It's crazy that someone you would die for do this

[stevemcduck]

Mod note: This thread is a continuation of the following thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=3060142.0

she just blocked me on TikTok, I want even looking at her stuff just realised I had one less friend, its crazy that someone you would die for do this, I didn't do anything to cause this. I just wrote the nicest letter ever and that was her response

[stevemcduck]

honestly, after all I have given her, all the emotional support all the experiences and all the financial support over the years. and she can even give a basic level of respect, thats the most immature thing ive ever seen. im better off without such a toxic little emotional abuser in my life, I feel sorry for the next guy, bless him

[Pook075]

honestly, after all I have given her, all the emotional support all the experiences and all the financial support over the years. and she can even give a basic level of respect, thats the most immature thing ive ever seen. im better off without such a toxic little emotional abuser in my life, I feel sorry for the next guy, bless him

As you said in your letter, she's been dealing with unseen mental health for awhile now.  You wrote a fantastic letter, but that's just not enough to cut completely through all of what she must be feeling.  And hey, just because she didn't reach out immediately doesn't mean she never will.

It's great that you said what you had to say though, because it clears a path for you to begin healing and growing and moving forward.

[stevemcduck]

Thanks POOK

my guess is that she was monkey branching all along and my letter just made her feel shame. I dont think think I will ever hear from her again to be honest. I don't think she would want to face me as I was truly amazing to her in our time together. it hurts that I will never hear, talk or see the love of my life again. but I've accepted that its a disorder that done this to us.

its a truly awful disorder and the most tragic and heartbreaking thing. I feel sorry for everyone involved, for me, for the new guy who will suffer the same and most of all her, who will most likely struggle with this for life. now that I think its the owner of the company she has gone to, he was showering her with praise and giving promotions very early on and making her feel important, and basically grooming her, its admin work she does for a company in the adult entertainment industry, I think thats why she wanted the surgery and she is really hot and he is going to push her into porn. she is mostly likely gonna pop up on pornhub soon, I saw a instagram post the other day saying she is headed out to LA. she has a life of drugs and degradation ahead of her im guessing. she talked about her boss a lot and he seemed to be one of those nasty, controlling employers and shouted at everyone, and demeaned his staff, she felt great that she was the only "good" employee in the firm and the only person he was nice to. I could see the grooming a mile off and tried to gently tell her but she thought I was being unsupportive and saying she wants good at her job. I held on hope that I was being paranoid all this time, deep down, knew in my gut what was going on.

What an absolute waste of a beautiful kind soul. I feel so sorry for anyone involved with this terrable mental condition.

[once removed]

I feel demoralised

understandably so.

you put your heart into that letter. its unfortunate that she couldnt acknowledge it.

I suppose time will heal

time wont do anything but dull the acute pain youre feeling right now. if time healed, our exes would all be cured. you wouldnt see members here, still disrupted years after their relationship ended. 

the test of true healing has just begun.

in your hurt, which is something we can all appreciate, dont lose sight of that. healing will come, or not, dependent on what you do, or dont do, with time.

You wrote a fantastic letter, but that's just not enough to cut completely through all of what she must be feeling.

there was a lot of pain in your relationship, compounded over time. it wont soon disappear for either of you. the only thing that has changed is that it now falls on you both separately. we know its a lot to shoulder, and you wont have to do it alone.

she just blocked me on TikTok

sometimes a block isnt about blocking the other persons access - its about blocking the pain. its about choosing not to look or engage, and asserting the mental and emotional space to heal. i know thats of little comfort right now. but what can feel like someone sending a message to us is often more about self preservation.

a basic level of respect, the most immature thing ive ever seen

youve made super human strides in these last few weeks, SMD.

dont stop there. in your hurt, dont throw away what you have gained, what you have learned, what you have internalized.

the true test of healing is what you do with it now, when its the hardest of all.

armed with support, reach deep, and be that most mature version of SMD that youve ever seen - not the guy that got ground down under the wheels.

it will matter to you, a year from now, five years from now, long after the acute pain that you feel today has dulled.

