End of relationship - need support

[ljwin]

Need help understanding why I was given closure and how to move past this.

Sometimes closure can be overrated I think. I was in a 17 year marriage since 16 years old, we had everything. I forgave cheating in the early years and it festered in the relationship as our children grew older as the old pattern of behaviour returned. Out of the blue bang, she wanted a divorce citing things that just never happened! I moved out and he moved in, she refused to speak to me, offer an apology and on the occasions we did speak blamed me for everything!

Moving on I met a girl diagnosed with BPD. Everything happened very fast and we discussed that I had my children full-time and given their ages and the ages of her children plus her children’s emotional needs as well as mine it would be better to wait until at least our older children had grown. I can tell you I never felt so loved in all my life, then the weirdness started, sudden fall outs over trivial things that weren’t really based in reality, extreme jealousy which could be as much as I get a call during the working day from a female colleague.

From there came extreme drunk states with violence towards me, awful verbal assaults in front of my children, always when she was drunk. She would drink until she passed out usually after a few hours of walking around in a trance with music blaring screaming about her childhood.

We broke up a few times usually by my decision. I just was unable to see a future and my children started to see more of the behaviour. By this point she had lost her own children due to alcoholism, her house was a huge mess. I had grown very distant in order to protect myself and my children but still hoping it would change. In the 2.5 years I supported her as much as I could to my own detriment, I tried everything to find her support even DBT which is very difficult to get in the UK, she never stuck to any of it.

She started a new job which meant we couldn’t see each other as much, within a couple of weeks she was secretive with her phone, I knew there was something and even asked but she denied it. One day she wants to see me at an unusual time to give me my birthday presents even though we would have seen each other the next day usually for her weekend at my place. We didn’t end up meeting but spoke on the phone. She wanted the relationship to end. I didn’t really say much. That weekend her family and ex husband got in touch as they were worried she wasn’t contactable so I drive over on the Monday afternoon, the door was open, house smashed up and alcohol everywhere. I found her in bed with the guy from work.

Couple days later we meet up and she apologises with the most sincerity I’ve ever seen, takes full responsibility and states it was because she knew I would never marry her and she can’t be alone, can’t ever be fixed. She’s continued to see him and is now in self destruct mode, drinking like I or her ex husband has ever known and attacks him every time he’s over, she got sent home from work as she broke down saying how much she loved me and she can’t accept what she has done to me and was considering suicide. We last spoke a couple of days ago after she kept asking to see me but I just spoke over the phone. She never begged to come back, she just kept crying and stating how much she loved me like no one before and how for the first time in her life she had actually felt her love grow and had never felt so connected, she couldn’t forgive herself for hurting someone she loved so much, told me I had truly taken care of her and she wished she had taken more care of me, she had dragged me down with her and basically just kept apologising. I knew then that if I said let’s work this out she would have done anything to come back. But, I know and she knows that there is no way back now, not because of the cheating if you can call it that but because she isn’t capable of the change and patience she would need to make in order for it to work.

What I’m struggling with is that due to all I know about BPD, I just can’t decide if any of it was real, was the love real and is the sincere apology and closure real. From speaking to her ex husband he says he can’t believe she waited 2.5yrs with no commitment from me, said she could only have sex when drunk, was never kind even when sober. She had said to me I was the first person that she was capable of to do that, and no one had ever been so kind and patient with her. I didn’t believe her at the time but obviously with the exH confirming it’s the case sort of made me question it now.

When my marriage ended I was given no closure whatsoever, only blame. Over time I realised of course that it wasn’t the case but I spent a lot of time wishing I had done things differently to stop it from happening. This time around I’m torturing myself in a different way, thinking this person actually loved me so much that against her usual instinct to cut and run she kept coming back and damaged herself even further by doing so. All I ever wanted to see was positive sustained change, I don’t think living with me would have made a difference as we did spend a lot of time together and I feared if we did move in and get married I would end up just like her exH!

So I think I would have rather been sat here thinking it was all a lie and have no closure. Or perhaps I can say well she did love me, it was real but I couldn’t support that in mine and my children’s lives any further.

[Purplerain23]

Welcome to the board and you will find a lot of support here! You will also find safety and understanding and thoughtful responses that will help you process.

