for those who ask if friendship post-r/s is possible

[patientandclear]

I just shared my relatively successful (so far) story on the Staying Board, for what it's worth.  Warning: anything positive that has come out of my experience has required genuinely leaving behind romantic hopes and longing.  Since I've only been partially able to do that, there is still pain and sadness surrounding this situation for me.  Nonetheless, since so many people say it isn't possible to have a real friendship with a BPD ex after the romantic r/s crashes, I wanted to share this.  My ex may be unusually ready for this, but I have no doubt he is BPD and his difficulty trusting those close to him is typical of those of most of our ex partners, so perhaps this will be of interest to some on this board.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=193194.msg12192052#msg12192052

[lovemotorsports8x]

i hope you have better luck than i did she hates me i gave her everything in the divorce she talks bad about me and does anything to make my life hell

[AllyCat7]

Thanks for sharing :-) I posted a reply.

[patientandclear]

i hope you have better luck than i did she hates me i gave her everything in the divorce she talks bad about me and does anything to make my life hell

I'm sorry.  

To be clear, I'm by no means saying that friendship is always possible, or even often.  Just that it is not, I think, impossible, with a lot of clear thinking and honesty with oneself, and slogging through persistent feelings of betrayal and longing to get to the other side.  I've read so often that it is impossible with pwBPD, and I don't want people who might find healing in a real friendship to completely discard that possibility.  There are others who have managed something similar on these boards, but not many of us post about it.

My ex is being brave too.  He is pushing himself through his own fears and questions about this.  Maybe it's that he is 50 and tired of all the drama.  Maybe, as he told me at the time, I was the most amazing love he'd known, the most loving person he'd ever met, he was confounded by his inability to stay with me, and that prompted him to stop the repeating cycle.  Maybe it's that he devastated the young woman who followed me, who wanted kids and marriage and to whom he probably signaled that that was possible, knowing that she was deeply in love with him and he'd already broken her heart several times previously.  Not sure which of these bad things prompted him to shift, but he seems to have broken from the most obvious & destructive behaviors of his past.

As I say in the linked post, though, he's still BPD. There's a lot of push-pull.  He is still afraid of closeness.  And I am still in love with him and I still struggle with my longing for what I thought we would be together.  I posted tonight because I feel like I've taken a step away from that longing.  I realize this is better, hard and imperfect as it is.  Because it is real.

Many of our exes are just not at a point to even offer this.  I think we all need to assess our own situations and if the ingredients for this are not there, there's no way to force it.  And for many people, this continued contact doesn't allow for the detachment they need to achieve (mind you, I only tried this after 10 months of strict NC, and even then, I hadn't really dealt with my longing and disappointment).  All I'm saying is that I don't think it's impossible, which is the usual answer.

[almost789]

Im happy for you and for him! I tried the friendship thing too, but this longing and his BPD issues wore me and him down. And I found that that saying about we just become the trigger and them ours, i found that to be very true. Painful, sad reality for me and him.

[patientandclear]

And I found that that saying about we just become the trigger and them ours, i found that to be very true.

I agree that this is true.  For my ex to be close to me feels very risky for him because I know him well by now, and because he hurt me, and because I have witnessed him coming apart and not understanding what was happening, and because he has shared intimate parts of himself that confuse him.  So interacting with me is completely different now than it was when we were first dating, and all was rapturous, and I was so adoring.

And by the same token, it has been so very hard for me to get past my yearning to be wanted as he said he wanted me initially.  Whatever that did for me was so incredibly addictive, and I still feel its absence and long for it.

However, though these are triggers, I think sometimes it can be healthy to work our way past triggers, learning to self-soothe, learning that life goes on & we don't have to blow everything up every time there's an uncomfortable feeling.  After my ex triggers off of something going on with us, he processes, he deals with it, and then we resume.  For me, that's viable in a friend -- it wouldn't be in a romantic partner.

[almost789]

You must have the patience of a saint. What frustrated me so was I think he wanted me for his "friend" but when he'd go distance on me, I know he was flirting around with other women online, because he doesn't go without. He can't be alone. he needs that ego boosting. Now, I know none of them meant anything to him, or so he says. I was the "special" one. But it always broke me down feeling as if I was giving him all the support of being a friend and he was giving his passion to others and I wanted it back. If I could ever get it into my mind that he is not my "lover" perhaps I could make the friendship thing work. But it's difficult, as you know. The longing is painful and despite my intentions to remain "friends", it is the fact that I lost my lover that triggered me everytime.

[Phoenix.Rising]

  P&C,  I have the uttermost respect for your courage in working on a friendship with your ex.  I'm sure this has benefited you both.  As you know, I remained in a friendship with my ex, and was successful for a period of time.  However, like you, I was still in love with her.  I still love her, but not as intensely. 

She was dating other men while we were remaining friends, and it became to difficult for me due to my unresolved longings.  I found myself back in that place of deep pain and knew that I couldn't go on like that.  She would've remained friends with me, but I just couldn't do it.  I apologized to her and told her I could not be friends.  I didn't say I never want to talk to you again, but I did tell her I did not want to talk at all for a while.  She understood. 

