Just found out my recent ex was raped as a child

[reknown29]

My girl (ex) broke up with me recently. It was extremely painful and she was VERY cruel and cold about it. I was going through a serious hardship and she dumped me and said some very mean things to me. She suddenly hated me and acted like I was abusieve to her when I was so nice. I've been to therapy over it and have been consitent ewith it over the past couple months. So I meet her today and she tellsme that she was raped by her father as a child. The experience was so bad that she cant totally remember it. She said she has gone through therapy in the past and that she wants to continue.

 

During our relatinoship I always felt like she didnt care about me. She was cold and didnt take much effort in to getting to know me yet she talked about marraige and me being the one for her, etc. It was so confusing. then when I became "weak" (I had a nervous breakdown) she told me I am priviledged because of my upbringing and that she has had it so bad and I have no right to become "weeak with depressino or anxiety"... I feel like I have been emotionally abused.

 

I am doing much better now. She sees this and its as if she suddenly wants me again. I do not know what is going on. When she revealed to me the child rape, I told her that I am there for her and that I will do whatever she wants me to do for her such as go to therapy with her. Whatever she wants. She has been very greatful to me for reacting the way I did...

 

So my main question is, Can I expect a healthy relationship with this girl? She is very strong and seems to have come a long way with this. Also, the way she ended it and how absolutely cruel she was makes me very skeptical but I wonder if this was because of her experience and a possible communication problem between us. We had awful communication and I finally got her to admit it. If we did get back together I would make sure that we worked on communicated and even possibly seeing a therapist to help if needed. I really do love this girl and prior to the breakup she was always there by my side. I enjoyed her company and enjoyed exploring the world with her. I just dont know what is going on with her and if she will always be so cold and closed up. At the moment we are separated and she is dating and being intimate with another guy though she says it is just a sexual relationship. All this has caused me great pain, she still texts me all the time and wants to come over often. She says she really likes me. AFter all that has happened since the breakup, I am not sure if I should move on or stick around and try to see what happens with her treatment. I'm begining to think that she left me to save me from her... I have given her the keys to my heart... Its been broken yet I am being strong. I think we have moved forward with her telling me about the rape and me telling her about my dysthymia (genetic depression). It opened our eyes to why we both did certain things and were closed at times.

 

Now what? Does anyone know what I can expect from her unfolding the rape from her childhood? Will she be a different person? Is it a crap shoot whether or not she will like me?

[Downtown]

Renown, I'm so sorry to hear that you are in such pain over your on-again off-again relationship. I read your post and also went back to many of your earlier posts in many other threads. With respect to your exGF, you are describing a number of well known behavioral traits: the push-away and pull-back cycle, insecurity, inability to trust (e.g., jealousy), and all-or-nothing thinking (e.g., you are adored for a few weeks and then, in ten seconds, she switches to devaluing you for several weeks (or hours). These are only a few of the pattern of traits called BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder).

 

Whether such traits are sufficiently severe to meet the diagnostic criteria is a determination that only a professional can make. Moreover, even if her traits are severe, she would have to have several more (i.e., have at least 5 out of a total of 9) to be considered having BPD. That is, having only those few traits is not sufficient. Hence, if she has strong BPD traits, you likely would also be seeing others like emotional instability (i.e., inability to control her emotions well), anger issues (directed outward or inward), lack of impulse control (e.g., risky behavior), a weak sense of who she is (thus acting differently around different people).

she was VERY cruel and cold about it. I was going through a serious hardship and she dumped me and said some very mean things to me.

Extreme meanness is one of the hallmarks of a BPDer (i.e., a person with strong BPD traits). BPDers are capable of such meanness because the illness distorts their perception of your intentions and motivations. Specifically, due to the trauma in early childhood, they never were able to develop an integrated cohesive sens of who they really are. Instead, their self image is fractured, unstable, and weak. Because a BPDer never integrated the good and bad aspects of her personality, she is unable to tolerate gray areas, paradox, or ambiguity.

