u/shes-so-naomi-scott

This past April, my best friend found my (now ex) BF on the subway drunk with two female co workers. Technically, he had broken up with me a week prior after being together for two years. He then ends the night at one of their apartments, I call him screaming and he comes back to our place. I knew he wasn’t attracted to either female co worker (they were chopped) so after he begged to work things out, I gave him a second chance.

A month later, while we’re still trying to work things out, we’re arguing intensely. I told him that my friends and family don’t care for him anymore bc he hasn’t found a therapist, new job, or secured a good housing situation (I had moved out of our 1B and he was searching for a new place for himself). My support circle at this point was very action-oriented and all he was doing was promising that he wanted to work things out, that he saw himself marrying me. Nothing to back either up.

Nothing was adding up. Knew he was still going out late and adding a bunch of people on IG. Barely offered me any reassurance that he was taking action to make changes. In a fit of rage, he asked me if I even still loved him if I hated so many parts of his life (job, housing, and difficult family). I replied that maybe it was all just emotional attachment at this point (trust and respect was shattered with inappropriate co worker relationships). He says we should be done for real if we’re not coming from a place of love anymore.

A few days later we make up, he’s lovey dovey. A week or two prior, I made him promise me that he wouldn’t say yes if female coworkers asked him to go out clubbing with them. The morning I was supposed to see him, I check a girl’s IG story whom I was suspicious about. What do you know, he’s on it, clearly in a group on the way to going out.

In our last conversation, he said he knew it was all doomed after I said maybe it was just emotional attachment and not love anymore. Was he justified in acting the way he did? We’ve been no contact for a month. I think it’s really over. I told him I never wanted him to speak to me ever again and that any healing journey he goes down will never be enough for me. Looking back, I didn’t realize the chaos was largely due to him being addicted to weed / major substance abuse problems.

For the inappropriate friendships with female co workers, unhealed parental trauma, and substance abuse? At age 30? I loved him so much

A month ago, I separated with my ex for the final time. We’ve been no contact for a month and I blocked him on everything. I found out that he lied again about his whereabouts and was out clubbing with female co workers. I guess he was allowed to, we were broken up, but he was claiming that he wanted to work things out and get back together. In the moment, bc I was so hurt and shocked, I made him promise me to never contact me again and that I would never in the future want to get back together.

Fast forward to now, a month later, and NC feels like genuine drug withdrawal. I don’t want to get back together with him. But I felt bad about how things ended. He is someone who is (severely mentally ill with substance abuse problems) looking back, and I was worried that he would internalize my final messages. I ended up writing him a 3 page letter and tracking says it was delivered today

Do you think he’ll reply? I kinda think I was the love of his life but i don’t think he’s mine…

I was with my ex for almost two years. He was very insecure and extroverted and I am the complete opposite (I’m very introverted and keep a very small circle of friends) We ultimately broke up due to his substance abuse problems coinciding with the demanding job he worked. I can totally see him having the time of his life this summer going out to concerts, clubs, no curfew, etc. Plus, now he can network inappropriately with a bunch of random females to a new higher paying role.

Has anyone experienced this and regretted it later? Yes he’ll be able to improve his social life, career trajectory, etc. but he’s at an age where all of his friends are settling down. He used to express to me a lot that he had always wanted to find an introvert like me. With his personality, I think it will be really hard for him to find (someone similar to me) a partner who offered him unconditional emotional support whom he was building a life with.

[NOTE: I was very harsh in our break up and felt guilty. I don’t think they’ll come back or contact me after this. But I feel better knowing this is out there.]

Dear ExpwBPD,

In the interest of moving forward, I wanted to apologize for the final messages I sent the last time we were in contact. My harsh words came from the shock I felt of yet another betrayal of you not honoring a boundary I had verbalized, while simultaneously processing and feeling like I was an option that ultimately wasn’t chosen. As someone who grew up with loving parents who chose me day in and day out, whose actions never contradicted their words, it was unfathomable to me in the moment that I would experience that from the only person I’ve loved outside of my family, regardless of if we were together or not.

