Projections and accusations of abuse

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I am really hurting right now because my BPDex is saying to her therapist and everyone in her life that I was continually abusive to her and she is a victim of verbal and emotional abuse. I do not know what to say to this. I know I need to validate her feelings, even if I disagree, but it is just not true. I supported her and her child. I cared for her in her intense depression and dysfunctionality and I stayed through infidelity.  I would get mad sometimes and respond to her rage attacks in anger on text and I would not validate her enough when she was splitting and telling me I was horrible. I tried ending the relationship many times before succeeding three weeks ago. She says my abandonment was abusive. I want to tell her it was not. Everyone has the right to leave a relationship.

I do not understand how her therapist is validating that idea.

[RisingAboveAll]

I am really hurting right now because my BPDex is saying to her therapist and everyone in her life that I was continually abusive to her and she is a victim of verbal and emotional abuse. I do not know what to say to this. I know I need to validate her feelings, even if I disagree, but it is just not true. I supported her and her child. I cared for her in her intense depression and dysfunctionality and I stayed through infidelity.  I would get mad sometimes and respond to her rage attacks in anger on text and I would not validate her enough when she was splitting and telling me I was horrible. I tried ending the relationship many times before succeeding three weeks ago. She says my abandonment was abusive. I want to tell her it was not. Everyone has the right to leave a relationship.

I do not understand how her therapist is validating that idea.

[RisingAboveAll]

I know I have to let it go. I have to stop caring what she thinks of me. I have to stop hoping she could see me in a positive light and not as a monster. I just don’t know how. I love/d her. I tried so hard to help her. I sacrificed myself and lived through hell. I am so sick to think she is seeing me as this abuser and not someone who cares for her, especially in the profound depths of her illness. Ouch, it hurts so much.

I need my own healing journey. She wants apologies from me for things that I don’t think I did at all. She wants me to take accountability for abusing her, manipulating and gaslighting her and I cannot fathom doing that. I was trying to survive and create happiness. I was doing my very best to bring light, air, hope, meals, health.

I feel like such a bad person, so confused, that someone I love and cared for has this experience of me. It makes me wonder who I am. It is terrifying to imagine that being true.  It makes no sense.

[RisingAboveAll]

We are NC and while that is essential for sanity, I also desperately want to make her see that defending myself was not verbal abuse. Ending the relationship was not emotional abuse. Having a different perspective on things is not gaslighting.

I know any further contact is folly. She only demands apologies or tells me how much I’ve harmed her. Hundreds of messages detailing this when there’s another 80% of our relationship that was good that she’s forgotten completely.

[Tupla Sport]

Even therapists can succumb to triangulation. In fact I bet it's a real job hazard. You get kicks from egging someone to tell them more about this or that person who is negative by being this and that. Especially if the people involved have sexual orientation compatibility. It happens to all of us in some degree. Most people are not aware of this.

That said, I'm so sorry you are going through this. It's a nightmarish situation. They are hurting and conjuring up a narrative that is exaggerated at best and a complete lie at worst. It's very hard to not take something as personal as not personal but that's what it is; it is not personal. My exwBPD painted all their exes as abusive rapists. I'm sure I'm now one of them.

[RisingAboveAll]

Thank you, Tupla Sport for the perspective and compassion.

 I really wish I had learned SET and DEAR MAN and not JADEing while we were together because it would have helped her not feel abused. I think that anything other than 100% agreement with her feelings as reality felt like abuse to her. I wish I’d had more tools to use to defuse such painful conversations.

I wish I knew how to not take it personally. Here I am wishing she would cross the NC boundary so I could try to change her narrative about me. I desperately wanted a good ending…a thankful, grateful, peaceful ending.

I am friends with almost all my exes (which was intolerable to her) and I just feel so discouraged that someone on this Earth that I tried so hard to love well has forgotten all the care and effort and work I put into her and us, and only sees or feels an abuser.

I’d never do those 3 years again but I wanted to at least have a positive impact, and to know we had some good memories.

