Letter (for me)

[steelwork]

I write and rewrite this letter and never send it. Sometimes the moderators encourage us to post our letters here, so I'm doing that.

Then again, it's been quite some time, and I'm starting to think it might be okay to send a goodbye letter. I would love to hear what people think of this as a goodbye letter.


Dear D,

The last time we spoke, which was more than a year ago, you said you could have written me a letter of apology twice as long as the one I wrote you. You didn’t say what would be in it, but that’s okay, because I've already forgiven you for everything. And I meant what I said in my letter, and I want to reiterate it now—unsullied by the desire for something in return, because I’m not trying to get you back this time.

I’m sorry I was the cause of so much pain. I want to acknowledge that it was my fault that we never got together, really. You opened the door and I didn’t walk through it. When you were all in, I was still stuck, and I stayed stuck. A year later, when you were finally living on your own, I was still with M. That must have been unbelievably painful—a heartbreak in slow motion.

I’m sorry I didn’t cut you loose. However torn I felt, I could have said, “I don’t choose you,” and that we couldn’t be in each other’s lives anymore. I could have stayed firm when you went away and then came back later with words of love, which you did, many times. A strong and selfless person, or maybe a person who wasn’t in love, would have turned you away. So let me say again: I am sorry.

After the fact, when you revealed your long-hidden rage, you said you’d “seen it for what it was” and that I’d “left you dangling.” Those words stung. When I thought of them (and I thought of them many times), I could understand your anger. I absorbed it without protest and put up a brave front until you cut me off again, but now I can tell you that I was in agony last winter and spring. While we were exchanging carefully calibrated friendly emails, I cried and cried and barely slept and lost 15 pounds. Every week I went to campus to teach my class, and it was one big sad erogenous zone there. No corner of it, not a bench or a dumpster, wasn’t haunted. Every week I sat in my car having a panic attack, chewing on a valium so I could get it together and go up to the department and xerox sh!t for my students. Every week I staggered through class like a zombie clown, and then I drove home through the snowpocalypse and went to my room in K’s basement and thought about you and E lying in each other’s arms.

I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. You have a right to whatever happiness you find, and I want you to be happy. What I’m doing is having my say, because I didn’t get a chance to last year. Apart from those two and a half months last winter when I was trying to hold onto your friendship, I’ve never been dishonest with you. I want to go out honest.

I’ve spent the last year+ digging deep, trying to understand what happened. Well, I don’t know if you’ve forgiven me, but I’ve forgiven myself. I wish I could ask you what you meant when you said you “saw it for what it was.” Did you mean I was playing a game with you, or being malicious or thoughtless? I wasn’t. I was stuck in a terrible place. I know you suffered, but you have to understand that I suffered, too. My heart was breaking, too.

I think I tried to tell you this: it felt like someone had handed me an axe and told me to cut off my left hand or my right hand. I couldn’t end things with you for the same reason you couldn’t walk away: I was in love with you. But I couldn’t leave M either. For one thing, every time I tried, he begged me to stay. He said he would have no reason to live, he wished he didn’t have a son so he could kill himself. And this was not someone I hated—not someone who had treated me badly. He was someone who loved me and took care of me; someone who was proud of me.

You told me, last time we talked, that you have abandonment issues. Well, I have my own abandonment issues. As you know, I was literally abandoned, over and over. Another thing that’s gone on this last year is that the scales have fallen from my eyes. I’ve begun to see my childhood in the harsh light of day. The mother I’ve admired so much my whole life and tried to be so close to has never loved me. She is not proud of me. She doesn’t understand what maternal pride is, or emotional support. She’s said as much. And in any case, she stopped being my mother when I moved away at age 12. My father, who abandoned me in a million ways, who trained me never to rely on him, he died when I was 14. That is abandonment too. And there’s so much more. You know that.

What I’m saying is that M was my good parent. I was not strong enough to leave my good parent for you. But that doesn’t make me a bad person.

Okay, now back to you. I thought I’d gotten all your emails off my computer, but the other day a mail application I never use opened up and I saw this, which you wrote to me two years ago:

“I have been thinking about childhood trauma lately as it relates to feelings of love. I am kind of interested in the idea that childhood trauma is, in a way, a huge gift, because it gives us access to these perfect copies of our younger selves. I guess where I'm going with this is that love seems to put me into a traumatized state -- not that I'm like, feeling awful, just that I'm more prone to magical thinking and all-or-nothing and dissociation. Those are the dangers for me. At the same time, I have access to wonder and tenderness and joy that I can't access in my "adult" life.”