 

Instead, she is only comfortable with black and white, where everything is at one extreme or the other. Hence, she does all-or-nothing thinking in which she classifies everyone as either "all good" or "all bad" and, in just ten seconds, she can reclassify you from one category to the opposite extreme based solely on some harmless thing you do or say. This is why you never know what will trigger her rage to occur. And this is why you likely always had the feeling you were walking on eggshells while around her. Indeed, the most popular BPD book (targeted to "Non" partners like you and me) is called "Stop Walking on Eggshells."

She suddenly hated me and acted like I was abusive to her when I was so nice.

As I said, a BPDer can flip in ten seconds from splitting you white (adoring you) to splitting you black (hating you). The "flip" occurs when you do or say some harmless thing that triggers one of her two great fears: engulfment and abandonment. Because a BPDer has a weak self image, she is attracted to a man who has a strong self image and thus can serve to center and ground her. Yet, when that strong man draws close to her in intimacy, she starts feeling engulfed, suffocated, and controlled. She even feels like she is merging into him, losing what little bit of self image that she has. Because that feeling is very frightening, she pushes you away by creating an argument over nothing.

 

Yet, as you back off to give her breathing room, you will trigger her other great fear: abandonment. Hence, after a few days (or weeks or months), she will start reeling you back in by being especially caring and loving. At that point, of course, the push-away and pull-back cycle begins anew because it is endless. After spending 15 years trying to find the "Goldilocks" position between "too close" and "too far," I can tell you that the position does not exist -- or, if it does, it is a continually shifting knife edge.

I am doing much better now. She sees this and its as if she suddenly wants me again. I do not know what is going on.

What is likely happening is that you are now being sucked back into the toxic relationship. The Non partners ("Nons") call this phase of the cycle "Hoovering" because the pull is so great that it reminds them of a powerful vacuum cleaner.

I will do whatever she wants me to do for her such as go to therapy with her.

You cannot do anything to help her. Only she can make the decision to do the years of therapy needed to learn to control her emotions and manage her symptoms (the illness cannot be cured). It is rare for a BPDer to seek therapy and stay with it long enough to make a difference. Moreover, they have to really want it badly because the therapy is so painful for them. My exW, for example, did not really work at it. So, even though I paid for her to attend weekly therapy sessions for 15 years (with 6 different therapists), she did not improve.

I tell her she is to blame for not being a clear communicator. ....I'm like wtf, "if you really wanted it to work, we could have talked it out" (10/16 post).

If she has strong BPD traits, teaching her better communication skills likely will only result in her being better at controlling you. It will not cause the relationship to be less toxic to the two of you. The root problem, on her part, is serious damage that was done to her emotional core. That problem goes far beyond being deficient in communication skills. This is why a marriage counselor likely would be totally useless until she has years of training by a clinical psychologist who is experienced in treating BPDers.

Can I expect a healthy relationship with this girl? She is very strong and seems to have come a long way with this.

You cannot expect her to be capable of a healthy relationship for several years (probably at least five) of sustained therapy if she has strong BPD traits. One really big problem, for you, is knowing whether she is actually making any progress. That is difficult because, as you have already seen many times, she can suddenly split you white and start treating you like a prince. But it means nothing unless she is able to sustain it. That said, it is so rare for a BPDer to stay with therapy that, if your ExGF is doing so, that is a very encouraging sign.

If we did get back together I would make sure that we worked on communication and even possibly seeing a therapist to help if needed.

As I say, communication skills won't even come close to what is needed. Such skills will not make a dent in a BPDer's inability to trust, inability to regulate her emotions, and inability to appreciate your sacrifices for more than a week. Moreover, such skills do nothing to eliminate the enormous anger she has inside. And those skills will do nothing to make her grow up emotionally (her emotional development likely is frozen at about age four).

It was so confusing. then when I became "weak" (I had a nervous breakdown) she told me ... I have no right to become "weak with depressino or anxiety"... I feel like I have been emotionally abused.

Actually, you were emotionally abused. Such abuse is another hallmark of having strong BPD traits. Your willingness to tolerate such abuse in an effort to save her is a sign that you likely have traits of codependency like I do. Our problem is not our wanting to help people. That part is admirable. Our problem is that we are willing to keep doing it even when it is to our great detriment to do so. We do that because our desire to be needed (for what we can do) far exceeds our desire to be loved (for the men we already are).

