Finally No Contact, feeling very sad

[sadboi]

Hi,

If you have been following my posts, you know what has happened. If not, in most recent events, my ex, who cut me out of her life because her new girlfriend said she had to choose between their relationship and my friendship, and I go to the same university.

We share a lot of friends and are a part of the same club which is very important to both of us. When she cut me out of her life, I thought this meant entirely, so when I saw her, I was just ignoring her. She told me this bothered her, and I tried adjusting my behavior.

Throughout the last few days, we have had club events and it has been hard because I didn't know how to interact. "Should I ignore her, or just say hi, or have casual conversation? should I avoid her at all costs?" It has just been hard and uncomfortable without any clear boundaries.

Tuesday night, I asked if we could talk after our club event to set clear boundaries. Every boundary I offered, she would say she didn't like it. She started to cry and tell me she misses me everyday. She then got very hysterical, and kind of mad at me and said she needed the conversation to end. The boundaries were never set.

I saw my therapist yesterday, and she told me I was handling myself well, and that my ex got hysterical because I was trying to set clear boundaries and she didn't like it.

After my therapist affirmed that I was making healthy decisions and that she was proud of my growth, I was feeling really good, and really good into this morning. However, this quickly changed.

Quick backstory: my ex and I dated for a while prior to her being diagnosed with BPD. She was leaving school for the semester to do an internship in another state, and I told her I couldn't do long distance but that I wanted to be with her when she came back. We were still talking, but we weren't in a committed relationship. I slept with someone else, which I was honest about and we both knew was a possibility for both of us. But this triggered a lot of things for her (which I know now but couldn't have possibly known before her diagnosis). The self-harm increased, she was miserable all the time. She left her internship, went home to her mom, tried to kill herself. All the while I was in contact, calls everyday, constant texting, was always there. She came back to live near our university so she could be in an outpatient program, and I was really her main support system. She wanted to be with me, but I was scared, thought she really needed to focus on herself. Taking care of her was really hard on me emotionally, she would blame me for her self-harm, blame me for everything bad in her life, and say that if I would just be with her she would be happy. I started seeing my therapist because I was sacrificing my own mental health to take care of her. I didn't leave though. I wasn't in a relationship with her but I didn't leave. Eventually she started doing a lot better and I told her I still loved her. We agreed to take some space to deal with all that we had been through in order to come back together and be together. While I was working in myself, she got a new girlfriend, and didn't tell me, let me keep waiting thinking we were going to be together. Once I finally found out and we spoke about it she kept telling me things like "I just met her and things happened," "I didn't mean to fall for her and I did."

Fast forward to the us trying to be friends but her girlfriend making her choose, fast forward to my attempts to set boundaries and not succeeding, and we are here.

So this morning I checked my ex's twitter feed which I have been doing less, but still check from time to time. I see my ex and her girlfriend tweeting at each other and find out they met on tinder. Which means that when my ex and I decided to take space to work on ourselves, she downloaded tinder and was ACTIVELY trying to meet other people. Which means thing didn't just happen, she had purposefully sought out someone.

When I saw this, it felt like I was just finding out she was with someone else for the first time again. All my progress was lost. I reacted out of emotion before calming down and I texted her, an angry message. I said "you were on tinder ACTIVELY trying to move on. A slight detail you left out, that doesn't really fall under "it just happened." I'm indifferent about the fact that you're with someone else, but you literally lied to me and made me feel responsible. It just happened my a**."

She was snarky in response. The conversation spiraled, she threatened to block me as a power move. She says things to me like if I really wanted her to be happy I would understand, that I only want her to be happy on my terms. NONE of this is on my terms at all. She says I blame her when I shouldn't. She made me feel bad for being upset. She acts like the way she moved on while I was waiting shouldn't hurt me.

After she threatened to block me, I explained that prior to this interaction, I was only communicating to try and set boundaries, and that we didn't set the boundaries and that I think we need them. She said nothing works, I asked if she wanted to go No Contact, she said yes. And now here we are.

I feel terrible. I'm really disappointed in myself for the message I sent, for saying anything at all. All of the pain came back up. I feel like I had been making so much progress, and then suddenly I took steps backwards.

Please any support or input would be very appreciated. I am feeling worse than I have felt in a while.

[Harley Quinn]

I feel terrible. I'm really disappointed in myself for the message I sent, for saying anything at all. All of the pain came back up. I feel like I had been making so much progress, and then suddenly I took steps backwards.

sadboi, to err is human.  Learning what you did is a bitter pill to swallow and is bound to be very painful, leaving you disillusioned and angry.  We all make mistakes and sometimes those are the things that we learn most from.  Perhaps discovering what you did will actually help you longer term in detaching.  Speaking for myself, some harsh realisations did that for me.  It's still incredibly painful to find that someone you love has misled you and had a different agenda to the one they led us to believe.  I feel for you.  It's good that you have your therapist and can bounce back from this with their help.  And you can.  The road to healing isn't a linear one.  At times we must go backwards in order to move forwards and I'm sure your therapist will reassure you.       

Maybe NC is for the best all round to reduce your inner turmoil and discomfort about how to behave when seeing her and it took this unfortunate exchange to get you to that point.  Don't beat yourself up.  You're doing the best that you can and in my opinion have handled the boundaries conversation extremely well - just having it alone is something to be proud of yourself for. 

The point that you are at now is a step.  It's a hard one and maybe not in the direction you'd like emotionally, but a step all the same.  When we know better, we do better.  Be kind to yourself and don't dwell on sending the message.  What you need right now is self soothing and not criticism.  Hang in there.

Love and light x

[Mutt]

Hi sadboi,

I'd like to echo Harley Quinn, there's a Japanese proverb that goes like this "Fall down 7 times, get up 8"

Fast forward to the us trying to be friends but her girlfriend making her choose, fast forward to my attempts to set boundaries and not succeeding, and we are here.

After she threatened to block me, I explained that prior to this interaction, I was only communicating to try and set boundaries, and that we didn't set the boundaries and that I think we need them.

Boundaries are a protective outward layer that protect your morales and values, I also thought that it's something that you set on someone else, you usually don't have to tell people that respect you what your boundaries are, obviously you can discuss boundaries but ultimately you set the boundary on yourself, if she does X then I respond with Y.

For example I only communicate with my ex via email because I keep a  record our conversations in case we have to go court for something, it's all there in black and white, she doesn't like but the only means that she'll get a response from is if she sends me an email, she can send a text message or call and I respond back by email, I don't get into it with her with something like "I told you a million times that I only want you to send emails, don't call!" it's all carried by how I act and react to her with no spoken words from me and no JADE.