Urge to make contact - What do I do?

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My BPD ex was influenced by friends to leave me for another guy they thought would be perfect for her. She cheated, broke up with me out of no where, and replaced me the day after with him. It's been 7 months since the discard. I have not contacted her once but she would frantically call me to yell abut nonsense and send abusive texts about how she never loved me at least once a month. I have since blocked her.

It has been 4 months since I have blocked her. I have not heard anything from her since. I am constantly wondering if she has tried to contact me or if blocking her has triggered feelings of abandonment. Although I know contact with her would be brutal and I should try to avoid it at all costs, I am feeling strong urges to hear from her or reach out in some way and hope she might try to contact me.

My objective is not necessarily to talk to her. I just want to know if she still thinks of me. If she still has urges to reach out to me. If she missed me. I was thinking of sending her a bunch of photographs in the mail from last year's summer vacation together where we were madly in love. It's around the same time of year and I am being triggered by thoughts and emotions from those times together.

1) I know they are out of site out of mind. Am I a complete afterthought to her? is she triggered by memories?

2) Does she feel shame and miss me now that I have blocked her? Does she have feelings of abandonment and that she has truly lost me forever? does she care?

3) Should I send the photographs? They are also beautiful memories and she has never seen them. What will she think when she receives them? will she have feelings of nostalgia or complete indifference?

[inter]

My BPD ex was influenced by friends to leave me for another guy they thought would be perfect for her. She cheated, broke up with me out of no where, and replaced me the day after with him. It's been 7 months since the discard. I have not contacted her once but she would frantically call me to yell abut nonsense and send abusive texts about how she never loved me at least once a month. I have since blocked her.

It has been 4 months since I have blocked her. I have not heard anything from her since. I am constantly wondering if she has tried to contact me or if blocking her has triggered feelings of abandonment. Although I know contact with her would be brutal and I should try to avoid it at all costs, I am feeling strong urges to hear from her or reach out in some way and hope she might try to contact me.

My objective is not necessarily to talk to her. I just want to know if she still thinks of me. If she still has urges to reach out to me. If she missed me. I was thinking of sending her a bunch of photographs in the mail from last year's summer vacation together where we were madly in love. It's around the same time of year and I am being triggered by thoughts and emotions from those times together.

1) I know they are out of site out of mind. Am I a complete afterthought to her? is she triggered by memories?

2) Does she feel shame and miss me now that I have blocked her? Does she have feelings of abandonment and that she has truly lost me forever? does she care?

3) Should I send the photographs? They are also beautiful memories and she has never seen them. What will she think when she receives them? will she have feelings of nostalgia or complete indifference?

[CorsaG19]

Hey inter

I literally just came on the forum as i was feeling the same way. I can only dream of being 4 months NC. We split about 6 weeks ago and its now 8 days NC. Ive blocked her on everything except email as it wont let me. Ive finished my run of shifts today and find myself thinking of her. She should be finishing work about now. Or shes with my replacement if shes done her usual of ringing in sick.

Since we split (her decision) shes been the one to constantly call me. Want to see me. Never to apologise or get back together. She would get jealous if i saw my friends and give me abuse over the phone. She took great pleasure in ringing me to tell me about dates she had been on knowing it would result in NC again. I dont think she ever thought i would go this far.

So i was sat here. Wondering what shes doing. How shes feeling. If shes missing me. Wishing she would send me an email. Or try calling me because my phone tells me if blocked numbers have tried to call... .but then what? I see theres 2 options... .

She tells me what i want to hear... .do i go running? Do i go through it all again. Knowing she found it so easy to move on with numerous others. She stopped her meds when she moved out. So i put up with the ups and downs again? Forgive her for all the cheating and the lying?

Or

She tells me to do one. How she hates me and shes so happy with her new girlfriend of 2 minutes. She repeats that moving out was the best thing she ever did and how the new gf is 10x the woman i am

Weighing these options up i think i would rather continue my NC new record and let her think ive moved on and im happy.

I cant tell you what you should do. The heart wants what the heart wants. But look at the options. Are you ready to reopen that can of worms? Deal with any negativity or rejection? Or if her reaction is positive what do you see happening? 

[FantasticMsDox]

Just don't do it. You're not going to get anything but hurt from it. She probably does think of you but, so what?

I think of going NC is akin to being a recovering alcoholic. You've gone all this time w/o a drink -- it takes one slip up to bring your number of days without -- to zero. It's not worth it.   

