dumped and then pleaded with... how to break the cycle?

[AndreaX]

This afternoon my BPD partner of three years dumped me over the phone. This hasn't happened before, and if I'm honest, I felt some relief as well as great sadness.

The conversation started in familiar style - he was very down, had been thinking about our relationship a lot and decided it was making him feel even worse than he would be on his own. 'I think we should go our separate ways' is the usual starting point to a long, intense discussion of where our relationship is at, how much I hide from him and how I should be more honest about my motives and intentions (which are invariably at odds with how I present them - because that's the essence of the human condition...) But this conversation seemed different.

Perhaps the difference was I let him run with it - I agreed I had let him down last night and this morning by not calling when I should have known he was struggling. I consciously tried to avoid 'JADE-ing' and agreed I was not the kind of partner he needed.

He's right:  I can't cope living with him - I tried it once, and ended up leaving following weeks of despair, frustration, emotional turmoil and drama; and I asked him to leave a couple of weeks ago after he'd been staying with me for about six weeks and I was seriously cracking up. Every attempt at co-habitation has ended like this - him craving more intimacy and 'honesty', and me trying to meet his expectations while building up unspoken resentment. The flashpoint usually comes when he compares my character failings to the flaws of the worst kind of politician and tells me it's the same mechanism that's causing the climate crisis. (Some would call it gas-lighting, but it's really how he sees the human condition.)

This time I held my hands up and said, yes, I'm letting you down. I have flaws, I don't share everything with you (sometimes I need to work it out in my own head before you shoot me down in flames), and there are times I put my own mental well-being before addressing your needs. I was silent, I cried, and I felt a lot of regret and sadness while he trashed our entire relationship as being built on nothing but my need to dominate him, to 'win', to laugh at him with my friends, and maybe in the early days enjoy some fun and casual sex.

I cried a lot more this afternoon and felt very numb, while he went the full circle with a barrage of text messages ranging from angry and accusing to loving and concerned. Some i responded to, but mostly I left them, triggering more accusations, and so on. Tomorrow I'll probably cave in to a long emotional phone call and he'll probably come up to stay on Tuesday, as originally planned. I'd like to set some boundaries, but to him I have too much 'power' over him already, because he sees his need for me as greater than mine for him, and likewise his love, his intimacy and the things he does for me.

Does anyone have any advice on how to stop this endless, exhausting cycle? I think maybe he should talk about his issues with someone else, and have repeatedly urged him to do so, but he thinks that would be 'disloyal' of him and that it's me he has to resolve this with.

Is 'dumping' me another cry for help, and how can I convince him I'm being emotionally honest when he thinks I don't even know my own mind? Help!

 

[ForeverDad]

... he thinks ... that it's me he has to resolve this with.

He has a right to dump you... just as much as you have a right to do similarly.

However, he does not have a right to force you to agree to make up.  It is not easy, of course, to say, "Sorry, it's over. You go your way and I'll go mine."

Your natural inclination, as with most here, is to stretch it out.  Explain to him.  Try to convince him.  We get it, we here are a bunch of Nice Guys and Nice Gals, just like you.  But it's clear you've come to realize - and accept - there is no future in continuing the relationship.  Try not to get sucked back in or else you'll be right back here with the same dilemma of a failing/failed relationship.

I was married for over a decade.  Once we had a child the marriage became much more dysfunctional.  Near the end she would rant and rage, even into the night, not letting me sleep, "We will fix this right now", but it never was fixed.  The close relationship was her trigger, as often is the case with BPD.  BPD is most evident the closer the relationship.

[Manic Miner]

Are you sure your partner is BPD after all? I'm not familiar with your story, but it could be that you two just don't match well enough together, as it is. With him trying to stay due to good bonds and vice versa, but integral parts are off so you are running in circles.

What you mentioned here that he is clingy, needy, sensitive and drama queen. But that all doesn't qualify instant BPD.

[AndreaX]

Thanks to you both for your replies.

First of all, my partner (ex?) is almost certainly BPD and has a recent diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder (probably the more common term in the UK) following various acute episodes that have resulted in psychiatric assessment. He has not so far been committed, partly because he is able to recover his composure within the long hours of waiting for the assessment -  perhaps because he feels people are listening to him and taking him seriously.

Yes, of course he has a right to dump me, just as he has a right to take his own life, self-harm and make other decisions about his life. (He frequently speaks of suicide and is a regular self-harmer.) It's the constant backtracking that I find hard to deal with and the rapid switch in his attitudes, from (for example) me being the problem to me being the solution; from everything being hopeless to 'we need to do this right now'; from the deepest depths to manic activity and an overwhelming avalanche of suggestions for what we should do together.

Since yesterday's phone conversation, he's sent me dozens of texts saying he doesn't really want to end the relationship and that he 'still wants us to be in love', but that the way I treat him is damaging him. (Meaning my withdrawals of communication when I run out of mental rope...)

Yes, I do feel I'm being 'sucked back in', even as I write, but I don't know how much more emotional turmoil I can realistically take. We're both hurting and need some release...

[ForeverDad]

While we can't diagnose, remote peer support has its limits of course, it is perfectly fine to conclude that a relationship is in trouble.

About the incessant texts of alternating blaming and unblaming... Have you tried blocking his number?

I know it's probably not that simple, but if he's all over the map and your input isn't making headway, why not?