[stevemcduck]

thank you once removed

I think all of the way through this I have held some kind of hope and now that that is gone I just feel total loss and sadness and trying to work on acceptance. its immensely painful to think that I won't ever see her face, hear her voice or hold her hand again.

And the pain of knowing how easily it was for her to just erase me stings a lot.

I know I need to move forward and heal. the trouble is, I dont really know how to heal, what to do you take the pain away other than rely on time.

I'm working with my therapist who listens to me but doesn't offer a lot of advice. he did help me however to realise the extent of the abuse I suffered, even what I thought was the good times was, in a way, abusive. my mind was conditioned to feel the need to take care of her, like a parental bond, and that will be taking a huge toll now as I have no way to ensure she is safe.

[Under The Bridge]

its immensely painful to think that I won't ever see her face, hear her voice or hold her hand again.

People have posted here that their BPD ex's have suddenly contacted them, even after years but know that it will only be because it suits their needs at that moment; they'll be no more genuine than they were the first time you were with them and the cycle will begin all over again. Hopefully if it ever happens you'll be a far stronger person by then and not be drawn back in.

And the pain of knowing how easily it was for her to just erase me stings a lot.

Probably the hardest part to deal with and understand; it's like a child dropping one toy when a new one is given to it. I've always thought of BPD as an illness of  'fancy dress' - they go to the party as one character and act like that character but then when they decide the party is over they simply drop the role, like we would take off our costume. The effect on the non-BPD is brutal, as we've all found.

even what I thought was the good times was, in a way, abusive. my mind was conditioned to feel the need to take care of her, like a parental bond, and that will be taking a huge toll now as I have no way to ensure she is safe.

Remember that even when you were having good times, you were probably on edge all the time, wondering if one wrong word or action would set her off. It's a huge strain on the nerves. I got to the stage where I was sitting in the pub waiting for her and thinking 'Is she going to be in a good mood tonight? Will she ignore me when she walks in because someone else has annoyed her? Will she be all smiles or just go into her 'we're finished' routine?

Thinking of all that gave me the strength to start healing - I never want anything like that again. Good times aren't so good when you have to live on a knife edge all the time.

that will be taking a huge toll now as I have no way to ensure she is safe.

Obviously you can't easily turn off feelings but it's important to realise that you aren't responsible for her any more. Her choices - whether right or wrong - are hers alone and outside your control. You did everything you possibly could in the relationship and you now need to concentrate on your own well-being, as it's the one thing you do have control over.

Stay strong.

[Skip]

I think it's important to try and make the most realistic assessment of the situation you can right now. When emotions run high, it’s common for our feelings and the facts to become misaligned — and that disconnect only makes it harder to navigate what's happening.

You’ll benefit most from speaking openly with people who are both caring and insightful. You already have a therapist — don’t hesitate to ask him for his honest perspective. Create the emotional space for him to be candid with you.

The same goes for the support you’ve received here on BPDFamily. You’ve had some genuinely thoughtful and heartfelt feedback from others in this thread.

   “And the pain of knowing how easily it was for her to just erase me stings a lot.” — stevemcduck

That may not be what happened. These two statements stand out:

   "I want to be with you but I equally feel the desire to be alone, I can't explain it — it's a confusing mindset for me to be in."

    "I feel I can't be like I was before, I just don't know where that has gone, and I don't understand why."

A more realistic interpretation might be that she’s been conflicted and struggling with the future potential of the relationship for a while — and with the emotional weight that comes with separation.

But then, back in March/April, when you found out about her involvement with that erotic side gig — whatever the specifics were — she was "outed". What had started as uncertainty or second thoughts about the relationship became something much more concrete: a violation of your relationship, as seen by both you and her.

She laid it out pretty clearly — "I feel I can't be like I was before..."

She seemed to be also saying, it was not a reflection of anything you did wrong. She likes and respects what you two shared, but... .

"I want to be with you but also want to be alone" — shows she was emotionally torn.

Her moving out was major development. That seems to have been the best way she (and you to some extent) found to handle the situation.

