Broke 8 Months of Strict No Contact

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hello friends,

I am posting about my recent actions as a possible warning to others. Eight months ago, I ended my relationship with a man who showed traits of narcissistic and borderline personality disorders. We were two months away from getting married. If you wish, you can read my introductory post for full details about the relationship and break up. In a nut shell, he scared me to death in a moment of rage. I literally fled from him, ended the relationship the next day, and slammed the door on it requesting strict no contact.

Eight months later, I broke no contact. I have been reeling these eight months with shock, denial, anger, sadness, and guilt. I am trying to move towards acceptance and forgiveness. My own conscience started bothering me that I dumped him and went strict no contact immediately after that, and requested no contact from him. I was also disturbed that I did not return the ring. The fact that I shut him out and took the ring was eating my conscience alive. So, I emailed him last week offering to send the ring back, and I also apologized for ending the relationship in such a terrible way.

He responded back almost immediately. He told me to do whatever I wanted with the ring. He did not know what he would do with it. He also mentioned missing me, feeling terrible everyday for his bad behavior, and wanting to write to me everyday. I wrote him back to say I forgave him and choose to remember happier times. Then he responded and threw the bait out again. He said I am special to him and that he would be happy to do anything for me. Of course, when he writes that, I want to go running back to him. It makes me want to keep contacting him which, thankfully, I haven't. But I waver and it's hard to stay strong.

Since I made contact with him, I have fallen into an even more massive depression. I miss him every minute of the day and can only remember the good times. I feel sad and hopeless because he has moved to another state. I haven't been able to function much at all these eight months, and now it's even worse. I keep wanting to contact him again because he is the only person who is attentive to me at all. He responds right away and shows care for me, but I know the relationship is toxic. I think I have ended up in this desperate situation, wanting his love again, for a few reasons: 1.) Everyone in my life has had enough of me. My mother hates my ex and doesn't want to hear about him anymore. My one friend has shut me out because I think she is tired of my life not getting any better. I contact her again and again to no avail. 2.) I still have no full-time job and can't find one. I gave up my old job to be with my now ex. 3.) I am so isolated I can't seem to meet any other men I might be interested in.

I hope my story helps others see that breaking no contact may bring more pain and set you back. Every situation is different, but I thought I would share mine. I felt it was necessary to break no contact to resolve an important issue, but emotions are always involved and I have definitely been set back.

[Pearl99]

Hello friends,

I am posting about my recent actions as a possible warning to others. Eight months ago, I ended my relationship with a man who showed traits of narcissistic and borderline personality disorders. We were two months away from getting married. If you wish, you can read my introductory post for full details about the relationship and break up. In a nut shell, he scared me to death in a moment of rage. I literally fled from him, ended the relationship the next day, and slammed the door on it requesting strict no contact.

Eight months later, I broke no contact. I have been reeling these eight months with shock, denial, anger, sadness, and guilt. I am trying to move towards acceptance and forgiveness. My own conscience started bothering me that I dumped him and went strict no contact immediately after that, and requested no contact from him. I was also disturbed that I did not return the ring. The fact that I shut him out and took the ring was eating my conscience alive. So, I emailed him last week offering to send the ring back, and I also apologized for ending the relationship in such a terrible way.

He responded back almost immediately. He told me to do whatever I wanted with the ring. He did not know what he would do with it. He also mentioned missing me, feeling terrible everyday for his bad behavior, and wanting to write to me everyday. I wrote him back to say I forgave him and choose to remember happier times. Then he responded and threw the bait out again. He said I am special to him and that he would be happy to do anything for me. Of course, when he writes that, I want to go running back to him. It makes me want to keep contacting him which, thankfully, I haven't. But I waver and it's hard to stay strong.

Since I made contact with him, I have fallen into an even more massive depression. I miss him every minute of the day and can only remember the good times. I feel sad and hopeless because he has moved to another state. I haven't been able to function much at all these eight months, and now it's even worse. I keep wanting to contact him again because he is the only person who is attentive to me at all. He responds right away and shows care for me, but I know the relationship is toxic. I think I have ended up in this desperate situation, wanting his love again, for a few reasons: 1.) Everyone in my life has had enough of me. My mother hates my ex and doesn't want to hear about him anymore. My one friend has shut me out because I think she is tired of my life not getting any better. I contact her again and again to no avail. 2.) I still have no full-time job and can't find one. I gave up my old job to be with my now ex. 3.) I am so isolated I can't seem to meet any other men I might be interested in.

