Dear Broken Man,

I registered on this website only so I may reply to this post. I have been exactly in your situation. To the ‘T’. I am 31 years now but was with this girl for like 5 years and frankly I don’t know what deed of my ancestors was loved by God that fortunately the circumstances didn’t allow us to get married. I didn’t understand this 6 months back when we broke up. I was devastated. For the last 5 years we were on and off. On times were the best. But off times were the worst. And the off times were triggered by Her and her controlling behaviour. I was someone who was so emotionally entrenched in the relationship that I couldn’t leave. She cheated on me again and again and I took her back when she came crying crawling back. The worst part is that I was walking on egg shells every time I was with her. A small trigger (and no ones fault) could have been sufficient to trigger her worst side and if a week would pass by in romance, the next 3 weeks would be me trying to communicate and get through her, or pacify her down. We would have broken off and got back like a 100 times through out these 5 years.

After thorough investigations on my side I concluded that she had BPD. Of course there is no evidence or clinical investigation behind this, but having known her so well and reading so extensively about personality disorders, this is the closest explaination I can give to her behaviours.

We broke up 6 months back, I was devastated, finding it very difficult to leave, had tendencies to keep going back again and again. I am living in a different country than my family/relatives/friends for 6 years now and no support group made it worst.

I agree with you completely on the fact that its really difficult to leave. The guilt trips they leave for us are so dangerous to navigate that you have tendencies to never leave on your terms or even if you leave you tend to keep going back. But post breakup therapy help me a great deal. It was only after a few months that I started coming out of the FOG (Fear, Obligation, Guilt, search for this on google) and I started seeing the relationship for what it is. And it is remarkable how you have such a clear understanding of what is happening to you WHILE you are in the relationship, because most people are not able to see clearly unless they don’t come out of it.

I am not as experienced in life as you are, but let me tell you one thing that I know. There IS peace and love on the other side. Peace of moving away from abuse, love of what YOU can provide to YOURSELF. And believe me, not even a single day in such a relationship is worth it than compromising your own self-respect as a man by being in such a relationship. One thig I have learnt out of this sad but great experience is that I will NEVER let anyone, NOONE treat me like how my ex treated me. Contrary to what I had thought for all these 5 years that she loved me, she didn’t. Because control, manipulation and pain is never love. You have loads of time in front of you, time to give yourself and the world your best. You still can get out, recover and take back control of your life. But remember that recovery is possible only when you get out and maintain no contact. Thats only when therapy will work. Not when you take therapy for 1 hour to go back home and suffer abuse for 23 hours of the day.

Peace

Khan85