Advice on amount/type of contact to have during a 9 month separation

[YipperYoudler]

This site is absolutely amazing - a huge thank you to everyone for all the wonderful information available here. Truly a godsend.

My boyfriend has quiet/high functioning BPD. I used to also be quiet/high functioning, and thanks to a year and a half of DBT (before we got together), I no longer meet diagnostic criteria. My god. Good therapy is truly life changing.

I broke up with him a few days ago (I can get into why if that'd be helpful), and he just moved his stuff out of the apartment today. I offered him two options - 1) either we break up and that's it, or 2) we break up and both commit to 9 months of intensive therapy (I've got some pretty serious codependency issues that I need to work on); after 9 months of therapy, we meet up and discuss if we want to get back into the relationship again, proceeding very slowly and running everything past our respective therapists. The deal is automatically and immediately off if either of us discontinue therapy.

He chose option two, so that's what we're doing.

My question is this...what would you all advise about the type/amount of contact we have during these 9 months? (Of course, there's a very strong possibility that he'll stop therapy before 9 months, negating the entire deal, but this is assuming that that doesn't happen.)

I initially thought no contact would be the way to go, and if this was a regular breakup, that's what I'd do. I'm not at all suggesting that we go on dates regularly or see each other frequently, but would texting occasionally be okay? Seeing each other once a month? What would you all suggest? People who have been in a similar situation, what's worked for you?

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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[Gemsforeyes]

Dear Yipper-

Welcome to our community.  I’m sorry it’s taken so long for you to receive a response to your first post... please don’t let this discourage you from continuing to participate here, ok?

First, I want to tell you how amazing I think it is that you had the courage to face your own issues head on.  You are so right - good therapy truly IS life changing.  I too have some BPD traits from painful things in my long-ago past.

Regarding your question about maintaining contact during this separation from your boyfriend, to my way of thinking that depends on a host of things:

1.   Is he diagnosed or have you noted several traits that lead you believe he has BPD.

2.  How long have you known each other, been together, lived together?

3.  How extreme was the behavior that led to your breakup?  Some detail on the reasons behind the breakup would be helpful.

4.  What do you see as his greatest issues to overcome?

5.  What is his and your level of abandonment fear? 

6.  Have you broken up in the past, with promises made and promises broken?

7.  Is there something magical about 9 months?

During the nearly 6 years of my relationship with my uBPDbf, we’ve never had a thoughtful parting.  They’ve always taken place due to him leaving in an uncontrolled rage.  However the last 2 morphed into therapeutic separations (at least for me).

Some ideas:  If you consider your breakup to be a therapeutic separation, perhaps some contact (maybe periodic coffee?) or scheduled phone conversations could be appropriate.  You can perhaps touch base by text to see if either of you needs a conversation.  You may want to touch base if there are things each of you would like the other to address as the therapy process progresses.  Or... perhaps schedule a joint therapy session midway.

On the other hand, if you go completely No Contact for 9 months, how would you know if he’s going to therapy or not?   And here you’ve placed your life essentially on hold.

The foundation here is that both of you want to move forward in good faith and with complete honesty.  Discuss the best way forward based on who you both are; and what would make you feel most supported during this process. 

Your thoughts?

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes