He's called. They're Over. It's my fault. Part 2

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

This is a continuation of a previous thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334727.0

What I got out of this:

1/ A clearer view that how he played me is nothing personal, that he does it to others too, and that they fall for it too. A sense of being less alone.

2/ Reassurance that he's alive and well(ish).

3/ Reassurance from her that he's not back on heroin. Still not 100% sure that he isn't, but, if he is, she doesn't know about it, and it's not an easy thing to hide, so... Hopeful.

4/ The knowledge that she's actually a kinda decent person in many ways and that she does love him.

5/ An example of how, when she ends it, he's straight on the phone to me (albeit in an angry way). So some reason to hope that the end may not be quite so abrupt as it had looked. It already isn't - it's no longer as though he is dead which is how it felt before.

6/ Knowledge that it isn't all the rose garden she gloated about. No schadenfreude in that. I mean it as in: it was a bit of a head f*** to be told that all his trauma and issues and turbulence had suddenly magically vanished now that he had found the right woman. I knew that couldn't be the case. It was messing with my head a bit to be told it was.

7/ Contact. Contact with him and with someone in his life, to ease the awful void he left.

The downsides:

1/ False hope. False hope that there would be some kind of ongoing continued contact with one or both of them to ease the transition. False hope that the transition might be gentler from here on in.

2/ Giving him the opportunity to kid everyone that any problems are down to me and if I didn't exist it would be a rose garden.


Not sure what to hope for now. I guess people would like to hear me say that I hope we'll all leave each other alone now and get on with our separate lives. But honestly, no, I don't. I still hope for a gentler transition. I don't hope to get back with him. I don't hope they finish (I hope they make it work). But I do hope for the sense of bereavement not to come back. I do hope that it won't go back to being as though he had simply ceased to exist. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do.

[Bnonymous]

This is a continuation of a previous thread: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334727.0

What I got out of this:

1/ A clearer view that how he played me is nothing personal, that he does it to others too, and that they fall for it too. A sense of being less alone.

2/ Reassurance that he's alive and well(ish).

3/ Reassurance from her that he's not back on heroin. Still not 100% sure that he isn't, but, if he is, she doesn't know about it, and it's not an easy thing to hide, so... Hopeful.

4/ The knowledge that she's actually a kinda decent person in many ways and that she does love him.

5/ An example of how, when she ends it, he's straight on the phone to me (albeit in an angry way). So some reason to hope that the end may not be quite so abrupt as it had looked. It already isn't - it's no longer as though he is dead which is how it felt before.

6/ Knowledge that it isn't all the rose garden she gloated about. No schadenfreude in that. I mean it as in: it was a bit of a head f*** to be told that all his trauma and issues and turbulence had suddenly magically vanished now that he had found the right woman. I knew that couldn't be the case. It was messing with my head a bit to be told it was.

7/ Contact. Contact with him and with someone in his life, to ease the awful void he left.

The downsides:

1/ False hope. False hope that there would be some kind of ongoing continued contact with one or both of them to ease the transition. False hope that the transition might be gentler from here on in.

2/ Giving him the opportunity to kid everyone that any problems are down to me and if I didn't exist it would be a rose garden.


Not sure what to hope for now. I guess people would like to hear me say that I hope we'll all leave each other alone now and get on with our separate lives. But honestly, no, I don't. I still hope for a gentler transition. I don't hope to get back with him. I don't hope they finish (I hope they make it work). But I do hope for the sense of bereavement not to come back. I do hope that it won't go back to being as though he had simply ceased to exist. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do.

[Skip]

Do you think these last few days could be explained by what Kübler-Ross labeled as the  "bargaining" stage of  the grief cycle?

[Bnonymous]

Do you think these last few days could be explained by what Kübler-Ross labeled as the  "bargaining" stage of  the grief cycle?

Yeah, I think there's something in that.

