BPDFamily.com

Hey good people,

Well, it's time to detach and walk away from hope.

My therapist (DBT place we are supposed to be going to) tipped me off that she might not be a patient there, even though she told me she was going specifically to this place to start DBT. I had requested she get herself into counseling for at least a month before filing for divorce, since everything happened so fast and I was afraid that she was making a decision in crisis mode. We had talked about BPD (runs in her family) and both agreed DBT was best. She asked me to stay out of it though, and let her set her own counseling up after she moved out very suddenly and impulsively.

To my surprise, she volunteered to me that she was going to the same place as me and that she was really excited to start DBT with them. I was hopeful - even if things didn't work out with us, it was such a huge step for her to go to this place. She's kept this lie up for 3 weeks now. She leaves in a week for a 6 week training for her job and told me she was going to get counseling there, too, because she "promised me she would do counseling." I've been in the weird spot of deciding to move out or not, for a host of long story reasons that are on other threads.

Last week, I had drawn up terms for a potential therapeutic separation and gave them to her as something to consider and add to if she felt good, but to at least bring to her therapist to chat about. She blew the long weekend away and didn't read it, telling me she couldn't bring herself to do it and it was too hard, then proceeded to contact me at work to try and talk about it, breaking our no texting at work boundary. I told her we could set up a time to talk when she was ready, and to let me know when that was.

No surprise, she never got in touch, so this morning I reached out to check in. We had a normal conversation (always do) about life, like nothing ever happened, then when I brought up the separation document she said yeah we should talk about it. Then she said that she basically promised me counseling so she's doing it, but hadn't changed her mind about divorce and didn't expect it to change in the next 6 weeks while she was away, but that she's going to do it because she promised me, but we could start the divorce paperwork before or after she leaves, she didn't really care either way. I then confronted her about not going to the DBT place and she said yes, she was lying about that. When I asked her why, she said because she didn't want me in her business, and that she was seeing a counselor on her own so don't worry about it. I again asked yes, that's fine to a certain extent, but why lie about it, especially when you knew that we agreed on DBT for very specific reasons. Why tell me you were doing DBT when you weren't, if it were such a hard line for you to not go there? She said "see, this is why I don't want you in my business" and when I responded calmly, she backed it up and said "it was really wrong of me to lie and I don't know why I lie but I really want to figure it out so I don't do it anymore." I then said ok, but this one went too far for me and it feels like you're only doing counseling to avoid the inevitable here (I've said this before - the counseling was a request, not a requirement). If counseling is important to her and it's important for her to consider if she really wants a divorce or not, then go. If not, then don't placate me. She agreed that she was avoiding following through with the divorce and had no intention to change her mind and really did plan on telling me that and that she wasn't going to counseling at the DBT place. She then asked to come over and talk, so I said yes, since we now have to figure out filing before she leaves in a week.

Our convo was one of the hardest ever. I hadn't realized how much I was holding onto hope until it was time to let go and had a hard time not crying hysterically at one point (I removed myself at first, I know it's hard for her to process - she was sitting there with her head in her knees rocking). We talked openly about BPD and she was really despondent that she'd never get better, but only believed in getting better because I believed in it. I told her again that I could do this with her, that I was strong enough and was learning more and more everyday how to do this with her. She said (and has said this before) "I know, you're the one person I know who I believe can do this with me, but I can't do this with anyone." Her new thing is that she just has to be alone (the affair triggered this) because she's just going to hurt people. I believe her that she doesn't want me around anymore and I'm glad she could finally admit to it. It's been like hell living in limbo over the last few months, but I finally realized that she wasn't asking for my patience because she needed more time to make up her mind - she was just practicing avoidance, and the lying about DBT was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

They're good at this, no? Finding ways to keep you pulled in *just enough* to hold out hope while moving further and further away, planning their escape. I'm glad I've read as much as I have, because it's given me the ability to find my boundaries and enforce them. Lying about DBT was definitely a boundary. I was willing to give her time and space and the benefit of the doubt. This one was just a sucker punch aimed right at my best intentions.

