Need help understand

[Heartbroken1212]

I have come out of my first serious relationship around 2 months back and now I strongly suspect my ex was a BPD.
Just to give you a brief history of what my relationship was like.
I met him in September and the relationship lasted till July. My ex had a history of depression. He had told me multiple times that his health (due to breakup) didn't allow him to complete his dream of higher studies. My mistake that I didn't probe it further on what health condition. I thought it was regular heart ache.

He was my perfect soulmate. It looked like i was his entire world and I had never felt happier. We were planning to get married in March, when I started getting cold feet and I wanted to discuss on my doubts with him and get reassurance: Commitment Issues (I caught him active on dating sites once) / His reactions (His anger on certain incidents felt way out of proportion) / Our spending habits were vastly different (I believed in quality of life and he was an extreme saver)
During discussion, in anger I told him that I don't want to marry (My biggest mistake considering I suspect he has BPD) and came back home. Within 2 minutes I realized my mistake and tried to contact him multiple times but he didn't respond to my texts / calls. I was worried when suddenly I got to know through a friend that he has sent him a distress message. We went to his home and tried banging his door and eventually ended up calling police when he responded finally that he is fine. Afterwards, he was extremely angry on me and shouted on me. I took it all looking at his condition.

But, I was too enmeshed in the relationship that I overlooked it and we again started our relationship with 1-2 week gap. he has been extremely caring towards me, telling me that he loves me showing grand gestures. However, much later I got to know that he was actually meeting another girl parallely and liked her immensely. However, she did not respond to his advances so he backed down. When I discovered about it, and questioned him about it he gave some story which was extremely hard to believe though i did want to believe it. I kept asking him about it and he kept refusing to answer my questions. when he finally decided to respond to me (through texts) I punched more loopholes. But even I had doubts whether his story was true (My stupid mind wanted to believe that it is) and I was not able to put a stop to us, though it wasn't the same as before. We continued being in touch and one day again, when I tried asking another question to make some sense of the story, he blew up. He threatened me to involve my family. It was intense anger for 2 days. I got scared first time that day and felt something was off but still I wasn't able to break it. for another 1 month, we were in contact fighting sometimes, talking other times, me resisting, he pushing me to continue the relationship without solving our issues. One day however, I called him up and was trying to tell him that we need to stop this when he again blew up and asked to call my father if i dared. I was fed up of his threats and i called him up. At that point, he said he wants to call his parents and tell them everything and they will call my father and after that he went on radio silence. I am so confused by all this. Looks like I too have serious issues that I am not able to forget him even after so much drama.

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Radcliff]

That's a lot to deal with in a first serious relationship.  BPD relationships are complicated, so having one as your first is kind of like skipping college and going straight to graduate school!

In the third paragraph of your post, you describe a lot of things that were going on.  How did these things make you feel?

RC

[Heartbroken1212]

I was confused, hurt. My mind was telling me to stop this relationship but somehow, I was not able to act on it. I was saying this to him as well, i was trying to convince myself as well about it but in my heart I didn't want him to leave. Probably all I needed was a sincere apology from his end instead of trying to sweep the issues under the rug or more lies, but that never came.

[Heartbroken1212]

Blank Post

[Stillhopeful4]

Hi Heartbroken,

Glad you found this group.  They have helped me so much.  Read up on some of the lessons.  If you decide to stick with the relationship, read up on radical acceptance.  Start with learning to be ok not getting a sincere apology because that might not ever happen.

Wishing you the best of luck on this journey.

((HUGS)

SH4

[Heartbroken1212]

I guess I have already been discarded.

[Radcliff]

I was confused, hurt. My mind was telling me to stop this relationship but somehow, I was not able to act on it.

This sounds tough.  You are definitely not alone in having feelings like this.  What do you think made it so hard to resolve that conflict between heeding your gut instinct and your reluctance to end things?

RC

[Heartbroken1212]

The intense connection I felt with him, the feeling of happiness and completeness, of being truly myself.
That was what kept me drawn to him. Does that sound like signs of co-dependency from my end?

[Radcliff]

The intense connection I felt with him, the feeling of happiness and completeness, of being truly myself.
That was what kept me drawn to him. Does that sound like signs of co-dependency from my end?

While we may have elements of codependency in our relationships with a pwBPD (like overlooking things that harm us, thinking we should fix them, etc.), what you describe above does not sound like codependency.  BPD relationships can be intense.  It's totally natural to be deeply affected by feelings of happiness and completeness, being able to truly be yourself.  It's also totally natural to have hard time and take a long time to process a loss of a relationship.

How have you been feeling in the last couple of days?  Do you have friends, family, or coworkers who you can spend time with?

