Is there anything I can do? Need help or advise

[Fandb182]

So long story short me and my bpd ex had a big fight 18th of January...
Found out she was triangulating with a "don't worry he is just a friend"

So naturally I freaked out and told her that's absolutely not okay for me in a relationship, was furious angry packed my stuff and left (we were living together for 4 months in relationship for 10month...

But here's the thing....I still very much love her....

Tried to reach out multiple times  if we could speak this through and meet up but no

All I get is anger
Blaming me for everything
She doesn't have trust
Projection
Gaslighting
She is the victim

Blocked me on messenger but not on Facebook?!

Sent her some chocolate on valentine's day to her work and a little quote we share from the little prince

Her response? I'm gonna throw it into the bin stop stalking me I'm gonna block your number and tell the police

I was like wtf? She always told me I was the kindest to her out of all the guys.....but now I'm a threat?!

Anyway 5 days later I sent her a happy bday message and it went through but no reply ever since

I don't know what direction to take.... I tried to fix it but it seems like it pushed her more away...

Should I wait for her to reach out?
She hasn't blocked my phone number yet and she keeps peeping on my Facebook stories even tho messenger is blocked.
(We are not friends but there's always 1 "others" watching my story which I didn't had before)

Please any advice would be great thank you

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[HurtAndTired]

Hi Fandb182,

I have been with my dBPDw for 12 years. All of the symptoms you describe are very familiar to me. However, my wife (at least to my knowledge) is not of the cheating/flirting variety of BPD, but rather of the jealous/accusing ME of having imaginary affairs type. To my wife, the appearance of having an affair would rob her of the moral high ground that she uses to justify her abusive behaviors. I'm not sure which side of that spectrum is worse, but they both suck.

Back to your specific situation. It sounds like your BPD ex has split on you. Due to her black-and-white thinking (BPD splitting), you are now "bad." You have always been bad. You will always be bad. She can't believe that she was with someone bad like you in the first place. This will last until she splits on you again and you will be "good." Once you are good it will be clear to her that you are good, you have always been good, and you always will be good..until the next time she splits you as "bad." The cycle will go on and on.

I suggest you read some of the resources available on this site to learn about the BPD relationship cycle. It sounds like you are in the final or discard phase of a BPD cycle. Often, at this point, the cycle will reboot to the first stage and there will be another, but much shorter, honeymoon phase when the pwBPD tries to reach back out to the person they have pushed away and begs them not to leave. Rinse and repeat. All you can do in the final cycle where she has indicated, pretty strongly, that she wants no contact, you have done. She understands that you want to get back together. At this point, I would suggest that you give her the time and space she needs to miss you and let her reach back out to you. The last thing you want to do is to push too hard and get a restraining order placed on you.

BPD relationships are all about a "pull" and "push" dynamic. They will pull you in close because they can't stand to be alone/feel abandoned but then will push you away because when you get too close they fear that they will lose their fragile sense of self by being "engulfed" in you. It is exhausting. Only by constantly pulling you toward them and then pushing you away can they keep you in their "Goldilocks Zone," not too close but not too far away...just right.

If you can get back together with your ex. I would recommend that you read up on using communication techniques (also available under resources here) such as SET (Support, Empathy, Truth) and DEAR MAN. Learn about how to validate, or rather, not be invalidating when listening to and responding to a pwBPD. People with BPD require an enormous amount of validation. Most importantly, learn how to set and maintain your boundaries and stick with them. People with BPD have a really hard time respecting boundaries so partners of pwBPD need to have very well-defined and strong boundaries for the good of both people in the relationship. I recommend the book "Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life" by Margalis Fjelstad.

My weak boundaries led to my wife's increasingly abusive behaviors (if he didn't call the cops when I slapped him, I guess it must be ok to kick him next time, etc.) In a way, you are in an enviable position here. You may be able to recover this relationship and, because it is fairly new, do things in the right way to avoid many of the pitfalls that many of us who have been in a partnership with a pwBPD for years have learned about the hard way...over and over again. What I wouldn't give to be able to go back in time and place strong boundaries around physical, verbal, mental, emotional, spiritual, and sexual abuse. I could be in a much better place in my marriage if I had done the work that I am doing now years ago. You have a chance to avoid all of that, but you mustn't chase your pwBPD to the point of losing your dignity.

