Useful Insights I've Gained Since Breakup

[HarborBP]

so would you say you struggled to get that aspect of the relationship back?

Absolutely, I lived for it. Always hoping to rekindle the early days, as so many of us who write here did in their relationships.

is there a reason you have chosen to downplay it now?

Yes, I think so. Truthfully, my relationship had a much greater degree of pain and turmoil than peace and joy. I became very good at filtering the awful aspects, focusing intensely on the bits of good times.

This becomes clear when I read back over my journals. There were often bookends of pain running weeks on end. One good day in the middle, when something simple like her telling me she loved me or hugged me often on a hike, had a journal entry that read to the effect "What a glorious day, I am feeling good about her and about us." The next day, I was being discarded in the most hurtful manner. This pattern repeats often over our three and a half years.

So, I broke away from that mindset as a way to see the relationship for what it truly was. Objectively, I set the rare goods times aside to explore why I hung in there through so many terribly bad times.

Message to Tsultan and Jbombas, I want to respond to your posts and will do so later in the week when work isn't pressing.

HarborBP

[HarborBP]

I have been obsessed trying to rack my brain trying to figure out why the man I’ve come to desire over the last 5 months has never really come back. He has in the slightest amount with a text asking me what I’m doing every time I try to walk away. But that’s it. . Often it will be for sex. But when it’s just sex he comes on strong and texts and pursued me multiple times a day. I couldn’t figure out why this was. Now I know. He leans towards engulfment fears every time. The idea of just sex makes him feel safe enough to pursue a relationship of sorts without any risk to his emotional being. But if it gets too heavy, he is gone.

Hi Jbombjas,

For me it sure seems the engulfment reaction we get from our borderlines is what really causes the emotional damage we feel when things go off the tracks.  Even if it was the response to abandonment fears that resulted in her anger, rage and jealousy, I was emotionally better prepared to deal with this than the reaction to engulfment that had her vanishing into thin air and hating my guts for days on end.

For you it was amorous sexual displays followed by rejection. That was less a dynamic in my relationship (though certainly an important one too). For me it was more the laughter, the shared fun times, the 'I love you's'  followed by a slamming of the phone, and refusal to acknowledge my existence for long periods, that caused the most psychic damage. Either way, feeling loved and valued one moment and despised and abandoned the next, knocks us off our emotional feet. I've even read such treatment can be the source of PTSD.

He has never come back to me except in the first couple months prior to me liking him much and sensing he was borderline, and not wanting to get involved with him. When I wasn’t available or interested, he was apologetic and claimed he needed me. Once I began my “addiction” to him, the tides turned. He has since been like that.

You point out another emotionally difficult thing to reconcile. As Masterson wrote, the borderline is attracted to unavailable people. In the early stages of your relationship you were sending clear signals that your attraction to this guy was ambivalent at best. As long as he sensed that he was drawn to you. My gf behaved the same way.

Once he was confident of your attentions, devaluation and the flight response took over. This is the most bizarre display of dysfunction us nons can experience. I think being loved one moment and hated the next, both with such conviction, is what makes it so hard to get our lives back following a borderline relationship.

I am too anxious for the push pull of a arms length Relationship. It’s stay or go for me. Looks like you’ve given me the tools and insight as sad as I am, to know this time, I have to go. As hard as this will be, I’m not in it that deep and I thank you for allowing me to finally understand why I simply cannot get close to him no matter if I stay or go. If I just allow for sex and no relationship. He heavily fears engulfment. It doesn’t matter. 

Jbombjas, sadly I think you have hit the nail on the head. I sincerely hope you are able to pull this off because in the long run it will enhance your health and sanity. I am really wanting this for myself too. My challenge is enhanced by living in a town with no family or established social network. If you have those supports around you it should be a lot more doable.

Take care,
HarborBP

[HarborBP]

I never considered the fear of engulfment before with my uBPDbf but I can see this makes a lot of sense now.

We dated for 3 1/2 yrs with make up break up cycles.  I used to think too that I would be the "one" who could love him to his recovery. 

Hi Tsultan,

I appreciate you taking time to share your version of pervasive BPD romantic dysfunction. Although I agree completely with professionals who refuse to stereotype borderlines homogeneously, of the literally hundreds of stories I've read about late phases of borderline romance, the one thread that holds true in all of them is the role that engulfment fears play on bringing about a sad and tragic end. These stories are told by borderlines and nons alike.

Three and a half years seems to be a magic number when it's the borderline who decides make the split final.       

We had planned a vacation to Cape Cod the 1st year into our r/s.  About 4 weeks before we were ready to go he ducked out on me.  Left me scrambling to find someone else to come instead which lucky for me I found a single gf who was very happy to take his place.  The following year we had planned the same thing and he did it again.  My good friends came through again and were happy to share the cost of the cottage and trip.

