Rough morning after texting with ex

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

My ex started texting me again, basically made it clear he was interested in getting together to hook up but now much more than that. He of course wouldn't just say that was all he wanted, when I asked if he still loved me he just went "that's a secret." When I pried to try to figure out what exactly he expected and wanted out of seeing me again he was getting annoyed. We texted a bit Friday night and Saturday morning then he started getting short with me. I ended up texting him this morning and saying I wanted to just stop talking. I told him how I felt about everything, how I felt like I was just annoying him whenever I tried to talk about anything real or figure things out and how he would accuse me of trying to start a fight no mater what I say. He tells me I keep flip flopping what I want (which, in fairness, I do. I want to talk to him when he is nice to me and I don't want to talk to him when all of the sudden he isn't.) we ended up having a dramatic conversation where he admitted no fault, told me he shouldn't have let me back in his life because I'm toxic to him and when I told him his relationships would all play out the same way if he refuses to take any accountability he told me he does but I can have fun ruining all my other relationships. He is now blocked on everything again. It's like we live in two completely different realities, so frustrating. Just wanted to post this as it has me feeling down, and at this point friends and family have no sympathy and are confused about why I still care or let myself get upset as we broke up in late October. Feeling pretty low at the moment.

I know I turned toxic to him but he was never good to me either. Conveniently that part never makes it into the arguments.

[samanthagrace]

My ex started texting me again, basically made it clear he was interested in getting together to hook up but now much more than that. He of course wouldn't just say that was all he wanted, when I asked if he still loved me he just went "that's a secret." When I pried to try to figure out what exactly he expected and wanted out of seeing me again he was getting annoyed. We texted a bit Friday night and Saturday morning then he started getting short with me. I ended up texting him this morning and saying I wanted to just stop talking. I told him how I felt about everything, how I felt like I was just annoying him whenever I tried to talk about anything real or figure things out and how he would accuse me of trying to start a fight no mater what I say. He tells me I keep flip flopping what I want (which, in fairness, I do. I want to talk to him when he is nice to me and I don't want to talk to him when all of the sudden he isn't.) we ended up having a dramatic conversation where he admitted no fault, told me he shouldn't have let me back in his life because I'm toxic to him and when I told him his relationships would all play out the same way if he refuses to take any accountability he told me he does but I can have fun ruining all my other relationships. He is now blocked on everything again. It's like we live in two completely different realities, so frustrating. Just wanted to post this as it has me feeling down, and at this point friends and family have no sympathy and are confused about why I still care or let myself get upset as we broke up in late October. Feeling pretty low at the moment.

I know I turned toxic to him but he was never good to me either. Conveniently that part never makes it into the arguments.

[samanthagrace]

I guess I'm also just stunned by the fact that someone who hurt you so badly and screwed you so royally can still manage to place all of the blame on you! I screwed up a ton. I overreacted to him treating me like a second choice or lying to me or hiding things from me or shutting down on me. God how I wish I could go back and not react, for my own sake. But how is it that what I was reacting to isn't significant to him? I would never treat someone the way he treated me.

[Lonely_Astro]

I guess I'm also just stunned by the fact that someone who hurt you so badly and screwed you so royally can still manage to place all of the blame on you! I screwed up a ton. I overreacted to him treating me like a second choice or lying to me or hiding things from me or shutting down on me. God how I wish I could go back and not react, for my own sake. But how is it that what I was reacting to isn't significant to him? I would never treat someone the way he treated me.

How, exactly does one over react to being treated like a second choice, lied to, being shut out, or otherwise emotionally abused?   What I'm hearing in all this is how HE feels about how you reacted.  It sounds to me that you let your feelings be known the best way you could while under duress.  That's not wrong.  That's completely normal.  We all have stressors and/or triggers.  BPs excel at exploiting those triggers and fears, then making you feel bad for expressing it.

