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VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?" Parental alienation is when a parent allows a child to participate or hear them degrade the other parent. This is not uncommon in divorces and the children often adjust. In severe cases, however, it can be devastating to the child. This video provides a helpful overview.
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Author Topic: Trying to understand my EX  (Read 356 times)
artfuldodger

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Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
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« on: April 22, 2017, 05:30:02 PM »

Hi all, I have arrived here by accident but it seems like I have finally reached the end of the dark tunnel I have been struggling to survive for the past 6.5 years. I have suffered every single day trying to figure out the compulsions or motivations of the man I loved with all my heart but who chose to marry behind my back while still professing his love for me. His behaviour in our last year together, oscillating between extreme love to passive aggression, his lies, his betrayal, damaged me to such a huge extent that I lost my ability to trust people. I used to be a strong secure person and now I have turn into an emotional wreck having major trust issues. I have thwarted all attempts by men trying to befriend me, I have resigned from work and I have hit the bottom by every means imaginable.

Fortunately, after discovering this forum and reading through various threads and posts, it seems I have finally found my answers. I don't want to conclude things hastily but I'll have to admit I can relate to a lot of situations that people here went through with their respective romantic partners with BPD. It is so crystal clear, so repetitive and so predictable. It seems as if I am just reading out chapters from my life with my Ex.

Like I said, I don't wish to reach a hasty conclusion, but I certainly wish to list down a few characteristics my Ex exhibited very strongly. Having said that, I also wish to state, he was the best man I ever met when he was his warm, loving and vulnerable self. I have never experienced the intensity of feelings I felt with him in our five years together. When he was "good", it seemed I couldn't ask for more. Even after everything that happened, I still believe, he has goodness in him, he wants to be a good man and he can be a good man but is not able to figure a way out to be the person, he knows he deserves to be but is not able to.

Abandonment Issues:

The first thing he told me when we started to know each other better was how he (a 2 year old baby then) and his mother were disowned after his father’s death by his family. How traumatic his entire childhood had been and how he had grown up between members of his extended family after his mother remarried.

Everything he told me had a profound impact on me and not only I had unconditional love for him but also had a protective urge towards him. Nevertheless, from time to time, he always needed reassurance from me that I won’t leave him, which in turn for me meant making some difficult choices like avoiding certain friends to make him believe he was my priority.

However, that didn’t offer me any brownie points since I never was his top priority. He was always too busy to speak to me on a day to day basis but the moment he used to feel I was not “paying” attention, he used to go into an overdrive in reaching out to me with a flurry of calls, texts and emails, sometimes even involve his friends and family.

Throughout the course of our five year relationship, he kept reiterating he will not leave me nor will he let me leave. We’re meant to be together. Neglecting me is one thing, but he can’t imagine his life without me.

Also, he had a series of affairs that never lasted beyond a few months and he was the one who always under some excuse or the other called things off. Ours was the longest relationship he had ever had.

Wishful thinking / Threats of Self-harm:

That if I ever tried leaving him (which I never even insinuated, rather he’d), he would prove it to me as well as the world, what I meant to him by harming himself.

I always thought those were empty threats but I loved him way too much to just ignore it. A couple of times, after threatening me with self-harm, he switched off his phone to scare the wits out of me.

He always imagined of himself dying accidentally in some random attacks and how that will make me realise his worth.

Sudden but severe bouts of depression:

He would simply breakdown, get anxious, always complain of feeling like a loser, feeling empty, that the only thing that added meaning to his life was me and us being together. Initially all he wanted me to do was stand by him unconditionally, which I did. However, eventually when I saw a pattern and realised he was prone to playing the victim, I had to help him realise we didn’t have to seek sympathy out of each other and it didn’t go well down with him.

