can't get comfortable with where I am -- thoughts welcome (long)

[patientandclear]

Hi all.  As Stayers from a few months back will recall, my uBPDexbf and I were maintaining an emotionally intimate friendship for 7 months (from August through March).  (This was after 10 months of NC I requested, after he broke up with me out of the blue in the middle of what appeared to be blissful happiness, then got cold feet when he asked about reconciling & I agreed on condition that he examine why he'd so abruptly ended things without any chance to talk or repair, because, as I told him, something else will happen that makes you uncomfortable, and I need to know you won't be out the door again instantly.  He pulled away after I expressed that condition, and promptly started pursuing his ex gf.  But as far as I know, he's been alone and working on "individuation" and standing alone without drawing his "self" from a r/s with another person, since last July.)

I initiated the friendship when I thought I could do that without constantly longing for it to be something more -- and I meant it.  However, he immediately pulled me very very close emotionally.  We had the kinds of interactions that normally only occur between lovers, though we never kissed or had sex after reuniting.  I basically let him lead and show me what he was comfortable doing.  There developed a pattern of intense closeness followed by him pulling away for a few days at a time, but we shared a lot of important, tender discussions and also just a lot of daily life for those 7 months.  It was a bond not built on mirroring -- we spent a lot of time differentiating between us.  It felt real, and difficult, and worthwhile.

Just as it intensified again this spring, he suddenly announced he was selling his apartment and leaving town.  Maybe he'd return, maybe not.  I was devastated -- I'd thought I had no expectations, but turns out, I did expect him to be around.  Nonetheless I practiced skills I'd developed here and just told him I'd miss him -- no pressure to stay, no objection to his departure.  He was obviously feeling closer and closer to me just before his departure.  Kept asking to see me, constant texting, gave me the food from his fridge hours before he moved out.  He suggested he'd be staying in touch, & that he would probably return here after traveling for a while.  I took a deep breath and resolved to just play it out & see how it went.

(As this point I was feeling really overwhelmed with love for him, but also, strongly resolved not to challenge his stated need to individuate and learn to define himself by himself.  I agree with that, it's a hard thing for someone wBPD to do, and the last thing I wanted to do was argue against that.  I suppose that deep down, I did have hopes that our stronger, healthier friendship might someday grow into a romantic partnership again, but with a much better foundation.  However, it was valuable to me even if that never happened.)

So he left, and immediately, radically changed our communication.  He stopped his daily texting about little observations and grand dilemmas.  He seemed really to want to be "gone," and I didn't press it.  He emailed, deep, thoughtful, warm emails, every few days.  I responded in kind.

Then, though, I got an email telling me he'd arrived in a new city and, within 36 hours, had decided to move there.  As in, had submitted an application for an apartment and was thinking of this as his new home.  As in, not coming back here.  And while we'd discussed the possibility of him moving to a variety of places for school programs he's interested in, this new city was not one of those places -- it was sort of a completely random place to just decide to start over.

At this point I wrote him two emails, basically saying: ok, that sounds nice, and I get that you can start over anywhere and get a ton out of a new place -- beauty, inspiration, information -- but what happens then?  what about after you've started over and left everything behind?  because this place you just left is nice in all the ways you find the new city nice, but also, it has these people, like me, who know you and love you.  I said you must not really expect me to be indifferent whether or not  you return here; I do care.  This is your life and you can and will make your choices, I understand that, and you can tell me what you're thinking & I will listen; but I cannot promise I won't ask about what you might be giving up, because I am part of that, and it matters.  I made clear I wasn't questioning his decision to leave and go traveling, just the idea that he would spontaneously decide to move to some random new city where he knows no one, for no particular reason, leaving all that he does know and those who care for him, including me, behind.

He hasn't answered.  That was almost two months ago.

Shortly before he left here, we had an email exchange in which he was a little tender and brusque, and then went silent for a few days.  I asked if I'd hurt or offended him.  He answered no (though I clearly had, but that's another thread!), and said he would never just disappear, even if there were a problem -- at least, certainly not with me.

Yet now he has done just that.

So that's the background.

My question: I am having the hardest time getting comfortable with where we've arrived.  I had an earlier thread in which we discussed whether what I wrote him was invalidating (didn't say "I totally get how great it might feel to just start over!" or codependent (implying "I think you have a problem with commitment to people/places/projects and maybe you should think about that," though to be fair to me, that really wasn't the tone of what I wrote, and it was couched in questions and in terms of what he actually IS giving up, not in "oughts" but in facts) -- or whether it was actually, really, a boundary of mine.  And concluded I'd reached the point where not commenting on the costs of his impulsive behavior to us and to me felt false, and asking the questions felt genuine and honest, and not saying anything felt like walking on eggshells ... .  and the challenge would be for me to deal with however he reacted.

So he's reacted with an extreme version of the silent treatment.

This is unprecedented but only in its length.  A couple of other times, when I've asked hard questions about his behavior with me or things he's said to me, he's gone silent.  Most of the time he would resurface if I just waited, usually with some repair-oriented comments that were constructive.  Once though, he was silent for weeks when I'd asked him why he'd behaved a certain way with me.  They were tough questions.  I almost didn't write him again, on the theory that the ball was in his court, and it was up to him to show that he wanted to move this r/s forward.  But in a moment of impulsivity, I wrote him one more time, a very warm, open message welcoming whatever he had to say, and expressing that there was no need for him to answer my earlier questions.  In his reply, he said he HAD answered me before, but that got stuck in his Drafts folder and had never been sent to me (and he never did send it -- I don't really think it exists).  Anyway, he was SO happy I reached out to him again.  He just proceeded as if none of that had ever happened, and we were back to the races again with our pseudo-partners special relationship, for about 6 months more.

