BPDFamily.com

 

Hello, my name is Damian. I think Ive posted here before, but in any case my wife at the time found it and we fought about it and I never posted here again. She's the reason I'm here.

We've been together since high school, and we were both class of 05. I've been walking on eggshells that long. I'd tried to leave a few times not long after high school, but three times she threatened to kill herself and then she would start mocking me and telling me how I'll never find anything but whores and how I'm gross. I cheated on her for a while because, basically, she wouldn't let me leave and she was slowly dwindling my friends away.

I wish I had been stronger, but that's not important.

Not long after that whole episode, she decided she had BPD. She'd never been diagnosed, but we both did the reading that she found and it fit her to a T. So I spent hours reading and learning about her condition, most of the advice to which amounted to get out while you can, learning how to communicate with her so she wouldn't explode on me or just shut down for the rest of the day. She is the definition of the waif model. Poor sad her, so abused and overlooked.

Slowly it began to dawn on me that there would never be enough change for her. She started lashing out more and more, with increasing hostility. She would always apologize, sometimes in tears, for the way she treated me, but I pretty much just ran on the assumption that I was stuck with her until I could find the strength to leave her disordered life in her own hands, until I could find the strength to decline the responsibility she constantly forced on me.

I quit drinking, I quit cigarettes, I quit everything, pretty much quit having friends for her. At one point, my working 30 hours a week was too much for her, I was gone all the time, so in addition to only having her approved friends (2 people, maybe. Good people, but still) that I couldn't go see, I had to spend all of my free time with her too. I had to take a cut in hours because she was alone too much.

Sex was... .laughable. I don't know what happened to her in her life, but I spent ten years having sex with someone who never thought of me during it. She was always imagining something else, and thats what she told me. In the beginning, she would humor me more and almost seemed to enjoy doing things for me. But as our relationship progressed, and after a couple situations, it slowly occurred to me that sex and the stuff she did that I liked was just another tool for getting what she wanted. It was something she would tolerate because it was actionable against me.  And then our daughter was born, and that was the end of the once every two weeks(maybe) sex I got, end of everything extra.

It was around this time when she seemed to "take responsibility for me". She would start to treat me like a child she didn't want to be around, making it seem like she had to watch over my happiness and everything she did was only the bare minimum to try and keep me sated. I had grown accustomed to this over the years.

Meanwhile, I spent all of the months we spent in the hospital with her and her pre-eclampsia with our daughter. She was drugged and had no idea what was happening most of the time during which time I took care of everything. After our daughter was born however, now she had post partum depression she wouldn't acknowledge or accept help for, BPD that she ignored and stopped taking or looking for medication for, and no trust in me because of the rough patches our life had been through.

I went along with almost all of her parenting decisions. Now our daughter is four years old. Four things happened in the last six months, almost the same exact thing every time, which was the immediate cause of our divorce. She is terribly inconsistent with her parenting; from one hour to another different things are acceptable and not. Most times she can't bother to remember the rules we agreed on so she won't enforce them. She is the reason our daughter still acts like a baby, still wont speak consistently when asked, won't ask nicely, and has a problem listening. This showed bad near the end; if we were both around, our daughter wouldn't look at me if I said something. No matter what. Mom was the only one with authority. So I would ask her if she would help me to establish authority by enforcing our rules, to make her ask nicely for things before giving them, to be consistent. Every time I was yelled at, had my past thrown in my face, and MOCKED IN FRONT OF MY DAUGHTER. Mocked. Like a child. So the first time, I gave an ultimatum. YOu cannot treat me like that in front of our daughter. It was about this time she started reading about narcissist personality disorder, of which she accused me. So she found these books that justify her waif status, told her exactly how it was poor sad abused her, and went with it.

She started telling me that she was the way she was because of years of abuse I had supposedly put her through. SHe couldn't come up with anything concrete that she didn't also do to me, but that's not important. All that's important was that now, that medication wasn't for BPD symptoms, it was for anxiety from dealing with me. Her problems were from dealing with me. She's a sick twisted liar who used the first excuse she could find to shift all the blame to me, as a classic BPD would do. The rules she has don't apply to her, because her actions are never her fault; she's always reacting to others, which makes her inconsistencies other peoples' fault. Her actions are blamed on other people so after I left her, she immediately locked me out of my email accounts and facebook, copied a bunch of emails out to threaten me with, and has no conception that she did anything wrong.

She has no conception of my feelings, and hasn't ever. Her strategy was always appeasement, never support or happiness. And if I didn't immediately and positively affirm her no matter what she said, the day was over. All of a sudden, she can't watch our daughter so I can do homework, or she is so tired she has to take a nap because she stopped taking the medication she used to sleep. All of a sudden, she doesn't feel like doing anything or going anywhere anymore. If I didn't immediately send a smiley face to a joke, or a lol to a picture, or "no you're not" to a post saying shes ugly or stupid or anything. Anything at all had to be addressed immediately if I wanted her to be a mother the rest of the day.

So the next three times it just degenerated. Her books gave her all the tools she needed to crush and destroy this marriage once and for all. After the yelling at me and throwing my past and my shortcomings in my face, she started in with the mocking (which my daughter copied for a while) and then she would tell me that she doesn't have to talk to me about it because she didn't want to. Fighting hadn't gotten her way, so now she found out that ignoring hurts more so she would devalue me, demean me, and then ignore me. The last time I got mad at her for ignoring me and not treating me like a person, she decided that I was too mad to be around our daughter so she took her against my will. I had to spend my savings on filing for divorce because she wouldn't tell me what crazy nonsense I had to do to see my daughter again nor would she tell me that she wouldn't take my daughter to a different state with her.