People with BPD often want you to beg and grovel when they discard you or give you the silent treatment. In their own dysfunctional way, this gives them validation that they are loved and that you won't abandon them. However, if you continue to JADE (Justify, Apologize, Defend, and Explain) everything to them, they will keep you caught up and tied to them through the FOG (Fear, Obligation, and Guilt) of a trauma bond rather than a relationship based on mutual affection, respect, and trust.

Finally, welcome. You have found a great place to be in a dark time in your life. The people here care, deeply. They have all been where you are now. You are not alone. You are not crazy. The people here want to help.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. To paraphrase a friend on these boards, don't forget to take good care of yourself while you are dealing with all of this. If you don't take care of yourself, you will be in no position to care for anyone else.

HurtAndTired

[Fandb182]

Thank you so much for your reply.... It really does help to read it through

Especially since the whole situation is so weird in a way like they fear abandonment so naturally you want to chase and prove to them but at the same time you are devil himself who can't do anything right.

I do miss her but I'm starting to not feel that anxious, but still getting caught in the whirlwind of thoughts that what can I do to progress, which is insane since she was the one talking to another guy.

But thank you for your reply you helped reassuring me that sit tight and let her initiate now.

[Fandb182]

Also is there a certain time frame? I know this sounds desperate.....but I miss her I want to know she's fine but I can't initiate anything as long as I'm being painted black....

[Fandb182]

I do miss her today .......


It's really hard to think that she doesn't miss me doesn't want to talk, and I'm the worst person in her eyes rn even though I was always there for her when she needed me.

My heart pounds every time a notification lands, wishing it was her.

I'm probably delusional probably an idiot that want to have such a toxic and selfish person back in my life....

But I want to....

Do they ever come back? Do I ever get painted white again?

I just want to hold her in my arms and tell her everything is gonna be alright

[rattled64]

HurtandTired descibes the situation more with my pwBPD. She has over the years had over the top misplaced jealosy. Once it was with a young woman who was part of a very tightly knit team I was leading through a very challenging project. As our relationship got more serious, it was with a very close long friendship of mine with a woman who I admire who had divorced her husband, then friends of mine for many years.  It even bordered on the absurd, when she would hear about my "favorite" cousins, which repeated itself twice - once on my mothers side of the family and once on my fathers. Unfortunately, I was so entrhalled with the relationship and I guess had rose colored glasses, because I minimized those relationships, and feel a sense of loss from it now.

She has however exhibited somewhat similar behavior on another front. She goes to a support group and her therapist has told her to seek other relationships to lean on for support instead of leaning on just me all the time. While this should be a healthy thing, due to her splitting behavior, she goes out of her way not to share things with me where I can and want to support her. I have pointed out to her many times that I desparately want to support her but cannot do that if she is attacking me and all I ask is to stop constantly making me the enemy.  This seems not to even register even when I repeatedly try to get her to focus on not sabotaging my ability to support her. It is like she cannot cognitively comprehend it.

[HurtAndTired]

Hi Fandb182,

I'm so sorry that you are having a rough time of it this weekend. For a short answer to your question, it could be a day, a week, a month, a year, or never until you are "painted white" again. My wife can, and has, split on me for months at a time. A little more detail here. We need to distinguish between splitting and dysregulation. Dysregulation happens when a pwBPD loses control over their emotions, often their very negative emotions. When a pwBPD is dysregulated it is impossible to reason with them. They are pure emotion and it is often best to make a strategic retreat (this is when my dBPDw says terrible things or even physically attacks me.) Something along the lines of "I can see that you are very upset right now, let's take a break from this discussion and come back to it (insert time period) when we have both had a chance to calm down and get control of ourselves."  For my dBPDw, it can take one to two sleep cycles before she is regulated again and can have a normal conversation.

