BPD ex making contact

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hi Everyone,

Wondering if anyone here has ever been contacted by their BPD ex after months/years of no contact. How did you handle the situation when contacted?

Thank you

[HealingTee]

Hi Everyone,

Wondering if anyone here has ever been contacted by their BPD ex after months/years of no contact. How did you handle the situation when contacted?

Thank you

[Cant breathe]

Well, after first discard, I was contacted over a year later. Ex was remorseful. I believed. Now I am on discard 5. Final discard. Don't fall for it.

[Dad50]

Broke up 2 months ago. She's with the love of her life and soul mate now. I am still not strong enough to not respond to my ex. I can have enough discipline to not reach out, but not responding is harder. Yesterday she said she no longer wanted to be friends, she told me to block her, and so on. Called me all sorts of horrible things.

Then today she reaches out like nothing ever even happened. Like we are still friends. It seems like responding just reinforces their behavior. I am not strong enough to take my own advice, but the pattern seems consistent across all these relationships. Don't respond.

[Sappho11]

First discard in January. Told me he didn't love me and that I shouldn't ever hope to be together with him again. He came back after two weeks, because two women he'd wanted to hook up with didn't text him back. He literally told me so, yet I foolishly took him back. He piled on the whole spiel of "I'm going to change... I'm going to go to therapy... I'm going to cut ties with my ex... you're the love of my life" etc. Within two weeks, he broke every single promise. When confronted about this, his response was literally: "What do you expect? I had to say these things to get you back!" Four hellish months.

Second, final discard in early May. I broke contact and then, in mid-June, told him that I would go no contact in order to heal.

He reached out in early September, few days after what would have been our anniversary, sending me an email. I didn't respond and have no interest in responding. I've seen him for what he is, it's over.

[grumpydonut]

She's with the love of her life and soul mate now

No, she's not. She's idealising someone and, rather than seeing the person as a real-life human, she's seeing him through her Disney eyes. Eventually that will disappear, and she'll devalue him just like everyone else.

Any "love of your life" that becomes that within 2 months, is pure fantasy. You cannot fully know someone in two months, so whatever she "loves" is superficial and idealised.

[Ad Meliora]

Short answer to your question HealingT is no, at least not here in year one.  I doubt I will hear from her and if I do hear from her (depending on the contact) I'll probably go the way of Sappho11 and not respond directly to them, I'll share it on the forum or write a letter to myself, etc...

I'd put the odds at 4:1 against contact in the future.  The only reason I even give it that chance is that at one point I left some messages behind for her, kinda like a "time capsule" thing.  One week I was watching her house I wrote "I love you" about 50 times on a piece of paper. I cut the 'love you's' out and folded them up and placed them all around the house, upstairs, downstairs--all around.  Many were easy to find, under the salt shaker, for example as the whole point was for her to find them when she returned.  Some of them I hid quite good.  I put them in the back of her sock drawer, I hid them inside a picture frame in her closet, hid one in the amp for the bass guitar, etc...  It'll be years before some are found, if at all!    I texted her a photo of all the cut up "I love you's" and she was non-plussed.  It wasn't the reaction I had hoped for, but what do you expect from a pwBPD?

If she does find them here's how I think it'll go.  She'll be confused, then be slightly happy for a millisecond (remembering her adoring fan).  Then she'll feel overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame for her role in the break up and losing me as "a fan".  She may dwell in sadness for awhile and then that will turn to anger and she will decide it was my fault all along for making her feel those mixed feelings, etc... (someone has to be to blame, and lord knows it isn't her). Deep sadness, deep anger, or deep confusion will cause her only to withdraw further and make it less likely she'll contact me.  Even if I left her something that was true and from the bottom of my heart.

I didn't stop loving my ex.  I'm sure I still love her.  It was the constant pain, and the intentional relationship sabotage that drove me away.

[ILMBPDC]

Just over 2 months and still no attempt from him, but I fully expect it at some point.
He had a best friend he discarded last year and 5 months later was telling me he missed him and was going to reach out and apologize and explain his BPD. When I asked him why they stopped talking, Mr BPD said "I don't even remember". Huh, yet it was enough to make you stop talking to your supposed best friend. I should have known then it was just a matter of time before the same happened to me (it was about 2 months later he discarded me over something I said that p*ssed him off). So yeah, based on his pattern, I expect to hear from him around December. We will see.

[MeandThee29]

I wouldn't be surprised if it happened, but it's been about ten months since I heard from him. It was a marriage of several decades followed by a high conflict divorce. I went no contact until the divorce was final and then chose to allow email to get it closed out. I was all business though and did not engage with him on other issues. I summarized every email received and sent in an email to my attorney to make sure that I was keeping on track. Thankfully the file has been closed for some months now. Both my therapist and attorney said to go no contact entirely once the file was closed unless something legal comes up. Thankfully nothing there, and there was nothing in the agreement tying me to him.

My ex recently sent a card to our adult children which I passed on to them to handle. I never opened anything he sent to them. I didn't probe, but my oldest finally opened up and said he wants contact with them, and they don't want contact. I've never gotten in the middle there and have always left it up to them. He hasn't seen or talked to them on the phone in four years. Even in the first year, they refused to talk about him, and almost never talk about him now.  Both have had therapy and talked about this with their friends, but not so much with me.

At this point, the whole thing is just sad to me. The anger has faded, and I'm in a good place that had to be.