I'm not even sure on how I feel.

[keep_strong]

Sorry if this is long but I'm turning to this site in need of some strong advice, all my friends and family keep telling everything will be fine but I'm blind on seeing any light. This will be hard writing for me, but hopefully I get some feedback, thank you.

 

Me and my ex was together all in all around 2 and a half years. Firstly I met him after he broke up from a 5 year relationship, we dated 2 months, broke it off because of him still being in love with his ex. Around 9 months later he randomly messaged me asking me out for a drink, I accepted and we ended up together for a year and a half. When I met him for the drink, he was wonderful, we had a great night, shortly with my mother and father breaking up, my mother saw him as her own son and offered him to move in with us seeing as he was staying on a friends coach.

 

The first time he hit me was when he came home from a night out with lipstick on his face, as I put my hand on his face to turn it around to see properly.. He headbutted me. This was the first time ever, around July 2011. He came home from work early the next day, saw the bruises and pleaded to me how sorry he was etc. I forgave him.

 

It's so complicated how everything has worked out but this part is the most recent/detailed.

 

We got a apartment together in December 2011, things were hard, we both worked nights, struggled for money. A few days before I moved out I noticed his phone buzzing alot, one morning we had an arguement and I told him I was leaving back to my mum's house. He said fine, and so I moved out. The apartment was in my name with all the stuff and I agreed he could stay while I went to my mothers and while we had a break and some space.

A week later I went round to his after a night out, to find another girl in my bed with him, I went crazy, shouting and screaming, he pushed me down the stairs numerous times, strangled me until my neck was black, banged my head agaisnt a wall a few times, I couldn't brush my hair for a week with how sore I was. Police came around and we got shoved in a police cell for 12 hours.

 

After that, he dated this girl for 2 months, I met someone and dated him for a month. Me and the ex stayed in contact argueing one minute and showing our love the next. The moment he found out about me dating another guy and starting to move on, that's when my ex suddenly wanted me back.

 

In September 2012, He moved back into my mums with me, after much crying and talking and promising... my mum forgave him and that was that.

 

I bit my lip about how he pretty much cheated on me, yet he was so paranoid about the guy that I was seeing, he was accusing me every day about still talking to him, he wanted to check my facebook, my phone, he'd go mental if I didn't say how hot he looked one day, or how thankful I was for him making me a coffee... He constantly wanted to know if he was better than the guy I was seeing. We argued alot, when it got physical he would come home the next day and be sorry and showed me affection until another arguement started. Then the ultimate happened, the guy I was seeing ended up messaging me on Facebook randomly about a loan he took out while we was seeing each other, he asked how I was doing too. My ex saw this and went completely wild, screaming at me, I asked him to let me explain why he contacted me. Things got heated, I ended up throwing a lamp at his leg and before I knew it I was punched so hard I was nearly on the floor... He busted my eye right open, all he kept saying was 'Oh my god, your mum is going to see it' And she did, and kicked him out.

 

We've argued and declared love non stop on texts/facebook, We've blocked each other then unblocked each other. It's a nasty circle.

 

I've been meeting up and sneaking round to his up until last month. Had no contact up until last week I found out he took a girl out on a date, and he's speaking to her, He put everything about it up on facebook.... I was devastated.. I had to meet my ex yesterday to drop some of his stuff off, and I ended up having the night there, we talked and slept together. Now I'm sat here, and he's being quiet with me, I just have this feeling that he has changed and he's going to be happy with this other girl and change for her etc.

 

I know this is an abusive relationship, I know I can't have him back otherwise we might seriously end up hurting each other. I just keep blaming myself, I did hit back... but barely even hurt him. I don't know what I'm thinking or doing, I can't stop crying over this guy even though I've been to hell and back trying to figure him out and how much he's hurt me. I'm mentally broken down right now and I know the best thing to do is to delete everything and block everything and move on, but it's actually killing me inside and I feel so old even though I'm 23, and lonely, and the thought of not meeting anyone scares me. I know in my head I'm trying to delude myself that it wasn't his fault that he hit me, I wound him up to much, I sometimes used to point in his face which I KNEW he hated.

Whenever we have had a fight, I've become a screaming child, I've cried so loud and stomped around, lashing out at stuff, breaking stuff, that's when he's become violent, so is it my fault? I'm so confused... Before he cheated I was the one who doted on him, I did everything... Then after what he did, even though I got back together with him, I will admit, I didn't show my emotions as well as before, so is this why he stayed physical and didn't change?

He is my first love, which makes it alot harder, I will admit also, I did speak to guys online when he did something bad or we broke up for a week. Ugh.

But the amount of times I've found suspicous stuff on his personal stuff is also quite alot of times.