I hope my story helps others see that breaking no contact may bring more pain and set you back. Every situation is different, but I thought I would share mine. I felt it was necessary to break no contact to resolve an important issue, but emotions are always involved and I have definitely been set back.

[Surrender]

Dear Pearl,

I read your story and I have to tell you it reads very similar to mine. The way I would like to answer and perhaps help in what ever way I can is through using my own experience. The driving force in this twisted delusion that I have of loving and being madly in love with my very abusive ex U-BPD has everything to do with me exaggerating my delusion of love, because honestly when I look at my relationship I know I was extremely deluded. To be with my ex and the amount of abuse he was subjecting me to was because I was 'victimized' and conditioned so to speak. A part of me was addicted to the parts that I felt I needed from him. It was all distorted.

When I read your story I want to tell you to run... .   and never look back. Just like I tell myself every single day because I too find myself having weak moments where I drift back into that world of illusion and make belief. I want to believe that my love was real for my ex and that his was as well. Well truth is it wasn't and ISN'T because if they loved us they would never abuse us so cruelly simple as that. That isn't LOVE... .   and as much as being alone, scared, lonely, depressed and feeling defeated sucks it's better than being with a monster and telling yourself there are worse monsters out there so it can't be that bad.

Your depression and loneliness is making you remember the feelings you associate with what you thought was LOVE. At the end of my relationship I remember thinking "I never knew you, I don't know you and I never will".

That about sums it up... .   therefore it wasn't LOVE but just a dream I was trying to make a reality, which in truth was really a nightmare that I was trying to make into a dream.

Hold firm and don't lose faith. Your instinct to run was correct. Remember that turbulent weird feeling inside your gut when he would scare you? That feeling that you nearly never felt until you met him? That feeling that screamed you were in mortal danger? Well that wasn't your imagination just like it wasn't my imagination either. That was our bodies way of trying to warn us to run for our lives because we WERE in mortal danger with these men!

Just keep remembering that feeling. I do, every day. Before I met my ex I never knew what that feeling was but with him I had it constantly. In case you don't know my story... .   my ex did go psychotic on me hitting and strangling me in public. I managed to find a way to justify that because I was so blinded. His verbal violence against me was routine when he would rage and considered normal and warranted.

I was so beaten down by him that I started acting like the abused battered woman. That was terrifying to me. Well we could really talk for a long time because I see we share a lot in common with this experience.

The good I saw in my ex was a persona that doesn't exist. He was personifying what he felt I wanted, nothing more. If we go by how we feel (and clearly this is NOT a good gauge) than we will continue making the same mistake over and over and over again. As for me I've put up a mental road block there with flashing red lights saying "Road Ahead Closed".

I really hope this helps.  

Your not alone even though I know it really feels like it sometimes and that is why suddenly that dream again is all you can hold onto. None of this is easy whether it is n/c or s/c or which ever way you choose to process and deal with it all. All of it is plenty hard but I have to remind myself to be real in remembering what I really experienced with him and not what it was that I wanted to believe. Please feel free to pm me.

I'm sure in time it will be my turn next needing desperate advice because of a moment of weakness. This is a process after all and it will take the steps and the time irregardless of how quickly we want it all to be over with.

[Clearmind]

Pearl, rather than seeing this contact as a “bad” thing, are you able to maybe work towards detaching rather than guarding no contact? No contact does not help us detach, its helps us to temporarily forget – out of sight out of mind.

Once contact is instigated we have a set back.

Its clear, I’m sure to you that you have not detached and are hanging onto some unresolved hope for this relationship. What are you hanging onto? What are the hooks?

