Hi Cosmo,
Very good post and lots of good responses from other members. You're clearly very self aware and very empathetic to your ex and others, but you seem to really struggle to forgive and accept your own humanity. We're all imperfect. I would chime with what Mutt has said about working to forgive yourself.
One of the things that has never changed for me is my concept of who my ex is. Learning about BPD has given so much more context, …...
I can relate to a lot of this. My ex is capable of great kindness and generosity and in many respects she doesn't fit the profile of many of the BPDs described on this site. But she can also be terribly destructive and cruel. I've struggled for a long time to reconcile the two, but I've finally come to accept that these two extremes are part of who she is
I don't think many people know my ex. Very few, actually. And that's because she does wear a mask to the world at large. She has walls within walls within walls. I have never met someone who craves so much time alone. She doesn't do the internet. Rarely texts.  :)oesn't go out. And yet she is unfailingly kind, warm, and courteous to strangers and all the people she keeps at such distance. At her work, the girls would beg her to come out with them - and she never did. Not one single time our entire relationship ….
My ex is high functioning and to my knowledge highly respected and well liked at work. She was also capable of acts of real generosity to work colleagues, strangers and her partners but generally she was most generous there was no real intimacy involved. In public she wore a mask and only really revealed who she was to me. She didn't like social media, texting and when she came home she frequently retreated into a shell and could be very socially avoidant.
What does all this mean?
I don't doubt that she developed these unhealthy behaviours and coping mechanisms for good reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that they are unhealthy and destructive to her and to whoever she is in relationship with.
I still feel so incredibly privileged to have been allowed in. To know the real her. I know she gave me a precious gift. She told me as much. She told me she never trusts anyone. Once while she was reflecting back, she said that when she met me she just had this feeling that she could trust me, and she couldn't explain why. She said she felt safe….
My ex said similar things and I tried my best to be worthy of her trust
But I did and said things that broke it. Why? Over time I felt overwhelmed by her secrets and her pain - as the hope of healing or improvement seemed to steadily diminish. At times her pain and darkness triggered my own vulnerabilities and I felt overwhelmed and powerless to help her get better. I accept that I tried the best I could, but I have my own frailties, we all do, and trying to help her while accepting her unhealthy behaviour just made things worse for both of us.
I think she needed to be confront her pain and trauma with someone who had the skills and objectivity to help her heal. I couldn't do that and I don't believe it's really fair or healthy to expect a romantic partner to heal your wounds.
For me, the question of who my ex is does not trouble me. What really troubles me still - even haunts me in a way - is how carelessly I handled that emotional safety that she once felt. Perhaps our breakup was in the cards from the start. It's possible. But I can also see so many times when I hurt her, let her down, broke her emotional trust. And I regret it….
I agree that emotional trust is so important and so very easy to destroy. I hugely regret my the mistakes and the harm I did. But lets acknowledge our own humanity and accept that we all make mistakes in relationships and even for the very strongest of us sharing your life with someone suffering from a serious mental disorder presents huge challenges. I try and temper acknowledgement of my mistakes with some compassion for my weaknesses and an appreciation of my strengths.
What first tipped me off to BPD was that my ex seemingly broke up with me out of nowhere, without reason (she said herself that this had nothing to do with anything I had done, she still loves me, thinks that I was an amazing boyfriend, thanked me for how much I had made her feel safe and loved), and then went completely silent. One of the last things she ever said to me was "we'll talk soon", and we never did. That is still one of the most distinctly BPD behaviors. I increasingly wonder if I am incorrectly seeing BPD when she is a better fit for complex PTSD….
As you probably know there's a substantial body of thought that believes that BPD is a type of complex PTSD. Do you think this would change the outcome of your relationship?
Diagnosing a PD is incredibly tricky, even for a very skilled clinician. There are lots of reasons for this. Co-morbidity is very common which means that a diagnosis is rarely clear cut. In her book The Narcissistic Borderline couple Joan Lachlkar's, a highly respected and experienced therapist writes;
"Since narcissistic/borderline traits, states, and characteristics are not clear entities and tend to vacillate, diagnosis can be elusive. Ironically, when the borderline progresses in treatment, he or she becomes more narcissistic (there is nothing worse than a narcissistic borderline). In addition, an individual may exhibit both narcissistic and borderline characteristics simultaneously, further confusing the issue. It is challenging enough for therapists to diagnose individual personality disorders"
We're not clinicians or healers and even if we were it's almost impossible to help someone heal when you're romantically or emotionally involved...
