Does it get better?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Turkish posted that it would be a good thread to start, so here we are.

Does it get better? For me, yeah, you move on. Slowly you go from wanting to learn everything about what happened; everything about BPD; all the while hoping your partner might come back and explain things and validate your experience, to not really caring anymore.

I personally don't feel anything for my ex, just occasional anger. So in that regards, it gets better. But the wound they open - usually a wound much deeper from the past - is pretty darn painful and I'm still dealing with that on the daily.

I'll come back in 5 years when hopefully that is solved.

If it is, not only does it get better, but it changes your life forever in a very positive way.

[grumpydonut]

Turkish posted that it would be a good thread to start, so here we are.

Does it get better? For me, yeah, you move on. Slowly you go from wanting to learn everything about what happened; everything about BPD; all the while hoping your partner might come back and explain things and validate your experience, to not really caring anymore.

I personally don't feel anything for my ex, just occasional anger. So in that regards, it gets better. But the wound they open - usually a wound much deeper from the past - is pretty darn painful and I'm still dealing with that on the daily.

I'll come back in 5 years when hopefully that is solved.

If it is, not only does it get better, but it changes your life forever in a very positive way.

[2020]

Thanks for starting off the topic. I have spent the past four years or so on the ‘bettering’ board. Sometimes I would have a peek into the other other levels. The ‘detaching’ section scared me. It was like a morgue. I was hoping I would never end up here, but here I am! Welcome to the basement!

It has been five weeks since I was thrown onto the   heap. A fourteen year friendship and seven year living together relationship, dowsed in petrol and torched one alcohol soaked night. Haven’t seen her since. All her clothes are here, her glasses, passport, all her belongings. She just walked away from it all after she was arrested.

I have been bedridden on my homemade coffin/bed since. We had a flood in March and it went up to the ceiling. Lost pretty much everything… including my partner.

I am having real trouble comprehending this logic. How can someone buy a caravan with me, grass turfs and daffodil bulbs one week, then smash up the caravan and get arrested a few days later? We had huge plans together. I think of her all the time. Despite her name calling, her false accusations, her suicide attempts, her violence and alcoholic rages, I still miss her. How does that work?

I find that when I am doing something, like cleaning a wall or ceiling, I am distracted. Morning hits me really bad. Thankfully I am not working, other than trying to care for my autistic 21 year old son, and try get ourselves re-established after this flood.

It has just been a really bad year. My sister seems to think I will be ok and it is better she is not here. I doubt I will hear from her again. She pressed the nuclear button. At 56 years old, I feel   ed. Maybe I will feel better in another five weeks? Feels like I lost the woman of my dreams, but there is this nagging thought creeping in… “is that really true”? Hopefully her family will see what a (self)destructive force she really is. I sacrificed years being her caretaker, carer, servant. I can say that right now I feel sad, hurt, humiliated, and angry.

I really do hope this gets better. I was told that on the bettering board. Surely with them physically away and the discard in place, things HAVE to improve, right?   At least I don’t have to worry about JADE and SET for a while!

[WhatToDo47]

So glad to see this thread. I would love to hear from people on the other side of all this how it does get better. 2020, I feel you. You can look at my old and first posts, also on better and conflicted, to see what happened to me or I can tell you more if you want.

I know and understand and remember the pain you feel. I am becoming numb in a sense and coming back to life in another. It still sucks, I still miss the "her" that I thought she was - someone deeply damaged and troubled but also a good and loyal person. I thought we spent years growing together and taking on the world together. But then it just ended. The sudden and illogical breakaway hurts so bad.

A close friend and mentor told me when she left not to expect myself to heal quickly, if someone has a broken bone it takes time to heal, so does an emotional broken bone - every bone in your emotional body, so to speak.

Not sure what I can really add other than I deeply feel and remember your pain and despair. I am still not "better," but I am getting there. It's been 8 months approx for me, and a 6ish year relationship, 5ish year marriage.

My life is in ashes and charred, but I see and feel that life will spring anew and light does exist at the end of the tunnel.

This post is to validate your experience, and feel free to post here or message me.

Had me laughing out loud with your JADE and SET comment hahaha

[2020]

Hey, thanks for the support guys. I am bedridden again today. I need to do something to distract myself. It is just that there are reminders of her all though the house. She left in a police car five weeks ago and her belongings are here. I can’t even face packing them into boxes.

I am trying to reframe my perception of this relationship. She came into my life when I was so low and she love bombed me and brightened up my world. I should have known something was up. A stunning woman seven years my junior, asking me out for a drink and telling me I am a really lovely guy.  
If I had met her as she was at the end of the relationship, I would have though what a crazy   and locked my door. This was seriously a nightmare.

Perhaps the passing of time makes it easier? All I can do right now is try and get into an upright position and do something to distract myself. Do something for myself. And think about how the past few years have REALLY been. Yes it is sad, but I will not email her. I would be wasting my time and fueling her game. This is a massive turn around for me from say two or three years ago. I guess we get run down.

And yes, it is pretty funny; the JADE and SET stuff. I am enjoying the break. It had reached a feverpoint. I didn’t even have time to work out what BIFF was. Too much BS.

I actually read both of your ‘resumes’. It’s interesting how a lot of these stories run to the same script, more or less. Being a bit ahead of me in the separation process, I’ll take your word that it gets better. Let’s try and appreciate the crazy
  is gone, at least in this moment. They can run away wherever they like, but they can’t hide from their own mental   which they do nothing to fix!

But hey, this topic was does it get better, not my tragic past few years!