It tore into me to read that, for a lot of obvious reasons. But I’m glad I saw it. It reminded me that I didn’t cause all your pain, just like you didn’t cause all mine. I remember reading it, and others like it, and feeling like I would never not fail you. You were telling me that it hurt to love me. And this, D, is another reason I didn’t come to you. I knew I didn’t have it in me to fix what was broken in you.

We are both wounded, and I think it’s part of why we “mapped onto each other,” as you put it. (Yes, I cleaned out my inbox and took down the blog, but a lot what you wrote is permanently tattooed on my brain.)

I’m told that a big part of my problem is that I didn’t learn to acknowledge my emotions. You let me know how angry you were, and in response I was contrite. After you froze me out, I spent months prosecuting myself for all the ways I ruined everything. It didn’t do any good. It ate away at me, actually. I think it made me sicker. So I will acknowledge here that I’m angry. I’m angry that you can’t or won’t have a conversation with me about what happened between us. I’m also angry about your abusive treatment. The Jekyll and Hyde stuff was abuse, and the lashing out. The silent treatment was the worst of all. It’s a terrible form of emotional abuse to which I’m particularly vulnerable. Let me be clear: this is not about appointing a victim. It is simply an assertion I did not deserve—in fact, no one deserves—that kind of treatment. There’s no justification for abusing someone. Not even if you think it’s an eye for an eye—which I suspect you do, despite the fact that I never treated you with that kind of contempt or cruelty.

I'm angry, but I also forgive you. I loved you and still do. I’m solid like that. When I love someone, they stay loved, and none of what happened between us erases all the wonderful things about you. Thank you for the extraordinary bliss we shared, and for making me laugh so much, and for making me feel like a lovable person for a while. Thank you for introducing me to your world and telling me about your life, which will always be part of me now—a source of mystery and pleasure and vivid detail—though I hate the dark things in your past, and what you suffered. Thank you, strangely, for the messy aftermath of this relationship. It hurt more than I can ever say, but I believe I will be better off in the end. I’ve had to re-experience so much sadness this year, about things that had nothing to do with you. I re-broke the bone, and now it will have a chance to heal correctly.

Thank you for the days.

[rfriesen]

steelwork,

It's a beautifully written letter. I read it through entirely and found it very moving, even without knowing you or any of your story with D. It reminds me of many emails I've sent my ex. After sending my final one, I reread it many times and for a while was full of doubt as to whether I had expressed myself properly. But as the days pass and I occasionally reread it, I feel more and more sure of myself and of having said what I needed to say, in just the words I needed to use. The silent treatment is hard -- my ex had terrible fears of abandonment and would lash out terribly, then go quiet. We went through a long, hard process of breaking up, ending with her lashing out one more time, though it was already clear we weren't going to work. I think she just needed to feel some control over our last communication, to be the one to impose NC. I was surprised how much that ended up hurting, given that by then I already knew I wanted out of the relationship, and had made that clear. I had just been hoping to salvage a friendship.

It did me good, ultimately, to send a long email to my ex, so that I could say my piece on terms of kindness, concern, and best wishes, while also noting that she wasn't the only one who had been hurt. I can't speak for what's best in your case, of course, but I can say I'm happy I sent my ex a proper and balanced farewell.

[steelwork]

Thanks rfriesen for reading and kind words. How long ago did you send yours? How has it felt not getting a reply? (Or have you?)

[rfriesen]

Steelwork, I sent mine two weeks ago. I knew this time would be different from the times we went a day or two without contact, because I felt as if I had suddenly woken up to the brutal contrast between the idealization we had tried living in and the reality of what the relationship was doing to me. That said, of course it's hard not to get any response. You pour your heart out to someone you were connected to so intensely, then ... .nothing. What makes it hard is knowing that I would respond if I were in her shoes, at least to bring things to some kind of peaceful closure. To show that I loved and cared, even if things had to end. Closure is important to me. And my ex knows that - so it hurts quite a bit that she wants to leave things on a painful note. But I've also accepted that that is simply where my ex is mentally - closure is not how she operates, not how she moves on. She's always told me that she leaves her relationships completely in the past - in fact, that was a big source of tension, because she found me "sick" for staying friends with some of my exes. In hindsight, I can't believe I let her frame that issue on her terms. I acknowledge that I might sometimes try too hard to stay friends after I've ended a relationship with someone (maybe making it a little harder for us to move on right away), but I think that's still healthier than suddenly exploding on someone and cutting all ties.

