What helped you the most to heal

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I was wondering what has helped most of you to heal from your BPD r/s trauma? I also wonder how you have identified potential BPD in new partners that you meet. I worry that I will be blinded again despite all I have learned about the disorder and red flags.  They are so skilled at manipulating.  Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

[Caredverymuch]

I was wondering what has helped most of you to heal from your BPD r/s trauma? I also wonder how you have identified potential BPD in new partners that you meet. I worry that I will be blinded again despite all I have learned about the disorder and red flags.  They are so skilled at manipulating.  Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

[brokenbutalive]

Jack Daniels... . 

seriously, time, good friends and therapy have helped me. Not to mention this board. I'd put that top of the list actually. I'm still a long way from where I need to be, mainly the sense of anger and burning injustice is holding me back but I'm a changed man from this time last year.

Do whatever it takes to build your own self-esteem back up. Invest time and effort on you. Hopefully with a healthy level of self-confidence, and your knowledge of the disorder and the red flags, you won't be led down that black hole again

[charred]

I was wondering what has helped most of you to heal from your BPD r/s trauma? I also wonder how you have identified potential BPD in new partners that you meet. I worry that I will be blinded again despite all I have learned about the disorder and red flags.  They are so skilled at manipulating.  Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

Seeing a therapist helped... he got me in to mindfulness and it was 100X better than any anti-anxiety drug for cutting my stress level and stopping ruminating over the r/s.  Posting on these boards has helped... it requires you to organize your thoughts and use words to express feelings and that helps when you are really at the bottom. Feedback and knowing others have been through the same things and worse helped.

I have spotted BPD in potential partners and steered clear of them... my toxic BPD r/s resulted in me being divorced and single again... and the opportunities came up. It was hard to steer clear, but I did. The devastation so outweighed a little fun... was hard but wise finally.

Friends, family, anyone that is a good listener can help... but don't expect anyone that hasn't been through it to understand how deep the connection and devastation was.

I decided to dig in to my issues, FOO and otherwise and after 2 yrs am back in a r/s... and doing much better. Still seeing issues.

[AwakenedOne]

Finding humor in life. Changing my taste in music to more positive stuff.  

I think just taking things slow in the next relationship will help. I think if we now look at our date through a BPD microscope to see if they are infected it wont end well regardless. I'd just casually observe and have a good time.

[Tausk]

 Reading a post by Careman where I learned and realized that my ex was never going to be better.  That she never was going to be the person that needed... .A person with full set of emotional tools to love me in an adult manner.  She was always going to be limited.

And then reading all of the posts of 2010 over and over and over, until I began to understand the Lonely child/Abandoned Child interaction. 

And that way I was able to begin to depersonalize the behavior and interaction, get out of the FOG, and then look at my behaviors, FOO issues.

I'd say, read the posts of 2010 over and over and over... .

[Blimblam]

Reading a post by Careman where I learned and realized that my ex was never going to be better.  That she never was going to be the person that needed... .A person with full set of emotional tools to love me in an adult manner.  She was always going to be limited.

And then reading all of the posts of 2010 over and over and over, until I began to understand the Lonely child/Abandoned Child interaction. 

And that way I was able to begin to depersonalize the behavior and interaction, get out of the FOG, and then look at my behaviors, FOO issues.

I'd say, read the posts of 2010 over and over and over... .

I agree with this so much!  But tausk if you could find the link to that post by careman I would love to read it.

There was a post by sea of wounds I found incredibly validating that really helped me to.  ill find it and post it.

Also taking the Meyers briggs test and reading as much as I could on my personality type has helped a lot.

Posting on here and the love and support of this community has been a godsend. 

Keep on posting!

[Blimblam]

this is the post by sea-of-wounds I mentioned

Thank you changingman for the encouraging words... .

Blimblam, I wish I could   you right now.  I have known about BPD for years and years now, and even though I understand it (as much as I logically can) and have lived through so many experiences with a BPD person, I am at rock bottom right now.  I think my posts might convey that I am far into the healing process, but I must admit, I am in shambles. 

Some part of me is healing, I know that, and can sense it, very very quiet, like a little whisper.  But everyday is a fight to survive, a fight to not wish I were dead.  I relate so much to your pain and disillusionment--so much.  I relate to how you felt your current ex, although so unbearably cruel in the end, was like no other to you.  She was different, you felt that---you adored her, truly and wholly, without any hidden motives, without any pretense, without any mask that you could switch out at a moment's notice if things got "too intense."

