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Author Topic: Do you think they have regrets?  (Read 630 times)
TroubledNYC
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« Reply #30 on: October 04, 2009, 02:41:38 AM »

Thanks innergame,

Yeah, survived is just the right word.It seems my whole life is purely about surving this whole horrible nightmarish experience.  It is surely the most exquiste kind of suffering I have ever gone through. And I have had many hills and valleys in my life.

What makes the pain so unique is the BPD behaivior. Looking back at the totality of the relationship and the break up, I realize that despit what I thought or believed, I was never in control of this experience on any level. She drew me in, became my best friend, lover ultimately wife and then whenshe reached the limits of her threshold, she switched and made me what she needed to in order to abandon everything. It was all for nothing.

I feel disembolwed. Like I will never heal. So yeah, 'survival' is the name of the game for me. Surviving these lonely weekends, surviiving the bad dreams, surviving all the 'painting me black' she has done with such force.

Surviving... .
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innerspirit
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« Reply #31 on: October 04, 2009, 03:56:56 PM »

well, maybe i'm just having another awful Saturday night alone, replaying all the tapes over in my head, BUT, I kind of feel like: What difference does it really make if they feel regret or if they don't.

If my xBPDw feels any regret over leaving me and ending our marrige and an eight year relationship, does that help my situation in any way? Does it help anybody's?  I guess we all want to know if thjey are feeling ANYTHING like the pain and sorrow and loss that we are suffering through.

And I'll tell you all this. Right now, as I sit here alone on another Sat night without my wife, It really doesn't matter to my situatyion at all what she is feeling right now. Because whether she has regret or she doesn't, she is not coming back. She has moved on and I am left to struggle through this nightmare on my own.

I don't want her to have regrets. I don't even want her to feel sorry. I wanted her to do the right thing, which was to stay and work on the marrige and face our problems together.

But, as I now know, that scenario is all but impossible for someone with BPD.  I wish my heart would listen to what my head knows too well.

I can hear the hurt in your post, but I want you to know I appreciate your expressing it so well.  It's like how I feel about having to see X yesterday -- sure, he can EMOTE with the best of them.  What the Hell is there in him that could have dug down and really worked on the marriage.

Sadly, not much.  And so regrets, yeah, I'm sure he FEELS regret; whether he has the capacity to move on it in any kind of pro-active way was/is the question.  "Sorry" on its own won't cut it; awareness might have.  But there's the big dilemma again.
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bigredboomer

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« Reply #32 on: August 23, 2014, 02:20:58 PM »

I heartily agree with the last post. 

These people experience life completely differently to nons and so the deep thinking that comes with regular regret doesn't exist.

They are truly unable to take responsibility for the things that have gone wrong in their life because that would be too heavy a blow to their self esteem.   Their whole life is about them and their problems because they don't have enough emotional capacity left over to worry about you.

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Recooperating
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« Reply #33 on: August 23, 2014, 04:36:46 PM »

My exBPD would have regrets after every rage number (which was every other day). Tears and tears and tears and yelling and screaming DONT LEAVE ME!

Ehhh a minute ago you told me I was a horrible awefull person, satan herself, not worthy of any type of affection, a dead cold distant excuse for a human being?

I am absolutely sure he meant his apology in the most heart felt way THAT MOMENT... .

The next day it would be the same damn thing... .Then again apologies... .

We made an agreement that crossing the lone again meant losing me. If he were to break up with me again, I would keep him to it... .He did it again... .I stayed NC for 2 days. After that he gave another anger tantrum and I was done.

To me an apology is admitting you were wrong and never doing it again... Never crossing the line again... .The apologies became a broken record to me.

I am sure I crushed him, he never thought I would actually leave him. It will take him a week or two and he'll have another... .But I did hurt him... .

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bigredboomer

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« Reply #34 on: August 23, 2014, 05:44:49 PM »

I still struggle with the whole thing.  And I know that I am very confused and hurt over what happened.

I have had BPDs who would show guilt and remorse and I have had BPDs who didn't.  It all depended on whether you became chronically black or just occasionally so.

My BPDgf became much more abusive once her fear of me leaving was triggered.  Initally I had no intention of leaving but when she tossed me out I realized I was in a toxic relationship with no repair.  I'm in shock because the kids really loved me and I saw it in their behaviour  6 months later when the girl ran up to me and literally threw herself into my arms.  She played with me the whole day too. Smiling (click to insert in post)

The BPDGF went NC over that and I've hand to emotionally accept that I will never see these kids again.

