"I'm not damaged, you are and I gave you chance to fix it..."

[Lifewriter16]

Today, in response to a brief text where I let my BPDxbf know that I will be signing up for a course we'd both expressed an interest in and a brief goodbye where I said I accepted that we were both too damaged for our relationship to ever work, my BPDxbf texted me saying he's not damaged, I am. He said I had had my chance to fix it, but I didn't bother to do so, so go away.

Well, I am damaged. However, despite having an official diagnosis, having gone through a drug and alcohol programme, 6 months DBT, 2 years in Schema Therapy and being in the middle of a programme for batterers, I am astounded by what he has said. I thought he at least accepted that he has a problem. Clearly not.

I read somewhere that although pwBPD learn skills in their therapy sessions, once they dysregulate, the skills go straight out of the window and they switch back to their baseline behaviour. If this is the case, unless the therapy reduces the number of dysregulations drastically, I can't see how things could ever improve adequately to make it worth having a relationship with him.

PLEASE EVERYONE, IF I SEEM TO BE WEAKENING TOWARDS GOING BACK YET AGAIN (and it would be the 10th time), REMIND ME OF THIS POST.

Many thanks

Lifewriter x

[HurtinNW]

Lifewriter, I hope you don't think I'm following you around these boards! 

My ex does the same thing. Every recycle he seems sincerely grasping of his issues, and wanting to work on them. Then once we are seeing each other it all goes out the window. He says the same sort of stuff, that I am the crazy one. I do have issues, but how can we work together if he denies his accountability? My ex also rewrites history. I find this really alarming. He has actually written apology letters for things he later denies doing. I don't think it is wilful lying. He believes the new version.

We are dealing with people who lack the ability to reflect, empathize, and own their behaviors. It is hard for me to accept that my ex believes whatever he is feeling at the moment. None of it can be trusted.

If I ever seem to be wavering, I want you to call me on it, too. Please!

[Daniell85]

Let's see. Projection, stonewalling, gaslighting, refusal to be accountable, a direct personal attack that refuses to keep context... .

Did I miss anything?

It sounds like you have worked hard to overcome damage to you. Yep, it's pretty disconcerting and infuriating to try and extend a sort of radical acceptance of the current situation and have the whole ball of wax melted over the top of you.

He, clearly, is not currently in a state to address his side of things. Sometimes just left to themselves, people calm down and start considering their own part in things. Sometimes they don't.

Until he is giving you a different message of better emotional/mental health and is backing that up with transparent actions, there really is no point for you to try engage at all, or go back, or much of anything.

Sad and painful, but this is where you are and there is where he is.

And you aren't alone, I am there with you, and it can be a really painful, and frustrating place.

[once removed]

hi lifewriter  

for the majority of our relationship my ex would place most of the blame for the relationship problems on herself. toward the end it was all me. i vividly remember being astonished and asking something like "really? its not even 50/50?" "no." "not even 75/25?" "no."

his response is at the notion that he is damaged, which its likely is all he heard. i recommend the "its not you, it me" approach (if one is trying to disconnect), though that may be received as validation, ie "youre right, it IS you, its NOT me." regardless, it does not sound like this person is inclined to own what is his.

[Daniell85]

PS Hurtin, I hope you don't think I am following you around either. Tho maybe I do a little to keep up with your posts.  

[Lifewriter16]

Hey Hurtin,

Thanks. Yours is the right kind of stalking! 

If I ever seem to be wavering, I want you to call me on it, too. Please!

You can count on it. PM me if necessary.

Love Lifewriter

[HurtinNW]

You guys are the best! 

[Lifewriter16]

Let's see. Projection, stonewalling, gaslighting, refusal to be accountable, a direct personal attack that refuses to keep context... .

Did I miss anything?

Nice list, Daniell... .!

his response is at the notion that he is damaged, which its likely is all he heard.

I think you're right here once removed... .he's clearly in the middle of a dysregulation.


And having told me to go away and stop texting and make it permanent this time, guess what? He's still texting me!

