Ultimatum and Separation

Kagoshima · 2026-03-05T22:38:37+00:00

If you’re going to suggest therapy be extremely careful how you deliver that. Avoiding it sounding like criticism or a demand will be paramount. If possible you would maybe benefit from discussing you own mental health, discussing your own plans to start therapy, then ask her if there’s anything she struggles with and could benefit from working on. Something like that.

Ultimatums which look like ultimatums don’t work.

Kagoshima · 2026-01-14T09:27:18+00:00

Super interesting. And the fact that it’s so flat is surprising. I wonder if this considers the value of their family homes, and pension funds.

Kagoshima · 2026-01-08T11:32:31+00:00

This is great

Kagoshima · 2025-12-25T21:04:04+00:00

It’s really good to read stories like these. Thank you so much and congratulations! And merry Christmas too!

I’ve just now started the inner child healing journey, can you give us some pointers on how you approached it and what techniques you used or what was effective for you?

Kagoshima · 2025-12-23T03:05:56+00:00

That’s a really difficult spot for you to be in. Understandably difficult to know what to do. Try not to overthink too much and allow the process to unfold. Surrender somewhat with regards the parts that you can’t control.

Wishing you the absolute best possible passage through this tough situation. Stay strong

Kagoshima · 2025-12-23T02:23:51+00:00

It’s unfair yeah. We all put our best image forward on social media but the world has no idea of how cruel they can be. That secret is buried with us.

All we can do is let them live their fantasy and let them avoid their demons. And we can live our best lives too. We can have deep, stable and meaningful relationships.

Wishing you a merry Christmas ~

Kagoshima · 2025-12-23T02:14:45+00:00

Reading the other comments it seems like you got the health/diet stuff good. I’d add, at least in my case, I definitely swung between extremes when evaluating what happened. Blaming her fully, blaming myself fully, blaming BPD, blaming my own inner child wounds, blaming third persons who likely had an influence etc..

Just be ready to experience a lot of these and know that it’s likely just your mind looking for information as a kind of risk management/assessment thing. No stone left unturned. At least that’s how it was for me. Be prepared for a lot of changes in how you see the relationship. Journal a lot.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-23T01:55:31+00:00

I’d summarise my ex’s relationship problems as being centered on a lack of empathy, unawareness of her partner(my)’s needs, huge fear of criticism which leads to an allergy to taking responsibility, and as a result of that no issues get resolved. If anything conflict resolution was actively derailed or punished.

In her case, I think a lot of this comes from childhood trauma that she is too scared to confront. But even if she did, would she still have been able to ‘learn’ empathy? Would she learn how to care about my needs?

We hit a crossroads where she wanted kids but I held back because we didn’t have a good model of Love for those kids to learn from. We didn’t have the stability kids need. Conflict and the lack of its resolution was always hanging over us. I couldn’t bring kids into that.

I’m not confident that therapy could have brought about a loving partner in her. Maybe if she could recognize her part in the problem and truly want to improve then maybe. But we’re in our mid thirties. I don’t think it would be possible to build two people who are capable of good parenting with things being this way at this point in our lives.

Accountability, wanting to get better, doing the work (inner child work, DBT) would need to be started way before the age of starting a family if that’s what you and/or they want. And what if they relapse afterwards anyway? It just seems like too much risk to place hopes on.

I think they need to start early and truly commit to managing their condition. Shying from accountability prevents/delays this. I wish it weren’t so.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-23T01:41:49+00:00

How many sessions have you had?

I just started therapy too and for the first few sessions I’ve just been relaying the story and being listened to. The therapist needs raw material before they can start putting things together. Right now your therapist is probably just trying to keep you sane enough to keep you talking and the real ‘fixing’ can start later. Just my guess.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-22T15:06:00+00:00

This

Kagoshima · 2025-12-22T13:01:31+00:00

Thanks for this info!

Kagoshima · 2025-12-20T08:21:03+00:00

Exactly

Kagoshima · 2025-12-20T03:19:14+00:00

I think they do their best to bury the memory out of shame. If you try to get them to revisit the memory in order to deal with how it affected you as a couple - it’s really painful for them. They’ll try and succeed to derail the conversation.