BPD splitting, on the other hand, is a defense mechanism that pwBPD use to protect themselves. This is, as I understand it, a leftover from a very early emotional developmental stage that they have never progressed past.  A toddler thinks in absolutes. Something is bad or good. There is no in-between. As the child gets older they are able to see people and situations in more nuance (i.e. this person is a good person who has done something bad, etc.). PwBPD usually do not progress to this stage of being able to see in shades of grey because they were emotionally wounded/stunted at such an early age. Usually by caregivers. Splitting can and usually does happen when the pwBPD is dysregulated, but the split can and does continue after the pwBPD re-regulates as a mid to long-term strategy to protect themselves from someone or something that they have deemed dangerous.

To make things even more complicated, when a pwBPD "splits white" on you it will never be with the same intensity that they initially had for you in the honeymoon stage, often called "love-bombing." My dBPDw "splitting white" on me, after 12 years together, looks more like she grudgingly can admit that I'm not the terrible monster that she had previously thought me to be, but I'm still a pretty dangerous person to care about because I am so far from the fictionally perfect person that she fell in love with. That perfect version of me never existed. I am just a regular human who makes regular mistakes and is far from perfect. No person, not even a saint, can ever live up to the false "perfect person" that the pwBPD imagined you to be by ignoring all of your normal human faults during the "love bombing" phase.

My question for you is are you in individual counseling/therapy? It is my experience that we "non" partners of pwBPD usually have a host of issues of our own that we need to work on aside from our relationship with the pwBPD. Many of us have co-dependant or caretaker traits that we need to work on. This is what leads us to have weak or non-existent boundaries. For example, most "normal" people will split as soon as their partner starts screaming and swearing at them. If not the first time, they will after several repetitions. Ditto with physical violence. Most "normal" people draw a hard line at getting hit. Why do we not? Why do we stay? Why do we tend to attract the same kind of people over and over again? What is it about a "normal" relationship that doesn't feel quite right to us? When you can find the genesis of your whys, you will be several steps closer to being a healthy, non-co-dependent non-caretaker you.

My "why" is that my late paternal grandmother was uBPD and my grandfather was her caretaker. This influenced how my father interacted with my mother. Even though my mother does not have a personality disorder, my Dad's "normal" relationship template was to defer to his wife in everything when there was any type of conflict. This in turn led to me having my own dysfunctional template for what a "normal" relationship looks like. My default was to avoid conflict and have virtually no boundaries when it comes to intimate relationships. What a path of misery that has led me down! Now that I am a father, I am trying to break the cycle so that my own two-year-old son does not grow up thinking that dysfunction is "normal."

If you are able to get back together with your uBPDx, I would suggest that this individual counseling for you would allow you to redefine the parameters of the relationship to make them less volatile for both yourself and your ex. Individual counseling with a therapist who specializes in BPD and other cluster B personality disorders will also help you to work on communication tools that you can use to diffuse tense situations and how you can put into place strong boundaries that protect you from emotional, mental, and physical harm.

I am sorry that I don't have easy answers for you, but this is not an easy situation. A relationship with a pwBPD is a long, hard slog. I am working on being responsible for my own happiness apart from my wife. Her happiness is her responsibility and mine is my own. This is healthy. Relying on another person for your happiness is dysfunctional. I do this through self-care. I visit friends and family (I was isolated from them by my dBPDw at one point), I listen to my music, I read, I spend time playing with our son. When my wife is upset with me, I remind myself that I did not cause this, I cannot control this, I cannot cure this. I give myself permission to not be responsible for her mood. That is her responsibility.

I then try to go on about my life as normally as I can while keeping my interactions with her positive-neutral. Will she ever get treatment? Will it ever help? These things are out of my control. I will continue to police my side of the street and do what I can from my half of the relationship. This is all I can do. Maybe it will be enough, maybe it won't. Only time will tell. However, I have determined that I am taking control of my life back. I can and will not let her dysfunction have me walking on eggshells. I will do this with love, but I will do it firmly and consistently. My number one duty is to take care of our son, and I cannot do that if I am a mess. Therefore I have to take care of myself first so that I will be in a position to do so. What are you doing for self-care during this tough time? What does your support network look like?

