Now I feel like emailing her.

[Perfidy]

I don't want to be with her anymore. I don't know how long she had been deceiving me. We were apart for about ten months. She could have been with me if she wanted to.

The drug use... . I don't want to deal with that anymore. The mental illness. No. She said she wanted to get off the drugs. Never did. Never even tried. I wished it were different. I'm pretty sure she isn't going to change. I can't be in that old relationship again. I don't want to care for the sick child. Even if she goes to rehab she's still got a lifetime of recovery ahead of her. I would need to go to a non support group for her recovery. I cannot see a way to reverse the loss of trust. Abuse. I'm done. I would be a nervous wreck all of the time, waiting for her to relapse. The new boyfriend. I have no idea what her status is there. Just too much. Wish it weren't so but it is.

[Skip]

Then to be fair to yourself and her and the other guy... . you can lose her email address.  Release with grace.  Let her grieve it.

You walked away last week, had the last word, you can let that stand as it.  You can stand tall with your values.

This is what values and boundaries are all about.  We are the ones that need to believe them above all others, walk the talk.

It's a closure many seek back here, but never get.

[Perfidy]

Thought I had already let go with grace. Thought I already had enough closure. Wouldn't have even considered contacting her but for her approaching me like that. As far as the guy goes, she was spoken for. I'm not starting anything with him, but I could really care less what fairness I could show him. Or her for that matter. Who gave a damn about what was fair to me? So I demonstrate grace once again. What a great guy Perfidy is.

[myself]

You had your umbrella open in whatever storm still existed. She aimed her raindrops at you and your feet got wet. You're still walking. They'll dry while you do. There's something very positive in that.

[Perfidy]

Think I have it now. My reason to email her. I'm going to post it here right now. I won't build this bridge. I burned it. I will have none of it, so I'm laying it on you family.

Did you finally understand how much I love you and accept you? Can you now see that I loved you enough to let you be you? Is the crap that you feel now anything like the love that I have given you? I showed you love. Now you know what you have lost. I know how much this hurts.

[Naddred369]

Just want to say thankyou. This is powerfull and so very helpfull.

Perfidy, I feel your pain and your strength and courage is inspiring. We lean, help, support each other on this board. If you can do this, then I can and if we can then we ALL can!

Thankyou Perfidy,coz of you I dont walk alone today!

[Skip]

Hey Perf, your feelings on this are real and they are normal.  The question is, does sharing them with her help anyone.

We've seen many members try this in the past.  It's a natural reaction from an injured party (you).  The problem is that the other party (BPD or not) has nowhere constructive to go with it  The note will be received as trying to shame her and hurt her.  It will feel like  "I want you to hurt like I did".

She most likely isn't hurting like you did.  This whole thing played out very differently for her than for you.  When one person leaves another,  the experience is very very different.

A lot of people would react to this note defensively, not contrite, think less of you, not more. Their response would be non-responsive or to tell you why they left in the first place or a simple "bug off".

Its human nature.

And if she happens to bite on it, and that made you feel healed enough to try again, you're setting up the net step for failure.  You'll want more soothing, and she won't be able to fill that need (its hard for anyone, harder for someone with inherent shame ad rejection sensitivity) - and you'll both have a seed of resentment growing inside.

This is also human nature.

I respect that this is your decision and yours alone so I offer this carefully... .

If you want her feel what she has lost, you played that card last week and it was clean and respectful. This letter is messy and you may get a painful response or find yourself in a fight with her thinking badly of you.

If you are holding out some hope that the two of you can heal this and get back together - I'd approach her differently.  Shame and guilt is not a good recovery foundation  - a counselor would tell you that you have to find forgiveness and find your healing in cooperative and constructive actions on her part.

Just food for thought.

[node4]

Perfidy,

After reading this again, I have some valuable insight to offer you. Long story short, my ex has ignored every post break up rule that I have ever stated with the exception of making contact with me. That being said she has contacted every other member in my family. So has targeted most of her contact with my family to my daughter which is 17 years old. She has sent her gifts, texted her, liked every post my daughter has posted on facebook, all up in my daughters grill. My ex knows that this is sacred ground with me.

My daughter and I had a long talk about her last night. My daughter has never really had relationships with boys, but what she told me was profound non the less. In fact my daughter is very innocent and she has a big heart.

From the mouth of babes... .

She started to describe my ex with every BPD symptom there was. She has never read anything about BPD.

