Is reconciliation possible in this scenario?

[bluecastle]

Not speaking for TwT here, but what I saw in your update was some confusion about your motivations. And that's okay, as being confused is okay. A very human state. Sometimes we have to put ourselves in purgatory for a bit—as you seem to be doing—in order to figure out which direction to move toward.

 

The impression I got, from your last post, is that the "support" alternative to romance was gauged as going well when it seemed to be leading toward romance: chats at work leading to drives to your car leading to a "significant" 1on1 in her place, where, some 90 hours after saying you were cool without romance, you considered making a move and regretted not taking action.

 

Meanwhile, when this new "approach," to use a phrase that has come up a bit, lead to a familiar wishy-washy silence and her DM'ing with a co-worker, the wind left the sails a bit, the approach was questioned, and you found yourself needing validation and at least hypothesizing about changing jobs if this goes (more) sideways.

 

Cliff's Notes: you were stoked when the spark seemed to be firing up, frustrated when it was not.

 

Zoom out a bit and it's kind of like where things were a week or so back, no? You were stoked (if wary) to see what would come of the plus one at the bbq, frustrated when that didn't quite pan out. They you were stoked (if confused) to understand it all a little more, in a way that—going from the above—led to a week where something romantic seemed again on the horizon, though the horizon was fogged over by some wariness and confusion, as it often was when you were actually a couple.

 

Which, hey, is all totally human. We get sprung on people, and ride the waves best we can. Tricky part here is what you know about her: a woman who is aware that she could use some real help, but who has a habit of coping by finding support in men whose motives are questionable, which has led to some unfortunate situations, which has made healthy romantic connections elusive. She's aware of that too, of course. But it's an awareness, right now, that's similar to someone who is aware that they could gain to lose some weight, but can't quite drive past a McDonald's without getting a Big Mac.

 

That puts you in a tough spot, no? You want to be different than, say, a co-worker with a fiancé who is exploiting her most vulnerable sides by playing DM footsie—and you are, I get it. But if you're also a coworker threatened by that other male coworker, hoping that a drive to a car and invite to her house may lead to something like footsie—well, that's where the "support" stuff becomes a little porous, where those differences get blurry in a world with lots of blurred lines.

 

I suspect what I'm writing is not the kind of encouragement you want, but I am on your side. I guess I'm just encouraging you to see this from a wider lens, so you can be brutally honest with yourself. I don't think you're trying to "trick" her into getting back with you by "positioning" yourself as the nice, supportive guy; but I am saying that it's worth asking if you can be a genuinely supportive presence while also wondering if this present juncture is a stepping stone toward another go at romance.

[ThatwasThen]

I'm convinced you're reading what you want to read, not what I wrote.

 

Sadly YOU are not seeing what you wrote. Perhaps, Bluecastle, in his response can help you there.

[TimeToGrowUp]

Not speaking for TwT here, but what I saw in your update was some confusion about your motivations. And that's okay, as being confused is okay. A very human state. Sometimes we have to put ourselves in purgatory for a bit—as you seem to be doing—in order to figure out which direction to move toward.

 

The impression I got, from your last post, is that the "support" alternative to romance was gauged as going well when it seemed to be leading toward romance: chats at work leading to drives to your car leading to a "significant" 1on1 in her place, where, some 90 hours after saying you were cool without romance, you considered making a move and regretted not taking action.

 

Meanwhile, when this new "approach," to use a phrase that has come up a bit, lead to a familiar wishy-washy silence and her DM'ing with a co-worker, the wind left the sails a bit, the approach was questioned, and you found yourself needing validation and at least hypothesizing about changing jobs if this goes (more) sideways.

 

Cliff's Notes: you were stoked when the spark seemed to be firing up, frustrated when it was not.

 

Zoom out a bit and it's kind of like where things were a week or so back, no? You were stoked (if wary) to see what would come of the plus one at the bbq, frustrated when that didn't quite pan out. They you were stoked (if confused) to understand it all a little more, in a way that—going from the above—led to a week where something romantic seemed again on the horizon, though the horizon was fogged over by some wariness and confusion, as it often was when you were actually a couple.

 

Which, hey, is all totally human. We get sprung on people, and ride the waves best we can. Tricky part here is what you know about her: a woman who is aware that she could use some real help, but who has a habit of coping by finding support in men whose motives are questionable, which has led to some unfortunate situations, which has made healthy romantic connections elusive. She's aware of that too, of course. But it's an awareness, right now, that's similar to someone who is aware that they could gain to lose some weight, but can't quite drive past a McDonald's without getting a Big Mac.