Everything that’s happened after the move-out has been an emotional tug-of-war of those two major events.

In that tug-of-war, you both came to see that separation wouldn’t be simple or painless, and it fueled a defensiveness between the two that made things worse each step of the way.

The most helpful thing you can do now is to take a step back and give this all space. You don't need to close or open any doors. You can let it rest for a while.

She hasn’t erased you. You didn’t break the relationship. But over the past year, she has slowly disengaged. Whether that continues or reverses — that’s unknown.

What may help you find clarity is focusing on this question:
What changed over the last year that led to this emotional disengagement?

Did you take each other for granted? Is she just young and immature? Or one of you not ready to settle down? Is she a head-case? Was this a "forever" relationship or a stepping stone?

You said that in the last year things were falling off... what did she express to you as dissatisfaction? Coming to grips with this will tell you a lot.

[stevemcduck]

Thanks guys, sorry it took so long for me to reply im just struggling and couldn't even bring myself to type.

I wish I knew how to heal but I dont.i do hope I can find a way to get to a point that if she ever contacts I have the strength to resist it but right now I can't seem to even imagine that.

I didn't feel any of the being on edge stuff during the relationship. I feel very safe and secure and I really thought she was my forever person, she really made me feel that.

I think what started the disengagement was that her business that I funded failed and she felt shame and guilt about it. and I was supporting her and she was struggling to get a job. I think this I when her mindset really started to change. I was also having a struggle with my business and discussed it with her a lot and maybe I overloaded her. but we were still very financially stable even though these things were happening so we were never in financial hardship.

we didn't take each other for granted, she was immature and mature at the same time, it was hard to explain. this was definitely a forever relationship. we both talked about that a lot and were very connected. she never mentioned an dissatisfaction at all.

We didn't take each other for

[Pook075]

I wish I knew how to heal but I dont.i do hope I can find a way to get to a point that if she ever contacts I have the strength to resist it but right now I can't seem to even imagine that.

Hey friend.  You're dealing with heartbreak, and that alone is so difficult to get through.  The mental health aspect makes it 100x more complicated and it's a process that you simply have to work through one day at a time.  Because even right now, at your lowest, one good decision daily will have compounding effects on where you're at a week from now, or a month from now.

Again, it's a process and you're doing all the right things.  Keep making good decisions and you'll eventually see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[once removed]

I wish I knew how to heal but I dont.

i didnt either.

candidly, i think recovery for most of us involves a certain amount of white knuckling - just getting through those first days, weeks, sometimes months. time may not heal wounds, but all the same, it still takes time to heal. the early days can be brutal, and few of us land smoothly.

thats not to say you cant use that time wisely. building and retaining a sense of routine and normalcy was a suggestion that i got, and in retrospect, was crucial for those earliest days, even if my ability to do it was very limited. eating well, getting good/enough sleep, avoiding over indulgence, all of the usual "treat yourself well" all contribute, and make a bigger difference than you might think. depression, anxiety, grief, can mess with these things, like sleep and appetite. spending quality time with loved ones will validate you, and ground you - they may not all know what to say to help you feel better, or they may run out of things to say, or they may say the wrong thing at times - but having that company will go a very long way. so will posting here, with people that get it. helping them, too, will help you in ways that will surprise you and reveal your own ongoing healing to you.

but keep your eyes on the big picture of long term healing and recovery, not just the immediate pain. it turns out, there really are instruction manuals for this.

what helped me was having a roadmap for grief recovery, a sense of what to expect along the way, and tools to help me cope. things that helped keep me grounded when i felt like i was losing it; the wound dressing, if you will. the stages of grief, the stages of abandonment, were my roadmap. my sense of what to expect came from the 10 beliefs that can keep us stuck (https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/surviving-break-when-your-partner-has-borderline-personality), from better understanding depression and how it might fight me along the way (https://www.bpdfamily.com/content/depression-stop-being-tortured-your-own-thoughts) along with the 10 forms of twisted thinking that can come with it (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=56199.0). there is a great deal more. information about recovery and what it looked like, gave me hope, and was my light at the end of the tunnel when hope was lowest.

