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A strong, patient, and a confident man would stop talking about the relationship and her obligations to the marriage and the need to fix herself (and your relationship needs, fixing yourself, Gottman, the bible, etc.). It sounds needy.

Without saying it, convey an attitude that she is welcome to have her space, no pressure, you are cool with doing your own thing, and you are living life.

Give her space, but when you do contact her (not now), move the conversation to something easier, safer, more fun. Hey I went on a hike and here are some interesting pictures of the moon on ghe lake. You want to write things that she can respond to. And if she is not responding, wait a few weeks or more.


Write that on your mirror - you said your piece on August 29 and you are going to leave it at that. Don't send any more relationship notes. You have said it all.

I would not send these as gifts. She doesn't know if she still wants to be in a relationship with you and you are sending baby and self-help books? I think it will feel smothering.

Give her space. Encourage your mother to talk with her (but not about the relationship) and thing of something fun to give her for her birthday that doesn't suggest any obligation to the relationship or you.

I don't know what she likes, but maybe a gift certificate for a spa day with her mom (if that applies) or tickets to take her parents to the symphony. Something modest, fun, and not obligatory.

Don't lose sight of the fact that behind all this, this may not be the best relationship for you. You don't have to deal with that now, but don't lose sight of it either. Neither of you could support each other emotionally. That is a real thing.

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Brother, our stories are almost word for word the same. I haven’t seen my wife in 7 months and it was exactly as you described once we moved in together: bored, unhappy etc, endless cycles of drama over minor issues and then suicidal gestures. You are receiving excellent advice from the people on this board, listen to them. So instead, I will only add a few extra points as our stories are so similar (my wife is Muslim and considers herself very religious and becomes almost militantly religious when triggered but also does many things contrary to her beliefs too).

First - monthly funds, I agree with the advice given, shut it down. It’s not working now so shift the strategy.

Second - give her space. Someone on here said treat them like cats and let them come to you. Your attempts to engage (also what I did) are not having the desired effect. My wife e-mails me every one to two weeks, I don’t reach out to her so I only reply to her and when I reply I keep things light and use SET - Support, empathize, truth - it takes time but it does really help. There is a whole methodology to speak to BPDs and they are difficult to learn but it helps. The last time we spoke she said: you have 10 min. We talked for 4 hours. Let her have that control.

Third - as others have said: she has to face the consequences of her actions and don’t try to interpret what she says to you, take it at face value. If she says she doesn’t want to speak to you again, don’t reach out, even it means you may never speak to her again.

It’s good that she is being respectful with your family because that can go very wrong as my wife tried to make me look like a monster to my family but that didn’t go as she had hoped. It doesn’t sound like you needed to set boundaries but I did with my wife as the verbal abuse had to stop and for the most part it has.

On a positive note though, my wife has been going to therapy and I notice a significant difference even after just a few months. Yet its still two steps forward and one step back. 

I know this is very hard for you because all your hopes, dreams and aspirations for a future together have been dashed and what will happen next is anyone’s guess but you seem to be doing what you need to do which is work on the best version of yourself and stay healthy. If it wasn’t for my family and my closest friends, I would have been lost.

Stay strong brother.

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Hi understandbpd;

I've been thinking about your situation this morning -- lots of moving parts going on for you. You're trying to balance marriage and BPD in the context of your faith and that's no easy task.

I think I hear your struggle between being trying to be faithful to what God wants and trying to heal your marriage. What's good is that you keep coming back here even though maybe you are hearing some things that are challenging or different. Really proud of you for this:


It sounds wise to both value your faith and beliefs, and to be open to listening to some new approaches.

understandbpd, am I tracking with you correctly that a big difficulty for you right now is that some of the feedback you hear doesn't seem to mesh with what being a faithful husband and person should/would do? And that your belief is that God and being faithful to his will is your top priority?

I've been there, too. I have experienced a relationship in the past (not BPD, but a serious relationship) where I was sure that he was going to be the husband God wanted me to have. Everything lined up -- I knew I was doing what God would want. So when this person broke up with me, it wasn't just a relationship falling apart, it shook me at a spiritual level.

As I thought about your situation this morning, one of the first passages that came to mind was Acts 10. Peter was sure that he was doing what God wanted by refraining from socializing with non-Jews. How could God ask him to do something so profane? And in a dream involving non-kosher animals, at that? Yet God was showing Peter -- "Who is it who truly knows what I want, you or Me? I am God -- I can ask you to do something greater and more loving than the laws and customs you have followed."

That led me to remembering the passage about David and his troops going into the tabernacle (I think it was the tabernacle at that time) and eating the showbread that by law was for the priests only. How could God allow David to do that, wasn't it against the laws? Yet there was something bigger, a higher priority of God's at play, and David was wise to see that in that situation, the issue wasn't the bread, but that God could want you to do something that "seemed" to go counter to His laws.

I don't think this makes God arbitrary or flippant. I think it puts me in my place -- who truly knows what God values and wants us to do, me or God? Those passages (plus the one where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac), for me, help me remember that as a human being I do the best I can to live a faithful life, and yet God is the ultimate authority and may ask me to do something that for a long time I did not think God would want -- and that would not make me unfaithful.

Anyway, it's a lot of food for thought. The fact that you are staying here, open to listening, and participating in a back-and-forth dialogue about your values is so important and deserves to be recognized.

There is so much that is counterintuitive about having a relationship with a pwBPD, not only counterintuitive to ideas of "common sense" but counterintuitive to ideas of "a loving and Godly marriage", that it can take some time to process. I can say from my vantage point, looking back on stepparenting my H's kids (their mom has many BPD traits), that it can take time to integrate the non-intuitive relationship approaches with faith, AND it can be done without losing your integrity.

And do let us know if you would like your thread to be identified as a "Christian discussion" or "________ discussion" (any particular faith or denomination) -- we have Guidelines to accommodate that.

-kells76

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Thanks for the reply -- glad you are here.

I'm reading that there are various aspects of the situation that are challenging, including (but not only) the spiritual aspect. Makes sense; it's good that you are able to list those out.

Going back to your first post:


I see that connected to your latest post:


Your commitment to your wife and marriage are coming through loud and clear, and your values make sense. You don't take marriage lightly and are trying to live a faithful life.

It is very challenging when a spouse has BPD (or any PD). What that means for saving a marriage is that "typical" or "traditional" approaches ("interventions", "proving your love", "reminding him/her of your dreams", "telling him/her to get help", etc) are often not effective and can even make things worse, even if we don't mean to. Maybe that is why some of the feedback here has sounded very different to you?

You've heard some feedback from some long-timers here about how to save your marriage -- some unintuitive approaches and "moves" to try. Like I mentioned above, it can sound different from expected feedback. Maybe that's the key here -- if your wife indeed has BPD (whether diagnosed or not), that means your marriage is not a typical marriage. You're in what is effectively a "special needs" marriage where typical "save the marriage" advice likely won't help, and may even hurt your marriage.

You're a committed husband and I think you would not want to purposefully hurt your marriage.

I think you do want to take the lead to make things better.

If something you were doing, out of all the love you had in your heart, and out of a genuine desire to improve things, were actually making things worse, would you want to know that?

understandbpd, I am curious if you feel up for taking the lead in trying a new and different approach in one of the areas you mentioned? Which one do you think you could try something new in:

-financial support
-her birthday coming up
-phone communication
-working with your insecurity/feeling "in limbo"
-being the emotional leader in a BPD relationship
-managing pressure in the marriage
-learning more about the reality of BPD
-(anything I missed?)

If doing something differently could help your marriage, would you be up for it?

It's a big question and one that a few posters on this thread have touched on in different ways.

Interested to hear more, whenever works for you;

kells76

(P.S. I will add "Christian discussion" to this thread title. You are of course welcome to start other threads, and you can also add "Christian discussion" to those titles if it is a key part of your topic. You don't have to add it if you don't wish to or if it is not directly related to your topic.)

When we both met and also decided to marry we were on the same page and in full agreement that you marry 1 time and its until death do us part and divorce will never be an option in saying that she isn't pushing divorce she's mentioned it once or twice in 6 months and i've yet to see any evidence shes actively persuing for it but as i mentioned it may be she's just waiting up the time period i don't know but its extremely unfair to commit to someone and be on the same terms as them then shatter that with something you promised you wouldn't do.


It's more because she was the 1 who told me to go read the bible and learn how to be more of a biblical husband so i took that advice and started reading the bible every night and also a biblical husband book called the exemplary husband (the book im sending her is the excellent wife that matches it) and for the last 6 months i've been fully committed to improving myself biblically as she asked yet she hasn't given me a single opportunity to show any improvements even when i had gone all the way to her country and to me that is extremely poor behaviour from her and her family and utterly disrespectful.


I can consider not sending money if someone can explain the reasoning of why or how this is somehow a good thing to do because biblically you should always support your wife and love her regardless of her behaviour (christlike love)

Not sure what you mean by phone communication ? She's blocked my number on everything including msging apps the only contact i have with her is either email or through my mother (email i'm not even certain is unblocked since i have no replies and she only replies to important things but im going to assume for now its still open)

I will continue working on insecurities but at the same time her behaviour vs who she claimed to be are very different we've had this powerstruggle in regards to male friends i am of the opinion male and female cannot be friends without 1 or the other having some form of interest or attraction whether instantly or overtime my wife is very attractive she thinks she's not and she's innocent/gullable and tries to think of the best in a person where as i have life experiences and i am male so i know exactly how it is. So we've constantly had fights over this and her on facebook with male friends i think its wrong and inappropriate for a married woman she says i have rules for her but not for myself but i cut any female friends off i had and deleted all my social medias when we got married.


Yes open to this


Yes open to this


I've been watching videos / reading websites and reading through the book suggested on this site called the high conflict couple (Crazy thing is i don't even know what the exact issue is personality disorder / bpd / did or something else its literally a guessing game i just know 100% something is wrong)


I will do whatever it takes to fix my marriage as long as it does not involve destroying my dignity and self respect and accepting being a doormat. I will not allow my wife to dictate or control any aspect of our marriage its not her role and its not the type of person i am and she knows that and perhaps that is why she initially chose me but if it come down to either sacrificing my dignity , self respect and letting her run the marriage or staying seperated ill stay seperated for the rest of my life because once a man surrenders to a woman he has no value and she knows this. (same story with adam and eve and adam listening to eve causing the fall its there nature and its why God put man in authority over women)

Might sound sexist or extreme but that's what God commanded

I can't find it right now, but I remember one of the more chilling peer-reviewed studies on BPD that I read fifteen years ago was so blunt about this as to be one of my first major "aha" moments. Basically to over-simplify, "the vast majority of pwBPDs reported childhood sexual molestation by a close authority figure...but then the aetiology got murkier because the pwBPDs also consistently reported that nearly every ex-partner had sexually abused them...and their current partner...and in quite a few cases they claimed therapists and doctors had done the same...then they started accusing our researchers! It is difficult to estimate the number of pwBPDs who have actually been molested in childhood, although it likely seems very high, because even those who may not have been appear pre-conditioned to claim they were".

My wife has always told of "emotional abuse" instances by her mother. But she is quite capable of cut and pasting things I may have said and done out of reaction and frustration, retelling them out of context and she can paint the same picture of me as she does of her mother, and everyone else in between. My wife has seen various therapists over the years and each time they get led down the CPTS rabbit hole, often with different "events/people" being fingered as the villainous cause of all her woes.

I also place no faith in corroborating witnesses from the time either as they were spoon fed the information by my wife. For example her family will back her up that she was bullied at work, of course they would, because she told them so at the time, and they took it at face value. Doesn't mean it was true.

"Laundering" distorted realities through a third party to make them more believable is a subtle, but common trick. Using someone else's credibility to provide weight to their version of reality. Their "rescuers of the day" will back them up as they were truly sold that version

Also when it comes to a history of victimhood, who do bullies pick on? Easy targets. pwBPD are extremely prickly reactive people, it would be akin to start pushing around a fanatical suicide bomber. BPD almost makes people bullyproof. pwBPD get avoided not targeted. There is no fun to be had in getting hit with a BPD storm reaction.

The point of all this is that you, or anyone else, is likely to have a true and accurate awareness of a pwBPDs past, as it is invariably a tale of smoke and mirrors with much evasiveness. Even the pwBPD couldn't give an accurate recounting even if they tried as they will most likely have lost all original context. So its just a bunch of quotes and snapshots to be woven together with the agenda of now.

I ended up giving in and sent her another email.

I hope nobody ever has to experience the pain and lonliness of having someone treat you this way.

I think i should stop reading about BPD it only makes me lose hope and feel worse and i don't even know if she has BPD i don't know how to stay strong and remain hopeful in such a dark situation.

No contact goes against every single instinct of my body and feel its extremely damaging and from what i've read the only time you should do that is when your ready to move on and cut that person out for good not as a way to try to get them to contact you

"no contact" is a tool for trying to detach and move on from a relationship, yes.

that is a very different approach than giving someone the space that they ask for, or doing something repeatedly that is resulting in a negative outcome.

i think thats why members are suggesting approaches that may feel uncomfortable, but may go a long way to cooling the tension or even improving the situation.

i came here about 12 years ago after being broken up with, but i didnt want the relationship to be over. it was by accident or miracle that i discovered bpd. it was like a god send to find people that were going through something similar, that had been there, that understood, and could help.

a lot of what members suggested to me felt uncomfortable or against my nature, at first. i had to put some faith and trust in the resources for help that i felt god was leading me to, and providing me, and lean not on my own understanding. even today, all these years later, im glad i did. i learned a lot of things, and unlearned some ideas, attitudes, and approaches, that werent serving me. it helped get me through, and come out the other side better equipped.

Were you able to heal your relationship ?

I don't want to move on but i can understand i really need to give her space i just don't want to regret it if she makes a mistake i can't forgive it will crush me.

What can i do when i have the urge to contact my wife and say something its usually around the 7 day mark that it really starts to consume me.

I read a poem that describes what i feel like she's doing and sent it to her and told her ill support her while she heals with or without me and no matter how hopeless it might seem she does not need to push me away and she's worth of being loved.

I'm going to aim for 3 weeks giving her space and then it'll be her birthday and ill send her a message.

I.

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

II.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V.

I walk down another street.

no. we were young, dumb, and not meant to be. but all these years later, i can still learn a lot of lessons from it. there were a lot of mistakes i made, things that i could have done better. that wasnt easy to expose myself to at a time that id been dumped, and wanted her back. they wouldnt have saved my relationship, since we werent meant to be, but i sure would have had my head on a lot straighter, and those lessons i learned have made me a better partner now.

but there were a lot of things, at the time, that i wanted to do, to get her back, that members here, and loved ones, talked me out of, because they would have been disastrous, and i would have been kicking myself for a long time. im very glad that i was able to follow the advice, and with how i comported myself.


as someone who has lived with both anxiety, and heartache, it can be really hard to ignore that feeling that tells you that you have to act, have to do something.

the thing is, i realized that most of the time i acted on my anxiety, it actually made things worse.

anxiety is about feeling out of control, and trying to manage it. the thing is, if she makes a mistake you cant forgive, thats out of your control. sometimes, just understanding that some things are out of control is freeing. it helps us better understand how to proceed, and what is in our control.

if something like that is going to happen, its not going to be because you didnt send yet another message. its going to happen no matter what you do.

i dont think anyone is suggesting dont contact her at all, ever (that would be "no contact"), just to back off, give space, and not do what seems to be making things worse. if youre counting the days, or asking yourself what day is best, thats an arbitrary measure, and it really just keeps you in that loop of anxiety.

the point is to find healthier, more constructive ways of coping with this anxiety than acting on them.

the urge and the anxiety go away when youre able to step back, get emotionally centered, and really understand what actions are helping, and which actions are making things worse.

I feel very similar if i had realized this before she left i would of been better equipped to handle what was happening.


I agree just need to keep trying to stick with it.

Do you think she's even aware she has a personality disorder based on how she's treating me ? or does she just believe im bad its all my fault

 My take on reading your posts is that a major worry of yours is if she has a relationship with another man. It seems you are trying to show her, in the best way you know- that you are a good husband in order to try to prevent this. The arguments over Facebook connections also are upsetting to you- that she continues her connections on social media with men ( and not with you).

You were in a long distance relationship- so did you two connect on social media.

While your conviction is to not allow the wife to control your marriage -- married or not, one person can not control another person. If the marriage is a traditional Biblical one as you described- it's because both people agree to have it that way. The wife still controls her own choice to allow the husband to lead in the relationship.

As to financial support - that is up to you but consider, in behavioral terms, money is a reward- a positive reinforcement. If we go to work, we get paid. If we don't, we don't get paid. If we all didn't go to work but got paid anyway - not that many people would go to work.

On her part, if she's in a situation of her choosing- not in communication with you, and she gets money every month. Why would she give that up? She may have no incentive to change. On the other hand, you don't want to use money to control her- and if you stopped and she then was nice to you, you'd not know for sure what her incentive is.

I think Skip has a point- in that sending her information about how she should behave may actually be a driving away point.  Even if you believe it is your duty as a husband to point out how she is not being the kind of wife as promised. If she's an adult, she has to know this already- moving away from a husband and cutting contact isn't being a kind or loving wife. As Skip mentioned though- when people are hurting - they are focused more on that than how their actions affect others.

Understandable that you wish to keep doing what you are doing because you feel it is in line with your convictions. Ultimately, you need to feel you have done the best you can do. If this means sending money, then do it because it's your value- not how it may impact her. The reason for emotionally light contact isn't because it's being trite. It keeps the door open without pressure and that this may be the more effective goal than to send emotional or constructive criticism.

If you are interested in looking at what could be enabling behavior- to not be a doormat - and I agree- nobody should be one- but the difference between enabling and helping can be subtle, I would suggest looking into 12 step CODA groups. These are helpful- even when substance use is not an issue. They focus on our own behavior. The original 12 step program was written by Christians and adapted to all religions/belief systems with the term "God of our Understanding". The first step is to acknowledge that we are not in control of someone else's behavior- our higher power, and in your case, God is. It can be helpful in managing the insecurity and anxiety of just not knowing what your wife will choose. It might be of help to you.

Yes we did.


My reasoning is she tried to tell her family i didn't support her (not true) and i have proof/receipts of everything and i feel like her father was testing me by saying i don't need to send her money he will look after her (insulting to me) so by sending her money i am fullfilling my role as her husband/provider i also send the receipts of money transfers to her father to put a nail in the coffin about any lack of financial support.

I am also confident she would use me not sending money to her as a justification for her behaviour and i would like to limit any option she has to be weaponized against me.


I spent months reflecting on my own behaviour and actively doing things that improve and correct myself to become a better person/husband. So i feel its reasonable to also ask her to be accountable and take responsibility for her side of things and not be a doormat / accept full blame.

The reason why i want to send her things that identify her behaviour / cycle she's in is she is incredibly intelligent she isn't your average woman she speaks multiple languages / reads alot is heavily into philosophy and just overall a smart and kind woman (at least when i met her) so i believe when she see's / reads these things even if she ignores them temporarily at some point she is going to reflect on herself and come to the same conclusion.

When she originally left she told me she has emotional baggage and may be self sabotaging but i am almost certain the therapist she saw convinced her its all my fault or she convinced him its all my fault with whatever fabricated story he was told. I have a strong feeling she's done this previously to other people and they haven't really had much of a choice other than being blocked and cut out.

In my situation its similar but we are married and i know her family i know details about her and it's not as easy to just pretend you aren't married she still has to go through a process to divorce and she knows what she is doing is wrong but she's stubborn like myself.


This is pretty much exactly how i think if i do everything i believe in then it does not work out i can deal with the outcome easier knowing i did absolutely everything. If i go against that instinct then it don't work out ill be haunted by saying why did i do this when i knew i shouldn't of.

The good thing is that i can identify the issues and what i know i am doing wrong i agree with everyone who's said i need to back off and lower the contact to give her some space and not push her away further my way isn't getting any result at all only making me feel temporarily relieved which is gone within a few days and repeated but could be doing much more damage to her view of me and how she feels.

Other than giving her space and reading the 12 step CODA group stuff is there anything anyone can think of that may be helpful in this situation the main 2 goals i have at this point are

1.Ensuring she stays faithful and does not do anything i cannot forgive (this is important because if this happens my marriage is over with no chance of being repaired).
2.Being able to have some form of 2 way communication with her that i can slowly progress towards repairing the damage.