Though the phases can blur into one another. I can see denial in there too ("I'm still a part of his life!") and even a pinch of acceptance (I was clear that I was talking to his girlfriend and not the other woman).

[Bnonymous]

It's strange how I missed out the most important thing.

Even though he was angry, I got to say "Well, you'll always have me. I get that you hate my guts right now, but it's not like I'm going anywhere."

That was a really really precious gift to me. To be able to say those words to him and know that he heard them. It has given me some kind of peace. It has lifted a weight off my shoulders.

(No, I didn't mean in an I'd take him back way, but in the same way my ex-h will always have me - love, for me, never dies, it just changes form)

[Harri]

Hi.

So if it is bargaining, what are you bargaining for? Are bargaining to avoid the natural hurt pain that one would normally feel when they have been cheated on and abandoned?

[Bnonymous]

I don't think there's anything natural about someone being a big part of your life on a daily basis and then vanishing like they didn't exist. It's something completely unknown to me and feels totally unnatural.

[Bnonymous]

I do apologise for sounding abrupt then, Harri. 

I just posted too quickly, because the word "natural" really hit a nerve and I could feel myself getting tearful again. A more considered/detailed response:

We do grieve endings. That is natural and I don't want to avoid that pain.

But greiving in this way should, in my mind, be reserved for a death. It seems completely unnatural to be feeling the feelings of bereavement for someone who is still alive. That is the hardest part of all this, how very very unnatural it all seems.

What I am bargaining for is simply that: to not be bereaved when there has been no death.

I cannot avoid grief and loss and the pain of these. But I very much feel that I shouldn't be bereaved. It should be as though he is moving on and not as though he died. And the instant and complete disappearance feels like a sudden death.

That is not the natural course of a break-up, in my mind. To me, the natural course of a break-up involves at least one proper conversation about it, then the occasional "Could you please post me back my suchandsuch?" and the like. Most people will also have acquaintances in common and hear of how the other person is doing from time to time. Or live locally enough to occasionally bump into them or see them at a distance. Or the person will have social media where you can see they're still posting (and thus living). I have none of these things. In the natural course of a break-up, you very much know that the person is still out there and getting on with their life without you. It hurts, you grieve, but you're not left feeling as though they died.

For me, if it hadn't been for these texts from the new girlfriend, and then that call from him when they "split" there would have been nothing at all to break the sense that he was dead. And, when she wasn't texting, there was nothing at all to break that sense. And now she has stopped, I will be plunged back into it.

The natural pain of natural grief following a break-up actually involves acceptance of the fact that this person is getting on with their life without you. I would welcome that pain, because it is a pain that fits with circumstances. The pain of bereavement does not. And that has been an impossibly hard thing to cope with.

I know I am not the only person this has happened to. I know that, here, on the forum, there is a high concentration of what is actually a pretty rare occurrence in the general population. But it still feels completely wrong, off... unnatural...

[Bnonymous]

This has got me thinking now...

I wasn't expecting this. I never thought for a moment that he'd leave me. I trusted absolutely in what I thought we had, and what I thought he felt, and what he said he felt; I never expected this.

But I did expect his sudden death.

As I've said before, he is reckless and impulsive, he has made so many suicide and parasuicide attempts that he has literally lost count of them, he also has issues with prescription painkillers which lead him to overdose on paracetamol on a daily basis; healthy organs couldn't withstand this forever - organs already damaged by alcoholism certainly won't. The whole time I was with him, I was expecting and geared up for his sudden death.

Now...

The texts from the girlfriend are the only thing that has been there to remind me that this is not that nightmare. This is a different nightmare. What I need, what I am "bargaining" for, is to feel and experience the nightmare that is actually happening rather than the one which I expected but hasn't happened.

[Bnonymous]

(ETA: For clarity: I am talking in this post about the events of yesterday and the day before. There's been no contact since she said she's taking him back and he doesn't want her to talk to me anymore.)

On a different note, can I tell you something I find seriously disturbing?