[Turkish]

Outline:

My ex started getting more aggro in the winter of 2012 when the family found out that her father was having yet another affair. Typical crazy stuff like the other woman showing up at the parents house and confronting their mom, "I'm young and hot and you're old and fat, why would be want you?"

I had long felt that my ex was enmeshed with her mother and a few years later, my ex said as much in so many words. She resented her mother for not finally leaving her father and my ex's open disrespect towards her mother at Fiestas was a  .

With a baby and a toddler, as well as being primary bread-winner working for a company that was just taken over, my stress was off the charts. I sometimes thought about going into the hills to die of exposure. Not good. So I retreated emotionally (NOT the thing to do with a pwBPD) and she didn't know how to react other than hooking up with a 10 years younger bouncer at a club while I was at home with the kids. To admit, I was sick of trying and resented and lost all respect for her. That was the implicit abandonment which gave her carte-blanche to go off the reservation. Confusing was her pain experiencing her father's many affairs.

Called it done a few months after trying, and she abandoned me in couples' counseling. She phoned it in like a "teen mom" partying and going out. My resentment grew. Called it done in September of 2013, shortly after I landed here.

She convinced me to let her stay, no longer paying anything, until she found a place to go so she could save up. I still think it was a "God thing" that she got a subsidized housing unit within 4 months after putting out multiple applications. Those months were some of the hardest in my life, and that's said growing up with what I later found out to be a mother with BPD, Depression, PTSD, and Anxiety. She left just after now S12 turned 4 and now D10 was 1.

Suddenly, I was a half time single parent. Given I was used to being their primary parent for the past year (I'd mostly get up early weekends to care for them while she slept in until 9AM), it wasn't a big deal. The big deal was the shock of Suddenly not seeing them for days. They cried to stay with me rather than going with Mommy, and that shocked their grandma. They're from a culture where "Mother" is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

Using the tools here helped me, and also to work out a custody order.

It was humiliating to pass the kids for care to a guy 21 years my junior, but it was also amusing to me that he initially called me "Mr. [My surname]"

A year later, they were engaged, married in the summer. It only took a few months of co-habitation for her to confess to me at lunch, "Living together is hard!" Ya think?

Over a year later, DV reared its ugly head in their home. Later, I heard it was mutual, but she was the more aggressive perp. I was on the verge of reporting (as the other parent, you have to or you may also be guilty of a crime). The kids told me things that made me weep.

Separation, yet it still went on over a year. She finally divorced him though he forbade her from doing that and was  physical. I believe what she told me as I know her well enough to separate facts from embellishment. I warned her when she still lived with us that given her and what I saw of him, I predicted DV. She sometimes threw and broke things with me. I was a late 30 something man; whereas, he was a 21 yo college football jock.

She also asked to come back maybe 5 years ago... by text. 

After all of that? NWIH.

All in all, it was a dramatic number of years. For the past few years, it's been more stable. For years, I thought that I missed her, but it was more that I missed the idea of her. The idea is both the reality, which is a place holder, yet also my idealization, or idea of her. In reading hundreds of stories here for almost a decade, and having years to think about my own story and me, I feel that gaining perspective of our idealizations is one of the key turning points that provides a perspective to start on the path of healing and moving forward.

I'll be the first to confess that I thought all sorts of weird things: my ex was here, her bf was here, due to so many similar stories. To this day, I still can't believe I thought those things, but that's where I was 8-9 years ago, in much emotional distress.

To answer the question, time and work provided perspective, and things did get better for me, and us, yet it also took some work on my part. I didn't believe it when I first landed here, but it came to pass.

For me? I'm still a little sad and angry, but those lie in the background as I live day to day.

[NotAHero]

Outline:

My ex started getting more aggro in the winter of 2012 when the family found out that her father was having yet another affair. Typical crazy stuff like the other woman showing up at the parents house and confronting their mom, "I'm young and hot and you're old and fat, why would be want you?"

I had long felt that my ex was enmeshed with her mother and a few years later, my ex said as much in so many words. She resented her mother for not finally leaving her father and my ex's open disrespect towards her mother at Fiestas was a  .

With a baby and a toddler, as well as being primary bread-winner working for a company that was just taken over, my stress was off the charts. I sometimes thought about going into the hills to die of exposure. Not good. So I retreated emotionally (NOT the thing to do with a pwBPD) and she didn't know how to react other than hooking up with a 10 years younger bouncer at a club while I was at home with the kids. To admit, I was sick of trying and resented and lost all respect for her. That was the implicit abandonment which gave her carte-blanche to go off the reservation. Confusing was her pain experiencing her father's many affairs.

Called it done a few months after trying, and she abandoned me in couples' counseling. She phoned it in like a "teen mom" partying and going out. My resentment grew. Called it done in September of 2013, shortly after I landed here.

She convinced me to let her stay, no longer paying anything, until she found a place to go so she could save up. I still think it was a "God thing" that she got a subsidized housing unit within 4 months after putting out multiple applications. Those months were some of the hardest in my life, and that's said growing up with what I later found out to be a mother with BPD, Depression, PTSD, and Anxiety. She left just after now S12 turned 4 and now D10 was 1.

Suddenly, I was a half time single parent. Given I was used to being their primary parent for the past year (I'd mostly get up early weekends to care for them while she slept in until 9AM), it wasn't a big deal. The big deal was the shock of Suddenly not seeing them for days. They cried to stay with me rather than going with Mommy, and that shocked their grandma. They're from a culture where "Mother" is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

Using the tools here helped me, and also to work out a custody order.

It was humiliating to pass the kids for care to a guy 21 years my junior, but it was also amusing to me that he initially called me "Mr. [My surname]"

A year later, they were engaged, married in the summer. It only took a few months of co-habitation for her to confess to me at lunch, "Living together is hard!" Ya think?

