Ventured onto internet dating and just seen my ex on there

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I was with BPD gf for about 4 months. I was drawn in by the idealisation as you are, but after only a few months realised there was something wrong with her. After several weeks of struggling to keep the relationship going, but also starting to question what was wrong, she backed into a corner and we decided to go NC. It's been a few months since. I've tried to move on and looking at dating, talking to a few, even had a lunch date, but she also had flags (I've posted about it).

I have seen the signs with the ex, read up on here, even had info from her father who kindly filled me in, but surfing the same dating site where we met, her face has just come up amongst the others.

My heart has sunk, that horrible feeling in the chest, and the heavy weakness. I feel like its knocked me back, and dont know what to do, if her face keeps coming up it'll be hard to go on there, and I cant block someone unless they message me :-(

Even when you think you've had the closure, deep down you still love them. It's horrible, upsetting. I feel like I could die.

[cubicinch]

I was with BPD gf for about 4 months. I was drawn in by the idealisation as you are, but after only a few months realised there was something wrong with her. After several weeks of struggling to keep the relationship going, but also starting to question what was wrong, she backed into a corner and we decided to go NC. It's been a few months since. I've tried to move on and looking at dating, talking to a few, even had a lunch date, but she also had flags (I've posted about it).

I have seen the signs with the ex, read up on here, even had info from her father who kindly filled me in, but surfing the same dating site where we met, her face has just come up amongst the others.

My heart has sunk, that horrible feeling in the chest, and the heavy weakness. I feel like its knocked me back, and dont know what to do, if her face keeps coming up it'll be hard to go on there, and I cant block someone unless they message me :-(

Even when you think you've had the closure, deep down you still love them. It's horrible, upsetting. I feel like I could die.

[Icefog]

My suggestion would be to choose another dating site. Why continue to hurt yourself? I've had to block all my social media as even a picture or reference to my ex sets me back and I equate it to self harm.  I can strongly relate to that empty, lonely, sickening feeling that you have and I still have it randomly for periods of time. It gets better. You start to sleep again, your appetite returns, you feel better about yourself... .as long as you don't keep picking the scab off... .

[cubicinch]

I know, thank you. I've been on and off this dating site for several years, and I must admit, every girl I've dated or had relationship with has disappeared off there, never to be seen again, but this is something I've not had happen before. If her face keeps coming up then I have to either leave it or man up. I know I'm on there as well, I bear no grudge in that respect, it's just upsetting to see. I've been weak and hidden my profile so I could look at hers. She's lied about her age, put a few different slightly newer pics up, changed her hair colour slightly. Listing the things we did together as interests. Altered her job from registered nurse to support worker, said she likes cycling (she doesn't do any) and will soon be joining a gym. 

Maybe I shouldn't have looked, but maybe seeing these changes and thoughts of how the next guy is going to suffer as soon as she can't keep up the facade will help me move on. I know theres loads of threads along these lines, and many of you caught up in the same situation... I welcome comments, anything you think may be supportive. I thought I was strong, but its a temporary body blow. My heart pounded when I saw her face. As she is not local, I can narrow her out of my searches, but theres a bar at top of page that I cant control. As a free site, it's well known for being a magnet for the disordered. I thought now I know what to look for, I'd retry.

I know the truth, the real person behind the mask; the middle aged woman who is on prozac for depression, disordered in personality, and seriously hung up over her looks and ageing. Yet it's still hard.

[Kelli Cornett]

Same happened to me, I got off that site because I just couldn't handle it... .Heart thumping, sickening feeling in chest... also probably not a sign I should be on any dating site ... ...

Just reinforces the negative tape for me... .she prefers to find someone new rather than work it out with me  = I mean/meant nothing...

hate it

[cubicinch]

Those websites are a bit of a joke, the character assessment of her, results show how family orientated she is, shows leadership qualities therefore people look up to and go to her, that she is good to be around socially. She has no friends! None at all, and her family are miles apart, they don't even like her! She told me she pushes people away once they get a little too close and clingy. Her social skills nowhere near match what the assessment says. She said she hated having girl mates and doing things with them. It all feels like another push from her to climb out of her self imposed prison cell of misery; she sits in her house with curtains always closed, only dogs for company.  I know she is in debt, and has overdrafts. I really hope she can better her current life position, but knowing what I know, it will be a massive ask and I'd hate to be the next in line to experience it.

