Chronicling my Recovery - Day 2

[dazedandconfuzed]

So its now Day 2 (I'm counting Saturday as Day 0, Sunday as Day 1, so on). I'm not the best writer, and at this point all of my friends have heard of all of the drama and are totally done hearing about it - especially with all the cycles we went through. So this is basically where I am at rock bottom, no where to go but up. So I'm going to try to be open, honest, and consistent about posting here during my recovery, as much for me to organize my thoughts as it is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for anyone else just starting out on their journey. No promises my path is the one out of this mess, but it'll either be a good path, or a good warning what not to do. We'll see where it goes.

So let's start with the basics - I'm not going to go through our entire 4.5 year relationship, we can do a few sentences to gloss over the major moving parts. I'm now 33, she's 28. I met her at work about 5 years ago, I was married (but in a sexless marriage for basically the entirety of it) then and traveling every week to work. We became friends and started going out to dinners every few weeks. She told me about how she had just broken up with her long term boyfriend a couple weeks ago because she found out he was cheating on her (odd how part of me thinks this wasn't quite accurate now). Fast forward several months, I had lost a family member, we were getting closer, and then it just happened. We were together for about 2 weeks when she suddenly stopped talking to me entirely while I was home on the weekend - total silent treatment. I eventually hear from her Monday when she's obviously relieved I still want to be with her and figure things out. I fell hard for her, eventually ending my marriage after a couple years, all the while we would break up and get back together every month or every other month. Looking back on it now I feel like a fool.

Fast forward a few years and we're living on the other side of the country. We've had our ups and downs, I've certainly contributed to the problems because of how we started, but the litany of everything I've ever done wrong is brought up for every single fight. Once I had finally cleaned everything up for her with regards to my past, she just seemed pulled away. I would justify the fights, and temper tantrums as just responses to how we had started, and would double down on trying to be there for her, her family (who lived with her), whatever she needed. Eventually hoping to prove to her that I could be the reliable loving person she said she needed.

About 2 months ago, I have a training to goto, but tell her I'm going to cut it short so that I'm only gone a couple days and will be back in plenty of time to spend the holiday with her. Then comes some fight where she's like I just agreed to go away July 4th with a guy. OK, this type of response in a fight is nothing new. She says this all the time. I show up 10 minutes late to pick her up, same thing happens. So I swing down to see her and her mom is totally shocked she's not out with me, that she left in the morning. She comes back a couple days later, acts like nothing happened and says she was away with friends. Fine by me, just hey could you be a bit reassuring. Nope none of that, whatever this is I deserve it.

OK, so I try harder still. She then says oh hey I'm going to drive myself into work Friday (we drove in every day together). I'm like OK, why you hate driving. Oh I have some errands to run - um  you always simply have me leave work mid day to take you to run your errands why is this weird, oh its laser hair removal, I think its weird if you're there - I've been there a few times but ok. Oh I'm also going out wiht my friends Friday - ok have fun let me know if you'll need a ride - nope I got it not gonna drink - ok let me know when you're home safe. I had that Friday off anyway so we spent the morning cuddling and with her "working from home".

So I text her when I'm done with dinner and drinks with a few of my friends if she needs a ride - nope I'm good. Then around 11:30 she's like hey I'm home safe. So I ask her if she would rather come over, nope home and tired goodnight. I swing over the next morning - odd her car isn't there. Maybe she drank and uber-ed home. Makes perfect sense. Her mom let's me in but is again confused, so I head to her room - odd no one is there. Turns out she spent the night over an hour away. She finally makes it back in time for her brothers birthday - which I had to go get everything for. Doesn't even look at me and just picks fights continuously. Totally ruined his day. All he wanted to do was hang out in the living room and watch a movie together. She couldn't even do that.

At this point I'm livid with her and come back the next day to talk to her. Lo and behold there's a nice giant circular rash on her leg. And she's not feeling well. Guess who got Lyme's disease. So I take her to the doctor and get her antibiotics and take a couple days off of work to stay home and take care of her. While I'm there and she's sleeping on me I'm using her computer to check a few things, and a couple messages pop up. Wow. This is interesting, she's missing someone she spent the night with. I confront her, she eventually admits that whatever happened actually happened, but refuses to call it cheating or even admit that it was in some way wrong or hurtful. I take her out for dinner as we had no food in the house, and then go home for the night to sleep. The next day she asks me to come over again in the afternoon because she's still sick, which I do, just kind of putting those feelings aside because hey she's sick and needs it - plenty of time to have that argument and sort out what actually happened later - maybe its not really what I thought via the messages I saw.

So she eventually says she's not speaking to him anymore, and we start moving on with our lives. Her brother is heading to college soon so thats several trips to get him all moved down. 600 miles round trip. So there's two weekends together. Of course they're staying with family, but I get the two of us a hotel so we can have some time away and air conditioning/etc. I take everyone out to all of their meals, pay for all the gas, etc. On the last drive back I wanted to leave a little early so I wasnt driving too late. Nope. We make it to a town to get some dinner and she's like oh I'll cover this one as a thank you - and I was like no I got this one, you can get us a reservation and take me to <insert favorite restaurant> and it would mean a lot to me and she immediately gets defensive about why would I want to go there its such a hassle - turns out its right next to the new guys place.