The process of detaching from a person we have loved this intensely will never come in one step---it is a thousand steps, a thousand heart-wrenching realisationss, and re-realisations... .an exhausting tumult of having to keep fighting back the urge to hold on to the beautiful words and gestures as the "reality."  Trying to convince the heart   that the reality was something incomprehensibly different---is nearly impossible in the early stages of grief.  Time has to intervene---and we have to surrender to time's invisible healing hand, even though that hand moves things along so painstakingly slow.

I am walking this treacherous path with you, stumbling, falling, bruising my legs, skinning my hands, crying and crying.  I will say right now that even the death of my boyfriend of 5 years--a very sudden an unexpected death when he was just 28---even that was not as painful as this.  And I cannot believe I would ever say anything like that--could never imagine anything worse than that experience, but somehow THIS IS.  It really is.  I am shocked and terrified that it is.

And the myriad of reasons why---are echoed in all the stories and heartache I read on this forum, crying and nodding, feeling like I am reading my own words, my own pain---that my voice is echoed in your voice, your hurt, and your wounds, and vice versa.

It is so very hard for others who have not been through this kind of relationship to truly understand the depths of the agony experienced when we are forced to detach--either by walking away, or by being sent away. 

I try to remember that my PD was sending me away every single day.  Not just once, but a hundred times over.  From the big to the small, she was dismissing me, devaluing me, discarding me, in a repeated process that sometimes was so subtle, I didn't even notice it.  Maybe it appeared to be a little humorous "jab."  Maybe it took the form of dangling all of her past exploits in front of me, stories of wild nights, and people who made passes at her, people who called her "sex on a stick" and on and on.  Maybe it was disguised as "sharing" her art with me, women models  posing in Kama Sutra positions---her renditions of them, and how she called them "boring" and "soulless" when I knew deep down she was relishing the sexual charge she got drawing them, relishing how small and uncertain I might feel seeing all of that, and the special status she got as an artist.  She demeaned every single model as "empty"----I will always think it was to hide that she really was aroused by them, and had to pretend they were nothing so as not to let me into her secret world, make me feel "special" that I was "loved" by her, and they were nothing but empty husks.

I am rambling a little here, but trying to get to the heart of this pain.  I think of a PD as a collection of well-worn habits---devastatingly harmful ones---that have worked for them time and again, with vulnerable people, people with empathy, people willing to turn the other cheek until there really is no cheek left to turn----replaced what feels like what we feel now---just a ghost, or a skeleton---something sucked completely dry of our life force... .Nothing left to give... .after so much has felt violated and betrayed and abused.

A PD will not enmesh with someone unwilling to put up with their abuse--if a person denies them after one  flies, the PD will dismiss them, and continue the pursuit to find a willing host.  It always ends up being people who identify so  much with being the giver, the compassionate, willing, patient, loving, tender, understanding soft-hearted soul that the PD is both drawn to and repelled by. 

It is sobering and shattering to wake up each day and have that harsh reality slam us in the face---we were not so much as loved, as we were just NEEDED... .we could provide something for them when they needed it, when it suited them, when it served them.  And when that need evaporated for whatever reason (justified by them in countless creative, cruel or confusing ways) they cut and run.  When the need resurfaced and they remembered we had once filled that need, they came back----selfishly, disregarding how it would rip our hearts open again after we had been trying so hard to pick up the pieces on our own---with no help or remorse on their part, no ownership of their part in the dissolution of the bond that felt so incredibly alive and real when we were being idealised.

I think so much of what happens in a PD relationship, as in any abusive relationship, is that the abuse becomes "normalised" over time.  It is an unconscious process on our part, but I think for the PD, there is a level of awareness there.  I am not sure how much, but I know there must be some.  They push a boundary, test our reaction, and when we allow it, they push a little more.  Pretty soon we know something is horribly awry, we can even have blazing moments of clarity when we see the abuse for what it is, but it has become so "normal" that we find ways to justify it, or blame ourselves, or overlook it when we get presented with the loving "mask" once again---charming often weakens our resolve, cuts straight to our hearts, and makes us feel like we have a chance to once again regain that sacred, special status we once held for them, way back in the honeymoon, lovebombing phase.

