Sign of Hope, Or Just Another Climb On The Roller Coaster?

[cult]

Last night, after my SO told me she considered us to be working on ourselves so we can come back together in a healthier partnership, we had a great time together in what coaches would call "limited minutes". We didn't have much time to spend together but it was quality time. It felt (dare I say) a little like old times. We were more relaxed than we have been in a while, and she actually initiated very familiar (and very welcome) intimate touch. Nothing even close to sex, but sexual. More than just a hug or a peck on the lips. And she did it more than once.

She was invited to travel to her best friend's 40th birthday party this weekend, so she decided to do that. She had said weeks ago she wanted to go but did not have the funds. Another friend offered to pay her way so she decided to go, as she really wanted to go to this party. In the recent past I would have been upset that she chose to do this over spending time together, as we were supposed to do on Saturday, but in light of the last couple of months I am handling it way better than I would have when this all started. I am sad to be excluded, but she is really needing her space and freedom to do things without me right now. And I can't lie - I am delighted by how last night went and once again feeling some hope that maybe we can get through this.

Working on my codependency I am seeing with more objectivity how enmeshed our relationship has been and how damaged my partner is. The enmeshment did not cause that but to an extent, the r/s dynamics encouraged her to stay stuck. She is trying to un-stick herself and spending time with separate friends is part of that for her. And I am starting to realize that the more reactive I am to everything she says and does, the more unhappy I will be and the less clearly I will be able to see the situation.

(Sigh) I know I still need to detach and turn the outcome over, but it's hard not to have hope, especially after a great night. I have plans for my weekend, although I had hoped to see her. Some of those plans include seeing the new baby who is on her side of the family. Last night I asked "she is my niece too, right" and my partner replied, "Of course." That made me feel really good.

Once I am on summer break, in a couple of short weeks, I will be much more available time wise and I think our situation will start to take on a more cohesive form.

Am I fooling myself? Might we have hope?

[schwing]

Should you have hope?

I don't know.  No one here does.  No one can see the future.  And no one knows the mind and heart of your SO.

You asked in a previous post if any sense can be made out of a relatively stable 10 years of relationship and then her suddenly questioning her orientation, her identity.  I think that it is possible that if she has been doing some serious work on herself into looking perhaps into past abuse or trauma that maybe she is working through something that is pushing her limit of what she can accept.  And that is perhaps triggering her old and dysfunctional coping mechanisms resulting in her most recent BPD-like behavior.  Maybe she'll work through this?  Maybe she'll relapse back into her old behaviors?  I don't know. 

She has gone through DBT, right?  And continues to work with a therapist, I assume.

Your situation does remind me of my situation in the last few months of my BPD relationship, though.  My SO kept going through periods where she said she needed distance and a chance to work on herself.  She started getting in shape.  She became more socially active.  She was seeing a therapist regularly.  All positive changes from my perspective. 

I thought she was finally turning a corner in dealing with the recent death of a close friend.  And usually after each period of "distance" where it seemed like we might break-up, she then clung onto me a little closer.  For a while it felt like we were woo'ing each other again.  This happened so often I forget when we were technically apart and when we were together.  I wonder if this served to placate her conscience while she was dating other men outside of my knowledge.

And then a switch was flipped.  And didn't flip back.  Why didn't she come back that last time?  I don't know exactly.  I'll never know.  Basically it was up to her.  At some level, in spite of all her disordered issues and feelings, she made a choice to be with someone else.  And she kept me completely in the dark about this choice. 

And I'm afraid that it may be the same for you.  Maybe your SO is not really contemplating leaving you.  Maybe she's just working through some transient issues. 

But then maybe she's also keeping you in the dark while she's considering making a new life for herself because she's reach a point that's scared her so much that she doesn't want to go down that path (toward recovery).  And to tell you any of this would only make it more likely for you to bolt and abandon her.  And she needs to avoid that possibility.

So it's up to you.

For me, I didn't understand BPD as much (or at all) then as I do now.  But knowing the kind of person I was then, I probably still would have taken the punch straight in the face.  Like I did.  And God did it hurt like hell.  The person I am now, I probably wouldn't have.  But I can respect a person for making such a choice.

As hard as it was to let my heart be broken in such an awful way, I would have hated myself to think that I was abandoning a broken child, which is how she had conditioned me to feel whenever I considered leaving her.