It goes through your mind that they must be thinking of you and still love you (for those things they did and said in the early days). I've read comments that they will coldly move on, yet turn up several months down the line once they've failed at finding someone else to replace you; I hope and don't think that will happen. 

[cubicinch]

one last thing I just thought of before I go to bed and try to sleep, she says that she has no baggage, no hang ups about the past etc, yet her ex BF of 7 years lives across the street and she is still using him! They remained friends but she still manipulates him into looking after pets/house sitting/paying for pet foods etc. One of the things I brought up in my final letter. And she was open about what she was doing!

It's hard to stop obsessing over it all when you are the type of people we are on here. Caring and sensitive is our downfall, we have to learn not to attract them in future. I'm doing a poor job, bbut thats why I want to keep trying, I want to find happiness (that she probably never will).

[OptimusRhyme]

one last thing I just thought of before I go to bed and try to sleep, she says that she has no baggage, no hang ups about the past etc

My ex and I had long, deep talks about her past experiences and failed relationships and anxiety, and she reflected with a disarming self awareness about how built up her defense mechanisms were to stave off the guilt, shame, and pain of how she had treated people. "I just don't feel anything about it, I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling or what my therapist is talking about when she says I might have unconscious anger and sadness about past experiences" etc etc.

That apparent self awareness didn't prevent her from repeating her mistakes and treating me as badly or worse down the line. Basically, imagine if you were at the head of the trail of pain and dissatisfied relationships some of these people lead. Your defenses to keep that sort of pain from your consciousness would be pretty well developed and strong too. I wouldn't be surprised if your ex has lots of trouble accepting responsibility for her past, and repression and denial are easy to invest in.

You know what happened and what kind of person she is, and while it's terribly sad that she's more likely to share her pain with other partners than put in the work to face it herself, it ain't your hill to die on. It's hard not to look for validation (especially when your trust in your own perception has been so eroded) from her interactions with the world at large, but there's a reason these people have trouble with true intimacy in relationships - it's much easier to hide from a real evaluation of one's personality in shallow, idealized relationship/courting cycles.

[cubicinch]

My ex and I had long, deep talks about her past experiences and failed relationships and anxiety, and she reflected with a disarming self awareness about how built up her defense mechanisms were to stave off the guilt, shame, and pain of how she had treated people. "I just don't feel anything about it, I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling or what my therapist is talking about when she says I might have unconscious anger and sadness about past experiences" etc etc.

That apparent self awareness didn't prevent her from repeating her mistakes and treating me as badly or worse down the line. Basically, imagine if you were at the head of the trail of pain and dissatisfied relationships some of these people lead. Your defenses to keep that sort of pain from your consciousness would be pretty well developed and strong too. I wouldn't be surprised if your ex has lots of trouble accepting responsibility for her past, and repression and denial are easy to invest in.

You know what happened and what kind of person she is, and while it's terribly sad that she's more likely to share her pain with other partners than put in the work to face it herself, it ain't your hill to die on. It's hard not to look for validation (especially when your trust in your own perception has been so eroded) from her interactions with the world at large, but there's a reason these people have trouble with true intimacy in relationships - it's much easier to hide from a real evaluation of one's personality in shallow, idealized relationship/courting cycles.

she typically blamed everyone else, openly telling me. The ex I mentioned she told me had been discarded due to him playing mind games with her and manipulating her! Projection? Her father was a poor father (which is true as I know him, he was self centred, cold and unloving and divorced early on), her mother was unpleasent and she used to press her mothers buttons...  the father of her 26 y/o son was an alcoholic who smashed a glass in her face leaving a scar, and damaged her fingers.

