Update

[elemental]

Things have calmed a lot compared to a few months ago.

Communication avenues are open.

We had a little conflict a few days ago. He is currently on a business trip and we were talking. Out of nowhere, he threw in my face that I had spoken to his ex a couple of months ago and her result acting out had been so terrible, he was afraid I was going to talk to her again.

He said "with your habits of sharing private information... "

Habit, I fail to see speaking to the lady 3 times for about 2 minutes at a time in the last year as a "habit.

At this point from my point of view, his ex is HIS problem. Sorry she doesn't like our relationship, but that is on her.

I felt hurt when he said that. I am essentially being asked to be a non entity in his life because his ex refuses to control her behavior. I feel conflicted about it, as I don't see this as viable long term.

Rather than allowing my own emotions to really get in the discussion, I told him that was ok, and we could talk later, as I was not up for a discussion.

I did not validate him. He immediately wrote me via email, and said "stop acting like a little girl".

I ignored him.

What I have basically been presented with in the last couple of weeks is this:

No discussion is allowed about the past. No discussion about what he did. No requests are allowed from me to him asking him to do anything for me at all in terms of him making up in any way for his past actions of cheating, the baby, etc.

I am to let it all go and be polite, calm and nice to him. In return he will not mention my terrible reactions to how he treated me. He will make himself available as long as I do none of the above actions and he will not block me, give me silent treatment ( as long as I behave).

And I guess that is it. As long as he gets his clean slate and internet woman grandfathered in as his friend, then we can go back to being happy and restore our relationship.

I talked to him next day after his little girl mail. Pointed out to him that if he wants his "clean slate" then probably being provocative towards me was not going to be helpful.

He took that on and let further comments go.

As a result of some degree of peace, he has been calmer, more open. He told me he bought a cell phone for his daughter ( 10 years old this month) and told her to hide it. His ex will not allow the child to contact him. His ex always creates a situation where if he wants to talk to his daughter, he literally has to go over to his ex's apartment.

I said nothing about the phone, except it would be nice for his daughter to be able to contact him when she likes. And I let it go.

I am feeling depressed. Detached until suddenly feel like crying. Then back to detachment.

It's calm. Talking to him, I feel extremely anxious. He is generally calm too, but I can barely stand to be around him due to the level of anxiety I feel.

I guess I am afraid of something suddenly happening that is going to be painful. I am tired out and when he complains I really don't feel like validating him. I don't feel like arguing or anything, and I guess I am pretty non responsive at this point to provocation or whatever.

Resigned. I don't know what else to do now.

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[patientandclear]

Hi Elemental. 

If I were in your exact story, here is what would be going on with me.  It's a dynamic I've recognized in therapy since my ex broke my heart by leaving me out of the blue when it seemed things were wonderful.  In meditation and therapy, in the months after, what surfaced was a deep need, when someone takes love away from me, to get it back -- no matter what.  It's as if all I can see is white light, and all I can feel is the imperative to get back to the place where I was loved.  As if that will fix it all.

In several instances over my adult lifetime I've experienced betrayal by a man who claimed to love me.  I then worked hard to reclaim my "place" and get back to the point where that man chose me again.

Only then was I able to look somewhat objectively at the situation and, later, determine that I didn't want the r/s because at bottom, the supposed "love" was deeply flawed.  Of course, those same flaws are what led to the betrayals, but somehow I couldn't reason my way forward just from the betrayals -- I needed to get my place back first, and then, I could see these things.

Parenthetically, of course, I wonder whether this same need is driving my current effort to maintain an intimate friendship with my uBPD exbf.  Probably so.

With you, I wonder if your current feelings of exhaustion and cynicism are the healthy manifestation of all that you've learned about your SO and how he loves.  I think your resentments are justified.  Your critique of the ground rules for the current r/s makes total sense.  This is an unremedied betrayal.  It feels like you maybe needed to get back in the spotlight of his loving attention in order to be able to truly reckon with whether you want what you now have.  I know for me, this would be the first moment when I would truly be able to ask myself that question -- now that he is "back."

[123Phoebe]

Hi elemental,

Sitting with your anxiety and feeling it, not acting on it, is a huge step in the right direction. 

I know that I had gotten so used to super-charged situations, feeling like doo-doo and resentful, grinding my teeth, having to do something to state my case and pretty much demanding that I BE HEARD, to release the pent up feelings.  It didn't help anything.  It kept the drama going.  I was acting from a place of desperation.

Once I learned to sit with my anxiety, it started to lessen; it was easier to recognize the provocation from others and that it was their issue, not mine any longer.  Life is complicated enough (bills to pay, car breaks down, leaky faucet etc... .  ) without having to deal with somebody else's complications, especially one's that they're not even recognizing as their own, but tossing in our lap.  I think of them as 'hot potatoes'.  Toss them back and let them figure out what to do next.

Sitting and learning new ways to deal with our anxiety is by first accepting that it's our own internal world that's amiss... .     With me it was separation anxiety, I was feeling.  It's like a death in a way.  Enmeshment felt normal to me.  I let go and grieved the dream, stopped fighting it.  And it hurt for a while.  But during that time I started new hobbies and got involved with different activities, things that I had an interest in - I made it about me for the first time in my life, and not about me in relation to another's upheaval.  Healthy lifestyle choices as opposed to dyfunctional defense mechanisms.

