Is this the End or the Beginning?

[TheCodependent1]

I could pen a novel about the one year relationship I had with my ex-BPD, but I'll try and keep the story as concise as possible without omitting pertinent pieces. To maintain anonymity I will refer to my ex-BPD as Stacy.

Prior to meeting Stacy I was at the end stage of a very long, drawn out divorce and sharing custody of two older children with my ex. During the years of my divorce I was very low key. I didn't date, I spent time with my kids, friends and in therapy every week to try and become a more grounded, well established individual. I arrived at a point where my therapist and I felt I had grown significantly and it was time to 'spread my wings', go out and date, enjoy life and get back into things. I decided this was an excellent idea and so I did exactly that, I started dating.

I met Stacy at a gathering, we knew one another from prior social events, so striking up a conversation was easy and we soon went on our first date. Our relationship moved quickly. In truth I was infatuated with her, she was sexy, beautiful, intelligent and passionate and I was enthralled to be with her. The sex between us was intoxicating. For the first month we enjoyed every moment together, regardless of what we were doing or where, it was bliss, or so it seemed.

Not long after the first month of ‘bliss’ I could tell something was off with Stacy. Regardless of what we were doing, movies, concert, walk on the beach, hiking, running, etc., she was unhappy. She rarely smiled, nothing appeased her and she was disinterested in anything I provided to her, or suggested we do together. Every event we went to started out with an argument, then a temporary reprieve during the event and finally a symphony of chaos when we left the event. In short, no matter what we were doing, where we were doing it, she was unhappy, bored, disassociated, hostile and downright angry on several occasions resulting in physical abuse. I could count on one hand the number of times I recall her being ‘happy’, or genuinely smiling. It seemed the only person she truly liked was her younger and eldest brothers for they could do no wrong in her eyes. Stacy didn’t like her two other siblings much and she despised both her parents with a vengeance.

In the early stages of our relationship I attributed her actions to medicine she was prescribed. Stacy had a particularly traumatic childhood, death of a sibling and parental abandonment and so she was angry, a lot! I thought things would be better for her in a stable relationship, taking the right medication and being in therapy (which she did on and off, but more off). I remember her asking me why I would stay with her despite how she acted and I recall telling her because I believed she was going through a rough patch and things would be ok. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong. A seemingly endless trial and error of medications prescribed by her doctor left her either completely disassociated from reality, extremely hostile, or suicidal. Off of medication and the rollercoaster of emotions continued, I would never know what person I was going to encounter when we saw one another.

Criticisms, they were constant and like a Gatling gun of hostility and anger all directed at me for various reasons. From the way I dressed, to the way I styled my hair, from the way I talked, or didn't talk, to how I interacted with people, especially women. Stacy snooped through my phone, was always questioning where I was and who I was talking to. She stalked online profiles of women I had casual relationships with and insisted I unfriend them from Facebook. Stacy hated and despised me in all social events. Stacy would pull me aside at a party, or a concert, a movie, or an art exhibit and tell me to stop acting ‘phony’. Often when out, Stacy would ask to speak with me alone and chastise me because I was being too 'flirty', dominating the room with my conversation thereby not allowing her to speak. At the end of any event we attended we would drive home and I would be serenaded to the sweet sounds of her telling me how much she hated me and how awful of a person I was.

The first time she hit me was after a concert, the tickets which she purchased for my birthday. We had been drinking, I will admit drinking was absolutely the wrong thing to do with her, but the event went off as usual, her not wanting to go, telling me how much she hated being there and then after, the symphony of chaos would resume until we arrived back at my place. Once at my place the gloves were off and I told her I was tired of being subjected to her negativity, all the criticisms, the ups and the downs, her mood swings and then 'BOOM!', the first blow to the face followed by repeated punches to the chest until I was able to gain my senses and stop her. I stood there stunned; I was never hit before by a woman. I was married for 13 years prior, had multiple relationships which at times were very difficult, but never, not once was I struck by any of these women. Stacy, her eyes were ‘dead’, glazed over with anger and fury I have never witnessed before, this woman was vacant. 