That said, for all her lies, evasiveness, dishonesty, ... .I do think my ex had moments of trying in our relationship. Her fear of abandonment was terrible to witness, and I really feel for her. So I do wish her the best, even though I still have periods of deep anger that I'm working through. But when I reread my farewell letter to her now, I'm happy I sent it because I managed to stay true to who I was. By the end of the relationship, I think I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth to my own nature and character. My ex was dragging me into her world of bitterness, fear, rage, hatred, possessiveness, jealousy ... .and when it all came crashing down, I still somehow managed to send out a bunch of messages that acknowledged her pain, conveyed mine, acknowledged my own mistakes in the relationship and apologized for them, leaving her to analyze her own, and expressed my love for her and wished her the best. I took more time with the final email I sent, but I was still in a chaotic place emotionally when I sent it. So when I read it now, I feel a sense of confidence seeing that even in that crazy state, I was basically true to myself and said what I wanted and showed her that I genuinely care to leave relationships in a positive place, to the extent possible and even if there's a lot of anger and pain.

All that to say, I'm still working through a lot of painful emotions, but I'm glad I said what I had to say to my ex and was true to myself. Yes, it's hard not getting a reply. It hurts. But I know that my ex has no sense of how to provide closure. For her, replying could only mean starting a new cycle of idealization and devaluation. That would be even worse than not getting a reply. My ex and I did not suffer through some of the truly life-ruining experiences that some people have described on this site, so I do have hope that some day (maybe years from now), we might exchange peaceful words and maybe even share a happy memory or two. But I sent my letter knowing that might never be the case, and I'm working to accept that.

[rfriesen]

Also, I want to add that I can relate to being torn between your BPD partner and another. And to scraping by like a zombie at work for a period of time. In my first posts, I gave a kind of long-winded account of my backstory - if you're interested, here:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=291522.msg12741467#msg12741467

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=291638.msg12744171#msg12744171

I made mistakes in the relationship that I have good reason to feel guilty about, and I want to learn from this experience and become a better person myself. But in hindsight, I can see now how my exBPDgf exploited those mistakes to gradually turn our entire relationship into an exploration of how horrible a person I was and how I was ruining the greatest connection there ever was. That blinded me - or almost - to all the horrible things she was doing. Although I'm not proud of having been caught between two people the way I was, I think ultimately it saved me, because it stopped me from diving completely into the chaotic relationship with my ex.

[steelwork]

Oh wow--so it's all pretty raw for you--both the breakup and sending the letter. I'm only now starting to feel ready to send a for-real goodbye letter--i.e. one with truly no ulterior motive.

Well, not true. There are always motives. I want to be heard. And I want to do something to soften the bitterness. You speak of being true to yourself, and that's a huge thing for me too. I was so desperate to get him back that I spent the last months we were in contact basically mirroring HIM-- being phony in a way that I learned from him, in the hope that it would seem lighthearted. So the note we went out on was all about his worst, most reactive communication habits: superficiality, then rage, then silence. I have a need to rewrite that ending.

And maybe, just maybe, years from now... .if he chooses it and I dare, once I've learned the art of the boundary... .maybe some kind of friendship will be possible.

I do remember reading your intro when you posted it and identifying with a lot in it.  What a chaotic mess, right? I lost myself in there. I could go on about the many things you wrote that rang bells for me. And I can't imagine having the perspective you do so early in the process.

Yes, some survivor's instinct saved us from jumping in with both feet.

Still not sure this is the goodbye letter I want to send, but it's getting close. Writers have a saying: you never truly finish a book--you just have to abandon it at some point.

[rfriesen]

Yes, it's still very raw and I still have spells during the day where I feel like I'm just hanging on physically. That awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, the pounding heart, and a kind of cold-blood feeling spreading from my chest. It can make some parts of the day a real struggle. I had an interview last Friday - with a panel of four interviewers! - and it took absolutely all my focus and will power to concentrate during the interview and block out the loop of thoughts that kept playing about my ex and our relationship.

Before this relationship, I've always felt grounded and had a good sense of who I was. I've always been happy in life (though obviously with the usual ups and downs), and though I've been in a few longterm relationships, I've also always been happy alone, even for long periods of time. So I think I had a good foundation to fall back on. That said, I've had to draw on every inch of it just to get through and to wake up to the reality of what my BPD relationship was. And it's also been a humbling experience to read about personality types and see that I do have narcissistic traits that left me particularly vulnerable to the seduction of a BPD relationship (and, in fairness, that also caused pain to my BPD ex, because we kind of both fell for the seduction). I'm still struggling with a lot of emotions, but I do feel confident that I don't need a response from my ex or anything else from her to get by. And I really want to learn from this. It's been hard going from being a confident person with a good sense of self-worth, to seeing those qualities in a negative light, to seeing how I was ready to fall for someone who would idealize me and feed my ego. It's been hard to look at myself in that harsh light and, to be honest, to have my bubble burst. Somewhere in the materials on this website there's a line that says, "Yes, your relationship was special. You were special. But not that special." Or something like that. It was a serious reality check for me and made me realize that lasting relationships take work and attention and don't give you that instant high that makes you feel manically ecstatic. I'm not saying that a loving relationship shouldn't make us feel incredible and special and deeply loved ... .but, for me anyway, I realize now that that intense high and extreme idealization I was part of were completely unstable and could never have been sustained.

