Frustration: I feel stupid for feeling sorry for him. Have disturbing thoughts.

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

For a few days now I've been feeling stronger and less angry about my past relationship. I continue to suffer from insomnia and don't get much sleep, but I'm better (this says a lot about how rock bottom I was). One thing that struggle with is feeling frustrated and angry. The worst time for me to feel this is when I manage to fall asleep and then wake up within an hour due to disturbing thoughts about him.

Recently, I can't shake how I caught him in lies about cheating on me. I knew in my gut that he was doing that for years and finally had the proof. When I confronted him about it of course the vehement denial began... .

Instead of fully accepting and acknowledging wrong doing he tries to get me to agree to see him and "make things right" with him. Yeah, what the heck?

He cries, he whines, he begs, he makes all sorts of promises about being civil in public. When I say that our problems can't be solved in one conversation he says he will come to me (I've moved far away from him). He says "I will do whatever it takes to be with you." I then say, "How many days can you take off?"

Ex: "How many days do you think I can take off?"
Me: ":)on't you get two days a month?"
Ex: "Roughly."
Me: "So, that would make a total of six days by now?"
Ex: (silence)
Me: "Are you there?"
Ex: "THIS IS NOT FAIR. WHY ARE YOU INTERROGATING ME?"

This is a typical way response from him when he doesn't want to answer a question or follow through with a grand gesture he himself proposed. Mind you, this is a conversation I had with him after he left over countless emails, texts, voicemail messages emphasizing his love for me.

I feel so stupid for feeling sorry for him and going through this cycle of abuse each time he has an episode (when he is bored with one of his "girls" and/or has done something to make him feel ashamed--God knows what he's capable of).

He sleeps well, he eats well, he carries on his daily activities and has the full support of his friends and family who regard me as the most horrible person he's had the misfortune of meeting. Of course, to him and then, all his emotional tantrums are a consequence of me.

I feel like I didn't deserve to be talked to that way. I don't understand. Can someone give his/her objective opinion?

[Getoverit]

For a few days now I've been feeling stronger and less angry about my past relationship. I continue to suffer from insomnia and don't get much sleep, but I'm better (this says a lot about how rock bottom I was). One thing that struggle with is feeling frustrated and angry. The worst time for me to feel this is when I manage to fall asleep and then wake up within an hour due to disturbing thoughts about him.

Recently, I can't shake how I caught him in lies about cheating on me. I knew in my gut that he was doing that for years and finally had the proof. When I confronted him about it of course the vehement denial began... .

Instead of fully accepting and acknowledging wrong doing he tries to get me to agree to see him and "make things right" with him. Yeah, what the heck?

He cries, he whines, he begs, he makes all sorts of promises about being civil in public. When I say that our problems can't be solved in one conversation he says he will come to me (I've moved far away from him). He says "I will do whatever it takes to be with you." I then say, "How many days can you take off?"

Ex: "How many days do you think I can take off?"
Me: ":)on't you get two days a month?"
Ex: "Roughly."
Me: "So, that would make a total of six days by now?"
Ex: (silence)
Me: "Are you there?"
Ex: "THIS IS NOT FAIR. WHY ARE YOU INTERROGATING ME?"

This is a typical way response from him when he doesn't want to answer a question or follow through with a grand gesture he himself proposed. Mind you, this is a conversation I had with him after he left over countless emails, texts, voicemail messages emphasizing his love for me.

I feel so stupid for feeling sorry for him and going through this cycle of abuse each time he has an episode (when he is bored with one of his "girls" and/or has done something to make him feel ashamed--God knows what he's capable of).

He sleeps well, he eats well, he carries on his daily activities and has the full support of his friends and family who regard me as the most horrible person he's had the misfortune of meeting. Of course, to him and then, all his emotional tantrums are a consequence of me.

I feel like I didn't deserve to be talked to that way. I don't understand. Can someone give his/her objective opinion?

[juju2]

Yes.  I get it.  For me, i was worn down, toward our last 6 months together.  No knowing any skills from here, not realizing how impactful to our relationship his untxBPD WAS, i had become a shell of myself.  When i suggested we were both toxic, our r/s had become like us being roommates, and then he left, he said, because we arent living together, we are broken up now... .and i thought we were going to work on ourselves... .

At any rate, its hard for me to let myself get impacted by someone else's serious mental illness.  I started going twice a week to alanon, meeting w my sponsor, etc, because i became skmeone i didnt like, and didnt love.   For me, love is an inside job.   And self care has to be a big part of my life.  Dont know if i answered your question.

I just got caught up in the craziness, went in to the rabbit hole.

it has taken me eight months to just become someone i can barely live with... .progress is very slow.  I dont sleep either.  Drink too much, lite beer.
Try to make sure i see people who love me unconditionally, as much as i can... .and be gentle with myself.  Be gentle.  Be the kindest to me.

j

[Getoverit]

And in case it's not obvious that conversation sample I mentioned above ends with him aggressively attacking me for not answering HIS question (in this case Why am I interrogating him?). When I try to answer he talks over me, asks me additional questions: "Why are you such a f'ing b***h?", "How do your live with yourself?", ":)o you realize how you have zero interpersonal skills?", "Have you always been such an obnoxious dimwit?", "And you wonder why I prefer my ex's over you?", etc.) He will talk nonstop until he's done and then explode that I "can't answer a single damn f'ing question" being the "stupid b***h" that I am.

