I just could not do it anymore...

This is a long post, but this was a very complicated relationship.

 

It's over.

 

5 long years, so much invested. All gone.

 

I met him when I had just turned 22, and had just moved from my parents home to find a job in the city.

We started talking online about movies and music and discovered we were "broken" in similar ways.

 

When I was 11 I was sexually abused. I never told anyone, he was the first person I had ever confided in.

 

The next six months were the best of my life. We met, we fell in love immediately, we became intimate, we shared every moment we could together.

 

But something was off. I think that, because I was so inexperienced in love and relationships and so naive, I completely ignored these signs. I was so intoxicated by this man that I wanted to believe this lie we were sharing. It was so good, so amazing.

 

It started by me not being able to meet him at his job. Then I had to pay some of the bills. Then he would just have these severe mood swings and rages that would hurt me and leave me in tears so badly!

 

I endured this for more than I should have. After those 6 months he said he had been fired, his company was filing for chapter 5. This was when it all started going down. He had told me he had a flat he was going to buy for us. He said he wanted to marry. All lies.

 

The next 3 years were the most difficult for me. I had to get 2 jobs because all of a sudden I had to live on my own as he had told me he would get money from unemployment. Never happened. I started to get debts, lots of then, and he always said he would get a job but he just spiraled into more depression and more severe mood swings.

 

I got a job offer in the UK but because I was so afraid to be without him I refused last minute. We decided we would move in north, closer to my parents, so I went first. By this time I was almost 10 thousand dollars in debt. So I moved in with my parents and looked for a job.

 

As things are ****ed up everywhere I could only get temp jobs, not very well payed. During all this time I told him I could not take this anymore and that we had to look for a job abroad.

 

Then the truth hit me like nothing I had ever experienced before: he said he had never worked - he was 30 - because he had went to the army right after finishing his degree - and had suffered from PTSD from what he had witnessed in his Spec Ops deploy. Was this a real truth? I am not sure now..

 

So for more than 3 years he lied to me and left me to endure debts, living alone, fending for myself.

 

After this blow, I decided to help him nonetheless, because I still believed in us, and after a year with my parents - a year in hell, basically - I got a job in Italy and he was 100% decided to come with me.

 

I could be here talking about all the abuse and all the small details of our relationship but I would never finish.

 

As you may guess he never came. He even went to the cruelty of telling me he had booked flights but 5 days before coming he said he couldn't leave his country, his home town and his "dying" grandmother.

 

You see, this 5 years I stayed because I loved him so much. When we were together it was such a high. It was a burning fire. But then he would just make impossible promises and have rage fits like I have never seen before. He would call me and threaten to kill himself if I left.

He would say that I did not understand him, that he needed more time to find a job, that I needed to be more patient. Sometimes I would just feel like I was going insane.

 

Last week he called off our holidays. I told him I needed to see him and I have a flat here so he would only need to pay flights. He told me he could not spend his money on that. I offered to go there myself and pay for all, like a stupid fool, just to have him tell me no, because "it would be too hard to see me go".

 

I just broke down and started thinking: this is over, I have always been alone, he has problems and my love for him in not enough to help him.

 

He called things off all the time, he would prefer to leave me alone to be with his family, lots of times. Ironically, his anger issues have gotten so bad that he started hitting people and destroying his things, including... hitting his own mother.

 

So, after all of this I could not do it anymore. I cried so much and I told him that this time was for good. I had tried to end it before but I must be that weak type of women that stays with abusive men.

 

I have always been so strong and independent. My parents and friends told me to leave him long ago. But the good times were sooo good. The sex was out of this word. It felt like a drug and now I'm in such pain.

 

He said he would hurt my parents and do horrible things and I would feel the guilt for ever. But he always made those threats. This time he just said that and never called, messaged, anything.

 

I see in his FB he is just getting back to "normal". How can this be? How can he just give up on himself and us? It's like he was making sure this happened, pushing me to a point where I just can't help him anymore because I am worn out, I have no more to give.