In this brief beginning of our no contact period, I’ve fully internalized that breaking up was the right thing to do. Our relationship was built upon your unhealed trauma and my inexperience, and looking back, the two combined did not leave much room for long-term success in a partnership.

For a while now, I’ve struggled with feeling like I was discarded because you found people whom you consider to be more exciting and therefore want to be with. However, I realize now that I was up against mental illness and addiction, and that the problems we had in the end cannot be considered normal growing apart as a couple issues.

As I come to terms with the emotional abuse, gaslighting, and manipulation that I endured throughout the relationship, I am deeply sorry for the reactive verbal abuse I returned and directed at you while at my breaking point. My reaction was wrong and you didn’t deserve that kind of response.

Through the perspective of someone who is adopted, because my biological parents abandoned me at birth, I’ve never wanted to be put in a position where I felt like I had to abandon a partner. To me, it made me think of the horrific story of your parents abandoning you at a [sports match] as a little kid, and I couldn’t ever bring myself to do the same. But in the end, your actions are what abandoned me and our relationship.

I am aware there is a possibility that there are lies or interactions I don’t know about that may have hurt me to the point in not wanting to send this final letter. I did not stop loving you because you are unlovable — I forced myself to in order to protect my own well-being.

In time, if we heal in our own separate ways, I know that we are both worthy of whatever it is the other wants to individually pursue next. Whether that be self love, romantic love, or anything that you can possibly think of.

I loved you so much, [ex]. I opened my heart to the person I showed [place] to. Who told me that they started thinking they could possibly love me on the top of the hill at [place]. I loved the person who would wear a Patagonia under his Canada Goose because he would end up making me wear his winter coat. Whose extended family I shared felt like home at your [sibling’s] wedding. Who told me on the roof one night that I’d finally have a [cultural] last name. Who called my sister to make sure that she nailed her final [job] interview. I loved the person who was prepared to wait hours in the [designer] sample sale line. Who showed me, and only me the beach where they spent their summers growing up. Whose cats I loved more than anything. I loved the person who wrote me cards that read how much it meant to them that they were this nervous to meet my parents.

I never wondered what it was like with anyone else when we were together. I used to always think that we could work through anything. I loved you through all of the times I mistakenly thought things would get better if we moved apartments, or changed jobs, or fundamentally turned into what the other person needed and wanted.

Please take good care of yourself and the cats. My opinion remains unchanged in engaging in no contact. I wish you nothing but the very best.

In the interest of moving forward, I wanted to apologize for the final messages I sent the last time we were in contact. My harsh words came from the shock I felt of yet another betrayal of you not honoring a boundary I had verbalized, while simultaneously processing and feeling like I was an option that ultimately wasn’t chosen. As someone who grew up with loving parents who chose me day in and day out, whose actions never contradicted their words, it was unfathomable to me in the moment that I would experience that from the only person I’ve loved outside of my family, regardless of if we were together or not.

In this brief beginning of our no contact period, I’ve fully internalized that breaking up was the right thing to do. Our relationship was built upon your unhealed trauma and my inexperience, and looking back, the two combined did not leave much room for long-term success in a partnership.

For a while now, I’ve struggled with feeling like I was discarded because you found people whom you consider to be more exciting and therefore want to be with. However, I realize now that I was up against mental illness and addiction, and that the problems we had in the end cannot be considered normal growing apart as a couple issues.

As I come to terms with the emotional abuse, gaslighting, and manipulation that I endured throughout the relationship, I am deeply sorry for the reactive verbal abuse I returned and directed at you while at my breaking point. My reaction was wrong and you didn’t deserve that kind of response.

Through the perspective of someone who is adopted, because my biological parents abandoned me at birth, I’ve never wanted to be put in a position where I felt like I had to abandon a partner. To me, it made me think of the horrific story of your parents abandoning you at a [sports match] as a little kid, and I couldn’t ever bring myself to do the same. But in the end, your actions are what abandoned me and our relationship.

