Quote:
Originally Posted by s4ndm4n2006
agreed. I would skim past their comments if you can in the future as it sounds like it's all in defense of a man that sounds like he was horrible to you.
I know personally all too well how it feels to go between feeling angry at what happened to you but then switching to questioning yourself and what you did wrong simply because it's the dialogue that's been fed to you by that person for so long.
I can't offer any suggestions but just understand I know what it's like  |
Thank you. I probably shared in some of the horribleness. But that is what my T is trying to get me to lean into, and what my poor friends (because they are probably sick of listening to me) are trying to drill into my head: regardless of the things I may have said and done, this was a bad, bad person who should have chosen to walk away from the relationship rather than engage in the behaviors he chose to engage in if he didn't like how I was treating him. He knew that I have BPD, and he most definitely exploited it. Sometimes, I don't know who was reacting to whom, but I can say that he said it was all me. Rationally, I know where my behavior ended and his began, most of the time. He has an ex-wife he says emotionally abused him (but that was over 13 years ago) and he always said "You remind me of her and I'm just trying to protect myself." I always told him, if I remind you so much of K, maybe you shouldn't be with me. I told him that most of the time, his "protective" behavior went far beyond protection and into abuse, to where I was telling him, "You're hurting me, please stop," and he would just continue and continue. I told him I simply do not have the emotional energy to fight against you when you are in "protective" mode. So if you need to do that with me, you need to leave. He said he understood, said he felt badly, and said he'd stop. I think I rationalized it as something he was working on?
But...his marriage was
over thirteen years ago. I don't doubt that there was something rough there. But every woman has scorned him, if you listen to him. By the time I went to Knoxville, I was so sick of his passing the blame, whining about stress and being put upon, and treatment of me that the feelings were leaving anyway. What hurts now is just the betrayal. I do think there was something in me which understood what was happening; I don't think I'm as "sick" as he tried to make me believe; I think there was a rational part of me trying to fight. I wish she had just decided to leave his *** long ago.
Anyway. I'm doing well today. Trying not to go down "blame myself" highway.