Please let me know if there is any other advice I can give or any questions that you have that I can help with. Stay strong, work on yourself, and take care of you. If and when your ex comes back, let her find a stronger and better version of you than she remembers.

HurtAndTired.

[Fandb182]

I'm visiting a therapist now and it seems like (according to him) that I'm a caretaker.
Both my mother and father is a Doctor, all I've seen through my life is that they help people without without questions.
Which I always thought is a noble honourable thing.

I really had no real issues in relationships up until now only with this girl.

We used to work together and I saw someone helpless, upset, and sad. And wanted to help her out as a friend at first.

To be fair at first I didn't even found her attractive.
But it evolved over time.

I read a lot about the subject lately she wasn't really the super love bombing type but I did feel good to help her, guide her, almost like a father figure.

Of course I ignored every red flag possible I'm not gonna lie.
-she literally never asked me how I was
-if I was sick it made her angry
-my bday was a total mess her leaving alone to Germany to see her brother...I wasn't allowed to come since she had a minor fight about some stupid curtains that escalated to oblivion(although we bought the tickets together)
- one day she would tell me she hates my jacket the other day when I would change to another she said she loved the one that she previously said she hated.
-we were never allowed to post anything together on Facebook.

Just to name a few but for every horrible action there were amazing times and amazing actions too.

I did started to feel tho that nothing is good enough for her lately, nothing makes her happy...asking simple question like hows she's doing at the morning mad her outburst.

She felt always low and negative.
At the beginning of December I started to doubt that this can work...but nice times came and we traveled to Germany to see her brother at Christmas.

Her brother told me I'm the first one in 3 years that has been introduced to the family.

I felt special again and saw the light...an improvement....some growth and felt special.

That was until January when I could utterly sense her drifting away...messages been left on read for hours while prior she would message me back..... And little things that I could tell something is not right.

And I know most of the beginning was mirroring, but the thing is between those harsh words,gaslighting,swearing,silent treatments I saw a beautiful person behind those walls and fears, that's why I was commited and still commited.

I must admit during the end I got a bit tired......lots of work during Xmas was mentally and physically exhausted. And during those times I became some sort of BPD myself a little bit.....always looking for signs walking on eggshells....asking to reciprocate affection. Had a couple of outbourst when she would put me through silent treatment for days!!!

I do know it sounds ridiculous and any normal person who would see this written down would say I'm mad that I want her back.
But I would go for a second round now that I realized she is BPD, read through all the forums and books armed with knowledge.

Would it be sufficient? Probably not on the long run if she remains untreated but it would worth s try for me.

So I hope one day Im gonna have the chance to fix my mistakes in the relationship.....it's so weird since I did mistakes too but nothing that in a normal relationship couldn't handle in my opinion.

In the meantime I'm gonna study and get myself back to the mentally stabil place when we first met.
The person I was before all of this....A bastion.

But I hope she cycled back

[Fandb182]

About the boundary subject

I did made the mistake that I lowered it for her a lot lower that I would normally feel comfortable with.

Maybe I thought it would make her more happy more intimate, never imagined it would be turned against me.

Never gonna forget a night when she had a moment or clarity.... About what kind of damage she inflicts on people around her.....she was crying like a baby for 2 hours straight....you know the type of crying when they can barely breath...a 30 year old woman we are talking about

I should of listened what she said back then but it was the dating phase nothing serious I thought she is just exaggerate cause at that moment it was just all self hatred.

And even now I don't hate her.
Am I disappointed? Of course.
But I don't and won't hate her.

[Fandb182]

I know I'm writing too much but hey at least people here know exactly what I struggle with

Feeling a bit alienated sometimes to talk about this with friends, since they can only say you worth more and better and they are right to some degree.
But still...

I'm a logical person and a problem solver. I wish I knew about BPD before all of this

You see if you have a headache take a pill, if something is bothering you talk it through and express your feelings about it don't let it consume you.

I unconsciously invalidated her feelings in the past. And although I had the best intentions now I know feelings=/ logic with them.

