What was real? Part 2

[Lostinanother]

Perhaps I am BPD because yesterday I recycled my ex (somewhat) just to end things on my own terms and get the power back to myself... .

I called her and we spoke, had a very friendly and relaxed conversation, she told me no one would ever be better than me, she talked about the replacement honestly because she knows he is a replacement, I tried giving her advice and it seems as though I am maybe painted grey now?

We agreed to be friends and keep in contact via email, which was my suggestion.

However, I don’t want her back and I really don’t want to meet her again. I know we were not compatible really and I know she isn’t what I want at all. I know a future with her would lead to my suicide probably.

I just wanted to take the power back from being painted black.
I don’t plan on ever continuing a friendship at all.
But if she contacts me I’ll only ever do LC until I have met someone better.
Until she contacts me I’ll be NC.

I do feel like I have some power back because I could end things on my terms and not hers... .

Has anyone else tried to be painted grey before?

Maybe this is the end of my story here... .it feels that way

[Lostinanother]

I also told her that I had met someone else aswell, which is partly true but I told her (immaturely) to make her jealous... .

[Kelli Cornett]

I also told her that I had met someone else aswell, which is partly true but I told her (immaturely) to make her jealous... .

why?

[Seenowayout]

Lostinanother --

FIrst -- I totally relate

Second -- this is the kind of crazy we need to stop ourselves.  Only we can stop it because it originates in ourselves.

Maybe, we need that good guy validation everywhere.  Maybe that's what got us in this mess in the first place.  How dare she paint us black?  I'm a white knight!  I tried to help her.  I won't rest until she sees I'm a nice guy.  And she does sometimes.  Later she won't.

You know you are a good guy.  That's enough.  Leave it alone.  Move on.

[Lostinanother]

Yeah, I know. It was kind of a relapse on my part. But I feel like I’m almost playing a game sometimes. Like I have to try and win something back because she took so much away from me.
I guess I wanted her to remember we well and not hate my guts.
Ended up apologizing for little things I’d done but she never really apologized for anything and I realized after that she was still lying to me even after we have been broken up for nearly 3 months... .
I can’t understand. Even when I tried to make her jealous with the new girl, she used that as a justification for the replacement, even though she got with him and finished with me 2 months before I’d even met the new girl.

I guess, after everything, I still would like to save her. She is talking about moving to the replacements country and working there... .
I can honestly see her having a very terrible life because of her mental problems which she denies even having... .

I really was so depressed and paranoid when I was with her but it’s still difficult to let go and I really don’t know why... .

I keep relapsing... .

Yesterday I thought about her and the new guy together and it made me really depressed... .


I really don’t want to lose her from my life but I don’t want to be someone she keeps orbiting... .

I should have just stayed NC. Because being in contact with her again has just made me relapse, when I was getting better... .

[Seenowayout]

I know buddy -- I go through it too.

Maybe here's a way to look at it:  those feelings will come.  And they GO!  I get a trigger, a thought, and then I get an overwhelming desire to call her, to text her, to yell at her, to rescue her, to beg her to come back, to see if she's OK, to hurt her  ... .it's crazy.

The desires come and go.  I wait for it to wash over me, and then I laugh at them.  Like a roller coaster.  Just feel it.  It goes away.  And with time, they come and go less frequently.  And they become super short.  And the more I laugh at them, the more impotent they become.

You said it so well -- if you were back with her you would end up suicidal.  These residual feelings we have are what we would be living if we were still with our ex's.  Remember how easily your buttons got pushed in her presence?  How crazy it made you?  We are still feeling aftershocks in the absence.  But it ain't real.

Just feel it, and let it go.  It's working for me.

[Lostinanother]

Seenwayout,

You are completely right.

I really need to focus on how I felt when we were together. Paranoid and upset that she compulsively lied to me... .

I can’t save her. I can barely save myself... .

[Lostinanother]

I miss her a lot today... .

I miss talking to her... .