So now, I sort of expect that if I reach out to him, with some innocuous message that doesn't require him to plow any difficult ground, he'll be grateful and we can resume some sort of pen pal relationship.  Which maybe, given the BPD propensity for long-distance relationships, could be quite deep and meaningful.

But something in me says I really ought not to reach out.  The ball IS in his court.  I wrote, I wrote lovingly and honestly.  I did not attempt to control him or oppose his freedom (even though I'm sure that's how he thought of it), I just expressed that getting really close to me again and then suddenly moving away hurts, and comes at a cost.  I do NOT want to contribute to any view on his part that I am smothering or stalking him or can't abide by his decisions.  More importantly, us not being in communication is the natural consequence of him suddenly ceasing communication, is it not?  This is what happens when you give someone the cold shoulder.  They aren't in your life anymore.  The things you want to talk with them about -- well, you can't.

His view of me seems to be of someone with a "big heart" (a phrase he was always using about me), someone who is "the most loving and caring person I've ever known," but also, someone who is naive.  Especially with respect to him.  It's as if he sees that he's treated me poorly and I've been willfully blind to that.  I really don't want to continue to tolerate and ignore behaviors that are antithetical to real friendship or relationship -- I guess that is the boundary I am trying to define here.  Given that, does it make sense that I not reach out here?  Does it make sense to let him be in this situation until and unless he decides it is worth it to him to make the effort to reach across the divide?

I know this is a strange way to frame it but maybe my question is "is it a stupid boundary to say 'I will not be emotionally close with someone without commenting on things he does that damage our r/s, just as I would expect he would do with me; and the r/s has to be one in which I can make those comments without being frozen out until I apologize, taken them back, orpretend they never happened'?"

I don't need him to answer them.  They were just things I wanted to ask him and ask that he think about.  I would go forward with him if he would reach out & reinitiate contact on other subjects.  But something sticks in my craw about reaching out to him as if all this didn't happen or didn't matter.

Would really appreciate your thoughts.  I spent a lot of time daily wondering whether I ought to try to do something about this situation, or whether I am really OK with it being the end if he doesn't make an effort to reach back over the chasm that has now opened up.

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[byasliver]

patientandclear, I wish I had some advice but I'm actually looking for advice on the core of your question: how to validate while setting boundaries or, how to enforce boundaries without invalidating them. We set our boundaries because they have hurt us or show the potential to hurt us. My uBPDh is job hunting and currently seems to be focused on getting a job that would require him to move even though he knows I am not willing to move with him at this point. We have lived separately before (he was military) without it being considered a marital separation. However, any mention of even a therapeutic separation to him is completely out of the question most of the time. There are major trust issues going on and I've been strongly considering what boundaries I may decide to set if he chooses to take a job out of town. But again, it is essentially the same question you have: how to set a boundary in a situation like this without invalidating them? How do we make it clear that we are trying to protect ourselves and not to hurt them?

Btw, this is something that has been on my mind for weeks but haven't been able to nail it down this specifically. Now that I have, I intend to bring it up to my T on Tuesday. He has been GREAT with answering these sorts of questions so I really look forward to hearing him out about it. I will definitely share what he says.

[patientandclear]

Awesome, Byasliver!  Thank you for joining!  Now there are two of us, waiting for the smart people to come along and shed badly needed light

Yep -- saying "I support you doing what you need to do; but it has consequences for us; and you will be giving up something valuable we've build together if you do this; and I care about that" is just a very mixed message.  One that didn't seem to be well-received when I sent it.

[arabella]

Now there are two of us, waiting for the smart people to come along and shed badly needed light

Yep -- saying "I support you doing what you need to do; but it has consequences for us; and you will be giving up something valuable we've build together if you do this; and I care about that" is just a very mixed message.  One that didn't seem to be well-received when I sent it.

Oh dear. Waiting for the smart people, huh? Well, for now it's just me but, hey, take what you can get?

So this topic started in another thread and, patientandclear, you asked a few questions that I decided to just shuffle over here:

aren't we thereby protecting them from the natural consequences of their actions? Rescuing?  In terms of lifelong impact, don't people have to stop doing this for them ever to want to deal with their dysfunction?  Which is not really my goal, but I certainly don't want to prevent necessary learning by intervening between my ex and a lesson, either.  Arabella, did your H actually learn something from the fact that, when he finally reached out, he realized she'd been open to hearing from him all along?  If so -- maybe she did him (and you?) a huge favor by not rescuing.

I don't think it really counts as protecting them if they can't connect the consequences to the actions. I can definitely see how this could be the case, where you end up just enabling bad behaviour, but I'm not sure that's this situation. I can only give you what I know from the experience with my H so, of course, it's just one perspective.

He never did realize the truth behind the whole situation. I don't think he could. If he worked it all out he would have to admit that the silence was his fault to begin with. He admitted the initial rift (i.e. the fighting in the r/s) was his fault - I think that was as much as he could handle. Plus, to see the truth, he'd have to have suddenly been able to grasp how she felt. Asking a pwBPD to understand the emotions of another person is asking a whole lot. He didn't really understand, or even remember, how they came to be at a point of not communicating in the first place. He truly, to this day, does not get that the ball was in his court. He doesn't know why she didn't reach out at all or 'ping' him. Partially too, he thinks it was obvious how off-kilter he was at the time (true enough) and he was hurt that she didn't try harder to reach out when she knew he was so lost. I'm not going to comment on his thinking except to say that I at least see what he's saying (whether or not I agree).