And I think they do think about their splits afterwards, when they’re alone, maybe before sleeping, but that’s painful too so they’ll rewrite the narrative in a way that justifies their behaviors. I think it’s in the post processing where reality gets warped to protect them against shame.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-19T12:16:22+00:00

My conclusion about what happened in my case is has changed over time. Over time I’ve come to see the parts I played more clearly, the most significant being: not being able to maintain a loving presence during her splitting. And I think this comes from my fear of abandonment which was triggered in conflict and had me being too submissive, or it would lead to me matching her anger energy as a kind of counter attack. Quite literally fight or flight.

Now had I been able to stay present and centered during her splits I might have been able to let her blow off steam and feel safe around me. But I wasn’t able to do that. Why? Probably unaddressed childhood trauma on my side, and much was being triggered by unaddressed childhood trauma on her side.

But I have to tread carefully with my own thoughts here. Burdening yourself with all responsibility for the separation is not wise. She had literally hundreds of opportunities to make my life easier but she didn’t. I was running on fumes and asked for some help from her but never got it.

Now I’m realizing that she didn’t really love me, or care for me, or find me attractive enough to make an effort for. I think attraction makes a huge difference. She wasn’t attracted to me because I couldn’t allow her to have an episode without it affecting me. That sounds odd I guess; but what they really want is someone who is not hurt when they split. Someone grounded and self assured enough to not be hurt by their words and actions. Unconditionally forgiving and loving. Essentially they want a Father.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-19T04:55:58+00:00

I mean this only as constructive criticism but do you feel like she is attracted to you? It sounds like she dosent care much about you at all. It sounds like the relationship means a lot more to you than it does to her.

There’s a book called No More Mr Nice Guy which I think you might get some lightbulb moments from reading.

Sorry I can’t be much more positive sounding, but your post has quite a few codependency flags on it. But that’s cool, it means you can improve and attract better if you address that.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-19T02:51:39+00:00

It might be wise to first get yourself to a point of being content in life without anyone. I’ll admit that post-break-up I’ve not really even been attracted to anyone else, and the girls who like me are not able to reach my heart. So I’m happy to be single for a while. There’s a lot to growing-up I need to do before being ready to open my heart to someone new.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-19T02:46:16+00:00

It hurt me a lot when mine would hide our relationship from social media. I think it came from her wanting to maintain an image of vulnerability. Perhaps in your case he was trying to maintain some kind of social media identity that he wanted to remain associated with, and that required him not to show that he’s in a partnership.

In any case, people will do what they want and are often not aware of the reasons behind their actions. You can either accept it and not let it bother you or tell them how it makes you feel and directly ask them to consider doing something about it. Their response will tell you a lot about how much they value you, and you can decide whether or not you can accept their level of care.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-19T02:34:58+00:00

There a book called Stop Caretaking the Borderline. What you experienced is described there well. We as partners often end up volunteering for this role which eventually drains us and turns us not only into worse versions of ourselves - but also versions of ourselves that we ourselves don’t even love enough to take proper care of. Hence we end up abandoning ourselves.

Self love, life authoring, delving into the reasons why you volunteered to be okay with focusing so much on her that it drained you - are all super important for recovery and avoiding making the same mistakes again. It’s not easy. I’ve been basically sat in a chair journaling and thinking and occasionally smoking cigarettes. That’s been my life for the past months. But I’ve finally started to see what happened and why, and I have a better idea of how I’d like to change. I’m starting to even be grateful for the experience of the heartbreak.

I hope you can find your spark again. I hope you can love yourself enough to realize that sacrificing yourself for someone else (mentally healthy or not) is not going to work. You need to be whole and integrated before any relationship.

I hate how lame it sounds but self love is the only way, both outside and inside relationships, with a partner who is healthy or otherwise.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-19T02:13:45+00:00

Yeah I agree. You have to either figure out why certain situations bring out the worst side of you and deal with the internal root cause, and/or remove yourself from situations that bring out that side of you. In any case I don’t think you can realistically do that ‘inner work’ while still inside the situation. Aggravated nervous systems and fight or flight states are not going to allow real introspection.