NC hasn’t really had the effect that I wanted... .
I’ve healed from all the ___ she put me through, but it’s making me forget all the bad ___ty times and instead I’m pretty much remembering the good times... .
But she is moved on with the replacement and is love bombing him 24/7 now... .

Crazy. I should really go to an AA meeting... .

[SuperJew82]

My exdBPDgf did the compulsive lying too. You are not yourself after living in that paranoia for some time. I would really stay NC to get your head back straight.

It changes you into something you are not proud of. I was not myself when I was in the middle of that.

[Harley Quinn]

Hi Lostinanother,

What's important to you in a relationship?  Not speaking about your ex.  Just A relationship.  What would you say are the most important things for you personally?

Love and light x

[Lostinanother]

Of course for a relationship the 3 most important for me are; comparability, loyalty and honesty... .
unfortunately my ex didn’t have the last 2... .

[Harley Quinn]

Perhaps it's an idea to write these 3 things down and place it somewhere you will see them - maybe your wallet or the fridge.  I did something similar, simply focusing on what I actually really want (as opposed to what I'd had), which I found quite empowering.  When you find yourself considering acting impulsively in response to painful feelings and wanting to reach out, take a look at these and then instead take some time to allow the feelings to wash over you and leave of their own accord.  Accepting and treating your emotions as guests who come and go allows them to move on rather than getting stuck. 

How are you feeling today?

Love and light x

[Lost-love-mind]

I miss her a lot today... .

I miss talking to her... .

NC hasn’t really had the effect that I wanted... .

... .and instead I’m pretty much remembering the good times... .
But [HAS] she is moved on with the replacement and is love bombing him 24/7 now... .(?)

Crazy. I should really go to an AA meeting... .

Exactly what is spinning in my head on weekends. Remember the good times.

Not so bad when I'm working my labor job and doing inventory of complicated chemicals for environmental testing.

After work? Thinking about Halloween and how much she loved it.

Unsure if she is with someone new. Her social media footprint is devoid of public posts except old pics. No, I'm not going back to stalking, electronic or otherwise. However, I watched one of her favorite conspiracy theorists YouTube.

She had some amazing idiosyncrasies, but they were kinda fun.

It's so hard to move on when I still believe that the first month was real , not "love bombing".

All I do know is that I miss the good times. I've learned a lot about myself and am still on the journey of recovery. My 12 step recovery group is still helping me.

[blueblue12]

Keep up the NC it does get better and you start focusing on yourself. The things you want in life, how you want your life to be. When she first discarded me in an extremely cruel way I couldn’t see anything good in life, all I wanted to was to get back, to fix things. I was willing to accept any wrongdoing, which is really stupid. I mean how much bad treatments do you want to accept? For what?

My T often says “she did this and this and this to you, what is it that you are not getting here?” A good question to ponder upon.

[Lostinanother]

Recently we have been talking a lot and I have reached a stage where I can forgive her and have empathy for what she did... .
Afterall, BPD is a mental illness, whether they know they have it or not. I wasn’t an angel and I did push and pull her a lot. And I created a lot of confusion for her and made her feel unstable.

I think we have both reached an understanding that we are poison for each other as lovers and we are trying to be friends... .but only the kind who meet once a month for coffee and a chat... .

She has a bf who she is love bombing and she seems happy. I need to cut the cord and move on myself and try and be blasé about this relationship and not fall down the rabbit hole again and not get attached again.

I know I will have to be on my guard and protect myself this time around and I know I will have to be prepared to back away if things start to go trippy again... .

I know I am playing with fire and I have to be fully aware of what I am doing... .

I know in my heart I don’t want her back, so now it’s just a case of moving myself into that mental thinking... .

Why be friends? Because I realized I missed her. I moved past all the sex and the love bombing to understand that I missed laughing with her over a cup of coffee or a beer... .

Am I making a mistake? I don’t know. I’ve never tried to be a friend with an ex before let alone one with BPD, but I will only know this road leads to a dead end if I walk down it and have a look... .

[Elmurr]

I believe that you want to keep her in your life because her departure has left a gaping hole in it and you have nothing else as good to fill that hole with, at the moment. This is normal.

