Vacillating between going back and staying away

[shiningbrightly]

Hello,

I decided to end a 3 year relationship (and engagement) in January of this year with what I believe is a man with BPD. He hasn't been officially diagnosed to my knowledge. Our relationship was and has been tumultuous from the start but I could always excuse it for one reason or another. He was going through an ugly divorce, the subsequent changes in his life that accompanied that, work stress, money stress, drinking, adjusting to being a part time single parent, etc. I endured a lot of psychological abuse those first two years. And it would happen in cycles... .similar to that of typical domestic abuse. Honeymoon phase, growing tension, then the explosion, repeat. I was always to blame for most everything, including being accused of "emotionally abandoning" as a means to protect myself. I would withdraw during an argument or conflict and it was hard for me to warm back up afterwards. It would take days if not weeks because of the hurt and damage that was done. Last June, I finally felt defeated and hopeless enough to end the relationship. Three weeks later, he was on my front porch crying, begging for one more chance. He promised to go sober, dive into counseling and change his behaviors. I took him back. While I was incredibly guarded, I gave my very best effort to rebuilding emotional trust and intimacy with him again. In late July, he proposed saying he desperately wanted to marry me but also wanted to prove how committed he was. I accepted his proposal, while maintaining my boundaries. August, September and October were great. He worked very hard, maintained his sobriety, was patient while communicating... .it was everything I wanted to see except I still wasn't quite sure I could trust him. I feel like I spent a lot of time observing him, waiting to see proof one way or the other. November came and I started to see some old patterns come back. They were a much more subdued version of what I experienced in the previous two years, but they were surfacing nonetheless. My hypersensitivity to these cycles had become a huge trigger for me and I immediately felt emotionally unsafe the moment I felt the slightest shift in him. By Christmas, the tensions were growing worse. We had multiple arguments at this point and he was becoming psychologically and emotionally abusive again.I once again felt exhausted and hopeless. We went back to couples therapy and in one of the sessions, the therapist drew a diagram of our temperaments (mine being phlegmatic/melancholic, his being choleric). The therapists advice was for me to learn how to better handle a choleric temperament. It was in that session that a light bulb went off. I immediately thought, why should I have to "learn" how to manage his abuse? I felt depleted, worn down, sick. So I asked for a separation to clear my head. I said that I was unsure of what the future holds but that I needed a big time out. Maybe for a month, maybe for forever. It has been 3.5 months now and while I am gradually becoming more clear, I still waver. I miss him. He was an amazing man when he was good. It's been tumultuous in our break up though too. He has had many tantrums and power plays with me: demanding his ring back, coming into my home (angry) to get his things while I am at work, deleting all pictures and calendars... .only to then return everything to it's place hours later. It feels crazy making.

Can anyone else relate? Is this cycle typical? He is really emotional... .cries at movies and cards and beautiful things, loves animals and then rages with complete disregard for my feelings and needs in an argument, becomes critical and negative about petty things, etc.

[Circle]

Hi,

The general over-riding pattern of a good/bad behavior cycle sounds familiar. However, I am NOT an expert. The experts will probably be along shortly to give you better insight. BPD does seem to be another mental illness that's on a spectrum. So, it's very possible that your person is with BPD.

I'm sure you will find so much useful here. Keep reading and posting! I'm impressed with your strength. Many of us on these boards haven't had such clear resolution to remove ourselves from these situations. Or, the strength to do so. Good for you! You definitely have more control, in many ways, from a distance.

Hang in there!

[Lucky Jim]

Hey shining brightly, Welcome!  Many of the behaviors you describe sound consistent w/BPD, yet needless to say we can't diagnose anything on this site.  If your r/s has been "tumultuous" in the past, what makes you think that will change in the future?  In my experience, the turmoil and drama can get substantially worse over time.  It boils down to whether you are ready to get off the roller coaster, or not?  It's up to you.  Many here (including me) have recycled so that's OK if that is your goal.  On the other hand, since you're on the Detaching Board, presumably you are interested in letting go.  If so, don't overthink it.  Just let it go and move forward, is my advice.

