[higherroad]

just broke up with a girlfriend of two years. i have been divorced for 4 years-she is a neighbor and we got together as soon as she divorced and moved in down the street.

i have been seeing a counselor for some years in helping me get healthy after my relationship with ex and i have custody of my two boys. my ex was bpd and i confronted the role i played as a codependent.

the new relationship was very similar to my ex. she was very unstable and needy. where the problem is not with her ex, but with an affair she had when she new her marriage was ending. she had a suicide attempt and was in a psych center for 3 days. she started an affair with a high school friend while still married and going through the divorce.

she described that relationship as "he taught me how to play tennis" meaning sex. her sex life with her husband was very limited. she told me this early in our relationship. she was very sexual with me and the sex was over the top, almost making me wonder. her relationship lasted 3 years and was long distance and as she said limited encounters.

her affair really bothered me not only because she introduced this person to her husband and kids but also because how she portrayed it as "true love" and how it saved her.

she had often explained the relationship as "just friends" but in the same vain expressed once how she felt used. in addition, while still married she got her tubes tied because he was afraid of getting her pregnant.

so after all this time of downplaying the relationship and painting the perfect picture, she told me she was with him just a couple months before we met.

i felt deceived and exploded saying she was used and that 'thats what you got your tubes tied for". i feel really bad for saying that but thats how i really felt. i cant figure out if it was jealousy or if i was trying to say how messed up i thought her relationship was. i guess if she had been realistic about the relationship i would feel differently.

i just feel really bad for calling her out on it in the way i did.

[kms]

hmm. I would say there are probably many people who get into rebound relationships during the end of a bad relationship or immediately after. I don't think what she did in having an affair at the end of her relationship is too surprising or shocking. A failing marriage and divorce can be a pretty intense, stressful time, full of confusion, mixed feelings, guilt, struggling to make the right decision not only for yourself, but for your children too, and for your spouse... depending on how conservative or religious the person is (or their spouse and/or their own families), that can add a great deal of stress and mental torment and angst into the mix. it can make one so overwhelmed and vulnerable that it's easy to fall for a seemingly caring person lending a sympathetic ear.

it would be interesting to explore why she felt that the guy saved her. Was it the guy himself, or was it what she learned through that? Perhaps being with someone else helped push her to take the step to make the divorce official. Perhaps it woke her up to realizing that she can't live with a limited sex life the rest of her life. Perhaps through him she realized that she deserved to be treated better. There are a lot of possibilities. She may be attributing the positive feeling she has from the valuable things she learned during that time to him, without really analyzing the whole thing in detail or verbalizing it specifically enough.

Getting her tubes tied is a really big decision, but if she had already been thinking that she wouldn't have any more children anyway, maybe she didn't see it as such a big deal at the time, especially since again she may have been in a very confusing, dark time (especially since she tried to commit suicide) and most certainly was not capable of making good, well-thought out decisions. It would be worth exploring that a bit more with her to see what the real rationale behind that decision was.

Is she still seeing a therapist? If not, I think it would be an excellent idea for her to continue to work with a professional to sort out these issues in order to understand them fully and to be able to move on to a healthier, more stable life.

Above all, since both of you seem as though you may be a bit more fragile, having come out of difficult situations, it is important for you to approach her with openness, honesty, and curiosity. Try to understand what was going on in her mind. Don't try to argue or fight with her or tell her that what she did wasn't logical. She was so obviously overwhelmed with her own intense negative feelings that logic was being lost (as shown by her attempted suicide). Life is not just about logic or the lack thereof. Emotions play a huge role in influencing our decisions and our actions, and should definitely be taken into consideration, especially during such a difficult time period like what she went through.

There are a lot more questions I could ask you to consider, but I'm not sure exactly what you were wanting a 'woman's view' on...?

Anyway, I apologize for this being long; these are just my thoughts - you can take it or leave it.

