Is ex kinder during separation because we're not close?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I have just had a conversation with my exH about our kids - as has been the case recently, he's been very pleasant and sounds relaxed.  I have noticed during previous separations (we reconciled several times), that he is nicer to me.

Thinking about this now, I feel that he talked to me as he would with someone he knows well socially (the current situation is that he is a few weeks away from marrying someone he started seeing 5 months ago, less than 8 weeks after leaving me so I am not in a 'happy place' with him). 

It does my head in because I spent a short time earlier today reading about abusive relationships and this person on the phone just doesn't fit with being the same person who caused such pain.  It's at times like these that I question myself - that he is not a pwBPD (he's not diagnosed).  That he's fine - he just needed to find this new fiancee and that I was the cause of his dysregulation.

Can he be this way with me because he is no longer intimate with me? 

I'm going to go and do something active because I can feel myself sliding down into that place where I am sad and angry that he couldn't be this happy with me/couldn't be this nice to me when he was with me.  I know better - I just can't seem to find a way to feel better for any reasonable length of time.

[clairedair]

I have just had a conversation with my exH about our kids - as has been the case recently, he's been very pleasant and sounds relaxed.  I have noticed during previous separations (we reconciled several times), that he is nicer to me.

Thinking about this now, I feel that he talked to me as he would with someone he knows well socially (the current situation is that he is a few weeks away from marrying someone he started seeing 5 months ago, less than 8 weeks after leaving me so I am not in a 'happy place' with him). 

It does my head in because I spent a short time earlier today reading about abusive relationships and this person on the phone just doesn't fit with being the same person who caused such pain.  It's at times like these that I question myself - that he is not a pwBPD (he's not diagnosed).  That he's fine - he just needed to find this new fiancee and that I was the cause of his dysregulation.

Can he be this way with me because he is no longer intimate with me? 

I'm going to go and do something active because I can feel myself sliding down into that place where I am sad and angry that he couldn't be this happy with me/couldn't be this nice to me when he was with me.  I know better - I just can't seem to find a way to feel better for any reasonable length of time.

[WillSurvive420]

How could he ever be happy with you if he isnt happy with himself first? You gotta love yourself before you can love another or it wont work... .  tought pill to swallow. He loved you to the best ability, but BPDS are simply wired differently... .  literally they have brain irregularities in the corpus collusum, which controls impulses. They react, they dont plan. REMEMEBER ITS HIS ILLNESS, its not him. He didnt choose to be mentally ill, it was a mechanism to survive in a cold cold world with a whole lotta hurt. ITS NOT YOUR FAULT, or your character defects... .  no matter how perfect you were, they would;ve manifested imperfections like my ex... .  accusing me of being disloyal... .  when in reality I was the only boyfriend she ever had that didnt cheat on her... .  

[clairedair]

Thanks WillSurvive - I know all this stuff and I mostly don't take it personally but sometimes, usually after contact, it all goes out the window.  I am feeling better now than when I first posted - got a bit of perspective back.

Funnily enough, I was re-reading a letter I wrote to him just before he left.  I could feel him pulling away and I was sick of him leaving me out of things, not telling people we were together etc and said that although I didn't want to leave, I didn't know if I could stay because I felt so 'discounted' by him.   I never sent it because he was away abroad at the time and I didn't think it fair to upset him when he was so far away on his own.  He didn't feel the same because I got an e-mail out of the blue that basically ended a near 30-year relationship... .  Anyway, my letter ended with the words

"But…you don’t seem to love or trust or respect yourself so is it fair of me to be so angry at you for not loving or trusting or respecting me well?"

[Changed4safety]

My ex once said to me in during a raging episode, "You are my significant other, therefore you are the enemy."  This is very true.  I eventually triggered him with everything I did, but when I left and we were apart, he "realized" he loved me and said some very, very beautiful things, that he had changed, etc.  I knew he had grown some (he had to, I'd been completely supporting him for years, doing all the housework, putting up with his violence), but I also knew it wasn't enough.  When I said no to getting back the last time, he found someone the next day.  Literally.

Unless he has done a great deal of work on himself, this soon to be new wife will eventually start triggering your too.  In different ways, perhaps--but there will be something that kicks the cycle off.  It's simply the nature of the illness--push, pull.  Please don't blame yourself.

[clairedair]

"You are my significant other, therefore you are the enemy." 

Insightful and scary!  My ex could have these kind of insights too - I used to hope that it meant that he could get past blaming me for everything wrong in his life and things did improve (and I changed too), inevitably there came a point where we were back at square one.

He went on a course around the time of our final split.  It was about abuse.  We talked about it before he went and he was able to acknowledge both then and after course that he had been abusive (and tell me I had too).  I think that if he had left and then spent several months on his own, I would have more respect for his actions now.  His explanations for the way he behaved towards me were not things that were going to heal overnight - I think he felt that one e-mail to me solved everything and he could just move on to new relationship. 

