Relationship Have i messed up? or am i taking positive steps?!

[Deleted member 12723]

I sincerely apologize to you and I am so glad that you took the time to be straight with me. Thank youso much for your honesty, I really appreciate this so much. I wish you the very best in everything.:hug:

 

[Justmehere]

Starting a dating profile? This did not cause a mess.

But... let’s look at choices you have made that are contributing to this very toxic situation.

She has easily left me over 150 times in 2.5 years, the reason they never stuck is because she always came back & I always tried to pass this behaviour off as an illness & forgave someone who doesn’t actually see what she does as wrong

This isn’t actually a good thing that makes the situation any better. At all. This helps makes a mess of things.

It does not help someone with possible (likely) BPD to pathologize this behavior and use a suspected illness as an excuse for the behavior. That enables and reinforces the behavior.

It helps her stay unwell.

That’s what you are doing. You are helping her stay unwell by staying in this with her.

She never has to face a natural consequence and she gets what she wants by continuing in the behavior: you doing the dance with her.

As a sufferer of PTSD, I would personally feel terrible to know that a partner excused a hurtful behavior of mine as being simply an illness. That feels so dehumanizing to me. You are now even claiming she doesn’t know right from wrong, and yet you are going to stay and try to change it to be what you want it to be.

She’s not your child or your patient, and doesn’t need you to treat her like one. Yet you are treating her like anything but an adult responsible for her choices. It’s really an awful way to treat a sufferer. It continues the cycle of drama in this relationship and in your life.

I won’t go into too much detail but she told me I was being toyed with, that my sufferer is never going to break that control of me off.

A psychologist is telling you that you are being controlled and played and your biggest concern is not losing her. I actually agree with others that you have a ton of denial about how unhealthy this situation has become. This is very good evidence of it. You have so many people telling you to walk away...

You are unphased by threats of jail. That’s stunning in and of itself. It has escalated that far and you simply tolerate it.

She’ll keep escalating until you finally let her go.

Do you realize this is a toxic relationship for her too? Your trying to “be there” for her and be in a relationship with her isn’t helpful for her either.

This isn’t just moments of co-dependency. She’s turned into your compulsion. Your project. So much of your life revolves around her and her illnesss and her pathology... and your attempts to change her to being what you want and the relationship you want with her.

I told her this time that unless she gets help now I have to walk away. That hasn’t worked even tho she still insists I’m the love of her life.

Ultimatums hardly ever work. Plus, this is a pretty empty statement... of course it has not “worked.” You have never walked away. You can’t manipulate or threaten her into changing. But you keep trying to do that. It’s your choice to do that. It’s only making both of you miserable.

The only person you have any power over to change is you, and you are not doing that work yet to start focusing on changing and controlling your own life.

Setting boundary with her would mean telling her that to manage what you need in your life you are taking responsibility for you, as an adult, and walking away from her because she has done her VERY best to prove to you that she won’t change and won’t get help.

Instead of accepting what she has done and said as reality, you are looking for a very unwell person to try to push into changing and pin your happiness on her. You are extremely invalidating of every message she has sent to you that she is not going to change. That is another choice you have made that fuels this drama.

But hey, you want to keep doing what you are doing despite all the advice and input from ***so many*** people online and offline that she isn’t going to change and this is very unhealthy... for both of you... good luck with that. The choice is really yours to stay in this or walk away.

You took a good step starting on that dating website. It was probably very good step for her too.

You’ll help both of you by continuing to move forward and away from this relationship. I hope you’ll change your mind and try that next step forward soon.

 

[ByrnesT]

Not at all @Rain . I’m here for people to be honest & if that’s how you read it then you had to go with that. Not gonna pretend it was an easy read! There were things in there that even my sufferer hasn’t accused me of, & I thought she’d accused me of everything!! Haha

And I hope you don’t feel I was at all berating you with my reply. I just wanted to put the record as straight as I could in writing. Something that really isn’t easy cos reading my quotes back with the interpretations you had of them makes you realise how difficult it is to write them down to convey what is happening.

No harm done.

