A glance into our codependent / BPD past...

[RolandOfEld]

Dear all, I just came across this email I wrote to my Rabbi in 2012 asking for spiritual guidance that paints an alarming picture of my relationship with uBPDw at that time and my attitude towards it and myself. I'm sharing this to provide some context to those who might right now feel the same way.

You may contrast the person who wrote this letter with who I am since I found bpdfamily.com last year, someone who has called the police on his wife multiple times, reached out to family about the situation, and more or less knows how to self care:

... .

Dear Rabbi XXX,

I write to you out of a great need for spiritual guidance. I no longer believe that I am a well functioning person, husband, and soon-to-be father.

To quickly summarize my life in the past few years, shortly after my mother's death I moved back to XXXX to be with my then girlfriend, now wife XXX, who is XXXXese. My goal in making this change, which I admit was not something I was happy to do, was to preserve our relationship and give her an opportunity to develop her career before we eventually relocated to the US. After a few years of living mostly hand to mouth, we both obtained well paying stable jobs, her as a teacher, me as a PR professional. We married in 2011 and have a baby boy  due in March.

We both feel that [wife]'s pregnancy has exposed both my weaknesses as a husband and as a human being in general. I've acted immaturely, selfishly, and my oftentimes careless behavior has led us both to question my ability to safely care for a child as well as establish a new life for us in the US. An example of selfishness was that I didn't work harder to find a better solution for her to get to work more comfortably after she became pregnant (she has an hour metro commute). My immaturity is evidenced by how I've only vaguely indicated when I can transfer my job to the US and buy us our own house, which is the most important thing to her. My carelessness is shown by how when cooking chicken soup for her today, I did not notice that the plastic wrapper had gone into the pot. I often shock myself with these behaviors, which can be sporadic to frequent, and they lead me to question just how functioning an adult I am.  

Today I told [wife] in full honesty that if six months after the baby is born she doesn't feel the situation has improved that she should divorce me. I told her that we could perhaps still live together so that I could care for the baby, but that I would offer her my full support in finding someone who could meet her needs. This is not what I wish to happen, but I need to consider her happiness first. I believe she loves me deeply but is very conflicted about my behavior. I have caused her so much undue stress and discomfort during her pregnancy.

The part that causes me the deepest pain is that though I have been struggling all year to try and overcome these faults, through psychology, constant self-reminding, and more recently through Judaism, it's always too little too late and the same mistakes happen again and again. I understand now that the only path to true happiness is to be able to care for others, yet I fail, such that I now feel I need the help of a higher power to change. I fear that I am hopeless and will lose my family because of it. I fear the shame and sadness a broken marriage would bring my extended family, who all see me as perfect and successful. The thought sometimes enters my mind that [wife] and the baby would be better served by my death, in which case they would at least receive the insurance money.

So after many years I turn back to God in the hopes that He might give me the strength to make these changes and save me and my family. I do not know how to help myself anymore. We do not have any true close friends or family here (her parents passed before I met her), and it is a very lonely place to cope with these feelings. I hope that you may counsel me on how I might begin the process of becoming the person I want to, someone who is strong-minded and strong-willed enough to hear the needs of others and take true care of them.  

Thank you for your kindness when my mother died and for being such a wonderful teacher all those years. I hope you can be my teacher once more now.
... .

To add a small epilogue to the story, the following year my wife called me a dog and kicked me out for not being very actively involved in buying a house in this country (the most expensive property market in the world by salary ratio). After I moved back the next day, I found a book about Judaism that pretty much taught that men should forgive their wives for just about anything and fully applied myself to it. I became so conciliatory my wife began to find me creepy.  So it actually got even worse than the above e-mail.

~ROE

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[juju2]

Wow.  Thank you for sharing.

I am co dependent also.

its not fun, i have to go to alanon, if i dont go to my two meetings a week, i get right back to being toxic.

Guess being around pwBPD, i can see how sick i really am. 

Take good care, j

[pearlsw]

Oh ROE!

I was so saddened to read this... .how these simple small mistakes led you to such despair!

To see you reaching around for any ounce of support... .oh, my dear! As I was reading this I was reminded of my lousy holidays last year and how I ended up sitting in a church service (in a dialect I could not understand). They had hired a musician for the occasion and I remember being there alone and crying as they were singing American spirituals. It was unexpected. I think I never heard an Amazing Grace that touched me more at that incredibly low point. I had never felt like the song was for me until that moment. Ouch!

I thank you for sharing this. It gave me a lot to think about. The part about sticking inside these incredibly difficult relationships because of our perfectionism or how others see us... .also OUCH! I think that has kept me at this a lot longer than I would have been otherwise. I just wish I could make a "success" of this, just make it work. In life, if I just put in effort things seemed to work! But I am having to take a step back and learn to accept that no matter how hard I work at it, it may simply not work. There are too many factors out of my control.