Add to that the fact that you likely have the common human trait of wanting what you can't have, and what you get is a feeling of emptiness and boredom, combined with an increased desire for the thing that provided the excitement.

When it was available, it was available; it was easy, it was not particular special. Now it's gone, it was the most unbelievably amazing thing ever, and you want it back. So you obsess, you prioritise the good and minimise the downright awful, and you look for any avenue down which you can get it back. That includes being friends.

You say you don't want her back because it will likely lead to your own suicide, but you still wanting to be friends with her strongly suggests that you do want her back. Otherwise why else keep someone with so much power over you in your life?

You're hoping. But when you have no power over the thing you hope for, then you're vulnerable.

The only other reason you'd want to maintain contact is because your ego has taken a complete battering, and you need it to be restored. What I would say is that you probably aren't yet in a position where you can look to repair your ego without the risk of it taking yet another battering. You need to be better healed.

There's far too much confusion, far too many emotions, and far too much stress for this to be any good to anyone. You or her.

Early on it is a rollercoaster. You will feel empowered one day. Helpless and needy the next. This is one of the reasons NC is so important; because you aren't ready, you're vulnerable, and likely to make decisions based solely on emotion and not logic! Therefore, I would consider taking a few months (2/3) out and seeing where you are afterwards. You can even tell her you're going to do this if you think it will help. Tell her that because everything is so fresh, you need a period of time to emotionally stabilise yourself, and to be in a position to deal with the situation with a clearer head. Or, say nothing. If she wants to be with you then she will understand. If she doesn't, then in 2/3 months you'll be better equipped to accept that.

Also, if you're fantasising that she's suddenly become a wonderful person, is living an incredible life now you're gone, or that the other guys are so much better than you, then you're living in a self-induced illusion, and needlessly punishing yourself. It takes a long time to realise it, but her life is exactly the same without you. She'll continue on the same meandering path of confusion that she's been dragging you down for years. No wonder you're so confused. You've got an opportunity now to get on the straight and narrow, rid yourself of the primary source of hurt and confusion in your life, and tidy your life up.

Believe it or not, but I suspect this is the best opportunity for personal growth and to actually sort your life out that you've had for many years. Don't waste it making the same poor decisions you did that landed you here.

Talking from experience, I went through that exact self-induced illusion for months. I literally drove myself to despair because of it. Then after a long period of NC, and as you know, my ex went nuts at me for smiling and waving at her mum who I accidentally bumped into. NC broke down following that, and what happened was it went straight back to how it was during the end of the relationship. The stress came back, the drama, the games, the hatred, and the excitement. And interestingly, something I noticed is that that was one of the biggest things I missed. I missed the drama. It was the little battles that would constantly be raging between us and keeping my heart racing and my mind busy. It kept life exciting, but it also made me incapable of being content in a genuinely meaningful, loving relationship.

In this period of contact, I managed to take back some power and rebuild much of my ego. Not because she praised me, or said anything remotely nice to me at all, but because she didn't. Her being angry, nasty, and aggressive when I was literally being as amicable as possible, showed me that now, 7 months after I last saw her, she is still full of hate and anger at the world. And that this is her life.

After being relentlessly nice and receiving only hate back, my love for her vanished. I have clearly learnt a lot this past 7 months, both from my own work on myself, and also from this website. As my love vanished, so did my desire to want to see her again, or ever be part of her life. And so too did my desire to be amicable. So then, after message after message of aggression, I just said that's enough, and I flipped the tables and gave her an almighty piece of my mind.

This clearly shocked her as my inbox started lighting up. It went from 1 liner dismissive, self righteous emails like: "Yeah L, you make me laugh with how pathetic you are, you really do haha", to very long "how dare you say those things about me... ." and on and on they'd go.

I simply logged off and haven't look again since. I then got a facebook message on saturday night from some guy I don't know, saying that my ex had been harassing his girlfriend (an ex colleague of mine), and that I needed to "put her straight". And so her drama filled world continues. But I've checked out. And it feels great!

