How to detach from failed relationship when person w/BPD is still in your life

[Depression = 72% of members]

If the person w/BPD is still in your life in some capacity and you can't fully change that since it is not in your power to never hear about them again, or see them again, etc, how do you detach completely from the failed relationship?

I'm being intentionally vague here since I need to ask this in a way that won't tie in so many of my emotions. (aka it's an attempt to detach a little.)

[TDeer]

If the person w/BPD is still in your life in some capacity and you can't fully change that since it is not in your power to never hear about them again, or see them again, etc, how do you detach completely from the failed relationship?

I'm being intentionally vague here since I need to ask this in a way that won't tie in so many of my emotions. (aka it's an attempt to detach a little.)

[Lucky Jim]

Hey TD, Maybe this is sort of obvious, but I recommend letting go of the the things that are out of your control, such as how often you have to see or hear about this person w/BPD.  I would also suggest that you practice disengagement by declining to participate in any drama or other awkward interactions with your Ex.  in other words, try to stay above the fray.  I would also recommend acknowledging to yourself when feelings about your Ex arise and then doing something to process those feelings, such as talking to a close friend or family member, writing in a journal, getting exercise or doing something creative.  You get the idea!

LuckyJim

[earlyL]

Hi TDeer,

I had a similar situation and found it incredibly painful, I think Lucky Jim has some good thoughts there, and taking the drama out of the situation was definitely the best way forward for me, it wasn't easy though and I had to learn to get better at it. This might sound a bit strange but I actually found saying my emotions out loud when I could really helped. Going to toilets and saying, 'I am feeling hurt right now, or I am angry and that is ok' really helped. It was almost like when I heard the emotion out loud it felt like I was acknowledging it and letting it go.

I sadly decided that I had to cut off some contact with mutual friends though - I just found it too hard, I think they thought I was stronger than I was and would tell me things about my ex and her new partner, I found it just added to the drama, for them it was a piece of gossip, but for me, it caused me sleepless nights and overthinking.

Good Luck with the process, it sounds like you know you need to detach and that is a positive sign.

EL

[enlighten me]

Hi TDeer

I have 2 uBPD exs one which I see weekly due to having a son with her.

Theres no easy solution but I have found one. At first it was triggering but now I couldn't care less. How did I do it? I reminded myself of all the bad things about our relationship. I told myself that every word out of her mouth was probably a lie. I stopped seeing an attractive woman and saw someone that I didn't fancy. I didn't avoid her or places we'd been. After a while I no longer saw the woman that I had loved. She was gone (had never really existed) and what was left was someone that I pitied. I then removed the filter of her being all bad as her words and actions no longer mattered.

All the while I did this I played the grey man. I didn't rise to any of her comments, I didn't tell her about my plans or comment on hers, I didn't kick up a fuss if she changed the plans with my son (although I didn't let her push it too far).

I recommend not avoiding them as with other unpleasant things such as getting up early for work the more you do it the less painful it becomes. And finally for this to work you have to not want them or hold on to a thread of hope that things might work out one day. They wont as people rarely change.

[valet]

Hey TDeer, I think that this is a really good topic to bring up on the boards.

It really depends on what you expect detachment to look like. As it stands, there is no carbon copy for 'being detached'. It is different for everyone.

So, carefully consider your situation. If you can't get completely away, you'll have to set different types of boundaries for yourself to not get caught up in the other person's behavior. Procedures, so to speak. For instance, if he/she does x, I do y. The goal is to get away from reacting and feeding the drama, but it takes a bit of mental preparation and it won't always be easy.

It would help, however, if you gave us more details. What's your situation like? There are boards here that could help you navigate things for different types of relationships.

[Go]

I concur entirely with what has been said.  It is like listening to  a recording of my own feelings and experiences some 25 years of life with a BPD and now going through divorce a terrible time, given the passage of so much life together yet not together for most of the passage... .the great sadness of all this.  

First of all we tend to fall in love with our own image of someone, not the reality.  Now this was only too clear to me just before I met my BPD/w.   I dated this girl for a week or so, the relationship failed to develop at the time I was quite keen on her too.  A year later we started to correspond one another, then have phone calls routinely.  Finally she turned up in my state for a holiday and watching her interact with others I respected, was such an eye opener.  Finally just one kiss later, I was doing my very best to exit out of her life at record speed.  It was done and dusted in 3 or 4 days, much to both our surprise and much to my relief.

How did I let this happen?  I had built a false image.  She was not the bubbly person I first met only briefly, in fact even then she was ill tempered too often for matters of no consequence (wow I can pick them it seems) but a year on she had become a calculating predator of men, even with a nasty little group of minions, who she presided over.  She was, like them,  all determined to trap herself a man at all costs and I ran away with my tail between my legs.  

