BPDFamily.com

I have been married with a lovely non diagnosticated BPD wife.  We have 4 kids.  During 16 years of marriage I always have pleased her petitions/manipulations, to keep the dance going and avoid drama and arguments in front of my kids.  I have left the house 4 times, decided to get divorced and every time I get back, humiliated, feeling guilty, and frustrated.
The last time I was decided to end the relationship and for the first time I filed the Divorce papers.  My BP wife threaten to suicide the same day that she got serviced with copy of the Divorce Petition.  Her words were: "If you are free to take the decision to divorce from me, then I am free to take the decision to kill myself tonight.  But listen, I will kill myself because of you, you will live the rest of your days knowing that I killed myself because of your decision, and worseover, the kids will know that you are the only person responsible for my dead and they will hate you everyday for the rest of your miserable life".  Up to this point it sounded very manipulative and I told her to breathe, to take a break to think in our kids and the beautiful days that are in her future.  20 minutes latter I received a text message from her stating that she did it, that she took all the pills that were in the house.  I immediately call 911 and when I get to the house she was sleeping, I asked her to tell me what pills she took, but she didn't react at all.
In my desperation I hug her and promised to withdraw the Divorce case but she needed to cooperate with the paramedics and tell us the pills that she took.
As a reaction of my offer to withdraw the divorce case she cooperate and listed a couple of Rx drugs that she took (none of them out of the recommended dosage).
She was in ER and the hospitalized for 2 days.  She get back to the house as a blooming flower, acting normal.  And I felt and feel denigrated, frustrated, manipulated with the mother of all the manipulations.
Am I in a jail? Now she started to get counselling and psychiatric assistance as per my request.  But I can't stand for more.  This relation is toxic, and although I loved her and my kids are the most important persons in my live I can't continue this relationship.
My fear is that every time that we have talked about separation and/or divorce her reactions were worse and worse, escalated to the related threat of suicide.
Any suggestion on how to manage this.  I am currently "acting" as the "perfect" husband, walking on eggshells to avoid her typical rages and drama reactions.  I am afraid of bring the topic back, as she already knew that the last suicide theat worked well for her to get what she wanted.  I am concern of a new threat or a real attemp to commit suicide. 

I hope you have record of this because it can be used to get custody of the kids.

Welcome to the site. There is much here you can learn to help your sanity.

Whether you choose to stay with your wife or not will be your decision. But either way, there are things you should learn now, which will reduce the current conflict, and help you decide. And these skills will help you in any future relationship AND these skills can be taught to your kids to help THEM to deal with life as well!

You seem to realise that you are trapped in HER world. When you say you will leave, she does whatever she knows WORKS to get you back. This will continue to happen while you let it. I suspect that she does this in all aspects of your life - hence the walking on eggshells.

This site can teach you how to STOP walking on eggshells. It will not make your life perfect, it will not "cure" her, but it will make life easier for you, and happier. The initial areas of focus for you will be:
 - to communicate with her better. Learn the skill of Validation - this will make her feel "heard", which should lower the conflict
 - enforce boundaries. To do this you will need to KNOW - to really KNOW - that YOU are not the cause of any of her pain. When you say you will do X (go out, talk to someone, divorce her) and she tries to punish you in return, you will learn to trust yourself and NOT react. You will ALLOW her to do and feel whatever she wants - that is HER choice. In a strange way, having boundaries, "standing up to her" and doing what you know is right despite her "rage" actually helps her - it allows her to trust you - and it allows you to live.

So first steps: read up on validation and boundaries here:
 https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=36.0

And keep posting your questions - there are many people here to help.