What helped me was learning you are grieving the loss of a relationship no matter how volatile it was. So allow those normal stages of grief . Acceptance/Anger/Denial/sadness
Also it really hurt me to ponder the same thing . Was all of this fake ? Did he really love me at all? I have read they are incapable of love. Now that’s going to depend on your definition of love. Is it a feeling ? Our BPDers we more than capable of feeling things to the extremes that’s was the hook they made us feel more loved than we ever felt before ... so we kept coming back for abuse hoping the behavior would change and believing if only the behavior changed then we could get back to the love ..

However Love is behavior... it is patient it is kind it keeps no record of wrong it isn’t selfish or destructive it doesn’t boast it never fails.  In order to be love it’s a consistent set of behaviors e ven treating someone how you’d like to be treated qualify . I personally concluded someone with a cluster b personality disorder is In fact incapable of giving and receiving love based on those terms.
When I came to that Conclusion  allowed me to truly grieve my time and investment of my full loving self into a toxic relationship. Now I am in need of healing  but I learned a lot of good lessons and mostly what do I need to do as far as healing hidden wounds do I won’t keep picking these types of people for relationships. Alanon and coda have been a huge help. Taking the focus completely off of them and putting it on myself .

The board has so many good workshops and the one on relationship recycles probably helped save my life.

What are your definitions and beliefs about love ? Can you give me some specific examples of any true forms of love you have experienced ? Ie with your kids ? Friends ?

Keep coming back to share and I’m glad you are safe and put you and your kids well being as a top priority.

[Purplerain23]

I forgot to add this link that will be helpful

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=303568

[ljwin]

Welcome to the board and you will find a lot of support here! You will also find safety and understanding and thoughtful responses that will help you process.

What helped me was learning you are grieving the loss of a relationship no matter how volatile it was. So allow those normal stages of grief . Acceptance/Anger/Denial/sadness
Also it really hurt me to ponder the same thing . Was all of this fake ? Did he really love me at all? I have read they are incapable of love. Now that’s going to depend on your definition of love. Is it a feeling ? Our BPDers we more than capable of feeling things to the extremes that’s was the hook they made us feel more loved than we ever felt before ... so we kept coming back for abuse hoping the behavior would change and believing if only the behavior changed then we could get back to the love ..

However Love is behavior... it is patient it is kind it keeps no record of wrong it isn’t selfish or destructive it doesn’t boast it never fails.  In order to be love it’s a consistent set of behaviors e ven treating someone how you’d like to be treated qualify . I personally concluded someone with a cluster b personality disorder is In fact incapable of giving and receiving love based on those terms.
When I came to that Conclusion  allowed me to truly grieve my time and investment of my full loving self into a toxic relationship. Now I am in need of healing  but I learned a lot of good lessons and mostly what do I need to do as far as healing hidden wounds do I won’t keep picking these types of people for relationships. Alanon and coda have been a huge help. Taking the focus completely off of them and putting it on myself .

The board has so many good workshops and the one on relationship recycles probably helped save my life.

What are your definitions and beliefs about love ? Can you give me some specific examples of any true forms of love you have experienced ? Ie with your kids ? Friends ?

Keep coming back to share and I’m glad you are safe and put you and your kids well being as a top priority.

Thank you PurpleRain23,

I was actually saying that very thing earlier to my Mum, no matter what was real or what wasn’t I’m still grieving the loss of a relationship and there are no shortcuts.

I think my main belief about love is respect, trust and shared values, it was one of the main things I struggled with in the relationship, I just couldn’t feel we had the same values knowing her past which she shared openly but said she was very remorseful and I believe in second chances and self reflection. I made many mistakes in my marriage that I reflected on and learned from which I noticed in this next relationship weren’t apparent at all so my self reflection had been successful. I believed this was possible for her too and in some respects I’m sure some things were but serious things such as trust etc just were not there. I guess if she could not trust my reason for learning a second language wasn’t to run off to another country to meet someone else she could hardly trust that I loved her and wanted to be with her.

I’ve experienced love from my friends and my Mum as well as my children, there’s no control or manipulation, it’s always a two way street providing support, trust and understanding both ways.

[ljwin]

The link to the article was very helpful, thank you!