I always felt like the more progress we made the closer we got the further we drifted away.

Even our last communication which was 12th of January she accused me of all the stuff that in reality she was doing to me

I'm childish
I can't control my mood swings
She doesn't have trust
She doesn't want to be analized
She doesn't feel loved and validated

And it's hard since she was everything for me and tried to be the best.
For the first whole month after the B/U I was blaming myself...maybe I could of done more or better.

But deep down I knew that if someone would of gave me that much that I gave her I would of been the happiest person on earth.

[HurtAndTired]

Fandb182

I'm visiting a therapist now and it seems like (according to him) that I'm a caretaker. Both my mother and father is a Doctor, all I've seen through my life is that they help people without without questions.
Which I always thought is a noble honourable thing.

Helping people is a noble and honorable thing. However, being a caretaker and being a doctor are two very, very different things. A doctor cares for those who are sick/hurt and are in need and are incapable of caring for themselves. They do it because they feel called to do so, because they are compensated for it, and because they are able to provide care in a safe, professional manner. A caretaker is someone who cares for someone who should be able to care for themselves. It's important to know the difference between caring for someone and caring about someone.  Caring for someone is what you do for an invalid or a small child. A healthy adult who is of sound mind and body should be able to care for themselves. We are called to care about other adults, not to care for them.

I imagine that if a patient treated your parents the way your ex treated you they would call for security to remove the patient. Doctors have, and must have, healthy boundaries for their protection. This is also why doctors do not typically treat friends and family. They must maintain a professional distance from their patients.

I read a lot about the subject lately she wasn't really the super love bombing type but I did feel good to help her, guide her, almost like a father figure.

This is a huge red flag to me about the nature of the relationship. You should read about the Karpman drama triangle as it does a really good job of describing the dynamics in a BPD relationship. The three positions are savior/rescuer, victim, and persecutor. The pwBPD is always most comfortable in the victim position. When you first get into the relationship you will be in the savior/rescuer position. While you are occupying this position and the pwBPD is in the victim position you will hear a lot about how other people in the pwBPD's life are mistreating/abusing them. Thank goodness you have come along to save them! They have been waiting for so long to find someone like you! You are so different from those who came before you!

Unfortunately, this dynamic cannot last. Eventually, you will be shifted into the persecutor position, even if you have done nothing wrong. This is because the pwBPD's fragile ego cannot handle taking responsibility for the bad things in their lives. They are constantly blame-shifting. It is why you so rarely hear them say they are sorry...it's because they never do anything wrong! They really, really want you to be their savior, but since you are human and not perfect they will eventually start to shift blame onto you which pushes you (in their mind) into the persecutor position. This is when they will perhaps start to triangulate and bring a third person into the dynamic so that the new person can serve as the savior/rescuer who can save them from you (now the persecutor.) If no third person is brought in, you will simply vacillate back and forth between the savior and persecutor as the situation dictates.

The fact that you feel like a father figure also says a lot about her need for re-parenting. Many pwBPD were abused and/or abandoned by a parent at an early age. This causes them to constantly look for a partner who will fill in the part of the parent that caused the wound so that they can be re-parented and heal the childhood wound. This very rarely works and is not a healthy basis for an adult romantic relationship.

And I know most of the beginning was mirroring, but the thing is between those harsh words,gaslighting,swearing,silent treatments I saw a beautiful person behind those walls and fears, that's why I was commited and still commited.

The beautiful person you saw was truly her. The hateful screaming mean person you saw was also truly her. When she said she loved you, she truly meant it. When she said she hated you, she truly meant it. Both sides are her. Both sides are true. There is no "true her" hiding underneath the "mask." There is no "mask." It is all just her. PwBPD cycle between black and white thinking and so whatever they are feeling in that moment is true for them and they really mean it. When my wife says that she hates me, wishes she never met me, and wishes I was dead she means it. When she says that she loves me and begs me not to leave and break up our family, she means it too. It's hard to understand because this is so alien to how a "non" thinks. We cannot switch back and forth between love and loathing and back again in the course of a day, pwBPD can and do.

