discarded and replaced by exBPDbf and i'm hurt

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

we were together for over 5 years. i loved him immensely, we were together one day and it was probably the best day we had had in a while. then suddenly, and i literally mean suddenly (the very next day) he left and moved in with another woman who just happened to be our next door neighbor. ouch! we had been arguing for a while because i was done believing all his lies and it was time for him to step up and start contributing emotionally in our relationship (he wasn't contributing financially and i was ok with that because he was at least accepting responsibility and trying to handle his legal issues, which i greatly appreciated and respected as it had always fallen to me to take care of his legal woes) and work on being more consistent and control his rages.i'd seen over the years how we would get close and he'd do something to sabotage our closeness or rage at me and it would break our our bond and we'd have to start all over it seemed. it was an emotional roller coaster, the ups were wonderful the downs were absolute horror. i had started therapy earlier this year when i realized i just couldn't cope with what we were going through anymore alone. we needed help, we needed tools to make our relationship better and i was determined to try and save our love one more time as well as work on me. I asked if he'd like to come, he did to 1 session to be exact and that was my very first time hearing borderline personality disorder. i read up on it and he fit the description to a T! finally something that made sense about what i had been experiencing with this man. i knew he had childhood trauma; feelings of neglect, abandonment and not being attached to his mother and i was sympathetic to that. i think that's why i put up with so much of his self destructive behavior (lying, cheating, stealing, drug use) but underneath it all i saw i good person just misguided. i sincerely forgave him every time but it just seemed from his end we were always going to be stuck in the past because he wouldn't forgive himself and give us that clean slate we so desperately needed. one day it was i love you forever and always then poof! he's gone and he's painting me black to his new woman. i admit in my confusion and hurt i texted her trying to warn her about the man she just let move in with her after barely knowing him (we broke up march 5, apparently he'd been seeing her since december/january-ish and i had no clue what so ever. i'm 27 he's 31 and she's 47 the same age as his mom so... .yeah he found that loving mommy figure in her). she responded. she sent over 30 text messages non stop starting at about 8am the last one came through at 3:30am the next morning. she was saying the same things he would say to me when he would rage. you're fat, you're ugly, you're lazy plus some other things like you're selfish and don't know how to be a team player. none of it's true! i'm not the selfish one, he is and we argued a lot about him not being a team player. i'm not fat i've actually lost 30 pounds recently and i'm not lazy i was just tired A WHOLE BUNCH and know i know why i was diagnosed with narcolepsy in december. ever since i started treatment (concerta) i felt like myself again and started to reclaim my life. so you can see he flipped our relationship issues when talking to her to make it seem like i broke our relationship beyond repair and i didn't and he was still clinging to issues of our past (fat, lazy) that just didn't hold weight to reality. i changed my number and have been NC with him (not her obviously ) for a week, but i find myself basically detoxing from the roller coaster. i moved out and back in with my NPD mother to try and get back on my feet (over $4000 worth of debt from trying to help him, no car because he wrecked it, no friends because i became isolated). i have days where i'm happy it's over i finally have consistency i'm not walking on eggshells afraid of what mood he'll be in and what i might do or say to set off his rage. then i have days where i'm just a mess! i can't focus, i'm crying all over the place and just confused. i try to hold on to knowing she won't get better than me she'll get the same man i had it's just a matter of time before he can't keep up the facade and his true self is revealed and his lies are exposed. she's already taking care of everything financially. the weekend i moved out i noticed he placed an order on amazon for things that would make his life in his new home more comfortable on my debit card, thankfully i was able to cancel it before it shipped! i texted him (this was the day i established no contact with him and before changing my number, i just changed it 2 days ago) letting him know if he tried it again i would file a report with the police. he then threatened to have my replacement, his mom, and his sister beat me up. so maybe an order of protection is my next step just in case but i know his mom and sister very well and they wouldn't stand up for him because he rages at them too about the past. i just want to try and be patient with myself because i still miss him and long for him and wonder what he's been doing this past week. does he miss me? does he regret the way he treated me? when i left i wrote him a note wishing him well hoping he finds himself loves himself and i meant it. i want him to find peace because that's what i'm working towards now... .healing. any advice is welcome i've read a lot of the threads about how i'm feeling but its still an uber fresh wound. i believed in the forever and always too and held up my end of the bargain it just wasn't reciprocated. i know its over and i know he'll try to recycle me and i'm terrified of that day. what if i'm not strong enough to stay away? what if i never trust again? i'm so scared.