I've been to therapy over it and have been consistent with it over the past couple months.

Your codependency is not the only problem. Being in a toxic relationship with a BPDer is so disorienting -- with her blaming you for every misfortune and flipping from adoring you to hating you in ten seconds -- that it is common for the Non partners to seek therapy, believing they are going crazy. This phenonemon is so common that, at the Non websites, it is called "gaslighting." It is named after the 1944 classic movie, "Gaslight." In that movie, a husband (Charles Boyer) tries to drive his new bride (Ingrid Bergman) crazy so he can have her committed to a mental hospital, allowing him to run off with her family jewels.

 

Significantly, you WILL heal from that confusion as long as you continue to stay away from her -- at least for a year -- in No Contact. While your confusion is clearing, you will have time to work on your codependency. That is extremely important because, until you work on that issue, you are at great risk of running right into the arms of another woman just like the one you left. That is, guys like us walk right past the emotionally available women and chose, instead, one of the wounded birds who is projecting vulnerability -- which, to us, is what catnip is to cats.

So I meet her today and she tellsme that she was raped by her father as a child.

According to a recent study of nearly 35,000 American adults, 70% of those diagnosed with BPD reported having experienced a trauma in early childhood (e.g., abuse or an emotionally unavailable mother). My exW, for example, was sexually abused by her dad for years when she was a child. So were her two sisters. All three of them grew up to have strong BPD traits. I note, however, that genetics is believed to also play an important role (which is why many abused children never develop BPD or any other PD).

she is dating and being intimate with another guy though she says it is just a sexual relationship.

BPDers hate to be alone. As I noted above, their weak self image causes them to seek out a man with a strong self image to center and ground them. On top of that, they have feelings that -- although very intense -- are nonetheless "shallow." That is, the intense feelings are fleeting and can radically change in ten seconds. This is why it is often said that a BPDer's feelings "are a mile wide and an inch deep." The result is that a BPDer usually is quick to find another mate when she decides to leave the first one.

 

As to her dumping you, I should note that a BPDer will dump a mate if she is engulfed or if her fear of abandonment is so great that, to end the pain, she preemptively abandons you before you have the chance to do it to her. Yes, yes, I know -- you will assure her that you will never leave. That assurance is worth nothing because, if she has strong BPD traits, she is incapable of trusting you for any extended period of time. Hence, she simply will not believe you.

 

Reknown, if this discussion has rung any bells, I suggest that you read my overview of such traits in Inigo's thread, where the first of my three posts starts at http://www.loveshack.org/forums/show...53#post2826453. Of those three posts, I believe you will find the second and third to be most useful because they provide a broad overview of typical BPDer behavior. If you have any questions, I would be glad to try and answer them. Take care of yourself, caregiver.

[reknown29]

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to make sense out of what I have been going through. I seem to always give the benefit of the doubt to her as my self-esteem has been shattered in the past. This makes me realize that I am not "crazy" and that there is something deeper going on as a result of what happened to my ex in her childhood.

 

You are right about my emotional co-dependency. I always go for the same types. I always seem to look for someone that I can "help", and when that doesnt happen I lose self-esteem and accept the abuse. I am putting an end to my own behaviours by building self-esteem and dealing with ongoing mild depression. this is the source of why I want to help someone. It breaks my heart to see someone else in internal pain... and of course she was the most beautiful woman I have seen, so there may be a degree of shallowness on my part. All this has been subconscious until this awful breakup that devastated me. I let it do so. From day one we used to discuss how emotionally frozen my ex was. It was completely excepted from the beginning by both of us. It now makes sense.

 

I m starting to feel greatful that this relationship was only a year long relationship and I did not go as far as marrying her, which was on the agenda. I'm just now feeling like I can walk away from this. What I really have to fight is the urge to help this wounded child that I see. Its heartbreaking, but I for once have to think of myself and my own issues which also require a long road to travel.

 

Thanks again for your help.