So the fact that he might have had a sensible explanation for each "part" of the story of his behavior... .does not mean that the story as a whole hung together sensibly at all!
I've been thinking more about this idea of mine today.
I was thinking about how he left me. He was clearly devaluing and made it sound like he didn't want me independent of any other consideration.
However, I suspected (and it was confirmed), that it was really "about" the ex, and going back to the ex. So I was thinking, "Well, who knows what it would have been like if that weren't a confounding variable."
There is a temptation here, however, to find hope or consolation in the idea that "If it only weren't for the ex being in the picture, this triangle, things would have worked. Maybe they still will once things collapse with the old-new guy."
To think this way is to buy into the inner causal logic of his story, which is actually incoherent in the manner I described above.
If the triangle were really just a one-time fluke in his life, then
maybe it would make sense to think "If only it weren't for the triangle. Maybe once he's out of the picture for good, he'll be back for me." If that were really the cause, then it would mean that, without that cause in the picture, things wouldn't have gone down.
But I have to remember everything I've seen and learned about his life as a whole. This wasn't a one-time fluke, it was part of a pattern. As such, I have to consider that the "cause" of him leaving me being the triangle... .is not enough to explain why he set things up like a triangle (and couldn't extract himself from it emotionally for years) in the first place!
The truth is, I suspect, that things would have gone down one way or another with or without this triangle. He would have found
some way to sabotage the relationship. Which means that the triangle, the ex, whatever... .are not really "causes," they're merely means or manifestations. If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else, which disrupts his whole illusion regarding the causation.
Which makes me realize: if it hadn't been that ex, it would have been someone else. With a normal person we might think "If it only hadn't been for that... ." but with someone like him, with probable BPD, that "if only" is an illusion and miscognition about the causation, because the "if" itself is problematic; "if only there was no triangle" as if the triangle was just a random happening. No, it was bound to happen because of his disorder, it was practically inevitable, if not with the ex or with me, then with others. So the "if only" is rather useless.
Conversely, even if his choosing to devalue and dump me really didn't have anything to do with going back to the ex... .it was still strange and erratic enough that it was clearly caused by BPD, whatever his internal logical might have been, whatever way his self-sabotaging manifested itself, whatever means he chose. To get philosophical, the contingent efficient cause for his behavior (the "inner logic" explanation or excuse for each step) doesn't really matter here, when the final cause (his own warped sense of self and agency) is so messed up to begin with.
I shouldn't care about his internal logic, because it's all just an illusion, a post-facto rationalization for erratic emotions, an elaborate self-sabotaging set up due to engulfment/abandonment fears and shame and the lack of a coherent selfhood, and so I should neither be seeking validation nor self-blaming there. That's like blaming Gavrilo Princip for starting WWI just because his act was the "spark." But the truth is, with all the geopolitical tension in place, some spark would have come along to set off all that kindling one way or another.
To think this way is to enter back into the Matrix or go down the rabbit hole. That is a dream-world of his that actually doesn't do much but obfuscate the true underlying causes of his behavior.
At best, all it gives me is some forewarning that (on account of his own internal logic) a recycle may be very likely once things collapse with the new-old guy (also seemingly very likely). It gives no real hope for health beyond that, though.
