Hi Izzy,
I'm sorry to hear you're having bad days ... .but it's good to hear you're also having not-so-bad days now too
I know, he has a mental illness, but does this level of intensity still apply to friendships? Of course there was attraction there on both sides (or attachment on his) but it was never going to be a relationship and we both knew that.
But did you both know that? As you know, people with BPD, or with BPD traits, tend to bust boundaries and won't necessarily approach a category like "friendship" with the same respect others would. You confided in him about your husband's infidelity, you note there was attraction on both sides, he's an ex boyfriend of your youth, it sounds like there were very intense feelings involved ... .so it's a potentially combustible mix and even someone without BPD might wonder where it could lead. I'm not at all suggesting you were wanting more than friendship, but from your friend's perspective, it might not have felt as cut-and-dry as a friendship that "was never going to be" any more than that.
I confided in my friend about quite a lot of things such as the problem with my marriage and my heartbreak of enduring my husband fathering a child outside of our marriage, work, family etc. and he also confided in me with things about his life too.
Do you have other friends or family you feel you can confide in? How much did that longing for someone to confide in drive your feelings for your friend?
So why as friends would he go to great lengths to do the push/pull and triangulate me at times with another ex of his who supposedly made contact with him not long after we had started speaking again after one of his previous discards. He knows I am married so why did he feel he needed to play head games with a 'good friend' and destroy our friendship to the point where we've now pretty much ended up hating one another?
What kind of answer are you hoping to find to these questions? You're not likely to find any explanation of his "need to play head games" that would leave you feeling, "ok now I see what his motivation was and why it was rational for him to play head games with me". He may be suffering from inner pain and feelings of shame/fear of intimacy that leave you on the receiving end of erratic behaviour through which he tries in various ways to cope with his inner world.
It's natural to want answers and explanations that will satisfy us and stop our minds from spinning in confusion and our emotions from churning in turmoil. What if the questions you're asking about his motivations don't have satisfying answers? Are you able to gently start turning your focus to asking what makes you crave those answers? Why do you feel you need them to move forward?
I say hate because that's what if feels like to me; he hates and despise my very being and I don't particular like the person behind the mask.
That is what it feels like to you. It's natural then to assume that it's what he intended. It's a natural assumption, but we're very often wrong when we make it. He has his own inner world to contend with and you have yours. It's hard when someone we care about causes us such pain and turmoil in our inner world, and it can create such confusion when that person just disappears or doesn't seem to care about reaching some understanding and trying to resolve the pain. All of us here know that pain and confusion. Yet your friend's inner world is filled with its own baggage that causes his behaviour, and even though the pain you're feeling now might convince you that he must have intended to cause you pain, his baggage isn't about you. You didn't create all the difficulties he has with pushing and pulling and disappearing, etc. And you can't fix that for him.
What you can do is gently bring your focus to your own inner world and begin to explore and heal there. How do you feel about that?