[APB0613]

we were together for over 5 years. i loved him immensely, we were together one day and it was probably the best day we had had in a while. then suddenly, and i literally mean suddenly (the very next day) he left and moved in with another woman who just happened to be our next door neighbor. ouch! we had been arguing for a while because i was done believing all his lies and it was time for him to step up and start contributing emotionally in our relationship (he wasn't contributing financially and i was ok with that because he was at least accepting responsibility and trying to handle his legal issues, which i greatly appreciated and respected as it had always fallen to me to take care of his legal woes) and work on being more consistent and control his rages.i'd seen over the years how we would get close and he'd do something to sabotage our closeness or rage at me and it would break our our bond and we'd have to start all over it seemed. it was an emotional roller coaster, the ups were wonderful the downs were absolute horror. i had started therapy earlier this year when i realized i just couldn't cope with what we were going through anymore alone. we needed help, we needed tools to make our relationship better and i was determined to try and save our love one more time as well as work on me. I asked if he'd like to come, he did to 1 session to be exact and that was my very first time hearing borderline personality disorder. i read up on it and he fit the description to a T! finally something that made sense about what i had been experiencing with this man. i knew he had childhood trauma; feelings of neglect, abandonment and not being attached to his mother and i was sympathetic to that. i think that's why i put up with so much of his self destructive behavior (lying, cheating, stealing, drug use) but underneath it all i saw i good person just misguided. i sincerely forgave him every time but it just seemed from his end we were always going to be stuck in the past because he wouldn't forgive himself and give us that clean slate we so desperately needed. one day it was i love you forever and always then poof! he's gone and he's painting me black to his new woman. i admit in my confusion and hurt i texted her trying to warn her about the man she just let move in with her after barely knowing him (we broke up march 5, apparently he'd been seeing her since december/january-ish and i had no clue what so ever. i'm 27 he's 31 and she's 47 the same age as his mom so... .yeah he found that loving mommy figure in her). she responded. she sent over 30 text messages non stop starting at about 8am the last one came through at 3:30am the next morning. she was saying the same things he would say to me when he would rage. you're fat, you're ugly, you're lazy plus some other things like you're selfish and don't know how to be a team player. none of it's true! i'm not the selfish one, he is and we argued a lot about him not being a team player. i'm not fat i've actually lost 30 pounds recently and i'm not lazy i was just tired A WHOLE BUNCH and know i know why i was diagnosed with narcolepsy in december. ever since i started treatment (concerta) i felt like myself again and started to reclaim my life. so you can see he flipped our relationship issues when talking to her to make it seem like i broke our relationship beyond repair and i didn't and he was still clinging to issues of our past (fat, lazy) that just didn't hold weight to reality. i changed my number and have been NC with him (not her obviously ) for a week, but i find myself basically detoxing from the roller coaster. i moved out and back in with my NPD mother to try and get back on my feet (over $4000 worth of debt from trying to help him, no car because he wrecked it, no friends because i became isolated). i have days where i'm happy it's over i finally have consistency i'm not walking on eggshells afraid of what mood he'll be in and what i might do or say to set off his rage. then i have days where i'm just a mess! i can't focus, i'm crying all over the place and just confused. i try to hold on to knowing she won't get better than me she'll get the same man i had it's just a matter of time before he can't keep up the facade and his true self is revealed and his lies are exposed. she's already taking care of everything financially. the weekend i moved out i noticed he placed an order on amazon for things that would make his life in his new home more comfortable on my debit card, thankfully i was able to cancel it before it shipped! i texted him (this was the day i established no contact with him and before changing my number, i just changed it 2 days ago) letting him know if he tried it again i would file a report with the police. he then threatened to have my replacement, his mom, and his sister beat me up. so maybe an order of protection is my next step just in case but i know his mom and sister very well and they wouldn't stand up for him because he rages at them too about the past. i just want to try and be patient with myself because i still miss him and long for him and wonder what he's been doing this past week. does he miss me? does he regret the way he treated me? when i left i wrote him a note wishing him well hoping he finds himself loves himself and i meant it. i want him to find peace because that's what i'm working towards now... .healing. any advice is welcome i've read a lot of the threads about how i'm feeling but its still an uber fresh wound. i believed in the forever and always too and held up my end of the bargain it just wasn't reciprocated. i know its over and i know he'll try to recycle me and i'm terrified of that day. what if i'm not strong enough to stay away? what if i never trust again? i'm so scared.

[Mutt]

Hi APB0613,



I'm sorry you're going through all of this. I can see how devastating that would feel when our pwBPD move in with the neighbor and we find out that they were cheating  

A pwBPD view people as having either all good qualities or all bad qualities. We all have good and bad qualities but the person cannot integrate the two. A pwBPD will split loved ones and themselves and cast off of project negative feelings or attributes on others, it's confusing but it helps to read as much as we can on BPD psychopathology.

5 years is a long history APB0613. It's damaging when we have a good day and then our pwBPD suddenly and abruptly leave. It's really tough and I can see why it would feel scary. It helps to talk to people that have walked a mile in your shoes. An order of protection sounds like a good idea, you know him best and it's good to be careful. Some and not all pwBPD will display intense anger when the relationship ends.