The desperate need to return to that status---no matter how much we are being slayed emotionally--is what keeps us in some of these connections so long.  It is SO HUMAN to want to be loved, cherished, comforted, adored---to belong, to feel important.  Normal, healthy people provide this for us on a CONSISTENT basis.  The allure of a PD is that it is ever-changing.  We never know which mask we will get, but we end up settling for crumbs, waiting for the day when the crumbs become the beautiful, enchanting cake we thought we once were sharing---delighting in---together.

At the root of this is, as I have read here, is that lost little child inside all of us---seeking that unconditional love and adoration we either had received fully as children, or maybe terribly inconsistently, or not at all.  In any of these cases, the mirroring of a PD activates that "coda" deep within--that feeling we once had as little children when were bonding with a parent at a very primordial, deep level----a bonding that our very survival depended on, even if that bonding was uncertain, chaotic, unsafe, or damaging.  We had no other choice but to depend on this adult---and seeking to be in favour with them, seeking love and protection from them, was instinctual. 

I think many of us here have had difficult and painful childhood experiences that primed us to attach to lover who would activate all those old feelings of shame, rejection, loneliness, dismissal, devaluation---that we may have suffered as tender young souls.

A BPD, with the same wounds and hurts, sees them within us, and bonds hard and fierce with us as a result.  It seems that this bonding would be intensely healing, as both people recognise they share a similar background, and finding love and protection in a love relationship would be a way to face those demons together, side-by-side.  But whereas our wounds steered us toward the direction of empathy, the wounds of the BPD steered them toward the direction of empathy-shut-down.  No empathy at all, only the ability to fake it when needed.  It is all so very confusing when we see the BPD crying and shaking, so small and vulnerable----doesn't this mean they feel like we do, feel all that pain, and can therefore relate to ours?

Sadly, and tragically,  no.  They truly can only feel at the level of a toddler--You will notice that toddlers are raging or crying on  minute, then the next, they are laughing and cooing as if nothing happened.  They release the emotion and move on.  They do not yet  have the ability to control their emotions, self-soothe, analyse why they react the way they do.  They just react.  And then move on.  It is a normal step in human development---for a toddler, but when that stage gets stuck inside an adult body, there is never any chance for self-reflection and growth, for being able to relate to grown-up emotions and emotional reasoning.  There is no chance for empathy to flourish, because the world of a toddler is self-centred until s/he begins to understand that the people around them also have needs and feelings of their own.

A BPD can pretend to understand, can pretend very well for often astonishing periods of time, but when you seek the proof and validation that they understand, you get the void. The smirk.  The blank looks.  The rages.  The projection.  You get knocked down from the pedestal, and replaced.  A child gets bored with a toy that no longer interests him.  He throws it aside and demands a new one.  He needs something outside of himself to be amused and entertained, as his mind is learning how to think and feel and relate.

A BPD will forever be looking for the next "high"---the next new person to provide that magical world where everything is passion, and the "boring" day to day expectations and demands of a relationship are yet to solidify.  If and when they do decide to maintain a long-term connection, they seek thrills outside of it to help satisfy that constant craving for the "high" of the beginning stages of love.  Love for them can never move past the idealisation phase.  Once you are "promoted" to the primary position, they begin to demote you little by little by little in a hundred different ways.  And always, it is "your fault" for failing them.

I am typing so much here---just so much on my mind.  I know every BPD is different--some are more high functioning than others.  Some of  the traits I wrote about will not be exhibited, or may be exhibited in small bouts, or in huge ugly rages---or just quiet, slow mental and emotional abuse that eats away at you until you have no idea who you are, what you are, what has happened.

I am sorry to write so much here!  Just tremendous pain, and tremendous understanding for this grueling process of recovery.

Blimblam, I felt like you---"B" was like no other.  She really was.  Despite all the painful, painful things that happened, and the lack of empathy or care that I had to face in the end----she had so many beautiful, beautiful qualities.

Part of that is the truth of them---but it lies side by side with the dark, unfeeling, abusive sides of them---and because things are so severely split at times, it is so very hard to reconcile all the sides. 

Naturally, we are rooting for their beautiful side.  That is the side we love.  That is the side we wish they could always be.  But they cannot.  Having to come to that understanding takes so much courage... .