Called her a wolf

Said I was her prey

Said I was her conquest

Said that when I grew a pair of balls that my ex didn't want me anymore because I was calling her out on her BS

Said that my ex likes the challenge in new relationships, that she is a serial dater, addicted to the new, and wants new prey

Said that she was a teenager trapped in a woman's body

She doesn't hold her accountable for the crap that comes out of her mouth because she knows that she is broken.

So her and I started talking about why my ex was not contacting me. My daughter said it was because I went no contact. She said that when my ex left me that she was trying to reestablish control in the relationship... . reset me... . put me back in my place... . She thought that my ex was expecting me to go a few weeks, and beg for her return. I found out a month or two after the breakup that my ex was trying to get my daughter to meet her so she could bring my daughter down to where I live for a visit. My ex didn't ask me if I was ok with that, she would have simply shown up with my daughter. This was two weeks or less after the breakup. My daughter never told me about that at the time, it was 2 months later. I asked her why, she said that she was protecting me. She said that things would be the same between me and my ex.

So where am I going with all of this? I got to the point where I said why do you think she is still trying to contact you, after you have avoided contact with her at my request. My daughter said the following.

You are not following her pattern, and you are not doing what she wants, or wanted you to do. You were supposed to be chasing her, you were supposed to be begging for her return, and you have not contacted her. She is trying to provoke you. She is baiting you so that she can be in control, and control you again. She does not want to be with you, but she wants to keep you in her back pocket, and to control you no the less. You have destroyed her plan. She through a fit, and expected you to beg for her return, and now everything that she did was for nothing, and she has egg on her face. Because she destroyed everything to reestablish control over you, and you let her go, and now everything she did was for nothing. She lost.  Because you are no longer playing in the game. So she trough everything away for nothing.

I asked her why she hasn't contacted me. My daughter said. that if she did, after I have not contacted her, that it would be absolute failure to my ex, that not only did her plan fail, but she would admit to failure by contacting me, and that my ex's pride was more important than being with me...

This is from a 17 year old.

Your ex breaking the "boundaries" is about her trying to regain control over you. It's about her putting you back in your place for future use. You are not allowed to move on, you are not allowed to be free. You are to be ready to serve her needs at anytime. You are her object, you are not even your own object. Her needs come before yours. I and I think that they say or do anything to regain that control over you. It's not about love, it's about ownership.

So if you look at this from a boundary perspective you will see that she in fact violated your boundaries, this is not an act of remorse, or an attempt at obtaining forgiveness from you, this is an act of gaining control.

Ask yourself, after that interaction between you and her, regardless of your response. Do you think that if she really "wanted" you, that anything would stop her? Has anything in the past kept her away from something, or someone that she wants? I would doubt that very much... . so that leaves only one thing... . putting you back in your "role" of hero worshiping her like only you could.

I have realized one thing in this journey. We nons worry about whether they will ever find anyone like us, and I now believe the answer is no. I think the feeling of being the "one" works both ways, it's a mutual experience. We are the only ones that have ever given them the entire fix they have always been looking for. No one else will fill that "role" for them. No one else has or will give themselves to them like we have. We are there only true hit / fix. All of the others are partial hits. Not the entire hit.

My point, is that they will do anything it takes to force your back into your "role" so that they can get their fix when they need it. It doesn't matter if you want to provide it to them, because you belong to them. Even if you are apart. They own you.

Break those chains... .

[ShadowDancer]

Node,

       So well articulated. Dagnabit you hit the nail squarely on the head. "It is not about love, it is about OWNERSHIP". That hit me like a bus. But then again it was me wandering the fast lane in traffic after dark and I can't blame the driver that hit me. Yeah we were the hit... . and yes I am the bomb and the kine... . to bad for her. Thanx my man!

Perfidy,

         I know I reference music a lot, but in being a musician I place a lot of weight in poetry of the heart. There is an obscure track by Eric Burdon and the Greenhorns called "Out of my mind" that you can You Tube. Check it out... . our feelings and experience for/about the little meth using waifs are so well illustrated by that tune. ERIC KNOWS... . he is a pro. Paz.

P.S. Check out "Black Dog" and "Can you win" by the same guys... .

[growing_wings]

Core issues, counseling, meditation, self awareness, all of that. It's been a while and I'm out of the woods. Run Forest! RRRRUUUUNNN!

oh yes. Run!

that glimpse of the past... . so tempting! i can relate to it... .

but every time you feel this temptation and you dont act upon it, you get STRONGER... . you gain more self esteem...

keep moving on Perfidy! keep getting stronger...

