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Today I was able to ask him over the phone to please not message me or email me between the hours of 10pm and 6am PST while I am sleeping as it is very frustrating to wake up to emotionally laden emails. He agreed which means now he understands why I won't respond to middle of the night communication anymore.


I am proud to say I did not react to a single one of those late night messages. Today when I found myself over reacting to his  ex nihilo nihil fit text I knew it was because of the messages he sent to me last night and I was able to tell him so. Ignoring his messages comes at a price, so its better if he just not send middle of the night messages. It was my reaction to a middle of the night email that created the argument that caused chaos in my household. Everybody is back where they should be now, so thankfully we all recovered.


I hope that's the case. I clearly requested to him today that he not send me email/messages between 10pm and 6am PST so we'll see if he abides by that.

What do you think? Try to break out of your own perspective and see the relationship from his perspective. Can you think of any positive, legitimate reasons for him to say some of these things, or find any truth to what he's saying? Do any of his points remind you of anything that members on this board have observed?

I can not think of any positive, legitimate reason for him to say some of these things. He initiated and continued the relationship under false pretense. Some of his points do remind  me of some things the members have observed. I think my partner is comfortable with me being the identified patient, and he is treating me as such in this letter.

My problem is not one of mental illness, but one of values, however I am guessing some spiritual people would say they are one and the same thing.

What I am looking for him is not going to happen, that he change his conduct towards me until he is divorced. However since he did not believe he was married going into the relationship I know that is not going to happen. The disconnect happens to me when I think about how other people have reacted when I have told them the reason he is not here is because he is not divorced. They didn't know he was married. So while he is comfortable treating me and talking to me as if I were the one who was mentally ill, consensus reality agrees that he is married.

Last night I was able to miss him however when I started thinking about this letter I started getting mad and then when I started writing about what kind of relationship I was trying to achieve I got stuck.

Part of why I felt betrayed when I found out that he had been doing tele psychiatry for at least 8 weeks with my former psychiatrist he is said he could not afford to pay for a therapist to oversee a therapeutic separation, yet he could pay $2K for the aforementioned services.

That is why I am not accepting his shared calendar invites nor offering to share my calendar with him. One, I don't want those things to get turned off in a threat to leave me and two, I've lost faith in them.

This touches on a third issue, he likes to blame me for altering the structure of our relationship (stopping things like sharing calendars), yet I caught him in a direct lie, meaning he wasn't abiding by the structure of the relationship anyways.

He blamed me for that situation, saying I was unapproachable, and that he tried to talk to me. He could have sent it in an email.

So this gets back to what kind of relationship am I trying to achieve. If I say friendship he will get offended, if I say ex he will say there is no point in talking, and he has already opposed the idea of therapeutic separation.

Nevertheless I am still working on this, obviously its going to take some time.

He agreed, yes. That does not mean he understands why you won't respond to late night communications. That doesn't mean he'll stop doing that. That doesn't mean he won't "forget" that he agreed and dysregulate on you because you aren't answering.


That's really good!


Right here, in this sentence, is every aspect of the problem.

"its better if he just not send middle of the night messages"

Yes, it is. Undoubtedly. But you can't stop him from sending the messages, even though you have asked and he has agreed. With pwBPD, those agreements are like contracts written on beach sand. The next tide (of emotion) washes them away. And if he needs to get emotional supply from you, then sending those messages and provoking a reaction fulfills his need, even if your reaction is negative.

"ignoring his messages comes at a price"

And this is the other aspect of this problem. The only price I am seeing is that he gets upset -- upset because even though he is breaking his agreement and trying to provoke you, you have ignored him. Who cares if he's upset? He's the rule-breaker; he's the one who can't control himself. And he's a pwBPD -- getting angry is just gonna happen. If not for this reason, then for the next, or the next, or the next.

Ignore his messages. Don't give him the reaction he wants. Let him rage all he wants -- you can ignore that, too, until it blows over.

I was reading an article the other day that cortisol builds up in the brain overnight and when we wake up, we can feel really terrible until the body has time to process it down to a normal level.