For me, I'm not sure it is possible to remain close friends with an ex who I still have longings for, and who is actively dating others.  My jealousy gets in the way, and that is on me.  I am not healed from our breakup, and I was delaying that by remaining in contact.  The 'dream' of us remained active in my heart, although intellectually I knew it was doomed (apart from a commitment to therapy, which was non-existent).  She made it very clear that she had no intentions of changing anything about the way she lived her life.  Ultimately, I believe I would've been miserable trying to make something work that wasn't working.

I can hear that you still love him, and, honestly, that will most likely cause increased pain if you are unable to have an intimate relationship with him.  It's an unrequited love.  Maybe your romantic love will fade?  Mine has faded, but not completely gone.

I'm recently realizing that there were other dynamics at play for me in the relationship, one being an unhealthy trauma bond.  This was (is) hard to accept, but I'm finding for me that it is true.  I'm not suggesting you make any decisions either way.  That is something you will have to figure out on your own.  I do hope that you will find a relationship with a partner who is able and willing to love you in a healthy, adult way.  Our exs are like children emotionally.  How can I have an intimate, adult relationship with a child?  I cannot.  I know you are aware of this, and I wish you the very best.   

[real lady]

Thanks for sharing your well informed, self-aware and really level headed approach to this... .  I agree, it could ONLY be possible with MUCH self work as well as SOME cooperation by our ex BPD... .  

I already told my uBPDso that if I leave his home, have to live apart from him, that I will NOT have relationship with him. The time for him to "have a relationship" with me is RIGHT NOW and if he doesn't want to "work on it" I have resigned to believe that it is NOT important to him and giving him space by moving out will NOT be an option for me. I don't want him "as a friend"... .  I want him to be the man whom he promised to "BE" and whom I thought he was and to STOP this inane behavior. After I leave, I don't care what he does. He will NOT be a friend to me when I have to support my son and myself if he is NOT a friend to me now... .  

I understand that there are other situations but this one is mine and just thought I would share it with you... .  thanks... .  

[Want2know]

I am curious how often you see him, or plan on seeing him, and for what types of occasions?

I don't think it's impossible to have some kind of friendship with an ex.  It's the degree and intensity of the friendship that I think is the difference. 

For example, I might feel the urge to contact him and have a friendly chat, or if I ran into him at a party, I'm sure we'd talk, but setting up any time to meet him and hang out one-on-one is something I would not do even with me feeling detached from him.  There is still that boundary that I have... .  

[patientandclear]

We email daily (email is very safe for him, & it's the place where he can be most open w/me, maybe because I'm not a real person there & it's not instant--he checks email once a day the library only).  We text extensively for days & then periodically he goes on text strike.  And we see each other every few weeks for tea, talking & some sort of cultural event (museum, performance, author reading).  Interestingly, he always sets those up, & way in advance. I think it comforts him to know we will see each other--his way of managing object constancy worries, perhaps.

[seeking balance]

P&C,

I know your story is rare and has taken a lot of energy for you.

Since the leaving board is about DETACHING (not no contact), can you share your detachig process that allowed you to get to this point?

Were there times of NC?

What is it that you get out of this relationship?

Peace,

SB

[patientandclear]

SB ... .  good questions. This is a story of detaching through reconnection, absolutely.

It was essential for me to spend a long time in absolute NC.  10 months.  I needed not to be hurt & disappointed every time we saw each other or had contact, if we were not moving forward romantically. I just couldn't do that initially, especially aftr he began seeing someone else (though to be fair to him, that only really took flight after I started NC ... .  I could just see where it was going).

Meanwhile, I learned about BPD, spent a ton of time here, saw the patterns, understood the causes, learned not to take it so personally. I only reached out again as a friend when I felt I'd accepted that he simply cannot manage a romantic r/s--it wasn't a rejection of me, there wasn't something I should have done different, there wasn't some easy thing he could have done differently.

I should stress that what's made it harder to maintain detachment is that he does pull me very close.  He's made himself vulnerable in ways that we never reached while dating--introducing me to family members, offering to meet mine, and other developments I never expected.  Then he runs away & reemphasizes that we are Just Friends.  The constant feeling that we are doing something that is More Than Friends, combined w/his distancing, has been confusing, because it meshes with what I in my heart still want. But. It's on me not to over-read EITHER the closeness or the distance. To stay detached, that is the trick--not to let my heart get carried away when he does things normally only a partner would do (last text of the night kind of things).

Hope that helps. Contact this point helps me detach because I see himas a real person & I accept who & how he is.  It's really there, the dysfunction and panic when we draw close--I didn't make it up. It's real.

[Maryiscontrary]

I am just shaking at your story.

What an amazing person you are.

I am going through the same stages as your husband. You nailed it with the developing a cognitive sense of self. Well, maybe not a sense of whole self, like with him, but very much modular parts.

I am only imagine the pain this has put you through. You fell in love to a person without a neural cognitive map of themselves. Just like if you had fallen for someone who had aphasia, or a lack of a cognitive neural map of the spoken language.

So basically, you are giving him a secure attachment, while he attempts to grow.

Wow.