She wants to get back together after rebound....

[idoltree]

I think it has to do with the fact that this was my first relationship.

 

Ahhh. It all makes sense now. Yes, you have little experience for what is expected, and that is totally normal.

 

Here's something to remember for this ex-relationship and the new relationships you will move onto: once you break up, it's done. If someone breaks up with you, it is not up to you to fix things. They choose to end it, they fix it if they want to. You have to stop the patterns that you developed during the relationship, especially prioritizing your ex's feelings and doing things for the good of the relationship. You have to become selfish, and put yourself first.

 

That process hurts, and it requires restructuring your habits. It's like you're a pack a day smoker, and you suddenly have to go cold turkey. It's really hard, and it's tempting "just to have one", and before you know it you're smoking again, and the cigarettes are especially cancerous in round 2.

 

If someone breaks up with you, it is their loss. Do not chase them. Do not fix things. Only be concerned with yourself: healing and understanding the choices you made getting into the relationship and during it, and making any changes about yourself that you discover need to be improved so you're in a better spot for your next relationship.

 

The above paragraphs don't mean that you can't reconcile eventually. But unless you prioritize yourself and take significant time away from them, it's pointless because you'll just end up in the same pattern. You especially don't reconcile with someone who isn't emotionally healthy, because you are just guaranteeing more pain for yourself.

 

Do some reading on healthy boundaries, too. A caregiver personality such as yourself is likely to have permeable boundaries with people who would take advantage of you, and those are the people you need to uphold your boundaries with the most.

 

And so when she constantly blames me for our relationship problems, compares things to her past relationships and says this one is abnormal and I've been inadequate, and then says "why can't you be normal" in response to my emotional reactions to the breakups, I end up doubting myself.

Don't doubt yourself. Your only mistake was getting tangled up with an unhealthy personality, but that can be chalked up to your inexperience.

 

With someone with BPD, it will always always always be your fault. If she were with another guy, it would be his fault. The problem is not you, it is her.

 

If it wasn't the fault of the external, they might have to take a look at themselves and their behavior, and they will never do that. So her blaming you is nothing more than a classic pattern, and the last thing you should be doing is doubting yourself.

 

However, I also realize that her past relationships were also pretty dysfunctional and she abandoned them herself, with similar emotional problems.

When you see a pattern like this, the last thing you should be doing is doubting yourself.

 

I've at least reached the conclusion that it's probably not my fault as much as she says it is, and that no matter what I give or how much of it, I'll probably always be told that it's not enough.

*ding*ding*ding*

She's an emotional vampire. She will drain you, and it will never ever be enough.

 

I guess the only thing I'm trying to figure out is the why and how of my own feelings, emotions, and actions that got me here, and what I should do to resolved these internal issues.

Yes, that is the only thing you should be thinking about. I know it's hard to be single once you've had a taste of being in a relationship, but have confidence that you'll find someone else, because you will.

 

Because you've been in one relationship with someone with a personality disorder, you are at extremely high risk of being attracted to another PD woman. Read that book and pay attention to how a relationship with someone with a PD starts. What feels really good to you - speed, passion, her unending admiration of you, a feeling that she's helpless and you can save her - are big red flags. If you pick up on these things from a woman, stay away from her.

 

Guys can get in this loop where once they've been in a relationship with a PD woman where there was intensity in the form of roller-coaster emotions, anything less than that doesn't satisfy them. Every time they find another dysfunctional woman to play out this pattern, it gets further cemented in their brains as a way a relationship "should" feel. Then if they come upon a healthy woman, they wonder why they don't feel attraction. Do not become one of these men. Break the pattern now. Do not the mistake dysfunction for a good relationship, and dysfunctional attraction for passion.

 

An emotionally stable woman is one who won't want to jump into things quickly. She'll like you, but she won't endlessly flatter you. She will be capable of living her own life and of taking care of herself. You would be a nice addition to her already full life, not a white knight riding in to save her from herself. She may want to take things slow, and that's okay. Kissing her and sleeping with her will feel nice, but not off the charts fantastic (that will come with time once you know one anothers' bodies).

 

If you feel intensity, and a feeling that the person is "known" to you, you are in danger.

 

Maybe take a look at your friends' relationships and choose one that has an emotionally mature woman, and think back to how she behaves.

