2 months ago, my then-live in partner X (undiagnosed, both they and I have recognised they strongly fit BPD criteria) cheated on me by having sex with someone else while I had a reasonable expectation of a monogamous relationship. X has since denied that their actions constituted cheating.
We had been live in monogamous partners for a year. Two weeks before, X had told me they did not want to have any kind of romantic relationship, friendship or connection with me going forward. However, shortly after that (within hours/ days) we returned to living as a couple - cuddling and sleeping together, cooking and eating, having sex at his initiation. X had previously verbally ended our relationship at least 4x, then went back to living together as if nothing had happened within minutes/ hours. We considered ourselves partners for the duration, and X later had no recollection of these 'breakups'.
For me, fidelity means being accountable to the mutually understood commitments within a relationship. If your partner has a reasonable expectation that you are monogamous, then it's up to you to communicate clearly that this has changed before you violate that expectation. Given that X's actions looked like a continuation of our established partnership, and that the words used to 'undo' that had been revoked or undermined by his actions, I believe X's behaviour did not meet the requirements of fidelity or integrity.
X has oscillated on this. At first, he claimed he had done nothing wrong and that we were broken up. However, he also expressed extreme guilt for having kept me up worrying about him, to the extent that he spent an entire day aimlessly wandering without eating (while continuing to assert that he had not cheated).
Later, when I said to him I thought his actions were in fact a sexual violation that could reasonably be called cheating, he nodded and said 'sorry'. He seemed so ashamed he could not even raise his head.
X's previous live-in relationship ended due to his having an affair. X has expressed extreme guilt about this, saying it took a long time to realise he was not a 'bad person'.
A couple of weeks after, X suddenly decided that we were not in a relationship - not by breaking up, but by claiming we were already broken up. This wasn't true - after the fiasco, I'd made sure to define verbally and explicitly that we were in a relationship, and X had promised that he wasn't going to do it (the cheating) again. While claiming this (that we were broken up), X made statements that were internally inconsistent/ incoherent.
He also expressed anger with me for ruining his day by 'talking endlessly' and 'making him have a
PLEASE READ time' and 'feel bad' (the day after I learned about the cheating... during which I also took him out for pancakes,
). I found it extremely painful and by certain definitions, abusive, to first have my trust violated, then be denigrated for having a normal emotional reaction to that.
X has also claimed that I/ our relationship makes him feel 'guilty for existing'. I pointed out that during a previous suicidal episode, he had claimed someone else made him feel 'guilty for existing'. I said while my actions have been
PLEASE READed and unkind at times, his mental health spirals are not totally attributable to others. I also offered financial/ logistical support in getting mental health support if he needed it and have repeatedly done this during the relationship.
X told me that I need to invent a story about his mental health because I can't deal with the guilt of being cruel to him. Explaining the context is difficult. a typical example would be brushing him off/ expressing frustration/ annoyance when he asks for computer help late at night, and doing this often over a 2-3 month period. i know dismissiveness and frustration can be very painful and destructive to someone who cares for you, and I believe my actions meet that threshhold. I am deeply sorry for this and have expressed that to X.
But on reflection, I don't believe my actions rise to the threshhold of cruelty. These are normal, albeit challenging, experiences that arise over the course of a relationship.
I wonder if what may be happening is that X is deeply shamed by having violated his own values. Rather than dealing with this, he is projecting onto me.
At other times, X has shown great courage and integrity but shown little self compassion and strong self hatred, including suicidal ideation expressed to me on >100 occasions. It feels like that is now being projected outwards.
Intellectually, I understand that X is not being accountable to reality and there is nothing I can do to make this happen. But emotionally, I have relied on X's perspective for a long time, and they have shown a lot of wisdom that has helped me. It's really hard to bridge the cognitive dissonance between
the person I have known and
the person who exists now. The
facts tell me one thing, and my
feelings tell me another.
As a result, I have been experiencing severe anxiety including involuntary muscle spasms.
There is a sense of strong fear about an unstable reality. It's not that I doubt any particular elements of what has happened - in fact, the more I think about the facts and set them out in an attempted objective way, the clearer it becomes that there isn't much doubt. It's more a generalised sense of
everything is wrong or
nothing is stable or even that I (the person) am wrong in some existential, unspecified sense.
Does anyone have tips on how to deal with this? I already meditate though not regularly enough.
