3.5 years out, no contact, dating again

[capecodling]

I am currently 3.5 years out from a nightmarish BPD breakup, and I have actually been dating a fair amount in the space since then.  I wrote a lot of threads about that breakup, and she and I have remained no contact for several years ever since the breakup.  I have nothing bad to say about her now, I wouldn’t want to run into her again but thinking about her now does not cause an emotional reaction, whereas at the time of the breakup it was 10 / 10 pain.

I’ve had several good, heslthy non-BPD connections with women that had 90%+ of the same level of passion as my BPD ex without all of the problems.

More recently I began dating a woman, we went on two dates and were talking every day, she seemed like the perfect match,  said she wanted a committed relationship, monogamy, etc.  She would constantly send me messages, ask how I was doing, said she wanted to build something with me.  At least 20+ messages per day.  She communicated she had been hurt a lot in the past and had a hard time trusting and needed to go slow.   All fair points so I took things slow, no hooking up, just get to know each other first.   

Then the alarm bells started going off again (unexplained bouts of anxiety, I thought it was just new connection butterflies but I don’t tend to get anxious, and also something telling me “run!” even though I had no apparent reason to.)

For our second date, we went to a bar / restaurant to dance a bit and instead of being excited I had this inexplicable urge to cancel.  Within maybe 20 minutes she excused herself to go to the bathroom and I see her flirting and exchanging numbers with a guy back by the bathroom so I just blocked-erased her and left immediately.

I walked down the street and I see a friend of mine who owns a nearby restaurant and he asks me how I am doing.  I relate to him how the date went (poorly) and tell him a bit more, it turns out he and his wife actually know the woman.  He won’t go into specific details but he says “let’s just say she’s not a very nice person” and he said she seemed to have a new “serious boyfriend” every few days, not that there is anything wrong with dating multiple people at once but it was definitely 1000% different from what she had conveyed to me about herself.

All in I didn’t know her long enough to say for sure, but si definitely got BPD vibes from her and also the real tell was how many of my own alarm bells went off for her that had remained silent for years with other women since my last BPD relationship.  I’m glad I discovered so soon before she and I had gotten physical, even in the short amount of time it still felt like a gut punch that one managed to get past my defenses.

Nowhere close to the 10/10 pain that came from a longer term relationship ending but still it hit surprisingly hard, because of how the BPD dynamic hacked into my own wounding.

[Under The Bridge]

Good to hear you're doing so well.  It's very hard to get over probably the most emotional and tense relationship we'll ever experience but once you do, then nothing will ever seem as bad.

After my own BPD experience I was able to date and, if I even suspected anything remotely BPD about a new romance I would end it but not have any hurt or worry like with the first BPD relationship. Never get back on that treadmill again

Yes, it can put you on your guard but I always give people a fair chance and we should always remember that there's more nice ones than bad ones out there.

Most important lesson to learn is.. 'when the many red flags appear. act on them' and don't ignore them like we did first time round, hoping things would get better.

Best wishes - keep getting out there with a healthy, positive attitude as I find good things happen when you least expect them

[capecodling]

Best wishes - keep getting out there with a healthy, positive attitude as I find good things happen when you least expect them

I’m glad it only took you one iteration of “touching the hot stove” to learn your lesson and never do it again.  Its possible to lose years to these breakups if you let the threads connect very deeply.   

After my last relationship that ended it took me a solid year to start feeling like my old self again.  Also in the process of trying to understand what had happened, I learned that two other of my exes had been diagnosed with BPD by a mental health professional since the time I had been with each of them.   

One was the loyal non-cheating variety that smothers you by needing constant attention (is this the “waif”?) but the other was the sultry cheating type.  Its definitely the sultry cheating ones that did the most damage, with the waif the break up wasn’t that bad, but when she would get triggered she knew how to absolutely cut me to pieces (verbally) the sultry vixens tend to discretely sneak off to have their hookups.

[Under The Bridge]

I think mine was more the 'sultry cheater' type too.. though I never knew if she ever actually did cheat on me or even if she went out with anyone while we were technically broken up.  She'd certainly threaten to 'let X take me home tonight' but she said this just to make me give her attention.

The hardest thing about BPD breakup is convincing yourself that you weren't to blame and you actually put more effort into this relationship than any other. Once you finally realise it was all beyond your control from the start then things improve rapidly. Still leaves mental scars though.

Pretty frightening how disconnected from reality they can be though, I think that's what finally finished it for me. I still can see her final - and most vicious - meltdown and I just didn't recognise the raging person with huge jet-black pupils (indicating total disconnection) that turned on me in a second. I thought she was heading towards violence too, which I'd never seen in her before.

This was a very long time ago and and I bumped into her sister in law some years back who said she'd never changed one bit and had even cut off from her family now.

I definitely dodged a bullet.