All of the posts about our struggling...are they?

[Herodias]

I have noticed there are allot of posts about people who have been here awhile struggling... .I wonder why. I am one too... .It is taking too long! There was talk about the pwBPD not wanting to be abandoned and not fully letting go. Maybe that's what we are doing? I have to say... .in the last email my ex sent me the other day made me curious. He said he was going to try and set something up, so we didn't have to be in contact with each other. Now, I haven't been in contact with him since April and that was a quick email. The time before that was Jan. when he wished me a happy birthday a month early! The comment he made specifically was that he wanted us to not have contact so we could "move on"... .Now tell me, maybe he meant move on from discussing anything, but I took it as possibly he hasn't moved on in his head either? Am I being ridiculous? I would love to believe that he is having trouble like I am... .even though he literally moved on to a new r/s and family... .but what if he is still thinking about me and what he did and maybe he is not so happy with his choice? I can never be with him again. After I told him that I do like babies... .he said "he got what he needed" from our emails... .maybe he meant that now he knows I have no interest in him with a baby. I told him if he ever got anyone pregnant it was over between us. My sister asked me yesterday if it was painful to think about kids, see babies and kids clothing stores and such... .I think it is and I am just trying to suck it up. I don't know... .I am just venting messed up thoughts here and maybe he never loved me at all. I really don't know. It just still feels so awful. Taking a few steps backwards after spending time with my sister and her husband and child from out of town. It made me wish I had a husband again. It made me remember what happened the last time they were here and the drama mine caused. It made me miss the good side to him too.  I can't imagine being in love again... .I just can't : (    I hope he regrets his decision... .I can't help it. I have had so many people tell me that they wish they could have a little time alone and I should feel lucky to have time to myself... .and I do. I just wish I had someone, yet I can't even imagine it right now. Not a good day.  I am sitting here in tears... .

[pjstock42]

Trust me, I oftentimes spend hours wondering if my BPD ex gf is feeling anything close to the same pain that I am experiencing even though I know that this isn't really a productive thought process for me to be entertaining.

Here is where I always end up and hopefully this can provide some comfort to you. People with BPD are always suffering and that will never stop. They aren't suffering because they care about what they did to you, they are/were/will be suffering because they have a shame based disorder that makes it hard for them to even live with themselves. In the case of my ex, she hates herself and the only way she functions on a day to day basis is by numbing her brain with a cocktail of powerful anti-depressants that she cheated the system to get, lying to herself about who she is and most importantly, believing her own lies. If you have gone through being painted to black by your ex, think about what that process entailed. It probably centered on a long list of lies about who you are as a person, why the relationship ending was your fault etc. These are the lies that I'm talking about and the only way for them to live is to believe these lies that they construct as it gives them justification/validation for how horribly they hurt other people. It's the same thing with triangulation, they are concocting a web of lies about who you are as a person and convincing a third party (as well as themselves) of these lies in order to make them feel ok with the way they treat you.

In my particular case, I think my ex possibly did have some true remorse and guilt for what she did to me but since she planned the entire discard behind my back and lied to my face about it, she was probably able to process this stuff /detach herself long before the actual discard whereas I am left to do that now since it was all a surprise to me. Up until the day she left with no warning, she was telling me how much she loved me, how perfect everything was etc. - this was her lying to me and to herself about how great of a girlfriend she was and how well she treated me despite her knowledge that she would soon be callously kicking me out of her life. We will never truly understand how the mind of our BPD exes works nor should we really want to in my opinion. We are left to deal with the trauma, stress, pain and heartache of having to get over this person on our own.

I will end with this and I hope it makes sense. As difficult as this process is and as much as it hurts, would you rather be in this situation where we are going through such great distress as the result of the actions of another or would you prefer to be someone who has to continually lie to themselves to get through life, never being able to look inside yourself or take accountability for your own actions? This pain sucks, trust me I understand that but at the end of the day, we will move past this and grow as individuals while our BPD exes will live the rest of their lives never being comfortable with who they are and relying on the belief of their own delusions just to continue living. As much as you can, try not to worry about what your ex thinks about you, how they have dealt with this situation etc. and instead try to focus on healing yourself.