So, instead of being afraid of something painful happening, I've become detached enough and happy enough in my own world that when issues arise it no longer provokes me into action, except to toss the hot potato back and skip along my merry way down the path to better living... .  

Little by little, both my mom and friend have realized that in order to have me in their life, the nasty stuff will not be tolerated.  I don't want nastiness in my life and I don't want to be nasty.  A foundation of trust has been built and we're learning to relate to each other in better ways, without ultimatums, but with boundaries and respect for everyone involved. 

The past is the past and can't be undone.  The present and the future is unfolding... .  

You're on the right track!

[almost789]

You are anxious because you cant control him. You want an apology, you want him to take responsibility for the hurt he caused you, you want him to stop his relationship with this woman and he wont. You have no control of the situation and that makes you anxious. You have three choices, to accept what he offers, to let go of him, or remain in your state of anxiousness trying to control a situation you have no control over.

[elemental]

Life... .  I don't even know what kind of friendship he has with internet woman. From what I can tell, I don't think it is much of one anymore. I am very averse to her regardless. I decided to watch and wait and see how it goes. It seems mostly he just wants me to shut up and not make him feel bad or controlled.

He has apologized. Broadly for his actions. He did that a couple of weeks ago. Logically, I guess, what more can he say? At the same time I feel it's not even a drop in the bucket. I don't know why this isn't good enough for me. I guess I feel he needs to be making me more of a priority.

Patient I moved deeper beyond your experience. By that I mean, I am just giving up on people these days. Someone treats me badly, I just say ok and leave. With my BPD, there was a lack of understanding on my side that he really was being so ... BPD. I didn't understand the damage was deliberate in the sense that he actually had a thought process going that reasoned out to him why it was ok for him to treat me the way he did while expecting ME to make up to HIM for what he was doing. 

Like many people here, I truely believed it was a rock solid unshakable love. When things went bad, he concealed his actions against me so thoroughly, I went for the next 2+ years totally believing this guy loved me and wanted me and it was circumstances that were so difficult. Like his insane ex and what I believed was PTSD on his part.

When I realized the baby and the way he treated me and with my sister's death and over that stupid girl online, I was in so much shock and pain I couldn't even respond except to ask him to stop doing the thing I perceived ( maybe erroneaously) as the thing that triggered off the horrible feelings I have had. Which was back off internet woman and respect boundries... something he flat out refused to do or would agree to tone down then sneak around doing it until he did something so BIG it was impossible to conceal.

As summer went on I realized something was terribly wrong as people were coming to me and telling me his actions and what he was and had been saying about me for a very long time.

Prior to that I had been trying to work with him under his "bad" circumstances, hoping things would calm down. Have they? If I block out internet woman and his ex and all the past, well they are pretty calm.

I just feel like I run out of steam, sat myself down. And I look at him and I give up. Yes, he will do what he wants to do without a lot of regard to my feelings and the effects on me.

I did approach him on this and he told me that he cares, however HIS feelings are so low right now that HE does not feel inspired to step it up or do what I ask because HE is so upset and hurt by MY actions. His solution is to have calm and peace and allow time to heal and let rebuild the feelings. This is why he told me his "rules" because those are the conditions he says HE needs in order to feel better and regain his true love for me.

My conditions? Do they matter?  I already asked for one thing: Desist with internet woman and I got effed around so much, at this point I believe I actually had an complete emotional break down over it all in November and December. I feel I was mentally mad during that time. As melodramatic as it sounds.

Only thing that really pulled me out of that spot in my head was when he revisited the online game money issue and I could clearly see his rewriting of history and how it has probably led to his blaming me for the ruin of the relationship and for treating him terribly. And it follows that is why he feels "right" about his treatment of me. I am still trying to wrap my mind around how much this has probably happened. I don't know what to think of it yet, but I feel gutted. I tried so hard for this man and it's like all of it was for nothing.  And here I am in victim mode. It's really hard to pry myself out of it right now, though I can recognize the position I am in.

At least I can see it. :'(

Phoebe, you have had me thinking. You know there are monsters in my past and ones I am not looking at full on. I thought about them and I feel like it's all too big to even speak about much. I don't know what to do with them. It's like finding a hidden room in the attic that is full of boxes or something.

Essentially it comes down to what I am really afraid of as a result of them. The feelings I have are about abandonment too. And I am knowing better now than to get caught up again in his "stuff" or other people's "stuff". I still want to. For example, he is on work trip, we are talking on IM, and he goes quiet and my first thought is he is talking to internet woman and my general reaction is just to disappear on him. He says he hardly talks to her and she doesn't want to talk to him very much, so he doesn't try.

But he has a history as the most adept liar I ever met. I don't believe him and I feel impulse to react on these mistrust. But I am not openly reacting. I say nothing and go do something else until I see he is back. And I resent even being in the mindset to feel/think this way.

I understand the path forward you say you took. It's probably the one I need to take. Maybe I am still grieving. Maybe that is all it is. We are coming up on the first birthday of his son, who was born on Valentine's Day.

His ex taunted me last summer "would you like to see the photographs from when OUR SON was born?" she says they were all so happy and excited and my BPD was thrilled.

I remember that day. He was a nervous wreck and drank himself silly.