The only person she never called out was her son, but at 26, he could not hold a job down, had serious motorcycle accidents, had a bad attitude and arrogance, would get into trouble on nights out (not his fault, it was his friends being a bad influence), and finally, abusive relationships with fights and fall outs, even trying to use threats of suicide to get girl back...  court restraining order which she attended. So he seems to have inherited the PD traits. But she would never say it was his fault, always those around him.

Yet these people stil have such a strong hold over your emotions. It's crazy.

I've managed a few hours sleep, but all of this is helping to vent. Thanks for those who are supportive, or just reading my ramblings!   It's also helping me to spot the ones in the dating pool that I need to either avoid or treat as they wish to treat me, as just casual.

[Icefog]

I can't concur with cubicinch enough. My ex and I engaged in exactly the same discussions and his insights are identical to my experience. It's not your hill to die on... .Unless you want to of course but know that before you die on it it will be a slow painful torturous process. Save yourself. There's good people here that will help you and support you.

[Icefog]

I can't concur with optimusrhyme enough. My ex and I engaged in exactly the same discussions and his insights are identical to my experience. It's not your hill to die on... .Unless you want to of course but know that before you die on it it will be a slow painful torturous process. Save yourself. There's good people here that will help you and support you.

[marti644]

"Not your hill to die on." Best quote of the day.

[doubleAries]

I was married for 20 years to a guy diagnosed Bipolar 1 mixed, with psychotic features (paranoid delusions) and bipolar driven narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders. His original diagnosis back in the 80's before I met him was paranoid schizophrenia with manic depression--he doesn't hear voices (hallucinations) so he didn't change but the diagnosis did when the DSM did.

Our divorce was final 4 years ago, and it was very difficult to peel him off my life. Not just because of who he is but because of who I became in the "relationship". He's still not completely out of my life, and likely never will be. And he lives 6 miles from me. There--background out of the way (without all the massive gory details, which I assure you, are beyond plentiful)

I put up a profile on 2 dating sites. Before too long, so did he. I had that same sinking gut ache feeling. He kept viewing my profile (I sent him a message hoping he'd respond so I could block him but he didn't) and changing his own profile to subtly mirror mine. He of course failed to mention that he is diagnosed with a serious major mental illness and a host of complimentary ones. I went through A period of trying convince myself that I needed to warn others. Let's be honest--it isn't really a deep compassion for unknown others that drove that desire. It was outrage at his completely deceptive mask, the desire to make him feel a little of the pain he'd caused me, and the desire to ruin his chances of (a) screwing someone else over, and (b) finding a replacement that he might be happy with, which would make me feel like I was the problem (and of course in reality I had my own role in the problems we had in that length of time).  I didn't like it that he was "getting away with" being such a phony on his profile. It also pissed me off to realize this bogus profile was how he sees himself (instead of how I see him, which is definitely biased). What a non-self-aware dishonest person! How dare he be what I already knew him to be?

It was also a little frightening. As I read other profiles, I wondered if they were all lying too? In fact, was I lying as well? Haha--I pretty much wrecked my own profile with TMI disclosures to make sure I wasn't a liar.

This was all a few years ago. Since then, last year I took all my profiles down, deciding I only wanted to meet people "organically". He still has his profiles up. And in fact, a little over a year ago, he "met" someone from another country just as messed up as he is, that he sends money to, and she in turn, having nothing else to offer from so far away, harasses me electronically on an almost daily basis. She's pretty good with a computer, and gets around all my blocks and such. I was furious at first (still pretty annoyed), but have resigned myself to just "cleaning up" every day, deleting and ignoring and blocking. I don't know what she gets out of it (wait--yes I do. Money) but I know that from his mentally ill point of view, her harassment of me proves her "love" for him.

So yes--I understand where you are coming from. And then some.

So how do you let it go?

First how NOT to let it go: "stalking" her profile should show you that you haven't let it go. Maybe because the trap we all so frequently fall into is the belief that "letting go" means it didn't matter. But it did matter, didn't it? You said so yourself--"deep down you still love them". Right--we don't just turn that on and off like a lightswitch like they do, do we? Trying to make it matter (ie: erase your emotions) isn't going to work. In fact, that very struggle is much more intense than the emotions themselves.