RC

[Heartbroken1212]

Hi RC,
First of all, I would like to thank you for your patience and being so diligent in replying to this thread.
Honestly, it is becoming much better day by day. There are days when I miss him immensely and it's like a physical heartache, but there are days when I think that the relationship wouldn't have worked out in the long term.
Yes, I have done mistakes at my end but those mistakes were blown out of proportion to put a blame on me that he is afraid that I am going to leave him.

I guess I just need to give it more time to heal myself. I just wonder what if I still want him back and it becomes too late by then.

[once removed]

I guess I just need to give it more time to heal myself. I just wonder what if I still want him back and it becomes too late by then.

reconciling your relationship is going to entail understanding what broke it down, and how, if possible, it can be resolved.

there is significant conflict here.

when I started getting cold feet and I wanted to discuss on my doubts with him and get reassurance:

i would suggest that you both have/had cold feet.

unfortunately, one of his ways of coping with it is going outside the relationship. and hes not very reassuring, or easy to talk to. i suspect he takes your asking for reassurance as doubts about the relationship overall, and thats not easy to work with either.

there is deep distrust on both sides.

how would that be resolved? is it possible?

[Heartbroken1212]

Hi Once Removed,
You posed some good questions.
I was under the impression that I do not have significant trust issues. Instead I was thinking that I trusted him way too much too soon. Need to introspect more on this.  
Would love to hear views from others.

[Heartbroken1212]

unfortunately, one of his ways of coping with it is going outside the relationship. and hes not very reassuring, or easy to talk to. i suspect he takes your asking for reassurance as doubts about the relationship overall, and thats not easy to work with either.

When I used to discuss this issue with him, he used to say that marriage will resolve this issue. But, given so many issues we were having, how could i just say yes to marriage

[Radcliff]

I am so glad you are feeling better.

Trust is a huge issue.  There are so many angles to it, such as:

Is the other person trustworthy?
Are we trustworthy?
Does the other person have difficulty trusting?
Do we have difficulty trusting?
Do we trust too quickly?
Do we have a measured way to build our trust in someone over time?

It's good to be introspective, but also important not to think your way out of trusting your gut. 

once removed suggested thinking about how things broke down.  What are your thoughts on that?

RC

[Heartbroken1212]

I think though we had amazing chemistry and bonding, the things that broke our relationship were as follows:
1. I guess one was insecurity from my end : I was his 5th relationship. However, for his last ex (They broke up >1.5 years ago which in my mind is a long time and had zero contact for 1.5 years. He contacted her a month before he met me to ask for forgiveness for breaking her heart and afterwards they were in touch casually and intermittently more at platonic level.)  I used to feel as if he had another level of reverence like every time he spoke about her he would have tears and longing in his eyes. He once compared me to her (Like she was more beautiful) and when I told him that this caused me pain, he apologized and never again compared but I think he never complimented me enough later so as to get this point out of my mind.
2. Communication: We were not able to resolve our issues. The last conversation we had went something like this. I was trying to talk to him the previous day but was too emotional and couldn't talk. I wanted to end things considering all that had transpired recently but loved him too much too. So, when I called him, I ended up just crying and telling him that I had loved him so much but he broke my trust. I had to go out that day but he was constantly texting me, checking on me.
Next day morning, we were chatting and I told him that I want to still have the discussion with him but only on phone not on texts (As he used to send screenshots of my texts to a friend of his and I wasn't comfortable with that idea) and when he can keep his voice down. He said we will talk in the afternoon and I said okay, but however he started asking questions on text and I ended up calling him. He asked me what do I want to talk about. I have already discussed yesterday. And I just started with the point that it hurt me a lot that he would even think of to hurt my relationship with my family. But the conversation spiraled in 2 minutes with him asking me to call my father if I dared, I trying to talk him out of it. me finally snapping and taking my father in conference and he disconnected saying his parents will call my father. after that he stopped contacting me altogether. and I also didn't dare contact him because of fear as I didn't know what had happened at his end.

I am sorry for the long winding posts, it's all too confusing for me still. I am not pining for him anymore but I still can't make sense of what happened in the entire relationship

[Radcliff]

It's good that you're trying to make sense of things rather than just forgetting them.  As you process and understand things you'll likely feel better but also will be able to grow from the experience and translate it into healthier relationships in the future.

Can you see how your behaviors and his fed on each other and contributed to things spiraling?

RC

[Heartbroken1212]

I guess so

[Radcliff]

Every situation is different.  Sometimes we get blindsided, and might be totally skillful and do everything right, and yet things still go south.  Sometimes we feed into it early on.  Other times we do great until we hit our limit, then do or say something in frustration that we later cringe at.

Here's where I'm going with this.  If you can process #1 and #2, and think about where he was making things worse and if there were any times where you were feeding into it, you're in a better position to gauge whether a potential restart of a relationship with him is proceeding on a healthy path, and you're also in a better position to assess any future relationships and be more healthy in them.

Are there spots in #1 or #2 where you might do things differently?  What are the behaviors of his that you think pose the most difficulty for a successful relationship?

RC