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Married to a BPD women 28 years. Four kids, three of which our adults. Two of the adult children still live at home along with my 13 yr. old daughter. Last September our house burned down. Nine months later, house finally rebuilt. One day before moving back in wife has me served with divorce papers and takes all 13,000 dollars of the insurance content money for the house leaving zero in the account. Claims I have been unfaithful, says she has eye witnesses that I had homosexual relations with young men in a Walmart parking lot. Oldest daughter (age 20) also claims that I said inappropriate things to her and flirted with her! Both accusations are completely false. I am totally devastated. especially with the betrayal of my daughter, I thought we had a pretty decent father daughter relationship. (Mother buying her all kinds of stuff) I am at the end of my rope.

I am sorry this is happening. The accusations from your 20 year old daughter is very concerning. BPD's are very good at gaining advocates. The things you are being accused of are not as bad as they could be.  You need to walk lightly right now, you do  not want to ad fuel to the fire.    I would avoid discussing it with them find a lawyer and take steps to protect myself from further  accusation. 

A few other complications, is the house is partially mine. The very house she wants me out of. I have no other place to go for more than a couple nights. I have to return to the house to have a place to stay. Now with the accusations from my daughter this makes it extremely uncomfortable. Plus we have a dog that I ended up taking care of (plus he is my buddy). I am afraid she will deliberately put the dog outside in the heat without food or water and he could die. My attorney suggested I should bring a voice recorder with me. What do you guys think?

YES, get a voice recorder!  She may try to get a restraining order, making up false claims, and then you will be booted out.  All of this behavior is very typical of BPD and you will find that there are many who have dealt with what you are dealing with now.  The stuff about the adult daughter is sad, at her age - she should know better.  But she probably just doesn't want to deal with her mom's anger.  Or maybe she has some mental health issues too.  These things are nightmares and eventually judges etc see the truth, but you have to stay sane, stay calm, document, and all those things are hard when you're living with the enemy.  Lots of people worry about their pets too.  It's frustrating when you are living in such an uncomfortable situation but leaving with the dog might mean having less parenting time with your kids in the future.  Sounds like your lawyer didn't give you a lot of answers or ways to protect yourself except for the recorder.  You will get good advice here from Matt, Foreverdad, etc.  Maybe there's a way to be proactive so she can't make a false restraining order claim to get you out of the house.  So yes please carry a tape recorder, even when she seems to be acting nice, and tape, tape, tape.  Carry two of them.  I had mine in my socks.  I'm the wife in this situation and my husband made stuff up.  You can also get free consultations from other lawyers if you want more advice. 

Maybe leaving doesn't matter so much if you aren't going to have a custody battle though.

Question:  Did your wife burn down the house?

With this kind of accusations I don't think it's wise to spend another day at that house.

Your first concern now is yourself!

When facing this kind of accusations, it's very well possible that you being over there will have two results:

- Triggering for more accusations.

- Gathering of (false) prove for the accusations.

Just read some of our stories: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=87480.0 (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=87480.0)

Prepare yourself for the worst. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but you better be prepared.

Take care buddy: use these boards! 

Realistically, accept that the marriage is Over.  After things like that it's extremely hard to restore trust and feel safe again.

Recording is good.  I did it, most was never used of course, but it helped me greatly in specific incidents.  It also helps document events and more importantly can be felt as a sort of insurance that you're not the misbehaving one.  A Get Out Of Jail Free card.  Though I didn't sleep well during my stressful times, I often awoke in the middle of the night with my mind racing fearful that was the night the police would cart me away, having recordings squirreled away out of ex's reach was at least some comfort.  For all you know, you may even hear them at other times stating what they had said wasn't so.

I highly recommend Divorce Poison by Richard Warshaw -- the fact that your daughter is colluding with your wife makes it sound like there are alienation tactics going on. Warshaw breaks down those tactics and gives you tools to help respond. It doesn't sound like your daughter is accusing you of molesting her, but she is certainly being influenced by the kinds of things your wife is filling her head with, and this is likely to influence your younger daughter, who is much more susceptible to alienation tactics.

I also recommend Don't Alienate the Kids because, as a psychological tactic, you need to model for your kids how someone handles conflict. That means not putting your head in the sand, not splitting anyone black (including, and most importantly your wife), and correcting false allegations. I can't remember what Eddy says in the book, something like moderate behavior, managed emotions, and flexible thinking -- using that strategy as an antidote to your kids turning on you.

Will you fight for custody of your 13-year-old?

Thank you all for your input. I will be commenting more later.

Update:

Wife (through attorney) now claiming she took the money because I abandoned her. She took the money out of the account before I knew what was going on. After 28 years I still can't get use to craziness.

Jnah,

My L advised me to take half out of our joint accounts to help support me during the period before finances were settled. The day I left, (fled, actually), it was one of the first things I did.

I think it is standard advice. Vicious Ls will advise the divorcing spouse to take all from joint accounts. My L also told me that she had clients who came home and found the house completed emptied, right down to the outlet plates. After I fled, I went back into the home with a moving company and took half of the furniture. My L suggested it.

Unfortunately, it just means your ex got an "advance" on your financial settlement. And it's always harder to get what is owed then to give what is owed.

It's unfair, and awful, and unfortunately, it's also tolerated and typical.

This is typical entitlement, convincing intense emotional conviction.  But there's no substance to it, you know it's false but you'll never get any official to declare anything false, the most they'll say is 'unsubstantiated'.  Much of the time the most they'll do is listen then ignore it.  I've been in and out of family court for over 7.5 years and it was only a couple years ago that my court stated that one of my ex's claims was 'not credible'.  I consider that courtspeak for Liar!