I would go from being the love of her life to being a piece of trash she thought wanted to destroy her in .0005 seconds. But I guess I was foolishly clinging to the hope that the love of her life memory would win out. Silly me. I still want to be loved by her. So stupid. She has no inner self to hold onto, so how could she hold onto mine with love?.

Thank you for reading.

[RisingAboveAll]

About the therapist — wouldn’t the therapist know she was BPD with frequent cutting, a porn and casual sex addiction, daily heavy weed use, repeated bankruptcy, crippling depression and self hate, feelings of emptiness, dissociation and splitting, inability to name feelings, rage at her employers, and not knowing who she is?

I guess you are right about triangulation, and maybe the therapist is just believing her stories and doesn’t have any other evidence for any different truth.

[Tupla Sport]

BPD in waif mode are incredibly good at manipulation. BPD in general are like magnets to a lot of people. I keep wondering why my ex best friend who knew of her disorder would leap at the opportunity to date my most recent BPD ex... all the while almost sliding into a rebound relationship with another BPD ex of mine myself! A pwBPD who cheated on me, is still untreated and displaying obvious signs of a petulant BPD! Their magnetism is so primordially biological it almost defies conventional ideas of psychology.

[kells76]

Hi RisingAboveAll;

This pinged my radar, as it were:

my BPDex is saying to her therapist and everyone in her life that I was continually abusive to her ... I do not understand how her therapist is validating that idea.

How are you finding out what your BPDex is allegedly telling her therapist?

When we get second- or third- hand information about "what the therapist said", we may need to be really, really careful to slow down and analyze what's going on.

I think I can safely assume that you're not sitting in those sessions    And, due to HIPPA etc, I think I can safely assume that the therapist isn't telling you directly "Well, in the session with your ex, I told her ABC".

So, someone is telling you "my/the therapist said..."

Could someone be "spinning" things to justify themselves? And doing it in a really convincing way?

Food for thought...

[RisingAboveAll]

The magnetism is almost primordial, it’s amazing.

I could not resist the seduction efforts every time she agreed that we could be friends because I said, over and over, we are not healthy in a relationship. Every single time she would get me to her house on the pretense of friendship she would then try to kiss me, ask if we could have sex, beg beg beg beg beg and so many times I just folded instantly. I’m trying to forgive myself.

[RisingAboveAll]

@Kells76 Thank you for the reframe.

She texted me this this past weekend when we broke NC. She said this is what her therapist said. She  is demanding apologies as the only acceptable communication, she wants (again) a list of all I did wrong, in a 3-part formal apology which names my action, the impact on her, and how I will change. But my actions are not abusive. I have  apologized endlessly for 3 years, nonstop apologizing, taking responsibility for anything I did that caused her to have a negative emotion. Now I don’t want to do that anymore.

 I asked her to consider that I am not 100% to blame in the failure of our relationship and it was something that took both of us. I said I would her make a list of what I did that was hurtful to her, and what I wish I had done differently. However that I was not  intentionally harming her ever. That yes, definitely,  I did things I regret, that caused her pain (namely, moving in then moving out, and engaging in text arguments) I was doing my best, as I know she was also. I said she was not a victim, she was an adult making choices just as I was. We each could have made different choices at any time.

She said No, she was actually the victim of continual verbal and psychological abuse and manipulation, gaslighting and harm from me and her therapist said so. I said our relationship was unhealthy, for sure, which was why I wanted to be friends instead. I want to be friends so I can be a consistent presence  for her child if at all possible so he does not feel abandoned by me, and because I love her very much and value her, and care about her, even though our relationship is too volatile for it to be healthy for me to continue.

I know that she needs to stabilize her brain by making me All Bad.

It hurts to accept this is the role I will play in her mind.

