Will she be "better" with him?

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

Cannot shake the crazy idea that my BPDexw will be better with the older man she left our marriage for.

I know she's broken but I tried everything to make our life together last but to no avail. Still I can't shake this feeling that it was all me who had the issues and that she'll be happy and have the long term relationship we wanted but with him instead.

He all but neglected his own family of 20 years so why am I feeling this way?

[Aussieguy77]

Cannot shake the crazy idea that my BPDexw will be better with the older man she left our marriage for.

I know she's broken but I tried everything to make our life together last but to no avail. Still I can't shake this feeling that it was all me who had the issues and that she'll be happy and have the long term relationship we wanted but with him instead.

He all but neglected his own family of 20 years so why am I feeling this way?

[ShadowA]

Realistically speaking.  Yes, for the idealization phase. After that, it should be just as rocky... .
Basically a ticking time-bomb.

[Portent]

No she wont she will cycle again.

Sit back grab popcorn.

[Pretty Woman]

Aussie, I think we all have felt this way at some point but you know what... .

Who really cares if she works with this dude? She wasn't right for you.

This doesn't mean you failed, I truly believe it means you are healthier than your replacement.

That's a compliment!

The weaker your boundaries the longer BPD relationships tend to last. That doesn't mean they are better. Same crap only the new person is willing to take it.

It's our ego that wants to see their new union fail.

It's funny, I just hired my ex boyfriends wife to be a researcher for me at work. When we broke up 13 years ago I had a hard time with it but after awhile we were able to be cordial and he ended up marrying this great gal and they have a beautiful son together.

Man I wish this family the best. I can honestly say I am friends with all of them and think they make a awesome couple and lovely family.

I don't feel the same about my BPD ex. I don't wish her the best and I certainly don't wish my replacement the best. I would love to hear that my replacement is suffering worse than I ever did.

And that is how I know this person was not healthy for me. My rational side knows  it shouldn't matter but my ego is telling me elsewise.

Your ex might last longer or be more compatible with her new guy but in the end what does it matter? She was horrible to you and hurt you badly.

We only hurt ourselves more obsessing. They've moved on and we should too. At least we can be in happy, healthy relationships. We just have to let go of this unhealthy thinking.
  

[talks to angels]

so sorry you are feeling this way. This too crosses my mind from time to time. What helped me was writing out everything that he did to me. And I mean everything. I pulled info from one of my journals even. Than I wrote all that I had done, when I got mad at him, what had happened that I was upset about. When I was writing out why I was upset or mad at him it was a direct correlation between him doing something so extremely disrespectful. ex: lying about working, but going out with another girl. lying saying he went straight home after work, when he really went to a different girls house.
I found after I wrote it all out, I re read it. and I still re read it when thoughts of him being this wonderful man for his current gf. What I realize is that Yes it Hurts, but there is no way that it will be different for her. He has no basic respect that is required for a relationship to work. Top it off my ex had fathered a child before we met, and at the end of the our relationship their became the question of paternity, he didnt even try to find out he just walked away from this child that he supposedly loved for 5 years and has never looked back. He now tells people he has no kids!
Our minds have a tendency to fantasize and I think because they damaged our ego with their actions, we are left questioning if maybe it was us. When your mind goes there, try to reinforce in your mind that they will not magically change for the next. Try to write it all out too. Maybe that will help. You could also look at this list as if a friend is presenting it to you for advice. If your friend were to describe a relationship (like the one you just left) and ask you for advice. What would you say? Its is so easy to not see what happened as they gaslight us so bad that we minimize their actions. You said she was broken, yes they all are, and in a healthy relationship you support each other and pick each other up, with them its like raising a child that will never grow up.  Do you know any of her history or past relationships?

[balletomane]

AussieGuy, I know exactly how you feel.

I'm typing this from my replacement's apartment (although I don't call her my replacement any more - for the past five months I've thought of her only by my name). My ex discarded me for her, telling her that we'd broken up over a year ago (he neglected to tell her that six weeks later we'd been together again, albeit secretly). I was too crushed to say anything and felt too stupid and humiliated for having consented to be in such a toxic secret arrangement to warn her of what he can be like. And like you, I thought that maybe my replacement would make it work. Maybe she was just better than me. Maybe it had all been my fault because I couldn't handle him and she would know how to solve his problems. Part of me knew this wasn't true, but another part of me was so crushed and low in self-esteem that I believed it.