I've also had my H not respond to sensitive emails, texts, or voice mail from me. He's explained before that sometimes he gets those messages and he's overwhelmed. He doesn't know what to say. He freaks out a little and just saves it thinking he'll deal with it 'later'. Then every time he looks at it he tenses up. Then he goes to do something else to calm down (read: try to forget it as a dysfunctional method of self-soothing). As more time goes by he gets more tense and nervous because it's still sitting there. And he hasn't actually thought about an answer because he just keeps avoiding the whole thing because it makes him upset. Then enough time goes by that he thinks he can't justify the delay so he can't answer. Then he either deletes it altogether, or convinces himself that it didn't really require an answer, or argues that I should have followed up because he "just forgot". He really works himself up sometimes. And, if he really gets himself wound up, he pushes it out of his mind with enough force that he either: a) really does forget; or b) convinces himself that he was waiting for me to say something else because the message was incomplete somehow (I was angry so he was scared to say the wrong thing, he was confused as to what I meant, he thought I was going to write more later, whatever).

So... .  long and short of it - I don't know that any lessons are actually learned from our not reaching out. If you want to enforce the boundary re answering your questions or responding to concerns then you may have to be more obvious and just state exactly that. I don't think our boundaries are as obvious as we think they are. For example, your boundary here P&C? It's a little fuzzy... .  So you express what you want to say, your concerns, etc. Very fair. No qualms there. But then you don't get the answer you want (or any answer at all) and go silent? So you, to his mind, get angry or 'accuse' him of things (you didn't, I'm saying he might twist it that way in his head) and then give him the silent treatment when he doesn't know how to respond, or is too scared to say the 'wrong' thing. Ouch.

Okay, that sounds really harsh. I don't mean it to be. I don't think you've done anything wrong and, frankly, I can't believe how kind and patient and, well, clear (hehe) you are with this man. I am not trying to make you doubt yourself. I'm just throwing out some ideas based on the sideways thinking I've come across in my own r/s - take it for what it's worth and with a little pile of salt! I'm not even sure what I wrote is going to make any sense to someone else trying to read it.

[Louise7777]

Well, that makes three of us waiting.  

Patient, Im under the silent treatment right now, for a month. Although its from a non-BPD (I suspect hes PAPD), I can completely relate.

I decided for many silent treatments that the ball is on his court. Although I sent him links abt PAPD and told him Im not taking it anymore, here we are again!

I have the feeling that you, like me, walk on eggshells and anything (and I mean ANYTHING) can make me being punished again. I believe I set a "bigger" boundary than you so far: he knows I dont contact him anymore. But thats stopped him for some time, now hes back to his game.

I understand you may think you invalidated his feelings. I dont care about that anymore. He doesnt care about MY feelings, never did, actually. His feelings are not my responsability and I dont care about them, actually. I feel abused. I never saw a wife worrying abt the husband´s hand when he punched her... .  I may sound cruel, but Im really sick and tired... .  

Now lets wait for more qualified advice.  

[Rockylove]

OK, patientandclear... .  I'm really quite smart, but not all that enlightened or I wouldn't be here!  LOL  

My words of wisdom here... .  it doesn't sound as much like you were hoping as you were expecting it to happen.  When we expect things to be a certain way and they are not, we feel disappointment.  When we have hope, we know that any outcome is ok~~although we'd like to see a certain one happen, it's not taken negatively if it doesn't.  

I hope that makes some sense... .  it took me a long time to really understand the concept, but I think I'm really getting it now and in truth, it's because of my bf's BPD behavior that I'm getting it.

[Louise7777]

Arabella, we were writing at the same time, so thanks for posting.

Seems to me now that silent treatment coming from BPDs and uPAPDs are very different. PAPD didnt want to answer my emails (when I used to write them apologizing) neither picked up the phone. He re-contacted me when he felt like it, as if nothing had happened. So maybe theres a huge difference and we cant compare motives, but we can compare our feelings.

[clairejen]

Patient and clear wrote

At this point I wrote him two emails, basically saying: ok, that sounds nice, and I get that you can start over anywhere and get a ton out of a new place -- beauty, inspiration, information -- but what happens then?  what about after you've started over and left everything behind?

----I understand that you were validating him-but to the ears of a BP, the first part (that sounds nice, etc) could be heard as a rejection of him "Oh, I might stay here and you don't even care?  -----so it might be hard for him to hear the rest of it where you write that you do care.

U also wrote that an earlier post described you being codependent when you told him he had a problem with committment and he should think about that-----can you clarify how that is codependent? ANd what the problem is with saying that to a bp?

======Is this silence a part of push-pull? Or fear or intimacy? It sounds like you went thru this earlier with him and then he initiated contact.

[arabella]

cristina - I think the key probably lies in the distinction between true 'silent treatment' vs simply 'going silent'. If the person is angry and using the silence as a passive agressive 'punishment' then that's one thing. If the person is silent because they are confused or scared, well, that's something else entirely. You need to know the individual in question fairly well. Agreed, I would expect the aggressive type silence more often in a pwAPD. My dBPDh doesn't generally do the angry silence thing. He does the confused/overwhelmed type silence. Even when he's angry, prolonged silence isn't his game - and if he is using it to punish me, then he tells me quite directly (e.g. "I'm really angry. It's your fault I don't want to talk to you. I'll call you in a few days."

[Louise7777]

Arabella, thank you for clarifying. I didnt know ST was used by BPDs, "my" BPDs were the opposite actually: raging, phoning many times, demanding things... .  I learnt here abt it.

I cant give Patient any advice on this, but its worth noting how much we walk on eggshells most of the time with our PDs... .  