Give yourself permission to feel those emotions (and this is the important part) without doing ANYTHING about them. ":)OING" is a form of evasion--a way to try to resolve (ie: banish) the feelings. If necessary, "schedule" it--purposefully tell yourself "I am going to sit alone on my couch and for the next 5 minutes, just feel these feelings while doing absolutely nothing about them to "resolve" them. I am going to give these feelings their few minutes in the sun. They are just feelings, they are NOT going to kill me. Yes, they are uncomfortable--so be it."

With a little practice, you will notice that as soon as you give your feelings this permission to exist (even the "unfair" and grotesque ones--maybe ESPECIALLY those!) the intensity of them will almost immediately decrease by at least half.

Then consider this: events don't cause feelings--thoughts do. www.allaboutdepression.com/workshops/CBT_Workshop/CBT_05.html
So what are your thoughts and beliefs behind those feelings? Examine those. Because if you don't like how you feel, you have to change what you think or believe. Emotions are ALWAYS appropriate to the thoughts/beliefs behind them. It's the thoughts or beliefs that may be invalid, in need of upgrade, or just plain not serving us well anymore. Squashing the feelings only causes them to crop up again and again in other places, because the thoughts and beliefs are still in place.

So don't seek to repress, evade, or "fight off" the emotions you are uncomfortable with. Use them to trace them back to your incorrect thoughts or beliefs.

This method has worked VERY well for me, because after 20 years of the most insane relationship you can possibly imagine, I was pretty furious with how I'd been treated (and at myself for enduring it). By the way--it's OK to be furious. It's NOT ok to harm yourself or anyone else to "resolve" it.

So... .what does "letting go" look like? It looks like looking what you want to go away right in the eye and acknowledging it. It's not the ex that is actually the "problem" at this point, is it? It's your feelings about her. So look them in the eye. Let them have their 2 minutes in the sun, instead of banished to the basement to become mutated monsters. It won't kill you, I promise, and no action is required. Repeat as needed.

[cubicinch]

thanks for the interesting post doubleAries, I'll certainly give this some thought and a try out. Unlike you, I was only short term with this girl, so I'm not too damaged; I could never have gotten as far as a few months before the odd stuff started with her. I decided that as I was feeling okay with things, to try the site again and at least start to chat and see that a womans company could still be good and get me back on track to the point I was at 6 months ago before the BPD experience. I was just starting to get into it and chatting to some nice ones even had a date, but then suddenly the ex pops up in a line of other faces. It has knocked me back and today has still had the aftereffects of the anxiety, I still feel a little shakey, and racey. I've been back on the site on and off all day and thankfully she hasn't popped up... yet. She may well have the same experience at her end, but from experience I don't think she spends much time searching, she is one to sit back and see what comes her way. To her it's an advert, a lure to draw someone in. I looked briefly at her newly added pics, but I could still see the darkness and depression in the eyes. When we started dating, I showed a close friend and he could also see it, but less fogged than me. I have to own up I think I recognised it initially but her mystery drew me in, as I'm a caretaker type personality. She also drew me in with her 'rescued dogs' imported especially from europe which now I look was a statement to make her seem like a good person. There is very little else, no hobbies, no pics with friends or of her whole body, only close up face. Its a short, tight profile, to the point. I have no intention of looking again, and yes, it's frightening to think of the next guy and what he's going to deal with, but not my problem. Like others I feel really stupid not to have seen the signs and get out sooner, but the heart rules the head. Being an arty creative person myself, I was drawn by her wish to pick up her early obtained design degree, and her want to feed off me to become a creative again. The idealisation! In thought, she was deep and analytical in her approach to subjects or problems; quite an eye opener and she had that talent to think more outside of the box, sometimes good but not always. Sometimes she could be just nonsensical or plain stupid. Her dating profile was quite accurate about that aspect, and that she had a poor tollerance to those less smart or thoughful. But also those deep thoughts could easily cloud her and even prevent her sleeping. I was told that people said she thinks too much into things, overthinks things. Thats a sign of the BPD to me, irrational things they come out with simply explained away: your paranoid, you think too much about it, you over think it. Family would then avoid telling her things, to avoid what she told me early on was to upset her and make her ill with worry, but also I think now that she had a short temper and would melt down at them, which they couldn't control or understand.