This is truly like facing a death---a death that keeps happening over and over and over.  To me, I imagine it like this:  knowing this person is dead, working so hard to get through the grief, and then suddenly having that person knock on your door one day, saying, "I didn't really die.  I am still alive."

And then the uncontrollable joy and relief that they are back!  They are not dead!  Oh, how the heart sings at this miracle that they are back in our arms!

But within days, months---that person dies again.  And we have to bury them all over again, grieve all over again.  We look to the door, hoping they will come knocking again---it was all a cruel joke, they are not really dead.

The cycle can go on for years.  Death, hope, death.  This IS like facing death.  It truly, truly is, but on a much deeper and more insidious level that I cannot even describe now... .

Praying so hard that time will be on all of our sides---and that hope will, too.

A special, tender person living and breathing right now, waiting to be received into our hearts, and waiting to receive us into their hearts... .without the slings and arrows, the poisons, the damage and the tears-----

Just beauty, honour, and  devotion, growing stronger by the day.  And yes, childlike joy and wonder mixed in---laughter and passion---that STAYS and strengthens----Love that is reciprocal----what a joy that will be.

[Mr Hollande]

I cane myself on the bike, running and gruelling walks with a loaded up backpack. In the first couple of weeks it's what kept me from going nuts. I've burnt off nearly 2 stone in 2 months and for that I am lighter and have lots more energy than before. A change in workplace made for a welcome break from my normal routine as well. Being in touch with a good friend whose prior exerience of a BPD GF puts him about a year ahead of me has been an invaluable help. NC puts me in a position of control I wasn't in before. I got involved with someone new which is way too soon but being honest with where I am and where I've come from has given the two of us a fighting chance. Maybe. I don't know the future. I have good days and I have bad days. Today started off bad until I stumbled upon this place. I have slip ups but I am able to forgive myself.

[mywifecrazy]

BPD Family has been a Godsend!

Uncovering her cell phone records... .SERIOUSLY. I was still in the FOG after uncovering her affair that ended our 18yr marriage. I was still being lied to and manipulated but once I was privy to her phone records, going back to before she was caught and months after that, was like the clouds being lifted. I saw in black and white just how out of control she was with her promiscuity and lying. It took me right out of my depression as I realized she wasn't the person I thought she was. It was crazy how I cam across her phone records. I think God knew I was FINALLY ready for the TRUTH to come out.

Celebrate Recovery! I was already in Celebrate Recovery when affair was exposed. My Brothers and Sisters there rallied behind me in friendship and support. They are TRUE friends.

Talking with people who have been through divorce. They understood my pain and were willing to let me vent. They understood that you just can't GET OVER IT but that it takes time.

Divorce Care. It's a support group for people going through a divorce. This too helped me deal with my depression and pain that I was experiencing.

My (2) sons (14&9) they were/are in pain too but our relationship as Father and Sons has grown in leaps and bounds and we're are closer than ever now

My faith in God through Christ is what helped me the most. Romans 8:28. There were days when I just didn't feel like going on anymore and I just cried out to God "Not my will but Your will be done" "I give it up,to You God" I felt so blessed. There were times in the middle of all my pain and depression that I felt a peace come over me. It felt like God was assuring me that he is in control and that everything will be OK.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still filled with pure hatred for my X for what she has done and is doing to hurt me and my boys but it's only been a year and I WILL find total peace as I move forward.

[Caredverymuch]

I was wondering what has helped most of you to heal from your BPD r/s trauma? I also wonder how you have identified potential BPD in new partners that you meet. I worry that I will be blinded again despite all I have learned about the disorder and red flags.  They are so skilled at manipulating.  Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

Seeing a therapist helped... he got me in to mindfulness and it was 100X better than any anti-anxiety drug for cutting my stress level and stopping ruminating over the r/s.  Posting on these boards has helped... it requires you to organize your thoughts and use words to express feelings and that helps when you are really at the bottom. Feedback and knowing others have been through the same things and worse helped.

I have spotted BPD in potential partners and steered clear of them... my toxic BPD r/s resulted in me being divorced and single again... and the opportunities came up. It was hard to steer clear, but I did. The devastation so outweighed a little fun... was hard but wise finally.

Friends, family, anyone that is a good listener can help... but don't expect anyone that hasn't been through it to understand how deep the connection and devastation was.

I decided to dig in to my issues, FOO and otherwise and after 2 yrs am back in a r/s... and doing much better. Still seeing issues.

