rudeboyska
Fewer than 3 Posts
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Ex-romantic partner
Posts: 2
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« on: May 13, 2017, 04:18:05 PM » |
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Hi everyone. This my first post on the site. My long-distance ex-girlfriend broke up with me 5 months ago, cut me out of her life and left me for someone else, and was left feeling all the blame for the relationship ending. After doing some research on this I think I've been split black, devalued and discarded by someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. I knew her for 6 years, we were internet friends for 4 and dated long-distance for 2. She cut me out of her life abruptly and immediately left me for someone else without much provocation.
The pain is still excruciating. We've been NC for 5 months and the silence is deafening. I feel used and betrayed. I'm developing trust issues and an unhealthy cynicism towards women. I feel as though I've seen the horrifying true colors of someone I once trusted more than anyone and loved more than life itself. I have good days and bad days but I still miss her think about her every day. I'd like to share my story and get some insight.
My ex-girlfriend (let's call her Z) and I were internet friends for 4 years before I flew to Auckland, New Zealand where she lives and met her irl for the first time. We were best friends. We knew each other better than most people we knew in our day-to-day lives.
She was beautiful. She was funny. She was intelligent. She was adventurous. She was kind and outgoing. She was wise and spiritual. We had a lot of the same interests and a passion for ska and reggae. We supported each other throughout everything life through at us (and we'd both been through a lot).
And because we already had such a connection we fell madly in love within days. She said she had never felt so strongly or been so in love with anyone else. Within two weeks she said she wanted me to stay in New Zealand and marry her. I had just come out of college and had legal matters to take care of in the States, but I told her that I'd come to New Zealand to start a life with her when I was ready.
After having done some online research about BPD and narcissism, in retrospect what I at first took for a love-at-first-sight soul bond may have been her making me the target of grooming/pedestaling/idealizing.
Even then when we were just starting out I had my doubts deep down, and I knew why. She was impulsive and prone to reckless behavior. She had erratic mood swings and was prone to outbursts and borderline psychotic fits of rage. She had a black and white way of seeing the world where people were either with her or against her. Almost every one of her ex's was either abusive, or a paedophile, or racist, or sexist, or an ass. She always seemed to go through friends and lovers and an alarming rate and it almost always ended in disaster. During the course of our friendship I'd seen countless people in her life whom she considered her soulmates or besties be knocked down onto her ___list. She had a way of burning her bridges with people once her relationship with them went south.
I was young and naïve, and thought that if I just tried hard enough and put everything we had into this once-in-a-lifetime connection we had I could be the one to make it work. And try I did. I was her only emotional support when she had no one else to turn to. I supported her small business. I flew across the world to New Zealand to see her twice. I encouraged her to go back to school.
There was also her life circumstances. She was a welfare mother and a single-parent with split custody of her youngest with her abusive(?) ex. She was a college dropout and couldn't seem to hold down a steady job.
I couldn't help but want to help her with her situation because she was my lover and best friend. I think this is what I've read on BPD forums is called having me “white knight” complex activated.
She had a cycle of drama that never seemed to end. It was massively draining and often left me feeling emotionally empty as I felt like I was walking on eggshells. She always seemed to be the perpetual martyr/victim of whatever drama was happening around her. She spoke often about how emotionally dependent she was on me and how much that scared her. She also had a secret facebook group with me and 3 of the people closest to her who served as her own personal support group. It was like she was perpetually victimized and thrived on being the center of attention to anyone who would play audience.
Probably the worst was her psychotic breakdown about 6 months into our relationship.
She was put on a new medication and resorted to self-harming behaviors and suicide ideation. When I alerted her roommate to go check in on her she blew cold and shut me down.
I started financially supporting her 6 months into our relationship. She was on the verge of a breakdown when she didn't have enough money to buy diapers for her children. I couldn't stand to see the pain on her face. So I offered to wire her some money so she could get what she needed. I started wiring her money and buying her groceries more and more frequently until it got to the point where I was bailing her ass out every week.
She also constantly kept changing the rules of our relationship to suit her desires.
