So I guess it is my time around to really go into the mode of radical acceptance and finally realize it is time for me to move myself into the process of truly detaching myself from my relationship with my from now on ex undiagnosed Borderline boyfriend.
Peace be to you all here on the boards. I know this is long... . I hope therefore nobody feels obligated to read it... . But if some of you do, hopefully it may be of help for some of you and at least it is a way for me to get it out or my system and finally realize it is a reality... .
If nothing else I am so glad to have found my way to you here and that such a place can exist!
I really started the process of letting go a couple of weeks back when we yet again found ourselves back to the juncture of him once again attempting to break things off with me, requesting that we should instead "just be friends"…
This has pretty much been the the pattern throughout this somewhat rocky long distance r/s, where he has wavered between going all in and wants to plan our future, but at the same time constantly recycled the pattern of self sabotaging before every opportunity to meet and then being blissfully happy every time I have ignored it and gone through with our plans anyway. To then going into separation anxiety every time we have to be apart. And then begin again with questioning his ability to maintain a LD relationship even for a short period of time… (It is not really a very long distance between us with any international standards... . We live about a 2,5 hour drive apart), but still... .
I would be lying if I were to say it has not been at times devastating to me knowing how much love there is between us, but him still being unable to focus on that and just let things run its course. And over the times of going around this same mountain of push and pull over and over again, each time with a bit of escalation on his part about what he will then threaten to do, like either sleeping with others, since we are not a couple, to now the last time, telling me he will start dating others, and finally this time lying to me and claiming he already has started to date another woman, who he claims lives closer to him… (Which he hasn't but says in order to test my boundaries and increase the level of push and pull…). Usually these cycles have ended with him begging me not to let him go, and me complying and things as a result getting back on track again... .
Before this summer I set up a limit for myself. He had a four week vacation coming up during the summer and when things were good between us, we were in agreement that we should try to spend as much as possible of that time together, to begin to plan for our future together… I think I already knew from the start, when he began to lay out this plan, that it was probably not going to work, since I mean he has a hard time making it through an entire weekend together, dealing with all the feelings of anxiety that comes at the end of it and also before it… So I guess that is why I set up this limit for myself… As it has played out, we have spent none of this time together and it is now just days left until this period is up…
Instead he began already on the first day of his vacation to dysregulate badly and started cycling being nasty to me on some days, talking about getting his life back on track and start dating other women, to other days wanting to make plans to go away with me, to then instead wanting to be friends and see each other under that flag and then not wanting to have any contact with me whatsoever the next… I could tell really this was the worst cycle of dysregulation and disassociation I had seen so far in him, and as much as my heart goes out to him about how horrible this struggle is for him on the inside, I still began to feel more and more that this is the beginning of the end for us…
Now I won't lie to you and claim I have been nothing but pragmatic about this situation, because I haven't… There have been days that I have screamed by myself in agony about loosing this wonderful person and his love for me. I have been angry at him and at the same time crying more than I ever have, and have tried and tested everything to make him come to terms or at least just stop to think for a minute… But to no real avail…
There is no doubt in my mind that he feels a lot of love for me, and he has not in any way painted me black, but the fact remains, he just simply can't make this work. And that is the horrible truth…
Now it takes two to tango, as we all know… And all the other times, I have sort of either just tried to disengage and just wait a bit when he has gotten into these moods, with the result that he usually have come around in either a matter of hours or at most a few days… Often with panic in his eyes and fear of loosing me… I have had him hung up on me over the phone countless of times followed by angry texts that he never wants to talk to me again only to receive a new text minutes later saying: I am so sorry- please call…
But this time I chose to just play along with what he seemed to be wanting, just stating that I have feelings for him, and just being friends won't cut it for me… And I could feel sometimes even physically through the phone how much pain and struggle me agreeing with him put him through. But he still chose to follow through with it…
And here we are… I pretty much went NC with him about a couple of weeks ago… We have still had some brief contact over the social channel we both are part of, and he has perhaps made one last attempt to check for the possibility of recycling yet again the other day, but since I didn't fully engage and act positive as I usually do, he backed off…
To this day I can't really put my finger on why it is so hard for him to continue… He has been in, somewhat at least, stable relationships LD before. But I choose to see it as the stakes were higher this time. The feelings stronger, and therefore the fear of loosing me in the end also bigger… And that combined with the fact that the effects of his BPD lately is getting worse, with more anxiety issues, (also in other areas apart from our r/s), with him developing more and more compulsive traits, bordering on OCD making it hard for him break any of the constantly increasing amounts of routines he builds up for himself with working out, going shopping certain times, and stopping by for coffee at his neighbor at the same time on set days of the week, making it hard for him to set and stick to any made up plans that don't come up at the spur of the moment… And then the nearly endless restlessness that makes it harder and harder for him just to sit still…
In my country the knowledge and the available help for people with BPD and especially men is appallingly low. And even though he is a regular at the local doctors office about all sorts of ailments, and panic attackts no one has yet picked up on the fact that he is an individual in desperate need of help…
At the same time it is so sad, since every time we are together, all of those symptoms seem to vanish… He is soo at peace with himself when we are together, and then it all comes back to him when I am gone…
I think the separation anxiety is the deal breaker for him… It became so apparent one of the last times we saw each other now a couple of months ago… We hadn't really made any plans to meet. But I was on my way to another city and was going to pass through where he lives on my way. I unfortunately had my cats with me, (I have two of them) so I wouldn't be able to stay since they would have to remain in the car. He was tense already when we met, outside his house, and didn't want to kiss me, in case some of his neighbors would see us… As if there was anything to be ashamed of…?
