Anniversary of baby being born

[elemental]

Somewhere in here is the first birthday of my BPD's son.

I don't actually know what day the child was born. So far BPD has refused to tell me.

I am someone who archives old emails, msn conversations, ect.

I was thinking about this little boy today. I don't know what he looks like. My BPD has not offered to show me any photos of him, and I have been unable to ask to see him.

As I have said here before, I didn't know his ex was pregnant. And a year ago I was still 6 weeks away from finding out about the baby being born.

A year ago I saw my BPD slide into a near catatonic state. I couldn't figure out what had gotton him so bad. He was distant but clingy at the same time. Talking to him, he was near emotionless.

When I found out... sheer numbness, shock, disbelief. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. My BPD was wildly disregulated, drunk all the time, all over the place. Lashing out at his ex, who he later told me was constantly in tears because she couldn't figure out why another baby hadn't made him love her again and want to remarry and be a family. She is a horrible person, but I really felt for her some when I heard that.

Now, I think about it and I think, he was expecting me to have compassion for the woman he had cheated on me with and produced another child with.

During the last year, he has expressed his unhappiness over this happening. More often he has been silent on it. He has seen himself as a commodity torn between women ( much to my disgust) and he has beyond a couple of brief apologies, been resentful of any upset or pain I showed him over it, having outbursts at me if I did.

Any show of pain from me gets a lecture at me for "you are refusing to control your emotions even on a simple level".

?

I have been defaulting to quietly leaving and going somewhere else when I am hurting rather than trying to get comfort from him. My pain triggers off his shame, then his anger, and then his hurt. Which are all emotions he feels more intensely than he feels my pain.

I don't know what to do with it.

He just got back from a 2 week business trip. He checked in with me briefly, then he went to his game and checked in there, then he either went home and crashed or he went over to his ex's to see the children. He didn't say what he was doing. I had a couple of mails from him today.

I know somewhere in here is his son's birthday. He told me HE wants for me to be relaxed and calm about everything. No extreme actions he says. Like walking off for a day and not answering when I am hurting and don't really want to be around.

Truth is, I don't want to be around right now. I don't want to have the secret of his son's birthday, which he is keeping from me mostly to keep me from having a day of upset and maybe ( his paranoia) saying something to his ex, who will go bonkers and make everyone pay for it for the next few weeks. I don't know that he actually cares that I feel hurt.

I don't even know

And maybe I am just venting. I think a lot lately that I learned loads here, but sadly, I am very tired of BPD. I don't feel like saying much. Valentine's day is soon. I think his son was born on Valentine's Day. I don't want to celebrate it.

I don't want to cause harm, but I also don't want to hide my own hurt. But I also know showing it will trigger him off and it will be worse. I think he is probably paranoid about some bad times coming his way.

Does anyone here just want to run away and not come back for a while? Anyone else here been cheated on with a child as a product of it? I know baby is innocent... but there are times where I really despise his ex, and his actions and it's all gotton so complicated.

I just want to go quiet and disappear for the next week.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[123Phoebe]

Aw elemental, you sound tired out

If you need time to process your own feelings, please take that time!  Make yourself the priority. He doesn't get to dictate how you do that, ya know? 

And yes, sometimes I want to run away.  Sometimes, I want to quit my job.  Sometimes, I want to sell my house and live off the fat of the land

And sometimes, I just need a lot of sleep and TLC, to get my head screwed back on straight.  To have a better understanding of what it is I actually do want and if what I have is enough to continue forward... .  

Maybe take a few days just for you, away from all things BPD related.  Sometimes, the things that are making us feel certain things really have nothing to do with it anyway.

Take care of you

[patientandclear]

I strongly agree with Phoebe's point that you should do what feels best for you, regardless of whether your pwBPD wants that.  If he wants you, he will just have to accommodate that you needed some space.  No need to announce to him what is prompting it -- what reflections and past hurts make you need to pull back a bit.  You can just say you are feeling contemplative or need some time to yourself, if you wish to give him a sort of courtesy notice.