A few days later, I rebounded (though not substantially) to someone who was fast becoming a 2nd close and what I thought a trusted friend.  We found comfort in each others smile, soon in each others arms, innocent and first, then with intimacy.  4 months later I had gained a BPD wife.   Within weeks leading up to marriage, I knew I was likely again in deep water, (this was going to be tough going) but there was what I thought, great depth in her that was unique and felt that I could build something of substance.   Before we married, precipitating moving things along far more rapidly, she became pregnant and me being naturally very paternal already, having a young 2 year old son to adopt (without an active father) and now one on the way, well that kind of set the deal in stone.  

Fortunately early marriage and children is rarely given to the old, but the young and surely they with considerable sway in their respective boats hopefully more intimately tied with each year.  To the young is given much energy, better suited to this role for the more part.  However for me it was the beginning of hell as she kept untying her boat from mine and 3 times in marriage over 22 years, she was to be found with other men.  

One blames oneself for this, BUT sitting at home in the evening with my 5 year old step son, a 3 year old son of my own and 1 year old baby in arms, while she was off with another man... .well that was about as low as my life ever got. It spoke much of the person I married and she never changed.  At best she was a thin shell of who I dreamed each day she would become.  Sadly I would find myself back there with a dozen more years invested, taking myself to the garage and weaping twice daily, like clockwork, giving myself a week to mourn another would be affair and this time now 5 children, with me to raise.  I week on  I applied my British best heritage of a half dozen generations back and appied stiff upper lip and soldiered on.  She returned but from ther eon the direction was decidedly downhill.  Half dozen years further she would leave for good, this time to scum of the very lowest level.  The spiral to hell was near complete. Now years on finding out about this last saga, I am ready to cut my losses and no longer willing to double down.   By then I had been utterly white-anted away trying to always be the good father and peacemaker, but at a horrible cost to my soul and self image.   At last I can breath.  It was not me it was a very sick distorted, parsimonious person, another consumer of kind fair minded souls, that in time took me from kind and accommodating to what I might describe as 'borderline obsequious' myself.  :)o not go there.  Stay true to yourself and say, 'Here is the line, you have crossed it and I will not be following, I value my soul too much'.  I know what I love(d) is now but a zephyr and might I as well have used a pitchfork to catch, what little existed and much that which was never truly real.  Let me move on to full individual health and be complete as just me now and always the kind, supportive and loving Father.  In time I am sure, I will be blessed to draw another into my life after a few more tries perhaps, slowly, slowly this time, even a healthy loving, nourishing soul, perhaps with something of a tribe also,  that will truly make my life and those I love around me finally whole and complete.  

Unless I now begin again, take these steps to end decades of abuse, lies, just way too much sadness and take out of my life someone rarely composed of the key essential nourishing characteristics that build with consistency, trust, honesty, morality, ethics, kindness, resilience, fortitude and above all profound respect and yearning for higher principles in their life too.  If I do not apply carpe diem, now then when will I ever?  Surely if I fail now, I will remain eternally poor and will continue like chewing gum stuck in an escalator, around this continuous hell loop on earth.
Prayer and best wishes, Go.

[TDeer]

This is gonna sound weird. Please bear with me. The relationship that I’ve been working on detaching from isn’t romantic.

It’s a former friend and somewhat of a former colleague. I thought this person was a friend and an older voice in my life that was comforting at times, but quirky, but also treated me like I was an adult.

This person was a mother of a friend of mine. But then I dated that friend and then this woman became my MIL.

I don’t know if that’s too much specific info.

But... .that’s when the problems actively started. But it was always there. I was on the pedestal and then when I got too close to marrying and wasn’t doing it the way this woman wanted, she did anything she could to get in the way.

It did make us stronger as a couple to get through so much hardship. So I guess the joke is on her since she barely sees her son anymore since she’s mean and why would anyone go see her more often if you can’t handle being kind to your own kid?

Your comments were very helpful. I nedddd to look at this from a perspective of not being so attached to how I thought things were. Age was always sick and often treated those in her personal life terribly, but I only saw isolated incidents and thought it was just “family stuff”.

I don’t expect many of you, if any, to understand. I thought she was someone else. I thought she was kind. I thought she wasn’t me tally deranged. I thought she was practical.

But she’s not any of those things. She’s not kind. She is very mean. Like an old boyfriend, she turned on me the moment I didn’t give her what she wanted. But unlike an old boyfriend, I can’t just never see her again and forget about it. It’s not the same as having a child with an ex, but there are some similarities since my husband still cares about his mother.

Again, I don’t expect you to understand or be happy about me using this particular forum in this particular way. You can be mad at me if you want, but this process has been helpful to my mindset of thinking of her as someone who never was who I thought she was.

