Triggered today...just need to get it out.

[dan1966]

She is moving on, she changed her facebook photo and I stupidly checked her profile. I had unfolled her to keep from bieng triggered. It's so easy to be set back in our recovery, I should have learned by now. It's tough to see someone you loved so much move on, I should be happy for her but I am holding on to so much regret and mixed emotions. I thought we could have been so happy, it just didn't work out that way. I carry so much guilt and also so much resentment. Basically I'm just really sad we couldn't make it work and in the end the lost freindship is so terribly difficult to accept. Hurting a bit today and just needed to feel a little less lost and alone.

Dan

[C.Stein]

You are not alone Dan.  I had the same hope for that happy future with what I had come to think was the one.  I opened up more of myself to her, let her further into my heart than I had ever let anyone in my past.  She was not only the love of my life, but also my best friend.  Losing that friendship is almost as hard as losing her love, and I too feel lost and alone without her.

Over the course of our relationship her behaviour slowly eroded my hope into something that looked more like fear and despair.  In retrospect I did come to resent her during the last 6 months of our relationship.  This resentment I think had been building since the beginning of our relationship because I never really felt secure with her.  The things she did pushed me away from her and the hope for that happy future faded each time she pushed. 

The pain of this loss is at times almost unbearable, but I know it will eventually get better for the both of us.

[dan1966]

Thanks C.

I too let my ex into my heart in a way that I had not done before. I know she tried in her own way to make it work, but she couldn't overcome her disorder. I get tripped up when I get lost in the FOG and put more of the blame, responsibility on myself and forget how much the disorder and my codependancy issues, created hurdles the relationship couldn't get past. Thanks for the support, I am needing it today, : )

[Michelle27]

I went through this too.  But I'm at the point now that I realize that I opened up myself thinking we were both opening up, but what I was seeing was intense mirroring.  It wasn't truly a 2 way relationship in the way I thought it was. 

[C.Stein]

I too let my ex into my heart in a way that I had not done before. I know she tried in her own way to make it work, but she couldn't overcome her disorder. I get tripped up when I get lost in the FOG and put more of the blame, responsibility on myself and forget how much the disorder and my codependancy issues, created hurdles the relationship couldn't get past. Thanks for the support, I am needing it today, : )

I am dealing with intense feelings of guilt and shame, for things I did or didn't do in our relationship.  I unfortunately discovered BPD after our relationship ended.  I honestly don't know if it would have made a difference, but I do know I would have been more tolerant and understanding.  I also suffer from some codependency issues, in particular being a rescuer type.  While I tried my best to help her build self-confidence and self-esteem on her own, I think perhaps in some ways I was also propping her up and losing some of my own in the process.  I'm still working on understanding how my own behaviour impacted her, especially with regard to her BPD traits.  

I do know one thing for sure though.  She has this uncanny ability to push me over the edge and I let her do it.  In retrospect I should have handled those times much differently than I did, and I am carrying around a tremendous amount of guilt for allowing her to push me into being someone I am not.

[dan1966]

C.

I completely relate to being pushed into behaving in ways not typical of our temperment. Mine did a lot of push and pull and I ended up reacting with similar behaviour. I also wish I could have given her more room to manuver her emotional storms. I new about BPD after our second recycle but I couldn't manage to navigate within the relationship once I lost my self esteem and became depressed.

[C.Stein]

I couldn't manage to navigate within the relationship once I lost my self esteem and became depressed.

This is pretty much where I was at for the last 6 months of our relationship.  Depressed, low self-esteem, resentful.  She had betrayed my trust one to many times and she either could not see the damage she had done, or didn't care enough to look.  I should have talked to her more than I did about my feelings, but I felt it was time for her to step up and show me she cared enough to actually see the consequences of her actions and to do something about it without being led by me.  She never did.

[dan1966]

Michelle,

Thats been a tough thing for me to try to reconcile, wondering how my perception of the relationship, in hindsight, was not at all what it seemed or should have been. I was told things to gain my trust and I was used as an emotional safety net. I wanted to be loved for who I am and not for what support I was giving or some other conditional clause. That first red flag when she threatened in so many words to end it because it wasn't working out " I wasn't doing what she wanted" will forever exclude any conditional relationship for me.

[dan1966]

C.,

My ex violated my boundaries so many times, and I kept letting her until I decided I couldn't take it any more. The last breakup, she tried to make up, not two days, after saying it could never work. She was mostly playing nice because she needed my help. Later she would continue to do things just to keep me hanging on, but never acknowledging what she had done, or even apologizing in the smallest way. Part of me thinks she was incapable of considering how selfish and destructive she had been, in particular the way in which the playing nice made me be the bad guy, in trying to protect myself, I had to feel guilty as if I was the one who ended the relationship. I was left so confused and doubting if I wasn't the one who was cruel, and I found myself in the lowest and darkest place I had ever been. It sounds if you and I had a similar experience as is common from the reading I have done here.

It is helpful to know we have others to share and learn from and to get that little bit of encouragement on our down days. Thanks everyone for posting, it's given me some strength to get through a tough one.

[hopealways]

I feel the same and I have figured out why I feel this way. I grew up in a war zone: my parents constantly fought in front of me, it was awful.  I always hoped that one day they would stop and we would just be a happy family.  It never happened.  The heartbreak I suffered with my BPDx was the same, I just kept hoping that this time things would be different. I wanted to feel the love I never did growing up.  In the end I was attracted to her because of the familiarity of the turbulence, and it ended because we can't have a functional relationship with a dysfunctional person.

[C.Stein]

It sounds if you and I had a similar experience as is common from the reading I have done here

So common you could almost be writing about my ex and relationship with her and what it did to me.

[Michelle27]

Michelle,

Thats been a tough thing for me to try to reconcile, wondering how my perception of the relationship, in hindsight, was not at all what it seemed or should have been. I was told things to gain my trust and I was used as an emotional safety net. I wanted to be loved for who I am and not for what support I was giving or some other conditional clause. That first red flag when she threatened in so many words to end it because it wasn't working out " I wasn't doing what she wanted" will forever exclude any conditional relationship for me.

Exactly.  A conditional relationship.  As long as I adored him enough, forgived his affairs and rages, supported him enough, took care of the house and kids without asking anything of him, gave him a ticker tape parade and undying gratitude when he decided to lift a finger around the house maybe once a month, was happy with earning 50% more than he did and contributing a higher percentage of my income to the home, liked the things he liked and had sex with him often enough, things were ok.  When my resentments started building and I wasn't there for him only and started to take care of me for a change, oh boy, did I ever get painted black.  Then when he realized he was losing me, suddenly I was white again and all I asked of him was to get some help.  I waited 8 months for him to lift a finger to get help and by then, I was so done, there was no turning back despite waiting another 6 months before finally pulling the trigger.  And in the conversation in which I told him I couldn't do this anymore, I was actually told I hadn't given him enough of a chance.  Whatever.