I don’t know where to start, I don’t even how much I can say. But I need to say some things just to get them off my chest somewhere that I might be understood.
My fiance and I broke up last summer. I knew it was coming, it was even mutual, but it still hurt immensely. I have BPD and deal very poorly with being alone. I met some people online, largely in kink spaces as I tend to do well and have fun there. One of them stood out to me.
She told me a lot of things about herself. Her terrible home life, general isolation, mistreatment by family, lack of anyone who understood or really cared. We seemed to have a lot of shared interests, and it sometimes seemed like every time I’d express something I liked she’d be about it too. She told me again and again how much I meant to her, how I was the only one who truly cared in the way she needed. She made me feel like I had always wished someone would, at first.
Things started getting weird, eventually. Some of you have probably seen my other post about it. Strange long absences, excuses as to why we couldn’t date (even though she “wanted to”). I thought so strongly that I was being there for someone who really loved me and needed someone who wouldn’t leave. She even told me people always left her, which since I have BPD and know exactly what that’s like, really ensured I’d stick around. I wrote love notes, bought presents even though I hadn’t physically seen her in over a month. I was so sure she was really going through some terrible things.
I found out a few days ago that everything about her was a lie. Every single feature of her, everything she told me. Her family didn’t even mistreat her. Literally everything about her was invented to get me to do something I otherwise would never have. Her lie was so bad I’m in serious trouble now, and don’t know how to live with myself given what I was manipulated into doing. This might destroy my entire life. I feel so hurt, so betrayed, and so used. I don’t even understand why she did it. None of it makes sense to me.
I’m so sorry.
I know this pain. I had a partner who lied to me about a lot of the same stuff. Lots of stories about abuse from her family (who were all quite nice) and neglect from her friends. Lots of really weird/negative stuff about mutual friends she had known longer. LaterI found out she had been telling them that I was violent with her.
When I started to catch on, she pulled the big one and told me she was pregnant with my child. Despite stating her intent to see it to term, she didn’t change her alcohol intake or stop her casual substance abuse. Then her behavior became even more erratic. I won’t go into those details, but as alienating as it all was, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. It took a conversation with her cousin to get me to finally break things off. Less than two weeks later she told me she’d gotten an abortion. I immediately got suspicious about the whole thing. Years later a mutual friend told me about just how many things she’d made up, and among them were a number of pregnancies.
There’s going to be a grieving process. Please take your time with it. I didn’t really have that option due to a lot of other traumatic events that befell me around that time, and I just shut down. That cost me quite a bit in the years to come. Also, don’t spend too much time trying to make sense of it. It probably doesn’t make sense to her either.
May your journey to peace be smoother than mine.
I am so sorry to hear that you were treated like that as well. She sounds like she really made your life a confusing hell for a while. I was gaslit in a previous relationship and now again into actual legal trouble so I really feel for you. I just don’t understand what compels people to do these things. Like it hits a point where it goes above and beyond simply ‘lying’.
I don’t know whether I’ll get to have a journey to peace but I hope I do. I hope yours becomes much smoother and easier.