 

You're going to have to teach yourself to be attracted to emotional maturity. You deserve a woman who can handle her life; you should not lower yourself to women who need you to save them. Those relationships never pay off and you deserve better than that. This is a self-esteem thing for you, and you need to increase yours so that you truly believe that helplessness is a turn-off.

 

Funny enough, I've had a very loving family and my parents have always paid a lot of attention to me. Her case is the opposite of mine. So I'm not sure how I ended up in this situation. I think the main reason is that this was my first relationship, and I just don't know any better. But I also now realize that I do have an extreme "caregiver" personality that can cause me problems.

Mmm... there's still likely something going on with your parents that set you up for this. It's really unlikely that you went for this woman just by chance. Your parents can love you and still set you up for dysfunction, especially if they set high expectations for you that you had to struggle to reach, if you had to care take either of your parents' emotions as a child, if their love was controlling and a bit smothering. These can all lead you to make dysfunctional choices in adult relationships.

 

And please note that this is where you white-knighted. You wanted to help poor little her because her past was so unhappy. You should not ever need to do this. Good women take care of themselves, they heal themselves. They don't do the damsel in distress thing - unless they're playfully flirting with you (a.k.a. idoltree is doing this with her new guy ) - and they don't need a man to save them.

 

You've hit the nail on the head there. I honestly believe that this has been my problem for the past year, and it's why I struggled to "fix" things.

What you feel is normal, but understand that it is just a fantasy. What your compulsion to do is analogous to trying to build your dream home on a rotting foundation. You cannot have what you want for yourself with her. That should make you feel loss, and that's normal. Stop running from grieving your loss.

 

Even when she came back, I took her back with the intention of working with her to "fix" things, even when I suddenly realized I was doing most of the work to fix things she's broken. Then she got up and left, blaming me for "guilt-tripping" her back in, and also blaming me for her unhappiness that causes the breakups. So apparently her coming back and leaving are all my fault even though she never listens to anything I say. lol

Everything will always be your fault with her. That's another lesson learned for yourself; a good choice of a woman for a relationship is someone who can reflect on her own thoughts and actions and make changes. Look at how she treats others in her life; look at her past relationships and how she describes them. You're going to need to start assessing women early on and looking for clues about their character before you let yourself develop attraction (or at least before you ever decide to act on it).

 

Also, yes, I ordered the book!

Good for you!

 

Overall, you sound a lot more healthy, EC. I'm happy to see this.

 

Keep going on this path. When you catch yourself thinking about her, redirect your thoughts. A good way to do that is through mindfulness. Once you notice you are having a thought about her, remove it by focusing on the NOW.

 

• What temperature is the air? How does it feel on your skin?
  
• Are you looking at something pretty? Savor it.
  
• Are you sitting in a chair? Check your posture and note how the chair feels on your body.
  
• What do you hear? Close your eyes and listen to it while taking some deep breaths.
  

What you want to do is get yourself out of your self-created prison: your thoughts. You create those thoughts, that sadness, that longing for her. Every time you allow yourself that indulgence, you reinforce unhealthy pathways in your brain. You need to build new pathways, and mindfulness and staying with your senses in the moment is how you do it. Consistency is key.

Edited December 1, 2014 by idoltree

[EmbeddedCortex]

especially prioritizing your ex's feelings and doing things for the good of the relationship. You have to become selfish, and put yourself first.

 

Haha, I have to actually work on becoming selfish apparently, since it doesn't come naturally to me in a relationship, but it's her specialty. I definitely developed the attitude of trying to fix things to mostly make her happy and get her to admire me again. This is why I always found it distressing though, when she would call me selfish for things I would have to do for myself out of necessity as part of my own life (i.e. college, work, money management, family commitments, etc.). Of course, if I complained about any of those things related to her, it was hell to pay and there was no room for discussion!

 

Funny enough, on multiple occassions, and even on the day she broke up with me this time around, she's said "I just want it to be you and me. I want you all to myself." She wants me to be around whenever she wants and do whatever she likes, but my needs in those categories do not matter.

 

If someone breaks up with you, it is their loss. Do not chase them. Do not fix things. Only be concerned with yourself: healing and understanding the choices you made getting into the relationship and during it, and making any changes about yourself that you discover need to be improved so you're in a better spot for your next relationship.

Yes, this had been my internal dialogue the past few days.