I have only told two people this so far, my mom and my childhood best friend. My mom considers it deeply concerning - to the point where she is really concerned for my safety (and, less personally, for J's safety). My friend hasn't really commented and I get the impression that she doesn't see in it what my mom and I do. I don't know whether to trust my intuition on it or not, because my confidence in my own perceptions has been so rocked lately.

The cushion cover thing turned out to have a lot more to it than I'd thought.

After J and I came to the discovery that a/ I had bought him a cushion cover with John Legend's "all of me loves all of you" on for our anniversary in January, and b/ he had given her a cushion cover with that phrase on and said "it took me ages to find the right gift", we assumed he'd just passed it on to her. It seemed like the action of someone with no deep feelings, a simple, insensitive, self-serving move.

I then started wondering if maybe it wasn't literally the same cushion cover, if maybe he'd binned ours and bought a new one for her. So I forced myself to go through the photos of our anniversary and see if I had a picture of it. I found one. And discovered something I had forgotten - it was personalised - it had our names on, in big writing which took up about a third of the cover.

I felt relief. It couldn't be the same one then! But, before I could text and tell J this, she texted me. She'd opened the packaging for the first time. The cushion cover was a mess. Someone had (her word) "butchered" it with scissors, hacked the bottom third away.

We are not talking about anything remotely subtle or potentially missable here. The cover was not usable. It was not a move that he could have thought he could have got away with. He could not have thought she'd never know and would be able to just think he'd bought her a present once she saw it. It was not unpicking stitching, or neatly cutting away a small area and then sewing a new seam - it was butchered.

After discovering this, it no longer looks to me like the actions of a person with little feeling: it looks like an action suffused with feeling. It looks like an action suffused with hatred.

It looks like a HUGE red flag.

I didn't give that interpretation when I told my mom. I just told her the bare facts. Her response was one of panic. She saw hatred and mental disturbance in it. I do too.

I didn't tell J what me and my mom thought. She still sees it in a much less complicated way. She sees it as "cheapskate thought he could pass on unwanted gifts to me and let me think he'd spent his own money on them!" way. Even after discovering that what he had given her was a visibly butchered wreck of what used to be a cushion cover, she still saw it that way.

I know this guy. I know the misogyny. I know the degree of disturbance. This is a guy who is obsessed with knives, for instance. I don't want to say too much, but I know how disturbed his mind is. I am talking about something beyond BPD here. And I have that context to put this in to.

Do people here think it sounds disturbing?

[Bnonymous]

And I can imagine people reading and thinking I've had a lucky escape and wondering how I can be sat here tearing my heart out in mourning over a guy like this...

That was another positive of talking to J. I know it's not just me.

After seeing the state of the cushion cover, after discovering it was a gift from me with our names cut away, she believed him when he told her that he'd done it because "those words are what I feel about you."

It's not just me. There's something about him that makes women desperate to believe the best in him. I can't explain it. But I know now that it's not just me.

[Bnonymous]

I am wondering if it looks, from the outside, like I am still doing my own version of splitting. If it looks like (in my head) one minute, this guy is a beautiful human-being and the relationship made me happier than I could imagine being with anyone else, and, the next, he is a disturbed and dangerous individual who was abusive?

If so, nope. I see both. I hold both in my head. This guy is a disturbed and dangerous individual; the relationship was abusive; his good qualities and the times when he exhibits courageous self-awareness and maturity blow my mind and make it impossible for me to lose sight of the beauty in him even when he's at his worst; he brought me endless stress and pain, but, overall, the relationship made me happier than I can imagine being with anyone else. That's my picture - whichever side I'm writing about, I am still holding that single vision in my head whilst doing so.

The only view that was unrealistic was the simplistic "player" one. That one was a shock-induced what-would-an-outsider-conclude view and impossible to sustain.

