Hi, Brav3.

Your experiences remind me of some of my own experiences, as well as things I learned while researching the behaviors of my (then) Gf (now ex) to learn what might be driving her behaviors. Through my research I was able to understand what facilitated our relationship and why it played out the way it did. Understanding those things helped me to look at our relationship much more objectively, and to put my role in our relationship into clearer perspective.

However, to be up-front, my relationship with my ex-Gf was much shorter than yours, we did not live together, and our breakup was amazingly kind, compassionate, loving, and amicable. She initiated the breakup because, as she said, she could not stand “hurting [me] anymore.” (Yes, it could have been an amazingly subtle line of BS, but I think there was at least a modicum of truth to it.)

Although she told me stories about several horrifying and traumatic experiences in her life (some relatively recent, and some long-past), and the subsequent diagnoses of her having PTSD, extreme anxiety disorder, night terrors, etc. she never told me about the two things (one more manifested than the other) that most readily explained 99% of her behaviors throughout our relationship, and possibly even her traumatic stories (not that I have any evidence that they did not actually happen).

In my ex-Gf’s case, her behaviors were most consistent with borderline personality disorder (BPD), with a much lesser consistency of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). According to what I’ve read, many times these two disorders are co-occurring. Based on many of the terms she used throughout our relationship (terms I later learned were nomenclature related to BPD and NPD), her demonstration of what I later learned were coping strategies, and the stories she told me of her past behavior (compared to my observance of her current behavior), I suspect that she knew about BPD and had been in therapy for it for at least seven years or more. But, as I said, she never told about the possibility of her being diagnosed with BPD.

When I think of the possibility of her knowing that she had been diagnosed with BPD, but then not telling me, while telling me about other diagnoses and traumas, the adage “Never give a sucker an even break,” springs to mind. Such a modus operandi, however, is not inconsistent with BPD or NPD.

I encourage you to research these two disorders to see if your ex’s behaviors seem to be consistent with one or both. If you find that they are, you will begin to understand that the end of your relationship with her was all but a foregone conclusion before you even met her, and that what responsibility you bear in its end was not so much due to your behavior during the relationship, but what may have facilitated you being in the relationship in the first place.

CMI