BPDFamily.com

Hi -

Our divorce is in the final phase after a 20 year marriage. My question is, how do you get past feeling the need  to take care of them?

Stbxw left me 18 mos ago, and has since pretty much blown up her relationships and career. She is a public figure in a small community, but her reputation has been destroyed by her bizarre behavior. Every time I hear something new, I die another death. Probably like the agony a parent feels when their child is in trouble. I can't be married to her (she still denies her year-long affair and other lies), but I can't get past wanting/needing to rescue her. It's killing me. Any thoughts?

20 years is a long time, Vinnie. I can't imagine how that would have been, she leaving you like that... . mine left me for a boy toy. What helped me detach was that I found her behavior absolutely disgusting. Mine is very pretty. Dropped of the kids tonight. She looked good in my mind, then I remembered: the lying, not very subtly sneaking around the last four painful months she was in my house... . lying and cheating (the same thing, really) offends my moral sensibilities to such a high level that it helped me detach. Child, yes... . my family is D1, S4, D32. No rescuing adult children. It stunts their emotional growth.

      The 'need' to rescue her/take care of her, even the belief that she's rescue-able, is what's known as co-dependence. The first step to getting past it is accepting that you're powerless to do it. You've been taking care of her for 20 years - has it worked out as you'd hoped?

      The same need/belief kept me in my relationship with my uBPDxgf much longer than was healthy for me, until eventually I accepted that nothing I said or did was ever going to make any difference. 

I admit I'm co-dependent with her.

Our adult children don't see it as heroic that I always made excuses for her and cushioned her from consequences. They would just as soon let her hit bottom and see what happens.

      Coming from her own children, that says it all. My xgfs' now-adult eldest daughter chose to continue living with her step-mother rather than with her mother following the death of her father when she was about 15. She's now 21 and refused to let her mother attend her recent wedding.

      This is not a spiteful, malicious young girl, she'd just seen and experienced enough of her mothers' BPD behaviours to decide she didn't want her to be a part of her life.

      I hope that things aren't that bad between your children and their Mum, but I think you should join them in letting your ex fend for herself. After all, hitting rock bottom is often the only thing that gets pwBPD to seek the professional help they need.