Hi BrewCrew17 and
Borderline Personality Disorder has a lot of aspects to it. But I think one major quality which might help you understand why your ex behaved the way she did is that: people with BPD (pwBPD) have disordered fear of abandonment which is aggravated/triggered by feelings of intimacy. Short term intimacy, like that at the beginning of a relationship, they can manage. But the minute you become like family (familial, familiar) to them, then their major disordered feelings kick into overdrive. I'll elaborate how this relates to your story.
My ex left me now 2 months ago, and I have yet to get over it. I almost do not feel any better than I did the day she left. The beginning of this relationship was the most amazing thing I have ever felt. I never thought I could love someone the way I loved her. This was someone I actually had known for over 20 years, a friend of the family. This grew romantic about 4 years ago during a tough period that I was going through when my grandfather was ill. I was living in FL at the time, her in CT.
Granted you were acquainted with each other for 20 years, but I wonder if during those 20 years if you ever got close enough to be witness to her disordered behaviors. I'd imagine your best chance would have been if you two ever got close during that time; she might have acted strangely then. Also, it sounds like when you two started becoming romantically involved, it was a long distance relationship (LDR). LDRs notoriously accommodate pwBPD in that whenever their disordered feelings become triggered, they already have the space and distance to "get away" from feeling too close. In a LDR, whereas the non-disordered partner might strengthen and solidify his/her attachment, the pwBPD oscillates from idealization and devaluation without our ever knowing.
I was so in love with her, and she was so amazing to me, that after a few visits from her, I had her move in permanently. She had an 18 month old baby with a previous relationship which had failed. Maybe a red flag? I don't know. From what I understood, he was no good, and I not only fell in love with the ex, but with the baby as well. They moved in and I thought life was so perfect.
"he was no good" This is the crux of "splitting" behavior (i.e., idealization/devaluation). PwBPD either idealize us: "amazing" "fell in love" "perfect" or else they devalue us: "he was no good." And they can switch between the two swiftly. A typical pattern is whenever we get close to them, such as during an idealization phase, then their disordered fear of abandonment is triggered (i.e., they imagine we will abandon them), then they devalue us, or push us away.
We were together for over 3 years, made COUNTLESS amazing memories with the baby, did SO many things together. These memories now haunt me to this day. I feel like everything I do, I am reminded in some way of my ex, I can almost feel her with me, and begin to break down. I have been crying, almost regularly now for 2 months. She left me, without notice, left me hanging by a thread. She was so close with my family as well, my parents and sister, everyone, and now she had painted us all black. We were extinguished from her life almost immediately! She got us all right in the heart.
I imagine those "countless amazing memories" are part of what drove her away. The more you became like family to her, the more her disordered fear of abandonment overwhelmed her. And for pwBPD, the best way to avoid their imagined abandonment is to be the one who abandons first. This is why she left you without notice. Because for a long time she kept imagining that you would leave her first if she gave you the chance. It does not matter what kinds of reassurances you give her that you would not leave her, her fear of abandonment is disordered in nature.
She painted everyone black because it serves her to devalue all of you now. When she runs to the next person (in her pattern of intense and instable interpersonal relationships characterized by idealization and devaluation) she will tell him, you were "no good." In her mind she will believe this in spite of all the amazing memories had with her. In her mind, the whole time you were together, you were planning on abandoning her.
We got into an argument which seemed to be the tip of the iceberg for her.
It was the tip of the iceberg, because you did not know how big the iceberg was beneath the tip. Everything else was submerged. And you were the Titantic.
She slept on the couch for a month, constantly texting on the phone and computer. I, because I loved her so much, did everything I could to keep her. Nothing worked. She was not communicating with me, I found out she was lying about certain things, where she was, who she was talking to, etc. She could barely give me a kiss.
She was constantly texting and on her computer. Perhaps like someone forming a long distance relationship? I have no idea but I imagine how she behaved at this point was probably similar to how she behaved when you were in your long distance relationship with her. Only your role was different then.
Oddly enough, we just bought a house BARELY a month before, a house she wanted to buy because our apartment was becoming too little for the 3 of us. I bought this house, and I was left high and dry with it. We had an agreement to share expenses, well, that did not happen. I have been stuck with it and poured THOUSANDS into it and am running out of money. I am a full time Nursing student by day and work overnight in a hospital. I busted my butt to provide for her and her baby, and was trying to make something of myself and set a good example. It wasn't good enough.
