BPDFamily.com

I'm still trying to piece together what happened; what we went through; where to go now; what to do.

I'm am depressed, hurting, bewildered, confused. I am sad for our children and I am angry at her and myself. I have to see her due to shared parenting. It hurts like nothing I've ever felt and to her this is all a joke and has been a long time in the making.

I didn't know anything of BPD until about a month ago when I read about it while looking into MLC trying to find reasons as to what was happening. I was witnessing things I never thought were possible. I worried for the safety and well being of my children. I read an article called Blackmailed into Fatherhood and At All Costs from Shari Schreiber. At the time it helped, but I know I played a big part in this and felt her writings demonized someone who simply cannot understand who they are and I needed help in a healthy way. This lead me here.

I met my Ex 15 years ago. She had just moved back from across the country the day before I met her and was in the process of going through a divorce. She was 19 and had a 5 year old child. The father of that child was never involved and the man she was married to she met when he was on leave and came home for two weeks.

The reality is this... .She was never divorced from that man. She was pregnant with my child two months after I met her and I knew about it 4 months into the relationship. I also at that time was looking for a way out. This woman had no job, no home, no education, a couple pairs of clothes, a small child, and kept pressuring me to pay her bills. Once I seen she was pregnant I felt sorry and embarrassed for all that was happening and decided to make the best of it.

Her getting pregnant was a good thing in a way. It made me grow up and stop job hopping. I got serious about being a grown up and started looking for real and long lasting work. I also left the rented house we had and bought a mobile home. It sucked, but it was all we could afford. The pregnancy was rough for both of us. I wanted to leave a couple times due to the anger and hostility that was brought onto me. Instead I fought back lightly due to the fact she was with child. I just told her to stop and shut up. She complied most of the time. She attached to me and I couldn't go to the bathroom alone. She would stand outside the door or sit in there as I went. That was odd to me.

I chalked it all up to pregnancy and never thought much about it. After the birth of our eldest she became isolated. It was post postpartum depression. It lasted a good year and during that time we fought , viciously. It was common for me to tell her to take some kind of responsibility for her actions. We'd argue and she would never admit to wrong doing or change her view on anything. I always told her that being stubborn isn't a badge of honor it just shows your ignorance. Only when I had her cornered with a ":)id you or did you not do this" type argument would she admit her wrong doing. I yelled and screamed was verbally abusive. I am ashamed of what happened, but I have to be honest to begin this healing. Even though she never worked the house was rarely cleaned. Clothes were piled everywhere and I noticed she had no friends or hobbies. During much of our time together I told her that she had to stop relying on me to make her happy. She needed a hobby. Nothing interested her. Many times I stated it was like I was taking care of three children instead of two. This pattern of behavior lasted for most of the relationship.

Through out the next 13 years together we went through many changes. It seemed like when things were going good between us something would happen to tear us down. I kicked her out or tried to more times than I can honestly remember. I got tired of the anger and hostility. Being blamed for cheating or called a bad father. The last two things stopped, but were replaced with me being an alcoholic or I was abusive to everyone. I just kept myself busy and focused on my hobbies. I tried to get her interested into things, but she never stayed interested. It seemed that she lacked motivation to do much of anything. I only remember her having three friends in the years we were together. They never stayed long. In comparison I have friends that I knew before I met her that still come around everyday. I have always thought that one friend in particular she had an affair with. I was always listening to stories about this guy and how they would hang in the morning after work waiting to pick up his kids or what not. It was never confirmed, but one day she just stopped talking about him and I never heard his name again. At that time I really didn't care I had enough going on with school and work and if she wanted to go then more power to her.

I remember coming home one time from work and looking around the corner to my house. I remember already making up defenses to any argument that would come up. I walked into my house ready to fight and she just smiled and asked how my day was. Sat on the couch and looked at me. I felt the tension between my shoulders release and anger subside. This was the 3rd day she was on anti depressants. That lasted a month. It was the greatest month of my life with her and that was 13 years ago. That was when I knew without a doubt something was wrong.

It started to get the worst 4 years ago. We just bought a beautiful house together. I had begged her for years to get an education, because if I died I wanted her to be able to have a good job and take care of herself and our kids. I continued to work and watch the two eldest children. It was very very hard on us as a family. She was gone most of the time. We were used to it due to this being the 5th year of college, but this was the worst. She was gone easily 12 hours a day 5 days a week and when she was home she just raged on all of us and I got the beat down for not raising the kids properly. We got into petty fights about EVERYTHING. I related it to being under so much stress.

I couldn't speak a complete sentence without being interrupted. It got so bad I'd get anxiety every time I started to speak with her. I remember telling her this a week before she left during one of our last arguments. I said "I can't even talk to you anymore. I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I try to speak, because I know you are going to interrupt me. So I try to spit it out as fast as I can to avoid it all." She looked away and a little smile crept across her face for about three seconds. She then looked back at me and continued speaking as if nothing happened. It creeped me out.

She was under immense pressure from college and was taking on serious debt. I didn't know how in debt she was until after she left. I feel horrible for not helping her more during this time financially. She has always been poor and has very bad money management skills. Paying bills are an option and saving money is an afterthought. I thought that once she finishes college she will have a great high paying career and will mellow out since she wouldn't be poor anymore. She barely worked and I had begged her to find another job with more hours. She never would. When she left me she was almost penniless.

