Feelings of guilt, self-doubt, icy cold blood running through veins

[Depression = 72% of members]

I've just left (one week now) a relationship that was emotionally abusive. I'm sorry if this is long-winded, but I need to give some background to explain what happened.

I moved to a new city with my long-time girlfriend a year and a half ago. I'll call her Vanessa here. A couple of months later, Vanessa left the country for three months for work and we said we would take the time to assess what we each wanted from the relationship and whether to continue when she returned. While Vanessa was away I made the mistake of starting an affair with a colleague at work. I'll call her Ingrid here. Ingrid was engaged at the time. I acknowledge how risky and hurtful it was to start this affair and I don't want to be let off the hook for the responsibility I bear in having done so. I do want to own that. In broad strokes, what happened next was that Ingrid and I had a very intense emotional and sexual connection. She would come by my place when she could and we fell hard for each other. She broke off her engagement and moved out. Just after breaking off the engagement she told me she was pregnant and that it was mine. She had told me she was on birth control and apologized for having lied about that, and said she wanted to get an abortion. We went through all of that together and that seemed to bring us closer. This was only a little more than two months into the relationship.

As Vanessa was about to return, Ingrid wrote me a sweet letter saying she understood I still loved Vanessa and that I might get back with her and that she didn't want to cause any problems for me, but that for her part she would like to continue with me if I weren't getting back with Vanessa. I should maybe add that Vanessa and I have never had sex, because of her religious beliefs forbidding sex before marriage. Vanessa and I come from very different backgrounds in this respect. I was already feeling a bit disoriented and confused at this point, because I had such different worlds with Vanessa and Ingrid respectively. Vanessa was a long-term partner who was really more like an intimate friend and our relationship was kind and gentle. Ingrid and I were in the midst of an intense infatuation and sexual connection and I could already see that she had an explosive personality. She did largely respect my space with Vanessa, but started to get very suspicious about other ex-girlfriends. For instance, I had a girlfriend when I was in my early twenties who died in a car accident - this is almost 15 years ago now. I keep a journal in which I sometimes write to that girlfriend who died. Ingrid knew about this and one day went through my bag, found the journal, opened it, and then got very upset with me that I still sometimes wrote "my love" to this girlfriend who has been gone for many years now. We talked it through, but it started coming back up over time, Ingrid finding a way to really get into my head about it and make me feel it was wrong to hold on in that way. Ingrid also started going through my phone and my pockets and generally asking a lot of questions about my exes. I became very defensive about these things and started being evasive and trying to hide things from her. For instance I have an ex who became a good friend, and who went through law school with me (after our romantic relationship had ended). We haven't been anything but friends for years but talk regularly. I hadn't told Ingrid about this any of the times she was grilling me about my exes. Ingrid found out one day and exploded on me. She decided that I have a pathological way of holding onto past relationships and don't know how to break things off with people.

There is definitely some truth in this. I have a lot of trouble ending relationships and feeling like I'm disappointed or hurting people. And in hindsight I obviously see that I needed to end the relationship with Ingrid at this point, or if not that, then decide to clearly end things with Vanessa. For reasons that I still don't completely understand, I instead went into some kind of permanent crisis control where I didn't want to let go of either relationship until I felt I was leaving things on good terms. This meant being really secretive and defensive and careful around both Vanessa and Ingrid. Ingrid and I still had the intense sexual and emotional connection, but increasingly she was ripping into me for being such a secretive and terrible person, and she became more jealous and possessive. I've never been in a relationship with any screaming and yelling before, and the intensity of Ingrid's rage really threw me for a loop. When finally I did try to end things (about six months into the relationship), Ingrid responded first by screaming her hatred at me for an hour or so, then begging me not to go, reliving all our good times, swearing she would have no idea how to live without me, and the emotion was all so raw ... .and I did give in, and we seemed to connect even more intensely and sexually. Obviously things were a mess at this point, and over the next few weeks it took three attempts to finally end things. I kept thinking that if I let her give me her worst, let her insult and hurt and tear into me, and then let her see that I was still there willing to hold her ... .that she would at least feel I genuinely did care, even if I was hurting her by ending things. I really would have liked to stay friends, or at least friendly. And we were still working together. Right at the end of all these break-up attempts, I was moving out of town for work. So I've left that city now, left things unresolved with Vanessa, and went through several more months of talking to Ingrid by phone as she called to profess her love and beg me to return to her, or to berate me and tell me I've destroyed her confidence and trust in people.

