BPDFamily.com

Hi everyone,
I just read the book "Stop Walking on Eggshells", and I was shocked how closely it fit my life.  I didn't know how to explain what was happening, etc.  I've been married 7 years to my wife, we have two children, ages 3 and 6.  My wife has become extremely obsessed with my cigarette smoking, saying my addiction causes me to "have these expressions on my face, standing a certain way, that I'm abusive with my tones, crass, etc."  I've been smoking for over 20 years, and I'm a moderate smoker, just under 1 pack a day.  And I don't have any behavioral changes when I haven't smoked a cigarette in a while, but to my wife, I do. I've also been accused of being on drugs (I'm not nor ever have been).  It came to head about 6 weeks ago, on a Friday.  I came home, after calling my wife (her cell phone was dead, so I left a message) when I left work, then texting when I was physically driving home with my eta.  That's been a requirement for me to do for about 3 years -- reading the book, I was shocked to see that was common.  Wife sent short "ok" text back -- that usually means she's having a bad day, and so I don't know what I'm going to walk into when I get home -- I get home, accused of "having that look on my face" (that look I think is uncertainity about what emotional state she will be in)  She ordered me to go outside and smoke a cigarette.  I did and didn't argue.  Came back in, changed and was playing on the couch with my 3 year old when she came down and began berating me for not getting a physical because I was waiting for the drugs to leave my system, on and on.  I stood up, said "enough" and went to go outside/away.  She followed, told me I didn't have enough cigarettes earlier and I needed more.  I said, fine, but she kept getting the hysterical anger, that is impossible to calm down.  In my neighborhood the houses are close together.  I don't want the poor neighbors to hear her yelling at me, so I ran down to the basement.  She followed, getting angrier and angrier.  I was able to keep a table between us as she trying to push me up the stairs, saying "Cigarette, Cigarette" over and over.  I was able to sit on the little kid table, and hold on, and I finally said "no".  I'm not going outside, I don't want a cigarette, if you want a break, I'll stay down here for 10 minutes, or whatever".  This went on for at least 20 minutes (me holding on to the table, getting yelled at, etc"  She finally ran upstairs, got olive oil and annointed me, a practice she follows from the Bible (since she has said before that evil spirits have entered our house and are causing the conflict).  I'm used to the annointing, as it's happened many times before.  She then went back upstairs, I heard the garage door open, and she left with our two kids.  I thought she'd just go for an hour or two, but she left for the whole weekend.  She was staying in hotels about an hour+ away.  I talked to her Monday, again getting berated for my smoking, that when ever I can stop living in denial about all the pain I'm causing her, she'll come back, etc.  I tried to convince her to come back to the house so our daughter could make it to school, and I would go stay in a hotel if she wanted to be separated.  I finally convinced her to do that, and she said I had to be out that following Saturday morning. (1 week after she initially left).  I did so, left the house, and checked into a cheap weekly hotel about an hour from our house, near my work. I was in this hotel, around 1:30 pm when she called the police and said she was in fear of her life.  The police followed her around from her hotel, she had a fender bender in the parking lot of the supermarket, and they followed her back to our house. My wife wanted to be taken to the magistrate to get a protective order against me.  But all the "abuse' she said I did "laying on the floor during arguments, locking myself in the closet, looks on my face, standing the wrong way, etc" wasn't actually abuse.  They told her that, and she began trying harder and harder to convince them to take her to magistrate.  They realized there might be something else going on, and they called me around 7:30 pm that night and asked if I knew what was happening at my house.  I didn't and the PD officer told me about the above.  He asked if I was on drugs, i told him I wasn't.  I guess my wife found a pill bottle of her pain pills when she delivered our youngest, and said I had filled the prescription (from 2010) without her knowledge -- but the pill bottle was full, and the pills matched.  He took my wife down to the mental health evaluation place, and they involuntarily committed her to a psychiaric hospital.  I was so hopeful they would help her in the hospital, however it took 2 days to get her into the hospital and I suspect she wasn't presenting symptoms at admission.  Her sister flew in, picked my wife up and brought her back to the house after the 72 hour committal.  I left before they arrived (my mom was with our kids) and my wife wouldn't speak to me.  I only communicated via text because I didn't want to be accused of saying something I didn't say.  4 days after she got out of the hospital, she filed a protective order against me, prohibiting contact with her and the kids.  I have the hearing Nov 28th, which was the earliest I could get scheduled longer than 15 minutes, and so the police officer could testify.  For my job, I cannot have a protective order against me, so the stakes are pretty high.  Anyway, that's my story -- I don't want to get divorced, I do love my wife, just not the anger & accusations and everything. My wife is previously divorced, and she got divorced by filing a protective order against her then husband alleging abuse.  It is like she is reliving the divorce, and transferring everything onto me.  In our marriage there has never been any physical abuse (from me against her --although there has been stuff the other way, which I discounted and forgave).  I have met with a counselor, as it's really tough not seeing my kids.  I just don't know what my wife will do if the judge dismisses the protective order, as that's kind of been her self-identity (brave, abused woman, telling her story as kind of a celebrity, etc).  So, I'm worried about my children, and need to get custody, to prevent the divorce, should it happen, from impacting them as much as possible.  I have a lawyer, etc. Anyway, that's my story in a nutshell.  Thanks for reading... .