I am aware there is a possibility that there are lies or interactions I don’t know about that may have hurt me to the point in not wanting to send this final letter. I did not stop loving you because you are unlovable — I forced myself to in order to protect my own well-being.

In time, if we heal in our own separate ways, I know that we are both worthy of whatever it is the other wants to individually pursue next. Whether that be self love, romantic love, or anything that you can possibly think of.

I loved you so much, [ex]. I opened my heart to the person I showed [place] to. Who told me that they started thinking they could possibly love me on the top of the hill at [place]. I loved the person who would wear a [brand] under his [brand] because he would end up making me wear his winter coat. Whose extended family I shared felt like home at your [sibling’s] wedding. Who told me on the roof one night that I’d finally have a [cultural] last name. Who called my [sibling] to make sure that she nailed her final [job] interview. I loved the person who was prepared to wait hours in the [designer] sample sale line. Who showed me, and only me the [place] where they spent their summers growing up. Whose [pets] I loved more than anything. I loved the person who wrote me cards that read how much it meant to them that they were this nervous to meet my parents.

I never wondered what it was like with anyone else when we were together. I used to always think that we could work through anything. I loved you through all of the times I mistakenly thought things would get better if we moved apartments, or changed jobs, or fundamentally turned into what the other person needed and wanted.

Please take good care of yourself and the [pets]. My opinion remains unchanged in engaging in no contact. I wish you nothing but the very best.

I witnessed some truly wild comments and jealousy behavior from my exPWD. He would get annoyed if someone was considered better looking than him in group photos. Or if he introduced his friends to new friends and they all got along he would freak out that they all liked each other more than him. Would talk shit about any other guys he considered competition aka who had higher salaries or who had a pretty GF. Over time it became obvious that he valued very shallow things like having a prestigious degree, being wealthy, or knowing a lot of people. And then that’s where the shifting sense of self came into play bc when I first met him he seemed like a pretty level headed guy and I find that way more attractive than caring about superficial sense of status

TLDR: Me and my expwBPD were together for 1.5 years and I didn’t know he had it at the time. It was my first long term relationship that ended bc his substance abuse escalated and female co workers friendships turned inappropriate. By the end, there were many lies and I fell out of love. We were late twenties.

To my expwBPD,

In the interest of moving forward, I wanted to apologize for the final messages I sent the last time we were in contact. My harsh words came from the shock I felt of yet another betrayal of you not honoring a boundary, while simultaneously processing and feeling like I was an option that ultimately wasn’t chosen. As someone who grew up with loving parents who chose me day in and day out, whose actions never contradicted their words, it was unfathomable to me in the moment that I would experience that from the only person I’ve loved outside of my family, regardless of if we were together or not.

In this brief beginning of our no contact period, I’ve fully internalized that breaking up was the right thing to do. Our relationship was built upon your unhealed trauma and my inexperience, and looking back, the two combined did not leave much room for long-term potential success.

I still to this day struggle with feeling like I was discarded because I am uninteresting or that you think you found people whom you consider to be more exciting that you want to be with. However, I realize now that I was up against mental illness and addiction, and that the problems we had in the end were not considered normal growing apart as a couple issues.

There are many memories that we shared that I will remember fondly for the rest of my life. However, as I come to terms with the emotional abuse that I endured throughout the relationship, I am deeply sorry for the reactive verbal abuse I returned and directed at you as a last resort. It was wrong and you didn’t deserve that kind of response.

As someone who is adopted, because my parents abandoned me at birth, I’ve never wanted to be put in a position where I felt like I had to abandon a partner. But in the end, your actions are what abandoned me.

I am aware that there is a possibility that there are lies I don’t know about that may have hurt me to the point in not wanting to send this final letter. I did not stop loving you because you are unlovable, I forced myself to in order to protect my own well-being.

In time, if we heal in our own separate ways, I know that we are both beyond worthy of whatever it is the other wants to pursue next. Whether that be self love, romantic love, or anything that you can possibly think of.

