Recycling really helped me to understand

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Even though I think its time to spend my time in things I enjoy outside of my experience with my BPD partner I think I should share my latest and what I would think last stage in this cycle.  

The last thing I wanted was the thing that I do believe has helped more than anything. I had near 2 months nc. I don't really want to go over my experience yet again and what seems to be the last chapter I really think is quite fresh as in occurring within the last few hours but I feel oddly almost fine.

Much against my better judgement I spent the last few weeks in what can only be called a recycle stage. I think what allowed me to let it happen was the fact not of the sincerity so much as the talk of her awareness of her BPD diagnosis. Which was encouraging. Although I was hoping the best expecting the worst.

After a camping trip that each night reached a less than pleasant end to the day and the behaviour pattern returning I was reminded. Sketchy recollection of events at best as well as statements as to very minor physical contact that didn't happen yet reflected the actions of her previous relationship partners, including my previous replacement.

After the surreal experience I attempted to drive her to her own apartment. Failed in 2 attempts due to again her sincerity combined with threats of suicide. Which I half expected. Worked things out and she wanted to still move in and carry on with an engagement to be married.

Today I message in my way home from work. Reply was a cut she had received on her leg while camping had opened up and she was leaving a note and going to the hospital. Can't wait 90 mins or so for me. The cut was not nearly serious enough also. Agrees to meet at local hospital. Says to say she is my wife it will make her feel better. She's not there. No reply to call or text. Finally get a reply she can't talk. Then that she has been taken to another hospital against her will. She is so sorry. Doesn't say where.

After some more messaging by me it is clear to me she has contacted my previous replacement and he has come and picked her up.

The only ask I had when recycled was no contact with him. Nothing else and expressed with kindness and understanding. So I went to her apt after letting her know I would and to meet me downstairs if it would be better. She wasn't there, so I retrieved my belongings and left the key she had returned to me just last night with the cutest and most heartfelt and sincere way imaginable. Let her know I left the key, I understand, no anger meanness or cruelty on my part and just be happy even without me it's AOK.

Point of all this is that after this experience of which I've shared but the smallest details, placed closely next to my months of nc and being able to compare the time so closely I actually feel if not great, a little sad actually, it's within the realm of the normal. I maybe feel tired and even a little empty but I definitely feel like a regular person that will be fine in a few days or even less.

The amount of projection and overall display of BPD traits were so clear when shown in a short span of time, unlike the slow steady creeping in the initial couple of years or so of our relationship. And to see that bar raised today it's much easier to accept.

I wouldn't have thought a recycle experience would do the trick, but I have to say it was just the thing. No matter how sincere the want to accept love by at least with my BPD partner the better things are the more extreme the negative reaction. And to place that side by side with the no contact period and see it in a short time span has been helpful tonsay the least. Wanting to be loved and being able to are completely separate things and I truly feel sad moreso that no person will ever be as understanding  or try as hard to change that as I have been and accepting and returning love is not an experience she will be able to accept or embrace. I can separate myself from that now more than before and feel much better for having allowed myself the experience of going through it with open eyes, the best of intentions and even the willingness to forgive. May not work for everyone but strangely enough I really think it did for me. Very much to my surprise.

[Bushes]

Even though I think its time to spend my time in things I enjoy outside of my experience with my BPD partner I think I should share my latest and what I would think last stage in this cycle.  

The last thing I wanted was the thing that I do believe has helped more than anything. I had near 2 months nc. I don't really want to go over my experience yet again and what seems to be the last chapter I really think is quite fresh as in occurring within the last few hours but I feel oddly almost fine.

Much against my better judgement I spent the last few weeks in what can only be called a recycle stage. I think what allowed me to let it happen was the fact not of the sincerity so much as the talk of her awareness of her BPD diagnosis. Which was encouraging. Although I was hoping the best expecting the worst.

After a camping trip that each night reached a less than pleasant end to the day and the behaviour pattern returning I was reminded. Sketchy recollection of events at best as well as statements as to very minor physical contact that didn't happen yet reflected the actions of her previous relationship partners, including my previous replacement.

After the surreal experience I attempted to drive her to her own apartment. Failed in 2 attempts due to again her sincerity combined with threats of suicide. Which I half expected. Worked things out and she wanted to still move in and carry on with an engagement to be married.

Today I message in my way home from work. Reply was a cut she had received on her leg while camping had opened up and she was leaving a note and going to the hospital. Can't wait 90 mins or so for me. The cut was not nearly serious enough also. Agrees to meet at local hospital. Says to say she is my wife it will make her feel better. She's not there. No reply to call or text. Finally get a reply she can't talk. Then that she has been taken to another hospital against her will. She is so sorry. Doesn't say where.

After some more messaging by me it is clear to me she has contacted my previous replacement and he has come and picked her up.

The only ask I had when recycled was no contact with him. Nothing else and expressed with kindness and understanding. So I went to her apt after letting her know I would and to meet me downstairs if it would be better. She wasn't there, so I retrieved my belongings and left the key she had returned to me just last night with the cutest and most heartfelt and sincere way imaginable. Let her know I left the key, I understand, no anger meanness or cruelty on my part and just be happy even without me it's AOK.

