Rogue Wanderer Has Relocated!

I've finished migrating everything to the new RogueWanderer.com site! Check out the new site and see what stories survived "the purge". Of the 70+ posts from this site, about 20 were usable for the new and much improved Rogue Wanderer!

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Wandering off into the Sunset

This will be my last post to this site. Well...to be more specific it will be my last post this version of the site. In the near future, I'll be migrating this site to a new platform and transferring only selected content. I'll keep the blogspot version of the site active because I don't want the stories to be completely lost to time. On the new version of the site, expect the same type of story-telling, minus the love stories, for now at least. I'll bring over a few of my favorite stories from this site that don't revolve around Four. Taking a page from the excellent idea of calling our current President - "45" - rather than his name, I'll be replacing her name with Four in any story that includes her (in case anyone is wondering 1, 2, and 3 are still called by their original names: Jenna, Evelyn, and Lona). I'm not totally sure the direction Rogue Wander v 3.0 will take yet, so I'll probably just wander through things and see what happens.

From late March to mid-July of last year, I absolutely loved writing stories for this site. It was one of the best times of my life. But as astute readers were able to determine, in July, something slightly traumatic happened (more traumatic than the day this picture was taken after I almost fell into the Grand Canyon). As much as I wanted to continue to write, it wasn't exactly easy doing it on a website that is basically one big love letter to the person who left me more devastated than I would have ever thought possible.

Anyone who doesn't know me well and read my posts, was probably left scratching their head when they came along the last post from the end of our road trip. How did many months' worth of lovey-dovey stories come to such an abrupt end. Today, I'll take a moment to set the record straight and give a little Shawshank ending style recap of what was going on behind those oh so sweet love stories. Some people will think I'm writing this to be vindictive. If anything, I'm writing it for a small bit of vindication. I've heard some of my closest friends say things like "I'm sure you were no saint" and I know among some women there is always a sense of "well you're the guy, so I'm sure you f'ed up." I am not perfect by any means, but the small mistakes I made paled in comparison to the litany of things I dealt with. However, vindication is not the main reason I write this tonight. I write it in hopes that someone out there reading this will recognize the things that happened to me and save themselves a lot of pain.

On a cold night in just a few days after Thanksgiving, I lay in bed desperately Googling phrases like "borderline personality disorder", "pathological lying", and "treatment for BPD". As I did this, I continually glanced at the person laying in bed next to me who I suddenly feared. In the hours leading up to these tense moments we had been looking at something on her phone when a text message came across with a man's name attached. She quickly tried to swipe it off screen but it was too late. I would ask to see the messages they had exchanged to uncover she had been messaging a married man. From what I could tell she had been making jokes about our relationship. The thing that stuck out most to me was a statement along the lines of "he wants me to stop keeping my options open. He actually said that lol". As I'm sure most would expect many hours of yelling would come from this, but the true revelation came when I said "What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you act like this?" The three words in my first Google search were what followed.

That night I did my research and things looked incredibly bleak. There was a lot about how it can't be cured, just managed and how it takes a devastating toll on those around around the person who suffers from it. There were articles on narcissistic behaviors, a lack of empathy, child-like behaviors, and short/intense relationships. In all of this there was one positive I kept coming across. It was a therapy called Dialectic Behavior Therapy. From what I could tell it was the only treatment type that had shown successful results. This glimmer of hope was probably the worst thing that could have happened to me.

Catching your girlfriend "joking" with a "friend" probably doesn't seem so heinous to some. Unfortunately, this had just been the latest in a series of lies, cover-ups, and genuinely bad behaviors to this point. The day of our second date she had posted on Facebook a memory from her ex stating "from the only man who ever loved me". "I should have gotten out then" would pretty much become my mantra for the next year and a half of my life. The day we became an "official" couple, her sister who I had never met or talked to messaged me to warn me. She was the one who told me about the oldest child, and the soon to be grandchild. Yep, I had no clue she was about to be a grandmother!