Severe shift in behaviour:

He would oscillate between being very emotional, vulnerable to being all composed and cocky in a matter of few hours. From showering me with warm, passionate love he could turn to bitterly subjecting me to passive aggression. It was an emotional rollercoaster where I never had a moment to breathe, sit and think. I was always on my toes, as if always waiting on him. Something or the other was always going on and it was one of the major things that made me realise something was not right with him.

Passive Aggression:

He never laid a hand on me or abused me verbally, but he had studied and understood me really well to know what will trigger my anger and yield a reaction out of me. For example, he would consult me on things on urgent basis and ask me to pick between X & Y. I would put aside everything, do my research, weigh the options and answer him in detail to only have him very casually tell me but you know my mother thinks Z is better. I always felt he didn’t really value my time to the extent he ideally could and that used to put me off. He perhaps enjoyed that he could do that to me.

It seemed it was his way of keeping me around, away from everything that wasn’t about him.

Supportive but jealous:

He was very proud of my professional achievements and always encouraged me towards doing good but the moment I would land a major project and get into action, he would start picking up fights with me on complete non issues. He knew, how it hurt me, affected my work and yet he would drag me through arguments leaving me miserable. When eventually, I would underperform, he would act concerned and very supportive, telling me to do better next time, that I had already achieved a lot, without realising how his ill-timed fights were affecting my work and killing my confidence as well as reputation.

Sometimes he sought attention in a child-like manner, you don’t love me like you did earlier prompting me to leave aside everything, just to comfort him and underline the fact that he was my number one priority.


Lies & Cheating:


Until the end, he didn’t let me off the hook. A couple of times, in our last year together, in spite of my sincere affection for him, I realised I couldn’t deal with him any longer. He was hurting me, it was affecting everything around me and I had to leave him for my own sanity but he didn’t let me. He like always threatened me with self-harm, reiterated how we were meant to be together, how I was a part of his soul, he couldn’t imagine his life without me and yet he went on to marry someone behind my back, destroying my ability to trust people forever. Of course, nothing had happened overnight and though it was an arranged marriage, he had acted behind my back!

Blame things on me:

No matter who started a fight and what triggered it, I was usually the one to be blamed for the insane arguments we had. He would with so much conviction tell me, to not take him to a point where he would end up saying something nasty only to regret it eventually. His passionate appeal almost had me believe, I was the one ruining it all.

Physical Intimacy:

There were times, when he seemed very passionate but more often than not, all he sometimes wanted me to do is hug him close and put him to sleep. It was during these moments, when he seemed very vulnerable, I strongly felt, all I ever wanted to do was to protect him forever.


Guilt:

Sometimes he used to get very serious, look at me very lovingly and ask me why I loved him. He always said, he loved me more than anyone, he had seen the best time of his life with me, I was the only one who could complete him and yet he believed he wasn’t worthy of my affection. That I was way out of his league, million times a better person than him, and he had not been fair to me. When I asked him what had prompted him to think on those lines, he candidly said he was not a good human being, he was a mean man trying to be good for the woman he loved.

Even a week before his wedding, when he was back home, he wrote me an impassioned mail that he's loved me the most and I was a part of his soul. That no matter what he will do everything for us to be together. He didn't want me to fall sick or weep, that if I did, he'd kill himself!

Of course, the manner in which the reality of his marriage unfolded impacted me deeply but his behaviour even after he got married wrecked me completely.
 
Just a month into his marriage, on new year’s, my wrote a mail to me. Without addressing me, he had sent me lyrics of a song that said he loved me and would always be right here.  When I didn't respond, three days later, I got a call from his mother at my parent's. I broke down in front of her, my mother intervened and politely but firmly told her to refrain from calling me and my Ex from writing me. That day onwards, I never received a call or mail from any of them.

However, one year later, on social media I came across one of his female colleagues who told me, she didn’t want to hurt me but the fact is my Ex still loved me, missed me and cried for me, he still talked about me. (All this, when his wife had just given birth to their first child). She said, she had seen him cry at his wedding. She said, it is really unfortunate but she wanted me to be strong and be happy.