You see, she was being overwhelmed by her disordered fear that you would abandon her. So she kept wanting you to prove that you wouldn't leave. She wanted to support her family. She wanted you to buy property to get into debt. Because someone making that kind of commitment in a relationship wouldn't leave right? But none of what you did could alleviate her fear of abandonment because it is the product of a mental disorder. Nothing you could do could cure her of her personality disorder. The problem was not yours to fix. It is her problem. But she does not even accept that she has a problem.
She called me pathetic for crying and pleading with her to stay and not to do this to the baby. She said I was subjecting the baby to this awfulness.
This is an example of projection. She said you were subjecting the baby to this awfulness. But she was the one doing awful things. She was lying to you about seeing someone else. She was telling you one thing but doing something completely different. She could not accept the things she was doing, so she "projected" them onto you. In her (disordered) mind, you were the one who was planning on abandoning her. In truth she was planning on abandoning you. She abandoned you.
My world has been rocked. I do not feel like I could ever love again. I don't feel like anyone will love me like her again. I feel worthless, my self esteem is in the gutter. My identity has been shaken. It has gotten so bad.
You are broken hearted. You have been betrayed. You have been abandoned. But you can pick yourself back up and rebuild your life for yourself. No one will ever love you like her again... . hopefully... . because clearly she did not love you. Or at least her love for you was disordered.
Here is the curious part. I think that pwBPD experience this kind of pain. This is the kind of trauma that produces pwBPD. Except for pwBPD, I think their trauma occurred to them when they were toddlers. You are not a toddler. You have the resources and abilities of an adult. You can get past this. But it will take time and effort. You deserve the time and effort. You are a good man. That's why she picked you. She just could not get past her own disorder and you became the scapegoat for her disorder.
There has even been a lawyer involved to handle legal issues such as the house since she signed the papers with me. She showed up at the lawyer's office in a fit of rage, forcing the lawyer to call the police. I do not understand it! I am at a complete loss, was given no closure, and she has acted like I am nothing but dead, when I was the greatest thing to ever happen to her. I need help, I need support, I have been yearning to find someone in a similar situation to relate to, to help me understand the absolute hell I have been going through. I want to live again, but right now I am having such a hard time seeing that it can actually happen.
In a sense, the rage she bears towards you right now may be related to the rage she felt when she was a young girl and suffered her early abandonment trauma. She has this deep psychic wound that she does not know how to handle. And perhaps she prefers to just wish it away. And what she doesn't understand is that every time she gets involved with someone, and they begin to be like family to her, she experiences these painful and difficult feelings again and again. Such as those feelings a child might experience when they feel heart broken, betrayed, and abandoned by whom ever it was that caused her to feel this way many years ago.
So in her (disordered) mind, you are the devil. Before you, it was her ex who was the devil. And hopefully, after you it will be the next guy who is the devil. But for now, the next guy is her savior.
Let me add a few high level characteristics of the relationship. Nothing was ever her fault. I always found myself being forced to apologize for incidents or arguments, and if I didn't she would not talk to me. I felt I was to blame for everything.
Nothing can be her fault. Because "splitting" works on her the same way it works on other people. If she sees herself as having a single fault or any fault, then she would devalue herself. Then she would be the devil. And this is the kinds of thoughts that drive some pwBPD towards suicide. But this is where her disordered behaviors help her. If she can continue to "project" or dissociate bad thoughts/memories/feelings/behaviors about herself and put them on other people, then she can avoid devaluing herself. It is better for her to devalue the other people in her life than for her to devalue herself.
So she can never be blamed for anything. It must always be someone else's fault. But sadly this kind of disordered thinking will mean that she will never learn from experience. She can never grow past this childish and disordered way of perceiving the world.
For a month before she left, she could not stand me expressing me emotions, at how upset I was that my world was falling apart before my eyes. She hated it, it seems to do nothing but push her away more. I will post more as I think of it.
She could not accept you behaving in any way that contradicted her distorted perspective. In her disordered mind, you were the one who was doing all the bad things, you were the one who was planning on abandoning her. This is why she could not accept any of your emotions, because they conflicted with her delusions.
You are in the right place.
Best wishes, Schwing
