Sidekick relationship

[Depression = 72% of members]

Did anyone else feel as if they were the sidekick on an adventure with someone while they were with their BPDex? I felt like I was a new character in the "bpdExGf Show" that got killed off after the season got bad ratings.

I was taking part in their life and that my role was to try my best to keep on top of current events, meet their needs in every way, be their emotional support/punching bag while they lived their life in hopes of them truly seeing me and accepting me, but I'd always somehow fumble and end up in a worse off position. Then I started standing up for myself and it got even worse

My ex was always so convinced about things that were "good" or "bad", or "ugly" or "pretty", down to the door mat outside my apartment, dogs in the street, cars, my clothes, my choice of shopping etc. And as soon as I conflicted with any of those thoughts there'd be an off atmosphere between us and I would feel guilty. I was essentially tagging along with her while she confidently lived her life which she was always so seemingly "sure" about.

Then suddenly, I was no longer part of the story, yet she just carried on, living out the rest of the adventure just as "happy" as she was before, and I'm just a character that was in it. She said she wouldn't be coming back (and she didn't), but that she'd remember it as good. It was definitely fun, and the part of me that hurts the most is missing that feeling of adventure.

I saw her today, she saw me too, she looked at me so confidently like she always did, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking, it felt like she "owned me".

An emotional part of me thinks she'll come to her senses, but I know that it's just not going to happen, and I laugh every time I think it. This is the idea that kept me in the relationship in the first place. She is wired completely differently, I just need to remember that.

[IntoTheWind]

Did anyone else feel as if they were the sidekick on an adventure with someone while they were with their BPDex? I felt like I was a new character in the "bpdExGf Show" that got killed off after the season got bad ratings.

I was taking part in their life and that my role was to try my best to keep on top of current events, meet their needs in every way, be their emotional support/punching bag while they lived their life in hopes of them truly seeing me and accepting me, but I'd always somehow fumble and end up in a worse off position. Then I started standing up for myself and it got even worse

My ex was always so convinced about things that were "good" or "bad", or "ugly" or "pretty", down to the door mat outside my apartment, dogs in the street, cars, my clothes, my choice of shopping etc. And as soon as I conflicted with any of those thoughts there'd be an off atmosphere between us and I would feel guilty. I was essentially tagging along with her while she confidently lived her life which she was always so seemingly "sure" about.

Then suddenly, I was no longer part of the story, yet she just carried on, living out the rest of the adventure just as "happy" as she was before, and I'm just a character that was in it. She said she wouldn't be coming back (and she didn't), but that she'd remember it as good. It was definitely fun, and the part of me that hurts the most is missing that feeling of adventure.

I saw her today, she saw me too, she looked at me so confidently like she always did, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking, it felt like she "owned me".

An emotional part of me thinks she'll come to her senses, but I know that it's just not going to happen, and I laugh every time I think it. This is the idea that kept me in the relationship in the first place. She is wired completely differently, I just need to remember that.

[ILMBPDC]

Hmm, interesting...yeah I think I can identify with this. Especially this piece:

be their emotional support/punching bag while they lived their life in hopes of them truly seeing me and accepting me

100% this. I was literally acting as a therapist for him thinking we were becoming so close, that he was confiding such intimate personal things to me, creating a bond...and it DID create a bond...for me. 

Then suddenly, I was no longer part of the story, yet she just carried on, living out the rest of the adventure just as "happy" as she was before, and I'm just a character that was in it. She said she wouldn't be coming back (and she didn't), but that she'd remember it as good.

When he cut me off he told me I am an amazing woman and he wishes me the best but he was no longer going to respond to me (this was a text). It was just so easy for him to discard me and the bond (I thought) we had...I think that was a huge factor in my downward spiral after the discard...for him, I was just another "sidekick" that was easy  to kick to the side, for me it was much, much more.

An emotional part of me thinks she'll come to her senses, but I know that it's just not going to happen, and I laugh every time I think it. This is the idea that kept me in the relationship in the first place. She is wired completely differently, I just need to remember that.