First we were open. Then we weren't. Then maybe we could be but we had to wait until she sorted out her mental health issues. Then maybe we could be but we had to talk about it first. Then we weren't. And then all of a sudden we were POLY. All basically on what she deemed best for her.
We started off in an open relationship. It was her idea and we both agreed that it would help us both deal with the distance if we could see other people. When we first started out she said she didn't mind sharing me with other women as long as I knew I belonged to her. When I got back to the states I hooked up with my ex-girlfriend early on in our relationship, before we were fully-committed and while we were still open. A few months after that, she told me about her interest in the lead singer of a prominent NZ ska band. After hashing out some boundaries I gave her my blessing.
But then, the next day she said it would be too awkward to hook up with someone who belonged in our same social group and that she only wanted to be with me. A couple months after that she claimed “mental health issues” and we went exclusive. That's why I didn't feel like I wouldn't tell her about my ex-girlfriend when she asked.
I would have been alright with it if our sex-life hadn't dwindled down to nil over time. When we started out we were red-hot lovers, but over time she only seemed interested in cybersex when it suited her because she would be too tired or busy, or when she wanted to throw me a bone.
When we tried to discuss being open again a year and a half in, she said she was too afraid of me leaving her for someone else, and that just the thought of being with anyone else made her feel physically sick like she was being stabbed.
In retrospect, I think she was emotionally blackmailing me into giving into her demands. I remember what my ex-girlfriend told me at the time in the days leading up to my discussion on being open with Z. “Rude, if I told you she's taking advantage of you, would you even believe me?”
After the break-up I talked to one of my polyamorous friends about this and she said what probably actually happened is things didn't work out with this other guy and she did a 180 and decided she wanted me all to herself once being open was no longer convenient for her.
Things ended with her essentially using polyamory as an excuse to set up my replacement and “trade up”. She started lining up her new (current) partner when she sensed I started getting distant, and as soon as she was done with me she moved right along to him.
I took up work as a Lyft driver to pay for a temporary NZ visa. I busted my ass and got together thousands of dollars in a few weeks to pay for a lawyer to approve it and a one-way plane ticket to Auckland.
Her best friend had recently died, and she was talking a lot about how it made her question everything. She began to find new interests I couldn't relate to like painting and crystals, and started dressing differently.
One day, about a month before I was set to leave for Auckland to start a life with her, Z said she read about polyamory in a set of inspirational work books I gave her for an early Christmas present and decided she wanted to try it out because she wanted to experience everything life had to offer. I asked her if she was interested in anyone and surprise surprise, she already had someone lined up. A mutual friend of her best friend who died who was helping her through her grief when I couldn't be around. Let's call him mop-top (he has a curly mop-top and a pencilstache).
I gave her the go-ahead at first because I saw it was something she wanted and I wanted her to be happy, and because this seemed to be her way of coping with her best friend's death. But deep down I felt simmering resentment. Like “really? I'm a month away from moving there to be with you and you want this again now?”
She said that mop-top was falling for her within a few days and when I saw how fast things were moving with her other love interest I finally said “no, I'm not ok with this. We need to talk.”
I told her I wanted to discuss boundaries with her other partner before things went any further and she immediately started to get defensive and accusatory and minimized my feelings. Groans and eye-rolling.
“I'm not the one with the issues! You're the only one who has issues with this! Why are you backpedaling, it's making me feel so twisted up inside!”
I tried to tell her that I just wanted to discuss whatever issues or problems either of us might have in our relationship before I started preparing for the move. I said that our relationship had been tested in numerous ways and there was no reason we couldn't get past this, and that relationships take work.
Again, more defensive ___tiness. “Please don't condescend to me!”
Later that night, a few hours before we were going to have our talk, she kept accusing me of hiding something. “You were down with open before! Why not now? If you're feeling guilty about something you need to tell me? What did you do?”
Eventually I gave in and told her about what happened with my ex-girlfriend while we were open. And that's when things just went to hell and she went nuclear. I saw a side to her that I'd seen glimpses of before and that I'd seen her unleash on other people, but that I'd never thought she'd direct at me. It was like seeing her true colors under her mask or facade. The kind, compassionate, deep-feeling woman I knew had disappeared and in her place was the side that was nasty, cruel, vicious, vengeful, unreasonable, demanding, unstable, neurotic, childish, juvenile, conniving and manipulative.
