It does not help that common friends" keep me updated about his whereabouts.
no, it doesnt.
when i was going through it myself, it didnt take much to trigger my ruminations, and certainly being updated about my ex would do it.
have you asked them to stop? part of detaching is actively taking steps to get the person out of your head on a day to day basis. its hard to do that when people are keeping us posted.
Like most of you I still somehow miss that person that I fell in love with and still have problems to accept that I fell in love with a fabricated fantasy since it felt so real back then.
i think if you make the determination that you "fell in love with a fabricated fantasy", it has a certain implication for your recovery that might increase your suffering.
now, i dont know more about your relationship than you present, or how long the two of you were together, but i would suggest that it was all very real. it just wasnt sustainable.
everyone, at the beginning of a relationship, puts their best foot forward, and, to an extent, we try to be the ideal version of ourselves to our new mate. people with bpd traits do this, just to a more extreme, and pathological extent. they over compensate for extreme fears about themselves, and about relationships.
on top of that, at the beginning of a new relationship, we all tend to idealize our partners, and see them with rose colored glasses. in other words, we project our own ideal image on a new partner. our ex partners do this as well.
so, to an extent, we all "fall in love with a fantasy". the vast majority of relationships do not survive that adjustment.
what you fell in love with, i would suggest, is complicated. there was a fantasy element, to be sure. and your partner may have turned out to be a more complicated person than you realized. but you were both there. you may have had different perceptions, but you both experienced the relationship together. it was all very real - it just wasnt sustainable.
Although I have been reading a lot and watched a ton of videos regarding the disorder there ist still this little voice in the back of my brain whispering: "And IF you were wrong? And IF he really loved you? And IF you'd just missed that one tiny bit to make the relationship work?"
Intellectually I know that nothing I could have done had prevented the separation, but I still miss him (or what I believed was him) a lot. How did you kill that dream? That obvious fantasy?
what if all those things are true? would it change the outcome?
you might be wrong. he might have really loved you. and there may have been something you could have done to improve the relationship.
but the relationship ended, regardless, for a reason, or reasons. something about it was broken, or incompatible.
for example, there were many, many things i could have done to improve my relationship. i learned them long after it ended. they would have helped. but they wouldnt have saved my relationship, because we werent meant to be. my partner was a very jealous person, and i could never really adjust to that very well. the accusations and snooping and the never ending interrogations, just take too high a toll on me, and i find them too unattractive. i could have coped better, far better, but its not something im built to live with. there were also things about me that my partner tried, but couldnt live with.
it ultimately helped me to see those things i could have done. it helps to clarify why and how my relationship broke down, from my perspective, and from hers. it helps to clarify why we werent built to last. and it helps me to learn the lessons i want to take into future relationships.
that is ultimately how you kill the dream. you realize to what extent the relationship was your own fabricated fantasy, and why ultimately, it wasnt sustainable. then you mourn it, grieve it completely, let it go, and learn the lessons you want to take into your next relationship.
