What Happens If You Ignore Them ?

[Willingtolearn]

When we where in a relationship with a pwBPD what was your experiences when you ignored them? I am talking about if they had  text, phoned e mailed etc and you didn't  reply immediately to them but instead left it a few days.

In my case it was to be raged at and then painted black.

[Perfidy]

Rage is unhealthy in any circumstance. I was exposed to rage for much less than that. Her whole family are rageaholics.

[CoasterRider]

Or usually 20 questions of where I was at who I was with etc... .

[Waifed]

... . a couple of days later a text that said "Hey"

[strikeforce]

I tried not to ignore her, Its not really my style but in some cases it had to be done.

Of course if she done it to me it was different.

But if I went of the radar for some amount of time she would hit me with the 100 questions.

[Perfidy]

Trying to remember if I ever ignored her though... . I was a good strong codependent... . Didn't ignore her much... I ignored me a lot though. Hmmm... . Thinking.

[strikeforce]

Well that's so true, we ignored ourselves and our needs Perfidy.

[myself]

In my experience, I got both raging and chasing. She would rage to release her pain, and chase me to get her needs met. When I stopped chasing her, she raged. Then withdrew so I would eventually have to come to her (it's about control) if I wanted another recycle. Once I stopped myself from recycling, she raged at first then went silent. From past recycles, I know she's waiting for me to chase her again. She knows how hooked I was (we both were). I'm not going to, I'm done. Not sure how she's going to react when it really sinks in that I'm not playing that game with her anymore. That's her life. I'll be NC. Living my own. I don't see it as ignoring her. I gave her the best I had. She tossed my attention to her away. I'm focused on myself now.

[Murbay]

My exBPDw was terrible for being ignored and needed to be there 24/7.

I was working overseas for 4 months which she opted not to come because she couldn't leave her parents. In those 4 months I got 12,500 emails, not to mention the 1000's of texts and I had to go to sleep every night with skype turned on so she could see me. All of that communication was despite the fact that I would also fly back to spend 2 weeks a month with her too.

My work day consisted mainly of emailing her back. She would ask lots of questions and if I so much as missed an answer to one of them she would rage. There was one time she sent me a question and gave me 30 minutes to respond. I was in a meeting so didn't see the email until after. What I also got was a countdown and if I allowed the countdown to elapse, she was going to the lawyer to examine divorce options.

With that last one, I responded back to let her know that if that was the case then I needed to make an appointment on my side so I knew what my options were too. That only created a major rage because how could I possibly want to divorce her?

Essentially, if she was ignored for anything more than an hour, even if it was unavoidable, life was not worth living. The hardest part at the end of the marriage was not so much that the marriage was over, but all the free time I suddenly had, I didn't know what to do with myself.

[charred]

Tried to ignore her at times... . I was working for a major brokerage house at the time... a reallly good job... and she would call as many as 30 times a day... it cost me the job, I wasn't allowed to turn my phone off.

When I went NC at the end... in the first week I had about 300 contact attempts... emails, texts, she went to my mom's house and tried to get her to contact me... pretty nutty behavior.

She boundary busted at every turn... ignored what I said, ignored my wishes and did what she was going to do anyway... like a snooty 3 yr old... . would talk about never seeing me again, then after a day... was pleading for me to come back.

It was very disordered.

[State85]

When I ignore my exgf right now... . in a couple days I'll get a text saying how hurtful it is to her that I'm not checking on her. Then we may go round/round in texts... . she then goes silent... . but it's o.k. if she does it!

[santa]

During our relationship, I never ignored my ex. Any time I was away from her for more than 2 or 3 days though, it was like she hated me. I think she has an object constancy problem.

I've been in no contact now for a few weeks. After a few days, she called, emailed, and sent 2 letters regular mail. I ignored all of them, so I have no idea what they said. Since then, everything has gone quiet though. Not a peep in about 2 weeks.

[Dog biscuit]

My experience is mainly the same as Murbay's.

If I would "ignore"my ex because there where more important things for me to do, than respond to the daily mailbombs, I got a rageattack or being accused of not being in love with him, and not caring for him.

It felt exhausting and maddening.

