Where is my loyalty to myself and why do I feel torn?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

This is my first post here and I hope it's appropriate.

I just posted in response to someone else on the Undecided board, but the main issue is me.

I'm struggling with myself right now.  This IS my issue with dealing with the pwBPD in my life.

I set a boundary about therapy.  He blew up and vented awful things to me. 

I knew he would settle down and apologize.  This was after he bull dozed through almost every boundary I have ever had in our r/s.   It hurt.  I don't even know how I feel right now.

Right now he's asking for something I'm not ready to answer, but I feel compelled to so in order not to be rude.

And I have to ask myself... .where is my loyalty to myself and what can I live with in my own response and not feel I let myself down.

This is such an uncomfortable struggle with myself and yet I know this is the heart of my own issue in dealing with it. 

It's pure and undoubted guilt over whether or not to be "polite" to someone who probably doesn't deserve my being polite to them at all at this point by any standard of civil behavior.

Can anyone else relate?  How do we ever feel okay with ourselves if we're not responding in a way that we would be in a normal  caring, balanced r/s?

[Seashells]

This is my first post here and I hope it's appropriate.

I just posted in response to someone else on the Undecided board, but the main issue is me.

I'm struggling with myself right now.  This IS my issue with dealing with the pwBPD in my life.

I set a boundary about therapy.  He blew up and vented awful things to me. 

I knew he would settle down and apologize.  This was after he bull dozed through almost every boundary I have ever had in our r/s.   It hurt.  I don't even know how I feel right now.

Right now he's asking for something I'm not ready to answer, but I feel compelled to so in order not to be rude.

And I have to ask myself... .where is my loyalty to myself and what can I live with in my own response and not feel I let myself down.

This is such an uncomfortable struggle with myself and yet I know this is the heart of my own issue in dealing with it. 

It's pure and undoubted guilt over whether or not to be "polite" to someone who probably doesn't deserve my being polite to them at all at this point by any standard of civil behavior.

Can anyone else relate?  How do we ever feel okay with ourselves if we're not responding in a way that we would be in a normal  caring, balanced r/s?

[123Phoebe]

Seashells,

I can relate   And I think it would be fine to say that you're not ready to answer his question just yet, that you need some time.

You wouldn't be shutting him out completely (being rude), while still being true to yourself.  Giving yourself the time to come to grips with what it is you truly do want to do, confidently.

 

[eeyore]

i went through the same kind of struggle on numerous occasions.  I knew my honest answer would be a disagreement.  I knew I didn't want a disagreement so I tempered my answer. My answer was I am not comfortable with the question therefore I can't provide an answer.  Or my initial thought is ______ but since the question is hypothetical, don't hold me to it.  All I can say is that didn't go over well... .still led to a disagreement because that is the nature of what you deal with.

[Cumulus]

Hi seashells, your thoughts are insightful. Where is our loyalty to ourselves? I know for me it was way down on the list. I would have put any one else's needs before my own. Anything for peace, anything not to rock the boat, anything to keep someone else from feeling uncomfortable. I paid the price of self to do that. No longer willing to act that way, I am still working on understanding the reason I thought I needed to be like that.

[Lucky Jim]

Hi Seashells, It sounds like you are walking on the proverbial eggshells, which is quite familiar to all of us who have been in a BPD r/s.  As you suggest, part of the solution involves making yourself a priority, which is easier said than done, I know.  Try to listen to your gut feelings, which I ignored/suppressed for a long time in a BPD marriage. 

Hang in there, Lucky Jim

[fromheeltoheal]

To me there's a line.  Kindhearted folks like us, the ones who have a target painted on our foreheads that borderlines have radar for, always tend to put other people's needs ahead of our own, people pleasing.  My borderline busted through any and all boundaries because that's what they do; I don't see it as mean or manipulative to start, it's the way a borderline attaches to complete themselves since they have a half baked self.  

That ended up being the good news once I left her and detached, because the unbridled rage I felt towards her as I purged motivated me to really look at my own self esteem, self confidence, boundary establishment and enforcement, all the things I've struggled with for so long.  Now those issues are much more of a focus, and although people don't violate my boundaries as egregiously as my borderline did, they get an earful when they do; aggressive isn't as good as assertive, but it beats the hell out of passive, and I'm learning.

So the line is I like myself in general, I like helping people and being nice, and give some people an inch and they will take a mile.  Each of my relationships is different, and a balance needs to be found with each one, but I'm just not putting up with the sht I used to, and sometimes that means a relationship needs to end, and that's OK.  My boundaries are suddenly more important to me than how other people feel.  Growth, I reckon.

[Seashells]

Thank you all for the replies.

I did take the advice and just told him I wasn't comfortable answering him yet and needed some time.  He proceeded to attempt boundary busting (being kind instead of brutal) and I just ignored it for now.

Which I didn't feel too bad about since I let it be known how I felt. 

Jim-  I'm not sure if it's walking on eggshells or not.  It's not that I fear his reaction.  Although I definitely don't feel comfortable expressing myself to him at that point because it would be a vent.

Maybe it's my own eggshells?  It's really a struggle with how I feel about myself as a person if I feel I'm being rude to someone.   I stayed calm throughout the awful hateful messages he sent me and wouldn't respond.  I told him I wasn't going to respond to it any further.  (He proceeded to lie to me, I'm not sure now if he lied earlier or lied about lying... .  One way or the other he did.  And that's been a deal breaker for me in the past when he was triangulating with his ex and myself in a relationship and hiding it from me).

Previous to this when he first started venting, I said he was welcome to contact me if he could be respectful and calm.  So, after he did calm down, then I felt uncomfortable not responding even though I wasn't ready to.

I struggle with sticking to my own values about how I want to treat others and I'm uncomfortable when I don't feel like I'm doing so, regardless of what he's doing.  I have to question if the values I'm trying to hold myself to are reasonable under the circumstances and why I can't be comfortable blowing someone off if they deserve to be blown off... .     At least for a little while.

[Seashells]

Now those issues are much more of a focus, and although people don't violate my boundaries as egregiously as my borderline did, they get an earful when they do; aggressive isn't as good as assertive, but it beats the hell out of passive, and I'm learning.

This is something I'm learning too with others.  There was an issue with my father that triggered me something awful every time it happened.  To the degree that he had no idea how much it bothered me, and I knew it stemmed from our interaction while I was growing up, and I had resentment built up.  The last time it happened, I calmed myself down and assertively discussed with him how much this bothered me and why, and I asked for a solution.  He agreed.  OH MY GOODNESS did that feel good. 

So, if anything yes.  What we learn about and for ourselves going through this is something to be so thankful for; I'm just not sure I'm ready to exactly thank my pwBPD  yet. 

[patientandclear]

Seashells, 

I've been avoiding Staying & Undecided recently because they trigger me, making me think I should still be trying with my uBPDex when increasingly I am sure I shouldn't be.  So I missed your post on Undecided, but will look there.

I am having the same question you are.  Loyalty to myself would mean less engagement than I have with my ex.  That is becoming more clear to me.  Yet there are strong impulses to do as he asks when he wants or needs me.  Not out of a sense that he NEEDS me -- I don't have a rescuing thing going on -- more a sense that "no, I'd rather not" isn't part of my repertoire.  Or that I have some sort of loyalty to a deeper truth that our r/s is important, even though his choices don't honor that.  I feel like I am supposed to honor it by continuing.

Mulling all that over and really appreciate you sharing that you are, too.