He's mentally getting to me more than anything, like... certain stuff he used to do, setting things he knows will make me jealous public on facebook.

I have my good days and bad days, but all in all it's pretty bad. I'm getting called a whore, a slut, that he'll be happy and I won't, I'll end up a single mother, I'm a liar... By the way, I never ever cheated or even looked at another guy while I was with my ex, I was besotted with him and bend hell backwards to do everything for him.

 

I've told all my friends and family what he's done... I hate myself for that because I know I would easily get back with him, I just feel like I'm making a massive mistake maybe in letting him go? I've imagined a family with this man for 3 years near enough and now I can't seem to shake it off my mind. What on earth should I do?

Please somebody knock some sense into me, thank you so much. X

Edited May 4, 2013 by keep_strong

[Downtown]

KS, the behaviors you describe -- i.e., temper tantrums, physical abuse, verbal abuse, flipping in seconds from loving you to hating you, and irrational jealousy -- are some of the classic traits of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). I therefore suggest you see a psychologist, for a visit or two by yourself, to obtain a candid professional opinion on what it is you are dealing with.

 

Having been married to a BPDer for 15 years, I can tell you that they are very easy to fall in love with. Moreover, because they flip back and forth between devaluing you and adoring you, it is easy to become addicted to them. That is, when they are treating you well, it is pure heaven. And when they are treating you badly, it is hell.

 

This toxic relationship therefore has all the characteristics of being addicted to heroine or cocaine -- the highs are ecstatic and the withdrawals are painful. On top of that, you will be mistakenly convinced that, if you can only figure out what YOU are doing wrong, you can somehow restore him to that wonderful guy you saw at the beginning -- an impossible task.

 

Not having met your BF, I cannot know whether his BPD traits are strong -- but I'm confident that you can learn to spot the red flags if you take time to read about them. An easy place to start reading about these warning signs is my post in Rebel's thread at http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/separation-divorce/275289-crazy-i-think-but-i-love-her-anyway#post3398735. It that description rings a bell, I would be glad to discuss it with you. Take care, KS.

[TaraMaiden]

Jeezuz kerrist his personality disorders be damned, you need to quit being victim and get a grip on yourself girl!

 

"The first time he hit me"

is when you should have shoved him to the kerb and never let him back into your life, again!

 

 

You need to delete Facebook and any possible way he has of contacting you, or getting through to you.

Read the No Contact Guide in my signature (see link - 1st post of thread) - in fact, print out several copies and let all your friends, relatives and 'good people' have a copy and tell them to drum it into you until you've memorised it.

 

Delete, deny block and obliterate.

Givew him absolutley no way in any wahy shapoe or form, to be able to connect with you. If necessary (and I would say this is a perfect example of what 'necessary' is) change your 'phone number.....

 

His metal problems are his mental problems.

you can't fix him, and forget about even trying.

Don't even think of helping him. Let him sort his own issues out.

 

he can go phukk himself.....

 

You?

You need counselling/therapy.

 

Big time.

 

Get help.

Get help to stop yourself pining and wanting him.

 

This isn't Love.

 

Read that again - you're not in love with him.

 

Your feelings for him are far more dangerous than that.

Succumb to them, and he could end up killing you.

 

Again, I say - get professional help for yourself.

[keep_strong]

Downtown - Thank you for your response. He does have something mentally wrong with him I knew that before anything physical got into it, He has a weird relationship with his father, his father seemed quite strict and whenever I used to point in my exes face was when he would hurt me, He told me it was because his father used to it and he once punched an officer in the army for doing it - Then he got kicked out. I've just read the post and the majority sounds alot like my ex, more so the explanation to the 'It seems when I beg for her to come back, she pulls away. When I let go, she's insisting I don't care and am just keeping her away because I don't love her'

 

I suppose alot of people don't think the mental abuse is more dangerous than the physical, I'm not saying physical is worse but I could deal with getting hit once a fortnight, and when I left I thought I'd be fine getting over it. But surprise to me, it's the mental abuse which has got to me alot worst.

 

Thank you again. Discussing sounds good, thank you thank you x

[keep_strong]

Thank you Tara, I know I'd never ever go back to him, I know he's poison and one day hopefully I'll start believing that this new girl he has on a string won't last long because of his behaviour.

 

I've woke up this morning, said what I needed to say, and blocked EVERYTHING. I've put all the stuff he bought me after hitting me into a box under my bed, and hopefully when I'm ready I'm going to go into the garden and burn it all, anything to make me feel better.

 

I've saved your NC rules and I'll be sure to read them if I ever get the urge.