The cushion thing... I am wondering if anyone else sees what me and my mom do or if we're just letting our imaginations run away with us or something. I think, to us, it looks like something very similar to when killers tear faces out of photographs or scribble over the eyes. It looks sinister in a similar way to that. It may well be that we are grossly over-reacting. Or it may be that we are seeing the move in the context of a wider picture where we have seen many other signs of disturbance and are joining dots.

I am confessing things now. I am confessing things that I couldn't bring myself to speak of when the relationship was active. You know, around six months in, I bought the David Adams book 'Why Do They Kill? Men Who Murder Their Intimate Partners'. I bought it because I thought he might become one of them. And I still didn't consider leaving. How scary is that? I don't mean what I thought he might be capable of; I mean the fact that I thought this and still didn't consider leaving.

I told him once, that I had it in the back of my head that he might kill me one day. His response was "If I was going to kill anyone, it would have been [his daughter's mother] and she's still breathing, isn't she?"

[once removed]

Do people here think it sounds disturbing?
...
I think, to us, it looks like something very similar to when killers tear faces out of photographs or scribble over the eyes. It looks sinister in a similar way to that. It may well be that we are grossly over-reacting. Or it may be that we are seeing the move in the context of a wider picture where we have seen many other signs of disturbance and are joining dots.

when we broke up (she left me for another guy shed been lining up for a while), my ex had a tshirt of mine still. it was a tshirt for the band the misfits.

the new guy she got with was a heavy metal head. the misfits are a punk rock band, but in a town like austin texas, there can be some overlap between those two communities.

eventually, i saw some pictures of my ex before/going into a heavy metal show. totally decked out in metal head garb. lipstick, fishnets, etc. it was unlike her. while shes into hard rock, shes always been a high fashion gal, fancy dresses, jewelry. anyway, she was wearing my t shirt (shed never so much as heard a misfits song), and it had been all cut up.

i didnt think much of it when i first saw it...just that she was kinda dressing up for a metal show, as people do. people that put on face paint at football games probably dont normally walk around in that either. my mom thought it was a bit more unusual than i did. and we both agreed that there was something symbolic about how she had "cut up" my shirt and worn it.

several months later, i spoke to a couple of her friends, who relayed to me that it wasnt a one off, that shed remade herself as a metal head, to fit in with the new guy and his friends.

i suspect that your gift to him meant a lot to him. i suspect that he thought it was a very thoughtful gift. i suspect that he was/is a bit desperate to make his new relationship work. thoughtful gifts can help. so i suspect he took what he thought was a thoughtful gift, and regifted it, obviously edited. i dont think it was a cheapskate thing, per se. i think he probably thought it was the best he could do.

do i find it disturbing? no. i find it kind of odd, and i find it really lame.

during my breakup, i was hypervigilant, i was very afraid of what my ex might do, to the point that i would start shaking profusely. there is something about a vindictive breakup, and grief along with it, that can make a person anticipate all sorts of things, even unpleasant/fearful ones.

those are my thoughts.

[Bnonymous]

those are my thoughts.

Thank you for taking the time to share them. I appreciate it.

[Bnonymous]

I also asked my ex-h. He's just replied:

"There's clearly a violence to it. I think it's frightening. But I also found other of his behaviour you've told me about frightening. There was always the possibility/worry he'd lose it and not be able to get it back or get away, and you'd wind up severely hurt if not dead."

I think it looks more sinister to people who know him than it does to people who don't. That could be for a variety of reasons and the people who don't know him may be calling it right here.

[Bnonymous]

I'm still not going to talk about a lot of the disturbing things he said and did, but I am going to confess one of them...

Christmas Day 2017.

He held a pillow over my face and knelt on it.

He always took this much more seriously than I did. He refers to it as him having tried to kill me. He says he wasn't going to stop until I stopped breathing.

I saw it differently. I could not only breathe; I could actually talk. I felt no fear. Then a moment came when I thought "what if claustrophobia kicks in?" and then I felt afraid; not of him or that he might kill me, but just of claustrophobia. I said "Darling, you're scaring me" and he stopped instantly. The second he heard those words, he stopped.