 

He accused me of not understanding him, of just taking the easy road. I feel I am a failure as a human being. I feel devastated. My love for this man was the world. I would do all to see him happy. Sometimes it was like walking on egg shells. Anything would make him explode. I had all the patience I could. It was so hard sometimes. But I would always remember the good times and I could not conceive my life without them.

 

Could I have done more? Did he ever love me? Am I a complete loser? These are the questions in my head.

 

I thought it would be forever. Now I am so lost. My new life here is so good but he just ruined me. He didn't even try, he just gave up on having a good life..

 

Sorry about this, I understand if no one reads it, but I needed to write it.

 

Rose

I can tell you straight away that none off this is your fault at all!

 

What you have been in is a seriously abusive relationship. This is how a lot of abused women feel when the abusive relationship ends. Like its their fault and they are the ones to blame. The truth is that this guy is mentally unstable. I'm serious. He needs real help. And the only person that can help him....is him.

 

You need to cut off all contact with him straight away. Don't answer his calls, e-mails, texts, nothing. He is a danger to himself and you.

 

When you have got over the heartbreak of losing someone you love, you are going to see him for what he really is....and you are going to really hate him.

Rose, you sound like a total star!!

 

Brave to move to another country and work there, well done and as you say, you are happy there...that is a great start!

 

He is an abusive, lying bully. If it's true that he has PTSD he needs to help himself and get counselling, but that's his problem now, not yours. He drove a lovely lady away with his lazy, aggressive, lying attitude...you're worth a thousand of him, please realize that.

 

You will find someone who respects you and loves you for you, hold your head high and look to the future with great confidence Rose.

Could I have done more? Did he ever love me? Am I a complete loser? These are the questions in my head.

 

I thought it would be forever. Now I am so lost. My new life here is so good but he just ruined me. He didn't even try, he just gave up on having a good life..

 

Sorry about this, I understand if no one reads it, but I needed to write it.

 

Rose

 

I don't believe you could have done more. It takes two to make a relationship work. When someone wants to be with you, they don't stay away. Two people come together and they find ways to be together because they both want the same things. He didn't want what you wanted.

 

You project your views of a good life on him. Your view is not necessarily what he deems fit for him. He gave up because his investment into the R and you ran it's course.

 

He may have loved you to the best of his ability. Love is relative.

 

You're a courageous woman who is taking charge of her life. Don't let someone like this derail you. He may have issues and you don't want to entangle yourself anymore than you already have.

 

You gave it your best. Now give yourself a fighting chance and get your life back together again. Please stay NC with this man. There is nothing good that will come out of staying connected to him when you are emotional. You will just be investing more time into someone who clearly cannot give you anything you deserve.

Dear Rose,

 

We're not going to tell you anything you don't already know in your heart, and what you've heard from your friends and family for a very long time, all of them probably praying for the day you would find the strength to leave this man.

 

He was too good to be true at the beginning, wasn't he? Well, that was probably the first sign that he wasn't "true" at all, but "mirroring" you, figuring out all the right things to say, all the right things to do, to lure you in.

 

You had no reference point for normal, healthy relationships, he was your first, so how could you know?

 

You get wrapped up in the drama and you think that's how love is, right? You try to help someone b/c this is what love is, right? You stand by someone b/c you don't bail on someone when he's having a hard time, right? But for how long? Then after all your efforts, you're not getting any proof of him trying to help himself, or any feedback, or anything at all. Who does that sort of thing? What kind of person makes you feel like it's your job to keep helping, doing, paying ad nauseum?

 

He sucked you dry, and he bailed because he could see that there was nothing there to continue to keep him propped up. He was a vampire, sucking the life out of you and your soul.

 

This is a very sick man, and there's no telling if he has NPD, BPD, or whatever PD, mental illness or what ever else is warping his mind and using his mind control over you, but you have to know that the only thing you should concern yourself with now is your own recovery from him.

 

He is a manipulative, sick, deceitful, conniving, crazed, controlling, self-centered, narcissistic user.

 

He had you so tied up in knots, so confused, you didn't know which end was up, which end was down, he had you doubting yourself, even after all you had and have done for him, knocking yourself out for what? For nothing. Absolute nothing in return.

