Still detaching

[hotchip]

Well, an update from this: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=3062208.0

Yes, he cheated on me with our mutual friend/ workmate.

Yes, he lied to my face about who he had slept with and about conversations they had afterwards.

Yes, he/ they concealed this from me the next couple months, while we still worked closely together.

Yes, it is the second time he has done this.

I say firstly: , and secondly, lmao.

But thirdly: there were always signs he lacked integrity. And honestly, I knew this. I learned of actions he undertook which lacked integrity before our relationship, and now after. There were also things that contradicted our values that he would have done while we were together, but he told me he didn't, because I was guiding him. But also - because he was 'afraid of me'.

Fear and being guided by another person are not a basis for integrity. They can only come from oneself.

I knew this, or should have known. I chose not to look, or to construct a story where I would be some kind of saviour or hero who would teach him to be different. And wasn't that my own responsibility, a wilful blindness from my own needs and ego?

I'm not sure why I still find it hard to detach. Honestly, I knew what I had with this person was not the 'great love' I had believed in the beginning. There were too many discrepancies between what he said and what turned out to be actual. And that caused great instability in our relationship and in my sense of what was going on.

I don't want to be with this person. I can't live with manipulations and lies, or even with the exhaustion of being his daily keeper and caretaker. But I feel great grief for the shared life and shared values we were building (I thought we were building) together.

There are some steps I am taking where I am moving towards goals and a future which I thought were shared goals - things he said he deeply, desperately wanted. But I don't know if they were really his goals, or my mirrored goals. But in the end, I'm moving towards them. And it turns out I was by myself in this all along.

 

[Pook075]

Hello and welcome back- you've been doing a lot of soul searching and I can't disagree with anything you said.  Even in a healthy relationship that's being built the right way, it's not always healthy yo lump everything into "us".

I would only add for your comment, "I should have known...."  Well, we all should have known.  I saw signs too early on and I thought "love will conquer all."  It fixes a lot, but certainly not all.  Love certainly not fix mental illness in a relationship that's meant to be 50/50.  Either you'd have to do a large part of the carrying and forgiving, or it would have failed regardless.

Hopefully you can see that this wasn't on you.  And while I don't want to give your ex a pass, mental illness isn't completely on him either.  He's sick, he thinks differently than us, and he does impulsive things without any form of logic involved. 

To have integrity, you have to have core values that you stand by.  BPDs are likely too emotional for that and they do so much in the moment based on what their feelings are telling them.  The problem is, those feelings lie all the darn time.

[Under The Bridge]

..he would have done while we were together, but he told me he didn't, because I was guiding him. But also - because he was 'afraid of me'.

Total manipulation and gaslighting.. and completely standard from someone with BPD for whom nothing is ever their fault. Making you the apparent cause of all their faults both appeases any guilt they feel and also triggers your natural instinct to stay in the relationship in the hope of bettering it. BPD are masters of this - if there was ever an Olympic Guilt-Tripping team, they'd all be BPD sufferers.

The hardest part is getting past our desire to keep going and finally see we're facing an impossible task; there will never be a 'win', just endless clashes and dashed hopes for us.

[hotchip]

Pook, you are so right about feelings lying to us. Part of the detaching process is turning away from examining how his feelings were an inaccurate gauge of reality, and looking at mine. The old 'love will conquer all' was certainly there for me.

Under, even after the relationship is over, I still have an impulse to 'keep going' in terms of 'fixing' or solving things or coming up with ways that he can somehow return to integrity. It relates to a desire to reconstruct the story so that somehow, even though my feelings and evaluations of my former partner were objectively wrong, 'really' they were right, 'really' our relationship was as I understood it and I can trust my feelings as a guide to fact. But I can't.

[hotchip]

Just weeks ago, I remember looking someone seriously in the face and saying, 'He wouldn't lie' with absolute certainty. Shortly before evidence came out to illustrate that he had, indeed, lied to my face, and with the appearance of total sincerity.

This was his misdeed, but my mistake.

[Under The Bridge]

BPD's can lie with total sincerity because in their distorted world everything they say is always the truthful version. They can re-write the facts and firmly believe they are correct.

My own ex-BPD claimed I never bought her anything, while actually wearing gold, sapphire and diamond jewelry I'd bought her as she said it. Their detachment from reality can be frightening - how can we ever cope with that?

If we lie there is always the guilt we may be found out but a BPD can lie so smoothly. I've often wondered if they could easily beat a lie-detector - I imagine they could as they genuinely believe themselves.