Closure, confusion, and the struggle

[KarmasReal]

I know I've read here enough about finding closure with BPD and how futile it is. But as the days keep going by I'm finding it harder and harder to progress. It feels like I'm stuck in a rut of thinking about everything, dreaming about it, it's consuming a lot of my life and coping with it very badly. My smoking and alcohol habits are at an all time high and I feel like the rest of my life is being drug down because of these things.

It's been over a month now, I've seemed trying to get closure once, under the guise of her returning some of my belongings. I really wanted to talk face to face and come to a general understanding or at least part on good or civil terms. The text I sent asking to pick up my things was met by her reply of "I'd rather not. I'm not happy with the way things ended. Please don't text me again". Safe to say I was rather confused. She caused the things between us to end badly and I've never seen someone who's been in a long term, fairly serious relationship to reply to such a request so coldly. I could have understood a little bit if I had been a jerk or mean to her and that caused the split. But I was nothing if not caring, thoughtful, and always there for her.

I of course replied to her message saying "why would you rather not me get my own things"? And also said "I'm not happy with the ending either, she meant a lot to me, and it didn't have to end that way". That text was met with silence. No reply and it's been over a week since those were sent. Not only is her lack of civility towards me hurtful, I thought I meant something, he reply jus confuses and frustrates me more. I know reaching out again will look bad, make me look weak, or that I miss her so and she's in control, so I can't do that. Is my only recourse to sit and wait and see if she ever comes around and talks to me again? Is there anything I can do to make her want to do that in an indirect way? Really struggling guys thanks for being here!

KarmasReal

[Ahoy]

Mate, spend and afternoon on here digging back through older posts. Every single page will have posts about the abruptness in which their particular relationship ended.

Myself? I would have easily 1000 questions I want answered from her, which I know I will never get an answer for. Even if my ex magically decided to call and give me 60 minutes where I could ask anything I wanted, knowing what I know now, there is NO WAY I could trust or believe her replies anyways! It's a lose/lose situation.

I got hung up on closure for a good 2 months, its completely natural. Like most people, my closure came from knowledge of this subject and also knowing that a REALLY big part of getting closure, is simply accepting that you loved someone who was mentally ill and not a whole lot of what went down will ever make sense... .because, it doesn't!

With regards to reaching out, as 2010 says, the best thing you can do for a BPD is to let them go.

Life is way too short my friend, once again, seek closure in knowledge and understanding of the disorder, depersonalise yourself to it (over time) and accept that if she was BPD, what you had was never going to be sustainable, try and move on as best you can.

[Dhand77]

Karma,

I was really hung up on closure for a good two to three months. Heck, I'm still confused as to what happened. But I've come to accept that I'll never know. My BPD ex reminds me of an ostrich. She just sticks her head in the ground and expects everything to just pass on by with time. Meanwhile, nothing really actually goes away.

You just have to try your hardest to let her go, the same way she let you go. It's all we can do. Our own closure, will be only closure we ever get.

[KarmasReal]

Thanks guys,

I've definitely read about the abruptness of the endings in a lot of BPD relationships as well as their inability to give closure. I sometimes have trouble separating my ex from her disorder. I see her for her a lot and don't place emphasis on her disorder, whenever I do that I start thinking emotionally again. I mean it's hard to date or be with a person for so long and not see them as that person. It's hard for me to think of her as a BPD I sometimes just think of her as the girl I was with and all the things we had and shared. I guess since I'm only a little over a month into it, it will take some more time for me to heal and get my own closure. This disorder is truly an emotion killer for us Non's. It's a shame the trouble it caused everyone involved.

[once removed]

karmasreal, i dont think thats necessarily the wrong attitude. our exes are not just a disorder, and i dont think we ought to over emphasize it. she is the girl you were with. presumably, that entailed many intense shared romantic moments; it also entailed a disorder, disordered thoughts and actions.

the disorder is inseparable as its deeply ingrained in personality. it is not the whole person; it does not explain every action, thought or feeling.

id like to echo what Ahoy said:

seek closure in knowledge and understanding of the disorder, depersonalise yourself to it (over time) and accept that if she was BPD, what you had was never going to be sustainable

[Icanteven]

I'm in the same boat as Karmasreal right now:  What the heck just happened, and how did the person I shared the happiest memories of my life leave so abruptly?