[patientandclear]

Arabella ... .  darn it, I think you are probably right.  That is, that he is not going to learn any lesson from these "natural consequences," other than that I don't care enough to continue communicating with him.  And also, that he doesn't see that he caused this.  At this point, it's me who chose this.  When he broke up with me it was the same, actually.  I begged him to talk about it with me.  He kept insisting he was sure of his decision, and made no suggestion that we get together to talk.  Eventually I "accepted" that if these were his feelings, OK, we couldn't continue in a romantic r/s (especially since he was sure talking it through wouldn't help).  A month later, when I asked for NC because this was so devastating, he was all sad and felt betrayed because he'd always been willing to talk about it, and it was my decision not to.  So ... .  yeah.

I guess that then moves me on to the second-level question, which is "should I re-establish contact when this r/s is a source of continuing pain and sadness?"  I guess part of the answer there connects to what Rockylove said, about what I was hoping and expecting this to be.

I really don't think I was expecting it to be anything at all.  I watched to see what it was.  It was a good practice for me and it came pretty easily.  But the problem is, what it turned out to be was pretty intimate, close and valuable and important -- to me, and, it seemed, to him.  And that's why it came as such a shock that he would be building that with me on the one hand, and be ready to cast off for ports unknown at the drop of a hat, on the other.  I mean, we'd made each other no promises and we weren't in a romantic partnership exactly, that's true, but why would you invest so much time, energy, attention and caring on a r/s with someone (especially a former lover) when you plan to take off, perhaps never to return?  His investment in our r/s only accelerated after he decided to leave.  The last several weeks he was here were so poignant and close.  I really expected to hear from him constantly after he left.  But no -- it was as if the switch flipped again, like when he broke up with me, and he really wanted to be gone.  Gone, gone, gone away, to a totally different reality.  I really felt like I'd been left for a new girlfriend, called "The Road."  Only to be supplanted by a new new girlfriend, "City X" (where he was going to move -- BTW that lasted 6 days, then he moved on).

So I found I did have expectations, which were that things would continue as they were, so long as they were good and true and had integrity ... .  that could even have survived him leaving town, I guess, but he was so obviously distracted by the romance of all the "what could be" questions before him that he sort of lost track of how we normally communicated.  That hurt.  But I would have waited it out.  The final straw was this business of "hey, I know!  I'll just live here!" so randomly.  It felt like such indifference to what we'd developed and the cost and risk of doing that, at least to me.

So if I go back now, it has to be going back with a whole new level of radical acceptance -- this is a man who can seem to be deeply invested one moment and nearly indifferent the next.  He will leave.  He will almost certainly leave.  Whatever we are doing, he may change it at the drop of a hat.  And if I try to talk about it, he will disappear.

I guess I'm asking myself -- even as a friend, the true and enduring friend I offered to be with him -- what kind of terms are those for any kind of important relationship?

***

Clairejen: I probably exaggerated the extent to which I conveyed "that's nice" (that he was considering staying in City X) in my unanswered email to him.  I get it that that could invalidate, and could convey that I don't really care if he stayed there, but I had a pretty (possibly too) light touch on the "that's nice" point.  I was pretty heavy on "I care."  I suspect he read it as invalidating of his choices, his need for freedom, his lifelong technique of fleeing and starting over when it feels bad where he is.  I think this was a serious case of me showing him I see behind the mask, and him being incredibly uncomfortable with that.

When I said some folks on this board thought my email to him had a ring of codependency, it's that I was opining or asking questions about how he was making his choices -- involving myself in his business, suggesting maybe he was making poor or at least questionable choices.  I did that.  I thought I couched it in questions rather than opinions, and with a clear connection to my own interest in the question (because I was part of what he would be giving up if he just randomly moved).  But.  I have little doubt that to him, it smacked of me trying to control him or having some sort of hidden agenda to save him (something he's accused me of in the past ... .  quite a twist given that, of course, when we met he was dying for me to save him and tell him what to do and what I thought about everything.  After a lot of self-scrutiny, BTW, I don't think that I have manifested much of a hidden agenda with him).

[sm15000]

"should I re-establish contact when this r/s is a source of continuing pain and sadness?"  

If it is then I would say no.  Can I be honest, I know you had 10 months NC but I don't think you are anywhere near emotionally detached. . .and until this happens it will always cause you pain. . .I really don't think what you are trying to maintain can possibly work until you are.

I don't think it's so much you have expectations, but you seem to still have 'hope' - not necessarily romantic hopes but hope that he will give back to you what you want and need. . .and every-time he doesn't (or most probably can't) meet up to that, you are hurt.  

I mean, we'd made each other no promises and we weren't in a romantic partnership exactly, that's true, but why would you invest so much time, energy, attention and caring on a r/s with someone (especially a former lover) when you plan to take off, perhaps never to return

Because he has a disorder. . .and due to this he is 'in the moment' but he is not giving/feeling the same level of emotional intensity as you are - he can't. . .he is overall, emotionally unavailable.  I think you are letting yourself drift into if you give of yourself, he will consistently reciprocate.  

P&C, you are obviously a talker, a debater, you want to ask questions, get answers, get inside him,  understand. . .but this may be a little too intense for him at times.  I think he may be overwhelmed and not so much ignoring you or giving you the silent treatment.  BPD's also seem to have the uncanny knack of 'getting on with their lives' whereas we try to analyse exactly what's going on, does he mean this, is he thinking that.

There will never be any consistency to whatever you have. . .or will have. . .if you want to stay connected - how are you going to deal with that?  I have (very) recently been practising mindfulness. . .I'm already feeling the benefits, have you tried it?  

