Forgiving myself

[totheflow]

Any advice ?

Struggling lately with forgiving myself for some of my actions in the relationship. I was not perfect and really regret some of the things I did and said. My pwBPD made it all seem to be my fault, and I think I'm carrying a lot of that guilt and weight around. It's an inner battle that sometimes I can make sense of and understand how things were twisted, and how it would have been hard for me not to react.  Other times I feel terrible about how I behaved. Cannot seem to get past it, and I feel that is slowing the healing process.

Anyone has similar feelings? Is this common? Advice?

[Cromwell]

Hi totheflow

Im not sure how common it is to do specifically with BPD but I can relate to some feelings of regrets in the relationship. I look back at relationships prjor and theres always going to be some regrets.

One example of a regret is by the time my ex confided with me she had BPD, i was halpy in the relationship and did not feel the need to put any research into it. I sometimes wonder how that may have alteted the situation and if my feelings and decisons i made would have been any different. I see this looking back post relationship reflection as positive in terms of getting closure it makes for more self awareness. I regret the times i reacted but i understand why i did i also acknowledge the very many times i had to work hard to not react and managed to. It has been at many times tough choices that were rooted in trying to do the best in situations to avoid them getting worse. Do you feel you ever put "being right" aside for a different goal such as choosing to defuse and calm down the situation. I did many times but it also taught me that it is not something I wanted to do so often in a relationship as i was having to do.

The feeling terrible i did have guilt but i moved on from it. Some of it was being over critical, if i made a joke and it was interpreted as an insult it is hard to convince myself i was to blame when i see that i did not intend to create offense. Kbowing about the disorder would have likely helped with knowing how sensitive pBPD can be to perceived criticism. I might have been more cautious about jokes or certain subjects could have self censored my discussions accordingly.

[once removed]

in my experience, if we make it about blame (on either side) its not very constructive. we cant go back and change our actions.

what we can do is learn from them, and take from them what is valuable. i certainly did my share of stuff that hurt my relationship, stuff i would not want to carry into my next relationship. today, im better equipped to make better choices from a healthier place.

it also helps to talk. what do you regret?

[Lucky Jim]

I was not perfect and really regret some of the things I did and said. My pwBPD made it all seem to be my fault, and I think I'm carrying a lot of that guilt and weight around.

Hey totheflow, No, you were not perfect.  Hey, you're human!  In my experience, a pwBPD can bully, goad and taunt, which might cause one to respond in a fashion we might later regret.  It's OK.

No, it's not all your fault.  Those w/BPD are experts at shifting blame, which gets it off his/her plate and onto that of the Non.  It also allows a pwBPD to avoid taking responsibility for his/her actions.

Suggest you remove that rock from your backpack and let go of the guilt.

LuckyJim

[Mutt]

Hi totheflow,

Don’t be hard on yourself. A r/s takes two people and if one person projects, blame their behaviour in the other person how realistic is that? It’s distortion and unfortunately we were around someone that distorts reality to assuage their feelings because they can’t cope with negative feelings or negative aspects of their self image.

If the other party isn’t interested in taking ownership of their half, you’re not obligated to take their share either take what is yours and leave the rest behind. We all make mistakes, if we didn’t make mistakes then we would learn and grow as people.

BPD is a serious mental illness, some professionals won’t work with BPD patients because of how difficult that they can be, unfortunately there’s still a lot stigma attached to BPD there is treatment for it. Some professionals that do work with a pwBPD sometimes have enter their own therapy because of how challenging their work can be with a pwBPD.

My point is you have people with degrees, knowledge and training and even they have problems. It’s like LuckJim said a pwBPD know how to push your buttons and sometimes will push all of your buttons at once.

How long were we around a person that has a severe mental illness that should get professional help to learn healthier coping mechanisms than the maladaptive ones that they have now that affects their loved ones? A professional might see the same patient a g’fee hours a week they’re not around it all of the time. You had a lot of things working against you, you like the rest of us probably tried to do the best that you could with what you knew without knowledge about a complex personality disorder. Let go of the guilty feelings and don’t beat yourself up.

[totheflow]

Hey guys,

Thanks for responding. I appreciate it. It helps.

Once removed, you asked what I regret. Well, what I am struggling with the most is that many times when she would withdraw it was due to something that I did. Never out of the blue, as I hear some people state that the pwBPD simply withdraw for no reason.

So, we would have a fight, because of something I did, which I will explain, and then there would be like a week of her being distant and deciding if she wanted to continue to relationship with me after how I acted. I was always labeled as jealous, controlling, and having anger and trust issues.