Borderline Personality Disorder and Physical Abuse

Surviving a Break-up when Your Partner has Borderline Personality


Hang in there.

[heartandwhole]

Hi APB0613,

I'd like to add my welcome to Mutt's. I'm sorry to hear about your breakup, I know how painful it is, especially when it is fresh. It's very normal and understandable to have feelings all over the map, and lots of obsessive thinking. That's what happened to me: I was devastated, a mess, and very depressed when I got out of my relationship with pwBPD. But things really do get better—I am happy and healthy today, and feel grateful for what I've learned. If you can be gentle with yourself and focus on your recovery, I know things will improve and you can climb out of the confusion and hurt.

There is a ton of fantastic wisdom and knowledge on this site. I hope you will dive in when you have a chance. For now, treat yourself to something pampering: a hot bath, good food, a massage. Be as sweet and caring toward yourself as you have been to pwBPD and all the other people in your life. 

We're here to help, so keep writing and let us know how we can best support you.

heartandwhole

[balletomane]

A restraining order sounds like a sensible thing. You should always take a threat of physical violence seriously, even if you know it's unlikely he'll act on it. Doing practical things to help yourself, like getting the order, will also help with the emotional side of things.  

Our stories are similar in a lot of ways. My ex discarded me and replaced me with his flatmate, almost exactly one year ago. I can remember how I felt then. I felt as though I were being crushed to death, almost literally. There was a physical pain in my chest that made it hard to breathe. Life felt heavy. The only relief was in the fleeting seconds between waking up in the morning and then feeling it hit me all over again. I had loved and trusted this man so much, and now I felt like a broken toy that had been cast aside without a second thought. I also worried (and to be honest, still do worry sometimes) that his new girlfriend will be treated better and that his abuse of me wasn't really abuse, but behaviour I could have changed if only I'd tried hard enough. Now I'm far enough on in my healing to be able to ask myself why this concerns me. Even supposing I'd found the magic formula for holding off his rages, would I really want a partner with rages that needed to be held off? It's not a loving relationship where one partner is having to contain the other partner's viciousness all the time. It's more like a hostage situation.

Regarding your ex's new partner, I find it a bit unlikely that she would use exactly the same insults for you that your ex used. It's possible, but what are the odds? There's a possibility that she didn't want to believe what you told her, because right now she has a very rosy romantic view of your ex, and she just handed the phone to him and he wrote those responses. As she knew your ex was cheating on you to be with her, it's possible that her own relationship values are skewed. Either way, it doesn't matter. You can't rescue her from her bad relationship choices. You can only take responsibility for yourself and your own healing, and I wish you the very best with that. You will feel better, even though it doesn't feel like it where you are now.

[APB0613]

thank you for your replies. every day it gets little easier. i don't cry as much anymore just a stray tear here and there. i know the facts and try not to get stuck in my emotions... .though i still struggle . i have to be patient with myself. i think that's probably the hardest thing. its like how could he move on so easily but i'm left struggling? that's bc i'm not BPD! i need to process through all these thoughts and emotions before even thinking of loving again. i'm upset i kept on giving to someone who wasn't capable of giving in return. i'm upset that i ignored all the red flags that started to appear probably 3 months into our relationship, i just thought oh he's sensitive and i can be harsh sometimes. even when i softened my approach he still got angry, raged, bullied and berated me. nothing i did worked! now i guess i'm trying to work on why i was attracted to someone like him. my mom suffers from uNPD and i was always made to feel like to get the love i needed i had to meet her unreasonable expectations, and that my feeling never mattered. every time i tried to approach her just to talk or share things that were going on in my life she would rage at me. so eventually i stopped sharing, i kept everything inside which lead to me cutting myself. when i became an adult i worked on not internalizing my emotions and got really good at being able to pinpoint them and express them. i stopped trying to live up to her standards and lived up to mine. i even put a bit of distance between us bc when i'm around her too long she starts her nit picking at me again like oh you're fat or your hair looks dry . and they just roll right off me, giving her no reaction and being indifferent was the reaction! it wasn't like that with my ex. being indifferent only made him rage more and it would escalate to physical violence. like one time i was indifferent while he was raging and he tried to smash a glass cup on my hand. thank god it didn't break, i could have been seriously injured. i kept trying to meet his standards of a good girlfriend and the things he said to hurt me didin't roll off me. my cat died in august of 2014 and instead of being there to console me he went out with friends. then next day i tried to talk about how that made me feel and he just was like "well what about how i felt? i needed a break!" i got so angry! i've NEVER put my hands on someone before but that day i slapped him and he slapped me back! i lost hearing in my right ear bc of it. these are the things that solidify that he wasn't the man for me on top of the lying and the cheating . i need to work on finding healthy boundaries as i never had any. i always had to give and get nothing in return, that's where i tripped up with him. i won't make that mistake again!