Calm Waters
 Offline
Gender: 
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Parent
Relationship status: married living together
Posts: 219
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« on: December 25, 2013, 03:35:26 PM » |
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I have written many letters to my BPD ex, this is one that I felt that I could share, it was written if to be published in the Guardian newspaper but I never sent it in... .
A Letter to
The suicide survivor
Its only been 6 months since your suicide attempt but in that time I have been on the inner journey of my lifetime.Our romance had only started 4 months before but in that time we decided that we were 'it' the 'big one', the relationship we had both waited for all our lives. Both in our mid 50s with history 2 teenage, young adult children each, you with a lovely grandaughter. We had known eachother distantly for 20 years in the small community where we both live. You came to my wedding reception 16 years earlier and made beautiful waistcoats for me and my two sons to wear at the event. I was only a few weeks out of that nearly 30 year relationship when we started our romance. I told you everything about my history, my skeletons, my concerns that it was too soon for me to start afresh, you were grieving for the loss of your father just a few months before and your mother and recent partner all in the space of a few years. We wanted eachother so badly, we had always known that there was a spark and now it ignited into an intense conflagration. We cast caution to the wind.
We both brought baggage to the relationship, inevitable in mid life, you still had problems with your ex husband, your 2 daughters were struggling into their adult lives, one of my boys had serious mental health problems and the other was missing me having just left school. My ex wife wanted me back at any cost she declared. All of this seemed surmountable however, and I made a commitment to you and you asked me to move in with you as soon as possible, you said I had you 100% and I absolutley adored being with you, so, far too soon perhaps, but in the heat of the most intense joy we had ever known we started to live together in your remote rented rambling pile in the woods. Every week I bought you flowers, we bought eachother little presents and declared our love to eachother every day and for ever.
We shared eachothers secret and special places in both our inner and outer worlds; the childhood holiday haunts, the stories of our lives, we started to meet eachothers siblings and friends, we were on our way to a life together and despite the many obstacles we percieved it was 'sheer bliss' as you described it for a while. But then the problems started, I had to spend time with my sons due to their distress, your daughter had a cancer scare, my ex kept drawing me back in to resolve co parenting and other dilemmas. The strain started to show and you rounded on me frequently about the stress i was inducing in you, this 'stress' seemed nebulous and undefined to me, you would not give it focus. You said you coudnt trust me despite my honsety about my wherabouts when not with you. I felt I was being blamed for something that I could not fathom, something hidden and murky. I encouraged you to open up and talk about the sudden problems in our relationship and what the stress was so that we could explore together and move forward taking each issue in turn. You were reluctant to talk, so the undefined cloud kept circulating. I became increasingly concerned that my unresolved marriage issues were making you ill. Your migraines were increasing in intensity, you were tired much of the time, your mood swings became more frequent so one day in early November 2012 after another argument, I suggested that it would be best if I moved out so that you could find some peace without me being there constantly. I honestly felt this was for the best. You said I didnt need to leave but it felt like the only thing I could do to give you some relief, I didn't want to make your life more difficult, I had sought to help support and love you in every way I knew how but it wasn't working. So I packed my things and left, I hugged you and gave you a respectful and heartfelt farewell and left in tears hoping nevertheless that in time we could re kindle that flame.
2 days later you were lieing in hospital on a ventilator having nearly succeeded in killing yourself. The shock and confusion in the moment that your neighbour told me what you had done has been with me very day since.Your family and I had to prepare for the worst, you could die, you might live but you could be brain damaged or your organs may have been irreperably undermined. 3 days you were unconsciuos and unresponsive. I whispered in your ear about the things we had done and what we would do together in the future, I held you hand and you twitched occasionally, you seemed to repond to me, that gave me hope. Your family were suspicious of me, was it his fault? this new boyfriend that made her so happy then left so soon? understandable under the circumstances so I withdrew at your brothers request. I phoned the hospital 3 times a day to hear the same response 'no change'. I don't believe in God but I prayed and begged that you should live, I tried to do practical supportive things in the backround for you so that if you survived all would be in order, but I was homeless again and work was unsympathetic to my position. I tried to keep your attempt quiet and keep those that needed to know informed of your progress whilst trying to stop myself falling appart.
