I hope things are finally severed

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

There was a last outstanding situation with uBPDx, which has hopefully come to a close.

There was some money we were jointly responsible for, which had been donated towards a mutual aid/charitable project.

After the separation, uBPDx took $1000 of the money. He didn't mention he'd spent it until I said I would crosscheck records with the donor. He said he would pay it back, but would not say when or what he had spent it on. This was, to say the least, dodgy. We had previously discussed using some of the money for the needs of people involved in the mutual aid project (eg, health or legal expenses), as either a gift or a loan depending on the circumstances. This was emphatically not the same as simply taking cash without saying anything and refusing to explain when asked.

When questioned about this, uBPDx said at different times and to different people:

- that I knew what the money had been spent on, and had approved it
- that I had no right to ask what the money had been spent on or to 'control' him by demanding to know
- that the money had been spent on visa expenses, which would be refunded to him as part of the visa process
- that he was working to save up to pay it back.

These narratives are obviously not consistent or reconcilable.

Anyway, uBPDx has just paid back the money. I don't know what he actually spent it on and nor do I need to. I know enough to know that this is not a person to be entrusted with responsibility involving money or anything else.

I also think this is consistent with my perception of uBPDx as someone who creates chaos and engages in dishonesty and manipulation, not from malice, but out of desperation and dysregulation.

This doesn't make him any less harmful and I have no desire to be in is orbit. I do not want this chaos in my life and I hope it is over.

 

[hotchip]

There was a last outstanding situation with uBPDx, which has hopefully come to a close.

There was some money we were jointly responsible for, which had been donated towards a mutual aid/charitable project.

After the separation, uBPDx took $1000 of the money. He didn't mention he'd spent it until I said I would crosscheck records with the donor. He said he would pay it back, but would not say when or what he had spent it on. This was, to say the least, dodgy. We had previously discussed using some of the money for the needs of people involved in the mutual aid project (eg, health or legal expenses), as either a gift or a loan depending on the circumstances. This was emphatically not the same as simply taking cash without saying anything and refusing to explain when asked.

When questioned about this, uBPDx said at different times and to different people:

- that I knew what the money had been spent on, and had approved it
- that I had no right to ask what the money had been spent on or to 'control' him by demanding to know
- that the money had been spent on visa expenses, which would be refunded to him as part of the visa process
- that he was working to save up to pay it back.

These narratives are obviously not consistent or reconcilable.

Anyway, uBPDx has just paid back the money. I don't know what he actually spent it on and nor do I need to. I know enough to know that this is not a person to be entrusted with responsibility involving money or anything else.

I also think this is consistent with my perception of uBPDx as someone who creates chaos and engages in dishonesty and manipulation, not from malice, but out of desperation and dysregulation.

This doesn't make him any less harmful and I have no desire to be in is orbit. I do not want this chaos in my life and I hope it is over.

 

[hotchip]

I guess there is a last bit of grieving I need to do, which is also part of the severing process.

When we got together, uBPDx confessed that he had cheated on his previous long term partner by having an affair with their mutual friend and showed seemingly intense remorse about this (which did not stop him from destroying our own relationship in the same way).

Over time, apart from suggesting that his former partner who he cheated on was 'horrible', he also led me to believe that she had stolen money from him by being dishonest about what was or wasn't returned from their bond at the end of their shared lease.

Having seen his behavior around money at the end of our own relationship, which included asking/demanding for me to leave then denying that he did that, blaming me for the extra rent he had to pay after I left, blaming me for not giving the landlord notice resulting in our shared bond not being fully returned (when I couldn't possibly have given that notice, considering it was him who decided the timing of ending the rental agreement, after he kicked me out...!).... I don't know if I still believe that his former partner stole money from him. It's possible it happened, also possible it didn't. There's simply no way to know.

There were quite a few victim narratives from his past. Some of them were true and directly observed by me. But others... given the untrue victim narratives he has spun about our own relationship, I don't think they were all real, no.

I have some unresolved feelings about this.

I feel a certain amount of guilt for believing the negative things about his former partner. I never knew her, and our relationships did not overlap, so I haven't done anything to hurt her. I just feel bad for believing bad things about her which were likely not accurate, or fully accurate.

One of the things he described going wrong in their relationship was that her mother died and she became depressed/ didn't seem like she 'wanted' him any more. Given what I have observed, it seems likely that she was literally just grieving and then on top of that, had to cope with serious betrayal from a partner and a mutual friend (as I have since had to cope with). I feel really sad that she had to go through that, and that I didn't (even from afar) afford her the compassion she probably deserved.

