It's imperative to stay away from my BPDxbf but I feel like contacting him

[bAlex]

Do you think the book you're reading might be making you feel worse, could it be making you doubt your decisions or the way you handled things?

Clearly I am punishing myself

LW x

That's kind of what I suspected. But him buying you the book sounds kind of one-sided. Why should you be doing all the work?

This book might be doing a good job at keeping you stuck? Perhaps something to consider?

I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but you mentioned violence or fear of it. I don't think you should look back.

[LilMe]

The relationship has to end because his current behaviour is unacceptable to me and the risks are too high. I would re-consider if he demonstrated that he had made effective changes to his current behaviour. That would probably be a mistake - that's why I need to domestic violence support group. I need bringing to my senses before I do something reckless. I don't want to end up a statistic.



I left my uBPD for a year and he actually went through a 6 week domestic violence program.  He seemed to be better.  He apologized and said all the right things.  I read and re-read my Kindle copy of Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist and worked so hard.  But the put downs and name calling slowly started creeping back in.  The control never went away, but got worse and worse.  I have to accept that is who he is.  Yes, the amazing, loving person is there, but the abusive one will always be there too.

I also think it sounds like it is time to focus on you and not him.  There are some really good books out there that can help you understand what is abuse and how to deal with what has happened to you.  Lundy Bancroft, Patricia Evans, etc. are a few authors that helped me.

Please let us know how it goes at the DV support group meeting.  I haven't joined our local one yet, but really should!

[C.Stein]

Why does it feel so much harder to love myself than it does to love someone else?

Because it is much easier to look away from ourselves than into ourselves.  Sometimes we do/feel things for others in order to feel good about ourselves.  The response we get from that provides the feelings you are incapable of providing for yourself.  If you find this to be true how do you think you can independently generate these feelings for yourself?

[Lifewriter16]

Having spent the morning mulling over things, I have concluded that regardless of whether:

• I consider a person to be responsible for their behaviour or not



• an abusive action is intentional or not



• the person can control themselves or not



• the person is being deliberately cruel or not



• the person knows right from wrong or not



• the person has had a had a miserable life or not



• the person loves me or not



• I love them or not

the only thing that is actually relevant is what impact the behaviour is having upon me. All the other issues are just red herrings. If I am suffering or becoming ill because of another person's behaviours towards me, it is time to take action. As jhkbuzz says:

the truth is that this 'unintentional abuse' still wrecked me and left me with scars that I will carry for a very long time.

As I was reflecting this morning, my mind went back to a time in childhood. I went to my dad to ask him to do something about how mum was treating me. He didn't do anything about the difficult situation I was facing. He didn't speak up for me. He simply said: "Just try to understand. Your mum has had a difficult life." Looking at it now, he's advocating co-dependency and I have watched how he deals with her all these years and probably learnt some of my emotional habits from him. His motto was "Anything for a quiet life." He did very little to rein in my mother's worst excesses. I don't know if she has a personality disorder or not, my guess is that she's simply autistic. I suspect she is very low on empathy, has little understanding of what is socially acceptable in life, has absolutely no appreciation that other people are different to her and no awareness of how her behaviours impact upon others. If she feels it, or she wants it, or she thinks it's the right thing, then it is, BY DEFINITION. Who and how she is has had a massive impact upon my life and my mental health.


My sense that I am responsible for causing and soothing other people's feelings comes from growing up with my mother and trying to control my brothers so they wouldn't upset her. She was a very frightened woman, very child-like and very helpless with a tendency to expect everyone else to pander to her feigned ill-health and emotional vulnerability. She has some very funny ideas and does some very strange things. Nothing is straight forward in interacting with her. She is unpredictable, controlling and manipulative in a helpless, please-don't-hurt-me kind of way. If she is upset, she will literally run away and lock herself in a toilet. She may not be able to help how she is, but she has made my life a misery. And so does my BPDxbf. He combines the best of my father with the worst of both my father and my mother. What a heady and awful mix.


