Codependent and confused.

Hello Forum,

So I’ve been in a relationship with a girl for almost 4 years which has been a mix of wonderful and tough all at the same time. She has her own issues as well, but I am here more to discuss my own issues. As of about a week and a half ago, we went no contact at my request. Not really because I wanted to but because I was involved in a legal matter with my children and was basically told by my lawyer that I had too. This is not something I wanted by any stretch of the imagination but was basically told that at this point, there was no other way to get things resolved without having a huge battle that would have costs thousands and lasted a long time. So I cut ties and it is killing me. I cant help but feel it is the wrong thing to do.

With my time alone though I have spent hours about hours obsessing over the relationship, what could I have done differently, how I could've handled things differently, things like that. My ex does have BPD and she is therapy for it. I do definitely see some progress on her side, and I was always impressed when I saw her do things differently. I was truly proud of her and her hard work. But back to my side, in the last several weeks I have been racking my brain to figure things out, because I know I was always part of the problem too and I have worked with a psychologist and come down to accepting that I have become very codependent in this relationship. some of this is due to just who I am and the fact that I hate being alone, but also partly because I know during the start of the relationship I didn't act like a codependent but rather I behaved very narcissisticaly. It wasn't until about a year and half ago that I really saw my behavior and realized what I had been doing to us and started to make a change. That guilt that flowed through from my actions just made me work harder and harder to do anything to repair the damage. All I wanted to do is make her happy and I have ultimately broken myself here in the process. Given, the past was always thrown in my face or brought up, but in my head, that was the price I had to pay for being a ****** partner and this girl meant the world to me, so Id rather have it thrown in my face and take my licks, than lose her.

Well I lost her anyways in the end. Everyday I want to reach out to her. I miss her a tremendous amount and my head literally feels like its going to explode with thoughts. But I don’t reach out. I dont reach out because I am scared that maybe me being codependent is stopping her from making progress in her recovery. Maybe I was the reason for some of the mood swings. Maybe I didn't set good boundaries which caused fights, and maybe I was doing everything wrong. Trust me when I say that I love this girl with every fiber of my being and the only thing that holds me from being with her, is that I want her to be happy and I don’t want to be part of the reason she doesn't make progress, or relapses. I know she loves me very deeply too and she is moving forward in whatever way she is going to cope with things, which is fine but its literally killing me with the confusion. Has anyone ever gone though a situation similar? Any advice or thoughts? Coping ideas or maybe even strategies to solve this conundrum. This girl has her flaws and I have mine, but there is nothing in this world that I have ever loved quite the way I love her, and I truly just want to do the right thing.

Thanks

I'm not sure I have good advice, but I'll toss I'm my two cents. First of all you are not wrong for doing what you need to for your kids. As parents our children come first. Second if you love her, she loves you and you both are working on your issues and the relationship, that's what counts. You obviously love her and are doing your best. Who could ask for more? Maybe some counselling together would be good. Otherwise I don't think you're doing anything wrong.

Good luck. Oh and its nice to see another Calgarian on the boards.

I really don't know what this legal issue is? Can you elaborate?

Seems to me you two love each other dearly so I'm not sure what kind of situation you're in?

Im confused because after you are divorced, usually legal battles over kids have nothing to do with who the the divorced people are seeing socially unless something is brought up accusing the person they are sering of doing something hsrmful to the kids. I know accusation lies are normal in some cases as my daughters BF'S ex is falsy accusing the ex of abusing tje kids.

At times, Divorce is nasty even after its over when kids atr involved

I apologize if you wrote the explanation & I didnt grasp it

Well due to the personal nature of the situation i won’t go into too many details but basically this is the jest. My partner had a bit of a problem and she allowed that problem to happen around her daughter, which then got a lot of notice from authorities, which ultimately resulted in my ex wife stating that she was to not ever be around the children. I was fighting it for about 3 months but finally during one of my ex’s mood swings she freaked out and dumped me. It just so happened that i was going to court a couple days later so I told my lawyer what happened and it got back to my ex that we had broken up. I know that this break would have been a small temporary one, but I legally couldn’t lie about it at that point. It’s just been super hard cause this woman was the love of my life. I’m prettty sure at this point she has already moved on because that’s basically what happens every single time we have a break up. Thing is, when we reconcile she says it meant nothing to her or she was just killing time. I think it’s the bpd coming out needing that constant validation, but it really sucks because in my eyes she was everything and I’ve always tried to give her all the validation she needed. Anyways I’m rambling now lol. For now, i can’t do anything about it so I’m just gonna work on my codependency issues and hope that one day we can both be in a better place and make things work. At the end of the day, I’ve always said she was my soul mate and although things were brutal at times, she was always worth any amount of effort. Thanks for listening

I forgot to add to the post last night, but I began attending Co-dependent Annoymous which was interesting, but I found the group of people to not quite fit for me. Has anyone attended something similar to that which may also be helpful. I am looking for a 12 step based system as Ive read that is one of the best ways to enhance recovery. Damn ex had been suggesting I do the steps and I never really thought it would have helped in my situation. I hate when she was right lol.

No 12 step suggestions but I found that a good T who teaches DBT skills & one does the daily work in documenting issues & uses of the skills learned if very effective because change no matter what method used all comes down to the fact that old neural pathways that hold dysfunctional ways of dealibg with things in life have to be reprogrammed through thought & practice & the 12 step actually is a byproduct of doing that & learning the needed communucation skill to interface functionally eith the people in our lives. DBT is NOT just for people with BPD, it helps everyone. These skills can be taught through other therapy methods too.

Without teaching skills for us to learn & USE in our lives, therapy is basically useless waste of time.