It affected me deeply, I wanted to believe it but I couldn’t. I was no longer in a position to trust him or his words and above all, I can't have anything to do with him now.

I have tried very hard to move on in life, but the way my Ex behaved has left me so damaged, so messed up in my head that I have severe trust issues now. I just can't figure out who the real him is, the one who betrayed me or the one who professed his love for me until the end. The one who got married behind my back or the one who's still refrained from rubbing his married life in my face. Like I have said earlier, he's done his bit of evil but I still strongly believe there's an element of good in him that he's just not able to sustain and nurture. I don't know, if I am making sense here but I am not able to deny everything, especially the good that we shared over a period of five years of togetherness.

Please help me understand, I no longer can do it on my own.

P.S. English is not my first language. Also, I know, it is a long incoherent post but please excuse my inadequacies for I am only trying to vent and make sense of things. I can't even explain how relieved I have felt for the first time in the past 6.5 years.

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forgetthepast
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« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2017, 06:28:34 PM »

First of all, I am sorry for what this man has put you through. I can tell you are hurting and I know what it feels like to be betrayed by someone you thought had genuine and loving feelings toward you. 

You also sound like you know deep down that this man has problems.  Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone who has all the traits that you described in detail?

Don't try to understand him.  I doubt you ever will.  Try to understand yourself and what led you to spend 6 years of trying to rescue someone who could not be rescued.  Many people who fall for these types are rescuers who believe that they can be the one to "turn it all around", to be the one who can make it all work out in the end.  This is never the case.  The harder you try, the harder you will fall.

I hope that what comes out of this is that you get back on solid footing.  It's really tough to hear that you lost your job over someone who treated you so horribly.  It's ok to hurt.  I know I did... .  It's ok to cry, to get angry, to get confused.  But I hope you will realize that anyone who has hurt you like this is someone you do not want to be with.

Please do not lose faith in people.  There are some bad people out there, but there are also many, many good ones who want to help you and see you succeed.  Do not let this one person define humanity.  It will take work on your part to get to know yourself and identify certain parts of your makeup that make you susceptible to these situations so that you do not repeat them in the future. 

Please focus on taking care of yourself.  I am truly sorry you had to go through this, but realize that many on this board have gone through similar situations.  You are not alone. 

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artfuldodger

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« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2017, 06:00:50 AM »

@forgetthepast

Thank you so much for your comforting words. I have only spent a few days here and I already feel better. I am voraciously reading the experiences of people here and in a strange but good way it is helping me.

You're absolutely right, I need to shift my focus to my well being, try to understand myself better. I have realised, I held onto a belief for way too long than ideally I should have, especially when I had realised there was nothing normal about us. I loved him but in the process of making him feel better, I let myself down, I devalued myself before he could. About time, I make myself my priority.

The work I talked about was my dream job, but I resigned (read threw away years of hard work!) without even giving things a thought. That is not how a responsible person would have acted. I have realised, I need to address my issues first, get over my fears, get over my needs and grow up! Accept the fact that I need to help myself before trying to "help" others.

Hope, I'll do that and in the right spirit.

Thank you, again. 
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patientandclear
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Relationship status: single
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« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2017, 09:50:00 AM »

Dodger--just wanted to say I relate, and thanks for posting your story. Similar time frame for me, and similar effects. Similarly confusing depth of feeling and connection, with other actions that continuously undermined that and made it impossible for it to grow and blossom. Similar devastating impact on the other aspects of my life. Similar long journey to acceptance that this could be how it is and how it is going to be.

I've found it important to learn to hold seemingly contradictory truths simultaneously, including that the good was good, and yet the whole process was incredibly damaging to me. I've had to make a big space for sadness and accept I may be very sad about this for a long time and it may not completely heal. As you wrote, it has messed with my ability to even contemplate trust or letting joy back into my heart. I has pre existing wounds that I was managing OK, but this was like a steroid injection that sent them into overdrive. Just very tough stuff.