So there is also a physical reason for that difficulty in mornings. I noticed if I am going to react off of something my boyfriend is up to, if I see it within an hour or so having been a sleep, it can strike me really negatively. A couple of hours after sleep, I am a great deal more composed.

Avoiding the upsets from overnight stuff could wind down some of the escalations.  |iiii I hope he will stick to it!

Rules vs boundary enforcement.

Rule: you set a rule, he decides if he will break it.

Boundary enforcement: you take action to protect yourself. Decision is all on your part.

Rule: don't email me after bedtime

You see how that one works     

Boundary enforcement: in the morning I will delete all your overnight emails without reading them.

(You could possibly make this happen automatically depending how tech savvy you are and what email system you have)

I'm not sure you want to do this particular enforcement, but it would work better than the rule.

Daniell85, you can enforce that yourself too. Don't look at emails or messages when you wake up. Give yourself an hour or two and breakfast first!

Today I called my partner to let him know that I had obtained a therapist and that I would be taking his "What I am looking or from you" 3am email to my first session. The therapist is my DBT therapist so she knows my story so I won't have to get her up to speed. Then I get this email from my partner today at 12:24pm titled

Followed by this email at 12:41 titled

Needles to say these emails pissed me off. I'm supposed to be the one defining the relationship, not him. I'm the one taking a step backward and looking in the mirror because he's married, not the other way around. Somehow he thinks there's some kind of equality in this. The whole reason and the only reason I am taking a step backward is because he is still married. He doesn't get it. He thinks this is some kind of tit for tat thing. Its driving me crazy.

I told my partner I hadn't even had a chance to develop my own thoughts, I'm so saturated with his.

His wife told me he is very hard to deal with. She couldn't deal with him. I do believe she emotionally abandoned him and I can understand why.

I told him what we were doing was I was waiting for him to file, and that we had morning and evening check ins that were not dependent on how we were feeling that day.

I think his 3am
email is negative and illegitimate however it is his perspective so I will be getting help to see things from his perspective.

What do you mean by emotional supply?




His middle of the day emails are making me mad too. He doesn't get to send me an email about he defines the relationship. He's not the one with the problem.

That sounds good to me but now I am dealing with two middle of the day emails that set me off. It had been suggested to me on my last thread:


That is what I am working on, and that was written on 1/9. Today is 1/12 and I got this long email, twice, from my partner. Its driving me crazy. He doesn't get to tell me what relationship I am trying to achieve, I get to tell him that. I don't have an answer for that after 3 days and he sends me two copies of a long email that looks like was  just fired off in a emotional reaction? He hung up on once today already. I'm still struggling with this after 3 days and he just fires off two emails to me after talking about the subject less then an hour ago. It makes no sense to me at all.

Hi Unicorn

This all sounds very stressful. Having these relationship issues and a teenager is no picnic 

What's confusing me is do you even like him at this point? All I am reading is irritation and frustration. How do you picture your day to day interactions with him if/when he gets divorced and you were to marry him?

Hi daughter and mom, I don't like how he's treating me right now. He sent me another hurtful email.
I like him but not when he is treating me like this. He is hurting me right now. He is not being kind or gentle, he is being mean and hurtful.

I guess what I mean, is if this is how interactions go with him, how will it be different once he's divorced and you are married? Or will every day be like this but worse because he will be right there in your face every day. And if dealing with him takes so much emotional energy, how is that going to affect your daughter?

Unicorn, isn't this true? You have effectively punished him in a step-wise progression by taking these things away from the relationship as retaliation over his marital status. Something we characterized the other day as emotional abuse.

We've encouraged you to communicate what the relationship is and what it isn't.  To him (and many of us would feel the same way in this situation), the relationship is quagmire of seemingly increasing punishments to force him get a divorce, that he doesn't want. You feel he deserves to be treated this way because he repeatedly lied to you.

Why not answer him and tell him the truth. It sounds unhealthy, but isn't time you both just came clean. That is the relationship you are offering.

Anyway, putting that aside, I'd like to recommend that you focus your time with the members here looking at the bigger picture and not  airing out text message after text message of your fighting. Wrong time, wrong word, etc.  At this point, bpdfamily is just a vehicle to amplify your daily anger - we don't want to be that. We are enabling at this point and it isn't good for you or him.

