Abuse amnesia when he starts acting "sensible"

[chillamom]

Hello, all, and sorry for posting so much the past few days,

Does anyone find it difficult to hang onto the awful memories?  I have 8 years of control, obsessive jealousy, accusations, interrogations and general emotional terrorism behind me, yet as as soon as my ex diagnosed BPD/NPDbf starts sounding even remotely "reasonable" I start thinking maybe I really WAS OVERREACTING and I should give it yet another chance.  I left him over 4 months ago, have been relatively LC in the face of his begging screaming, and crying to get me back.  I saw his a few days ago mostly just to make him leave me alone (in other words, I gave in to intermittent reinforcement) and he was calm, reasonable, and actually made sense. 

He says he has changed, and all the anger and pain he caused me were a result of him being under stress from school and such, which of course he no longer is (he's still unemployed and having a terrible time finding a job after not having worked for about 9 years) but THAT'S not stressful, !  I KNOW DAMN WELL that the cycle would replay, but why is the voice in my head saying to go back to him getting LOUDER AND LOUDER?  I've done it before, why would this time be different? 

I seem to have trouble FEELING the things he did over the years.  I remember them but they don't carry the emotional punch they should, and I find myself willing to make all kinds of excuses, blame myself and generally start believing him instead of my gut.  Maybe my gut is stupid... .NOTHING HAS CHANGED, the therapy he has gone through has consisted of venting to an inexperienced T once a month or so about how depressed I have made him, my family still despises him and that won't change.

EVERYTHING argues against going back, but I miss him, I'm lonely and I feel terribly terribly sorry for him.  Not to mention I'm 59 years old (although I actually got carded last week when out with friends so I'm holding up ok, which is actually hilarious).  I would like to test the waters with dating, although I feel too old and broken and I'm obviously still hung up on the ex so I wouldn't inflict that on anyone.

In short, I'm a mess.  Can anyone give me some ideas as to how they dealt with this magnetic pull to go back when their exes suddenly seemed reasonable?  And can anyone assure me that he is pretty much guaranteed to act the same way again in the future?  I don't want to start this over again, but sometimes I scare myself.  Thank you.

[happendtome]

Now Chillamom, why these hopless losers get chance after chance?   
Look my other thread and what was your explanation
But other than 60 is not old nowadays, of course you should date and meet other guys.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey chillamom, Plenty of us have recycled, including me, so you are in good company if that's what you decide to do.  Most recyclers, however, end up in the same place, but with more pain down the line.  What makes you think the outcome will be different this time?  As you note, nothing has changed.  It sounds like you're beating yourself up; instead, try putting yourself first.

LuckyJim

[roberto516]

Before I was recycled I suggested that we make a commitment to couples counseling, still go to individual counseling, and make a commitment to speak to each other before one of us decides to end the relationship. Her response, "You're going to make me sign a contract." I should have known it would not have changed, but I tried anyway, and I was discarded a month later.

The funny thing about your posts is that I sound like your ex. I was begging for her back after the 1st discard. To the point she said I manipulated her to get back together (although she made the choice). It's odd how that happens. Makes me think I'm the BPD. But you have to do you.

I realized after the 1st discard that all my guilt about not "doing better" didn't matter. I set some boundaries the second time about communicating, and doing self-care which she felt as abandonment, and I thought was the key to the relationship being better.

I think we both know that this is a personality disorder. Conscious decision making isn't going to change anything. It is literally who they have been since children. Imagine how locked in their neurons are. It would take a very very long time of behavioral, and thought changes, emotional regulation training, etc. And remember, their thoughts change with their feelings. And their feelings are facts.

[cbm419]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

-bill w

[chillamom]

LuckyJim, you've seen me around these parts for quite a while, and yes, nothing has changed and I know nothing will.  Now of course he just wants to "see me when I can" and not put any pressure on me.  Same stuff he said last year when I signed on for another ride on the merry go round.  It frustrates me that I can't seem to think straight about him for very long.  I am determined not to recycle (again) but it is white knuckle and I have to sit with those feelings.  I'm going to CODA this week and well, which should help.  The idea of putting myself first is a foreign one to me, so much so that I don't even know what it means in this case, and that's truly scary. 

[chillamom]

Roberto516, very true that conscious decision making on the part of someone with a PD can't hold back the floodgates for too long, particularly if the person hasn't made a real commitment to YEARS of work.  I think childhood programming lays the neural circuitry quite firmly, I know for a "non" like myself it certainly did. And I've seen you say that maybe "you're the BPD" on here a few times... .as you know, the very idea that you would have self-awareness mitigates against that.  I also think that to get involved with someone with a PD in the first place we HAD to have had some glitch in our own systems somewhere... .a full fledged PD certainly isn't necessary, but maybe a touch of desperation to be loved because it never happened the way we needed it?  I look at my own children, whom I have tried to parent so carefully and love so ridiculously much (as all parents try to, I'm sure), and they have told me fact that they wouldn't have put up with what my ex did to me for one second.  One name, one emotional manipulation, one incident of emotional abuse and they would have said goodbye.  My kids have a healthy self-respect.  I don't.  Learning that was the dark "gift" here, maybe for both of us.  Now what do we do with it?

[chillamom]

cbd419, good reminder, and one that I should probably have planned for my next tattoo.  Funny, my first one (that I got to commemorate the END of the relationship) is a nordic compass that is supposed to give the bearer the gift of seeing the way in the fog even if the way is unknown.  I thought it was a fitting symbol.  Should have gotten the damn thing on my wrist.,... .twisting around to look at my ankle all day to remind myself isn't terribly practical,   .

[Lucky Jim]

Hello again, Chilla, Sitting with your feelings is a great idea.  Just observe that you are thinking about recycling.  Maybe you could make a note to yourself that you are obsessing about your Ex?  Looking at our emotions, without the need to take action or judge them one way or another, is part of being authentic.  Posting and sharing your feelings here is a step forward, in my view, towards moving beyond them.

LJ

[flourdust]

Journaling helped a TON with "abuse amnesia." Whenever she would go off on me, I'd write it all down, in as much detail as I could remember. Reading the detailed, raw pain in those incidents cured me of any hankering to reconcile.

[chillamom]

Hi, flour dust, I could KICK myself for this but a few weeks back I inadvertently DELETED about 30 pages of "incident reports" that I had kept over the last year of the relationship.  I am a tech IDIOT and I don't know how I managed that, but your suggestion is a good one and man, I just wish I could access that stuff again!

[Insom]

Hang in there, chillamom!  I can relate.

Each go-round I had with my BPD-ex got just a little uglier than the one before.

So picture what you went through with yours, the emotional terrorism, accusations, and so on.  Then add a measure more meanness, disappointment and exhaustion to the whole shebang.  That's what you can expect.

[lovenature]

Hey chill

You are NOT too old and broken; age is just a number, and you must always remember the severity of what you have been through (reminder to me as well).

The cycle will ALWAYS repeat. The acting "sensible" pertains to his emotion of the moment: others have posted about their PWBPD showing empathy, love, compassion etc. and the truth is that it all depends on their facts they create based on their feelings, sure at times they will be on the same page as us and appear to understand how we feel but think about how quickly that changes. Qualities like empathy aren't fleeting, PWBPD never matured emotionally and can't be expected to function in a mature relationship like an adult who is emotionally mature.

You're continuing to learn and recover, the less contact you have the better. You are doing better than you give yourself credit for.