How do you say goodbye to the "person" you loved before the BPD set in?

[michel71]

Maybe there was a better way to word this but I see my soon to be ex BPDw as two persons, the one I fell in love with that was seemingly "normal", loving and adoring of me, couldn't get enough of me sexually, thought I was the cat's meow, thought I was her knight in shining armor, was excited about our hopes and dreams, was happy to be with me, was trustworthy and kind and gentle, AND THE NEW ONE, with uBPD, rageful, hateful, cruel, heartless, ungrateful, abusive, disrespectful and demonstrates in so many ways that she does not love me anymore.

Our story was a long distance love affair. We met online. Courtship lasting nearly 3 years as we went back and forth quite often spending long times together. We got married. Then went though the spousal visa process. She came here and it was all downhill and fast. Like a switch. A nightmare. We are talking divorce. I don't see any point in continuing. See my recent posts.

I keep pining for the the one I feel in love with and that is why I put up with constant abuse for 14 months straight. She was my everything. To say nothing of the financial cost, I moved mountains so that we could be together. Now I have very little savings left.

So how to I stop pining and feeling nostalgic for the "old her". I feel like the old her died in her own country and I took some other woman with me to the US.

If I could learn how to let go or say goodbye to the old her, I feel like I could heal faster or cope better.

[rotiroti]

Have you tried writing a no-send letter? As in a letter addressed to the ex you fell in love with, but you don't actually send it.

It can be very cathartic just writing out the words

[Invictus01]

Unfortunately, there is no old one or new one, it is all the same one... .These relationships are probably the biggest mind f#$% a normal person can go through. A normal mind can't just comprehend all this weirdness. All you can do is walk away.

[Infared]

Yes... .I know both of those people... .I think most who come to this website know Jekyll and Hyde.  I think I spent the best years of my life with the good one. Truly ... it was a fantasy, (I just didn't know it would turn into a nightmare fantasy!).

I don't know if I will ever truly get over those good years... .I had them, wouldn't trade'em for anything... .They're just so bittersweet though after the switch flipped one day and the monster was let out of its cage. I am guessing this is who she really is inside... .and if so... that must be a severely torturous life she lives.  She sure did F up mine.

I never thought I would end up having to protect myself from the one that I loved the most... .

[fromheeltoheal]

Think attachments with borderlines; an attachment is mandatory and survival-based in a borderline's head, so she's going to do whatever it takes to establish one, one tool being mirroring, reflecting back to you the good she saw in you, to affect the attachment yes, but also to assume those traits as her own, to make herself whole, actually to make the two of you 'one'.  So the gal you fell in love with was actually your good reflected back to you, so you fell in love with yourself, first of all, and second you get to keep that, it's with you right now.  How cool is that?

[SummerStorm]

Unfortunately, there is no old one or new one, it is all the same one... .These relationships are probably the biggest mind f#$% a normal person can go through. A normal mind can't just comprehend all this weirdness. All you can do is walk away.

It really is such a huge mind f#$%.  And the worst thing is that people who have never known a pwBPD look at us and say, "Oh my God, just get over it already."  I function pretty well during the day, but I dream about her every single night, and it drives me crazy.  I've never really had vivid dreams before, but the ones I've been having for the past few weeks feel so real. 

You're completely correct in saying that it's all the same one.  I'll even take it a step further.  It's all the same one, and even that one has no clue what he/she is.  It's almost like they're robots, waiting for someone to feed information into them, so that they can basically just spit it back out.