BPDFamily.com

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Alia's first thread can be found here:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=329065.0;all

This is my second post... .I am starting a new one because since my first post the situation has gone from bad to worse.

I am slowly starting to seriously consider quiting my marriage. Not many people know the full picture of my experience. But the few people who I have shared it with seem to be in full agreement that I must get out and move on. That I will never be as happy as one can be in life in this marriage and that I should quit not only to protect myself and my son but also to take a chance on new happiness with someone else.

And when I listen to them, it make sense. Why spend my life with someone who I know will keep making me unhappy, even if in between happy spells, when I could save my energy for myself and my son, and might even meet someone more reasonable to spend my life with?

My therapist also asked me: what is it that makes you hold on? And I find it harder and harder to answer that question. Yes, in the past, I have quickly felt better, the second my husband gets out of his rage and into soft-spokenness and apologies and promises I just feel good to be with him. But as the fights are getting more frequent these moments of feeling good have become rare.

So what is it that makes me hold on?
- the hope that it will get better again. But isn't this hope unrealistic? Even if I learn all the tools, and even if we get past our current fight and find some period of peace again, something or the other will keep happening and every time it will throw me of balance.
- the beautiful person that he can be. But if he is not that person most of the time anymore... .why holding on to it?
- the idea that my child should have his father fulltime?
- the idea that he really is the person that he can be, that this is supposed to be the real him. And that he therefore does not deserve to be left for being the person his disorder makes him to be? The idea that he does not mean the nasty things he says? That it would be selfish to choose my own happiness?
- the fear that he might get worse if I finalise our current breakup? I read someone else say that his wife threatens suicide if he leaves her. But this is not a good reason... .right? My husband in any case threatens suicide just so that he can add to that threat that it will be my fault and he will make sure to leave a letter blaming me. So if he threatens that in the relationship, it is not a reason to stay. But apart from his threats, a genuine fear that he will get extremely depressed and desperate.

Regarding the last, some context: he is now staying with a friend and says he won't come back. Since about a week. I have suggested therapy and initially he said yes and he also said that he would like to do something with our son on Sunday. Sunday he started messaging passive aggressive defensive messages like 'i should not spend time with the son, because I am such a bad father right, thats what you think, right' etc. I kept repeating that I think he is a good father and his son misses him. (I have never suggested otherwise. He has called me a bad mother though).

Then today he started messaging that unless I accept certain things, mainly that my mother is evil and cruel with intend, he cannot trust me ever and I have always been cold hearted yet he is shocked that I refuse to understand him etc. I have tried to validate all the emotions etc but he is insistent that I accept specifically his thoughts on my mum which I can't. I told him I see no solution and future and that unless he will take therapy with me there is no point to our marriage. He kept sending message after message to the extent I had to block him on all messengers and requested him to e-mail if he had more to say. He did not.

Then he started saying that unless I accept his truth he cannot have any relationship with our son also, because that would require some form of interaction with me and he hates me too much. So he will abandon our son and I have to tell him that his bad father abandoned him. I told him again that our son misses him and no matter the state of our marriage he can have a relationship with our child. I told him that I would never say anything bad about him to our son (he has btw involved our son directly once by telling him to his face that his mother was driving him out of the house. My son is 2,5 and I cannot believe he is doing this, while he himself always says how much he suffered from his parents fighting... .)

So in short... .it seems that he thinks he can blackmail me by involving our son and threatening to leave our son without a present father - which of course will hurt my son but would also hurt himself because our son is amazing and he will miss him... .I have some fear that leaving him would drive him insane and might hurt my son more somehow than putting up with him... .But again this is not a reason to stay with someone. I think.


I am not asking for advice and whether to stay or go. I came to this forum initially to save my relationship. But I am wondering from others: what is it that makes you stay?

Hi Alia,

I’m sorry things are going so badly right now. I understand how exhausting and frustrating it feels when you’re in it.