[maria1]

Hi P & C

Here's my very harsh take. It comes from a huge respect for you and because I think you are damaging yourself by even considering renewing contact:-

You don't meet his needs right now. Something or somebody else does.

You have a need to understand him and focus on him rather than you. You can reach out and get that need met or you can let him go. If you do that it will just keep playing out. Nothing about this is ever going to get any better. You already gave it your all. He chose to leave remember.

This will never be a reciprocal relationship and yet he is very good at making it appear as if it could be. It is an illusion.

That's it. He has left you; you need to hear the message that is saying. As impossible and painful as that is to accept, you refuse to accept it and find other reasons for his silence. I'm so, so sorry.

[123Phoebe]

P&C, maybe make a list of what you're looking for in a partner, what you hold valuable in a friendship.  How does he measure up to your standards?  How would you treat any other friend that moved away and hasn't reached out in 2 months?

Make this process about you and what you want, what you hold near and dear.  Try keeping the focus on you and the feelings that come up for you.  Not necessarily the intellectual portion of it, ya know?  Not the second guessing and what he might be feeling about anything at the moment.  Feel your emotions, name them, i.e., sadness, loneliness, joy etc... .  get deep in touch with them.  Try not to attach the emotions TO him, they're all your own and very unique feelings.  

Then, when you feel sadness let's say... .   Get in touch with it.  Feel it.  Honor it even.  Then move on to what can you do for yourself to alleviate the sadness?  Again, not attaching your sadness to anything in particular, only what you can do for yourself to alleviate it.

This is how I started with mindfulness.  I had already recognized the source of the original pain, realizing that I have no control over how another person chooses/chose to interact with me.  I can only be in control of myself and how I choose to spend my time here on this earth.

[almost789]

Well, I can't tell you what I think you should do because the choice is yours, however you seem determined not to let go. I think if you don't let go you will have to radically accept that this is probably not going to be the relationship you were expecting. Sadly, people with BPD have difficulty with emotional intimacy. Sure, they can carry on for a while but eventually the emotions are what cause them to fall apart. You ask, why would someone carry on as if we are developing this close commited friendship only to switch like a switch to something completely different. Because they have BPD! It is classic for them to lead their partners down one road only to disengage and disconnect just when things are going good. It is a subconcious reaction, a fear of getting too close and being engulfed or controlled or a fear of losing that emotional connection and being abandoned. They sabotage their relationships, always. Doesn't make sense? No it doesn't, not even to them! It's subconcious, they don't even know why they do it.

As far as the silence, I agree fully with Arabella. Most times the silence is not about punishment. Its about them not knowing what to do. They can't handle your emotional needs! They just cant. Once the flip switches, they are like small children mentally. If you came to a small child with your feelings and needs how would that baby be able to meet your needs? They can't. They're scared of your disappointment. I think you have to radically except this man can't give you what you are wanting. Can you still be friends? Perhaps, but it's not going to be what you are expecting.

[almost789]

And also, as from my experience with my BPD friend. I usually have to make the first contact after an intense silent episode.  It has to do with their fear of rejection. If he contacted you, and you said, look Im done with this. You would be the rejector. They can't handle that. Most pwBPD men expect you to come looking for them when they retreat. Mine will contact after we reconnect in a friendly way, but never after a fall out. He expects me to.

[clairejen]

Hi

P&C wrote

I begged him to talk about it with me.  He kept insisting he was sure of his decision, and made no suggestion that we get together to talk.  ... .  A month later, when I asked for NC because this was so devastating, he was all sad and felt betrayed because he'd always been willing to talk about it, and it was my decision not to.

---So you begged him to talk, he didn't want to, and then when you pulled away he said he'd wanted to talk but it was you who didn't want to-----this sounds like projection-----he projected the "not talking" onto you. Had you talked to him when he "projected" this onto you? Did he realize that it was he who hadn't talked earlier?

Claire

[clairejen]

Hi

Summer wrote

Most pwBPD men expect you to come looking for them when they retreat. Mine will contact after we reconnect in a friendly way, but never after a fall out. He expects me to.

----I agree with this, I am unclear about what the reason is----that they will make the first move after they have pushed away  after positive close times. Yet after a fight, when they push away and retreat, they want the ohter person to come forward.

Claire

[123Phoebe]

And also, as from my experience with my BPD friend. I usually have to make the first contact after an intense silent episode.  It has to do with their fear of rejection. If he contacted you, and you said, look Im done with this. You would be the rejector. They can't handle that. Most pwBPD men expect you to come looking for them when they retreat. Mine will contact after we reconnect in a friendly way, but never after a fall out. He expects me to.

Hi

Summer wrote

Most pwBPD men expect you to come looking for them when they retreat. Mine will contact after we reconnect in a friendly way, but never after a fall out. He expects me to.

----I agree with this, I am unclear about what the reason is----that they will make the first move after they have pushed away  after positive close times. Yet after a fight, when they push away and retreat, they want the ohter person to come forward.

Claire

We can't lump all pwBPD into the same category.  The guy I'm seeing comes back around to me when I respect his need for space.  We have had fallouts in the past and he's been the initiator to come back around.  I have not been.

P&C, what are your boundaries?  What are your limits?  What is your end game?  When do you let go?

[almost789]

No we can't lump everyone into one category thats for sure. Please don't take what I say to mean that "all" pwBPD are this way. Im only speaking to my experience and others I've talked with.

Claire, yes sounds like projection. What I have found is that my pwBPD will most always put his things on me. He even said once. It's "upon you" I was like... .  what?  Then I realized that was his way of avoiding the responsiblity.