By the sounds of it anyway he wants to leave me alone, he's met some new girl who isn't his type whatsoever, I know he's just getting her because he now knows I've seen what he really is, and he even said his fear of being alone is unbearable, new thing learned today... I will be fine, I've got the scar on my eye to remember never go back to that son of a ***** Thank you again!

[Downtown]

He even said his fear of being alone is unbearable.

KS, any person suffering from strong BPD traits absolutely HATES being alone. Due to the childhood trauma at about age 3 or 4, the BPDer's emotional development was frozen at that young age. This means that, at the very time he was trying to develop an integrated sense of who he is, the process was stopped -- leaving him with a fractured and fragile sense of self.

 

The result, if your exBF is a BPDer, is that he doesn't even have a "self" to keep him company when he is alone. He needs, at all times, to have someone around him with a strong personality -- to give him a sense of direction, to center him, and to ground him. This, by the way, is why your exBF likely fits in so well with a wide diversity of people, appearing to be just as comfortable around one type of person as another.

 

Yet, sadly, when you give him the direction and grounding that he craves, he will strongly resent you for doing so. He will feel you are controlling him and dominating him. This is not surprising, however. With any BPDer, you essentially have a parent/child relationship, not a GF/BF or wife/husband relationship. As with any young child, there is resentment when you assume the parental role to protect and guide them.

 

Finally, I note that -- if he is a BPDer -- it was his lack of a strong self image that convinced you he was your "soul mate" when you first met him. Because a BPDer has little sense of who he is, he has little sense of how he should be acting. He therefore will find someone he admires and mirror that person's personality -- even mirroring her likes and dislikes.

 

Generally, he doesn't do this to be manipulating. Instead, he's been doing it since early childhood as a way to fit in, be accepted, and be loved. This is why, if he has strong BPD traits, you may have noticed he will sometimes behave very differently around different people. And, as long as he was infatuated with you during the courtship period, he likely was just as convinced as you that the two of you liked all the same things and all the same people. When the infatuation evaporated, however, that illusion crumbled and his two fears (abandonment and engulfment) quickly returned.

He's met some new girl who isn't his type whatsoever

As I said, if he is a BPDer he has such a weak self image that he easily becomes whatever "type" he is around during the infatuation phase. This means that, for several months, he likely will be convinced she is his soul mate, just as he was convinced with you. Within 3 to 6 months, however, that infatuation likely will evaporate. Edited May 5, 2013 by Downtown

[keep_strong]

Thank you Downtown, alot of what you have said makes so much sense to me.

 

He also told me that I did keep him grounded, that because I wanted a family and to settle down etc. He also told me he couldn't cope without me, this is the sick thing about someone saying that, then the next sentence saying something different.

 

Last weekend, he told me one night that he'd met this girl, told me all the gory details, tried to make me jealous etc. I blocked him. Then the next morning he used another phone to text me and tell me that he missed me, loved me and missed our sex.. Then started going on about things we used to do in the 'bedroom' etc... It's like he's 2 people and I guess it become a struggle. He is a timebomb, walking on eggshells around him. His mood changed with the weather.

 

I did feel like mostly it was a parent/child relationship, I'm not sure on this but if I didn't make him his tea, or do his washing, or pretty much sort a situation out, then I was lazy, not good enough, didn't care about him. It's a hard thing to sort out in my mind. He was always up and down..

[Downtown]

This is the sick thing about someone saying that, then the next sentence saying something different.

If he has strong BPD traits, his self image is so fragile that he will be extremely uncomfortable with uncertainties, ambiguities, having mixed feelings, and any other grey areas. He therefore will shoehorn everyone into a black or white box so it is easier to know how to deal with them.

 

The result is that a BPDer will categorize everyone as "all good" or "all bad" and, in ten seconds, can recategorize someone from one polar extreme ("with me") to the other ("against me"). And that recategorization will be based on some minor thing said or done (or imagined).

It's like he's 2 people and I guess it become a struggle.

The black-white thinking is a form of "dissociation" which, at a stronger level, can lead to multiple personality disorder (now called "Dissociative Identity Disorder"). Because a BPDer can flip between loving you and devaluing you in ten seconds, living with him will feel like you're living with someone who is half-way to having a multiple personality disorder. Technically, it is not true because BPDers are not actually that close to having the other disorder. That nonetheless is how it feels when you are living around someone who switches between Jekyll and Hyde at the drop of a hat.

[i was] walking on eggshells around him.

It's good that you stopped. Stop Walking on Eggshells is the name of the best-selling BPD book which is targeted to the abused partners of BPDers.

[keep_strong]

Hmm so true, It's making sense. My ex would be totally different to certain people. It was weird, I used to stand in front of him watching him parade his charm to other people, my friends and family... I just used to think 'Why are you pretending?'

