Trying to Make Some Sense of Things

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hello! First post. I’m hurting and confused and so it’s worth trying something new here to ask for help. A little context. I’m a middle-aged woman with, post amicable divorce with 2 kids, 14 and 8. I  have an excellent coparenting relationship with my ex. Still relatively fresh and evolving there as well. Anyways, I found the love of my life about 20 months ago. Actually, I’ll be honest and say she was my boss before that where we built up a foundation of trust and mutual respect and coaching. But from afar. Our relationship started when I visited her home in the UK. She identified as autistic right from the beginning (which never quite fit with me on a gut level).. Long story short, I think while autism may also be there…20 months later I’m almost certain she may have BPD as well/instead.  We’d talk on the phone for hours every day. Surface conversations didn’t exist. Everything was deep and personal and intense. She would trigger me regularly but somehow I’d take a deep breath, maybe find a translation key and then come back to love. I called it the rollercoaster. And surely I would trigger her but usually have no idea how that minor thing set off what it did. I’ll fast forward and say she moved in with me and it took 1 month to know we needed some other “how” to braiding our life together. We agreed to take a breather back in our respective countries before we went on a long vacation with her and the kids (same as last summer). Few days apart and she became suicidal — something that was a long part of her past history but first time she experienced it while we knew each other.i think this triggered something massive in her…I’ll say maybe shame when it came to me seeing it…but also maybe disappointment/resentment that being with me didn’t really take the darkness away. The next few days i got nothing and then a text saying she needs to heal herself and be on her own spiritual path…for now. It was more elegant and cold and loving simultaneously. And there are a million more details and gut feelings I haven’t included.This may sound like a normal breakup as I reread my post, but…ever have that bell that goes off in your head that resonates soul-recognizing truth. I remembered ONCE some flippant comment she made about BPD buried in a multitude of other things. I remembered this a couple weeks ago and started learning what I could. I swear, every symptom was spot on in retrospect (childhood abandonment trauma: she’d lost her mother when she was 6 and daddy was his own mess).And then I read about this concept of “splitting” and that also fit like a glove. Something about this helps me understand better. But I also feel like a fool for not seeing it. She told me she spent 20 years in psychotherapy Not that I’d leave her but maybe I could’ve had more prep/techniques in my pocket for the intensity of moving in together. I suppose I’m just devastated and confused. I found a note she put in my journal before she left….she knew she was going to be away for “a while” and then come back home to me.I dont know what to believe but I know I need to move through the pain and grief. Honestly I want her back more than anything but something in me says how can I ever trust her again when she put me out on the curb so suddenly and so easily. I’m sorry this post is long winded. And my questions for you are unclear. Think I’m looking for a community that’s had experience with what this feels like and how to cope. That woman is the absolute love of my life. And I’m not crazy when I know she feels the same but is terrified and in survival mode.Hoe do you move through this? Make some sense of this?

[Chicopee]

Hello! First post. I’m hurting and confused and so it’s worth trying something new here to ask for help. A little context. I’m a middle-aged woman with, post amicable divorce with 2 kids, 14 and 8. I  have an excellent coparenting relationship with my ex. Still relatively fresh and evolving there as well. Anyways, I found the love of my life about 20 months ago. Actually, I’ll be honest and say she was my boss before that where we built up a foundation of trust and mutual respect and coaching. But from afar. Our relationship started when I visited her home in the UK. She identified as autistic right from the beginning (which never quite fit with me on a gut level).. Long story short, I think while autism may also be there…20 months later I’m almost certain she may have BPD as well/instead.  We’d talk on the phone for hours every day. Surface conversations didn’t exist. Everything was deep and personal and intense. She would trigger me regularly but somehow I’d take a deep breath, maybe find a translation key and then come back to love. I called it the rollercoaster. And surely I would trigger her but usually have no idea how that minor thing set off what it did. I’ll fast forward and say she moved in with me and it took 1 month to know we needed some other “how” to braiding our life together. We agreed to take a breather back in our respective countries before we went on a long vacation with her and the kids (same as last summer). Few days apart and she became suicidal — something that was a long part of her past history but first time she experienced it while we knew each other.i think this triggered something massive in her…I’ll say maybe shame when it came to me seeing it…but also maybe disappointment/resentment that being with me didn’t really take the darkness away. The next few days i got nothing and then a text saying she needs to heal herself and be on her own spiritual path…for now. It was more elegant and cold and loving simultaneously. And there are a million more details and gut feelings I haven’t included.This may sound like a normal breakup as I reread my post, but…ever have that bell that goes off in your head that resonates soul-recognizing truth. I remembered ONCE some flippant comment she made about BPD buried in a multitude of other things. I remembered this a couple weeks ago and started learning what I could. I swear, every symptom was spot on in retrospect (childhood abandonment trauma: she’d lost her mother when she was 6 and daddy was his own mess).And then I read about this concept of “splitting” and that also fit like a glove. Something about this helps me understand better. But I also feel like a fool for not seeing it. She told me she spent 20 years in psychotherapy Not that I’d leave her but maybe I could’ve had more prep/techniques in my pocket for the intensity of moving in together. I suppose I’m just devastated and confused. I found a note she put in my journal before she left….she knew she was going to be away for “a while” and then come back home to me.I dont know what to believe but I know I need to move through the pain and grief. Honestly I want her back more than anything but something in me says how can I ever trust her again when she put me out on the curb so suddenly and so easily. I’m sorry this post is long winded. And my questions for you are unclear. Think I’m looking for a community that’s had experience with what this feels like and how to cope. That woman is the absolute love of my life. And I’m not crazy when I know she feels the same but is terrified and in survival mode.Hoe do you move through this? Make some sense of this?

[kells76]

Hi Chicopee and a warm *welcom*

The pain you're going through sounds intense. The highs of that relationship were probably pretty high, and the lows sound pretty low. That's a lot to experience.

A lot of times, making sense of a breakup where BPD might be involved ends up being less about making sense of them, and more about making sense of us. Turning the spotlight on ourselves is sometimes a novel thing to do. It's so easy to be distracted by "why did she do X, she said A but then B, she said I was the love of her life and then treated me like trash"... we can spend time on trying to "decipher" them when the real puzzle might be us, and what led us to that relationship.

Like you said, you're hoping to find a community that "gets it" and can walk with you as you learn to cope. That's definitely this group  BPD relationships and breakups have an out-of-the-norm intensity and we'll be here for you as you process.

A couple of good places on the site to check out are our Tools/Skills threads on After The Breakup, and our article on Surviving a Break-up when Your Partner has Borderline Personality. If you have a chance, take a look at those -- what stood out to you?