[arabella]

... .  I mean, we'd made each other no promises and we weren't in a romantic partnership exactly, that's true, but why would you invest so much time, energy, attention and caring on a r/s with someone (especially a former lover) when you plan to take off, perhaps never to return?  His investment in our r/s only accelerated after he decided to leave.  The last several weeks he was here were so poignant and close.  I really expected to hear from him constantly after he left.  But no -- it was as if the switch flipped again, like when he broke up with me, and he really wanted to be gone.  Gone, gone, gone away, to a totally different reality.  I really felt like I'd been left for a new girlfriend, called "The Road."  Only to be supplanted by a new new girlfriend, "City X" (where he was going to move -- BTW that lasted 6 days, then he moved on).

So I found I did have expectations, which were that things would continue as they were, so long as they were good and true and had integrity ... .  that could even have survived him leaving town, I guess, but he was so obviously distracted by the romance of all the "what could be" questions before him that he sort of lost track of how we normally communicated.  That hurt.  But I would have waited it out.  The final straw was this business of "hey, I know!  I'll just live here!" so randomly.  It felt like such indifference to what we'd developed and the cost and risk of doing that, at least to me.

So if I go back now, it has to be going back with a whole new level of radical acceptance -- this is a man who can seem to be deeply invested one moment and nearly indifferent the next.  He will leave.  He will almost certainly leave.  Whatever we are doing, he may change it at the drop of a hat.  And if I try to talk about it, he will disappear.

I guess I'm asking myself -- even as a friend, the true and enduring friend I offered to be with him -- what kind of terms are those for any kind of important relationship?

It sounds like you had an expectation that he would behave like he didn't have BPD. You expected consistency. You are viewing this through your lens (as we all do) and interpreting his actions as a reflection of how he feels about you. With my H, it is never about how he feels about someone else. With the exGF it was entirely how he felt in his own head. He was depressed, he was desperate for relief, he was running away - not from her, he loved her dearly, but from himself. She was just an innocent bystander. He's doing it to me now. It doesn't hurt less but I have to, as you say, radically accept that the effect on me is not a consideration in his mind when he gets into these states. We've been together for over 12 years but that doesn't mean anything at all when the switch flips - he just runs, grasps at random 'solutions' (travel! move! new girlfriend!), and deals with the fallout later. I am just coming to see how this pattern goes, what it means, and come to terms with how I want to deal with it going forward (but that's a whole other thread).

So, yes, the question is whether or not you want to have a friend who does this sort of thing. It's not a short term problem. Look at the larger picture, a pattern that stretches infinitely over time. He will always leave and he will probably always return. Are the times when he is around worth the silences in between? Does it help if you expect them? Over, say, 20 years, perhaps he will cumulatively be around for 12 of those and absent for 8 (in chunks that vary from days to months, or even years). Can you handle a friendship like that? Can you manage to flow through that and live your life freely? And can you admit if perhaps it isn't possible with this particular person?

I have a good friend who I will have bursts of communication with - texts, emails, long phone calls, sleepovers, etc. - and then long periods where we are both silent (it has sometimes stretched to over a year). We drop in and out of each others' lives, seemingly at random, yet I am always delighted to hear from her. I think nothing of it if I don't hear from her and I think nothing of it if I see her number pop up on my caller ID any given day. It is just the way it is. It has always been that way and it is what I expect. I am happy with this. But I am happy because I am not expecting something else, and I am not hoping for more, and I am not in any way emotionally enmeshed with her (nor her with me). I don't know if this would be possible with a pwBPD?

What do you want to happen P&C? Because I think that the ball is actually in your court.

[Grey Kitty]

P&C (and others in this thread with similar circumstances),

This thread has gone round a couple times, much of it that you have to decide how you are going to handle this need to run away / disappear for months or longer. It isn't my decision, so I'll try to shut up and let you think.

But I think of myself as someone who is really good with boundaries, and the discussion of how to apply boundaries to this situation came up half-way through the thread... .  and that seems pretty clear to me:

The only boundary I can think of for this "dropping out of your life" is to choose not to risk it again. That is tell him that he can go away, but if he does, he's not welcome back again... .  and go NC (and go through a lot of pain) and move on. I'm not sure you are ready for this, but I can't think of any other way to protect you from the next cycle.

In short, boundaries won't get you exactly what you want.

If you want him to come back, other communication techniques like SET or DEARMAN seem like better choices for you. But it is his choice, you can't force him / control him.

I'm afraid radical acceptance and hard choices are in order. 

[briefcase]

I know you are still tormented by this situation P&C, and I feel for you.  

You seem stuck between a rock and a hard place with this guy.  Right now, it sounds like you love him and want him to love you back (whether we call it friends, friends with potential, or lovers).  Unfortunately, that's the option you really, really want. So, you keep racking your brain for ways to finesse this result.      

You have a choice.  You can keep reaching out and/or waiting for him, hoping he comes back around in some meaningful way.  Or, you can detach from him and move on.  :)etachment can mean you are done with him, or it can open the door to friendship later on (the kind of friendship where you don't mind if he doesn't contact you for long stretches and lives in another city).        

I'm really not seeing any other options right now.  

You are in the best position to judge whether persistence will pay off for you, or just lead to more frustration and heartache.  

[MaybeSo]

So if I go back now, it has to be going back with a whole new level of radical acceptance -- this is a man who can seem to be deeply invested one moment and nearly indifferent the next.  He will leave.  He will almost certainly leave.  Whatever we are doing, he may change it at the drop of a hat.  And if I try to talk about it, he will disappear. (for a while)

Yes. Yes, and yes.