 

Do some reading on healthy boundaries, too. A caregiver personality such as yourself is likely to have permeable boundaries with people who would take advantage of you, and those are the people you need to uphold your boundaries with the most.

She pretty much crossed every boundary I had, and I thought it was normal to allow that to happen for someone you love and are supposed to be comfortable with. My mistake.

 

With someone with BPD, it will always always always be your fault. If she were with another guy, it would be his fault. The problem is not you, it is her.

 

If it wasn't the fault of the external, they might have to take a look at themselves and their behavior, and they will never do that. So her blaming you is nothing more than a classic pattern, and the last thing you should be doing is doubting yourself.

It's funny...

 

During every breakup she first blames me for her negative feelings and the relationship failing. Then, when I question her logic and offer to fix issues, she starts saying she doesn't know what's wrong with her, she can't help her feelings, and that she knows she's crazy and has problems. When I offer to help her and go to therapy, she still refuses.

 

Either way, she is playing the helpless victim, and takes no responsibility to change her situation and fix things. Instead she jumps from person to person until she finds someone that will fit her needs just the way she is, meanwhile emotionally damaging and draining those people.

 

Yes, that is the only thing you should be thinking about. I know it's hard to be single once you've had a taste of being in a relationship, but have confidence that you'll find someone else, because you will.

Yes! It's a strange and lonely feeling, however, I'm completely against the idea of jumping into another relationship or "rebound" quickly. I constantly tell myself I have to take some time to myself and sort through my feelings and emotions resulting from this first relationship.

 

What feels really good to you - speed, passion, her unending admiration of you, a feeling that she's helpless and you can save her - are big red flags. If you pick up on these things from a woman, stay away from her.

I definitely experienced that! She did the same thing when she came back 3 months ago, and was upset when I told her from the start that we can't just pretend like the breakup didn't happen, and that we can't just jump straight into things without taking some time to repair the damage. I think that's part of the reason she left again. She herself said "It's such a huge mess" and not worth the time and effort to fix - she'd rather start new somewhere else apparently.

 

When I first met her, I was so excited and elated at how attracted she was to me from the very first date, how much she admired everything about me, and how quickly she got comfortable with me and professed her love.

 

But I couldn't keep up! Although enjoyable, things felt rushed and she wanted to immediately do everything with me. She started opening up and telling me all the details about her life, everything from emotional abuse from family, to possible sexual abuse, to crappy boyfriends. I definitely felt like I was her savior and I did not want to hurt her the more I started falling for her.

 

At the same time, I also felt like things were going too fast and I couldn't keep up. I didn't feel comfortable opening up to her as quickly as she opened up to me. I couldn't do everything with her when she wanted because of various life restrictions. Simply, I couldn't give her back everything she was giving me, because she was doing it too quickly.

 

And even though I communicated everything very openly and honestly, she started building up the spite against me, while apparently also being in love with me.

 

In fact, every time she's broken up with me, she's referred back to the first few months, saying how much effort and love she gave me immediately, and I did not return it in the same fashion, so that is her excuse for then being spiteful and abusive to me, and always saying "it's not enough" or "it's too late".

 

To me, that never made sense, because even without extensive experience, I felt that a relationship was about growing together, learning more about each other, and bonding...over time! Yet somehow, I was the one called immature.

 

Then if they come upon a healthy woman, they wonder why they don't feel attraction. Do not become one of these men. Break the pattern now. Do not the mistake dysfunction for a good relationship, and dysfunctional attraction for passion.

I can assure you I have been giving this matter a lot thought, because it definitely worries me.

 

An emotionally stable woman is one who won't want to jump into things quickly. She'll like you, but she won't endlessly flatter you. She will be capable of living her own life and of taking care of herself. You would be a nice addition to her already full life, not a white knight riding in to save her from herself. She may want to take things slow, and that's okay. Kissing her and sleeping with her will feel nice, but not off the charts fantastic (that will come with time once you know one anothers' bodies).

Thank you for saying this. I wasn't sure how a normal healthy woman who might be attracted towards me would behave.

 

In regards to my ex, she's always gotten way too comfortable way too fast with her relationships, even the rebound summer "fling", before she realized her mistake and came back to me, only to probably leave me again for someone new, but this time I didn't bother asking. She did once again admit she had issues she had to resolve individually and that she wasn't ready for this, but I feel like she's already dating someone else like she's always had.