She went off on me said all sorts of horrible things like “I asked you if you'd been with anyone else and you said NO! You asked if you could be with her and I specifically told you NO! (I got the timeline wrong and she thouht I was referring to another incident when I asked for her blessing and she denied it). I'm going to do whatever I want with (mop-top) because that's obviously how you roll! And if you're dating anyone else you'd better dump their ass right now! Our relationship is on highly unstable ground because of your dishonesty! I'm so ___ing devestated Rude, I never thought you of all people would turn your back on me! ___ you!”
My research has led me to believe that this was her splitting me black after I had triggered her fears of abandonment.
She shut me down and told me not to talk to her until she spoke to me, and said she'd put me on her restricted list until she worked out what to do.
The next day she broke up with me saying that she couldn't be in a relationship with someone who cheated on her and lied to her about it because she didn't have the stomach to work through it, and asked me to use the money I had saved up for the move into taking care of my mother (who was/is going through a divorce from a toxic relationship). She didn't even call me to chew me out before severing ties. She said she couldn't wait to marry me just weeks ago.
My behavior became self-destructive and erratic. I was left feeling immense guilt and shame. I had my best friend bash me in the face as hard as he could and sent her the video as a way of telling her I was sorry. She responded with Beyonce videos, “Irreplaceable” and “Single Ladies.”
The next week I sent her an 11-page letter taking on all the responsibility for the breakup, wanting to work things out or at least stay friends, explaining exactly what happened with my ex-girlfriend and why I didn't feel like I could be honest with her about it when she asked, and about the other doubts I was beginning to have about the move.
She responded with a GIF of someone curtly waving goodbye.
I reached out one more time, asking her if we could please talk about what happened, that I was sorry, that I made a mistake, and that I didn't mean to hurt her.
She straight up told me not to contact her again.
A few days later, she blocked me on Facebook and changed her relationship status. I think it was the guy she replaced me with. My poly friends told me that she probably broke up with me because she found out mop-top would work out. In the vast majority of cases, when someone becomes suddenly interested in polyamory and already has someone lined up, it's because they were already interested in that
The devastation I felt was indescribable. I put everything I could into our relationship but I realize now that no matter what I did, in the end it would never have been enough. I felt like I was a month away from a lifetime of happiness with the woman of my dreams and I blew it all at the last minute.
My friends have been wonderful and tremendously supportive. I realize now that I was used and discarded. I treated Z like gold and was return was lied to, manipulated, and leeched off of, and very probably cheated on. I was a caretaker for someone who was incapable of real intimacy and was stringing me along to give her an audience for her drama and to suit her agenda.
My therapy and psychiatry appointments have been hugely helpful too. My psychiatrist told me that the likelihood is that Z will contact me again if things don't work out with her new partner because I was one of her main lines of support and the most reliable person in her life for the last 6 years.
I asked my friends they thought and most of them agreed. They were like “yeah dude, this chick is going to come crawling back to try and use you again the next time she's single and broke.”
One of my friends thought that Z's current boyfriend should expect the same thing to happen to him.
Apparently BPD's, narcs and sociopaths have a way of popping back into your life out of the blue once they need something from you. I do find it likely that she will contact me again once the inevitable happens and she either gets bored of him or (more likely) things come crashing down in flames (and they seem to always do with her) and she then needs my help.
I realize deep down that our relationship was toxic, one-sided and exploitatie. But I still miss her and want to be in her life in some capacity, but I'm afraid of her disappearing from my life again once she finds my replacement. I think this is called “fearing and craving a recycle.”
It's funny. Throughout our relationship she constantly talked about how good I was at taking care of her and that she would be lost without me, but in the end it didn't actually take much for her to cut ties with me and run off into the sunset with someone else.
Sometimes I wonder if she would still be in my life if we just agreed to stay friends after I met her for the first time in NZ, but after reading up on BPD I see that I probably have done something else to make her split me black and cut me out of her life.
What do you guys think of my situation? Does Z have BPD? Was there anything I could have done to save my relationship? Who was this person really who I thought I was in love with? Did she eve
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