Heart is breaking all over again - need advice

[Tigerabbit]

Hi all, (if you can't read all this, please skip to the last paragraph... .  it should be enough for you to know what I need advice on. The rest is back story.)

Having a hard time even knowing where to start this... .  I guess I'll pickup where I left off from my last update. I've just recently been starting to go to groups after being 5150'd in February. Tonight was my third group total, and my first CoDA group. I'm so distraught right now I was crying during probably 50% of it.

This Tuesday was my... .  well I don't even know now what to refer to him as, my exbf or my bf or what... .  but it was his birthday. A few days before that we decided we were not going to have contact so that we could work on ourselves individually. We haven't been entirely successful in sticking to that, but that's not to say we haven't been putting in monumental effort. I can't count how many times I've resisted the urge to contact him in some way, and I know he's done the same. The night before his birthday, he called me up and very excitedly asked me to go see Silver Lining Playbook with him, he really wanted to see it and felt it was important to see it with me (for those who don't know it's a movie about a guy with BPD). Probably a big mistake on my part, but I agreed. He said we would just watch the movie and not talk and then go home. I enjoyed the movie, but it really hit home for me in multiple ways, so I was crying through a good portion of it. I tried to not make it obvious, but he knew, and was very upset by this (I don't know what other reaction he expected from me with something that struck such a freshly wounded nerve, but that's part of his BPD of course). We walked out to our cars, and I gave him some vitamin-B stress complex supplements that I got for him which I thought might help him out. Now, before the movie I told him I had no money and had lost my debit card, and he said no worries. So at my car he says "you owe me money", when in fact he had owed me $20 from before so I responded, with a smile and half jokingly, "actually you owe me money". He just repeated himself, and I decided it wasn't a battle I wanted to take on so I just said "ok". He then expressed that he was hungry and wanted me to take him to get food, and I said "I don't have any money... .  " He got all hurt and said, "you mean you'll let me buy you a movie ticket and then just let me go home hungry?" (Keep in mind we aren't supposed to be hanging out at this point anyway) and then drops the supplements I gave him on the ground and walks away. Rather than engaging him, I just got in my car and drove home. I turned my phone off, knowing full well that he was about to assault me with text messages, and went to sleep. Sure enough I woke up (on his birthday) to about 14 texts letting me have it, telling me about some woman he met in his group and how she is so much more attractive than me etc. I didn't respond to any of those, and instead left some gifts and a card on his porch, and texted him saying happy birthday and letting him know I had left things for him. He ended up asking me to take him to dinner, which I did. He doesn't really have anyone else and I couldn't bear the thought of him feeling alone and unloved on his birthday. I felt it was okay to make an exception to our rule, so I took him to dinner. We were having a nice time, and he asked me to go watch a movie with him at his house. In interim, he started bringing up sore subjects which I tried to get off the topic of, asking "do you really want to be talking about this right now?" And he started to get a little nasty, but we managed to defuse the situation, and he asked me to stay the night and cuddle with him. I'm proud of myself that I didn't do that, as much as I wanted to and it was very hard to say no, I knew that if I did we ran an even greater risk than we already were running of falling back into the way things have been.

Fast forward a couple days, to today. I'm trying to get involved in as many support groups as I can for different things. So far I'm going to one for people with mental illnesses (mine being depression and anxiety), the CoDA group I mentioned above, and today I called a place for survivors of domestic violence to see if I could get involved with those groups. They told me that I would have to provide them with his name and city where he lives, and I didn't feel comfortable doing that without asking him first if he was okay with that. So I asked him to call me when he had the chance, and I asked him. He said no way, absolutely not, that it was a bunch of B.S. and that I could tell them to eff off. He proceeded to get angrier and angrier at me. He had just gotten home from his group for addiction, and he said that he couldn't think about the things that he's done right now, that it's a trigger for him and that I'm so selfish, and that now he feels he either has to use something or go hang out with the aforementioned girl he was talking about who had asked him to hang out and is apparently very obviously interested in him, which is also bad because he shouldn't be hanging out with people from group but hey, at least he could get laid (sorry if that isn't an appropriate term to use... .  unsure about that one, but it's what he said... .  ). So, I'm feeling guilty because I'm thinking I put my desire to go to this group and have a clean conscience about it before what would be conducive for him getting/staying clean. I thought I was being thoughtful, but realize in retrospect it really wasn't.

So I went to my CoDA meeting with all this on my mind, and cried a lot, and came out to a text message from him saying, "you're right, I'm a terrible person and deserve to hurt myself." I don't think I did a good job of validating that one, I couldn't really think how to, and what I said was just "please don't hurt yourself. I think you are a wonderful person who deserves to be happy." He didn't respond, so I asked him to at least let me know he was okay, which he did. I then told him I was sorry and that my meeting went well and I hoped he would have a good night. All he responded with which is unusual for him to be so short, was "it's okay." I spoke with his mom briefly on the phone, as we had sort of played phone tag earlier in the day, and learned from her he isn't home.

