Reconciling two versions of the same relationship

[joeramabeme]

Hey All, 3 weeks since she moved out.  I can't reconcile. Like I lived in one r/s and she lived in a different one.  I am feeling weirded out.  I think I am depressed.  Need for sudden hour long nap when I never nap.  Disoriented and confused.  staring at the floor and spaced out.  Ears ringing... . 

As the weeks have ticked away I have started to go back out again as a single person trying to keep my spirits up.  Some of these are places that I have gone with her.  Memories of our times together come back.  We had some good times.  went fun places, did fun things.  There really was a lot of love - along with the dysfunction.  But she can't remember any of that now.  It's all bad in her mind.  I got a lot of personal growth and love and she got . . . I don't know, seems like nothing.  It is all so crazy.  can't believe I missed all this along the way.  Just assumed that she was having a similar experience as me and trying to work out thekinks.  Whoa.  that was mistaken.

Now i am thinking it was like she was in a completely different experiential state.  Is this what others feel?  like you were in a split r/s?  Jeckyl and hyde?  That what she called me. 

[gameover]

I can relate to feeling that I got more out of the relationship than she did.  Given my codependent goal to prove she was loveable and to keep her from ever being played again, that sucks.

But she was present for that good.  She experienced it in that moment.  How she chooses to remember it is on her.  But do you really think she didn't learn some good from you?  She spent however long studying you for everything that was good in you.  And I promise you she's taking some of that with her, wherever the rest of her life takes her. 

You were her rock, for a while, in a life full of turbulence.  And there's something to be said for that.  Everything else is just defense mechanism.

[Yolanda123]

I can totally relate joeramabeme. One of the hardest things for me is coming to the realization that I am the only one grieving and missing the Relationship, the great moments, the love, the affection, the laughs, all the small things that only me and him shared. All that was real to me and that I thought we shared, is now distorted by BPD and beautiful things are turned to ugly in his mind.

Not only regarding the memories I have post b/u, but it makes me question everything during the r/s. Like we were living 2 parallel stories, the one I thought was happening, and that he made me believe he was a part of and wanted, and then the completely different reality he went through.

[Dr56]

Hi joeraabeme,

I can totally relate to your sense of confusion and disorientation. This was, and continues to be, one of the most difficult things about my split: trying to reconcile what I thought, and still think, was a relationship with many wonderful aspects, with the terrible way it ended; and the absolutely painful way she painted it all black while moving out. I had no idea what BPD was when that was happening, so that made trying to piece together the "real" story even more mind-boggling for a while.

My T has emphasized the importance of me maintaining my own narrative of events, and not allowing my SO to shape the entire marriage story. One of the really perverse things about this behavior is the way the painting you black shatters your sense of trust and can color your own perception of the relationship, so that you actually start to think, "Maybe it was all a bunch of dog***. How can I ever know if someone really enjoys their time spent with me?" Some days I want to believe it was terrible all along, as I feel like that would make it easier to move on, and because I want to be angry at her. But if I'm honest with myself, for most of our relationship, it was really very pleasant. Not in an exaggerated, ecstatic, idealized way, but in the sense that it was a very warm, cozy relationship to be in for quite a while. For much of the time, it was really nice. We treated each other well and shared a lot together for 10 years. Not bad at all - and more than many people I know can say about their relationships.

Unlike some people who post here, I do think my SO was capable of expressing genuine love and affection that is not merely raw need; I just believe she's not capable of sustaining it for very long at a stretch. I remind myself of this often. Even when I hear her rant and rave, I continue to maintain that I wasn't in a bad relationship all along, but one that ended very badly after a pretty damn good, decade-long run.

I am positive my SO didn't see it all as horrible all along. When I saw her recently, during an interaction where she was actually quite lucid and calm, she said, "I don't understand how we wound up in this place. We had a loving, intimate relationship. It wasn't a bad relationship at all. We really enriched each other's lives for so long. How on earth did this happen?" I think even she senses that her painting it black doesn't match up with the reality of the situation. And I sense she experiences quite a bit of shame and frustration from this cognitive dissonance.

One thing to remind yourself is that when pwBPD are in the throws of a dysregulated fit, all facts are changed to fit their feelings. So when she's painting the relationship black, it may not be that she experienced every event in a negative manner right as it happened, but is re-writing the marriage history to justify what she's feeling now.

I think it helps to zoom out. If you spend too much time focusing on whether she really enjoyed what you thought were happy moments together, you'll drive yourself nuts. This is true even when "non" relationships end, to some extent. But if you're like me, you can take some comfort in knowing that the relationship was, for a long time at least, a place of comfort, safety, and respect - during which time it was a good experience FOR YOU. When it became clear she could no longer offer that, you tried to move on. If you spent years in a relationship where YOU were terribly unhappy, then that's where you should really be worried.  

[joeramabeme]

Dr56 - we both share a 10 year marriage story.  and this... .

Unlike some people who post here, I do think my SO was capable of expressing genuine love and affection that is not merely raw need; I just believe she's not capable of sustaining it for very long at a stretch.

