Crazy making after break up

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

So I constantly make so many errors in dealing with my now again ex BPD. Instead of letting our last break up be it I once again re-engaged just like I have before and it went badly just like before.

I know I should let her go, every reason is there, part of me likes who we is away from the disorder (yes I know I can't have one without the other). And part of me is scared she will engage me after some time and I won't want her then. Strange thing I know.

Since the break up one week ago we haven't talked. I broke the silence with a message basically about some leftover things there and about my jobs having no our old address as where to mail me my checks and important documents. Nothing has come yet but I'm afraid if I don't talk to her about it, it could go "missing" or something else.

This was met by her ambivalent, b___y remarks. The type that you get from someone you have wronged, even though she wronged me, which led to our break up. She was like I'll throw it in a box for you. Then said my mom was Facebook messaging her thumbs ups at night (it's a Facebook virus) it's happened to me, and my mom would never do that. And she didn't even just delete her which makes it weirder instead she complains about it. Then she's like we will talk later, I'm busy! Trying to insulate that she was doing something else or with someone else. Maybe she is, I did drive by and see her car at home and lights on, not sure if someone else was there but she's been texting me that and on Facebook off and on so I don't know.

I just don't know why she's hating on me so much. Is she angry at me for breaking up with her for doing the wrong thing? She should be mad at herself, I didn't want to break up. And considering what a b___ she was why the hell cant she be nice brought to be cordial over this and just cut ties completely? Instead of keeping our pics up and talking ___ about my mom instead of deleting her, then being a botch to me when I'm trying to be peacemaker? None of it makes sense it seems like now she's just always trying to piss me off, and I don't know why!

[KarmasReal]

So I constantly make so many errors in dealing with my now again ex BPD. Instead of letting our last break up be it I once again re-engaged just like I have before and it went badly just like before.

I know I should let her go, every reason is there, part of me likes who we is away from the disorder (yes I know I can't have one without the other). And part of me is scared she will engage me after some time and I won't want her then. Strange thing I know.

Since the break up one week ago we haven't talked. I broke the silence with a message basically about some leftover things there and about my jobs having no our old address as where to mail me my checks and important documents. Nothing has come yet but I'm afraid if I don't talk to her about it, it could go "missing" or something else.

This was met by her ambivalent, b___y remarks. The type that you get from someone you have wronged, even though she wronged me, which led to our break up. She was like I'll throw it in a box for you. Then said my mom was Facebook messaging her thumbs ups at night (it's a Facebook virus) it's happened to me, and my mom would never do that. And she didn't even just delete her which makes it weirder instead she complains about it. Then she's like we will talk later, I'm busy! Trying to insulate that she was doing something else or with someone else. Maybe she is, I did drive by and see her car at home and lights on, not sure if someone else was there but she's been texting me that and on Facebook off and on so I don't know.

I just don't know why she's hating on me so much. Is she angry at me for breaking up with her for doing the wrong thing? She should be mad at herself, I didn't want to break up. And considering what a b___ she was why the hell cant she be nice brought to be cordial over this and just cut ties completely? Instead of keeping our pics up and talking ___ about my mom instead of deleting her, then being a botch to me when I'm trying to be peacemaker? None of it makes sense it seems like now she's just always trying to piss me off, and I don't know why!

[rfriesen]

None of it makes sense it seems like now she's just always trying to piss me off, and I don't know why!

It is incredibly frustrating and painful, Karma, believe me, I know the feeling. At the same time, you seem to have a good understanding of why she's doing this. On some level, she gets satisfaction or validation from you reaching out to her. If she acts like you've wronged her, and you keep reaching out nonetheless, then that will seem to validate her belief that you've done something wrong. After all, you're the one reaching out and trying to fix things, so you must be the guilty one. I'm not saying that's rational or fair, but it's a common experience in BPD relationships. If we're the fixer or caretaker type, that can feed into the BPD dynamic -- it makes it easier for our partners to simply wait until our need to "fix" things drives us to reach out again in a conciliatory manner. When you do that, she likely feels that the power balance has tipped in her favour and she can act as though you're to blame for whatever has gone wrong. Wondering whether she "truly" believes that or not can drive you crazy. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, does it? What you have to deal with is her behaviour, not what she may or may not truly believe deep down.

It is a very difficult pattern to break out of. You might feel that all you want is simply to have an open, honest conversation, free from all this power struggle. But every step you take to have that conversation is immediately swept up into the power struggle and "crazy-making" that has come to dominate the relationship.

If that's the pattern, and it's been in place through multiple break-ups now, the question is, do you want to continue engaging, or try to detach? Checking social media, trying to interpret what she does and doesn't do there, driving by her place and wondering whether she's with someone ... .do you want to continue down that path?

It can be very hard to disengage, don't get me wrong. I know that. And it doesn't happen all at once. There can be lots of backsliding at first, and for some time. So don't be hard on yourself for re-engaging. But it does sound like you've been living the same painful pattern for some time now. Do you feel ready to stop re-engaging and to begin detaching?