I understand how you feel. I feel a intense urge to reach out to my ex. But I know it's because I want some kind of validation, it's like my brain thinks that if I reach out, I'll be relieved of my anxious negative feelings. As if all of a sudden she'll be like "oh I've been waiting for you--let's work this out, i'm sorry for all the pain and hurt I caused you. I feel terrible"

Yeah I know that won't happen if I reach out. She's with her new toy now so the most I'll get is silence or worse... .indifference.

I don't think it's worth it.

[vaztek2003]

Thank God for this topic, its exactly how I felt earlier. I woke up (keep dreaming of her, barely get a restful sleep) with the urge to re-engage with my ex, even had a friend tell me to just reach out already as she would probably reply. Thankfully I thought of the options, being more silent treatment as she basically ignored my last few messages of me just typing my feelings and expressing my love and how I would fight for her if she wanted me to... .silence to a heart breaking, or she would text me as a friend, as if she really cared for me she knows my number, she'd reach out, but has chosen not to.

[Huh?]

I'm ten months out from her silent treatment, last messages I sent were for her birthday 8 months ago... .so I've been NC since then.

The thing that helps me stay away, even though I miss her so much... .and she's on my mind 26 hours a day is 1. I know she's not sitting around missing me 2. She'd probably ignore it, get an ego boost, then forward my message to her friends to show how "crazy" I am, and finally 3. She's not the woman I fell in love with, she treated me like crap, and put no effort into the relationship.  She groomed me to adore her and when she was done, I was done.

Why go back to that? Even the "good" times weren't worth the way she made me feel for the majority of the relationship.

I hope you think about that as you continue on your path towards healing.  As "perfect" as my ex was at the beginning, I realize that she was only putting on a show... .and theres a better woman out there for me.  I'll leave her to her own destructive future.

[insideoutside]

Me too; huge urge to reach out as I have now reached the 13 weeks/3 months milestone of no contact.  My friend created a new facebook account last week with I suppose a new email linked to it as I blocked his old account and wouldn't have seen him otherwise, which I thought was for my benefit but he took himself back off it again after 6 days.

The longest NC we have had is 16 weeks... .I've got a horrible feeling this NC is going to go on and on and on.  Maybe it is for the best but god I miss him :-(

[Skip]

Does it ever make sense to do this with an ex-partner (BPD or not)?

The short answer is "no".

If you had a perfectly amicable break up with an extremely healthy relationship, this would not be an appropriate or constructive way to contact the ex. A more appropriate way would be to send something short, with no emotional intensity (assuming that you had not already communicated post relationship and been rejected).

Examples:

Hey, I heard through Vince that you got a new job - congratulations!
Just wanted to know that Mike and Sue got married - finally!
Hey, your dear 76ers finally won their division! Wow!

These are simple, unloaded contacts that open a door for the other person to connect without obligating them or intruding on their emotional space. The minute you obligate or intrude, the other person my react and shut you down and then matters are worse.

It's hard to comprehend that the things that were valued in the relationship don't necessarily have any value after the relationship, but that is normal and often the case. The reason we have this "unfinished" business is because the relationship was super intense and a love for all the ages for a while and then it went on a roller coaster ride and crashed. It's hard grasp the incredible high followed by the incredible low. It's a huge blow to our self worth.

Going back to contacting her, in your case, she was lashing out for 4-6 months and you then blocked her. That's rough. You would need an extra low key contact if you are going to make any contact at all and the likelihood of a good response is power than the average.

In any post relationship contact, the chance of a positive result is low - it's always a "Hail Mary" at best. Why, because people move on and back-fill the voids in their life. The space you once occupied has been replaced by something else, maybe more than once.

And your past relationship has been evaluated, packaged, and filed. I left a relationship a while back and we left on very good terms. However, over time I realized that it was not a good relationship for me and I packed it away with that label and that emotion. I would never consider trying again with this person because I think we already tried everything, it didn't work, and I would have better odds with a new person. I still like this person, they are still very interesting and attractive as they always were - but we had our chance and we could not make it work - another try isn't likly to change anything.

If she contacted me with a short friendly "hey how are you doing", I'd reply politely, but not with interest. She would know. If she sent me some memorabilia and asked if I still think of her, I'd be hesitant to engage and open a bag of worms or worse, hurt her feelings - even though I have no hard feelings for her.  I think most would feel this way.

I know this is really obvious, but it sometimes helps to say it.

Hope it helps.