Need advice - BPD ex confused about us

[ravfour4]

I made a few other threads about this, but things got even worse last night and I'd really like your suggestions/advice/guidance.

Brief background:

Together for 4 years with the majority of it being great. We were 21/22 when we met and had started looking at getting a house together. Recognized BPD traits, but didn't know what BPD was.

She wanted to break-up after a couple of very tense months and hopped into a new relationship right away with an older married man w/ 2 kids going through a divorce. We lived together for 2 months of it and she lied/denied it consistently. I was devastated and slowly rebuilt "me" after focusing the majority of my energy on her for so long.

How we started hanging out again

Told her how much I cared about her still (after doing that multiple times to no avail right after the break-up) and she said she still cared too.

We were going to go on a date, then I found out this guy was actually her bf and he went CRAZY trying to do EVERYTHING he could to prevent her from going on this date. I eventually called it off as I could tell she wanted to.

Went NC for 11 days, then she came back, said she cared, bashed this other guy and ended things with him. The week or so after that we hung out everyday, but he kept calling/texting despite her telling him not to. The week after that we hung out everyday, and he finally stopped contacting her.

A frustrating repeating pattern

Every 2-3 days, she breaks down saying she's confused about what she wants, whether or not we should be together forever and gets mad that we didn't work out the first time around. She's also worried we'll get back together and she'll just hurt me again. She wants things to just go back to how they were.

In-between the confusion, things seem to be going great. We'll hang out for 12 hours at a time and enjoy every minute of it with no awkwardness/anger/confusion. She recently started holding my hand, lying on my shoulder and occasionally sleeping over.

What I've been doing

-Trying to validate her feelings, telling her that they're legitimate to have and understandable

-Tell her that I understand her more than before and I want to understand her even better

-Tell her that I'm fine with taking it slow and that she just needs to know if she wants to give it a shot, not if it will indefinitely work.

-Continually tell her I'm here for her and that I won't hurt her and how much I care.

-Walking the walk that I talk, showing her that I've changed my ways and staying calm anytime she gets angry/upset

Last night

We had a few drinks and she was all confused again. After we held hands the night before, she almost slept over and had texted me good night and good morning like when we were dating, I was a bit angry and distanced myself.

She noticed and said I wasn't acting like I loved her and then closed her eyes as if she wanted a kiss. I went in for one and got denied, it sucked.

We went out to the bars after that for her work and didn't talk about it very much. On the walk home she kept saying she was confused, but kept wanting to hang out like we had been. I tried to stay calm through most of it, validated her feelings, but I couldn't help get a bit angry that she keeps doing this and "leading me on".

I'm ok with her being confused, I'm ok taking it slow, but the push-pull is getting to me! She left and I gave her a call telling her how much I cared, care and hope to always care. I told her she doesn't have to keep pushing me away and that I'll be there for her, how I acknowledge my role in the break-up and how I'm dedicated to giving us everything I've got. She appreciated it, sounded happy, but had little to say in return. She wants to keep hanging out, but not drink together anymore (most of her confused rages start with drinking, but a lot of her very nice moments do too).

Questions!

1) Do you guys see this having a chance to work out? She cares about me, but she's so afraid that it won't work out or that she'll waste time with me again only for it to not work out again that she's holding back. I understand she only ended things with the other guy 2-3 weeks ago, but the push-pull is frustrating. I just wish she could be consistent, one way or the other.

2) How can I handle her moments of confusion differently? I think I'm too scared of losing her to set clear boundaries and just let her leave when she's confused. Instead I have her stay and try to wait until the situation diffuses, reassuring her how much I care and won't hurt her.

3) I've been the one asking to hang out, but she'll always say yes and then wants to hang out as long as possible. Should I take a step back to give her more breathing room? I'm just afraid she won't come back if I do that  


 

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[ravfour4]

SHORT VERSION

My ex and I have been hanging out everyday for the past 2 weeks after she got out of a crazy rebound relationship. We had dated for 4 years and were broken up for nearly 4 months, living together for the first 2.

She's scared to commit to us, afraid that we'll end up fighting again etc. despite me making a sincere effort to show her how much I care and how things will be different. I've helped her out with her job, been there for her when she's upset and bought her a relatively cheap, but awesome necklace she always wanted.

We alternate between acting like a full blown couple again that is more mature than ever (but minus the intimacy) and her being confused about what she wants and distancing herself. The distancing is usually followed by us being very close again. She's been talking about a future for us, although less lately and has introduced me to a ton of her new friends. Anytime we start getting closer, she gets scared and backs away.

What techniques can I use to calm her down when she's confused and/or help rid her of her confusion? Should I give her more space and stop hanging out everyday to show her that I am my own person and that I am strong? Or does she need this constant attention to rebuild love and a connection?

