Being used as backup?

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Why do they continue to toss crumbs after leaving you? Am I being used as backup?

[FollowingBliss]

Why do they continue to toss crumbs after leaving you? Am I being used as backup?

[elessar]

Yes.

If something else isn't working out, you'll be there. You have shown yourself to be their caretaker, so they know they can go running back when they want. If they found someone, you probably won't hear a pip. And if that relationship fails, they might return love bombing you.

[BorisAcusio]

Why do they continue to toss crumbs after leaving you? Am I being used as backup?

It's quite likely that he was already nurturing other options while you were still together. They NEED attachment.

[pari]

Yes they do. It's common. They don't want to miss the attachment, their comfort.

My exBPDbf wanted to be friends with me after he found my replacement. He wanted me to hang out with him and his gf, go to their place for movies and dinner with them (what the heck)! I asked why, because he loves my company. Hah! I tried for 5 months because I was addicted to my drug. Things got worse. I slowly withdrew and started ignoring his calls and mails. Didn't wish him on his birthday. It was a big deal and I don't know how I got strength at that moment. But it came from within. I didn't force NC.

[Tausk]

Why are you allowing yourself to be triangulated?   Are you wanting to reconnect.  If so, the undecided board is better.  IMHO half measures are potentially more dangerous.

We leave but really still want the interaction, but we want different. 

But pwBPD don't change.  They can't.  Every unnecessary interaction that occurs with the hope that they will change, damages us a bit more.

I've had to learn this so that i can learn to life the live I've always wanted.

Be well

T

[Vatz]

I learned after more recycles than I'm proud of, that it was all just BS.

If you even *think* you're backup, then back OFF. Of course they try to keep you around. They need THEIR drug, while they're YOUR drug. In the end, you both end up hurting.

I mean if you wanna wait and see, play things by ear and find out where they're gonna go with this, by all means hang around.


I did that. I did that during several emotional affairs, and waited to see if it would turn physical. Eventually, oh yeah, there was intercourse. Guess what? I waited to see which one she figured was better. After that, I waited to see if she really was willing to change. I played the wait-n-see game for 4 years, it was like gambling. Except worse because "losing" was personal, not just money down the drain. "Losing" meant feeling rejected and triggering some very deep pains.

I'm not saying it's going to happen to you, but there are going to be some serious issues down that road. It's who they are, it's what they do.

[biglearningcurve]

In my experience I was thrown enough crumbs to hold onto a reunion fantasy.  When that happened I saw that everything I had read on this site did apply to him and I could see right through him.

It has been a long and painful experience.

You have to decide how much pain you will endure before you get off the drama triangle and disengage with him/her

[elessar]

Wow Vatz, I could have written what you wrote.

Since the last summer, I was playing her game rather than chasing her. I would respond to what she is doing and saying, than emotionally going all in. Make no mistake, I loved her. But I had my guards up. And I had my guards up from last summer till this summer, when the moment I let my guard down was the moment she decided to accept proposal from another dude. So as Vatz said, if you want to play their game... .you are only going to lose. Emotions, time, money, self-respect... .everything.

[seeking balance]

If you even *think* you're backup, then back OFF. Of course they try to keep you around. They need THEIR drug, while they're YOUR drug. In the end, you both end up hurting.

I hope everyone really reads and rereads this... .

BPD is an attachment disorder - by the very nature of it, yes ALL people are backups.  People are used as a tool to soothe the emotional dysregulation... .is it deliberate?  sometimes, yes and sometimes no - that part is not relevant.

What is relevant that as soon as you feel you are in the backup role, we all change - we all become guarded or more needy which further pushes the abandonment/engulfment pendulum of the pwBPD.  It is a "no win" when it gets to this point.

Why do they continue to toss crumbs after leaving you? Am I being used as backup?

They are not tossing crumbs to hurt you, it is strictly for them to survive emotionally - it is not in any way about you... .you are responsible for you and if you can handle the push/pull.

[Harlygirl]

At the end of the relationship with my BPDexbf,  he clearly had had a break.  I had never seen, and hope never to again, someone, whom I deeply loved, shatter into a million, tiny little pieces. He looked through me, past me, as if he didn't recognize me.  His eyes were glazed over. When I asked him what he was thinking and feeling, he went on to say that he didn't see us getting back together at any time in the near future, and that he had unresolved feelings for his exgf, whom he had re-engaged and whom had continued to contact him throughout our relationship. I expressed to him that I felt that he and I had "something special".  He could barely contain a Cheshire Cat grin, that I could only interpret as an intense level of self satisfaction that he had so successfully convinced me that it had been. I was almost speechless at the level of detachment, the complete lack of empathy, lack of any emotion on his part.  I was that disposable, that discardable to him.   He maintained contact with me by coming by and calling, trying to remain in control of the contact.  Just enough to reassure him that I was still there, until I ended the contact. What is still difficult for me to accept looking back now, is that clearly I was perceived by him as a replacement for the exgf, and that she now was replacing me.  I still, even now, feel the impact of that invalidation.

[elessar]

Truly sorry to hear that Harlygirl!

I read your previous posts on the new members forum. How are you doing after these 1.5 years of no contact?

[amigo]

Yes, they are using us for backup. Not necessarily in a realistic (sex, money, company )way, maybe just as an emotional back up.  Ugh. I am in the exact same situation. Getting an occasional "how are you text". He claims he wants to hear my voice. When I engage and  agree to see him, he backs off, turns cold and says he's busy.

It is disgusting. I feel disgusted for engaging in those exchanges. Yet, there is part of me that can't let go. And also part of me that needs the reminders how sick he really is, and those ugly interactions actually help me to remember that. By hearing from him and then being put on the shelf, I remember his narcissism and I am less likely to remember the good parts which almost led me to break my LC.

I am most definitely the back up. The sick thing is that there is a very small part of me that is waiting for my turn. I am ashamed to admit that. I am not even sure anymore why I want that turn. I reason that it is that I can get some sort of closure (a delusion - I know). Part of me just wants that intense feeling of being wanted, just one more time. I just want to hear those lies ("this time I will never let you go", knowing full well they are lies, they just feel so good.

[biglearningcurve]

Harley girl.

I could be the exgf you refer to, the story sounds so interchangeable with mine.  She is just as much a replacement as you are.  I only feel pity for the other person that was involved in my particular triangle.

As the poster "2010" said  " the person that wins the game is the one in denial"