As I see it, he cannot have been making a serious attempt to suffocate me, given that I could breathe well enough to talk. As I saw it he had enough self-control and empathy to stop when I said I was scared.

As he sees it, he tried to kill me, he was out of control, and it's only a matter of chance that I didn't end up dead.

[Sandb2015]

Bnonymous,

Can I share with you that the effects of being a pwBPD and suffering the way you are has many detrimental side effects.

I'm just sharing so perhaps you make understand your own situation.

I had "fleas" bigtime, please look it up.  We mimic some BPD traits as a consequence of our situation, temporary and makes us think in ways we can't imagine, questioning everything really.

I wanted clarity like a detective, undeniable truth. I wanted all the pieces to fit.  Unless you can sit with the pwBPD and have all these questions answered and actions explained to the satisfaction of the non.

They didn't, they won't and the "closure" must come from you only.  Beyond tough!

I'm trying to get back to-better my rs so I need closure also in the sense that if it can happen a restart is required without the fixations of what has happened.  

Details, details, details and ruminations...what we can't get the truth on we tend to fixate or manufacture as rational human beings.

What happened happened, only the ruble remains.  What to do with the ruble?

I know you want to get into his head, do you really want to, having "been there" already, is it helping you to stay there?

[Sandb2015]

Bnonymous,

Write more, write it out and share here.  Your mom and friend may care about you and try to understand, give them that, but here, we have experienced what you are experiencing.

You are describing some dangerous type behavior and it may be magnified looking back or it may becoming clear to you what you did or didn't feel at that time.

Can you think of yourself having behaved that way with you putting a pillow over someone else's face?

Can you really know what was on his mind or anyone else's for that matter, we cannot and we try like hell.

The looking back and the "shock" of it all...you are going through a very difficult time.

[Bnonymous]

Thanks Sandb2015.

I know you want to get into his head, do you really want to, having "been there" already, is it helping you to stay there?

Yes. Because what I am doing at the moment is trying to assess the level of risk in being in a relationship with him. Because it is still more than possible that he could return and try for that. I feel I don't want that now and it couldn't work now after everything. But I also know how he pulls me in and how strong a grip he has on my heart. So I can imagine myself taking him back.

In the relationship, I didn't do this enough. I did a bit. But... I didn't consider leaving. Now I want to ask myself the questions I should have been asking while I was in it. I want to look at the level of risk. Because, if he did turn up, especially if he turned up tearful, I know that all of that would go out of the window. I want to do it now while I have the opportunity. Just in case.

It has only been two days since she was pretty much begging me to take him back. When she "ended it" (for a day!) he called me. The chances that she's going to end it properly at some point in the nearish future and he's going to turn up and try again with me are not remote. So I need to do this. It's not rumination - it's risk assessment.

[Bnonymous]

Can you think of yourself having behaved that way with you putting a pillow over someone else's face?

Can you really know what was on his mind or anyone else's for that matter, we cannot and we try like hell.

Those are very wise points, thank you.

[Sandb2015]

Bnonymous,

Can I ask?

Do you know there is a likely-hood that he will return? It seems you are thinking it out.  Do you know what you may do differently if he pops up?

I only ask because between you making it known that you are assessing the situation, you are aware of that or sounding open to it, considering ...

You miss the hell out of him and that's ok.

Do you have fear, are you having feelings of fear and excitement at the same time?

[Bnonymous]

Sandb, These are all excellent questions, thank you. I will return to answer them very soon. For now, I need to keep talking. I need to keep talking before shame makes me shut down again. I covered for him and for myself. I kept all this hidden for fear of judgement over the fact I stayed with him. I feel very very frightened talking about all of this, because it was something I just didn't do for so long. I need to do it now, before I shut down again.

More about that Christmas...

My mother lives a couple of doors down from ex-h. I didn't want my daughter having to choose which parent to spend Christmas with, so S and I stayed at my mother's. My daughter came round a lot.