[Stalwart]

Sounds like she is really scared that starting it up would only lead back into the same circle and the failures are terrible for her to handle.

I suppose it comes down to understanding what it confusing her so much. Does she feel that you weren't there for her the first time and that's why she strayed from the relationship? Have you talked about the failure. I know it's easier sometimes to keep away from negative conversations but it's one that you need to understand from her take of what that was to her.

Wen they say they don't want to hurt you again that's a powerful statement and comes from a real fear and absolute knowledge from their experiences that it's almost inevitable that they will.

You really are doing all you can do and doing it really well by the sounds of it. I don't know how experienced you are with using the tools but hey that only gets better with practice.

What were the past problems you shared in that destroyed the first attempt?

[ravfour4]

Thanks for the reply Stalwart.

The problems I take responsibility for are:

1) Taking the relationship for granted a bit after 3 years. I stopped going out of my way to do nice things for her and focused on my career (got promoted many times over the past year) - the main and only reason I did that was to make us a lot of money so we could have a great house, family etc. and so one day she wouldn't have to work if she didn't want to (she'd mention this every so often).

--Part of the reason I did this was because she kept doing things that were detrimental to our relationship and my personal well being, eventually I got so frustrated I stopped caring as much because I wasn't getting any love from her. She kept taking everything I said in the worst way possible.

2) Smoking MJ almost everyday and she would as well. This made me less caring and more "eh, whatever" towards her emotional state. It also made me lazy (aka less fit) and less social/willing to go out and do things. She worked opposite hours of me most days so I mainly did it out of boredom.

3) We were rarely intimate the last year or so for a few reasons. a) she was rarely around and when she was she'd be angry/mad b) I'd "do it myself" when I was bored home alone and smoking, making me want it less with her and c) It's crucial for me to feel comfortable with the person I'm intimate with and I just didn't those last 2-3 months before we broke up.

We've talked through all of these issues and I'm showing her consistently that I've made changes permanently for myself and potentially us:

1) I've been giving her massages often (I stopped doing that after the first year or two), open the door for her everywhere we go (like she always wanted), help her with work almost daily and continually find fun things for us to do together. I'm also there for her like I used to be when she's stressed/angry/sad.

2) After she stopped smoking, she broke up with me, she also stopped taking one of her anti-anxiety pills at the same time. I've stopped smoking completely as well. Don't want to go back. I'm calm and collected again which makes her emotional state easier to deal with. I'm working out and don't plan to stop and as said above, we've been doing fun social things nearly every day.

3) A and C are no longer issues and neither is B. I crave nothing more than being intimate with her again, but I've been letting her take it slow, besides trying to kiss her yesterday and getting denied.

To summarize and next steps

Essentially, I'm back to my old and "true self" again that she said she missed so badly. I guess it's understandable for her to think I'd revert back to my old ways, but I won't and I've been focusing on showing her that. On the flip side, I dislike that I have to take near 100% blame when she played an equal role and did some very hurtful things after we broke up that we rarely ever talk about (although we have discussed them all to some extent).

We've had multiple conversations about the "failure". I think she's worried that if we kiss, we're bf/gf again and that there's no point in doing that unless we're going to get married. She says she wants to take it slow, but I don't think she actually knows how to just go with the flow. When we're together, it's great until it gets so great that she starts to question everything... .

She texted me a little while ago saying "good morning, I'm sorry I'm so confused and messed up :/ it's not fair to you"

I told her that it's OK that she's confused and she's not messed up. It's an understandably difficult situation and told her to give me a call when she has a chance. I want to tell her that we don't need to rush to put a label on this and that if we like hanging out together, let's just keep doing what we're doing and let it naturally evolve. She usually calls back quickly... .hopefully she's not back with that other guy... .

[ravfour4]

Got the call back.

We're moving forward as friends and "will see what happens", I asked her how she felt about that and she said good. I told her we need to not worry about putting a title on what we are or rushing things, and that we just need to go with it since we've really been enjoying each other's company, she agreed. We may hang out tomorrow morning.

[Stalwart]

Hey Rav:

Glad to hear you're happy about moving forward.

Well you certainly are categorized and precise.  Is she?

So hey Rav, why did she both go off her meds and stop pot? How does going off her meds affect her? Everyone's certainly different and there are no norms I suppose but I know if my wife goes off her meds (which she recently did) she starts into a really bad spiral a couple of days later that only worsens. Thankfully she decided to start back on them but reduced amount.