 

Because a BPDer can flip between loving you and devaluing you in ten seconds, living with him will feel like you're living with someone who is half-way to having a multiple personality disorder. Technically, it is not true because BPDers are not actually that close to having the other disorder. That nonetheless is how it feels when you are living around someone who switches between Jekyll and Hyde.

 

This is spot on, I used the term 'Jekyll and Hyde' with him ALL the time. One minute he was fine, I'd go nip to the supermarket, and when I got back, He was angry, worried, anxious, and paranoid of where I've been, he wouldn't tell me for ages what was wrong with him, he would make me do the whole 'Please tell me what's wrong' for ages... I would get so confused.

 

Downtown, can you explain why my ex used to this alot..

 

For instance, he would literally make stories up in his own head.

 

He told me once that I hadn't been out for a meal with friends, that I was actually meeting some other guy... he would pretty much tell me what 'HE' thought was going on... I got dressed, met a guy, lied about meeting friends... etc etc.

Whenever I proved he was wrong, he would be like 'Yeah whatever, anyway..' And then two minutes later he was fine.

 

Thank you again! You're helping alot x

[Downtown]

Downtown, can you explain why my ex used to this alot.. For instance, he would literally make stories up in his own head. He told me once that I hadn't been out for a meal with friends, that I was actually meeting some other guy...

You likely were witnessing his strong fear of abandonment. A key hallmark of BPD -- indeed, the very first of the nine symptoms on the DSM-IV list -- is "Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment." When a feeling -- such as infatuation or fear -- is intense, the human mind is hardwired to turn off its high level thinking and to shift instantly into black-white thinking.

 

This will be most evident to you when you are in a crosswalk and suddenly look up to see a truck bearing down on you. In that instance, you will be capable of thinking only "jump left" or "jump right." This "flight or fight" type thinking makes it impossible for us to do well reasoned analysis when we have intense feelings.

 

By the time you were in high school, you had had this black-white thinking occur so many hundreds of times that you already knew that , when you have intense feelings, your judgment goes out the window. This is why, whenever we get very angry, we try to keep our mouths shut -- and our fingers off the keys -- until we have a chance to cool down. And this is why, whenever we are infatuated, we try to wait a year or two before getting married.

 

BPDers, however, are too immature to have good impulse control. They therefore rarely keep their mouths shut. And they don't delay taking action until they have time to cool down. Moreover, their feelings get intense more frequently because, like a small child, they have little control over their emotions. On top of that, their feelings often are far more intense than what a mature adult experiences.

 

Further, a BPDer never learned the skill -- which the rest of us learned in childhood -- of intellectually challenging their intense feelings instead of accepting them as accurately reflecting reality. A BPDer therefore childishly accepts the intense feeling as "fact." His mind then tries to make sense of that "fact," producing one absurd rationalization after another.

 

If you make the mistake of trying to argue and reason with him, he will avoid embarrassment and humiliation by creating rationalizations. This is done because he is so filled with shame and self loathing that being proved wrong is extremely painful to him. Moreover, because the rationalization usually are entirely created in his subconscious, he will be firmly convinced -- at a conscious level -- that the nonsense coming out of his mouth is true.

 

If the unlikely event you persuade him that the accusation is false, he will replace it instantly with another accusation that is equally absurd -- because the intense feeling is still there. If you persuade him that the second claim is false too, he will immediately create a third. At that point, if you prove that the third is false too, he likely will immediately switch back to the very first accusation -- coming full circle. He then will argue the first accusation as though the lengthy discussion you earlier had about it simply never happened at all.

 

Remember, BPDers are not unique about this. We ALL do this irrational type thinking whenever we experience intense feelings. This is why we all know that our judgment goes out the window while we are very upset or infatuated. Indeed, we all exhibit all nine of the BPD traits occasionally, albeit at a low level if we are healthy. BPDers only differ from the rest of us by degree.

[keep_strong]

 

If the unlikely event you persuade him that the accusation is false, he will replace it instantly with another accusation that is equally absurd -- because the intense feeling is still there. If you persuade him that the second claim is false too, he will immediately create a third. At that point, if you prove that the third is false too, he likely will immediately switch back to the very first accusation -- coming full circle. He then will argue the first accusation as though the lengthy discussion you earlier had about it simply never happened at all.

 

this makes so much sense to me, I never even knew about BPD if I'm honest, I just thought he was sick, abusive and needed help.

 

such a daunting feeling having to live with someone who one minute is fine and the other minute he's not. thank you so much DT, i've been reading alot on BPD and it's making the situation easier to understand, he will never change without help.

[Downtown]

KeepStrong, are you doing okay? How are you doing in your healing process?