Seeking dialogue about reversing a breakup

[Depression = 72% of members]

I am looking to dialogue through what to do about my current situation. I have a couple prior posts on this forum.

I and my ex were together 25 years. She has untreated BPD. 7 months ago, amidst a period of extreme life stress, she started an affair with a guy she dated briefly 40 years ago. He's married, lives in a distant city, and appears to be a pwNPD (she has a long traumatic history of predominantly dating narcissists). 5 months ago she broke up with me to pursue her relationship with him. They communicate via text and Facetime and get together during his "business trips" every couple months. Their relationship appeared to turn tumultuous a few months ago, but stabilized after the guy gaslit my ex into believing that all their relationship problems were due to her mental health issues. He wants a perpetual affair with my ex - he won't leave his wife and is concealing the affair.

We had large cracks in our relationship for years prior to all this. She hasn't been receptive to sex with me for 15 years, and there was constant push pull from her, rages, etc. I have cPTSD and some of my patterns (e.g. workaholism, emotional numbing, etc.) contributed to difficulties between us. I started therapy for this about 9 months ago.

Currently, she wants me to constantly spend time with her, and to constantly fix her problems (as I did when we were a couple). It's a classic have your cake and eat it too scenario. However, there is a way in which hanging out with her has been helpful. Due to changes in myself as a result of therapy, along with realizing that she has BPD, reading extensively on this, and treating her differently in light of that (using validation, using mindfulness techniques to remain calm when she escalates, etc.), relations between us have vastly improved. We're doing a lot of fun activities together - hiking in natural areas, cooking together, berrypicking, etc. Whereas before we were constantly bickering, we now almost always have a nice time when hanging out together, other than that I feel crappy when we're hanging out and she's texting her boyfriend or babbling on about him. Sometimes the protracted pain of the current situation leaves me wanting to throw up my hands and walk away.

She has never been formally diagnosed. She recognizes that she has mental health issues (but not that she fits criteria for BPD). She at times says that she wants to see a therapist, but always finds excuses not to take action on this. Near the beginning of our relationship, we briefly saw a couples therapist, but she stopped going (claiming that the therapist was blaming her for everything). She doesn't take responsibility for her actions (other than with her boyfriend, when she became afraid he might abandon her).

Her son - my stepson - is addicted to meth (and also exhibits BPD traits), and I and my ex are trying to help him and engage him into drug treatment. Last year, he was repeatedly in lifethreatening situations - this is the stressor that led her to initiate the affair.

My ex is also becoming more isolated, because she (correctly) perceives her friends and family as judging her for pursuing the affair. I and her boyfriend are the primary people she's talking to these days. The isolation is increasing her dependency on her boyfriend.

I don't really know what to do at this point. Some of the factors at play:

My presence in the picture appears to be causing her narcissist boyfriend to expend more effort to reel her in. He had started to devalue her, but appears to have reverted to love-bombing as the time she's spending with me has increased. This is stabilizing their relationship.

She also has no incentive to change if I continue what I'm currently doing - she has her boyfriend for romance/sex, and me as a companion and codependent problem fixer.

But the time I spend with her is resulting in growing emotional intimacy, and is providing positive reinforcement for her attachment to me. We're continuing to discover new activities that we can do together that we both enjoy.

My current plan is to decrease the amount of time I'm spending with her, and to decrease the extent to which I fix her problems, though I've found this difficult to do. She's usually the one who initiates time spent together.

Again - I'd like to dialogue about the best course of action. I'd like to reverse the breakup, and restore a fully functioning relationship. And I know there's no easy path to this.

[Pensive1]

I am looking to dialogue through what to do about my current situation. I have a couple prior posts on this forum.

I and my ex were together 25 years. She has untreated BPD. 7 months ago, amidst a period of extreme life stress, she started an affair with a guy she dated briefly 40 years ago. He's married, lives in a distant city, and appears to be a pwNPD (she has a long traumatic history of predominantly dating narcissists). 5 months ago she broke up with me to pursue her relationship with him. They communicate via text and Facetime and get together during his "business trips" every couple months. Their relationship appeared to turn tumultuous a few months ago, but stabilized after the guy gaslit my ex into believing that all their relationship problems were due to her mental health issues. He wants a perpetual affair with my ex - he won't leave his wife and is concealing the affair.