[myself]

Think I have it now. My reason to email her. I'm going to post it here right now. I won't build this bridge. I burned it. I will have none of it, so I'm laying it on you family.

Did you finally understand how much I love you and accept you? Can you now see that I loved you enough to let you be you? Is the crap that you feel now anything like the love that I have given you? I showed you love. Now you know what you have lost. I know how much this hurts.

Perfidy, she already knows and feels this. How could she not? You loved her, she was right there when it happened. If she doesn't get that by now, she never will. Which I doubt, because she's human. You showed her how it can be. She made other choices. She could change. But holding up that kind of mirror now, she's not going to look into it, not really. There's too much shame with this. Bad behaviors swept into the trash can.

To have love for all of our exes, hoping they make something better of their lives, is where I am today. It's where you are too. What if you turn your message to her around to yourself? Do you see how much you love and accept yourself? From your posts, it sounds like you do. Keep doing that. It's not about her loss, but your gain.

[Perfidy]

I believe what Skip said about forgiveness being the foundation to rebuild on is a true statement. I also agree with what he said about the seed of resentment. I have come far by forgiving my self. I don't wish to rebuild the relationship and forgiveness for her is a moot point. I'm not sure where her head is but she did mention embarrassment so I can only believe that shame is in there somewhere. She sure didn't try contacting me again. I turned the ship away from the song of the sirens. I'm not stranded on the rocks. The sea is choppy. I'm the Captain.

[heartandwhole]

Hey Perfidy,

Do you feel some guilt about how you handled that last meeting? 

[Perfidy]

Not even a little.

[Perfidy]

Sadness, not horrible, but sadness. That's what I'm feeling now. Sucks in a way because its like ANOTHER good bye. I'm done saying good bye. I said good bye already. So that's what it is? Another good bye? Hopefully the last.

[letmeout]

That phrase was a great chuckle! I'm sure we all laughed 

[Perfidy]

Without question I was alone in a relationship with my self. She just happened to be there.

[myself]

Without question I was alone in a relationship with my self. She just happened to be there.

Hindsight can be 20/20. We can also rewrite our personal stories to help ourselves believe what we are seeing (or want to see) today. Was she really real to you? Is the main difference between being with her and being with the woman you're with now the communication shared? I ask because we're all looking to get our needs met.

[Perfidy]

The differences between the two women are huge. The woman I'm currently seeing is a whole person. Owns her home, has a career, open communicator, not a drinker or drugger. There's more. I communicated via text with the pwBPD a couple days ago. Still processing that and I'm not hyper emotional about it. I plan to post about it soon.

[Perfidy]

I'm no longer attracted to the pwBPD that I was with for seven and a half years.

About six weeks ago the former girlfriend, a person dx with BPD, approached me in person and told me that she thinks about me every day and that I haunt all of her dreams. She also said she was sorry. I told her I didn't know who she was and turned and walked away. This was coming behind about seven months of no contact. Three weeks ago she blew my phone up to the point where I just turned it off. The block expired, I had no idea the block would expire. When I wouldn't answer her, she went to my daughter's home, where I was staying, and let herself in the unlocked front door at 1:30 am while my daughter was asleep on the couch. I was spending the night at a new girlfriend's home. This really freaked my daughter out and when the ex left my daughter called the cops and told them what happened. The ex was wanted for questioning on charges of trespass. Rightly so. The ex smelled of booze.

Earlier this week I texted the ex. I knew I was strong enough. Here's what I learned. The no contact worked for me. I was able to have a text conversation without becoming hyper-emotional. I was saddened afterwards, but I didn't cry. From the texting conversation I was able to gauge that her cognition has deteriorated since we were together. Her choices of words didn't fit with what she was trying to say. I didn't ask her about her new relationship and she said nothing of it. I didn't say anything about my new girlfriend. The ex told me that she has been outpatient rehab for meth almost a year. She told me she put on thirty pounds. This is a girl that should weigh about a hundred and five pounds. My daughter also said that she looked unhealthy. Between her diminished cognitive ability and her physical deterioration I have dropped my attraction to her. I'm not superficial but that combination turned me off, as does her unchecked behavior. 

I took the liberty of looking at her Facebook profile. It's gone. She deleted it. I also know the name of the guy she was with after me. I looked at his profile. His pictures contain a lot of selfies. He's not smiling in any of his pics. There are no references to the ex. In his most recent selfie I see a very unhappy dude.

Today is my one year anniversary of freedom. Today I feel really good.

[Waifed]

Congrats Perfidy,

Let the Good Times Roll!