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| Good Intentions still hurt. |
::deep breath::
I managed to get Therapist kind of worked up last night, but she wasn’t angry at me. She was angry at Friend. Remember I sent him the letter I needed to send him. He responded. I responded again. It’s been a week now and I haven’t heard back from him. I read therapist the letters that I sent him and his response so far.
I was floored by her reaction honestly. When I first read his response I thought he was being gentle with his words. I only really read it through once or twice. I can’t read things like that a lot. It’s painful. I also do this thing where I’ll skip to the end and read a letter backwards. Gradually skipping back up to beginning, reading things out of order, before I read it straight through. Does anyone else do this?
When I read it back to her, she asked me how I felt. Honestly, I was pretty annoyed. He did acknowledge that how he acted and how he treated me was wrong and that I deserved to have been treated better. That he failed me in that way. However…. and he pompused himself up a whole bunch, lied a couple times, and made a lot of hot air about how much ‘they let me into their lives’. ::blinks:: Plus the tone was just, flat.
He ended with this: But I can't have you seething at my wife all the time. Or even quietly hating her. It would make socializing uncomfortable at best. You need to sort out your problems with her and reach some sort of accord. Healing can't happen if theres hate and resentment. It can't. I don't want to lose you as a friend, but I don't want our future interactions to be strained and awkward either. I want you and I and {her} to work this out because she values you as well. We both do.
I’m sorry. You’re worried about things being uncomfortable… now? This isn’t new information I told him. He’s always known that I didn’t care for his wife. Also… I’ve been beyond uncomfortable around them for the past YEAR! I’ve managed to suck it up and act like an adult because I valued my friendship with him. Of all the vulnerable emotions, hurt, love, and value I’d placed on our friendship and told him in my previous letter, right now he’s worried about awkward socializing? Our past interactions have been strained and awkward for me, for the last year.
My relationship is with him. My problems are with him. He does not get to dictate terms. Friendship shouldn’t involve terms of engagement. He doesn’t get to tell me how I need to be.
Part of the reason I valued him so much as a friend is because I sincerely believed that he accepted who I am as a person. All of me, even the bad parts that I usually hide. Accepting someone means working with them to figure things out, it does not mean telling them they have to change to make socializing less awkward.
Amongst many things in my reply I told him: No, I would not be seeking a relationships with his wife.
I’ve never had a relationship with his wife. She’s never had much of an interest in me, except for what I provide them. What I can do for her. Beyond that, I have severe issues of object constancy.
With Friend, because we did have a very intense, positive and meaningful relationship I was able at times to feel truly connected to him. This is also why everything hit me so hard. Things hit me hard but it meant he felt like a real presence in my life. Part of the reason my connection to him was so strong, was that we were in such close and constant contact. It made him consistently real to me on an emotional level, not just a cognitive one so our friendship was essentially whole. Because I felt this connection, I can understand that there is something meaningful there to hold onto. It allows me to hold onto the thought that he is someone of value in my life and keeps me from splitting him into a place where I cannot form an attachment any longer. I’ve never had this connection with his wife. Like most everyone, she is just another passing face, an annotation next to his picture. I have zero emotional connection to her. She also suffered an absolute devaluation with me. Despite all warnings from people I did place some small trust in her. She threw it back in my face and tried to use it against me to victimize me emotionally. All that actually accomplished was to piss me off, but all previous value I’d been able to maintain, shattered. Besides how she’s treated me (and there were lots of little bullshit things she’s done), I’ve watched how she treats other people. I saw how she treated Friend, I saw how she treats people she considers friends, I saw how she gossips, instigates drama, and tries to manipulate people when they call her on her bullshit. She has zero integrity and treats people very poorly. At least when I fuck up I can admit it. She just blames everyone else. I’ve had too many abusive and destructive friendships in my life, and she is not the kind of person I will willingly allow close to me. So I’m sorry, but no.
I haven’t heard back from him since, other than some passive-aggressive Facebook comments. Typical.
Therapist noted my 2nd letter was of an entirely different attitude. I heard her sighing and sucking in her breathe at times. She told me she could hear in my letter how I was shutting down emotionally and acting to protect myself. She could hear me intellectualizing my feelings (< ~~~~ This is funny because I was just talking to someone about this very thing and she said it). I intellectualize in order to help protect the more vulnerable aspects of myself. It probably contributes to why I can write this blog the way that I do. But I’m pushing away the experience of actually feeling those emotions.
She was very angry. She doesn’t usually give me advice or make decisions for me. She lets me do that for myself. She had a very solid opinion that I should end this friendship. I left out a lot of what he wrote me, but she believes that he and his wife, are fucking crazy. While his words may express favorable sentiment, his attitude, the flatness of the content, and the message as a whole, expresses something very different.
I’m not sure how I feel about ending it yet, but it felt good to hear someone make a solid decision about what I should do. I told Roommate about it too and she agreed that it sounds like a healthy decision to cut them out of my life (which is an experience she herself has already been through).
I think I’m going to do something very out of character. I’m actually going to listen for a change.