Over a year later, DV reared its ugly head in their home. Later, I heard it was mutual, but she was the more aggressive perp. I was on the verge of reporting (as the other parent, you have to or you may also be guilty of a crime). The kids told me things that made me weep.

Separation, yet it still went on over a year. She finally divorced him though he forbade her from doing that and was  physical. I believe what she told me as I know her well enough to separate facts from embellishment. I warned her when she still lived with us that given her and what I saw of him, I predicted DV. She sometimes threw and broke things with me. I was a late 30 something man; whereas, he was a 21 yo college football jock.

She also asked to come back maybe 5 years ago... by text. 

After all of that? NWIH.

All in all, it was a dramatic number of years. For the past few years, it's been more stable. For years, I thought that I missed her, but it was more that I missed the idea of her. The idea is both the reality, which is a place holder, yet also my idealization, or idea of her. In reading hundreds of stories here for almost a decade, and having years to think about my own story and me, I feel that gaining perspective of our idealizations is one of the key turning points that provides a perspective to start on the path of healing and moving forward.

I'll be the first to confess that I thought all sorts of weird things: my ex was here, her bf was here, due to so many similar stories. To this day, I still can't believe I thought those things, but that's where I was 8-9 years ago, in much emotional distress.

To answer the question, time and work provided perspective, and things did get better for me, and us, yet it also took some work on my part. I didn't believe it when I first landed here, but it came to pass.

For me? I'm still a little sad and angry, but those lie in the background as I live day to day.

 Thank you for sharing this. It helps a lot. As you know I went through a lot of what you went through and may go through the rest …


 Glad to see you found the light at the end of the tunnel and that gives me hope. All in all I hope I will somehow have a better experience with her next series of poor choices for the sake of my son but I doubt it.

 As for the emotional part between me and her I have detached considerably and I hope it’s a matter of weeks not months to detach completely.

[SinisterComplex]

Turkish posted that it would be a good thread to start, so here we are.

Does it get better? For me, yeah, you move on. Slowly you go from wanting to learn everything about what happened; everything about BPD; all the while hoping your partner might come back and explain things and validate your experience, to not really caring anymore.

I personally don't feel anything for my ex, just occasional anger. So in that regards, it gets better. But the wound they open - usually a wound much deeper from the past - is pretty darn painful and I'm still dealing with that on the daily.

I'll come back in 5 years when hopefully that is solved.

If it is, not only does it get better, but it changes your life forever in a very positive way.

Kudos to you for your insight and the courage to stick around and share with the fam Grumpo. With your insight I do believe it is in your power to be quite inspirational and motivational to many others. Keep fighting the good fight and do better to live well my friend.

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-

[WhatToDo47]

Thank you all for sharing so much. It helps so much and I can tell that each and every one of us did our best and had no idea what we were dealing with. It hurts so much to see someone we loved and trusted, and laid ourselves on the line for time and time again, continue to make such poor and dangerous choices. I had so much pain and anguish from my pwBPD marriage, and we didn't have any kids. I can't even fathom the pain that you all must feel that have kids with your pwBPD. Those poor kids, and to be forced to watch them being abused by your expwBPD and not be able to do anything about it. Just tragic.

I think I am starting to really come out of the FOG and realize that the relationship never was what I thought. She was always experiencing things, and me, through a BPD lens, which is a very scary, painful, and dark toxic place. While I was falling in love, fighting for the ideals of loyalty, honor, commitment, love, she was just trying to survive and constantly self sabotaging. I know she cheated on me at the end, I suspect she did at some other point, too.

She is not who I thought she was, and probably never will be. Like you said above, if THIS is who she presented as when I met her, I would have slammed the door or directed her to the nearest mental hospital.

It has helped so much to have this site. Sometimes y'all are the only people who really get it. It's helped me to talk with an excellent therapist every week. He has decades of experience dealing with pwBPD and their victims. Not that they are intending to leave victims in their wake, but they do. It's also helped me to go through our relationship, on paper, make a timeline, really realize what I was feeling at different times. She had alot more breakdowns and abusing me than my initial memory. And alot of times I confused fear of losing her with love. I was scared of her alot, including scared she would succeed in killing herself and/or me one day, terrified even. And that's no way to live and no home to bring a child into.

Anyways, it does get better. Stay active, stay reading and posting on here, get a therapist who has helped victims of pwBPD before, reconnect with family and friends, stay physically active, go to work, pray if you are a believer.

And finally, I decided one Saturday night after she left, I was feeling so sad and honestly suicidal. Not that I wanted to die but just that I was in so much pain and felt so lost and hopeless. But I decided that that was going to be my rock bottom. Since then, as hard as it has been, and sometimes I have not wanted to get out of bed, not even wanted to hope, but I haven't let myself sink down to that level. Every month gets a little better, and there are good days and bad days but I'm learning to be compassionate to myself.

A dear friend and mentor told me that all of that love and light and energy that I had been pouring into her for years I had to pour into myself now. We can only save ourselves, and it was now time to save myself.

Stay strong everyone, much love to you all. We have survived one of the hardest things emotionally that a human can go through, and if I can do it you can, too. There are brighter times ahead.

[WhatToDo47]

Also your comments reminded me of this old post that I was reading today, maybe it will be helpful for you too:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=229727.0;all

And this one, especially the following analogy from it:

Think of it like this. Before, you were sitting on top of a stony precipice -- forgive me for struggling to describe this -- the right words escape me at the moment -- but think of something like this. So, you're on top of one of those spires. You got there by following a little bridge that used to connect it to the rest of the world. Since you arrived, that bridge has fallen down. So, now you're out there -- still surrounded by all this beauty, still able to see the rest of the world that you used to be a part of, except now you're out there, alone, stranded, isolated. It's a great view, but you're completely exposed to the elements, and utterly without any provisions needed to survive.

