It feels like just me.

[No_End]

Hi guys,

I broke up with an ex some time ago who I've since come to believe has BPD. It took me a long time to figure that out and since then I've read a lot of books and a lot of all of your posts and they've been very helpful to illuminate and make sense of most everything that happened.

I'll spare you the whole sob story since it's pretty much the same as everyone else's and some of you have had it a lot worse than me. There is one thing I've never really felt I understood despite everything I've read and I was hoping some of you better versed in this disorder might give me some insight.

One of the big issues in our relationship that really drove me away was what I guess was the devaluation. Despite all the talk about how much she loved me more than anyone she'd met before, and wanted to marry me and would continually freak out over the idea of us not ending up together, she just never really seemed to put any effort into the relationship. For someone who seemed so caught up in the idea of us being together, she never put any effort into actually strengthening our relationship. Sure, she was pushing for a commitment and to get me to get a ring for her just weeks into the relationship, but the real relationship stuff -- doing thoughtful and caring things, being there when the other needs you, following through on commitments, making time for the relationship and putting it first before others just never seemed to be something she cared about. Well, except when she wanted those things for herself. When I brought it up I was just being "needy" or so she claimed.

Still, I'd say from what I've read that's pretty par for the course in relationships with Borderlines. I guess the part that really stung for me was that everyone else in her life DID seem to get that kind of treatment. She had great relationships with family, friends, co-workers, roommates. She was always going out of her way to plan and do nice things for them. They seemed to adore her. I had seen her get testy with them at times and her co-workers did warn me from the beginning she was a little "off," but overall she seemed to have really strong relationships with the other people in her life.

For me though, she just never seemed to follow through. She'd talk about something nice she was going to do and she just kind of flaked out and it never happened. Things she said she was making for me or times she was going to come over and do something with me just never came about. There was never an explanation or excuse or apology, it's like it just never happened in her mind. At first I thought she was super absent minded or something, but then I noticed she didn't ever seem to have a problem with all the other people in her life. It just felt like she didn't care about us enough to follow through. All this in conjunction with continually seeing her prioritize other relationships over ours just really made me feel like she didn't care despite all the claims she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. All this even during the idealization phase.

I've tried to not take all of this personally and just chalk it up to the disorder, but it's been hard when I see her capable of doing these thoughtful and caring things for the other people in her life. The biggest dose of salt in the wounds was after things ended between us and she did the typical rebound marriage with some guy she'd met three months previous. I told myself this guy was going to get the same treatment I did and the whole thing would fall apart like it did for us. But she seems pretty happy and seems to be bending over backwards to keep him happy. Things she never did for me or our relationship. I guess I should be happy for her, but they're still together after three years and every time I see something about them being such a cute couple it makes me want to vomit. It makes me feel like, "Why is she cool with everyone else, but not me?"

Even our breakup was far, far worse than any of her others. She went into great detail about her other relationships. (More than I even wanted to know.) But I know how those all ended. And even though those other guys were not nearly as understanding about all her issues as I was, she still managed to have reasonably amicable breakups with them. I think her first husband got it bad too, but they still ended on talking terms. But me? I got painted so black she just completely cut me off and hasn't spoken to me in years. And I still don't even know why.

I do truly believe she's a high-functioning borderline. She fits almost all the criteria. She seems like a textbook case. But I keep asking myself, if she's so dysfunctional then why does all of her anger seem so sharply and acutely directed towards me alone? Why even during the idealization phase did I never see any real efforts to build a strong relationship between us? Yet she seems capable of maintaining reasonably healthy relationships with people other than me? Why can she be that awesome and caring person I saw the promise of with others (including her new husband), but never could with me? Although all the books I've read keep saying it's her (them), not me (us), after everything I've seen it feels like... .just me.

[C.Stein]

Wow man, you just ripped a page out of my book.  My ex was in many ways exactly as you described here.

She seemed to be two people, the one she presented to everyone else and the one she was with me.   I asked her on several occasions why this was.  Never got a good answer to that question.

I think perhaps it was a emotional distance/comfort thing.  People she wasn't close to emotionally didn't represent a threat to her emotional stability so she was more comfortable doing things for them.  She quite literally seemed like a different person at times.   To be fair, my ex did do some very generous and kind things for me as well, but for the most part it was more about what I could do for her, emotionally speaking.  I did my best to be there for her, to help stabilize her, but after repeatedly getting hurt it was very difficult to stay close to her emotionally.  

In retrospect I can see the times when I felt myself getting emotionally closer to her, allowing myself to open up to her again, then she would do something that would hurt me and push me away.  Each time it happened I had a harder and harder time allowing myself to get close to her emotionally.  I suppose on some subconscious level I was learning that getting close to her emotionally also meant getting hurt.  As a result I started distancing myself from that pain, both emotionally and physically.  It wasn't a conscious thing I did, it just happened ... .self preservation I suppose.  

I do feel like I was there for her in many ways the first year of our relationship, but it came at a very high emotional cost to me and she never acknowledged or saw that.  Now that I know of BPD I feel responsible/guilty for not being there for her in the way she needed.  This has left me with a lot of regrets and remorse, like I failed her.

I also have been painted blacker than black now.  She still interacts from time to time with her ex before me, even though he dumped her for another woman.  But me ... .she has treated me with a courteous but cold disdain the few times she has interacted with me since the discard.  It is like the feelings she had for me are completely and entirely gone.  

She obviously blames me and I am sure I now represent a major trigger for her.  I think what she sees in me now is her own failures and she can't handle it emotionally ... .it is simply too painful.  It is easier for her to pile all her failures on my shoulders, then coldly and completely discard me like I never existed.   As you well know, It is incredibly painful and hurtful to be treated like this by someone who once thought you were their future.

[LostGhost]

I could have written both of your posts as my relationship had a lot of similarities.

All I can say is I feel much the same. My ex displayed generous acts of kindness during idealization but that's it. In my recycle with her, I quickly felt like I meant very little to her. She actually told me to my face that I was her "lowest priority on the totem pole". She was way more committed to virtually everything else going on in her life. Even casual acquaintances seemed to have a higher value to her than our relationship.

I bent over backwards every day for her but received very little for my efforts. She told me she didn't know why. By comparison, her ex who was nearly twice her age and didn't do half as much, she admitted she was like a slave for him. She would crawl in front of th tv in lingerie and give him oral while he watched football and drank. She'd give him back massages, whatever he wanted. He committed suicide so it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.

It's great for your self esteem to hear this stuff. Then you're standing there in the kitchen cooking a four course gourmet meal and wondering what you're doing wrong. Cleaning the house while she's at work and wondering why it's been months since you've had sex.

And now that we're broken up, I'm a distant friend at best. No sign of that soulmate connection we used to have. I went from being her soulmate, love of her life, the one - to being a doormat she rolled up and threw out with the trash.

I went 6 months I think without sex. I heard every excuse. She eventually told me she was asexual and it would never happen.

The next guy she dated she had sex with him immediately. So much for being asexual.

So yes, I too feel like it must have been me.