We had large cracks in our relationship for years prior to all this. She hasn't been receptive to sex with me for 15 years, and there was constant push pull from her, rages, etc. I have cPTSD and some of my patterns (e.g. workaholism, emotional numbing, etc.) contributed to difficulties between us. I started therapy for this about 9 months ago.

Currently, she wants me to constantly spend time with her, and to constantly fix her problems (as I did when we were a couple). It's a classic have your cake and eat it too scenario. However, there is a way in which hanging out with her has been helpful. Due to changes in myself as a result of therapy, along with realizing that she has BPD, reading extensively on this, and treating her differently in light of that (using validation, using mindfulness techniques to remain calm when she escalates, etc.), relations between us have vastly improved. We're doing a lot of fun activities together - hiking in natural areas, cooking together, berrypicking, etc. Whereas before we were constantly bickering, we now almost always have a nice time when hanging out together, other than that I feel crappy when we're hanging out and she's texting her boyfriend or babbling on about him. Sometimes the protracted pain of the current situation leaves me wanting to throw up my hands and walk away.

She has never been formally diagnosed. She recognizes that she has mental health issues (but not that she fits criteria for BPD). She at times says that she wants to see a therapist, but always finds excuses not to take action on this. Near the beginning of our relationship, we briefly saw a couples therapist, but she stopped going (claiming that the therapist was blaming her for everything). She doesn't take responsibility for her actions (other than with her boyfriend, when she became afraid he might abandon her).

Her son - my stepson - is addicted to meth (and also exhibits BPD traits), and I and my ex are trying to help him and engage him into drug treatment. Last year, he was repeatedly in lifethreatening situations - this is the stressor that led her to initiate the affair.

My ex is also becoming more isolated, because she (correctly) perceives her friends and family as judging her for pursuing the affair. I and her boyfriend are the primary people she's talking to these days. The isolation is increasing her dependency on her boyfriend.

I don't really know what to do at this point. Some of the factors at play:

My presence in the picture appears to be causing her narcissist boyfriend to expend more effort to reel her in. He had started to devalue her, but appears to have reverted to love-bombing as the time she's spending with me has increased. This is stabilizing their relationship.

She also has no incentive to change if I continue what I'm currently doing - she has her boyfriend for romance/sex, and me as a companion and codependent problem fixer.

But the time I spend with her is resulting in growing emotional intimacy, and is providing positive reinforcement for her attachment to me. We're continuing to discover new activities that we can do together that we both enjoy.

My current plan is to decrease the amount of time I'm spending with her, and to decrease the extent to which I fix her problems, though I've found this difficult to do. She's usually the one who initiates time spent together.

Again - I'd like to dialogue about the best course of action. I'd like to reverse the breakup, and restore a fully functioning relationship. And I know there's no easy path to this.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[kells76]

Hi Pensive1, welcome back.

I'd like to dialogue about the best course of action. I'd like to reverse the breakup, and restore a fully functioning relationship. And I know there's no easy path to this.

I really appreciate your specificity about what you want and why you're here. I also hear you that you're open to trying new, non-intuitive "moves" to make things "less worse" and hopefully better.

My guess, reading between the lines of what you've written, is that you'd agree that you two didn't get to where you are overnight. It's been many years of a certain pattern and dynamic growing between you two, so I suspect you might agree that it may take longer than you want if positive changes/turnaround were to happen. Just pondering out loud that it may be a "long term project". Of course, I'm open to being surprised.

I have cPTSD and some of my patterns (e.g. workaholism, emotional numbing, etc.) contributed to difficulties between us. I started therapy for this about 9 months ago.

That's wise to get more help and support for working on yourself. There's no such thing as "too much support" when there's a pwBPD in our lives.

If you're willing to share, I'm curious about what your T thinks about your situation. No pressure, of course, up to you how much/little you are comfortable with talking about.

...

These insights seem like a good foundation for figuring out how to move forward:

She also has no incentive to change if I continue what I'm currently doing

Yes, it sounds like she "has the best of both worlds" right now. If it's working for her, then yes, change will likely not come from her.

and

My current plan is to decrease the amount of time I'm spending with her, and to decrease the extent to which I fix her problems, though I've found this difficult to do. She's usually the one who initiates time spent together.

