Letter

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

Has anyone ever had any experience with writing a letter to a BPD ex / co-parent?

He asked me to make a decision recently on if I wanted to work things out, taking it slowly, or let him go so he can move on. I said I didn’t feel in a position to make that decision as I needed to see him being a stable dad for a long period before I could ever consider that. He said he read between the lines that I was telling him it was over and to move on.

I know he is probably messing with my head. The majority of people in my life would also be furious with me for considering a relationship with him after how much destruction he has caused. But I love him and can’t imagine myself with anyone else. It’s been nearly a year now since our D was born and us gradually splitting, and I still can’t let go of the thought of he and I ending up together somehow. I know I probably just need to let him go and toughen up to how much it’s gonna hurt when he does move on. I have been so close to saying let’s gradually give it another go, but I felt I had to see his relationship with our D established first.

I wondered about writing him a letter saying how I feel, as I haven’t until this point, or if it’s totally futile as he won’t be able to see things outside of his perspective. I am at a crossroads between doing this, doing nothing and gray rocking, or going to court to get everything mandated by law. Thoughts / experiences so welcome! Thank you.

[Purplegiraffe]

Has anyone ever had any experience with writing a letter to a BPD ex / co-parent?

He asked me to make a decision recently on if I wanted to work things out, taking it slowly, or let him go so he can move on. I said I didn’t feel in a position to make that decision as I needed to see him being a stable dad for a long period before I could ever consider that. He said he read between the lines that I was telling him it was over and to move on.

I know he is probably messing with my head. The majority of people in my life would also be furious with me for considering a relationship with him after how much destruction he has caused. But I love him and can’t imagine myself with anyone else. It’s been nearly a year now since our D was born and us gradually splitting, and I still can’t let go of the thought of he and I ending up together somehow. I know I probably just need to let him go and toughen up to how much it’s gonna hurt when he does move on. I have been so close to saying let’s gradually give it another go, but I felt I had to see his relationship with our D established first.

I wondered about writing him a letter saying how I feel, as I haven’t until this point, or if it’s totally futile as he won’t be able to see things outside of his perspective. I am at a crossroads between doing this, doing nothing and gray rocking, or going to court to get everything mandated by law. Thoughts / experiences so welcome! Thank you.

[kells76]

Hi purplegiraffe,

Sounds like a couple areas of your life are blurring together: there's getting together with him (or not) as a partner, and there's his functionality/involvement as a parent.

I think I'm tracking with you that you are tying these together  now -- if you observe him doing XYZ for a certain amount of time in the parenting area, that's what it would take for you to get back together?

Do you have a chance to observe that now? I.e., watch for the next X amount of time and see if he, of his own desire and volition, steps up to do that parenting stuff?

Otherwise, if he knows you're considering getting back together if he does XYZ, he might make those changes for external reasons, and my guess is that you wish he would want to step up his parenting on his own, through internal changes.

I guess I could see sending a letter going any number of ways. What would your goal be in telling him how you feel?

[ForeverDad]

We often discuss that we can't fix others, we can't do it for them.  In your case, your ex would have to want to improve himself, if he does it based on your terms and conditions then at some point sooner or later he will revert to his inclinations.  Ponder... is it realistic for him to change to what you wish he would be or for you to accept who he is as he is?

While we don't know him, do you think it's possible he's already wishing to move on?

[Purplegiraffe]

Hi purplegiraffe,

Sounds like a couple areas of your life are blurring together: there's getting together with him (or not) as a partner, and there's his functionality/involvement as a parent.

I think I'm tracking with you that you are tying these together  now -- if you observe him doing XYZ for a certain amount of time in the parenting area, that's what it would take for you to get back together?

Do you have a chance to observe that now? I.e., watch for the next X amount of time and see if he, of his own desire and volition, steps up to do that parenting stuff?

Otherwise, if he knows you're considering getting back together if he does XYZ, he might make those changes for external reasons, and my guess is that you wish he would want to step up his parenting on his own, through internal changes.

I guess I could see sending a letter going any number of ways. What would your goal be in telling him how you feel?

That makes a lot of sense. I guess I do have the opportunity to see that now - I’ve given him the option to see her twice a week with me and a family member present, and we are only communicating now by a co-parenting app. So it can only be about his relationship with her.

The thing is, he has made it quite clear that he’s not waiting around anymore for me to decide if I want him or not, and also said he wanted me to always remember it was me who made that decision to split our family up (I didn’t). So though I can observe now seeing if he steps up to the parenting, in the mean time I am losing the opportunity to rekindle our relationship. As it’s his relationship with our D that needs to be prioritised I know that I just have to accept this and that he is going to move on. But I am so sad and finding it very hard. However he frames it in his own narrative of things, it was very much him who left me once our D was born to cope with everything on my own, while giving me his up and down, in and out behaviour on top of a newborn baby to cope with rather than the support from him I needed. To now feel as though it was all my decision that he is moving on is so painful, as it was never what I wanted. I love him very much and it’s a painful pill to swallow that my options were to either renter the relationship knowing he hadn’t changed and putting our D at risk of growing up in a turbulent and unstable environment, or to raise D on my own while getting no support from him, watching him move on to new relationships AND being blamed for it. I was trying to push option 3 - that we focus on his relationship with D for like 6 months-1 year, and then if that was established explore rekindling. But it’s not an option for him.

