Did I blow it or dodge a bullet?

[kc sunshine]

I had a very brief recycle-- two week of texts and the five days of being together. It had all the wonderful and all the awful parts of being together wrapped up into one. She had just broken up with her girlfriend (actually her girlfriend broke up with her after she slept with another ex but also after she told her that she was still in love with me). Oh man, there is a big part of me that thinks that are so many things I wished I could have done differently in those few days we were together so that we could have had a shot at it-- what might have been our last shot. At the same time, another part of me thinks that I dodged a bullet-- that her instability with her ex was not because of her true love of me, but rather was just about her instability. Please weigh in on this question with your vote and your insights, dear BPD family community!

[chillamom]

KC, she may very well still love you, but her long and tortuous history of instability with you and everyone else that you've noted before indicates you didn't just dodge a bullet, you dodged an entire army... .I can understand the thinking otherwise, but as you know, it doesn't fit the facts.

[Turkish]

It sounds like you still want to be with her,  but you are aware of her Instability. However, you still want to be with her even so. 

What are you willing to put up with on order to be in a relationship? What are your core values which you won't comprise?

[kc sunshine]

My core values are my kids well-being, kindness to people in my life, commitment to friendships, good work, and financial independence. Those I won't compromise.

I think wanting to be treated well is a core value but I have compromised on this one.

[enlighten me]

Hi KC

One thing that nags me about what your ex said is that she said to her gf that she was still in love with you. I cant help but think that this was a hook for you to bite. I don't know your ex but I cant see either of my exs ever saying that to their partner. I may be wrong but I have had baited hooks dropped by my exs and it feels like one of those. Yes maybe she is still in love with you but can you see her saying it to her partner?

[kc sunshine]

Yeah, I can totally imagine her saying something to her ex like this if she was feeling it. One of her strengths is that she is very honest, sometimes brutally so. What I don't know is whether she was  saying/feeling that because she was pushing the ex away (in the devaluation/discard cycle) or whether she truly feels that for me.

Telling me that certainly "hooked" me thiugh-- that offhand comment is something I'm ruminating about.

Hi KC

One thing that nags me about what your ex said is that she said to her gf that she was still in love with you. I cant help but think that this was a hook for you to bite. I don't know your ex but I cant see either of my exs ever saying that to their partner. I may be wrong but I have had baited hooks dropped by my exs and it feels like one of those. Yes maybe she is still in love with you but can you see her saying it to her partner?

[IsThisThingOn]

Hi KC,

One thing that nags me about what your ex said is that she said to her gf that she was still in love with you. I cant help but think that this was a hook for you to bite. I don't know your ex but I cant see either of my exs ever saying that to their partner.

I can definitely see your ex having said this to her partner at the time. I can even see her saying it to you.  But let me ask you this:

How many times in your relationship did you hear "I love you" on say, Monday, and "I hate you" on Tuesday?

What I don't know is whether she was saying/feeling that because she was pushing the ex away (in the devaluation/discard cycle) or whether she truly feels that for me.

It could have been that.  Or it could have simply been what she was feeling in the moment.  --  For me, I think my uBPDx did love me. I believe it. But I also think for her, love equated to loss and abandonment. Being "disappointed" -- She used to always harp on how she feared getting close to people and often times didnt because she would rather not be "disappointed" -- In those moments I got a lot of "I hate you" and "get away from me" (boy I used to hate that line)

During a moment after one of her rages, one of the few she had some clarity on what had just happened: "Sometimes I just get so upset and angry and cant control myself. I start to feel like I cant trust anyone to not disappoint me so I'd rather just be alone and worry about myself. So I say and do whatever I need to to protect myself from it all" -- This was actually also during the conversation where I asked her if she thought she had BPD and maybe her binge-eating was actually a symptom of that. The same conversation she admitted she does think so but is afraid to get diagnosed because of the stigma.

Sorry, that got a little off topic.  Point was: It could have just been a Monday vs a Tuesday.

[Harley Quinn]

Hi kc sunshine,

This is a question I've struggled with myself at the point of breakup.  Should I have tried harder/not given up/taken more in order to keep things together/left ages ago?  It's a difficult one because we've invested so much already and are hopeful that things could be different.  Proclamations of love are the hardest things to cope with as they throw our hearts wide open, even when all reason is pointing to the fact that without significant change on both our parts the outcome cannot be much different than what has happened before.  Deep down we know the answers for ourselves.  How many recycles had you had altogether over the course of the r/s?  What is she doing now since this recent one - ie is she single?

Love and light x

[kc sunshine]

I think what happened is that she went back to one of her two exes. They were texting her a lot when we were together (that was excruciating) and I know she was meeting one for dinner, after which I didn't hear from her again. So my guess is that she got back together with her. Ouch. But it could be with either one. Or maybe no one? I'm not sure. Brutal. I was okay in the immediate aftermath of it but now I am reeling, perseverating, ruminating.

