Hi Clairedair,
This board is about 'detaching from the wounds' but I just feel stuck in a mire this week. It takes so much energy to try to detach and stay detached and then I'll get derailed and I just don't want to have to do the hard work again
It is ok to feel stuck in a mire. This is part of the process. Just like the whole process of ending the relationship was for you a long journey as well. I think the hard work is worth it, because you are worth the effort.
I was meant to be on a longed-for trip somewhere sunny this week. A trip planned to help me heal. Instead, I had to cancel the trip due to an illness that I suspect is another in a long line of stress related illnesses. I've also had to engage with ex in relation to a child and the cool exchanges are getting to me. I want not to feel anything about these exchanges.
It's ok to get sick and miss the trip. You haven't let anyone down. You haven't let yourself down. In fact, by being flexible with your plans and giving yourself the time to heal, you are showing yourself a degree of consideration and thoughtfulness that your BPD loved one could never do, because for him it was more important to appear happy than to actually be happy.
I know you don't want to feel anything about these exchanges, but you are not disordered. In time, apathy may well be in your grasp, but that comes only after you've processed all the feelings that you need to process.
I try and try to 'count my blessings' (and there are many in my life - and I'd even include his recent marriage to someone he hadn't been dating that long as a blessing for me) but am just feeling so weighed down. Trying to work out what it is that's really depressing me and I think that a big part of it is injustice.
Perhaps its the injustice, or at least the appearance of injustice. Personally I believe what goes around comes around. But that is not what will best aid you now. What is important for you now, is to disengage. And that means you will not be around to bear witness to any kind of justice in his life. Just like no one was really around to witness the harm he created in your life.
Depression can sometimes be the result of the mind not being able to work through emotions. It's as if an emotion is so "big" that it just blocks up your ability to feel. It's ok to be depressed. Just give yourself the time and space to work through feelings that have not quite made it to the "surface" so to speak. It's when you don't give yourself that time and space, that you start to run into problems.
I should know better - have been around these boards long enough - but it just seems that he's getting on with a sparkly new life, fulfilling job in which he's hugely respected and admired, a new wife and a new home with her in a place I'd like to live and travelling to places we talked about going to.
You do know better. But it's also ok to feel like it isn't fair that he can appear to be so far along. But the truth is that his behavior is more evidence for his disorder. In his disordered mind, he has *replaced* you with this new wife. Which is to say, this new wife is just as interchangeable in his life as anyone might be. And you wouldn't want to be "loved" like this. Nor would you want to love others in such a fashion either.
Sure he has a fulfilling job in which he's hugely respected and admired. But would any of the people who respect and admire him want the kind of home life, emotional life that this man possesses? Why else would one want such a job except to be able to bring a degree of fulfillment, happiness and security to you and your family?
But you know intellectually that he cannot have this; even though part of you still chooses to believe otherwise.
He will not be happy. He will only be good at appearing to be happy... . that's the best that he can do. And for a lot of people, that isn't enough. Nor would most people be willing to trade their chance at happiness for a home in a place they'd like to live, traveling to places they've aspired to go.
I don't understand this. I don't want to be the one married to him any more because latterly it was destroying me even though I tried everything. I don't want to be travelling to the places he's going if I have to go with him and be ignored once I get there. I don't want to live in the place he's living if I have to live with him and be wondering if he likes me or not when I get home.
I think I should be happy that it's all over and I can get on with a life free from walking on eggshells but I'm feeling so miserable and pathetic.
Yes. But you are not disordered. Your emotional states doest not change from utter misery to blissful ignorance as though it were on a switch. It takes a process. And right now, I think you are still going through this process of coming to terms with what all those years spent with your ex-husband has meant to you. Your mind needs to work through the experience over time because the emotions you've accumulated are really "big". You need to go through this process because if you don't, you might be doomed to repeat your experience. As your ex will.
I always knew it would take time to heal given that it was a long-term marriage and the more recent very difficult years but I'm depressed tonight because I can't see an end to my spending so much time thinking about or talking about (or writing here about) a relationship that no longer exists.
Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there.
It's ok to feel depressed. There will be times when you don't. Make the most out of those times and do remember to take care of yourself during those times. My understanding is that as you spend more time improving the relationship you have with yourself, you will no longer be so preoccupied by thoughts of your BPD loved one.
Best wishes, Schwing