I am not phased by distance / separation / time frames none of this matters i am a very patient person i can control my temptations and i very faithful and loyal the driving insecurity of why it feels like im running out of time is mainly #1 and i believe the longer your separated the more (normal) it becomes so if being able to reconnect on some level is possible the sooner the better.

Thank you for everyone who's taken the time to give me there advice so far it's been extremely helpful

From what I can see from your posts- and we can only present ideas from what we see- your #1 concern is the possibility of infidelity on her part. The two of you met on social media. Once you were in a committed relationship, you did the ethical step to protect your marriage by not engaging with other women on social media however, she didn't reciprocate. This was a point of disagreement between the two of you. Being at a distance, you have no way of knowing if she's engaging in discussions with men that might lead to something more.

#2 is that you want two way communication.

I refer to 12 steps as this is a way I learned to distinguish between what I can control and what I can not. The concept of higher power ("God of our understanding) is to help us with this. Another way to put this is to know what is on our side of the street- and what is the other person's. Just as you have your own relationship with God- and you are accountable for your own moral choices, so does your wife. It seems she knows that infidelity is wrong in her religious view- and this becomes her own moral decision.

You can hope and ask your wife to stay faithful- but the choice is hers- whether or not she is with you or far away. It's just harder to monitor when she's at a distance. This is a difficult concern- but in any relationship- we can not control someone else's moral choices, only our own.

Likewise we can't control who someone chooses to speak to. You can communicate with your wife but she chooses if she responds or not.

The only thing we can control is our own behavior and how we respond to others. I don't know of any tools on this board or anywhere else that can give us this kind of control over someone else. You can do what you feel is your very best to adhere to the principles you committed to in your marriage. Your wife's moral choices are beyond your control.

Understandably- this sounds disappointing for the bettering board but there are limits to how much we can control in a relationship. We can help decrease high conflict by examining our own contributions to the relationship but each person -if they are adults- still has their own free will to make choices. I don't know of any tools to do otherwise.

I don't really know why it makes me so worried she's a good woman she's never given me a reason to doubt her she has good morals and values and has always carried herself respectfully and in a decent manner.

She is 10 years young than me so she is naive and gullable about the big world out there and being from her country also shielded to a lot of the western degeneracy as well. She couldn't understand the mindset that men and women cannot be just friends and that once married (even though we agreed prior) its in both our best interests to cut out the opposite sex as much as realistically possible.

She would get upset at me over my social media before i deleted it or accuse me of cheating constantly or saying i make her feel like im cheating and she would get so angry over the most minor thing in regards to a female. But at the same time just had a facebook full of males but there "Friends" and its only because there into music bla bla bla imo poor justification but i was lenient with her.


I think the biggest issue i have is she promised me all these things and sold me the idea of a till death do us part and how committed and loyal she is etc but then started behaving this way. This is where ou society declined by bringing in no fault divorces biblically 2 people get married that's it there's no out and if you decide to just change your mind or be unfaithful its adultery and you get stoned to death.

Very simple concept it teaches 2 main lessons first don't get married unless you mean vowels and commitment till death do us a part and second if you decide to wrong your husband/wife and hurt them in an unforgivable way you get put to death as it should be.

What's even more ironic is that she was cheated on in the past and said it messed her up badly and made her develop trust issues. She's had (what shes told me) to be a difficult life growing up and i do believe her. You would think after all that you wouldn't want to screw over and hurt the 1 guy who committed himself to you for life and has always been faithful to you and while i am not perfect and made my own mistakes none were serious or unfixable.

I don't drink , smoke or do any kind of drugs i don't watch porn and have no social media at all i don't keep female friends and im in physically in good shape and extremely loyal and faithful.

Why does she not seem to see any value in me , our marriage or her commitment ? But even with her list of issues and regardless of everything happening i would fight for our marriage just to honor God.

Does anyone have any idea of why her father even after being told about the issues / personality disorder etc and being well aware of all these issues (prior to her meeting me) does not seem to care / do anything about it.

I'm not a parent so i can't say for certain but surely as a father you'd want to help your daughter through her issues and also help the son in law if he was trying to keep the marriage together and avoid having your daughter be divorced.

So much of this just does not make sense to me

Families can function as one dysfunctional unit. Just as partners can lean towards enabling their spouse, parents also tend to be protective of their children. You mentioned your wife's family has disfunction too. So expecting her father to act as if you would act as a father may not be in line with how your wife's father acts.

You have told her and her family that what she is doing is wrong, and that she has a personality disorder. You may feel that this is your duty as a husband to get her back in line with the marriage vows. But she and her family are still doing what they are doing.

You've been sending money to show her family you are a good person. You are a good person. But sometimes people take advantage of that. While you don't want money to be the reason she contacts you, one way to test this is to not send it. Don't say anything ahead of time to them- just don't send it. See what happens. This is entirely up to you to consider.

As long as my wife knows that i know she has issues and that this isn't all on me and her parents are aware of this and opt to do nothing and enable her behaviour and take her side then im okay knowing i've said/done what i can.


Her birthday coming up end of this month i've sent her some books and a letter will send her money again on her birthday and then ill consider possibly holding off sending again until there's some communication. I try to see the best in her and not think poorly of her or that she's the type of person to take advantage of me because she's never been like that previously and has always been good with money and her needs not a high maintenance kind of woman she's a good woman but just having some difficulties and handling it quite poorly atm its disappointing she can continue to treat me like this but i hope it will stop soon.

Even as marriage is a spiritual and emotional commitment, there are still two people coming to an agreement on how to manage the tasks of everyday living together. It's not a 50-50 thing- rarely is this the dynamic but there is an agreement on expenses, household tasks etc and there are possible issues when one or both feel resentful.

A gift is just that- given without expectations. If this is the case, then the giver does not feel resentment. But you have expectations in your marriage. Everyone does. If a spouse leaves, disappears and doesn't communicate, this is not in line with what someone expects in marriage. There could be reasons- such as mental illness that prompts understanding, but also one would want explanation- talk to doctors, family members as to what that is.

Maybe your wife is a good person who is going through something difficult- but somehow, there's no answer, no response to your concern. If you had no expectations of your wife, you'd not be upset about this, but you have expectations of communication from her and it's upsetting that she doesn't respond.

You have the choice to continue doing what you are doing and hope she will change her behavior, or to change your behavior and see what happens when you do. One can't predict the outcome of that.

She knows what you have said. They know what you have said. Her parents have made it clear that they stand by their child (parents almost always stand with their children).

They know her better than you do. And they may very well be trying to help her deal with her struggles. But they are not choosing to get involved or compromise their relationship with her to take your side in this conflict.

Don't be offended by this. This is their position and it not unusual for parents to be very protective of their daughters.


Wendy is right. "If you want to heal this, you have to assume your wife is a good person. You have the choice to continue doing what you are doing and hope she will change her behavior, or to change your behavior and see what happens when you do."

Let me share another observation. It may feel a little harsh, but I am saying it to help. I'm very committed to the well-being of this site's members.

You are talking at her and repeating your position on what her values and obligations need to be. You are indicating to her that her position and her observations are wrong and that she is mentally ill. Rightfully or wrongfully.there is not going to be much healing in this environment.

She put up a brick wall to get away from this monologue (rightfully or wrongfully), and you are standing outside that wall, continuing to shout the same message over the top of the wall, hoping that she will see things your way. As she builds the wall taller to get away from it, you climb up a ladder and keep shouting.

You've read Gottman's "Four Horses..."  (which is excellent) but interpreted it as a description of her failings. Gottman's message is that what you are experiencing is a transactional problem (two parties). He also says that when a couple gets to this condition, there is an 88-90% likelihood that the relationship will fail.

88-90%

Each round of repeating your position on what her values and obligations need to be (according to you) is pushing that percentage higher. Each round of telling her how you have improved or that she needs to improve, pushes the relationship closer to collapse.

If this continues, you two will reach a breaking point. Relationships die in stages. There has been much damage. You sense that, and it worries you... and drives you to do things that are making thing's worse.

Alan Fruzzetti says "before you can make things better, you must stop making them worse."

Fruzzetti is a master of the obvious.  *)

I wouldn't cite  "Christian values" (or send books, articles, or scripture) or remind her of her "marriage vows" as a reason for her to change her behavior. It has been said enough. It's hurting the relationship to keep bringing it up. It's one thing to "plant a seed" and another to do do things that may appear to use the Bible to judge/manipulate.

I wouldn't make "morality" statements or express fears of infidelity. The pony has been made. To repeatedly say this that could be interpreted to mean that you think her morals are lacking. This will not help in reconnecting.

I'd drop the "you're mentally ill" narrative. This will feel like blame - and blame will not mend any relationship divide. Nobody reacts well when told by their spouse during a conflict that they are mentally ill.

Don't try to make a point or hope to gain favor by sending the $400/month allowance. At the same time, if you stop now, it may appear manipulative. Another six months ($2,400) isn't going to break you. Besides, she is likely entitled to more than that if you divorce.

Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see how all of this could fit into Fruzzetti's "making matters worse"?

If it was me, I would shift my thinking. Make a 180º turn.

You pointed out earlier that there is a 12-month and 1-day separation requirement for divorce and you are six months in. You should expect that she is contemplating ending the relationship. At the same time, she probably has not made up her mind (she hasn't asked you for a separation agreement and she is still in contact with your family).

I don't know where you live, but I suspect in a country that has a mandatory counseling as part of the divorce process for marriages of less than two years.

Maybe this is something you should say you are open to.

Rather than say what you have been saying, you could be saying, "I care about you and I don't want you to feel guilt or obligation to be in a marriage. I really want to explore what is best for us when you are ready to talk. Can we rekindle our relationship of would it be better for us to be friends and move on. I want to do what is best for you and for us. And lets us a counselor to make those conversation safe and open."

And enter the process to listen (without being defensive) and see what is left for you two. It's hard to get out of Gottman stage 4, but it is not impossible.

The biggest question is whether there is still enough to desire and compromise on both sides to build a marriage or are you at an impasse.

It's offensive because i told them i didn't want them to pick sides i just wanted them to see the problem for what it is not what she said it is. She lied about me and made me look bad she painted a picture of me to her parents that she was the victim which she wasn't. I told them i could prove everything i was saying as an example

She : told them i forced her to cook for me and even when she was upset i didn't care and told her its something she has to do.

Reality : i have 100's of messages to her whenever she asked me if i wanted her to cook i would say if you want to i would appreciate it and 100's of receipts of takeaway i paid for when she didn't want to cook.

She : told my mother i cheated on her multiple times unsure if she told her parents this but they never mentioned it.

Reality : i've never been unfaithul i got rid of all my social media and she's the 1 with facebook and 100's of males on it who she actively talks to.


I agree with your observation 100%


We've been married longer than 2 years so there's no mandatory counseling but i've offered to speak to her therapist for her to speak to mine or for us to speak either or another together no reply.


I don't consider ending the marriage an option and we both went into this knowing the expectations. I wouldn't want anything to do with her at all if she divorces me because she's broken my trust and the commitment she made to me and to God and would let him deal with her punishments.


She won't get any money off me in a divorce and it'll cost her money to go through it. I keep debating myself on this and i am slowly leaning towards it's time to stop sending money she's had 6 months of me being patient and understanding and she's ignored me completely.

Her parent's don't seem to care about helping the situation and at this point sending her money is pretty much enabling her behaviour and potentially funding her to divorce me in the future after that remaining 6 months.

Would you agree this is rational and fair thinking and it's time to start being realistic i do love and care about her but not if im going to be treated and disrespected to this point and she knows its upsetting to me and does nothing about it.


Natural process i came here stressing out daily unable to sleep. I am now at a point where her behaviour is just irritating i know its ridiculous and not justified and i know its not all my fault and i know she isn't perfect and has many flaws. despite that i've chosen to accept and love her but the constant disrespect of ignoring me and her parents behaviour in this situation to me are very disappointing.

I've compromised enough and said enough for her to understand i was willing to compromise with her i changed a lot of aspects of my life and kept improving myself and she wouldn't even speak to me.

I've sent her a gift and letter for her birthday should arrive in 2 or so weeks and im going to arrange some flowers to be sent to her as well as an email wishing her a happy birthday other than that im not going to contact or persue her anymore and will do the next 6 months differently and hope in that time she remains faithful and may realize her own poor behaviour and do something about it.

I am slowly realizing she isn't perfect and the blame game is slowly fading to the point i can logically see all her mistakes and what she's done. I am willing to work with her but only on the condition she respects me and her commitment to the marriage and that's something she needs to fully commit to first and surrender herself completely to not only her husband but God as he instructed if not she's going to live a very sad and painful life of sin.

Would also like to thank you skip and all the other memebers for there input its honestly made this entire process much easier being able to speak my mind and vent to an extent and be understood and helped put me in a much better mindset.

What do you think the likelihood is (%) that she will shift from where she has been for the last six months to "surrendering herself completely" to you as a "condition" and "first step" to discussing marriage reconciliation?

What does "surrendering" mean in this context?

Skip

PS: I am familiar with the Epistle to the Ephesians

I think it depends on her conviction and how strong her faith really is but i agree its probably not a high % at this point.


It means following Gods word as the bible instructs. Loving your husband and submitting to him , accepting i am her husband and she should trust and listen to me. She would send me videos and blog posts from Pastor Steven Anderson and The Transformed Wife as "Role models" of the type of marriage and beliefs she had but when those directly contradicted her behaviours then all of sudden they weren't as important anymore.

At one point we were speaking with the Transformed wife's husband (Ken alexander) who was was trying to counsel us and even he couldn't really see the issue and she ended up telling him she didn't want anymore help and he basically said there's not much u can do but pray she softens her heart.

Before we were married she was all about following Gods word she would never question her husband or disrespect him etc etc we spoke in detail for months about the type of marriage we wanted and she was completely onboard in fact she had a even more submissive view than i did in terms of how a wife should be.

Then we get married and she's got a rebellious attitude and struggles with doing all the things she claimed were according to God have constant issues with her listening and submitting.

I am not a very demanding husband all i really expect is loyalty , unconditional love and to avoid having male friends and i don't think this is a lot of expectations to have from someone who claimed they would never divorce and remarrying is sinful and that if God forbid something happened she wouldn't ever be able to move on and would just live a life separated/alone.

She had freedom to have any female friends she wanted and to go out any day or time (within reason not late night out all night) she wanted and do anything that obviously did not involve being around other men. I was teaching her to drive so i could get her a car and she had money to go out whenever she needed.

It's disappointing to see that when her husband was having a difficult time and i communicated that to her she also was struggling but decided to throw in the towel and go home and block me. That's not love or being loyal at all and if our marriage is falling apart due to such minor issues how would it survive any more difficult ones ? There's couples who have affairs , addictions , physical abuse and all sorts of insane issues there's couple with financial issues and don't have a roof over there head or struggle to eat week to week our issues in comparisson are a joke and we should be thankful for what God has given us.

The doormat phase is long gone i know what i want and what im willing to compromise on and its not going to be with someone who has half a foot out the door my entire life she either commits and is 100% in till death do us part which is what she promises before during and after the marriage or off she goes and may God deal with her sin and disloyalty accordingly.

You:

Her:

Prognosis:

On your current trajectory ("your" meaning the two of you), it sounds like you have irreconcilable differences. You (collectively) are deep into Gottman's stage 4 and going deeper. In another six months, you (collectively) will reach the courts' definition of irreconcilable differences and either of you has a straight path to divorce.

Evolving Faith: The Christian source you describe, Steven Anderson, is controversial as he publicly stated that the cure for AIDs is "executing the homos like God recommends." At the very least, we can say that Anderson preaches a stricter interpretation of the bible than most bible churches. "What is allowed" differs from "What is asked of us".

To be clear, I am not questioning your beliefs. I'm pointing this out because she may not have the same commitment as you have, or she has evolved in her walk after being tested and realizes that she no longer has the same commitment. Faith is ever-evolving. And I think it's also fair to say that there are many devot Baptists or other devot Christians that share a more liberal interpretation of Ephesians ("what is allowed" is different than "what is asked of us").

Mirroring: We all mirror the values of someone we are in love with, especially in the early stages of a relationship. Finding common ground is how humans bond. People with BPD or BPD traits will do this to a greater extent than otherwise healthy people and then pull back to their own independent beliefs in time - sometimes with resentment that the non-BPD partner did not understand and reward their sacrifice. This eventual disconnect can be very confusing to us. You are not the first person to say "she used to believe A" and now she doesn't stand by it.

Problem Solving: People with BPD or BPD traits are not good problem solvers because their problems are often exaggerated in their minds, and when people try to talk them through problems, reality invalidates what the person with BPD is feeling. To compensate, people with BPD or BPD often abandon situations that become increasingly difficult to avoid the invalidation - they run away and start anew somewhere else. New is easier.

Our wounds: For many of us here (all of us here?), we didn't have great emotional intelligence, human nature skills, or a secure attachment style when we got into these relationships, and we suffered massive ego wounds when the relationship ran into problems. These wounds ran deep and had us doubting our self-worth and even our reality.

She may have caused you to be wounded, but it was deficiencies in our emotional intelligence, human nature skills, or attachment style that allowed the wounds to cut so deep. Our partners can't fix this for us. We have to fix it ourselves (with our therapists or mentors).

Bottom line, if you don't solve this it won't get solved. By your own admission, the current trajectory has very little chance of working. And I am suggesting that the tools you are using will be no more successful in the future than they have been in the past.

I'm not trying to talk you into doing a 180º. I'm just showing you what is in play. It's complicated. Resolving this, if it can be resolved, will take a great deal of strength, grace, and patience. These are Christian values. One could say this is what we are asked to do when our marriage is facing demise. To find the strength, grace, and patience to do our best to see it through.

You can look at this and say, that's not for me, Skip. It may not be, and that's a valid position on a number of levels. We all respect that. A special needs person will always be challenging.

I disagree the behaviour does not match the actions its like being married for 4 years and 1 day your partner makes your coffee wrong and then you go home to your parents and block your partner permanently its ridiculous and childish.

I don't think wanting / expecting the person i am meant to of committed myself to for life to also share that same commitment and not want someone who does not understand what loyalty and commitment is all of sudden after years of discussion and telling me how important marriage is and how she would never leave or divorce then ups and leaves over the most minor issues.


She was the 1 who introduced me to pastor anderson and the transformed wifes content which is literally about disobedient wifes learning to submit to there husbands and surrender to find peace and happiness in marriage.

It's bit late to have "evolving" beliefs after years of preaching 1 way and making promises and commitments to later on just go against everything you've stood for


I don't exactly understand what your asking of me ? or what you expect me to do differently ?

The reality is she left me when i needed her the most. I've then been treated incredibly poorly by her family and completely disrespected and discarded by her with no empathy whatsoever.

All of this comes ontop of not only compromising and making dramatic changes in my life that she asked me to make but also travelling across the world to see her and she couldn't even show the decency to meet me face to face willingly. It's now been 6 months i've still kept calm i haven't lost my patience i've been trying to show her that i've been learning about emotional intillegence and validation etc i've read books and written letters.

I've shown nothing but love and kindness to someone who has treated me like i am nothing and garbage and when i say im not going to be a doormat and let her run the relationship or marriage that isn't going to change that's not saying i won't compromise and work with her i want the marriage to work i really do but her lack of maturity and stonewalling means it really does not matter what i do nothing has changed on her side at all.

She has serious issues that she needs to be accountable for and take responsibility for she can't just continue ruining peoples lives like this.

If you can explain to me what exactly your asking me to do that you think im unwilling to do so i can at least understand because right now i don't think there's anything i could personally do to change this situation it seems entirely up to her to correct her own behaviour ?

I know this is hard, but I can guarantee you that this is not her perspective on what happened. And you really have no way of resolving this without fully understanding her perspective. And that requires setting your narrative aside (temporarily), and trying to understand hers.

It's not that hers is correct and yours is wrong (or vice versa), it's that there will be no meaningful communication until you do this- until she feels heard and understood. This would be true for a perfectly healthy women. It is true for someone with BPD traits. It is true for Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.  *)

You said earlier that she was depressed and unhappy during the 10 months you lived together. Why was she depressed? What was troubling her?  What was the core issue?  What was just noise (e.g., the coffee).


