like it, I've been working on it, and Jane and I have talked about it.  She was trying to cheer me up, but I knew it was superficial as she had "been confused" in the days prior to that day, and I was just angry at the world.  At that moment, my boss drove by.  She saw him and said something about him seeing us together (remember it would be frowned upon).  I in turn during my angry rant about my life, made a sarcastic comment about how great that was because I would get chewed out for having lunch with her even though we weren't doing anything wrong.  She says, "yeah, well your least favorite person was in front of him too and he was looking hard this way."  This broke my concentration and I replied "what?" to which she says, "The car in front of your bosses was your least favorite person."  Once again, I say, "What are you talking about?"  She says "that was Nick in front of him and he was looking hard this way to see if it was me down here." 

Continued... .

[Lonely_Astro]

Hello All,

First post!  Guess I need to just dive in.  Sorry for the length, but here it goes.

About 3 years ago I was romantically involved with a woman (we'll call her Jane) who was diagnosed with BPD.  It didn't really end well (in fact it just *poof* ended, more or less).  I spent the next several months in therapy and reading everything I could about BPD.  I did not speak to Jane for 3 years.  It tremendously sucked to see Jane everyday as we worked (and still do) together.  We had contact of course, but it was strictly business (and minimal).  A few months after our "breakup", she started dating a guy and they got married.  They were engaged almost a year.  She actually seemed to be having a normal life and I was happy for her (she didn't seem erratic, no rumors of her sleeping around, no flirting with people, etc) and sad that I wasn't experiencing life with her at the same time.  I never really got over Jane, even with all the stuff she did to me 3 years ago. 

We were forced to attend a conference together that required us to travel in the same car (company owned), which I dreaded.  It was a somewhat awkward ride, but we managed to talk about what had happened.  She told me about how she had taken therapy seriously and how much our 'relationship' had caused her to realize that she needed help.  She told me she was now on medication and attending therapy on a regular basis and felt better about herself and so on.  She answered all my questions openly, even about 'cheating' on me when we were together the first time (a guy named Nick).  Consequently, she had cheated on her ex husband (Mike) during a "rough patch" as she called it with Nick, just before her and Mike were engaged.  She told me she had admitted it to Mike and he continued on, ultimately marrying her.  But I did truly believe that she had gotten help and was doing better.  After the conference, we began to small talk again.  That was almost a year ago that we started talking, November is when things took a serious turn.  At the start, I had several long, serious conversations with her and I would swear it was like talking to a different person than 3 years ago.  So, why am I here, you ask?

Well, interesting story.  She has been going through her divorce from Mike now for almost that entire year.  They have no kids and are fighting over stuff (dishes, cabinets, money accounts, etc.) according to her.  We have been romantically involved (practically secretly) because of the dragged out nature of the divorce.  She's living with her parents because of it and is keeping me a secret from her mother (she claims her father knows about me, though Ive never met him) because her mother has "issues" and is emotionally and physically violent.  Jane believes that her mother is part of the cause of her BPD, as she suffered various traumas growing up.  She has told me that she is afraid of her ex as well because he was violent (abusive) to her (and still is verbally abusive) and feels her safety is in jeopardy if he were to find out she was seeing someone else.  Although she has not kept me completely from the public eye, which is different from the last romance we had (she'd never go to dinner with me or anything of the like which she does now).  I guess its a strange situation - half in and half out.  We try to keep the office romance to a minimum due to the fact it would be frowned upon.

Anyway, the past couple of months I have noticed the mask cracking.  Maybe I'm ultrasensative to it.  Maybe it's because I don't fully trust her word on most of everything.  It's sad, but true.  I find myself following up or independently verifying what she's telling me.  I have had several odd things pop up, which when confronted, she always has an excuse.  I have almost walked away several times because my spidey sense has been tingling.  For example, we would text each other every morning like most couples do.  I have varying work hours (conference calls, meetings, etc.), which often have me up very early.  Sometimes I would wake up and have an urge to drive by her parent’s house and see if she was there.  Over the course of a few months, I did it maybe 5 times.  Her car was never there.  When I asked about it, she always had an excuse: she had just left, she had went to her ex's (who works night shift, was out of town, etc) to pack but fell asleep, she spent the night at her grandmothers because she had been ill, once she said her dad took her car out to get gas before he left for work because bad weather was expected... .the list goes on.  For me, it was a red flag.  She didn't attempt to gaslight me or denied not being home- she just always had a reason.  That reminded me terribly of the past.

The other thing that has bothered me is it appears that she doesn't actually live with her parents.  I've been to their house several times (they were never there, obviously) and her bedroom was always perfect.  It didn't looked lived in by someone who was a separated person crashing somewhere.  I also noted that it didn't appear any of her clothes were there.  I did ask about it, to which she told me that her clothes were in various closets but never did show them to me.  I didn't ask to see them because I felt like I was accusing her of lying if I had.  But, my trust issues with her didn't cease because it did appear she had been lying about something (the something I was unsure of, but my instinct told me she was and I just hadn't discovered it yet).

