Why am I stuck?

[Vitto18]

6 years in, 6 months out. See my uBPDexGF everyday at work but we don't say a word to each other. Avoid eye contact. Contact is restricted to texts about our kids: drop offs, pick ups, doctor's visits.  But I can't stop thinking about her.

I left her because I couldn't trust her, build a family with her knowing she was capable of cheating on me with her married ex, on a whim! Why do I feel guilty for leaving a relationship I could see wasn't working?

I felt like she Owed me loyalty, given the crazy jealousy, temper tantrums, suicide attempts, verbal abuse, tears on tap, constant drama I had endured. She thought she owed me revenge: I was 'about to cheat' on her, based on some messages she saw whilst snooping through my phone, so she decided to beat me to it... .so she says. I owed her forgiveness, she said. It was a mistake & she "always" forgave me for all my transgressions against her... (Then she starts listing them :-).

I was actually about to finally propose to her... .but I ended up finally breaking up with her.

Anyway its all in the past.

She found a new (old) BF a few weeks after we broke up, & now she's telling anyone who will listen that they're getting married soon.

I am still stuck on 'ancient history', she's moved on. Hearing her (cackling) laugh at work, sitting across the table from her in meetings, she looks happy. But being in low/non-contact in close proximity to her daily makes me anxious. I can't focus at work. I struggle to sleep.

On the upside, I've lost 10 kilos in 6 months. Back to gym, playing indoor soccer, re-uniting with old friends, dusting off & slowly becoming myself again. But I can't stop thinking about her, can't forgive her, can't stop being angry, resentful, vengeful, sad, back to angry.

I don't want her back. I've accepted that I've been replaced with a shiny new toy. Having read so much about BPD on this site, I sympathise with her condition now, rather than just seeing her an evil witch. But I'm still stuck, thinking about her & all that happened. Wishing I could show her my pain. But I know she'll just tell me about her pain, & how I also hurt her but she forgave me, and if I had really loved her, I would have forgiven her. Then I'll say if she had really loved me , she wouldn't have cheated. Chicken or Egg circular arguments, no resolution, no closure. If I didn't love her then why am I still stuck?   

[Vitto18]

This site is awesome. Just came across this post by 2010 which seems to answer my question.

"A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. There was a fork in the road. One side said, “leave” and the other said “stay.” People became confused, because they really, really wanted to “stay” but circumstances didn’t allow it. Perhaps their former partner had moved on or they felt cheated, so they forced themselves down the road to “leave.” But secretly, they wished to “stay,” even though the partnership was no longer available for them.

There are several phases to the aftermath of a symbiotic relationship with a person that has an unstable sense of self. These phases occur with periods of malignant hope for the return of the "other" offset by uncertainty. Hope versus uncertainty causes bargaining and hyper-anxious "watching" waiting and obsessing for the return of the desired "love object." These actions lead to intellectual reasoning that tips the scales with malignant hope, because uncertainty is as painful as watching paint dry.

When this phase fails (as it should) then anger arises, splitting the former symbiotic enmeshment into good and bad. (You can guess who the good is when you're angry) Based upon the need to repair your identity, the splitting becomes useful (for ego protection) but it then disintegrates as a coping mechanism because this isn't about ego anymore- it's about who you are underneath the ego.

All or none, black or white thinking separates and protects the ego from pain. When it becomes apparent that this person you split also is the object of your desire that you yearn for, the next phase of all or none thinking is frustration and despair, because the person you hate is also the one that you covet- and there’s a loss there concerning a failed coupling that felt deeper than starlight.

In object relations, this is known as the "depressive position." It is a fight against abandonment depression. The obsessing, watching, waiting, clairvoyant e.s.p. she's thinking about me right now and sending private messages to me as well as intensely feeling that hang-up calls need secret decoder rings... are all the mind's way of keeping that lost object alive and refusing to let go. Letting go means abandonment depression and no one enters into the depressive position that eagerly. It's fought tooth and nail the entire way with what is known as "magical thinking" keeping the attachment bond unbroken and subsuming the love object.

"The capacity to perceive that the other who frustrates is also the one who gratifies" is a part of working through the depressive position. It means that sometimes we need to have an internal compass that lets go of magical thinking, hope versus uncertainty, and focus on why we are angry. In working through depressive anxiety, projections are withdrawn, allowing the other more autonomy, reality, and a separate existence and that's really what leaving is all about."