After I filed for divorce, she was a lot more reasonable. Suddenly, I could see my daughter again, and suddenly we can agree on parenting times, and suddenly shes not so scared to leave me alone with her.

She splits so bad she doesn't make sense anymore, and then she wants to give me hugs and tell me she feels bad for me. Like I'm some leper she put up with for ten years. Like she didn't beg me to stay with her. Like she didn't pack up her Subaru and drive out here from Missouri WITHIN THE WEEK after she lost her job there. Like she didn't beg my forgiveness while crying.

Now I'm out of it and I hardly have any friends, any life, any joy left. SHe blackmailed me out of the best years of my life so I could live out the worst of hers, and now she's ready for something else so she can just pick up and leave. Leave me here destroyed with nothing.

She even took my computer at the very beginning of my school semester. She doesn't go to school or have a job and I'm a computer science student with online class. But she says I gave it to her one time, some bull story I don't believe, and had no problem watching me languish and start class almost two weeks late.

I've already lost out on a big part of my first semester at university because she doesn't give a crap about anyone but herself, and I can't focus because all I can think about is how she's manipulating someone else. And I know how she manipulates.

She's still beating me down and I don't even live with her anymore. THe thought of her, what she's done to me, won't stop. She's poisoned me and everything that made me happy.

Sorry for being so longwinded. I have literally no one to talk to about this. My family likes to tell me that I dont' know what I"m talking about then start talking about themselves.

Thanks for anyone who cares. I'm afraid that I've been someone's unwilling pet for so long that I can't function normally anymore.

Hi, Damian,

So much of your post reminds me of... .  Well, it reminds me of me, and my relationship with BPD.

Especially this bit... .


After 17 years of marriage, in the immediate afterglow of 3.5 hours of non-stop conjugal relations, mine told me that she had to think of a woman to get aroused and get off... .  She later claimed that she didn't really have to be "in to" a person to enjoy having sex with them.  Later still, she opined that in some ways, she enjoyed it more if there wasn't any emotional attachment to who she was doing it with.

Mine definitely has used sex as a tool.

She's having a real tough time because the last time we "did it," she said it was the best ever, blah blah blah... .  I told her to try getting what I just did for three hours from a woman, adding that I didn't believe anything she said anymore, including the bit about it being "the best ever," and moreover, didn't care whether she liked it, or not.  All that mattered to me was whether I enjoyed it.  And I told her I really didn't, which was factually true.

She tried to seduce me in to it just this morning.  When I didn't respond as she hoped and figured I would, she asked  me what was wrong in her special "I don't really give a rip, but I am playing a role" tone.  I told her that fundamentally, sex with her was really little more than mutual masturbation, and she need not really be a part of that going forward.  Her look of confusion, bewilderment, and shock seemed pretty genuine, but who knows?

All that matters to me is that I'm no longer supplying her with the ammo (my sex drive) to hurt me or attempt to manipulate me with. 

Thanks man. It still tortures me, I can't focus in my classes, I can't do my homework... .it honestly makes me sick to know how she actually thought of me. It helps to think of the really horrible things she said to me. But right now it's like, she doesn't have a job or school and she took my computer before I knew it, knowing I have online class and am a computer science major, and I'm so busy all the time, I know she's already talking to someone else and I'm alone. She helped me burn all my bridges a long time ago and when I had no one left, she went too.

I loaned her money I probably wont see again because I thought I was building trust, but then she told me that I can't be trusted until I get mental help.

It kills me inside.

Thanks a lot for the story, i got out after slightly over 2 years but i think what you wrote is a pretty good glimpse into what would have been my future if i had ended up with her for the long haul.

Are you still living with her?

I'm so sorry you are going through this. It's been very traumatic for you and I'm sure we can all relate to parts of your story. It must be especially hard with a child.

I'm thinking a lot of,your loneliness comes from 10 years of bending over backwards for her, giving up friends and catering to her excessive needs. It was a full time job and now that is over. After you finish grieving and recovering from this you are certain to find your way to a healthy happy life . But it will take time so go easy on yourself and be good to yourself. I think it's important to find a therapist that will,help,you through this and to unload to as well,as this site. You sound like a loving good man.

As far as sex, we went years without it because he was always stressed and claimed all,the meds he was on made him unable to perform. Then he turned around and had an affair this summer. UGH! I was devastated. He said our marriage was so bad he was looking for a light.

I'm sure it will take years for us to recover from the trauma of what our BPD ex's have put us through, but we WILL get through this one day at a time.

Treat yourself to a new laptop and keep busy my friend. But definitely find a therapist. It did wonders for me! xoxo

Hi SadDaddy,

After 10 years of hell try to tell yourself that finally you are free like a bird.

For the moment you may feel hurt, tormented, tortured, a shadow of a man, empty.

Take this last word "empty" as a positive "empty". Say to yourself that this emptiness is not really empty. Say to yourself that this emptiness was built onto a solid experience of something you do not wish to ever live again. And now, upon your experience, you can finally fill this emptiness by new things. New people in your life, new friends, new day, new life, new start, new wisdom, rebirth like phoenix from the ashes.

Hang in, the worst is behind a new door is opening in front of you, let the light in.