whattodo
mh, sounds like another round in the push pull to me. Is this what you want?
In my opinion the first step is that you know what you want with her and what not.
Another thought, hope you don't mind it, being drunk and fall in a relationship is not the best thing - I tell you this from my own experience. I did this more than once and I am not proud of it.
Yeah. My biggest issue right now is that we've been hanging out a lot and I want to be close with her again ... yet it doesn't ever feel like she wants me to get close or intimate. i feel like if i went to kiss her she'd do it relunctantly but wouldnt into it. It'll happen ssometimes at the end of a night but never before. I just wish she wanted to be like she was when we first got together but I think she's just using me now. Why else would she have me around to hang out and have fun all day and sleep in her bed at night if she wasn't romantically interested in me?
There are different aspects in a relationship that are more or less important at different times.
Sex
Love
Attachment - low level bonding connection to something. Creation and maintenance is connected to strong emotions. Not just positive but also hate and fear also strengthen it. The leaving board lessons are all about detaching for a reason.
Now contrary to what many people believe many pwBPD tend to form strong and long lasting attachments. There are of course also some which are the complete opposite who do not form stable attachment at all but it is less common than a casual observation of the board would indicate.
From what you have written you are still attached to each other. You stayed in contact and there are back and forth exchanges. You do have a relationship although from what you write Sex is not part of it and Love is unclear.
Why would she want to be around you? Maybe because you are giving her what she needs? PwBPD are strongly motivated by validation. They struggle to self validate and tend to mess up their environment in a way that it becomes invalidating which can be seen in stories on how BPD relationships tend to develop.
Is pulling back an acceptable way to establish that if she wants me as more than a safety net that she'll have to work for it? I don't want to play games but I also don't want to get taken advantage of.
What would that tell you? That she is afraid of loosing the connection to you? Game playing just leads to more game playing.
I don't know if her feelings for me are real or if she's just using me. Has anyone had experience with a partner reconnecting after a breakup and staying to build a new relationship? Or is she just going to go on to someone else when she finds them?
Her feeling are real but then they are also not stable if she suffers from BPD. Her feelings may turn into hate on a dime and back again. She is using you as a source of emotional support but how aware she is who knows. "Use" in a relationship should be mutual. She is certainly getting something from you. Are you getting something out from the relationship for yourself? And what is it?
Or is she just going to go on to someone else when she finds them?
This is what you wrote in your intro post:
I feel like people with BPD deserve love. I want to see her soul through life with my own. I am good at talking her through her thoughts and I've never seen her do anything untrustworthy in 2 years of being with her.
Well last weekend we got kinda messed up at a concert and ended up having some of the best sex we've ever had back at her place. Truly mindblowing. We fell asleep naked in eachothers' arms. Well, 8am rolls around and out of the corner of my eye I see the guy she was with after me sitting on her bed, tapping on her leg to get her to wakeup without waking me. YIKES. He broke into her house because he suspected she was with someone and found it to be true.
... . not exactly the situation I wanted to be in. They officially broke it off that day and I spent the whole day talking her off the ledge because she felt so horrible about 1) being caught, 2) subjecting someone to that, and 3) actually ending the relationship. I felt pathetic being the shoulder she cried on about another guy but I knew I was the only one she had.
Past behavior is often a good indication for future behavior. You got a basis for trust and reasons for caution.
Has anyone had experience with a partner reconnecting after a breakup and staying to build a new relationship?
It is not unusual for relationships to break up and mend again and in your case geography played a role so it is not even a BPD caused breakup (the break-up dynamic may well have had some BPD aspects).
Instead of game playing why not use the effort and spend it on validating communication (read up on validation and invalidation, particularly validating negative emotions)? Get to know her better instead of get closer to her. Control which boundaries you lower and how much - mutual respect is critical for having a healthy relationships with a pwBPD.