Yes, allowing her to self-soothe by managing her own life problems also seems like a wise move.

I understand how it's tricky to balance -- wanting to turn around your relationship with her, which by definition would mean spending time together, with the sense that the way things are going -- where she "gets the best of both" when spending time with you -- isn't making things better. Like you said, if she's getting what she wants from the time she spends with you, there's no incentive for things to be healthier.

...

Couple of thoughts of "tweaks" to make, but before putting those on paper, I need to ask a couple of questions:

Were you and your ex ever married?

What are your boundaries about being in a relationship with someone who is also in a relationship with someone else? I.e., unrelated to what anyone else wants or is or isn't doing, do you want to be in a relationship with someone who is involved with other people, or do you want committed monogamy, or...? Understanding your values and boundaries around that will help us dialogue with you.

-kells76

[Pensive1]

Hi Kells76. Thanks so much for responding.

re: "It's been many years of a certain pattern and dynamic growing between you two"
Yes. Our relationship has been difficult throughout most of the years we've been together, and some of the detrimental patterns solidified with time. For example, if she made paranoid statements about people, I'd counterargue (rather than finding ways of validating her feelings, etc.). She experienced my counterarguing and disagreeing as rejection. She complained about that, and I tried to alter what I was doing, but wasn't adequately successful because I didn't understand what was really needed (since I didn't know she was a pwBPD). Physical intimacy stopped 15 years ago. In 2020, we began regularly hiking in natural areas, and our relationship began to gradually but steadily improve and we began drawing closer. But her son's meth addiction crisis interrupted that process in mid-2021. I put everything I had into helping her son, but the stress greatly exacerbated her BPD symptoms, and ultimately she found an escape in the affair.

When we spend time together these days, it's usually a lot of fun. We rarely argue. At points, the level of emotional intimacy is something I haven't seen in years. It seems clear that, if her boyfriend wasn't in the picture, we would have ended up physically intimate again.

re: "I'm curious about what your T thinks about your situation."
My therapist was the first to point out, based on what I was telling her, that my ex appeared to be a pwBPD. I didn't believe this at first, until I read the DSM criteria. At first my therapist basically said that I'd be better off with a different partner. She asked me, if my ex was a horse in a race, would I bet on her? I replied that of course I wouldn't - but I love her and have chosen to hang in there and to try to seek reconciliation. Since that point, my therapist has helped me in understanding some of my ex's behavior, and has made various useful suggestions. She thinks my ex's boyfriend is highly manipulative and a narcissist. She thinks my ex is afraid of looking at her issues in actual therapy, and is thus resistant to obtaining therapy. She also thinks that my continued contact with my ex is motivating her boyfriend to expend greater effort on lovebombing and trying to reel her in. She thinks that I should reduce the amount of time I'm spending with my ex (and stop fixing all her problems). She also notes that people usually don't change unless they're experiencing pain or difficulty, and the current situation - in which my ex is getting the best of both worlds - is unlikely to lead my ex to obtain therapy. I'll also add that my therapist has helped me tremendously with my own mental health issues - I feel far more sane and present than when I started therapy. My ex sees this, and it appears to be the biggest factor causing her to at least consider seeking therapy for herself.

re: "Were you and your ex ever married?"
We were never married. At times I'd fantasize about marrying her, but I was pretty sure that if I asked her she would say no, and I didn't know the path to improving our relationship and getting her to say yes. Given her contributions to our conflicts, I believed that the relationship could only improve if we both went to therapy. I was surprised to discover that my going to therapy alone could be sufficient to greatly improve the relationship.

re: "What are your boundaries about being in a relationship with someone who is also in a relationship with someone else?"
I want committed monogamy. That's just my nature. Being in a relationship with someone who is also in a relationship with someone else would not work for me. I experience it as very painful, but am tolerating it for now while seeking to restore the relationship.