You need to protect yourself first and foremost.
My now ex made a false allegation against me and I went to jail for two weeks. When I got out I purchased a small voice recorder and also a video camera. In my state I am not allowed to do that but I can't think of any other way to protect myself. I have been to court numerous times since then and ex has brought it up several times. I get yelled at for a while from the judge and that is the only consequence.
Once you are protected and safe you need to think of a plan for the kids.
Third, only your wife can change herself. You didn't cause it and you can't fix it. I didn't want to get divorced but my ex kept making false allegations and I couldn't see anyway to stay together. My ex actually filed for divorce. I didn't sign the papers and she had to wait two years before she could get the divorce without my signature. It took close to four years for her to do that.
I still get emails, the only way I communicate with her, accusing me of things. It is less frequent than years back but it still happens.
You need to figure out the legal implications by talking to your attorney. I would not recommend leaving the house because the courts can recognize that as abandonment and you will forced to vacate the premises. Talk to your attorney about that.

There are some descriptions for a marriage like yours.  Dysfunctional.  Unhealthy.  High Conflict.  When you can't reason with your spouse and there aren't any signs of improvement, the only way to hold it together is to comply, appease, etc.  That's not a marriage.  Sadly, most here did find that despite our wishes and hopes, the reality was that, like david, we had to protect ourselves.

Partly, distance helps.  But that's not really an answer when you share children.

Partly, counseling helps.  Will your spouse go to counseling, even marriage counseling?  If she refuses then your options are very limited.

Partly, documentation helps.  Are there witnesses to her poor behaviors?  One problem we have is that we try to hide the misbehaviors and as a result we have little outside help.  Isolation is one tactic used by people who are acting-out to keep us from outside support, friends, relatives, etc.

Many behaviors you described were exactly like my Ex's behaviors and nearly all were in private settings such as at home "behind closed doors" or in the car... .hounding me around the house, regularly keeping me up until middle of the night with demands "we will fix this now!", I never knew if I'd find the same mood/person I had left in the morning when I came home, her suspicions of other women were to the point that I even looked down or away even when she wasn't around, etc.  I had to accept that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, I could do to 'fix' here.  She wasn't listening to me.  One perspective I learned here was that due to our history she couldn't get past the overwhelming emotional baggage (overwhelming in her perceptions) of the close relationship.

You mentioned she has patterns of chasing you around the house with demands and strange behaviors.  Have you recorded those incidents to have proof you're not the one behaving poorly?  I'm not saying to pull out your cell hone and wave it around while recording.  That of course would trigger worse overreactions.  What I'm asking is whether you're quietly recording.  I kept voice recorders in my pocket.  Years later I saw they were selling pocket pencams, I wish I had some of those to record without creating scenes.  (Of course, having recordings of the other's rants and rages do solve all the hurdles but it could help.)