All this acted to completely remind me that they do not change! All my fantasising that she over-night turned into a wonderful human being that will be amazing to every other guy disappeared. My ego was massively restored. More so than anything.

Whilst I would say that this is a good avenue to take if you want to restore your ego, you NEED to be at a stage of recovery where you actually don't really care anymore. I don't think you're there yet. I would also say that an amicable resolution is the best option IF it is available, but I do feel that for a lot of people here, sadly that just is not an option. 

It is one extremely bitter pill to swallow, but you really should consider everything that has already been discussed, and just ask yourself, will my life be better if I keep her in it? Look to a years time, then look to 5 years time. What do you hope to achieve from keeping her around? Even as friends.

[Subaru02]

Elmurr I was going to reply before you and then I read your post and you spoke my mind in even more detail than I could before my morning coffee!

I agree to everything you just told him as I am going through exactly the same pain as he is right now. She walked out "AGAIN" after another year of recycling but she only walked out when she had a replacement "monkey branching". Before that replacement she wanted to keep me at bay by being jealous, anxious and needy and clingy with me, now that she has him I am a complete useless piece of crud to her and was never good to her... .GOFIGURE.

Elmurr : I went down this illusion that she even laid out for me. She said "My life is SO MUCH BETTER now that I am free of you (20 days later). I feel like I can be myself again! My friends ,family, work and school are going so much better I feel like I am on a cloud! (She had problems in all those areas in her life prior to our breakup and is now projecting all her problems on me being in her life!) So yes, it hits home when you say "her life is exactly the same without you in it" GOOD I hope it is because I can't believe she has the nerve to make me responsable for how badly she manages day to day life and I had to interfere to keep her on track often. She painted me black, painted the new guy WHITE and tried to make me jealous I fell for it 2-3 weeks in but now I'm outside of it and I see her for what she is and its starting to make me smile sometimes.


I also went into bargaining with her after 20 days I hit a low and contacted her telling her I missed her / loved her and that she always looks for the easy way out in life when things get hard by finding someone else to fill her void before leaving the relationship. She was mean, defensive and very devaluating basically acting like we never had anything good and that she was a victim to my behavior. Even after having being super nice and complimenting me in the breakup 20 days prior. When she had decided to "leave" she had said "You are smart, you're an engineer you have your finance together, you are good looking, funny, strong and fearless but I don't see what you find attractive in me, you can find someone better that you will want to naturally treat in a loving way I don't feel appreciated" Yet she had spent 3 years with me, found another guy he dumped her, she came back I recycled her and we spent another year together, last few months she became extra needy and annoying and I didn't reciprocate her needyness anymore and boom another replacement, and I am back to being useless STRIKE#2.

Anyways back to the subject : I broke NC "ONCE" at the 20 day mark and that was it.  It was under FEAR OF LOSS / FOMO because I found out she was sleeping and hanging out with a new guy a week after and it broke my heart that she lied and said she was in pain and that we needed to go NC for her to heal before we can speak again as friends. She had did so the last time too shame on me for not seeing it coming again but then I didn't care towards the end again because of how much she can turn me off with her crazy needyness... .She justifies her acts by saying our relationship didn't work and has no guilt or anything for lining someone up a second time. She has no empathy for me sitting here hurt by her actions and says it was INEVITABLE. Sure, we could have broken up, you could have spent a couple months taking a break from dating and assessing your feelings for me but no, rebounds after rebounds after rebounds. So I initially told her I'd like to be friends and didn't want to lose her in my life, and she reciprocated that BUT a week later she posted herself on social media with the new guy and I just lost it I couldn't believe how hypocrite she was, we had dated for a year and there she was on social media making the world think she was back into a fun and exciting relationship. Its crazy. I blocked her and have been nearly 50 days without contact from either end.

I feltl like reaching out, I felt like sending an email, I felt like I should make her realize how unappreciative she was but then I realize that invalidating her is going to make things even worse, I've decided to sit back, watch and learn. Its a small town, you end up finding out what you wanna know.