 

So as you recover, and stay away from this very sick man, you have to get to the root of why you stayed with him for as long as you did, why you felt you could fix him, why you didn't ask for more for yourself, have your own needs met, and why you allowed this type of abuse. When you are in it, you don't see it, but when you get out of it, it's scary to even think that you put up with it, isn't it?

 

And there's no "normal" for this guy. Don't believe a thing you see or read on his FB. Seriously? He's presenting himself the way he presented himself to you. All lies. All facade. A house of cards all over again, as he sits in waiting for his next victim.

 

So take care of you. You're not a loser, not even close, so erase that thought from your mind right now, please. Please. These people will take and take and take. You're left feeling empty for a reason, you had nothing left, and he never gave you any sustenance in return. No one can live like that. No one. Now it's time to take care of yourself. You've already done the best possible thing for yourself. You left him. And stay away, as far as you can get. Take care, Rose. Stay on your healing path and take care.

Thank you all for your words. They mean a lot.

 

After I re read my post and some of the threads on this forum I realized this was so long over due, I can´t believe I lead myself be abused for so long!

 

I had tried so many times to do this, but only now was I able to free myself from him.

 

Yesterday I was so bad and I wanted to contact him just to know why, why he just doesn't care, how come what we had means nothing now? But I resisted that urge and now I'm positive I will never contact him again. He has some of my stuff but it's just things, they don't really matter.

 

He hasn't said anything since last week when I told him I couldn't do it anymore and that I hated him for living in la la land, where he doesn't need to get a job and we can spend years not seeing each other.

I was so mad that I said things about his mother. She and the grandmother were horrible to me, they hated me and said I was no woman for their precious son. When I was evicted from my flat they refused to have me their and he said nothing.

 

Why oh why did I put up with so much ****??

 

So as you recover, and stay away from this very sick man, you have to get to the root of why you stayed with him for as long as you did, why you felt you could fix him, why you didn't ask for more for yourself, have your own needs met, and why you allowed this type of abuse. When you are in it, you don't see it, but when you get out of it, it's scary to even think that you put up with it, isn't it? .

 

This is what I'm doing now.

 

I've changed my eating habits, started working out and dancing, I want to change what I wear, my hair, everything. I want a clean slate and feel brand new.

 

And I'm trying to figure out why I led myself be prisoner to this for 5 long years.

 

Maybe it was my need for affection. I was so abused as a kid, bullied, that I always stayed away from men until my 20's.

My parents had a very bad marriage, my mother was so cold and distanced from us and from him that I always said that I never wanted to be like her.

I wanted to be special and feel special because I never did, and he did that for me. He raised my self esteem and made me feel good about my body.

 

I don't know.. I never thought I could make it without him. It was obsessive and sick at times, just like a drug.

 

But now he just hurt me all the time and he seemed to want to me to go back to his home town, find a low paying job and just wait till he got one. He was always bargaining with me, always saying that I had no patience, that I was selfish and I left him alone at hard times and never understood him.

 

It was so exhausting to be in the relationship... I feel free right now and I'm having good feelings deep down, but sometimes I just panic. I have chronic anxiety, does not help :S

 

Oh god, I'm just a mess, so much baggage to carry. I get so scared that no one will want to be with someone like this...

We all think we have it bad until we see something worse.

 

Keep your head up. You WILL do better. I am so sorry to hear all of this. It makes me question some of my own activities and want to change things about myself.

Glad at least my story helps somehow.

 

I have been reading about BPD and he fits 100%.. I just can't believe it took me 5 years to get to this point..

 

At some stage we talked that he should seek help because he was always falling into depression and could not maintain a stable and healthy mind, but he never did it

As soon as he'd have some good days he'd forget about it and just promisse me all would be fine..

I know and I have to subtract him from myself and my mind!

 

It's so hard, all I keep thinking right now is how the hell can he just keep going and not care, telling friends I'm to blame, he's alone and unloved, crying to his mom that I'm an evil w****

 

It makes me so angry and disgusted. I feel I was used all along

I have been reading about BPD and he fits 100%..