 

You're going to have to teach yourself to be attracted to emotional maturity. You deserve a woman who can handle her life; you should not lower yourself to women who need you to save them. Those relationships never pay off and you deserve better than that. This is a self-esteem thing for you, and you need to increase yours so that you truly believe that helplessness is a turn-off.

Yes, I've been reading a lot about emotional maturity as well. It seems that most people with BPD also lack emotional maturity. Again, my ex has not been diagnosed with BPD, only some form of depression, but a lot of her behaviors fit BPD.

 

And I don't want to praise myself and reduce my own responsibility for finding myself in this situation, but based on my readings, I definitely feel that I'm pretty emotionally mature, at least compared to my ex. This is probably why I could never make her "understand" my emotions or side of things.

 

Mmm... there's still likely something going on with your parents that set you up for this. It's really unlikely that you went for this woman just by chance. Your parents can love you and still set you up for dysfunction, especially if they set high expectations for you that you had to struggle to reach, if you had to care take either of your parents' emotions as a child, if their love was controlling and a bit smothering. These can all lead you to make dysfunctional choices in adult relationships.

I doubt anyone has perfect parents, so most people are probably somewhat dysfunctional to some degree. I can say that my parents did always set high expectations for me academically and I did often find myself trying to earn their praise. Still do...haha. But who doesn't?

 

And please note that this is where you white-knighted. You wanted to help poor little her because her past was so unhappy. You should not ever need to do this. Good women take care of themselves, they heal themselves. They don't do the damsel in distress thing - unless they're playfully flirting with you (a.k.a. idoltree is doing this with her new guy ) - and they don't need a man to save them.

I definitely did and probably still do feel that way. I often felt bad for her and saw her as the poor victim, and I definitely didn't want to be the guy who used her as "practice", especially as that was her worry, and how I would eventually leave her. But overtime I've come to realize that the majority of those problems were her own creation, or at least she could have avoided them like many people do.

 

Will she ever understand that a lot of our relationship issues were her doing? That when she complained about how we would constantly fight and breakup it was because she would start the fights and then breakup with me?

 

Maybe someday....

 

Everything will always be your fault with her. That's another lesson learned for yourself; a good choice of a woman for a relationship is someone who can reflect on her own thoughts and actions and make changes. Look at how she treats others in her life; look at her past relationships and how she describes them. You're going to need to start assessing women early on and looking for clues about their character before you let yourself develop attraction (or at least before you ever decide to act on it).

She often seems to show some signs of actually reflecting on her own thoughts and actions, but they always seem fake! She never shows any empathy towards me, blames me for being unhappy, and doesn't make any effort to fix her own behavior. Then she says "I'll never change, and you won't ever change, this is so pointless!" and then leaves.

 

I've changed so much over the course of the relationship and have grown so much, although I've also been wounded. And yet she accuses me of not changing, because no matter what I do will never be good enough.

 

I think she's changed also, but for the worse. Then again, maybe this "change" has been the gradual revelation of her true self, or maybe things get worse with age? Who knows.

 

What you want to do is get yourself out of your self-created prison: your thoughts. You create those thoughts, that sadness, that longing for her. Every time you allow yourself that indulgence, you reinforce unhealthy pathways in your brain. You need to build new pathways, and mindfulness and staying with your senses in the moment is how you do it. Consistency is key.

Self-created prison of my own thoughts is the perfect way to put it and you described the situation very eloquently. I agree 100% and I've been trying to implement these changes, but it is definitely difficult when you've loved this person and they were a big part of your everyday life for so long.

 

Btw, how old are you? As I've said, you sound pretty experienced and your posts sound like you know exactly what I'm going through. haha

Edited December 1, 2014 by EmbeddedCortex

[EmbeddedCortex]

oops mispost

Edited December 6, 2014 by EmbeddedCortex

[kp4633]

EmbeddedCortex this post you made literally just saved me. My recent ex had all of these traits you brought up (blaming, games, not knowing what's wrong with them, family issues etc., fantasizing). I was recently planning to attempt to reconcile with my ex and after seeing your story and comparing it to mine I realize that I just gotta keep going. Thank you so much for opening my eyes and we both need to heal, grow, and move on.

 

Good luck!