Hello! Some of this I've posted before - the ongoing saga of my ex live-in partner and their detachment from reality. Setting out the story helps remind me that the only consistent thing is inconsistency, and I cannot 'truth' or 'logic' or 'communicate' my way through this - the only thing to focus on is my own healing. And maybe it will raise a rueful smile for you out there.
Let us begin....
2-3 months ago, my then-live in partner X (undiagnosed, both they and I have previously 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that X's actions looked like a continuation of our established partnership, and that the words used to 'undo' that had been revoked or undermined by his actions, I believe X's behaviour did not meet the requirements of fidelity or integrity.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.
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 had broken up), X made statements that were internally contradictory/ incoherent. For example, he said that one of the horrible things i've said to him that makes him feel bad is that if we broke up, i wouldn't want to be friends. Notwithstanding the fact that he was the one who first said this to me, we clearly had been interacting as, at the very least, friends (not to mention the sex, cuddling, hand holding etc at his initiation). He also, confusingly, went from asking me to hold his hand while he slept to lashing out and saying 'the reason we can't be friends is that you can't let go'. It is circuitous and confusing to describe because it was just word salad.
He also expressed anger with me for ruining his day by 'talking endlessly' and 'making him have a sh_t 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 f_cked 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.
[Note: this was written about 2 weeks ago. Since then, my healing has progressed in leaps and bounds. I'm sure it will be 2 steps forward, one step back, but I haven't had spasms for a while (more than a week), just a few nightmares here and there. Onward!]
UPDATE:
X is now frustrated that after he asked/ demanded that I move out, and I subsequently moved out, he did not realise I had 'officially' moved out and is upset that he is liable to pay the portion of rent and bills I had previously covered.
He demanded that I move out, looked dead in my eyes with hate and told me I was cruel, refused to speak or be in the same room as me. But it was, somehow, unexpected or not understood that as a consequence, when I picked up a suitcase, left the house and did not come back, I had... moved out.
He is claiming that it's my fault that he has to pay more money for bills and rent because I did not 'officially' inform the landlord. This makes no sense. X is still living there. There is no reason the landlord would have decided to waive half the rent because I wasn't there. We rent by room, not by person. At most, she has now offered to reduce it by $20 per week.
In any case, *he* could have officially informed the landlord who he sees every day or at least very frequently, and who lives in the same house. Because he is still living there while I am sleeping on couches. Because he demanded I move out.
Bear in mind that I continued to pay what had previously been my half of the rent at the place where X is still staying, for a month after I left. It's just so upsetting and frustrating - X is facing the consequences of his own choice to make me leave, but even here I have tried to buffer that so he is less exposed to instability (while I am exposed to more instability). And i'm still being blamed.
Speaking of covering X's rent, there was also some confusion about the final payment. Normally, I pay the landlord for the both of us and X pays me back. I made the last payment as usual and informed X of this at the time. For whatever reason, he decided to pay the landlord his half independently of me. As a result, there has now been a double payment (with me paying double), that needs to be recovered. According to X, this is also my fault because I failed to notify him.
I suppose that for triple clarity, I could have informed him that ‘as usual’ meant I would make the same payment I usually did. But he was the one who engaged in a change from the previous pattern, and he didn’t notify me at all. And he is not out of pocket at all, while I am. It’s like some sort of Mobius strip of double standards. Whether it's rent, or notification, or wanting to be friends, or whatever - what I do is wrong while what he does is right, even if he’s doing the exact same thing that I’m being accused of.
Hilariously, he also is confused as to why his bills for the month are higher per person now that I am not there. I have contemplated explaining the concept of fractions, ie, splitting bills by a smaller number of housemates, results in a bigger number than splitting bills by a larger number of housemates. But maybe arithmetic is the least of our problems here.
Anyway, writing this out is making me laugh. It's also making me see that there is nothing I can do. There is no form of action or communication that can bring X to a stable, mutually accountable reality. That is a him problem. I am really sorry for the compassionate, brave and insightful person I knew or thought I used to know, but I cannot somehow force Dr Jekyll to triumph over Mr Hyde - only Dr Jekyll can do that. I am organising friends to help me get my remaining stuff and find a new place to live (couches are getting old!). Hopefully after that I can be free, and continue to heal.