LuckyJim

[londons]

hi shining, what a well written and descriptive letter. you are certainly a very perceptive and patient partner! ditto, the last 2 replies.  i love that "dont overthink it" statement; man, do we do that or what? i seem to grasp at anything that will put my separatedbphusband into a good light. for example, forget the last 250 false and unwarranted accusations he made toward me, and let me concentrate on the fact that he made me a pancake for breakfast! so, yes, ill stay in the marriage! funny, but not really. shining, i can relate to EVERY LAST WORD of your post. if BPD can be so textbook, as it seems, why is it still such an unknown, untalked about disorder? to me, it seems like it's hidden under the biggest rug of every borderline personality's household. depression is acceptable, autism is acceptable, dyslexia, bipolar, etc., and yet this one is hush hush, and has such a negative connotation to it. why is that? if it were more well known, it could better be recognized and treated, no? anyway, im getting off track. shining, i put in 9 years, but i knew after 9 days. i kept going back for more. his good looks and love making and attention toward ME drew me in and kept me there, until his behavior affected my son, who lives with us. that's when i told him i needed my "time out". he was angry, and found a replacement. his words, "what did i expect?" he hasnt even been out of the house for 4 months. i encourage you to read the articles that are (thankfully) posted on this site. good luck, and keep in touch. i miss my man terribly. i would probably take him back in a second, the only thing that knocks me back into reality is the fact that he has been intimate with another woman. so, i can relate to how tempting it is to go back for one more try.  this process of removing ourselves is certainly on the one day at a time plan!  hugs.

[Lucky Jim]

if BPD can be so textbook, as it seems, why is it still such an unknown, untalked about disorder? to me, it seems like it's hidden under the biggest rug of every borderline personality's household. depression is acceptable, autism is acceptable, dyslexia, bipolar, etc., and yet this one is hush hush, and has such a negative connotation to it. why is that? if it were more well known, it could better be recognized and treated, no?

Right, londons.  BPD is under the radar.  If you consider that each person suffering from BPD probably has at least 5 people around him/her who are negatively impacted by his/her turbulent behavior, then the number of people affected by the disorder is substantial.  Yet it seems that the Jekyll & Hyde aspect of the disorder makes it difficult to pin someone down as suffering from BPD, because most pwBPD have periods of relative calm and lucidity.  They are quite convincing, in my experience, so it's a tough call that only the closest family and friends can make.  Plus, they hide it so well.

LuckyJim

[WoundedBibi]

if BPD can be so textbook, as it seems, why is it still such an unknown, untalked about disorder? to me, it seems like it's hidden under the biggest rug of every borderline personality's household. depression is acceptable, autism is acceptable, dyslexia, bipolar, etc., and yet this one is hush hush, and has such a negative connotation to it. why is that? if it were more well known, it could better be recognized and treated, no?

Right, londons.  BPD is under the radar.  If you consider that each person suffering from BPD probably has at least 5 people around him/her who are negatively impacted by his/her turbulent behavior, then the number of people affected by the disorder is substantial.  Yet it seems that the Jekyll & Hyde aspect of the disorder makes it difficult to pin someone down as suffering from BPD, because most pwBPD have periods of relative calm and lucidity.  They are quite convincing, in my experience, so it's a tough call that only the closest family and friends can make.  Plus, they hide it so well.

LuckyJim

Even professionals have issues with the diagnosis. BPD is often confused with bipolar. Bipolar often confused with depression. Tests are not full proof. Tests are made, set up, by people. Interpreted by people.

People often have more than one illness (co-morbidity) which makes it far more complex to make the right diagnosis.

BPD is a spectrum mental illness. Some are on one end of the scale others on the other end, most somewhere in between.

BPD has 9 main symptoms but not all pwBPD have all symptoms. Some don't cut, others are more prone to have psychotic episodes.

And nobody wants to have BPD. It has a bad reputation because it is a personality disorder. Bipolar for instance is a mood disorder. It can be influenced and managed with medication. BPD cannot.