So now, I'm sitting here pretty sure that he is hanging out with this woman, or at least very concerned that he is, and trying very hard not to ask him or to figure out if I should ask him or not. This is the part I really need advice on... .  I feel like I deserve to know if he is, but part of me tells me it's not really my business and that it will only serve to upset him if I ask and cause problems. I certainly don't want to trigger him feeling like he needs to use anything, but I'm going out of my mind here. Sick to my stomach and heart broken... .    :'(

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[Tigerabbit]

Ok... .  I would still love to have input/advice, but I wanted to update the situation.

Shortly after I posted this, he sent me a few text messages that I was very proud of. He said, "I'm sorry, I think we need to just not talk for awhile. I can't keep using being mean to you as an excuse to do drugs and have problems and to get my anger out. You don't deserve that."

I responded saying "ok. I'm sorry for being weak. I will do my best to give you space and respect your needs. I don't want to be that excuse for you. You deserve to be allowed to recover, and I'm sorry to have been a hindrance there regardless of my intentions. You're amazing. Thank you." He responded with a <3

I'm so happy I resisted the urge to question him on his whereabouts or whom he was with, because even if he didn't blow up at it, and even if I did have a right to know in some form, it very well may not have turned out as pleasantly as this did, and may just have been harmful to us both. And what would it have changed, anyway? If the discussion of us getting back together does ever come up, then I will feel I can ask him appropriately. I'm feeling pretty proud of myself and of him right now. I also am SO thankful for this board, because if I had not been able to write all that out and get it off my chest and hope for some feedback from people who understand, I would probably have acted on my impulse. So... .  thank you so much, everyone. 

[Grey Kitty]

  Sounds like you are doing good things to take care of yourself. Keep that up whatever you do!

Also sounds like you are doing much better at not making things worse with your ?bf?

And it sounds like you are confused about what to do next. All I can offer right now are questions instead of answers:

What are the exact terms of your NC with him? Specifically, what did you tell him about it, and what did he tell you about it? Are there differences? Do you believe what he said about it? For that matter, do you believe what you said about it? Was there a time limit?

Did either of you promise or offer not to date while you were NC?

Right now, what kind of future do you want with him?

[Tigerabbit]

Sounds like you are doing good things to take care of yourself. Keep that up whatever you do!

Also sounds like you are doing much better at not making things worse with your ?bf?

And it sounds like you are confused about what to do next. All I can offer right now are questions instead of answers:

What are the exact terms of your NC with him? Specifically, what did you tell him about it, and what did he tell you about it? Are there differences? Do you believe what he said about it? For that matter, do you believe what you said about it? Was there a time limit?

Did either of you promise or offer not to date while you were NC?

Right now, what kind of future do you want with him?

First of all... .  thank you for the reassurance and recognition, Grey Kitty. I do feel like I'm improving quite a bit on not making things worse, though I still have a long way to go of course!

To answer your questions; 1) We aren't entirely clear on all the details about it. We both agree that right now we aren't good for each other and need to work on ourselves. We didn't know how to decide when would be a good time to talk again other than when he is clean off of everything. That seems like a good time to touch bases again. The differences are in that I clearly want to be with him and try to make things work and have expressed that, whereas he has expressed that that *probably* won't happen, though he isn't ruling it out completely, but he doesn't think he will ever be able to trust me again and he isn't okay with that, which I can understand and respect as much as it tears me apart. I'm still hopeful, but they actually spoke in my group tonight about how once you've recognized your hopes and desires it's important to let go of them so that you're not constantly being upset or frustrated when they don't come to fruition. That is going to be hard for me. We both still care deeply about each other and are having a very hard time resisting urges to reach out. 2) We didn't use the word "promise", but we did both express that we weren't going to be looking to anyone else to fulfill our loneliness and that it would just be defeating the purpose of us taking this break in the first place, which is to focus on ourselves. We both agree that neither of us are really fit to be in a healthy relationship at this time. This doesn't give me faith however that he will not act impulsively. I know that I am not interested in anyone else and will not be following patterns that I have in the past of bouncing from person to person. 3) I think I already answered this in answering the other questions, but just to be thorough, in an ideal world I want to work things out with him. I consider him the love of my live and am devoted to him. At the very least I want us to be able to be close friends again at some point. He is very important to me.

Sorry if you just meant for me to answer those questions to myself... .  I do think it was helpful for me to answer them in this way since writing always helps me process my thoughts, and I do appreciate any further feedback as well. 

[Grey Kitty]

Those questions were for you. I think answering them here was great.

It sounds like you have a somewhat uncomfortable nebulous situation here. And you see it exactly as it is. Given that, you don't need much help dealing with it--just keep an eye on how you feel about the ambiguity. You may decide you aren't OK with it after a day, a week, a month, or a year.

For now, you are certain that you aren't ready for another relationship... .  that leaves you in the wonderful position of being able to work on the one with yourself! Make the best of it!

[Tigerabbit]

For now, you are certain that you aren't ready for another relationship... .  that leaves you in the wonderful position of being able to work on the one with yourself! Make the best of it!

Thanks for that Grey Kitty. That's something I've been having a hard time doing, is looking at this as an opportunity rather than a challenge or a tragedy. I needed that reminder.