My BPD Ex-Partner broke things off suddenly 4 months ago, and I want them back

[nparis17]

Hey, my name is Nick, I'm 17 and four months ago after 8 months of dating, my BPD partner broke things off. However, we've had a series of makeups and then subsequent arguments where I'm yelled at then called a horrible person. My only goal in life is to be kind and fair, and the only mistake I can really ssee is that I asked for apologies that they were unwilling to give as its very hard for them to actually take responsibility for their actions even if they know its wrong. I have been very lind and forgiven them several times, and now were slowly becoming friends again, however I get the feeling they don't see me as who I was. When we broke up it seemed like they started to see me as pathetic and they threw me out like trash, where before I was the sweetest most important person in their life. I want them back cause things worked really well between us and we had lots of chemistry, I miss spending time with them. I'm becoming their friend again but I don't know if they'll ever see me in the same light they did and I really wish tjey would, they jokes about wanted to ___ this guy who's cute but a complete ass who they talked about like being really attractive while we were dating. They are trans/ NB and he is not respectful and really ___ty about stuff like that. i miss her/thek and I want them to ciew me as a good person and see how good I try to be. I want them to appreciate me again and love me again but I dont know how. Right now Im pursueing a friendship and hoping that we can ease into becoming close and hopefullt dating again like how it first happened. I want them to see I'm still me, and that I realize how to help work around their problems. If anybody has advice please let me know, i want this to work so badly.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[pearlsw]

Hi nparis17,

It may be hard to get your partner to ever see you the same, that's a bit BPD probably, but also just time. Relationships have a honeymoon phase upfront where we're all putting our best forward and then with any luck we get to relax a bit later and be accepted and loved for who we are.

In this case, I'd let that piece go and focus on areas where you have more control. After all you can't control how another person sees you. And in an argument anything real, or imagined, that you've done can get thrown back at ya!

The friendship might turn into dating again. It would help if you study the tools here and work on upping your communication skills to have a clear handle on what you are dealing with and have more solid responses. You will face challenging situations that are gonna throw you off balance. It's a matter of you being ready for it.

When you say you want to help the person with their problems what do you mean exactly?

with compassion, pearl.

[nparis17]

Hi nparis17,

It may be hard to get your partner to ever see you the same, that's a bit BPD probably, but also just time. Relationships have a honeymoon phase upfront where we're all putting our best forward and then with any luck we get to relax a bit later and be accepted and loved for who we are.

In this case, I'd let that piece go and focus on areas where you have more control. After all you can't control how another person sees you. And in an argument anything real, or imagined, that you've done can get thrown back at ya!

The friendship might turn into dating again. It would help if you study the tools here and work on upping your communication skills to have a clear handle on what you are dealing with and have more solid responses. You will face challenging situations that are gonna throw you off balance. It's a matter of you being ready for it.

When you say you want to help the person with their problems what do you mean exactly?

with compassion, pearl.

When I say problems, I mean a variety of things. They have a tendency to view themselves as emotionally disconnected and claim that they don´t feel compassion or comprehend emotions in the way most do and had claimed that at times during the relationship, they have a habit of saying things that are not necessarily true about themselves and tend to exaggerate. They almost view themself as helpless and all of their relationships romantically or otherwise as doomed to fail because they can´t deal with emotion. They also cannot handle expressing remorse for their actions very well or at all, and only when pushed will they admit what they did was wrong then lash out in anger and say that you cannot ask for an apology. They have a tendency to drop people randomly and for no reason and it has happened once or twice before. Only once when talking to them after they repeatedly insulted and tore me apart for being insecure did they talk about their BPD, and they actually took blame, and I forgave them immediately because I want to help them. I don´t want them to live a cold emotionless life in which they run away from anybody close to them and see themselves as toxic. I think I messed up because I thought them running away from apologizing was them not realizing they had done a wrong, when it was really them not being able to say sorry when they know they´d just go back to their old ways. I want them to be able to care and be cared about, cause throughout the relationship things went extremely well and their was lots of compassion and genuine appreciation, however, in its end I think they have just run away and ignored my existance in order to escape that guilt and to escape the consequences of their rash decision to basically discard me. I know that they can´t help saying some of the things they do and they can´t handle emotions well, but I want to be there for them when the defense they´ve built up breaks and they realize what they are doing. I want to help them realize that they do care and they have the capacity for it. I just want to be there for them and I want to help them grow as a person. I want them back in my life in some capacity cause I want them to be alright and I do care about them.

[pearlsw]

Hi again nparis17, 

Nice to hear back from you!

I am sorry to hear about how much is going on here! This is very painful!

There is a lot to say, and I hope others will join us and touch on other issues, but I’m thinking now about apologies.

One of the really important things about learning to relate to our partners is understanding that we really have to stop and reexamine everything we think we know about how to communicate.

Apologizing used to be very hard for my SO. I think it was more about emotional overload than him not being sorry. We made up some jokes about apologizing that help us. It took the sting out of apologizing and also taught me to be better at it too. We sort of trained ourselves to apologize for small things so it became easier to apologize for big things because we had a mutual vocabulary for doing it. I also learned it was important, in my case, to find things to apologize to him so he didn’t feel so bad being the one with such a big burden of apologizing for his mistakes. When he heard that I could apologize and he learned he could expect an apology too, things seemed more balanced and fair for him.

I also had to learn to not be the “apology police” and accept imperfect apologies. It was better to recognize the remorse, rather than focus on the exact wording. If he was sorry, he was sorry, enough said. I didn’t have to grill him to be sure he was sorry in just the right way. That helped a lot.

This site offers a lot of great tools, but it is also important to use some creativity and find out what works in your daily situation I think.

warmly, pearl.