Please don't be so hard on yourself.  You were expressing yourself.  If you were involved with a healthy, function adult, this wouldn't have been an issue.  Certainly, sometimes, people's communication breaks down but usually is resolved with an adult, mature discussion and the issue is resolved.  BPs are neither an adult (in the sense I'm meaning) nor mature enough to do that.  Especially if they lack empathy. 

[samanthagrace]

I guess I'm also just stunned by the fact that someone who hurt you so badly and screwed you so royally can still manage to place all of the blame on you! I screwed up a ton. I overreacted to him treating me like a second choice or lying to me or hiding things from me or shutting down on me. God how I wish I could go back and not react, for my own sake. But how is it that what I was reacting to isn't significant to him? I would never treat someone the way he treated me.

How, exactly does one over react to being treated like a second choice, lied to, being shut out, or otherwise emotionally abused?   What I'm hearing in all this is how HE feels about how you reacted.  It sounds to me that you let your feelings be known the best way you could while under duress.  That's not wrong.  That's completely normal.  We all have stressors and/or triggers.  BPs excel at exploiting those triggers and fears, then making you feel bad for expressing it.

Please don't be so hard on yourself.  You were expressing yourself.  If you were involved with a healthy, function adult, this wouldn't have been an issue.  Certainly, sometimes, people's communication breaks down but usually is resolved with an adult, mature discussion and the issue is resolved.  BPs are neither an adult (in the sense I'm meaning) nor mature enough to do that.  Especially if they lack empathy. 

Thank you for your response, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. I did react poorly, in a way that had me believing I was the one with the problem for a long time. I would get frustrated and say mean things and tell him I give up because I knew it would never change. But I'm pretty sure I only got angry when I learned that I couldn't just try to have a conversation where I tell him what he is doing is hurting me and why, and try to figure out a way for us to both be happy. He wasn't interested in that or hearing about that and while I wanted compromise he wanted to be able do do whatever he wanted no matter how it effected me while at the same time not having to hear about it from me and having things with me be to his liking. I'm beating myself up so hard when in reality I wasn't half as bad to him as he was to me. And he doesn't feel this guilt, in his mind I'm the problem. We both feel like we are just reacting to the other person being abusive. This has truly been an awful experience and I wish it would all go away. All of the thoughts and guilt and residual feelings. I know I'll never hear from him again based on how awful the last convo was, the things we said and him telling me he is "worth more than being treated this way." I should be the one saying that to him. This is how I feel crazy.

[Lonely_Astro]

It's been my experience that a BP needs constant validation yet has no issues with invalidating you.  That's how J was with me, anyway.  It was common practice for her to tell me how I was doing something 'wrong' or 'disappointed her' because I didn't read her mind but if I ever attempted to tell her how she had hurt me in some way, she would shut me down in someway.  You see, a BP can't accept any shame/guilt.  It's literally like death to them. J would always admit to her wrongdoing, once caught, and then would immediately shift the blame off to someone else (it was usually me, her mom, or her estranged husband). As a human, this sort of invalidation wears on us.  Eventually, you're going to 'snap' or 'lash out' under that sort of trigger.

BPs with N traits make it even more difficult.  They seem to excel at invalidating you.  J is diagnosed as BPD, but she had N traits.  This gives her the 'right' to have a double standard in her mind.  Literally, everything is about her.  Your wants, feelings, desires, hopes, and dreams only matter when they're in line with her narrative.  If they weren't, they didn't matter.  J would talk about how she deserved this or that (i.e. Be treated better, etc), yet she would often hurt others and it wasn't a big deal to her.  They were the problem, not her.  She felt everyone should respect her feelings, yet she didn't have to respect anyone else. Make sense?  Don't put stock in him telling you he deserved better.  YOU deserved better too. It was toxic for both of you.

Trust me, getting away is the hardest and best thing to do.  I know this, I understand this.  Yet, I miss her.  That's for me to work out.  But, you aren't crazy. You are human.  Don't worry about how he's feeling. You don't have any control over that.

How are YOU feeling?