[Herodias]

Thanks, PJstock42, You are right on with this and I needed the reminder. Mine is like yours... .numbing with drugs and alcohol. Yes, made up lies about me... .but by now I bet he is using my good things against my replacement. They do end up trying to get the replacement to feel bad by telling them the good things. I know I will get over this one day. You are right, they live with the shame. Mine told me that he knows he did wrong by me and will always regret it. He told his parents that as well. I just can't help but have  a  little hope that he is missing the life he left behind for a completely different life with someone who ultimately does not fit in with his family and circle of friends. She is from a completely different background than him. I am sure she will regret her choice of giving up all that she had for him as well. That is my only saving grace. They will be miserable together having given up their marriages (actually she is still married) pretending to be something they are not.  When he said "so we can move on" I thought we already had... .so it was a strange thing to hear from him. I will try and not dwell on it, I just had a big breakdown today... .It has been an emotional couple of weeks for me for reasons I won't go into... .Thanks.

[rfriesen]

When we've been hurt and treated cruelly by someone we love so much, how can we not long for them to feel remorse and take responsibility for the pain they've caused? I know that it would help me tremendously to have an open conversation with my ex where she expressed that sense of remorse, with sincerity and stability (i.e. not taking it back the very next day, or next minute). And that's a sign that we have an instinct for an important component of healthy relationships -- taking responsibility for our actions and feeling remorse when we hurt someone we love.

When we don't sense or see any of that remorse from a SO who simply cuts us out and moves on ... .well, again, I think it's perfectly natural to feel anger and want that person to suffer like we're suffering, to feel that same deep pain we feel so that they finally understand the need to take responsibility and finally feel remorse.

But there is a trap here for us in our recovery. The trap is holding onto a desire for our SOs to suffer, to feel pain like we feel. And we can easily end up ruminating over it, wondering whether they're "secretly" hurting, and convincing ourselves they always will. It's perfectly normal to pass through this phase. At the same time, it can help to remember it's a phase we ultimately want to leave behind for our own health and happiness.

I am sure she will regret her choice of giving up all that she had for him as well. That is my only saving grace. They will be miserable together having given up their marriages (actually she is still married) pretending to be something they are not.

Blue, those feelings are completely understandable. Believe me, I can relate so I'm not at all judging your feelings. I just want to ask -- do you want to hold onto these feelings? After all, they boil down to wishing suffering on these people. You might say that suffering is justified ... .but do you want to devote your own emotional energy and focus to wishing for it?

Here is where I always end up and hopefully this can provide some comfort to you. People with BPD are always suffering and that will never stop. They aren't suffering because they care about what they did to you, they are/were/will be suffering because they have a shame based disorder that makes it hard for them to even live with themselves. In the case of my ex, she hates herself and the only way she functions on a day to day basis is by numbing her brain with a cocktail of powerful anti-depressants that she cheated the system to get, lying to herself about who she is and most importantly, believing her own lies.

PJ, again these feelings are perfectly understandable and I've gone through plenty of them myself. So no judgment from me here either. Only this question -- as an end goal, do we want to take comfort in convincing ourselves that our exes are suffering and will always suffer their whole lives through? Forget our exes for a moment, will it help us feel better about ourselves longterm to find comfort and relief in convincing ourselves that they suffer and deserve to suffer? I hear some degree of painting your ex black in this post. Do you really feel your ex was completely incapable of empathy? That, amidst her own emotional turmoil, she never felt connected to and never longed to hold onto that connection? I know that the discard is completely inconsistent with how you would act if you love someone and want to stay connected with them. But just because she acted differently doesn't mean she didn't also have strong feelings for you, however hurtful her actions in leaving the relationship.