BPD cannot be cured. At best a pwBPD can learn after years and years of therapy how to manage the BPD behaviour. But there is no getting well. Getting well means there was a good situation beforehand to get back to. There is no beforehand. BPD develops very early in life. There is no option to 'cut out' the BPD pieces of the personality from the rest of the personality. You don't know for sure which piece of personality is BPD and which is just a rotten piece of personality anyway. Maybe if I could 'cut out' all of the BPD from my ex he would still just be an a... hole. And there would be holes left...

A BPD personality is like a very well marbled piece of meat where you could NEVER cut out all the 'fat' if you wanted to and you then would end up with just fragments of personality.

So it is hush hush because professionals don't agree on who has it and have no cure, it is hush hush because families are embarrassed one of their own is 'crazy', it is hush hush because people like us are embarrassed we ever fell for them and took all the abuse, it is hush hush because they often hide it well and nobody would believe the NONs if we spoke freely.

Let's be honest who here is going to tell the world openly what happened behind closed doors, why it happened, and expects the people around us to believe us and not to back away for naming names and mental illnesses?

[londons]

evenin', well you sure gave me something to think about. i know what youre saying is correct, i guess i just wish more research went into the disorder.  i am not embarrassed about loving and hanging with my exbp for 9 years, but i do know that my side of the family, and even some of his, continue to say to me, "its been 4 months!  look what he did to you! hes with someone else! hes a liar! hes a cheat! nothing was real! who knows how far back it went! he was selfish!  he was accusing! controlling! disrespectful!... .  so... .how... .in... .the... .world... .can... .you... .still... .be... .crying?"    and THAT question i gave up on answering.  they are right, of course.  but i realize that my wanting things to be a certain way, or THINKING they were a certain way, will take a loong time to overcome, doggone it.   they may not understand, but my family here does.  thank you for that!   shiningbrightly, how are you doing?  im sending you a goodnight hug .

[shiningbrightly]

evenin', well you sure gave me something to think about. i know what youre saying is correct, i guess i just wish more research went into the disorder.  i am not embarrassed about loving and hanging with my exbp for 9 years, but i do know that my side of the family, and even some of his, continue to say to me, "its been 4 months!  look what he did to you! hes with someone else! hes a liar! hes a cheat! nothing was real! who knows how far back it went! he was selfish!  he was accusing! controlling! disrespectful!... .  so... .how... .in... .the... .world... .can... .you... .still... .be... .crying?"    and THAT question i gave up on answering.  they are right, of course.  but i realize that my wanting things to be a certain way, or THINKING they were a certain way, will take a loong time to overcome, doggone it.   they may not understand, but my family here does.  thank you for that!   shiningbrightly, how are you doing?  im sending you a goodnight hug .

Hi everyone -

Thank you for your responses. It got ugly again. I took my time away, it's been four months now. Two weeks ago he sent me a text and said he just really missed his best friend (me) and hopes we can just start with being that for awhile and if it develops into more again, great. If not, we're friends. I resisted initially, but then started to text and talk to him again. For the first week and a half it was fine, light-hearted but then he started flirting (which I mostly ignored and maintained "friendship". His flirting didn't bother me except that I didn't want to send mixed messages so I chose to just say "thank you" each time. He even went as far as to say how much he misses waking up with me. I was not and am not convinced that he has made or is even really cognizant of what changes need to be made, despite his continued statements about how he's a different person than he was four months ago (no one changes in 4 months) and how proud of him his therapist is (another red flag). So I've been a very quiet observer for the most part as our contact increased more and more over the last ten days.

