The moment you finally decided you couldn't continue

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

I was just interested in what others breaking points were here in the Leaving Board.

After a year and a half long relationship with my ex it started turning sour but something I felt we could work on. Anyway she broke up with me in a very unclear manner (not to my face and said it was a break), other than a few spells.

Last week I saw her for the first time, she treated me like I didn't exist. We finally talked face to face on Sunday and I got a bunch of closure even though it made me very sad. Then suddenly she messaged me on Monday saying my behaviour we "inappropriate and frankly terrifying" and unfriended me on Facebook, I believe because I asked mutual friends how she was.

Despite this feeling like it should be my lowest low I feel it's actually pushed me on the most. I realised there was nothing I could do to make the situation better, I'm painted black and anything I do will be purposely misinterpreted. I've found it much easier to cut her out of my life, blocked her social media and told all my friends to not mention to me.

I've actually been feelng better recently, in fact my low times are more related to my own self confidence than her. I wish her all the best but I don't want to her about it anymore.

[Corgicuddler95]

I was just interested in what others breaking points were here in the Leaving Board.

After a year and a half long relationship with my ex it started turning sour but something I felt we could work on. Anyway she broke up with me in a very unclear manner (not to my face and said it was a break), other than a few spells.

Last week I saw her for the first time, she treated me like I didn't exist. We finally talked face to face on Sunday and I got a bunch of closure even though it made me very sad. Then suddenly she messaged me on Monday saying my behaviour we "inappropriate and frankly terrifying" and unfriended me on Facebook, I believe because I asked mutual friends how she was.

Despite this feeling like it should be my lowest low I feel it's actually pushed me on the most. I realised there was nothing I could do to make the situation better, I'm painted black and anything I do will be purposely misinterpreted. I've found it much easier to cut her out of my life, blocked her social media and told all my friends to not mention to me.

I've actually been feelng better recently, in fact my low times are more related to my own self confidence than her. I wish her all the best but I don't want to her about it anymore.

[EmptyShell]

When I found out he had been posting on Craigslist and joined every dating website known to man for the first 9 months our restaurant was opened.  He was supposedly working 15 hour days but had time to join and browse 10 different dating sites - all the while telling me we were getting married 6 months later.  Then it was the time he threw dog poop in my face, or maybe it was the time he threw me off the bed along with the mattress and then threw another mattress on top of me... .or maybe it was when he told me he didn't want me or love me anymore?  So many... .

[Teereese]

My ustbxBPDh had been drinking and drugging and spiraling out of control for some time, so it was a culmination.

My close to breaking point was when my ustbxh stole my car keys out of my purse while I was sleeping, took the car and told me he was having it checked out for repairs. I found my daily driver for over 10 years listed on Craigslist for sale.

Of course, it was all my fault.

Then his painting black campaign affected my D16 at school. She had classmates come up to her and tell her that her father was at a bonfire drunk telling them he "was an alcoholic and crazy because of me and he was taking her (my D16) and moving away with her."

My D16 felt so betrayed and scared. She is prone to anxiety.  Her father had brought the insanity to her at school. She felt scared because she would have never gone with him willingly.

She was also afraid to make him aware of how she felt about this situation because she knew she would be barraged with twisted statements, yelled and screamed at how it was her fault and that he would not want to hear about her feelings.

I approached him to let him know that she was hurt and his response was essentially, that's how I feel, too bad.

He had been staying out all night, partying and reverting to teenage ways for a few months. He had a heart attack at work. He called my D17 and left her a voicemail telling her his heart attack was not because of drinking or drugs, but from the stress of dealing with her and "her mother". He was an anger/rager,  smoked and was an emotional eater, of course, those played only minor roles in his heart attack.

I filed for divorce.

A while after, a family member asked if he realized how much he had affected and hurt his daughters. His response was along the lines of those are his feelings and they should just get over it.

[balletomane]

For me it was being in floods of tears one night, feeling absolutely crushed and physically ill with the emotional pain he'd caused, and knowing that I couldn't bend over backwards one more millimeter - my spine had finally snapped. I knew I had to get away from him because if I didn't I was just going to end up in an incredibly bad state.

This was when he had replaced me with his flatmate and left me feeling used and discarded. He wanted me to remain friends, not recognising that asking someone you've just cheated on to be friends is unreasonable, but it did not take me long to realise that he had no space for me even as a friend: what he meant was that he wanted my reassurances that everything was OK, that he hadn't done anything bad. On the night I broke down, I realised that I couldn't do this and that my habit of sacrificing my own needs to his selfishness and lack of consideration for others had to stop. I unfriended him on Facebook, wrote an e-mail explaining why I needed to go no contact for the sake of my own health, and that was it. I got a very manipulative reply back, but I didn't respond. No more trying to persuade him not to hurt me. I just don't let him.