If  something were to change about this... .  it would be frosting on the cake... .  but ultimately... .  it is wise to accept this just as it is, just as you described it,  this is very clear... .  and from this clarity... .  decide what you want to do.

This describes my freind very aptly too, though he has never physically moved away... .  , at times, he might as well have. They can drop off suddenly even if they live in the same town.

Evaluating what you want in a freindship is important.

There may be a person or two in the course of your long life that offers so much richness when they ARE present, that you find maintaining or reconstituting a connection  with them  when they 'surface' worthwhile... .  even knowing that they come and they go. Such things have been known to happen.

Or, maybe your needs, values and boundaries are legitimately such that, having a person of such importance come and go like he does, just will never work for you, and no amount of benefit or richness between the comings can make up for the pain and weirdness of the goings.  

Either is valid.

This is about what works for you.  

[clairejen]

Phoebe wrote

We can't lump all pwBPD into the same category.  The guy I'm seeing comes back around to me when I respect his need for space.  We have had fallouts in the past and he's been the initiator to come back around.  I have not been.

==== I see trends among pwBPD that are different than what non-BPD typically do. I have seen and heard from others that the pwBPD comes back around sooner or later (push pull, recycling).  Due to fear of abandonment or rejection, they often prefer that the non initiate the contact when the pwBPD feels ready.  That doesn't mean that they always wait for the non to initiate contact instead of initiating it themselves.

Claire

[wdone]

o.k., from what i have learned from people here (and especially what i've learned from you) --i can share what came to mind reading your post. thanks for all your support.

(and first of all, i am SO sorry for what you are going through). 

he is sick. he's mentally ill. it sounds like you're trying to figure out why he would leave, why he would go to that city, why he would not respond.  who knows why he does what he does?... .  right?

we cannot have expectations, or at least--we can't expect them to live up to ANY. (this is my take on things currently from my experience.)

intimacy (especially what you described) makes them want to run away, or run away.  this has been the pattern, right? you said you two were very close right before he left.

i don't know how much of a difference it would make if you reach out to him or not.  two thoughts: it would let him know you are there, and love him. and 2nd thought: he may respect that you don't reach out again, based on what you said.  i don't know--my bf has said both.

my bf has been talking about leaving for years, but recently, much more so.  he talks about "leaving and moving to a different town to re-invent himself"  which really worries me--for his sake, and because i want to be with him, here.

so, to hear that your SO actually left is scary to me, and i feel for you so much.  i know that you had been feeling so close to him in your friendship.

he might come back. he may come back in a few months, or a few days. 

i wish i had more to share but those are my thoughts. 

take care of YOU!

[Whatwasthat]

I'm very un-qualified in this whole area P and C but I'm really, really sorry you feel badly right now and am wishing you all the strength and clarity of mind necessary to slowly feel your way forwards in all of this.

But one question I do feel qualified to answer. You asked if it was stupid to have a boundary whereby you don't have a relationship with someone because they can't engage with the questions you need to ask about your relationship with them. No - I don't think it's stupid at all. I'm very clear on that.

Sending lots of warm  . WWT

[patientandclear]

Making my way through some additional replies ... .  

You ask, why would someone carry on as if we are developing this close commited friendship only to switch like a switch to something completely different. Because they have BPD! It is classic for them to lead their partners down one road only to disengage and disconnect just when things are going good. It is a subconcious reaction, a fear of getting too close and being engulfed or controlled or a fear of losing that emotional connection and being abandoned. They sabotage their relationships, always.

Summer: thanks for this.  Yeah.  It's giving me pause that I could write words like "why would someone carry on as if we are developing this close committed friendship if he was just going to up and leave," when the answer is ... .  because he has BPD.  I know this.  Clearly, I need to achieve a degree of acceptance that has eluded me thus far. I think I thought that our friendship might evade this pattern because it was not overtly romantic, there was no physical relationship, I let him come and go as he needed to ... .  I thought we were achieving a degree of trust.  Schwing once cautioned me that the pursuit of "trust" with this man, even as friends, was going to lead me astray.  He was right.  Interestingly, right before he left, we were very close and yet he reacted to some instances in which I showed I really cared about him, who he really is, and could be trusted, with intense mistrust.  We even had an exchange in which I wrote "could you work on trusting me?" a couple times and he never responded to that part.

Summer, your point that Arabella also made, that it will be up to me to reach out to him because at this point if he does, and I am fed up, he is vulnerable to rejection ... .  OK, I accept that.  I haven't decided whether I should reach out again.  Back to reading other replies as I consider that ... .   

Hi

P&C wrote

I begged him to talk about it with me.  He kept insisting he was sure of his decision, and made no suggestion that we get together to talk.  ... .  A month later, when I asked for NC because this was so devastating, he was all sad and felt betrayed because he'd always been willing to talk about it, and it was my decision not to.

---So you begged him to talk, he didn't want to, and then when you pulled away he said he'd wanted to talk but it was you who didn't want to-----this sounds like projection-----he projected the "not talking" onto you. Had you talked to him when he "projected" this onto you? Did he realize that it was he who hadn't talked earlier?

Claire

Yes, it was projection.  It was as if I had broken up with him and this whole thing had happened to him, rather than vice versa.  No, I had not yet talked with him in person when he did this projecting.  When I read this, I immediately called him, we talked, I said "I don't understand -- do you need to talk? As far as I could tell there was no point because you'd made up your mind.  I didn't need to see you in person to sob in front of you because this ripped my guts out.  What would be the point?"  He said, really bemused, "oh.  I see.  You thought there was nothing to talk about."  But he recounted all these conversations he'd had with friends in which they discussed evidence in my emails that I wasn't open to his point of view and wasn't willing to talk.  He was deeply convinced of this.  Weirdest thing I'd ever seen (at the time!)  I remember a dim anxiety in the back of my mind, as we planned to meet and began to talk about reuniting, that "you really need to get to the bottom of how he can think that it was you who wouldn't talk.  :)on't just let that go.  It will be a problem again."