I guess the thing I struggle with isn't closure so much as her being in treatment for her mental health issues and wondering what if.  What if she gets better?  What if she gets the help she needs?  What if she becomes who she wants to be?  Did I lose the love of my life over a mental health crisis that she may return from?  It's unbearable. 

[C.Stein]

I'm in the same boat as Karmasreal right now:  What the heck just happened, and how did the person I shared the happiest memories of my life leave so abruptly?

I guess the thing I struggle with isn't closure so much as her being in treatment for her mental health issues and wondering what if.  What if she gets better?  What if she gets the help she needs?  What if she becomes who she wants to be?  :)id I lose the love of my life over a mental health crisis that she may return from?  It's unbearable.  

I think we have all been in this place.  I am in some way at almost 10 months out.  The what ifs are a natural part of detaching but we need to be careful to not let it consume us or to lead us to accept responsibility for things that happened in the relationship that are not ours to own.

There are so many what ifs that you will ask yourself, but perhaps some of the most important ones you could ask are:  

• What if I stayed in this relationship and what would happened to my emotional well being?  
  
  
• What if we got married and nothing got better but instead got worse?
  
  
• What if we had a child and that child was emotionally damaged as a result of my partners disorder and/or our dysfunctional relationship?
  
  
• What if she did get help and she got worse instead of better?
  
  
• What if she can never truly be the person she wants to be because the disorder will always be there impacting everything she does?
  
  
• What if she accepts she suffers from BPD but rather than doing something about it uses it as an excuse for all the bad and hurtful behavior?
  
  
  Lots of "other side of the coin" what ifs that should be asked.  
  
  
  
  
  

[once removed]

i certainly asked it myself. you have to consider the reality of a personality disorder and what "better" means (im not referring to the chances/outcomes of recovery, but what it would entail to you personally).

it occurred to me my ex would not be the person i met, or the person i was in a relationship with. it is possible (likely?) that we would never have been attracted to each other, or at least so drawn. that was terrifying and somewhat painful, then it was comforting. slowly it facilitated resolve. ironically, today, there is no attraction - now its irrelevant.

call it magical thinking, but i tend to believe relationships end for a reason (usually it boils down to incompatibility). our exes are not the key to our happiness.

[Icanteven]

These are my general responses; no stridency is intended or given, just trying to be matter of fact.

There are so many what ifs that you will ask yourself, but perhaps some of the most important ones you could ask are:  

• What if I stayed in this relationship and what would happened to my emotional well being?  I know the answer to this one, as I went from being a pretty darn independent person to being significantly codependent
  
  
• What if we got married and nothing got better but instead got worse? We did get married, we were madly in love for years and years, and then, due to a series of events beyond anyone's control, her latent mental illnesses came out of the woodwork; this for me is one of the hardest parts:  she and I were best friends and made for each other by nearly universal acclaim, then all hell broke loose in her mind
  
  
• What if we had a child and that child was emotionally damaged as a result of my partners disorder and/or our dysfunctional relationship? As opposed to the damage their mother is doing *RIGHT NOW*?
  
  
• What if she did get help and she got worse instead of better? Unfortunately, this was my contention all along:  the help she was getting seemed to be making her worse.  She didn't communicate with me very well what was happening, and the folks taking care of her didn't educate me that there was so much more at play; I just assumed what they were telling me folded into her existing mental illness. That was clearly, clearly, wrong.  The DBT and mindfulness exercises opened a hellgate of bad behavior that dwarfed nearly anything she had ever done previously, and in rapid order.
  
  
• What if she can never truly be the person she wants to be because the disorder will always be there impacting everything she does? This is a huge question mark to me, because she hated doing DBT before she left me, and she seems relieved not to be doing it now.  But, no one has sat down with her - to my knowledge - and said, you very well may have the diagnosis you've been diagnosed with all these years, but you're not responding to meds and everything is getting worse all the time; this is what's going on and if you ever want to recover this is how it has to be.
  