You'll have to speak out at the proper times or else the court will be more than willing to ignore what she did.  And despite her grabbing as much as she could, I predict she will plead poverty - all the while trying to distract everyone from what she did via disinformation, distortions of the facts and innumerable allegations - and seek as much support from you as possible.

Fortunately the financial issues are fairly straightforward.  This doesn't mean it will be fair, but it's relatively simple since splitting marital assets is generally done by the numbers and separate from child support, spousal support or alimony, if any.

My xBPDw accused me of assault. It was a felony charge. I was convicted of disorederly conduct as a summary offense. I am currently on a leave of abscence from my job because of this. I am a school teacher. I never laid a hand on her and never will.

Be very careful. I look at the court system in a an entirely different way now. I used to thinl the courts were looking for truth. It was explained to me that "justice is served and sometimes the truthful party does win".

I carry a video and audio recorder with me at all times in case ex approached me when I pick the kids up. I was told by a judge that I am not allowed to do that in my state. My atty told me the same thing. I questioned my atty by saying I am only recording myself, which is allowed, and if it happpens that others things are recorder I believe the judge would be able to disregard that part of the recording and just listen to me not screaming, threatening, etc... . My atty said I actually have a good point. I even let ex know I have these things. The first time after the trial she approached my car. I turned the recrder on and let her see what I weas doing. I point it at myself and sit in my car. She no longer tries to come near me.

I stopped trying to figure out the reasons why and frankly I no longer care.

Mine was preparing divorce, before I knew it: took money from our bank-account, redirected money to her own bankaccount, cleared her own bank-account, falsified paperwork and then attacked be, claiming that I abused her, so I had to leave our house. After that started to sell my stuff.

Courthearing is in a few months: probably I lost everything I owned, but there one thing left: my health.

My xBPDw took two checks written to me (about $6,000), endorsed them, deposited them in a joint account and emptied the account when she left a few days later. The signature looked nothing like my signature. The courts did nothing.

She then came back weeks later when I was not home and removed about half the contents of the house. She also removed all the door locks. I went to my brothers to sllep. I decided to return two days later. The house had new locks. We were going to court in a week so I did nothing. The court awarded me the house as far as living there. When I gained entrance the house was literally emptied. The electrical outlet covers were all removed, the toilet paper holders were gone, I mean everything   except   a few boxes in the attic. On top of the box was journal she had written before we met years ago. It had 8 out of the 9 criteria for BPD in it and that's what guided me to this site.

During equitable distribution the courts didn't care that the house was emptied. Ex actually claimed I stole everything and placed a value of $300,000 to the stolen things. I discovered that she rented a storage unit where she put everything. I had pictures of her new place (from facebook) with a large amount of the items she claimed I had stolen. I was more than willing to say it was valued at $300,000 since I would be getting half of that from her. The courts said no.

All this did help when the house was sold. I was awarded 75% of the equity. The equity was in the 6 figures. She was not very happy but her atty convinced her not to fight it any further since she would probably have to give me more since the courts ignored all the evidence, to a large extent, the first time but would not if she contested the ruling.

That was in 2010. I am now much happier than I have been in years and I see the kids more than the court order because she has no idea how to raise children. Our oldest is 14 and will be able to say where he wants to live soon. Our youngest ( 10 ) is seeing the truth more and more. I let them figure it out on their own except when they ask me something. I never denegrate their mom or say anything nasty (sometimes it isn't easy) but have found that focusing on their needs only makes our relationship that much stronger.

My 13 year old daughter won't even talk to me. My wife is trying to literally take everything from me, but what hurts the most is the loss of my daughters. After all these years I still can't understand my wife being so cruel. I bought the book Divorce poison but I can see its going to be very hard to try and apply the principals listed in the book, especially since neither daughter wants to talk to me. So depressed... .

Jnah2004, that is so heartbreaking.

Have you looked the Warshak's website? Alienation cases are so individual, and it's hard to know what the best way is to move forward without knowing the particulars of your situation, but there are a ton of resources on his site about different cases. You might find something that looks like your situation, including the custody laws, court-ordered reunion therapy, templates for letters you can write to your daughter, etc.  

www.warshak.com/alienation/dpcc.html

Also, Warshak's website and the recently revised edition of his Divorce Poison describe a program Family Bridges designed to help the alienated child or parent repair the relationship.

Remember, it's not just your daughters' relationship with you, it's their relationships with others as well.  If their relationship with you has been tainted and sabotaged, then it will impact their relationships and partner choices as adults too and for decades to come.

Our boys were 4.5 and 8.5 years old when xBPDw ran away with them. It took several weeks before I got to see them (a court order). It was a few months after that when she dropped them off. They walked into the house and in unison said ,"We hate you and never want to see you again. We want to live with mom." I told them I loved them.

Today the boys are 10.5 and 14.5. The boys and I get along great. I stayed focused on their needs and refused to get into the chaos their mom was creating. If you let that get to you it will only get worse. Both of them will confide in me. Neither will confide in their mom. They see how easily she will over react and have felt her wrath enough to be careful.

I parallel parent and only communicate through email with ex. Eventually ex could not contain herself in emails and to this day sends nasty emails. I save them all.

Communication with ex is kept to a minimum and I always assume a judge will be reading them someday so my replies are short and to the point. I do not get dragged into the chaos. It was difficult in the beginning but is much easier today.