I have been struggling with guilt a great deal because I told my BPDxbf that I would always love him and never leave him. I feel bad that I haven't kept that promise and have hurt him in the process. I am pretty sure that he will have resorted to believing that I don't love him rather than looking at his own actions. My mum used to tell me that you should always keep a promise you make to a child and my BPDxbf is a small child, sometimes. However, I went into the relationship in good faith expecting that he would treat me well. Since he didn't, I consider that promise to be overridden. I don't have to fulfil my side of the agreement if he isn't fulfilling his.


Love

Lifewriter

[C.Stein]

I'm curious LW ... .who do you think you are more like, your dad or your mom?

[jhkbuzz]

Why does it feel so much harder to love myself than it does to love someone else?

Because it is much easier to look away from ourselves than into ourselves.  Sometimes we do/feel things for others in order to feel good about ourselves.  The response we get from that provides the feelings you are incapable of providing for yourself.  

It goes even deeper than that ^. Adults who have been traumatized as children often disconnect from their feelings, their bodily sensations and their needs because it was what they had to do in order to survive a dysfunctional childhood.

Sometimes, when I look at the damage a BPD relationship does to an adult, I wonder how the children survive it and I could weep for them. Somehow, I can't feel for me.

Why does it feel so much harder to love myself than it does to love someone else?

When I first started seeing my therapist she would often ask me what I wanted or how I was feeling. My answer was almost always "I don't know." I really didn't know. This "not knowing" was exacerbated by the breakdown of my r/s with my exBPD partner (I was an emotional wreck and didn't know up from down at that point in my life) - but "not knowing" has always existed within me on some level.  I just didn't know how I felt because it was too dangerous/painful/useless to attend to my own needs - there was so much going on externally that I needed to manage. This was true in childhood with my raging mother/emotionally absent father - not to mention with another relative who molested me. It was also true in my r/s with my ex. I've begun the slow journey of discovering what I want and need... .it's a journey full of tears, but also of relief and visceral understanding (not of the "intellectual" variety). I'm seeing more and more that the strategies I used with my ex are the strategies I used with my mom... .and, it's hard to describe this, but I "feel" it more than i understand it intellectually.

LW, it sounds like you have experienced your fair share of trauma. Your focus on your ex and how he is feeling/doing/thinking is a childhood "hangover" - it's habitual, it's how you attended to both your mother and your father in order to survive. I keep encouraging you to focus on compassion for yourself because it is the missing ingredient. Find a therapist who can help you work with your trauma. You are worthy of love and tender care, but you have to believe that to be true. Your life is not meant to be spent catering to the needs and whims of others - what you need is very, very important too.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi C.Stein.

I think I'm more like my dad. If I was even vaguely like my mother I would be mortified. I don't think I'll ask you why you ask. I'm not sure I'm going to want to know. 

Lifewriter x

[Lifewriter16]

Hi LilMe.

Thanks for your post. My BPDxbf has dried out and come off drugs, gone through group DBT for 6 months, had 18 months in a schema therapy group and done a 12 week programme for abusers. Sometimes, he seems normal, but as soon as he's stressed, he dysregulates. His dysregulations are coming approximately twice a week and they can last up to 36 hours. He no longer self harms, he doesn't get drunk or take drugs any more and he doesn't make suicide attempts (as far as I'm aware). That's a lot for him, but his relationship issues remain. I think he needs some kind of therapy to address his childhood trauma. As, of course, do I.

Thanks for the author recommendations. I will check them out.

Love Lifewriter

[Meili]

I have been struggling with guilt a great deal because I told my BPDxbf that I would always love him and never leave him. I feel bad that I haven't kept that promise and have hurt him in the process. I am pretty sure that he will have resorted to believing that I don't love him rather than looking at his own actions. My mum used to tell me that you should always keep a promise you make to a child and my BPDxbf is a small child, sometimes. However, I went into the relationship in good faith expecting that he would treat me well. Since he didn't, I consider that promise to be overridden. I don't have to fulfil my side of the agreement if he isn't fulfilling his.

I have been struggling with these very same feelings and reached the same conclusion that you have. That realization didn't seem to take away my guilt however. Even when I am angry at her unkept promises, I still feel guilty about not keeping mine.

Ultimately, I've decided that I have not, and never will break those promises to my xgf. I will always love her until the day that I die. I will never truly leave her because she will always be a part of and with me. The extent that she gets to experience the reality of these things is her choice. She could choose to do the work necessary for us to have a healthy, safe, and happy relationship; or she can choose to continue down the path that she knows so well. That is beyond my control.