I became apparant that you had money worries you had not shared with me, this then was the unspoken stress? you were under investigation by the Tax Office, but significantly the love of your life had walked away 48 hour before you took the pills, was it me then that tipped you over? was it the other worries? where was I in this? everyone told me that it wasn't my fault but I felt so terribly frightened for your life and my part in your possible death. How could I carry on if you died? I decided I would go with you if that happened, but what about my boys, my ex, my family, my friends how could I do that to them? how could you do that to me?
Then on the Saturday at 6am I phoned the hospital and you had woken up! the joy I felt in that moment, it was the happiest moment of my life, you were alive and wanted to see me, was I forgiven? could we rebuild what we seemed to have lost? was there hope? I was overjoyed that you were alive, and nothing else mattered. At the hospital critical care ward you were white as a sheet and confused sitting up in bed with your canulars and drips but most importantly a cup of Earl Grey. That moment I saw you alive once again and you reached out for me will be with me forever.
You slowly recovered and kept me at a distance whilst you moved house and got over the pneumonia from vomit inhalation. We started seeing eachother once a week for a walk or a meal or a movie, I was so happy just to have a few hours with you once a week, I lived for those moments whilst I was still couch surfing all over Xmas and new year. I was still not free though, no matter how hard I tried circumstances seemed to out wit me, my son was homeless and lost his job so the flat I had just rented had to be his shelter whilst I moved on every few days to another friends sofa. I didn't care because I would see you soon but you grew more and more impatient and distant 'you will never be free' you said, I was trying so hard to earn your trust, but you were alive and there was hope for our love if I just tried harder, or so I thought.Your debts were cleared from the inheritance from your parents home, the tax office backed off, I helped you fix up your new home, you were out of danger and it seemed therefore that you had no need of me as a constant reminder of your sellfishness.
Then catastrophe you cast me out for a perceived betrayal of trust, I had to admit to you that my wife knew about your attempt, this was the final straw for you, or was it a convenient excuse to reject me finally? I was in the wrong again, confused, hearbroken and you just wanted me gone from your life. I tried every way I knew how to win you back, poetry, explanations, searching for an answer to the torment I felt.You called the Police whan I knocked on your door to try and tell you what I had discovered about the borderline personality disorder that I beleived we both share, I felt it explained so much about what went right and then so wrong. A very kind women Police officer visited me and said that you had accused me of giving you 'unwanted attention', from saviour to stalker in just a few weeks. Am I now known in our small town as the man who nearly drove you to kill yourself? you have moved on quickly as you always do it seems, there is probably a new Beau in your life, you have left chaos for me in your wake, am I just the latest of many men who have been wounded by you? You adored me then discarded me so quickly to the 'failed boyfriends' out box. But you nearly died! that experience is unique to me the man of that moment and hopefuly will remain so, the person I was just a few months ago is crippled and struggling to make sense of this, I have had a breakdown and a breakthrough as a result.
A few weeks on I see you in your car coming the other direction, you ignore me. If I ever speak to you or contact you I will be arrested. How can I live with that when a few months ago we wanted to spend the rest of our lives in eachothers arms. I expect the new man in your life will eventually meet with the same fate as me. I don't envy him, but I still love you with whats left of my shredded heart. I will survive, I am trying to rebuild my marriage and save my career. You said at the very begining that you would understand if I went back to my marriage, was that your prediction or a recognition of the inevtitable result of your sabotaging patterns? I wonder if you do understand, or if you will ever mature enough to face for your childhood damage and stop projecting your chronic pathological pattern of adoration, abandonment and rejection on to your lovers? Will this pattern have to repeat over and over until your beguiling beauty fades and you can no longer draw in new lovers? I sincerely hope you will realise in time that this pattern is unsustainable and causes immense damage to those involved, so that you dont end up lonely and unloved in your dotage.
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