How come I don't feel lucky to be out of the relationship?

[swimjim]

Reading a previous post from September, 2012 entitled ":)oes marrying your BPD help them settle down more?", a former moderator (Greenmango) ,may I paraphrase, noted that BPD's can make it work with other people". My first question is what kind of "other people" is being referred to here? Secondly, I start feeling bad that I messed up the opportunity to make it work. I have had numerous people tell me that I dodged a bullet but I can't get myself to believe it. I am stuck in a rut. She is now married, and I could have married her. Can anyone understand my struggle? I really want to BELIEVE marriage to her would have been a huge mistake. I need to put this past me once and for all. Thanks in advance.   

[valet]

Perhaps you are mirroring the projections of shame that your pwBPD cast onto you while you were still in the relationship.

Do you feel that you failed yourself by not being able to maintain it in a healthy way?

[Learning_curve74]

Getting married doesn't magically make any bad relationship into a good relationship, and this is even true when neither partner has BPD. When people think getting married will solve their problems, that is magical fairy tale thinking. In fact, you just have the same exact problems you had as before being married, but now you have added in all the legal problems of being married! 

When you say it can "work", ask yourself what your definition of a "working relationship" is. Does it simply mean you're not broken up? Does it mean both parties feel safe and loved? What characteristics have to exist for a healthy fulfilling relationship?

If you want a reality check, go read the staying board. BPD is a serious mental illness. If you want to work on detachment, check out the sidebar to the right that says "Attachment leads to suffering, detachment leads to freedom". Click on "The Lessons", read them, and learn them.

[swimjim]

Maybe I could have made it work by walking that fence in avoiding  triggering her abandonment fears and attachment ( engulfment ) fears. She gave me a marriage ultimatum after 5 months dating. I was not ready then. I think she started devaluing me at that point. The emotional merry go round started at that point with many break ups and make ups. I was still apprehensive since she started boycotting relationship benefits until she had an engagement ring. By the time I finally offered her the ring, she called the police on me. I live with lots of shame and guilt. This is torcher.

[Learning_curve74]

Maybe I could have made it work by walking that fence in avoiding  triggering her abandonment fears and attachment ( engulfment ) fears. She gave me a marriage ultimatum after 5 months dating. I was not ready then. I think she started devaluing me at that point. The emotional merry go round started at that point with many break ups and make ups. I was still apprehensive since she started boycotting relationship benefits until she had an engagement ring. By the time I finally offered her the ring, she called the police on me. I live with lots of shame and guilt. This is torcher.

Hey swimjim, it's totally fine to feel guilty and even shame to a certain point. Those are just feelings. 

It's also important not to simply be a prisoner to our feelings, to step back and use both our head and our heart. Feelings can often too quickly steer us astray from the person we want to be. For example, I'm sure plenty of us have felt the urge to kill some idiot driver that cuts them off, but I'm equally sure that very few of us want to be a murderer.

If somebody can't respect that you're not ready to be married after 5 months of dating, what are the odds that if you simply agreed -- which by the way would be sacrificing your own wants and needs -- that somewhere down the line she wouldn't find something else that triggered her into "devaluing" you? All the things she started doing in the "devaluation phase", what about being married do you think would have made your relationship immune to that?

I know you've been on the boards for a while, but maybe it's time to re-read this article: Symptoms and diagnosis of BPD.

As I said in my earlier post, if you want a reality check and wake up call, visit the staying board. Then imagine yourself in that kind of relationship for 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, or more years. Is that what you really want?

[swimjim]

Maybe I could have made it work by walking that fence in avoiding  triggering her abandonment fears and attachment ( engulfment ) fears. She gave me a marriage ultimatum after 5 months dating. I was not ready then. I think she started devaluing me at that point. The emotional merry go round started at that point with many break ups and make ups. I was still apprehensive since she started boycotting relationship benefits until she had an engagement ring. By the time I finally offered her the ring, she called the police on me. I live with lots of shame and guilt. This is torcher.

Hey swimjim, it's totally fine to feel guilty and even shame to a certain point. Those are just feelings. 

It's also important not to simply be a prisoner to our feelings, to step back and use both our head and our heart. Feelings can often too quickly steer us astray from the person we want to be. For example, I'm sure plenty of us have felt the urge to kill some idiot driver that cuts them off, but I'm equally sure that very few of us want to be a murderer.

If somebody can't respect that you're not ready to be married after 5 months of dating, what are the odds that if you simply agreed -- which by the way would be sacrificing your own wants and needs -- that somewhere down the line she wouldn't find something else that triggered her into "devaluing" you? All the things she started doing in the "devaluation phase", what about being married do you think would have made your relationship immune to that?

I know you've been on the boards for a while, but maybe it's time to re-read this article: Symptoms and diagnosis of BPD.

As I said in my earlier post, if you want a reality check and wake up call, visit the staying board. Then imagine yourself in that kind of relationship for 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, or more years. Is that what you really want?

Thanks Learning curve for taking the time to respond. Somehow I feel that all she needed that was missing in life was being married. I did not know that she was in such financial trouble that she filed bankruptcy at the time that she split me black. The new white knight obviously was there to rescue her. I would have never dreamed she would call the police on me. I agree with what you said. I am just fighting to get my self esteem back. 

[Michelle27]

In my relationship, the devaluation began as soon as we got married.  I'm not kidding, on our wedding day, he had the first big rage I experienced.  Marriage to many pwBPD actually causes their engulfment fears to bubble to the surface, so there's no guarantee that bowing to her demands to get married at 5 month would have resulted in a positive outcome.  In fact, with a pwBPD, chances are actually much more likely it would have crashed at burned, or at least left you walking on eggshells. 