[kells76]

Hi again Pensive1;

For example, if she made paranoid statements about people, I'd counterargue (rather than finding ways of validating her feelings, etc.). She experienced my counterarguing and disagreeing as rejection. She complained about that, and I tried to alter what I was doing, but wasn't adequately successful because I didn't understand what was really needed (since I didn't know she was a pwBPD)

You aren't alone on these boards with that situation. Other members have also had partners who had some pretty out-there paranoia, and it's so hard when it first hits to make the counterintuitive move to not engage with the paranoia and to validate the underlying feeling.

Did the paranoia continue/increase/decrease when her son was in crisis? Is it still going on now?

She thinks that I should reduce the amount of time I'm spending with my ex (and stop fixing all her problems). She also notes that people usually don't change unless they're experiencing pain or difficulty, and the current situation - in which my ex is getting the best of both worlds - is unlikely to lead my ex to obtain therapy.

That makes sense, and if I'm reading you right, you're on the same page with your T.

my therapist has helped me tremendously with my own mental health issues - I feel far more sane and present than when I started therapy. My ex sees this, and it appears to be the biggest factor causing her to at least consider seeking therapy for herself.

That's interesting. Sometimes when the "non" partner (like you) gets T, it can change your awareness level and tolerance level for dysfunction, and sometimes that becomes intolerable for the PD partner. Other times, I've heard it described as "you taking a healthier path, and leaving the door open for your partner to follow you down that road". Many, many times here, your role in the relationship is described as "being the emotional leader". So, there may be hints that your ex could be in group #2 (following an emotional leader to less unhealthy dynamics) versus group #1 (turned off by the change in the relationship).

I was surprised to discover that my going to therapy alone could be sufficient to greatly improve the relationship.

Wild, huh? 

Being in a relationship with someone who is also in a relationship with someone else would not work for me. I experience it as very painful, but am tolerating it for now while seeking to restore the relationship.

Good to know. I guess I'm seeing it as -- there is a spectrum of possibilities for being in a relationship with her, and you are being realistic and coherent with your values when you articulate that not every possibility on that spectrum is acceptable to you.

...

One "tweak" to ponder would be:

how not to "reward" her for involvement with/discussion of her BF.

This ties in to your T's wise advice to find ways to solve fewer of her problems.

It would also tie in to your value of a monogamous relationship.

"Rewarding" her involvement with BF might (even inadvertently) look like: staying on the phone with her after she begins to talk about him, continuing an activity with her if she communicates with him on her phone, trying to help her fix a problem in their relationship so she will be happier and not in distress, talking with her about how unhealthy her BF is (this one is subtle -- it seems like "not rewarding" but it still gives him "airtime" so to speak)... etc.

I wonder how it would look to "surgically remove" as much BF from your relationship as possible, in ways where instead of your words communicating, it's your actions communicating. I think you understand that if making an ultimatum to her verbally would work, you would have done it. But often, verbal communication is not very effective with pwBPD. The words don't mean a lot. It's what you do, consistently, that will communicate more.

She wants to spend time with you and do things together. Your actions have the possibility to communicate -- "yes, you'll get to do that, when it's just you and me. The minute BF enters the picture, I don't participate any more." It's something you do have control over (versus the "ultimatum" style where you don't have control over what she does).

What are your thoughts on "decreasing rewards" associated with BF?

[Pensive1]

Hi kells76,

re: "Did the paranoia continue/increase/decrease when her son was in crisis? Is it still going on now?"
It continued when her son was in crisis and it's still going on now. If anything, it has increased.
When her son was in crisis, her BPD symptoms greatly increased. She lost empathy in a way that I'd not seen before. We had a parent coach (who counsels parents with children in addiction). The parent coach suggested that we each obtain psychotherapy. I did. My ex started making an attempt - leaving messages with five therapists - but apparently none called back. She had a book on trauma therapy, and the other guy volunteered to act as her therapist/sounding board (though he has absolutely no training in this area). That led to the affair. It also provided him access to her innermost thoughts - an enormous amount of info useful for manipulating her.