Love to all,

Lifewriter x

[5tarla]

I feel for you, OP. My ex didn't tell me I have issues, but she too gaslighted, refused to take accountability and stonewalled me, but oddly enough when she had her meltdown a couple months back before I called her on her behavior she was blaming herself and totally ashamed. Now she refuses to own up. It's a really horrible thing to go through, but knowing what you know is sort of satisfying in a way, because he clearly does have issues.

[Daniell85]

No, he doesn't want you gone. I think there is a strong element of NPD in some pwBPD.

Push pull ad infinitum.

Do you have a boundary on this contact? Are you ignoring it, or does it eventually pull you back into another conflict?

[Lifewriter16]

Hi Daniell,

No, he doesn't want you gone. I think there is a strong element of NPD in some pwBPD.

Push pull ad infinitum.

Do you have a boundary on this contact? Are you ignoring it, or does it eventually pull you back into another conflict?

I'm just ignoring it now. He said no more contact permanently, so that's what I intend to give him.

What do you mean by there being a strong element of NPD in pwBPD? What are you seeing that I'm missing?

Lifewriter

[HurtinNW]

There is a definition of NPD here that really fits much of my ex. Like Daniell, I think you ex sounds much the same: https://bpdfamily.com/content/narcissistic-personality-disorder

My ex has a lot of these traits, including feeling entitled, special, idealizing what he deserves (ideal love, a great career), idealizing those he associates with (his friends are always brilliant, amazing, beautiful), is socially very charming, lacks empathy for others, requires excessive attention and pure admiration, and more than anything, everything in the world rotates around him.

For my ex the idealization and devaluation cycle seems to follow the NPD model. First he idealizes his new love. She is the most fantastic, gorgeous woman ever. He has finally found the true love he deserves! But then reality sets in. His true love not only is human, the hollow feeling inside him is still there. The devaluation starts. She didn't give him what he deserves and he is angered by this.

For NPD, under the surface they are actually very insecure and have a fragile sense of self. They cannot take any perceived criticism. They look to external sources to feel better, to maintain their sense of entitlement. They get furious when denied. A person with NPD also romanticizes their own depression. My ex does this too.

Supposedly a difference between BPD and NPD is a person with NPD can become quite aggressive, violent and sadistic, trying to hurt you. My ex definitely fits that model. I've been referring to him as BPD/NPD because he's never been diagnosed. Honestly I suspect he is more NPD than BPD. His father was floridly NPD, his mom BPD.

Your ex sounds like he has at least some of the symptoms.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi Hurtin,

Yes, I think he could have some NPD traits too.

Have you ever noticed how some children want their parents to watch everything they are doing and give enthusiastic encouragement and feedback. My BPDxbf seems a bit like that sometimes. He does some voluntary work and tells me how he is virtually leading the team now and it's all down to his direction, implying he's doing everything and no one else is contributing. He told me he's a whizz in the kitchen but seemed to be having difficulty with preparing garlic last week, almost like he'd never encountered it before.

He texted me yesterday to say he's going to turn his life around with his back pay from his disability benefit (the context was to spite me).

He wants to buy a house and run his own business, but he's only recently learnt to travel on a bus without raging.

And he does have quite a sense of entitlement to my time and attention. He dysregulated once because I needed to go to the toilet in the middle of sex. And I had to learn to set boundaries around money because he's a real sponger.

He name-drops about who he knows from what band and often reminds me of this or that famous person who has BPD, as if he's better because of it.

And, he does try to hurt me intentionally when he thinks it is warranted. I assumed that was the ASPD in him though. Perhaps, I was wrong. 

He's not particularly empathic either. Even if he tries to take care of me, he does it in the way that he would take care of himself. He bought me a teddy bear for comfort despite me expressly telling him that I already had one so he should save himself the money. And he dysregulated big time because I refused to let him come over and look after me because I was feeling ill.

Perhaps this is why I feel some overtones of my mother within him.

Love Lifewriter

[HurtinNW]

My ex does a lot of that kind of stuff. He builds up his own achievements and things like friendships with people to make himself look better.

At first I didn't see it, because he cloaks it in false modesty. For instance, he downgrades his past work. But if you pay attention, he does it in a way sure to get someone to disagree and tell him how awesome he is. Likewise, he will name drop his famous friends and tell the same stories about them over and over again, but under the guise of how he doesn't deserve their awesomeness.