With the truth out there (or at least the truth of right now), she looks different. Yes, she's lost weight and her mannerisms have already changed, even her voice a bit. She hasn't looked like my wife for a while now. The woman I love is really gone and this marriage is really over. She's really suffering and it breaks my heart to see her like this. But I've offered my support and commitment in every way under the sun and she doesn't want it. At least there's some closure in knowing that I gave this my very best.

Like I said, it's now time to truly detach.

Waking up this morning was like waking up with new eyes. I'm not sure how I protected myself from this for so long.

I walk through this house where we've shared so many memories and keep saying "she's gone." It's not so much that she's physically gone, but that emotionally she's been gone for so long and almost like metaphysically the person I'm married to just no longer exists. She's gone.

How do you walk through a home and just see traces of someone everywhere who no longer exists, but yet is very clearly alive and walking this earth?

I don't think I was ready to admit it until I saw here yesterday and we finalized divorce plans. Seeing her rock back and forth and front of me, so ill, so not ok, and yet so unwilling to lean on me, her wife, for support... .it was just too much.

Knowing that the DBT thing was something I had given up on and sought out for myself after she said she didn't want me to set up her counseling, but then she *lied* to me after that, telling me that she was going to the same place. WHY? I had already started to pull away. I know they can't help themselves but seriously? I had given up on the idea of her getting help, but when she volunteered that she was starting DBT I had a glimmer of hope again. She put it there. She might not have done it intentionally, but she had to have some understanding that I would attach hope to her starting DBT. It was my single most condition for reconciliation.

I am so hurt. I am so sad. I am so surrounded by a life that almost feels like it's not even real, because the person I shared it with just fundamentally doesn't exist anymore. She's gone. And unfortunately for me, I have to stay, at least long enough to pack up my life and figure out next steps. And once I leave the state, I will likely never see her again. I hate that that makes me so sad, but this all happened so fast I keep just hoping to see a glimpse of her again. It's like watching someone die - I'm fooling myself into believing I'm just going to see her again, and everything around me reminds me of a person that just does not exist anymore. To make matters worse, the person who is walking this earth barely resembles her.

I woke up this morning with the thought that it was just so unfair for her to be so messed up yesterday. I know, unfair for me to think that, but she's capable of turning that off and walking through her life, going to work, behaving like nothing is happening, until she's around me and can't avoid it any longer. And in those moments, I still care take. I still try to protect her and still feel so much sadness and compassion for the person in front of me who can't pull herself together. But then I remember that she can, and she will. Hell, she went grocery shopping yesterday right after we talked, while I cried on the floor like a hysterical toddler. The woman who was shaking uncontrollably in front of me yesterday, who kept burying her head in her knees because watching me in pain hurt her so much, was able to go grocery shopping minutes later. And here I am, unable to escape the grief. I know it's a good thing. I know that I have the capacity to feel things and go through them and move onto the next thing and eventually put this behind me, but F! This is just all so bizarre and I still can't believe sometimes that it's my real life.

The grief is setting in hard and fast.

Hey lighthouse, I'm sorry that you are in pain and experiencing so much grief and sadness.  Perhaps you could discuss your situation with a T?  If not, maybe a close friend or family member?  Sometimes it helps to verbalize one's grief with another, in a face-to-face setting.  Maybe it's too soon for you to say, but what would you like to see happen?  What are your gut feelings about where things are headed?  Fill us in, when you can.

LuckyJim

Hi lighthouse9,

Thanks for taking the time to write this out and share these thoughts... .I can so relate to these kinds of feelings around breakups. I can't stand breaking up! It is so unbelievably painful!

I'm like you - I have to feel like I've given something my best, left no stone unturned, before finally calling a relationship. The mourning part can go on for a good long while... .I am so sorry!

It is so hard to sort out the memories of the good times, from realizations around the obstacles that prevented things from working out as a couple. Glad you are here with us!

with compassion, pearl.  

lighthouse9,

I am so sorry for what you're going through right now. I know exactly how you feel, even the glimmer of hope phase.

I've been through this very process (several times with the same person), and I know how devastating and unmooring it can feel to wake up and be surrounded by her things but to feel that she has died in some way.

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Keep writing if it helps to process your grief. We are listening.