I'm also fundamentally OK. I am back to doing a good job of my job and a reasonably good job as a parent. I am committed to my own well-being such as it is and can be given all that has happened. I understand what went on here and why it hurt me so badly.

I have never gone more than about a year without my ex reaching out with a seemingly sincere and compelling argument for re-engaging, so it's not one breakup I'm recovering from, it's four or five. I'm thinking that more time without the repeat abandonment and loss may yield a fuller recovery than I have seen so far. But it can take a long time; don't think that means there's anything wrong with you or that it won't get better. It takes as long as it takes. Try just embracing and even welcoming the sadness and hard feelings. They belong here and they have a job to do.

I also have done a lot of body based trauma recovery therapy and believe that approach has a lot to offer people with severe relationship trauma such as what you experienced. Let me know if you'd like information about those approaches.
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forgetthepast
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« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2017, 06:13:08 PM »

I think another thing we tend to do too often is analyze our ex-partners.  Why did they do this?  Why did they say that?  Is this something a person who shows symptoms of BPD would say, or has anyone else experienced this type of behavior and what did it mean? 

One thing I had to do to get past my grief of losing my ex was to know that she was not intentionally trying to hurt me.  She was just doing what she does.  I know that sounds rather ambiguous but it's true.  She was repeating behaviors she developed throughout her life when it came to interpersonal relationships.  I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  She is not a bad person.  She just had her way of acting out and unfortunately for me, who just happens to be a sensitive and caring person, created a toxic and volatile situation.  The more I tried to make it work, the harder it became to make it work.

Another thing I learned is that I should have walked away much earlier.  In the end it was she who was forced by her mother to end the relationship because it became way too toxic for both of us.  It was all very embarrassing but it happens in these types of situations.  I never heard from her again and it has been 5 years now.  I will never hear from her again, but that is how it was supposed to be.

She had many good traits, many that I was looking for in a partner.  I feel like I am much more cognizant of how people treat me now.  I would never let someone treat me the way my ex did now,  without having a serious discussion about how she was behaving.  I felt like in the past, I gave her way too much slack as far as letting her get away with treating me horribly.

Please understand that you will get through this and you will be stronger and wiser for having to go through what you did.  Time is your friend, not your enemy as it will take time.  Set small goals and follow them through.  Get in shape, start eating well, get a medical checkup (believe it or not these trying situations create a drain on our physical health), do some of your favorite things with others or by yourself.  Don't beat yourself up when you have setbacks, but in the end, know that you are moving toward a higher purpose.
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artfuldodger

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« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2017, 04:35:45 AM »


I've found it important to learn to hold seemingly contradictory truths simultaneously, including that the good was good, and yet the whole process was incredibly damaging to me.

@patientandclear Thank you for your insightful post. You're so right. The key lies in accepting the reality, the reality in its original form. The "absolute" truth, even if it is limited in the way we perceived. The good was good, but with its share of unsurmountable elements and we can no longer afford to deny that. We owe that to ourselves.

The fact that my unconditional affection and sincere efforts weren't enough to help him deal with his insecurity saddens me but I try to seek comfort in the fact that I tried my level best and didn't give up on him. If not having me around makes him feel better, so be it. He has made his choice and I have to respect that.

Finally, it is quite reassuring to see that after everything you have been through, you're on your way to recovery and have managed to cope better. Like forgetthepast has said, we will emerge stronger and wiser out of this.

I'll certainly read up on body based trauma recovery therapy. Thanks again. Best! Smiling (click to insert in post)
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artfuldodger

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« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2017, 05:38:03 AM »

I think another thing we tend to do too often is analyze our ex-partners.  Why did they do this?  Why did they say that?  Is this something a person who shows symptoms of BPD would say, or has anyone else experienced this type of behavior and what did it mean? 