[Michelle27]

My h and I were doing a therapeutic separation and were in month 3.  This followed a year in of me wanting to leave but not having the courage.  I was also in therapy because of the pain, resentments and anger I felt over the years of raging, gaslighting and promises that never came to fruition of change.  He was beginning therapy (DBT and work with a psychiatrist) but it just felt phony to me and other close friends.  On my oldest daughter's birthday, we were having a bbq with friends and he was in my kitchen with me while I was getting the birthday cake ready.  He spoke about how much he enjoyed masturbating with my underwear the previous week, wanted to do it again and while I was wearing a dress, he actually tried to take my panties off.  I was horrified.  Asked him to stop, not talk to me like that and went back outside with the birthday cake.  Over the next couple days, I finally realized that holding out for hope for changes was futile and ended the marriage. 

It took that incident, rater than his multiple affairs, many rages in which I had to flee the house, and other lies I couldn't tolerate anymore.

3 months later, I'm still working on healing.  Mostly because I have to take responsibility for hanging onto hope when it was futile, tolerating behaviors I shouldn't have and subjecting my kids to this kind of chaos.  By the same token, I'm relieved that I finally got the strength to see the truth for what it was.

[Gonzalo]

My moment of clarity came when she decided to break up with me yet again, and I felt a profound sense of relief that it was over. I could make a rational case for leaving long, long before that (and will if I encounter something similar in the future), but it was that sense that the nightmare was finally over, that I'd be able to let my guard down soon that really made me realize I should break things off. Still took me another week to decide for sure because I was weak, but that was really the breaking point.

[cyclistIII]

The summer before I left my ex-husband, I remember a friend asking me, "Why don't you leave him?" and I said, "Because I'm head over heels in love with him, and I'd miss him, and then I'd come back. I have to be sure; I have to let things get so bad that there is no hope." I already knew it was doomed, at least in my rational brain, but I couldn't stop dreaming that things would change and go back to some mythical "way they were" (which, reading old diaries, is not even accurate; I kind of whitewashed the early stages of the relationship in my head... .)

Things did indeed get worse, and we were both talking about leaving (though not always at the same time) and then one night after a big fight, we held hands and promised to "jump" and try "one more time" as we had done so many times before... .and then I woke up the next morning and just knew. "One more time" was BS; nothing was going to change, and I was done.

I packed up my things and left the house before I had a chance to change my mind, and then called him at work to let him know I was gone.

Hardest thing I ever did in my life, but as much as it hurt, I never doubted my decision, which I guess was the advantage of those last hellish few months... .

[purekalm]

I think, in a moment of clarity I looked at myself in the mirror. I mean, really looked... .and I didn't recognize the person I was looking at. I cried and then I just started thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. It was like the blinders were lifted and I finally could see things for what they were and not what I so desperately wanted them to be. To really look and accept that it had been over long before I was even able to admit it to myself. It was when I kicked him out last July and I was a mess. But when I panicked at the thought of him coming back, I knew I had been fooling myself, for far too long. Of course I let him back because I blamed myself and have went through another hellish year. But then, right then I knew and that's why I'm going through to the end for real this time. =(

[sas1729]

Hey,

I was with my BPDexgf for 2.5 years. I remember the point when I decided that things couldn't work. It took me just over two years to accept that, and it was only after I had learned about BPD that I started to see the patterns in my ex. She was undiagnosed. For all of that last summer she was finishing up her degree. I understood and was as supportive as I could be. I did chores and was basically an emotional support. But of course things mounted in stress, both from BPD and the added stress from the degree. We both kept telling each other that things will be better after the degree.

The week of her defence we had a pretty big fight. It was triggered by her saying she wants to see her cousin, who was in town at the time, the day after her defence. Overall I know this isn't a bad thing, but I felt distinctly pushed aside. I did a lot for her all up to that point, including the day of, and had really been hoping for some private time with her. I mentioned this and the fight happened. I ended up not seeing her for the rest of the work week.

I know this sounds pretty tame in many respects, but it was more about me realising that the end of the degree had changed nothing. In fact, things only became worse. In all fairness I had been reading about BPD and had the sinking feeling that even if we confronted it openly (which I would never say) that this is a condition that needs a lot of work. But I had also fooled myself into believing that the end of the degree would hail in some recovery for the relationship. Realising how wrong I was pushed me into accepting that this could not work.

It took me several more months before finally ending it.