I don’t know if my ex was Cluster B/BPD or not. I’ve read up on it, and some of the criteria fits her, and some of it doesn’t. The sex was very good, but I wouldn't describe it as mind-blowing. She did not rage at me ever. She didn't create drama and day to day our relationship was pretty stable. There wasn't a constant high/low effect like so many of you guys have described. But I was referred to this forum and this topic because the person had a relationship with a Cluster B/BPD and felt many similarities to my story. When I read about the feelings that some of you guys have had and what a challenge it is to get over the heartache involved with such a person, it rings very true to me. I’ll share my story and maybe you can tell me if this sounds like a Cluster B/BPD person or not.
We started dating when I was 31 and she had just turned 30. It ended at the one-year mark. She told me at the beginning that most of her relationships were short-term, just a few months, because the guys would annoy her and she had only two previous relationships that lasted as long as a year. Her background is that her biological father abandoned her mom when she was pregnant and told her mom to get an abortion. Her mom remarried when she was 5. She was raised by her mom and stepdad and she said that they would fight all the time over her. Her stepdad is who she considers her real father, but she even expressed some resentment about him when we were together: “He’ll come up to (large city where we reside) to go to the gun show, but he won’t come up to take me to dinner.”
Anyways we hit it off, had a great connection and chemistry, similar values, goals in life. We started talking marriage after several months. It didn't seem like too much, too soon. My best friend formally proposed to his wife after 9 months of dating and they've been together for 10 years now. I have a card from her from last Valentine’s Day where she writes “I have always been wondering when God would bring my future husband into my life and now I’ve found him. I know I will succeed in life with you as my husband by my side.” She sat her parents down and told them I was The One and I was different from all the other guys she’d ever dated. She told me throughout the time we were together that it was the best relationship she’d ever been in. She even introduced me to her biological father, something she had never done with any guy she had ever dated before. Before me, she had had no contact with him for three years. Whenever he comes into town, he calls her up and invites her to dinner. She always ignores him. After we started dating, she broke three years of silence and accepted his dinner invitation and told him that there was somebody she wanted him to meet. Her parents wanted to meet mine after she sat them down and told them I was The One.
Six weeks before she dumped me she was emailing me suggestions for wedding venues and addressing me as her fiance. A month before she dumped me she reminded me that her parents really wanted to meet mine and we needed to arrange a dinner to make that happen. Around the same time we had gone to church one Sunday afternoon and she called her 92 year old grandmother who lives in an assisted facility. This is her real dad’s mom. Before me, she had no contact with her real dad or her grandmother for years. But she had gone to visit her and then called her up this Sunday seeing if she was home so I could meet her. Two weeks before she dumped me we went to a jewelry convention to look at bands so I could get a better idea of what to get her. Five days before she dumped me she made a comment in an email about what kind of ring (white gold) she wanted.
Last fall we were supposed to go to four weddings, all for her friends/family. We had already been to one. The last time I ever hung out with her was Thursday, October 14th at her apartment. When I got there, I told her I had secured a job interview for Sunday, October 17th for a second job to pay for the ring. That night while I was hanging out with her my mom called. My dad had driven home drunk from work and crashed his truck into her car in the driveway, totalling both vehicles. I left my ex there to help my mom take him to a rehab facility. So the next Saturday, October 16th, we were supposed to go to another wedding for her friend, and I had let my mom borrow my car since my dad had wrecked both of theirs. My ex texts me at nine in the morning asking to come over. The plan was for me to take the public transit to her neighborhood so she could pick me up and then we would go to the wedding together.I thought it was weird that she wanted to come over so early, so I texted her back and said “We have several hours to kill before the wedding, what do you want to do?” And she texts back “I’ll be there in 30 and we can talk.” So that got my radar up immediately and I called her and she didn’t answer. I called again and she didn’t pick up. So when she got to my place I pretty much knew what she was about to do.
Remember how I said she had never been with a guy longer than a year? This was exactly two weeks shy of our first anniversary. When she arrived, she came into my apt and said she doesn’t feel like she can love me the way I want to be loved and need to be loved. I tell her I don’t feel neglected by her. She said when I give her compliments and show her affection, she doesn’t feel like that person on the inside. She said she’s never been in a relationship longer than a year and she always does this. She said she doesn’t want to waste anymore of my time and make me go to weddings I don’t want to go to and don’t have to go to. I NEVER expressed any resentment about all these weddings for her friends/family, and it hurt for her to project that on to me. I told her that I never resented having to go to weddings with her, I just loved being with her, and I didn’t care what we did. After about 15 minutes she got up and left.
I missed a couple red flags before she broke up with me. She made a very weird comment a few weeks before breaking up about how she wanted to go to heaven now. I was like “What the hell? Don’t you mean you want to go to heaven when you die? What about our future together? You’re not looking forward to that?” And she says “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal, I’d just rather be there now.” There were also a few other occasions where she said she wished Jesus would come back already. She also made a comment that was a precursor to when she broke up with me and she said she couldn’t love me the exact same way that I loved her and I needed to be okay with that. Since up to this time we had both been very happy with each other, I thought she was talking about different loving styles and I was like “Sure, no problem.”
I never called, texted, emailed, IM’d, showed up at her apt or job, or sought out her friends or family. The only two gestures I made post breakup were to send her flowers and I wrote her a snail letter. The snail letter was about two weeks after the breakup. I had some friends look it over first so I didn’t come across as pathetically begging to get back together or being hateful or spiteful. I basically just said that I respected her decision, but that I thought what we had together was worth trying to save and that I wanted to try couples counseling. And if she didn’t want to do that, then we couldn’t be friends or remain in touch. Her response to that final letter was to maintain 2.5 months of radio silence and then she emailed me during funeral preparations for my grandfather to ask for her bike back.
It was sad and weird seeing her again. The whole encounter lasted four minutes. I could tell she was genuinely glad to see me, but it felt like there was this invisible plane between us. I didn’t want to inquire about what she was currently up to and risk info I wouldn’t want to hear, nor could I bring up the past without pissing her off. I figured that whining and begging to get back together, or being hateful and spiteful would just let her conscience off the hook and eases her guilt, so I played it dignified. After I loaded the bike in her vehicle, I said “I just want to say take care of yourself, I wish you well, I will always care about you, and thank you for letting me be a part of your life.” And she said “Aww thank you” and then I told her goodbye and walked back to my apt.
Most breakups there is some sort of underlying logic to what is occurring, and I don’t believe that happened here. And usually when a relationship ends, it’s been going downhill for a while. Things were still very, very good. And then there were the plans and commitment she made that she was unable and unwilling to follow through on. Most people I talk to say that these are commitment/intimacy/abandonment/daddy issues and I’m better off. But man is it hard to emotionally accept that. All you remember is that the relationship itself was grounded and stable, full of love, almost no drama or conflict, and how could somebody walk away from that?
She discarded me like a piece of garbage, and abandoned me when I needed her the most after what happened with my dad. It’s not normal to so quickly go from “I love you, I want to marry you, you’re the best I’ve ever had” to wanting me out of your life. The whole thing has been a huge mindf*ck. Six months on and I feel a lot better, but I still have so much healing to do. I don't know if another guy was in the picture or not. It's certainly possible. You know how your gut tells you something is wrong? I never got that. Our patterns of spending time together didn't change, there was no secretive behavior with her phone/laptop, etc. I certainly can't rule it out, but I'd rather not think about it. It's been six months now, so I assume she's with somebody now.
