Guilt

[Depression = 72% of members]

I'm struggling so much with irrational guilt over my part on the collapse of our relationship.

If you asked her about why we broke up she wouldn't say anything about her massive rages, irrational jealousy, insecurity, insults, etc. She would say that I didn't lover her enough because I wasn't sympathetic to how she felt. When she imagined that I was going to leave her and spent hours shouting and screaming, I should have done more to reassure her. If I loved her, I would have cared that she felt to anxious, scared and insecure and focused on that, instead of feeling hurt and upset by the accompanying rage.

I can't help feeling that if I was a better partner, I would be totally focused on how the other person feels, regardless of their behavior, rather than being focused on how bad they were making me feel by their actions. When she was shouting and screaming, it was because she felt terrible, even for no real reason. But I wasn't always totally sympathetic, I felt hurt and angry at the rage and accusations and insults. I told her to calm down and stop shouting, but I can't help thinking this was selfish and unsympathetic of me, I should have felt sorry for her, not angry, and tried to soothe her. But it's hard to think like that when someone starts a totally hours-long irrational screaming session in the middle of the night.

How do you begin to come to terms with this guilt?

[camuse]

I'm struggling so much with irrational guilt over my part on the collapse of our relationship.

If you asked her about why we broke up she wouldn't say anything about her massive rages, irrational jealousy, insecurity, insults, etc. She would say that I didn't lover her enough because I wasn't sympathetic to how she felt. When she imagined that I was going to leave her and spent hours shouting and screaming, I should have done more to reassure her. If I loved her, I would have cared that she felt to anxious, scared and insecure and focused on that, instead of feeling hurt and upset by the accompanying rage.

I can't help feeling that if I was a better partner, I would be totally focused on how the other person feels, regardless of their behavior, rather than being focused on how bad they were making me feel by their actions. When she was shouting and screaming, it was because she felt terrible, even for no real reason. But I wasn't always totally sympathetic, I felt hurt and angry at the rage and accusations and insults. I told her to calm down and stop shouting, but I can't help thinking this was selfish and unsympathetic of me, I should have felt sorry for her, not angry, and tried to soothe her. But it's hard to think like that when someone starts a totally hours-long irrational screaming session in the middle of the night.

How do you begin to come to terms with this guilt?

[Blimblam]

the gradual acceptance of the fact my ex is mentally ill. that the illness is stronger than me and kicked my ass.  It will  still kick your ass until you accept defeat and surrender.  then feeling the trauma as felt in your stomache and chest.  Just feel it an accept it as uncomfortable as it is.  Untill you find comfort in the emptiness. feeling the emotions fully. layer by layer by layer. then eventually it becomes easier to self reflect and accept that it is a mental illness and it was their before you came along and you are not responsible for it.

[camuse]

I know this in my head, but my heart sometimes say, what if she wasn't sick? What if it was just all my fault? I wish I could move on from this way of thinking. She certainly doesn't have any guilt, and is getting on with her life while I'm here still trying to get my head around what the hell happened to us.

[Blimblam]

I know this in my head, but my heart sometimes say, what if she wasn't sick? What if it was just all my fault? I wish I could move on from this way of thinking. She certainly doesn't have any guilt, and is getting on with her life while I'm here still trying to get my head around what the hell happened to us.

So you know in your head... then you probably know all you already need to know about the disorder to be honest. That is a powerful insight it is your heart telling you.  You can literally feel in your body some powerful emotions.  You body needs to process them.  Then it will catch up with the mind and break the endless loops of thought.  It will replace it with a new loop of thought until the body processes more of what your heart and gut are telling you. layer by layer.

she just blames and forgets and shoves the rest of it down never to be processed as she will once again project her inner trauma into the world.  She is stuck in that pattern and its sad.  You fill feel guilty about it, angry, sorry, fearfull, regretfull, shame and a bunch of emotions... .feel all these emotions fully they are in you waiting for you to process them until... .you are left with compassion... .and even when you get to a phase of compassion you may cycle through all those same emotions once again... .layer by layer by layer... .

acceptance of where you yourself are at in you grieving process is key.  accept yourself.

it isn't fair and it is painfull and slow.  it is what it is.

