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Author Topic: I miss her and want to help her, despite everything that she's done to me.  (Read 369 times)
lucidone
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 60


« on: October 13, 2019, 02:53:54 PM »

I was in a relationship with someone for a year who I'm confident has at least BPD tendencies.  She exhibited a lot of insecurity, selfishness, immaturity, unfairness, viciousness, unrealistic expectations, dramatics, abuse, etc. during our time together.   It didn't end well either.  Despite this, I miss us being together.  Otherwise we really enjoyed spending time together.  I think about her all the time.  Everyday, multiple times a day.  Sometimes its uncontrollable and excessive.  The last couple days were really bad.  

In a lot of ways it was like she was my soul mate.  I haven't directly talked to her going on three months, but I find myself frequently fantasizing and hoping that we'll reconnect, she'll accept that she has unhealthy behaviors, that she'll be mindful about it, actively work on fixing it, and I'd support her attempts to do so.

I feel that I'm still in some kind of denial.  I certainly was during the later periods of our relationship where I thought her behavior was due to some kind of misunderstandings, and that it'd get better (it didn't), especially if I accommodated her.  I've been through periods of anger and sadness, but to think that we could still have a relationship, that she'd accept that she has a mental disorder (or at least very unhealthy relationship tendencies), that we'd get back together and cooperatively work on us and her issues, despite my beliefs how unrealistic this would be, must still be some kind of denial.

The whole thing felt like I had to be a parent that was in a relationship with a child.  I had to give her unconditional love, and couldn't take any action that could somehow wound her fragile ego.  I had to be responsible and completely responsive to (and in fact anticipate) her mental and emotional needs, while forfeiting my own needs and desires.  I had to be the adult and the responsible one with any kind of conflict resolution.  I had to be the one to take the initiative, to make it better, and ultimately to take full responsibility, for any kind of conflict.

If something is bothering her she won't bring it up or try to work on it constructively.  She expects me to somehow know what the problem is and fix it for her.  She'll bottle it up inside and utilize passive aggressive behavior where it's obvious that something is bothering her (but not admit it), and sometimes it explodes into a tantrum of dramatic and/or abusive behavior and leads to a fight.  And it seems every single time that happens where I find out her original concern, its over something relatively minor.  When a disagreement arouse, I was always the one wrong, and never her.  She took no accountability.

She's mostly concerned about her desires and wants, and not mine.  It was so easy to set her off.  I wasn't allowed to be dissatisfied with anything that she did.  If I did, it would risk setting her off. It seemed that if something in life was bothering her,  and she was in a negative emotional state, she'd find a way to blame me for it, or otherwise take it out on me.  If it wasn't something specific that I did that she was upset about, it was directed in a more general way.  E.g., my memory wasn't good enough, or I wasn't empathic enough.

Despite all of this, I still want to be with her again, help her understand her issues, and help her work on them.  It's hard to accept that I still have these desires.  I know that she doesn't have the capacity to have a long term relationship.  I know that she has treated me poorly at times with no accountability.  I know that she's so insecure that she can't even face the shame of realization that she's acted wrongly or of having a psychological disorder.  I know that she's likely in a relationship at the moment with some other guy that is currently unaware of what he's dealing with, and repeating her cycle.  But some how, in my head, there's some kind of hope.

I believe that I have these hopes due to an insecure anxious attachment formed from my childhood, and obviously tending to that will be healthy for me.  I still can't help but think and entertain these thoughts and hopes.  That maybe if I try to contact her in a couple months that it would start this whole unrealistic recovery process.

I think it's more realistic that she still hates me, that she never wants to talk to me again, blames everything that happened in our relationship solely on me, and that I'm the one with psychological issues.

Below is a summary of where things were left off between us, which helps further illustrate how unrealistic this all is.


-----  where things left off between us -----

Basically the way it ended, I finally had enough of her passive-aggressive, emotional, irrational, inconsiderate behavior, that the last time she got upset and generated a reason to cause a situation between us, and refused my attempts for us to talk about it and work it out, I let the rest happen without too much concern or effort on my part, as she very casually and neutrally engaged me over the next couple days.

She came by at one point, started casually taking her stuff, and I started casually helping her, and then I let her leave.  When I texted her the next day she was very upset and basically stated that she never wanted to see me again, despite everything that we've been through, which triggered me.  Around that point I decided to cut off all communication with her.  She realized this, and came by again a couple days later to collect a robe that I bought her, and commented on me cutting her out.  I told her that i donated the robe, and basically stated that I wanted her to feel what its like to unfairly treat and shut someone out, and asked her to leave.  She sat outside my house in her car for the next 10 minutes.  My roommate had enough of her as well, and told me that he wanted to call the police.  I didn't care at this point, and I went outside and told her to give her a fair warning to leave.  Then I went to bed.

Woke up the next morning and my car was keyed.  Found out she phoned the police on me that night as well.  I texted her, telling her how insane this was getting, but at the same time tried to get her to admit that she keyed my car.  Didn't really have direct communication with her directly until a couple days later, where I found out that she phoned my ex which she knew I was trying to maintain good relations with, told my ex that I tried to frame her for keying my car, that I was a liar, etc.  There was more of the "I never want to talk to you again" talk as well.  Even despite that, I tried to be the bigger person, tried to be diplomatic, and tried to be nice.

Haven't talked to her directly since.  A month after that, after a lot of self-reflection, research, and talking with a therapist and with many people, that she's likely to have BPD or BPD tendencies.  I sent her a long email subtly pointing this out, with numerous examples from our relationship.  She phoned the police and gave them a copy of the email.  That was almost two months ago.

----- end -----

« Last Edit: October 13, 2019, 03:03:30 PM by lucidone » Logged
Woolspinner2000
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Gender: Female
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Parent
Relationship status: Divorced
Posts: 2007



« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2019, 09:13:20 PM »

Hi lucidone  Welcome new member (click to insert in post)

It's really tough to know the facts, see them, have walked through them, yet not be able to let go of the one we cared about so much, no matter how hard it was. I know and have gone through this as well, still am in fact. I think that sometimes we forget to remind ourselves of how brave we are to have taken the step to believe in ourselves and turn to walk that journey of healing, forgiveness and growth for ourselves.

One of the great struggles is that we care, and that caring can become so strong when a person has BPD traits because they do need a lot of caring. Have you ever read Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist? I've found it to be really helpful in showing me what I was doing, and it has also helped me to step past the denial stage into acceptance.

 Virtual hug (click to insert in post)
Wools
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