The truth is that pwBPD don't really know who they are. They need other people to have a sense of self. For "nons" our sense of self is something that we develop early in life and it is fairly stable throughout our entire lives. This is why you can meet a dear friend from childhood and although the circumstances of your individual lives have taken very different paths you still find them to be the same person at their core. Often times old friends who have gone a decade or more without seeing each other remark that it's like they pick up the conversation "right where they left off" and feel like "only a day or two has passed rather than 20 years." This weak sense of self is a major symptom of BPD and it is a reason why it is so hard to get to know the pwBPD, they don't really know themselves. In fact, their "self" is amorphous and constantly shifting. If they make a new friend who loves yoga, they may find themselves being a yoga person too. Once that friendship fails, they are no longer a yoga person.

Much of what we see in our pwBPD is a mirage. They are not trying to deceive, it's just that they don't know who they are and must mirror others to approximate a sense of self.

It sounds like you are going through an immense amount of pain. I know the feeling all too well. My advice to you is going to sound counterintuitive, but so much of a relationship with a pwBPD is counterintuitive. I advise you to become emotionally independent from her. I'm not saying that you should not get back together with her, but that if you get back together with her let it be a conscious choice rather than a "need." A strong, independent person is ok being single. When someone comes along who can build a relationship based on mutual respect and affection, it's just the cherry on top of an already complete life. A romantic relationship should be a happy addition to your otherwise complete life rather than what you need to feel complete.

In my mind, one of the most destructive myths that we have told ourselves is the myth of "the other half." This belief states that we are not whole until we find our "other half" or "soul mate." This is a rather new concept. For most of human history love and marriage was a much more practical institution. The idea that we are only "half a person" can lead people into terrible and self-destructive depression and behavior. It can keep us trapped in terrible relationships or make us feel desperate to find someone so as to not "be alone."

Through my journey with my wife, I have found that to be healthy, I need to not need her. It would be great if she were able to be the partner that I want, but if she never gets help and our relationship never improves past the point of "no abuse civility" I'd be content with that. I have the love of my family, my son, my friends, my dog, my students, the other parishioners at my church, and God. There are so many kinds of love, including loving one's self, that make the world an amazing place to be. I am going to continue to be the best me I can be and find my happiness in so many different areas of my life. If my wife happens to give me some affection here and there..bonus! But my point is that I don't hinge my happiness or misery on whether or not I am painted black or white by my wife. I did that for many, many years and the end result is pure misery and a loss of self.

Ironically, the less we "need" our pwBPD the more it makes us attractive to them. If they know you are strong enough to not need them, there will be a whole lot more pull and a lot less push in the push/pull BPD dynamic. This is not to say we should be independent to manipulate our pwBPD, but that being independent is necessary to being a whole and happy person. The fact that it will take a lot of the drama out of your life and remove a lot of the power that the pwBPD has over you is just a big bonus.

HurtAndTired

[Fandb182]

This is a huge red flag to me about the nature of the relationship. You should read about the Karpman drama triangle as it does a really good job of describing the dynamics in a BPD relationship. The three positions are savior/rescuer, victim, and persecutor. The pwBPD is always most comfortable in the victim position. When you first get into the relationship you will be in the savior/rescuer position. While you are occupying this position and the pwBPD is in the victim position you will hear a lot about how other people in the pwBPD's life are mistreating/abusing them. Thank goodness you have come along to save them! They have been waiting for so long to find someone like you! You are so different from those who came before you!

Unfortunately, this dynamic cannot last. Eventually, you will be shifted into the persecutor position, even if you have done nothing wrong. This is because the pwBPD's fragile ego cannot handle taking responsibility for the bad things in their lives. They are constantly blame-shifting. It is why you so rarely hear them say they are sorry...it's because they never do anything wrong! They really, really want you to be their savior, but since you are human and not perfect they will eventually start to shift blame onto you which pushes you (in their mind) into the persecutor position. This is when they will perhaps start to triangulate and bring a third person into the dynamic so that the new person can serve as the savior/rescuer who can save them from you (now the persecutor.) If no third person is brought in, you will simply vacillate back and forth between the savior and persecutor as the situation dictates.



