The tools to fight the urge to contact her

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Ok, I am faltering again today. The noise in my head urging me to contact by uBPDex married lover is deafening. I am in AA and if this was an urge to drink I'd be saying, 'My illness wants me dead - or at least in the pub drinking.'

I have discovered on here that my own anxiety, depression, impaired empathy and emotional/behavioural dysregulation has played its part in the relationship with the ex. When I first came here, I was angry and blaming it all on my ex. For sure she has a part to play, the ST, the lack of commitment, the lack of empathy/compassion for me, the devaluing and finally the lack of closure... .and this is the source of my urge to contact her.

I now feel that I could have done things better. BUT I am certain the outcome would have been no different. We broke up because she said her husband found out about us and therefore she could no longer see me. I hit out in righteous indignation and walked away. So the real problem here is actually nothing to do with BPD or BPD traits on either side. That is just a complication and a contributory factor. You know what the real problem is? She is never going to leave her marriage. It does me no good to speculate over love, because the fact is that in the 14 years I have known her, she has never shown the slightest inclination to want to leave and be with me.

To remind me of this fact here is a former message from Skip when I first came here:

You are really at a moment of truth here. Do you want to put your marriage back together or do you want to move over to the Saving board and work on relationship (sex-capade) recovery. We will support you in either. No judgement.

I think the things to be aware of:

1) If you continue the joint affair, your marriage will fail. Don't wait for a Tuesday surprise from your wife turning your life upside down to see it. Every day that you occupy your heart with your affair partner it is unavailable for your wife. You say she is "sexless", but understand that this affair plays heavily into your marriage woes. Your passion has been mostly played out to the other women for the entire marriage in a style that fits you and her. This has prevented you from finding the "style" that fits you and your wife.

2) Understand what an affair is. I like to compare it to a 3 legged stool. The spouse is two legs and the affair partner is one (they fill a specialized need missing in the marriage). Neither relationship stands on its own. Remove any leg and the whole thing falls over and is dysfunctional.

3) Eventually your affair partners marriage will also fail. Most likely when that happens, she will rebound with you for a bit (you might even leave your wife when that happens) and then after the rebound healing, she will leave you to find a more complete relationship with someone else - by complete I mean one that doesn't need two men to satisfy her.

4) Each time you recycle, you are not returning back to the start/status quo. We often think that - but life is flowing, not static. Rather, there is a steady degradation going on in all 4 relationships... .things are systematically going sour and breaking down in all four love relationship fronts. A crash is coming.

5) There are signs of sex addiction in this whole thing. It will help to read about it. Many sex addicts have to hit rock bottom before making their way out.

This is gloomy, for sure. It is a reality that I have seen played out 100's of times on these boards. I know your emotions are pulling you strongly to jump back into this affair, or to live a life holding out for recovery of the affair.

You're in a really tough place. Go with your "addiction" or  rehabilitate your life. A lot depends on your next decisions - do you take the easy one or the hard one.

Good mental health is hard. Its about making tough choices at times like this.

The most compelling part of that argument is the final line. The pull of trying to save my marriage isn't strong enough to keep me away from my ex lover because I am highly doubtful as to whether my marriage can be saved.

However, the final line is compelling. I have experienced so much pain IN this relationship over the last couple of years. She took a year out when she started drinking and taunted me regularly about abandoning her, even though the opposite was true.

Even once she got sober she started not texting me for 4 days here, 6 days there and finally after one of her disappearances she announced that her husband had discovered the affair and she couldn't see me anymore.

I spent every single day looking for her texts and WhatsApp messages. I couldn't even go to the gym without constantly looking at my phone to see if she had texted. The morning and evening messages became. 'Morning' and "Night.' They had actually never been that forthcoming from her end but through the majority of the relationship I had been giving her narcissistic supply - constantly telling her how beautiful, sexy, intelligent, creative, kind, compassionate (admittedly sometimes through gritted teeth on the last 2) she was. But once she got sober and I discovered she had been to a concert in my home town with another man, I no longer trusted her. So I wasn't as effusive and forthcoming towards her. That was the beginning of the end. I stopped adoring her with the same abandon (though she still got some affirmation) because she had betrayed my trust.

Do I want somebody I don't trust back in my life? NO! Do I want my happiness to depend on somebody unreliable and untrustworthy? NO! Am I going to contact her today? NO!

Today I will not contact her.

I am going to use the tools I have been given here, knowledge regarding the nature of my malady and a programme for recovery ie going through the stages of detachment:

How we heal ourselves: The Five Stages of Detachment

Acknowledgment- we begin by acknowledging and working with our feelings.

Self-Inquiry - we then probe the feelings - it's important to find a way to explore your feelings that allows you both to be present with them and to stand a little aside from them.

