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I have never felt this strongly against my wife. I don't want to see her or even speak to her.  The way i feel right now I could go home and tell her I want a divorce.

I am sitting in my car right now up in the mountains just pondering

Your feelings are your feelings.

It is OK to feel them, acknowledge them. IMHO blocking them, denying them, or feeling self shame for them is denying who you are- because we have feelings.

It isn't necessary to act on them, in fact, when we are upset it is probably better not to. When we are upset, the higher control centers in our brains tend to shut down, and so saying, making decisions at this time may not be a good idea.

It is also best not to make major life decisions in a state of distress. Right now, you are feeling negative things about your wife. You feel as if you could tell her you are done with the marriage. But logically, whether or not you want to do this, you know it is a major life decision that would take careful consideration, planning before ever (if this feeling persists )bringing up this idea.

Do you have a counselor that you trust who can help you process your feelings? I think it can help to have someone objective to work these marital issues out.

And good for you for going off somewhere alone to think, cool down. This is self care. This is OK. Your wife may not like it, but you are not in any position to be good for her at the moment. This is being good to yourself.

the long haul of this has taken it's toll on me.

I understand 98% of all the things she says about me are not true. I don't think my self esteem takes a hit. It's just dealing with every round of this crap is wearing me out. This has been going on for almost five years now.

I came back to work tonight for a while but as I was thinking and driving back in this afternoon I asked myself "What do my wife have I really have together?"

When she is feeling decent and I am not making her mad yes we laugh and joke together and we sit and talk and she shares her feeling with me and tells me that I am her best friend. 

It's almost like she puts me in this position so she can tray to abuse me emotionally.

I was with my 3 daughters last night and my grandson and some other friends I have not seen in a long time.  I felt like a normal person. There was an easy spirit.  I go home and there is this oppressive atmosphere that you can feel.

I am getting tired of being blamed for her failures. IMHO I don't believe that will ever stop no matter how ell I learn to communicate with her.

She never wants to spend any time with me alone outside of being around her son. There is the no sex marriage. It's her almost total isolation from people.

Like today, I went and purchased a nice used vehicle. We both agreed on it but I told her that we would have to tighten our budget up. I go on the bank account this morning and she has purchased almost $200 worth of stuff off the internet and I have no idea of what it is. I text her and ask her about it.

ME: Trying to figure out some budget stuff.  Between (name) and (name) there are transactions totaling almost $200.00 dated today. I am going to the bank today to hopefully sign for this (vehicle). We will have to change the way we spend money.

I get no response... .it's a domino effect from my ignoring texts last night. The thing is the finances are another issue. I am probably going to have to create another bank account so she can't touch it so I can pay bills.

It almost seems for the most part that there is nothing between us anymore. I always made myself see a ray of hope but I think that events of the last 2 days are taking me down for the count

just talking but being serious

going to MC tomorrow evening maybe she will come with me. She told me the other day she was not going.

My caring person wants to text and ask her if she is doing better and does she need anything BUT I don't want to get some nasty text back berating me for not calling her all day or caring whether she is sick or not

So I sent her a text

Me: I will be leaving work her soon. Do you need any medicine? I hope you are feeling better.

Her: I am not home and I will get my own medicine

Not taking the bait to let me know where she is or act like I have to get her something. Just ignoring.

I am going to guess that she either went to the emergency room on her own OR she got in the car and left to go to her moms 340 miles away.

Letting yourself feel this is what you need to do, I suspect. Not easy, but right.


I'm wondering... .have you been recently living in the fog, trying to make things work, putting up with abuse, and stuffing your own feelings as things got worse and worse?

'Cuz there is a good chance you weren't even letting yourself feel how bad things have gotten for quite a while now. Does this sound right?

Isn't it great when you're with friends and your feel "normal" as you say, and relaxed? It's a noticeable difference when you step away from your abuser. I never felt relaxed on the rare occasions that I did this but I feel it every day post separation.