Thank you for your insight and thoughts, broken and charred. How incredibly true your statement is: Friends, family, anyone that is a good listener can help... but don't expect anyone that hasn't been through it to understand how deep the connection and devastation was. I would include myself in that a few years back, before this experience.  And I agree with you both, T and this board has been so incredibly helpful. I hope you continue to heal and each day is better than the day before for you both.

[Caredverymuch]

Finding humor in life. Changing my taste in music to more positive stuff.  

I think just taking things slow in the next relationship will help. I think if we now look at our date through a BPD microscope to see if they are infected it wont end well regardless. I'd just casually observe and have a good time.

Thank you for these suggestions. Funny, I have had to change my music preferences for sure. And I do enjoy laughing a great deal and find it tremendously healing. I hope you continue to move forward in good healing!

[Caredverymuch]

Reading a post by Careman where I learned and realized that my ex was never going to be better.  That she never was going to be the person that needed... .A person with full set of emotional tools to love me in an adult manner.  She was always going to be limited.

And then reading all of the posts of 2010 over and over and over, until I began to understand the Lonely child/Abandoned Child interaction. 

And that way I was able to begin to depersonalize the behavior and interaction, get out of the FOG, and then look at my behaviors, FOO issues.

I'd say, read the posts of 2010 over and over and over... .

Thank you Tausk. I have read a great deal of posts by 2010. They are beyond insightful and tremendously helpful in healing. I look forward to the day I don't have to read a thing more about  BPD. This site has been so instrumental in helping me understand that which makes no sense to a logical mind. Thank you for such incredible shared support.

[Karmachameleon]

I keep wondering the same thing.  I have been in 3 significant BPD relationships over the past 17 years and the one thing they all had in common was that the guys had horrible relationships with their fathers.  So, the next guy I become involved with will have a healthy relationship with their father and a good history of employment and responsibility and stability.  However, I am taking a break from dating.  I had lunch with my mom today and was telling her that I'm taking a break from "life" in general.  I have not found any joy or comfort in going out and "getting back out there".  I am just going to make my home a safe, comfortable environment for myself and my son and I will focus on myself.  When I am ready I will venture out, but right now I need to circle the wagons and protect myself.

[Caredverymuch]

Blim, I cannot thank you enough for reposting this absolutely spot on post by Sea. When I read this, it just stopped me in my tracks.  Yes, this is exactly what it feels like. Exactly. It's just beyond words to read and share the same exact emotions here and truly, as if I could have written much of the same. How is it that this is not more heard of? My goodness, thousands of us here on these boards and i had never heard of this thing called BPD. This is profoundly well stated. Thank you again.  

The process of detaching from a person we have loved this intensely will never come in one step---it is a thousand steps, a thousand heart-wrenching realisationss, and re-realisations... .an exhausting tumult of having to keep fighting back the urge to hold on to the beautiful words and gestures as the "reality."  Trying to convince the heart   that the reality was something incomprehensibly different---is nearly impossible in the early stages of grief.  Time has to intervene---and we have to surrender to time's invisible healing hand, even though that hand moves things along so painstakingly slow.


A PD will not enmesh with someone unwilling to put up with their abuse--if a person denies them after one  flies, the PD will dismiss them, and continue the pursuit to find a willing host.  It always ends up being people who identify so  much with being the giver, the compassionate, willing, patient, loving, tender, understanding soft-hearted soul that the PD is both drawn to and repelled by. 

It is sobering and shattering to wake up each day and have that harsh reality slam us in the face---we were not so much as loved, as we were just NEEDED... .we could provide something for them when they needed it, when it suited them, when it served them.  And when that need evaporated for whatever reason (justified by them in countless creative, cruel or confusing ways) they cut and run.  When the need resurfaced and they remembered we had once filled that need, they came back----selfishly, disregarding how it would rip our hearts open again after we had been trying so hard to pick up the pieces on our own---with no help or remorse on their part, no ownership of their part in the dissolution of the bond that felt so incredibly alive and real when we were being idealised.

[mywifecrazy]

I am just going to make my home a safe, comfortable environment for myself and my son and I will focus on myself.  When I am ready I will venture out, but right now I need to circle the wagons and protect myself.