 

[ByrnesT]

@Justmehere A lot of what you say is absolutely right. By tolerating a lot of her behaviour I have been contributing. But this is something I’ve had to learn about literally in only the last couple of weeks. I’ve been drowning on my own in all this for a very long time not knowing what I’m supposed to do.

I wouldn’t say I tolerate & dismiss her behaviour as an illness, I call her out on it. I tell her that she is in control & she can decide her own behaviour. It’s why she reacts with such fury. But yes, that’s why I should walk away.

It’s literally only a week ago that someone on here mentioned BPD to me. I didn’t even know what this was. So you’ll have to forgive me for not knowing exactly how to manage that in the past. And I’m trying to learn an awful lot, as fast as I can & change habits to deal with it. Hence why I did accept her word that it was over & made that step to go on that dating site.

The reason I’ve just started learning this stuff is cos I in fact have taken positive steps to get help in this last month. Help for myself. You say that I haven’t, I’m not sure why you say that tho sorry. I’m on here sharing & learning & i also started seeing a therapist.

You say I’m trying to change her behaviour & teach her right from wrong? I’ve only ever wanted her to get help. I’ve known a long time that there is nothing I can do. And you say I’m not her parent? Absolutely. That was my exact response when she previously said to me she needs me to be her parental figure. I insisted she was in charge of her own choices, her own actions, her own behaviour. Help is all I’ve wanted her to do, I’ve not tried to be the help.

I am certainly not trying to manipulate her, I find that hard to accept sorry. Again, I’ve asked her to get help for a very long time. And again, no, not cos of what my standards of behaviour are. Yes I have said “help or no more” recently. That was because so many people here gave me that advice. But you’re right, I’m crap at sticking to it, cos I get lured back in every time. That is of course foolish of me.

I have tried to show love to someone who clearly doesn’t know much about feeling love or showing it. Naive? Yes. Foolish? I’m learning, yes. Exposes issues within myself? Extremely possible. Got it all wrong & completely misguided? I see now, yes. Arrogant & manipulative as you’ve portrayed me tho? Sorry, no. That’s not a reflection of what has been happening at all.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I still recommend the book the Betrayal bond by Patrick Carnes MD it is an excellent resource about trauma bonds among other things. I also think it is good that you are in therapy because looking into why you are so attached to her maybe might enlighten you about why you have been attracted to her in the first place.

I wish you good luck in your therapy process.

 

[Justmehere]

@ByrnesT - you asked for feedback on choices you have made that have contributed to the "mess." You have described getting feedback already from family, friends, even a friend who is a psychologist, for quite some time. Now you have feedback from folks here too.

You have taken steps in the right direction. You are also beginning to backtrack because of another one of her "predictable" meltdowns.

Hence why I did accept her word that it was over & made that step to go on that dating site.

What's your next step to show that you take her at her word that it's over?

 

[ByrnesT]

Thanks @Rain i will do. I only started to look into these issues of codependency etc this last week so it’s all still very new stuff to me. I only found this website about 5 or so weeks ago, since then I’ve shared, read & learnt a hell of a lot, I’ve started therapy & even joining that dating app (tho maybe a little misguided really I admit) have all been big steps for me in quite a short space of time to work on myself & take steps to get away from this. I’m not afraid to learn & try to change what I need to change.

I understand exactly what people are saying that I have allowed myself to stay in a toxic environment & therefore I have contributed to that. It’s tough but I have to take that criticism. This is what I need to learn from. It’s only my motivations that I am disputing with people here.

I’ve made the mistake of making everything about someone else & not looked after myself, it has not been that it’s all about me in the slightest. I was trying to support someone who needs help from elsewhere but yes is refusing to get help.

This is what I find tough tho. Read any advice on (c)PTSD etc (which up until a week ago was what i suspected she had) & it’s all about showing support, showing them you’re sticking around, showing them patience, showing them love, etc. THIS is what I was trying to do. Clearly in my case it was never going to work. But it’s hard when people then change your motives from something well intended to something arrogant & borderline abusive.

 

[LuckiLee]

Don't be too hard on @Rain. I think there's quite a bit of truth in her post.

You should take your girl at her word that you are broke up and don't contact her again. She threatened to call the police. If that isn't the wake up call you needed you're in denial deeper than you thought.