People are ever evolving. Life is a moving target. Don't be frozen in "yesterday". She evolved when she moved in with you for 10 months (that was a significant life changing experience to move to another country and live with a man). She evolved when she moved out (that is also a significant life changing experience to leave her husband and go home in distress). She has certainly been evolving over the last six months in her discussions with her therapist and family and friends - all who are comforting her, holding her hand, listening to her (especially the therapist) and trying to help sort her life that is in disarray (whether it;s her fault or she's a victim). They are giving her "acceptance".

Your actions over the last six months been the less than "acceptance". I get why you feel the way you do. It's not at all unusual. Our resentments are often justified, but they rarely help us. It's hard to let them go... but good for us when we do.

Where do you think feels more safe, heard, accepted?

If you want any chance of reconciling, you have to meet her where she is and at least try to resolve what it is that caused her to leave.


Everyone posting here has been trying to help you answer your original question...

.	"Wondering where i go from here"

I just read through this entire thread. There is some really good advice here. It might be worth a re-read.

You are in a hard place.  You are sending her the message (directly and indirectly) and you are hoping that she (and her family, friends, therapist) will see the light - that she wronged you, that she caused of 60%-70% of issues that she was depressed about, that she has an obligation to return to live with you and submit to you as her husband, and she needs to go into treatment. You don't see any evidence of agreement with this or think it is even likely. But this feels safe to you on one hand and at the same time terrifies you that she might sleep with someone else.

• You don't seem to be open to do what has been suggested to at least try to open the lines of communication.
• Conversely, you don't seem ready to consider that the divide in your relationship may be significant enough to let it go and move on.

And maybe you are right. Nothing you say or do will impact the outcome - its all in her hands. But then again, you are trying really hard to communicate with her.

I hope you continue to work here to find an answer. You are asking the right question. These things are complicated,

I think it would be helpful for you to work with other members who are struggling with their relationships here. The idea of a peer support group is that we help each other and we learn and grow in the process.

She had depression , unhappiness , anxiety , suicidal thoughts etc since childhood before she met me , after we met and she was living at home (would complain about living at home and about her mother and says she would cry and be treated like a servant there) , she was happy when we were together in her country 95% of the time and after she came to mine after a week or 2 of the novelty wearing off she was depressed and unhappy lost etc

She had all of these problems before during and after being here she told her parents the same story that she told me about living with them why was she so depressed ? Because that's what her lifes been and in turn it made it harder for me which made me more depressed (i withdrew to playing video games which is was my go to coping mechanism) she then used that as the "issue" of why she's unhappy.

But even when i pushed through and asked her to go out or come to the gym and workout with me she would just want to lay in bed and do nothing or sleep and when my mother would ask her to do things or help her a lot of the time she was the same (My mothers observation was she was clearly struggling at no fault of my own). We live with my mother and this was discussed before marriage and my wife was completely onboard with this i didn't want to leave her alone since my father passed away when i young and my wife supported this so that is not part of the issue or if it is now too bad because it was discussed openly and honestly prior to any commitment.

The truth is we were both just struggling with depression i withdrew to games she withdrew to crying and wanting to escape she tried to distract herself with a job which i told her i didn't want her to do but "allowed" it because it was something she was passionate about but this wasn't part of the plan/agreement the agreement was she would persue her interests until she came here then we would start a family and she would stay home and not work.

I didn't pressure or rush into having a child because i could see she was struggling and i was too and it was not a good time period to start this but then she spent 95% of her time focused on her "career" to distract herself but she was even more miserable crying complaining about being tired and asking me to basically be her taxi everywhere which i declined i knew she would struggling working here in a new country and she wasn't in any mindset to do it but she wouldn't listen to me.

She would cry for no reason i would go in try to comfort her talk to her she would tell me to go away i would persist and keep trying to comfort her eventually i would go and then she told her parents that i would leave her in the room crying alone and not care while playing video games its absolutely mind blowing. I have never left her to cry unattended and have always tried to cheer her up and bring her food and drinks buy her favourite things etc suprise her with little gifts on my way back from the gym.

all of that went out the window when she went home and i was just this ruthless savage man who treated her like a slave and left her to cry and did not care its like a totally different world she was living in and to be honest i started to fall into that world thinking i was horrible if it wasn't for my mother who witnessed a majority of this and me trying to help her and comfort her i may of potentially accepted that false reality.

I think personally either she had some kind of regret about marriage or with me or she could never fully 100% commit or she always had that idea in the back of her mind if this does not work out i can run away like i do with all my other issues and just block them out. So rather than accepting the situation she was in and saying ok this is my life now and i need to work on a fix or stay like this her problem solving was "he is the problem and i can go back to my fathers" so why would she ever feel the need to fix anything ?

We just kept feeding into each other over noise fights and minor issues this is why its so difficult for me to accept my marriage may potentially be over we legitimately didn't have any huge unfixable fights there isn't anything we couldn't discuss and agree on or work through yet her behaviour towards me is more like i've been unfaithful cheated on her multiple times and bashed her for 10 months constantly and now shes finally gone she can never return its crazy.


The place where she can lie and do whatever she wants and not be held accountable and anytime someone does something she don't like she just blocks them out.

Can't really compete with that and its not much of a marriage / life to allow my wife to behave that way in our marriage ?


I've asked her multiple times if she could help me to understand her perspective and everything she went through. I've asked her if she could tell me the reasons why she left she couldn't tell me anything the only time she did suggest things seemed more like a list of unrealistic demands followed by a maybe and it was along the lines of

I need to basically change my entire life
I need to get a good job with good money
I need to go to therapy for minimum 1 year
I need to move out rent my own place alone for the forseeable future

Then she said "maybe" we could talk mind you there was no mention of her changes no mention of any kind of promise or commitment if i was to do any of this so to me that seems like a list of unrealistic things just to kinda say well u didn't do what i said.

I've changed my life style a lot
I've always had a decent income and never had financial issues providing for her ever
I've seen a therapist a few times but he feels its a waste of time unless we can include her in the therapy and that the issues lay more with her than with me

I'm not going to move out but i told her if she was to come home and tell me any issues if there are any involving my mother i would address them and if they couldn't be addressed i would consider moving out because she is always going to be a priority over my mother and i've made that clear to her. But i believe since i told her about this living situation before marriage and she agreed and from a financial perspective its much better this way and her saying she loves my mother and my mother always spoiling her and never giving her a hard time about anything this is a non issue if she was to bring it up.

I have been flexible i've asked to open communication so many times its only recently i started to be more demanding at the start i was basically a doormat saying id do anything if you give me a chance and talk to me that didn't work either. She knows i want this to work and i am a very fair and loving man and she's just taking advantage of that.


I've read through the thread but i can't see anything that allows me to open the line of communication with her could you explain ?

I am here because i want help i want to become a better husband and have a successful and happy marriage and i do believe my wife has some serious issues that make the logical approach difficult and nothing i've done works so it would be crazy to assume i know what im doing when i have 6 months of no results.

I am all ears into suggestions on what needs to happen on my side to open communication and be able to work through these issues with her.

I can't "diagnose" your wife or say for certain that she has BPD but it seems she has some kind of mental illness- depression.  If she's mentally ill, her lying around isn't something allowed or not allowed. It's a part of the disorder. She sounds like she is struggling.

You do sound like you have tried but if she has a mental illness and her thinking is distorted, then this isn't treatable with advice to be a better person or a program for "disobedient wives". She's not disobedient, she's mentally ill.

I have a mother with BPD who acts a lot like your wife. She's unhappy and isn't capable of doing much. She doesn't see herself as a problem, blames everyone else. It is sad that her unhappiness makes it hard to appreciate the efforts of those who care about her but it does.

I understand that because i've experienced it myself which is why i never forced her to do anything or to get up when she didn't feel like it never made her cook or do anything when she didn't want to and if she didn't want to go the gym i didn't force her i was pretty easy going all i asked was for the same treatment in return.


I have worked with her slowly through a range of health issues eating disorder , panic attacks , hormone problems etc and always been very caring and understanding the reason why i keep talking about myself as well is i know i am not perfect but none of us are including my wife but she's made me feel like i am a complete failure and terrible person so its hard to shake off.

She at least acknowledged she has issues and it was her decision not mine to go to a therapist so i believe there's hope for her. I just really hope she's told the therapist the truth and not just her story to get support for a divorce.

I have faith even now that things will be okay i know she trully believes in God and is saved and i know she has a good heart she is just lost i don't blame her for any of this and would forgive her for everything and welcome her with arms wide open at any point as long as she stays faithful she will have me.

Giving a Christian perspective on this.


This is a pride response.  Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall."  This pride is destroying your marriage.  You know what is godly?  Humility.  Humble yourself before your wife.  Matthew 5:39 says, "But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also."  Until you are prepared to follow this verse, don't expect your wife to follow the Bible's verses about submitting to the husband's authority.  To be honest, when she doesn't live up to her wifely responsibilities, that is mainly between her and God.  Don't quote the Bible when it benefits you.  Quote the Bible to yourself and be diligent to follow it in your life instead.

Speaking about husband's authority, you don't seem to understand leadership well.  Matthew 20:25-28 says, "But Jesus called them to Himself, and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.  It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.  and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.'"

Even one of the wife submission passages, Ephesians 5:25, says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for her."  I believe you need to turn the other cheek, and now consider your response, outside of your hurt pride.  What is the best response that will move the marriage forward?

Some other items. 

• "When a man surrenders to a woman, he has no value."  This is not Biblical.  You have value in Christ whether you surrender to a woman or not.  In fact, women have a very different way of looking at the world, and wise is the man who listens to his wife.  Not all good ideas come from the leader.  A wise leader will recognize a good idea, whatever its source.  The second part of 1 Peter 3:7 says, "and grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered."  Both husband and wife are equal in that they have been given life by God and created in God's image.  A husband should not view his wife's thoughts and feelings as worthless.
• Divorce was legal in the Old Testament, and you could argue that it was no fault.  The man just had to give his wife a certificate of divorce.

Last thing I would like to encourage you to do is to read the book of Hosea.  It is not an exact match to your situation, as Hosea married a prostitute, however you do see how he handled her leaving him.

Your handpicking verses to suit your understanding of christianity not what me and my wife's understanding of it are/were.


It's not pride you don't really know what i've gone through since i met her and the amount of obstacles and difficulties i've faced in my life ontop of all of this. This is me saying enough is enough.


There is no hurt pride i've been disrespected and stonewalled for 6 months and despite all of that have still tried to not resent her and show patient and understanding what you don't seem to understand is her behaviour is outside of my control nothing i do or say makes any difference until she figures things out herself. If this wasn't the case she would of responded to 1 of the many attempts ive made to communicate with her and compromise.


God put man in authority because women are easily deceived and mislead and Adam listening to eve is what brought on the fall of mankind. Women should never be in a position of authority or in control or leaderships roles especially within in a marriage.


The only permittable reason for divorce was for "fornication" which was basically if a man married a woman then found out she wasnt a virgin he could divorce her. When Jesus explained to the pharisee's about divorce he said it wasn't so from the beginning as in it was never Gods intention for a man and woman to divorce that's why there's the bible verses about letting no man put asunder what God has joined together as one flesh.

Outside of fornication there isn't a reason biblically for divorce if the man or woman separated they were to remain unmarried or be reconciled to there husband/wife if they were to sleep with anyone else or remarry it would be adultery and that person would be put to death. Unfortunately we don't have the death penalty for adultery anymore and people take marriage seemingly as a joke.

I would prefer you don't come to preach to me about your watered down version of christianity and judgements.

It is interesting that when you countered me, you didn't give a single Bible verse - so who has the watered down version of Christianity?  Mine is based on the Bible.  You can believe me or not, but your pride is the biggest problem that you are bringing into the marriage.

Let me tackle this in a different way.  Let's say you wrote your wife an email that looked something like the following:
"God has been revealing to me a lot about my pride lately.  And I have realized that it has prevented me from being the leader that God wanted me to be in marriage, and that it must have made it difficult for you to live with me.  I wanted to write this letter to apologize to you."

Let's contrast that with what you have been doing.  She strikes you on the cheek by leaving you.  You strike her on the cheek by telling her she is being a bad, unbiblical wife.  When you strike back, the other person IS LEADING.  They have set the tone in the relationship.  When you turn the other cheek, YOU ARE LEADING.  You get to set the tone of the relationship.  In the above sample email, you are demonstrating humility, how to apologize, and changing the tone of the relationship.  She is more likely to respond positively to the above email than being told she is a bad wife.

A couple of clarifications:

• I agree that the husband is the leader in the family - my argument is that you are not leading well and you need to change your approach to one of service and humility
• I agree that God hates divorce, and the only legitimate reason for divorce given in the Bible is adultery - my argument is that divorce was LEGAL in the Old Testament and a man would not have been stoned if he divorced his wife and married another.
   To be honest, this is a side topic.

This is your Pastor saying something similar:

   

Because i don't have anything to prove to you by quoting bible verses back and forth with you what i've said is correct.



This is why i said you don't really understand what i've gone through the email you suggested has already been written in multiple different ways i acknowledged my flaws and humbled myself and then asked her to forgive me and give me the opportunity to make things right. (Even when i completely disagree that it was all my fault that this happened)

There was no response no forgiveness nothing there wasn't even an acknowledgement of anything there's a line between humility and humbling yourself and being weak and unattractive i would prefer to maintain my self respect and stay strong in my word knowing what i've said is correct than to grovel to someone who isn't showing any kind of christian behaviour currently and has completely ignored me.

Let me make this clear this isn't a pride issue this isn't a stubborness issue i put all of that aside when about 3-4 weeks after she had left i have been willing to compromise even when i know she's in the wrong and her behaviour is that of a child not a woman or a wife. There isn't some kind of disagreement we're having that she wants her way i want my way and by digging my heels in she is refusing to communicate.

No this is regardless of what's been said or done no matter how humble i am or how much i've repented for my side of the problems or even how many things i've changed or improved nothing has changed on her end at all.


I have been reading a book called the Exemplary Husband which is a christian book about becoming a more biblical husband. Reading that and also the high conflict couple has helped me a lot i understand that there is always room for me to improve the issue is if my wife was behaving like a real christian and kept to her word and had the emotional maturity to communicate not run away like a child and stonewall then a lot of these issues would of been or have been resolved.


If you do further reading you will see the actual word used is the equivelant of Fornication not Adultery and that other than fornication even adultery isn't grounds for a divorce but it is grounds for being stoned to death. (Which essentially released the person of there marriage vowels in death)

We've discussed all of this prior to marriage i know she has a very good understanding of what a marriage entailed its not like she was naive and had no idea what she was committing to.


I've watched this sermon in full among many others and i agree and while i could justify my own behaviours easily with the obstacles i faced outside the relationship i chose to accept my flaws and worked on changing them and finding a better way to cope when needed.

Just because i wasn't perfect though isn't a legitimate reason for my wife to abandon me and her marriage. There's plenty sermons where he talks about a wife's behaviour too and if we put it in the context you have 1 person who's accepted responsibility for his issues and worked on resolving them tried to keep communciation open and fight for his marriage and put in a lot of effort over the last 6 months.

I have a woman who's had her own issues in life decide to abandon her husband and pretend like her marriage never existed. Stonewall for almost 6 months and not acknowledge anything i've said or done at all.

After 6 months of being treated like this and the progress ive made i think its time for her to humble herself and ask for some forgiveness as well. As i said previously i know this isn't right and i don't deserve this treatment in the context of what she left over.

I still love her and i want to make this work and i am willing to compromise i've had no issue saying sorry admitting and taking responsibility for my problems and working through them all i would like to see is that she acknowledges that and opens communication as a starter.

The reason to quote Bible verses is because the Bible is the infallible word of God.  Our personal opinion on what is correct does not match the authority of the Bible.  My guess is that your understanding of truth is based on what you have learned from spiritual leaders that you respect.  I would encourage you to focus more on learning the Bible, and basing your beliefs and behavior on that.  If you disagree with me on that, I would encourage you to ask your spiritual leaders.  I am sure they will agree with me.

I agree that groveling isn't necessary, however looking back at what you wrote, you view anything other than keep doing what you are doing is letting her take over leadership and therefore a violation of your self respect.  That is why I challenged you on pride and your understanding of leadership.  I would also like to point out that your weaponization of the Bible to try and get her to change her behavior to get what you want is a huge red flag.  It suggests a domineering and authoritarian husband that would be difficult for any woman to live with.

Discussion on divorce: I view this as a side topic here.  You aren't planning on divorce, nor am I counseling that you do so.  If you do want to discuss further what the Bible says on the topic, send me a personal message and we can continue that conversation there.

I want to clarify something here.  I am not taking her side, nor excusing her for her actions.  She isn't posting on this forum.  Me saying, "yeah you are right, and your situation sucks" doesn't help you.  I focus on your faults on this situation to empower you.  You can't change her behavior, but you are in control of your own.  I am trying to get you to focus on your side of the fence and try to live in a way pleasing to God.  What you wrote above is defeatist thinking.  It is giving her total control on whether the marriage succeeds or fails.  Let's say she never apologizes, but does start communicating again.  Will you accept that or insist on an apology?

What i said above isn't personal opinion its directly from the bible however as i said i don't have anything to prove or to preach here its not why im on this forum. I agree with you that the bible comes first i don't follow spiritual leaders at all.


Exactly and that is exactly what anything other than what i've said above would be at this point there's no 2 way discussion or compromising from her at all there's nothing but stonewalling and playing victim. There's not much i can really do other than what i already am which is keep improving myself spritiually mentally physically and intellectually.

I was actually the opposite of what you claim i had simple rules and she had the freedom to do mostly whatever she wanted once she started taking advantage of that and becoming rebellious i also became more tough to ensure she didn't get her way and control the relationship. The same as i mentioned previously when she tried to manipulate me into speaking 30 mins a week and it was her way or nothing and i told her direct that's not how this works.

Women naturally try to test for control and if you allow them to get there own way they will keep on taking until you have nothing left to give then leave you high and dry. It's the fallen nature of women and its why there so spiteful and initiate most divorces because there easily mislead and deceived by satan as from the beginning until the end.


I don't even want an apology your making it sound like im being unrealistic and fighting her in this situation in reality the last 6 months have been me asking her to come home telling her i love her and forgive her and that i've continually been working on myself in all areas of life to be a better and more biblical husband and to learn how to communicate and understand her better.

I've already forgiven her for everything and made it clear the only thing i won't tolerate is adultery/unfaithfulness while we are married regardless of where she is or how long we've been apart. I would be happy to just have a mature discussion face to face or on the phone or even in txt which she's denied me completely since the beginning.

She went home picked a fight intentionally then split on me and there was no going back she was looking for a reason to do what she has done.

She can't even communicate what is happening in our marriage to me and i have and never would treat her like this regardless of if i was hurt angry or whatever the situation this behaviour is outright wrong.

What you seem to be asking me to do is ignore all of her poor behaviour pretend shes perfect and grovel to her and what im telling you is that i have done everything i can to be forgiving and understanding kind and patient. I've prayed for both of us every night since she left and asked God to work with both of us and help me serve him better and become more like christ.

What honestly can i do more than what i'm already doing ?

You have constructed a box where you are unteachable.  I quote the Bible and you reject it.  You just stated that you don't follow spiritual leaders.  I could give you a verse on the danger of being unteachable, but what would be the point - you will just ignore it.  This is not a good place to be.

This is a very disrespectful way to speak about women, which obviously would include your wife.  Your wife was created in the image of God and the verse I quoted earlier talked about giving them honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life.  Does she have a sin nature?  Yes, but so do you.  The above mindset may be one of the reasons why she left, and is therefore something that you should work on fixing.  Also, anecdotally, I have been married to my wife for 21 years and I don't consider the following statement to be true, "Women naturally try to test for control and if you allow them to get there own way they will keep on taking until you have nothing left to give then leave you high and dry."

Yes, I am asking you to do this.  Stop playing the role of the victim in the relationship.  Let God worry about who is right and who is wrong.  You do 2 things.  One, worry about your side of the fence, and do everything you can to be the husband that God wants you to be.  Two, as a leader, consider what actions will help to mend the relationship, outside of your personal feelings and pride.

I would also like to address the "I have tried everything" mindset.  To be honest, I believe you have.  But it was more of an attempt to see what sticks.  In fact, you probably tried multiple ways in the same communication.  It probably appeared schizophrenic.  What I would encourage you to do is to pick a tone and stick with it.  The tone that I would personally recommend is to focus on making her feel safe and loved.