About a month ago, she claims to have fled her parents house because her mom suddenly attacked her in her sleep over a friend who had temporarily taken refuge with Jane after she had suddenly been evicted from her home (a domestic related thing).  This girl would go on to move into her parent’s home as Jane had to 'kick out' her friend.  Jane fled to that girls' parents home as well.  That's when things really started to go down.  Jane was down all the time but would talk about it.  She felt homeless and unloved (she said she was trying to fight it but knew her BPD wasn't helping her feelings) and cried many times about her mom hating her.  I did the best I could to comfort her.  I offered several times to let her stay with me and asked her why she simply didn't go rent an apartment.  She refused my offer because of the divorce and said she was broke and couldn't afford rent anywhere.  That, to me, was understandable.  She eventually moved back into her parent’s house after a few weeks of staying with her friend.  During that time, she had gotten upset about my apparent lack of moving forward with the relationship (I know, it didn't make much sense to me either) and the Snoop in me came out.  I called the courthouse to see if she had actually filed for divorce or not.  No. Such. Name. On. File.  Yes my friends, there was no record of filing.  I immediately confronted her with this information, which was met with "I have no idea why!  I wonder who his mom is f___ing at the courthouse to not file it!  My parents have paid my attorney almost $6,000 in this divorce already!"  By the way, she always speaks of Mike as a dirtbag who's still attached at the hind of his mother.  Ironically, I've met his mother before and she was nice to me, but I don't dare tell Jane that.  Anyway I, of course, didn't believe that anyone had refused to file it, I knew it was because nothings been filed.  I flat out asked her if she was lying to me (she denied).  She claimed to have proof of the filings, but as of me writing this she has yet to show me.  However, the strange thing is that within a week or so of me confronting her about it, I have seen movement on that front.  She has all sorts of items at her parent’s house (furniture, TVs, a bed, etc).  I even drove by the other morning and her car was there.  I think she has, indeed, left Mike.  But I still feel like I've been the other guy.  It's just a feeling.

So, lets fast-forward some.  I have been under a tremendous amount of pressure lately.  I’m not using it as an excuse just stating a fact.  I've had to move several times this year, I've had family issues to deal with (my mom is bi-polar), I've had insane deadlines at work and they have been writing up/ firing people like crazy, plus I've been dealing with the increasing frustration of not being able to 'be with' Jane openly and having this mountain of evidence that she's been lying to me which hasn't helped my mood.  During this, Jane has been extremely depressed.  She said that she feels like her meds aren't working anymore and made an appointment to get them adjusted.  She had to cancel one appointment due to a work conflict, but told me she had scheduled another one for a few days later (she was to go on a Tues, had to move it to a Thurs - which she didn't go to because she went to dinner with her parents and grandmother- odd since they always seem to be fighting one second and loving each other the next to me - and I haven't even tried to ask as to what happened to the Dr appointment).  It has been eggshells since she told me about the meds not working (she went from texting back every 10-15mins to several hours claiming fighting with her mom - a tactic she did 3 years ago while she was doing God knows what -).  It's basically opened a lot of old wounds for me.  I've tried to tell her this, but she gets mad and accuses me of thinking she's still that person she was 3 years ago (even though the similarities are so strikingly so I had to check the stock market to make sure I had, in fact, not time warped to 3 years ago).

So, I've sort of just been on eggshells since the 'meds have worn off'.  This is the part of the story we've all been waiting for: my meltdown this past Friday.  We were at a local park having lunch.  I had been in a mood all day because I had been chewed out at work and all my other stressors and I was on a rant about it.  I'm one of those people that bottle it all up and then explode.  When I explode, it isn't pretty.  I am not violent, I will just rant like crazy.  I don't like it, I've been working on it, and Jane and I have talked about it.  She was trying to cheer me up, but I knew it was superficial as she had "been confused" in the days prior to that day, and I was just angry at the world.  At that moment, my boss drove by.  She saw him and said something about him seeing us together (remember it would be frowned upon).  I in turn during my angry rant about my life, made a sarcastic comment about how great that was because I would get chewed out for having lunch with her even though we weren't doing anything wrong.  She says, "yeah, well your least favorite person was in front of him too and he was looking hard this way."  This broke my concentration and I replied "what?" to which she says, "The car in front of your bosses was your least favorite person."  Once again, I say, "What are you talking about?"  She says "that was Nick in front of him and he was looking hard this way to see if it was me down here." 

Continued... .

