Hi everyone,
So I think I've been a little naive! I would really appreciate your views, advice and knowledge as most of you are much more well versed in BPD behaviors than myself. I am somewhat a newbie in my BPD dealings (I had a fairly calm 10 month relationship with my dBPDexbf which suddenly exploded out of nowhere and I haven't had to have any dealings with him until now. No recycles. No drama. No games. Nothing.)
In summary... .after an argument 3 months ago my dBPDexbf blocked me, subjected me to an abrupt silent treatment/ NC, I left him to it and things have remained that way until recently. I contacted him a few weeks ago regarding a large sum of money that he owes me (I posted about that in more detail here:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=229622.msg12465327#msg12465327). Fully expecting to be a) blocked or b) further ignored you can imagine my shock when he not only replied within minutes but we had a reasonable (and pleasant!) exchange in which he agreed to pay me back and hashed out the details. All good so far and, despite some wise words on here, I didn't expect there to be a hitch. The first payment date came and my bank account remained the same
. I left it for a few days before sending an email asking if all was ok with what we discussed since I hadn't received anything. The email was ignored. That was five days ago.
I don't feel that this has anything to do with the money. I know he has it, can certainly afford the repayment schedule we agreed (which was actually much more lenient than he was entitled to - even he knew that and thanked me for being understanding!), and due to the nature of his job he is one of the most legally minded people I've ever met and will be well aware of how our email exchange would serve in my favor should I wish to take this down a legal route.
Q1: What is behind this behavior?Based on what I have studied here I think it could possibly be rooted in the following - I may be wrong so please feel free to comment! I really would appreciate it.
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Control: Is this a way for him to gain and exert control? Thinking about it, he's actually had little control of this situation since it erupted 3 months ago. I didn't chase, didn't beg, didn't kick up a stink which I know would have driven him crazy. I walked away drama free and I'm guessing that wasn't actually part of his plan.
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Punishment: Does he deliberately want to make this a hassle for me? Does he want me to get desperate and beg for my money? (But then why be absolutely fine in the first email exchange? He could have made it difficult from the start!)
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Links: A member here suggested repayment of my money could trigger his abandonment issues. Does he want to ensure this link between us remains? This money will take some time to repay though so it's not like the link would be lost immediately. He also (rather annoyingly!) still has quite a lot of my stuff at his place if he's worried about keeping links... .
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Attention Seeking: Boy does he love attention! This was one of his strongest BPD traits. I think he must rue the day he met me as I'm very calm and low key! I think the lack of drama that I caused around our split (something he was very used to, and got a lot of, in previous relationships) made him feel insignificant. He subtly tried and failed to provoke reactions from me in the weeks after the split. So does he now want a fuss, he wants me to chase and he wants my attention?
Q2: What the heck happened in the 12 days between correspondence?Have I gone from black to white to black? Did I catch him off guard with my first email and now he has had time to formulate his grand master plan? Was the first exchange a devious attempt to lure me in? What the heck?
Q3: How do I best handle my next communication with him?I'm very reluctant to feed into his need for drama, I feel like he wants me to get angry and he wants a rise out of me. I am also reluctant (at this point) to get aggressive or threatening (i.e the "we can do this the easy way or the hard way" approach!). I am leaning towards something along the lines of
"Hey X, I don't think this is about the money. So what's going on? Talk to me" kinda thing. What would happen with that approach? Or a lighthearted
"Well it's generally easier to sort these things if we communicate with each other". What would a lighthearted approach do?
Any thoughts, ideas, advice and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
BR xx
P.S Also it might be helpful for me to give you a sense of where my head is post split. I'm doing really well, I've moved on a considerable amount. I don't hate my ex at all, I am able to depersonalize his behavior considerably and I see him as someone with a mental illness.
