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This was my first weekend without my children (not children with stbx). It has been the hardest weekend I have ever spent. Friday was ok, I guess, but for the past 24 hours I am barely making it minute to minute. I honestly don't know how to get through this.

I did get out of the house both days and saw friends. I packed up all the cards he has given me and reread them, and gave my wedding dress to goodwill. I changed the sheets for the first time since he left. I put clothes in his drawers.

It was the cards that got me. I can see a clear timeline. While he had BPD/narcissistic tendencies he was very much aware and very much reflective and working on it. The change started with his first delusions... .that weren't followed much later with his entry into some really bad drugs. Stupid me. I was so naive. Anyway, it seems really clear that the breakup of this marriage and his horrible actions were a result of substance abuse and untreated worsening mental illness, which exacerbated the BPD. For some reason this is unbearable to me. I think I could handle "plain" (hahaha) BPD and narcissism better. But knowing that my husband is still in there, and is choosing drugs and refusing treatment for his mental illness is SO HARD. For the past 2 weeks I've been learning about narcissists  and BPD and some fit but a lot didn't make sense. I had to look at those cards and remember who he was to really realize that he didn't target me like a narcissist and the BPD was an almost non-factor, but that he truly loved me and thanked God daily for me. It got so bad last night that I had to talk with his brother  (who is not speaking to him due to the delusions and substance abuse) to see if I remembered correctly. I did. His brother's take is that he is using so much that until he hits rock bottom we won't know if the delusional psychosis was drug induced or if it has lasted so long that he is stuck in full-fledged delusions and schizo-affective stuff. He will never hit bottom. He has money coming in monthly from the VA that will support him. No one cares about drug users here- just dealers. Unless he is arrested and is in a delusional state he can't  mask, this is who he is. This is unbelievable to me. I don't even drink anymore, and have honestly never been around an addict.

I honestly don't know how to handle the grief. My kids are about to be gone for a week. During that time, stbx will no doubt come to get his things. I know I can't see him bcz I can't handle it, but I kind of have to be here. I don't know how I'll make it that week.

Bcz the BPD has come to the front, I guess that's how I have to approach it. It's just so hard. Up until the day he left, while the delusions were frighteningly increasing, he was basically loving, we were close, the sex was amazing... .I just can't break through this.

Hi AP

I understand this sadness. I know I really miss my ex and the thrill of being around her. Just one thing about the sex though. Sex with my ex was off the Richter scale but a counsellor once said to me 'good sex keeps bad relationships together longer than necessary'.

My ex used to cry when we made love at the start. She said she had never felt love like it. I thought it was amazing too. But then we both hurt each other and sex became a way of making up, a magnet, a safe place. As time wore on I started to feel that nothing had ever hurt me like this relationship. The sex was fantastic but then more and more I felt like hurt was just around the corner.

I feel sad just like you and I feel the same as you every time I collect my son. I hate it but am learning to live with it.

I would trade the quantity and quality of our sex life by 80% if we could have had a more solid and balanced relationship. I now realise at 42 that not only is sex a weapon it is also a tool that clouds judgement. There is a lot of intimacy in being able to sit and talk with someone without the raging, false claims and chaos and while the ideal is to find someone magnetic, I know in future this will be down my priorities.

Can you have someone there with you to help get you through it?