Anyways, what I regret most are my actions that could seem very controlling and jealous (the very things she labeled me as). The relationship never felt secure, and there were instances of other guys texting her about hooking up etc. She would tell me I don't know why they are texting me, or they are friends, or that was from before we dated from tinder. Either way, she always made sure to tell me who was asking her out over social media etc. There was one time she was 2 hours late coming home and would not answer my calls. I started wondering what she was doing. So she came home and I told her I was pissed, and wished she would have text or called. I was clearly angry. She said she was at the store or something or other but, she was getting something for me. So, then I felt like now I seem like a controlling freak and pissed because my girlfriend was late or not answering my calls. Like I always need to know where she was or something. And then she shuts down and seems to hate me.

Another time, I questioned her for taking her phone to the bathroom with her (which could seem crazy right). I don't know if she did this on purpose or not, but when I would walk into the room with her and she was on her phone she would automatically put it down like she was doing something she didn't want me to see. It always made me wonder but I never said anything.

Another time, we got into a fight while she was out of town and I barley heard from her. I mentioned that It'd be nice to hear from her once on her trip. Then she got upset and pushed and pushed and kept texting me until I finally called her back hours later, and then she never responded or called or answered a text for the rest of the night. She just disappeared. I must have called 20 more times and sent some nasty texts. This seems like I'm crazy!

Once I asked her if she could wear a certain shirt to work because her belly "hangs out" (it was a short shirt) which I didn't mean to come out like that because she was a very skinny fit girl. And it got all twisted that I'm controlling and telling her what to wear, and that she is an adult and can dress herself. Bottom line, it did make me feel uncomfortable because I felt it was attention seeking on her part. There was a week of her not talking to me after that one too.  

I guess that's some of the stuff I'm thinking about. It feels like maybe it is controlling to question what someone is wearing, what they are doing, or why you haven't hard from them. I know the relationship never felt secure, but still struggling to move on from the things I was labeled.

Thoughts?

[Lucky Jim]

Hey totheflow, I'm sure you did make mistakes and do things that caused her to withdraw.  Hey, you're human!  The hard part is that it's almost impossible to predict what will trigger a pwBPD.  It's a moving target, which is why we often refer to "walking on eggshells" around a pwBPD.  My suggestion: Don't beat yourself up!  Like most of us Nons, you did the best you could under stressful circumstances.

LJ

[totheflow]

This has been helpful. Yes I need to work on letting these things go so I can heal and move forward.

When I look back, I can also see times when she would withdrawal for reasons that would seem out of the blue, or for nothing that I could have possibly done. She would withdrawal after normal conversations... or be pissed at me and shut down for telling her to be positive about an interview for example. I can see that I did nothing to deserve her withdrawal in those cases. I guess with the stuff I'm mentioning above, she just had a little more ammunition.

It's when we make these mistakes and do things that humans do, the pwBPD really throws them in your face and amplifies the situation. Makes it seem like every mistake you make is the end of the world and that you are a terrible person.

Thanks for the support ! ! !

[Thanos]

Another time, I questioned her for taking her phone to the bathroom with her (which could seem crazy right). I don't know if she did this on purpose or not, but when I would walk into the room with her and she was on her phone she would automatically put it down like she was doing something she didn't want me to see. It always made me wonder but I never said anything.



I feel like I am reading about my exBPD. You know I am more than sure, she was hiding something and you are not crazy! They know that you are insecure and they play that card to piss you off. It is a part of a sick game, walking on eggshell.
We all make mistakes, have our own insecurities, we are humans.

You can`t change what happened, don`t beat yourself up!

[once removed]

Anyways, what I regret most are my actions that could seem very controlling and jealous (the very things she labeled me as). The relationship never felt secure, and there were instances of other guys texting her about hooking up etc. She would tell me I don't know why they are texting me, or they are friends, or that was from before we dated from tinder. Either way, she always made sure to tell me who was asking her out over social media etc. There was one time she was 2 hours late coming home and would not answer my calls. I started wondering what she was doing. So she came home and I told her I was pissed, and wished she would have text or called. I was clearly angry. She said she was at the store or something or other but, she was getting something for me. So, then I felt like now I seem like a controlling freak and pissed because my girlfriend was late or not answering my calls. Like I always need to know where she was or something. And then she shuts down and seems to hate me.

Another time, I questioned her for taking her phone to the bathroom with her (which could seem crazy right). I don't know if she did this on purpose or not, but when I would walk into the room with her and she was on her phone she would automatically put it down like she was doing something she didn't want me to see. It always made me wonder but I never said anything.