[Ventus2ct]

Camuse, I feel the same from time to time, I question the same things you do, Is she really BPD? Am I the one at fault? Did I bring these traits out in her? She had an abortion with our child, that in itself brings out so much guilt in me, even now despite me not wishing to have it at the time as I was concerned that the relationship was deteriorating.

I guess being undiagnosed would spur these thoughts on that maybe she isn't, BUT, this is the nub, who on earth would treat someone else the way you or I have been treated, I wouldn't even treat someone I hated in such a manner but this is not proof of BPD in her, if the cap fits then wear it and it fitted her pretty well despite no diagnosis.

Am I the one at fault? As I'm sure with you, I have had plenty of relationships in the past, some very loving indeed, they broke up for various reasons, sometimes my fault sometimes theirs and sometimes we just grew apart and wished for different things in life, so from that I can at least conclude that despite my best efforts (And I can really say that) I was not good enough to tame the d/o and it's puppet.

Abortion, well, despite her blaming me 100% over this as she wished to keep it and I did not, we'd only been going out 2 months. I have come to realize it was a decision made on the day and in my view the correct one, heaven knows how the situation would be now if it hadn't happened. I look back with guilt but at the same time, I never booked the appointment, I never pushed her to do it, she did it on her own accord. If she really wanted to have our child she would have done regardless of anything I had said or done. I will add I promised to support her whatever her decision was as ultimately it was hers to make.

So yes, I feel guilt over this one aspect, no guilt as to feeling I could/should have done more, I know at the bottom of my heart I did everything I could do to save that relationship at the time, it nearly destroyed me, both physically and mentally, didn't eat, didn't sleep, my life was a complete mess, because I believed I could fix it and gave it my all and then some. So please don't go down that avenue because I have and I'm sure others have tried even harder to make things work to no avail.

As BlimBlam says, it's the d/o and progress is slow and painful, despite her life being seemingly great, we all know it's not really, just another round on the same old merry-go-round, it'll repeat again and again and again, slowly but surely as the sun rises and sets, the cycle continues.

[Caramel]

Hi Camuse

I know how you are feeling. It's a terrible feeling to think that if you did things differently, if you were a bit more understanding of her situation, a bit more patient, kinder, wiser, less selfish, etc etc, you could have changed the outcome.

But then I look back and think that I honestly did everything in my power and in my knowledge to save that relationship. It's one thing to read about the disorder and think oh, OK, so that was projection, that was fear of abandonment, that was splitting and not taking any of those behaviors personally and another thing to actually live those things, to be called a piece of rubbish and be asked to leave the house at 3 am only because I kissed him.

Camuse, even if it was not BPD (as I also doubt it sometimes about my ex), you know that it was abusive behavior. Healthy people do not abuse others.

When I start giving myself a hard time I tell myself that I'm only a human and there is only so much that I can take. I have to accept that I did everything I could and forgive myself that it was not enough.

[Ventus2ct]

The one thing I didn't mention but I did think about for some time a while ago was that if I had treated her very poorly, almost the reverse of how I did treat her. When in my young teens I was terrible to some of my girlfriends (ashamed to admit it now but I was not very pleasant), having several on the go at once and just not making any effort at all (almost like I was BPD! , hell I may have been) and the one thing I always remember was that I couldn't get rid of girlfriends, even ex's kept coming back for more.

I did think that if I was the same now as I was then she'd be different, am sure that is what she is used to and felt at ease dealing with, BUT, I grew up a long while ago, learnt and also felt a great deal for her at the time, people you feel for, you tend not to di*k about and you open yourself up to them, which I did as with everyone else on this board, thats why we're all here.