There's all kinds of dysfunction going on here. Your therapist says she's abusive. So you're being abused.... Somewhere in these forums @Friday posted about how many times an abused person goes back to the abuser. I think it was something like 7 times or close to it. You're that person. I think you should look into abusive relationships. And see how someone actually finally gets out of one.

Let her do her thing. Maybe she'll seek help maybe she won't. Either way her KIDS don't need this b.s. Leave her be. Work on you. And stay out of the dating world until you heal a bit. Just my opinion. Relationships shouldn't be this hard. Even with PTSD in the mix.

✌

 

[Justmehere]

Read any advice on (c)PTSD etc (which up until a week ago was what i suspected she had) & it’s all about showing support, showing them you’re sticking around, showing them patience, showing them love, etc.

No sound advice about PTSD or cPTSD or ANY mental health disorder suggests to stay in a relationship after someone has been told it's over 150+ times and now threatened legal action.

What's your next step to take her at her word that it's over and move forward towards your own healing?

 

[ByrnesT]

@ByrnesT - you asked for feedback on choices you have made that have contributed...

Yes @Justmehere I’m absolutely here to get feedback on choices I have made. And I am absolutely taking them on & making genuine efforts to work on them. As soon as I’ve learnt something new, however tough, I’ve began to at least try put this into place with immediate effect. Not perfect yet but I’m trying. All in just the last few weeks. But I am also entitled to point out what advice is mistaken when I know that it is genuinely based on misinterpretations. If my motives are portrayed as the complete opposite to what they were, then I think it’s worth me saying that. 1. Because it hurts a great deal, 2. Because ultimately it means the advice being given will also be wrong.

She has continued to sporadically contact me today. I recently replied to say I accept she doesn’t want this. I don’t plan on doing anymore. So that’s my next step.

@leehalf I apologise if anyone thinks I was being hard on @Rain ? Without going over it all again I agreed there was a lot of truth in that post. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t an awful lot misinterpreted as well tho. By quite a long way in some places. I’m simply correcting what those things were. But I’ve made sure to be grateful & kind to @Rain as well.

I am not in denial about being abused. I’ve been in denial about the fact that things could ever get better.

I’m kinda wishing that I hadn’t mentioned her randomly throwing the police thing out there last night! Feel this has really portrayed things all wrong & there seems no way for me to explain this to anyone now. I’m not in denial about how dangerous this was for her to say. But her saying it has zero reflection on any of my behaviour. She has been given plenty of space time & time again, and time & time again she comes back to me. Then the outbursts immediately start up again. Unfortunately the image seems to be now that I’m hounding her & not accepting she doesn’t want to be with me. I don’t think I’m going to be able to convey this now to anyone tho.

The repeated topic here has become that “she has told you it’s over & you just won’t accept it”. This is what is frustrating me to be honest. I always do accept it, but then she keeps coming back. Should I ignore when she does come back? Probably yes. I find it hard to be that cold tho. But yes inevitably it leads back to the chaos. I am being made out to be a bit of an egomaniac who refuses to accept she wouldn’t want to be with me tho. That’s so far away from what is going on here.

Don’t worry about her children, I have not been around them since July & told her I would not be unless we are on more solid ground. This in itself has been met with fire & fury on occasion. I seem to be more concerned about protecting them than she is. But I refuse to mess them about in the slightest. I have in the past offered to see them as a goodbye of some sort, so that they know I have not just up & left them. I don’t want them thinking this guy has come into their lives & then abandoned them. This was never allowed to happen tho.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

But I am also entitled to point out what advice is mistaken when I know that it is genuinely based on misinterpretations.

Would you be willing to point out my quotes that you know are misinterpretations please so I can better understand what you are saying about me?

 

[ByrnesT]

Would you be willing to point out my quotes that you know are misinterpretations please so I can better un...

@Rain I am not commenting on you in the slightest I promise. I don’t know you. And I’ve acknowledged how things could have easily been misinterpreted. But there were a lot of things in your initial post that were very far off the mark that’s all, so I corrected those. If I keep going over those things I fear I’m making the same mistakes I make with my ex which is to keep defending myself over & over. And I’m listening to the advice that this is not what I should be doing.