Ex always was suffocated with me

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

At the beginning my ex was all over me ... .never gave me time at all to be by myself I love the attention I felt a certain high with it etc...

Then 2 months in she started to push and pull and said I am suffocating her etc... .and once I started to pull back a bit and give her the space she said why are you ignoring me ... .ugh it was a dynamic I had to deal with everyday and then after we broke up she's with someobe else which makes me think she was lying the whole time and needed space for her new victim.

Is this part of a pwBPD behaviour ? Suffocation ? But funny enough she wanted to move in together in the first one month of the relationship and wanted to get married in 1 month but wanted space later ? But 3 days before asking for space she wanted to get married and wanted me to be the father of her children ?

[theitcrowd]

At the beginning my ex was all over me ... .never gave me time at all to be by myself I love the attention I felt a certain high with it etc...

Then 2 months in she started to push and pull and said I am suffocating her etc... .and once I started to pull back a bit and give her the space she said why are you ignoring me ... .ugh it was a dynamic I had to deal with everyday and then after we broke up she's with someobe else which makes me think she was lying the whole time and needed space for her new victim.

Is this part of a pwBPD behaviour ? Suffocation ? But funny enough she wanted to move in together in the first one month of the relationship and wanted to get married in 1 month but wanted space later ? But 3 days before asking for space she wanted to get married and wanted me to be the father of her children ?

[Mutt]

Hi theitcrowd,



I think that what she was trying to articulate is " fear of engulfment" with suffocation, that's one way of looking at it. The fear of engulfment, is a fear of intimacy, fear of losing your identity in the r/s.

A pwBPD will push because they fear being engulfed, the distance then triggers the fear of abandonment, then the pull behavior follows, this push / pull behavior can feel like crazy making behavior. I hope that helps.

What does "fear of engulfment" mean?