"You need to feel as guilty as I am sad"

[Moselle]

She's given her ultimatum.

Apparently I have 2 months to prove my love to my BPD wife or she's filing for divorce.

That's in addition to the 4 years of therapy, and 6 months of separation (where I have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in her life), and is the 18th divorce threat.

She sent me a 37 point ultimatum with the most hilarious item being:

"You need to feel as guilty as I am sad"

I think that sums up for me what BPD is. She so sad inside and to compensate, she needs to make me feel guilty

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PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[hergestridge]

I'm currently on the leaving board, but I just had to chime in with this regarding "ultimatum lists".

One week after after we broke up my wife called me and wanted us to get back together. I agreed on the on condition that I won't tolerate breakups on a regular basis and she needs to take her BPD seriously and attend therapy. She agreed. We agreed that we would meet and talk through what have went wrong between us and how to make things work from here on.

The next morning the sent me a text message that included a "wishlist" of things that she felt she was entitled to in our relationship (remember this was after she broke up with me and now she asked me to come back).

Among the things on the list was that she wanted to receive "cute text messages" on a regular basis and that she wanted to be invited along to events that I attend with my friends.

When I answered her I didn't even comment on the text message issue, because it was just too ridiculous. I have never sent a "cute text message" to her or to anyone else (it's really far removed from my personality and anyone who knows me would laugh at the idea) and she was propably just being envious of some of her friends, but we had been a couple for 20 years and to be asked something like this is just plain bizarre.

On the "invited along" issue I answered her that when I go to events with my friends they don't bring their spouse or partner, especially (as in our case) when there are kids involved. I had always been at home when with our daughter when my wife was out. Besides my wife had never asked me to come along to any of the social events she had attended with her friends. She hasn't even let me pick her up after a party because it was apparently embarrasing to even be seen with me.

I sent this answer and got the respons that my wife wanted to meet and talk in person instead.

I declined and we haven't discussed the issue since.

It was a great reminder why things just don't work out. Things seems to be fine and OK and then one of those things drop down the mailbox.

Throughout our 20 year relationship I have repeatedly asked her not to communicate in "wishlists" and ultimatums, but she has found ways to bypass this it seems the urge is strong to use this form of communication. Once she starts to write one of those things in her head it seems she gets carried away and then the "goals" on the list have to be obtained. She never got why it was a destructive way of communicating that went something along the lines of this.

Wife: I am really entitled to candy. He really should be getting me candy. For the last ten years he's been giving me far too little candy, the bugger. I'm going to tell him this friday night after dinner, that would be the perfect occasion. Why should I stay in a relationship where I don't get candy? That sucks?

(Wife calls friend Anne and gets confirmed that Anne gets candy on a regular basis)

(Wife sulks and is jittery from tuesday to friday)

(come friday night)

Wife: Now look, there's something I have been meaning to talk to you about for a long time. I think you should be giving me candy and if I don't get candy from you then I might have to look for other options my friend Anne says I should be getting candy that's what girlfriends get from theirboyfriends... .

Me: I don't like getting candy, and I don't like giving it either. I told you ten years ago when we met, and I've told you every year when you bring it up.

Wife: ----

Me: So are you leaving me now... .you are clearly not happy in our relationship.

Wife: No, I didn't mean it like that... .I don't know... .no.

(unpleasant silent ensues, usually ended by wife talking about her mental health non-related to the issue at hand and thus drawing my sympathy, at least partially).

[thereishope]

"You need to feel as guilty as I am sad"

I think that sums up for me what BPD is. She so sad inside and to compensate, she needs to make me feel guilty

Wow... .this is so profound.  Explains A LOT!  Perfect words for what we are going through... .

[MustangMan]

She's given her ultimatum.

Apparently I have 2 months to prove my love to my BPD wife or she's filing for divorce.

Forget it.   You will never do enough or show enough love to her.  Your BPD wife is a bottomless pit of emotions and you will never show her enough emotions.  Let her file for divorce and get back to a healthy life without her.  You have to face the fact that you will NEVER win... .She will constantly give you ultimatums and you will loose your mental health trying to fulfill her needs, if you don't pull the plug my friend.

[OutOfEgypt]

It's funny how sometimes our BPDso rattles off such profoundly telling and insightful statements about themselves.

"You need to feel as guilty as I am sad" pretty much explains it.

My ex was like that.  Like a grown child.  I was a constant disappointment to all her needs because I never lived up to the idealized picture she painted of me.  And that just made her "sad."  And then that turned into punishment.  She wanted me to suffer.  She even told me, during a few lucid moments, how she would do and say things and play mind games just to watch me suffer... .to suffer for ever hurting her as badly as I did.  She will never see that she set the whole thing up, herself.

The other thing about her giving you time to "prove" your love to her is ridiculous.  Again, just like my ex -a grown child.  Or, as another board member put it (mywifecrazy?), an "evil little three year old in an adult woman's body".  Sorry, man.  I hope you know she's a black hole.  Even if you ramped it up and she stayed, you'd be in the same place within a short time.  This same thing happened to me every year and a half to two years for about fourteen years.  So, seven times it happened to me, some of those times involving horrendous affairs and lying and all kinds of garbage.

[Moselle]

She's given her ultimatum.

Apparently I have 2 months to prove my love to my BPD wife or she's filing for divorce.

Forget it.   You will never do enough or show enough love to her.  Your BPD wife is a bottomless pit of emotions and you will never show her enough emotions.  Let her file for divorce and get back to a healthy life without her.  You have to face the fact that you will NEVER win... .She will constantly give you ultimatums and you will loose your mental health trying to fulfill her needs, if you don't pull the plug my friend.

Thanks Mustang Man. I am realising this slowly. It has been a progression, but by Sept 30 I think we will both be on the same page.

[Moselle]

It's funny how sometimes our BPDso rattles off such profoundly telling and insightful statements about themselves.

"You need to feel as guilty as I am sad" pretty much explains it.

My ex was like that.  Like a grown child.  I was a constant disappointment to all her needs because I never lived up to the idealized picture she painted of me.  And that just made her "sad."  And then that turned into punishment.  She wanted me to suffer.  She even told me, during a few lucid moments, how she would do and say things and play mind games just to watch me suffer... .to suffer for ever hurting her as badly as I did.  She will never see that she set the whole thing up, herself.

The other thing about her giving you time to "prove" your love to her is ridiculous.  Again, just like my ex -a grown child.  Or, as another board member put it (mywifecrazy?), an "evil little three year old in an adult woman's body".  Sorry, man.  I hope you know she's a black hole.  Even if you ramped it up and she stayed, you'd be in the same place within a short time.  This same thing happened to me every year and a half to two years for about fourteen years.  So, seven times it happened to me, some of those times involving horrendous affairs and lying and all kinds of garbage.

Thanks for this! I have put my line in the sand and she knows this. "I will not return to an abusive relationship" PERIOD, so either this 2 months will be a revelatory period for her and she faces up to the truth, or I will leave. It has been a progressive understanding of what she has done to me, but this article was a real clincher, which I read last week, see link.  I realised she is a professional victim, and all that goes along with that.

www.shrink4men.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/is-your-girlfriend-or-wife-a-professional-victim/

In the meantime, I am straightening myself during these two months, to be the model husband I want to be. That's how I intend to leave, as the best person I can be. Like I was before we got married. I can see the difference between the two