I still struggle with this a lot myself, but as I work through the feelings, I realise I would like to reach a place where I would be truly happy seeing my ex get the help she needs and go on to live a happy and fulfilling life. I'm not there yet, not in a stable and steady way, but I'm confident I will be eventually. We can all work towards that.

[pjstock42]

rfriesen,

Yes, I do believe that she is truly incapable of feeling empathy for others. I'm not saying this as a way to "paint her black" or to make myself feel better, it's just truly what I believe to be true about this specific individual. Knowing that she is a cold & callous person who has no regard for how she screws people over isn't something that I'm clinging to in order to help my recovery, it's just a reality that I've come to understand. I know that this healing process is about me and my own issues that led me to feeling so comfortable and stable in a relationship with a person who is incredibly unstable. The end goal here isn't for me to avoid all of my own issues with the excuse of her just being a bad person and I'm certainly not focused on that but it just happens to be the way that she is. I don't think she was ever connected to me at all, she was connected to a fantasy that I was merely a player in for a temporary amount of time. I was weak & vulnerable and thus the perfect person for her to latch on to for a set amount of time before having someone else fill the role. Again, I'm not trying to simply write this person off as evil but all of this stuff is true in my mind although it isn't an aspect of the healing process that I'm relying on to provide me with any acceptance or detachment if that makes any sense.

I know what you mean about wanting your ex to be happy and I agree, I even said this to her in our last communication before going no contact. Beyond that, I forgave her for what she has put me through and for all of the lies that she told me because I don't want to go on with my life having some kind of great hate & resentment for any person. However; my real goal is complete indifference which would involve truly not caring whether she is happy or not. As no contact continues, I will eventually (hopefully) get to a point where I don't even care at all about her existence and to me, that would be true freedom from this whole mess. So basically, I don't wish bad things upon her but I also don't wish good things upon her, my goal is to forget that she is even a person and just move on with my life.

[rfriesen]

Knowing that she is a cold & callous person who has no regard for how she screws people over isn't something that I'm clinging to in order to help my recovery, it's just a reality that I've come to understand.

I hear what you're saying, PJ. In my own relationship with my ex, what I ultimately could not accept was that she couldn't bring herself to care enough about her behaviour to make a serious effort to change. She had a lot of self-awareness and even acknowledged - in words, if not actions - that she had trouble trusting, and lashed out in intimate relationships when she felt hurt or anxious. She knew that this caused pain and instability ... .and yet finally said she just "didn't want to reflect on it", that "introspection hurts too much". This all still strikes me as cold and callous, especially given all her professions of endless love and promises that she "would do anything" to make it work. After all that ... .how could she not care enough at least to try, to make a genuine effort?

Of course, my reality with my ex is mine, and yours is yours. There may be similarities, but of course there will be differences. All I would suggest at this point is that it may be worth keeping an open mind as to whether the cold and callous, even cruel, sides of your ex's personality completely define her. After all, if you believe that she never felt love and never hoped that it would work and never cared for you (even if a lot of that was built partly around a fantasy) ... .then you don't believe she is a pwBPD, but more of a sociopath, and that doesn't seem to fit with the experiences you've described. Drawing firm conclusions about the "reality we must accept" can help us gain a foothold in moving on. Being willing to revisit those conclusions later can help us grow as we gain more confidence in our recovery.

So basically, I don't wish bad things upon her but I also don't wish good things upon her, my goal is to forget that she is even a person and just move on with my life.

Again, completely understand this sentiment. Though forgetting "that she is even a person" is a goal that seems motivated by at least some feelings of hostility. Perfectly normal feelings, of course. If that is the goal, though, you may end up cheating yourself out of an opportunity to learn from the experience and hold onto what you've learned about yourself and what the relationship ultimately means to you. It's clearly a relationship that has moved you deeply, even if in a painful way. That can be just as meaningful for you in the long run as easy/happy relationships, if not more so.

Just a few thoughts and my own two cents, that's all   I only intend it in the sense of offering one more perspective to think about.

