Conflicting emotions

[BKDamon]

I have been struggling with some thoughts, lately.

As I’ve written in another post, my uPBDx has had two distinct affairs a few months apart with the same guy, an old neighbor of ours. I broke up with her 4 months ago and she is still in a relationship with him. I would like not to care about this relationship, but it is built on betrayal, lies and manipulation and it makes me sick. And I have to admit that I don’t really want them to be happy.

I don’t know the guy that well, but I strongly suspect that he is not a really healthy person. He is a chameleon and will tell you exactly what you want to hear to avoid conflict. He even asked me permission to see my ex once I broke up with her, which is really messed-up in my opinion. He didn’t ask me when he betrayed my trust twice...

His ex-wife says that he will change his discourse depending on the person he’s speaking to, and that he can become completely excited by grandiose ideas he regularly comes up with.
He tried to be nice with me after I broke up with my ex, sending me texts validating how horrible she has been to me. When I mentioned that he also was an actor in this betrayal, and that he talked a lot but didn’t take a lot of responsibility, suddenly, no more texts.

After their first affair, my ex described him as a manipulative narcissist, but that could be because she was mad at him (and it didn’t stop her to go back to him later). I suspect it might be true though, and I know pwBPD and narcissists are strongly attracted to each other.

My ex said that she has changed, doesn’t want intimacy anymore and seems to accept his polyamorous lifestyle. I guess it part of the mirroring she’s going through, because that would be a great departure from the woman I knew. People can change, I guess, but something doesn’t seem quite right here.
Plus it feels like a karmic mess: either it is true and they’ll be happy after abusing me, or it is not and some big drama is coming up that can indirectly affect my children and me.

Well I have to say that I am glad to have no contact with those people anymore (his ex-wife is toxic too, in my opinion, but that’s another story).
Maybe one day I’ll reach the stage where I will just compassionately feel sorry for them, but I’m not quite there yet.

[Mutt]

Hi BKDamon,

A r/s doesn’t cure BPD. If she’s not getting help for herself the same pattern will repeat although results may vary depending on how the other person is. Perhaps he’s the type of person that’s not very resistant and doesn’t trigger her.

Splitting  doesn’t happen all at once, I get what you mean I was worried about how I would be affected and how the negative emotions from the new r/s were directed at me - for a period.

I’d suggest to continue detaching and don’t take sides and be a small target. Eventually he’ll be split black that negative energy that was once direct your way will be redirected to someone else. The best going to do is to do nothing and let karma work out on its own terms.  

[grumpydonut]

Hi BKDamon,

Have a read of my post entitled "HE/SHE isn't living happily ever after without you". I had exactly the same questions, even checked out her FB to see she looked extremely happy...only to eventually learn (from ex friends on whom she had now turned) that her relationship with the person she cheated on me with and left me for 9 months later is terrible and far worse than what she had from me.

BPD by itself = drama.
BPD + an NPD partner = instability + abuse.

However, something I've noticed is that BPD feel most comfortable when their life is full of drama. So maybe your ex feels better in this relationship, but her life will always be a mess.

[BKDamon]

Thank you both.

I have read your post, grumpydonut, it was really informative to see how far a pwBPD can go to fool people outside of their private sphere into thinking they’re happy, blissful, etc. For the people they’re most intimate with, it’s another story.

I guess I feel some sort of injustice because my ex says that she has it all figured out, that she doesn’t want intimacy anymore, that I have saved her and made her understand a lot of things about herself, and so on. The core of the message being "I have been abusive to you, but it’s not my fault, it’s our interactions and thanks to you I will not make the same mistakes again". So I have helped her and save her, and thanks to me she’ll be happy with the guy she cheated on me with, the guy who slept with a friend’s woman without any hesitation, who betrayed me twice ?

I know the odds are against this outcome, but it still hurts and feels unfair to even think that it could be true.

Mutt, how do you manage to be a small target? I try as much as I can to keep our interactions solely focused on the kids via emails, but I sometimes have to affirm my boundaries when she gets overly jovial and friendly (which is completely inappropriate to me given the pain that she’s caused... it’s like it never happened to her!) and starts commenting or blabbering instead of sticking to the facts. Should I just ignore all of that? Will it make me a smaller target?
I feels like the best way to be a small target is to stay emotionally detached, but at the same time, it seems that she resents me for doing so.

[kells76]

Hey BKDamon, I'm over here from the "family law/coparenting" board. You mentioned you share kids with your ex; do they mostly live with you? her? even split?

how do you manage to be a small target? I try as much as I can to keep our interactions solely focused on the kids via emails, but I sometimes have to affirm my boundaries when she gets overly jovial and friendly (which is completely inappropriate to me given the pain that she’s caused... it’s like it never happened to her!) and starts commenting or blabbering instead of sticking to the facts. Should I just ignore all of that? Will it make me a smaller target?

Interesting that she uses the "cracked open door" of discussing the kids to be "cheery" with you. What we've dealt with more is that when my husband's ex emails about the kids, it's: "can the kids stay with you Thursday night, they don't actually want to, but I'll be out of town so I told them it's an option, they'd prefer I pick them up even if it's late, that's what they told me". So she uses the "cracked open door" to disparage DH ("dear husband") and reaffirm that SHE is the one the kids "choose" and not DH.

So, the way we respond with a smaller target is to not engage with ANYTHING except logistics. It would be a fool's errand to try to either "make" her be respectful ("Hey, it was really disrespectful of me when you said the kids didn't want to stay with me") or focused ("Hey, can we please focus on just the schedule in this email?"). As you probably know, pwBPD are masters of "it wasn't my fault". No amount of shedding light on dysfunctional interactions, disrespect, or boundary busting will make a difference if they don't choose to change.

I'd recommend responding ONLY to the sentences about the kids. In our example, the only thing DH replied with was "sure, the kids can stay over Thursday night, I'll drop them off at your house Friday at 8:30am". No attempt to "get her to see the light", etc. Short sentence, to the point, no extra details. FYI they have been divorced for 10 years, and she hasn't changed.

So, hope that's a helpful start to "making a smaller target". Keep it short, keep it focused on logistics, be polite and firm. If you haven't already, google the acronym "BIFF" which stands for "brief, informative, friendly, and firm" communication. Could help you out.

And feel free to check out the "conflicted/divorced/coparenting" board, too; we're over here:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=10.0

-kells76

[BKDamon]

Thank you very much, kells76.

We have 50/50 custody (three kids).
I’ll take the time to explore the "conflicted/divorced/coparenting" board a little more, I’ll probably find plenty of good advice and ressources.

I don’t really know her motivation for being friendly and cheerful, but I guess it’s a combination of "I’m dealing just fine with the separation"/"I’m a great ex"/"I’m a great mom".  She created a WhatsApp group to share photos of all the new activities that she does with our kids (way more than what she used to do) but also watercolor portraits of them and things like that.To be honest, it feels a little awkward and self-centered. But it might just be the bitterness talking.

And she also used the cracked open door of discussing the kids to complain about my need of having limited contact with her (although that’s what she wanted at first, when I asked for closure). That’s when I got irritated, reminded her of what I was going through and told her that her attitude was disrespectful of that. I’ll try sticking to logistics if it happens again, and be "BIFF". Might not succeed to be friendly though, but I guess polite is already enough.