If I had a thousand dollars for every time my gf bailed on plans for vacations, hikes, even hanging out on a three day weekend I could purchase a sailboat. In light of learning about engulfment paranoia, the reason behind her flaky behavior finally made sense. It used to drive me crazy. Why, I'd ask myself, did she choose the Friday before a planned trip, to engage in crazy making behavior or come down with some mysterious affliction. Fibromyalgia was a big one. In the later stages, a more truthful "I'm grumpy" became the preferred excuse to cancel.

Once more because I am insainley unable to give up at times, I asked him during our third summer together and decided I would just ignore his saying he didn't want to leave and see if he would go anyway.  He did in fact say he didn't want to go about 1 week before we were to leave but he came anyway.  This is where the crazy got even crazier.

I hear you. Your need for emotional security is shared by most of us who post on this site. We were insanely prepared to do anything to keep the dream alive. I shudder at the many similar stories I allowed to happen.

While we were on our vacation we went to see fireworks and it was late and we were stuck in traffic and there were cops leading the traffic at the intersections.  Every time we would go through the intersection he would honk the horn at the cops and I became embarrassed at this behavior for some reason.  My stuff I know.  So I asked "why are you honking at the cops?"  He took that comment so personal and became very over the top angry with me and started driving erratically.  I was afraid we would crash and said if he kept driving like that I would call the cops.  That just made him angrier but he settled down so it worked to get us home safer.  That night he didn't want to sleep in the same bed.  The next day he said he didn't want to break bread (eat a meal) with me and he ate a separate table.  He wouldn't cook my dinner on the grill and said I had even though I prepared all the other ingredients for our meal.  Then he tells me I need to find my own way home from the Cape to NY which would have been a 7.5 hour drive.  I could not even imagine what I possibly did to deserve that type of treatment.  I was so frantic and crying which was probably exactly the response he was looking for maybe?  Or should I say the disorder was looking for.

We ended up leaving 3 days early, drove home like I was a prisoner in his truck because I was afraid he would leave me at a rest stop.  We talked but it was cold and icy.

I had a similar adventure. I rented a beautiful house on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean for four nights. Paid a lot of money for the rental. We arrived in the afternoon two weeks before Christmas. There was a great storm brewing and the rental had a hot tub perched on a corner of the deck in full view of crashing waves and sea stacks. When I suggested we jump in for a soak she said no, she had come down with a yeast infection. Huh, on the first day of our winter adventure? So I jumped in by myself and could tell this upset her.

Later, as we were making dinner, she brought up my ex receiving a portion of my recent bonus, a requirement of my divorce decree. Suddenly, light a lightning bolt, she went postal, raging that no one ever gave her a portion of their bonus and how unfair it was. I tried hard to calm her down, agreeing how unfair it was to her, even though that bonus was funding our current get-away.

That night she refused to sleep with me. The next morning she demanded we go home, three days early. I refused although I didn't tell her the reason being I was embarrassed about returning the keys to the rental agency after only one night. She retired to the first floor of the rental and refused to speak or take hikes together. When I tried to engage her she unleashed a torrent of hate speech. We came home the next day. She went no contact, refusing to answer the phone, until the second week of January. No shared Christmas or New Year's celebrations that year!   

It was after this trip that I would read and research every possible thing I could to figure out what this behavior was all about and that is what eventually lead to this site.  I finally had a name for the behavior and it make so much sense to me know.  I began to try my best to validate and listen to him and accept him for what he was.

Quite a journey of discovery, wouldn't you say? Unfortunately having that knowledge provided lots of reasons to try to make it better by practicing the validation techniques prescribed for partners of borderlines. For me, in the end, all it did was prolong the hope, and agony, of being in love with such a dysfunctional individual. 

The trip to Cape Cod is what he says was the beginning to the end for him.  For me it was a big one to get over.  I was never able to trust that we could go any further after this trip because if he could ask me to find my own way home after a trip what would he do if I moved in with him?  There was no way I was going to sell my townhome, hire a mover and move all my stuff in with him so he could tell me to move out in 3 weeks.

He must have sensed your mistrust and frustration, which probably sealed the exit plan for him. Two days after returning from a fun vacation last summer my gf went off on me, this time threatening to obtain a restraining order on me. I thought what the heck, my gf wants to obtain a restraining order on me? For what? More mystery/more misery.

So, I think really the trip meant to him a sign of our relationship moving to deeper level in which he would feel engulfed, and that is why he would duck out each time.  He often told me that if a couple can do well on a vacation that meant to him that the couple could be together and make a commitment. 

Another piece of the puzzle solved for me which helps me to understand.

Probably so.

I saw him the other day on the trail and he told me that the trip to Cape Cod was the worse experience that had ever happened to him with any other human being in his entire life. Ouch.  I told him I will take responsibility for my part.  Trying to sort that out.  I am sure it didn't help to ask him why he honked at the cops.  I am probably being hard on myself here.

 

I last saw my ex gf while on my morning hike at the local forest preserve on New Year's Eve. She shouted at me to find another place to hike followed by "f--k off". Heartfelt way to greet an old friend and lover.