A week later (this past Thursday) we're just relaxing on the couch watching TV. We're planning a trip to Florida together, got pre-approved for a mortgage, and were looking at houses. She's been on her phone a bit that night, but mostly it seemed according to her about her friends baby shower that weekend. Maybe we could go - sure last minute tickets are expensive but not prohibitive. If you want to go we can fly out tomorrow afternoon. Eventually she says not worth it. She then has to goto the bathroom - and is gone for like 15 minutes, and comes out a completely different person. Explodes at me for doing literally nothing, doesn't want to be near me, hits me, kicks me out. 

OK she doesnt have work friday, so I go in for the morning early and leave early afternoon when I'm done and come by with her favorite drink as an apology for whatever I did wrong. She lets me in and we cuddle for a while on the couch. Then as it gets towards 7 I'm like hey we should get some food - she explodes again, kicking me out again. Like a real sense of urgency here. Tells me never to come back.

I swing by Saturday morning (as how many times have I heard never come back from her only to be asked where I am the next day). Brought breakfast. I knock on her door and smell perfume. She screams at me some more. Eventually I hand her breakfast which she proceeds to throw all around the apartment. She then leaves (but leaves one of her phones) so I get to literally watch her chatting with this guy.

So now we're done. So how am I feeling.  This weekend I was entirely numb. It was like someone cut every one of my emotions out of me. It was terrifying. I was wondering if I would ever feel again, everything I did felt like going through the steps. I couldn't run or exercise or anything like that. I barely ate. I wouldn't say I was sad - more like shock?

Eventually last night at like 3 am while I was dozing on the couch I woke up and a lot of feelings came rushing in. It felt good to feel again, even if they were things like anger and sadness. Additionally I actually still feel bad and that this is somehow my fault. That I did something to make her do this and all the yelling and screaming she did over the past few days were really my fault. What I believe logically however, is that on Thursday she made plans with him - and then needed to try to have me out of the picture so she wouldn't feel the guilt or get caught. So she simply projected her feelings onto me. 

Well for whoever read this thanks for listening. It feels kind of lonely when you've lost most of your friends and then this happens. I'm going to try to post at least once a day regarding progress, here's to finding that light at the end of the tunnel.

[Emotions]

Thanks for sharing, interesting that our situations were so similar... .

[dazedandconfuzed]

Thanks for sharing, interesting that our situations were so similar... .

Yes its truly eye opening to see the pattern exposed so clearly. I had seen BPD early on in our relationship when I just randomly searched my girlfriend is like 2 people. But of course knowing something logically and accepting it emotionally are two very very different things.

[dazedandconfuzed]

Day 3
So one of my best friends from back home is in town for a couple weeks for work, so I got to spend the evening with him getting dinner and drinks and just basically talking about anything else that isn't this. He doesn't really know this happened as I'm kind of ashamed to talk about it. But it was a well needed distraction. Then as I was getting home one of my friends back on the East Coast wanted to talk so she called me and we talked for a few hours about lots of things including this. It really helped. So for those of you out there - trick #1 to feeling better - spend time with people who care about you, and get some of this off of your chest. I did a little work last night, and headed to bed. I did hear from her asking me not to come over to try to talk as she had to work late last night. I told her I won't be coming by or seeing her unless explicitly invited to do so, that I'm not in this to be a pawn anymore. She then messaged me at 3am and said she was done with work. I was long since in bed.

So one interesting thing I thought of while driving in this morning with regards to her outbursts of anger which are an amazing tell whenever she's about to lie or do something to hurt me. I haven't been able to figure this out yet but it could mean 1 of 2 things:

1) She gets angry over something (past, present, or imaginary), and then uses that anger to justify hurting me in some sort of revenge scheme - very early in our relationship I got stuck at work late for an hour or two when we were supposed to meet for dinner - she was livid - and of course made a revenge date for that Friday because I was late with a guy she met while waiting for me. Wow I should have realized what kind of relationship this was going to be then - that was literally weeks into the relationship.

2) She does something or plans to do something that she knows WILL hurt me (like when she planned her july 4 trip, thursday making plans with the new guy, or her brother's birthday party). Then because she knows she's hurt me (or is going to have to hurt me), maybe she feels some of that pain that she knows I'm going to feel, and instead assumes its her pain and lashes out at me for it. Like some awful version of projection, where she hurts me, senses how hurt I'm going to be, internalizes it as her own hurt, and then blames me for it and takes it out on me. If I was a psychiatrist with an fMRI this would make an interesting research paper.

Just some musings - I wonder which would be worse in my mind - probably the second. Maybe its dangerous to try to figure out how their minds work. Its like looking into an abyss, if you stare too long it stares back into you.

I definitely feel some of that after being with her so long that my emotions/etc aren't as even keeled as they were - being with my friend from years ago really showed me that. I'm going to see a therapist - setting it up today to help me work through both that dissonance, as well as whatever part of me considers that kind of treatment OK.

Still debating whether or not to text the new guy but I don't think I'm going to.

Well let's see how Day 3 plays out - I'm feeling a bit more together today, feel some basic things, maybe have some appetite back. Best thing about fighting with her that I always joked about was that it always helps me cut weight a bit - I injured myself and put on some weight and have been working it off slowly.