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I am 37 yoa and I have been in counseling for much of my adult life. I was married to my ex husband from the time I was 18 yoa until I was 34 yoa (16 years). He was never happy and cheated on me for the first time 1.5 years after we were married. I cannot tell you how many times that he cheated on me while we were together but I can tell you that I knew of at least 4 different women. When I asked him to leave finally he lost it and went to counseling where he was diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder. Since our divorce he remarried right away and continues to call me every bad name out there. All the years that I've been having counseling I figured that my issues were because of him and the things that he had done to me until last week. I was in a session with my therapist and I was very frustrated because I seem to have the same relationship issues over and over again (since my marriage ended). I demanded that she (therapist) be honest with me and give me some idea of what was wrong with me. (I have asked her to be very upfront and blunt with me from the very beginning because I am very serious about making positive healthy changes in my life.) She told me that she believes that I fit some of the criteria for BPD. Well, this sent me into a terrible depression, all along I had assumed that my issues in my marriage were not my fault that they were my EX's messed up issues. I have been researching BPD over the past week and I see now that some of the problems we had were my doing. (I am typically a positive person on the outside but inside my head I'm very negative and very hard on myself.) I needed him (ex husband) to love me so badly and he just could never love me enough. I've experienced that again since my divorce as well so I can now see that it's not my partners it's ME. This is very disappointing to me.
I do now see that I have a lot to recognize and a lot to learn about myself and why I feel the way that I feel and do some of the things that I do. I hope to learn a lot from all of you. I am interested in learning more about Love Addictions. I have never felt loved as much as I wanted to and I always chalked that up to my partner.

I am happy that I found this website and hope to learn more and more.

Julie

Hi Julie, and

I too like people to be direct.....I think it helps avoid confusion.

I'm also a firm believer that in any relationship (any argument) it takes two. It's not one 'fault' or another's-- it's both. Owning your own side of things will help you in the long run, though I'm sure it can be scary at first.

There is a wonderful Tools section to your upper left hand screen. I have found all of them useful, maybe especially the 4 agreements and the twisted thinking (and untwisting!) sections. I hope you will look over them and see if any of them can be useful to you.

Feel free to post when and where you feel comfortable! We're glad you are here!

Welcome, Julie!

While it was disconcerting to be told about BPD when you'd spent so long believing "it was all him" at least now you have a place to start to heal yourself. After all, even if it really was "all him" there were implications for you and since you can't control him (then or now) the only thing you can really do is focus on yourself.

For the love addiction thing, there's this discussion board. I don't know much about the subject or disorder itself but the person who runs it seems to know quite a bit.

Once again, welcome to BPDR! We're glad to have you here.

Hi Julie and welcome.

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I just want to say to you that the realization that it's "YOU" and not someone else can be really hard to take at first. But it is also very liberating later on. Since it is you....you also have control over it.

It may be hard right now.....but try to stay positive and don't attack yourself. One of the things I've realized over the years is that by attacking myself....I actually hurt more people...including myself!

I'm glad you've found this site. It has been great for me and I hope you'll enjoy it too.

Hello and thanks for your comments.

I told my therapist my thoughts on all of this and how hard I'm taking it. She says she doesn't want me to get carried away in the thinking that all of the issue were my fault. Relationships are a two way street. I do recognize now a lot of things from reading posts on this website and the bpdfamily website. I am trying to be much more aware of my feelings. I am currently dating a guy (3 months) and it's gone well so far. The big difference is that I haven't told him all about myself. That has been a real problem in the past. I meet someone and tell them my whole life's history and then they knows where I'm vulnerable. My ex-husband knows exactly when and where to push my buttons.

One thing I do recognize in this new relationship is that I tend to think the worst about certain situations. For example, yesterday I tried to call him after work and he didn't answer the phone. This is unusual because he always answers the phone when I call. (Now I know some or most of you are sitting there thinking that it's quite possibly absurd that I would find it odd that someone might not be able to answer their phone right away)... this is part of the problem... when he didn't answer his phone I began to think, well maybe he's with another woman. I do understand that some of that is because of all the cheating that I endured over the 16 years of my marriage but come on... isn't that kind of ridiculous to absolutely jump to that conclusion right off the bat? This is what frustrates me about myself.. I have these thoughts and honestly I can't control what pops into my brain and usually they are negative and I have to go back and rationalize with myself about silly I'm being and that I cannot compare this guy to my ex etc... In the end it just makes me feel so terrible about myself and depressed... Does this happen to any of you?

Yeppers. It was pretty much the constant state of mind I lived with.

It took a lot of practice and training to talk myself out of just automatically jumping to the conclusion that the worst thing possible was happening. Allowing myself the luxury of looking at three possible paths really helped me see that there's more than one way, one possibility in EVERY situation. Learning how to separate stuff was a challenge. And there are still times that I struggle with it occasionally.

Yes...that is what I went through too...always thinking the worst...jumping to conclusions....not being able to stop the thoughts that were invading my mind.....having to express them....and hurting everyone in the process. I still struggle with this.

I try not to just jump to conclusions anymore......and then not blame the other person for my feelings or reactions.

Reading the literature you can find on this website is a great way to begin to understand that you are not alone. Also....just sharing here can help too. You can get through this....just focus on doing your best one day at a time and allow yourself to make mistakes once in a while....it will invariably happen! Be kind...to yourself and the rest will follow

I felt down and depressed the whole weekend and although I recognized it I couldn't snap myself out of it. I couldn't get much of anything at all done and I pretty much stayed in bed almost the whole day yesterday watching TV. I feel awful because I think my kids are disappointed that we didn't do much of anything this weekend. (which tends to make me feel worse because I don't want to upset or disappoint them ever) UGH!!!

Hi. I'm sorry that you had such a difficult weekend. I am convinced that we can help you to help yourself.....but that's kind of the key-- you have to help yourself.


What exactly did you do to try to 'snap' yourself out of the funk? What tools/techniques did you employ? Were you depressed about anything in particular, or was it just a funk?

Have you read the tools section yet? I truly believe that using some of these tools will help you sort this stuff out.

All my best. If you have questions, please feel free to ask.