BPDFamily.com

So I sit here today, never one to really be overly enamored with Valentines Day, yet I am finding I am very sad. So, I thought I would write. It's been several weeks since I have last posted.

It's now 3 months and a week since our last contact. My wife has not budged in any way. I have been going to therapy and I contacted a lawyer.

I also emailed her because she has my property and has up until last night, refused to allow me to get it. She responded that I could come at the end of the month and get it. Which is good. She will be moved out of the house we shared together when I go there, so our paths won't cross.

She has refused to tell me where she is moving. I don't know why, or even care so much. I cannot see me ever going to visit her. This is the 3rd move she has moved since we've been married. There is nothing right about that on its own merits when you think about it.

She has been steadfast in her view that I have a Personality Disorder and I am crazy and have anger issues. I have talked extensively with my therapist about this. If anything, my therapist has said I was co-dependent in our relationship. I can readily agree to that.

I have done serious soul searching, looking for the red flags I ignored and there were many. When we first met, she told me she took meds for ADHD, and this didn't matter to me. It should have. She also told me she was OCD. I really should have understood that more. We had so many fight about cleaning chores in our home. It made everyone crazy and I tried to play the part of smoothing things over for her, (the kids weren't doing their chores, she always felt they were not doing them to get her) they were just kids and that's what they did. They tried to get out of doing chores. She never understood that. The hours we spent with her getting angry about it and me trying to get her to climb off the ledge were numerous. When I look back at it, it was so unnecessary. For me, but not for a person with OCD as I have come to accept.

I also should have seen the red flags in regards to her own family. She had zero relationships with her sister, mother or father. I never could understand it back then. I do now. I also should have understood how her constant talk about her past, growing up in an abusive home, being an alcoholic at a young age and even trying to kill herself and being in an institution at 18, should have all been flags that I should have been wary about. But I wasn't. I thought I could just love her and she would be fine.

I think the biggest flag was all her talk about her mother being BPD and how she was afraid she was as well.

I really thought, I could just love her. And love would prevail. I think I read on this board, love will not prevail. I can attest to that, love will not prevail. Loving an untreated person with BPD will only leave the NON with a gaping hole in their heart when the BPD decides to leave you. Again, I can attest to that.

I know I am going to be okay. There are bad days, then there are really bad days, and sometimes, I actually have a good day. Only a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't have said there were good days.

I think the thing that gets me the most, there was never forgiveness from her. And things that a normal couple would argue about were kept in a vault in her mind and she played that out over and over in our relationship and held me to a standard that I was abusive when I would argue back. I can honestly say, 1 time, I knew I was in the right about an issue and I brought it to her attention and it was my fight I brought to her and boy did we fight. Any other issues we had, I was like a walking zombie not even aware where the issue came from or what things triggered her to go down these roads. And I was always trying to find a way to fix whatever it was she was standing at the edge of the cliff about. I always had to talk her down. It was a lot of work!

I think as a NON, what I struggle with is, normal couples fight. And they learn to communicate. If the communication breaks down to a point where there is an impasse, I readily agree, therapy should be considered. My wife lives in a therapists office. She has been going to therapy since she was 18. She's now 43. Something in her life should have clicked by now. How does a person go to therapy all these years and not get healthy? I can only imagine it's because they don't want to. Having a therapist as part of your life, going to therapy every week, is not what I want for the rest of my life. I thought I could do that, but in the end, I couldn't. I cannot accept living my life in a therapists office. I do not have such issues that I need such a thing. I am a logical person. I am a very emotionally aware person, I am a highly sensitive person. But I am not unable to live my life without a therapists guidance. I don't need therapy weekly to make choices or to guide me. I just don't. She does. She made it clear, unless I did this, she could not stay with a person who will not do the work.

Give me a problem that can't be resolved between us, I will go. But I cannot see going the rest of my life to a therapist. The kicker, I was doing this. I was going 1-2 times a week. Both to keep peace in our marriage and to see what I could learn. I didn't see it as hurtful. But now that I am out of the relationship, I see a need clearly now so I can heal, but not as a life long tool to just get by daily. That is not me, that is her. And I feel bad that is the way she has to live her life.

It's so funny, and not in a laughing way. When I look back at our marriage the last 24 months. We have lived together only 9 of those months. That's not a marriage. And I cannot help but think, she was using me to keep afloat.

When it got to the point of buying a new house, she knew she couldn't do it and left me. Maybe somewhere in her heart or head, she wanted the marriage, I don't know, but the house buying thing triggered the end of the marriage. And I think, at the end of the day, she spared me a life long misery. I should be happy about that.

Yet, even after all the NC, not talking or spending, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, My birthday, my 3 children's birthday and now Valentines Day together, I still wish for her? That is not really healthy. She really tore my heart apart and broke me down and dragged me over the coals, while they were on fire, why on earth would anyone want to go back to that!

And that is why I go to therapy, feel the feelings, feel the pain, and keep walking through it, owning it and hopefully soon, will be over feeling like that.

I tip my hat and my heart goes out to you, dude.

You're right. Why would you want her back after all the pain. It seems you're aware that SOMETHING is still very much wrong, and it's good to see that you're finding out what exactly it is, and doing something about it. It's a good approach. Without asking the questions, there are no answers and it's hard to move forward not knowing what you need to know. So keep it up and stay NC. For the love of all that is sacred, keep up the NC. 

Thanks for the reply VAT...

I really wish I never heard the term BPD.

It was never part of my vocabulary a mere 5 years ago. Nowadays, it's the bane of my existence.

These people are really something else... .  rebounding has been nothing short of the most difficult challenge I have ever faced...

Isn't it amazing.  And nobody gets it except the peeps here.  25 years of therapy and nothing, huh?  Wow.  To her credit she split before the new house.  Coulda been much worse I guess.  I'm almost 4 months out and trying to get back to looking on the bright side.