There's been a pattern of him seeking to learn about himself but only going so far and then he repeats behaviours.  Though, I could say the same about myself!

I'm trying to break a pattern now - trying to really detach properly so that I can get to a point of indifference about what he's doing/saying. 

[schwing]

Hi Clairedair,

Can he be this way with me because he is no longer intimate with me? 

This is the only explanation that makes sense to me, in the context of borderline personality disorder.  It also reminds me of their lack of object constancy; for pwBPD, they cannot maintain (keep constant) the emotional "content" (object) of their relationship with you.  This and because of their "splitting" behavior is why they are either completely enmeshed with you (idealization) or else they are completely detached from you (devaluation).

Now that you are not his "object" he doesn't alternate between idealizing and devaluing you (as much as before).  It sounds almost like he's idealizing you because he's treating you so cordially.  But most importantly, he cannot recall the emotional "content" of the relationship he once had with you.  With you, it is still a bit raw.  But with him, it is almost as if it is non-existent.  Because now that he is attached to someone else, his attachment to you *is* non-existant.  Lack of object constancy.

The plus side of no longer being intimate with you is that he is no longer overwhelmed by his disordered fear that you will abandon him.  Instead, he is now imagining the other person abandoning him (from time to time... .  until this disordered feelings become too intense for him).

I'm going to go and do something active because I can feel myself sliding down into that place where I am sad and angry that he couldn't be this happy with me/couldn't be this nice to me when he was with me.  I know better - I just can't seem to find a way to feel better for any reasonable length of time.

He couldn't be this nice to you when he was with you because he is incapable of dealing with his disordered feelings.  When he was with you, his disordered feelings were triggered.  His disordered feelings are no longer being triggered by you now *because* he is no longer with you (his new partner is now his trigger).

Best wishes, Schwing

[mrclear]

Dear Clairdair,

Just remember the instability of BPD. One day you're white,one day you're black.They can switch back and forth whenever it fits their needs.  As perverse as this sounds: His new-found attachment to you is only about him. If you are cordial and respectful, he will see no danger of getting hurt or abandoned (his core-fear). It doesn't matter if he's in a new r/s, getting married or whatever. He's keeping you on the backburner. Simmering and brooding until he decides to get back to you and devour you all over again. Don't fall for this.

My exudBPDwife did the same to me. She didn't care if I was in a new r/s or not. She decided to play nice and reel me back in. The recycle ended the same... .  It's important to set boundaries and not let them do this to you anymore. If your ex wants to remain "friends", then reflect on what "friendship" means to you. I have friends and they would never treat me the way my ex has... .  

mrclear

[clairedair]

This is the only explanation that makes sense to me, in the context of borderline personality disorder.  It also reminds me of their lack of object constancy; for pwBPD, they cannot maintain (keep constant) the emotional "content" (object) of their relationship with you. 

Thanks schwing for the post.  The whole 'object constancy' thing saddens me but it's really helpful to be reminded of this.  For some reason, your post triggered a memory of a time when exH got back together with a gf not long after leaving me (pattern was to go from one of us to the other).  I was quite calm when talking to him about this and reminding him how he'd told she was a 'bandaid'/he didn't love her/it was final etc.  I also asked to meet her as our children were potentially going to be spending time with her.  This totally threw him.  I was the one that had just been left and 'replaced', yet he was all over the place getting angry because he couldn't cope.  I had a very clear feeling that what he couldn't cope with was the reality of me and her - he could only live one life at a time.  If we both 'existed' at the same time in the same place, that would be too much for him.

He couldn't be this nice to you when he was with you because he is incapable of dealing with his disordered feelings.  When he was with you, his disordered feelings were triggered.  His disordered feelings are no longer being triggered by you now *because* he is no longer with you (his new partner is now his trigger).

My exH and I were together a long time so there were plenty of memories of hurt/perceived hurt/perceived abandonment etc to trigger him whenever the initial 'honeymoon' of a reconciliation was over.  Same happened with a gf he recycled with.  He repeatedly left her too so when they got back together he would be reminded of how he'd hurt her etc.  He's known new fiancee through work for a few years and only been seeing her 5 months so there's not really been time to hurt or be hurt and everything seems to be very rosy. 

The positive thing in all this is that I don't seem to be triggering him so I'm so much of a bad guy as usual!

It doesn't matter if he's in a new r/s, getting married or whatever. He's keeping you on the backburner. Simmering and brooding until he decides to get back to you and devour you all over again. Don't fall for this

Thanks Mrclear - even if he wasn't getting married, I wouldn't be hoping for a reconciliation.  I realised after last break-up that I had become an 'option' as much as the exgf. This was a shift in my attitude towards our relationship that was long overdue.  He has switched back and forth depending on his needs at the time.