One thing you might consider is asking her father to act as a mediator in the relationship (but not until you have set a new tone).  She is afraid to talk to you directly, so maybe she can discuss things with you, through her father.

I wanted to chime in here with something a little more specific that hasn't been addressed directly, though I think it is probably an example of the kinds of things others are saying in this thread. I will say upfront that I am not a Christian. I say that to (1) give you the opportunity to just ignore what I say on those grounds and (2) make it clear that I am offering a perspective that is independent of any thoughts or judgments about what is or isn't Biblical.

I'll try to recap this as concisely and starkly as possible, though these tidbits are spread out across a number of posts.

Before your wife went back to be with her family, she expressed that she felt "stuck/trapped here." (I know you don't think she should have, but she articulated feeling that way.) She went back and the two of you seemed to have agreed that the time apart would allow each of you to work on yourselves. She found a therapist. In conjunction with the therapist, she put forth a boundary that she would communicate with you 30 minutes a week because talking with you caused stress and anxiety. You "refused" and "rejected" this boundary. She then tried to protect that boundary by blocking you except for the 30 minutes a week that she had previously stated was her boundary. You did not accept this and she blocked you full stop. You responded to this by showing up in her country and at her parents' house. She did not respond positively and has not contacted you since then.

I know a lot of other stuff has happened and there are a lot of other issues. But in that time after she went back to her family, you essentially told a person who was feeling trapped that, while she is working on herself with the help of a professional, she does not get to even control her own communications that she finds stressful.

And that seems to be something you think that you are just plain right about. She doesn't get to decide that and "force" that on you. From the outside, and from what has been written here, this seems to me to be a pretty big part of what led to things getting worse. I don't have great suggestions for what to do, and it may just be irreconcilable if she feels trapped and tries to set boundaries and your conviction is that she doesn't get to do that but needs to just submit. But reflecting on that and maybe seeing that it was at least a less-than-ideal strategy at the time for maintaining or repairing a relationship might be a thing worth thinking about. It might be a specific instance or issue that gets at some of the more general advice and commentary that others have provided about rethinking your approach.

As a Christian, let me agree with this.  Respecting someone's boundary is not contrary to the Bible, nor does it diminish your authority as the husband.  It is dealing with the reality of the situation rather than how you think it should be.

I am not rejecting the bible and i understand what God has asked of a husband on how to love his wife. I don't think its fair to claim im unteachable because i disagreed with your view on marriage even though you basically said we agree on what i've said.

I am open to listening and taking onboard what i feel is useful in this situation but some of what you've said like i mentioned would basically be considered groveling at this point. I have apologized to my wife for my own wrong doings and told her that i want things to be different and made every effort to prove that to her so saying anything along these lines after 6 months of stonewalling just seems fruitless.


She went back to her parents purposely started a fight then said she isn't going to talk to me then said i have 30 minutes a week to report to her what i'm working on. I believe and still do this lack of communication is what has caused the rapid decline of our marriage. A boundary to give your husband 30 mins a week to speak is disrespectful the stonewalling combined is manipulative and used as a way to gain control of the relationship. She failed at this and i called her out on this poor behaviour if i had an opportunity to do that again i would because i don't believe that is the way you treat your partner if i wouldn't do something like that to my wife i wouldn't expect it done to me.

After she had blocked me for over a month i decided to go to her country to speak with her and her family to try to resolve the situation as any mature adult would do. Because at that point i had no idea what was happening in our marriage.


I believe this "professional" played a role in destroying my marriage because firstly individual therapy within a marriage is usually destructive. Secondly he shouldn't give any input on our marriage unless his spoken to both parties so she's probably told him an exagerated story and he's convinced her divorce was okay. Thirdly therapists have high rates of divorce themselves and usually from my understanding don't really see the importance of a marriage.

I asked her if we could speak with her therapist together or if he could speak to me. She rejected this and i asked her to speak to therapist i saw she rejected this. If he had been told the truth about her life and this situation i find it incredibly difficult to believe that first he hasn't diagnosed her and secondly didn't contact me to discuss if anything i would say he's been unprofessional and borderline malicious/negligent in his dealings with my wife.


From my experience and reading through the bible this is just a fact there are women who choose to follow God and submit to there husbands and God's authority and structure and there are women who rebel and sin. I've always seen women be spiteful in my life so perhaps im bias but that also does not change the fact 80% or more of divorces are initiated by women and it's probably why mens suicide rate has also dramatically increased as well. There is a reason why God was so stern on wives submission and meek and quiet spirit and that reason is because of there original sin nature.

That's not saying i don't need to love my wife or treat her well or with respect and that im sinless its just pointing out that anytime a man has let a woman lead/make the decisions things have and will go wrong. If my wife allowed me to lead and make the decisions we wouldn't be in this mess it was my idea to let her go back to her parents to help our marriage i believe this was a good idea. After she went back to her parents she decide to become more rebellious and disobedient since she knew i was in another country and look at where we are now.


Happy to do this but i don't have any idea on what actions could or would help mend the relationship that i haven't already tried. I have spoken to her father multiple times and he does not seem to care that much or his doing something but isn't telling me anything. The last time he spoke he asked me what changes ive made via txt i told him everything and he didn't reply.

I've asked him multiple times to help with this situation but so far his done nothing that i know about perhaps his working with my wife i don't know.


I've basically told her that i am faithful to only her and have no intention of abandoning our marriage. That i love and accept all of her none of this is her fault and if she can tell me what she needs from me to improve this situation to let me know. That she will always have a place here and that i want her to come home. I've told her about wanting to help her feel safe and validate her feelings and if she's willing to communicate with me either through email , text or call (she ignored everything)

I will ask her father if he will mediate between us and see what he says as its a good idea and i haven't phrased it like that before. But i am starting to believe that unless she changes her own thoughts and behaviour and stops self sabotaging the marriage it seems out of my hands.

I think just working on myself being patient and understanding and staying faithful is all that can be done and giving her time and space. It's very disappointing and sad that someone you've shared a life with and committed too can treat you in such a hurtful way and pretend you don't exist and i pray God will work with her and soften her heart.

Just to shift direction a bit... is there a practical application of everything that has been discussed here.

You said that you are contacting her for her birthday - to give her books, flowers and an email - and then will leave her alone for the next 6 months. This is a chance to shift gears. For everyone reading, the books and the email are described below.

It might be constructive to talk about what you are planning to say in that email (below) and explore some of the alternatives that members have suggested in this thread (e.g., apologizing, respecting her space, offering to discuss the future options of reconciliation/divorce through an intermediary, focusing your tone/message, making her feel safe, not repeating things you have said numerous times already, etc).

As an outsider looking in, the message, as it stands, might be is a bit confusing. Baby nutrition? Walking down another street?

---

I actually wrote her a letter and sent it with the gifts and birthday card and asked her to read it after her birthday.

The letter did include an apology and asking for forgiveness for any wrongdoings and that when/if she returns home it would be to a much different husband.

In terms of respecting her space i had asked her in the past if she just wanted space she never told me she needed space and never responded to anything i asked from her the closest i got to some kind of response was "What I'd like you to do is to not contact me anymore unless it's actually important."

I've sent the gifts / card / letter and will get some flowers delivered to her on the day in terms of emailing her it will just be a simple happy birthday etc everything i wanted to say is in the letter.

Outside of this i'm not going to contact her unless she reaches out to me because i agree at this point everything i've done has been fruitless and if anything its just pushing her further away no matter how much i try to reason with her.

What do you think she means by "important"?

I don't exactly know i guess anything unrelated to our relationship for example i was paying for her gym membership i emailed her asking if i could cancel it.

She replied instantly "Hello, yes please do thank you"

We don't really have anything "important" we don't have kids the only other thing im paying for is her mobile phone plan and i didn't message her to cancel that because it might be seen as if im cutting ties or being spiteful or something. (even though shes out of the country and its completely void)

Perhaps she thought maybe i would give up or throw in the towel and say i want a divorce and that would be an important matter ? maybe if something happened to me or my mother and i needed help ? unsure really

Yeah, that would be my read, too.


Do you think its possible that you, as the leader of the family, were insisting on a relationship model that was too extreme for her? Yes, I know you talked about it before you lived in the same country and before you were married. But, two people can agree to share an order of spicy Thai food, but for one spicy might mean 5+ and for the other it might mean 3+ (with 5+ being intolerable).


If she felt you were too controlling and the relationship model too rigid and you said you had changed...

but you kept contacting her weekly (against her will) and keep telling her about her rigid obligations to you...

would she be more convinced that, even with her leaving you, you can't see her concerns? haven't changed?

Do you think sending flowers and an email (in addition to what has been sent) is more likely to make matters better or make them worse?


If you were convinced by the holidays that she has no intention of ever returning, what would you do?

I won't ever initiate or agree to divorce and i've told her that so perhaps she's testing me to see how long i will endure this.


No chance we spent time together multiple times and travelled before we were married and we had almost no issues she wasn't rebellious or disobedient and was overall a very good woman and i was extremely happy with her (which is why i chose her) it was only after the marriage pretty much a week after that it began.

She came from a more formal and strict family and if what she said was true about how she was raised and living then being with me would of been like she finally got her freedom. But then she started accusing me of cheating and then she had create these scenarios saying im a hypocrite and expect her to follow 1 set of rules but im allowed to do anything i want.

In the context it was actually the opposite she would be the 1 doing things wrong then projecting them onto me like im the guilty person and because i already have a pretty strong view on women being manipulative and trying to take control i had the backbone to stand up against her always. I think she was used of getting her own way with people and especially males they would cave in to whatever she wanted as i said she's smart and attractive so she knows she has guys attention but would try to cover that as there "friends" etc and i guess when she met me and realized i don't care how smart she is or how attractive she is ill hold her accountable for her actions and call them out perhaps thats something that initially attracted her to me.

Later on when she realized she wasn't able to get me to cave in to her demands she started to dislike it the more rebellious she became the more tough i would get and it was a constant powerstruggle and she would always lose and i guess she got tired of fighting and losing.

I would explain this to her and tell her the more she fights the harder it gets the more she listens and submits the softer and more caring i become its just the natural way God made us.


I see her concerns and told her we could do things differently and try a different approach i was completely open to being unbiased to my way or the high way and offered her all kinds of different solutions to resolve or improve this situation she opted to take none of them.

I just think spending years saying what u want and behaving in a certain way convincing someone of what kind of person u are and then changing after marriage is a pretty poor thing to do and she would flip it on me and say the person she met/married was an illussion but the reality was the woman i met completely changed. She went from this innocent feminine submissive kind soft hearted loving woman who i would trust with my life and do anything for into this spiteful rebellious rude disobedient woman who no matter what i did she was never thankful and appreciative off constantly putting me down and saying extremely hurtful things that i constantly forgave over and over.

I understand what your saying and that's why i've taken your suggestion of doing a 180 and trying a different approach giving it time and space reducing the contact as much as possible and just focusing on what is within my control i can't do anything about what she does or who she speaks to or how she behaves but i can change how it impacts me and how i react to it and i can feel myself slowly getting better and having more control.


To be honest i think its neutral but i do it more so for myself because i believe its the right thing to do and no matter how bitter she might be she can't hate her husband for sending her a happy birthday message and flowers. I want to be able to say to myself i did everything i could and have no regret will i regret sending stuff no will i regret doing nothing absolutely.


There isn't much that i can do if she decides to not return. I would patiently wait until either she tries to divorce me or i find out she's with someone else committing adultery. For myself i don't intend on moving on or replacing my wife because i think that's a sinful/negative way to think and it hasn't really crossed my mind at this point because i believe we will figure this out. God forbid we don't after something official that crosses my line e.g divorce/adultery then perhaps my thinking would change.


I guess we will see what she does at the end of the month when its her birthday and i still want to remain hopeful.

Ok, let's talk about next steps when it comes to communication/actions.  I have said that the goal should be to make her feel safe, and loved.  To be clear, she is afraid of you, based on what you written in this thread.  She does not trust your leadership, and emotionally she cannot handle arguing with you.  So, the goal is to try and get to the point of safe conversations.  That means don't blame her, don't defend yourself, and don't try to get her to come home.  It also means don't ask her what you are doing wrong.  At least not initially.  The goal is to complete a conversation with her that is positive.  If you have a positive conversation, it will lead to future conversations.  If the conversation leads to an argument, it will be harder to convince her to have another conversation.

As a starting point, ask, through her father, to have a 30 minute conversation with her like she suggested in the first place.  Assure her that you don't want to argue or condemn her, you just want to hear her voice.  I think that would mean a lot to her, as it shows you are listening to her and trying to respect her wishes.

When it comes to written communication, I would strongly encourage you to run it by this forum first.  You have a lot to learn about marriage, and there are many on this forum with successful marriages that can give you good guidance.

The last part I want to emphasize for you, is that she is the only game in town for you.  You have already said that you won't divorce her, and if she divorces you, you will not remarry.  IMO, this is a good thing.  Marriage is hard.  It is easy to come to the conclusion that the problem in your marriage is your spouse, and the solution is to get someone else.  When you take that option away, it keeps forcing you back to working on your marriage instead of deciding it is hopeless and giving up.  With that in mind, you are being asked to do things that you don't want to do.  That it will take away your self respect.  Use the above motivation to push that.

One last thing about self respect.  Let's take the example of Jesus washing his disciple's feet (John 13:1-20).  It is too long to quote here, but the key take away is that Jesus did the role of a slave when he was the leader of the disciples, and in fact the God of the universe.  Washing feet was beneath him.  But he said in verses 13 and 14, "You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.  If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet."  I personally took that to heart, and during my honeymoon, I washed my wife's feet, as that was the tone I wanted to set in our relationship.  I did not feel I was giving up my self respect, because I was choosing to do so, by choosing to surrender my pride to God.  My wife did not make me do it, I chose to do it because I love God and wanted to glorify Him by being the best husband possible.

One other thing that I forgot to mention.  I would continue to send her money.  It is a way to demonstrate faithfulness.  Removing it would send the signal that you are trying to control her through money, which is the exact opposite message that you want to send to her right now.

I will wait until after her birthday (end of month) and then contact her father asking this.


I don't plan to write her anything further so should be safe and agree i have a lot to learn about marriage clearly being in this situation regardless of who's at fault.


We both went into this marriage agreeing on this i am upholding my side of our promise and commitment she however isn't and its why we had difficulties in our marriage she never saw it as im stuck with this man for the rest of my life so i can either try to make it work and improve the marriage or be miserable for the rest of my life. (that's the mindset i have)


I agree with this mindset and would have no issue doing something a long those lines. If my wife contacted me and asked me to do something for her regardless if i think she deserves it or not i would do it for her because i love her. It's when those demands come from a malicious sinful rebellious nature that i feel a man should resist e.g you said your wife didn't ask you to wash her feet but you chose to.

There's a difference but in my situation there's no 2 way communication and nothing being asked of me so im unable to do anything to server her lovingly.


I was of this thought to but others here suggested i stop sending the money its very confusing i am in agreement with your reasoning moreso than the other idea of cutting her off because its giving her reasons to use against me in the end if she does move on or divorce me im not going to regret supporting my wife until God forbid she divorced but i will regret it if i didn't send her money and she uses that against me

Do you suggest i continue sending a receipt of transfer to her father as i have been doing so he knows i am still supporting her ? (I started doing this because she told her father i didn't support her when she was living with me and said i gave her $400 in 10 months of living with me in reality since meeting her the visa alone cost me almost 15,000 and i've easily spent 20,000 on various costs in the relationship sending her roughly 8000 while apart before and after marriage when we waited for visa so now i started sending her father the proof of support to avoid her lying further)

Should you send a receipt to her father?  Sending it once seems fine to correct a misunderstanding of your character.  But I would be hesitant to keep doing so.  Mathew 6, "when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what the right hand is doing."  Keeping records in case you need to provide a defense is a good thing, though.

I don't have time right now, but later I am going to try and write things through how I suspect your wife is viewing things.  It is just my best guess, but it might help you view the situation in a more loving way.

Pretty certain her father knows at this point what she said isn't true regardless if he acknowledges it i had never mentioned money or anything to him until hearing she told him i didn't support her.


Thank you for taking the time to try to help me i appreciate it.

I also think you should continue to send the money and give her notice before you stop. You don't know her dependence on it.


Respectfully, much of what you have written suggests that she rebelled over the relationship model and that there was a power struggle at the center of the friction between the two of you. It would be a mistake to gloss over this. If there is to be any chance of reconciliation, you most likely will need to make real change here. If you are not willing to tone this down, this sounds like a deal breaker for her.

Are you willing to do this to save the marriage?


I think this is a good idea. I would wait a few months (i.e., December) before contacting them again. I also would not send flowers or a birthday email. The books, a card, and the letter are enough. Let things cool down for her (you have been chasing for six months against her wishes). Give her some space now. Show her that respect.

Use the time to explore if you are willing to give up your strict relationship relationship model for a more mainstream/contemporary Christian model. There are plenty of good Christian counselors out there who can help you. We have a number of members here that support you in that effort, too.

You also should use the time to learn how to better support the needs of a special needs partner - whether it is chronic depression, BPD traits, or highly sensitive personality.

Ok, I went through your posts, and here are the things that I gleaned from your situation:

What she brought into the marriage

• anxiety / depression / suicide attempt
• sexual trauma
• What i am certain about is she is a good woman with a good heart she isn't spiteful and she's God fearing
• She is from poorer, non-western country
• She has had other relationships - she was also cheated on and said it messed her up quite a bit and gave her trust issues
• I think she was used of getting her own way with people and especially males they would cave in to whatever she wanted
• when she was younger she moved in with her grandma unfortunately her grandma has passed away so that isn't an option
• You have complained about her having immature and childish behavior
• she is 10 years young than me so she is naive and gullable about the big world out there and being from her country also shielded to a lot of the western degeneracy as well

Issues once married

• had some hardships due to living in different countries
• she was living with me for 10 months depressed / unhappy (maybe 30-40% my own fault)
• during the 10 months it was a slow build up of irritation / small arguements and fights that slowly got worse i withdrew because she was making life difficult
• when i visited she got super angry at me threatened me and told someone i know im "dangerous"
• She's living with her parents but had always complained about hating it there and her mother was apparently her abuser from childhood
• told her parents i didn't financially provide
• has in past accused me of cheating
• After she saw the therapist she said we will only speak 30 mins a week because talking to me brings her stress and anxiety
• always been hesitant about the marriage like 1 foot in the door 1 foot out even a few days after our wedding she wanted to go home
• at the moment at least for me she is stone cold
• She asked me to read the bible and learn about it more which i've been doing
• she was the 1 who told me to go read the bible and learn how to be more of a biblical husband
• So we've constantly had fights over this and her on facebook with male friends i think its wrong and inappropriate for a married woman
• She told them i forced her to cook for me and even when she was upset i didn't care and told her its something she has to do
• Then we get married and she's got a rebellious attitude and struggles with doing all the things she claimed were according to God have constant issues with her listening and submitting.
• (i withdrew to playing video games which is was my go to coping mechanism) she then used that as the "issue" of why she's unhappy.
• We live with my mother
• The truth is we were both just struggling with depression i withdrew to games she withdrew to crying and wanting to escape
• Stay at home wife - she tried to distract herself with a job which i told her i didn't want her to do but "allowed" it because it was something she was passionate about but this wasn't part of the plan/agreement the agreement was she would persue her interests until she came here then we would start a family and she would stay home and not work.
• i was just this ruthless savage man who treated her like a slave
• I need to move out rent my own place alone for the forseeable future
• I'm not going to move out but i told her if she was to come home and tell me any issues if there are any involving my mother i would address them and if they couldn't be addressed i would consider moving out because she is always going to be a priority over my mother and i've made that clear to her.
• I have worked with her slowly through a range of health issues eating disorder , panic attacks , hormone problems
• I was actually the opposite of what you claim i had simple rules and she had the freedom to do mostly whatever she wanted once she started taking advantage of that and becoming rebellious i also became more tough to ensure she didn't get her way and control the relationship.
• Later on when she realized she wasn't able to get me to cave in to her demands she started to dislike it the more rebellious she became the more tough i would get and it was a constant powerstruggle and she would always lose and i guess she got tired of fighting and losing.

My thoughts in next post.