I also want to say that I am sorry you lost your mother. I lost my father at a younger age and it is just something... .that factors into all my relationships.

I am sorry you were treated this way over a house. You are not a dog. You are kind, sensitive, compassionate, caring person who is doing his best to be a good father and husband without enough support. Sending you some peace over this!

Why, why, why do some people get so focused on these materials things? All these expectations... .and the suffering they can bring.

with deep, deep compassion,

pearl.

[RolandOfEld]

Thank you, juju for your kind words. I remember you are struggling with codependency as well. It was also my wife's BPD that alerted me to my own issues that had existed long before I never met. I think no matter what I would have ended up in an abusive relationship, so I'm grateful for the chance to learn and make changes now. You can see the person who wrote that email was as deep in denial as someone with with BPD.

Thank you, pearls. Your story about the church made me tear up, one because it's so bittersweet and second because it rings so close. I see little traces of home all the time and want to lose it.

I'm sorry you lost your dad.

~Roland

[SunandMoon]

Oh ROE, it is very hard to read that   

I can only imagine how much your wife must have beaten you down to believe such things about yourself.

It's hard enough to make the huge move to another country - with different culture, language and ways of doing things - but to have no support or family and friends to give you reality checks, it must have been terrible.

I hope you can read this now and see how deep into the FOG you were, as well as look back with compassion at the younger version of yourself who was trying so earnestly to do everything right.

[Enabler]

ROE, this make the other thread you have running make a heck of a lot of sense. Like Pearlsw, I am saddened reading your letter. You are clearly capable and thoughtful. I have been saying this line to my W for years now in response to her criticism for small errors "Those who do, might fail".

[RolandOfEld]

I can only imagine how much your wife must have beaten you down to believe such things about yourself.

Thank you, SaM, but I don't think she had to work that hard. The emotional groundwork had already been laid long before I met her. If it wasn't her it would have been someone else. In some ways I'm thankful for her problems, which allowed me to finally understand mine.

Thanks for the quote, Enabler, wish I had it back then... .

~ROE

[RolandOfEld]

One insight to add and don't know if this rings true for anyone else, but I think it was my wife's pregnancies that really solidified my cage of guilt and obligation. Both were a physical torture for her, which was magnified by her general physical / emotional sensitivity to things. I remember being shocked on a spiritual level that the universe could dole out so much pain to women and not to men, and for something so noble as wanting to have a child. I felt like her pregnancies created a debt that I could never repay. I neglected to consider the fact that having kids was something she deeply wanted and initiated both times. It was like I had somehow punished her by being the one who got her pregnant but didn't have to suffer physically. My wife certainly knew how to leverage that guilt.

~ROE

[pearlsw]

Oh wow ROE,

I am sorry that her becoming pregnant brought up such intense feelings inside of you. I've never had any pregnancies so I can't really say how I would feel in such a situation, but I am sorry that such a nice thing brought up such painful feelings for you. I imagine that kind of female oain is huge, I only get the other types of female pain, but... .it's just a part of life and nothing for you to carry as a heavy weight around your neck over, okay?

It is good that you are a sweet and caring husband who wanted and still tried to offer her so much. It would all be hard enough even if she did not have these health issues, but this has just made it so much harder!

Keep depersonalizing. Keep letting the mean words go. I hear a lot of garbage on some days, but not nearly what many others here have and I also actually get a lot of praise and idealization. It is always extremes for me: LOVED or HATED. Not much in between. For me both the "love" and the "hate' hold little meaning though... .so that is its own problem! 

I'm pretty isolated... .do you have any friends or community there yet? Anyone around at all who is like you? Culturally, or background wise?

with deep compassion, pearl.

[RolandOfEld]

Thanks you, pearls. I think I've largely dropped the guilt over the pregnancies.

The praise / idealization wore off somewhere around year 1. These days I take a compliment on my hair as Christmas.

I'm pretty isolated, too. I have a nice little team of counselors and police officers for situational support but absolutely no one for a hug. I have a highly substantial personal network and almost no real friends, and the one old friend I have I don't feel comfortable sharing this.

But today I emailed my family telling them I plan to go back to the US for a week next April for Passover, come hell or high water. I don't want her to come and I bet she would welcome being excused. It would probably lead to a month's worth of dysregulation since my family is her biggest trigger but whatever. By this time next year she might be in a better state, or we might be on our way to divorce. Not seeing friends and family for three years is bad for one's health.

I know the last time you went home pearls it was not under the best circumstances. Any plans for a future visit with only those you want to see? Who do you miss the most?

Roland