Therapist doesn’t think I need to tell him “THIS FRIENDSHIP IS OVER” or anything like that. She thinks that might be too traumatic and triggering for me. But it would be healthiest for me if I collected my thoughts and let this friendship go in favor of having the opportunity to cultivate newer, healthier relationships. I still feel like I'm abandoning this one. It's a contradiction of my own fears that I can't reconcile yet.
Homework: Write a letter of closure for this friendship. I don’t have to send this to him, but for myself I do.
Therapist believes Friend was a catalyst for me. This was a relationship that inspired change in me. It allowed me to remember that I could be close to another person, that I could love another person, care more about someone than I do for myself and grow in a positive way because of that person. That he doesn’t seem to have grown or changed at all is unfortunate and a failing of his character, not mine. It’s important for me to look back and remember the positive things that came from this relationship. Like the fact that it is possible for me to feel safe with someone.
Though at this point I had to question my ability to trust myself. How can I trust myself or how I feel if this ending is the result? Clearly my feelings about the situation were wrong. Therapist disagreed. She believes my feelings were very real. And perfectly appropriate for how our relationship developed and the intimacy that was cultivated between us. That he is incapable of reciprocating the same level of caring is his failing, not mine. And not something I should waste any more time hoping for.
Not all relationships are meant to last. But they can all be meaningful in ways. Even if it hurts to see them end. I grew a lot in this relationship. I learned a lot about myself and the things I care about (and don’t) in people. I don’t feel ready to let it go yet, but I think I have to anyways. When left to my own devices I make terrible decisions about people and relationships. I routinely ignore what people tell me about others in favor of finding out for myself and hoping that things will be different with me. Well ya know what? Sometimes other people are right. There is no doubt in my mind that Therapist only has my best interest in mind. No ulterior motives, no personal agenda. She sees how very triggering this relationship has become over the last year and how emotionally destructive it’s been for me. Just because something can be pieced back together doesn’t mean it will ever be whole.
They say BPD is a disorder of relationships. Frankly I think the human condition is a disorder of relationships.
Aye. Tech Boy! As I mentioned earlier this week, it was my birthday on Wednesday. He surprised me with a night out to my favorite restaurant. For as much as I believe he is emotional immature or unavailable, he’s been surprising me a lot. The sweetness of that night was definitely one of those times. We got back to my apartment, spent a couple of tense moments picking a movie before I couldn’t restrain myself anymore and practically tore his clothes off. We didn’t even make it to the bedroom. The heat radiating between us was just that intense. Afterwards we just laid down on the couch, he pulled me on top of him, legs all entangled, brushing his fingertips lightly over my skin, wrapping his arms around me tightly. Every now and again he’d tilt my chin up and just stare into my eyes, finally kissing me. He may not be verbally expressive when it comes to emotions, but he finds other ways.
I actually had a medium sized freak out earlier that day and I thought whatever we were doing was over. My boss needed some last minute stuff so I asked Tech Boy to put it together right away (this is one of the projects that he works with me on). It was necessary for me to override some previous work requests he had and essentially display my authority in a pretty demanding way. I was CONVINCED he was going to be furious at me. In my mind all the reasons why we shouldn’t tangle up personal and professional relationships came crashing down around me. My stress and anxiety levels were off the chart. He just got it done as fast as he could. He never seemed bothered, but my mind was running away with me.
When I got home I actually texted him to see if we were still on, and told him I’d understand if he didn’t want to go out because I’d made the afternoon so stressful. He completely laughed it off, told me not to take my job so seriously, and said he’d be by in an hour. Relief.
Therapist was impressed. She thinks he has a very mature capability for keeping personal and professional aspects of our lives separate.
And then last night he busted out with, “You keep making a better and better case for having a girlfriend”. He’d asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner {tonight}. I’d inquired as to whether it was just us or if there was something going on because of all the going away parties and whatnot. He said, “Just us, I don’t think anyone else would be up for it.” I told him I was happy with just us. He said, “Me too, I want to make that happen more often…” and that’s when the girlfriend statement came into play. Gotta say, I was pretty shocked. It’s like a baby step in the direction of thinking about a relationship, but that he’s thinking about a relationship at all is sort of a shocker.
I was so down after therapy. Therapy can be very painful. And I come home, and am greeted with these warm sentiments and him telling me he wants me to be in his life more. Not gonna lie, I was pretty elated.
I just want to be wanted. Sometimes I think this is why Borderlines get such a bad rap or have such impulses to cheat. We crave this constant affirmation that we’re needed in someone’s life. Necessary. That kind of emotional attention coupled with the physical expression is just addicting.
I’m still very guarded. And conflicted. I think I’m afraid to be happy. I’m afraid to place that kind of hope into another person. I can have hope for myself, but I have some degree of control there. I don’t with someone else. Which is probably why I still don’t think this is a great idea, but it feels good and I’m just kind of letting it go where it will go right now.
It shouldn’t be so hard to let go of a hurtful relationship and open yourself up to a caring one. It shouldn’t be. So why do both scenarios cause so much pain?
So the short answer is: Any amount of obsession is too much obsession when you’re in love. 