 

That puts you in a tough spot, no? You want to be different than, say, a co-worker with a fiancé who is exploiting her most vulnerable sides by playing DM footsie—and you are, I get it. But if you're also a coworker threatened by that other male coworker, hoping that a drive to a car and invite to her house may lead to something like footsie—well, that's where the "support" stuff becomes a little porous, where those differences get blurry in a world with lots of blurred lines.

 

I suspect what I'm writing is not the kind of encouragement you want, but I am on your side. I guess I'm just encouraging you to see this from a wider lens, so you can be brutally honest with yourself. I don't think you're trying to "trick" her into getting back with you by "positioning" yourself as the nice, supportive guy; but I am saying that it's worth asking if you can be a genuinely supportive presence while also wondering if this present juncture is a stepping stone toward another go at romance.

 

The trip to her house threw me off. Never in my mind did I expect that kind of invite I mean remember our interactions had been contained to work, phone, and text. I thought ok, maybe there's something more going on here than just me being supportive.

 

Ironically she called me early in the evening on that same day I was feeling like crap about her and that other guy DM'ing at work. She was being really sweet, telling me she was sad she couldn't find me at our work's Halloween costume party. Of course she had had a few drinks too. She sent me some great pics of her in her costume and teased that I needed to get an iPhone for Facetime. I threw a bunch of flirty compliments her way in what was a really great interaction. Later that night I sent her a text letting her know I'd pay for a ride to come meet me and my friends out for Halloween, but I got no response.

 

The next day our text interactions were stale. I asked her to sit with me at lunch and she was clearly in one of her moods. Upon sitting down it was immediately "I hate everyone right now - everyone always tries to screw me over." I don't know what got into me, but I asked her if she still felt that way about me. She said no, I've been putting in a lot of effort and making amends. Then she proceeds to go on this rant about how she hates the city I hang out in and all the people in the nightlife - that she's over it and it's a trigger for her. Ironic, because one of her issues with me was that I never brought her out again after the incident this past summer. It's just another illustration of these mood/emotional swings that I can't keep up with.

 

She walked off after about 35mins. When I got back to my desk there was a text waiting for me explaining she's not trying to be mean, but that she's bitter because she felt so judged by me when we dated. She also said she notices the changes I've made over these last two months, but that it's upsetting her because she wanted it before. I stopped the conversation there and waited to talk to her later that night on the phone, but still the mood persisted to the point where she's actively saying she doesn't care what anyone thinks right now. I reminded her one more time that the past is the past, but that I regret leaving her to feel judged. I apologized, I said I was naive to how her traumas and things going on in her life affected us, as well as my ability to allow things to progress. I reminded her I still want to be the guy to make a difference in her life. Eventually the conversation got a little more lighthearted when we switched gears to other stuff (classes she's taking, etc.) One interesting tidbit is that apparently one of her friends confronted her about the escalation of her dependency on smoking weed.

 

Then of course to continue this craziness - she DM's me on Instagram on Sunday after seeing a video my cat. She reminded me that she's still his mom, which is something she'd say when we were dating. Conversation has been next to non-existent for the most part since. Any interaction has been a real brief text where it seems like everything is funny to her (lots of extended LOL's and Haha's). Basically quasi-NC and I'm preparing myself to go full NC if I can't get my head straight. I just really didn't like how she came at me on Friday. I can't keep up with her mind states and not take them personally. Of course someone at our work just HAD to text me today that "Your girl looks good right now." I told the guy don't text me about her right now.

[bluecastle]

I reminded her I still want to be the guy to make a difference in her life.

 

I am, I admit, running out of things to say here. Not losing patience, mind you, just struggling to string together words that I think can be beneficial. Still, I'll take some shots in the dark:

 

This is all just more of the same, no? You're describing a flighty, flaky, immature woman of 30 who is attractive, moody, and into sexualized male attention—not exactly a unicorn in the pantheon of human archetypes. You can continue chalk all that up to trauma, elevating it, but the hard fact of the world is that she is hardly alone in experiencing trauma and that every human has experienced what she has is not flighty, flaky, moody, and so on.

 

There are also plenty of women around her age who behave much the same way, without the horror stories, and I do sincerely wonder if you'd be as drawn to them as you are to her—if part of the fundamental dynamic here is that, next to her, you get to feel mature, valuable, which, let's just be brutally honest, is a cakewalk when you're communicating with "lol" and "haha." Put me on a basketball court with a bunch of elementary school kids and I'm Michael Jordan, but that doesn't actually mean I'm good at basketball, if you catch my drift.

