If your down and out. Read this.

[Minusone]

I want to start off by saying to any new members here that my heart goes out to each and every one of you. Although this is my second post I have been on these boards since last November. Reading daily/weekly. Like you all there are things I needed to understand better and I didn't have the resources or the emotional support at the time so coming here to me felt a little bit like a home. I tried my best not to chime in, more or less look on from the sidelines. Regardless, we're all here for the same awful reason. My heart, support, and love go out to each of you.

My story, like many of yours, ended in, for me, the worst possible way. I met my exBPDgf in my apartment one night after a show a roommate of mine played. Like so many of us I found myself feeling a lot more full of life at the time. There was something about her that just caught me. Off the bat though I was swimming in a world of red flags. Drug abuse, cutting, alcohol abuse, intense interpersonal dynamics, binging, you get the idea. She is classic cluster B. She met nearly every criteria the disorder holds.

For me, and with no shame, I am/was a rescuer. The "white knight" like so many of us are. In the first 4 months we were together there was a break up, physical abuse to herself, physical abuse to me, verbal rages and physical rages, cutting, threats of suicide when drunk, and multiple guys she kept on a string (her "best friends" who would sleep in the same bed as her to comfort her at night. At the time I was weak myself. I allowed for her drug abuse, and shamefully, even though I hated it, did it a few times myself. By this point so much had happened already that I eventually grew a backbone after a cutting incident and called her family to put her own a plane to get help. For me that was the end of the relationship. Or so I thought.

After she came back a week later, her family offering almost no support, she stayed in the city where I lived and paraded around with a guy she met in another state. She took to social media to rub it in my face. After a few weeks though she was there sitting on my doorstep. Asking for forgiveness. Like the foolish heart I didn't know I had, I believed her, forgave her, and we finally began our relationship. The drugs subsided, the cutting stopped, and things were for a time "normal". The rages would still happen. The shame was still present. The push/pull if you will was still there. After a time though, the "sickness" started. The care taking amped up, and before I knew it, a new habit of emotional abuse was in full swing. I was caring for her a lot, not focusing on my own needs. Although I pressed to up the intimacy in our relationship, I was made to wait a full year to make love. And to be honest, it was not the ideal way to begin it either. I was made to feel selfish for wanting it from her. She even offered for me to find it elsewhere until she was ready. I knew how unhealthy that sounded, yet I'd deny and tell her I loved her. Little did I know at the time that as well as it being meaningful for her, it was also a tool she used to control me, as well as Im sure other men before me.

I want to reiterate that I am not perfect. My faults far outweighed most of this board. I was a times just as manipulative as she was. What I've come to learn about myself over the last year through therapy and self reflection is that I also came from a broken home, with a borderline mother, and what attracted me to wanting her love was the love I wanted as a child.

We skip to the final year of our 5 year relationship. I had taken new career path that put us in financial straights. By the time this all happened there was already so much between us. She sat down one night after a fight and we wrote a list of what we felt to decide if it was time to end it. Although at the time I had lost family, our engagement was on halt, and I was in a severe depressive episode, I wanted things to work with her. I loved her, wholeheartedly, like many others on this board loved their SO. What I didn't know is that the complaints I listed fell under the categories of BPD. Hers we superficial saved for 1. "Your not the man I fell in love with." Now we all have faults and we all grow. What she was blind to see is that her behavior was the reason that I had changed. I was emotionally tired, mentally drained, and every morning I woke up feeling stuck in the land of walking on egg shells. My wants, needs, and desires were all second fiddle to hers.

She went across country to a work experience a month later. When she returned, I found sexually explicit messages on her phone. Google searches about orgasms, ect. When confronted about it, she denied it, like so many other times, until I forced the truth out of her. Her first affair. I was numb to it. After 4 years of working so hard to get to the person she promised she'd be, it was gone. I was used up, spent, and emotionally blank. She had used me up and dried me up of any emotional response. It should have been then that I chose to leave, but I decided to stick it out. We agreed to take a break that really didn't happen, and by then I had no choice but to choke the reigns in myself. I became overly controlling, even though it was warranted from the beginning. I asked for updates on her whereabouts and who she was with. For me not the worst for someone that agreed to give up a little bit freedom to regain my trust. Yet, days later she was at a coworkers house, male, playing video games and just hanging out. There was no attempt to on her end to help fix the problem. I asked countless times for her to go to therapy, the one time she stuck with it was after the affair. Yet even then shed be late, or it get "too hard", or she just flat out didn't feel like it. It showed a lack of respect to me. Here I was, clinging on to her words instead of looking at her actions.

BY this time I decided a cross country move to get her closer to family and better weather for her health was in order, but also a fresh start for us.

Two months later after our move 1500 miles away from my home she meets a new shiny object. Cheated for atleast 3 week behind my back. Came home like nothing was wrong. She moved in with an alcoholic coworker, started seeing the coworker she left me for, and I found myself in the middle of a new place completely isolated and alone. No contact, no remorse, no apology outside of an I'm sorry, I need time to process this, and poof, gone... .