-Speck

Thanks everyone, this board has been a great place to work through this process and feel less alone. When I tell people about what happened/is happening, it's hard to feel like I'm not making it up because it all sounds so bizarre. I trust what my counselor says though (and my own gut) - when you start using words like bizarre, you're in the land of BPD.

I was able to negotiate a good plan with her for the next few months, that includes some monetary support to help me secure a short term apartment near my parent's house in another state, and she's going to wait to file for a few months to give me some time to figure out the health insurance stuff. I know this potentially leaves the door open a little bit and that scares me slightly, but not as much as being completely dependent on my family and feeling trapped in my job for the sake of health insurance. I've got everything in writing, and given my "leverage" (I have documented evidence of the affair, and have done nothing with it), I think she will follow through. More than the leverage though, I think she's starting to feel really bad about things and does feel like supporting me financially for a few more months is the right thing to do. I finally let her know how I feel, about how much she disappointed me and how much I changed my life to follow her career, and how I didn't deserve to be thrown out like this. She agreed and I know she genuinely feels bad. Regardless though, even if all that changes, I feel confident that I could "enforce" the support she's agreed to if need be. I'd absolutely hate to have to do that and it is so outside my character to do so, but I'm learning that my character could probably also use a "tune up" on the self-protection skills.

I'm in counseling and have good support, so no worries there. I'm going to talk to my therapist about some of the PTSD-like aspects of this. I was in a really bad relationship prior to meeting her with a woman who was likely BPD, though maybe more anti-social and definitely had a mean streak in her. She physically and sexually abused me and it took a lot of therapy to get beyond that trauma. When things started to go downhill with my STBX, especially when I caught her lying, I found myself having trouble breathing and having trouble not placing my ex's face over my wife's face in my memory. The two keep melding together and I have to take deep breaths to slow myself down from believing that my STBX/wife is going to hurt me like my ex did. I can say with confidence that she would never do something of the sort, but the lying, cheating, eating disorders, and avoidant/dissociative behavior is so similar that it's hard not to mix the two up in my head.

I have my plan for move out almost squared away and am putting in my apartment application today or tomorrow. Something happened today though that made me step back and realize how much her lying has really messed me up. My best friend is supposed to come out here and move me home (I need someone to drive a moving truck while I drive my car) and she has been telling me that her availability is open for the month. When I settled in on a day and texted her to confirm, she told me that she can't do that day. It's such a minor offense, if an offense at all, but I'm in such a sore spot with being able to rely on anyone that it send me into a panic. It's going to be a long time before I learn to trust people again, I can tell. I know it's not fair to expect everyone to be 100% all of the time (and don't want to have to keep to that standard myself), but I'm so scared of being let down, deceived, lied to, etc right now that I'm going to the "I'll just do it myself" place. In reality, doing the move myself might make more sense. It will cost more to hire movers, but I'm thinking that the extra cost might be worth it in the long run for my sanity.

So begins picking up the pieces right? I've done this once before (learned to trust again), so I'm hopeful I can do it again. In the mean time though, did any of you feel like you could only trust yourself after something like this? I mean I guess it's good I feel like I can trust myself - I didn't feel that way last time. I blamed myself for not seeing the signs that my ex was going to hurt me and was not worthy of trust. I feel less so about this current situation - she really did just go off the deep end really fast (hence my willingness to easily forgive and stick around with support). But, who knows what would happen if we drew this out. Maybe she is capable of inflicting more hurt than she already did, and I should thank her for knowing herself well enough to cut me out before it goes that far. The cruelty was something I never expected, so who knows what else is possible. Don't you just hate that feeling?

Hello, lighthouse9:


Yes. I'm there now, and I may be there for quite a while. And... .it's okay. But, I have reached out to my brothers and sisters within this forum and found a realm of support that's just not possible in my off-line life. I'm glad you have, too.


Absolutely. Your ability to do so will only soften the blow dealt to you. But... .also, don't be afraid to ask for help when needed.


Yes, it sucks. My wife's cruelty would absolutely take my breath away. But... .no more.

Good to hear an update from you. Keep writing if it helps!


-Speck