[camuse]

It's very frustrating having these doubts. I did try my best to accommodate her insecurities, but she would just look harder and harder for things to get enraged about. You could just about argue for example, that being friendly to a waitress could be interpreted as flirting, and so I made an effort to be almost rude to other women in front of her. You could possibly argue that a man should not have female friends when he has a girlfriend, so I stopped talking to lots of my female friends because I knew it upset her. But by the end, she had to get worked up about non-existent problems - a genuine example was when I saw a child dying on a tv news report and said, "Oh that's so sad." She went beserk, saying I shouldn't care about anyone other than her. Or when my cat came up to me one day, and I said "Oh hello Mr Cat, do you love me like I love you." She raged for hours about how I loved the cat more than her.

In a way this is good, because the final argument we had was so utterly ridiculous - I was assigned to work on a project at work with a female colleague. It was totally out of my control, and we never met or spoke outside work or anything, but she was convinced I had engineered the project because I just wanted another woman to help with something. It was totally insane and no one in their right mind would think I had done anything wrong, and so I know there was nothing I could do - she was determined to find enough problems to justify her feelings.

What makes me sad still, is she said "It must be you because no one ever made me feel insecure before." I know her words are meaningless, but it does sting. Her relationships before me weren't successful - many were violent, and the longest one she just got bored of and left one day. I know I did my best, but in the end I failed to make my beloved girlfriend feel special and safe, and that's hard to accept. I realise no one can make her feel this, but still it plays on my mind daily.

Sometimes I wish I could be like her - never doubting or questioning myself. Someone on another thread said, why on earth don't they want the good times to continue? Don't the miss them? But I guess those times were only good for me, since she was just mirroring. It's all so very depressing.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Camuse,

Here are some suggestions:

1. Stop beating yourself up;

2. Start paying more attention to your own feelings;

3. Stop ruminating about what she "might" say in her disordered state of mind;

4. Start practicing gratitude that you are out of a r/s with someone who is raging, insulting, insecure and abusive.

5. Stop playing the "what if" game; it's doubtful that the outcome would have been any different over the long haul.

Easier said than done, I know!

My two cents!

LuckyJim

[camuse]

Yes you are right. I just want to put it all behind me but my mind won't let it go.

I do need to stop thinking it all over though, it's pointless I know

[Ventus2ct]

Yes you are right. I just want to put it all behind me but my mind won't let it go.

I do need to stop thinking it all over though, it's pointless I know

Just give it time, I am at 3 months NC and still think from time to time, more than I should I'm sure. I got to the stage where I simply got bored of thinking about it, hell, there's so much more stunning things to think about.

It'll get better as time progresses!

[gtrhr]

I'm struggling so much with irrational guilt over my part on the collapse of our relationship.

her massive rages, irrational jealousy, insecurity, insults, etc. She would say that I didn't lover her enough because I wasn't sympathetic to how she felt

When you're the target of abuse and insults it's hard to give a perfect response.  So give yourself a break.  You didn't have to be perfect.   And even if you did act perfectly this time, that just invites a higher degree of abuse to test the limits and see how much you would take before you react badly.

Why should you be more sympathetic?  It sounds like you already were sympathetic to a degree and that didn't help.

Feeling guilty is part of the process of understanding, but hopefully you get to the point you can realize that you deserve a lot better treatment than she was giving.  Eventually (as my counselor tells me  each month  ) we need to get to a point of understanding why we stay in such a situation.  Healthy people have a good handle on their boundaries and don't get hooked up with pwBPD.

[myself]

Camuse,

FOG can still affect us even though we're out of the relationship. One thing that helped me process where I'd been/where I am was to make a side-by-side list of what I felt I had done wrong and what she had done wrong. By wrong I mean overreacting, hurting the other person, dishonesty, etc. I'm sure you'll find, as I did, that your side of the list will be far far shorter than your ex's. That your actions came from being pushed and pulled by her disorder, not that it's how you usually are. The Fears, Obligations, and Guilt we feel often come from not wanting to let go as well as having been manipulated. Work on being kinder with yourself, accepting that you did the best you could in a strange and painful situation.

[camuse]

Thanks for the replies. Hopefully soon I will run out of unanswerable questions and just start looking forward not back