Going to the bigger picture... .

I've followed your story for weeks and I have no idea what you really want or what is important. I don't mean to say you are not trying to find a solution, you are, but you are emotion driven right now and not much make sense in terms of the ultimate goal of building a healthy relationship with this man.

1. We've encouraged you to step away and clear your head (and let him clear his) for 2- 6 weeks. What I hear you saying is that you want 2x communications, but under some strict rules which have never been clarified or mutually agreed to. This 2x daily communications under your evolving "rules" which has lead to weeks of daily squabbles. How does this ever get better? Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

2. We've encouraged you to insist in having honesty in the relationship (2way). For you to find out (ask) why he doesn't want to get a divorce. There are indications that something is amiss (taxes or finances) or his relationship with his wife or ________. Don't you want to know why? If it is a tax issue that he can't financially resolve, all of this talk of divorce secondary to that.

3. Why do you not want to take a "mutually agreed" on break to relieve the strain and then come back and define/negotiate a relationship that works for both of you while the marriage is still intact - rather than beating each other in this bad child/punitive parent mode the relationship is in right now.

In order for us to get married he's going to have to purchase a house in a very expensive school district so that won't be happening until after my daughter graduates. I already told him I don't want him putting all his capital into a house. He will not be moving in with my daughter and I in our 2BDR apartment.

No its not true because I don't feel motivated by retaliation. What I am trying to do is stop from being flooded by him. I'm trying to take a step back. He would manage every single aspect of my life if I let him. Remember I said the relationship started out as a quasi-parental relationship? I'm trying to develop my own identity separate from him. He is very overpowering and very domineering. I don't know if I was clear or not but when I initially set up the relationship it was built on a certain subset of BDSM principles called DD/lg. When I discovered after much work with my then therapist that my partner was not healthy enough to be my daddy I had to totally change the relationship. I had no idea my partner had a personalty disorder when I met him. I didn't find that out until later.

Does what I am saying making any sense at all?



I haven't even had a chance to take his January 6 email to a therapist and he sends me a new one, so that's why I'm emotion driven right now. He won't stop coming at me. I told him I need to get help to try to see things from his perspective.


This morning and evening check in was relatively new, as of January 1, and it is up to me to uphold that boundary. I was not expecting that list he sent me. That was the list I was supposed to be working on: what kind of relationship I am trying to achieve, what that looks like. I didn't even get a chance to do that before he sent me his list. Last night I was trying to write it out. My partner is much faster, much stronger, much more forceful then me psychologically.


He maintains that he filed and his lawyer messed it up. I've been talking to him about this all along. That is what he says every single time.


Because he will not allow it, if I try to take a break he will say I am breaking up with him. That's why he stopped sharing calendars. He is very volatile. If I tell him I am taking a break for 2 weeks I may lose the relationship and I need to be prepared for that. Stopping calendar sharing, location sharing and facetime was a big deal. He's still fighting me on it. And I am not sure I want to continue calendar and location sharing period. I was trying to work on a boundary as to why those things go away permanently. That's what I was trying to work on in my relationship. The no facetime was kind of like the equivalent of us not seeing each other because we are in a long distance relationship. That is something that would come back as soon as I see that he has filed.

I'm feeling like I am under a lot of pressure.

These things I have been posting today are emails, not texts. I've been deleting his texts today.

______

At any rate when he was dysregulated he proposed not talking until February 1 so I suggested that if that is what we need to do to keep things simple then I am fine with that. He ignored my suggestion. I am dealing with a man who does not want to take a break that he suggested in the first place. 

Why not ask this question over on the legal board.

My finance had said for __ months that his divorce (original petition) was filed with the court. When I checked the public record it wasn't there.

He maintained for __ weeks that it was filed.  Then he said that either his lawyer or the court clerk made an error.  

To resolve this, rather than file the petition he had, has hired a new lawyer which took __ weeks from the time I discovered the filing had not been made. His new lawyer is now saying that it will take __ - ___ months to prepare a divorce filing (original petition) for the court.

Does this sound believable or am I getting the run around?