I was still under the illusion that once she graduated we would be fine. I have a high paying job and she would too. We would be able to have a beautiful life. The eldest was heading to college so I asked if she wanted another child she said yes and we had our second child her third. It was a wonderful pregnancy and birth. It was the happiest we had been as a family. Nice home, she was graduated and working a great job the eldest was off to college and we were all together planning on moving to a better part of the country and keeping the house we purchased as a rental. All of this lasted about a year and all of the planning was from me. I found out later she had no interest in moving and was afraid if we did I would leave her there all alone.

I begged her for two years after the birth to get on birth control and she wouldn't even try. We had our third child. I felt trapped. She felt ashamed. We fell completely apart. I was so angry at it all I resented her for forcing me into fatherhood again. This would be our fourth unplanned pregnancy. I checked out. I kept myself occupied with anything other than her and the pregnancy. I look back now and see she went deeper into a chasm of hopelessness. I have been involved with all of my children lives greatly. It was during this time thought that I checked out from it all. I just shelled up. I started to learn how to avoid fighting with her I shrugged my shoulders and said you're right, I'm wrong and moved on. I just stopped fighting back.

After the birth I came to my senses. I stopped being selfish and started being a better dad. I stayed home more. I didn't drink which at this time was only done one day on a weekend and I started to readjust my life and habits around my family. I started to work on our relationship and it was going good or at least I thought it was. She went to work more and I rarely saw her. I took care of the baby while she worked and she took care of the baby when I went to work.

She barely slept and went deeper into depression. I got snipped and she went off birth control. The baby was 5 months old and she started getting vindictive to me. Hitting me and such. She harmed our 3 year old and I heard her say "Ow Mommy that hurts." I went in and removed her from the situation. This was the first time in 15 years I had heard something like that. It wasn't discipline it was irrationally delivered pain to a child.

The only time we ever spent together was either in the house or at the store. We went on a vacation. The second one in 15 years and the first on our own. On the last night together she flipped a switch and started a fight with me. I tried to reason with her then quit I didn't want to fight on vacation. We came home and the bickering never stopped. It finally boiled over with me not talking or sleeping with her for a week. I tried talking to her and it would start a blame fight. I resorted to emails since we could never talk. She never responded and I asked her why and she stated that all I do is blame her. I said she never admits to making any mistakes. She shut down like a child. Put her head in her hands started crying. Ran into the bathroom and locked the door. This was the third time she had done it and was a new thing in her arsenal of denial. I finally got into the bathroom and was screaming at her to look at me and tell me what was wrong. She flipped out and started babbling something incoherent. I didn't know what was happening. I just walked out and left. She texted me that it was over and she took our kids with her. This was 4 months ago.

After she left I cleaned out all of her things. There were 15 years of old clothes never worn and garbage everywhere. I loaded 6 truck loads and shipped it to her house. To me it was just garbage as they were old clothes she hadn't worn in over a decade, pictures, old college books, decorations, baby clothes, shoes, and costumes. There were dirty clothes and moldy dishes under the bed. When I started to clean things up bugs were crawling out from under books that were stuck to the floor. It was disgusting. I never knew it was that bad I never paid attention. She was never NPD, but the opposite. Most of the time she looked shabby with outdated or mismatched clothing. Still does and at times disheveled.

Within two weeks she had downgraded to another man in her life and within one month he was coming to visit. I couldn't believe it. 15 years over and I was replaced in two weeks. I couldn't even look at a woman and she was already moving on. She started to mimic all the things he liked and started buying him things that he liked. She never listened to country music in 15 years now that's all she listened to. The list went on and got more bizarre. I watched disassociated behaviors, splicing of events, time lines out of sync, lying, bitter resentment, wanting to be friends, then pushing me away physically, not wanting me to touch her, alienation of my children, etc... .

Most things people associate with BPD she has. Early childhood trauma, abandonment, teen pregnancy, impulsive decisions, high conflict relationships, but even more things that I read about that I've only seen in clinician documentations.

Near the end she was doing outbursts in public. Yelling in restaurants and embarrassing the children in stores with her yelling and outbursts. Laughs like a teenage girl on the phone and talks or texts non stop. She has gotten worse with social media sites. She was rarely on them before and now it seems she's always on them. It's all about her and what she's doing and how cool she is hanging out with her 21 year old daughter when she's home. She has no money again or at least states she doesn't. She rarely works and has cut off most communication with people from her past life with me. I get all of this information second hand from our child that lives with her.

I try to logic with all of this. I wonder if the stress of the child birth and the hormones all over the place really brought out the symptoms in full force. It's very easy to see the symptoms were always there even before all of this it just seemed to get 100 times worse after the birth of the last child. Some type of disorder runs in the family as well. Her Grandmother was a mean bitter woman, her mother is as well and is on different medications, her aunts are bi polar and her cousin is schizophrenic

I now have to deal with this person everyday. I get a text from her and I get filled with anxiety. I don't know how to respond and NC doesn't work and I'm trying to get my child self to understand my adult self that this is a mental type illness and being angry at her as I am is only more harmful in the long run. I did not deal with this the correct way. I didn't listen nearly enough or show enough compassion for how she felt. I fought back and belittled her. I feel horrible. This is the mother of my children I should have been a better man even if it was just for them.

So that is part of my story I know this was rambling on and there is much more I haven't covered, but I needed to get this out as a form of therapy. I'll come back to visit and try to educate myself to handle this better. I have to see her in about two hours. I'm distressed.

I am so sorry that you are going through this.  With all of the stress and anxiety I would suggest getting yourself a good therapist if you can.  You will need a someone to help you find effective ways to deal with her when you need to do so.