In some many odd ways it’s like having broken up with someone since I will never have the relationship I thought I’d have with my MIL.

I thought we would get along. I thought we would be able to get along. But probably never again... .because I have boundaries. I stuck up for myself and she tried to destroy everything.

She thought she controlled us. She thought she controlled me. But she didn’t. Just like that awful ex boyfriend who turned on me the moment I didn’t give him what he wanted.

So, I dunno. A lot of people don’t care if their in laws love or hate them. But this used to be someone I considered a friend.

You can tell me I am weird if you want. You can tell me I care too much. You can tell me that there’s something wrong with me. Go ahead.

But detachment over time is what’s needed. I won’t ever be able to have a happy relationship between my children one day and their dad’s mom.

Letting go of normal, healthy expectations... .finally in a spot where I can let out the hurt instead of the anger that protects. Instead of just being angry, I can let this vulnerability out.

♥️❤️Thank you

[Go]

You are in the right place.
We all are only partially here at best some days.
I hope you have gleaned a great deal from what everyone has said.
Be aware of what triggers other people.
A close relative of my BPD/w always acted bizarrely.
Now with time I realise this person was reactive not proactive against the BPD.
With the right inputs I think we have both helped each other to better heal some.
Many stories told were not entirely true.  Hence things not quite as it seems.
Then again you just might have called it dead right from the beginning.
There is a reason though, you might have fun fitting all the bits together.
It is OK to love an show genuine affection. 
Other people can be very toxic and some of us in this place not a little hypersensitive on occasion.   
It is not like the BPD have a mere quarter pack and we have a full one.
We are probably are missing a few key cards too and a few jokers substituted to make us think we are the real thing.  We aren't and that is the tricky part here.
We have to forgive and in so doing release ourselves for greater self scrutiny.
The BPDs allow us to dig deep and find things we would not have otherwise been aware in our own natures.  The universe is brutal but in the long term kind, with light given to our own flaws through this dreadful often painful process. 
All the best,
Go

[MeandThee29]

If the person w/BPD is still in your life in some capacity and you can't fully change that since it is not in your power to never hear about them again, or see them again, etc, how do you detach completely from the failed relationship?

Mine lives many states away, but our finances are still co-mingled as is the house.

I had to set a boundary for myself that I won't discuss relationship issues. He was recently upping the grudges and anger after a financial disagreement. We had agreed on something financial, and then a month later he completely changed his mind and went scorched earth.

For him, anything that fires him up leads to the discard again. In between, he can be civil, but I'm very careful to not get invested emotionally or over-share. 

At this point, I can't completely detach. Maybe down the road when we don't have to discuss finances, but it's a hot button for them that easily spills into relationship issues.

[Go]

Finance, finance, as I wade through 200 plus sheets of banking records.  Yes it is financial settlement time.  I am determined to be fair, fair to my ex, fair to my children's needs as they continue to grow, fair to me still carrying this burden, though with each year a little more lightly.  I quote Heber Grant who put it more succinctly than most.  "That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased". 

I am sure a half decent lawyer would persuade both you and me otherwise, given what we have been dragged through and left out in the emotional mud as it were.
This fact concerns me, when I find myself in parsimonious thoughts of another.   Despite the difficulties, heart breaking to the end, I feel I have been greatly blessed in life.  Tres bizzare? Far from it, I have much to be very grateful for and comparing my lot with many, I feel that taking the path I feel at times to have been guided, to extend love and kindness again and again, when surely in my limited mind, in my anger at the time,  it was not deserved.  But offering it up,  has allow me to grow in ways that a normal pleasant life would not have allowed.

It is hard to dig deep when ones emotional reserves are on life support, LOL... .but one manages, so when one looks back you know you have not done your best, even at times, with heaven's guidance, something beyond what you thought you could possible have ever achieved.  I remind myself that he who the Lord loves he corrects, even needs to chastise on occasion, to get us back on track so we can be true to self again.  My mother used to often quote Shakespeare and remind me, "To thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man".  What a great mother I was so blessed with and it annoys me greatly that my children cannot honour their mother so, as I do mine, at moments like now.  I do hope that they are not without fine memories even riches in their life, from when my wife found the better part of herself and surely removing the worst of moments, I am sure there were many of these, when she tried her heart out to do her best.  Perhaps looking down through the Lord's eyes, their disability takes a toll on them like no other.  Lacking true self worth and lashing out a what seems to them a wholly unfair world, with people they cannot allow themselves to truly bond with or even trust, that is a state of sadness in their quiet moments, that broke my heart for many years and all of us here, continues to.  When I will think ill of another, perhaps better to remind myself that with kindness, they often extended themselves, even managing miracles that surprised them. Yes that is a better way to end this all. 
Regards,  Go