One of the things that bothers me is that there wasn't the hook in forming an attachment. In fact, she was very hesitant to form a relationship. She told me she didn't think she'd ever get married again. This is a woman who was in her late 20s at the time. She said that she had so much baggage, and she felt like she was permanently damaged goods... .
My ex confided in me about her childhood sexual abuse, her first boyfriend's suicide, very painful things that she had hidden from her family. Why did she do that?
On one level is appeared to be an indication of deep trust and intimacy, taking off her mask and baring her soul to. But it was also place an immense burden on me and our relationship. Her confidence carried an expectation that I to protect her and heal her pain. I couldn't and instead I ended up excusing behaviour that was unhealthy and destructive to me. At the heart of it was a resistance on her part to taking responsibility for her own healing and behaviour. Enabling her didn't help her heal and it made me miserable.
So, this also makes me wonder if nothing could have been done. One of the most difficult, but eye opening realizations I've (very) slowly come to realize is just how much I hurt her... .
It took me time to acknowledge that I had also hurt my ex deeply. I think it can be a very healthy realisation but it needs to balanced with compassion for yourself.
You seem to be setting yourself impossibly high standards. We're all guilty of making mistakes and hurting in each other either through ignorance or when our own weakness and vulnerabilities are triggered. Many of lack self awareness and important communication skills and we only realise it over time from making mistakes. That's normal and human. We're not supermen.
I know that ultimately this isn't about our ex. In the end this is about us. I still wonder what might have happened if I had been wiser. Had better emotional intelligence. Had dealt with my own issues better. Was this inevitable? I'm not sure anymore.
The hard truth is that you won't know, but from what I've read and seen the prognosis is never good unless both partners take responsibility for their own healing.
Do you think she was really read to do that?
Yes, it is very hard to deal with loving someone who is so damaged and who struggles so much. It broke my heart; still does. She really is an amazing person.
I'm certainly rethinking the relationship and I am seeing things through new eyes. I'm definitely making some connections that I hadn't before. I believe two people can deeply love one another and not be able to make the relationship work. That's a very hard truth for me.
I think this is a healthy realisation though I agree it's still a bitter pill to swallow
I remember my ex telling me even before we started actually dating that she needed a lot of alone time, and that this had caused problems in other relationships in the past with friends and partners. There would be times even then when she didn't answer calls or texts for a day or two or three... .
Why were your needs less important than hers?
Intimacy and emotional availability are vital parts of a healthy relationship. Your exes admission of being regularly unavailable, which sounds like a very unhealthy coping mechanism, doesn't make it healthy or less destructive to your relationship. Was she willing to work on this? Was she seeing a therapist?
I also had some significant issues of jealousy about her marriage. I'm not proud of that at all. It is one of my deepest and most shameful regrets of our relationship, and I wish I could take it back more than anything. I know I hurt her terribly….
As I said earlier I did and said some very destructive things that I deeply regret, but I can't change that and it doesn't make me responsible for my exes choices or behaviour.
From what you've said she's experienced a lot of trauma and sadness. My ex experienced some awful things too, but confiding them to me didn't help her heal.
In truth I think it did the opposite. I think she was of avoiding doing the work with someone who had the skills and objectivity to really help and challenge her. We're not therapists or healers and someone with that kind of trauma needs to work with a really skilled and experienced professional in a relationship that's not compromised or clouded by romantic attachment.
And this may sound harsh but in retrospect I also think my ex used her trauma as a way of avoiding responsibility for her destructive behaviour.
I've been really hurt and terrible things happened to me so you can't judge me or hold me responsibleThese are only a few of the things that I know are my issues. There's also my bipolar disorder, my FOO issues, my abandonment issues, my trying to fix her, and on and on. I'm not sure that's being lost in the FOG. What do you think? I think it's me needing to really take a sobering look at myself. To be perfectly honest, I think it was me who was the worse partner. I had always thought it was her. I don't anymore.
As the other posters have said I think you need to temper your growing self awareness with compassion for yourself. You deserve a lot of credit for your courage and kindness, your intelligence and empathy. You have worked for hard to overcome your own challenges and pain and at the very least you deserve to be with someone who values you enough to do the same.
Thanks for posting
Reforming