Their relationship provided her an escape from pain, and left her temporarily feeling much better about herself. She stopped communicating with her son, and I was left responsible for maintaining communication with him and trying to help him. She's now back in communication with her son, and as the anaesthetic high from the new romance has faded, her negative self view and self criticism have grown.

re: "it's so hard when it first hits to make the counterintuitive move to not engage with the paranoia and to validate the underlying feeling."
I'm a slow learner. It took me decades and a breakup before I realized she had BPD and that I needed to respond differently to her paranoia.

re: "What are your thoughts on 'decreasing rewards' associated with BF?"
I need to give this some thought. It makes sense.

re: "continuing an activity with her if she communicates with him on her phone"
My therapist suggested I set this boundary. I haven't done so - I guess in part because I felt that if I did this, she would prioritize communication with her boyfriend, and it might really limit our time or activities together. But it's worth rethinking. It's unconfortable when we're watching a movie and her boyfriend texts, and she pauses the movie ten minutes to respond.

re: "trying to help her fix a problem in their relationship so she will be happier and not in distress"
I don't do this at all (and she doesn't ask me to).

re: "staying on the phone with her after she begins to talk about him"
The only way I know anything about her relationship with her boyfriend is when she tells me stuff. Though I don't solicit info, I'm reluctant to be completely without info. The other day, she said he had looked into buying tickets for her to fly out to the city where he lives. She noticed I was somewhat quiet after that and she clearly felt badly. Then she asked me if she should not talk about him to me. I said I'd always prefer to know - not to have pretense.

re: "talking with her about how unhealthy her BF is"
The few times I've done this, it went over like a lead balloon. The first time I did it was a month after she told me about the relationship. My best friend thought I had a responsibility to tell her the guy is a narcissist (my friend has a long history of trauma at the hands of narcissists and recognizes them well, and immediately told me the guy was a narcissist upon viewing video of him online - it actually is pretty obvious). When I told my ex, she almost terminated all contact between us. I've tried carefully/subtly saying something a couple times since and it didn't go well, so now I say nothing about this.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and suggestions. It's the kind of input that I need.

[once removed]

as another member has said here more than once, affairs are a lot like three legged stools.

this is a loaded dynamic that, on some level, is meeting needs for all involved, and on some level, "works" in a dysfunctional sort of way.

that it has yielded intimacy between the two of you, from that lens, is not necessarily surprising.

here is the thing.

you essentially have two real options.

1. you can let this play out. you can focus on your role in it mindfully, and approach it from the healthiest possible manner with feedback and support.

2. you can rock the boat. i read your hesitancy to do this, and i understand it. i also certainly wouldnt advise doing it without thoroughly thinking it through.

option 1 leaves you in limbo and essentially relies on the hope that at some point, the relationship will crash and burn, and that she will either burn herself out of this, or seek help. its not the wrong option. it just doesnt necessarily resolve the underlying problem(s).

option 2 risks blowing up your relationship, which we understand you dont want to do, and want to support you in helping you not to do. at the same time, it has both the highest success rate for success, and for failure.

im being deliberately vague when it comes to "rocking the boat". you dont want to make dramatic overtures or do too much too soon. but the status quo is perpetuating itself.

what do you think?

[Pensive1]

once removed,

Thanks for your thoughts.

re: "this is a loaded dynamic that, on some level, is meeting needs for all involved, and on some level, 'works' in a dysfunctional sort of way."
Yeah. I think it meets the boyfriend's needs pretty well. It meets my ex's needs in some important ways - she gets romance and sex from the boyfriend, and companionship and assistance from me (though it's bothering her that it's an affair with a married guy who doesn't plan to leave his wife, likely ultimately leaving my ex with nothing). It provides me with emotional intimacy with her, and companionship, though I'm the most miserable party in the situation.

With option 1 - it seems likely that a long distance relationship with a married narcissist wouldn't persist indefinitely. And relationships between a pwBPD and a pwNPD tend to go toxic and unstable. And at different timepoints, I've seen instability in their relationship; and her euphoria about the relationship has faded, and her internal pain and self-criticism have strongly re-emerged. Today she told me that she went into a "flashback" (extreme negative emotional state) in the middle of texting with him within the last few days (I suspect he's deliberately provoking her at times), and she talked to me about wanting to see a therapist. If she actually did see a therapist, that would have reasonable odds of changing the situation. But she has ambivalence about this, and her current level of pain/discomfort might not be sufficient to outweigh her fear of really confronting her issues with a therapist.