So based on the prior post, here is how I see things.  You had a long distance relationship.  It is always difficult to get a read on a person in a long distance relationship.  You are going to be on your best behavior when you are in person.  You get married, and that requires her to relocate to your country (I am guessing that you were married for quite some time until she was legally allowed to emigrate to your country).  I picture her as 18-21 and you in your early 30s. 

It is very difficult for her to get used to living in a foreign country.  She has lost her entire support structure.  One reason, she probably insisted on her Facebook friends was it was a tie to her old country and support.  With the lack of support, and the fact that she is a homemaker, you become the only support that she has.  She expects you to meet her every emotional need, which is too much for any man.  Any time you don't spend with her, like video games, she resents.

Like most women today, you are not the first man that she has dated.  She makes the mistake of comparing you to her prior boyfriends, and thinking that a husband is going to put her on a pedestal like a boyfriend would.

Once you got married, you weren't who she thought you were.  She had issues with your view of husband leadership (and you know that I do too).  She thought she was getting a servant leader, and she got a king instead.  She wants you to be the spiritual leader, but your knowledge of the Bible is limited.  So, she asks you to read the Bible more and learn more about what it means to be a Biblical husband.  An additional stresser is that she is living with her mother-in-law.  That is a difficult thing for any young bride.  A part of her is worried that she made a mistake marrying you.  All couples deal with fights in the first year of marriage, as you try to merge 2 lives into one, but the fights start to get worse.  As the fights get worse, you start to exert more control.  She is starting to experience physical symptoms of the stress.  She is starting to think about ending her life - exercising the "until death do us part" portion of the vow.  She comes to a decision.  She has to lower her emotional stress, or she will end her life.  She chooses separation.  You don't react well to that, so she opts for no contact.

Yes i think that's the best option.


I am willing to compromise on a lot of things yes because at the end of the day i love her and i want the marriage to survive.


I don't know if its insecurity but when i read things like this i just think in a few months she's going to completely forget about me and her marriage and move on and i already feel like she's just waiting for that 12 month separation period to start divorce but again it's my insecurity not what she's been saying.


Correct and it was extremely stressful process for us both.


We had issues with her facebook before and after marriage 95% of her friends on facebook are males who aren't even from her country she claims they are just friends and interested in the same kind of music etc the reality is 90% of them find her attractive and would love an opportunity with her. As her husband i am against male/female friendships i cut my social media and any female friends and it was what she agreed to do before marriage she said she would consider it inappropriate to have male friends when married after we got married that wasn't the case anymore.

Yes meeting every emotional need which is impossible and something she has to get under control. At the start she was okay and even joined me after few weeks and the novely wore off she started to get worse and then wanted to go get a job which i told her was a bad idea but she decided to do it anyway.


We went spent as much time as possible together she was confident on marrying me and when 2 people get married you never really know them fully until you live together that's the case for most couples. She didn't have issues with my idea of marriage , leadership and submission at all from years of talking with her i was very clear on what exactly and why i believed certain things should be a certain way. There was no hiding anything or toning it down until she was married then just changing everything she knew 100% exactly what i wanted and she was in absolute full agreement with it.


This is part of any new marriage which is why it wasn't concerning the issue is if your not 100% in the marriage and honoring your views your not motivated to fix anything when you have a run away option. With her past relationships they were mostly long distance as soon as she stopped idealizing them she discarded them and blocked them.

She had issue with me because she couldn't do that when she was here when she finally got home she tried to do that and didn't realize that's not how a marriage works and she can't treat me like a boyfriend. She had all these issues of depression , stress and anxiety before she met me after she met me during living with her parents and during living with me. This is why its unfair for me to take all the blame or justify her behaviour and she needs to realize she has some issues that need to be resolved and if she works with her husband to get through them she will have a much better life.

Instead she's opted to repeat her malicious self sabotaging behaviour of discarding and will most likely repeat the cycle with another if she does end up divorcing me. She's taken no accountability or responsibility for her own behaviour. I can blame myself all day and tell her its all my fault im very sorry please forgive me and she would still ignore me and not change a thing if anything it would make me look pathethic and help her move on easier by accept full liability for the breakdown of the marriage.

At least by telling her no sorry you have issues and you are also responsible for this and because you've opted to run from your problems and not communicate and self sabotage the marriage you are essentially the reason its failing not me.

I think based on her behaviour she has some undiagnosed issue at first i thought it was Disassociate identity disorder and then thought BPD was more in line nothing she's done makes sense i don't know what's true or what isn't true and there's so many things that are out of context and exagerated.

I feel like trying to reason with someone who is in this mindset isn't possible even accepting full blame for everything wouldn't phase her in the slightest i don't think this is about "Me" and what i've done or said i think this is about "Her" and being unstable and her views and actions being all over the place.

What her husband can do is support her and try to work through it with her which is what i've done from the start but no matter what i did it wasn't good enough and i never had any peace it was a constant struggle.

When we entered into this marriage we were both going into it committing until death do us part with those vowels it sets the foundation to overcome any obstacle no matter how big or small and she's forsaken her vowels and marriage and i can't hold it together alone she needs to find God and be forgiving and soften her heart and show love to her husband which will allow me to make changes to improve things if she just stonewalls me and blocks me out completely what can i really do ?

I can't help but look at your situation and think of mine.  We have a lot of similarities.  I am from the US, and my wife is from Mexico.  She was already a student in the US, though.  We had a long distance relationship.  We got married and my wife also kept one foot out the door.  She was also a homemaker, and during the first 10+ years of marriage she was often disappointed with me.  She would often misread my actions, and assign the worst possible motivation to them.  Part of it was probably cultural, part of it is probably the differences between how men and women think, and part of it (that we discovered later) was that I am autistic.  She would compare my actions to that of her prior boyfriends.  We got to a point in our relationship where I suspected that she might have BPD (hence the reason why I joined this forum), but now I am convinced that she does not.  Our relationship became one where the goal was to avoid fighting.  Eventually a fight would happen, and for the next 3 days she would be cool to me.  Then we would try again.  I was in my 40s and hoping that God would take me in my 50s, and did not take care of my health.

On a positive note, our relationship is very good now.  To be honest, I don't think I changed much of what I was doing.  She drastically changed her approach to me.  When I was diagnosed as autistic, she accepted me for who I am.  She stopped expecting me to be the ideal, and instead appreciated what I did do for her.  She hasn't told me, but I think she made a resolution to not criticize me, something that she usually holds to now.  She has become concerned about my health as she doesn't want to lose me and be alone.  She often tells me how much she appreciates having me as her husband.

Some nuggets of wisdom for your marriage.  I quoted you earlier, the first half 1 Peter 3:7.  Let me quote you the first half now, "You husbands likewise, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel since she is a woman."  Your wife is not as strong as you are.  She can't handle the amount of conflict and stress that you can.  While a man is motivated by a code of honor and keeping his word, a woman is motivated by emotion.

To state the above in a different way, it is easy to condemn your spouse and say, "I don't do this bad behavior; neither should she."  However, you also have failures that she does not.  If she only had bad behaviors that you also had, then she would be better than you, since you have bad behaviors she does not.  Wisdom is understanding that your bad behaviors are different than hers, and if she has to accept your bad behaviors, you have to accept hers as well.

On the topic of opposite sex relationships after marriage, it can be a tricky subject.  My wife had some jealousy issues towards me.  I have never been that concerned about my wife's online friends.  At first I dug my heels in, and insisted on keeping some platonic female friendships with coworkers.  My wife didn't like it, but opted to pray instead.  I met a female coworker for lunch, and it just felt weird after marriage, and I never did it again.  Prayer worked.

The point of me summarizing things from her perspective was to help you have more compassion for her.  The issue for her is not a lack of devotion to her marriage vow or a lack of love for you; the issue is that she emotionally reached the end of her rope.  She had to do something to reduce her stress.  Managing her stress, imo, is the key to having a healthy relationship with her.

This is where the issue is she was always 50/50 in the marriage so it is a devotion and commitment issue as well as a vowel issue she's literally abandoned her marriage cut contact with me gone back on her word about divorce broken her promises she made to me.

I can't change or manage anything to do with her stress if i am unable to have a healthy mature conversation with her. If she can't even sit down with me and talk and the 1 time i did see her she asked why i was here and went into her room and refused to speak to me what hope do i have of repairing anything.

This is the obstacle i am facing right now i have a run away wife who's seemingly painted me black discarded me has no empathy or emotions towards me whatsoever has blocked and refuses to communicate on any level.

Explain to me where this leaves me in trying to improve our situation regardless of my views or how flexible i am willing to be lets say hypothetically i said yes ill accept full blame its all my fault im a failure of husband etc my wife is an amazing woman and she's flawless never put a foot wrong and ill give in and submit and do anything she asks of me.

Ok now what ? she still isn't going to speak to me or reply so how does that help me exactly ?

Next steps?  We already discussed that.  You are going to be mostly no contact and then ask her father to arrange a 30 minute low stress conversation with her.

If I understand correctly, your plan is to send a gift for her birthday, and then ask her father to arrange a phone conversation with her.  If the goal is to have a low stress, no fight phone conversation, the last 2 books on the list are counter-productive.  In regards to the cookbooks, does she like cooking and view it as a hobby?  How do you expect her to receive cook books from you?

I've already sent the books so can't do much about that now. I'll wait to speak with her father and see how it goes.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

Being a man in a relationship is not about control and obedience or elevating yourself by seeing your partner as inferior. It's about confidence, strength, patience, benevolence, wisdom, and grace.


Accept that the marriage problems have been years in the making and there is uncertainty in what lies next. There is. There are always uncertainties we must face - in love, in health, in wealth.

But there is no uncertainty that this struggle is calling on you to rise up and face it with confidence, strength, patience, benevolence, wisdom, and grace.

Put the old ways behind you.

I would recommend focusing on the following 3 topics before your phone conversation with her.
1.  Continued discussion on whether your views on husband leadership was an issue in your relationship with her.  Since she isn't talking we need to figure out what areas of your behavior were the drivers of her decision to leave.
2.  Your anger towards her.  I get it.  The 2 of you became one flesh, and then she ripped out your heart when she left.  You have a lot of reasons to be angry, but when it comes to reconciliation, your anger is going to get in the way.
3.  Understanding JADE and how to avoid it.  Since the goal is a low conflict first meeting with her, and she might blame you in this first meeting, avoiding JADE is important to keep the conflict in the conversation low.

Others on this board are much better qualified than I to address items 2 and 3.

From her perspective yes they would be. From a realistic & logical perspective not so much.


Pride , Stubborness , the ability to win arguements , depression , not seeing eye to eye on opposite sex friends (after marriage) but she was in agreement before marriage , not giving her enough attention because i was struggling myself

Those would be some of the obvious ones im aware of after a lot of reflection and i have / want to change all of them except the opposite sex friends thing its a non negotionable for me.

I think more of the reason of her leaving really has to do with her and her past history. If she was like this before she met me and after and if she changed right after marriage (7 or so days into being married) she was already fighting with me and saying shes going home and her father told her she can't do that and weeks later she apologized and said she would never do something like that again. Kind of implies a lot of the issue was with her and i've already accepted and taken responsibility for my issues and apologized for them and acknowledged them and worked to correct a lot of them.


I wouldn't call it anger im not angry at her im disappointed , frustrated and irritated and its not because she went back to her parents as i said i was okay with that and i supported it as i believed it was a good idea to give us some breathing room. The issues i have are with her childish behaviour , refusal to communicate and the way she tried to manipulate me into giving her control and then blocking me.

I will/have forgiven her for everything she's done up to now and as previously mentioned the 1 thing i won't forgive under any circumstance is unfaithfulness (being intimate sexually with someone else).


Will read about JADE but i do not expect for her father to be of any use when i contact him nor do i forsee my wife being reasonable and communicating with me either directly or indirectly i mean the reason im on a BPD forum is that her behaviour makes no sense so expecting her to be reasonable or somehow magically paint me white again seems far fetched perhaps im wrong.

It's very hard for me to maintain hope and continue when i haven't made any progress or been given any kind of motivation all that's keeping me going is God and prayer and wanting to honor my commitment i made to  her and to God.

"Continued discussion on whether your views on husband leadership was an issue in your relationship with her."


Good, I am glad that we can agree on this.  Whether you are in the wrong is a separate discussion.

Which ever emotion you want to call it, it comes through in what you write.  Being able to get past those emotions is important in restoring the relationship.


Her behavior doesn't make any sense?  I wrote a series of lengthy posts explaining how her behavior does make sense.  As for lacking hope, I understand that feeling, and experienced it at times in my relationship.  In my case, I had a high degree of confidence that God chose her to be my wife (and still do).  I don't know if you have that confidence or not.  Regardless, I do agree to holding to God, and praying to the one who can even raise the dead, and honoring your commitment are good things to be doing.  It feels insane to be doing the same things and expecting different results, but I did in my marriage, and did see great results in the end.  I can't promise that your experience will be the same as mine, but there is reason to hope.

I honestly believe God had made her to match me perfectly and still believe that we will end up together its just painful going through all of this. I am hoping things get a little more easier or there's at least some form of hope even if its something small like a thank you for her birthday card or something.

It's stressful for me because i've gone 6 months and don't really know what she's thinking or where she's at what her plan is. It's all unknown to me i don't know if she's trying to move on or if she's going to stay in the marriage and just be separated the unknown makes it more difficult.

Not having any communication does make it difficult to know what someone is thinking.

I think there's good advice here already and I don't have any to add. I did want to clarify the discussion on continuing to send money as I did participate in that. Whenever we are trying to make the best decision we can- tuning in to our own values often helps.

The idea of not sending it is based on feelings of anger, resentment- but even so, you want to feel you gave the relationship the best possible chance. I think you have come up with your own best answer based on your values. Your wish is that she will continue the marriage but it's not possible to know what she decides. You don't want to feel that discontinuing the money contributed to a decision to not continue the relationship.  I agree with the others that continuing to send the money to her is the better decision-for now. In addition, they may be needing it for something and you don't want to cause harm if you discontinue it.

I agree with Notwendy. This is a challenging time and it is most difficult to not know what she is thinking. I know that hurts.

Let's break down what is happening. Why do people stonewall? Why do people become passive-aggressive?

Is it to punish you?  No. Not likely, based on what you are telling us. It's more often a defense mechanism. It often happens in an environment where the direct expression of disagreement is discouraged (real or perceived). When one feels that they cannot express their opinions and emotions openly, or that it is futile to do so, or they will be met with an overwhelming counter response, they eventually shut down or use indirect methods of expression.

Is this a dynamic that has developed in your marriage?

It may not be obvious to you, but there was a significant power differential in this relationship. You had the money, you are older, you are bigger and stronger, you owned everything; she was isolated in your country/culture and entirely dependent on you for everything, including food and shelter. And you both prescribed to an unequal relationship model where the power dynamic was shifted even more in your favor.

It became too much and she ran home to a more nurturing environment. It's one thing to read these things in a book, and its another to live it. Her parting message could be interpreted as this is not working for me, I need a life with more independence.

.	Quote from: understandbpd on September 14, 2023, 02:42:44 PM She said: I need to basically change my entire life I need to get a good job with good money I need to go to therapy for minimum 1 year I need to move out rent my own place alone for the forseeable future

To be fair, this arrangement would be hard on any woman. It would be harder on a very young women. It would be harder, still, on a woman with BPD traits because shame and low self-worth are inherent in their personality. No blame here; on you or on her. You were doing what you thought was best and I suspect she was, too.

I know it's excruciating to think that you may have inadvertently contributed to the very thing that is breaking your heart. We all get that. This is a deeply painful realization that many members ultimately experience. If you read on the parenting board, for example, the number one question parents have is "Did I do this to my baby". And the answer is "you contributed to it. You didn't (couldn't) realize that you had a special needs child. You will now need to learn what those needs are. You can only change going forward. You can't go back".

Does this seem like a realistic assessment of why she has cut off communications?


Here is the dilemma I think you face in turning this around and why I would lay low for a few months. You already declared that you had changed. I think you did change some things, but you haven't changed the most significant issue of all, your living interpretation of Ephesians 5:22-25 (your relationship model). This theme has been a constant in six months of weekly and biweekly unanswered communications, including the birthday gift (The Excellent Wife book) currently en route to her for her birthday at the end of the month.

You can't just say, never mind, I've changed since I mailed you the book  :). It's not true and it's not believable.

The first step is to challenge yourself on whether your beliefs and the mentors you choose have a complete understanding of God's word. The Bible is complicated and it is easy to take things out of context. If you genuinely believe that context is lacking (or may be lacking), you need to expand your horizons with different spiritual mentors. There are christian counselors and seminary colleges with night classes that can help you examine your beliefs. There are bible studies in local churches.

Are you genuinely motivated to do a deep dive like this? It's a big decision.

Before you can proclaim "change" in your email, real transformation has to happen in your heart and for your heart.

This is a very high bar.

As painful as this has been, could it be that the Holy Spirit is guiding you to make this transformation?

I want to jump in this discussion with some ideas that I haven’t seen fully explored. First, women in their early twenties are very changeable. They are not fully formed adults yet. Research shows that men’s brains don’t completely mature until age 25, and though there is speculation that women’s brains mature some years earlier, we are all individuals.

Anecdotally, I’ve seen lots of young women in their 20s make huge changes in their lives, just as a result of maturing. I include myself.

In addition, she is from a foreign country that you don’t specify, and perhaps what she has experienced in the presumably more cosmopolitan country where you live has given her food for thought. Perhaps she is reevaluating some of her previous ideas about what a relationship is, given that she has experienced cultural differences she might otherwise have not known about nor understood.

You say that, against your wishes, she sought out a job in your country. Certainly that would have exposed her to some different ideals and values that she may not have previously considered.

You seem intent upon holding her to the premarital agreement of the type of marriage that you so vehemently want. Now that she has lived with you for a while, and understands from experience what it is you require, perhaps she’s not as interested in complying with your ideal of what a marriage should be.

That you have sent her books on being the kind of wife you want, yet at the same time, telling her you are a *changed man*, seems to indicate the falsity of that claim.

If you truly want to retain the marriage, the best step would be to quit demanding what you want and find out what she wants.

Yes she would say that its hard to communicate with me and say i gaslight her i also cut her off a lot of the time and definetly invalidated her feelings a lot as well. When she would say how she feels i would usually respond with why those feelings made no sense or with a logical (almost lawyer like response) and always wanting to fix things not listen.

I've identified a lot of these issues and a lot of it i just didn't even know about it wasn't something i was intentionally doing to hurt her it was just a lack of emotional intillegence to an extent which is why i feel a lot more confident now after learning.


I feel a constant pressure of a clock ticking down to reach that full 12 month seperation period until she can divorce me. Whether that's actually what she is planning to do or just insecurity combined with the unknown thinking and if she's moving on or upholding her faithfulness its extremely difficult to imagine just leaving the situation for months. I will do what i can to limit contact as much as possible and go with what we've agreed on the previous posts.


I am willing to compromise to an extent but not overhaul my entire belief/views on God and marriage to suit someone with a personality disorder that isn't upholding her end of the commitment and the way i view it is like if you allow a woman to lead you down a path that contradicts what God has instructed then your being lead to destruction.


I don't think it "could be" i am 100% certain and strongly believe that this separation had to happen for me to firstly get out of my depressive phase which it did and make some significant changes in my life it's unforunate that it took her leaving for it to happen but i am glad. Because if it didn't happen we would of continued in a cycle of fighting and things would of been so bad it would of been unsavable afterwards that was initially the idea behind me agreeing for her to go back to her parents for 2-3 months.

I also strongly believe God gives us tribulations and trials to make us better e.g the story of Job so i am not afraid of pain or suffering and embrace it and learn from it and it strengthens my faith in God i have never thought to myself why has God done this to me and blamed God i always look for the positive and lessons within my suffering.


Tried to leave some details out intentionally just to be safe but she's from a middle eastern country (islamic) but from a christian family.


I told her it was a bad idea and that i didn't support it but i said if she chose to she could because i allowed her free choice. She liked the job itself because it was part of what she was interested in but as i expected she got a lot of cultural shocks she hated the travelling back and forth and she was absolutely exhausted every day which contributed to her decline in mood and behaviour even further and its also when she started eating less healthy and not attending the gym more so overall it was a bad decision.