As long as she stands by the choices that she's made in the past, I'll continue to love and stand beside her from a distance. That's the best way that I can show her that I truly do love her as much as I told her that I do. The alternative is to not love her as much and enable her to continue to live a dysfunctional life.

[HurtinNW]

Lifewriter, I've heard you suggest several times that the break-up is on you. I remember quite clearly that he raged and broke up with you, many times. If I am right the last time he called you a "spoilt b___," raged at you on the phone, and ended it (again).

I am curious, do you have any feelings of anger at all about this behavior? Have you examined where your anger is? Anger can be a healthy place where we stand up for what we are worth.

You have not hurt him. He has hurt himself. Can you see that? If he has lost your relationship it is because he called you a spoilt b___, among other horrid things, gives you silent treatments and rages. That is him hurting himself as well as you. Same with him threatening his child and ex with a knife. Was his child hurting him? Of course not. He was hurting his child. Same with you.

I see you go around and around with wanting to turn the blame inside, as well as minimize and excuse his behavior. I get it, I do, and it is wonderful you are examining your FOO as to figure out why. It sounds like you have been coached since a young age to feel responsible for protecting others from the consequences of their behavior. That's a really tough place to be.

I'm sending you tons of hugs. And more than a little anger at your ex. You are worth so much more, Lifewriter 

[Lifewriter16]

As long as she stands by the choices that she's made in the past, I'll continue to love and stand beside her from a distance. That's the best way that I can show her that I truly do love her as much as I told her that I do. The alternative is to not love her as much and enable her to continue to live a dysfunctional life.

I think this sums up my approach to date, Meili. I have been working on myself (the only thing I can control) and praying for him. However, I think I may have to accept that it is over and I must let go and move on. As you can hear, I'm still not quite there yet.

Lifewriter, I've heard you suggest several times that the break-up is on you. I remember quite clearly that he raged and broke up with you, many times. If I am right the last time he called you a "spoilt b___," raged at you on the phone, and ended it (again).

I am curious, do you have any feelings of anger at all about this behavior? Have you examined where your anger is? Anger can be a healthy place where we stand up for what we are worth.

I can't muster up anger Hurtin. I felt angry with him when my BPDxbf was sending me abusive texts, manipulating me, telling me I was angry and threatening to dump me. If I feel anything at all now, it's sadness. As for standing up for what I am worth, I can't honestly say that I have any sense of being worth anything to anyone other than myself. My experiences as an aspie in a neurotypical world and as a child in my FOO have shown me that the majority of people see no place in their lives for a misfit like me. They will talk to me for a while, but it goes no further. If I stand up for what I am worth, all I will end up with is precisely nothing because only rarely does anyone care enough to be bothered with me.

This is the 10th time I have faced 'the end'. I don't see that anger will change anything. I've done anger dances, I've bargained with God. I've had multiple opportunities to recycle so I could do it differently, some on explicit prayer request. Perhaps, I've just reached the sad phase. Whilst I recognise my BPDxbf is awful when dysregulating, I really do think he did the best he could at the time. So did I. It's just that our collective bests were just not good enough to overcome the terrible baggage we both carry. It is tragic. Being angry with him won't make our relationship work. It won't put me in a better place. Perhaps I will connect with my anger as I get to a better understanding of the situation. Perhaps hearing other women speak about their experiences will help me to connect with my anger. Perhaps not.

None of this is to say that you are wrong to feel anger in your situation. I know it's part of the grieving process and I wouldn't want to interrupt that process with my opinions. I just think I've got past that. I may be proved wrong.


Love Lifewriter

[HurtinNW]

What I am suggesting is righteous anger can be one way we stop ourselves from reengaging, and as the topic of this goes, you are very tempted to do that, even though it could have dire consequences for your child.

I am concerned because you are in a situation where you have been warned that contact with your ex could bring children services into your life, where you could potentially lose your own child. Not to mention your ex is a dangerous person. You are coming here to ask for help to not contact him, which is a very good move on your part. But what I am worried about is you sliding back into invalidating yourself, and not connecting with the tools to help you detach.

