Irrational Beliefs

[billypilgrim]

The breakup with my ex has brought to light a whole host of irrational beliefs that seem to guide how I navigate life.  I've been working on this list for a few days now and plan on discussing these with my T.  I think most of these beliefs fall in the "all or nothing" category of thinking, which gives me the heebie jeebies a bit since that's the only way my ex could process and experience the world.  Many of these beliefs were drilled into my head from an early age

1.) The belief that being alone means that I am failing or unworthy in someway.  If I am not in a relationship, then I am not loved. 

Even by just typing that out, I can see how completely irrational that statement is.  Especially when you look at things in my life objectively.  But making that jump from knowing to believing can be an incredibly slow and frustrating process.

2.) Being asked about my house.  This one takes a bit of explanation but essentially I bought the house that my ex and I lived in, though in the interest of fairness, I put her name on it despite her credit history and such actually hurting our rate a bit.  When she left, it took months for her to sign the agreement (quit claim deed) in which she said she so desperately wanted to be "happy" again.  She eventually signed so the house is now solely in my name.  Which leads to the next bit.  Her car is also in my name and that same agreement said that she is to refinance the car in her name within 6 months of the execution of said agreement, which was in October 2014.  She has one more month to do this.  In the meantime, her car has remained on my credit report, thus negatively affecting my debt/income ratio.  I would like to sell the house I am in currently for a number of reasons but I feel as though I am trapped a bit by her complete disregard of the separation agreement.  But once again, looking objectively at this situation, there really isn't a reason that I cannot go out and list my home.  Her car is small financial blip on my overall credit/income so there really isn't anything preventing me from selling the house. Yet, I still feel trapped.

3.) Fear that she isn't BPD.  Not sure why I have this fear given her mother is a dBPD and my ex started seeing a psychiatrist shortly after leaving me.  Moreover my T is treating me as though she is BPD.  But here's where my mind wanders off to sometimes: If she's not BPD, then I failed the relationship.  All those things she said to me at the end about how uncompromising and selfish I am are actually true.  And if I really am all those things, then I am someone who is as horrible as my NPD grandfather.  The one person in this world that I've made a point to never be like.

I have a number of others but I'm realizing that this post is teetering on the "too-long-didn't-read" label so I'll stop here.  I do realize that these beliefs are completely irrational but they do seem to influence a lot of my thinking.