[Lol4fun]

If I was at work it was OK if I didn't reply back right away. However as soon as my work day was done if I didn't answer my phone he would call hang up call back hang up call hang up then send a text saying answer your phone I know you have it next to you all the time. If I said I was busy he had to know exactly what I was doing the why I was busy. If I told him I was going to be away from phone or turning it off to get some peace and quiet he would be mad about it and take it as me not caring about him rather than respecting my boundary of needing time for me to do self-care you know to have an evening to take a bubble bath, watch a movie, read a book etc and not have to have a conversation with anyone if I don't want to people can leave me a message and I can/will get back to them when I am no longer busy. I didn't feel nor do I feel that after dating only a month that it's a requirement for me to tell the guy I'm dating I'm not going to be available tonight to text talk etc bc (then list specifically everything I'm going to do that night) Saying hey I'm going to take an evening to chill by myself I will talk with you tomorrow should be enough and a person should be able to respect that. If they are insecure and not trustful that is not my problem when I am not doing or engaging in anything to cause them to not trust me. The end result is next day he would pull away and not speak to me you know give me the silent treatment. All to get back at me bc of the imagined things he thought I did to him. He created the things ways to set me up to prove to himself that I was going to leave. Example, saying we need to date each other but date others as well. I said OK and got back online he wanted me to do this so that it would prove to him that I was going to abandon him it was a test bc if in his mind I wasn't going to abandoned him I wouldn't get back online to date yet it would be OK for him to do so. Ah the craziness!

[Pearl55]

Murbay

How did you feel when your ex called you all the time? Did you always think that she really loves you and she couldn't be without you?

[NoCRV]

During the relationship with the BPDex, I ignored her once.  It was after a fight and that was the end of our relationship.  I haven't spoken to her since the break up but I did talk to her sister.  She told me she is still mad at me and spending time with her ex.  I don't know what NC does after the break up but I am guessing if she does even think of me it triggers hate and abandonment.

[Murbay]

Pearl55, at the very beginning I thought it was endearing and then it became quite terrifying. Any spare time I had was replying to a constant stream of e-mails and I couldn't answer her questions fast enough to stop her from raging. It went from being happy that she was always there, you could say an intense feeling of love that was 2 sided because I wanted nothing more than to be there with her too, to just wanting a tiny bit of breathing space to feeling nervous opening emails and then to fear because I knew it was going to cause a rage outburst. There was 5 hours time difference between us at the start and in terms of skype, it was on the time she was going to bed which meant I would get 2 hours sleep before having to be up for work.

The sad part is that it still hasn't stopped.

I have been NC for almost a year now and there isn't more than 2 - 3 weeks pass without my getting an email from my exBPDw. This month alone I'm up to 8 e-mails, 1 e-mail from exMIL calling me immature for ignoring exBPDw and angry because I'm only causing her hurt, attempted skype calls, messages on LinkedIn, calls to work, calls to my sister and my  mother, nasty and abusive voice messages left on my mothers phone. All of this after 12 months NC.

This has been by far her most intense contact but like I say, it has been every few weeks without fail. Why this is funny is because she tried to file false charges stating I was stalking her and that I was to never contact her again. She even called T and said the same thing to him. Her initial call to him was to tell him she needed a letter from him to say I was dangerous to help back up her case. When he refused, he got both barrels too. T appointments now are quite funny, it's like we are both supporting each other through it.

Anyway, that's what happens when you ignore my exBPDw, she doesn't let go. This is perhaps one of the more extreme cases but that's partly because she is NPD/BPD  

[fromheeltoheal]

If I hadn't talked to my ex in a few days she's test me, lots of probing questions to see if she still had me.  If she felt me slipping away she would turn on the sweet and the flirty, attachment tools in high gear.  If she felt she still had me she'd punish me, rage, withhold sex, there didn't appear to be any limit to how far she'd go.  Why did we put up with that crap?  Great question.

[sadinnc98]

I only ignored after he broke up with me and he would usually say "You forgot about me, you don't miss me, you don't care" or... . if I took too long to respond (not trying to ignore) he would say the above. If I still didn't respond, he would then get mad. Didn't matter that he ignored me constantly when he felt like it.

[Madison66]

My uBPD/NPD ex gf would chase, emotionally blackmail, emotionally dyregulate and then rage if I didn't react the way she expected.  I saw more emotional dysregulation (crying, fetal position, etc.), but the rages were scary.  After 30 days of n/c, I'm gearing up for something to go down in the near future since we live on the same street.  I know something is brewing... .

[joethemechanic]

She expects calls returned in 15 or 20 minutes, I expect calls returned in 15 or 20 minutes.

I'm better at returning calls though.

If she thinks I'm ignoring her, she goes kinda crazy and calls and texts a lot.

If I think she is ignoring me I either text or call bomb her phone, then ignore her for most of the next day while she call and text bombs me.

Usually this leads to her coming to my house looking for me. Then we have really passionate "make up sex", get something to eat, and watch movies or videos until we fall asleep.

My poor Baby is crazy, I, on the other hand am completely sane,

[Lol4fun]

She expects calls returned in 15 or 20 minutes, I expect calls returned in 15 or 20 minutes.