We both entered into a unbreakable agreement between each other and God that we spent years discussing and agreeing to. I sent her books from people she would send me things about e.g the transformed wife (her ideas not mine) i sent her another book that is a couples book for DBT and BPD and a combo book for husband and wife (Explary husband for me) and (The excellent wife for her) so we can both learn and be guided on what we agreed on.


Without sounding rude i don't really like your tone and the way you speak and i also get red flag feminist vibes from specific words you use and im not really interested in your input based on that. If i wanted to marry a woman who has a rebellious and evil nature and issues with submission and feminist views i would of married 1 but i opted to remain single to avoid that misery the woman i married was the completely opposite of all of that.

I do want my marriage to work but a marriage isn't about what she wants we married each other because we love each other and were in absolute agreement on our beliefs and what we wanted from a life and marriage. You can't just abandon all of that run home to dad and stonewall someone until you get your way that's childish and ridiculous and nobody should treat there partner this way let alone show such dishonor for there vowels they made to each other and God.

It’s good that you are identifying these issues. Also it would be good to communicate your different understanding about this, once the doors of communication reopen.


So many of us are in the same boat. We didn’t realize the impact of our behavior and we had no ill intentions whatsoever.


It makes sense that you feel the time pressure—anyone would. And how frustrating it is that you are unable to communicate with her to understand what is going on.


That’s fine—I know I can come across as abrasive at times. Interesting that based upon that, you choose to disregard anything I could contribute to the discussion.


Yet somehow you have married a woman with a rebellious nature. Do you see any value in perhaps understanding why that may have occurred?


That’s an interesting outlook


And yet she won’t take your calls.

I don't disregard anyones contributions i just think we may have very different views on marriage and a womans role based on your comments. So rather than argue back and forth about who's right and wrong it's easier to just be upfront. You're entitled to your beliefs as am i and my wife and i shared the same views upon meeting and throughout the entire relationship.


Assuming she has BPD she most likely idealized me after she discarded the last person she used. She would of been attracted to me because i have very strong views on submission and she liked it and felt safe. Her having issues and trouble childhood and me having what im starting to think is co-dependancy wanted to be the saviour of her and fix everything. All i've wanted in my life was someone who could match my loyalty and commitment and i believed she could and that marriage is a commitment until death that's exactly what we both understood and went into.

With that mindset you are motivated to love each other unconditionally and work through whatever obstacles you face as a team there is no running away or abandoning it and in old times if you did you'd either accept being alone the rest of your life or you'd be put to death if you tried to re marry that is Gods intention that 2 people become 1 flesh and you love your wife/husband as you love your own flesh you can't just split apart just because she goes to a court and someone says ok your now divorced means absolutely nothing in Gods eyes. If she divorces me legally and re marries she's still comitting adultery and sin and will be punished accordingly.

I plan to uphold my vowels and commitment and try to love my wife as best as i can in this situation and part of that love is trying to help her see her sinful and rebellious behaviour and how destructive it trully is i mean after all she is literally carrying out the actions of the women she despised since i met her and i believe that carries a heavy burden on her especially when she claimed to not believe in divorce and that its ridiculous that women divorce over pretty much anything. (this is our situation)


I am guessing you aren't religious based on your comments perhaps im wrong but God's intention for marriage is for 2 people to become 1 and to live there lives serving God. God created a woman to be the helpmeet to man that is her God intended purpose is to help her husband love him care for him and do so in a submissive way with a meek and quiet spirit.

Naturally any good God fearing man who has a woman who isn't rebellious or fights for power will want to serve his wife and do anything for her this is my belief the reason we are having so many issues is she wants to fight for control and be disobedient and i naturally will not let that happen so now we are in a situation where she's become destructive and will destroy her life and mine because she can't get the control she wants. If she wanted control or didn't like the idea of submission and Gods intention then she should of thought about that before making such a serious commitment.

All of our relationship issues have stemmed from her struggling with submission and rebellion something she has openly admitted and even said to some extent there's a "demon" she is battling to do the right thing. The answer to this isn't giving in to her or letting her get full control the answer is her learning to submit humbly and embracing Gods word and for me to educate myself and learn to become a better husband and spiritually lead and work on improving my communication and emotional intelligence to be better equipped to help her and make her feel safe.


That's ok its a reflection of her emotional immaturity not only is she self sabotaging and destroying her marriage and life but she's wasting her most important years of her life and going down a path of destruction and divorce. I wouldn't consider that something to be proud of and if she put the effort she has into stonewalling me into her marriage she would be in a much better place. (The most ironic thing is 99% of our issues in our marriage could be resolved by sitting down for a hour or so and communicating them clearly.)

I agree. I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you about your beliefs. Rather my intent is to explore what happened in that your wife is now far away and is refusing to communicate with you.


She agreed to that and now she is in violation of her agreement. (This is typical BPD, though we can’t know for certain if she has that, or if this is merely a change of heart.)


My first point centers around the age she was when you first became involved with her. In my country, it is illegal for minors to enter into a contract because they don’t have the mental capacity to enter into a binding legal agreement. I’m not saying she was a minor when she married you, but if she came from a very conservative religious family (due to limited exposure which could have slowed down the process of developing her own autonomy and sense of self—i.e. maturity), and/or she has BPD, she may have made a commitment without having the emotional maturity to be able to honor it.

That in your mind, there is no escape clause for having made a choice to marry that she might later regret, puts you in a situation where she could perceive you as predatory and punitive. (I’m not saying you are, but I’m trying to imagine how someone, who fled from a family where there was stated abuse, and has now fled from a marriage to return to that family—might be thinking.)


Again, this puts you in a position where you are telling her that she is sinful, her behavior is destructive, and she’s a hypocrite since she once condemned that very behavior in other women. Can you see how this might undermine your intentions of reopening dialog with her? Really, who wants to hear that they are *bad* from someone who says that they love them? Even emotionally healthy people would be disinclined to return to that. Add BPD to the mix, and it becomes explosive. People with BPD hate being told they are bad, as they already feel so much self loathing.


My beliefs play no part in this. I’m merely looking at your dynamic from the point of view of trying to imagine how your communication might land with a woman who is possibly someone with BPD.


Again, think about that she might have made the commitment without having the maturity to fully understand what she was committing to. Also that she was exposed to a more cosmopolitan society than she had been accustomed to—that can cause reevaluation of one’s beliefs, especially in such a young person.


The first part of your answer (her learning to submit) is totally out of your control. You cannot make her do something/learn something/submit if she’s not willing to do so. And apparently she isn’t—that’s why she is with her family rather than you. The second point (you improving yourself) is within your power and it appears that you are learning a lot.


It’s a choice she’s making, and it’s completely out of your control.

A lot of people on this forum seem to think that clear communication is a magic cure-all for issues in their marriage. Perhaps that can be the beginning of a workable solution for partners who are emotionally healthy. Sadly, with people with BPD, communication is only a very first step in making improvements. It’s often a very long road to getting lasting positive change and as the *non* partner, we have to do the lion’s share of the work.

I would appreciate this and consider it helpful especially from a womans perspective.


She was usually pretty good at keeping her commitments and promises but wasn't so good with time management lol. I do think this situation and the thought of divorce is putting a great deal of stress on her and i do not believe it's what she really wants deep down.

I mainly say this because other than the 1 or so times she's mentioned it she has done nothing to move towards that option and in the limited contact ive had she never talked about divorce just asked me to not contact her (i guess you could take that either way and say she is done or she just needs time)


She was young but definetly not a minor and she was very mature for her age even to my suprise the maturity level of women in the eastern countries compared to western is very different and i think that's why we were able to get along well.

I do think she didn't fully develop her sense of self and she mentioned 1 time she had taken being a wife as her entire being and she constantly felt like she hasn't achieved anything in life etc (not because of being a wife just in general she felt like she was constantly wasting her life away) in reality she wasn't she was very intelligent and mature for her age she was quite deep and educated in history and philosophy and spoke multiple languages which was pretty impressive for such a young woman.

I tried to encourage her and tell her how amazing she was and she shouldn't worry so much about things but she constantly stressed and wanted a 100 different things in life. I am more relaxed and consider the marriage and starting a family to be the end goal of success and feel very comfortable and content.

I am of the opinion having our first child would of put a lot of that worry and lack of purpose to rest within her. She spoke about having kids as soon as possible the younger the better and wanted many but when she got here she changed her tune and kept stressing about finances and setting up the "perfect" situation to have children. I wanted children straight away but did not pressure her and believed she needed time to adjust to different country / culture and settle in and seeing her already struggling it was a bad idea to get her pregnant as well. Sometimes i think perhaps if i ignored all of that and she was pregnant it would of locked in her commitment to marriage and would of only been a matter of time before those worries she had faded away alternatively could of gone in the opposite direction and been a disaster.


She had time to make a decision especially with long distance and i went through her father and spoke direct with him and got his permission so if they believed something was wrong they would of stopped it. It was actually the opposite and they really liked me and didn't make it too difficult for me which was good. I don't see the commitment as a no escape clause i see it as a commitment and loyalty thing if you love someone enough and have saved yourself for marriage then it obviously means a great deal to you. I don't believe any person should enter a marriage thinking of ways out or to feel like there trapped.

She was never stuck here she could go back to her country and i paid for everything i think i actually made her life too easy compared to what she was used of at her parents and perhaps that's my mistake too much freedom and being the nice guy to her wanting to keep her happy backfired.

Assuming she does have BPD isn't 1 of the most common things just running away from problems and painting them black its why partners seem to struggle so much with discard because 1 minute there in love the next the person is a stranger. I don't think justifying her actions as a "Normal" person in this situation makes much sense because i do not believe i am mainly responsible for what she's doing.


This could be possible some people believe she just used me for a visa and it was her plan / families plan all along i don't believe that personally but i could see how it plays in her favor i don't know if she intends to return to my country in the future or after she divorces but she did tell me previously she didn't like living here and prefered her country.


I agree all i can do is guide her and provide the information she has to willingly do the rest and that's basically what i intended with the books from people she introduced me to.


I mainly say this because if you said what's the biggest issue or the deal breaker that we can't seem to resolve there isn't 1 to sum up what happen is she's had a turbulent past came into a marriage with emotional baggage was depressed struggling i was also depressed struggling so neither of us could emotionally support the other properly so we withdrew things went into a cycle of minor fights that slowly escalated over little things.

So thinking back now with the information i have about BPD and emotional intelligence and previously not really connecting the dots that she had some serious issues going on i would be much more empathetic and would of got her professional help. Instead i invalidated her feelings because to me they were ridiculous and she was being dramatic and childish (I actually said these things to her and she hated it and became even worse) then i would continue saying she's proving my point that she's acting like a child.

The sad thing is i didn't realize she had some form of personality disorder and i didn't realize my own mistakes of invalidating someone who is feeling a certain way simply because i couldn't make logical sense of why she felt that way and instead just provided solutions and tried to fix everything. I do regret this part of the marriage because i love her and i don't believe what happen to her as a child growing up is her fault and she deserves to be loved and feel safe and that's what is motivating me to keep holding on and improving myself because i don't want to see her divorced and ruining her life knowing she lost someone who does love her and would do anything for her.

I do trully hope she will slowly soften her heart and give our marriage a real opportunity and we can reconcile and have a stronger marriage.


This sums up how i feel because it's always been me holding things together and making it work and chasing her to "fix" it and felt like if i was to just sit back do nothing then it be over and she wouldn't chase me or fix anything and just give up.

I sometimes drink tea sitting in the garden and just ponder is a relationship / marriage really meant to be this stressful and difficult and also taking a look back i've only had 3 serious relationships and all 3 it was always me fighting to keep it which hurts because i thought my wife would be someone who would fight for me too and never give up or abandon me. I told her my fears and what i've always wanted and she told me she would never give up on me or hurt me and would never leave under any circumstance and promises this over and over.

So for it to now be happening without any serious reasoning e.g cheating , abuse , drugs etc etc it is extremely disheartening and hard to deal with.

Let's talk some more about the husband's leadership in the family.  I already gave you verses on servant leadership which I believe you rejected.  I am not going to restate them here.

I would like to suggest to you that your position and your wife's are probably not polar opposites.  She probably does still believe that the wife should submit to her husband, however your interpretation of what that means is too extreme for her.  Some flexibility on your part might go a long way in making it easier for her to submit to you.  It should also be noted that we should be growing in our Christian walk.  She may grow in her ability to submit to you.  I know that my wife did with me.  Having less than the ideal today, doesn't mean it can't get better in the future.  However, that won't happen so long as you have the mindset that surrendering an inch means that you can't respect yourself and she will use it to walk all over you.  An inch can just mean an inch.

It should also be noted that you live in a western country, which does not recognize a husband's authority over his wife.  She can refuse to submit and there isn't much you can do about it.  It should also be noted that when she refuses to submit, it is really an issue between her and God.  He will deal with her when it comes to sin in her life.

How to handle things in an imperfect world is challenging.  I stopped discussing the theology of Old Testament divorce with you as it seemed to be a side topic, but I think it actually applies here.  Let's review the verses. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 says, "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, and if the latter husband...<summary: divorces her or dies>... then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance."

Some key points from this passage.  Divorce was legal, and established by God since God inspired both the Old and New Testament.  There was no expectation that marrying another would result in the execution of either of them for adultery.  If divorce equals adultery equals execution, then the Bible would not cover remarriage to the original when a second marriage had ended.

Let's now talk about New Testament verses on divorce.  Matthew 5:31-32 says, "And it was said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce', but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (Luke 16:18 has the reverse that the man also commits adultery if he remarries).

Matthew 19:3-8 says, "And some Pharisees came to Him, testing Him, and saying, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?'  And He answered and said, 'Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said 'For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to the wife, and the two shall become one flesh?  Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.'  They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate and divorce her?'  He said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way.'"

From these verses, we see that while God allowed divorce, he still views it as sin.  But why allow divorce at all?  My interpretation of the above verse is that insisting on perfection with imperfect people can do even more damage.  If divorce was not allowed, you would probably see an increase in 3 things - murder, suicide, and "open" marriages where the husband was practically divorced from his wife, but did not release her.  God, in his wisdom, saw that allowing divorce was better for the long term health of society, even though it was contrary to His design.

So, why do I bring this up?  Your wife and you are at odds about your roles in marriage.  You insisting on perfection is resulting in the complete destruction of your marriage.  Some kind of compromise may save your marriage, and allow you both to get better at your roles.  In my mind, the simplest compromise is you make decisions, she decides on whether to follow, and you let God deal with her if she refuses to follow your lead.

One last thing about leadership.  You are the leader, but you can still delegate.  You don't have to make all the decisions.  Proverbs 31:16 says, "She considers a field and buys it, from her earnings she plants a vineyard."  The Proverbs 31 woman is praised as an example for women to follow, but it shows that doesn't mean that she lacks the ability to make decisions.

Yes, marriages are usually very difficult, especially the first year.  We both bring our sin into the marriage, and 2 becoming one flesh is difficult.  It can get a lot better.

You probably misunderstood me i don't disagree with servant leadership and don't reject the bible verses you have mentioned. It might be we have different interpretations of those within a marriage and specific scenarios.


As mentioned i am willing to be flexible if i wasn't i would of sent her my terms of marriage and said make a decision you follow these or you can go divorce me.

I understand i am new to marriage and being a husband and it takes time to develop the right skills needed to have a successful marriage but the part about not leaving each other is what allows a marriage and 2 people to grow and improve if 1 of those abandons there vowels you sabotage that growth.


This applies to when a man marries a woman and is intimate with her he finds some uncleaness e.g she isn't a virgin that he may put her away or any other uncleaness based on KJV and Strong's H6172 definition.

Divorce is not adultery but remarrying and or sleeping with another person other than your wife or husband (first marriage) is adultery and the punishment for adultery was death. That is why in 1 Corinthians 7:11 it says if she departs let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband and let not the husband put away his wife. It does not say let her go re marry because God allows it.


Jesus said from the beginning it wasn't so (God's intention was for 2 people to become 1 flesh forever that's it) it also only talks about husbands divorcing wives not wives being allowed to divorce husbands.

It also says any man that puts away his wife other than Fornication (wife not being a virgin on consumation) then that man also commits adultery and again the penalty for adultery is stoning to death.

God hates divorce and it is not Gods intention to allow or support divorce outside of the 1 and only biblical reason which is fornication. (The reason adultery isn't classified as another reason for divorce is because if a person was found to commit adultery they'd be put to death which releases the other person from there vowels allowing them to re marry without commiting adultery)

Moses permitted divorce not God and the pharisee's were "Tempting" Jesus to try to catch him out.


I disagree , it means that people would take there commitment more seriously and not enter into a unbreakable bond with eachother without serious thought and consideration. Divorce destroys families and childrens lives it also increased suicide rates amongst men (since most women are the 1's who opt for divorce) another way satan temps females but with Gods design this wasn't possible a woman who married a man it was until death literally there was no way out so they were faithful and committed to the marriage and did whatever it would take to make it work.

Now women can get no fault divorces and in some countries clean out the husbands bank account this isn't biblical and it encourages destructive sinful behaviour.


This isn't true she is far from perfect and i've been very lenient and understanding patient and forgiving with her for many years.


This was already being done e.g with wanting a child , her job and many other things if anything she's shown that allowing her to have the freedom to make her own decisions is a disaster because she has no idea what she's doing. (In the early days of our relationship and up until marriage she would joke because everytime she would claim to be right about something and i said she wasn't it would turn out she was wrong and after this happening many times she eventually stopped questioning my judgement and would say "hub knows best" and listen and i always made decisions in her best interest but when she started being rebellious and fighting me for control she started going against this even to her own destruction especially now more than ever)


Agreed and she was allowed to make a lot of her own decisions it was only a few things that i refused to compromise on and i still hold those views e.g no male friends and your husband makes the final decision on important matters.


I think this is something she failed to understand that when we got married vs when we actually started to finally live together are not the same i tried to explain to her that while we got married years ago we were apart for most of it which wasnt inside our control and now that we started to live together (10 months) those 10 months are the first year technically of our marriage. I explained to her that what we are going through with the struggles and learning about each other the pro's and con's even feeling like oh no what have i got myself into are all completely normal.

I've read and heard stories of plenty of women in there first year of marriage having regret and life crisis and or wanting to go back to there parents etc but the commitment you made to each other prevents that and in time is what allows you to accept and grow together. Once again its why i look down so poorly on people who abandon there marriages and divorce and no amount of debate will convince me that God's intention for marriage was divorce. (I think this is why BPD people have issues with long term stable relationships when they get to the point of difficult and having to overcome and grow they run and discard then repeat the cycle with another and what i was trying to do with my wife was help her understand she has an issue she's repeating a cycle and if she can identify it herself she can then be able to break it.)

Marriage is until death if you want out of it 1 of you have to die simple as that. If your situation is so hopeless that you have to leave then you remain separated and alone until you die or you return to your husband/wife. Anything outside of this re marriage / relationships etc are all adultery and constant sin and deserve death. This is Gods true teaching and meaning of marriage.

This is way wrong, and a big deal.  Either the book of Deuteronomy is the inspired word of God, or it is just a product of man, and can be disregarded.  If you can disregard the books that Moses wrote (first 5 books of the Bible), then you have eliminated the entire foundation of the Christian faith.  If you think parts are inspired, and parts are not, then you are putting yourself in the judgement seat and creating a faith distinct from the Bible.  Your wife could just as easily dismiss the writings of Paul (aka Ephesians and most of the New Testament) in the New Testament and say there is no reason to submit to your husband.

Even in the time of Jesus, there was a debate on whether there were limits on when a person could divorce, hence the reason why Jesus was asked if a husband could divorce his wife for any reason.

As for remarriage = adultery = death, you need to reread the Deuteronomy passage again.  First off, I get your logic.  Jesus said remarriage = adultery, OT Law had a death penalty for adultery, hence remarriage equals adultery equals death.  However, there are some issues with the logic.  First, Moses was the one who established a death penalty for adultery.  Was he correct about that, but incorrect about divorce?  By picking and choosing which passages that Moses wrote that you agree with, and others that you do not, you are on very shaky ground as I described above.  Second, it was Jesus that made the connection between divorce/remarriage equals adultery, 1400 years after Moses implemented the divorce and adultery laws.  Before then, no one considered remarriage as adultery, therefore no one was at risk of being executed for getting remarried.

Might of been a reason why he considered remarriage as adultery wouldn't be the first time people have drifted from the path of God and at 1 point he flooded the world to wipe away all of the corruption.