 

Hence my highlighting of the above sentence for a reason. I think that sentence has less to do with her, her trauma, or your feelings for her, than what you want to see when you look in the mirror: a guy who is making a difference in a woman's life. Good stuff, that, in vacuum. Pure gold that doesn't go anywhere, wherever this goes. But in this paradigm? Is that gold being polished, or tarnished? Is she the best vessel to continue trying to become that man? I can see your asking those questions—and, it seems, approaching some answers. I'd even go so far as to say that if a gun was put to your head, forcing an answer, you'd be pretty quick to provide a firm "no."

 

And yet, the "cat mom" text comes in over IG and the game is back on...

 

Because we don't go through life with guns to our heads—which is, of course, ideal. Still, we do look in mirrors, time never stops passing, and it's important to make choices that allow us to like what we see in the reflection. The bare bone facts here are that you, at 40, are kind of still angling for some kind of action with a much younger woman who has been severely twisted up by men angling for action. That's you, alongside her—not her and her issues, and I really think it's worth looking hard at those "optics" and asking yourself who you want to be.

 

I'm not saying that with a tsk-tsk of the pointer finger, but kind of trying to get you to turn up the volume a bit more on internal "humble dial." She's cool, compelling, attractive, tender in her own scattershot way, and you've attached some hopes, ideas, and hormones to it all—I get it. Totally human. But is this whole thing healthy, for either of you? She might be a lot further from answering that question than you, and it might be that the reward for your maturity comes from answering that than getting a gold star for the difference you made in her life.

[Chloee1988]

All this back and forth is only reinforcing this hold she has over you. It’s like you have to tiptoe around her to avoid setting off any triggers. She appears to be extremely unstable. Whatever you try will not work as it’s impossible to work through anything unless she is aware of her actions and their impacts. I think establishing NC will give you time to look at this objectively and realize just how deeply entrenched you are in this emotional roller coaster. You would also benefit from counselling to address your deep seated need to “fix” people.

[bluecastle]

All this back and forth is only reinforcing this hold she has over you. It’s like you have to tiptoe around her to avoid setting off any triggers. She appears to be extremely unstable. Whatever you try will not work as it’s impossible to work through anything unless she is aware of her actions and their impacts. I think establishing NC will give you time to look at this objectively and realize just how deeply entrenched you are in this emotional roller coaster. You would also benefit from counselling to address your deep seated need to “fix” people.

 

Clear, concise, honest breakdown right here, with an emphasis on the last two sentences. Something is drawing you to this flame, and I think you'll feel something shift in you when you know what that something is. I know you say you don't want to "fix" her, but "making a difference" is a version of that, no?

[Chloee1988]

Thanks blue castle!!

[TimeToGrowUp]

All this back and forth is only reinforcing this hold she has over you. It’s like you have to tiptoe around her to avoid setting off any triggers. She appears to be extremely unstable. Whatever you try will not work as it’s impossible to work through anything unless she is aware of her actions and their impacts. I think establishing NC will give you time to look at this objectively and realize just how deeply entrenched you are in this emotional roller coaster. You would also benefit from counselling to address your deep seated need to “fix” people.

 

You said it best - you really did. That is what is really starting to come to light for me right now. She shows little awareness or remorse for how her behavior impacts others right now or for others who are going thru hard times in life. Like in my case she thinks "I'm not trying to be mean, but ....." is enough validation.

 

In regards to "Fixing people" that isn't really my thing. But I'm being honest in saying that I've spent quite a long time being a distancer and someone who could use a little of putting other people first for once. I've never been malicious about it - it was moreso because of how drained I was from lots of interpersonal failures.

[TimeToGrowUp]

Clear, concise, honest breakdown right here, with an emphasis on the last two sentences. Something is drawing you to this flame, and I think you'll feel something shift in you when you know what that something is. I know you say you don't want to "fix" her, but "making a difference" is a version of that, no?

 

There's two things that battle in my mind aside from the fact that I genuinely have feelings for her.

 

1. The judgmental cycle that does persist in my dating life. It's symptom of self-preservation, as well as a reflection of how hard I am on my own self.

2. The regret I have that she really did try - she never did anything malicious to me - and I left her hanging out there feeling very vulnerable when she was longing to change the tide of her dating life with a guy like me.

[TimeToGrowUp]

I am, I admit, running out of things to say here. Not losing patience, mind you, just struggling to string together words that I think can be beneficial. Still, I'll take some shots in the dark:

 

This is all just more of the same, no? You're describing a flighty, flaky, immature woman of 30 who is attractive, moody, and into sexualized male attention—not exactly a unicorn in the pantheon of human archetypes. You can continue chalk all that up to trauma, elevating it, but the hard fact of the world is that she is hardly alone in experiencing trauma and that every human has experienced what she has is not flighty, flaky, moody, and so on.