[pjstock42]

I definitely do appreciate the perspective so don't get me wrong on that. It's funny that you mentioned the word sociopath because that's actually where my research started before discovering what BPD even is and to be honest, I think that this particular person is a mix of both plus some narcissistic personality disorder thrown in. Upon reading about the BPD relationship process and seeing so many stories here that could have been written by me, I knew that BPD was a part of it for sure. I guess I was fortunate enough to have entered into a relationship with a pwBPD whom is also a narcissist and sociopath so lucky me on that one.

I agree that revisiting what her real intentions were may be something that helps me later on in this process but just not right now. The first 1-2 weeks of this were nothing but me trying to understand how anyone could do this to me, especially someone who I cared for so much and who told me that she loved me every day. You're right that there is some hostility here and I mean, how could there not be? This person screwed me over in so many ways that it would be difficult to just excuse her behavior and continue thinking of her as the perfect person that I always saw her to be before the discard. Again, hostility is not a key factor in this for me - I'm not and never have been an angry person and any feelings of content that I've had during this process have been very subdued. The thoughts that constantly overwhelm me are those of the good times, how much I miss her etc. and I almost never find myself in an "angry" mood about this. The indifference is a goal that I see as being a good middle ground as I don't want to come out of this hating her but also don't want to continue idealizing her & missing her as well. Ideally, she will be a person who I see walking down the street and don't even think twice about continuing to walk by, no ill-will but just a complete lack of care for the fact that she had any part in my life.

[rfriesen]

You're right that there is some hostility here and I mean, how could there not be?

Absolutely, I think we'd be talking serious repression if you didn't have feelings of hostility after how your ex ended the relationship. And I certainly didn't want to suggest that her actions in doing so weren't cold, callous, and cruel.

The indifference is a goal that I see as being a good middle ground as I don't want to come out of this hating her but also don't want to continue idealizing her & missing her as well. Ideally, she will be a person who I see walking down the street and don't even think twice about continuing to walk by, no ill-will but just a complete lack of care for the fact that she had any part in my life.

I think it's great insight to look for a middle ground. When I was in the relationship with my ex, I got caught up in her dynamics of idealisation and devaluation and that's left me with a real struggle to find balance in my view of her and of our relationship. Very hard to square the great times with the horrible times, the intense outpourings of love and longing with the brutally cold and dismissive actions. The last suggestion (at least for now, I promise!  ) I'd make is that there are many different kinds of middle ground and ways of finding balance. Indifference might be the goal you need now, but if there's one thing I've learned over the past nearly 5 months, it's that I've found it challenging but rewarding to keep reflecting on and revising my goals as I move along. Not every day, of course, but this process has turned my emotional world upside down, so I've learned not to write anything in stone as I work through all the turmoil. It's possible that indifference can be an important stepping stone without being a final resting place.

[Infern0]

You have to understand the way the illness works.

People with BPD cannot cope with their emotions so they have coping mechanisms that the use (denial, splitting, projection, dissociation) it should be noted that codependent people have similar problems which is why we get stuck.

Do our exes suffer, yes they do but not in the way we do. They use the coping mechanisms to keep going on the outside but their part in things adds to the internal shame. There is no ability to healthily process things.

If people can get a grip on their own codependency issues (difficult, I know it's taken me 2+ years) you'll start to have a bit more understanding as to why they are like this as you accept there ARE some similarities.lp

[married21years]

  BH

read a lot of your stuff and feel for you.   everyone is rooting for you! 

[Herodias]

PJ, I think mine is a bit of several PD's as well, that's why I think we stay angry. Not knowing. Thanks Married21years.  I saw this morning that he called me and left me a message Saturday- my ringer was off and didn't get it thank goodness! All this makes me look at the stupid things I've done in the past too... .Life is so complicated! Why do we have to have all of this stuff to deal with too... .Uggh! I'm just working on healing... .Wish I could do allot of things differently now. I think I'm depressed over all of my past mistakes. I don't really know what's real anymore.