HPD - Complicated Stuff

Welcome to the board Thrillisgone. (love the name btw)

I am sorry to hear of the hardship that has come your way. As you know Cluster B PD's in general are a chaotic sort, and the one thing you can always count on is their endless unpredictability. Her leaving so abruptly after so many years is another sad example...

Sounds to me that you always suspected something was seriously wrong with her and had to sustain some great efforts on your part just to keep it afloat. Based on your writings, my guess is the combination of her age/hormonal shifts, multiple stressors, and the allure of new supply enticed her to run. HPD's in general don't seem to do well under any stress for they are already extremely needy/smothering at baseline. Running from life and people who care about them, themselves, and even their own shadow is sadly often the case

My question to you is: Now that she is gone, what are you doing for yourself? Do you have local supports in place? Do you see a counselor regularly?

I am glad you found this board. Many wise souls that can offer support as well

be well

Mywave- BB King. I figured it fit well and I'm a fan. The thrill is definitely gone. As time goes on there comes a degree of clarity. Yes, I did alot of accomodating in 30 years. I didn't mind it. I'm not a needy person but as I look back I see things that were obvious but alot more that was subtle but troubling nonetheless. One of the things that bothers me is that my Ex was very high functioning and most often seemed normal to me. Occasional she went off the rails but I was capable of de-escalating or ignoring the behavior.I suppose there might be a tendency to become conditioned and therefore somewhat blind. To me, there was more good than bad but I wonder sometimes what it is I didn't know.

It is funny that you mention the running away behavior. One of the last things my Ex said was that " she runs away when she is scared" and that that was how she handled things. She abruptly left college one day and dropped out, left the state and broke up with me after we dated for 5 years, without even a conversation or a call. I found out after calling her roomate! I chased her down for some sort of explanation and all she could tell me was that I had hurt her feelings and that she wanted to date other people. I left it at that and low and behold 2 months later she wanted to start back up....out of the blue. I guess I should have known then that something was amiss but I chalked it up as fickle and a simple break up. We made it 25 years more after that.....and shes gone again. The stakes were much higher this time around.

I have great friends who have been wonderful through this mess. I am very thankful for that. I went through a really rough depression initially and dropped 20 lbs, couldn't sleep or eat. I was a real mess. I attended counseling for about 6 months which was a life saver. The divorce and details of the affair were devastating. I'm a one woman kind of guy and my marriage meant everything to me. I never saw this coming. There are still times when I find it hard to believe. I am much better. The mind bender for me is that she often told me what a great husband I was and what a great marriage we had. I trusted her completely which added all the more to the shock value. I now am familiar with the concepts of splitting, idealization and devaluation. I just struggle sometimes because I have no frame of reference for the behavior.

I still wonder if it is possible that she will snap out of this. Her behavior while at times was odd, it was never this extreme. Some folks I talk to seem to put her behavior into the mid life crisis category.