[higherroad]

thanks kms.

a rebound relationship is one thing. but having an affair while married and going through a divorce while introducing the new guy to your kids and husband is another. i guess the way it went down was just really unhealthy in my book. throw on top of that the need to be saved. jumping into a relationship when so vulnerable has some tough consequences hence leading usually to someone being taken advantage of. the time i spent by myself during and after the divorce without jumping into a new relationship was such a positive healing.

the fact that she just went from that relationship to the one with me so quickly was in my mind just a continuation as i saw signs of me emotionally rescuing her.

getting her tubes tied was put in the context of "he was always worried about me getting pregnant". i think it had to do less with her and more with trying to please him.

i tried so hard to be empathetic and i was very open with her and honest. but it seemed like i got a glossed over picture perfect responses from her. thats what bothered me. everything from her seemed phony. and it also made me question who she really is/was. i did not feel like she was being honest but rather a little manipulative.

but the biggest feeling i am fighting with is the anger i had towards her in calling her out on some of these things. its like i was fighting for the truth. i think the fact that she painted the picture of her affair as just a friendship and to find out she was with him right before we got together makes me leery and untrusting. she evaded that question for so long.

i just feel guilty and really bad. it seems i tried so hard to understand her and i got caught up in the wave of craziness and it all came out.

[CHANDLERS WISH]

Your feeling leery, untrusting, guilty, bad, non-understanding, ...........your ex was bi-polar, not recalling some things she did, I imagine, different person at different times.. Not someone you could trust.

Truth be known you may feel like you left from a frying pan to a fire and don't know where you stand, whilst wanting a "normal" life, if there is such a thing, hense the un-trust...

No-one knows why they do what they do when they go outside the norm but if you were to sit down and communicate with her, she maybe able to explain why she felt the need to destroy "herself" by this affair that she had..

Her thoughts pertaining to something she never had maybe "intimately" that she "took" whilst she could not have, from someone else, what issue made her do that, the " I don't care any more approach?" what were her issues, pains, I don't believe in affairs, don't get me wrong but there are issues to head down that path.

You personally, seem to "save" women.... They have issues and you wish to save them, until you can't... and so, it begins again...

What therefore makes you feel that you need to do this?

We can't save people only be there for them and if we are aware that there are issues, then we have to be prepared to accept the giving, without expectations, we can only try.....

I think instead of beating yourself up, you either forget her past as it "was her past" and neither of you are in that now, and so, look at the now and the future and see what you see, or in addition, mention to her that it will not make a difference in how you feel, rather you would like to know so that you can put it into perspective for your "now" relationship and work with what used to bother her, that drove her to an error of judgement at that time.

CW

[higherroad]

wow. you hit on some things that are so relevant.

i tried so many times to understand instead of judging her. but the more i found out the more i got sucked into this dysfunctional world. it was just crazy drama. part of the problem was that she was never willing to admit she destroyed herself in the affair. she painted such a pretty picture...i would imagine to justify it. she needed someone and as she said...he saved me or i dont know what i would have done to myself.

from what she explained to me she needed someone to love her hence the affair. and she became addicted to intimacy as revealed in her constant need to have sex with me. it was sometimes uncomfortable.

you are so right on about me saving women and i have tackled that and continue to do so with therapy. it goes back to my relationship with my mom.

but you bring up the most important point and that is why i am so concerned about the past. and the answer is that it played out in the here and now. i attacked her past because i was unhappy with the now of the relationship and felt those same patterns were being played out.

does that make sense?

[WildChild]

A freind of mine calls this the wounded bird syndrome. You may have a need to be needed? Having an ex who is BP/BPD I know how difficult that can be, they are unpredictable, you never know what response you will get from them and they will accuse you of being a nut or manipulative because they don't remember what they did or said. They can get very out of control. I did fint though that mine seemed to have a degree of control over it in that he almost never lost it in public or in front of witnesses!

Having been through that can make you a bit skittish about others and their behavior. Moving into a relationship too soon is often problematic. The question isn't what she did before you, but what did she do with you? Was she unfaithful while with you? In what ways did you feel her past patterns were being repeated or played out with you? Other than her story changing, what did she do to or with you that was a problem?

People who are hurt may be cagey about telling their story. As she came to trust you more, she may have felt more comfortable with sharing. She may not be able to explain why she did what she did but what matters is where she is now. It doesn't sound like either of you gave yourselves enough time to let your past settle so to speak and just get comfortable with yourself. The older you get, the more baggage you and everyone around you comes with. The question is what you learned, what they learned and how you can get on from where you are now.