The only way off is to jump. You know it's going to suck, and you know it's going to hurt. You know you're going to get all cut up and bruised when you hit the ground. But it's the only way off. And, if you don't get off, you will perish up there alone -- you will die of thirst and starvation. The vultures will clean your bones, and then the sun, wind and rain will gradually reduce you to dust.

But, you will jump. Because you want to live. And once you're on the ground, you'll be reconnected to everything you need to stay alive. Including everything you need to heal from your fall. But first, you need to get back on the ground.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=271293.0;all

[WhatToDo47]

One more helpful one from the same thread:

YOU are not a fool; YOU were fooled. That is on the perpetrator, not you! What it says is an awful lot about that persons character, BPD or not.

Look at it like this, you wouldn't go out and buy a new car that you knew had mechanical/functional problems. That car wouldn't be reliable, it wouldn't be available to you when YOU needed it to be. You would forever be at the mercy of your defective car's ailments. Would you want that? I am sure that you wouldn't. I am sure that you'd begin looking for a quality car.

I understand your emotional pain, believe me. Only time, reflection, and acceptance will negate that pain. While that process is occurring, prepare yourself to find a quality significant other. You are worthy, and you should not accept anyone that doesn't appreciate you.

[2020]

Thanks for your posts and links WhatToDo47. I’ve spent the past five days in bed reading just about every comment ever posted on the Detatching forum. It is helping me see the path ahead. Thank you all for posting. There are some very good writers among you. I would seriously be  without this umbilical cord to you all. This is where I belong.

This Friday will be six weeks since the spectacular exit. Yesterday I found a couple of videos I made of her drunk, smashing things up and swearing at me. It made me really sad. Sad for her and sad for me. Sad this was the reality.

I am feeling the slightest movement in what I might call a recovery. I am not waking up in the morning having it all smack me in the face before I open my eyes. I guess there are some things which are already 100% better. I am not called names every day. I don’t have to dread telling her I am going to take my son to the shop. I don’t have my heart sink because she is drinking again before midday.

I am processing the ‘relationship’, or ‘relationSH!T’ as she used to call it. At least she was honest in her assessment of that! It was hard work. I almost needed this to happen. I needed a rest from the crazy nightmare. I am grateful to be here among the wounded. It has to get better, right?
.

[Skip]

My journey (and membership here) started in 2005 as Skippy... my anonymous (tongue in cheek) avatar...

          

Handsome lad, I know.  

Getting through six weeks of true "no contact" was really hard... I remember hanging a calendar and putting an x on each day. I worked out each morning and right before bed so that I would be exhausted and sleep.

I dove head first in trying to understand this thing, BPD. I found posting here was more helpful than than therapy, because it was available 24/7, available when I needed it. That was 17+ years ago. I became the executive director here in 2009.

I think we have to ask ourselves, at some point, what are true goal is. Is it recovering from a relationship gone bad, or is it transforming ourselves to be a more mature, healthy being and better partner, friend, son, etc. BPD or not, we got ourselves into an unhealthy relationship, fought to keep it afloat, and we were decimated (in some cases incapacitated, some suicidal, in some cases died) when it finally crashed and burned.

The journey from crashed and burned to transformed is like going up a ladder. Each rung seems like a great accomplishment, but reveals the next rung above. For me, the first rung was six weeks of disconnect. The second rung was ending the ruminations, nightmares, the inability to fully function - that took some months. The next rung was getting a balanced understanding of the mental illness of my partner.  The next few rungs were turning all my new found psychology investigative skills onto myself. The next few rungs were related to finding and surrounding myself with far more emotionally mature people than myself with very successful family relationships (proven) and observing them closely. At one point I found a church sponsored "couples class" that mixed (50%/50%) couples from older successful marriages with newlywed couples (and single me). The common threads of the successful marriages was an eye opener. There were probably 12 rungs in all for me. Revel in each rung you achieve, and then reach for the next. Give yourself the grace and time to grow out of all of this, but don't wander aimlessly. Wander with purpose.

Question: Does it get better?

My Response: No. You have to make it better.

[SinisterComplex]

My journey (and membership here) started in 2005 as Skippy... my anonymous (tongue in cheek) avatar...

          

Handsome lad, I know.  

Getting through six weeks of true "no contact" was really hard... I remember hanging a calendar and putting an x on each day. I worked out each morning and right before bed so that I would be exhausted and sleep.

I dove head first in trying to understand this thing, BPD. I found posting here was more helpful than than therapy, because it was available 24/7, available when I needed it. That was 20+ years ago. I became the executive director here in 2009.

I think we have to ask ourselves, at some point, what are true goal is. Is it recovering from a relationship gone bad, or is it transforming ourselves to be a more mature, healthy being and better partner, friend, son, etc. BPD or not, we got ourselves into an unhealthy relationship, fought to keep it afloat, and we were decimated (in some cases incapacitated, some suicidal, in some cases died) when it finally crashed and burned.