One of the more poignant realizations I had about him was how all these friends he claimed we were such good, deep, true friends were actually people he never sees. The more "famous" someone is the more he attaches to the idea of their friendship, maintaining it in his mind even if it isn't there.

I am relatively "famous" in my art field and one of my hurts is realizing that my status meant a lot to him, far more than my feelings. Maybe I was never a real person to him. That hurts.

One of the interesting things about narcissism is people with it cannot bear to fail. Their sense of self is so very fragile. So they often will not try unless they will succeed. This is painfully true of my ex. He lost his job several years ago and made little effort to find a new one. I realized recently that he cannot deal with being flawed in any way. Having to try and fail means acknowledging our lack of perfection and he can't handle that. So he sinks into mires of self-pity instead, or rages in anger.

People with NPD often end up really struggling in mid-life, when their good looks, charm and people-pleasing ways start to go away. This is what my ex is dealing with. It's hard to watch, especially since he is so completely unaware of it. Instead he sees himself as a victim of circumstance and yours truly.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi Hurtin.

The plot thickens (to use yet another cliche)... .

This evening has been a revelation for me. It seems that some of the behaviours that I most dislike in my BPDxbf are NPD ones rather than BPD ones. And funnily enough, I have far less patience for NPD traits. In some strange way, it makes it easier to let him go. I had a lot of compassion for the little boy I could see within him, but recently, I had been wondering whether he had been exaggerating things for control purposes. As I heard the same trauma story time and time again, I'd started wondering whether they were real. He was acting as if he was reliving traumatic events and releasing the pain from them, but time and time again? My experience is that cartharsis releases but his wasn't. It seemed wrong somehow from my experience of PTSD.

My BPDxbf always used to tell me that my old flame was 'playing me like a fiddle'. I ended up doubting my old flame because of everything my BPDxbf was telling me. I wonder if it was him who was playing me like a fiddle.

Lifewriter x

[Daniell85]

It has been the NPD behaviors of my ex that drove me away.

At this point I can't tell if he needs time to himself to sort his life and then maybe he will be a lot better, or if he really is NPD and BPD. The NPD scares the heck out of me because it is so lacking in empathy.

NPD person deliberately inflicts things on people close to them in order to feed off of the emotions and validate themselves as the person in power. Quickest way to deflate one is to go no contact.

I think my ex is pretty shocked I have disappeared from his view everywhere. We haven't been out of contact for more than a week or so the whole time we have known each other. We had a 5 year friendship prior to the relationship.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi Daniell,

What things in particular trouble you about his behaviour?  Lx

PS. I'm chilling out at home, listening to ELO and just enjoying chatting to you and Hurtin. Actually, I'm feeling pretty good right now.

[HurtinNW]

I love ELO! I'm going to have to pull out my old ELO.

Daniell, I'm still sorting out how deliberate my ex was. He often said the very things he knew would hurt me more than anything. Later he would present this as him feeling attacked and fighting back.

But then I think about some of the things he said and did, and I feel in my gut he was trying to hurt me. For instance him saying something abusive to my youngest son, right in front of me, as he stormed out the door. Even in a disordered, out of control state, there was no reason for him to pause and say that to my son.

I am wondering if he was gaining power this way, by inflicting pain on me and then leaving me in it? It puts him in the power of being the one who is judge and jury, the "right" one over me, the crazy one. Same with the silent treatments. He is letting me know he doesn't care, and that gives him some sort of weird energy. Especially since he plays both sides of the fence: giving me the message he doesn't care about my feelings while playing the victim to his friends.

I am starting to think he was far more aware of this than he lets on, and his lack of empathy is frightening. I just don't see him as having any towards my hurts. His feel bad times are about him losing something that gave him identity, not because he hurt me or my kids. I just don't see any remorse there. Not real remorse.

Lifewriter, I can handle BPD symptoms easier than the NPD ones. His arrogance, entitlement and coldness are much scarier than the immaturity.

Thanks for letting me think this out loud.

