Ex left me for another man, but it desperately trying to remain friends

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

In a 4.5 year relationship with a woman I believe is a highly functioning BPD. She is highly motivated, has some great long term female friends. Everyone thinks she is amazing. She is and no one would believe my view of our personal relationship. She also works for me in my business and is my best sales person. She is attractive, has a great personality and I hear constantly from people how amazing she is.

She has many of the classic symptoms. I have been the target of anger, rage, crying, love bombing, constant communication, etc. Moods can swing quickly. After an episode, it is if it never happened. I was the one, her soul mate, the only one she was interested in. 

The last year has been rocky, although the intimacy was always off the charts. A couple of months ago, she thanks me for attending an event at her best friends house and how much she feels loved. The next day she rages at me over a work issue that she caused. It was one of the worst. I stepped away and couldn't communicate with her for several days. Bad, I know. She says she still loves me and is rooting for us. Three weeks later she breaks up. A week later she tells me she is in a relationship with someone, her son knows about it and her two best friends. She continued to act as if that is the only change between us. I am still her person and she wants nothing else between us to change. I am not going along with that program. I told her how I feel and that I am extremely hurt. I am only responding to direct business requests or questions via email or test and won't take phone calls. She is upset by that, sobbing on my voicemail a couple of times last week. I am trying to keep contact to a minimum and work on my well being. I feel bad about not responding to her on a personal basis. She keeps trying to use work issues to strike up a conversation. She exhibits no empathy about what has happened. I have also started therapy since the breakup (about two months ago). Just at a bit of a loss. 

[hammer]

In a 4.5 year relationship with a woman I believe is a highly functioning BPD. She is highly motivated, has some great long term female friends. Everyone thinks she is amazing. She is and no one would believe my view of our personal relationship. She also works for me in my business and is my best sales person. She is attractive, has a great personality and I hear constantly from people how amazing she is.

She has many of the classic symptoms. I have been the target of anger, rage, crying, love bombing, constant communication, etc. Moods can swing quickly. After an episode, it is if it never happened. I was the one, her soul mate, the only one she was interested in. 

The last year has been rocky, although the intimacy was always off the charts. A couple of months ago, she thanks me for attending an event at her best friends house and how much she feels loved. The next day she rages at me over a work issue that she caused. It was one of the worst. I stepped away and couldn't communicate with her for several days. Bad, I know. She says she still loves me and is rooting for us. Three weeks later she breaks up. A week later she tells me she is in a relationship with someone, her son knows about it and her two best friends. She continued to act as if that is the only change between us. I am still her person and she wants nothing else between us to change. I am not going along with that program. I told her how I feel and that I am extremely hurt. I am only responding to direct business requests or questions via email or test and won't take phone calls. She is upset by that, sobbing on my voicemail a couple of times last week. I am trying to keep contact to a minimum and work on my well being. I feel bad about not responding to her on a personal basis. She keeps trying to use work issues to strike up a conversation. She exhibits no empathy about what has happened. I have also started therapy since the breakup (about two months ago). Just at a bit of a loss. 

[once removed]

ouch. this is hard.

people with bpd traits can notoriously be insensitive during and after a breakup. i dont mean to suggest she doesnt care about you, but right now, maintaining a level of connection with you likely takes precedent over your feelings. its selfish, to be sure.

how are you holding up?

[hammer]

Thanks for responding and asking how I am holding up.

It is difficult. I am doing better. I just put up a reply on the Ex Got Back In Touch thread that goes into further detail about where I am in my process. In essence, I realize that she doesn't think like someone normally would in response to all of this. All of her current communications are extremely polite and cheerful. Just had one come in as a response to a work question: Great! Thank you so much!

I am determined to not let these things trigger me and getting better at it. I basically have two choices, grow a spine or be a door mat. I'll take the former. It remains to be seen how the professional thing will play out. I let all of my boundaries collapse during our time together. However, infidelity and betraying trust in this realm are the top sins in my book. I don't have to explain it to her or anyone for that matter. When she made that choice, she ran the risk of loosing all of me.

I am looking to focus on me and trying to move my thoughts away from the relationship as I can't change anything that happened in the past, only the present moment and how I will use that moving forward.

[Sappho11]

hammer, do you think it's possible she wants you back as a romantic partner? Every single "get your ex back" page on the web talks about how you have to

1) go no contact for 30, 45 or 60 days, and
2) convince your ex that you've changed, you've grown, you're a different, more attractive person, at a happy and content place in your life, etc.

Even among my neurotypical friends, I hear a lot of complaints by men about their ex-girlfriends suddenly reaching out to them in a chirpy tone, after a month or more of radio silence. I wonder how many of these can be attributed to those "strategy" websites.

[hammer]

I don't think so. We had an extremely close relationship that shared both work and personal. I am a fairly known artist and we enjoyed interacting with a wealthy clientele both in their homes, charity events, and being included in all types of interesting exchanges. We also hosted events in my galleries. We ate in nice restaurants three or four times a week. I was also her emotional support. I think she thought nothing would change except we were no longer lovers. She is an attractive person with a charismatic personality, so she gets lots of attention. But she has a very fragile side that no one sees, not even her closest girlfriends. She has some really tight friendships with an amazing group of successful women. They would call me a pathological lier if they heard the stories between us. I am not really sure what her motivation is. Probably me as a safety zone, the access to a very interesting world. She also is making really good money working for me. She is strictly commission and will make into six figures this year.

[hammer]

And to add to the NC BS that is on the web. There is a lot of that out there. NC only works if done correctly. That is to distance yourself from the relationship in order to heal. That is its only real purpose. Using it for other reasons is pure manipulation. Not a thing anyone should do to someone else. As I have read, if you have to do that to get someone to wake up and realize what they have lost, is that someone worth trying to build a relationship with.