The journey from crashed and burned to transformed is like going up a ladder. Each rung seems like a great accomplishment, but reveals the next rung above. For me, the first rung was six weeks of disconnect. The second rung was ending the ruminations, nightmares, the inability to fully function - that took some months. The next rung was getting a balanced understanding of the mental illness of my partner.  The next few rungs were turning all my new found psychology investigative skills onto myself. The next few rungs were related to finding and surrounding myself with far more emotionally mature people than myself with very successful family relationships (proven) and observing them closely. At one point I found a church sponsored "couples class" that mixed (50%/50%) couples from older successful marriages with newlywed couples (and single me). The common threads of the successful marriages was an eye opener. There were probably 12 rungs in all for me. Revel in each rung you achieve, and then reach for the next. Give yourself the grace and time to grow out of all of this, but don't wander aimlessly. Wander with purpose.

Question: Does it get better?

My Response: No. You have to make it better.

Just wanted to emphasize what our Sensei Skip has mentioned here. Does it get better? No, YOU have to make it better. - This is important for everyone to truly grasp during their healing journey. To put it in different terms...you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink or you have to be proactive and not reactive. The bottom line is that it is all leading to the same bottom line point and that is you have to take control and you have to pull yourself up out of the hole because no one else can do it for you. You have to find that fire, determination, and WANT to get out of that said hole.

To those of you hurting and deep in the throes of loss and hurt I urge you to heed my words...everyone heals on a different timeline...don't rush it. Heal first and when you feel the time is right focus on getting better. Don't talk about it...BE ABOUT IT!

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-

[WhatToDo47]

2020 sounds like you are doing great. Keep it up!

Skip, it's an honor to have you post here. I had no idea that the old Skippy posts I've been reading are you! Wow!

SC and Skip, I completely agree with everything you said.

Therapy is helpful and so is this site. There have been times in the past 8 months when I could feel myself slipping, reading some boards here and posting helped snap me back to reality.

The reality is that we can't change BPD, and it's foolish to try. That was my mistake. We need to have the compassion on ourselves to realize that not being able to cure a mental illness with love doesn't mean we are failures or that we are abandoning them. At least for me that helped.

The 10 beliefs article after a breakup helps so much. I noticed that each one has a thread discussing it here on detaching. I highly recommend you check all that out, 2020.

It does and is getting better. I am exhausted, alone, and emotionally injured, but I am now in the healing stage and not getting further battered and bruised. For years I, and I suspect many of us, didn't/couldn't think about what WE wanted. There's simply not the bandwidth when your partner has BPD. With the help of my therapist, I'm now thinking about myself for the first time in years. What are my values? What type of marriage do I want? What type of family and legacy do I want to leave? Maybe that will help some of you.

Realizing that it's ok not to enable/rescue helps a lot, too. It just makes it worse for them and for us. If they are ever going to get help, they need to deal with the consequences of their actions, even if it hurts us to see those we love/loved in pain. And we won't rescue them anyways, they will just drag us down, like a person drowning. My T told me this the first time we talked.

And a close friend/mentor of my exwBPD told me when I asked her if I should move on: It's not her fault that she is sick and was abused, but now that she's an adult it is her responsibility to do something about it. Same goes for us, too.

Finally, continue to post here 2020. I've found that whenever I want to reach out to my exwBPD and save her again, at the cost of my own sanity and life and future, posting here helps scratch that itch. To help others who actually want community and help and who are suffering like I have is so valuable.

Take care all, and I hope someone finds this helpful!

Again, thank you so much to the senior members, including Skip, who take the time to post and read and help all of us newbies. We will make you proud

[NotAHero]

My journey (and membership here) started in 2005 as Skippy... my anonymous (tongue in cheek) avatar...

          

Handsome lad, I know.  

Getting through six weeks of true "no contact" was really hard... I remember hanging a calendar and putting an x on each day. I worked out each morning and right before bed so that I would be exhausted and sleep.

I dove head first in trying to understand this thing, BPD. I found posting here was more helpful than than therapy, because it was available 24/7, available when I needed it. That was 20+ years ago. I became the executive director here in 2009.

I think we have to ask ourselves, at some point, what are true goal is. Is it recovering from a relationship gone bad, or is it transforming ourselves to be a more mature, healthy being and better partner, friend, son, etc. BPD or not, we got ourselves into an unhealthy relationship, fought to keep it afloat, and we were decimated (in some cases incapacitated, some suicidal, in some cases died) when it finally crashed and burned.

The journey from crashed and burned to transformed is like going up a ladder. Each rung seems like a great accomplishment, but reveals the next rung above. For me, the first rung was six weeks of disconnect. The second rung was ending the ruminations, nightmares, the inability to fully function - that took some months. The next rung was getting a balanced understanding of the mental illness of my partner.  The next few rungs were turning all my new found psychology investigative skills onto myself. The next few rungs were related to finding and surrounding myself with far more emotionally mature people than myself with very successful family relationships (proven) and observing them closely. At one point I found a church sponsored "couples class" that mixed (50%/50%) couples from older successful marriages with newlywed couples (and single me). The common threads of the successful marriages was an eye opener. There were probably 12 rungs in all for me. Revel in each rung you achieve, and then reach for the next. Give yourself the grace and time to grow out of all of this, but don't wander aimlessly. Wander with purpose.

Question: Does it get better?

My Response: No. You have to make it better.

Hi Skip and thank you for taking the time to post here even after you have overcome your own struggle with BPD relations.

 I know every person stages are different. I am at a stage now where she no longer has power over me. I still find myself disappointed at times though. She is been acting all nice and stable, and to me that says “so you could of done this the whole time but instead you chose to ruin our life?”

 Is the stability and being all nice and collected a front or part of mirroring ? Or are they at the core able to control their actions and just choose to do whatever they think they can get away with?

 From your experience how would you answer these questions ?

P.S. I have no plans of “giving it a try” and I am happy with my decision to end it. I just wonder how much control over their actions they truly have ?

