Creepy? substituted not replaced

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Oh goodness! me my! My BPDex... .has found someone who has the same NAME, same HAIR, same look, same dual background.  In fact, two years ago an acquaintance of mine wrote to me saying he'd run into me last night.  I told him I was confused because we hadn't and he was embarrassed and said he was a little tipsy, that he had met someone with the same hair and same name as me, so he thought she was me, and that there might be someone in the city who was impersonating me (he was joking - but I just re-read the message).  Well guess who has been dating her for a year! My BPDex! I don't know what to think... .honestly I am at a loss.  Complete loss.  Am I hurt? I don't know... .this is just too strange.  Is she a better version of me? All my qualities and none of my faults? oh dear! goodness! I don't know if I should be flattered, or upset.  But this is truly the strangest thing that could ever happen.

[hotncold]

Oh goodness! me my! My BPDex... .has found someone who has the same NAME, same HAIR, same look, same dual background.  In fact, two years ago an acquaintance of mine wrote to me saying he'd run into me last night.  I told him I was confused because we hadn't and he was embarrassed and said he was a little tipsy, that he had met someone with the same hair and same name as me, so he thought she was me, and that there might be someone in the city who was impersonating me (he was joking - but I just re-read the message).  Well guess who has been dating her for a year! My BPDex! I don't know what to think... .honestly I am at a loss.  Complete loss.  Am I hurt? I don't know... .this is just too strange.  Is she a better version of me? All my qualities and none of my faults? oh dear! goodness! I don't know if I should be flattered, or upset.  But this is truly the strangest thing that could ever happen.

[hotncold]

anyone have any similar experiences or insights on this bizzarro situation?

[once removed]

hi hotncold 

anyone have any similar experiences or insights on this bizzarro situation?

yes, i was more than a bit dumbfounded at the way i resembled the guy that came after me. friends and family were as well. apparently, my ex was aware of it too.

i spent a number of months thinking about it. thinking about how it related to BPD. wondering, like you, if i should be upset or flattered. comparing myself to him. wondering if the fact that id actually introduced myself to him about a year before theyd get together had anything to do with it. analyzing her exes: why didnt any of the others look like us? oh hell, checking his facebook page and searching around the internet for him. i could go on.

its one of the few questions i had with which i never arrived on anything approaching a definitive answer. and besides, they broke up. in the long run, its one of the things that meant the least in my detaching process. youll probably never know how she compares to you, and i dont recommend going down that route, although in fairness alanis morrisette made a fortune of it 

anyway, the question that i found productive was identifying how it made me feel, and its understandable not to be too sure of that, its a strange thing to process, but i began to notice that my questions trended toward whether or not i thought their relationship would fail or succeed, how hed handle it all (better or worse), etc. what kinds of questions are popping up for you?

[seenr]

I haven't had this exact thing happen, but I do know that when my ex & I split before, she went on dates with tall, broad, fat blokes. I used to be tall, broad & overweight but have lost a lot of weight in the past two years. She went on dates with them and actually told me when we got back together that these blokes resembled me, but were not as good looking. But then again she has told me I am ugly several times too so I've no idea what she is looking for :-)

But reading the original post, it doesn't surprise me at all. I know that before I met my ex, I liked girls with one hair type, but these days I look at girls who have the same hair type as my ex. I guess it makes the mind feel a sense of familiarity or something?

[Leonis]

I was actually very different (appearance-wise) from all the other guys my ex dated.

The only thing I have in common with them all is that we all came from rough childhoods. Guess that's my ex's trend.

[hotncold]

Once removed,

I am not really sure how it makes me feel.  I kind of wonder if he took her because he couldn't get over having lost me (our last breakup was explosive, I lashed out at him after he cheated, then we did a push and pull, then I cut him off rather dramatically, for which I now understand was not right). I am currently revisiting a lot of the mistakes that I made in my relationship to him (I am starting to understand that I am probably somewhere on the "avoidant" scale) because NC has actually brought me to understand that although I focussed so much on all that was wrong with him, I never allowed myself to appreciate and acknowledge all that was wonderful between us because I was just so terrified. So his being with this new "photocopy" of me kind of makes me wonder if it's simply a way for him to not process our last breakup.  Beyond that, I would hope that in his mind he is in a relationship with her and not me... .I also admit that I dated men from the same ethnic background as him over the last few years, looking for a little piece of him.  I enjoyed myself but they never went very far.  What if they had had the same name as him? Perhaps it would have avoided me the pain that I have had to go through in trying to detach from him. 

But perhaps... .he also never really knew who I was/am and therefore someone who is a shell of me is good enough?  I have a lot of thoughts about it.  I have regrets because I am now coming to understand my own role in the high volatility of the relationship I had with him.  I had a very abusive upbringing so my defense mechanism is to push people away because I get too anxious when they get very close, as he did.  So I am sad about that, I am also sad that I hurt him, I am sad that despite a ton of work, tons of NC, he still pops up in my mind every so often and I feel love and comfort at the thought of him because I felt so understood by him.  I am sad that I knew myself so badly when I met him. My mind sometimes does wonder whether the replacement is able to be kinder, more understanding and less completely and totally terrified.  She must be since they have something that "appears" to be more stable. Our relationship was incredibly volatile.  So I think it's coming to realize my own shortcomings and wondering if the new girl does not have these.   In a way I am a little reassured by certain people who tell me that perhaps it's not such a strange thing after all and that he must appreciate some of her unique characteristics.  I am definitely in pain again, even though I thought I had put it behind me.  It's a different kind of pain, because the first time I broke up with him he ended up with another girl who was not like me at all and there I felt completely abandoned and left behind. This time I don't feel left behind, but I am faced with examining how I handled the situation and am coming to fully absorb my own mistakes.  I regret not having been able to overcome the challenges we faced, not to have the emotional maturity to deal with the situations in a way that would have been less hurtful for him (and maybe me).  I definitely feel like I will never be enough and like there is something wrong with me.  He has "moved" on from me twice, I have never moved on.  For that I feel like I am the more messed up of the two.  At first I thought I was the stronger of the two, but now with all this time having gone by, I don't think that I am.  Lot's of sadness. Perhaps I am truly processing the grief. I hope so because I thought I had already grieved him. So I think with respect to the new person, I question myself as to whether he is in fact over me... .or if he found her so that he simply did not have to process the grief?  I try to understand what his motivations are, where he's at etc, and what I mean (meant?) to him.  There were fleeting moments where he mentioned our connection was a once in a lifetime thing... .where he said he loved me but quickly took it back, and in all these times, I hinted at how I felt about him, but I never really opened myself up and owned my feelings for him.  That is my big regret.  I told him certain things, but I never owned my stuff.  Would that have made a difference for him? Maybe not, but I think it would have made a difference for me.  So I am struggling with all these thoughts. Sorry for the long post.