[KarmasReal]

It's true every dynamic between us is a power struggle. Love, communication, sex, and especially break ups. She always needs her idea of the most power. My reaching out for legitimate reasons and her acting the way she did and putting it off is he grasp at power. Maybe in her mind I had too much power when I left, so she had to ignore me and then treat me badly so she could take it back? It sounds so crazy though. Her actions caused me to leave she said and was doing wrong inappropriate things. She should have the courtesy to at least be civil to me after I did so much for her and she screwed me over, if I wasn't looking at it from this borderline point of view she would sound like the worst person in the world!

And I know! I don't have any excuses for her anymore I know how terrible she is, I've seen the probably so many terrible things about her I should literally despise her. Nothing good seems to reside in her no redeeming qualities anymore at all. And yet I still can't pull the plug? Just block her number her social media and delete everything, get rid of all reminders and it's done. So why can't I?

I think it's something to do with my ego or pride or self perception, but I'm not exactly sure what? Maybe I can't let myself believe I was this stupid and I gave two years of my life to a person who doesn't understand what normal emotions and love even are. It makes it so fictitious and fake. I feel sad that I could have found someone who did love me maybe marry and have a family with during this time I was going back and forth with her. Nobody, but especially nobody like me, can admit a failure of that magnitude without it just wrecking me. I guess I can't accept it due to my own flaws not so much her and her BPD issues. I need a forum for that! Haha. Thanks for your reply as always very helpful!

[rfriesen]

It's true every dynamic between us is a power struggle. Love, communication, sex, and especially break ups. She always needs her idea of the most power.

I went through the same with my ex. It was especially devastating because everything was just the opposite in the beginning -- love, communication, sex all felt so open, so giving, so without any demands made on one another. Just pure joy at being able to share all of ourselves so easily. That's the beautiful idealization phase that I remember. I don't think of it as a "lie" so much as a fantasy that we couldn't sustain. It's hard to keep all the hurt and anger that came later from tainting everything. I think with sufficient time (which could mean several years), I'll remember the good for what it was and appreciate the intensity of that connection. The more I detach, the more I see that as realistic. But that's the hard part -- in order to appreciate the good times as genuinely good, I have to let go of the relationship and of any hope/desire of reconciling. I need that emotional distance, but it's a very hard process of letting go bit by bit.

Maybe in her mind I had too much power when I left, so she had to ignore me and then treat me badly so she could take it back? It sounds so crazy though.

It does sound crazy if the aim is to work through a difficult patch of a relationship. But if your ex is dealing with intense inner pain and turmoil and feels the need to vent that at you, to blame you and feel justified in doing so, then it makes sense. One of the most confusing things in a relationship like this is that a partner might say they accept fault for something, but act as if you're to blame. You end up walking on eggshells and seeming to do all the work of soothing things over, even though your partner has said (in words, not actions) that you weren't to blame.

I think it's something to do with my ego or pride or self perception, but I'm not exactly sure what? Maybe I can't let myself believe I was this stupid and I gave two years of my life to a person who doesn't understand what normal emotions and love even are. It makes it so fictitious and fake.

This could be a crucial insight in pulling yourself out of this. I felt something similar -- I couldn't accept that my ex and I had been so madly in love and wouldn't at least try to leave things on friendly terms, with the possibility of sharing happy memories of it all once the dust had settled. How could she become so cold? I just knew that wasn't what she really felt inside, so I became determined to connect with those "real feelings" she was holding in. And, to be honest, I know our relationship affected her deeply and that she was hurting a lot inside. Every time I tried to finally let it go, she would pull me back in in her own way, with her own big gestures and desperation. But somehow she seemed to know/believe that the key to keeping this dynamic going was to hide her innermost feelings, never talk openly the way she did early in our relationship ... .because that way I would keep coming back to try to get her to open up and be emotionally intimate again. It was all power struggle, and eventually I had to let that go. Very painful feeling. By far the deepest emotional cut I've felt in my life. At some point, though, I just knew it was the only way forward for me.

I feel sad that I could have found someone who did love me maybe marry and have a family with during this time I was going back and forth with her. Nobody, but especially nobody like me, can admit a failure of that magnitude without it just wrecking me. I guess I can't accept it due to my own flaws not so much her and her BPD issues. I need a forum for that! Haha. Thanks for your reply as always very helpful!

That is this forum!   It's great that you're already able to turn some of your focus and questioning on yourself. If detaching is your ultimate goal, the only way there is through your own thoughts and feelings. And, as I said about my own experience, I think we sufficient time and distance, you'll begin to have a clearer sense of how much was real for her and it might still hurt to think of all the might have been without the BPD dynamics. But once you've taken enough time to work through your own emotions and recover, the pain won't be so raw or overwhelming.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and stay healthy