[Purplegiraffe]

We often discuss that we can't fix others, we can't do it for them.  In your case, your ex would have to want to improve himself, if he does it based on your terms and conditions then at some point sooner or later he will revert to his inclinations.  Ponder... is it realistic for him to change to what you wish he would be or for you to accept who he is as he is?

While we don't know him, do you think it's possible he's already wishing to move on?

I think I can just as easily get lost in the fantasy of him being who I want him to be as he does. For the last month he has been saying that he is stable and he doesn’t understand why I keep saying he isn’t. But all the while shouting at me in public with D present and sending paranoid and threatening emails about my new boyfriend he imagined (I don’t even almost have a new boyfriend). It’s much nicer to believe his words than his actions. He has gone through phases of saying he will do anything to get our family back together and that there’s no one else for him, and that is so tempting for me to believe. But he can’t have meant it if a week later he’s saying he won’t wait around and is going to focus on himself and his future and let the thought of us go. I think I’m having a hard time letting go of the fantasy that he sold me.

I think probably there is a very high chance he either wants to move on or has moved on already. It makes me cry every day and I feel very pathetic about that.

[Gerda]

When it comes to writing a letter, you could go ahead and write it and then not send it. Or at least put it away somewhere for a while and tell yourself you could always send it later when things have settled down a bit.

I did that with my uBPD mom years ago when I finally figured out what was wrong with her. I still have the letter saved on my computer, but I never ended up sending it.

[Purplegiraffe]

When it comes to writing a letter, you could go ahead and write it and then not send it. Or at least put it away somewhere for a while and tell yourself you could always send it later when things have settled down a bit.

I did that with my uBPD mom years ago when I finally figured out what was wrong with her. I still have the letter saved on my computer, but I never ended up sending it.

That’s a good idea. Do you feel it helped you writing it?

I think I do need to think about what it is I’d want to achieve from the letter. Maybe resolve in my own mind. Or just something physical he can have and look back at when he is thinking/talking badly of me, that says how much I love him and wanted it to work but came to a point letting go seemed what was best for everyone. Even if it’s not what I wanted it seemed like the only feasible way he’d have a long lasting relationship with our D. I know he really believes right now I took his baby/family away and was too harsh ending our relationship, and thinks all the boundaries I’ve tried to put in place (e.g. keeping services up to date with what’s happening) are me being ‘bitter’, and I guess part of me just wants it writing for him that that isn’t the case. I haven’t told him how I feel for a long time and usually am just blunt and factual in my responses, mainly because the last time I opened up he rejected me and was really nasty, but also in case we do ever end up in court.
When we were together I wrote a few letters and I noticed that he always kept them, so I think he pays more attention to them than emails.
I wrote one back in February that I never ended up sending, and reread it recently and a lot of it still applies. Though I would take a different tone now.

[Notwendy]

Although I have sent letters and emails to my parents (BPD mother) I found that they weren't effective and worse- BPD mother saved them to bring up later "against me" in a different context.

So my advice is not to send one, from my own experience. However, some people have found that writing them and not sending them can be theraputic as it gets your thoughts and feelings out on paper.

As difficult as it is to be the one who is blamed for the disolution of the relationship- for me, accepting that the way my BPD mother thinks is to not be accountable- and so someone else is the "bad guy".

Karpman triangle dynamics helped me to understand this. I think that the pwBPD takes victim perspective- which means if there's an issue, the other person is the persecutor.

What actually happened doesn't fit into this thinking - so they may change the story to make it fit. However, what they say or think doesn't make it true. It's not possible to change how someone else thinks either. Your ex may think the sky is green but that doesn't make it green- but also your logic won't convince him it isn't.

I have accepted that - since I don't give in to all my mother's requests ( because I have boundaries) that I will be the "bad guy" and the one blamed in the situation. But I also know the truth and that whatever she thinks doesn't mean it's true and also, whatever I do or say can't change her feelings.

Your ex is giving you an ultimatum but that in itself is manipulative. Someone who truly cares about you won't put an ultimatum on like that. As to telling him how you feel in a letter- likely you've told him many times about how you feel. How did that work? If he truly cared about your feelings and you could communicate with each other and you felt heard- you too would have been able to work this out.

[Gerda]

That’s a good idea. Do you feel it helped you writing it?

I think it did. I wrote it right before I went No Contact with her for a few years. I think writing the letter helped me feel a little more closure about going NC with her even though I didn't send it. At least I wrote out my justifications for taking that step to remind myself of why I was doing it.

Then going NC gave me some time to heal and get some perspective on the relationship. When I got back into contact with her I didn't feel the need to actually send the letter then either. I've accepted that she'll never change and sending the letter would just make her upset and angry at me again.

If you do write a letter, maybe try telling yourself that you'll put it away until at least some certain time in the future, and then come back to it then. Definitely don't send it while the breakup is still fresh, and when you might be going to court soon about child custody arrangements. Emotions are too high now, so sending a letter like that would just throw gasoline on the fire.

[ForeverDad]

Writing a letter (never to be sent) can be part of the path to "Finding Closure".