One thing I had to do to get past my grief of losing my ex was to know that she was not intentionally trying to hurt me.  She was just doing what she does.  I know that sounds rather ambiguous but it's true.  She was repeating behaviors she developed throughout her life when it came to interpersonal relationships.  I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  She is not a bad person.  She just had her way of acting out and unfortunately for me, who just happens to be a sensitive and caring person, created a toxic and volatile situation.  The more I tried to make it work, the harder it became to make it work.

Another thing I learned is that I should have walked away much earlier.  In the end it was she who was forced by her mother to end the relationship because it became way too toxic for both of us.  It was all very embarrassing but it happens in these types of situations.  I never heard from her again and it has been 5 years now.  I will never hear from her again, but that is how it was supposed to be.

She had many good traits, many that I was looking for in a partner.  I feel like I am much more cognizant of how people treat me now.  I would never let someone treat me the way my ex did now,  without having a serious discussion about how she was behaving.  I felt like in the past, I gave her way too much slack as far as letting her get away with treating me horribly.

Please understand that you will get through this and you will be stronger and wiser for having to go through what you did.  Time is your friend, not your enemy as it will take time.  Set small goals and follow them through.  Get in shape, start eating well, get a medical checkup (believe it or not these trying situations create a drain on our physical health), do some of your favorite things with others or by yourself.  Don't beat yourself up when you have setbacks, but in the end, know that you are moving toward a higher purpose.

Every single thing you have said makes so much sense. I can completely relate to it. Like I have said in one of my earlier posts that just reading up on BPD has substantially relieved me of my grief. I always sort of related my Ex's behaviour to the trauma he had experienced in his childhood but I could never imagine the magnitude of the impact it had on his mind. I could understand his insecurity and did everything to alleviate it but I couldn't understand the "games" he kept playing. In fact, it is only now I can put his inconsistent words, actions, and behaviour into perspective. Believe me, I must have fought with him many a times when we were together, but never said anything hurtful when he left me all shattered. The communication he attempted after he got married was perhaps out of guilt and shame. He had perhaps expected me to reveal my "real" side after he left me, but I am sure it hurt him to know I had indeed loved him.

Even through our five years together, he had the realisation he was draining me, was not being fair and I could see he felt guilty about it. A couple of times, when we were in that blissful phase of togetherness, he even broke down and remarked "I hope I don't let you down. I'll not!"

In our last year together, I realise I had come very close to leaving him but I didn't. My mindset was, if I'll leave him it will reinforce his insecurity. It will only reinforce his belief that people don't care. I do not think, I stayed out of pity but it was rather strong concern and affection. Honestly, I feel, if he hadn't left, I think I would have stayed with him for another god knows how many years. Of course, now I realise it isn't a healthy way of living life. I was ill-equipped to help him and by sticking together, putting up with his insconsistencies I was not helping him.

I had tried discussing things to help him vent but I could succeed only partially. He used to hate his biological father and held him responsible for the life he and his mother led. I had to very gently help him realise that not his father but his father's family was responsible for whatever happened eventually. His father's death was an unfortunate incident nobody had any control over. Although, it took me time, but the good thing was I could bring him around to accept it. In fact, when I coaxed him he readily went to visit his father's grave for the first time in his life. He sobbed like a child, but it was a relief to finally see him let go of the hatred he had harboured in his heart all these years.

I still love him but now I know, I'll not let my affection for anybody break me. I was a strong and secure person and I hope to pull myself back to my former self. It isn't going to be easy, but I think, I am ready now. I don't hate my Ex, I have never and won't ever. However, he doesn't need me anymore, he already has someone to rely on and now all I need to do is love myself. My health indeed deteriorate over the past few years and am try to regain my strength. Hopefully, I am on my way to good now.

Sincere gratitude for sharing your thoughts. Hope you're doing much better now. Smiling (click to insert in post)

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