For some reason I think these people can be a while without you in their life when someone else fills the void during the love bombing and honeymoon phase but once the newness wears off they start to wonder about you and I bet she'll try to contact me or see what I'm up to. Thats when I hope to be strong enough to be completely indifferent to it.

So right now, my advice to you is don't fool yourself into thinking a friendship with her is worth it. You are deluding yourself into thinking that. Why we are so quick to forgive them and pity them for their mental illness? Its in our nature, and that very nature is what allowed us to put up with crap that half my friends would have already dumped her for. We stick around these people until they break up with us on their own and then we feel like idiots about it because we know deep down we were the ones to have all the reasons in the world to break it off, so how could they?

Its blunt but stay away from her a bit longer, GO NC. The first 30-35 days for me were nerve racking imagining her with the new guy developping into a romantic love story that she still thinks exists, towards the 40th day NC I started to see her for who she was, now almost 50 I don't even feel like reaching out to her anymore, I wanna forget she even exists and find a normal, stable girl with whom I can develop something natural and meaningful on a solid base.

[Subaru02]

In a shorter reply straight to you Elmurr,

I also forced myself to be loving amicable and was taking her aggressiveness blows the best I could when we talked post BU. She said very mean things to me and it showed me that even though I was trying to reconcile after 20-25 days she was still ANGRY with me for having been able to give her 25 days of NC even if she was seeing someone else. She had to rub in my face how much better she was doing, that she was working out and doing all the things I wanted her to do when we were together... The fact that she demonstrated so much hatred proved she wasn't over me. It also proves that whatever relationship she brought herself into will not be healthy.

I'm at 50 days NC, and I don't see her the way I used to anymore, the hatred and mean things she was able to say after being so close for 4 years has little by little destroyed all my love for her. She tried to portray me as the bad guy, the negative guy that always brings her down but in reality she is the sole founder of this. She has self esteem issues, no trust in herself, no love for herself and basically spends her life lieing to her relatives and friends to hide her true actions and thoughts and opinions because I think she lives in a fantasy she has built around herself to make her appear like a better person. She's got some good qualities that people who are only in superficial relationships with her see. When you get intimate with her the dark side of her personality outweighs all the nice faces and things she does.

Its interesting because I don't know why exactly but I'm expecting her to reach out some time when she realizes I have completely gone NC from her and will never ever contact her again if she is not the one to reach out first. By then I really am expecting to not care anymore. I will make an effort to be upbeat, positive and nice and if she still finds a way to be hateful I will do exactly what you did and give her the almighty piece of mind to really knock her off balance once and for all. The only reason I didn't do it last time was because my emotional and vulnerable side took over and I let her stomp me while I was on the ground. Shows how cruel she can be when she feels she has power, what a weak person.

[Lostinanother]

To people who are thinking about breaking NC.
Don’t.


I’m back to square one again.

She re-engaged me for a week and now seemingly has now cut me off.
Stupidly I went to her house and we were making out.
The funny thing is, she wasn’t as hot as I remembered, which was something... .
When I got home I messaged her that her bf is never going to love her like I did... .
No reply. Cut off again.

Elmurr, you were right! I knew you were but... .

I feel like such a weak loser after she cuts me off like this... .

Worthless... .

So anyone thinking about breaking NC or thinking about trying to be friends... .
You will just end up back at where you started...

I’m not as hurt or f*cked up as a few months ago but it still stings like hell and makes me feel like a loser... .

[Lostinanother]

And yes, I acted like a weak schmuck and blew up her phone this morning... .

[Lostinanother]

One of her last texts before she cut me off was “ I love you “

Talk about playing games... .

[Lostinanother]

She called me. She wasn’t ignoring me... .she was sick... .

She is being so kind and understanding and told me how much she still loves me... .

I want to disengage so I decided to fade out because doing nc abruptly is the kind of behavior pwBPD do... .

