Over a year on - just seen a picture of xBPD with new gf

[Suspicious1]

I guess this is both a post about progress and a post about being stuck in the past. It's over a year since I walked away from my ex. We'd been together for about 18 months, and he had a cycle of splitting me very, very white for around three months, and then splitting me very, very black and cutting me out. As I saw the fourth cycle approaching, I walked.

He never charmed me. I think he felt he could charm when it was him that had done the leaving, but the minute I did it it was game over. I know him well enough to know that it's all to do with saving face for him - he could never reconcile with a person who had left him because he was so obsessed with appearing "strong", and he refused to have any contact with any of his ex girlfriends, in any way whatsoever.

So mercifully I was left to get on with my life, though this has been the most difficult relationship to move on from. Usually I go through the grieving process within a few months, so to still be stuck over a year down the line is utterly depressing. I've been in a new relationship for about 9 months, and it is going well. The sharp pain has gone, and for the most part I can focus on other things and have a sense of live moving forwards in a positive way.

Yet I still think about my ex every day. I don't long for him every day, but at times that extreme craving comes. Yesterday, in a moment of boredom and curiosity, I looked at his FB page and saw him with his gf for the first time, who is the person I suspected he was grooming towards the end of our relationship. I can't help wondering if they've been together since then, or if it was a long, slow, seduction process. I can't help wondering if he's put her through the same wringer he put me through.

Anyway, these BPD/NPD types leave worryingly intense feelings at the end of relationships, don't they. I've healthily moved through the stages of grief for every single other relationship, but this one still feels it was just like yesterday. Anyone else?

[Lilflower]

We have every similar situations.  I was with my ex for  a little over a year but we really didn't recycle. One push/pull but I wasn't aware at the time that's what happened.  Anyway, I just found out (on FB which I'm not even on) that my ex got married exactly 1 year after we broke up.  Which means he would have had to be SO lucky to have found someone that special so quickly and plan a wedding. Not likely for a normal person. And that's where I found strength in this shocking news. After I was able to wrap my head around seeing his smiling face with his arm around her and digest this a bit, it occured to me that this isn't normal, hence more reinforcement of how lucky we didn't marry me as we had talked about. Just like you I wonder if he has devauled her. There are moments that I think he is treating her like a princess and they are living a fantasy life.  When my mind goes there I go on these boards and read from people who did marry their pwBPD. It doesn't sound like a fantasy anymore.

I commend you for being able to move foward with someone else.  I haven't been able to give anyone a chance but finding out this news has been the push I needed.  It made me VERY angry to realize when I was suffering he had carried on and palnned a wedding.  Up until now I skipped the anger part of grief and it was incomplete. In a weird way I am glad I am angry for now and think finding this out was for my own good.

[Suspicious1]

Liliflower, I hear you. It reminds me of one of the "split black" moments we had - just after he attempted suicide and I sat with him in hospital through the night to make sure he got help, THE VERY NEXT DAY he did a rapid devalue and discard, and cut off contact for nearly a month. Because of the high drama (along with all the other things) I went through a psychotic break myself and ended up on antidepressants and anti anxiety meds. I couldn't function for a long while. And when he got back in contact with me, he told me he'd been on a couple of dates.

So that's a heavily depressed, suicidal person, so broken they couldn't find the emotional energy to approach me (his excuse) going on enough dating websites and making enough connections to eventually go on two dates. In the space of three weeks. That's some fast work, right there. Like you, there's a little voice in my head that tells me it's all rubbish, and there MUST have been something happening before we split, even if he was just out scouting for new supply. Like you, the idea that he was out there making fun new connections when I was suffering so badly because of what had gone on... .it was just impossible to get my head round.

Yes, this kind of reality check is needed. I KNEW there was someone in the background that last time he was devaluing me, and it's one of the reasons I got out. My instincts said it was this person, and it's a relief to know that yet again, my instincts haven't failed me.

There's an odd part of me that needs to know if he's devalued her. I have a need to know that he's repeating patterns, because that helps me know I did the right thing. But that in itself is a worry. Why don't have have the self-esteem to be able to have the courage of my convictions. Why should it matter?

[Lilflower]

I totally get the desire to want to know that he has devauled her as well. And it's nothing against her, it is all for my own validation.  But you and I and many others on here woulldn't have the same exact story if this wasn't part of their pattern. By definition it has to be the case, right? Anyway if anyone from the "married them to nightmare" memebership is reading this, Suspicious and I would really love to hear your insights...

[antelope]

I totally get the desire to want to know that he has devauled her as well. And it's nothing against her, it is all for my own validation.  But you and I and many others on here woulldn't have the same exact story if this wasn't part of their pattern. By definition it has to be the case, right? Anyway if anyone from the "married them to nightmare" memebership is reading this, Suspicious and I would really love to hear your insights...

let's put it this way: when the relationship was over and sought out some of her exes, I realized how identical so much of our relationships were

same cajoling expressions during the honeymoon, same fake promises, same unstable behavior, same disappearing acts, even the same vacations and words used during sex... .

their cycle is a repeating one... .it is a story with constantly revolving actors and actresses, similar plots, identical themes

[Suspicious1]

You are both right, I'm sure. There is evidence of it all around. I have trouble seeing it in my case, because I met him just after he had ended a 20 year marriage, so I carry a fear that it was really just me he was like this with. I do know that within that marriage he had other relationships though, so perhaps he repeated these patterns with those people.

I do need to see those patterns, as a way of validating and making sense of things. I don't wish it upon her, of course I don't. She looks like a terribly nice person, and I'm sure she is. I can't glean much about her from the post that was shared, but it sounds like she's not long out of a marriage herself, and if that is the case he would have been drawn to her vulnerability, as he was drawn to mine (also just out of a bad marriage when I met him - I guess the pattern could well start there). If that's the case and she's been through a period of unhappiness in a relationship, the love-bombing would have been a salve for her, like grasping a hand in the darkness. And while I don't want the next bit to happen to her because I wouldn't want it to happen to anyone, it's as if I need to see it. It's almost like it would be the last piece of the jigsaw, falling into place. And if it does ever happen, I hope she drops me a line because if I can tell her about this place and tell her the things I learned, and if I can somehow get across to her that IT'S NOT YOU, maybe she'll come through it better than I did.

[Pretty Woman]

It's really all about boundaries. How healthy the new person is and how co-d they are.

It may last longer. Don't judge YOUR relationship against the new one.  He treated you like caca. It was unhealthy. End of story.

'

I know easier said than done. 

I try to look at it like this. My replacement and I are the same age... .39. She wants kids like I did.  I wasted 3yrs with this person and realized they can't take care of themselves and I was NEVER going to bring a baby into the equation with her.

I am out before I am 40. I can possibly still have my dream. This chick is headed into an unstable nightmare. NONE of my exes relationships have been un-tainted from cheating, lying and stealing.

Good luck to her!

Try to focus on you. You are most important in this.

You are finally free to find the right one.