 

There are also plenty of women around her age who behave much the same way, without the horror stories, and I do sincerely wonder if you'd be as drawn to them as you are to her—if part of the fundamental dynamic here is that, next to her, you get to feel mature, valuable, which, let's just be brutally honest, is a cakewalk when you're communicating with "lol" and "haha." Put me on a basketball court with a bunch of elementary school kids and I'm Michael Jordan, but that doesn't actually mean I'm good at basketball, if you catch my drift.

 

Hence my highlighting of the above sentence for a reason. I think that sentence has less to do with her, her trauma, or your feelings for her, than what you want to see when you look in the mirror: a guy who is making a difference in a woman's life. Good stuff, that, in vacuum. Pure gold that doesn't go anywhere, wherever this goes. But in this paradigm? Is that gold being polished, or tarnished? Is she the best vessel to continue trying to become that man? I can see your asking those questions—and, it seems, approaching some answers. I'd even go so far as to say that if a gun was put to your head, forcing an answer, you'd be pretty quick to provide a firm "no."

 

And yet, the "cat mom" text comes in over IG and the game is back on...

 

Because we don't go through life with guns to our heads—which is, of course, ideal. Still, we do look in mirrors, time never stops passing, and it's important to make choices that allow us to like what we see in the reflection. The bare bone facts here are that you, at 40, are kind of still angling for some kind of action with a much younger woman who has been severely twisted up by men angling for action. That's you, alongside her—not her and her issues, and I really think it's worth looking hard at those "optics" and asking yourself who you want to be.

 

I'm not saying that with a tsk-tsk of the pointer finger, but kind of trying to get you to turn up the volume a bit more on internal "humble dial." She's cool, compelling, attractive, tender in her own scattershot way, and you've attached some hopes, ideas, and hormones to it all—I get it. Totally human. But is this whole thing healthy, for either of you? She might be a lot further from answering that question than you, and it might be that the reward for your maturity comes from answering that than getting a gold star for the difference you made in her life.

 

I'm recognizing that it's likely to become very unhealthy and my own instincts are telling me to protect myself.

 

I can't speak for other trauma survivors, but she is on an island right now. There's no support system around her. She's left to her own devices, self-medicating, and posting self-reflecting meme on Instagram. Meanwhile it's pretty clear her triggers are everywhere. I don't get a sense that she knows how to help herself.

[TimeToGrowUp]

Btw yesterday was a perfect example of everything we're talking about.

 

I've generally been minding my own business since last Friday. I had to leave the office for an hour and when I got back she immediately messaged me "Hey everyone from your team already came over to grab food at our pot luck. Aren't you coming?" Mind you there was no previous invite from her. I went over there anyway. Sat down and bullcrapped with her for about 15mins while I ate then went back to my desk. Later that night I texted her to let her know what a great job she did with her dish and got a very dry "thank you" about an hour later. Went ahead and checked out her Instagram feed and there's some Rugrats meme titled "3 months into the relationship" and the character fearfully comments "Ohhh he's a clown?!?!?"

 

Now I don't know if that was aimed at me or not - if it wasn't then it means she's lying about not wanting to connect with anyone and just wants to work on herself. But the day just perfectly captures the sweet, dry, angry cycle.

[Wiseman2]

Sorry this is happening. Do you work together? The insta doesn't seem aimed at you but it explains why she wants to divorce/moved out and didn't want sex for months..

I had to leave the office for an hour and when I got back she immediately messaged me "Hey everyone from your team already came over to grab food at our pot luck.

 

Went ahead and checked out her Instagram feed and there's some Rugrats meme titled "3 months into the relationship"

[bluecastle]

There's two things that battle in my mind aside from the fact that I genuinely have feelings for her.

 

1. The judgmental cycle that does persist in my dating life. It's symptom of self-preservation, as well as a reflection of how hard I am on my own self.

2. The regret I have that she really did try - she never did anything malicious to me - and I left her hanging out there feeling very vulnerable when she was longing to change the tide of her dating life with a guy like me.

 

Responding to these bullet points:

 

1. This is for therapy, not for romance. You have some idea that something in you is "broken"—the distancing, etc.—which she "triggered" by being needy, and throwing a story at you ("I need more you") that you had a predisposition to metabolize a judgement rather than the feelings of one human being on the planet.

 

2. Same thing, different angle, as you're idealizing her (trying hard, never malicious) and yourself ("a guy like me" who could "change the tide") while also demonizing yourself ("I left her hanging"), so again it becomes a story about how you are a monster and she is a maiden.

 

There is a much simpler, humbler story here that goes: bad match. Not your fault, not hers. Just two people at points in their lives who aren't anywhere close to good for each other and have spent the better part of one year of their lives proving that. That's a universal story, playing out by the minute in millions of millions of lives. The instinct to editorialize it—well, that's where things get dangerous. It's like calling a tarp draped over two rocks a mansion and using it for shelter, and then getting soaked at the slightest rain.