Do you want the 2 week break?

Are you willing to make some compromises so that he feel treated with respect (and you do too)?

Thank you, that is a good idea and I will write up a post later based on that.



I am thinking about it.

I need to make a point about the original subject of this thread. On January 6 my partner sent the "what I am looking or from you" email and then on January 7 2016 he stopped sharing a calendar with me that he had been sharing since September 24 2013. That is why I called what he did an extinction burst. I was not the one who stopped sharing calendars. That was his decision, not mine.

.

If I am going to go no contact for any length of time I need to be much more prepared for his next extinction burst as I did not handle this last one very well at all. If you have anything I could read about dealing with extinction bursts when there is a minor involved I would appreciate it. It might make more sense to wait until I talk my new individual  therapist next Wednesday about what to expect and how to handle it. (She is one of my DBT therapists so she is familiar with my story, she is not a stranger.)




Absolutely since today I do not feel prepared to deal with another extinction burst. The last one caused my daughter to run away because of bad vibes. She likes my partner but feels she has to be loyal to me.

I'm also open to suggestions on compromises as well.

Good question! BPD is often described as a black hole of neediness. The need is to be loved, wanted, valued, noticed, made to feel better. You've cut him off from a lot of his supply -- visits, chats, emotional engagement. To try to fill his need, he wants some reaction from you -- he might prefer love, apologies, adoration, pleading forgiveness -- but if he can't get those, he'll take your irritation, frustration, and anger. So he pokes you (with a provocative message), and you respond -- even though you've told him you wouldn't. He wins.



His middle of the day emails are making me mad too. He doesn't get to send me an email about he defines the relationship. He's not the one with the problem. [/quote]
Yes, he does get to send you an email about how he defines the relationship. He did. He did it twice, in fact. You can't control that. You're understandably upset. The only power you have is not to show him any reaction to his poking. Ignore them.

Was he directly contacting your daughter to drag her into the fight, or was she only reacting to your behavior on your end of the fight? It seems like you might have a lot more control over all this than you think you do, but there's a lot of FOG and other factors that keep you in this reactive place instead.

It seems that your problem with these e-mails is really that since he's married and deceived you about the divorce, you don't think he has the right to be complaining about the relationship or asking you to improve or change anything at all. Am I understanding you correctly? Like I've said before, I think it's fine and totally understandable for you to feel that way... .The problem is that it's not kind to him to be in a relationship and communicating lots every day (which you still are), while you are not ready to respect or consider his feelings.

We tried to scale back communication enough to avoid triggering emotional reactions and high-conflict behavior (by either of you). That hasn't worked, and got twisted into more high-conflict behavior that he is experiencing as abusive. I'm not seeing any options other than to take a break from the relationship until you are really ready to work on your role in the conflict, which is going to mean considering some things from his point of view and being respectful and validating of his feelings.

Thank you. I was just able to tell him that I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who takes my inventory. That is what he was doing in his email where he told me I brought the spiritual cancer of resentment into the relationship and I value resentment. I told him we aren't even supposed to be talking about our relationship right now. We are supposed to be at peace while we wait for his divorce to be filed. I am working on a post for the legal board to go over that as well.


This man won't let me think for myself, let alone write for myself. He is very overpowering.

Members of this board have excellent suggestions, and I'm trying to follow them, like define what kind of relationship I'm trying to achieve, what goes away, etc, and I can't even get that far because my partner keeps hitting me with some new conflict.

I have identified a serious values conflict. He thinks its ok and he has the right to take my inventory. I'm not ok with that. That goes against everything I believe in. Its even more of a problem for me then his marital status because he can change his marital status, he can't change his belief system. He grew up in a hyper religious household. I have long term sobriety and long term recovery in Al-Anon. You do not take other people's inventories. That's a big no no.

Looks like I just got myself a day off, he told me do not call me tomorrow and do not text me.

She was only reacting to my behavior on my end  of the fight. That was not a normal fight.


No, you are not. My problem with his emails is they are distracting from the real issue at hand which his filing for divorce, which I found out today involves a lot of work. I don't want to deal with the relationship until the conditions for a relationship are put into place, which would be a divorce filing.