Forgottenarm, a member/ambassador here who used to mostly post on Leaving, once posted -- when I was agonizing about not having reunited with my ex when he was sort of offering to do that after having left me out of the blue -- "what would it look like if he were actually saying and doing things that would allow you to feel safe and secure after the betrayal that happened?  That would truly allow repair and healing?" and that helped me realize that those things were absent.  There was a reason I still didn't feel emotionally safe.  It was because I wasn't and would not have been safe.  He hadn't made any changes or had any realizations, except the realization that he wanted me back.  He just wanted to press the "re-set" button.

I feel like that's your situation with your pwBPD.  He wants you back, and because you've missed him and endured seeming rejection, that is validating, to a point.  But he doesn't seem to be doing anything other than trying to hit the "re-set" button either.  So no wonder you don't feel safe.  I think you are in a loop where the only way you can actually get safe with this man is to eliminate all expectations that he will protect your feelings.  He will want you but he will not care for you.

I love how honest you are being with yourself about what you are feeling.  That's bound to lead you in the right direction.

I think you should indeed pull back, perhaps explaining mildly that you need to do that for a bit, though you expect to be back, so you are not setting in motion any big drama.  I think a part of you is pushing hard to get in an emotionally safe place and you should let it take charge.

[Cardinals in Flight]

Hi elemental!

I've been wondering how you were doing.

You said... .  or wrote,

"I don't want to cause harm, but I also don't want to hide my own hurt. But I also know showing it will trigger him off and it will be worse."

I can relate, a whole whole lot right now.  I could insert <her> in place of your him and have said the same things.

I wrote a while back that I was just tired, tired of BPD, tired of validating, tired of always having to speak with a filter.  I don't have to do this with others in my life.  I can feel your tiredness as well.

I'd like to run away right now, mostly from BPD though.  There is a deep love for my pwBPD, and I know that times aren't so great right now and that hopefully this will pass as has before.

We have to just keep on taking care of us, keep on keeping on as the song goes, regardless of BPD.

Big hugs to you!  I cannot imagine how you are feeling in regards to the baby though, that has to just rip out your heart.

CiF

[elemental]

I asked him again. He ignored the question and asked me how I am feeling, if I am sorting my head. That's all he said. I told him my head is not sorted. And he went silent and is not available now.

He doesn't want to talk about it. It opens up a can of worms where he can't explain how this happened, or say he is sorry, and he feels blame which he doesn't want to feel, shame, guilt.

So for him it's better to go silent and disappear, hoping I will let it drop out of consideration to him.  He doesn't want an escalation and I know he is afraid of one. I guess, practically speaking, at some point the birth date will come out.

I guess he figures it would ruin Valentine's Day for me forever if he verified that his son he got cheating on me was born on Valentine's Day.

I don't think it will surprise him at all to see me pull back now. He would probably be relieved I am not letting him directly see I am unhappy or that I am complaining at him like I have in the past.

I think him looking like he is caring for me is not playing that game with the people he is playing it with. I think him caring for me is telling his ex tough ___, Elemental is my girl, now deal with it!

In my dreams.

I will skip being available on everything but email for a few days. He knows he can touch base with me there. I don't think he will mail me for a few days, as he made plain to me he finds email inconvenient and prefers me on IM, where he makes himself easily available. I guess if he has something he wants to say, he will mail.

I am getting the feeling that he has conflict going with the ex and probably feeling how I do, making  myself scarce is best for now anyway.

Maybe later it will be different. Look how much changed since November when it was so crazy. *depressed haha I should be happy.

[123Phoebe]

This is a tough time for you and understandably so; he's not willing to tell you the date of his son's birthday?

Did some part of you know that if you asked him this simple question, it would cause him to back up, thereby giving you the space to take a few days away, without having to communicate it as such?

Elemental, what is holding you to this relationship?  What makes it appealing to you?

[elemental]

Yes. Some part of me knew.

I know how he is thinking.

Basically, like Patience said, he wants his second chance, but he doesn't want to pay the currency for it.