 

Repeatedly you say you don't want to "fix" her, and I believe you, in terms of how you're interpreting it. But I also don't think you realize how much this whole connection is built around "fixing," the idea basically being: you can fix yourself through her (no more distancing, etc.) as she fixes herself through you (change of tide, etc.).

 

Big catch to all that, if you're still with me? All that is "distancing," keeping reality at arm's length and, as such, deepening the very behavior in yourself that frustrates you and finding a jagged mode of comfort in that "flaw." It's a few steps removed from genuine connection, because it's all about you and your issues, her and her issues, all about stories rather than people connecting or failing to connect—stories of sin and salvation, repentance and atonement, trauma and coping.

 

And yet look at the hard facts around which these lofty variables are spinning: Instagram memes, a "cat mom" who acts like a teenager, a 40 year old man regressing into a mode of romantic connection that he can probably recall from a high school hallway. No language—and no "feelings"—alters those facts, just like "tarp" and "mansion" don't change what happens when the rain comes.

 

Being able to see that, and just call it—well, that's the enlightenment stuff. Refusing to see that or turning something (or someone) into things it/they are not—that's the sort of glitch in the operating systems that therapists take on, not things other people reprogram.

 

This distancing business that is such a source of self-loathing? It will persist if you choose to emotionally invest in women you don't trust or respect, which is the chapter heading of this whole thing, best I can see. You can try to sidestep that—leaning hard into abuse, say, to justify behavior that makes you unable to trust or respect her—but that only gets you so far. It kind of gets you back to where you started (woman you're wary of) rather than where you want to go (woman you're surrendering to).

 

I can spin you a personal story that "competes" with hers. And, sure, I could find women—and probably have, at more immature junctures of my life—who "put up" with me because they know about x and y. But that is all childish, regardless of what x or y are. It's seeking out enablers to dodge growth—and, in the process, miss out on more potent connections, with others, with ourselves. The "sweet, dry, angry cycle" you just outlined? That is Enablement 101: two people bringing out their lesser selves, and getting validated for it.

 

As Chloe outlined, you kind of have two paths before you. You can move on, explore your own demons with some intention, and look back at this as a brief, bittersweet chapter you needed to clean out some corrosion—a road trip where the engine stalled after 200 miles, so you change the oil so the engine can go a million miles. Or you stay on the rollercoaster where people wearing masks of issues and demons sit in the front car, nervous as it ticks to the top of each hill, screaming as it plummets, and so on.

 

My few cents, to spend as you see fit.

[Wiseman2]

Ok this is sour grapes. She is now mentally ill because you broke up? Typical story. The ex is .... bipolar, borderline, narcissistic, etc etc...fill in the blank. You picked her. Focus on that instead and why.

I've been trying to reconcile with the girl I dated. I was so naive to her condition and now that I'm educating myself it changes the whole scope of how I viewed the five months I spent with her.

[TimeToGrowUp]

Ok this is sour grapes. She is now mentally ill because you broke up? Typical story. The ex is .... bipolar, borderline, narcissistic, etc etc...fill in the blank. You picked her. Focus on that instead and why.

 

She is diagnosed. I couldn't remember if it was Borderline or BiPolar because when she told it to me I thought she was just having a bad day and I was also a bit overwhelmed by all the things going on in the background of her life. I also explained in this thread before she suffers from actual PTSD from the trauma her previous boyfriend caused. That is not me making up a "condition".

 

So walk back your comments, they're out of line.

[ThatwasThen]

OMG... What are you doing to yourself, TTGU? Get yourself away from her is the bottomline here. You've gotten pages and pages of advice all on the same line just delivered differently and you still insist on sticking up for this woman that plays you like you were a Stradivarius Violin.

 

Please do not discount seeing a psychiatrist so that you can get help to set yourself free from the entanglement of this web she has weaved around you.

 

You will be glad you did because clearly hearing opinions of strangers on the internet is triggering you into defense mode that is manifesting offensively.

[TimeToGrowUp]

OMG... What are you doing to yourself, TTGU? Get yourself away from her is the bottomline here. You've gotten pages and pages of advice all on the same line just delivered differently and you still insist on sticking up for this woman that plays you like you were a Stradivarius Violin.

 

Please do not discount seeing a psychiatrist so that you can get help to set yourself free from the entanglement of this web she has weaved around you.

 

You will be glad you did because clearly hearing opinions of strangers on the internet is triggering you into defense mode that is manifesting offensively.

 

I don't have problems with advice and have sought them out from a variety of sources. What I take offense to is your insistence on being abrasive in your recommendations. You get too frustrated when your dime store psychology isn't immediately followed and the value is lost when you lack compassion for peoples' situations. I've read many of responses from you in other threads I've been looking around and it's the same thing over/over again.