You wrote:

Let me start out by saying that I am no longer with my BPD lover. That said, I stayed married to my NPD 1st husband for more than 12 years thinking I could make it better. I couldn’t. Verbal rages escalated to physical assaults so it became unsafe to stay. I left.

Safety is the most important thing. If I could have trusted him to be safe, I would have stayed and continued trying to work it out.

So, I am not advising you as to what you should do, provided you are safe. That said, since you do have a child, this article may be helpful:

https://bpdfamily.com/pdfs/anger_blame.pdf (https://bpdfamily.com/pdfs/anger_blame.pdf)

If you’re safe and want to keep trying, we have some tools for you to try and practice... .and it will take practice.

What do you think?

L2T

Hi Alia,

Let me first say how much my heart goes out to you. As a father with two young kids (2 and 5) who has had to raise them in an often toxic environment, I understand the pain of watching children be innocently subjected to behaviors they could not possibly understand.

Let me please also echo Learning2Thrive's comments about safety. Safety comes first before any concerns about relationship. Only after a safe environment has been established can discussion on relationships occur.

I also suggest posting on other members threads to gain context on your own situation. I have read two other members bring up the issue of suicide threats this week alone.

While I can't weigh in on whether you should stay or go, I don't think we can be truly effective parents (or people) if we are in a situation that makes happiness impossible. Can you describe the minimum things you need to be happy right now? Such as personal time, good sleep, support of friends, time for hobby, etc?

Sending you strength,
RolandOfEld

I'm going to dodge your question a bit (sorry) but also not offer advice on whether to stay or go.  First, I want to say that I'm impressed with how you are thoughtfully working through this and posing all the questions you posed.  Second, let me suggest a paradigm shift.  Thinking about leaving a marriage with the other parent of our child is a huge decision, and a heavy weight to bear.  Give yourself some time.  Look at the tools we teach not as a "save it no matter what" commitment, but as a commitment to learning about healthy relationship behaviors.  Things like avoiding JADE and being effective with boundaries will do you well in any relationship, not to mention the fact the if you divorce the other parent of a very young child, you'll still need effective tools for interacting with them for a long time to come.

With that in mind, would you be open to discussing the tools?  It sounded like the most important one was your boundary around having a calm, respectful home for your son.

Can you tell us how it came to be that he is staying with a friend?  Is that for an indefinite period of time?  How did the situation unfold?

RC

 Alia,
Just read up on some of your posts . :hi: First I want to welcome you here to the board even though you've written volumes already in a pretty short time. You really sound like you've put a huge amount of effort into making your marriage work & that's not an easy task when your SO pushes back, pulls, away, uses verbal abuse & manipulation to get THEIR way ALWAYS. It can wear you down to numb & nothing. We get that here.
The good new that most T share & you'll read it on these boards is you don't have to make any decisions right away. As long as you & your Child can remain safe from physical harm, Step back take a big breath until the storm calms a bit. Talk, Read, Learn, Share.

My uBPDw of 35yrs has left me many times over our marriage. Most just for a few hrs up to a few days. Most of those times I begged, pleaded her not to go. Now I tell her I don't want her to leave bc I love her however I Will not stop her from going if she wishes to. She has only left once for 2 hrs since this new behavior from ME. We can change our actions but not another's.       
                                                                                                     I've decided to stay because my w still has many or most of the qualities that I admired in her when we were 1st dating -
Very intelligent
Very organized
Excellent & creative cook (after 40 yrs rlsp knows just how I likes most everything I eat)
Awesome Mom to our-  s21 still living w us, s24 just moved out
Attractive (10+ yrs younger looking) then she is
Very Hard worker
Animal Lover
Very Thrifty
 I could go on but short on time!

I realize that I'm fortunate & gratfeful that she is high functioning uBPD , as some on here are not ,and we have more  good days lately than bad which has not always been that way and I still have to tell myself that it's a sickness (Mental Illness & double additions) that makes her do that crazy & sometime horrible things she does ! She's slowly recovering 1 day at a time and that's where we are! 
Its been a while how are things going?
Sending you hope & strength