What you call his point of view I call taking my inventory. He also just told me I am not a practicing member of my religion, a religion he left over two decades ago.

These are serious values conflicts.

I'm definitely going to need review the lessons on values and make some choices.

You can't put this on him. You're an adult, a parent, and have to be responsible for your own thoughts and choices.

Ok, I think that's fine. But I don't think it's compatible with continuing to have contact with him until he files.

What if you'd turned the phone off or put it away when your daughter started to have a negative reaction to the fighting? You could have so much more control over all this than you think. That's what boundaries are about. They aren't rules for him, they're rules for yourself about what you will and won't engage in.

I understand that and apparently he finds it really threatening that I need to think about my values around location and calendar sharing. I just got this email, topic

He's swinging  hard and it hurts to be on the receiving ends of these blows. That last email gave me a lump in my throat. I never send him emails like that. I never tell him don't call me, don't text me. I don't treat him that way. He's not working with a support team. There's nothing stopping him from treating me this way. He said it, I simply no longer care

I have never said things like that to him.

I have turned my phone off but that particularly extinction burst totally caught me off guard. I will be turning my phone off when my daughter gets home from the weight room. He's really causing  me pain  tonight so  I need to cover my hurt  up before she gets home.

He just left me because I told him I had to think about whether or not I want to be in a relationship with someone who wanted to take my inventory and tell me I didn't practice my religion and tell me I had resentments. I was being serious. As I stated a marriage can be dissolved, a person can't change their values. I often hold my relationship up to the light of my recovery and the way my partner is treating me doesn't make sense for someone who has the values I have.

He is jerking your chains with all of those judgemental comments. The comments are meant to make you feel "lesser than".

It's hard not to fight back to someone who says those things to you, especially when he has a "beam" in his own eye.

You are trying very hard to do the right thing, as you see them. I can see why you are reacting back at him.

I know this is hard. Ignore his mean comments. Don't acknowledge them to him, don't pick up the gauntlet. Do you understand, he is using you to get a fight so you will engage with him. He wants control back. Over you. And you are pushing back and exhausting yourself on it.

When I first met my boyfriend, he was awesome. Then all the crappy stuff started. Oh my, the theatrics. We were "done forever!" a hundred times. I totally believed it. Grieved deeply. Then he came back. Over and over.

I don't personally believe that your partner is going anywhere. He is threatening you with ending the relationship. Power over Unicorn to hurt her and upset her and make her be nice again instead of a meanie who is being firm on him getting a divorce.

Don't be afraid to take a break. Trust yourself more and stop letting him corner you into second guessing yourself on so many things that are important in your life.

What you are describing does not sound like an 'extinction burst.'

Thank you Daniel, that is very helpful. He is now messaging me through Facebook telling me he no longer cares, he no longer expects anything from me. First he tells me don't call him or text him tomorrow, then he tells me he will call me at the end of the workweek. It sounds like I need to review the lesson on circular arguments. I find it really ironic that as a person such as myself is in a position like this. Its a good thing I don't have any sponsees. This would not look good. I guess I expect more of my self then this, I believe I can do way better then this.

I'm definitely hurt and confused by his behavior and his words.

This is so like my ex husband for many years after our divorce yet I haven't left my partner so I don't understand why he is acting the way same way. It makes no sense to me.

I've been very clear with him that we can resume relationship discussions when he shows me he's filed and in the meantime if this is too confusing for him we can take a time out. He's not interested in that either. I'm trying so hard to be reasonable and he's fighting me every the step of the way. I know I am supposed to be the emotionally leader here but he doesn't want to follow. He thinks he's supposed to be leading me.

It only takes one person to take a time-out. Even if he doesn't want to, you can still decide to distance yourself and take your own time-out from the relationship. Turning your phone off is a good move I think. Also not reading his e-mails or facebook messages, particularly those texts/e-mails/fb messages he sends after midnight in the very early hours of the morning.

