Extremely intense relationship that lasted a few months

[Depression = 72% of members]

In the last few years, I've been going through a lot of identity changes, including finding out that I have borderline and my life partner (LP - 12 years) has been my caregiver basically this whole time.

I knew something was wrong with the way I related to others, ... I never understood what. I grew up in an alcoholic family and never saw my parents relate to each other in a healthy way.

I'm not going to say I'm recovered from this, I'm recovering, doing DBT, in therapy, doing nearly daily mindfulness meditation. I can identify splits when they happen, I'm aware when I'm in an episode, ... most of the time.

Anyway, a year or so ago, I wanted to open the marriage, it had been a marital goal for years. I do some dating, it goes OK, have a few breakups, those go OK. I'm not dating anyone I'm super into, I'm just having some fun, my LP, is a bit threatened, but the marriage is more-or-less stable.

I find someone I'm really into, and ... I wasn't ready for the intensity, the passion, the deep-in-the-soul feelings they engendered.

Some classic moments:

* That time on Valentines when I tried to do a breakup, but we ended going out to dinner anyway and I had a panic attack.

* The time they pushed me into dissociating so heavily I had to personify an introject to get them out of my house.

* Twice when they drove 750 miles to visit another partner states away, because dealing with me was too much.

My LP went to their therapist, who clocked me as borderline, instantly. I had been going to a therapist for about a year and they ... never told me because I was in therapy already doing DBT.

Anyway, finding out I have borderline, I start doing research and figure out, OK, my new partner also has borderline. Suddenly a lot of the relationship strife makes sense, it's practically engineered in. Either I add it in or they do.

Polyamory is high-stakes romance, more partners means more drama. So having other partners, having my LP I can see how this is different.

But the relationship is so goddamn intense, and it weirds out everyone around us. We don't have a rough patch, the whole relationship is a rough patch.

I agree to something unorthodox, not doing a breakup until at least April 2nd. I know they suffer from abandonment issues, but I'm not certain I can ... sustain a relationship based almost entirely on trauma.

We do have stuff in common, we do have reasons to like and love each other.

In the end I justified the breakup for a few reasons:

* They have another partner they obviously prefer and spend oodles of time with (idealized).
* I feel neglected. I have other partners that do spend time with me, and respect my calendar.
* I can't be a caregiver or therapist. I want to go to school to be a therapist, I don't want to date someone and be their therapist.
* They may never get to a therapist.

We were together for a few months, but it was one of the most intense relationships of my life. This is day 4 after the breakup, and today I woke up crying and catatonic. I have the stray suicidal thought, those suck ofc. I want to message them so goddamn badly.

The cruel part is .. we are both borderline, and they were never going to breakup, ever. There weren't boundaries. How can any relationship function without boundaries? There was emotional neglect I've ... never fathomed possible. I was told my needs weren't important, and I should be happy, regardless of what support they provided. I wasn't allowed to be jealous of their other partner. A ton of gas-lighting. They insisted on changes to other relationships to help them feel comfortable, anger wasn't an allowed emotion.

[over_expression]

In the last few years, I've been going through a lot of identity changes, including finding out that I have borderline and my life partner (LP - 12 years) has been my caregiver basically this whole time.

I knew something was wrong with the way I related to others, ... I never understood what. I grew up in an alcoholic family and never saw my parents relate to each other in a healthy way.

I'm not going to say I'm recovered from this, I'm recovering, doing DBT, in therapy, doing nearly daily mindfulness meditation. I can identify splits when they happen, I'm aware when I'm in an episode, ... most of the time.

Anyway, a year or so ago, I wanted to open the marriage, it had been a marital goal for years. I do some dating, it goes OK, have a few breakups, those go OK. I'm not dating anyone I'm super into, I'm just having some fun, my LP, is a bit threatened, but the marriage is more-or-less stable.

I find someone I'm really into, and ... I wasn't ready for the intensity, the passion, the deep-in-the-soul feelings they engendered.

Some classic moments:

* That time on Valentines when I tried to do a breakup, but we ended going out to dinner anyway and I had a panic attack.

* The time they pushed me into dissociating so heavily I had to personify an introject to get them out of my house.

* Twice when they drove 750 miles to visit another partner states away, because dealing with me was too much.

My LP went to their therapist, who clocked me as borderline, instantly. I had been going to a therapist for about a year and they ... never told me because I was in therapy already doing DBT.

Anyway, finding out I have borderline, I start doing research and figure out, OK, my new partner also has borderline. Suddenly a lot of the relationship strife makes sense, it's practically engineered in. Either I add it in or they do.

Polyamory is high-stakes romance, more partners means more drama. So having other partners, having my LP I can see how this is different.