What he wants is for me to let it go, be calm and be strong. Because when I am that way, he has capacity to handle things with his ex.

I know if I let these sorts of questions go for now, later, when he feels I won't cry or be sad or show anger or upset, he will feel "safe" telling me.

It sounds really simple doesn't it: be calm, be peaceful, be strong. Everything a good partner of a BPD is supposed to be, and THEN he will feel safe and make his moves.

I get it, but he's kind of cornering me to by pass my processing and he is demanding I bypass asking him to be a part of it. He doesn't want to really come "back" until I am all nice and fixed. I just think he is abandoning me to it.

I have been thinking about just that thing, Phoebe. What is making it appealing. Honestly at this point NOTHING. I am probably going on momentum these days. I don't know what to do. He can be awesome and all that, but I don't think he is awesome when he is walking all over common decency in how you treat people (me!) in the extreme ways he has.

I know he won't change much until he thinks I have let his BS and what he has done go. I am not sure I have it in me to go through all of this alone, and then let the guy who did it walk back into my nice beautifully remodeled and upgraded emotional house.

Like you said, if he wants to play fair and nice, wonderful. If not, he can sit out on the steps until he does.

Sorry getting a little mad now :/

[elemental]

Also how can I even tell him how I feel about all of this without sounding like a victim? He won't listen. Just sees himself as being attacked and instead of doing me the grace of simply saying, "it's the 14th, and I know you are hurting, I am so sorry" it turns into another head effing. I am so TIRED of it.

[elemental]

He and I had some minimal discussion, as he can't seem to tolarate more than 2 minutes of it at a time.

He said he recognizes that I am triggering on things. He says that I should stop thinking about the past.

I think he has some empathy at times. He doesn't want to dwell on it.

But I am sitting here, at the beginning of Valentines day. I still don't know when his son was born. He still went off yesterday to play with online woman in the game, though it appears it is with other people too.

I sat with him a bit earlier. He saw I am low and he asked what was in my head. I was afraid to say what is in my head because I am in a lot of pain and I feel some anger about it all.

I realize maybe I am sounding BPD here, but I actually don't know what to do with what I am feeling. People say sit with it. Well, I sit with it. He sees me trying to, then he just walks out after telling me to get some rest, I will feel all better after that.

No. I will not feel all better after that. I don't know when I will feel better. It didn't help for him to bolt off. He actually went into the kitchen, which has a door going outside. It got quiet and after a bit I went to see and he had left without saying anything.

And this man expects me to be happy to see him when he shows up later... or doesn't show up because if his son's first birthday is today, then his ex will want a party, and he will go and he won't tell me because... .  I don't know, I guess I may dress up as a clown or something and crash it. 

And one of my guy friends said to me, "he f***** up. what can he say?"

I don't know.  

Internet woman's birthday is friday. he made a big deal about it last year. I honestly just want to disappear for the next week so I don't run across all of this and have to look at it.

Am I bittter? I feel bitter.

[patientandclear]

Elemental ... .  I think it is very hard to be intimate with someone who has hurt you at that level and is not capable of acknowledging or repairing.  I think it feels like a betrayal of yourself, and that's where your superego or whatever is asserting itself and saying "wait.  There was and is danger here.  No, you cannot let yourself just go back as if that didn't happen."

That instinct is a good thing.  Just not convenient for just moving ahead with a BPD relationship.  Your instinct to protect yourself is not letting you just push reset.

[elemental]

If I try to talk to him about it, all I hear back is how terrible I am.

I don't know why he even talks to me or anything else.

The baby's birthday is Feb 15. he finally told me after telling me how crap I am and how I can't be trusted.

I am NOT understand why it had to be a secret. I am NOT understanding this debate over telling me for the last year. All it has done is make me feel worse.

I mean seriously? *I* can't be trusted? Is it really the solution to stop caring about any of this and just... do what? At what point does the need for detachment become ending a relationship because one person is so dishonest, deceptive, cheating, lying, stealing, manipulative, projecting. FFS. It's messed up my ZEN again.