I'm better at returning calls though.

If she thinks I'm ignoring her, she goes kinda crazy and calls and texts a lot.

If I think she is ignoring me I either text or call bomb her phone, then ignore her for most of the next day while she call and text bombs me.

Usually this leads to her coming to my house looking for me. Then we have really passionate "make up sex", get something to eat, and watch movies or videos until we fall asleep.

My poor Baby is crazy, I, on the other hand am completely sane,

Umm... . No offense your behavior seems just as bad as her as your both doing the same thing to each other. Just my .02 I could be wrong

[Pearl55]

Thank you for your explanations. I always thought my husband was deeply in love with me and that's why he used to call me all the time! I can't beleive how imature I was.

[Pearl55]

Joe

You are playing games with a disordered girl, you get EMOTIONALY more and more attached to her but in reality she's not attached to you, that's a diffrence, you are only an object in her life to play with like a toy. At the end this is you get hurt and will lose if you continuing like this!

[Murbay]

Thank you for your explanations. I always thought my husband was deeply in love with me and that's why he used to call me all the time! I can't beleive how imature I was.

You weren't immature Pearl, you were receiving the attention that you craved and deserved. Where it starts to get a little crazy is when that attention crosses over your own boundaries and nothing you do or say is able to stop it. If someone loves you, they show you respect and in these cases that is what is lacking  

[State85]

I only ignored after he broke up with me and he would usually say "You forgot about me, you don't miss me, you don't care" or... . if I took too long to respond (not trying to ignore) he would say the above. If I still didn't respond, he would then get mad. Didn't matter that he ignored me constantly when he felt like it.

Exactly!

[arn131arn]

I've ignored mine the past 6 weeks. I got a bogus restraining order served to me last Thursday. Sucks, cause she has supposedly moved on? what the heck?

[Ironmanrises]

My exUBPDgf told me in round 1 of relationship, "Please don't EVER give me the silent treatment. Please don't EVER ignore me." Right. That was the very thing she would end up doing to me in devaluation, in both rounds. Matter of fact, she even did that, on a lesser scale during friendship, as soon as she started getting close to me. You asked what happens if we ignore them. The word ignore defined by a pwBPD is totally different then that defined by a non. I learned the brutal meaning of what it is to be ignored and silent treatment by my exUBPDgf.

[growing_wings]

When we where in a relationship with a pwBPD what was your experiences when you ignored them? I am talking about if they had  text, phoned e mailed etc and you didn't  reply immediately to them but instead left it a few days.

In my case it was to be raged at and then painted black.

if i ignored one of her 10 texts /day or 1 of her 6- 7 emails too (both on the same day!)... . she would first say i dont care about her and noone does. i always answered within the same day, but i would still get silent treatment and devaluation shortly after that.

i had to be there 24/7 for her.

once, in a rare situation it was 3 of us, a friend of mine came to the house to so some manual work, the friend and i would enter into conversations for 2 min about trivial stuff (global warming or a TV program), as we would talk for the first 2 min, then she would IMMEDIATELY say something like "nobody is listening to me now", so she felt ignored, and i had to talk to her. I could not hold a normal conversation (even super short) if she was there too. everything had to be on her own terms... . (wow writing this makes me thing, why on earth did i agree to all that !)

[Murbay]

growing_wings, that is a very good question and definitely one you should look into further for you own development. I too understand exactly where you are coming from because there was craziness I often ask myself, why I allowed someone to have that much of a hold over me.

What I found with my exBPDw was that part of it was down to the brainwashing, isolation and being enmeshed, another part emotional blackmail that triggered our own guilt and another part was our co-dependency. It's amazing what you will do or allow to be done for someone you love and there lies the problem. If someone loved you on the same level, would they really put you through that?

I recall when I was working overseas, we got a package for my phone for 1000 free texts a month. The bill that came through was unbelievable. Those texts were gone in less than a week and there was something like 7000 text messages in the space of a month and 11000 on her bill. She actually managed to get the bills scrapped and an apology from the phone company because they thought it was an error on their system.

The insane thing about it all was that she raged at me initially, despite the fact the texts were responses to her. The reason being, because I sent my mother 2 texts and 1 to my exgf about what time I was picking the girls up. I kept all of my texts on my phone because she had trust issues and that way she could compare and see I wasn't hiding anything. Because I had sent 3 texts to other people she was annoyed because it was an unnecessary cost, obviously the 6997 others to her were perfectly justified. See, we all get caught up in the crazy somewhere  

So in the grand scheme of things, we have to take accountability for our part in the madness. In my case, I wasn't strong enough in myself to stick to my boundaries so that's my own fault for allowing her to walk all over them.