Processing - become aware of what has been useful in the journey you've just taken, regardless of how it all turned out.  

Creative Action - start something new with real enthusiasm for the doing of it, rather than out of the need to prove something.

Freedom - the stage when thinking about your loss (or the thing you desire) doesn't interfere with your normal feelings of well-being.

[RomanticFool]

Ok, I am faltering again today. The noise in my head urging me to contact by uBPDex married lover is deafening. I am in AA and if this was an urge to drink I'd be saying, 'My illness wants me dead - or at least in the pub drinking.'

I have discovered on here that my own anxiety, depression, impaired empathy and emotional/behavioural dysregulation has played its part in the relationship with the ex. When I first came here, I was angry and blaming it all on my ex. For sure she has a part to play, the ST, the lack of commitment, the lack of empathy/compassion for me, the devaluing and finally the lack of closure... .and this is the source of my urge to contact her.

I now feel that I could have done things better. BUT I am certain the outcome would have been no different. We broke up because she said her husband found out about us and therefore she could no longer see me. I hit out in righteous indignation and walked away. So the real problem here is actually nothing to do with BPD or BPD traits on either side. That is just a complication and a contributory factor. You know what the real problem is? She is never going to leave her marriage. It does me no good to speculate over love, because the fact is that in the 14 years I have known her, she has never shown the slightest inclination to want to leave and be with me.

To remind me of this fact here is a former message from Skip when I first came here:

You are really at a moment of truth here. Do you want to put your marriage back together or do you want to move over to the Saving board and work on relationship (sex-capade) recovery. We will support you in either. No judgement.

I think the things to be aware of:

1) If you continue the joint affair, your marriage will fail. Don't wait for a Tuesday surprise from your wife turning your life upside down to see it. Every day that you occupy your heart with your affair partner it is unavailable for your wife. You say she is "sexless", but understand that this affair plays heavily into your marriage woes. Your passion has been mostly played out to the other women for the entire marriage in a style that fits you and her. This has prevented you from finding the "style" that fits you and your wife.

2) Understand what an affair is. I like to compare it to a 3 legged stool. The spouse is two legs and the affair partner is one (they fill a specialized need missing in the marriage). Neither relationship stands on its own. Remove any leg and the whole thing falls over and is dysfunctional.

3) Eventually your affair partners marriage will also fail. Most likely when that happens, she will rebound with you for a bit (you might even leave your wife when that happens) and then after the rebound healing, she will leave you to find a more complete relationship with someone else - by complete I mean one that doesn't need two men to satisfy her.

4) Each time you recycle, you are not returning back to the start/status quo. We often think that - but life is flowing, not static. Rather, there is a steady degradation going on in all 4 relationships... .things are systematically going sour and breaking down in all four love relationship fronts. A crash is coming.

5) There are signs of sex addiction in this whole thing. It will help to read about it. Many sex addicts have to hit rock bottom before making their way out.

This is gloomy, for sure. It is a reality that I have seen played out 100's of times on these boards. I know your emotions are pulling you strongly to jump back into this affair, or to live a life holding out for recovery of the affair.

You're in a really tough place. Go with your "addiction" or  rehabilitate your life. A lot depends on your next decisions - do you take the easy one or the hard one.

Good mental health is hard. Its about making tough choices at times like this.

The most compelling part of that argument is the final line. The pull of trying to save my marriage isn't strong enough to keep me away from my ex lover because I am highly doubtful as to whether my marriage can be saved.

However, the final line is compelling. I have experienced so much pain IN this relationship over the last couple of years. She took a year out when she started drinking and taunted me regularly about abandoning her, even though the opposite was true.

Even once she got sober she started not texting me for 4 days here, 6 days there and finally after one of her disappearances she announced that her husband had discovered the affair and she couldn't see me anymore.

I spent every single day looking for her texts and WhatsApp messages. I couldn't even go to the gym without constantly looking at my phone to see if she had texted. The morning and evening messages became. 'Morning' and "Night.' They had actually never been that forthcoming from her end but through the majority of the relationship I had been giving her narcissistic supply - constantly telling her how beautiful, sexy, intelligent, creative, kind, compassionate (admittedly sometimes through gritted teeth on the last 2) she was. But once she got sober and I discovered she had been to a concert in my home town with another man, I no longer trusted her. So I wasn't as effusive and forthcoming towards her. That was the beginning of the end. I stopped adoring her with the same abandon (though she still got some affirmation) because she had betrayed my trust.

Do I want somebody I don't trust back in my life? NO! Do I want my happiness to depend on somebody unreliable and untrustworthy? NO! Am I going to contact her today? NO!

Today I will not contact her.

I am going to use the tools I have been given here, knowledge regarding the nature of my malady and a programme for recovery ie going through the stages of detachment:

How we heal ourselves: The Five Stages of Detachment

Acknowledgment- we begin by acknowledging and working with our feelings.