Yes, exactly. It took me awhile to get this through my head - that I will never understand his brain, his thought process. There is still a small part of me that wishes he would wake up and realize what we had was real and good and worthwhile...but I also know that we obviously felt two very different things during that time, that despite his major love bombing, it was never real for him (for me, that hurts the most, I think...how could he not feel it when he talked like he did?  That love bombing thing is a killer).  I am working on that small hopeful part, getting her over him - I know that even if he came crawling back and admitted he was wrong, that he's in counseling, etc, I can't do it again. I can't trust that he won't do that again, even with counseling. 

[Ad Meliora]

Did anyone else feel as if they were the sidekick on an adventure with someone while they were with their BPDex? I felt like I was a new character in the "bpdExGf Show" that got killed off after the season got bad ratings.

Yes, IntoTW, I felt like that at times.  It's a good analogy.  I was a character in her story although whatever adventure we started on Monday would likely change by Tuesday, and yet again on Wednesday.  On Thursday, she would lay in bed til 1pm and claim the world was against her, by that evening it would be "high-time" she get going and "Blurs-day" would change to Friday, the weekend comes and it's all a mystery as to what will happen.  I was left without a Clue.

My ex once said I was like Eeyore (a downer?), and yes reality can be a bummer. What she didn't understand is that I was like a Nick Offerman character with an ironic and subtle sense of humor, sardonic at times.  The audience would've loved me in that role, as her foil, because it all went over her head.  But, there was no audience, or film, there was just me and her (and the monster inside her).  While she smiled all the time, she never really laughed at my jokes.  She would say, "Funny Guy" or if I made a joke on a joke she would say, "No, I get it, it's just not funny--Captain Obvious."  So I guess played even another character there--Aye, Aye, Cap'tn.

I never knew which character I was supposed to play.  The stories never made sense even to the head writer (which was her).  The lines would change constantly, she was like the wind.  Fiction has to make sense, real life doesn't, and my role with her was as far away from a nice work of fiction as can be.

At the end of nearly every "performance" there was raucous clapping with one hand.  The curtain closed, and the audience was left with an uneasy feeling that made them feel worse than when they came into the theater to begin with.

[Sappho11]

I never knew which character I was supposed to play.  The stories never made sense even to the head writer (which was her).  The lines would change constantly, she was like the wind.  Fiction has to make sense, real life doesn't, and my role with her was as far away from a nice work of fiction as can be.

At the end of nearly every "performance" there was raucous clapping with one hand.  The curtain closed, and the audience was left with an uneasy feeling that made them feel worse than when they came into the theater to begin with.

This is a great description.

My BPDex was pretty useless getting anything done. It was quite frightening, actually – he was one of those people who just suck the life out of everyone who comes in closer contact with them, wasting years and years of his as well as other people's lives. Whatever few acquaintances he had were complete deadbeats. He himself was one.

I'm determined and I like getting things done, so he picked me to sort out and enrich his life. I was supposed to be his entertainer, personal assistant, maid, mistress, mother, therapist, guardian angel, to be available 24/7, with zero room for any needs or wants of my own. When he had completely depleted my emotional resources, off he went.

Now that I'm in a good place again, he's trying to get me back. I have no words for how much this ISN'T going to happen.

[ILMBPDC]

I'm determined and I like getting things done, so he picked me to sort out and enrich his life. I was supposed to be his entertainer, personal assistant, maid, mistress, mother, therapist, guardian angel, to be available 24/7, with zero room for any needs or wants of my own. When he had completely depleted my emotional resources, off he went.

This is exactly it!  He used me until I was done, then he discarded me like nothing.
And your point about you enriching his life - this is exactly my ex's MO - he chooses people who he admires or wants to learn from - to enrich himself - and once they are no longer useful...poof, they're gone.
It still amazes me to no end the absolute lack of empathy these people have. The ability to use someone to their own benefit without regard to the fact that we are people too.