There was a time after a really big problem that my wife stated that I was an awesome provider but not as good at providing emotional support in a relationship. A lot of guys are culturally geared to value our worth as a partner on our abilities to provide for the welfare of our families and get so absorbed  we do overlook all the other needs of a relationship sometimes. It's a wise man who knows his own limitations and can set the bar on raising them.

It's a good thing you're taking your time and willing to let her do that as well. Sometimes I think we can get back into reconciliatory situations with so many hopes that we set ourselves up for failure with our own hopes and sometimes also get blindsided by them because we ordain our expectations too thoroughly or maybe not thoroughly enough.

Best of luck and I hope you both enjoy your weekend Rav.

[ravfour4]

Nope, she is definitely not categorized or precise like I am. I try to tone it down/hide it when she's around since she thinks very differently.

She quit smoking because we both wanted to for a while, but in retrospect I've learned that she had already lined up this new guy (who does no drugs or alcohol) and had turned me black, so I think qutting went along with that. After quitting smoking and her meds it got even worse (I'm not totally sure why she quit her med, she also quit her job at the same time, it was a disaster), she acted like a totally different person.

Yesterday was the first day we hadn't hung out since she reached out to reconnect. It's only been a week since the older married man was at her door crying trying to get her back. I understand she's very emotional and in a fragile state, as am I. We had been getting closer and closer until Thursday when she was all "confused". She came over today and it was different, she was acting more like a friend again and our interactions were no where near as fluid as they were before. She also mentioned going into her old work to see some friends there... .but that's also where this other guy worked, which made me uncomfortable.

I feel like I'm walking on egg shells for the first time and I hate it. I broke our awkwardness by bringing this up and she said she knows it's weird but wants to keep hanging out. I told her she just needs to be honest and that her going to where this guy works made me uncomfortable, but that I know she can do what she wants as we're not dating. Then she left on an odd note and I said I'd like to see her later tonight.

I'm getting to the point where I may need to give up. I've spent so much time dwelling on this and being consumed with it, it had been paying off, but today was a big step backwards. I feel like I'm addicted to her, as soon as she leaves I'm worried she's gone forever with her constantly fluctuating emotions and how she left me like nothing after 4 years of dating just a few months ago.

[Stalwart]

Hey Rav:

I"m sorry that things aren't quite up to the expectations you were hoping for.

"our own hopes and sometimes also get blindsided by them because we ordain our expectations too thoroughly or maybe not thoroughly enough." There were reasons I preempted with this Rav. It just didn't quite make sense knowing she had to have some outlet to meet the emptiness and needs she probably felt at that time.

Going forward, even in friendship if it's to lead to something more still requires definition of boundaries my friend and defining that path by both people. You're hoping for reconciliation and getting back together but if that's the case than that is the time that boundaries need to be established. If they can be held then there's hope and knowing that she's working toward that.

I'm sorry for the situation you find yourself in. Keep coming back though Rav. There are people here who know how you feel and can help you with it.

[ravfour4]

Well, as is typical, the push was followed by a pull. She does promotions and had to do one at a gay bar, I like doing crazy things to push myself so I agreed to help out last night (after the slight awkwardness before, which was probably a lot worse in my head than in reality). It was actually a lot of fun, the complete opposite of my normal job and we got to dance and grind a bit together at the end AND she ended up sleeping over and we cuddled at night.

We spent the entire day together doing fun outdoor stuff and overall had a great time. At one point during the day, she grabbed my phone and noticed some dating app messages from a week or two ago. She was angry and wanted to go home, but I stayed calm and collected, explained that it meant nothing, that I met none of those girls, wanted her and that she's welcome to check my phone whenever going forward. It helped diffuse the situation.

I told her I like her a lot and want to be her boyfriend again and understand her confusion/need to take things slow. I told her to tell me if there's anything I can do to help reassure her things won't end like they did before if we got back together and to tell me if she needs space. It seemed to go over well and we really enjoyed the rest of our time together and she texted/called me shortly after she left. We're also friends on social media again for the first time since we broke up so it feels like things are back on the right track.

She said she's scared she won't feel the same way again, but when I look into her eyes and look at the way she acts, I think the feelings are there. I think she's just scared of the potential of getting hurt again, of having to own up to the bad things she did to me, of having to see my family again etc. and that's why she's been afraid to kiss me. I think she equates a kiss to instantly being bf/gf again and if we do that, there's a potential she'll get hurt.  If she can be brave enough to sincerely give this a shot and open up just a bit more to the possibility, I think we could really make solid progress and be a great couple again.

[ravfour4]

Bump - looking for more opinions.

My plan now is to give her some space (text less, call less, have her initiate plans etc.) now that i feel we've regrown a sincere connection (despite the occasional "confusion" to help grow the attraction. I think I've been too needy lately which may have been pushing her away.