Getting somewhere in terms of understanding why we feel how we feel, but still needing to figure out how to feel better.

[AwakenedOne]

Hearing her (cackling) laugh at work, sitting across the table from her in meetings, she looks happy. But being in low/non-contact in close proximity to her daily makes me anxious. I can't focus at work. I struggle to sleep.

Vitto,

You are stronger than me. If I had to work closely with my ex I would go insane.

It sure takes a while to recover from these relationships. When I remember the horrible things that happened in our relationship it helps me to detach. It makes me feel angry though in the process but I try to unwind playing guitar or listening to music. No love songs.

Hang in there man.

Peace,

AO

[Vitto18]

Thanks AO

Although, I don't feel strong at all, more like I was used, chewed up & spat out. As though some great injustice has been done to me & my soul won't come right until / unless the score can somehow be evened. Bleh! Seeing her every day triggers overwhelming feelings that I struggle to control. The worst part is I encouraged her to get a job in my department before we broke up, I could just kick myself now.

Am only now starting to see that part of that is my own fault, because I ignored all the warning signs, thinking I was rescuing /saving someone who "desperately" needed me. I remember way back, speaking to one of my old patriarchal uncles about the some of the problems in the relationship & he said "you are lucky: she is still young, you have a chance to train her to become the wife you want her to be" 

I suspect that's part of where the anger comes from: I came to regard my exGF as a sort of project, thinking I was helping her to become a better version of herself, since she came across as so helpless & needy. I allowed the relationship to become all about her & her issues, forgot myself in trying to be her everything. At the beginning she would say "God sent you to be my angel." She was a 22 year old woman who couldn't even do a basic monthly budget: after she got paid, she would spend & impulse shop until it was all gone & then borrow to cover the shortfall.

Not knowing anything about BPD at the time I came to see myself as the cool, calm 'life coach' to a lost, bewildered & often over-emotional little girl, & it puffed up my ego. At some point, I must have moved from coaching to controlling: I will never forget her leaning right into my face during one of her rages & screaming: "YOU'RE NOT MY F***ING FATHER! STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!"

Yet I was willing to tolerate the emotional rollercoaster, just as long as she still loved & needed me, I felt somewhat important. But she seemingly felt not good enough for me, so she had to rebel, or reject me before I rejected her.

Having bought into the idea of being the "angel" that she couldn't live without, my whole (false) world came crumbling down when I discovered she could very easily do without me, & began to doubt everything , including my ability to love & be loved. Her head-long rush to get married to her new guy has amplified my own feelings of not being quite good enough, which now that I think about it, I have struggled with & suppressed for a long time.

The struggle now is to constantly remind myself that I do have some good qualities, as much as I have some shortcomings to work on, & this failed relationship does not define me.

She walked away from someone who tried everything he knew to make her happy; I made my fair share of mistakes in the relationship, but never with any malice.

No one deserves to be cheated on & then replaced in a few weeks, after 6 years of patiently baby-sitting a grown woman; waiting for her to grow up. I'm only now beginning to understand why I was willing to play sitter for so long, instead of looking for an equal partner.

What she does with her life going forward is her business, I need to focus on being my own life coach & developing my own potential before I can venture to try & solve anyone else's problems.

I struggle to shake the feeling that the last 6 years were a waste, regetting ever having children with her, but I'm job-hunting & looking for a good lawyer for the forthcoming custody battle, to keep my mind off how unfair it all is.

[node4]

I am currently 8 months out of NC. I read this post as well as part of 2010's post. I am very depressed right now, and I know it has nothing to do with her, however my anger with her sparks up now and then. I feel cheated, and like she got away with murder. I am still having a hard time with the concept of fact that something that affected me more than any other experience in my life was based on complete dysfunction, with me and her. That the intensity that was felt was mirroring from both of us, and that it was all fantasy.

Accepting that no matter what I have heard come out here mouth I will never know the truth. I was not special I was merely one of many in her string of destruction.

That at 39 years of life, I have never had an experience like this, close but never the intensity that I had with her, and more than likely I will never feel on that level again for someone else.

I have nothing but self improvement to continue while making myself believe that I have a chance of ever knowing happiness which is something I have never felt really... .until I was with her... .

She is nothing but a distance memory for me now, she is no longer real to me, she is something else. I know that when she left the last time that my illusion of her was over once and for all. She was not the person in my fantasy anymore, she really is and has become someone that I used to know. If I saw her today, I would not know who she was.

I am still dealing with the aftermath.