This is sooooooo true. There was always someone evil either at work, family, or friend or person on the street who mistreated her all day every day, like the whole world was against her. drama upon drama.

And yeah she always had to be right about anything and everything. No middle ground you are either on my side or not.

[Fandb182]

Also does the prosecutor (me ATM) ever gets to be the knight in shining armour again?

I mean it seems not unless she finds an even greater evil.....

And just for reassurance I should not contact her by any means. I know she watches my Facebook so I should live my life to the fullest and hopefully she will circle back one day?

[HurtAndTired]

In short, no.

Once you have been moved into the persecutor position you may be rotated back into the rescuer position, but you will never be a "perfect knight in shining armor" again. Each time the BPD relationship cycle repeats, the pwBPD tends to treat you worse and worse. The initial honeymoon period is gone for good and is never coming back.

The important thing to understand here is that you should not want to be the knight in shining armor.

This is not realistic and is not part of a healthy relationship. It is instead indicative of a co-dependent/caretaker relationship. You cannot save/fix someone!

Let's break down what you have told me so far.

• You were just friends to begin with and were not even that attracted to her.
• You saw someone who was sad and needed help and started the relationship (friendship) specifically to help her
• You feel a need to be a father figure/re-parent her
• Your therapist has told you that you are a caretaker
• She saw you as a savior to fix all of her problems, which of course you couldn't (no one can but her.)
  
• She now blames you for all of her problems
• You lowered boundaries for her, which you acknowledge is unhealthy
• She doesn't trust you, even though you are trustworthy
• You have been verbally, mentally, and emotionally abused (name calling, gaslighting, silent treatment, etc.)
• Your feelings are unimportant or annoying to her/It always has to be about HER feelings
• She has cut off contact with you
• She has now triangulated the relationship by bringing in someone to "rescue" her from you

All of these things point to a very unhealthy co-dependent/caretaker relationship dynamic. This will just cause you endless misery if you do not address them from your side. If you get back together, and the relationship dynamics do not change things will only get worse. You have a golden opportunity to work on yourself during this time. I know you say that these things have never been a problem in previous relationships, but it seems like they could be in a reconnected relationship with this person, or another relationship with a new person if this does not work out. You owe it to yourself to work on you so that you do not fall into this relationship dynamic again, whether with your ex or with a new partner.

The reason that you should not want to be in the "rescuer" position of the Karpman Drama Triangle is because the Karpman Drama Triangle is the diagram of a dysfunctional relationship. No position in this triangle is good. You need to exit the triangle by learning how to not get caught up in BPD drama in the first place.

I really hope that you read "Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life" by Margalis Fjelstad." This is your blueprint for going forward with this, or any other, relationship to ensure that you are not being abused.

Finally, remember that you only have control over you. You can work on you, but there is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, that you can do to change or fix her. Your new mantra needs to be:

I did not cause this, I cannot control this, I cannot cure this.

I know it is hard, but you need to put your self-care first right now. This relationship will either sort itself out or not. You have no control over that. The only thing you can control is the terms on which it reboots if and when it does reboot. Until then, focus on yourself and try to not worry so much about her. Remember that you are responsible for your own happiness.

Take care of yourself and check back in regularly. We want to know that you are ok and getting better.

HurtAndTired

[Fandb182]

Just started the audiobook and thank you so much for your help and support.

And I'll keep updating if anything changes

[Fandb182]

So I was doing okay for a week....not well but okay...

Last communication on 19th of February initiated by me telling her happy bday.

Radio silence ever since.
She does look at my stories on Facebook....

I want to believe that deep inside I meant something for her.

I saw her today..... She works nearby I was buying groceries and saw her going to work.she didn't see me.

Unbelievable..... She was in my arms a couple of months ago..... And now can't even see or speak to me....

And although I tried to make up it feels like I was actually dumped....

I want to contact her with every fiber in my body.....call I co-dependence, trauma bond, caretaker, or love. But I miss her.

But i know deep down I did everything to resolve the situation and she needs to make the first step now.

Just reassure me please.....