I don't really see the point in arguing about divorce here my interpretation of the verses in the bible clearly show Gods intention is not divorce he hates divorce and if you divorce and re marry its adultery and sin and therefore you should be stoned and i plan to stick with this interpretation because i believe that is what makes the most sense and is the best way for a marriage to thrive.

Giving people options to leave opens pandora's box and you will be hard pressed to not come across people who justify divorce for all kinds of reasons. The simple fact is i have not done anything to my wife that would justify a divorce under any circumstance. If that's the option she decides to inflict on me then God will deal with her accordingly.

We aren't going to agree on divorce being a good thing or permitted or that it was somehow Gods plan to allow it for society or whatever other reason your trying to justify it with.

So perhaps we skip this topic or agree to disagree.

If your wife wants a divorce after 1 year, the courts are going to grant it. And she is not going to be deterred by a fear of being stoned.

We're 100 posts into this discussion about "what you should do". Lots of ideas have been floated. You want your wife to move back home. She says you are dangerous and has cut all lines of communication for months. You are concerned about her filing for divorce when the 12 month cooling off period expires in a few months. You say you've changed.

Given all that has been said here, all that you have pondered and synthesized, what's your plan at this point?

Ok, I don't think you understand my position.  Here is my position:
1.  Divorce is bad, and I don't think your wife should divorce you.
2.  In God's eyes, remarriage is adultery and not what He wants a Christian to do.
3.  God did not want those that remarried in the Old Testament to be executed.  Otherwise there would be no point in establishing a divorce law with remarriage rules in the first place.

I agree, though, that all of the above is a side issue.  However, I was trying to help you understand something about how God deals with mankind.  Even though his plan was for mankind to marry once and stay married, He understood that holding society to that standard would be destructive.  He was flexible in how he dealt with humanity.  Sin is still sin, but he gave an outlet that would be less destructive to society.  In the same way, I am encouraging you to have flexibility with your wife when it comes to submission.  Even if it is not the ideal, it is better than what you have currently.  From there you can let God work in both your lives to lead you to the ideal.

Keep improving myself and reflecting on the marriage and understanding what went wrong and how things could be done differently in the future.

Wait for her parcel with the letter and gift for her birthday to be delivered should be within the next 2-3 days.

Transfer her some money before her birthday so she has enough to do something she enjoys or buy something nice for herself. Send her an email on her birthday wishing her best wishes telling her that i love her and hope she has a great day.

Organize flowers to be delivered on the day of her birthday.

Wait a week or so to see if there's any response or positive feedback and then contact her father asking if he would speak with her and to ask if he can try to mediate between me and her and see if we can resolve some of this conflict.

If all of that fails keep working on myself and give her space and not contact her for the forseeable future continue sending her financial support and pray that God will help us both through these difficulties and ultimately wait to see what she decides to do. (Perhaps my birthday in november i may hear from her as well)

If i've missed anything or should consider something else let me know.


I've continually said that i am willing to compromise and be flexible and agree with what you've said above the problem is she does not seem to care for any of this nor is willing to negotiate , communicate or do anything on her part whatsoever.

You seem to think i have this outrageous authoritarian view of submission if you provide me an example or scenarios and ask me how i would handle them i can tell you what or how i would and then you can perhaps point out what you may feel is wrong but if you ask me overall how i was with my wife.

I would say i was very fair and lenient with her and always tried to make decisions in her favor to see her happy and the only time i was not willing to budge was in regards to male friendships and even then she had male friends on her facebook not only did be flexible and allow her to continue using social media but i also ignored the fact she still had male friends on facebook as well which bothered me the entire time more so because i don't use social media nor do i maintain any female friendships other than my mother and direct family members.

I actually think she got too much freedom from me and she continually pushed the limits (why i mentioned the power struggle) in her country what she's doing would be unheard of there's no divorcing or ignoring your husband and she would be punished accordingly but with me she kept pushing to get her way and try to make me give in and it wasn't in a loving kind humble yourself serve your wife way it was in a malicious toxic destructive way and i believe God wanted me to reject that and so i did.

Sometimes you need to stand firm in what you believe and not cater to destruction i want my marriage to continue i do love my wife dearly but if she does not learn and continues her way of doing things she will lead a very sinful and destructive life with disappointment in the end. I will be heart broken and alone because i don't plan to remarry and we miss the opportunity to have a family overall extremely sad and heartbreaking but its really her decision and i don't really see how i can change that at this point other than speaking to the father and just being patient.

Whether she has male online friends is her decision to make.  My wife had a similar issue with me (I described it in another post), and ultimately she left it up to God, and God dealt with me on it.

One thing about future plans, you left out that when you ask to speak with her, you ask for a conversation with her where you promise not to fight, i.e. a low conflict conversation.

One thing that is confusing for me is you say you were flexible/willing to be flexible, yet quotes above suggest that you weren't, plus we can assume that she would say that you were not flexible.  I guess I need more details to understand the arguments that you had.  When you got tough, what did that mean?  I would like to challenge you to give details on when you were at your worst - don't worry if it makes you look bad to unknown strangers on the internet.  In what ways was she challenging your authority, that you felt that you could not let it go?

While you say you were flexible, she may have experienced the marriage differently than you did. We are also influenced by our families of origin and the role models we had growing up. I don't know if you had that role model or formulated it based on your ideals and beliefs. If she grew up with an abusive mother, but was close to her father, she didn't have that role model.

We don't know if your wife has BPD but you did mention she was abused. If someone has been abused as a child, they may be extra sensitive to any display of anger. So what seems like a normal argument to you may actually be frightening to her- even if you had no intention of that. Also, suggestions can also come across as criticism. I have a mother with BPD who feels invalidated at suggestions, even if the intent was to be helpful. I had to learn that my attempts to "help" felt hurtful to her and so they weren't welcome.

We bring our emotional responses into a marriage and we may have different emotional experiences. No two people are alike. You mentioned that your wife eventually got "tired of losing" during your discussions. Maybe she felt she had no choice but to give up after trying what she knew to do didn't work. You may have felt you were being lenient. She may have felt otherwise.

One impasse for the two of you is the request for the 30 minute phone call. She explained that speaking to you is stressful for her. Your experience is that you felt this was controlling the relationship and you'd be a doormat if you agreed. To take this out of the who is right or wrong context, you both had different feelings about this. Seems you both have convictions about this. There's no way to know what will proceed from here.

My father passed away when i was 9 which i would say had an impact on me for sure.


My wife is very intelligent and she isn't used of being proven wrong and i would imagine from her past most males just agree with anything she says because shes attractive. When she met me i challenged her and proved i could match her or even go above her intellectually it was another reason she was attracted to me. In the beginning this was good because she slowly learned she can be wrong and that i am confident enough to stand my ground when i know she is wrong.

It only started to become a problem after we got married because she would say or do something and i would explain to her why its a bad idea or why she is wrong about it and she would get irritated. I am not talking about minor things that i correct her on e.g every day life things i am talking about more important life decisions.


It meant pointing out when she was behaving poorly e.g yelling / screaming / swearing / slamming a door in my face / locking herself in our bedroom / refusing to eat / sleeping & being in bed for days or treating me poorly / cold i would just say the way your acting is childish and im not going to play a part in it when you want to talk about this so we can figure out a solution let me know. I would then go do my own things whether it was playing a video game or going to the gym etc and she would get more angry at me.

To be very clear i have never been physical or put a finger on my wife i have never been violent or broken things etc and in all the years ive been with her i've raised my voice at her 1 time when she was being an absolute brat and challenging me that she could do whatever she wanted. Other than that our arguements were all very calm and civil and just emotional with her being upset mostly.

This is why she told her parents whenever she was upset or crying i would just leave her or i demanded she cook for me even when she was clearly crying and upset. The truth was everytime she was upset or crying i would go to her and try to comfort her and talk to her she would give me attitude or tell me to get out. When she was upset like this i didn't even ask her to do anything for me including cook i just ordered food. I told her father i have the messages of a lot of the times these events occured to backup what im saying is true.


The main 1 would be male friends and social media everything else she overall good with like the way she dressed her manners / politeness i don't have much to complain about it was mostly her naiveness towards males regardless if she says there friends i tried to get her to understand that she's attractive and a lot of these men would jump at the chance to be with her she was completely oblivious to this and in denial.

The other issues were more towards the end when i would ask her to listen to me on big decisions like the job or having children or the ways we could stop fighting i was of the belief that if a woman is submissive and has a meek and quiet spirit naturally that softens a mans heart towards her and he will treat her like a queen. But when your fighting for control and aren't submissive then you are challenging his authority and so he will respond in turn defending it.

I don't know how to word it properly but like for example pastor anderson gave an example about how his wife approaches him when she needs help. If she challenges his authority and tells him to do something as if shes in power e.g go change the childs diaper in a demanding way he would say hold on who do you think your speaking to like that im not going to do that im going to go to war with you build a bunker and get my machinegun out and fight you till the death. But if she approached him in a submissive feminine way and said would you please help me with changing the childs diaper im really tired or xx reason. He would help her instantly and ask if shes okay and does she need anything else done.

This is how i felt in our marriage except my wife came in demanding a lot of things or having big expectations like im obligated to do these things which im not. 1 example would be she kept pushing to get this job i explained why i didn't want her to do it some of the reasons were for tax purposes , travelling time and cost and that she's already struggling and this will make things worse in the long run and that she had agreed she wouldn't work when we were together.

After she got the job she was exhausted from the travelling complained about public transport and kept asking me to take her to work and pick her up from work. I did this quite a few times because i know shes new here but after it became an expectation and if i said no she would treat me poorly or be angry or not be as loving towards me for days i got over it and told her im not your taxi driver i explained why i didn't want you to get this job now what i said is happening is happening and i am not responsible for you making your own mistakes when i've given you advice and you've chosen to go against it.

These types of scenarios or her way she would try to get things is what i mean by the rebellious behaviour and it makes me want to fight till the death to maintain my authority over her if she was the way she says she wants to be and she would learn to be more feminine as she was when we first met and all the way up to when we got married then i would of done anything for her i would of washed her feet i would of laid across a pool of mud so she could walk ontop and get across i would give my life for her regardless.

So when i tried to explain this to her at first she agreed and she would be submissive and i would love her so much and do anything for her and she would be happy. But then it was like a demon would posess her and her behaviour would change or she was fighting some kind of internal battle and she would become disobedient and challenge me and as i said anytime you challenge me im fighting you till the death and your going to lose and so that would upset her more.


That's where we disagree its not her decision its my decision and she did it knowing it bothered me but would be so insecure and accuse me of cheating or looking at a woman when in reality i didn't associate with females at all.

The facebook thing i was lenient with and let it go this is what i meant by being flexible but if this was a male friend that she knew in person which it wasnt i wouldn't of been flexible at all that's a non negotiable for me if you want male friends and your going to meet them while your married then you can divorce me and don't let the door hit you on the way out and i wouldn't care.

Towards the end she was getting worse like she was trying to make some new friends (she didn't like any of my friends basically had me cut them off or spoke poorly about them told me that she believed 1 of my friends wives liked me as well so i don't have many friends anymore and have been isolated since all of this happened)

When she was trying to make new friends she wanted to go out with 2 girls but they also had boyfriends or male friends and she asked if she could go i wanted to say no but again i tried to be lenient and flexible and compromise i understood she needs to try to make some friends cause she's alone here without family or friends so i said it was okay.

I've made many compromises for her and been very fair all my decisions ive ever made in regards to her have been in her best interest and to try to ensure she's happy even if its sometimes at the expense of myself this is why i feel so strongly that i haven't been unfair or some authoritarian dictator. (Ontop of this most of the times i've made a decision she didn't like she would come back later on and thank me for the decision i made and said i was right this happened 95% of the time it would be very rare that a decision i made wasn't the right 1 for her and i believe this to be true even up till now)


Ok i will add that as well

I am sorry for the loss of your father. Surely that has been difficult.

Although you haven't harmed her physically, and you don't mean this literally, it still has an emotionally violent tone to it. Concerning the example from Pastor Anderson, to fight to the death because a tired wife didn't ask for help with the baby reveals the priority here and that is submission.

You did make some concessions to your wife, but there's a difference between conceding and allowing something, and supporting something because it is meaningful to your wife. It's clear that these concessions were not what you wanted to do and it diminished her in your eyes and I think she could sense that. Neither of you were happy about this.

To you, you believe you were lenient. We don't know how she experienced this power struggle but the result is that she couldn't stay with it.


Are you referring to the near death of the marriage? Is that how far the fighting for control went?


Let me not question Pastor Anderson's beliefs. Or yours. They have been made clear.

Let me ask if you believe Anderson is infallible? Do you believe he is a Biblical scholar? Do you believe he is the ultimate authority on the Bible?

I only ask this because you are putting your life and the life of your marriage on the line based, in part, on this one interpretation of Ephesians 5. Wouldn'y a second opinion (not from us  *) ) be prudent? It costs you nothing.

One thing that has been helpful for me is to study the Bible under multiple mentors. I've belonged to different churches, different denominations. I attended Temple for a period of time. I always read the Bible with a study guide and I have used different study guides each year. I studied theology at the university (it wasn't my major). Every year I am humbled by how little I know, and amazed at what I learned that year. I am certainly not the person to tell anyone what the Bible says. I do have some observations that I would ponder if I was in your situation.

The  term "authority" or a similar term is not in Ephesians 5 as far as I know. And, yes, Ephesians 5:24 says "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.", but the preceding verse (5:24) says"Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God." Is it possible that "submit" does not mean "be under the absolute authority of"?

I'm not asking you to agree. Just questioning if there is even a remote possibility that Paul was not suggesting authority? There is a copy of Ephesians 5 below for anyone reading.

The same about Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for. Is it possible "loving like Christ"  is meant to mean being a servant leader, as Jesus was? Is it possible "loving like Christ" doesn't have a hierarchical or  authoritarian connotation.

Again, I'm not asking you to agree. Remote possibility? Maybe?

And what was the message in John 8:7? Jesus defended an adulteress against those who would stone her to death, saying “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” She wasn't stoned. What was the message to the adulterer? What was the message to the men who were going to stone her? What it the message to you?

Anderson is an interesting guy. At 32 he split off from the Baptist Convention and formed the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement (NIFB) and recruited some 30 small churches to be in it. By 2019, amid infighting about doctrine, money, ethics, some churches opted out, there was some accusatory youtube videos, the NIFB website came down, and Anderson himself said there there is no NIFB, "its just a colloquial term that we’re using just to kind of talk about pastors that we like, pastors that we’re friends with".

My point being that even these 30 like-minded pastors, couldn't agree on doctrine to such a degree that it toppled Anderson's NIFB 5 years. I say this not to dishonor Anderson, but to say that there is value in having a broad base of mentors.

No , More of a figure of speech


No


I believe he is on the right path and has the correct interpretations in most cases.


No


I didn't base my interpretations or beliefs from pastor anderson i based them from my own and what i want in a marriage it was the foundation of what drawed me towards my wife it was what she also wanted there was no misunderstandings or suprises she would even give me scenarios and ask how i would handle them she never took issue with my beliefs , interpretations or what i expected from my wife.

I wasn't even aware of who pastor anderson was until my wife asked me to watch sermons from him and usually i wouldn't watch sermons because i disagree with a lot of them and consider them weak watered down versions of christianity that cater for people in 2023 for popularity and will never say anything to go against the norms.

So trying to imply im being influenced/mislead by anderson is probably the wrong way to look at this because first i had these beliefs myself and he just reinforced they are correct but secondly it was my wife who agreed with his teachings and asked me to watch them to learn. When she looked for a church in the area i live she tried to find a church as close to pastor andersons ministry as possible and she actually did.

The pastor from that church was also in agreement with me and thinks she has no reason biblically for divorce and even went as far as to say i shouldn't of even let her return to her parents.


The wife is to submit to the husband in everything unless he is asking her to commit an obvious sin. There isn't any need for word games the bible is very clear the greek word for Subject which is what the KJV uses in Ephesians 5:24 is ( Strong's G5293 - hypotassō) the meaning is clear

The church is subject to Christ as the wife is subject to her husband i don't think anyone is going to argue that the church isn't under absolute authority of Christ (God) ? So then you shouldn't try to argue against Gods word for a wife being subject to her Husband in everything other than avoiding Sin.


Yes and i agree with this interpretation but i believe this is only the case when the wife is also in subjection to Christ and you could be a servant leader but if your wife is mislead or has evil intentions or is doing things counter to Gods word then being a servant leader would destroy you.

People seem to have a view that Jesus was a weak person who never fought against anything and was basically a doormat this isn't the case he knew when to be firm and to not be like this and there's examples of this trait within the bible.

If my wife honored her vowels and what she portrayed and promised when we first met and also married then i would be able to be a servant leader this wasn't possible because there was a constant power struggle that i wouldn't let her win. She opted to blow up the marriage because she couldn't gain control she is not a victim like people seem to keep implying. She caused problems and was not perfect and i was also not perfect there is no "victim" here.


That the pharisee were trying to tempt / trick Jesus into giving a command against what God and Moses taught which he didn't he didn't say she shouldn't be stoned he said let the man without sin throw the first stone and put the accountability on each of them and none of them decided to stone her. I wonder if the person who was the victim of there partners adultery were there if it would be a different outcome i would imagine it would be.


He is controversial and says things most are too scared to say in todays society he preaches what i believe is the real interpretation of the bible. I haven't seen every single sermon nor do i know everything about the man but from what i have seen and heard and my wife as well we agreed mostly with his message and interpretations.

If this was something i introduced to myself or into our marriage i could see the arguement for saying its extreme or not my wife's version however this is easily disproven when she was the 1 introducing him to me and in full agreement of his teachings especially around marriage (which were a lot of the sermons she asked me to watch or we watched together)

He even had a sermon about wives being disobedient and difficult and wanting to run back to there parents cause they all of sudden don't want to submit anymore and said too bad and when my wife heard this laughed a little and i said does that remind you of anyone and she's like yeah and he's right. She then said you do really know best just sometimes im fighting something inside that tells me to do the opposite.

The transformed wife which again was her role model not mine which she introduced me to is all about a woman  learning to tame that fire/fight inside her and humble herself and submit to her husband by doing this it allows the man to stop fighting for control and to start to really love her.

There's so many stories / testimonies of my exact situation of a wife fighting constantly and then either going down the path of destruction and divorce ruining her life and living in sin or the other where they finally surrendered and left it in Gods hands and there testimonies of what happen after and how amazing there marriage and life became and how much there husbands changed and became soft and loving towards them.

This is what i believe is my situation and what i am certain needs to happen i can make all the changes take all the blame be a door mat do everything this forum is telling me and ignore all of my own beliefs / instincts and i trully believe it won't make any difference if anything it will make her move on faster seeing me as weak doormat who will do anything to keep her (Something she has directly said she didn't like and didn't like men who just cave in to women).

All i can do is try to learn here and be better within reason and tell her how it is and what needs to happen i am open to flexibility and compromise but until she learns to tame that demon she's fighting and hear Gods word and submit herself to God and learn to have a meek and quiet spirit not be a quarrelsome contentious rebellious wife then i don't really see how this is going to turn into a positive situation.

She has the books and information and testimonies which i provided its up to her to read and learn to do her part just like its my responsibility to do my part to refine and learn how to be a better husband which i admit i must do.


Or maybe it is literally an explanation for what is happening. That is for you to decide.

This video was put out by Pastor Anderson. He apparently is proud of this day. I assume as a model of strength and conviction.

I think many (but not all) would say that this style is the opposite of the "Emotional Intelligence" you seek.


Date: Jun-2018(https://bpdfamily.com/book-covers/spacer.gif)Minutes: 6:11
Pastor Steven Anderson


Is your wife mislead and evil? Is that your concern? In this context, is it possible that her leaving was inevitable?

Thank you for sharing in more detail your marital issues.


A few thoughts on this.  I have also argued with you and found you to be rather closed.  Even when you are clearly wrong, you dig in your heels.  I suspect that your wife has the same issue with you, and she did ask you to read the Bible more (btw, a couple of verses a day is not enough.  The goal is to read the entire Bible which takes 3 years if reading a chapter a day).  If she felt that she could not reason with you and that you had ultimate authority, that would be incredibly frustrating for her.