As I type this, I realize how incredibly stupid it seems that I let things go so far. I wanted very badly to end things on at least a peaceful note with Ingrid, but I wasn't able to. She really did know how to mess with my head, to play on my feelings of guilt (which have grown to monstrous proportions lately, when I've always been so comfortable in my own skin before), to beg me to return, to taunt me with the idea she was pursuing other people at work. All along, I thought, "I just won't let her drag me back in, but I also won't be provoked into returning her anger. She just needs to see that I actually do care for her, and then we can let things be." But in a way she won on that score, because now that we've finally cut all ties and communication, I realize that I am angry at her, that I'm hurting a lot from the sense that someone I shared an intense bond with (even if it was wrong to pursue that) could turn so cold and cruel and want to drive the knife in so deep. I don't know how to explain it in this post, but she just knew how to reach into me and make me feel so low about myself. And I've never been in this emotional space before. I've always been a happy person, looking forward to pretty much every day and to meeting people, to my work, to my hobbies. I feel like I can't clear my head, because I know I made mistakes and acted in hurtful ways, but I thought Ingrid would at least see that I didn't mean anyone any harm -- and I can't get clear anymore on how much I should feel miserable about because I have to take responsibility for my mistakes, and how much is just the pain caused by the feeling of having someone I really loved wanting to crush me emotionally.

And I don't want to be bitter or angry at Ingrid. I hate that I feel dragged down into that. I've never hated an ex before, I've never felt such hostility. I've almost always felt that relationships I've left positive memories for both my partners and me, even if ending things might have been painful. I would just like to recover the sense of self that I had before. Yes, I'd also like to learn not to be secretive, and to learn how to be direct and bring relationships to a close if need be. I know I have things to work on. But I also know I don't mean anyone any harm and I don't feel I deserve to be in so much pain all the time. I've never wanted to hurt someone the way I feel Ingrid wanted to hurt me. And now that I'm away from it all, I just seem to have trouble processing how someone can seemingly want to reach in and crush someone, especially someone they've said has touched them like no one else. I keep replaying everything. I'd like to start healing other relationships, especially with Vanessa, but I feel so trapped inside my own mind, replaying the whole course of things with Ingrid, that I'm really struggling.

I guess that's more or less what I wanted to say here.

[rfriesen]

I've just left (one week now) a relationship that was emotionally abusive. I'm sorry if this is long-winded, but I need to give some background to explain what happened.

I moved to a new city with my long-time girlfriend a year and a half ago. I'll call her Vanessa here. A couple of months later, Vanessa left the country for three months for work and we said we would take the time to assess what we each wanted from the relationship and whether to continue when she returned. While Vanessa was away I made the mistake of starting an affair with a colleague at work. I'll call her Ingrid here. Ingrid was engaged at the time. I acknowledge how risky and hurtful it was to start this affair and I don't want to be let off the hook for the responsibility I bear in having done so. I do want to own that. In broad strokes, what happened next was that Ingrid and I had a very intense emotional and sexual connection. She would come by my place when she could and we fell hard for each other. She broke off her engagement and moved out. Just after breaking off the engagement she told me she was pregnant and that it was mine. She had told me she was on birth control and apologized for having lied about that, and said she wanted to get an abortion. We went through all of that together and that seemed to bring us closer. This was only a little more than two months into the relationship.

As Vanessa was about to return, Ingrid wrote me a sweet letter saying she understood I still loved Vanessa and that I might get back with her and that she didn't want to cause any problems for me, but that for her part she would like to continue with me if I weren't getting back with Vanessa. I should maybe add that Vanessa and I have never had sex, because of her religious beliefs forbidding sex before marriage. Vanessa and I come from very different backgrounds in this respect. I was already feeling a bit disoriented and confused at this point, because I had such different worlds with Vanessa and Ingrid respectively. Vanessa was a long-term partner who was really more like an intimate friend and our relationship was kind and gentle. Ingrid and I were in the midst of an intense infatuation and sexual connection and I could already see that she had an explosive personality. She did largely respect my space with Vanessa, but started to get very suspicious about other ex-girlfriends. For instance, I had a girlfriend when I was in my early twenties who died in a car accident - this is almost 15 years ago now. I keep a journal in which I sometimes write to that girlfriend who died. Ingrid knew about this and one day went through my bag, found the journal, opened it, and then got very upset with me that I still sometimes wrote "my love" to this girlfriend who has been gone for many years now. We talked it through, but it started coming back up over time, Ingrid finding a way to really get into my head about it and make me feel it was wrong to hold on in that way. Ingrid also started going through my phone and my pockets and generally asking a lot of questions about my exes. I became very defensive about these things and started being evasive and trying to hide things from her. For instance I have an ex who became a good friend, and who went through law school with me (after our romantic relationship had ended). We haven't been anything but friends for years but talk regularly. I hadn't told Ingrid about this any of the times she was grilling me about my exes. Ingrid found out one day and exploded on me. She decided that I have a pathological way of holding onto past relationships and don't know how to break things off with people.