By late last week, I started to soften to the idea of seeing (testing from a somewhat detached space, if I'm more honest) if we had enough left to make it work again. I shared that there are some unresolved issues that were left on the table at the time of our break-up/separation/time out that I would need to sit down to discuss and resolve with him. His energy shifted in that moment. He said why can't it just be light and easy and enjoy each others company as friends. I told him that we are not "friends", we're past that. There's too much history and if we are going to move forward, I'll need to have some difficult and heavy conversations with him before letting myself develop a friendship, and ultimately strengthen that emotional bond and attachment again. This frustrated him. He started to bring up how I never ask more about him and his children, that I do not take any interest in that. To a degree, he is correct. We were not together and I didn't feel it was appropriate to maintain that level of contact. Plus, some of it was a protection mechanism for me as well. Scary to let myself be that close and intimate when you don't know what will ultimately happen. Regardless, I began making more of an effort to inquire about the details of his day, as well as what his children were up to... .sports, school, etc. That was just this last week or so. On Mother's Day, he asked if he could come by to see me. I told him he could but that it would be later in the day around 5pm because my children and I had made plans during the day. He said that was fine. (note: the day prior, I had my hair done and he called the salon and paid for the whole thing as my Mother's day gift... .my hairdresser told me as I was getting ready to pay, I thanked him that day, told him I appreciate his thoughtfulness. Our anniversary wouldve been a month ago, he bought/gave me diamond earrings on the day of our anniversary that I told him I could not accept because it didn't seem appropriate, but he insisted.) He came by at 5pm. We visited a bit, although I could feel tension in him. I describe it as being "edgy". It was very subtle but I have become hyper sensitive to this. His body language and tone of voice shifts. As he was leaving, I let myself be a little vulnerable and told him that I was able to gain a little clarity on our dynamic. I told him that I feel he and I are extremely physically, intellectually and spiritually compatible but that I do not believe we are emotionally compatible. I told him I always felt that he was emotionally unavailable for me. I shared that in spite of this, I was clearly having a hard time accepting that and letting go so I wondered if he would be willing to brainstorm some ideas with me about how to bridge that gap and make us work.  He immediately became defensive. Started to tell me again that he didn't understand why I always need to be so heavy, why any of that needs to be discussed if we're not even together and how if we can't have just a light hearted friendship first, we'll never get to that place. I told him my needs were different and that I was willing to compromise and meet halfway on being "friends" while also making some time to have these discussions. He said he was willing to give me a certain number of minutes to discuss these issues and when the time was up, so was the conversation. I asked what happens in the even that the issue isn't resolved when the time was up for the conversation. His response was "then you can talk to someone else about it". I will refrain from inserting my smart ass commentary for you, my dear support group... .I'm sure you'll come up with your own

It snowballed on Monday, Tuesday and Yesterday. By tuesday, the back and forth fighting over needs and wanting to be heard was in full swing. I told him graciously that we don't seem to be on the same page as far as our intentions and desires and that I feel like now I'm almost begging to get him to hear me and want to meet some of my needs again. He asked me to write a list of my needs down so that he could understand because according to him, I don't know what I want and I am confusing and frustrating. I re-stated my needs. He started yelling... .told me I created this whole break-up, it's my fault, I haven't taken an interest in his life in the last four months but now I want to talk to him like we are partners and that I am crossing all of his boundaries. I told him the yelling was painful and I felt hurt. He told me "I cannot make you feel anything, that's on you." I told a more appropriate response would be "I am so sorry you're hurt, how can we fix this?" He screamed over and over... ."we are not partners! Stop saying that and talking like we are!" I explained that it was only my emotional commitment to him is that of partners still, hence why "friendship" seems impossible right now. This cycle of yelling and blaming continued until I was completely broken and in tears. I couldn't breathe. I finally just said goodbye and hung up.

That night I took my son to his baseball game and did my best to get myself together. I'm tired of giving him precious moments of my life and time I should be engaged with my children. The next day, Wednesday (yesterday) he sent me a very composed text saying... .I simply want to be light and friends and see where we go from there. I told him okay but that I would need time alone to transition and let my feelings of partnership fade in order to be friends in a healthy way. I also told him I wanted an apology for the way he spoke to me the previous day because how can anyone have any kind of relationship, let alone friendship where someone is so incredibly disrespectful. He ignored me, stated his desire for friendship only again. I became upset at how I was being disregarded. I told him how I was feeling. His response was that I love confrontation. I just keep going and can't let it go. He said " we were doing fine for two weeks and you just had to ruin it, you had to get heavy, I am so angry at you, you are frustrating, maybe we aren't compatible, I hope you find someone who loves you better than I loved you, I hope you get it one day"... .and with that, he blocked me on his phone.