Almost eighteen months later, I contacted my replacement (not quite as weird as it sounds - I'd known her before they got together) and asked if I could tell her what had happened to me. I felt that it was important for my healing to have my story acknowledged by someone who had been in the situation, and acknowledgment was never going to come from him - he was furious that I'd cut contact. I had a hunch that they were broken up before I contacted her, and I was right. She was devastated, at ground zero, where I'd been not that long ago. And when I asked her if I could tell her what had happened to me, she said, "I have a feeling I'm going to know everything now." Me: "What do you mean?" Her: "The way he talks, the kind of thing he says. I assume it wasn't special behaviour just for me." Me: "You know, for a long time I thought he talked to me this way because I deserved it and I was doing the wrong thing. Her: "I know it so well."

BPD doesn't disappear when a new person enters the scene, because BPD is not a situation-specific condition, like a phobia or something like that. It's a pervasive mental health problem that affects sufferers wherever they go and whoever they're with. You can guarantee that your replacement will one day "know it so well."

[sad but wiser]

Haunting, isn't it?
The answer is "no."

[Aussieguy77]

I'm just so convinced that she'll be totally normal with him and it'll never raise it's ugly head. Or he'll handle it far better than I did and so it'll all work out in the end.

[talks to angels]

aussieguy77 It will take practice, but this is the thought you need to remove from your head. I have those thoughts too, but they are more fleeting now, with practice.
That is why i suggest the writing it out. When those thoughts come into your head. Make it about you, not her and what she is doing, and read what she did to you, ask if you would want to be treated like that the rest of your life?
You also stated that maybe he will handle it better. Do you want to be with someone that uses you as a doormat, just to maintain peace?

[apollotech]

balletomane:

BPD doesn't disappear when a new person enters the scene, because BPD is not a situation-specific condition, like a phobia or something like that. It's a pervasive mental health problem that affects sufferers wherever they go and whoever they're with. You can guarantee that your replacement will one day "know it so well."

This ^^^^. BPD is not partner specific. You can't have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy partner.

[FSTL]

Aussieguy

Firstly... .welcome fellow Aussie... .

Secondly... .there is so much good stuff written in reply to your question.

Just trust that your ex-sucks. BPD only changes with long term, intensive therapy and it never goes away.

I am still working my way through my disaster, but it gets better every day. Beware of her recycling, keep coming back here and you'll feel stronger every day.

I still have some thoughts about my ex and my replacement. But they go away when I think about how awful she was with me and nob doubt how awful she will be with the newbie.

Work out what works best for you to get through this... .feeling schadenfreud at the fact someone new has your old problems? If so, go with that. Feeling angry at how ___ she was? Go with that. Waiting to see the ___ show and enjoy the movie... .would avoid all contact if possibly, but perhaps just think about what is going to happen within seeing it.

I absolutely guarantee her BPD hasn't gone away, that you'll be better off for her being out of your life and there is a better life ahead. At the best thing is - you control whether it happens, not some crazy ex.

[CooperD]

Hi Aussieguy,

On the basis of my experience I can only echo what others have written.

When I was in the idealisation phase the stories my BPD would tell me about previous relationships was shocking.  All those other guys that had been so mean and so horrible to her.

Now that I have been on the receiving end of her abuse I can see that what she has done to me is exactly what she did to relationships past.  Split the partner black and then just cut them from her life.  There is nothing at all to suggest that this will change in the future because she has behaved like this for all her adult life - it is like its part of her spirit and soul.

I did everything for her - sacrificed everything I had to give yet it was still not enough.

She reached out to me last week and twisted the knife by telling me about some other guy she had met but that it had all gone wrong because she had gone "psycho" on him and he told her he would never contact her again.

The lesson I have taken from that is to not think that she will just move on from me into a beautiful and happy relationship.  She won't  do because she is so damaged and accepts no responsibility for any of her words/actions.

Free from her I now have that chance - to take the learning points both in terms of mistakes I made within the relationship and to never allow myself to be emotionally, physically, financially or sexualy abused again.

[Aussieguy77]

Well as if yesterday afternoon they've moved into a rental property together with my son. Under the court orders she has to notify me within 24hrs of the new address.
Spoke to the other man's wife via the phone and she refuses to even entertain the possibility they were having an affair and that they're now living together.

[FallenOne]

She might be better for a while, but she will inevitably repeat the same patterns over and over again and eventually the new person will end up just like you did...

[Portent]

She might be better for a while, but she will inevitably repeat the same patterns over and over again and eventually the new person will end up just like you did...

No he will end up worse. Its just like my situation. My soon to be ex targeted this poor sap because he was depressed and she knew she could end his marriage.

I ended up better off than when I started. I got at least 4 great years and one crappy one. I loved and lost which is still better than to have never loved at all. I got two fantastic step children who gave my life meaning and will always be part of my life. And most of all I got a wonderful son who is my clone.