[rfriesen]

And you're absolutely right that there are always motives. Wanting to be heard -- that's the big one for me. Also, there were points in the relationship with my ex when I started to think the way she acted was more "genuine", that by trying to express things in a measured and loving way when I was angry or hurting, I was somehow being phoney compared to her "let-it-all-rage-out" approach. So when I would write a kind, considered email, I would sometimes feel I'm not being honest about my motives for writing - even if I acknowledged the anger and hurt, I felt I wasn't expressing them honestly because I didn't rip her to shreds the way she did me.

But then I came to realize that, hey, in these kinds of intense, love-pain relationships, we have a thousand motives and emotions running through us at any given time. I know that over the long run, what I truly want is a sense of peace about our relationship, to remember the love I had for her, for her to know that I care. So I'm not being phoney if that's what I emphasize in my letters to her. Yes, I also want to be heard and I'm angry and I want her to know she's hurt me a lot and never seemed to acknowledge that ... .so I mentioned those things in my letter but I also didn't dwell on them the way she might have if she wrote to me wanting to tear me apart again. I feel you've taken a similar approach - asking your ex to hear all the things that hurt you, but not expressing it all from a place of rage and wanting to tear him down.

So, I guess I'm saying I think it's normal to acknowledge you have many motives for writing. But it sounds like, above all, you want to find some kind of closure to the relationship and to move on in a healthy way. For me, that's what matters most of all. If my ex really hears me, and if someday she responds constructively ... .well all that would just be a great bonus.

[WoundedBibi]

Steelwork, I've tried to read the entire letter on several occasions but each time I can only read a part; I start crying every time...

[steelwork]

It's been hard going from being a confident person with a good sense of self-worth, to seeing those qualities in a negative light, to seeing how I was ready to fall for someone who would idealize me and feed my ego. It's been hard to look at myself in that harsh light and, to be honest, to have my bubble burst. Somewhere in the materials on this website there's a line that says, "Yes, your relationship was special. You were special. But not that special." Or something like that. It was a serious reality check for me and made me realize that lasting relationships take work and attention and don't give you that instant high that makes you feel manically ecstatic. I'm not saying that a loving relationship shouldn't make us feel incredible and special and deeply loved ... .but, for me anyway, I realize now that that intense high and extreme idealization I was part of were completely unstable and could never have been sustained.

Oh yeah, yes. See, what happened with me is that losing him (and the way I lost him) made me jump to action. I made the seemingly impossible move he'd been waiting for, supposedly, and left M. It was horrible. HORRIBLE. For the reasons I said in my letter, and more besides. But I thought the honorable thing would be to really do it, sever my other relationship, and offer myself to D free and clear. He'd cooled off over the fall but only a few months earlier he'd still been wooing me, and a month earlier he'd been trying to get me to go home with him. So I though, well, how deep into this new relationship could he be if he was that heartbroken? If his love for me really was what he said it was, he will take me back. I wrote him an apology letter, and then a love letter, and I said I was ready to roll up my sleeves and do whatever it took to have the relationship we'd talked about.

But he didn't want it "anymore." By which I mean I now have to question whether he'd ever wanted that relationship--the one where the idealization was over and the hard work lay ahead.

What he said was that he'd worked too hard to get over me, he'd run 8 miles a day and done CBT and he felt like he was a different person now.

But at this point, from this remove, I have to call bull$h!t on that. Either he never loved me like he said he did or he just didn't want to do the work to fix it. Running and CBT do not change you that much in a few months.

I mean, I was in la-la land too. What happened last January was a desperate attempt to prove I wasn't, to restore dignity to the relationship. But deep down I knew the truth.

[steelwork]

Steelwork, I've tried to read the entire letter on several occasions but each time I can only read a part; I start crying every time...

I'm sorry, W-bibi! I didn't mean to make you cry!

[WoundedBibi]

Don't worry about it steelwork    You just wrote a beautiful letter that pulls at my heartstrings    Nothing wrong with a good cry every now & again...