  
• What if she accepts she suffers from BPD but rather than doing something about it uses it as an excuse for all the bad and hurtful behavior? Wish I knew.  She had excused past bad behavior on being unmedicated/undiagnosed, which I bought, and she's well aware that she's done incredibly awful things to people close to her. 

As I've mentioned in other threads, my wife has foregone drugs and alcohol and takes her medications religiously, so I know she doesn't wanna go anywhere near where she used to be with her mental illness(es).  That's what gives me hope: she wants to live a normal life, and a lot of her past behaviors that interfered with living that life are now relics of a different existence.  That said, she is of the impression that her illnesses are tied to her original diagnosis and the intervening events that triggered her current mental state.  Further, she detested DBT and paid lip service to mindfulness up and until she actually had to do the exercises, at which point she appears to have dropped it as a coping mechanism.  Come to think of it, all the coping mechanisms she would come home and tell me about were quickly discarded.

But, here's the thing:  if someone said to her, you, at a minimum, have significant, pronounced borderline traits, and would certainly qualify as borderline under the DSM, and all the pills you take now will never do anything to change your life if you don't do the psychotherapy, I think she could do that.  Otherwise, ignore everything else I wrote above.

I know it would be a years-long recovery process.  I know I may get back someone else - to onceremoved's point.  I know that recovery doesn't mean we live happily ever after, and that her life is permanently impacted by this illness such that we will never be the couple we were when we got married.

But goddamnit, she is my wife and these are our children, and I would rather the love of my life come home and fight this with me than become estranged from our family and wander through a wasteland of existence for the next however long. 

[freemanstrut]

I lucked out yesterday, closure-wise.  I found out that my ex, who I broke up with about a month ago due to distrust and has been repeatedly attempting to communicate with me and to try to get back with me, was cheating on me while she was here, and had even found subtle ways to flaunt it.

I spent all of yesterday furious.  I worked out like a madman, sought solace in friends, and my mind just whirred through possibilities - if only I had watched her more closely.  If only I had kept her under tighter wraps. 

And then I realized that there was no way I could have.  There was nothing I could have done to keep her from finding drugs, booze or sex, short of locking her in a cage or chaining her to a radiator.  I worked from home and spent nearly all of my time with her, and STILL she managed to sneak off to get ___ed and ___ed up.

I had suspected that she had cheated for a long time.  To find proof was cleansing.  I had struggled with worrying about her - her sobriety, her health - but I no longer do.

I don't know what else she did that I don't know about.  I never will.  But I gave the relationship my all, helped her get diagnosed and start her treatment - I did everything right.  I did next to nothing wrong.  I have no regrets.

I took a chance, I got burned, and now it's time to get on with my life.

[C.Stein]

But goddamnit, she is my wife and these are our children, and I would rather the love of my life come home and fight this with me than become estranged from our family and wander through a wasteland of existence for the next however long. 

I apologize for not being entirely familiar with your situation.  Clearly it looks like you want to save the marriage.  So are you detaching by choice here or having your hand forced by her?

[Icanteven]

But goddamnit, she is my wife and these are our children, and I would rather the love of my life come home and fight this with me than become estranged from our family and wander through a wasteland of existence for the next however long. 

I apologize for not being entirely familiar with your situation.  Clearly it looks like you want to save the marriage.  So are you detaching by choice here or having your hand forced by her?

She hasn't reached out in weeks.  She didn't speak to our children even on Mother's Day, even after I tried desperately to get in touch with her.  She's given me every indication she is ready to move on with her life, only, there's still a family she's completely abandoned.  I would save the marriage for our kids and for the hope that we could fight her disease together, but she has decided she doesn't want that.

My T and I have finally, I think anyway, drilled down to the core issues of our relationship, such that, if she weren't my wife I'd be ok to let her go.  Only, she's my wife, we have children, and what is kicking my ass is that she could just abandon our entire family and not even consider reconciliation even though this is the first and only time she has ever deserted us.