I think she will be too guilty to be able to admit she did anything wrong.

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fred6
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« Reply #35 on: August 23, 2014, 09:22:57 PM »

I think they have regrets, they just can't admit them to themselves or others. After raging on me last night. This morning while she was walking out the door she said, "I'm sorry, I know you think that I'm a horrible person". I told her that "it makes me sad that you can't have a calm talk with me, except when you're running out the door." As she was closing the door behind her, she said " there's nothing to talk about". If she was really sorry, she would stop seeing the other guy, work on our relationship, and get herself some mental help. So in the end, her saying "I'm sorry", was just to make herself feel better and had nothing to do with me or actually being sorry.
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Blimblam
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« Reply #36 on: August 24, 2014, 12:19:12 PM »

Focusing on regret is a distraction from the truth.
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workinprogress
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« Reply #37 on: August 24, 2014, 01:11:47 PM »

I'm sure if I asked her, she would say that she regrets not marrying a doctor or a lawyer.
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AG
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« Reply #38 on: August 24, 2014, 02:13:39 PM »

my ex , still tries to talk to me, and all that . She has told me over and over she messed up, and her life is a mess but i refuse to let her make mine a mess, so I stay away.

I like this one. Refusing to let them mess up your life is the wisest choice ever.
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Vatz
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« Reply #39 on: August 24, 2014, 02:27:58 PM »

In her words "I'm sorry you were hurt, but I don't regret it" when I asked if she felt any remorse for cheating on me.

No, she has no regrets. Shes probably painting me black to her new savior. A year from now, she might say to him that she misses me. But will she regret no longer being with me? No. Will she regret the things she's done to hurt me and push me away? No.

When she abandons him, she won't regret that either.
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hurting300
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« Reply #40 on: August 24, 2014, 04:10:36 PM »

One of the last text messages my ex sent me before she disappeared was (I'm not happy about making you miserable)
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In the eye for an eye game, he who cares least, wins. I, for one. am never stepping into the ring with someone who is impulsive and doesn't think of the downstream consequences.
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« Reply #41 on: August 24, 2014, 04:18:16 PM »

One of the last text messages my ex sent me before she disappeared was (I'm not happy about making you miserable)

Despite all the hurt and destruction my ex pBPD would always say he had no regrets.
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maternal
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« Reply #42 on: August 24, 2014, 06:04:59 PM »

I got some sense from my ex that he knew he was hurting me.  Whether he had regrets or not, I'm not really sure, but if he did regret anything, it wasn't enough for him to stop the behaviors.

I believe that he certainly felt some regret, some guilt for his actions, but he truly doesn't know how to stop them. 
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amigo
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« Reply #43 on: August 25, 2014, 02:15:54 PM »

I also received a text from him saying "I have no regrets".

At the time there was no connection to anything I had said. I was confused. Did he mean he didn't regret what he had done to me and that he had walked away, or did he mean he didn't regret that he had this relationship with me despite the way it ended.

I think he isn't even sure himself. Just uses it as a go to phrase instead of making a real effort to discuss and resolve issues.
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hergestridge
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« Reply #44 on: August 25, 2014, 03:04:26 PM »

You can't really have regrets unless you look back and reflect. Regrets come from the thought "I wish I would have done that differently".

My wife was scared to death of that thought. She hated it with a vengeance. She spent a lot of time convincing herself that she had done her best and that things could not have been better of different than how they turned out to be.

Regrets means admiting failure and weakness, at least partially. Would you expect that from your BPD partners?

I can talk openly about regrets. How I wish I had been nicer to people I knew when I was younger. How I wish I had made different career choices earlier in my life. I remember that used to scare my wife. She asked me to stop because she thought it was unpleasant when I talked about things like that. She liked to look forward she told me. Which was odd, because she never had any plans for the future.
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goingtostopthis
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« Reply #45 on: August 25, 2014, 11:52:05 PM »

I think they suffer  as much as we do. They know something is wrong with them, but I think fear prevents from reaching out for help. Think  about our own bad habits. How many of us succeed in changing behaviors and bad habits that we promise we will change but never do. I am sure they have many regrets, but I am not going to spend my time pondering about that. I spent too much time trying to fix her, and now I am looking forward not backward.

  I dont think they do.  I think we suffer more,  alot more.  They struggle, I dont think most of them have a clue how hurtful they are. If they knew and had emphathy, half the ___ that come down from them wouldnt be happening all the time. 
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goingtostopthis
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« Reply #46 on: August 26, 2014, 12:49:15 AM »

Thanks innergame,

Yeah, survived is just the right word.It seems my whole life is purely about surving this whole horrible nightmarish experience.  It is surely the most exquiste kind of suffering I have ever gone through. And I have had many hills and valleys in my life.