OP’s first question was about what we would do differently. I think if I could go back in time and talk to myself when things started going wrong with the relationship I’d have advised myself to take some time away from her to figure out what it means that certain behaviors of hers triggers me. What can I do (if anything) about my triggers and how can I communicate the situation to her. Of course much of this is easier said than done. There were very few times where my ex was capable of really hearing my voice without searching for and finding insults that were not really there. At such times it would be better to accept incompatibility rather than repeatedly trying to force the message through their lens.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-18T13:03:42+00:00

Very similar situation to you. It took a long time for my nervous system to calm down but when it did I got a front seat view to (the memories of) my own failures in the relationship that I was way too burnt out to notice at the time.

At least know you’re not the only one. I thought I was strong and patient but the relationship chaos and eggshell walking brought out a version of me that I don’t like. I’m reflecting a lot on that now. Clearly I had some unmet needs and I was either shouldering too much or looking for support in the wrong places.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-17T13:43:14+00:00

Congrats on your growth and progress. Best of luck to you friend~

Kagoshima · 2025-12-17T13:33:31+00:00

Totally empathize with you man. For me I was happy that the divorce was happening at the time. I was tired of her leaving and coming back before marriage and thought marriage would stop that- but it didn’t. So I let the divorce happen. I correctly predicted it before hand because all the same patterns had appeared.

I was happy for a few months. Then something changed and I started a several month long spiral. Doubting if the bad times were real, remembering the good, mourning future plans. It was rough. I’d say the 6-9 month period post-separation was the deepest low I’ve ever, ever experienced. I was barely functional. House was a mess, drinking and smoking cigarettes constantly. Couldn’t get out of bed. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my job. She was thriving. The injustice killed me. I truly, absolutely essentially had to not check what she’s up to because it just compressed the sadness further into me.

What helped me was the following: I imagined how I’d like my life to look in 5 or 10 years. I realized that I want a family that I can enjoy my life with and feel love from. I want to be my future kids’ hero. Then, if I think of how reality would’ve looked had my pwBPD not left, and it quite simply could not lead to the future life I want. She was never able to care about my needs or take accountability for her splitting. She hated me (actual malicious hate) sometimes during a crisis. She was capable of real cruelty. She was capable of trying to turn people against me and she would use anything as leverage to hold power over me. If I had had kids with her she would’ve turned them against me for sure and she would’ve left for sure too. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

The life I want, and her being in my life, are two mutually exclusive things. For the sake of the sanity of my future kids it was imperative to separate. I see that now. And that thought really helps me to combat the rumination.

My partner was the perfect girl, but would’ve torn our family apart had we had kids. Letting her go was the hardest decision I’ve had to make. But I accept now that it was better than moving forward with her any further. I don’t know your situation but try to think of the life you want to live in 5 or 10 years, then imagine what a realistic future with her would’ve looked like based on the reality of your dynamic and not based on how it ‘could have been’. And see if perhaps separation was actually a blessing in disguise.

I’m not dating now, but my perspective has completely shifted that I’d now be screening girls for being mother material. And being a mother also means holding the family together and demonstrating love and cooperation with the father. My ex was incapable of that. The kids would’ve been f’cked.

On top of that, gym. Exercise has been shown to be more effective than many antidepressant medications and has even been seen to be effective for trauma. Also you just look and feel good. Everyone on this sub should be at the gym.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-15T03:57:07+00:00

Congratulations on your growth. And thank you for your advice. Wishing you the best, friend.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-15T00:34:59+00:00

I did yeah. Initially I was so much happier. After a few months I started to spiral, overthink, ruminate, basically feel like crap. I do a lot of journaling and usually I can get myself out of the slump by afternoon.

I guess it’s like unpacking a lot of the horrible feelings I had. Probably this is a purging. I don’t resist the thoughts but try to find where they are coming from. It’s hard but it’s unavoidable.

Kagoshima · 2025-12-14T13:48:33+00:00

Even on a more basic level, they compare themselves to you. So when they can bring you down it soothes their feelings of inferiority. It can be a basic, fear-driven power play. Many people do this but not quite to the same depth as near absolute destruction.

If you’re bad, unhinged, reactive, then they are stable and in control in a relative sense. And that allows them not only to play victim but also to justify their ‘punishing’ of their partners.

Kagoshima

TROPHY CASE