mayb a silly question but...

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Yes, still ruminating about stuff and focusing on him but i guess i may be doing this for a while longer... . ugh

Anyhow,

I had a difficult time with reaching my ex on the phone live.  It was always texting and texting or emailing.  I got frustrated because alot of the time the nature of our conversations didn't feel right to text about.  I would try and call him and ask him to answer but he would ignore me and keep on texting.

We usually had a good night call and it would take him hours to finally make the call , delaying and delaying with all sorts of excuses.  His daughter had the same issue with him about talking live on the phone and she was frustrated too.

It seemed like a control game to me at times.  Then i wondered if he wasn't somewhere he could talk properly altho he said he was home.  I didn't know that he had a serious drinking issue either.  He could have been at a pub or who knows.

I can't stand it that i am still trying to figure all of this stuff out.

But anyone ever have an issue with reaching them this way?

[corraline]

Yes, still ruminating about stuff and focusing on him but i guess i may be doing this for a while longer... . ugh

Anyhow,

I had a difficult time with reaching my ex on the phone live.  It was always texting and texting or emailing.  I got frustrated because alot of the time the nature of our conversations didn't feel right to text about.  I would try and call him and ask him to answer but he would ignore me and keep on texting.

We usually had a good night call and it would take him hours to finally make the call , delaying and delaying with all sorts of excuses.  His daughter had the same issue with him about talking live on the phone and she was frustrated too.

It seemed like a control game to me at times.  Then i wondered if he wasn't somewhere he could talk properly altho he said he was home.  I didn't know that he had a serious drinking issue either.  He could have been at a pub or who knows.

I can't stand it that i am still trying to figure all of this stuff out.

But anyone ever have an issue with reaching them this way?

[momtara]

No, but I hate talking on the phone.  Seems like a real time waster sometimes.  For a BPD person maybe there was a diff reason.

Sorry to hear you are having trouble.  My exH had BPD.  Seems like the experiences with men with BPD are different than with the women with BPD.  My exH used to occasionally apologize for his behavior too.  (I just read your other post).  I stuck with him for 5 years and the behavior only got worse.  Still, I miss a lot about him.  It's hard to walk on eggshells but I know it's also hard to leave sometimes.

[corraline]

I can understand hating not talking on the phone but the time it took to text for hours didn't seem logical to me when things could have been clearer and easier and without the possibility of misunderstandings or even missing parts of texts etc.  But i guess some people find communication easier that way.  Guess I may be old school in the techno world i suppose.

and maybe this issue has absolutely nothing to do with BPD !

[itsnotme567]

My wife almost always answered the phone when I called since we texted most of the if one of us called the other during work times we knew it was important, we spent very little time apart when we weren't working.

[Narellan]

Mine was the opposite. Never replied to texts. Didnt know how to text from his phone so mostly always called back. Unless i text something "wrong" then id get silence. Hes very old school. Uses facebook to message though.

[patientandclear]

I've seen the phone aversion frequently on here, mostly from men for some reason. I think it's an intimacy and control thing.  In real time, unhelpful information might slip out. With writing, they can remain in greater control of the narrative.  Maybe that's why, but without question, aversion to actually talking is a prominent theme.

My ex wanted to talk every night before he left me. After, he was incredibly phone averse. If I called, he'd let it go to vm & text back shortly after.  Only when he thought I was leaving him again did he offer phone calls, reluctantly.

[itsnotme567]

I'm was the one in r/s with the phone aversion it's because of her that I've gotten much more comfortable using the phone. My brother has the phone aversion as well.

[free-n-clear]

 My uBPDxgf would, more often than not, not answer her (mobile) phone. Funny, as she always seemed to have it in her hand when she was with me. Knowing what I know now, I assume that when she didn't answer she was, ahem, "busy" - if you get my drift.   

[corraline]

Yes, mine was quite attached to his phone when we were together too. So i could not understand why he never answered it. I know that there are logical explanations for this.  I actually rarely contacted him during the day pretty soon in the relationship because he rarely answered.So its not like i was inundating him with phone calls or anything.  But he usually responded by text most of the time. The other thing that happened alot was he turned his phone off in the evening or had it on silent mode when i was with him during the day. Whenever we went out he spent alot of time in the washroom with his phone (he would pick the phone off the table before he left or i would see him feel for his phone just as he went into the bathroom if it was on him). He would even text ME from the bathroom at times.  kinda strange. As soon as we arrived at a restaurant he headed there immediately sometimes spending alot of time there and kept going back often.  He didn't seem to have to use the bathroom as frequently at home!  I felt like a sick paranoid person for questioning his bathroom habits.  He said it was because he was older that he needed to go so often. Its so crazy that i was thinking like this and monitoring this phone thing like this. I felt like i was some crazy bi**h for wondering what he was doing all of the time. I don't miss that stuff at all.

[Take2]

Corraline... . my ex is exactly the same with the phone... . never wants to talk on the phone, always wants to text - it always appeared to me to be because it was way easier to get into an argument.  A ciruclar argument that would keep going and going - and I usually couldn't keep up and answer or address all of the issues he'd bring up and then he go on ranting that I wasn't addressing issues because I can't dispute these accusations etc etc etc... .    if I'd call, he'd let it go to voicemail and then keep texting... .    and was he texting from other places?  one would think so as I can't count the number of times I had to text him a photo of where I was at any given time of the day or night - to prove I wasn't out partying (which I wasn't doing at all!  I stopped going out years ago).  I've texted him pictures of grocery store receipts to prove where I was.  I had to text a pic from the dentist office once when I was there for a cleaning... . I am pretty sure the dental assistant thought I was a nut job... .    ... .   he is in heaven now with the Iphone having the ability to easily block people.  He no longer has to put the phone on silent or turn it off... .   with his new gf, they had a rule that they were totally open with one another and could check phones any time... .   uh, yeah, apparently she didn't realize that he just blocked me or any other girl he was probably texting while he was with her... .    

[cantbreal]

My ex wife BPD is a textaholic text text text when she still lived here she would panic if our d7 tried picking up her phone, once she left she didn't want to answer any of my calls, I  know there has to be someone else because she would text me so much during the day and at night I also found that she has been texting guys and it makes me sick, funny now that I'm painted black she can't even look me in the eye unless she is drunk, when I think about the things she has done to me and the things she may have done or is doing it makes me sick

[patientandclear]

Corraline, I feel like a broken record saying "wow, my ex did the exact same thing," but toward the end of our time together, we'd have a really nice time somewhere, and then he'd need to repeatedly go into the bathroom, and like you, I'd see him surreptitiously check for his phone on the way in. It's as if they needed multiple lifelines open at the same time.

[corraline]

p&c

ugh !  my body just shudders recalling those times. My ex's bathroom visits in public places near the end became closer and closer together. He was almost panicky to get there. 

[DB33]

My exgf was the same way. Her phone was her world but she rarely talked on it.  Texting and Facebook consumed her. Her volume was always off, her phone went everywhere with her, if she did set it down it was face down.

During our honeymoon phase it was over 1000 texts per month. I wanted to talk, texting seemed painstaking and time consuming.

After devaluation she used texting to rage. No matter what my reply it would just encourage her to go more. I tried to validate her feelings and calm her down but it just got me unfriended and blocked on FB and her phone number changed. This happened a few times. I finally put a boundary on that. When she sent angry texts I stopped replying. It helped.