In the beginning these verbal assaults would make me cry and even then he'd scream at me to shut up and stop annoying him. He has even left voicemail calling me names. I used to delete them because it was unbearable but once he started to deny ever speaking that way to me, I kept record for my own sanity.

And here I am today, still asking myself why.

[Getoverit]

Hi juju2,

Thank you for listening. I was drinking too. I had to stop because I was getting so dehydrated and I had migraines all day and night. Then I started taking sleep aids that have helped me sleep but I'd stay asleep for 15 hours and wake up feeling groggy and depressed. I am now depressed, sad or numb. How about you?

I prefer feeling numb because I can at least force myself to repeat positive thoughts. I realize now that I have a very long way to go as I continue to feel frustration and even doubt myself when recalling past conversations. Also, while I understand that I do have it in me to feel better and be better, most of the hours are spent feeling trapped still.

It's sad to admit that I see my acceptance of this state as having made progress... .while I was with him I didn't want to believe that it was all really happening which led to feelings of shame, guilt, and all the other ingredients of a recipe for disaster.

Can you relate to this at all?

[Cromwell]

Hi Getoverit,

I can relate a lot, but one thing id say is that this anger and frustration are not just OK to feel, they were for me vital on the route to moving on.

It can also feel a great sense of injustice that he is enjoying life after depleting your emotional state, yet try to check to see how accurate that really is. When I did go back to my ex I realised that regardless of how hurt I had felt from her behaviours, despite all her temporary fix she got from the drama and attention seeking chaos, it was always short lived; they are not as happy and living well as you might expect. In the short term, my sleep was decimated, anxiety and an array of energy depleting emotions took their toil, yet long term I overcame them - whilst I dont have any more contact about my ex, the short time I did speak to her she had the same old complaints of bad-days, life not working out, I had the assumption that after all she had painted me black, so many other awesome people in her life, that everything should in theory be awesome for her. (it never is).

Does being angry accurately reflect it for you Getoverit? I had to finally accept i was "incensed" by the things she had done. But I never/couldnt express it, it got internalised away and that is the cue for sleepless nights, depressed days. Those feelings need an outlet or they need a decisive choice at the time to change the situation.

Your last line of "not wanting to believe", is like the ostrich analogy of putting head in the sand. I did the same, I didnt want to accept - I didnt want the reality to get in the way of keeping the relationship going/fixing it, when it had already shown itself up as having failed catastrophically. The ease at which it was able to continue each time as if nothing had ever happened - on both sides, was a convenient way of never confronting the faults. Yet nothing ever goes away, it gets cumulatively stockpiled. Its quite scary to think that this can go on for years and our bodies have that capacity. When I finally got some breathing space, got her completely out of my life eventually, it was like a tsunami hit that I was forced to confront but had been kept at bay.

The options were, experience it, over come it, move on long term. Or just return back to her and keep stockpiling more. I guess I just reached the stage where there was no more carpet left to brush dirt under.

[Baglady]

Hi GOT,
I have similar feelings regarding my ex.  I share the same mix of anger and numbness.  I've managed to work through a lot of the insomnia (after months of it). I had to resort to taking sleeping pills for a longer time that I'm comfortable with (I kinda avoid medication if I can) because I simply had to function for my job and my son through the hell of it all.  I managed to cut down my sleeping pills (literally quarter by quarter over weeks) and now I only occasionally resort to taking them when I have a bad night.  I needed them to get me over the worst of it and like you I didn't have a perfect nights sleep when using them either.  Working out regularly (as much as I loathe actually doing it!) is really helping me with sleep for what it's worth.
I'm with you on the feeling sorry for him feelings - I still find myself trying to encourage his family to get help for him and I've decided that I need to back on on this urge and focus attention on someone who really deserves all of my attention and love far more right now  - and that person is me.  I'm really actively trying to direct all thoughts of concern for him toward me instead.  When I often ask myself how he is doing, what he is doing, where he is - I change the pronoun to me.  It's a silly mind-trick that I've found to be helpful.  As hard as it is to learn how to do so, I need to direct my truly olympic levels of care taking skills for him toward me for a change! 
Warmly, B

[Getoverit]

Hi Cromwell, Thank you for another insightful reply.

It doesn't bother me so much that he is fine and dandy, I have always been bothered by he fact that he does not care about how I'm feeling. At first I didn't associate to a lack of empathy, but it is exactly that and it's one of the main reasons I would never think of him as a good parent let alone partner. If I'm having a hard day at work he is the worst person to talk to about it. If I'm having difficulty with him he is the worst person to talk to about it. He would yell at me for "dumping" my problems on him so very early on I stopped telling him anything in detail and then he had a problem with that and would accuse of me being a liar.

I wish he could commit to someone and leave me alone already. I have no intention of ever being with him again. I have no respect for him and believe that he is a sociopath. This will not change.

I want to hate him back, but I don't like harboring grudges. I'm so very tired.