I suppose seeing the extent that these cycles have repeated is a double edged sword. It makes me realise that it wasn't my fault and there was nothing I could have done. But also, that I'm not 'special', and that the relationship revealed nothing special about me other than that I, like many other people, can take a lot of punishment before identifying what is going on.

[Rowdy]

With a borderline or narcissist there is a great deal of gaslighting and projection, so it is very difficult to know what to believe when it comes to what they say, and who the villain was in past relationships.They are prolific liars and actions speak far louder than words. How he has behaved in the past and currently is a good indicator of where the problem really lies and if your gut instincts tells you his account of events are off they are more than likely right.

He may well have been remorseful but the impulsivity won’t stop it happening. When my ex monkey branched it was an exact copy of a scenario that happened 15 years previously. Before the final discard she had said to me, maybe a year before the last event, that if she ever did anything stupid like that again to give her a slap and tell her to sort herself out. Looking back this just proves two things. Firstly they know what they did was wrong, so there is an element of remorse. Secondly, they just don’t trust themselves not to be impulsive and do stupid things. This should have been a red flag to me, if they can not even trust themselves then why the hell was I sticking around trusting her.

If you are in a relationship with a bpd and you are for what ever reason in a depression, it is their fragile ego and sense of self and fear of abandonment that make them believe they are the root cause of that depression.

When any form of narcissism is involved then financial abuse and manipulation is often par for the course. This is quite often something that people miss, and don’t see happening when it is happening. With my own relationship I can see this was a problem, which to be honest stemmed from ex’s fear of abandonment and being alone. She hated me going to work and being on her own and would beg for me not to go to work. This turned into her becoming the full time bread winner and me going part time and being the main child care for our children. I can see now that this was probably better for her because being at work with people around her took away her sense of loneliness but it shifted the power dynamic and she became the main source of income. As they say money is power. So as the main bread winner she paid for a lot. I would offer to pay for things but she would refuse to let me pay but when things turn sour this gets turned around so you are then made out to not have paid for a damn thing. I would then be called tight fisted and selfish, even though every penny I earned went on the kids or the household. I never went out with friends, I never spent money on myself. She would ask to borrow largish sums of money telling me she will give it back but would then forget about it. I would need to forget about it too because if I mentioned it I would then be called names for asking for it. This would be interspersed with her giving money to me randomly but looking back I think this is more a power is control thing. When we split up she told me to transfer all the household direct debits I paid for over to her, then moaned about how expensive all the bills were because she believed I paid for very little when the reality was I paid about 50% of our household bills. She then moved in with the guy she monkey branched to and basically told our kids it is because he can pay for everything. She then offered to give me an amount of money on a monthly basis to pay towards the cost of our son and our 3 dogs that she left me with, but that only lasted for 2 months before she just stopped paying anything and has never mentioned it since.
She still uses money as control. At the beginning of the year we all met as a family with our eldest sons gf’s parents as they were expecting a child making us all grandparents. We met at a local pub, and I was buying a round before my ex had arrived. She walked in and just took over and paid for the round before I had the chance to, but again I see this as a power thing to try and look good. In the last week I’ve had a couple of letters come through for household bills she is responsible for, her car insurance that I set up for her that has been cancelled because of non payment and a garage she rents for storage of her stuff that again she hasn’t paid for and is going to be re possessed and her face charges accordingly for non payment, so it’s all a facade.

You are not responsible for anyone else’s feelings other than your own. You can not control peoples feelings so feeling guilty for them when they have nothing to do with your actions is misplaced guilt. You can feel a sense of sorrow and sympathy and have compassion sure but you should stop feeling guilty for believing a disordered person that has a distorted sense of reality.

It is crazy how the cycles repeat and you are right, there is nothing that you can do, or anything you did that can or could have changed it. It is a mental illness and certainly not your fault. You are special to you. We are all responsible for our own happiness as that should come from within not from external validation.
It is the disordered person that seeks external validation for their happiness and feel special and most of us on this board can see where that has got them. The relationship has shown you that you are a healthy person, that you are capable of loving someone in its true sense and that you did not give up on that or what you believed in. In the world we live in nowadays that can be considered special.

[hotchip]

Thank you for your kindness Rowdy. Exiting this relationship and the distorted fantasy-reality it entailed was enough of a head________ after 18 months. I can't imagine how difficult and painful it would be for you after 15 years.

[Rowdy]

Thank you for your kindness Rowdy. Exiting this relationship and the distorted fantasy-reality it entailed was enough of a head________ after 18 months. I can't imagine how difficult and painful it would be for you after 15 years.

it was 27 year relationship/marriage and yes extremely painful but also extremely toxic and glad to be out of it.
She is now with a narcissistic person so they belong with each other instead of ruining healthy peoples lives. Dread to thing what carnage that is going to end in.