You write that getting angry won't make the relationship work, or put you in a better place. The point of the anger is not to fix the relationship, it is to validate your right to be treated lovingly and not abusively. It is to create distance.

Of course, I'm not saying you have to get angry. Lots of people don't. There isn't a right way to do this. But anger can be an effective tool for detaching.

On self worth, you write you don't have a sense of self worth to anyone other than yourself. What about your child? Can you see the reflection of your worth in your child's eyes? Can you see that you truly are special and needed to another human being?

Each person has to make their own choice, and those who recycle get only support from me, no judgement, because heavens knows I should win a prize for all the times I tried again! But if your goal is to detach, perhaps consider using your child as the motivator. If you are not in a place to say you are worth better, can you say it about your child? I have a note on my desk that say: "You WILL NOT do this to your kids anymore." In the first awful weeks of no contact that was the only thing that kept me from calling him. I couldn't do it for myself.

And also, you have my support as someone who is an aspie. One of my kids is neurologically divergent and my heart just aches for her. So many people in our culture fail to try and understand. It's got to be awfully tough on you   

[Lifewriter16]

I'm NOT going to go back Hurtin, you don't need to worry for me any longer. I'm not going to contact him. I just wished that I could.

As the thread has progressed over the last 10 days, I've moved from anticipating that he WILL contact me again (and thus I needed reserves to handle that and stay away) to believing that the danger is passed and he NO LONGER will. This thread has got me where I needed to be. The group starts today and I've avoided doing the wrong thing with everyone's help. Thank you.

I have eventually realised that my fear of him contacting me is unnecessary, the relationship is no longer open to me. He has said that he has his daughter to consider and that I am of no importance in his scheme of things any more. He said that she is more important and he is going to concentrate upon her.

I've spent the last 10 days checking my email account, hoping for and also dreading receiving an email from him (because I know I'd have to dismiss him anyway). I'm starting to stop expecting his emails. I'm starting to believe that it won't come and that I am actually FREE.

I have been grieving through this thread. Good and bad news as he was, I need to process the sadness now. It's hard to let go because he gave me what I took to be love. Perhaps one day I will experience what real love feels like and I will see the relationship more clearly. What he gave me was more than I'd ever been given before. That makes it hard to let go of. I had hopes for the future. They have all gone now, but I am going to be okay. I now know, that I am going to be okay... .

Thank you Hurtin, thank you to everyone for helping me to stay on the straight and narrow.

Love

Lifewriter

[C.Stein]

Hi C.Stein.

I think I'm more like my dad. If I was even vaguely like my mother I would be mortified. I don't think I'll ask you why you ask. I'm not sure I'm going to want to know. 

Lifewriter x

No specific reason why I asked LW, just thought it might help if you could identify more with one parent than the other.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi everyone.


I am pleased to be able to report that I went along to the domestic violence support group and I didn't feel out of place at all despite all my fears over the last week. Indeed, there were two women there that I've met before. One of whom, I am already on hugging terms with. It was so nice to see her.

As the group progressed, one of the other women mentioned having AS, so I told her I too have AS. We were both so pleased to meet another woman with AS having never done so before. Now we both have someone to compare notes with.

It turns out that she runs a fortnightly art therapy group for survivors that focuses upon building for the future rather than the abuse itself. It sounds just the thing for me. I've been wanting to join an art therapy group for some time but haven't been able to find one. And I really need to focus upon looking forward rather than back.


Funnily enough, even though it felt like coming home when I met my BPDxbf, I feel like I've really, truly come home now. Isn't that strange?


On the down side, the doctor rang this afternoon to say that the NHS has suspended all funding for counselling 'pending a spending review' so the AS-specific counselling I've spent so long trying to set up is not going to happen after all. It's time to consider alternatives. I'd like to do some DBT. When other people have talked about it, it has always sounded like it would be really helpful for me.


It's been a good day and I already feel better than I did. I simply don't feel like contacting my BPDxbf any more.

Love

Lifewriter

[C.Stein]

It's been a good day and I already feel better than I did. I simply don't feel like contacting my BPDxbf any more.

That great LF!     There is life after the ex.