Replicant, I agree with you and Graceful that your exBF's behavior exhibits strong traits of BPD (which, like other PDs, has a strong element of narcissism). I am glad to hear you found it useful to read the BPD information I provided in GreenEyedRebel's thread.

 

Whether your exBF's traits are so strong as to meet the diagnostic criteria for having full blown BPD is a determination only a professional can make. This does not imply, however, that strong occurrences of these traits are difficult to spot. There is nothing subtle or nuanced about verbal abuse, physical violence, constant blaming, hissy fits, temper tantrums, inability to trust, instability, lack of impulse control, and black-white thinking.

I said things about his mother. She and the grandmother were horrible to me, they hated me and said I was no woman for their precious son.

Now you know where he likely got his BPD traits. It is believed that BPD is caused partly by heredity and partly by early childhood environment. In a recent study, 70% of BPDers reported being abused or abandoned in early childhood (most abused children, however, do not develop BPD).

The next six months were the best of my life.... It was so good, so amazing.

As you know, the infatuation period typically will last up to six months in all human beings. With a BPDer, that infatuation convinces him that you are a perfect woman, thus pushing his two great fears (abandonment and engulfment) to the side. This is why, during the infatuation period, you likely never triggered either of those fears.

 

Another factor making that period so wonderful -- better than anything you've seen in a romance novel or movie -- was his lack of a stable, strong self image. Instead, he has a weak, impoverished self image -- not even knowing who he really is. He therefore emulated the very best features of your personality, depending on you to center and ground his sense of who he is. Significantly, this was NOT manipulation. Rather, it was done out necessity because he has no consistent sense of how he should be acting (and thus will behave differently around different types of people).

 

As a result of that "mirroring" process, the two of you both felt like you certainly had met your "soul mate." Because much of the mirroring is done subconsciously, he likely was just as convinced as you. The result was that you were being loved by a person extremely similar to yourself. He liked everything you liked and disliked what you disliked. Indeed, this was as close as you will ever come to making love to yourself.

He would just have these severe mood swings and rages....

A significant portion of BPDers (perhaps 20%) also suffer from bipolar disorder, which causes as many as four mood cycles a year. That is doubtful, however. What you are describing is not a bipolar mood "swing" that usually takes two weeks to build up. Instead, you are describing temper tantrums and hissy fits that are triggered, in 10 seconds, based on some innocuous thing you say or do -- releasing a torrent of anger he has been carrying inside from the age of four. That is, you are describing the classic tantrums associated with BPD traits (interestingly, perhaps 15 to 20% of BPDers exhibit passive aggressive sulking and icy withdrawal instead of the rages).

He just spiraled into more depression and more severe mood swings.

Both depression and anxiety are side effects of strong BPD traits. All BPDers suffer from them to some extent. That depression would not be considered a part of bipolar disorder unless you were also seeing regular occurences of mania.

He claimed he had suffered from PTSD from what he had witnessed in his Spec Ops deploy. Was this a real truth?

Perhaps but unlikely. I say that partly because of his penchant for lying and partly because PTSD causes flash backs and nightmares -- not the terribly dysfuntional behavior you are describing. Because BPD originates in early childhood -- thus freezing emotional development at about age four -- it is far more difficult to treat than PTSD.

When we were together it was such a high. It was a burning fire.

Yes, the folks who cannot understand why we kept going back and back into the BPDer relationship have no idea how wonderful BPDers are when they are splitting us white. Generally, BPDers have a purity and warmth of expression that is unmatched in mature, stable adults, who are hindered by always being in touch with their mixed feelings. As to your friend who's never dated a BPDer, the closest she will ever get to the experience is when she goes home and, on opening the front door, sees her four year old son running toward her with outstretched arms and a face full of unmitigated adoration. Because that heady experience is just one step short of a heroine high -- and many would argue it is not a step short -- it is very addictive.

Sometimes I would just feel like I was going insane.