Sorry for my long post.  I still have some stuff to get out. 

Tsultan, I am glad you took time to post. If you want please continue if there is stuff you want to get out. When feeling blue I find a lot of solace posting on this site, knowing there are so many souls out there experiencing the same depressing reflection.

Thanks for sharing on on this topic though.  It helped me to heal just a little more.  It's been about 9 mos since his final discard over a boundary I set. 

My pleasure,
HarborBP

[once removed]

Although I agree completely with professionals who refuse to stereotype borderlines homogeneously, of the literally hundreds of stories I've read about late phases of borderline romance, the one thread that holds true in all of them is the role that engulfment fears play on bringing about a sad and tragic end. These stories are told by borderlines and nons alike.

ive read/participated in a lot of stories, HBP. i dont see a great deal of evidence for this. i would say the primary things that tend to break these relationships are broken trust, and conflicting values. that would seem to apply to your relationship as well.

Three and a half years seems to be a magic number when it's the borderline who decides make the split final.

the vast majority of relationships here end around or less than a year. the vast majority of relationships in general end around 90 days. there is no magic or BPD related reason as to why  

Later, as we were making dinner, she brought up my ex receiving a portion of my recent bonus, a requirement of my divorce decree.

were you in the process of divorce at the start of the relationship?

[HarborBP]

ive read/participated in a lot of stories, HBP. i dont see a great deal of evidence for this. i would say the primary things that tend to break these relationships are broken trust, and conflicting values. that would seem to apply to your relationship as well.

Well OR, you have a lot more experience than I do so I'll defer to your observations. Do you wonder if there is a basis for the broken trust? Can it be misinterpretation of words or actions associated with intentions that had nothing to do with the way in which they were interpreted? Misinterpretation can happen in all relationships but personally I saw a lot more of it with my ex-BPDgf.   

the vast majority of relationships here end around or less than a year. the vast majority of relationships in general end around 90 days. there is no magic or BPD related reason as to why  

Do you have any sense of who initiates the breakup most often (non vs BPD?). I feel my strong co-d/caretaking tendencies, and fear of being without a relationship, kept me engaged a lot longer than a healthier person. When I look at the 90 day mark in my relationship there were already half a dozen red flags that should have had me heading for the exit. I chose instead to downplay the seriousness of the behavior, which at first could be attributed to unawareness of BPD but later, once I knew more, was probably attributable to fear and denial on my part. For sure I wanted that relationship to work in the worst way.  And of course, being a co-d/caretaker, I wanted to control her and "fix" her.

were you in the process of divorce at the start of the relationship?

No, my divorce was final in 2012 and our romance began in the summer of 2015. I was actually proud of the fact I avoided dating during that two and a half year period. I had heard lots of warnings about jumping back into a relationship too soon. I feel the same way today following the breakup with my ex-gf. Now is the time for soul searching on the causes of why I decided to stay and take the devaluation and abuse.

[once removed]

Do you wonder if there is a basis for the broken trust?

id say its both chicken, and egg. people with BPD have an inherent lack of trust. some of us (count me in) give good reason for it. conflicting values play into it...unresolved conflict plays into it. multiple make up/break up cycles play into it. not being on the same page in terms of the pace of the relationship can play into it. any of that is not ultimately an environment where someone with a lack of trust feels safe (could apply to either party). we have members that have been in their relationships for anywhere from 10-40 years or more...relationship security is key.

Do you have any sense of who initiates the breakup most often (non vs BPD?).

we have a survey that touches on it here, it works out to roughly 50/50: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=39279.0

with multiple make up/breakup cycles, its usually some of both.

I was actually proud of the fact I avoided dating during that two and a half year period.

prior to the relationship i was single for three years myself. taking time out to grieve is good, its just not necessarily a guarantee for making better/healthier choices. thats what we are here to learn this time around.

[HarborBP]

id say its both chicken, and egg. people with BPD have an inherent lack of trust. some of us (count me in) give good reason for it. conflicting values play into it...unresolved conflict plays into it. multiple make up/break up cycles play into it. not being on the same page in terms of the pace of the relationship can play into it. any of that is not ultimately an environment where someone with a lack of trust feels safe (could apply to either party). we have members that have been in their relationships for anywhere from 10-40 years or more...relationship security is key.

we have a survey that touches on it here, it works out to roughly 50/50: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=39279.0

with multiple make up/breakup cycles, its usually some of both.

prior to the relationship i was single for three years myself. taking time out to grieve is good, its just not necessarily a guarantee for making better/healthier choices. thats what we are here to learn this time around.

Agreed, time by itself will not correct behavioral quirks. I even think one can argue that abandoning the effort of finding a partner will lead to regression and self-absorption ("old age syndrome"). The person who decides to no longer try at relationships has little chance to grow as a human being. Honest self-reflection includes recognizing our role in the collapse of the union. Once we accept this the door opens to identifying and modifying undesirable patterns as well as providing an opportunity to jettison deep seated emotional baggage.

[Harri]

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