Guess i feel run over thinking that she is not at all in tune to the sense of loss and gravity of walking out of the marriage.  Sad but it feels like she made a decision between looking at herself more closely or leaving the marriage and chose the later.

It is funny how, now that it is all over I seem to remember the good things and forget all the bad things.  During the marriage I can remember thinking, I cannot live like this anymore.  When I finally got to some root causes of my own part in our dance, I thought we would both be happy to get past all the struggles and see changes that would improve our lives.  But I was reading an appropriate line in SWOE last night that said something to the effect of; don't expect the person to celebrate the changes you make that alter the reasons why they picked you to begin with.  How totally appropriate.

This may sound twisted, but if I had to chose another r/s I would chose someone just like my ex w/out all the emotional problems.  I feel like all i can do now is wait for the hurt to subside and try to move forward. 

[Invictus01]

I remember when my r/s ended I was so lost, I was questioning everything. I was literally asking myself - "Was any of this real? Was she real? Who did I deal with?" It was so bizarre, almost impossible to explain. It was to the point where I was questioning whether people she introduced me to a month prior were actually her parents. I had never been in such a state of mental confusion.

So, yeah man, reconciling all this is a hell of a job in the beginning... .or rather in the end... .

[Darsha500]

I've been going through a somewhat similar experience myself.

One of my recurrent thoughts has been, "This relationship doesn't count, it's illegitimate." My rationale behind this is that, were it not for her BPD, the relationship would never have transpired as it did. We would not have even met.

On top of that, I've struggled with this idea of whether or not she ever truly loved me, whether I was special to her. I, too, choose to conclude that she did.

But she was present for that good.  She experienced it in that moment.  How she chooses to remember it is on her.  But do you really think she didn't learn some good from you?  She spent however long studying you for everything that was good in you.  And I promise you she's taking some of that with her, wherever the rest of her life takes her.  

You were her rock, for a while, in a life full of turbulence.  And there's something to be said for that.  Everything else is just defense mechanism.

Thanks for this Gameover. _ I do feel deep down that I had a positive impact on my ex.

It seems to me, that like our expwBPD, we too are forced to look back over our failed relationships and somehow make sense of them. Unlike our partners, though, we are less susceptible to polarized thinking, and thus have a bit more leeway in our interpretations.

Love is a word. Its a construct, you cant measure it directly. Yet, part of me wants to label the love we experienced as somehow deficient, as based in a falsehood and thus illegitimate. I think, "Oh, perhaps there were certain elements of love present, but not enough of them to meet criteria for true love." And my mind can go on and on like this.

In the end though, all I really have is the experience of what it felt like. Was that experience - call it love, call it what you will - meaningful to me? Did it have a significant impact on my life?

Yes it did. And I will take that good and I will celebrate it.

I'll end with one last note.

I was discussing this topic with my T today. I told him about the last thing my ex said to me was, "like the F###ing pussy you are." He said, to discount that expression would be to discount the flip side of the expression: her love. They were both real; the devaluation and the love and idealization.

[disorderedsociety]

I remember when my r/s ended I was so lost, I was questioning everything. I was literally asking myself - "Was any of this real? Was she real? Who did I deal with?" It was so bizarre, almost impossible to explain.

Same here. It feels like a lot of the relationship has gone blank. Like I was switched off mentally for a lot of it. And its so surreal thinking about the interactions we had, almost like did they even happen?

[joeramabeme]

I remember when my r/s ended I was so lost, I was questioning everything. I was literally asking myself - "Was any of this real? Was she real? Who did I deal with?" It was so bizarre, almost impossible to explain.

Same here. It feels like a lot of the relationship has gone blank. Like I was switched off mentally for a lot of it. And its so surreal thinking about the interactions we had, almost like did they even happen?

I identify with this.  And what makes it hard is that I know the experience was real and yet all of it is so discounted when it feels simply like a one sided memory.  I guess that speaks volumes to how we are wired as people. 

I wonder, if I was all by myself and had a UFO experience and talked with an alien and came here to tell you all about it if I would have the same bewildering experience of did this really happen.  My guess is that I would and it would be difficult to handle. 

When I feel my best, as I go through all this, I am practicing acceptance.  It was all real.  We were in love.  It was a difficult marriage.  I still love her.  She cannot love me.  Time for Joe to move forward. 

Feels pretty authentic.  Guess I feel most stuck when I want to go back to the well that had so much water in it and it is like someone left the well behind but took all the water.  No matter how many times I dip my bucket, I come up empty.

[Mutt]

I can understand how being split black is emotionally distressful and we're in shock and questioning the entire relationship and if the experience was real.

I was asking myself a lot of questions around 3 weeks. My wife left me in our family home for another man; she also took the kids with her. It was a traumatic life event.

And what makes it hard is that I know the experience was real and yet all of it is so discounted when it feels simply like a one sided memory.

I understand feeling stuck and you have a long history with your ex. I like your analogy with pulling up an empty bucket. I can see how you want to reach acceptance and we can find that there is a cause behind all of this and the relationship will make sense. It takes time to reach that place Joe ( acceptance )