Not responding to the messages is advisable in my opinion and to help you do this it can really help to not read them at all. Identifying your triggers and anticipating your own impulsiveness is very important when you are trying to end the cycle of conflict and dysfunction. You know that after you read his messages there is an increased likelihood of you getting triggered which causes you to react instead of respond. Getting triggered happens to all of us, but once you've identified your triggers you can start making a plan to help you manage them. Not immediately reacting is helpful, not responding at all is often also very helpful and in this particular case, I think not reading the messages at all can also be every helpful.

How do you feel about this?

I think that for the time being when my daughter comes home I'm going to put my phone in do not disturb mode or airplane mode depending on what I am doing. Since I am having so many problems with her right now, it would be good not to be distracted.

I received this email from him when I woke up titled apologies. I responded with thank you for the apology, I appreciate it. I feel like its not a clean apology, that there are hooks in it, a lot of hooks, but it is better then more of the same. I do feel like he has broken trust with me has and its going to take a lot on his part to restore it.

I think this would be very wise indeed. This will allow you to focus more on your daughter and your relationship with her and all the things she is currently dealing with |iiii


It is more pleasant than the other e-mails, that I agree. Yet this also reminds me of push and pull dynamics. Though his e-mail in my opinion did not necessarily need to be responded to, I think you responded in a good way by keeping it short and informative while still keeping it friendly. Whether he sends positive or negative texts/e-mails/fb messages to you, I still think it will benefit you to take a time-out and stop reading what he sends you, particularly the stuff he sends late at night and in the early morning.

Yesterday she just wanted to be left alone in her room to watch her tv show, parenthood of all things, how ironic, and I realized I was feeling lonely, which was good because all the conflict with my partner had gotten in the way of my missing him, which is what others had been saying. He and I had been pretty much been face timing every night since August 2012 so this is a major change in my life and our life. We haven't facetimed since before New Year's. I do think that providing her with adult conversation was beneficial, when it wasn't fighting, so I am looking forward to being able to reinstate that in the household.



I looked up push pull dynamics and I agree and I see its a problem in normal relationships not just high conflict relationships. My 7 year therapist had actually talked to me about this, that this particular partner tended to want to too much closeness, but previous relationships  including my father were distancing, so that in and of itself wasn't a reason to end a relationship. He told me that was part of finding the balance in a relationship.

I was also able to call my partner today and ask him to rewrite the Facebook messages he sent me about not feeling valued for anything other then coparenting into an email that I could bring to my  therapist next week.

A further thing I was able to do was when he requested  a FaceTime conversation with me about the relationship at the end of the week I was able to restate my boundary that I would be happy to resume facetime conversations and relationship conversations when I had seen that he had filed. That was actually a painful conversation because I actually realized that I was starting to miss him and that the distance was starting to hurt. I was able to tell him this and to tell him this indicated to me that my taking a step back until he filed was having the desired effect, it was allowing my emotions to simmer down so I could actually start to miss him. He was able to hear what I say and say he knows that I believe that what I am doing is right. It was actually a peaceful conversation with no hooks or feelings of being hooked involved.

Hi unicorn. FWIW, I don't see his apology as healthy. I thought his preceding email about how he sees the r/ship at present IS healthy. He is communicating his feelings to you--in a calm way that doesn't add any hurtful threats or blaming. He is entitled to do work and communicate if you have any kind of relationship.

He now says he's retracted it but that seems to be because of your negative reaction. He's saying he will never do such a thing again ... .I sure don't think that is a healthy stance. (But again, it's coming from your negative reaction to him trying to share his feelings with you. That's a bad dynamic -- nothing good comes from people hiding their true feelings from one another in order to keep a relationship intact.)

I agree with Skip that what he said seems accurate. I know you feel he has no justification for being sad about the situation because it's his fault ultimately for misleading you about his marital status. But that is something you can say gently and warmly instead of retaliating and being frustrated with him.

I know you're past the point of responding and are looking to discuss with your T--great! But if we rolled this back a day or so, I'd suggest responding to his "our r/ship now" message by saying "I know, I miss the way things were also. I suppose if I looked at it in a different way I too could be mad at you for making it impossible for us to enjoy the way it was until you've filed for divorce. I miss it a lot! But rather than being mad at you, I'm trying to lay the groundwork for moving forward in a healthy way. I get that you feel sad at what's missing and so do I. But to have that kind of r/ship, because of my own values, my partner can't be married to someone else. I'd love it if we can return to a genuinely intimate r/ship if that gets resolved."

