I still carry the weight of guilt and shame on my shoulders

[swimjim]

I have been in therapy for quite awhile trying to unburden myself from immense shame and guilt in being devalued and ultimately split black. My undiagnosed exBPD gave me a marriage ultimatum after 5 months of dating. I held off because she appeared desperate, and my gut instinct told me that she was more in love with being married than truly loving me. I think I started being devalued when I did not succumb to her ultimatum. From then on, she and her family accused me of USING her and dragging my feet postponing the commitment. In reality, my apprehension never wavered because her nagging was not going to convince me to run to the jewelry store. If she would have just relaxed and let our relationship grow naturally to build a solid foundation of trust and true friendship, I probably would have proposed on my own. I really did love her and still do. In the end, she got tired of waiting and replaced me with my best friend (ex best friend). He has already been replaced by someone else who has moved into her house at lightning speed. When she replaced me with my ex buddy, I went into damage control and bought her the ring she always wanted. With my proposal, I stated for her to take her time, think about it ,have some fun, no pressure to make a decision. The next thing she did was call the police on me and file a false restraining order that was thrown out in court.

I struggle with so much guilt and shame for letting her down earlier in the relationship for not getting her the ring when she wanted it. I also feel horrible that I had a false restraining order filed against me by the woman who claimed to have wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. She even tried to get me to violate the temporary order before the hearing by trying to contact me. I remained no contact since she had the police call me.  I want to liberated from these horrible feelings I have of myself.

She admitted to me before we started dating that she got pregnant on purpose by a previous boyfriend because she did not feel that she would meet anyone else that would love her. I can't believe she would admit this to me but that is the first red flag that I ignored. This whole experience has destroyed my self confidence. I sometimes wonder if she is the normal one and I may be the one who is disordered.  I just know that I am tired of the shame and guilt that I carry around. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

       

[rg1976]

swimjim - I am there with you about having feelings of guilt and shame.  Some of the things that my uBPDx says about me are true, but then there are the other things, the things that she believes are true, that I worked so hard to prove to her are false.  Those things have a basis in reality, but are skewed by her feelings/ perception filter which she sees the world through.

You have to accept the things that you did that you are not proud of and admit they were wrong, but then let them go.  You know that what she thinks and how she behaves has very little to do with who you are as a person.  You can't base your own self-esteem or self-worth on anything outside of yourself; especially not a person who is not in a relationship with you anymore and left you in a pretty trashy way.

I'm sure others will chime in and give you some feedback.  None of us are perfect.  But, we can grow to become aware of our problems and issues and work on them and on becoming human beings. 

Acknowledge your shortcomings, work on them, but don't beat yourself up about things you can't change, or have no control over.  Guilt doesn't really have a productive purpose, except, perhaps to help us remember to make better decisions next time to avoid the pain.

Thanks,

rg

[swimjim]

Thanks rg for your response. I do blame myself which is why I am stuck. It does not make sense that someone who wanted to share their life with you would flip over to call the police on you. Also, why pick my ex best friend who she barely even knew who was an alcoholic. I was punished for not getting her a ring and then punished for getting her a ring. I can't wrap my head around any of this.  She never warned me to leave her alone. She never warned me that she would call the police.  She never blocked my number. It is hard for me to accept who I am right now.

[fromheeltoheal]

It does not make sense

I can't wrap my head around any of this.

Borderline personality disorder is a mental illness; by definition it won't make 'sense' to someone who does not have that illness.  Best to just focus on it is what it is, radical acceptance it's termed around here, and judge by the behaviors not the words.  Accepting it as it is and letting it go, and not making it about you at all, is the way out.

It is hard for me to accept who I am right now.

Guilt and shame are two different things: we feel guilt when we did something we consider bad, we feel shame when we think we are bad.  Most of us did things in the relationship we wouldn't have done otherwise, reactions to stress and walking on eggshells, and the most important thing is to forgive ourselves for that, we did the best we could at the time in those circumstances.  Shame is more of an inside job.  If you felt generally OK about yourself before you met her, then reframing things to not let what she thinks or said matter, since she has a mental illness, will allow you to return to where you were before you met her.  If you never did feel very good about yourself, a therapist can help with that, along with just deciding that everything you need is within you now and you are exactly who and where you're supposed to be.  Take care of you!

[raisins3142]

I think you dodged a bullet by NOT buying the ring and proposing when she wanted.  I don't think you should feel any guilt or shame for taking the relationship at rate comfortable for you.

[Dutched]

Swimjim

You relied on your instincts with that marriage ultimatum, didn’t you?

Wasn’t that wonderful (special now in hindsight)?

Can’t you try (just as a suggestion, your P is the one for that) to relive that wonderful feeling related to the shame/guilt as you now experience?

What I am trying to say is, your instincts (better, clear thoughts or common sense) warned you also to buy a ring instantly and on demand!

As you expressed, you deeply feel for letting her down.

However in fact were saving yourself!

Don’t mess up that the love you feel was not ‘unconditional’, it was!

Love in a r/s also implies preventing the other from consequences that come from impulses and harm the unity of both.

What you did / showed was out of love, love for her and love for yourself my friend!  

That is to be very proud of!

[swimjim]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will continue to work on myself. It has been an extremely difficult time. I don't want to know anything about how happy she is with the replacement. She probably won't make the same mistakes with him ( pressure and nag) that she did with me. She is probably planning her wedding if he does not see any red flags.