 

So I say again, can we drop the act and interact like adults?

 

That being said I'm quickly approaching my breaking point and the concern I have for my own emotional well-being is starting to take on more importance. After all the reading I've done on BiPolar sufferers, this situation is even more complex than I could ever imagine. I look back on our five months together and feel like I was just a biproduct of her mania. That's why she came on so big, so strong. It came at time when I was suffering from the heartache/failure of treating my cat for kidney failure and the stress from a job that took me for granted. She'll soon go on to place it on another man - because that's the cycle that's played out for a few years now.

 

Now that I've been proactive during this reconciliation period, I'm seeing the real her and what is likely to persist with or without me. That's is what I didn't get to see as I was taking my time with her while we dated.

[ThatwasThen]

I don't have problems with advice and have sought them out from a variety of sources. What I take offense to is your insistence on being abrasive in your recommendations.

You just don't like to hear the truth or perhaps something that at least goes against your own narrative that you insist on listening to???? How can you call my opinion "abrasive" when you are not hearing voice inflection?

You get too frustrated when your dime store psychology isn't immediately followed

I'm sorry but your assumptions are immature at best. I don't know you enough to get frustrated over your inability to see your own dysfunction. I am just trying to hammer home your unhealthy attachment to this woman because when you keep defending her and making excuses to yourself to keep yourself in her life, not even the tender and esoterica administrations of Blue Castle are persuading you from doing what you insist on doing with her while she plays you. Not "frustrated" but I am seeing the futility in trying to get you away from your tunnel vision.

 

and the value is lost when you lack compassion for peoples' situations.

The "value" has zero "value" when you are insistent on continuing on in the same path. I believe to keep responding to your updates is just enabling you to remain stagnated in said dysfunctional need to caretake (the opposite of caregive)

 

I've read many of responses from you in other threads I've been looking around and it's the same thing over/over again.

Well nothing is new here. If you read many threads then you will see that not too much is different. You are not alone in your need to caretake to the point of it being dysfunctional.

 

So I say again, can we drop the act and interact like adults?

Can you? You are the opening poster that has come her to hear advise and when you hear something you don't like you become offensive in your defensiveness. What exactly are you hoping to get from your thread at this point?

 

That being said I'm quickly approaching my breaking point and the concern I have for my own emotional well-being is starting to take on more importance.

That will only be true if you sever your contact and this false sense of obligation you feel towards her.

After all the reading I've done on BiPolar sufferers, this situation is even more complex than I could ever imagine. I look back on our five months together and feel like I was just a biproduct of her mania.

Of course you were. She is a sufferer who is not in current treatment for her past trauma nevermind anything chronic she is suffering in. That is the worse person to ever try and form a relationship with.

 

That's why she came on so big, so strong. It came at time when I was suffering from the heartache/failure of treating my cat for kidney failure.

*sighs* I understand the heartbreak of losing a pet. What I don't understand is why you have been trying to form anything healthy with her when forming something healthy with her is impossible and should have been apparent to you even in your grief for your beloved pet.

She'll soon go on to place it on another man - because that's the cycle that's played out for a few years now.

No doubt.

 

Now that I've been proactive during this reconciliation period, I'm seeing the real her and what is likely to persist with or without me.

Again, no doubt.

 

That's is what I didn't get to see as I was taking my time with her while we dated.

Oh, you saw it... that is why you extricated yourself from her to begin with. The problem is, you tried to get back, you thought a man as yourself could help her/fix her instead of keeping yourself gone and emotionally safe from the likes of her.

 

Have you thought about getting your own therapy so that you don't get yourself hooked on someone just like her in the future? Have you had troubling relationships with women like her before? Do you think you can keep yourself away from fix-it project women going forth?? When will you tell her you're done with being her crutch that keeps her from getting the real help she clearly needs? Will you ever?

 

No need to answer here. Just some questions to ponder as you do some inner reflection on your own behaviour and forget about hers for a time.

[bluecastle]

"The tender and esoterica administrations"—bowing down to you, TwT. I feel seen.

 

Now that I've been proactive during this reconciliation period, I'm seeing the real her and what is likely to persist with or without me. That's is what I didn't get to see as I was taking my time with her while we dated.

 

Okay, so here's a whiff of something like progress. Key word: whiff. Which we've seen before. They are, at this juncture, still the thing that exists between DMs and IG stories and desk chats.

