I keep getting stuck on the idea that I didn't try hard enough. I didn't fully commit to her. I didn't fully commit to the relationship and everyone in my life tells me she was abusive (including you guys... . ) but I still have a hard time believing it or accepting the label of abuse. I still feel like it is my fault.
Many of us, me included had this very same thought johnnyorganic. Why do you believe it was your fault? Where does that come from?
Is it not the other persons responsibility to handle their side of the fence and you look after yours – why is it you blame yourself? Dig deep.
Relationships take work. That much I know from being in other relationships. And maybe this was one of my sticking points, I worked too much at something that I knew to be really bad for me.
Bingo! Why?
But the idea of conflict and resolution keeps coming back. I think that the measure of a healthy relationship is how well partners can work through conflict and come up with resolution. My ex would blow up at me and yell and scream and rage. We were long-distance, so normally I would just get out of town, literally. This, she claimed, was the reason she would have her rage outbursts. I would claim that it was the opposite. That I would leave because she was raging at me (what you all are trying to convince me was abuse). She said that couples have conflict and that we didn't spend enough time together to resolve any conflicts. I think that the conflicts were never resolvable because they weren't actually conflicts. They were her yelling at me for something or another and then me yelling back. They weren't really conflicts because there was nothing to have conflicts over. I would pet a dog, wake up groggy, roll over in my sleep, etc... .
I agree, how couples handle conflict is a tell tale sign of the health of the r/s. Conflict arises from each partner attempting to make the other wrong and them right – it is a battle of ego’s rather than the ability to consider and respect the others point of view and coming to a solution. Solutions never happen because they are so caught up in the conflict cycle of wrong/right.
The fact she would rage shows she has very poor coping skills rjh – she is not capable of managing conflict. Raging is abusive.
I think that maybe what I am struggling with is this idea that relationships take work and relationships will have conflict. But how a couple deals with conflict is the indicator of success. For me, resolving conflicts means sitting down with someone, discussing the conflict, being empathetic for each other, and coming up with a compromise. And, that compromise is something that is good for both people. If a compromise can't be determined, then, if the conflict is big enough to be a deal breaker, then the relationship is over.
I could never do this with my ex. I tried. I tried many, many times. I would try to sit down with her and tell her what was bothering me. Like, she used to always tell me 'why can't you be nice to me'. I remember sitting down with her calmly and trying to explain to her why that made me feel really bad because it essentially implied that I wasn't nice to her. This would turn into a raging, screaming fit. And this was the pattern.
It was conflict cycle rjh where she would make you out to be the persecutor for her feeling so woeful about herself. She felt like the victim and wanted to be rescued. You cannot rescue her.
Reminding ourselves that BPD also means an unstable sense of self, unstable relating to the others and impulsive – instead conflict turns into a circular argument and nothing gets resolved.
You did the right thing by leaving when she rages. There is little you can do or communicated during a rage.
She rages to self soothe – not your fault.
If I had moved to be in the same town as her, would we have been able to come up with a way to resolve conflict? Did we not come up with a way to resolve conflict because I didn't commit to her? Because I didn't spend enough time with her?
Not at all! Long-distance keeps you at a safe distance – long distance is very common in BPD r/s.
Borderlines fear abandonment, intimacy and engulfment – if you had been living closer do you think this would help her fear of intimacy and engulfment?
I made the choice that she just wasn't capable... . that it had nothing to do with our relationship but that she didn't have the capacity.
Yes you would be right.
Arg. This is so hard. I think I was in love with a fantasy and I kept getting so angry when confronted with the reality of who this person was... . a person incapable of true empathy, a person without any form of emotional intelligence, a sweet and kind and loving person on the outside but a raging, hateful, angry and needy person on the inside. This is so hard to reconcile. And the fact that she always blamed me and manipulated me continues to make me feel like I messed up, like I made all these mistakes and that if I had just tried hard enough, everything would be amazing. Arg.
What does love mean to you fjh?
What does friendship mean to you?
What is it in you that thought you could save this person at the expense of saving yourself?
Why is it you blame yourself - where does that come from?