[Turkish]

WhatToDo47, great reference to the 10 Beliefs. For participants (and lurkers, we know you're out there!):

Surviving a Break-up when Your Partner has Borderline Personality

The "Belief that love can prevail" (point 4) is what I rationalized after our first "real" date when she fled, yet not a week later sent an innocuous text, "do you want to go see a movie?" I was angry at the flip, but thought "give love a chance!" I went, though my instincts screamed "politely decline." I believed as she did, but it was magical thinking.

Over a year later, she threw it back at me after our only recycle after she broke up with me, "if you love someone, you'd fight for them." I went back... under her conditions. I was stuck in the Beliefs.

Similarly, the Beliefs are all or in part of what I've seen in members here, as well as myself, being that which can keep us stuck rather than working on a path to Detaching.

[Turkish]

NotAHero,

I took my ex and the kids to see a movie for Mother's Day. It was pleasant, as was similarly a recent breakfast. Yet last summer, we went to the mall to get D then 9 shoes and she dysregulated. D9 was also angry at her yet her mother didn't get why. It was on my weekend. My ex made it all about her, and criticized me and our daughter. We left with no shoes with my ex commenting that we wasted her time when she could have being doing things for herself otherwise.

Two weeks later, I took the kids to get shoes. 45 minutes in and out, no drama, goal completed.

The emotional dysregulation isn't something to be minimized at the expense of focusing upon what we may view as Manipulation. My ex used to complain to me that she often felt that she couldn't control her emotions. My dBPD mother sometimes sent me to school with me in tears because she woke up angry and dysregulated, smacking me around for no reasons that my sub 10 yearn old self could never figure out.

We can soothe, validate and SET, and these things help, but at the end of the day, the emotional dysregulation is out of our control. By definition, it's out of their control as well.

My ex was much higher functioning (maybe sub-clinical), but I saw to the end how my mom could flip into coping and then into a very not good place by often what I saw as imagined triggers, and situations she constructed which validated her disordered worl-view (being persecuted).

[Skip]

Is the stability and being all nice and collected a front or part of mirroring ? Or are they at the core able to control their actions and just choose to do whatever they think they can get away with?

I don't think there is a one-dimensional answer to anyone's behavior.

We all can act our worst when we are flooded or stressed and that is certainly true for a person with BPD traits. That can be hidden from casual relationships, but not an intimate partner.

A highly emotional person can relieve bad feelings by emoting them and even in transferring them to an intimate partner where the power of intimacy is at play.- something a more controlled person won't do. For example, Turkish's mom got some relief by slapping him around in the morning. Turkish was a viable target for that type of relief, vs say the policemen on the corner that would cuff her if she tried it on him. The more I know your vulnerabilities, the more I can I unload on you.

Most people with BPD - traits have experienced negative repercussions for prior acting out and learn to conceal it from others.

Many people with BPD have learned in life how to earn friends because they feel that they had to - their natural person was not attractive. They can be good at it by being generous, attractive, admirable, and/or mirroring.

I just wonder how much control over their actions they truly have ?

I think a person with BPD always has control of their actions; they are not insane. But at the same time, they are volatile and easily flooded or emotionally overwhelmed and become hyperfixated on dealing with their own needs when these emotions mount, everyone else be damned.

Does that seem to match your experience?

[grumpydonut]

Does that seem to match your experience?

Yes 

[NotAHero]

NotAHero,

I took my ex and the kids to see a movie for Mother's Day. It was pleasant, as was similarly a recent breakfast. Yet last summer, we went to the mall to get D then 9 shoes and she dysregulated. D9 was also angry at her yet her mother didn't get why. It was on my weekend. My ex made it all about her, and criticized me and our daughter. We left with no shoes with my ex commenting that we wasted her time when she could have being doing things for herself otherwise.

Two weeks later, I took the kids to get shoes. 45 minutes in and out, no drama, goal completed.

The emotional dysregulation isn't something to be minimized at the expense of focusing upon what we may view as Manipulation. My ex used to complain to me that she often felt that she couldn't control her emotions. My dBPD mother sometimes sent me to school with me in tears because she woke up angry and dysregulated, smacking me around for no reasons that my sub 10 yearn old self could never figure out.

We can soothe, validate and SET, and these things help, but at the end of the day, the emotional dysregulation is out of our control. By definition, it's out of their control as well.

My ex was much higher functioning (maybe sub-clinical), but I saw to the end how my mom could flip into coping and then into a very not good place by often what I saw as imagined triggers, and situations she constructed which validated her disordered worl-view (being persecuted).

 Thank you for this. I can see this happening in my future since we coparent. It’s a good reminder to be on guard no matter how “stable” they may appear at times. I appreciate you sharing this.

[NotAHero]

I don't think there is a one-dimensional answer to anyone's behavior.

We all can act our worst when we are flooded or stressed and that is certainly true for a person with BPD traits. That can be hidden from casual relationships, but not an intimate partner.

A highly emotional person can relieve bad feelings by emoting them and even in transferring them to an intimate partner where the power of intimacy is at play.- something a more controlled person won't do. For example, Turkish's mom got some relief by slapping him around in the morning. Turkish was a viable target for that type of relief, vs say the policemen on the corner that would cuff her if she tried it on him. The more I know your vulnerabilities, the more I can I unload on you.

Most people with BPD - traits have experienced negative repercussions for prior acting out and learn to conceal it from others.

Many people with BPD have learned in life how to earn friends because they feel that they had to - their natural person was not attractive. They can be good at it by being generous, attractive, admirable, and/or mirroring.

