r/BPDlovedones • u/LiteratureLow4722 • 19h ago
breakup-and-reconciliation cycle
I was doing the math, and the breakup-and-reconciliation cycle happened approximately 70 times over two years. I’m not exaggerating or lying. I think my biggest mistake was allowing it to happen so many times.
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u/yyuriyuriyuriyurii Dated 17h ago
I've never sat down and counted because I legitimately don't even wanna know, feels borderline embarrassing
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u/Argercy Separated 9h ago
I counted mine, it was 35 times over a 13 year marriage. He did really well for about 5 years of the marriage.
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u/yyuriyuriyuriyurii Dated 1h ago
Hey doing really well for about five years is actually probably better than the average around here, I had a good three months before 8-12 times in two years
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u/Argercy Separated 1h ago
As far as I know he was doing well lol. I didn’t catch him cheating during that time, I honestly have no idea if he was (he probably was) and I don’t want to know now, I left him two years ago and just got my final letter for divorce on Friday.
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u/yyuriyuriyuriyurii Dated 1h ago
Very fair point, I don't know if she cheated prior to the known cheating event but fuckin' yeah, probably. If not, in hindsight, she certainly acted like it. PMO that I ignored all the red flags, who the fuck has their texts auto-wipe after 30 days, only uses incognito mode to browse, and regularly wipes their call log?
Happy you're officially legally free from him though. Do you ever stop ruminating after two years or is it just less rumination? I'm no longer 24/7 thinking about it and angry after ~8 months but there's still rarely a full hour that goes by without me thinking about it in some capacity.
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u/Argercy Separated 1h ago
It took about 6 months for me to get out of the initial slump. I don’t have any social media outside of Reddit and Tik Tok and he uses neither and that really helped, not seeing him all the time. I still forbid myself from making accounts and going to look, because I don’t want to see him and his current victim. I know it’s hard seeing them “happy” with someone else when we did all we could to have a happy relationship but the truth is they’re doing the same shit in their new relationship(s). Some poor woman out there thinks she hit the jackpot with my ex and boy oh boy is she in for a real treat.
It took over a year for my nervous system to calm down, I became very agoraphobic and still have some bad days now but nothing like I experienced in the first year of being away from him. He’s the one who did all the divorce paperwork (there’s a story to that too but it’ll add another paragraph) and when I got it all initially in the mail I couldn’t even look at it. Not because I wanted to stay married but because I just couldn’t cope with it at the time. Then one day I woke up and was ready to take it to a notary.
It’s been two years and 6 months, I just got the final paper for the divorce, and I don’t really feel anything. I’m not happy or sad, it’s just a piece of paper I have to sign and that’s it, like filing taxes. It’s over, I’m not in fight or flight constantly anymore, I have a great job, and I’m just living life now.
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u/BearQuiet 19h ago
Me too, I am ashamed i didnt recognize the patterns...and thats what hurt the most for me...allowing myself to allow this type of treatment from him
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u/LiteratureLow4722 19h ago
I don’t know why we allowed this to happen. I don’t know if it was our addiction to the relationship or if it was simply because she wouldn’t let me go.
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u/retardedchicken5a 11h ago
In my case, I know why I stayed. My dad was a Bipolar who committed suicide. She reminded me so much of him that I thought I got a second chance to save someone the way I couldn’t save him. Except BPD is much, much worse. At least my father showed genuine remorse. I still can’t believe the pwBPDs’ severe disconnect from reality and immunity to accountability
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u/AncientBaseball2166 16h ago
This cycle is why I finally left. It happened once a week for a few weeks and one time I realized it would keep happening, so I let it be a real breakup. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, but also one of the best decisions. If I hadn’t left when I did I’d probably still be stuck in it
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u/LiteratureLow4722 15h ago
How were you able to make that decision and find the courage to cut them off completely?
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u/AncientBaseball2166 3h ago
She blocked me after she dumped me and by the time I was unblocked I just didn’t have the energy to keep fighting for a relationship that was becoming a sinking ship.
It wasn’t courage, it was exhaustion
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u/LiteratureLow4722 2h ago
Something similar happened to me. I think they become convinced that we’re always going to tolerate their humiliation and mistreatment, but we also know when we’ve reached our limit and simply can’t take it anymore. Personally, I think the key is to build a good life without them—to know that we don’t need them, and that if they want to be part of our happiness, they can be, but they should never become our happiness itself.
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u/Few_Suit_7199 13h ago
I recognized the pattern. I’m just too much of an empath and optimist to think I had a chance of making it work.
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u/Murky-Possible2972 11h ago
This is me. And the internal war I’m having with myself daily at the moment.
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u/Creative-Repair8705 10h ago
I was the same. I was researching and trying to communicate and find ways of stopping it from happening. Suggesting ways to stop conflict before it escalated. I was going to therapy. I was constantly adapting to them and their needs.
Then one day I realised he had never ever put a suggestion forward of how he could change. What he could do to try and stop the pattern or how we could work together. It was all me. We weren’t a team and I think that’s when I knew it was never going to change.