 

What I think a number of people are trying, in different ways, to nudge you toward reflecting on is seeing the "real you" inside all this rather than the continued excavation of the "real her." That part has never actually been a mystery, as both your head and your gut had a clear read from week one. Whether it's educating yourself on bipolar disorder or interpreting social media subversiveness, all that keeps the surgical lights on her and away from you. The story of being a "byproduct of her mania," one that unspooled because you were feeling touchy after the loss of a pet, allows you to be a passenger in all this rather than a driver, if that makes sense.

 

You just can't, in short, keep putting this all on her, just as you're learning, perhaps, that pouring yourself into her is not a mode of finding yourself. But why the urge to keep pouring yourself into her? Why did the urge become so magnified after you broke up, while being muted before? That's the thing to figure out, which is to say isolate the thing you have been getting through this obsession. Not the maybe-thing on the horizon that looks like a Hallmark card, but the actual thing that's had you hooked, which looks more like the kind of stuff Hallmark makes a lot of money glossing over.

 

For that you have to drop the sword and shield, disrobe, slip into the patient down, hop on the table, and put the surgical light on yourself.

 

When people suggest therapy, that's what they're suggesting, especially when over and over everything becomes about her: her disorders, her coping mechanisms, her social media activity, her DMs, her past choices, her inevitable future choices. I'm perplexed, I admit, that you are so reluctant to consider the idea that you have been searching for both power and comfort—things we all want from romance—by seeing if you can be potion that cures her through "getting" her and "supporting" her. You've spelled it out a few times, almost verbatim, but when one of us reflects it back you get defensive.

 

It's uncomfortable, I get it. I mean, I literally get it, and also figuratively. It's a bit like someone saying you have some food on your face. Yeah, you feel a little exposed, but you can't remove the food from your face by reviewing the restaurant. You kind of have to go, "Ooops—you're right. That's a little piece lettuce on my cheek—how'd it get there?"

[TimeToGrowUp]

"The tender and esoterica administrations"—bowing down to you, TwT. I feel seen.

 

 

 

Okay, so here's a whiff of something like progress. Key word: whiff. Which we've seen before. They are, at this juncture, still the thing that exists between DMs and IG stories and desk chats.

 

What I think a number of people are trying, in different ways, to nudge you toward reflecting on is seeing the "real you" inside all this rather than the continued excavation of the "real her." That part has never actually been a mystery, as both your head and your gut had a clear read from week one. Whether it's educating yourself on bipolar disorder or interpreting social media subversiveness, all that keeps the surgical lights on her and away from you. The story of being a "byproduct of her mania," one that unspooled because you were feeling touchy after the loss of a pet, allows you to be a passenger in all this rather than a driver, if that makes sense.

 

You just can't, in short, keep putting this all on her, just as you're learning, perhaps, that pouring yourself into her is not a mode of finding yourself. But why the urge to keep pouring yourself into her? Why did the urge become so magnified after you broke up, while being muted before? That's the thing to figure out, which is to say isolate the thing you have been getting through this obsession. Not the maybe-thing on the horizon that looks like a Hallmark card, but the actual thing that's had you hooked, which looks more like the kind of stuff Hallmark makes a lot of money glossing over.

 

For that you have to drop the sword and shield, disrobe, slip into the patient down, hop on the table, and put the surgical light on yourself.

 

When people suggest therapy, that's what they're suggesting, especially when over and over everything becomes about her: her disorders, her coping mechanisms, her social media activity, her DMs, her past choices, her inevitable future choices. I'm perplexed, I admit, that you are so reluctant to consider the idea that you have been searching for both power and comfort—things we all want from romance—by seeing if you can be potion that cures her through "getting" her and "supporting" her. You've spelled it out a few times, almost verbatim, but when one of us reflects it back you get defensive.

 

It's uncomfortable, I get it. I mean, I literally get it, and also figuratively. It's a bit like someone saying you have some food on your face. Yeah, you feel a little exposed, but you can't remove the food from your face by reviewing the restaurant. You kind of have to go, "Ooops—you're right. That's a little piece lettuce on my cheek—how'd it get there?"

 

I don't know how to explain it. I often have a very hard time moving on from my own perceived failures. Regardless of her situation, there were a lot of genuinely great moments and not only was she my romantic interest - she was also my best friend. However I found myself at the familiar juncture - is there something legitimately wrong or is it just me once again dragging my feet and not committing? I remember those times sitting across from her asking "why am I not into this girl more than I am?" I do have commitment issues and anyone who knows me will tell you that. It's due to my own OCD tendencies and the ability to decide.

 

Then of course as I'm learning now thru reading - people with bipolar issues can be very convincing because of the highs of their mania and are very skilled at projecting. When the conversation turned from "It's nobody's fault it just didn't work out" to "I'm bitter you judged me and yes you've changed but it's making me upset" it really played on my regrets because honestly man, I didn't even try to understand what she was going thru. My internal alarms were sounding, I was already heartboken from the kidney failure thing, so rather than risk anything escalating into drama/disappointment and perhaps some of it even getting carried into the office - I stalled to the tune of only seeing her once a week. That hurt her feelings and left her very vulnerable.