Us: The Five Stages of Grieving a Relationship Loss

[Findingmysong723]

I just re-read your first post. Don't let him hurt you again, go back to no contact! My Ex Boyfriend blew up at me a few times, and it was really horrible, it's almost like you can't believe that it's actually happening! I remember telling my Ex Boyfriend "I never had anyone that was supposed to "care" about me treat me this badly," he was speechless. I do think my Ex was hurting and that's why he treated me that way, but no one deserves to be treated like that no one! So, until these people have intensive therapy their personalities will stay the same! Stay strong, you don't owe him anything, we all spent too much time trying to change ourselves to make them happy, but they didn't do that for us! They need to make up with themselves and us by getting help!

           

[oletimefeelin]

I certainly appreciated you sharing your story.  I am sorry the situation is the source of so much sadness.  I will give you credit, though.  These boards here are littered with people who held on to a relationship in the midst of completely irrational behavior.  While I am sure there certainly were warning signs, that you recognized how inappropriate his actions that night were towards you suggests you are a healthy person with clear boundaries.

We can't really help who we love.  Attraction is such a funny thing.  You loved the guy and it ended very abruptly, so that you've struggled is not the least bit surprising.  In fact, I'd say that it says a lot about how much this relationship and this person meant to you.  If you had simply turned the page then I would start to wonder.

I know you feel alone and isolated, but screw those other people.  They clearly don't get it, so my advice to you is to stop seeking counsel from them.  One important lesson I learned through my relationship with a very complicated woman is that I need to stop looking for things from people that couldn't give them to me.  At first, say in the case of my mother, this was quite painful.  However, it has helped me accept people for who they are and not waste my energy bemoaning their limitations.

I am well passed a year out of my relationship.  I read these boards less frequently than I once did, but I often think to myself that she wasn't as bad as so many of the women that I read about here.  More recently a few things have happened that have tempted me to reach out.  Like yours, I believe mine thinks I hate her and is far too sheepish to leave herself open to a potentially bitter response by reaching out to me first.  I have never really seriously thought of reaching out.  More like things happened that made me think of her more intensely.  I realized pretty quickly that if I did reach out that I was in no position to handle any reaction of hers, including one like you got.  I can only imagine the torrent of emotions that would follow with my ex once again expressing her undying love for me.  Now it would be a warm feeling followed by the depression that comes with knowing that I really have no way of turning back the clock.  I can't erase all that happened and that knowing she's still out there in love with me would be make things so much worse.

This will take a while for you.  Be patient with yourself.  Your post really resonated with me and I thank you for taking the time to post it.  Good luck.        

[changingme]

Clearmind has a point here with nc... .   I've went back even after an entire year! And that happened twice! I learned just cutting him out of my life, I wasn't dealing with anything. I was pretending he didn't exist, etc.  I was just forgetting in the moment and I picked up right where I left off when he came back too close.  The nc contact/detaching process really has to do with self-reflecting of yourself in order to heal not just hating what they did to you I believe. 

[bb12]

In Australia right now, a government-funded anti-smoking ad is getting a lot of air time and the tagline goes:

"Never give up giving up"

And I think NC is like that. I also had moments of weakness. Ultimately we leave these r/ships in a state of addiction.

We can be addicted to the drama, to the recycles, the idealisation... .   a bunch of things.

Most of 2012 I went 8 weeks NC and then would send a text or ring. My exBPD had painted me black and never responded.

So I would do another 8 weeks and try again. Still not sure what I was hoping to achieve. I think I was more in a state of disbelief that the r/ship had ended in such as way. I had never before had such a strange break-up where someone I had cared for very deeply just didn't care one bit anymore. Replacement in minutes and zero dialogue despite assurances we would be friends.

As Clearmind has suggested: we need to find out what the hooks are. What is it in us that craves the contact? For me, I needed to stop trying to control another person. When I broke NC, it was not without agenda... .   was I trying to see if he still liked me?; trying to charm him and remind him what he had lost? Was I trying to stave off my own loneliness in the absense of anyone else?

Ultimately I learned that obsession is about avoidance of self. It is a coping mechanism from my childhood that pushed the spotlight onto negatives fantasies and what ifs... .   and away from my feelings of abandonment and lack of self-worth.

We need to be 100% clear that it is over. Treat it as a fact. Going back is not an option.

