Niggling questions - any thoughts/advice?

[crystalclear]

Hi all,

I am doing much better since last couple of weeks, i guess the wild whirlpool in me is almost settling now.

It's nearly 6 months since my exbf broke up and 3 months of complete NC. He did me a favor in a way  

Thanks to extensive reading and coming to terms with my own flaws and pitfalls that disabled me from breaking up with my exbf. I see the reality more clearly now, and only regret that i showed undying love to a person who does not believe in such things.

There is so much positive to learn and change in myself, I am on that path so i know i will be a stronger and better person.

A few questions have been mildly bothering me :

why was he continuing to be in the relationship if he knew he was going to break up? He kept hiding things from me and did not 'work' or contribute to resolving any issues. All he did was pick fights and argue to the point that we both got frustrated. Telling me how s*itty i treated him, and blaming my actions for his anger. Why did he not break up the day he drastically changed towards me? Why give me mixed signals? Why din't he stop me from visiting him when he knew this was going nowhere? (he knew travelling to see him was quite expensive) It was like he wanted to see/meet me couple of more times to dump me.

He had the luxury to keep me around while he was already detaching. I never for once thought or saw the break up coming. Unfortunately, i did not take the luxury of time and space like he did by toying with me, to get to a closure.

I know i was expecting him to be a good person and not be selfish. It was always about him i guess. I know these questions make no difference now, not because he is married but because i have come a long way from then. But just a few niggling thoughts that creep into my head and make me feel stupid and angry.

[Trick1004]

I think it is natural once you've moved on from wanting a r/s with you're ex. I'm kind of in this stage right now also. I am angry (mostly at myself) with how and why I took her crap for 3+ years while she was just leading me on. I do feel like a fool.

At the same time though she had succeeded in engulfing me so much in her world that I was able to forgive and forget her behavior while in the relationship.

To me that's the great thing I've noticed as time passes since she walked out on me. I am starting to be able to look at it from an outside perspective and I think anyone would feel dumb and angry for letting themselves get wrapped up in such a situation. I don't blame her (this is what BPD's do), but I am using these feelings to look at WHY I allowed it to happen in the first place and make sure it doesn't happen again.

[VeryFree]

Same questions overhere.

Why not throw in the towel at the moment she decided that I'm the worst person alive?

She started organizing the further downfall of our r/s and she started to organize her life after our splitting months before we actually broke up. Meanwhile harrassing me and trying to irritate me to the bone.

I guess her behaviour had two meanings:

- Getting as much (materialistic) for herself as was possible before splitting.

- Trying to get me to end the r/s, so she could be the victim.

The first point, she succeeded.

The second she didn't: she had to end it, while I was trying to save everything. Shame on me. 

[Clearmind]

My guess is a simultaneous fear of intimacy, abandonment and engulfment. Creates quite an internal dilemma.

Interestingly I had hundreds of fleeting thoughts, daily, where I would be telling myself I cannot do this my longer yet despite my better and clear judgement I stayed. It begs the question how many red flags before you're out?

I would say now - I would make it 3! Mistaking intensity for love would be the very first one, quickly followed by people pleasing and then isolation.

[delusionalxox]

Interestingly I had hundreds of fleeting thoughts, daily, where I would be telling myself I cannot do this my longer yet despite my better and clear judgement I stayed. It begs the question how many red flags before you're out?

I would say now - I would make it 3! Mistaking intensity for love would be the very first one, quickly followed by people pleasing and then isolation.

Wow. This is familiar!

Over 20 attempts to leave the guy, constant ruminating over how incompatible we were and the bad treatment. But unable to detach entirely for as long as he 'needed' me.

I was/ am also isolated and he was the only person offering me intense feeling of any kind. Bad and good. So I kept taking the bad.