But the relationship is so goddamn intense, and it weirds out everyone around us. We don't have a rough patch, the whole relationship is a rough patch.

I agree to something unorthodox, not doing a breakup until at least April 2nd. I know they suffer from abandonment issues, but I'm not certain I can ... sustain a relationship based almost entirely on trauma.

We do have stuff in common, we do have reasons to like and love each other.

In the end I justified the breakup for a few reasons:

* They have another partner they obviously prefer and spend oodles of time with (idealized).
* I feel neglected. I have other partners that do spend time with me, and respect my calendar.
* I can't be a caregiver or therapist. I want to go to school to be a therapist, I don't want to date someone and be their therapist.
* They may never get to a therapist.

We were together for a few months, but it was one of the most intense relationships of my life. This is day 4 after the breakup, and today I woke up crying and catatonic. I have the stray suicidal thought, those suck ofc. I want to message them so goddamn badly.

The cruel part is .. we are both borderline, and they were never going to breakup, ever. There weren't boundaries. How can any relationship function without boundaries? There was emotional neglect I've ... never fathomed possible. I was told my needs weren't important, and I should be happy, regardless of what support they provided. I wasn't allowed to be jealous of their other partner. A ton of gas-lighting. They insisted on changes to other relationships to help them feel comfortable, anger wasn't an allowed emotion.

[vitamin_f]

Hi, I'm Over_expression's LP.  They asked me to add a reply for context and to help get out my feelings.
 
Regarding their relationship with the person they just broke up with, that was hands down the worst few months I've had in my entire life, before my therapist asked if my LP had a borderline diagnosis. 

When Over_expression started dating this person, I felt like I had suddenly been turned into a nobody and at times looking back, my LP most definitely split on me.  It wasn't even about "spending time" with this new person - it was about, suddenly, "this person is the center of my life, not you, you've gotten enough of me"  We had built a life together over 12 years and have a child together.   Looking back, this was classic devaluing, but at the time not knowing about borderline, it felt like my heart was being stomped on.  To make it worse, I did not like this new partner, I couldn't talk to this new partner as myself, I was essentially told my emotions were invalid, and this new partner tried to convince my LP that I "just couldn't do poly" and in some way that meant I was somehow inferior.  I had to walk on eggshells around both of them, and smile, and comfort them instead of being comforted myself.  And, I had to be around them constantly, because the partner would always come to our house.  It felt like they were giving me permission to be around them, when in my head, it should have been that I was giving them permission to be at OUR house, sleep in our bed, etc.  But because I was devalued (less so by my LP by that point), that literally meant my value (12 years) meant squat to the new partner.

I lost days to crying, cried in my boss' office, had to disclose this really embarrassing thing to friends to get their take on it because I truly didn't know if I was being too sensitive.  I didn't know if I was being gaslighted, if maybe I had simply put too much into our marriage and the level of love I thought was there just simply wasn't.  I have diary entries where I question my sanity.

We went to couples therapy, where my LP told me that I had been "trapping" them our whole marriage and that I could either let them serial date and have no say whatsoever in their romantic life going forward, or we could get a divorce.  Very black or white thinking.  At that point, we still didn't know about borderline.  The word divorce was suddenly a go-to word  that got thrown around when it hadn't been before - through our whole relationship with them having borderline episode after borderline episode, we never really talked about it as a possibility.  I even crunched the numbers to see if I could afford to live on my own, and I spent time looking at apartments.  I wanted to make our marriage work, and I thought if this was what typical poly was supposed to look like, then I would give it some time and then decide if I would stay or not.  I'm only recently realizing that there is no "typical" here and there really hasn't ever been. 

Now that they are broken up, even though my LP is in therapy, I still have a lot of fear.  For context, in our previous poly relationship, after it ended, they told me they didn't want to do poly anymore.  I am very familiar with this going back and forth on things, but I somehow was still surprised when they met the person they just broke up with and restarted poly.  My fear is this happening again.  My LP has assured me this won't but to be honest, I have some PTSD from their relationship.  I know that wasn't a typical poly experience, and I put myself through some things that I shouldn't have. 

Since starting to read some stuff on borderline, I started applying some boundaries to their relationship's affect on me, which was helpful.  I started being more serious about having emotions.  From time to time I still feel like I should shove stuff down, so I work to actually say what's on my mind.  I have a lot of anger about what happened, which now I have to balance with comforting my LP because of the breakup, and it feels ironic.  Meanwhile, I'm remembering events of the past, from years ago, now framed within the context of borderline.  Now knowing what it is, it helps me to say "that was an episode" instead of internalizing the feelings, so there is a lot of stuff I'm trying to let go of.  It's going to take some time.