There were many subsequent instances of projection, this was the first one I became aware of.  It's a powerful device.  It allowed him to be the victim, and me to be the one who cost him this beautiful love affair.

[patientandclear]

P&C, what are your boundaries?  What are your limits?  What is your end game?  When do you let go?

Argh, Phoebe, I just don't know!  That's what I am trying to figure out here.  Several you asked some version of this.  Grey Kitty points out that maybe it's not a question of a behavioral boundary in an ongoing relationship.  It's a question of whether I will allow someone in my life at all who can be counted on to do this.  If I say yes, I will allow him in my life, as MaybeSo said as well, it needs to be with acceptance that he is indeed someone who will leave.  Always.

Briefcase commented that I am tortured by hope.  I really don't think that's it.  I did have hope that over time we might break through some trust barriers through good practice.  I am starting to think Schwing is right, that that is not something that occurs with pwBPD.  Years of good practice (as demonstrated by MaybeSo and others here) somehow don't seem to accumulate and generate trust that can survive a disordered panic.  Mistrust does seem to accumulate, and good experiences, not so much.  OK, I've learned this.

I did, however, make the mistake of expecting continuity at some basic level.  Not daily consistency, no, I'd made my peace with that and that seemed to help our r/s greatly.  But of course, when I say "help our relationship," I mean, he got closer to me.  Which causes its own problems.  Anyway, I somehow had fallen into the expectation that we could keep doing our thing, which was fulfilling in its own weird way like MaybeSo says, indefinitely.  And it would be good, according to its own lights.  But I didn't factor in that he could depart with no regard for the consequences for or impact on this delicate, lovely thing we were doing.

I am having the hardest time finding the path of integrity here -- of respect for myself and respect for our relationship.  When I put on one pair of glasses, I see someone who has betrayed me over and over, in different ways that were very hurtful, and which are normally antithetical to a valuable relationship.  When I put on my "but he has BPD" lenses though, I see that he is arguably doing the best he can (not sure about that actually -- he keeps wrecking women's lives with no apparent insight or impulse to change his ways for the sake of these other people; his current solo status (if that continues) is his own choice for his own well-being, so he can work on "individuating" and figuring out who he is without immersion in another person) and our r/s has been a place where we have, until this episode, been able to connect on terms that had some integrity and mutual respect and affirmation.  I am having a hard time reconciling the two views of him and of us.  One in which there is repeated betrayal.  One in which there is something essentially good and worthwhile.

I think maybe I should conclude from the messiness of my own thinking that I should not reach out unless I decide I am really OK with him disappearing (not just falling out of contact for a few days), and I really am OK with his utter inability to directly address issues in our r/s in a meaningful way.

Wdone, thanks so much for your kindness.  Your story is really an extreme demonstration of radical acceptance because your bf says extreme things about leaving, about you being an enemy, so often and so closely related to intimacy.  When I look at how you are learning to detach somewhat from those manifestations of BPD, I realize I haven't completely applied that to my own situation.  I do need to more significantly detach, not necessarily from him, but from the meaning and implications of these departures and statements. They don't necessarily mean anything, except that there will be no predictability or consistency.  I need to accept this as you are practicing doing, if I resume this relationship.

Interestingly, one week before he left, my friend gave a long speech to another friend of mine whom he'd specifically requested to meet (part of a project in which he was making a big effort to explore aspects of my life, like my hometown, my family ... .  part of why the departure hit me so hard) ... .  anyway, he gave this speech about how sometimes you just need to stay.  Constantly leaving is fine, but sometimes, you just need to dig in where you are, and be there.  ?

Thanks you guys for all these thoughtful replies.  As always, it helps me so  much to hear your views on what the range of viable choices might be, and how the source of what is going wrong is mostly my own expectations at this point.  I still don't know what I should do though

[almost789]

Hi P&C,

I just want to clarify that I don't mean to imply that I think you should reach out to him. This is your choice and your decision only and in most circumstances I would not tell someone, nor myself, to continue to reach out to a man who is incapable of sustainted, trustworthy friendship. However, I only know from my experiences with my friend who has BPD that after a long silent treatment, I don't believe he would ever have the courage to reach out to me first. Its never happened for me, not after a blow up. This has nothing to do with how much they love you. Its more about their fear of being rejected and mine has a major terror of being rejected by someone he loves. In fact he would be more inclined to reach out to someone he didn't care about as if that person does the rejecting, he doesn't care. Which is why he's always flirting around online with strange women! Ughhh... .  Now I have been talking to other men who have BPD and they have told me, when they pull away like this, they don't typically come back because of the shame and guilt they feel for pulling away and/or being a dissappointment. They say they most always push people away they love and they hate themselves for it but can't stop. Then they wonder why that same person is not checking in on them, which in turn makes them feel worthless. Now, I am in no way saying this is what your person is feeling. Just that this is what I have gleened from others who have BPD and its been an eyeopener for me to get their view on things. But P&C, really if you are going to be friends with him, get used to the fact that it's not going to be some dream, he's not going to return to his earlier version. You may get some intimate moments at times, but those will shortly be followed by some irratic illogical behavior shortly after that makes you go... .  huhh? If you can recognize this a part of his illness, wait for it to pass, it passes. Don't take it as a slight on you. It's about his BPD which he hates just as much as you do.