Ex Fiance with BPD

[JLittle1987]

Where do I begin... .

In the winter of 2011 I went out to a bar with a friend, he tried hitting on this girl who told him she was a lesbian, and he introduced us. I immediately had a connection with her, it felt magnetic. We were together for 6 months before she cheated on me the first time. I never ended up hearing it from her, the girl she cheated on me with actually found me on Facebook and told me a few months later, she denied it at first, then said she was blacked out (The girl she cheated with sent me a video of them making out and being all over each other) and that nothing happened.

Hoping that we could work through it I forgave her and decided to move forward, I thought she was the love of my life, and that we would be able to work it out.

She cheated again about a year later, this time she said it was not physical, only emotional, I believed her because what other choice did I have. She told me how sorry she was and that she would never do it again, that I was her soulmate, and that she wanted to marry me one day.

This last time she cheated was 2 days before Christmas 2014, about a month after she asked me to marry her. Again she lied and said nothing happened, but I knew in my heart that something wasn't right. She stayed out all night never came home, never called to tell me she wouldn't be home. Then she never called the next day, I was freaking out thinking something terrible had happened to her, her phone was off and I had no way of getting in touch with her. She finally showed up at 3pm that afternoon and acted like nothing had happened, told me she spent all day looking for her phone that she had lost at a bar, just lies upon lies.

I broke up with her and moved her out of my house in the middle of January 2015.

She just met someone new (She had promised me up and down she wanted to seek therapy, get help, change so that we could be together one day). She has known this new girl for all of a week, they are already gf's, telling each other they love one another. It seems like its the same pattern that she followed after meeting me. I can't help but feel as though our entire relationship meant the world to me, and nothing to her. Four years together (and we have been through a lot, including my cancer diagnosis) and she can't even be bothered to comfort me or speak to me like she used to when I am clearly very hurt over this whole thing.

Any words of advice on how to deal and move past this? I'm in therapy already

[Mike-X]

Thank you for sharing your story. I am sorry for what you have gone through.

Have you had an opportunity to read the following articles about relationships and breakups when BPD is involved:

https://bpdfamily.com/portfolio-broken

[Lucky Jim]

Hey JLittle,

What happened to the friend who went to the bar with you in 2011?  Just kidding . . .    Seriously, I'm sorry for all the pain you have been through.  From what you relate, it seems like she showed you, more or less from the get-go, that she would never be true to you.  Yet you hung in there, perhaps out of a misguided sense of loyalty or for other reasons that kept you hooked.  To me, that's the starting point: why did you get in this r/s in the first place, and why did you stay in it?  Please don't think I'm judging you because I did exactly the same thing in my marriage to my BPDxW.  We Nons have a wonderful capacity to overlook the red flags.     In other contexts, loyalty is an admirable quality, yet I think it can be misplaced in a BPD r/s.

LuckyJim

[emergent]

JLittle1987,  Welcome

You've had a rough go of it. It sounds like your ex really took you for a ride.

I'm not judging you, either. I can really relate to your devoted nature, and LuckyJim is right that it is a fully admirable trait. But we devotees need to know where and when to draw the line, and that's very hard. And if you can't figure out where the line should be, or when it should be drawn (whether because of your own faults or because of circumstances), you can really get in deep  

It's been 4 or 5 months since you moved your ex out of your life. This may take time, so my advice is to try to develop patience with yourself. Allow the pain to be there, knowing it will pass in time.

Do you expect your ex to comfort you now? This is a real question; I'm not trying to be facetious. I'm just not sure it's beneficial to maintain this kind of expectation if you have it.

Wishing you courage.

[zundertowz]

Yeah sounds like a bad set of decision from the start... .not judging I made similar choices with my ex... .meeting someone at the bar is probably a recipe for disaster... .I guess you cant control who you have a connection with... .I didn't know anything about BPD at the time so i figured whats the worst that could happen I get cheated on?  Things got far worse than that... .remember the red flags and don't date girls/guys you meet in bars or clubs.  It's amazing to me how many red flags I ignored... .it's pretty embarrassing!

[Mike-X]

I just re-read your story. Six months is a good amount of time to invest in a relationship, and if this relationship followed the typical pattern of idealization and mirroring that many do when involved with someone living with BPD, I can imagine the mixed emotions and difficulties you might have experienced with the first and subsequent incidents of cheating and that you might still be wrestling with. Forgiving to save what you felt was a "magnetic" relationship is very understandable. Having trouble giving up on a relationship that felt "magnetic" is very understandable. Often it seems that significant others of people living with BPD have their limits and boundaries tested and trampled on (mine definitely were) as they try to rekindle the relationship to get back to that "magnetic" idealization phase or to try to "save" the person with BPD.

As you will find by reading though the stories on the boards, many have been through similar situations. Again, I am sorry for your struggles. However, I believe you have found a place where many members can empathize with your situation and can help support you as you work to heal.  Thank you again for posting your story.