Do you see that that has all the same feelings in it as "why are you sending me this complaint when it's what I had to do to protect myself when I realized you hadn't even filed for divorce and misled me?" But it affirms that you also miss what he misses, and your actions are the path to possible restoration on better terms. You don't need to be mad at the guy for missing the happy times you had. It makes sense. You can be mad at him for not having filed for divorce! But that's a separate thing than him telling you he's bummed now. Of course he is. It's completely reasonable, and gives you another chance to explain what this is about for you, and that you DO value that closeness that your current drawn-back position is preventing.

Hi p&c, I appreciate your response.

His first email was actually taking my inventory which is not healthy. It was full of blame. A friend of mine once said nothing good can come about at 3 in the morning which is when that email was written.  I encouraged him to read in the AA big book about the 4th step. No person has the right to tell another person what they feel. No person has the right to tell another person that they have resentments. No person has the right to tell another person to get their projection under control. As another member said, that email was full of judgment.

I also don't think the apology was healthy because it indicates he is still judging me, and ultimately its what he thinks that's the problem, not what he says, however he has not taken DBT yet  so that's where his mind is at today. He assures me he will be taking DBT when he moves.

I have asked my partner to write me an email stating his concerns about not feeling valued by me for anything other then coparenting so  that I can bring to my therapist.  I need help validating him and that is why I asked for the email. He has a problem with mattering, that is why he was working with the psychiatrist, so he is projecting his issues on to me.

I am also finding that what some of the other members have said is true, that taking a step back is actually allowing me to miss my partner.

There are other things in the relationship that I am processing now, that I am not ready to talk about publicly yet, and now that I have a new individual therapist I will be able to talk about those things with her.

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His  marital status is not the only issue that made the relationship a problem, he was in no position to be in an intimate relationship psychologically.  I was very naive when I met him, I had never met a man that had problems like he did. I'm now starting to feel some things about the other things in the relationship that he did that I feel were very inappropriate and this is an opportunity for me to practice my DBT skills as well as utilize my underlying Buddhist and Christian knowledge of nonjudgmentalness.  I need to practice compassion for my partner. The deeper issue I can forgive my partner, however I also feel angry about it.

I wrote a post over on the personal inventory board about the new book I am reading if you are interested. I'm working on a self awareness inventory which I will then be using to write an essay.

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I want to tell you, Unicorn, that I am really grateful to you for all of the discussions you open.

Your efforts to find a path forward and gain clarity, it really touches me.

I struggle with a lot of the same feelings/situations you have. It's helped me so much to read your threads.

It seems most of us are naive when we walk into these types of relationships. I keep searching for "meaning" in all of this.

Thank you Daniell85, I have to say things have much improved since I've taken a step back and started looking in the mirror.

Now I'm reading a book called keeping the love you find which I posted about on the personal inventory board.

I was very  codependent when I entered this relationship.

I had done 2 years of work in CODA before meeting my ex husband but that wasn't enough, so I ended up marrying an alcoholic with untreated bipolar disorder whom I later found out also had sociopathic traits.

I've done a lot of work in Al-Anon and ACA however it was my codependency that was causing so many problems with my partner.

I'm going to have to really get a grasp on that before I reenter the relationship in the normal way, and a lot is going to have to change.

That being said I think the container of the relationship is solid, its what's inside that needs to be cleaned out.

I'm going to be meeting with my new individual therapist next week and I'm going to be working on having compassion for my partner and validating him when he says things that set me off.

For example his need to be reassured by me that I love him and want to be with him drives me batty, but that's part of his disorder, so if I want to be with him, I'm going to have to deal with that.

My life coach told me that I need my partner to be a mature adult, I think I could boil down his problem into emotional immaturity, which is part of the disorder, so I'm going to have to learn to  deal with that which means i don't have the luxury of sinking into emotional immaturity myself.

I thought because my partner was so much older then me that he was going to be more emotionally mature then me. I think that's what I was looking for when I entered the relationship and what i found was something entirely different.