Whenre do I start...

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I have been with my BPD wife for quite some time.

I think I have finally hit the proverbial wall.  But I love her.

My therapist says that this may be love or may be a conditioned response.

I have always felt that ultimately, I need to be honest with myself.  I, sadly, fully accept that I am not an easy person to love.  But the things that make me that way are usually responses or irritation (or so my kids say).

I made a mistake of allowing that I would ever have more than a pseudo-friendship.  I allowed myself to feel after 5 years celibate.  Now 6th time I am expected to lead the divorce, be accused of all sorts of bs and then hear - how I forced her into divorce.  See there are always lawyers to pay and she needs all new things to furnish her soon to be new home.  Then there will be the brief time when she realizes the alimony will require work and she changes her mind.

And she sees it as healthy on her end.

How do I listen to the therapist this time and stop wanting to not lose her?

[27yrsalone]

I have been with my BPD wife for quite some time.

I think I have finally hit the proverbial wall.  But I love her.

My therapist says that this may be love or may be a conditioned response.

I have always felt that ultimately, I need to be honest with myself.  I, sadly, fully accept that I am not an easy person to love.  But the things that make me that way are usually responses or irritation (or so my kids say).

I made a mistake of allowing that I would ever have more than a pseudo-friendship.  I allowed myself to feel after 5 years celibate.  Now 6th time I am expected to lead the divorce, be accused of all sorts of bs and then hear - how I forced her into divorce.  See there are always lawyers to pay and she needs all new things to furnish her soon to be new home.  Then there will be the brief time when she realizes the alimony will require work and she changes her mind.

And she sees it as healthy on her end.

How do I listen to the therapist this time and stop wanting to not lose her?

[SaltyDawg]

27 yrsalone,

Welcome to BPD Family.

Since you mentioned divorce, the best place to start is read the following book:

Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline Or Narcissistic Personality Disorder by Bill Eddy and Randi Kreger

If you give us more specific questions, I can give you more specific answers...

Take care with self-care.

SD

[27yrsalone]

Thank you for the welcome.  I am so screwed up right now, I don't even know what my questions are yet.  I do appreciate the book suggestion.

I feel like I forgot how to be a man.  I keep starting to put together what I need to move on and then I get hit by a memory of a time outside of the negative episodes.  I keep trying to remind myself that such times were abnormal, too.  But it is like I want to believe it isn't.

Am I nuts or is this part of the whole mess?   Why should I feel that a person who has left me at least 5 times and made me endure a "just friends" since 2017 and then punishes me because I don't approach her is worth the effort of me taking on all the blame.  I feel like an idiot most of the time.  The kids even wonder what happened to me. 

[kells76]

Hi 27yearsalone,

Feeling confused and like you don't even know where to start sounds pretty normal, given what you've been through. You weren't in just a "quick fling" relationship -- this has been going on for decades. Of course there were good times in there, along with the bad.

One thing that characterizes BPD is poor boundaries or a lack of boundaries. This can mean that pwBPD (even if they can't articulate it) don't really have a healthy sense of where they "end" and where you "begin" -- relationships to them can mean "we are one being", we feel the same, we think the same, if I want it then you want it, if I feel it then you feel it.

Sometimes, people who partner with pwBPD have had life experiences that have primed them to enter that kind of relationship; experiences where it becomes easy to lose yourself in the BPD relationship.

So, it isn't necessarily that "you're nuts" -- feeling like you've lost yourself can be part of the BPD relationship experience (though the tendency or proclivity to losing ourselves, forgetting who we are -- that can be something we brought into it on our own).

I'd be curious if any part of this thread on Dealing with Enmeshment and Codependence rings true to you, or seems helpful in understanding where you're at?

...

This is hard stuff. The fact that you're opening up and talking about it here deserves kudos. No pressure or timeline -- it's your journey, and we'll be here for you.

kells76

[AlmostRyan]

I think what kells76 said is right on, I will only add that as time goes on and you find yourself, that in and of itself can then trigger more things in them. And the cycle repeats, so try to break out of any repeat patterns if you can. Sometimes, honestly, you can't and you have to ride out the storm. As has been written in books, the conflict in them doesn't go away, it just changes venue.

I am not sure where exactly you are in things but people who can go no contact or just distance greatly, that's a bit easier I would think, although they can still spy on your social accounts if you had mutual friends or family ties. But then if you have kids, they will up the conflict through the kids, and when that doesn't satisfy them, they then will take things up into the courts. You can't go no contact when you have kids.

So, take heart, and just prepare to defend and protect yourself, and know that doing so will probably in and of itself offend and trigger. But if you don't do it, that's when you lose yourself. I think it's normal to go back and forth though, part of the cycle or pattern. One step forward, two steps back, can certainly be a thing. Don't lose hope in yourself.

Best wishes, hang in there, you are not alone! Hate the behavior, not the person. Love yourself though, even if you feel you don't deserve it sometimes. You're trying, and that's a lot.