[mango_flower]

YES Swimjim! (I remember you from a few years back by the way!)

I have the exact same thoughts - people tell me I dodged a bullet... .but the new wife seems to be making my ex happy... .so I could have done the same - but clearly I didn't do enough.

Its soul destroying!

I wish I had the magic answer for you.  I have to remind myself that my BPD ex will always feel that sense of shame, that lack of core self, married or not. Their new partners have NO idea they've married somebody so broken, and if the going ever gets tough in life, likely our BPD exes won't be able to cope and they'll run.

So let's hope for the new spouses' sake that there is never a monetary crisis, a health scare, a miscarriage, a legal issue... .because more than likely our exes aren't strong enough to support them through that.  And we both deserve more than to be in that situation where our partners would have a melt down and run.  I actually feel sorry for their new partners because right now they think they have the perfect person - will they be saying the same thing when the going gets tough?  I think not.

It's all just sad, really.

[swimjim]

Thanks Mango and others for replying. I broke down in tears today. At times my recovery takes a step back. I just found out last week that she got married. I saw her in traffic by accident sitting next to her husband while driving. I think she saw me and stared at me. She reached out to her last ex, my replacement to get a Kindle back she lent him a couple years ago that I bought her for her birthday a few years back. The next thing my replacement got was a threatening email from her new husband telling him to leave his wife alone. She calls my replacement after the email threat and tells him not to worry, he won't cause trouble, he is just a possessive husband. So much drama that I think she started herself. I really hope I recover and realize I am better off.

[Learning_curve74]

Hey swimjim, it sucks to feel hurt and break down in tears. I think many of us here can totally identify with you since we've all probably been there ourselves. Be kind to yourself. 

Everybody's healing proceeds at their own rate, and it's not a straightforward thing. It's okay to feel like you're going backwards, we often have our ups and downs being human. We may wish there were some pill to take, but instead we are stuck doing the work ourselves. On the plus side, I believe that everybody who does the work can emerge a much happier and healthier person than they were before and during the BPD relationship!

May I suggest reading an article to help get you back on a healing path? It's this one: Ten beliefs that can keep you stuck. People who have BPD aren't the only ones who suffer from distorted thinking, and this article has examples of mistaken beliefs that we non-BPD often have that can keep up stuck and keep us from healing.

One of the most prevailing beliefs here on the staying board is that the BPD holds the key to our happiness. Do you feel that way?

[disorderedsociety]

Getting married doesn't magically make any bad relationship into a good relationship, and this is even true when neither partner has BPD. When people think getting married will solve their problems, that is magical fairy tale thinking.

+1

What I've noted lately hanging out with new people (I'm 7 mo out) is there's a LOT of dysfunctional habits and behaviors even in relationships I've observed between two decently functioning nons. Marriage to me, involving a BPD afflicted soul, is just another nail in the coffin!

[Loosestrife]

Reading a previous post from September, 2012 entitled ":)oes marrying your BPD help them settle down more?", a former moderator (Greenmango) ,may I paraphrase, noted that BPD's can make it work with other people". My first question is what kind of "other people" is being referred to here? Secondly, I start feeling bad that I messed up the opportunity to make it work. I have had numerous people tell me that I dodged a bullet but I can't get myself to believe it. I am stuck in a rut. She is now married, and I could have married her. Can anyone understand my struggle? I really want to BELIEVE marriage to her would have been a huge mistake. I need to put this past me once and for all. Thanks in advance.   

I worry about this a lot and then I look at the staying boards and people say 'BPD didn't show itself until we had be married x years'... .That is why BPDs are in a rush to get married, because they know they can only behave/act appropriately for so long. I think her new h will have his handsful. The cycle repeats. That's  just my opinion.

[reflection]

Maybe I could have made it work by walking that fence in avoiding  triggering her abandonment fears and attachment ( engulfment ) fears.

I think you would be walking on eggshells for the rest of your life then. I felt like that for the majority of the relationship. It's no way to live.

[Dr56]

I worry about this a lot and then I look at the staying boards and people say 'BPD didn't show itself until we had be married x years'

I had a 10 year relationship (dating for 6, married for 4), and it wasn't until around the 3rd year of marriage that the full-on BPD dysregulation began to really rear its head.

I didn't know anything about BPD at the time, so I often wonder, "What if?" Maybe if I'd known about BPD, had the tools at my disposal, etc., I'd have been able to save it, keep her from moving out, kept it alive. So I can emphatize with the guilt, regret, sadness. But if I'm honest with myself . . . nah, it was going to happen eventually.

If the particular things that triggered her hadn't, something else would have come along later. We had some significant stressors in our lives just before she called it quits; but we never had what I would describe as really shocking life events during our relationship (sudden unexpected death of a family member, failed pregnancy, serious illness to either one of us, etc.); and I would not want to be the person in her path when something like that goes down. 

[swimjim]

Thank you for all your help. I have been married twice before so I know how hard it is to work at marriage. She had never been married in her first 53 years of life. My previous experience had brought me caution to the wind. She, on the other hand, had her foot on the gas pedal to the floor to get married fast. She finally got her wish, just not with me. I guess I was nothing special anyway. By the way, this BPD breakup was by far more painful than going through my divorces. I knew I was better off ending my marriages. I lived with my spouses and had checked out emotionally. On the other hand, I never lived with my ex BPD and probably never saw the worst of her disorder during our relationship. That is probably what gets me second guessing. Calling the police and filing a false restraining order on me for finally offering to her what she always wanted from me should be enough to be convinced I am better off, right?