learning to practice Mindfulness helped me to synthesize all of that, and to get me through it when my thoughts were at their worst. you can learn to manage heightened emotions simply by learning to observe them in a detached way, in a way that reduces their urgency: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=64749.0

there are resources for recovery - roadmaps for healing. things that will stick with you. we just have to use them.

but if you want clickbait, the one thing id boil it all down to if i had to?

make it your goal in all stages of recovery to become more emotionally mature.

have you ever come across something from your teenage years, maybe something you wrote, maybe a conversation, but something that just made you cringe to death because it was so lame you couldnt even relate to it?

thats what Detaching is, in a nutshell. its what comes in hindsight. its looking back, with our older, wiser, better, stronger selves, and saying "i dont even recognize that part of my life". its not only gaining the skills and tools we didnt have in the relationship, its practicing them to the point of mastery, where we use them reflexively, and weve continued to reap the rewards, long after our pain is gone. its about building strength and resilience you didnt have before, and becoming the sort of person who, when hes tested by the things life has to throw at us, as he inevitably will be, wont flinch or get ground down by them, but handle it skillfully, and not only survive, but thrive.

visualize that version of you. believe in him. start, today, in whatever small step, to become him.

[Skip]

stevemcduck, keep talking.  It will help.  Everyone here knows hardship.

[stevemcduck]

thank you so much for being here of me guys.

im working hard on my healing, im meditating, doing yoga, going to the gym, going for walks, reading, journalling, eating well. watching YouTube videos about healing, educating myself about bpd to better understand what happened. trying to be there for myself. I really am doing the work.

im fighting every hour not to reach out to her. but I am longing bad for her to reach out, just to feel like I matter.she mattered more to me that she can possibly imaging. and now that I think back at more things I was probably getting deceived more than I can imagine. the more I think about it, the pictures I found, the lies, the boob job, the new job she had in there adult industry and the growing relationship with her boss. im starting to think there was a much larger lie at play. and I feel so stupid that I still want her, I feel weak.

I'm desperate to be held, kissed, have someone by my side as I sleep. I feel incredibly lonely and unwanted, I feel ugly and worthless. and it's crazy I think that way. I was better than her in almost every way. come to think of it the only thing she had on me was looks, but even that, when we strip down the makeup and flawless clothing choice we are even on par with that. in reality it is absolutely her loss. however I still reel like ive just been thrown away like nothing. and it hurts. I was emotional secure, financially secure, I had lots of friends she had none, my family are amazing hers are awful, im well liked and she was not. how is it I am pining for her? it makes it all worse that such a lower human being can discard me like that. it makes me thing if I couldn't even keep her, how will I ever be able to have a good, healthy normal woman

[stevemcduck]

also, as I have no contact now I also worry about how she is, if she is ok. I worry about her a lot, I know she was in such a bad place mentally.

I miss her so much, and the dog. I hate being in this house, everything reminds me of her.

[SinisterComplex]

also, as I have no contact now I also worry about how she is, if she is ok. I worry about her a lot, I know she was in such a bad place mentally.

I miss her so much, and the dog. I hate being in this house, everything reminds me of her.

This is totally understandable and not surprising. However, the only thing I want to mention is to make sure you do not spend more time worrying about her than you do yourself. Control what you can control and not on the things which you have no influence over.

Cheers and Best Wishes!

-SC-

[stevemcduck]

I really don’t want to move on and I have no choice, but she is a bad person, she doesn’t really care. She discarded me like I mean nothing, and abandonment was my biggest fear also. When I was with my ex wife, we agreed only to have one child, and when she said she wanted a second child I said no. She said if I did not she would take my 1st child and abandon me and raise my child with another man if I do not have the second child. I had the second child as I was blackmailed. But I didn’t love her anymore, she was cold, uncaring, did not make me feel good and devalued me for years. When I met my exwbpd she filled every void that my wife created, I thought at long last I found true love, and then she abandoned me, and brought all my fears into reality and now I feel that not only am I grieving the loss of her but also my whole life, I was with with my wife 17 years and exwbpd 5 years,  feel like I have been treated badly for 22 years and it it all just coming crashing down, I feel unlovable, disposable and worthless

[seekingtheway]

It sounds like what you're feeling now is the grief of all the abandonment and neglect you've faced in your lifetime. It can be such an intense time of reckoning, so go easy on yourself as you move through this stage.