Another time, we got into a fight while she was out of town and I barley heard from her. I mentioned that It'd be nice to hear from her once on her trip. Then she got upset and pushed and pushed and kept texting me until I finally called her back hours later, and then she never responded or called or answered a text for the rest of the night. She just disappeared. I must have called 20 more times and sent some nasty texts. This seems like I'm crazy!

its messy relationship stuff. i dont think its about fault or blame. its about what you can learn from it, what you want to take into new relationships in the future.

so looking back, how might you approach these things differently?

[OutOfEgypt]

I've been divorced and mostly not in contact with my ex w/BPD for years, now.  There was a time where I felt such a huge burden of blame and guilt... but that was normal even during the relationship. 

I'm also meeting with a younger guy who is going through a breakup with a woman who could arguably be BPD, and I'm seeing a lot of the same things I went through.  Here are some of the things that I learned that helped me over this hump.  Granted much of this simply took time, pain, wrestling, and eventually distance to sink in -no real way around that.

One of the things my counselor would ask me often was this rhetorical question:  How easy is it for a couple to find a flaw in the other person to blame their bad behavior on?  The obvious and implied answer is... easy.  That is every relationship.  The problem is when we are with a pwBPD, we are extra-trained to buy into their distorted view of the relationship.  Who knows, maybe it plays into our own ego to some degree, too.  They train us to believe that their unhappiness is because of us.  At the beginning, they were happy, but then *we changed* and started to erode their happiness, so we are ultimately the problem.  And we spend sometimes years, like a horse chasing a carrot on a stick, working and trying to get back to where they once loved us.  We will blame ourselves, because we've bought into their conditional/contractual/one-way idea of what relationships are.  Their job is to wait for us to shape up and get it right.  Our job is to do everything to try to obtain their favor again.  But my point here (which I can attest to personally now that I'm happily remarried) is that in every normal relationship you have two flawed people learning how to make room for the other, how to patiently love the other.  It goes both ways... if they have reason to be disappointed in us, we have just as much reason to be disappointed in them.  But does that ever justify horrible behavior?  No way.

A lot of my feelings like you describe were the result of me grieving and playing it over and over in my mind what I could have done differently to result in different outcomes.  So, it's more like I was obsessing and tormenting myself as a way to deal with the sense of loss.  It took me a while to have it really sink in that there was really no other outcome if she was not willing to take a long hard look in the mirror.  To this day, she still isn't and her relationships with her children are now non-existent.  She's cut them off, too... sad, but probably for the best for them, honestly.  And what did they do?  Is our 10-year-old really "abusing" her, as she claims?  No.  Without them getting help for themselves and doing the hard work to change, this is the path all roads lead to.  That isn't our fault.  Blame assumes that we had some level of control over the outcome.  We really don't.  We can't fix them, as much as we try to fix ourselves.

I also came to the point where I learned to not care.  I was okay with being the worst man in the world, if that was true.  I was okay with having her lovers be so much better than me in these various areas she would tell me.  I got to the point where I would rather have been the most deplorable, wretched man in existence, and be away from her abuse, than to remain in the relationship and allow for the torture to continue.

And eventually, I realized that anything that requires forgiveness is really not mine to forgive.  Forgiveness implies that I have done something objectively wrong, according to God's standards, against another perhaps but ultimately against God.  That means that the one who I need forgiveness from is really God, since I'm not ultimately my own judge.

Again, I see this same thing happening with that younger guy I've been talking to.  He carries this horrible weight, crushing him, in which he torments himself - "If I had only done X, she wouldn't have rejected me."  "It was because of that one time I did Y."  "If I wasn't so much like Z, we would have been happy together."  Meanwhile, he's fully aware that she was using him for over two years and is now blissfully moved on with some loser, as she extracts child support from him for kids he can only see upon her whim, as she still asks him for money and to run errands for her.  It's a trap.  By all means, own our sins and turn from them, but realize also that sometimes we are too close to it to be trusted with discerning what those really are.  I cannot tell you how many years I carried the lie that I was wrong, jealous, and controlling for wanting my (now-ex) wife to stop talking to and hanging out with other men.

[totheflow]

Hi OutofEgypt,

Thank you for taking the time to post here. It was helpful to hear your perspective. Sounds like you went through much of the same thing I have, and I'm sure many of us have at one point or another.

It's kind of like the mistakes I made had the volume turned up on them, while what she was doing was minimized. It was as you mentioned, "me" that was the problem in the relationship. It has been getting easier. I'm seeing a therapist and that's been a great help. Some days I feel justified and tell myself anyone would have been angry when their girlfriend is talking to men that are asking her to hook up, or asking her on dates. I feel proud that I stuck up for myself. It's just that she made me feel terrible and wrong for doing so. But I'm working through it.

It was helpful to hear your very last sentence. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm dealing with. Learning to let it go and let myself off the hook. I'm only human, and I got mad because someone disrespected my boundaries.

Thanks for the support.