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I sent my pwBPD (currently separated) the following message today:

"I'm sorry for my silence, but I needed space to think and clear my head. I love you very much and I don't want a divorce, but I feel helpless because you ended the relationship. I am sorry for all the hurt that I've caused you. For you to be filing for divorce you must be in a lot of pain. And I'm sorry if I have contributed to that pain with my silence. I need to keep working on myself. I need to restore my identity both to myself and to God so that I can be a good help to those who I love in my life. I'm willing to talk and I'm willing to work things out. I have no desire to hold these things against you. I agree, we both contributed to the problems in our marriage, but it is only destroyed when we give in to defeat. I have not given up, but there is nothing I can do as long as you are ending the relationship. I miss you and I am praying for you."

Thoughts?

I'm terrified of her response, but I know I did the right thing.

You apologized too much.

It might have been better as:

"There was a lot of silence; I couldn't handle talking to you. I don't want a divorce, but you ended the relationship. There is a lot of pain. I need to be by myself. There is nothing I can do here."

If she responds with "i love you" or something you do so in kind.

It's gamey and it's lame, but that is how it works.


Save all the sorry's, it's not working out when you finally decide to walk away.

I don't understand what you mean by that last sentence.

She replied. It's long and filled with the most hurtful "you" statements she's ever made. She continued to place all the blame on me and even accused me of trying to flip the blame onto her. She made up things that I never said, like "You used our MT as a scorekeeper." I guess she felt that way.

The demands are bigger than ever and all her words are just hurtful. She still says it's up to me to fix everything, to make everything right. SWOE is right. Everything I've read on this site is right on. I may be moving to a different message board soon. I don't know. Lots of confusion still.

Compassion is not a strong suit of BPDs.

Any time I verbally show compassion "I'm sorry" or whatnot it causes them to push away.

Especially if is something you did, you are just admitting you are not a good person in their eyes.

They likely see it as weakness and is the same reason they never apologize to you.

So don't do it. You can still show compassion by being there, and by validating their feelings.

When you finally walk out that door good, then it is okay to apologize to relive some guilt on your end.

As for her current response. I think you can take two roads. As I didn't see the in's and out's of the letter, take what I say lightly.

1). Tell her something along the lines of: I don't deserve to be treated like this. And I don't want to communicate with you at this time.

This is boundary setting. Don't use my words verbatim. Go NC for a 3 days or so.

2). Validate her feelings on the issue. Put yourself in her shoes (without apologizing) and tell her how difficult it must be for her, etc, etc.

You can combine the two, but sometimes that makes you look wishy-washy.

So show strength, either in boundary exertion or in validation.

Whatever is harder for you to do (goes against your core) is likely the one you should do.

I've also noticed that the more that I apologize with my BPDex, the more control they have and the worse it gets. Just be neutral. The less you put in, the better.

If they say, "I don't want to see you" or, "I don't ever want to talk to you again" you're response should be, "ok". Then initiate NC until she responds.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. As I said, her post yesterday was not good. It was probably the most toxic I've heard. I don't understand how she can accuse me so much of lying when only about 20% of her entire email is true.

I spoke with my T about this and T thinks I should look at the letter piece by piece to parse through the lies and attempt to apply the parts that are true to my life so I can take responsibility of my own 50%.

My T also recommends that I give her a very succinct message describing the ways we can restore the relationship. Something like, "I want to work on our relationship but in order to do so divorce needs to be taken off the table and we need to be in counseling for our marriage together." What do you think of this? Is there maybe a better way to put this?

Also, does saying "I can see that you are in a lot of pain." Really help? That was in my original message to her, but her response was "Yes, I'm in a lot of pain to be filing, Of course I am! ... .  I've never been so despised or loathed by someone as to be lied to, set up to be hated by their family, and then cut out of their life. And for this to be done by the man who claimed to love me more than anyone else, who promised that we'd spend our lives together, makes it even more devastating." It feels like I'm just feeding the beast by offering any sympathy at all.

Oh, and she sent another message today... .

"I realize I sent a super long email yesterday. Do you still want to talk about things?"

I'm so confused.

Validation is about putting yourself in their shoes.

So, "I know you are in a lot of pain"

Good Start.

Then follow up with, "I would be in a lot of pain too if that happened to me"

Then, "You have every right to be upset"

Blah, blah, blah.  That's the gist of it. Something along those lines are better than an open ended, "I know you are in a lot of pain"

Personally, at this point I would tell her "I can't handle talking to you right now"

Let things cool off, she'll likely want to talk if you say something along these lines.

Give it a couple of days. Then come back with:

"I have been thinking about our situation, and we need to talk".

Don't use what I say verbatim, but something like this.

In the meantime work on yourself and listen to your T.

My exBPD does the same things to me. She messages me in the same manor it sounds like your wife is. I am now becoming very aware of the emotional roller coaster. Like others have told you its best to stay neutral. The less emotion I show the easier the convos go. I myself have set up boundaries of what i will and won't tolerate. It is very important to do this for self preservation. My ex wants to or did want to come back. She has been nonexistent the past 2 days and I am not chasing her down.