So here I am today, meditating, licking my wounds, pulling myself back up from the floor and carrying on with my life. Which I am certain I will do, but this anxiety and pain is almost unbearable. And what next? I feel it's almost guaranteed he unblocks me at some point, pretends nothing happened and starts talking about "friendship" again. It's insanity. I shouldn't feel anxiety. Ultimately he left me off the hook and I should feel grateful... .but my stomach still hurts. I'm still wondering why and when he will come back and what will I say, etc.

I wonder if I have the personality disorder. I wonder if I'm crazy and can't see myself. I wonder if I'm the problem. Sigh... .

[shiningbrightly]

I left out one last thing... .just before blocking me he said he can't do this anymore, he can't take the stress and it's just too much.

[ChangingOfTides]

well, from my experience its almost impossible to talk about the deeper problems and unresolved issues in a relationship. They sure can bring up all their problems, but you cant.

It just totally invalidates them, before they could actually take in rationally what problems there are and what to do about them.

And ofcourse some introspection is also missing, as they switch modes constantly, and may not even be aware well that one mode does the exact opposite of the other.

In my case i can hear sweet I love you's in the morning, and hear how she has been getting flirtations from other men an hour later, to finally just hear how i am always standing in her way and holding her back the next hour. And these are all different modes popping up inside of her. Its hard to really talk shop and discuss relationship problems with someone who isnt in control or even aware of this constant switching

[Lucky Jim]

I wonder if I have the personality disorder. I wonder if I'm crazy and can't see myself. I wonder if I'm the problem. Sigh... .

No, you don't have BPD.  If you did, you wouldn't be talking about it here, believe me!

It's normal to blame oneself in the absence of rational behavior by the pwBPD.  Things about BPD don't make sense, it's true, but that doesn't mean you are crazy.  Just the way it is with a disorder that often defies reason.

Hang in there,

LuckyJim

[once removed]

it is not uncommon for many of us going through this to question our sanity or whether we have personality disordered traits (statistically, its very common of partners of someone with BPD). these can be volatile relationships, and its hard to know where we begin and the other person ends; we tend to lose sight of ourselves. as we disentangle, and find ourselves again, it always helps to see a therapist, someone with an objective eye, and someone who can help us tackle such issues.

if he does contact you, do you intend to respond?

[Lucky Jim]

t is not uncommon for many of us going through this to question our sanity or whether we have personality disordered traits (statistically, its very common of partners of someone with BPD). these can be volatile relationships, and its hard to know where we begin and the other person ends; we tend to lose sight of ourselves. as we disentangle, and find ourselves again, it always helps to see a therapist, someone with an objective eye, and someone who can help us tackle such issues.

Nicely put, once removed.  I lost myself for a while there in my marriage to a pwBPD, which was not fun.  Now divorced, I'm finding myself again, which is a great feeling.  I missed ME!   

LuckyJim

[patientandclear]

Shining: your account of the last few weeks could be from my BPD r/ship as well. Things go well as long as I pretend there was no problem in the past that we need to address. We get along great. But memories of painful things that happened in the past make it impossible for me to just plunge back in without understanding how things will be different ... .Or rather, assuming they will seems stupid and self-abandoning. So I try to engage him on the issue and that's when the situation loses its appeal for him. He too says he finds it too heavy; he is not strong enough. (I think this is important information ... .The normal processes of sharing feelings and repair trigger feelings for them that make it very difficult or impossible to achieve change in that linear way. Too much shame, projection, and fear.)

My pwBPD also would retreat to the "friends" category. I get why to him that feels safer but it really isn't, because it's a formula for intimacy without expectations, and while it may work well for them, but not so well for us after a while, as the closeness should come with an expectation of growth and not just sliding back into the same old patterns.

It may help to bear in mind that much of the dysfunctional responses are due to fear and shame. Ironically, the behaviors guarantee or hasten the loss they are trying to buffer themselves from.