 

This situation really brought to light how self-involved I've been because of my own headspace. I'm working to correct that.

[Chloee1988]

I think you are trying to find something within you to blame for the way things unfolded. I guess it’s easier to rationalize things this way and to absorb some of the blame in order to avoid the real truth. The real truth being that this wasn’t a healthy relationship. The reality is that you were a willing participant in a vicious cycle of highs and lows. If you truly had genuine moments with her, I don’t believe you’d end up where you are today. Genuine people don’t act this way.

 

Please learn to alter your mindset from the current one which is that you feel your self involvement may have been the cause of all this. The truth is, you must learn to focus on you, your needs, and why you’re drawn to certain people. Stop being preoccupied with “could haves”, “would haves” and “should haves”. You’re in the way of your own progress.

[bluecastle]

This situation really brought to light how self-involved I've been because of my own headspace. I'm working to correct that.

 

Boom—that's the gold, right there. Or at least a little glimpse at the nugget awaiting some mining, if you're up for grabbing a pickaxe and getting a little dirty.

 

What I'd say, or at least what I can't help but see, is that you don't really have "commitment issues." That's the easy out. Makes this all about poor you and your pathology: another wonderful thing "ruined" by your "commitment issues." Another corroded dude walking the planet. More self-absorption. As long as that's how you see yourself you'll keep making choices that affirm that identity.

 

How I'd look at it—and I've had to go here, in my own journey, a craggy but worthwhile self-excavation—is that what you may have "issues" with is the type of women you repeatedly flirt with committing to and invest your emotional capital in: women you don't quite trust, can't quite respect, aren't totally into as you sit across the table, don't consider an equal, and/or come with such serious risks (workplace drama) that you can't help but stay on the fence.

 

What's up with that? That's where you'll start mining the gold, I think. Do you not think you're deserving of someone capable of loving you? Do you not believe someone capable of seeing the whole you would love what they see? Or has something from your past—past loves, family, who knows—encoded in you a definition of "love" as something to extract, work for, be tortured by? Are you scared to stand face to face with a woman who is an equal? Those are just sample questions, really. Things to contemplate instead of becoming an amateur expert in bipolar disorder.

 

Point being, the writing was on the wall, early, that the odds were stacked high against you here. Workplace, huge age gap, a woman you knew was hardly keeping it together—not so different than meeting a great woman and learning, dang it, she's married. Your own gut was responding to those odds, yet you kept overriding the gut, and in ways you continue to. Rather than just see all that for what it was—wrong time, wrong person, such is life—it becomes something more emotionally fraught, the thing you may still be more compelled to seek than commitment: a verdict on you confirming your guilt.

 

In other words, there is no "issue" in not wanting to commit to someone you know, in your core, is bad for you. That is called being healthy. Less than healthy is not seeing it that way, so you can keep replaying the same dynamic with similar people, hoping for different results and, when they don't come, raking yourself over the familiar coals.

 

As Chloe said, there is a big difference between "genuine" and what you're describing here. Yeah, I get it, you had fun, connected, were intimate, emotionally and physically. But all that happened only—or at least in part—because you tried to drown out those internal alarm bells. Yet all they did is ring and ring, creating static. Static is the opposite of genuine, like watching a genuinely good movie on a flickering screen. It's a completely different experience than watching a genuinely good movie; to do that you need a functioning screen.

[TimeToGrowUp]

She kind of lashed out at me the other night regarding where I was hanging out in my IG video. Now apparently she unfollowed me. A friend of mine said she unfollowed him too. I gave her just a little bit of space over the last week and this is the net result.

[bluecastle]

This is not the net result of you giving her space, or anything to do with you. It is the net result of who she is, and how you two operate, which is not very well. Make it about that, instead of about you, and it'll be clearer, less painful, less mysterious.

 

Sorry for the confusion, truly. But what you are describing as this up and that down looks, from the sidelines, like one thing that has been roughly the same thing for a good long time.

[boltnrun]

She'll "re-follow" you and the cycle will start again.

 

I know of couples who have done this for years and years and years. Some situations got very, very unhealthy. One couple, the woman burned the man's house down. Another couple, the woman accused the man of abuse and he accused her of being an unfit mother. They took each other to court over custody of the kids. They're still married to this day. A woman I know is days away from giving birth to her third child with her partner. They go back and forth on social media, one week denigrating one another and the next week declaring their love and devotion.

 

It's up to you what kind of relationship you want.