[imstillhere89]

My ex would turn every fight upside down just to make sure I feel guilty and everything was my fault.. fact that he got angry in the first place was my fault, he couldn't control himself after that was my fault, all the horrible things he said to me was my fault...then when I was trying to explain to him that actually he started it all without a bigger reason he would say "yah of course it is never your fault, never!"
And if he saw that there isn't really my fault he would pick on something that happened before the fight and was pushing on that so long that I would finally admit I did something bad (even tho it was never as bad as what he was doing).

In our last argue day after breakup (text messages) he said "I have learned already that it always takes you long time to realise your mistakes..but now you have got a lot of time!"

You can't win...you just can't...

[TheBatHammer]

I am really hurting right now because my BPDex is saying to her therapist and everyone in her life that I was continually abusive to her and she is a victim of verbal and emotional abuse. I do not know what to say to this. I know I need to validate her feelings, even if I disagree, but it is just not true. I supported her and her child. I cared for her in her intense depression and dysfunctionality and I stayed through infidelity.  I would get mad sometimes and respond to her rage attacks in anger on text and I would not validate her enough when she was splitting and telling me I was horrible. I tried ending the relationship many times before succeeding three weeks ago. She says my abandonment was abusive. I want to tell her it was not. Everyone has the right to leave a relationship.

I do not understand how her therapist is validating that idea.

A good rule to follow…

While there is often a misinformation campaign, believe that the therapist or whoever it is said what is being claimed only if you hear it from her therapist. Don’t allow your partner or anyone else to play “go between”.

This is a type of appeal to authority on their part.

[babyducks]

She texted me this this past weekend when we broke NC. She said this is what her therapist said.

BPD is a serious mental illness which distorts reality.  pwBPD (people with BPD) perceive the events of their lives in ways that protect their damaged sense of self.    i.e.    I Am Not A Bad Person.   Everyone Else Is Bad.   See Other People Agree With Me.   

pwBPD avoid dealing with crippling shame by casting everyone else at the villain in their lives.   pwBPD avoid taking responsibility by always being the victim.

She  is demanding apologies as the only acceptable communication, she wants (again) a list of all I did wrong, in a 3-part formal apology which names my action, the impact on her, and how I will change. But my actions are not abusive. I have  apologized endlessly for 3 years, nonstop apologizing, taking responsibility for anything I did that caused her to have a negative emotion. Now I don’t want to do that anymore.

please don't make a 3 part formal apology.   you've apologized for 3 years.    what has this done that is at all positive?

to ask it another way,  what have you gotten for your efforts?    you've convinced her that she is right, you are wrong and she is justified in her behavior.    old issues and hurts have been kept alive.   its allowed her to blame shift.    its allowed the drama to continue and escalate.

She said No, she was actually the victim of continual verbal and psychological abuse and manipulation, gaslighting and harm from me and her therapist said so.

I find this unlikely.   while it is true that all therapists are not 'good' ones, I find it rather unlikely that your Ex is accurately self reporting.   either in her conversations to her therapist and certainly not in her conversations with you.

I said our relationship was unhealthy, for sure, which was why I wanted to be friends instead. I want to be friends so I can be a consistent presence  for her child if at all possible so he does not feel abandoned by me, and because I love her very much and value her, and care about her, even though our relationship is too volatile for it to be healthy for me to continue.

I would strongly suggest that you stop having this conversation with her.    draw a boundary around it.    firmly but kindly state that unless there is new information to discuss you will not revisit who was abusive to who.   that it is time to move forward.     rehashing this is not good for either of you.    let her discuss it her therapist.   you should have no role in this topic any longer.

my two cents
'ducks

[ObsoleatSN]

I understand 100%. Going through the same accusations and false restraining orders and everything. I just wish my kids did not have to see this aspect of their mother. It's been just under 2-years and it's still not getting any better. We are still waiting on the court system to finalize our divorce. The constant restraining orders have prolonged this process for well over a year. I just want some closer and the have the opportunity to grieve rather than keep being brought back into fight/flight mode just to see my children.

I still constantly tier up thinking about the person who I thought I married. But everyone here is correct, that bubbly person never really existed and as much as I know that logically I am having a really hard time coming to terms with that.