Needless to say, you're a man, you can't even once let down your guard and shout, push back or anything that in the least might be viewed as aggressive.  In general, women are almost universally enabled to use the victim card.  I recall my then-stbEx's layer asking me if I weighed more than her as though it was a reason for her to fear me.


Have you noticed how she's using a smoking habit against you?  On the one hand she complains about it.  On the other hand she demands you to take smoking breaks.  It's the little things like that that are subtly designed to keep you off balance.

I'm not saying you can't seek solutions other than divorce but be very, very careful.  Be sure to build a history of solid favorable documentation and never ever say a word or take an action that could be twisted to appear abusive or aggressive.  Your good intentions can be mischaracterized and be used to paint the wrong picture of you.

Evidently she never left and took the kids away for a weekend before?  I venture that at some point when the friction rises and things ramp up to a legal level she will then characterize that weekend as getting her and the kids away from an abusive husband/father.  With an acting-out disordered person it's easy to rewrite history.  That is precisely why you need solid documentation that oyou're not the unreasonable or poorly acting person.  Your protests of your innocence and her rewriting history won't have the audience you expect.  Be aware, beware.

In my prior post I missed one crucial word, sorry!


Has she made threats of divorce or making allegations?  Then beware.  A truism here is that if it has been threatened or contemplated then it will happen - given enough time.

Thanks for all your replies!  I'm prohibited from contact with our house by the protective order.  It's a preliminary, protective order, meaning its only issued based on my wife's allegations to an intake clerk at the family court.  I'm staying at a friends.  I guess I should give up on the marriage.  I have several audio recordings of her, and I've given those to my attorney. I started recording her 2 years ago trying to figure out what was setting her off, the frequency of her rages, and why this was happening. I didn't get them all, I couldn't always hit the record button in time on my phone, and pulling a cell phone out during her rages only intensified things.  I'll certainly get a pen camera / video to capture everything. I'm certain my wife has characterized her leaving as leaving an abusive relationship.  I'm certain she will present it that way to the judge, but the more she talks the more obvious it is there is something wrong with her.  At least that's how she was 6 weeks ago when I last spoke to her.  I feel bad for her, I'm not certain if BPD is her only mental illness, or whether it can take many different forms.  But, I pity her.  I just don't want my kids growing up around that, or having to deal with the pain of the divorce.  Unfortunately, I know everyone feels that way, and ultimately it would be better in the end for them to have a normal childhood instead of being on the receiving end of my wife's anger.  More and more I see how one-sided the marriage was, and how much I sacrificed for her happiness, only never to make her fully happy because it isn't possible. 

Belvedere,

Yes it is funny how things are so similiar.  I too had to call my wife as soon as I left work and talk with her the entire way home.  If I did not do that or even waited a few minutes after I started driving home.  There would be hell to pay when I got back home.  I became so worried about that and not doing' what she expected me to do. 

Another thing that helped me. I came to the conclusion that I had to do what I thought was best for our two boys. My "new" behavior was more positive and less defensive. I was no longer trying to keep the peace or keep everything calm. That was dysfunctional for ex and I and especially for our boys. I was modeling, in their eyes, what I thought was correct and it wasn't good for them. Changing that dynamic had risks since I didn't know what ex would do. I realized that if my ex ever got better she would know I did the right things for our kids. That's what parents are supposed to do.
My "new" behavior took about two years after she ran away. It took me that long to find my original self. It wasn't an easy or pleasant time.
My ex actually filed for divorce. I refused to sign the papers hoping she would get "better". In our state you have to wait two years if one spouse refuses to sign. After that there is nothing either party can do to stop it. It took my ex close to four years to finalize the divorce. In the end the only thing she fought for was getting as much money as possible out of the settlement. By then, I was in a much better place and the negotiation went pretty much as I anticipated. There were minor wrinkles but nothing major.

My "new" behavior wasn't seeking confrontation and also wasn't afraid to do the right thing. I became emotionally detached from my ex's rages and rants. Over time my ex realized her methods of getting her way wasn't working anymore. She would have shorter outbursts. I would get less raging /accusing emails. I still get some but nowhere near the amount from before. I actually got a pleasant email about 8 or 9 months ago. That was a first since 2008.