About a month later the daughter I hadn't known about would send me a Facebook message around 2 AM to tell me her mother's ex was sleeping at the house. She told me because she hated the way her mother treated people. This would be the first break up. I took her back within 2 days after she agreed to get help even though I still had no clue what she was getting help for. She didn't get that help. This would be the pattern that would play out for over a year.  She would do something incredibly terrible and either lie her way out of it or promise to get help (which I suppose was another lie). I'll skip over the dozens more similar stories because they'll just continue to show how stupid I had been. Despite lie after lie after incredible lie, I took her back over and over again only to be hurt by the next one.

The final major straw was when she went back on her promise to stop drinking. Alcohol and BPD is a nightmare concoction for the closest person in these people's lives. She claimed it would make her "fun" and the "life of the party" and for the most part when I saw her drinking with her friends that was true. What happened behind the scenes was a lot less fun and pretty much the last person you want at any party. She would go on profanity laden tirades, tell me I was "too boring" for her, cry uncontrollably and pass out in my bed while I slept on the couch. Recognizing the severity of her moods while drinking, I agreed to stop drinking myself, in a show of solidarity. She would hold to this promise for months only to go back on it within 12 hours of us returning from our 13 day road trip. This breakup would last over two months.

The final time around was the most turbulent of all. Within weeks of us getting back together we had planned an early morning hike. This was pretty routine for us. I would text her most mornings around 5:30 to make sure she got up and we'd meet at a mountain trail. The night before this particular morning I had a feeling something was up. She rushed me off the phone before bed and I could tell she wasn't tired. I wasn't shocked the next morning when she didn't answer. I called and called and drove over to get her. Her son would answer the door, at 6 AM having absolutely no clue where his mother was (his older brother was there watching him), but he did show me on GPS. Talk about traumatic for both of us! The claim was that she had gone out drinking with her sister and crashed at a friend's house. Her sister did show up with her back at the apartment but this happened after she told me she was going to bed. I stayed with her. I can here it now, "you f***ing idiot! Why?"

"But you had to have known she was lying!" I'm sure some people will say. I like to think over 9 years of college counseling has made me a pretty good judge of character. I can spot a student excuse or lie a mile away. This is the difficulty with this disorder, I'm thoroughly convinced she didn't believe she was lying. People who lie have tells, a pause in the voice, an over-used phrase, a glance away. She didn't. She could stare me straight in the eyes in a perfectly normal tone and tell me something that I would later find out was completely false. I found that out when I found out she had cheated on me.

Foolish as it sounds now, the one thing I clung to was a belief that she would never lie about something as serious as cheating on me. Time and time again after discovering some major lie, I would beg her to look me in the eyes and tell me she had never cheated. Every single time she did it. Our final breakup involved another late night sneaking out of her apartment after she told me she was going to bed. Her excuse was that her friend had been beat up by their partner. At this point, I realized that I wasn't even sure I could believe something that serious. I still have no clue if it was true or not, but as soon as I realized I had to be doubtful of something that serious, I knew I had to end things. I had become a person I had never been before in my life: jealous, un-trusting, and she nearly had me convinced I was the one who needed help.

I made some mistakes I wish I hadn't after the breakup. The worst of which was trying to stay in touch with her family. On one Thursday morning just three weeks after the breakup, I caught a post on her sister's Facebook from a guy I knew Four had gone on a date with during our 2 month break up. He said he and Four would bring her dog over to some get together. I'll admit this made me angry because she had told me she stopped talking to this guy when we got back together. But more than that I was angry that she would be so quick to put someone else through the same things I had gone through, knowing that she still wasn't seeking treatment. I asked her to tell him, to provide some sort of warning so he didn't have to find out months down the road like I did. I knew she wouldn't. I overstepped my bounds and reached out to him. We began messaging back and forth. Eventually, I asked if he knew I had gotten back together with her. He said he did and I asked the next logical question: "Did she cheat on me with you?" His answer was obvious. I doubt he was the first, but he was the one who proved that she was capable of lying about anything.