With option 2 - I don't see a strategy here with a good chance of success. One alternative is to entirely stop spending any time with her. She would find the loss of my presence (and assistance) painful. She would feel lonely. But I think that right now, her infatuation with her boyfriend is still too strong for her to change course if I walked away. Though I know there's a chance this strategy could work out best in the long run. Another option would be to make overt romantic overtures to her. But again, I think her infatuation with the boyfriend is still too strong for this to play out well (I don't think I can compete until the limerence fades more). However, there are times now when we get very emotionally intimate and there's physical contact (leaning into each other, etc.) - and if her boyfriend wasn't in the picture, we'd have definitely ended up having sex. I've wondered what would happen if, in such a moment, I initiated action in that direction. However, I suspect that even if we ended up in bed together, her degree of infatuation with her boyfriend would prevent things from developing further between us. Another option would be to let the guy's wife know what's going on. That would blow up the affair, but I think my ex would view it as vindictive betrayal, and it would have about 0% chance of success (i.e., us getting back together as a couple).

Though I'm very open to hearing further thoughts on all this.

[kells76]

As you continue to think through once removed's perspective, something that seems important in decision making is this:

I want committed monogamy. That's just my nature. Being in a relationship with someone who is also in a relationship with someone else would not work for me. I experience it as very painful, but am tolerating it for now while seeking to restore the relationship.

It seems critical to get more clarity here. It may be easier to sort of not fill out the thought; i.e., to have it as a general value or belief. I wonder if decision making would become more clear (though perhaps more uncomfortable?) when you get really specific about the concrete details of your above value.

What I'm thinking is:

What if you articulated, in concrete detail, what it would look like to you for the relationship to be restored, and a specific time frame that you are willing to tolerate her non-monogamy?

An extreme yet logically coherent example of not doing this would be:

it's been twenty years, and she's still seeing her BF and getting all those benefits, but you tell yourself: "we're definitely closer to having a restored relationship, so I will tolerate her non-monogamy a little longer"

I'm guessing that when it's put like that, that's not what you want?

Curious what you'd articulate if you were to specify "these are the things that mean our relationship is getting restored, and this is the time frame in which I'm willing to tolerate her actions"...

[Pensive1]

kells76,

I'd previously thought through the time frame issue. I'm willing to wait for, at most, two years. If by that point we're not a couple, I would give up on the relationship. Current, it's five and a half months since she announced the affair and broke up with me.

I've also set one criterion for myself to again be in a committed couple relationship with her - that she go into therapy. If we got back together but she didn't go into therapy, it would be very difficult for me to trust her, and for our relationship to be at all stable.

I'll mention one other slight "rock the boat" move I tried. I suggested that we go on a short vacation together, but she didn't go for it.

One other "rock the boat" move that could be tried is for me to broach with her the topic of BPD. For example, I've found some online self-assessment tools - if she filled them out honestly, the conclusion would be very clear. However, everyone has advised me against broaching the topic of BPD with her. The general consensus is that she would react very negatively and declare me her enemy. But it's difficult to talk about a lot of relevant stuff with her, because she doesn't recognize that she's a pwBPD. She knows she has mental health issues, but not the pervasive nature of the problems. Currently, she just sees herself as a person with PTSD.

[Pensive1]

One other point I'll mention, in case it's somehow relevant to how I should best handle this situation. The following comment I noticed in an online forum seems to describe an important aspect of my ex's relationship with her boyfriend:

"Silvio.R: The narcissist in a relationship with a borderline i witnessed fed off the  reactivity of the borderline and enjoyed being the 'hero' in their crises. Blaming the borderline for all the relationship problems but enjoying the idealisation.
They gaslit the borderline to believe their rages were the problem, not the narcissists triggering behavior.
It took the attention away from anything that was wrong with the narcissists personality, giving them an excuse. Narcisists also get bored more quickly from more stable partners, they live for drama."

She knows she has problematic intense emotional reactions (including rages). Her fear of abandonment by her boyfriend allows him to "hold her to account" (that's her description); whereas in the last two decades of our relationship, she would never take responsibility for problems in the relationship.

[Pensive1]

Addendum comment.

I'd given my ex references for two good therapists (one of whom I know will take her). Last night she began the process of e-mailing them, seeking to initiate therapy. That's huge!