Point of all this is that after this experience of which I've shared but the smallest details, placed closely next to my months of nc and being able to compare the time so closely I actually feel if not great, a little sad actually, it's within the realm of the normal. I maybe feel tired and even a little empty but I definitely feel like a regular person that will be fine in a few days or even less.

The amount of projection and overall display of BPD traits were so clear when shown in a short span of time, unlike the slow steady creeping in the initial couple of years or so of our relationship. And to see that bar raised today it's much easier to accept.

I wouldn't have thought a recycle experience would do the trick, but I have to say it was just the thing. No matter how sincere the want to accept love by at least with my BPD partner the better things are the more extreme the negative reaction. And to place that side by side with the no contact period and see it in a short time span has been helpful tonsay the least. Wanting to be loved and being able to are completely separate things and I truly feel sad moreso that no person will ever be as understanding  or try as hard to change that as I have been and accepting and returning love is not an experience she will be able to accept or embrace. I can separate myself from that now more than before and feel much better for having allowed myself the experience of going through it with open eyes, the best of intentions and even the willingness to forgive. May not work for everyone but strangely enough I really think it did for me. Very much to my surprise.

[Skip]

I wouldn't have thought a recycle experience would do the trick

This is an experience that many have had. You breakup, learn about the disorder and it's characteristics, and you reconnect... .

but now you are watching and things are making more sense. You can see the beauty and the dysfunction and how they live together. You realize that bad times are not just a bad day or some circumstance or something stupid that we did (although these things don't help), but there is a years long struggle going on inside our partner.

PS: I re-titled and put some paragraph breaks in your posts - hopefully to get more participation.

[caughtnreleased]

Great post. I agree. This happened to me as well. The NC period was about one year when he reconnected with me. We started up again a few months after he got back in touch.

Still - what I've come to realize post recycle is that he was still very much trying to meet my expectations. During the recycle he was actually more reserved. Less needy. BUT I think he was exercising enormous self restraint, probably way too much. And so was I to be honest. We both knew the explosive potential our being together had so we were both trying really hard for it not to happen. But in the end I think he has so much paranoia about being cheated on that this part took over. He saw two toothbrushes in my bathroom (I'd just come back from a trip so it was my travel toothbrush) and immediately assumed there was someone else. Instead of confronting me he responded in kind - with obvious signs of cheating - bedroom evidence for example. I now understand that he is horribly jealous and possessive. He knows I could never handle that. So he kept the monster locked away, until it broke it's chains and bit both our heads off.    I've come to know him better and that has certainly helped enormously. I think the NC allows us to detach to a certain degree. After the recycle breakup I spent a whole day crying. It was serious grief. I understood that he and I could never work out.

[JaxDK]

Although not a recycle It's still a similar experience.

When I left my ex and had some distance from the relationship, I still had regular contact because we have a son together. I could see the 'victim' manipulation every clearly, like I had just woken up.

I left her during a move, from a rented house back to the house she owned with her ex husband. She would play the pity card, of not having anybody help her and me just up and leaving, yet every time I went to get my son, there would be people helping. She would have her legs covered in bruises. When I asked her about it she would tell me, it was because she had to do all this work on her own (she is short and bruise easily) I suspected they were self inflicted. Mind you I offered to help but she couldn't handle me being nice to her so she would start arguing to avoid my help.

She would tell me how she had humiliated herself by lending money from somebody she loathed. How she couldn't move her fingers in the mornings because of moving. How her ADHD pills were no longer working (well no sh!t, you are misdiagnosed)

She was curvy when I was with her. She turned almost anorexic over the course of 2 months. Her replacement is how to best describe it not to insult him. An act of desperation.


Point is I could suddenly see so many obvious things I was blind to before, within a short span of time. This has helped me as well as made it harder. It triggered my savior complex but at the same time absolved me from the guilt of feeling like it was all my fault things didn't work out. My temperament was more a sign of my emotional balance and having it rocked too many times

[Bushes]

Very similar sounding experience indeed Jax. You know my exBPD was also covered in bruises consistently especially on her legs. Always. As well on her arms. During this recycle period she said the arms were from the replacement grabbing her. I suspect strongly that this may indeed be the case, also that the greater number of bruises throughout our relationship were due to him or some other replacement options that she had waiting in the wings for their chance to step from the batters box up to the plate. I'm almost certain of it. I also am quite certain she has been conditioned to be involved in abusive relationships which has made it much harder actually impossible for her to adapt to one that isn't. She also self harms no question, her arms are covered in cutting scars. Covered , as well as other places on her body.
And the story about moving hit a chord. Up to the minutes before the abandonment she was excitedly asking that I bring her things to my house over some trips to move in. And she had and I had agreed to resume or engagement to be married. Having said that I knew that wouldn't come to be and had planned at the very least to wait one year and condition it upon therapy. Neither here nor there now. And now we are right back to the ignoring phase where we left things the last time. No response to any attempts at contact. Not that it's anything around me wanting her back mind you. The note she left before the whole hospital abandonment fiasco by the way was something like opened my leg cut, gone to hospital, message me when you can, I love you heart heart. Then the text was I've been taken to a different hospital against my will. Seriously against her will. I ask where, she says I'm sorry then that's it. Hasn't replied or seemingly even read a message I've sent since. Sufficed to say the unhealthy relationship and severe BPD could not be clearer. The only word I have is surreal.