I loved you. Please take good care of yourself and the cats. My opinion remains unchanged in engaging in no contact for the rest of our lives. I wish you nothing but the very best.

I am going on a month of physically not seeing my ex and coming up on 3 weeks of NC. My closest family and friends know what happened during our break up. It was traumatic and involved substance abuse, multiple attempts to leave and go no contact, at the very least emotional cheating on their end, lying about their whereabouts, and feeling unsafe during their outbursts when I brought up issues.

However, I’m slowly letting other friends and family know that we broke up. I’m off of social media rn (couldn’t stand to see his following creep up majorly even though I blocked him) and bc I don’t have an account, it’s not evident that we have separated from the archived posts.

How do you phrase this to family and friends in a clean and succinct way without giving away details while also being honest and true to yourself?

I didn’t figure out until after the relationship that my ex probably had undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. He mirrored me to get me hooked and had a history of tumultuous relationships and substance abuse problems (to help emotionally regulate) before our relationship and I was naive to think I’d never see that side of him at some point in the relationship.

It’s kind of sad in its own way to not be able to partake in the “will they come back” fantasies bc if that happens, my life could literally be ruined further. Reading more into it, to be able to manage BPD, you need years of DBT therapy and medication. And even that I don’t think could undo the betrayal and lies in the end of our relationship.

That’s not to say there aren’t days that I miss him and some of the memories we shared, like today especially. I wildly oscillate between being sad about the memories, now meaningless, and angry about all of the emotional abuse I endured.

Last night, I posted my final texts with my expwBPD asking if it was ok to end on a mean note. The overwhelming upvoted comment was “I can’t tell which one of you has BPD.”

No one bothered to read the context, that it was a 1.5 year relationship, my first long term relationship, and that the final messages were a culmination of my ex telling me he saw himself marrying me while lying so I’d continue sleeping with him while broken up, clubbing with female co workers, escalating substance abuse, adding a bunch of random girls he met out on IG, and it got dangerous to the point where he was throwing furniture and I had to move out abruptly.

Please be kind to everyone. 1.5 years of reassuring his never ending insecurities, controlling tendencies, break up threats if I did something he didn’t like, over the top jealousy if a man LOOKED at me, and hypocritical behavior got to me in the end. He wouldn’t stop coming back after I tried to leave him so I told him “I will say uglier things comparing you to exes if you don’t leave me alone.” And then everyone sounded off in the comments that it sounded like I had BPD.

No one is the perfect victim. By the end, the only way that I knew how to communicate with him in the end is through emotional manipulation right back. I will take time to self reflect in therapy.

I just splurged and bought a pair of tabis and am looking for a cobbler. I also have a pair of Ganni flats that could use some work on the soles. Anyone have a favorite (and ideally reasonably priced) cobbler in the city?

I mean considering that they cannot emotionally regulate this would make sense.

But in the long period where me and my ex would break up again and again, part of the reason why is I would tell him I’m done with the relationship when he would do something (subconsciously or not) egregious to hurt me (etc, caught in a lie about whereabouts, revealed a rash huge life decision), not over something trivial.

I would share all of the reasons why his actions hurt me, and instead of hearing me out, he would be silent and let me storm out or argue back. It would only be until the next day or if I initiated a week of no contact where he would appear to be emotional, remorseful, or apologetic. He would also add that supposedly he would break down crying in front of friends and co workers about our situation.

I have no idea what he was telling others, but in front of me, he would very rarely cry. It was because he cried once that I heard him out and gave him another chance.

It’s just scary to me that they can’t emotionally regulate but can in a sense to be manipulative and “turn it on” to get what they want. Anyone else have a similar experience or take on this?

I’m not sure I witnessed a whole lot of splitting and extreme binary thinking from my male BPD ex. Every other BPD symptom though, yes. Particularly extreme jealousy, need for validation, monkey branching, emotional dysregulation, impulsive behavior, suicidal thoughts, fear of abandonment, and so forth. Does anyone have a good distinction between the two genders? Can this disorder even present differently in men and women?