Now that I am further down the path, I can see how emotionally immature I was... .   my attitude to love; my partner selection criterion and process; my behaviour as I reacted to things and tried to control that which I should not want to.

So forgive yourself for the relapse. Find the lesson. Enforce and new round of NC

And never give up giving up!



bb12

[Surrender]

bb12 thank you for blowing my mind wide open to what read like the story of my inner turmoils and reasons for this entire venture. Everything you wrote was as though I was having an inner dialogue with myself. It is interesting to me that whether BPD or non, we are all still trying to escape in some way... .   and avoid all that comprises who we are.

For me I relished being able to finally meet a man who saw the world the way I did. Who was a truth seeker even in the fringe areas. I relished in being loved and being able to love. I loved swimming in the warm waters of what felt like absolute familiarity and "home" to me. For what ever reason he felt 'home' to me. I wanted to truly walk beside someone who saw the world through what seemed like the same eyes. It was an understanding that penetrated beyond understanding or words. So many parts I thought were beyond beautiful. I have never experienced anything like that... .   such an intense likeness which now scares me actually because I am forced to ask myself many questions.

This entire journey has been profound. Even though I am trying to stay strong with n/c... .   there isn't a moment that goes by that I don't yearn for everything I lost in losing him. It feels like it was everything... .   was that everything actually a part of 'me' that I was connecting with?... .   When will this feeling go away? I had never met anyone in my entire life that was so 'like me' in so many ways. I am left wondering now what that was all about because of the clear dysfunction and clear illness in him that drove him to abuse me, sabotage us and destroy the very thing he claimed he loved. No matter how logical and rational I am... .   I feel like I am still sinking beneath his ocean.

[Surrender]

Pearl99 I wanted to add that as you can see... .   I'm struggling with the very same battle and trying to keep strong and resolute. I am  going through this in agony but I have to believe that it is to help me in the end. I know that because of this... .   I am finally seeing "me" and dealing with things that I have put on the back burner because I have been living a life of 'survival' basically.

So, there are two versions of reality here, the one I want to live and the one I actually live. The one I want to live is my fantasy, chasing dreams and surreal hopes that essentially offers a resting place for reality. I have because of this experience finally come to the place where I am able to accept and walk with the one that lives with all her imperfections, fears, triggers and coping mechanisms. For the first time I feel like I'm actually being 'real' to myself.

This is only the beginning of the real journey I feel.  That is why every step in this is so heart breaking because it feels like I'm saying good-bye to the dreams and fantasies that I have used all my life to cope with 'it' all. I am saying good-bye to my fabricated 'self' because I too have lived in denial. How else would I have become so enmeshed in another whom was abusing me?

In essence, uncovering his illness has provided the avenue for me to uncover my own dysfunctions, injuries, triggers, internal damages that have handicapped me throughout my life causing me to make the same mistakes throughout my life thus perpetuating my own suffering over and over again like a badly repeated record. So in many ways this very experience is the very thing that is acting like my emancipator. It is the new road which finally looks like it is leading me to what might even be something real and free for once.


It is REAL.

[bb12]

This entire journey has been profound. Even though I am trying to stay strong with n/c... .   there isn't a moment that goes by that I don't yearn for everything I lost in losing him. It feels like it was everything... .   was that everything actually a part of 'me' that I was connecting with?... .  

You're welcome. And yes... .   it was part of 'you' that you were connecting with

My feeling is that these people give us that 'soulmate' feeling because we recognise a kindred spirit

Being focused on external factors for our sense of self holds true for pwBPD and co-dependents. At a certain stage in our development, we can go one way or the other. Codependents remain focused on other people for validation and approval but develop a person of integrity, values, ethics. We give and give to be sure we are liked. That is how we get our supply.

A pwBPD/NPD goes the other way and turns to manipulation and control for their supply. They like our ability to keep giving and they like how little we know ourselves and the bottomless pit that this ushers in. We feel this amazing connection because each is 'other directed' and for a time, this other person is catering to our every need. I think we have craved that feeling so it makes for a powerful pull. Even in the face of amazing abuse, we hold tight for another fix of that!