Amen Sister. That is EXACTLY where I'm at. Especially making the home safe and comfortable for your kid. me too for my 2 boys (14&9). I like the Circle the Wagons analogy. I currently could be dating 2 beautiful women that I know (not at the same time ) but I don't feel the need or desire to be in a relationship right now. Want to be completely Healthy emotionally then I will date when I feel the time is right.Besides I'm kind of enjoying not having anyone to answer to and coming and going as I please... .

[Ihope2]

For me, coming across bpdfamily.com was my saving grace.  I came across this message board, as I had ordered "Walking on Eggshells" and it was one of the resources listed at the back of the book.

The information and sobering facts I have found here or been linked to in the form of recommended reading here, has helped me to awaken to the reality of who I am and why I landed up in a highly dysfunctional marriage to a deeply damaged man with BPD.

The empathy and support I received here, has helped me beyond words.  Reading other people's accounts of their struggles with a person with BPD, has also been an eye-opener for me.

And learning about Radical Acceptance and trying to apply it to my own life, has helped me to face the facts, stop my own denial, wake up to some sobering truths about myself and my life, and recognise the dysfunctional patterns I have been following my life long.  And ever since I realised that I am not prepared to spend the rest of my life in an emotionally abusive marriage with a highly troubled man who has the effect of robbing me of my joy each and every day, and who by his very nature cannot seem to help but lie and manipulate me to get what he needs, I have found support and courage to keep on walking away from the dysfunctional relationship I was in.  And reassess other toxic relationships in my life.

Also, the general tone and attitude towards people with BPD on this message board, encourages me to accept that BPD is a serious psychological disorder.  People with BPD are very damaged individuals.  I feel great sadness for such people, but I don't hate them. This in itself is very healing for me, to be able to detach from my exBPDh without strong negative emotions such as hatred.

[ldeora]

"Binge reading" this board.  I read some books about BPD, PDs in general but nothing was as helpful as bpdfamily. Shortly after we "broke up" (she needed space) I found this board and it was an eye-opener for me. I'm not alone!

[Isabelle8]

for me it's been my therapist (who told me early on into the relationship that my partner was likely BPD) and then my friends.  I was isolated from many of them, because BPD's tend to isolate you from the people who are somehow threatening, but they all came back when I got out of the relationship. 

And I also decided early on that I wasn't going to allow the relationship change my self-esteem.  BPD's are extremely good at manipulating you, so I didn't blame myself or thought of myself as broken, instead I focused on creating happy moments with friends and find things I enjoyed.  The best therapy in the world is just to focus on new and positive experiences that start actually re-shaping your brain. 

I also started doing things that I once enjoyed with me exBPD, but with my friends.  To create new memories that I associated with good people. 

and NC of course. 

It all gets better, I promise.

I'm not ready for another relationship, but I am getting better and better each day and trust in this process. 

[Caredverymuch]

for me it's been my therapist (who told me early on into the relationship that my partner was likely BPD) and then my friends.  I was isolated from many of them, because BPD's tend to isolate you from the people who are somehow threatening, but they all came back when I got out of the relationship. 

And I also decided early on that I wasn't going to allow the relationship change my self-esteem.  BPD's are extremely good at manipulating you, so I didn't blame myself or thought of myself as broken, instead I focused on creating happy moments with friends and find things I enjoyed.  The best therapy in the world is just to focus on new and positive experiences that start actually re-shaping your brain. 

I also started doing things that I once enjoyed with me exBPD, but with my friends.  To create new memories that I associated with good people. 

and NC of course. 

It all gets better, I promise.

I'm not ready for another relationship, but I am getting better and better each day and trust in this process. 

Ihope2, Ideora, and Isabelle8 thank you for your feedback as well as all the others who have shared so openly here.  This site absolutely saved my sanity. When I first discovered the site and began reading, I cried. Reading all of your shared almost identical experiences. To finally get a sense of what in the world had just happened to me. Because of course it all makes no sense to the logical mind that has no knowledge of BPD. This site, and t has so helped. Now when I read posts from others who are where I was initially, I still feel all they feel and are going through. The immense confusion and incredible grief. The bargaining. The trauma. I'm with the majority of people here in saying RUN don't walk away. It's truly the only thing that will help you heal from the emotional abuse. There were so many times I wanted the r/s back. I'm so thankful to be where I am today. The answers gained here and straight forward support is tremendously helpful.  Thank you all.