That's the way most folks feel who've been dating a BPDer for five years, as you were. If you were dating a narcissist or sociopath, you would feel just as worthless and miserable. And you would be hurting and in great pain. But you would NOT feel crazy. BPD is the only personality disorder (out of ten PDs) which is infamous for making the nonBPD partners ("Non") feel like she is going crazy. This is one reason that therapists get far more business from the Non partners than they ever do from the BPDers. This feeling is the result of the confusion created by living with a person who keeps alternating between adoring you and hating you -- giving you the false hope that, if you can only figure out what you are doing wrong, you can get back that wonderful creature you saw during the six month honeymoon and still get occasional glimpses of.

 

This utter confusion is so well known among Nons that they've given it a name, "gaslighting," which is named after the classic 1944 movie "Gaslight." In that movie, a husband (Charles Boyer) tries to drive his new bride (Ingrid Bergman) crazy so he can get her institutionalized in a mental hospital and then run off with her family jewels.

My love for him in not enough to help him.

That's an understatement. Actually, your love doesn't help him one bit because it's a two-edged sword. A BPDer has such an impoverished, fragile sense of who he is that, when he is alone, he doesn't even have "himself" to keep him company. BPDers therefore HATE to be alone and will seek out someone with a strong personality who can center and ground them. Yet, as soon as you move in and the infatuation period ends, your drawing close to him will cause him great discomfort, if not great pain. He will feel he is losing himself in your strong personality -- as though he is evaporating into thin air, not being a separate person. This is the great fear of engulfment I mentioned above. This is why any effort to heal a BPDer by loving him is like trying to heal a burn patient by hugging him.

He said he would hurt my parents and do horrible things and I would feel the guilt for ever. But he always made those threats.

It sounds like he has strong traits of BPD together with those of Antisocial PD too. Most people who have strong traits of one PD also have strong traits of one or two other PDs also. This occurs because the PDs are not actually separate disorders. Instead, they are only classificatory devices for bundling together patterns of dysfunctional behavior that therapists often see occurring together. Because there are too many PDs listed, the APA is proposing to reduce them from ten to five (retaining BPD) in the new diagnostic manual scheduled for release in 2013.

Sometimes it was like walking on egg shells.

Sometimes??? It likely would be more accurate to say "most of the time." This is why the best selling BPD book (targeted to us Nons) is called Stop Walking on Eggshells.

I feel I am a failure as a human being. I feel devastated. My love for this man was the world.

Of course you feel like an utter failure. I felt the same way. But that has little to do with the love we lost. Rather, it is due to our having been raised to be the "fixers" in the family. As extreme caregivers, it is in our nature to want to fix people and make them well -- and to help family members get along with each other. We therefore are on a disastrous course when we fall in love with a BPDer because it is impossible to fix them. And it is impossible to make them happy. I learned the hard way -- and it took me 15 years to do it -- that I should find a person who is happy BEFORE I marry her. Likewise, unless he has a big thorn sticking out of one toe, it will be impossible for you to make an unhappy man happy.

I must be that weak type of women that stays with abusive men.,,, I have always been so strong and independent.

No, no, no. You are not weak. On the contrary, you are a very strong caregiver like me. Most caregivers I've met are incredibly strong individuals. A typical one will be working a full time job and going home to care for three kids and five dogs -- and will still find time on weekends to go out looking for a mate she can take care of too. Our problem is not weakness. Instead, it is that we mistake "being needed" for "being loved." Well, actually, it is a bit worse than that: even when a person really loves us, we don't feel convinced we are being loved unless that person also desperately needs us. Indeed, we walk right past all of the emotionally available, stable individuals (BORING) until we find a person who desperately needs us. Hence, the BPDers don't go hunting for us. Rather, we hunt for them. And we can spot them across a crowded room because BPDers -- always convinced they are "victims" -- are masters at projecting vulnerability ("catnip" to you and me).