But when I decided to come up to his apartment for only a short stop, once we got up there he wouldn't let go of me… I could tell he really wanted me to stay… It was really a heartbreaking moment and when I still managed to get out of his arms I could really see the pain in his eyes… As I left I really felt this did not go well… Afterwards he texted me saying how wonderful he thought I was and how he looked forward to me coming there again on my way home just a few days later. (This would be a planned visit, and my cats would not be with me so I could stay for perhaps a couple of days).
But the morning after everything had changed. He did not want us to even talk to each other during the whole weekend, (usually we speak several times a day)... He was ranting about not wanting to be on the phone all the time… (He has a lot of compulsive issues about phones when dysregulating because of issues at his workplace where he constantly gets into fights with people over the phone…). And then it came - the statements that made it clear to me this was about me leaving the other day… He wrote:
“the thing is, You keep saying all of this is just anxiety, and that is probably all true, but the thing is I know I will one day loose you… It is inevitable… And therefore I just want us to be friends from now on…my next girlfriend will be someone living where I live, and I will soon start dating others again… ”
I made some efforts and managed to reassure him yet again and for a short while we got back on track… But things really wasn't the same for me anymore… I started seeing myself in the future and started asking myself if this was the life I truly wanted for myself… And that is when I created my limit… I would wait to see how things would play out once his vacation was beginning. And if that turned out well, then I would go for it - all in…
But as you now know, reading this, things didn't turn out that way… And now we are not even speaking to each other any more…
I see him regularly on the community page we are both members of, that also functions somewhat as a dating service… And I can tell he is avid in finding my replacement… At the same time I can tell he has more or less spent his entire vacation cooped up in his apartment, not doing anything, so I can tell he is suffering too… But there is really nothing I can do about it…
It all ends here for me… It is incredibly sad, and I struggle at the moment every minute of every day with keeping myself from contacting him, begging him to reconsider. But I know it would be to no avail… He has made up his mind, and there is nothing I can do about it…
I have tried to talk to him, to get some sort of, (I know it is futile), closure, but he chooses to meet that with coldness and instead puts it all on me stating that he "can't give me what I want, and I don't just want to be friends"… Which in a way is true…
It is not the whole truth though since the fact is he really actually always gave me what I wanted, while we were still a couple. And I was ok with his disorder and his modes of dysregulation… I have done my homework and worked on myself since my last r/s with a man who had NPD, which was a whole lot worse, than anything I have ever experienced with this guy…
The truth is instead that I could not give him what he wanted, and thinks he needs… Even though I also know that if that would have been possible for me to give him, that too would probably prove not to be enough in the long run anyway…
At the end of the day I am however so grateful for finding my way here to the the bpdfamily in the midst of going through all this. I can't tell you how much help and comfort I have found from rummaging around this site and posting on the boards here. We all go through our separate journeys.
But still there is a lot of comfort to be found in all the similarities. And for me I learn so much about myself from hopefully helping some of you writing about what I know and have experienced about this disorder… It is as if things fall into place for me when I can look at my own situation through the eyes of the many experiences others have here… Things that have been hard to face about my own situation and above all about myself…
I hold no grudge against him at this point even though some of the things he has said and done from an objective point of view are mean and heartless to say the least. But I know in my heart he can't really help himself… He is who he is, a lost soul with a disordered mind. And as much as I can get angry at some of the things he has done, and how he at times has made me feel. It is still nothing compared to the tormenting h*ll he has on the inside…
Instead I hold on to some of the things he has said or written to me in times of being able to reflect about himself. And choose to see that as the truth… And I hope that in time that will serve me with at least a tiny sliver of closure…
He once wrote me this text, not that long ago that I to this day believe to be the closest thing to the core of what we had and what he at least then hoped for and where he is at on the inside. And I choose now to make that part of my closure. I want to share it with you as I think it gives a little bit of insight into what the things we go through with them plays out on the inside of them and an image of what it means to have an unstable sense of self... . :
“I am not a religious man.
But I know angels exist, because I have met one, and that is you.
They say that you have to be able to love yourself to be able to love someone else - and perhaps that is true.
I have been lost for such a long time, but slowly, slowly things seem to be clearing up and somewhere up ahead I am beginning to believe that the light of hope may shine again.
I hope that I one day will be able to return at least some of all the love and joy you have given me, and even if I don't show it, you are with me all the time. I love you so much and I am so glad that you have found your way into my life…”
I am glad too that he found his way into my heart... . Just as I am sad that he just couldn't stay... .
Best Wishes to you all
Scout99