There is definitely some truth in this. I have a lot of trouble ending relationships and feeling like I'm disappointed or hurting people. And in hindsight I obviously see that I needed to end the relationship with Ingrid at this point, or if not that, then decide to clearly end things with Vanessa. For reasons that I still don't completely understand, I instead went into some kind of permanent crisis control where I didn't want to let go of either relationship until I felt I was leaving things on good terms. This meant being really secretive and defensive and careful around both Vanessa and Ingrid. Ingrid and I still had the intense sexual and emotional connection, but increasingly she was ripping into me for being such a secretive and terrible person, and she became more jealous and possessive. I've never been in a relationship with any screaming and yelling before, and the intensity of Ingrid's rage really threw me for a loop. When finally I did try to end things (about six months into the relationship), Ingrid responded first by screaming her hatred at me for an hour or so, then begging me not to go, reliving all our good times, swearing she would have no idea how to live without me, and the emotion was all so raw ... .and I did give in, and we seemed to connect even more intensely and sexually. Obviously things were a mess at this point, and over the next few weeks it took three attempts to finally end things. I kept thinking that if I let her give me her worst, let her insult and hurt and tear into me, and then let her see that I was still there willing to hold her ... .that she would at least feel I genuinely did care, even if I was hurting her by ending things. I really would have liked to stay friends, or at least friendly. And we were still working together. Right at the end of all these break-up attempts, I was moving out of town for work. So I've left that city now, left things unresolved with Vanessa, and went through several more months of talking to Ingrid by phone as she called to profess her love and beg me to return to her, or to berate me and tell me I've destroyed her confidence and trust in people.

As I type this, I realize how incredibly stupid it seems that I let things go so far. I wanted very badly to end things on at least a peaceful note with Ingrid, but I wasn't able to. She really did know how to mess with my head, to play on my feelings of guilt (which have grown to monstrous proportions lately, when I've always been so comfortable in my own skin before), to beg me to return, to taunt me with the idea she was pursuing other people at work. All along, I thought, "I just won't let her drag me back in, but I also won't be provoked into returning her anger. She just needs to see that I actually do care for her, and then we can let things be." But in a way she won on that score, because now that we've finally cut all ties and communication, I realize that I am angry at her, that I'm hurting a lot from the sense that someone I shared an intense bond with (even if it was wrong to pursue that) could turn so cold and cruel and want to drive the knife in so deep. I don't know how to explain it in this post, but she just knew how to reach into me and make me feel so low about myself. And I've never been in this emotional space before. I've always been a happy person, looking forward to pretty much every day and to meeting people, to my work, to my hobbies. I feel like I can't clear my head, because I know I made mistakes and acted in hurtful ways, but I thought Ingrid would at least see that I didn't mean anyone any harm -- and I can't get clear anymore on how much I should feel miserable about because I have to take responsibility for my mistakes, and how much is just the pain caused by the feeling of having someone I really loved wanting to crush me emotionally.

And I don't want to be bitter or angry at Ingrid. I hate that I feel dragged down into that. I've never hated an ex before, I've never felt such hostility. I've almost always felt that relationships I've left positive memories for both my partners and me, even if ending things might have been painful. I would just like to recover the sense of self that I had before. Yes, I'd also like to learn not to be secretive, and to learn how to be direct and bring relationships to a close if need be. I know I have things to work on. But I also know I don't mean anyone any harm and I don't feel I deserve to be in so much pain all the time. I've never wanted to hurt someone the way I feel Ingrid wanted to hurt me. And now that I'm away from it all, I just seem to have trouble processing how someone can seemingly want to reach in and crush someone, especially someone they've said has touched them like no one else. I keep replaying everything. I'd like to start healing other relationships, especially with Vanessa, but I feel so trapped inside my own mind, replaying the whole course of things with Ingrid, that I'm really struggling.

I guess that's more or less what I wanted to say here.

[hurtinchicago]

Rfriesen, your story sounds too familiar to me if you remove the other woman. It is okay to be angry, good and angry. You feel tricked and used. You feel like you were robbed of this wonderfully romantic partner by some monster, and in fact you were. The monster is your partner's BPD. In my case, that is what I am angry at. In the end, I have to face the reality that my girlfriend did not know what real love is, and that I was seduced by a desire on her part to possess. I feel a bit empty right now, my relationship having also just ended too. I'm sure that folks with more experience will be along to assist. Good luck!

[rfriesen]

Hurtinchicago, thank you for the response. Empty is a good way to describe the feeling now. I find that especially hard because I used to really enjoy time to myself. In my early 20s, after my girlfriend was killed suddenly in an accident, I spent most of the next three years single and, apart from the very real pain of having lost my girlfriend, those were happy and productive years for me. That's always been a big help when relationships have ended - I've always enjoyed rediscovering time alone. This experience, on the other hand, has left me feeling drained, unfocused, and empty. I don't think I realized the extent to which dealing with this relationship had begun to suck all my waking energy and focus. Now that it's completely cut off, I feel very disoriented.

[gotbushels]

Hello rfriesen

I just read your story and I admire your honesty and willingness to view your circumstances.

I look forward to reading about your leaving the relationship and how NC goes for you.

gotbushels