Self-Inquiry - we then probe the feelings - it's important to find a way to explore your feelings that allows you both to be present with them and to stand a little aside from them.

Processing - become aware of what has been useful in the journey you've just taken, regardless of how it all turned out.  

Creative Action - start something new with real enthusiasm for the doing of it, rather than out of the need to prove something.

Freedom - the stage when thinking about your loss (or the thing you desire) doesn't interfere with your normal feelings of well-being.

[hope2727]

The dynamic of an abusive relationship is one of intermittent reinforcement. We are always waiting for the initial high of the rewards of lovebombing to come back. So I think of it like withdrawal. Just one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one month, one week, one month, one year and so on of no contact. I initially peeled out the plastic liner from the cap in a bottle of diet coke and told myself that was my one hour chip so to speak. I'm now over 2 years NC and there are still hard moments but it does get better I swear. Keep going. Call a friend. Call a counsellor. Call an enemy but don't call her. Good luck

[RomanticFool]

Thanks man. It is like withdrawing from love heroin.

[bus boy]

So many times I've likened the sickening feeling in my gut to a withdrawal when I was discarded. The urge to contact is overwhelming at first but gets easier with time. Now I could give a sweet fiddlers f**k if I ever spoke to or laid eyes on my Xw ever again. I still feel small bits of pain, why is my replacement 2 years and going strong and steady and I was treated like such a dog but that is something I work on daily and a normal brain has a difficult time processing such abnormalities bc we are normal.

[RomanticFool]

Good to hear bus boy. Though I am certainly not 'normal' or I'd never have got involved with her for 8 years!

I have detached from her once before and I know the pain is over when I get to the point of indifference at who she is sleeping with. A way to go yet!

[happendtome]

Lets say you would contact her. What response you would expect from her?
I can guess it would be just some excuses and in the end she would say that its all your fault.
You know, i sometimes wonder times back when my ex had done something, or maybe she even hadnt done anything, and we had just normal conversation about daily activities. However, some funny way these conversations always ended in the way that i was quilty about something.

So everytime if i feel i would like to contact her i start to analyze what response i would get. And everytime if i analyze i see theres no point to contact her. It wont take me anywhere, only stops my healing process. Its hard, but thats how it is.

Its possible to make our healing process very long. Years long. Its up to us really. But i think its not worth it to waste more than 1-2 years. Im very determined to shut her out. Completely. I know now that no contact works.  We just have stick with it. But if we always keep tearing our wounds open we will suffer forever.

[bus boy]

Xw left when s10 was 4 months old, we kept a twisted sort of sexual r/s going for 8 years, lots of pain in those 8 years but 2 years ago I was discarded for good. It has taken these past 2 years to recover, the first year was hopelessly painful and than it started to get better, I feel like a different person today but I still have my down days just not as many or bad. If I was to sit here and write that it doesn't bother me to pick s10 up or drop him off at his mothers and see my replacement living in her house, setting up s10 trampoline, being handed everything that was denied to me, I would be lying, I have learned better ways to deal with that pain.

[RomanticFool]

Hi happenedtome,

Lets say you would contact her. What response you would expect from her?
I can guess it would be just some excuses and in the end she would say that its all your fault.

Our relationship was dependent upon me chasing her. I would always complain at the lack of contact and she would always play the victim and complain how she is not good enough for everybody in her life. This was the emotional obfuscation that she indulged in to be able to avoid any real dialogue and commitment to me and the relationship.

So if i contacted her now, the usual response when I had taken some power back would be silence.  This is how she used to punish me. Even though I walked away, she told me that her husband had discovered the relationship and therefore we could no longer meet. I was left with no choice but that won't stop her from feeling abandoned.

During our final message exchange I asked her if she still wanted me. She said she was conflicted and that the lack of contact had eased her stress but that she felt guilty about the 'hurt in the silence.' I took that as a 'no' to my original question because I was tired of chasing.

Had she said, 'I love you my darling and I am aching for you, but things are difficult right now.' I may have carried on with the dance of agony.

[RomanticFool]

Hi Busboy,

It has taken these past 2 years to recover

I am sorry for your pain. You must have been through hell. You care a cautionary tale for me. If we assume for a second that I could have continued some kind of r/s with her despite the distancing,  your story is what would most likely happen ie more wasted years that would ultimately still lead to my abandonment. That was what I was no longer prepared to endure. I walked before I was pushed. I especially did not want more of the same until she discarded me - or more accurately, less of the same because she had already banned texting and we had to communicate on WhatsApp - which is dependent on wifi connection. There was scope for even more distancing there.

Like you, I am better off out. Moving my way to freedom and hopefully eventual happiness.