 

This is why you are at great risk of running right into the arms of another man just like the one you left. Simply stated, your desire to be needed (for what you can do) far exceeds your desire to be loved (for the woman you already are). To read more about this, I suggest you read my posts in LoveSunk's thread. They start at http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3375418#post3375418. As to online articles, the best I've seen is a rather technical one by therapist Shari Schreiber at http://gettinbetter.com/needlove.html. The last half of that article is especially insightful. And the dozen other articles at that site are good too. Another good article is Article 9 at http://www.bpdfamily.com/tools/articles9.htm.

 

As to books, my favorite is Codependent No More. I caution against believing much of what you read about codependence online. The problem is that the American Psychiatric Association members have never defined it because they do not believe it constitutes a mental disorder. That's why it is excluded from the diagnostic manual. The result is that there are a wide variety of definitions online and most of them describe codependents as being so controlling that they try to keep their partners sick so as to continue being useful and needed. My experience is that most "codependents" have an overly strong desire to be needed but that the "controlling" aspect is true for only some of them.

I think that after a few days feeling a numb and in shock I have started to experience the all too familiar rush of pain coming in, and I can´t take this again and stay functional for work, life...

 

The article you gave me - http://gettinbetter.com/needlove.html - plus some other ones on that page hit me like I was just run over by a train.

 

So much I dealt with growing up, abuse, therapy, and after I met him I thought: he helped me getting my confidence back, I no longer felt empty and hey, here is a kindred spirit that shares my pain and can help me move on. For what? I'm right where I started, but now I can't trust anyone, I feel empty and alone like never before.

 

I just wanted to send him an email and ask why, why did you lie to me? But it is my fault as well! I let him take this fragile being and turn it into a rag doll again!

I am never going to see or talk to or touch this man that I loved - cannot even say I loved him as it was all smokes, mirrors and obsessions - as if he has just died, but worse. He is still within my reach, still in this realm. I still long for him, just like a junkie craving another fix, even if this is the one that kills him.

 

I have nightmares that one day he will call me and say that he's all right, he found someone who truly helped him and is getting married.

 

How can I not feel ANGER towards him right now? I feel hate and anger towards life, faith, my mother, growing up, but not him! Maybe it's just arrogance on my behalf, as deep inside I assume he is suffering just like me! Can't I learn?

 

No mater what, I can't shake the feeling that I failed, I can't help but be weak and prefer to live the illusion with him than this cruel reality where I have to feel this pain.

I cry and cry and I should be empty by now, but no, it's just like going back to being eleven.

 

Again therapy, again trying to undo the harm. I can't do this alone but I can't do this again.

For what? Even if I don´t rebound to another disturbed guy - because yes, BORING is what I always ran away from! - I will never feel with any man what I felt with him. I have tasted pure direct fire and will now have to settle for a mild summer heat, if I'm lucky enough! to get a guy that does not mind dating a deeply scarred and burdened human being.

 

I have written this really long and civil email to him, just asking some questions, but I can't hit send without felling tortured: I need a closure I know I will never get. Oh f...

 

I am in a very dark place right now.

You need to exist in this uncomfortable state and own it. It is everybody's birthright to be happy. Sometimes it takes more work for some and in a twist of a cliche phrase I will simply say: perhaps it will be more rewarding.

 

Your love for this man merely illustrates your capacity to love. I am going through the same thing...except a woman who pursued me, supported me and held me up suddenly became "confused, didn't know what she wanted, wanted to work on it, wanted space." etc. etc. when a month before she didn't want to take a break to see other people.

 

Things only got progressively worse. You ARE NOT alone in your pain. Do not let your heart sink to hate, or spite, or let your mind embrace denial fantasys.

 

You are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings, you are not that sinister voice in your head; that is your ego. She (for a woman) is not your friend (yet) she is your enemy. She will berate you and belittle you in circumstances where your ego has no purpose or place.

Thank you so much, really, I needed to read that.

 

Some days are just killers and it helps to vent things here.

 

I managed not to send him an email, but let me say: if there was a magic pill that I could take and forget all about him I would take it.

Better yet would be to get those 5 years back.

Delusions..

 

I just wished he would get out of my head and my skin. I need to hate him and get angry and then move on...