You're definitely not unlovable, disposable or worthless, and i know that because nobody in this world is. But I know how awful it is when confidence is so low that's how it feels. It's easy to feel like our worth is attached to the way others treat us, and yet the truth is, it's rarely anything to do with us. Your ex was acting in ways that demonstrate her patterns, her wounding, her trauma, her genetics... and as you mentioned, you have your wounds too, which she has activated. I understand when you say the worst possible thing that could happen to you in a relationship is to be abandoned and neglected. I have similar wounds too, so I get that.

I just wanted to encourage you to keep going, keep moving through the hurt. You'll eventually end up with some pretty strong and clear realisations about who you are and what you need.

[once removed]

im fighting every hour not to reach out to her. but I am longing bad for her to reach out, just to feel like I matter.she mattered more to me that she can possibly imaging.
...
I was better than her in almost every way. come to think of it the only thing she had on me was looks, but even that, when we strip down the makeup and flawless clothing choice we are even on par with that. in reality it is absolutely her loss. how is it I am pining for her? it makes it all worse that such a lower human being can discard me like that.

SMD, it isnt a wonder that this isnt working for you. because, deep down, you dont buy it.

youre trying to grieve the loss, while pining for her, and devaluing her at the same time. it sounds exhausting. and its no wonder that you beat yourself up when it doesnt work.

imagine for a moment if she had died, instead of a breakup. you wouldnt cope by propping yourself up at her expense. you wouldnt beat yourself up for missing her. right?

things got a lot easier for me in my own recovery when i made that connection, and just let myself grieve.

you are experiencing a loss. you cant grieve it by trying to convince yourself that the loss is actually hers.

at the same time though, its complex, because she didnt die; you broke up. she didnt respond to your overtures. and that stings.

so you arent just grieving. youre experiencing a significant wound to your ego. when the ego is wounded, it often either idealizes or rails against (or swings back and forth between the two) its rejector. see it for what it is. strive for balance. she no doubt had significant issues she brought to the relationship that made it difficult. things about her you surely dont miss. and she no doubt brought to the relationship a part of her that deeply attracted and touched you, that you are mourning and grieving. the loss encompasses all of those things.

dont let the ego wound run the show. thats how you not just heal, but build resilience. feel your feelings. grieve your loss. "the only way out is through" is a cliche that i very much buy into when it comes to recovery, because ive seen the profound peace that waits on the other side.

as you mentioned, you have your wounds too, which she has activated.

and as seekingtheway mentioned, the loss has clearly activated old wounds. perhaps they are wounds you hadnt yet fully grieved, either.

the silver lining is that when something like this reopens old wounds, it creates the opportunity to fully heal them.

all my fears into reality

and the thing is, youre still alive. it didnt kill you. and youve seen that.

it may not feel like it now, and it may not feel like it for some time. but this is an opportunity to conquer your fears, to become even stronger and more resilient as a result, and maybe most importantly, to no longer live a life that is ruled by them.

[Under The Bridge]

it makes me thing if I couldn't even keep her, how will I ever be able to have a good, healthy normal woman

You answered your own question there; you'll be able to keep her because she will be a good, healthy normal woman, just as you're a good, healthy normal guy. You'll both be yourselves, without any pretenses. Your previous experience will hopefully  enable you to spot any red flags and not be drawn back into another BPd relationship.

You won't have to fight to keep her or change yourself or walk on eggshells because she won't have any of the serious mental problems that caused so much pain with your prior partner.

After my own grieving period I found it was amazing to go out with 'normal' girls again and not be sitting there in constant fear of when she would next have an episode or walk out. You can get back to normality but the time it takes is different for us all.