Hey All, 6 months since she moved out and 1 month since divorce decree after 11 year marriage and 15 years in total. I am still feeling the sting but very slowly making progress.
Of all the ways I feel most hurt, baffled and betrayed and cannot for-the-life-of-me figure out is, why she verbally beat me so badly about so many things that in the end, seems as if she never really cared about. Since I am still living in our marital home these things come up daily. I find myself almost robotically cleaning and moving things around with her critical voice in my head laughing at and berating me for mostly petty crap. It never made any sense to me that she was so critical and abusive but I wanted to try and make her happy and show her I cared about and loved her. In the end, she walked away and could care less about any of that stuff.
Presently, I find myself practically coming to tears when I think that none of this really mattered to her and I exhausted so much effort walking on eggshells.
I just can't get this question out of my head; WHY? Why keep asking me to change so many things and in the end not even care about any of it? I took all of her controlling ways and packaged them as meaning love and caring for me - wanting me to be a better person - interested in our being more content with one another. I really cared to make the effort. When she left she said she was never happy in our marriage. What the heck, what was I doing? Did anything I do matter? She left as if I did not even exist and has completely invisibilized me and our 15 years. And here I am STILL carefully putting the dishes away like she used to ask me to do and it doesnt matter one bit.
I feel deeply confused and betrayed and just want to step away from everything in life. Clearly I can't see what was right in front of me.
Any comments, thoughts or shared experiences?
First off, I want to tip my hat to you being involved with someone disordered for 15 years. I made it a total of a year (almost exactly), I simply can't imagine how exhausting 14 more would've been for me. With that said, I still have my days where I miss her companionship. I miss her. I ask myself as well: why?
The thing that seems to be constant with the accounts I read here and my own is that pwBPD are ever changing. Since they seem to have no sense of self, they morph into various people with great liquidness. They seem to always be in a state of flux. But, larger than that, is how we get attached to them. If you haven't, read about trauma bonds. Trauma bonding is some serious stuff and I feel that's why we feel so alone/bad/messed up when they leave us. We have been abused (some physically, some emotionally, some both) in these relationships and it takes time to undo that kind of damage. It takes time for us to level back off because we have been off kilter for far to long to even know when the ship is back on course.
I have found myself asking the "did any of it matter" question as well. While mine was only a year, I was fully attached to J. When it came crashing down and she literally told me at the end of our r/s that she felt better but didn't want to because of all the bad stuff she had done to me but couldn't dwell on it, I realized just how sick and twisted she was. This year wasn't full of all bad memories, no. But, we were seeing our r/s in two totally different ways. She had told me that she often felt like I was using her. The funny thing was, she was the one using me. She was mad at me because I was leaving her, but "couldn't dwell" on the fact that I was leaving because she had been on 2 dates with a guy (R) while she had me in limbo. She saw no problem with it because she had decided he "was weird" and wasn't going to pursue anything further. I was the ole standby at that point. I have found out that I have been both The Guy and The Other Guy with her this past year. So, yes, I have been where you are by asking "did anything I said/did/show her ever matter" along with the "did she mean anything she said/did/showed me".
Even right now as I type this, as she still occupies space in my head, she's dating A New Guy (guy #2 since we officially ended in late dec). She literally monkey branched from me, to R, (attempted back to) me, onto Guy #2 in the course of about a month. It's been a crazy year for me. Oh, and I should mention she is diagnosed, medicated, and (allegedly) in DBT.
She easily discarded me as if I was yesterdays leftovers. She doesnt appear to have any remorse for it, because I was the 'user' that 'left her'. Thats honestly how she now sees the "one man who truly loves her, flaws and all" as she once said. Now, we are complete strangers. Sure, she looks like J, but she's not J... .not anymore.
It's going to take time to level out. One day at a time. Habits are hard to break, but you'll get there.