[Lonely_Astro]

Let me pause the story for a minute.  I have never met Nick.  I don't know what he drives or what he looks like.  What I do know is he's very painful for me to talk about because 3 years ago I was madly in love with Jane.  She was my everything.  I couldn't wait to marry her and have kids with her.  I can still remember what it felt like when she told me she might have been pregnant by Nick and was consequently around the same time she told me she loved me and couldn't wait to have a family with me.  To add some salt to it, around March-ish, I was messing with her phone (I was thinking of getting the same model) and it rang.  Who's name was it?  Nicks.  I immediately confronted her about it then and she said she didn't know how he had gotten her number (she changed it just before she married Mike).  I called BS.  She told me a couple of days later a friend of hers had given him her number because he was trying to get in touch with her over an unpaid bill (at some point during Jane's life she had lived with Nick - which I had known about, it was before my time) from several years ago (I guess where ever the bill was from they just kept billing rather than turn things over to collection).  I didn't really buy it because his name, photo of her and him together, and his number were saved in her phone.  She claims it all "rolled" over when she changed phones/numbers.  I waited a few weeks and asked about it again, to which she told me that he had contacted her about a check that had been sent to him over a car she traded in and he was letting her know he was putting it in her parent’s mailbox for her to pickup.  I didn't really buy that, but I just didn't want to die on that hill that day so I bottled it up.  She claimed to have blocked his number and had no contact with him.  So basically, I've been wondering what the deal with Nick was ever since.  She slept with him when she was with me and with Mike... .why wouldn't I question it?

Back to the story: I don't remember much after her saying that because I went into full DEFCON 1 mode.  I looked at her and told her I had to go, right then.  I proceeded to leave without any other explanation.  The wave of anger had fully engulfed me and I was about to rage out on her.  At her, which is something I had not done before.  As I said, I know that I have anger issues.  I have gotten angry about stuff before in front of her.  She told me that scared her and I had told her if I felt my anger get the better of me I would leave to go cool down so she wouldn't have to deal with it.  That's exactly what I had done.  She proceeded to text me that she was "over this" and "doesn't deserve" me "f__ing just driving off like that".  I told her that I felt anxiety and anger come over me because of all my stress and that her pointing him out to me made it worse, so I chose to leave like we had agreed so she didn't have to witness it.  She and I still had time left and she wanted to speak to me in person.  I told her it wasn't a good idea, but she kept on and I gave in.  She didn't see what the big deal was about her comment.  I. Flipped. Out.  All that stuff I had bottled up about her, the odd coincidences, all of it came pouring out.  I wanted to know why he even knew what she drove since she supposedly swapped vehicles after she allegedly had no contact with him.  I wanted to know why he had really called her that day, and I told her I didn't appreciate her thinking I was an absolute idiot to not know what was going on.  I remember her I had lived this nightmare once and I wasn't going to subject myself to it again.  I have to admit, I was not nice about it.  I will be the first to admit that I could've reacted differently, but in that moment, I just didn't think.  All of the past came rushing back to me, all the things that had been left unsaid then, all the hurt and anger from that time erupted out of me.  To me she had slapped me in the face with him and she didn't see the problem with what she had done (even though we had spoken about all of that ad nauseam - so she was very aware of my sensitivity to it).  We proceeded to fight for the rest of the day via text (with several hours passing between messages from her end) until she finally just quit responding altogether.  In my mind, she went and slept with Nick that night and has been this whole time.  I don't know if its true or not, but in my head it is.  I feel like I've been the other guy to Mike too.  That feeling just doesn't feel good at all.

This morning when I got up, I gave in and text her an apology for my behavior, not for the accusation though.  I told her that I wish I ‘d addressed it differently but that I hadn't.  She eventually responded that she was looking at houses to buy (even though she claims to be broke) but we did talk about my "unacceptable" behavior.  She claimed this past year that Mike, her parents, grandmother, and brother have all treated her like crap and she now lumps me in with them.  She said that I get upset at how her family treats her yet I was identical to them yesterday.  She said that she's had to deal with being treated like that for an entire year by everyone in her life and she won't be treated that way anymore.  She said she was mad and frustrated with me "to no end" and that she was "over everyone treating" her that way.  I did attempt to validate her feelings (I do see my explosion as unacceptable in how to deal with the issue, but she refuses to see anything wrong with what she said) and I did apologize for the outburst, but it seems to not have done any good as she ignored my text after the "over it" text.

At this point, I don't know what to do.  Do I go through the heartbreak and just say to hell with it and go on all over again?  Do I try to keep 'this' going?  What has 'this' been?  I just don't know. 

While typing this I have gotten a little lost in where I was going, but I don't feel like I can salvage any of this and I'm not sure that I should even try.  I mean, was I wrong for pointing out how hurtful and insensitive it was to point Nick out to me like that (granted, I didn't exactly go about it the proper way)?  Up until this point, I have never shown my anger toward her.  She's seen me mad about work or family stuff, but never toward her.  That moment was very much toward her.  I never cursed at her (though she says I did) but I did let accusations fly.  So I do it once and she's "mad and frustrated to no end" yet all the other odd things she's done over the course of this has been fine and I should dismiss it all.  I know that’s the BPD talking, but I don't know if it's worth getting wrapped back up into all this again or not.

Thanks for listening everyone and apologize if this is in the wrong section and to long winded.