In the evening, my mother had gone to my sister's. Ex-h texted to say he was going out for a walk. DD (then 15 or 16) wanted to stay home cos she felt she hadn't been spending enough time with the pets. She was old enough to stay home alone, but I didn't want her alone on Christmas Day. I asked S if he minded if I popped round there while ex-h was out. He said it was fine, gestured towards the TV, said he was "watching this anyway". So I did that.

I got back an hour or so later. S was being romantic. Then he discovered something he didn't like about my choice of underwear and everything changed...

"You've been f***ing him, haven't you? You went round there to f*** him right under my nose and make a mug out of me!" This went on and on.

At one point, he switched to the child him. I can't explain this very well, but there are physical changes in his face and in how he holds and moves his body when this happens. His face looks like a toddler's face, exaggerated expressions. His movements become loose and jerky. Fear and anger mingle.

He went into that state. When he does, I try to be soothing. I try to speak to the traumatised child. It usually works. It didn't this time.

"You're safe, darling, you're safe."

"Yeah? Well, YOU'RE not..."

His hands going into fists, his fist held over me...

(I know I write like I'm telling a story - it's just what I do - maybe it helps create distance?)

Late at night, we decided to go back to mine. He had left most of his alcohol supply at mine and he didn't feel secure away from it.

The whole two mile walk he was yelling at me about my underwear and about how I was f***ing my ex under his nose. Passersby were staring at us.

It carried on most of the night and into the morning (I said it was Christmas Day - actually it was Boxing Day, because it started Christmas and continued in to the next day).

Barely any sleep. Him starting again the next morning, on and on and on, relentless.

Then he went outside. He came in, said he'd called everyone he knew and told them and they all said I was disgusting and they'd never behave that way.

I was exhausted. I was utterly utterly exhausted. And the blatant attempts to enlist the world and its wife in an army against me were just too much. I laughed. I have never laughed at him before or since - it is not something I do. But I was verging on hysteria at that point and I laughed. That's when he grabbed a pillow and held it over my face...

The underwear thing (sorry if this is TMI, but I don't want people getting the wrong impression and I think I was wearing a crotchless thong or the like!). I wasn't wearing a bra. It was winter. I had a vest, a t-shirt, and a jumper on. I was perfectly "decent". I hadn't been wearing one all day (it's comfier). I was only popping a couple of doors down to see my daughter and saw no point in putting one on.

He never ever let it drop. After what he had done, he never ever let what I had "done" drop. He flung it at me over and over all the time since, how everyone in the pubs he goes to thinks I'm a slut and he's a mug for putting up with me etc.

He STILL hasn't let it drop. When J was texting me, she sent a string of questions all in one text. One of them was "Is it true you went to your exs with no bra on to tease S and you keep tormenting him about it?". My answer to the entire string was "There is a tiny grain of truth in some of this, but, from my perspective, a mountain of distortion has been added to it."

[Skip]

I had "fleas" bigtime, please look it up.  We mimic some BPD traits as a consequence of our situation, temporary and makes us think in ways we can't imagine, questioning everything really.

This is a bit of Internet lore... our actions are our actions... we don't contract acute BPD.    We are all at our worst at time of extreme stress.    It's OK. We uncover our worst and we know it about ourselves and we can then work on it. I know some of my inherent bias' and I'm on the lookout for them whenever things get tough.  Keep up the good work that you are doing.

I bought the David Adams book 'Why Do They Kill? Men Who Murder Their Intimate Partners'. I bought it because I thought he might become one of them.

There is an inherent inconsistency in what you have been doing (actions). It might help to resolve it. Sabotaging the new relationship is generally considered extremely high conflict and threatening to men. If he is potentially dangerous, why have you taunted him on multiple occasions (through the new girlfriend) in the last two weeks?