I'm glad you didn't fall into asking, "so where are you now?"  Doesn't it just eat your heart out when you are kind and caring and you get a reply like that? But then the whole relationship is like that. The occasions where you have a few laughs together is what friends do - you can have that with anyone and not have the grief and heartache that comes from trying to "fix" something in someone that you can't fix.

Big question : why are you still there? Breaking free is the most normal you will ever feel. I hope you can get out of it without the drama. Careful advance planning helps.

Make conscious decisions to care for you.

Same thing on engaging with your wife.  If you are not in the right frame of mine, don't. 

I wish I could go back in time to "birthday party blowup" and do things differently.  Not that it is all my fault, but, I knew there were tons of powder kegs sitting around,    

Right now you know that you have a big powder keg.  Listen to your feelings, deal with them, and when they are better,   make decisions about how to re-engage with you wife.


Oh, one other pet peeve of mine.  And a big thing you need to change in your thinking

You don't make your wife mad.  DO NOT own her feelings or in any way be responsible for them.

This is HUGE.

 

FF

Hey bf, Been there; done that.  Rumination, in my experience, is unproductive; it drains your energy.  No wonder you feel exhausted.  Yet it's hard not to ruminate a lot when you're trying to figure out BPD.  Fact is, you will never "figure it out" because BPD is a complex mental illness that defies reason and logic.  It's more about managing it rather than cracking the code, because you never will crack the code, in my view.

Hang in there,

LuckyJim

LJ,

Not so much trying to crack the code of BPD but more of trying to understand in myself what I am not willing to sacrifice for the sake of this relationship.

I want to tell her something like... .hey I met someone who I fell in love with and I want to spend the rest of my life with them being content, myself!.

GK yes you are correct

I'm wondering... .have you been recently living in the fog, trying to make things work, putting up with abuse, and stuffing your own feelings as things got worse and worse?

'Cuz there is a good chance you weren't even letting yourself feel how bad things have gotten for quite a while now. Does this sound right?

FF, I "understand" what you mean by that I don't make my wife mad. For instance not getting the right kind of dog food. I forgot because of whatever reason. Now if I did it on purpose to tick her off then I should own that. I guess the difference is living with a disordered person.

A "normal" person would accept an apology for being distant and ignoring her but she took it to the level of abnormal.

I do understand also that "I'm sorry" can be an escape hatch to not deal with real issues or not have proper communication, I did that somewhat in my first marriage.

Hey, not that I want to kick your a$$ to much when you are feeling down, but,

Don't apologize for being distant, it's like

"Hi honey, I want to apologize for being me, for being human, "

There is a fundamental attitude shift that I think successful people on these boards go through. 

I used to say "sorry you feel that way", and now I avoid that phrase.  Feelings are what they are, don't apologize for them.

Anyway, hope you get to feeling better.


FF

  Yeah, I kinda thought you were in a place like that. Take good care of yourself!

Sometimes the best thing to do is take a bit of a break, and find a safe place to be, or even better yet if you've got it, safe company to be with, and just let yourself feel these things. You don't have to act at all. Just feel them.

Ultimately, I bet you will find some new resolve out of it. Perhaps to do things better to protect yourself from your partner. Perhaps to keep working on your relationship. Perhaps to end your relationship. Trust that you will come to understand what they are telling you.

In the end... .the more you are able to protect yourself from abuse and improve things inside your relationship... .should it end, the more peaceful you will be with your choices.

Hello again, bf, Right, learning to love and accept yourself is a key part of it.  If you can love yourself, in my view, then you won't allow yourself to be the object of abuse.  Sad to say, many of us (me included) have been brainwashed into thinking that we deserve the abuse.  We don't, but it takes a while to understand that. 

Agree w/formflier and suggest you strive to be authentic, which includes allowing yourself to experience whatever feelings come up, because they are YOUR feelings.  Listen to your gut feelings.  Get back to basics, the core of who you are.  I pretended things were OK in my marriage to my BPDxW when things were far from OK.  No more.  I try to be myself and don't pretend anymore.  You might try it.

LuckyJim