Felt Like Leaving But Didn't?

[ScotisGone74]

Just wondering how many of you just felt so bad and drained during your relationship with you expwBPD that you really considered leaving, but just didn't want to hurt them, thought you could make it better, or hoped they would just openly tell you it was okay-so you just hung on-until they cheated, left abrupty, or started a new life without us?  I was loyal to a fault with her, have a feeling that alot of us could be.  Thanks for the replies. 

[Lawst]

Drained to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion and then further into depression.   I separated from her, still haven't divorced or said I want to take it there.  I don't know if it will ever get better. Somehow I want to move on, but want her to be happy too.  We both deserve to be happy.  But I feel like if I'm the only one who can be happy, then I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life unhappily trying to make her happy when her happiness is impossibly fleeting. 

I understand your feelings and the complexity of emotions involved.  I still don't even have my own answers.

[WT]

Just wondering how many of you just felt so bad and drained during your relationship with you expwBPD that you really considered leaving, but just didn't want to hurt them, thought you could make it better, or hoped they would just openly tell you it was okay-so you just hung on-until they cheated, left abrupty, or started a new life without us?  I was loyal to a fault with her, have a feeling that alot of us could be.  Thanks for the replies. 

This pretty much summed up the last few years of my relationship.  I felt like I was continually plotting my escape, but I felt too bad for her to leave because I was literally the only person left in her life that cared for her, so I stayed and sacrificed my own happiness, hoping that she would appreciate it despite the BPD.  I never planned to continue the relationship into the future but I never felt like there a good time to leave without devastating her (both emotionally and financially).  There were so many times that I tried to leave in the six months leading up to the end of our relationship but each time she begged me to stay, and so I did.  In the end, she left me for another guy that she had known for a weekend, telling me that she had fallen in love with him, that she hadn't been in love with me for a long time (despite telling me every day that she did), and that this guy was everything that I wasn't.

[expos]

I remember the feeling, in the 11 month of our marriage.  Saying to myself in my car after a particularly tough afternoon with her "If I was dating this woman, I would have dumped her today and then I'd be free."

I know it's harder to see it the other way, but I can't understand the idea of sticking with these types of people especially if you are dating them.  I was trapped in a marriage with one, and literally once every month I'd get so down about the way she behaved that I considered really letting her have it.  I wanted to tell her "If you don't make some changes, I'm done."  But giving her that ultimatum would have just poured gas on the fire, make her feel worse about us, and cut me off intimately more than she already did. 

I just was not going to win.  She never applied anything we were learning in marriage counseling to our relationship.  She would sit, cry about her life, and leave the shrink's office and go back to her behavior.  I realize that she is going to be miserable regardless of situation, whoever person she is with, or with any instance that doesn't placate her.   

It was so hard to leave, because I loved her so, so much.  I just did not want this to fail.  But she was basically neglecting me emotionally and physically and ruining my life.

[mtmc01]

I nearly reached my breaking point on several occasions. Mine was an alcoholic. I sort of "broke up" with her for a few minutes here and there, but was never serious and immediately went back on it... .  just an immature way to get her to calm down and reassess her actions. I never actually COULD leave her, do the the fact that I truly loved her, thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever met, thought I could "save her", etc. I got beaten down to the point where I was being the one who was making HER feel bad about herself and was being distant... .  only for about 3 weeks mind you, but she sure didn't miss her chance to bail rather than giving me any iota of a chance to work on my issues, despite me admitting to them immediately and starting therapy and saying everything else I was planning to do to rectify myself. In the end I think it was my being distant that caused her to really start "trying so hard", as she put it. Very frustrating.

[ScotisGone74]

I just felt that at times if I left she would not have anyone that knew how to be her true friend or care about her (stupid me).  I loved her more than anything-which looking back at it was part of the problem-loved her soo much it was making me sick.  I mistook all her I Love You's, crying for me to be there, and sex as meaning she did too, it was only her means of controlling me and thats all.  Out of all this I believe the thing that I have learned is that you can't really love a SO other more than you can yourself, I know that may sound greedy, but its the truth for it to be a healthy relationship. 

Going on almost five months of NC, if she were to show up at my door tommorrow needing something I don't know what I would do honestly, probably just give her a therapist's number and shut my door.   Hopefully I will never have to worry about it.