What makes the pain so unique is the BPD behaivior. Looking back at the totality of the relationship and the break up, I realize that despit what I thought or believed, I was never in control of this experience on any level. She drew me in, became my best friend, lover ultimately wife and then whenshe reached the limits of her threshold, she switched and made me what she needed to in order to abandon everything. It was all for nothing.

I feel disembolwed. Like I will never heal. So yeah, 'survival' is the name of the game for me. Surviving these lonely weekends, surviiving the bad dreams, surviving all the 'painting me black' she has done with such force.

Surviving... .

Sorry Trouble... .  I hear you. I feel the same way.  Mine knew what hurt  the most and even used the same key words on me the second time he split.<double meaning there.   It was more out of "intentionally " causing pain on me then it ever was him just needing space.  It took me awhile to figure this out. I think they are so detached from themselves and what they really feel and need, it just becomes like a sick patternistic game to them to inflict as much pain on you as possible. All for the reaction and the sense of control they so desperately need.  We are over their heads and I think they know it and they resent us with a vengence because of it.

                                It has really been a struggle for me to recover from this as well. Its taken so much energy out of me. Mine blocked me, and gave me the silent treatment for two months and I felt hooked, not able to get my attention off it because the last time he did eventually come back around, and as long as I was reacting to him he felt no need to contact me.  He was getting what he wanted, so I stopped for about 2 weeks and a half, went quiet , still no contact from him. The pain for me got so bad I felt that something had to break. Its just been cruel beyond words. So cruel. So awful.  To just cut me out of his life considering how close we had been,  just like that!      I told him in an email I thought he had BPD.   I couldnt take it anymore. I couldnt take pretending to him anymore, all ways dancing around him and his uncaring selfishness. I believe his illness has gotten so bad its moved in into a kind of emotional sadism. I had to come to terms with this and face it head on with in myself. He has a mental illness, face it sort of thing. You are not dealing with an adult. You are dealing with a sick child in an adult body. If he really loved me, he would never be this cruel and uncaring. People who truely love you, dont do this sort of thing. You dont want the person you love to be hurting and suffering in any way! Well, I finally had to come to the acceptance that he does want me hurting and suffering in this way, or he wouldnt be doing it. 

     He was my best friend too. I trusted this on a certain level and this is why the pain of this has been so shocking and intense for me.  We spoke everyday for a year, never missed a day.  When Im hurting emotionally it all goes into my body, so now Im like a walking cripple. My left side hurts and I limp a bit when I get tired.

               This is nothing new to me.  I discovered that my past two relationships that didnt work out , happened that way for the same reason and I didnt know it.  Im attracted to BPD's. I didnt have a clue so my mind has opened up to this a lot! This experience woke me up.  It was like all of a sudden I started making all these connections with these two other boyfriends. both behaving in the same sort of way. 

                        I finally decided that enough was enough. I wrote him one last email and told him myself it was over and why and that I never wanted to see or hear from him ever again for rest of my life, and you know I meant it. I all ways before skirting around ever saying this to him because there was all ways a part of me hoping, that he would come around again and I still loved him bla bla bla. I really think half the reason he has been able to get away with this treatment on me is for that very reason. He has never had any cruel threats from me , ever, because Im a true person. He thought he has me hooked, thats why.

                   I finally just got so teird of his darkness, his self masocism that he has been playing on my head. I told him that.  I was out with it. His little boy fasination with macob pictures, all ways so dark. Him putting down my belief in God, any thing positive and in the light he tried to kill in me, after he killed it with in himself. I had to be honest with myself, this isnt who I am.  Ya and Ive been pretty lonely too  I have conversations with my cats now. I went on and on getting stuff out of my system with one sweet little purry for an hour the other day. She didnt understand a word I said ,but she did my tone and I swear that cat has more love in its little paw then this jack ase ever did.   Everything all ways about him. Well its about me now. 

   What I do now, is that anytime the pain starts to mount up again,  I reherse in my mind what he really is over and over again until it sinks in further. ,and I think of all the positive things in my life and in my self that can freely flurish now with out this darkness.  His illness is evil, he isnt, but his illness "is". I want no part of it.   
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hergestridge
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« Reply #47 on: August 26, 2014, 01:38:19 AM »

Glad to hear anyone besides me re-connecting with the cat post-breakup!   Smiling (click to insert in post)
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