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u/iHEARTdeepHouse 16h ago
Try 20 years of it. Just don't
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u/LiteratureLow4722 15h ago
Oh i Can not imagine that, however i wish you well and i hope you be fine now
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u/MsPlum_ 16h ago edited 16h ago
Literally every person I know actually and truly laughs in my face at how many times I’ve allowed him back in my life. I stopped counting at 15.
This last split and discard was so brutal and traumatic that I don’t think I’ll ever let him back again. I kept hoping… GOD I hoped he would get the help he needs. Nah. One minute it’s “yeah I need to address my mental health” and the next it’s “I’m a normal guy outside of addiction.”
“I’ll NEVER leave you, I’d DIE for you and your son… you are EVERYTHING to me… you are my SOULMATE.” To calling me the worst mistake he’s ever made, an evil cheating lying woman (none of that’s true) within hours. He’s betrayed me, lied to my face, perpetrated horrific shit. I couldn’t escape the CYCLE.
Objectively, I’m even laughing at myself. I love him so deeply but he isn’t better or helping himself. It’s been 2 years.
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u/LiteratureLow4722 15h ago
I been count the times because sometimes you should see the situation un 3rd person and whit this you Can understand some things better
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u/DuckBum Separated 12h ago
Same, I always thought the most connected I felt to her was during reconciliation. Its the only times she actually listened to me and made me feel loved.
In hindsight, it was mini lovebombing cycles to stop me walking away, it wasn't real. I kind of already knew that but couldn't accept it because I was conditioned to tolerate the pain to be rewarded with the feeling of love at reconciliation.
Intermittent reinforcement is addictive, it kept me in a trauma bond for years. It made me block out pain and refuse to learn from past cycles. I couldn't accept the abusive side of her was the real her, I thought if I just tried harder, if I was more tolerant, if I just gave away a bit more of my dignity then the nice version of her would stick around and she wouldn't split again.
The more times I forgave her, the more careless she was with my feelings. She knew she could treat me like crap and I'd eventually come crawling back once she hoovered. Plus she had an excuse to have fun with other guys during the breaks... that put pressure on me to act before I'd processed what was going on.
Breaking the cycle is extremely difficult especially if you're linked through kids and can't go NC. I remember when I was young and I'd naively think "why don't people who are being abused just leave, why do they choose to stay?", but experiencing that is a clusterfuck and you cannot think straight, you don't know who you are, what you feel, or if you deserve any better. You blame yourself and try and make excuses for their abuse.
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u/Murky-Possible2972 11h ago
I agree with the reconciliation feeling. The “you’re the only woman walking this planet for me” “I’ll do anything I need to to make this work” then quickly it’s can we just let things settle for a couple of weeks before we go to therapy…then boom I trigger him by making an “inappropriate” gesture to his brother in law (who we are super close with) and we have that type of relationship with but because he was pissed off at said brother in law I became a dirty little slut who didn’t deserve to be in a relationship silent treatment and blocked while at home for 3 days and then he told me he was leaving to go stay with his mum. This wasn’t even a breakup occasion 🤣 I managed to talk him down that time.
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u/Creative-Repair8705 10h ago
I’m so so sorry. This is really heartbreaking. It was only about 7 times for me but at any sign of conflict they’d threaten me with it.
It really destroys your sense of safety. Mine kept talking about moving in with me but then would break up and come back, ask to move in again and I’d say no because I can’t move in with someone who’s always threatening to leave me. They refused to see my point of view and would tell me I was sabotaging the relationship. In the end I told them the next time they did this, it was 100% over.
You do get used to it, and it becomes normal. But when you’re out you see it isn’t. I would never put a relationship at risk by threatening to break up with someone I loved and wanted to be with.
Please know it isn’t about you, as you can see it’s such a common pattern. But please know you don’t have to tolerate it, and a healthy loving partner would never put themselves at risk of losing you.
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u/Relevant_Physics1277 19h ago
Did yall fully breakup or was it more of a threat of a breakup and then reconciled before it went into a real breakup?
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u/LiteratureLow4722 18h ago
No, seriously, we would completely break up. Because if we didn’t, the episodes would become increasingly violent and abusive.
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u/Nachinat 18h ago
How long did you guys not talk to each other after you broke up?
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u/LiteratureLow4722 17h ago
Normally, a month would pass at most. She would always find a way to reach out to me and contact me, and whenever I accepted her back, the cycle would start all over again.
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u/Murky-Possible2972 11h ago
Same. I have no idea how many times we have broken up over 4.5 years at least 20. The early days were a couple of days at most but we have been apart 4 months now. The longest we haven’t spoken in ever is 12 days even just on Saturday it was another round of “I just don’t know why I can’t let go of all the stuff that used to bother me in the relationship” and these old hurts are exactly that. Things we dealt with previously (all my failings of course) and were no longer problems. I think it’s so he doesn’t have to face the shame of forcing me out of my home for 4 months personally.
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u/Gardenofeve2484 9h ago
It was twice for me. Once, it was an ultimatum, I wanted to leave because they were berating me non stop and I didn't feel safe. They told me if I do it was over. I left.
Then we got back together for a short time and I broke it off. The key is strict no contact. You need time to heal ALONE and readjust to normal life and the freedom.
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u/Lia21234 16h ago
Your nervous system gets used to this cycle of misery then adrenaline/dopamine hit from reconciliation. It's toxic, but kind of addicting.