I think a person with BPD always has control of their actions; they are not insane. But at the same time, they are volatile and easily flooded or emotionally overwhelmed and become hyperfixated on dealing with their own needs when these emotions mount, everyone else be damned.

Does that seem to match your experience?

 Thank you for the insight it is well put. It does match my experience yes. Volatility is always there.  I struggled a lot before letting go because I always perceived “bad” acts as tied to intentions. I had a hard time blaming her without finding out that she does them with intent. After a lot of internal processing I came to an understanding that, like you said, it’s not one dimension. 

  In my pwBPD case it’s true she was overwhelmed but did she have to torture me with physical, emotional and mental abuse ? No and that for me is enough “intent”.

[WhatToDo47]

I agree with all of the above. I can only speak from my experience, but I noticed that my ex would get "triggered" into a dissociative state, which could last hours. Everything she did in that state was extreme, lashing out, and panicked. It was very hard to get her out of it, but usually I and/or her therapist could. At the end, when she left, neither her or I could. When she snapped out of it, she would panic and cry and say she didn't remember what happened, just that she remembered feeling hurt/lonely/scared, etc. She would say things in this state that made no sense such as "I'm not a bad girl" "Where am I" "They are going to get me" "I want to die." I know this sounds made up but it's really what happened. Clearly, this was some sort of PTSD flashback.

The problem was no matter how much therapy and work she did on herself, once she had crossed the line to "triggered" (her word for it) or "hysteria" (her family's word for it), she was so dissociated she had basically no control. It was so sad to watch. A couple of times, it culminated with suicide attempts. She would rush home if she was out (even leaving word to do so, she lost many jobs because of these dysregualtions). If she was already at home, she would hide in the closet or under the covers. She told me once "when someone hurts me, I'm scared and I run and hide." Just like a little abused kid, which is, tragically, what she is at her core. Usually, she would eventually fall asleep (even if this happened during the day) and when she woke up she would be fine and not remember what happened. It scared her a lot and she would always thank me for not leaving her because she is "crazy" (her words).

The volatility is another issue. Even recently (before the divorce) I was telling her that I don't ever want to go through this again, that it hurt how she left me for another man, etc. Up until that point we were having a pleasant conversation, she was even saying "you're my husband, I want you to be okay and open up to me," "I'm sad that you didn't send me flowers for Valentine's Day." The reason she called was to tell me she filed for divorce. Then she said now's my chance to fight for her to come back. She claimed not to remember what happened when she left, just that she felt hurt and alone (couldn't tell me what triggered it) and that after she left she now feels even more hurt and alone.

The second I mentioned my emotions, she got really mad, saying I didn't know what real suffering is (and she does and suffers it), that I need to be a real man, etc etc. Then she sent me a very mean text message with alot of all caps words about how she is HURT and I HURT her more HURT HURT (you get the idea).

Point is, they are so fragile after they've began to devalue you that EVERYTHING hurts/triggers them into that state where they can't control their actions. At least that was my experience of it. That ultimately helped me move on because I realized that, even if she did come back, something (even if it was just in her head) would trigger her very quickly into that state and she'd just leave again - or worse. I read that BPD is like an emotional 3rd degree burn over your whole body, and I believe that.

If you have an open wound, and someone is stabbing it, you will instinctively act in order to stop them and the pain. If you are drowning, you will flail around trying to get some air, even if you hit people around you. You are in control of that, technically, but it’s very hard to do anything else other than focus on relieving the pain so that you stay alive. I think that’s similar to the level of control they have at times. Just my thoughts, so take it or leave it but hope it helps haha

[WhatToDo47]

Also thanks for posting the link to the article!

[WhatToDo47]

WhatToDo47, great reference to the 10 Beliefs. For participants (and lurkers, we know you're out there!):

Surviving a Break-up when Your Partner has Borderline Personality

"if you love someone, you'd fight for them." I went back... under her conditions. I was stuck in the Beliefs.

The above posts do match my experience and my ex said these EXACT same words, as well as the I love you but I'm not in love with you, I don't know who I am right now, and many other BPD classics. So sad and eerie how they are largely so similar. I do feel sorry for them but that doesn't give them the right to abuse others.

[60av8tor]

Thank you all for sharing so much. It helps so much and I can tell that each and every one of us did our best and had no idea what we were dealing with. It hurts so much to see someone we loved and trusted, and laid ourselves on the line for time and time again, continue to make such poor and dangerous choices. I had so much pain and anguish from my pwBPD marriage, and we didn't have any kids. I can't even fathom the pain that you all must feel that have kids with your pwBPD. Those poor kids, and to be forced to watch them being abused by your expwBPD and not be able to do anything about it. Just tragic.

I think I am starting to really come out of the FOG and realize that the relationship never was what I thought. She was always experiencing things, and me, through a BPD lens, which is a very scary, painful, and dark toxic place. While I was falling in love, fighting for the ideals of loyalty, honor, commitment, love, she was just trying to survive and constantly self sabotaging. I know she cheated on me at the end, I suspect she did at some other point, too.

She is not who I thought she was, and probably never will be. Like you said above, if THIS is who she presented as when I met her, I would have slammed the door or directed her to the nearest mental hospital.

It has helped so much to have this site. Sometimes y'all are the only people who really get it. It's helped me to talk with an excellent therapist every week. He has decades of experience dealing with pwBPD and their victims. Not that they are intending to leave victims in their wake, but they do. It's also helped me to go through our relationship, on paper, make a timeline, really realize what I was feeling at different times. She had alot more breakdowns and abusing me than my initial memory. And alot of times I confused fear of losing her with love. I was scared of her alot, including scared she would succeed in killing herself and/or me one day, terrified even. And that's no way to live and no home to bring a child into.