[Bnonymous]

Sabotaging the new relationship is generally considered extremely high conflict and threatening to men. If he is potentially dangerous, why have you taunted him on multiple occasions (through the new girlfriend) in the last two weeks?

That simply hasn't happened. I'm sorry, but it hasn't happened. Yes, I forwarded her his texts - one single incident. Since then I have tried to support their relationship. I haven't and wouldn't "taunt" him.

I warned her a little, because I genuinely felt a moral duty to do that. But I also said that she should listen only to her own heart and her own intuition and no one else. I said take him as you find him, talk to him and give him a chance to be open with you. The last time we spoke it was in a spirit of trying to "fix" the forwarded texts things, trying to make up for that by asking her to ignore me and give him a chance. The cushion cover thing came up by sheer chance - even then, I said to give the benefit of the doubt and just listen to him and give him the opportunity to talk about it and decide then. I have been a friend to him in my conversations with her.

She went to talk to him yesterday because of me. She gave him another chance because of me. That is not "taunting" him.

I spoke to her because I love him and I don't want him to end up alone. I also had to balance that with the sisterly solidarity thing of letting someone know what they might be getting in to. I did that with tact and reservation. I told her the absolute bare minimum. I urged her to listen to his side and to to trust her gut and her heart over both of us. I said this is a new relationship and people can and do change and urged her to judge for herself on how he behaves with her. I said I wanted her to be aware and practice self-protection, but not to leave him. To stay and give him a chance to show her who he is with her, but to balance that with vigilance.

I did my absolute best to be fair to everyone, to support him and be a friend to him without selling out another woman in the process. If you want to call that "taunting him", do. But that is not - in any way, shape, or form - what happened.

[Sandb2015]

Hello Skip,

This is a bit of Internet lore... our actions are our actions... we don't contract acute BPD.    We are all at our worst at time of extreme stress.    It's OK. We uncover our worst and we know it about ourselves and we can then work on it. I know some of my inherent bias' and I'm on the lookout for them whenever things get tough.  Keep up the good work that you are doing.

Thanks for the clarification  , I really thought I developed some very temporary disorder, mental illness at the time of my crisis.  Only now, I'm left with a heightened sense of paranoia and brief disconnects from reality.  Minor to say the least.  I'm in a quandary until I can actually label what I'm feeling to see it for what it is.  A mental crisis of this magnitude as you know puts plugs in the wrong sockets until we figure it out.

[Bnonymous]

And when she told me that he admitted the cushion cover thing and explained it as he had and that they were giving it another go, what are you imagining I said? Are you imagining I said "don't listen to him - he's just sweet-talking you - he's a player and he's dangerous"? Well, no. I said "Wow. Fair play to him for being honest with you. I'm really glad you're giving him another chance. x"

She then said that he had said to her that the past is the past and she should judge him on this relationship alone. I replied "I completely agree with him on this. That's what I said to you yesterday. x"

[Skip]

I did my absolute best to be fair to everyone, to support him and be a friend to him without selling out another woman in the process. If you want to call that "taunting him", do. But that is not - in any way, shape, or form - what happened.

With respect to risk assessment, it doesn't matter how I see it or how you see it, right? It matters how he sees it? You provided the information that led to their breakup. When he called you, he was outraged.

If you read member cases here (there are many) where an ex-girlfriend connected with the new girlfriend, you will see men who feel extremely violated and are outraged; some thinking of retribution.

How do you think he sees it today?

[Bnonymous]

Let's be clear: I did not contact her; she contacted me. I did not give her my number; he gave it to her.

[Bnonymous]

Just to let people know, I will be taking a break from the forums for a while. Please don't worry and think he has hurt me or I have hurt myself. I simply feel that this is not a good place for me to be right now. Thank you for having listened to me while I was in crisis.

[desperate.wife]

   

I understand you need space and time off, you've been doing so much thinking.
You shared very personal things, it is not easy to do that. It is safe place and people here just want to help. But you know that. Hope to see you soon.