Another 'needs advice' in how to deal with my eupwBPD

I'm (47M) and my recent ex is (52F). We broke up just after Christmas after almost 6 years together and me living in her house trying to blend families. I believe my ex is undiagnosed BPD, but once I found out about this disorder EVERYTHING makes sense now. My ex is in therapy (seeing multiple) and said she was diagnosed as "borderline depression". Whatever that means.

Let me explain my faults in this relationship:

  • Very early (less than 6 months) in the relationship I did cheat on her. So stupid of me..
  • Sometime soon a coworker would text/message me and instead of stopping it dead in it's tracks I allowed it to happen. I had zero interest in this person but I also didn't put a stop to it. I never showed interest in this person. My gf saw the messages and I had to tell the co-worker stop texting me

Moving forward, her and I would be great until we had to discuss conflict usually involving her kids. The actual breakup happened during a discussion about her 24yo son or so I thought. 2 weeks after moving out she finally told me she broke up because I was having an emotional affair with a coworker. To explain:

  • For a month I worked closely with this manager from another office
  • I work with 99% females so my work phone is filled with opposite sex message threads going back multiple years regarding work related issues
  • My ex was going through my work phone
  • She found a few messages that were non work related and I recognize them to be boundary crossing now
  • I never once emotionally relied on this person or know about their personal lives, etc. The messages were mixed in between legit work stuff. The context she has assigned to them is not the case but there is no telling her different

I'm not sure if we are attempting to reconcile but we have some good days. I can tell when she is splitting just how she's texting, etc. I'm going to a work conference and this recent coworker will be there. I invited my ex to this conference just to get away and she declined. Claimed something about embarrassment or whatever as if my work knows our personal matters. I've attempted to communicate with my ex how we can make sure the coworker being there won't stymie any progress to reconciling. I tried to have this convo in person but it ended up being on the phone. After explaining my position, my ex full on split and started yelling how I cheated on her the whole relationship, that the coworker and I can finally get our alone time, etc. I should've seen this coming leading up to the talk but tried anyway.

Mind you, when we broke up we lived together for a month where we still were intimate, etc and she had this knowledge of "emotional cheating" but I had no clue. Is there any moving past this?

Posted Apr 6, 2026, 1:29 PM UTC

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