This poor sap? I wouldn't be surprised if he kills himself when she is done with him. He has given up everything for her and will have nothing left when she is done with him and moved on. Same or aussie's replacement.

[Aussieguy77]

Well yeah, he'll have nothing left. He's got a mortgage, 3 dependent children, a business that's not making any profit, a wife who'll take him to he cleaners when she stops denying the affair (which will be soon given they've just moved in together).
He's been an absent father and husband for years and his wife is the only woman he's ever been with until my wife seduced him.
I know first hand how sexually forthright she can be and just how wonderful it feels to be the focus of her love bombing and he's not someone particularly intelligent and given all his family's issues (legal and emotional) he's just blinded by this attractive girl who's 13 years younger and wants him so badly.

Once she cycles and devalues him he'll be left with nothing.

[michel71]

Thoughts of her with another swirl around my brain too. It doesn't help when both my therapist and a psychic I consulted said that she will be on to her next "supply" faster than I expected.

I still see her as mine. Not in a possessive weird way, like property, but as another person that God joined with me ( marriage vows). Since she is not wearing her wedding band anymore I think she is half-way out of the marriage. I say "half-way" because she says that she still wants to work on us through therapy. My goal for therapy is to discuss the particulars of legal separation of assets. I am not going to be played the fool and she cannot have best of both worlds. But she does not know that yet.

I know she will move on. Her sex drive and need to be financially enriched, not to mention her need to be adored or venerated or served, will be foremost in her mind. And she is attractive and alluring, comes off as funny and together so it won't be hard for her. At first that person will be amazing like I was. Then the poop storm will start and another innocent victim gets their self esteem slapped to the ground.

But, yeah, I think about the "what if" of her really connecting with somebody and all the BPD tendencies go away like magic. That ticks me off. And makes me jealous. I hate those thoughts.

[talks to angels]

I think most of use have these thoughts. Its the doubt that they arent truly who they are. Its so hard to imagine people just using others at a whim. But they do. And like everyone here they will continue so. When I have thoughts of him being magically better, I remind myself of the crap he put me through, and he has no remorse. This new one may make it, but i will not be around to witness it, and if it does it will more than likely be a firestorm of he**.
Like CooperD mine told me horrendous stories of his past, cops involved, one tried to blow him up by putting gas in his cigarette ash can, one bit him on the chest while they were fighting, If I was a different personality I could have taken a bat to him and that girl I found him in bed with. But it was him that had the commitment not that ulgy charaterless girl. So it wouldnt surprise me if someone ended up dead in a future relationship. They do not get better overnight, and especially when they cant see what they did and accept responsibility for their part, they will just keep riding that crazy train, with new partners,  the rest of their life. In some ways I think they also love the drama.

[Curiously1]

It really is devastating to find out that they're already inlove and happy with someone else.

When my BPD left me the first time I truly thought it would work out with her and her new friend.
She did everything my ex wanted and was more of a doormat... and I thought that it would have lasted  for many years.
My ex came back to me but again left and is now with another replacement. Again, I started thinking to myself at first that this replacement is going to be the one to make it work this time. The reason this time is because this replacement is helping my ex with her resume and getting a job and is more financially stable. I thought this has got to work out now. On the surface looks like this replacement can provide many things for my ex.
But what if I am wrong again? What if it doesnt matter who the replacement is and what the replacement has going for them? It's ridiculous for me now to keep wondering if the next one will work out because of what I think might help my ex get by easier and what I am only guessing the replacement has that I dont.

Head is full of doubts and deep down it is just fears and insecurities that we cannot be happier without them. Have to have more faith that we will.

For me, whenever I start thinking maybe my replacement will do better than me, I remind myself about how I really felt in my relationship with my ex. I try to remember how alone I felt when I tried fixing things and all the dealbreakers etc. What I found helpful was to write down a list of what I liked about the relationship and what I didn't. What I found as there was more that was not right about it and the qualities I liked about her were pretty broad and plenty of other people would have those same qualities I liked about her. For example, I liked how much attention I got from her at the beginning, how much I felt validated. Plenty of people are warm and caring like that. Nothing particularly unique about her that I couldn't find in another person.

If it works out longer for the replacment it doesnt make you a failure or not a good partner.
I did my best, and I am sure you did too. That's all we can really do.

Also, I truly care about my ex and wish her the best. Just remember nobody changes overnight and the replacement will eventually have to deal with similar issues you faced with your ex wife. More than likely things won't work out. We'll never know how long our exes new relationship will last though. If it does last, social media isn't the best indicator of a happy and fulfilling relationship.

The more you dettach the less it will matter to you whether the next one shes with lasts or not. I promise.  You will eventually not care whether she is happy or not because its not tied to you. Itll be irrelevant to your happiness.