[higherroad]

thats interesting. i new my ex was bpd and i saw so many similar traits in my new girlfriend. however, i was so careful not to label her with my past relationship but they became so evident. i realized i was attracted to a very similar women.

but you are forcing me to address what i saw in the present. what i saw was someone who was uncomfortable in a consistent relationship. and what i mean by that was that even though we lived a couple houses away she would be intense for awhile and then disappear. being in a long distance relationship while married made me put two an two together. she only saw her affair guy intermediately. she could not cope with a consistent relationship of daily interaction. the same with her marriage.

the other thing was this false sense of reality. everything was suppossed to be picture perfect, her kids, her home, job etc. it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to live this life of perfection.

how did it play out with intimacy was huge. she placed so much emphasis on it (sex). it was almost like she was addicted to it. that i feel is something that carried over from the past and she equated it with being rescued.

i was very settled after my marriage ended at about 2 years and everything started falling into place. and then i get involved in this relationship and it sent me back into a tailspin.

[CHANDLERS WISH]

but you bring up the most important point and that is why i am so concerned about the past. and the answer is that it played out in the here and now. i attacked her past because i was unhappy with the now of the relationship and felt those same patterns were being played out.

does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense and I feel that you are searching yourself and finding that you don't need to live in your past anymore, that what ever happened between you and your Mom is past, it's time for present and future.

If you feel that you attacked her past because your un-happy with the now, then your not in a relationship that is good for you.

i was very settled after my marriage ended at about 2 years and everything started falling into place. and then i get involved in this relationship and it sent me back into a tailspin.

higherroad.... (or highroad) hit it..

It is no good to return to the past in any event... It is why we make mistakes and move on to learn from those and to become whom we really are. Visiting the past will put you back into that place where you weren't happy.

Your not happy, if she needs intimacy to feel loved, then she doesn't love herself and she can't find that picket fence through sex...

Look for a lady whom like you, has progressed in life and is happy within themselves in the now... and stop saving the World because you can't, unless the World wants to save itself.

CW

[kms]

It does seem like there are a plethora of issues that she is dealing with, BPD being one of them. It also seems like perhaps she doesn't truly know herself; she's gotten lost in always trying to be what other people want her to be. Perhaps she's always tried to live a life that she thought was was 'supposed' to have, without stopping to think about what she really wants and who she really is. It seems that she is very concerned with pleasing others - by having the 'perfect' life with her ex husband, by having her tubes tied to appease her ex. I do think that she is trying to somehow justify all this to herself, to cover herself, to protect herself. Even introducing her bf to her husband and family seems to me a risky attempt to try to justify the relationship solely to herself - 'see what I'm doing isn't bad, even my husband and kids know him and they're ok with it.' So you confronting her will frighten her and make her defensive because you're chipping away at the fantasy she's built of what she wants her life - and her past - to look like.

You're smart to look at the relationship patterns she's established - and analyzing to see if she's doing the same with you. It doesn't mean she'll always continue to be in these patterns, but the likelihood is strong if she's not taking active steps to changing herself and becoming more aware of who she is and learning from her past.

It's great that you are also taking your current relationship as an opportunity to learn more about yourself, about the fact that you seem to have relationships with women who are injured and need rescuing. I used to do that (with guys), until I finally realized that I just couldn't take the stress, headache and heartache anymore. I simply cannot 'fix' them or save them on my own. I can't force them to change either. They have to make that decision and they have to be the ones doing it. I can encourage, offer advice, but other than that I can only stand by and allow them to make their own decisions in the end.

[higherroad]

kms

very insightful from just the small amount of info i posted.

the issues she has is far and wide. severe abandonment issue. but it was all the red flags i saw - instantly falling in love with me on the first date, sexual promiscuity, drinking problem, family issues.

she has tremendous pressure from her parents to the life she is "suppossed to have". as the only child who lost her brother in a car accident that she was involved in, the scars are very deep.

but where i grew tired was i couldn't live her facade anymore. but you are so correct, and if i truly want to understand her, its all about trying to justify and satisfy who she is and the decisions shes made.