For months after the breakup she would reach out to me either asking me to take her back or asking me for forgiveness. At one point I actually said I did forgive her. It was a short-lived feeling because a few days later she would send me pictures of her and the guy she was with at the bar that night. I asked her to stop talking to me until she got help. "Until she got help" would be a phrase that would come back to haunt me because I left a few communication channels open. A week later she would send me some rant about me dating fat ugly girls. I could tell she was drunk so I blocked her for the night. I would send a long message the next morning hoping she had sobered up, telling her how disrespectful that was and once again begging her to get help. She wouldn't. I blocked her on everything except email at that point, my final mistake in this whole situation. The weekend before Valentine's she would message me to ask for forgiveness again. My response is that I wasn't ready to forgive her because she had done nothing worthy of forgiveness. She told me I need to let go of my anger. I responded easy for you to say you didn't get cheated on by the person you loved most in the world. Two days later she would send the final email I could take before permanently blocking on every platform. "I just wanted you to know I'm doing good and I'm happy in my new relationship with Dr. (name removed)."

This was the final hurtful statement from a nightmare of a disorder. I told these stories for two reasons. First off, I didn't want anyone who has invested their time reading my ramblings to feel like I was keeping them in the dark. Secondly, I know there are more people out there who are dealing with this disorder either by having it or being in a relationship with someone who does. I didn't tell these stories to "dish the dirt" but to illustrate how easy it is for anyone to fall under the spell of someone with BPD. They will love you more than you ever thought was possible and honestly hate you with a passion within a few hours. The love stories I've told throughout this website were all completely true and genuinely reflected the love I felt toward her and the love she reflected back on me. At the same time, the examples I've given here are also true and typically occurred within days or even hours of the loving episodes.

I am putting my story out there because outside of the support groups, very few people will publicly discuss being involved with someone suffering from BPD. I know reading through these stories some people will think I'm weak and I'm okay with that. If one person reads this and feels more comfortable speaking about their own situation, then it was worth putting into the world. BPD is incredibly misunderstood and so are the victims of BPD. I haven't done a great job explaining the disorder, since I'm just sharing my anecdotes and really trying to show what a partner sees. The person with BPD sees things very differently so here is a link to an article from someone on the other side http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1528-5-realities-life-people-with-borderline-personalities.html. Leave it to one of my favorite humor sites to actually have a pretty informative article on the topic!

For those who are suffering from the disorder, I wanted them to know there is a treatment program that has worked for many people: Dialectic Behavior Therapy. You have to get into it out of your own will because if you convince yourself you are doing it for someone else, you'll stop the moment you feel they "abandoned" you in the slightest way. If you are dating someone who has this disorder and they aren't already in treatment or haven't completed DBT when you met them, just get out. I'm sorry to say, I don't believe there is any way it will get better while you are there. If they do agree to treatment, there will always be the sense in their mind they are doing it just to save the relationship. I don't mean to be doom and gloom here and maybe there have been cases where this hasn't been the end result, I'll just say I've read hundreds of posts from people on BPD partner support sites and I've yet to see this scenario, so please learn from my mistake. If you're dating someone who seems to have erratic mood swings multiple times throughout the day, start reading up on BPD and heed my warning if it starts to become obvious. Even if you have the overwhelming desire to help every person, understand that it is never worth sacrificing your own mental health for someone else's.

I knew Valentine's day was going to be the toughest post breakup day yet, her comments poured a little extra salt in the wound. But I also knew it would be the worst of these bad days. It was a depressing day all around. I pretty much just wanted to curl up in my bed in the fetal position all day. The next day I woke up knowing the storm had passed. I started a new workout program and I genuinely felt ready to take on the world. Most importantly, I was ready to start writing again and ready to stop doing it on a site that brings back so many tough memories.

Goodbye Rogue Wanderer 2.0!