The trauma of a BPD break up is seriously the gateway to our own True Self. Ruin is indeed the road to reinvention

I can know that at a deep level now and park the lesson. I can keep going down my own new path and no longer seek my exBPD for answers. I understand PDs now, and that was all he had to teach me. Other lessons are to be found elsewhere and I am excited about those, so my craving for anything from the ex has gone.

BB12

[Pearl99]

Thank you all for such detailed and insightful posts. I truly appreciate the time and thought you all put into responding to me. Knowing that others have been in similar relationships, and can relate to how I often feel and react, helps me. I feel a little better knowing I am not alone. I will stop myself from initiating any more contact. It made me feel so much sadder and worse to contact him. It opened a wound and made me cry, miss him, and want him back in my life.

Clear mind: You raise a good point. No contact without active steps to detach doesn't help. I have been strong with no contact, but I haven't done much to detach. During this time apart from him, my mind is constantly spinning, trying to understand him and what went wrong. I have not tried actively to move on and have been stuck in a horrible rut. What am I hanging onto? What are the hooks? I'm hanging onto the beautiful memories he did give me. He wined and dined me, took me on amazing trips, and bought me expensive gifts. He mirrored in many things and made me feel like he was my soul mate. I hang onto all those externals, which were probably just part of the game. It has been hard to move on because, at least in the externals, he set the bar so high I don't think anyone else could reach it. I just have to remember what it cost me to have all that luxury.

Crying Wings: Your words deeply resonated with me. From what you have written, I feel like we are going through--or have gone through--similar stages of grief and processing. I also read your introductory post where you told the story of your relationship. It was extremely well-written and I connected with it at every turn, including the religious aspect. In addition to verbal and emotional abuse, I believe I was also spiritually abused. In fact, distorted--or at least taken out of context--religious beliefs were used as justification for the verbal and emotional violence against me. Thank you for extending the invitation to exchange PMs. I also extend that invitation to you and would happily be a support to you in this difficult time. Also, I just wanted to say, I appreciated that "Road Ahead Closed" mental image! I may try that.

[Surrender]

I believe I was also spiritually abused. In fact, distorted--or at least taken out of context--religious beliefs were used as justification for the verbal and emotional violence against me. Thank you for extending the invitation to exchange PMs. I also extend that invitation to you and would happily be a support to you in this difficult time. Also, I just wanted to say, I appreciated that "Road Ahead Closed" mental image! I may try that.

Pearl my ex did the exact same thing to me. I always said that he was self-medicating using God. Not that he his faith is questioned but rather that he actually had to use it in order to give himself some boundaries to make him feel safer from himself. He would say that it was his faith keeping him from being reckless and doing reckless things that always he regretted.

Then there was the manipulative distortion that came with using our faith to control and twist me up. It is EXACTLY how you described it. My exes religious beliefs (which paralleled mine) were used against me to justify his insults, criticisms, punishments, rages and general punitive measures against me. He always tried to make me feel during those episodes that I was literally EVERYTHING that is SIN in humans. He painted me black in the most extreme of ways and it killed me to hear him use our faith to justify abusing me. It is interesting how my ex would either see me as being 'pure of heart and all good' (no kidding) but in an instant I would become to him the abhorrent, representation of every SIN especially that of a whore, liar, cheater and all things that makes a woman 'defiled'.

Basically, the things he accused me of being were all the things that were repugnant to him about himself and in how he saw the world at large. For him the entire world was a festering pool of sinners. His hatred was so extreme yet the perplexing thing was how opposite he would be to that extreme hate when he wasn't emotionally dys-regulated. He really couldn't last a full day without throwing some imbalance out there that every one had to avoid or deflect. It was all so irrational to me... .  especially because I was so devoted and loyal. I remember at the beginning he asked me if I had ever cheated on anyone I was seeing in my life?  I had no idea at the time about any of this but now I can understand the hidden motive behind him asking me this question way at the beginning. The interesting thing is that I never have and told him so, he however could not say that when I asked him.

Honestly, it was so utterly profoundly bizarre that I truly believe I suffered PTSD from his raging verbal abuse.

Our story does read so similar that in one way it is a relief to know I'm not alone and that we can support one another through this all. Yet the pain I feel for all our suffering is a tearful thing.