Anyway, I digress. From past experience, I know it will get better with time. I'm still FB friends with people from an older relationship, and from time to time my ex pops up in pics in their news feed (gets around my block of her). At first I had the anxiety, the banging heart and feeling sick. That GF really did hurt me and took many months to move on from. But I did... then met this one! Ooops! It was harder to love the PD than the previous one. The experience has made me a better person for sure, and Im determined not to let it happen again. I really want to be happy, wither alone or with someone. You are right that we never stop loving, we just learn to live with it and move on. The pain fades and we replace it with more balanced feelings, and hopefully happier ones.

I don't mind seeing the odd pic of that older GF now on FB. She doesn't appear to have met anyone since me, so I can believe what she said when we split. I'm happy to see that she's okay to be honest and enjoying stuff with these friends, it doesn't affect me, although maybe it might if we ever met face to face whichI'm certain wont ever happen.

If the BPDex traps another victim fairly soon with her sultry looks, then at least her dating profile will be removed, so thats a good thing. It's been a big comfort to see my experience mirror that of you guys here, and Im so glad of the support. It has crossed my mind that she may break the NC one day when she can't make it work with someone else, there is a slim chance she might, but her personality is more stubborn, she found it difficult to chase me and recycle if we had anything happen, it was always me trying to understand and put it right, so she in effect won. So The odds are that I won't hear from her again. I did think also about messaging and asking her to block profile to help me, but knowing her she could even be funny about that and see it as power over me, so I won't. I'll work through it, hopefully getting back out there will help things move on faster. I'm wary now of moving too fast with anyone pushing the pace in a BPD way, but without showing too much caution or judgement. Not good of course, and you need some amount of enthusiasm for your new date! I'm focussing myself more and more on the excitement of someone new, trying to put the negatives behind me. We shall get there!

[wheretostart0]

I saw mine on there too just this past week.
It's weird no matter what. My situation is unique as yours but it immediately made me think about things.

[cubicinch]

It would be far better if you could just block a profile but they don't allow you to unless there has been a message sent. Like most, I deleted account when I met her, then set up a new one.

I went on a short notice date last night, but again, it was an unsuitable, and mentally ill person. She told me she'd had 3 mental breakdowns over the past several years and is still in counselling. She idealised me, but I dont think is a BPD abuser, more a carer. I have been honest and said no, but I've had ongoing text saying she is thinking about me. Not good, and I'll have to block.

[UnforgivenII]

All' of them on your dating sites
What a coincidence!
Have you guys had your devices checked? For spyware?
Don't you find it weird?

[OptimusRhyme]

All' of them on your dating sites
What a coincidence!
Have you guys had your devices checked? For spyware?
Don't you find it weird?

My ex was on every dating site I can think of, and constantly on dates. I think it's probably more likely just exposure bias; when your disorder drives you to seek all outlets for futile attempts at intimacy, and you rack up lots of discarded partners, your visibility is bound to include some familiar faces.

[cubicinch]

My ex hadn't really dated for three years. For a 45 y/o woman she was pretty clueless, even told me she had to ask a gay guy at work for tips on going out. She had no social life, no friends; very poor social skills. When out with me she was quite noticeably uptight about spending money, and saying she was easy pleased, we hardly went out together. She didn't like spending because she was in debt (I later found out).

In her case, she seemed quite particular about who she was interested in, and that lack of dating, I don't think she'll grab the first guy that comes along, or play the field; she hasn't got those sort of social skills. 

[cubicinch]

I'm very suspicious now of anyone who claims to be baggage free and no hang ups about the past. She said that but was anything but; the past totally claimed and shaped the person she is now, as it does with all of us, but she is disordered and bitter, unable to see it in herself. There will be many of them out there; it's not their fault, they are guilt free.