She physically assaulted me on multiple occasions, once because I spoke with a downstairs neighbor who she 'didn't trust' for more than a few seconds and upon coming back inside was greeted with a punch to the side of the face and a shove into the hall door. Stacy threw bottles around, smashed tables, broke glassware, damaging walls, knocking over plants, basically wreaking havoc on anything around her while she was in a fit of rage. One incident after leaving dinner she was upset because I dared to speak with a woman sitting next to me, idle chat anyone would have lasting maybe 5 seconds, she sped forward in the car before I could put my seat belt on and if not for bracing myself with the door handle I would have smashed into the windshield. There were the seemingly endless late night sessions of her telling me how much I ruined her life, how she hated me and how she never liked me. No matter how many times I held her and told her I loved her, told her how beautiful of a person she was, she resisted, she never accepted, but instead told me she felt neglected and would distance herself.

After each one of these violent incidents, or verbal tirades I would tell her enough is enough, she was never going to hurt me again and it was always met with quiet sorrow and apology, that this moment was the one where she knew something needed to be done. Stacy would tell me how much she loved me, how she felt the first time she was understood and could be herself, I was her ‘Favorite’. I reacted to many of these ‘tantrums’ with equal anger, yelling at her to get her act together, to stop hurting me, that she was sabotaging our relationship, that she was a danger to me and to herself and in turn she told me I was the abusive one. Stacy was able to turn her physical assault against me and my responding anger as emotional abuse against her and vindication for why she behaved the way she did. Stacy always twisted the story, so it appeared I was equally, if not entirely responsible for what transpired between us. Truth is the worse I saw her spiraling, the harder I tried to rescue her and that is when she turned this against me and labeled herself the victim.

The most difficult aspect of the relationship wasn’t the physical assault, it was the assault on my sense of self, my reality wasn’t mine any longer, my reality was her mental illness and I was left wondering whether I was the one who was ill. The devastation of being with a person with BPD is the toll it takes on your state of mind, losing trust in yourself, buying into the mental illness of the BPD and taking it on as your own. The physical assaults healed quickly, but the trauma imposed to my psyche, to the very essence of who I am has been devastating.

The last contact I had with Stacy was a dinner ‘date’. She came dressed to kill (no pun intended); wearing clothing, perfume and jewelry I bought her, basically appearing like a person who was still attached. At the end of dinner she told me she didn’t want to see me again, she wanted to date (i.e. she was already involved with someone else) and that was it between us. We hugged for a bit in the parking lot, she started to cry and asked me to sit next to her in her car for which I obliged. In the car we talked and she asked me why I wanted to continue and I said the same thing I always said to her ‘I believed in us, I believed with care, understanding, love and therapy anything was possible’. Stacy asked me to hug her and then asked for a kiss, she even initiated some sexual contact, all which I fed into. Later that night she texted me asking about the therapist I had just started to see and even though I wanted to keep it personal I provided the web link. Within minutes after sending the therapist link she responded by saying the therapist wasn’t qualified, I would certainly manipulate her and that the facility was a place she wouldn’t ever consider. I told Stacy that was hurtful to hear from her, I needed support and her response was that I was again being dismissive and abusive to her and validated why she would never speak to me again.

In the morning I sent her an email explaining I wanted to keep the therapy personal as I allowed her to keep her therapy personal (I actually don’t believe she was going) and that her support would mean a lot to me. The response back was to never contact her and if I did she would get a restraining order against me. I was absolutely devastated. I’ve had no contact with Stacy in almost two weeks since her threat and I am taking time to detach from the madness which enveloped me during our relationship. During this time I have learned about BPD, I have learned about my own codependency and truth is I want to ‘save’ our relationship with this new information. Every fiber of my being wants to reach out to Stacy and tell her I have the answers, ‘look’, we can do this together. I am struggling to know whether the love was real, was it her BPD, my codependency, or the mix that created such a volatile situation.

Ultimately I am sad knowing our relationship is likely over, but I am alright with the idea the toxic relationship with Stacy is over, because it never stood a chance the way it was. For now I am going to surround myself with my kids, my friends, stay active and be open to new women and new experiences. I have no idea if somewhere down the line Stacy and I are able to reconnect; if we do I know it won’t be the same relationship as before. For the part of me that misses Stacy I take some comfort in knowing for us to have a chance to be together in a healthy relationship, detaching from one another and healing on our own is the beginning.