Hi kc sunshine,

This is a question I've struggled with myself at the point of breakup.  Should I have tried harder/not given up/taken more in order to keep things together/left ages ago?  It's a difficult one because we've invested so much already and are hopeful that things could be different.  Proclamations of love are the hardest things to cope with as they throw our hearts wide open, even when all reason is pointing to the fact that without significant change on both our parts the outcome cannot be much different than what has happened before.  Deep down we know the answers for ourselves.  How many recycles had you had altogether over the course of the r/s?  What is she doing now since this recent one - ie is she single?

Love and light x

[kc sunshine]

Also, you asked how many recycles? This is our fourth one... .

Hi kc sunshine,

This is a question I've struggled with myself at the point of breakup.  Should I have tried harder/not given up/taken more in order to keep things together/left ages ago?  It's a difficult one because we've invested so much already and are hopeful that things could be different.  Proclamations of love are the hardest things to cope with as they throw our hearts wide open, even when all reason is pointing to the fact that without significant change on both our parts the outcome cannot be much different than what has happened before.  Deep down we know the answers for ourselves.  How many recycles had you had altogether over the course of the r/s?  What is she doing now since this recent one - ie is she single?

Love and light x

[patientandclear]

KC--I totally understand your pain and rumination. Anyone would be picking over "what happened? what did it mean? Did it have to be this way?"

The piece of this story that jumps out at me is the rapid cycling among other partners. This seems to signal that her stated emotional truth in moments like when she told her immediate ex "I'm still in love with KC" is less the reason for her actions; and more a way of explaining to herself and others what she is about to do (leave). I think the aspect to pay attention to is less her feelings than how she handles them. She seems to use "love" and other people as a way of dealing with fear, sadness and disappointment. She did the same when when you two split a year ago. She doesn't process, she gets a new woman and tries to have that be the solution.

Look at this story ... .regardless of her feelings for you, she just cheated on her then-partner with someone else.  If that someone else was not the other ex whom  she was texting in your time together, that makes four women she's attempted some degree of intimacy with in an incredibly short time. If it was the other ex she cheated with, then, three. What can you conclude from that? I'd say she is using people (all of you) impulsively, and not acting out of clear preference or anything that can be described as "love."

It's so hard not to respond at face value when what she is telling you is what you want. But what we can see from this pattern is that the moment being with you didn't make her feel something between safe and ecstatic, her solution was going to be another one of the group of women. She treats them the same way.

There is no amount of perfect that you can bring to bear that will prevent her feelings from taking a nosedive at some point. She handles that by turning to other women. Other pwBPD use other destructive coping mechanisms; this is hers. It also happens to be the main strategy my ex wBPD uses, so I relate.

It makes sense that you are reeling. You really care and were present with her, and unlike her, you aren't turning to another human to address the confusion hurt and loss.

To your worry in the OP: what you would have if she were still with you now is a woman who addresses hurt and disappointment by reaching for other women. She seems to do it with everyone, not just you. It feels good when the wheel spins and you are the one being reached for. It feels bad when it flows the opposite direction. This is her deeply embedded coping strategy. She does this and she does it to all of you.

It's been a year since my last experiment with whether my ex could deal with his bad feelings without wrecking his relationship of the moment. Seems he can't. It has taken all this time, again, for me to be more or less over the hurt and sadness from re-confirming that. I've made myself a promise not to wonder about that again--I know the answer.

I would not say you dodged a bullet, I'd say you took one.

[kc sunshine]

These insights are incredibly helpful to me patientandclear-- thank you for them. The notion that I took a bullet also helps make sense of how I'm feeling-- like I was hit by a bus. At first I think I was in shock and needed to get out of the situation so i was kinda okay, but this past week has been so tough. I've recovered before, more or less, hopefully I can recover again. I worry that each relapse makes it harder. Perhaps it is, though, that you learn something from each relapse and finally you learn all you need to know.

[joeramabeme]

I think Turkish nailed it with the question about what are our core values.

That said I feel I both blew it and dodged a bullet and my logic is a matter of perspective in time. 

While in the r/s, I felt anchored sharing my day-to-day with someone had a sense of normalcy that was very grounding.  From that perspective I could see my values being compromised and being married allowed me a greater sense of empowerment to have and express these values and desire to have them met.

Yet, on the other hand, now that I am single, which feels un-anchored; I lament not trying harder and giving more of myself and wondering if I had been too stringent. 

It doesn't seem to me like there is a middle ground in our r/s'.  It was an all-in or all-out scenario which meant accepting extremes which defeated the very purpose of the r/s to begin with.

Having a number of long-time married friends who are not in BPD relationships, I see them routinely compromise what they consider to be their values.  While they are unhappy about that and it certainly creates relational and personal angst for the compromising party; they are married and have all the benefits that married life brings such as stability, continuity and sense of belonging. 

That is why I say this question becomes a matter of perspective.  For me, and I would assume others here as well, the compromise became too extreme to stay.  What we needed to give up of our own being became so large that the costs exceeded the benefits.  And in that regard, it was a no win-win scenario because the gain costs us the very essence of what we were looking for in a r/s to begin with.

Hope that all made sense.

J