Keeping mutual friends w/ uBPDx

[stardawn192]

So my uBPDx and I met through a friend group. One of these friends was the one that believed I needed to get out of the relationship and focus on my self-love/self-care. After leaving my ex the second time, I kind of kept those friends a little more at a distance for a little bit because I was having a hard time trusting anyone after it. Now, I'm back to talking with them all daily. One of them, who has gone through emotional/psychological abuse with her ex, has been talking to me a lot more and I thought that was because we could kind of bond over our traumatic experiences.

However, the other day, I had a bad day and wrote to her, asking a rhetorical question on if my ex knew that they had manipulated me (the answer is no, it was never them, it was always me in their eyes) and she told me about how she had plans to hang out with my ex later that night and she would "let me know, haha." I'm fine with that, people need to live their own lives, but it still kind of triggered me and I went into detail on how my ex manipulated me and they turned it around, being like "yes, that was psychological abuse but you knew it was happening, you just were so in love with them that you continued letting it happen." Looking back on it now, it feels a lot like victim blaming and I'm hurt by it. Especially since it's coming from someone that I thought understood what I am going through. The next day, they also "suggested" I stop doing research into my codependency and focus my energy on a non-related topic. "It's not allowing you to move on."

Going no contact with my ex has been very hard for me, the love bombing stage was intense and I hadn't felt so much attention from another person in a LONG time. I'm starting to feel like, for my own sanity and ability to get better, maybe I should step back again from talking to these people, limit it to my friend that has only ever wanted to help me. Thoughts?

[Hattie]

Yeah, I had similar experiences. I told a mutual friend about the abuse and she said "it's amazing what we'll put up with, isn't it? ". Victim blaming. Personally I think it's more amazing that my ex abused me in the first place.

I now realise that a lot of my mutual friends with my ex were kind of dysfunctional themselves. I distanced myself, focused on the friends that were mine exclusively and made new friends. I'm friendly if I see the mutual friends out and about, and I invite them if I throw a big party. But I don't arrange to meet up with them one-on-one.

I think your plan to limit contact makes sense.