[Subaru02]

In my case, she was emotionally immature and made me become so irritable that I couldn't offer her interest and affection anymore I needed space from her. When I took that space, she found a replacement. Its amazing how fast they can find someone else when they fear they will be abandoned huh? She spent the last year saying how if we ever separated she would never find someone like me, and that all the guys that hit her up are ugly and uninteresting so she was basically sticking around from fear of not finding better.

When she did find this new guy I was in pain because I couldn't believe she'd do it again. I had already worked hard to get over the last time she left thinking she'd find someone better and came back saying how I was amazing and she was just immature. I wasn't over her and recycled her and still loved her, the 3 first months were amazing with her, the sex was the best, and I really liked her presence but it slowly faded she became the same complacent and lazy girl that demands a certain treatment without doing ___ to deserve it.

When I found out she had someone weeks after we broke up on her terms saying she didn't feel appreciated AGAIN, I was heartbroken and still almost 3 months later I think about it everyday. She slept with him weeks after saying she was in pain and that we needed to go NC to help her get over her feelings for me. I said I have feelings for you too but I respect your decision to leave. She breadcrumbed me for the first week, and the week after was with someone else. I feel betrayed and don't understand her actions / reasoning. I confronted her about it 20 days after the BU so that I wouldn't be as angry in my tone bu my emotions ended up making me sound like I was desperate. I told her I loved her and I couldn't believe that if she had feelings for me that she could line up a replacement a second time and be so careless to sleep with him weeks after our breakup.

She was MEAN, COLD, devaluated me to hell and gave me the blame for the whole relationship failing. She also painted me black saying I only brought negative to her life and that now that she was free of me (Seeing someone else 2 weeks later) that her life turned around and was doing 100x better than before. Bull___ but I swallowed it at first and it hurt.

Now a month from that conversation, I Realize how much turmoil must be inside her to need to hurt someone that loves her this bad. To rub in my face that she can do "better" without me, that the new guy is a better fit for her (how can she know this when comparing 4 years to 2 weeks) and that she was never happy in our relationship... .Sometimes I feel sorry when I realize how distorted her reality is. At first I wanted to write her a letter to express how retarded the whole thing was, but I get it now, these people you can't make them feel shame or guilt for their actions they cannot process their emotions in a rational way.

I'm left picking up the pieces, imagining her sleeping with this new guy she barely knows and I still feel affected by her "biased" opinion of me, how she can do a 180 and just paint me black in a heartbeat for the second time. She's done the same thing before but it still hurts as much because it makes no sense.

What a disordered person.

I broke NC that one time, to confront her, tell her my feelings which she stomped on. I then picked up the pieces, and went NC for 50 days and have blocked her everywhere. She hasn't made any attempt to reach out to me at all I guess things are working out with the new guy... for some reason the only painful thing for me is how badly it ended, how unfaithful/ disappointing and dishonest she was with her meeting someone and hiding her true motives when ending it. I just can't wrap myself around the fact she was clingy and on my tail until she found someone else... .its disgusting

[once removed]

I’m not as hurt or f*cked up as a few months ago but it still stings like hell and makes me feel like a loser... .

youre not a loser. i havent met anyone on this board who approached their recovery perfectly from the beginning. i remember what it was like when my self esteem and confidence were at an all time low and i was so unsure of my every move that id ask anyone in proximity. this isnt the time for scolding and kicking yourself.

I feel like such a weak loser after she cuts me off like this... .

but it may be a sign that you need to reprioritize and figure out where youre headed. that is coming from a place of strength. when im feeling weak its a sign of uncertainty guiding me and not being true to myself. when that happens, i can do some really self defeating things.

if you think that more contact is inevitable between the two of you, if you dont want to let go of this completely, if you want to test the waters with friendship, work with us on the Saving board, and we can help with the self defeating stuff. it doesnt have to be about getting her back. it can be about approaching detaching even while conflicted in a manner you are less likely to kick yourself for later, at the very least.

but the back and forth approach isnt helping you. its wearing you out. if your goal is detaching, but your resolve is low, it may be time to temporarily erect some higher walls and get more space to clear your head.