Anyways, it does get better. Stay active, stay reading and posting on here, get a therapist who has helped victims of pwBPD before, reconnect with family and friends, stay physically active, go to work, pray if you are a believer.

And finally, I decided one Saturday night after she left, I was feeling so sad and honestly suicidal. Not that I wanted to die but just that I was in so much pain and felt so lost and hopeless. But I decided that that was going to be my rock bottom. Since then, as hard as it has been, and sometimes I have not wanted to get out of bed, not even wanted to hope, but I haven't let myself sink down to that level. Every month gets a little better, and there are good days and bad days but I'm learning to be compassionate to myself.

A dear friend and mentor told me that all of that love and light and energy that I had been pouring into her for years I had to pour into myself now. We can only save ourselves, and it was now time to save myself.

Stay strong everyone, much love to you all. We have survived one of the hardest things emotionally that a human can go through, and if I can do it you can, too. There are brighter times ahead.

Your post really hit me - I went through / am going through ALL of these things. I was in a VERY dark place early on - somewhere I’ve never been in my life.

I’m now realizing everything you stated. The love I desperately drove myself into the ground to get was never and will never be what I thought it was. While I’m realizing what actually was happening in our relationship, she never will. I’m sure I’m a distant memory already and, more than likely, she’s had my replacement for quite some time.

Every day I feel a bit of the old me coming back. Not the defeated POS I felt like at the end of this relationship. In the back of my mind, I’m keeping the thought that this experience, while horribly painful, will ultimately make me a better person.

[WhatToDo47]

Your post really hit me - I went through / am going through ALL of these things. I was in a VERY dark place early on - somewhere I’ve never been in my life.

I’m now realizing everything you stated. The love I desperately drove myself into the ground to get was never and will never be what I thought it was. While I’m realizing what actually was happening in our relationship, she never will. I’m sure I’m a distant memory already and, more than likely, she’s had my replacement for quite some time.

Every day I feel a bit of the old me coming back. Not the defeated POS I felt like at the end of this relationship. In the back of my mind, I’m keeping the thought that this experience, while horribly painful, will ultimately make me a better person.

I am so glad that my post was helpful. I also was brought to a very dark place when my ex left. I was a zombie and shell of myself. My family and friends were and still are worried because I was always the positive one with so much energy who could make everything okay, the one who always had faith and never gave up.

I still am, but I was wounded so deeply emotionally by her leaving and betrayal. I was so deeply and toxically enmeshed. I was her puppet and lackey. Of course, at the time I saw myself as her only true support in life and dedicated husband who would never leave or abandon her no matter what. My T keeps reminding me that she cheated on and left me when I start to wax nostalgic. It hurts but it’s true and snaps me back to realist.

Boy, did she take advantage of my love and naivety.

It hurts to realize that ,while we were driving ourselves into the ground, they were devaluing and replacing us. Its so hard to realize what ACTUALLY happened, but it’s our only way out and back to the light and sanity and REALY happiness and love and life.

This can and will make all of us here better people, if we humbly learn from this and realize that there are some things love will never heal, tragic as that is. Just look at the recycles and those who had kids with their pwBPD. ALWAYS ended badly. Always.

My T has decades of experience as a religiously minded marriage counselor. He saves couples. And he has been the strongest advocate that, when BPD is involved, it’s hopeless.

I am so happy to hear you are coming back to yourself. I am too. Slowly, but getting there. Don’t give up and don’t go back. We all have brighter days ahead because we are willing to live in reality and work on ourselves and delay gratification and the addition (of trying to make it work with a pwBPD). I find the addiction model so helpful with moving on.

[60av8tor]

when BPD is involved, it’s hopeless.

This is the realization that I didn’t want to admit in the beginning that made what happened and how it happened absolutely devastating.

I am so happy to hear you are coming back to yourself. I am too. Slowly, but getting there. Don’t give up and don’t go back. We all have brighter days ahead because we are willing to live in reality and work on ourselves and delay gratification and the addition (of trying to make it work with a pwBPD). I find the addiction model so helpful with moving on.

I literally texted my wife at times that I feel like I’m addicted to her. Meant it lovingly, but I really meant it - it really felt that way! Kind of makes me sick inside thinking about that now.

Every day I feel the darkness:light, sad:happy, hopeless:hopeful ratios shifting in the right direction. I still know myself and I’m beginning to see the past 4 1/2 years for what they were. It’s only been about 90 days. Initially I could barely get out of bed and the thought of being around people was excruciating. I buried myself at work because going home to my empty rental house was NOT helping.

I drank a bit more than I should have, although I’m done with that - I’ve never been much of drinker, but kept exercising and taking care of myself as much as I could. I reconnected with one friend I ignored during this relationship and I’m reaching out to a second - that’s really the only social network I have in my area.

I’m hoping in the next 90 days I can get out and meet some people and try to expand my network and get back into activities I once enjoyed. I stopped pretty much everything for my ex. 

Thanks again for your replies - they really, really help me.

[WhatToDo47]

I am so glad that this site and our replies are helping! I definitely encourage you to keep reading and posting here. FORCING myself to see what the r/s really was (addiction to an abuser) is really helping me stay healing and on the right path.

Keep working on yourself and doing all those healthy things, keep reconnecting with yourself and family and friends and loved ones. Don't be hard on yourself if you have moments or days or even weeks where you seem to be backsliding. It's happened to me and, from what I read here, it happens to all of us.

Post here instead of reaching out to your ex, if it comes to that. We are all here for you and you are helping us, too!