Hey Y'all,
Thank you for all your amazing posts. So helpful to read your stories and all the similarities. Feeling desperately in the need for support and answers and community right now.
I'm clear about my codependence after 15 years of being in relationships with PD women. 10 years with my ex wife who was total NPD (two kids) and then, shortly after being kicked out of the house, I met the BPD woman (much more like little girl) I have been with for five.
I guess not so unbelievably, I was fooled the second time. But because I was used to the NPD with no empathy or any attempt to portray herself as having empathy, the BPD seemed truly empathic! A social worker with a focus on children and play therapy, she has been amazing with my two girls, who love her so much, making this all much harder.
Anyway, I figured out she was BPD pretty quickly, from the gaslighting/blame shifting/emotional meltdowns, but I thought, unlike with NPD, that I could help her and she would go to therapy and get better. She did try several times, but never really followed through. Then she cheated on me almost a year ago. I forgave her, we rebuilt. Seemed like we were getting somewhere, then her job got bad, she was under stress, and went back to her drug. Cheated again. I kicked her out of the house. The last three months I was stupid enough to try to rebuild again and kept finding out more and saw that she has been having a full blown emotional and sexual affair - a total double life. The lies and deceit were unbelievable. One night she would listen to me cry and talk about my inner child awakening to his abandonment and feeling retraumatized by what she had done, and she would seem absolutely remorseful, but the next night, I found out later, she was back honeymooning with him.
What the heck?
How can these people do this? How can they behave this way?
I already know all the answers. The splitting. The dissociation. I understand the science, the psychology, the motivations. I've been studying these PDs for eight years!
But I still don't get it. You know?
The cruelty is so foreign to me I just can accept that she could do it.
I got her to get into therapy this time again, and within a week, she managed to pick a fight and then I kicked her out for good and she gets to claim I am the abuser now. Not that I abused her, but it doesn't matter to her obviously. The fact that I represent truth and am trying to get her to face herself and her issues with her parents, is enough to consider me an abuser.
I really thought she was going to get help. I thought this was going to work. That my illness.
Ugh.
Really, it's no different than smoking. Or heroin. You know it's no good for you and will kill you, but when you quit, the urge is to go back. And after all, there are plenty of things I actually do love about her. And I am completely emotionally attached for five years, and only a week ago believed we could work it out and spend the rest of our lives together. So it only makes sense that I would miss her and be hurt and crushed and traumatized.
I can't stand it!
How could she be doing this? I forgot to mention that the new guy is a major downgrade. Great article about the downgrade bf here:
www.shrink4men.com/2013/02/06/the-next-guy-did-your-ex-girlfriend-or-ex-wife-downgrade/Dr. Tara is amazing in general.
I'm 40, and she is 30... .Her affair partner is 55 and living with his mother!
I can't imagine the pain I would be enduring if he were a young attractive successful guy she could actually have a future with.
But it also makes the whole thing that much more painful this way too, because why would she give up the intensely beautiful love we had, and the children who loved her and who she "loved"? For what? Just because she couldn't control her impulses? And it got out of control? Or because it was too much, all this real attachment and responsibility? Now she can just have meaningless sex with a guy who'll probably never question her or ask her to face her issues... .He will just be so psyched that this young girl is having sex with him! He'll be her loyal servant.
I'll never get answers.
For the three months this went on she could only say, "I don't know what I'm doing."
I don't know what I'm doing.
I just want to let go. I want to get hypnosis to get her out of my mind. I want to have no empathy for her like she has none for me.
How could she not even want to write an email saying she's sorry?
I know! I know the answers. But knowing doesn't help me feel less pain about it. Even if it's pain for having been stupid enough to fall for her bull___, and to allow her to abuse me. And to keep forgiving her and thinking my unconditional love could help her. That's my narcissism.
I just can't get over the fact that right now she is probably having sex with a 55 year old guy instead of investing herself in me and the girls and the life we were creating.
And I do feel bad for her because I know she's going to wake up and at the very least miss my little girls who she had such a connection with. I know she will come out of this delusion and realize she ___ed it all up. But it's too late.
I wish someone could just save me from this agony.
And I realize I must somehow save myself.
But any help would be greatly appreciated!