[JerryRG]

Wow

Just wow

The only response I have is, why, why do we allow these people to do these things to us.

I'm starting to believe it was me, not her.

As my sponsor said just a few weeks ago, "Jerry, do you now see how sick you were to be in this relationship?"

And to this very day, this very hour, I'm still convincing myself she's not as bad as everyone on this planet already know as fact.

Yes I'm still sick and my only hope is healing far far from her.

Wow, what an experience Minusone

Why do we give so much away for people who are so unworthy.

[Minusone]

After a short stint of conversation two weeks later where I tried to get her to talk to me about it, I found she really only came around to try to get the apartment we had together. After I decided to keep it, it went pretty blank.

Now I'm not perfect in this. By now years of anger had come to the surface and I snapped. I had a mental breakdown that lasted nearly 3 months. I was seeing doctors, emailing her book length emails a day, I was doing everything in my power to stop her from leaving. It was the darkest period of my life. I began in that time to feel like I was disordered myself. I was just lost. I sat down one night, void of emotion, numb from the alcohol, and put a bullet in the chamber. For me the pain was too great to deal with. This was, up until that moment, something for me completely out of character. I was ready to end it.

The next morning I woke up next to a loaded gun. It was the day after Christmas. And I decided then and there. No more. I took the attention in therapy away from her behavior and to mine and my past. And while now, nearly 9 months later, I still struggle once and while with how I was discarded, I want to tell you what the other side of this feels like.

This morning when I woke up and took myself out for a run on the beach I felt sheer, unadulterated bliss. That energy that I spent focusing on her, like so many of us have done, I turned inwards to myself. You wouldn't believe the changes that come internally and mentally once you give up the idea that theres anything that you can do to control someone else decisions. The people they've left you for are just as worst off as you are when you first met them. Water seeks its own level, which many of us don't realized. The biggest gift I've ever been given was the hell I went through with her because it brought me here, to me. I'm not only outwardly different in every aspect of my life now, but inwardly too. Aware. For some of you, they have your confidence right now, but its up to you to take it back. Its up to you to end the cycle. As long as you're hear, as long as you keep expending energy to focus on the other person, you are taking away energy you can have yourself to go be happy.

I used to fear the loneliness that came after she left. I embrace it now, almost crave it from time to time. Its amazing. I have a relationship with myself. Its healthy, full of self love and care, and my relationships with other people have grown in value and quality because of it. Maybe you love the person you thought you had, but that person isn't complete. And right now, chances are, neither are you. So go find you. Unless your ex SO is committed intensly to therapy, theres no magical change coming. The person they're with now, sorry to say is either worst than them, or in for the same ride you were on. Its wired into them to behave the way they do, and nothing is going to stop that until they go get it for themselves. I live in city that has 1.3 Million women in it. Odds are, someone else is here that can give me the love they offered but never came through on. Same goes for you. But don't go out looking for it until you've found the way to love yourself. IF you avoid the work, your setting yourself up for something else loaded to come along. Yes it sucks, yea it gets lonely, but from the other side its all worth it.

My love to all of you, and I hope to each of you find what I'm entering into now. A positive life free from emotional abuse.

Love to you
T

[Fr4nz]

Hey minusone,

first of all, let me say that I'm very sorry for what happened to you.

From your story, it's very clear she's definitely borderline, there's no doubt about it.

Also, from your story it's very clear that the relationship followed the pattern that is usually observed with BPD sufferers, included the horrorific final, cold discard.
Indeed, even if individuals are different, BPD sufferers almost always follow a fixed template.

As you said, now it's time to focus on your well being, and understand what kept you together with such a dysfunctional person. Try to read and learn as much as possible from these forums.

A big hug, a better life awaits you, even if you cannot see it now!

[VitaminC]

Hi Minusone,

I want to thank you for posting your story. Such honesty and self-reflection. And you did it with generosity to thank the community for being there and to give hope to others.

It's wonderful that you've decided to enter into the conversation here. Your experiences and perspectives will be valuable to others, and the members can give you courage and strength when needed for your own continuing process. 

"This morning when I woke up and took myself out for a run on the beach I felt sheer, unadulterated bliss. That energy that I spent focusing on her, like so many of us have done, I turned inwards to myself. You wouldn't believe the changes that come internally and mentally once you give up the idea that theres anything that you can do to control someone else decisions."

Beautiful words. Keep that going. 

[StayStrongNow]

I want to reiterate that I am not perfect. My faults far outweighed most of this board.

This may very well be debatable.

The people they've left you for are just as worst off as you are when you first met them. Water seeks its own level, which many of us don't realized.

This is a great post Minusone.  So many things you described what happened, what you thought and felt, was and is so similar to my experience.

I sometimes pause and just want to give up, but then I read your testimony and it just reinforces my attitude that I want to witness my own victory by crawling out of this deep dark hole I am in to see the sun shining again.

I am so glad you are here now to share your great triumph with others. You have titled your post so accurate. Now you have lifted me up.

Thank you.