[sweet tooth]

Today, in response to a brief text where I let my BPDxbf know that I will be signing up for a course we'd both expressed an interest in and a brief goodbye where I said I accepted that we were both too damaged for our relationship to ever work, my BPDxbf texted me saying he's not damaged, I am. He said I had had my chance to fix it, but I didn't bother to do so, so go away.

Well, I am damaged. However, despite having an official diagnosis, having gone through a drug and alcohol programme, 6 months DBT, 2 years in Schema Therapy and being in the middle of a programme for batterers, I am astounded by what he has said. I thought he at least accepted that he has a problem. Clearly not.

I read somewhere that although pwBPD learn skills in their therapy sessions, once they dysregulate, the skills go straight out of the window and they switch back to their baseline behaviour. If this is the case, unless the therapy reduces the number of dysregulations drastically, I can't see how things could ever improve adequately to make it worth having a relationship with him.

PLEASE EVERYONE, IF I SEEM TO BE WEAKENING TOWARDS GOING BACK YET AGAIN (and it would be the 10th time), REMIND ME OF THIS POST.

Many thanks

Lifewriter x

Lifewriter, it takes maturity and insight to own up to your part of why the relationship wasn't working. I hope that you are proud of yourself for doing so. It sounds to me like he is projecting:

You said you realized you both have some issues. He didn't own up to it and then blamed you for 100% of the problems. If HE had said, "yes, you're right. We both have issues and we can work together to overcome them" then you two could have salvaged the relationship. He didn't do his part, just like when I told my ex (paraphrased), "I read up on your medical issues (thyroid, not BPD) to help me better understand what you go through so I can avoid hurting you" and "I know you're feeling withdrawn. Take your time and come back to me when you're ready." She responded with "do not contact me again."

You and I did what we had to in order to improve/salvage the relationship. They didn't. We can't control them, but we also have the satisfaction of knowing we did the best we could.

[sweet tooth]

N/m this particular post. I goofed something up.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi Everyone.

Thanks for your posts. I value them all.

Yes, sweet tooth, I did the best that I could and he couldn't be patient with my struggles or have empathy with me. I need someone with those qualities so I can learn the life skill of addressing issues that come up in relationships. With a more placid man, I too am pretty placid. My BPDxbf brought out the worst in me and consumed every waking minute.

It's time for a life without him and without obsessing about him or about what I did wrong or crying over what could have been, but isn't.

Yesterday, I became willing to move on because of a combination of things: the most important being the text he sent me and the fact you all helped me to see things in him that I hadn't seen before, namely his NPD traits. He unknowingly put the lid on his own coffin and you all helped me to fasten it in place. Many many thanks to you all. I feel free of the love I have for him, at last... .

Love Lifewriter

[sweet tooth]

Hi Everyone.

Thanks for your posts. I value them all.

Yes, sweet tooth, I did the best that I could and he couldn't be patient with my struggles or have empathy with me. I need someone with those qualities so I can learn the life skill of addressing issues that come up in relationships. With a more placid man, I too am pretty placid. My BPDxbf brought out the worst in me and consumed every waking minute.

It's time for a life without him and without obsessing about him or about what I did wrong or crying over what could have been, but isn't.

Yesterday, I became willing to move on because of a combination of things: the most important being the text he sent me and the fact you all helped me to see things in him that I hadn't seen before, namely his NPD traits. He unknowingly put the lid on his own coffin and you all helped me to fasten it in place. Many many thanks to you all. I feel free of the love I have for him, at last... .

Love Lifewriter

I know exactly what you mean regarding bringing out the worst in you. My person brought out both the best and worst in me. When she was baseline, I felt like the best version of myself. When she was dysregulating, I was a grumpy, depressed, and anxious mess. It was like a vampire sucked the life out of me. She once told me being with her ex-husband was exhausting. I honestly believe that that was projection, because being with her was exhausting. I'm still recovering emotionally and physically from the discard (a month ago). I've had a bad cold I just can't fight off because my immune system is so weak due to the stress.

I'm happy for you, Lifewriter. You deserve someone who will treat you the way all people deserve to be treated.