Some of the behaviors you described above do sound quite bad.  The cold shoulder thing is pretty normal.  My wife would be cold towards me on average for 3 days after a fight.  I just learned to wait it out.  For the other items, I am curious to know what the BPD experts on this forum would recommend.  I don't think calling a person childish is helpful, though.

And if you divorce her, she still has her online friends.  It is truly her decision.  As the leader you set the direction you want her to go, but she will make a choice on whether to follow it or not.  My personal advice here is to make it clear that this really bothers you (which you have done), and then leave it up to God.  Fighting about it constantly only served to increase the stress in the relationship, and did not get her to give up her online friends.

This does sound like typical BPD behavior - isolation of the non from family and friends.

I can see how this could be difficult for both sides.  One solution may have been to teach her how to drive and get her a car.  Saying, "I am not your taxi driver" was not helpful.  Sort of like Cain saying to God, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

I do understand, resisting an order from your wife.  I would too.  However, I think you need to guide her in more positive ways of asking you for things and disagreeing with you.  It is possible to disagree with you, but not challenge your authority.

Considering as i mentioned i wasn't aware of who pastor anderson was until my wife introduced his sermons i would imagine that she's aware of his teachings surrounding marriage and agreed with them if she asked me to watch them.

So posting things about him because you personally don't like him or blaming that on my situation is pretty poor taste.

I'm not here to argue about your beliefs i don't really care what you believe or what you think of pastor anderson and as mentioned i don't even care that much for pastor anderson myself he was only mentioned because i agree with his view of marriage and submission which aligned with my wife and my own views. You don't need to share those same views but i also don't have to be a doormat under the guise of being a good husband or claiming its what Christ taught or that its the opposite of emotional intelligence to want my wife to be submissive.

This is a BPD forum for people to try to reconcile relationships with someone who has BPD.


Considering she's told me in her past she's messed with witchcraft and demons and then actively told me she was fighting a demon inside then made comments about fighting something inside her amongst all the other issues. The pastor told me if she's saved she can't be posessed (she is saved) but her behaviour and attitude changed so much since i met her and throughout the relationship i noticed different personalities or attitudes sometimes she was so caring and loving other times i could kind of feel a evil destructive energy. (This is why originally i thought she had Dissassociative Identity Disorder with multiple personalities given roles and splitting when something triggers it and have a "protector" personality take over which is cold / lacks empathy and blocks out the person they deem trigger aka me at moment)

I don't believe my wife is evil but i believe she is very mislead and lost and making a very serious and damaging mistake. Yes it is possible this might of been inevitable it could be God protecting me from something that's why i made the comment i don't blame God for what is happening he put us together and blessed us and he decides what ultimately happens. But i want to believe my wife can be saved from making this mistake of divorce and she can learn where she's also gone wrong and then we can come back together and put what we've learned into practice.

All of th is is concerning to me and worries me greatly.


Agreed however at the time i was unaware she might of had BPD and assumed it was because she was young and being immature. After spending more time learning about BPD and also reading about validation i can understand how saying to someone even if they haven't got BPD that there immature , childish or acting like they are posessed by a demon isn't counter productive and not helpful at all.


We didn't fight about it and i made it clear i didn't like it. Its not that she didn't give up her online friends its i allowed it to continue i could of made her delete her social media if i wanted i opted to be compromising and let her keep social media since she was in a new country with no friends here. That was my decision and left the rest to God.


Well she did a good job at that because i have nobody other than my mother and almost fell into a dark pit of self blame and thinking i was solely responsible for everything and she was flawless but im wide awake to the reality that isn't the case.


The first thing i did when she was here was help her get her learner license i had been teaching her to drive for months and she was almost ready to go for her practical test.

I said i wasn't her taxi driver because she would treat me poorly for not wanting to take her like i was obligated to and i wasn't having any part of that. She made a poor decision that went against my advice and she deserves the consequences of that poor decision so in future she learns why she should listen to her husband and that i don't make decisions or advise her for the fun of it without any legitimate reasoning. I do agree it wasn't helpful and there would be more productive ways to address the situation however this was a build up of irritation from her constant draining behaviour.


I sat down with her for about 5 hours one day and explained to her what i meant by challenging my authority how it makes me feel and react and why its counter productive she agreed that she shouldn't do this and actually was really good afterwards. In return it made it so easy for me to lovingly want to do anything for her and never felt like she's taking advantage of me or has control in a malicious way.

You need to understand her behaviour was bad she constantly had nightmares said the room we sleep in had a demon or ghost and was depressed and unmotivated. She constantly put me down and accused me of cheating and doing all kinds of untrue things and it was like because she was miserable i deserved to be blamed for everything. It felt like no matter how much i tried to do things differently or be better it was never good enough.

Some days she would be fine and completely normal and loving the next day she'd be the complete opposite the next she would be crying all over the place and telling me she's thinking of suicide. Then she thought it was her hormones and asked me to pay $2000 for a lady who was experienced with hormone issues which i did. From when i first met her she had issues with depression , panic attacks , she was underweight and other issues and i worked through all of them with her and helped her become a healthy weight and worked through her other health issues.

I did everything in my power to help her and make her life better i provided for her before we even got married and travelled to her country when we were stuck about 6 times which was expensive i've put my entire being and soul into her and this marriage and when i finally was tired and depressed myself and struggling she left me here to suffer alone going through other issues outside the relationship alone.

This isn't how you love someone its not how you show loyalty or uphold your vowels and then when i seek help or advice it seems like im the person to be blamed its all my fault its all my beliefs and opinions etc but the 2 most crazy things are

1.I had all of these beliefs before during and after marriage they never changed and she loved me and married me in agreement to them.

2.She has a history of all of these issues and running away from her problems and discarding , depression etc etc all before she ever met me during and after yet somehow this is my fault and she left because of all my problems.

It's just very unmotivating reading some of these comments i came here trying to improve myself get help and motivation and find some hope that despite having BPD i could work through things and have a fullfilling marriage with someone i love dearly and right now im feeling like its already done and dusted everythings my fault "again" and she isn't coming back.

Thank you for answering all of my questions.  I can see that you have tried to be more flexible than I initially thought from your original comments.  When it comes to how to deal with BPD crazy, I will have to defer to others on this board that have much more knowledge on the subject than myself.

To stay on point.


If I read this correctly (see below), you mentioned him specifically because you also agree with his style.


My point (so it doesn't get lost) is that fighting to the death means that there is a casualty. Clearly there is a casualty in the video. And others are warned that that they will be a casualty (fired, kicked out, etc.) if they question this leaders authority. And he is aggressive and threatening his wrath to a room full of people who most likely agree with his belief (e.g., the Trinity).

Most Christians believe in the Trinity, so, let's accept this video as example style (not beliefs).


"Emotional Intelligence" is about empathy, effective communication/social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation.

In the video example, its pretty clear that Pastor Anderson fears dissent in his ranks, and is using strong-arm tactics to curb dissent with control. He has poor self-awareness and self-regulation. You assumed I dislike him, not because I said that (I didn't), but because you see his behavior in a negative way and assumed it.

Everybody does.

There are elements of Pastor Anderson's reaction in your relationship, too. Not the same, but at the core, similar.

Why does any of this matter?

You can see it in Anderson (its very clear), but if you can't see it in yourself or can't let it go, you have little chance of improving your marriage. And after all, that's why you are posting here.

I know you've said many times, she has an iron clad obligation to you (which she renounced), you say there is nothing you can do about it (but you have been contacting here every week for the last six months), and you expect her to fix this (which there is no indication that is on her radar). In my years here, I have never seen the dynamic you are advocating be successful - the partner shutting down and moving out for an extended period over a disagreement(s) and our member doubling down on their side of the conflict(s) and the partner dropping their position and adopting the position of our member.

Food for thought.

I will try to post more later, but a few thoughts for you.

1.  Go to Quora and read everything posted by a Wendell H. Biggins.  Some of the most helpful stuff out there in my opinion.
2.  You do not seem to be able to wrap your head around the idea that your wife sent you this book and you want to follow it - but now she apparently does not want to follow what she was recommending you do.  To me, this is hallmark BPD behavior.  Happens all the time with me.  I could give many examples.  I will give one.  If my wife knows about anyone with marriage troubles, the first thing she would say is that they should go to marriage counseling.  However, she tells me how horrible I am and our marriage, but when I suggest marriage counseling she refuses to go.

Except i don't follow everything Anderson does i am my own person. These issues stem from my wifes behaviour which we don't even have a diagnosis for and i do not believe this is entirely my fault you can keep trying to beat me into submission and play the fear tactic with me about she's going to be gone for good or not come back etc but i've been through all of this already.

Let me try to explain this again

I do not believe i am the sole reason she left and i believe a large part of why she left is her own traumas and problems she exhibited all of these serious issues before i was a part of her life therefore we can summarize that i am not reason why she was like this and there was something or someone else which had cause all of these mental health issues.

She then entered into a relationship and then a marriage in agreement with who i am and my beliefs matched hers if they didn't match or she wasn't the person she portrayed then i wouldn't of married her to begin with.

I am now being told this is my problem its my fault and unless i behave in a certain way counter to who i have always been then there's no chance she's coming back.

Here's the biggest issue i've already told her i was willing to change and do things different and have a different dynamic in the marriage and if she would sit down with me and discuss the issues / areas she has a problem with we could work through them to come to some kind of agreement.

That is basically what your saying i refuse to do which isn't true her response was nil nothing not even an acknowledgement. (I'm sure even with such poor behaviour from her its going to somehow be my fault my problem and my responsibility to fix.)


It's pretty much why at this point im getting irritated constantly hearing its my fault. I get that there's no point in people pointing out her issues because it does nothing to help the relationship but it feels more like people seem to think she's the victim in this and that im this terrible person. I am a normal guy who met a woman who had believes views and goals that aligned with mine. I married this woman and then she became someone different she's had a history of issues before me and now somehow this is my fault and i've caused these problems in her life.

It's ridiculous.


It's not that it wasn't a book she sent it was her entire personality from day we started speaking and for all of the years of our relationship up until the marriage. This was who she was what she preached what she read what she watched and what she wanted and it aligned with what i wanted that is why we got married. After the marriage is when it all started to go down hill within a week that's not my fault and i can't be blamed for under the assumption that a woman i had known for years prior to marriage was going to just magically decide that she wants the opposite now.

I mean even in saying all of that she hasn't said she does not want this dynamic or does not want to be submissive or even wants to change the dynamic of the relationship. She's just had trouble not being rebellious and making poor decisions in her life which has been a theme even before me. That is why i said she needs guidance and to humble herself and not someone who just does anything she wants because it will be a path of destruction.

If someone i love can walk out on me when i need them and stonewall be for 6 + months and show no empathy whatsoever why in the world would i be willing to do anything this kind of person wants me to do ? that's a complete joke at this point.

Everyone here keeps saying if i do this if i do that guys i've said everything under the sun to try to get her to come to the table to speak with me i was willing to compromise be flexible and even re-evaluate my view of marriage roles and the dynamic of the marriage if she felt there was issues there she didn't want any part of it she's behaving like a immature child with no accountability or responsibility for her own poor behaviour or actions and i am not going to be blamed for all of it.

If she chooses to blow up our marriage and make more mistakes in her life no amount of saying any of the things ive already said is going to change that and i've always said i honestly believe unless she can humble herself and hear Gods words and fight against whatever demon she's facing then it seems to be really out of my control.

I have mentioned what i plan to do but unless she decides to also partake and be reasonable and honor her vowels and be a decent humanbeing then it makes no difference what i say or do or what im willing to change.

You are right.  You can do everything perfectly on your side, and it will still come down to whether she wants to give the marriage another chance.  On this board, we are pushing you so that your marriage has the best chance for success.  There is another thread for those that aren't interested in saving their marriage.  If you post there, you would get very different advice.

At this point, I would say that she probably isn't feeling much empathy.  She is afraid and in pain, and in that state it is difficult to focus on the pain and needs of others.  That doesn't mean she wants the marriage to end.  My advice to you is to try and get her in a state where fear isn't driving things for her.  Focus on having a positive conversation with her, as we discussed before, aka no fighting, blaming etc.  You say that you are willing to be flexible and try new things, but she doesn't know that.  All she knows is how things were when she left, where she felt that she couldn't convince you of anything.  So, for now, I would counsel you to wait until the right moment, and then schedule a low conflict meeting with her.  Hold out hope that this approach gives your marriage a chance.  There are no guarantees at this point, and she needs to make changes in her life too, but there is still reason for hope.

From my perspective, there’s no point in casting blame against you. You have come here to learn how to better communicate with someone who has BPD. That you are willing to be open to different approaches in how you talk with her (once you have a chance to do that) gives you tools you likely wouldn’t have had previously. (It was a challenge for me to learn to speak to my BPD husband in a different way than I was doing. I’d often been told that I was a good communicator, yet it all went awry when I tried to talk with him. I was completely mystified about what went wrong.)

The biggest problems in having a BPD partner are: 1. On one hand, they feel like there’s something wrong with them. Yet should someone else address the problem, they immediately feel attacked and accuse the other of bad intentions, or project the issue on the other person—“No, you’re the crazy one!”  2. Should they even be inclined to consider therapy (most refuse to do so), they usually quit after only a few sessions  3. The *non* partner must do all the work in improving the relationship

Yeah, it’s not fair. But it’s the facts. If she is truly someone with BPD, expecting her to meet you halfway isn’t going to happen. Expecting her to meet you even a quarter of the way won’t either. Best you can hope for is a baby step or two, and maybe after that, another step.

It is possible to improve communication with a BPD partner, but there are no quick fixes. You will have to be willing to live with a lot of dysfunctional behavior and hold your own, which I’m sure you can do. I’m not so sure about the first part of the previous sentence.

The goal of a submissive wife seems in direct contradiction to BPD. Read some of the threads here. Members ache for their partners to even be the slightest bit cooperative. Sure, you two may have matched well when unmarried, but once intimacy deepens with a BPD partner through marriage or living together, different parts of the personality appear—parts that might have not been appealing at first glance. We all do this to some extent. We are on our best behavior at the beginning of a relationship, and as it progresses, we might allow ourselves to become more casual, less compliant, more argumentative. However, with BPD, these patterns are on steroids.

Sure, she might have appeared to be the perfect match when you first got together. As I’ve mentioned previously, immaturity could play a role in bringing out some of the difficult behaviors you’ve experienced. Also most people don’t have any idea of what it is like to marry someone and live with them on a day to day basis. It’s all fun and games when dating, but dealing with life’s routine  problems and differences in opinions once you are a committed couple, can be an experience one has never anticipated. Then again add BPD and multiply all these potential issues by 1000.

So she may have been completely honest and forthright about her beliefs and attitudes prior to actually being married. And then, life threw her a surprise, as things may have been far different than she expected. Back to the age issue—young women tend to be very idealistic and have a romanticized concept of what marriage is. As we get older, we understand that there is a lot of mundane work to do to maintain a household, a great potential for disagreement, no matter how similar our world view is to our partner.

Bottom line, should communication resume with a positive outcome, if she is someone with BPD, don’t expect a magic fix overnight.

This isn't correct she knows because i've told her on the phone in 1 of the only conversations we had. I've made it clear in letters i've written and also via email she knows loud and clear that i took responsibility for my mistakes and i was working to improve myself and was willing to be flexible and make compromises to make her happy.

She hasn't been reasonable whatsoever.


Why can't she communicate to me what she is doing or what she needs when i've asked ? All i wanted was for her to explain to me what is happening so im not stuck in limbo if she is set on divorce then say that to me. If she needs space to heal or improve her self then just say that. I even told her if she just explained to me what is happening it would make it easier for me to understand and give her the space she needs. She refused to say anything wouldn't say she wants a divorce wouldn't explain what her plan is and wouldn't even say she needs space.


Correct and i've already learned a lot about better methods to handle conflict and discovered i've been invalidating without even knowing and spent time learning and reading about validation and emotional intellignece i've put so much work into actively trying to correct my own flaws but it feels so fruitless when i've just been stonewalled the entire time.


Exactly how i've felt from Day 1 till now.


I've been incredibly patient and understanding with her and i am willing to work with her and help her and like i said from the start the main thing for me is the faithfulness the other stuff i can continue to forgive but the stonewalling is a whole different thing its so destructive and malicious.


Naturally everyone is going to be the best they can in the courting stage i understand this and i also explained a lot of this to my wife and the stages of a relationship and what to expect from marriage i didn't paint any fantasy ideal of it i've always been very realistic and said we are going to fight and have issues but we will work through them as long as we never give up on each other.

She was all onboard with that yet 1 week into marriage she's trying to run home to her father and then throughout the entire marriage her solution is when we fight she's just gonna run home and block me out which is a absolutely pathetic way to deal with conflict after you've promised 1 thing and your now doing the opposite its extremely disappointing to me.

“absolutely pathetic way to deal with conflict after you've promised 1 thing and your now doing the opposite its extremely disappointing to me”

I think just about everyone here on this forum will have a similar story, and a similar sense of disappointment.

With BPD, you are promised the moon, only to later discover it was just a reflection in a puddle.

Tonight i was thinking that after my wifes birthday if i don't hear anything from her and after i contact her father and ask if he would try to help mediate between us.

I would like to send her an email just saying that im sorry for hurting her. Asking her to forgive me and to give me the opportunity to make things right. Telling her i don't want to be stubborn or prideful any longer. Telling her that i miss her dearly and i don't want to lose her and that i am willing to do whatever it takes to improve this situation.

Something a long these lines as the last thing i say to her for a long period of time.

Do you think this is a good idea and is there specifically i should consider also saying in this email. I haven't contacted her in over 2 weeks so far.

its a frustrating, and heartbreaking position to be in, when your wife has left, you cant speak to her, you dont know what is or isnt going to happen, and it feels like someone (everyone) is telling you that its your fault that it happened. and my heart goes out to you.

i remember when my ex broke up with me, and i was a basket case. she jumped straight into another relationship, and i had a lot of evidence she was in the process of that a while before we ever even broke up. my parents were very helpful and supportive of me, but at one point, they very gently suggested that perhaps me emotionally and physically abandoning the relationship (i hadnt even seen her in weeks) might have played a part in that (they said this to help me better understand what i was going through and how i got there). i couldnt hear it or accept it, and the idea sent me into a tailspin. it meant, to me at the time, that "everything was my fault, and i was to blame".

of course, that isnt what they were telling me at all (nor were they telling me that it made what she did okay), but at the time, its all i could hear, or feel.

that is often the case when a person is in crisis. they are especially prone to different kinds of distorted or "twisted" thinking. theres a good write up on these forms of thinking here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=56199

do you recognize any of these going on?

for example, no one has suggested you be a doormat. in fact, the opposite has been suggested. and yet, you repeatedly refer to the advice being given to you as a suggestion to grovel, or be a doormat.

or, for another example, in one sentence you describe yourself as a loving and benevolent husband, and then, in another, you speak with contempt toward your wife. you have said, in some form, that she is a childish personality disordered woman throwing a tantrum, several times.


everyone in this thread is here to help you do that, just as they were for me when i came here in crisis all those years ago. of course, no one here is in contact with your wife - we cant advise her - so the focus is necessarily on you, and what is within your control and ability.

when i first joined your thread, i saw a brother hurting who was crying out for help, but having a hard time synthesizing some of that help; and frankly, rejecting it pretty hard. thats not uncommon. therapists see it all the time when a patient first enters therapy. the patient often has to make something of a leap of faith, and trust in the help theyre being offered, and it isnt easy to do. if they cant do it though, theres very little that can be done.

so my message to you was largely to lower your guard a bit, and try to trust in the advice and help you were receiving. to point out the possibility that god led you here, as he did me, for reasons i couldnt yet imagine. as part of that process, god, through the help i received, changed my thinking, about countless things, including my ideas on relationships and how they were supposed to be, and, frankly, who i was. likewise, in my walk of faith, god has led me numerous times to a greater understanding of who he is, and changed many of my ideas. i consider all of those things to be emotional and spiritual growth.

by and large, you have rejected virtually all of the advice and help you have been offered, and even rejected the messengers themselves. i have to tell you that in my 12 years here, you have gotten the very best of the best that this place has to offer.

certainly, you are not obligated to follow any of that advice, and especially if it conflicts with your values and who you are.

at the same time, the worldview you have constructed may be making it very difficult for you to navigate, to see the help offered you for what it is, or to accept it, let alone utilize it.



i know this wasnt directed at me, but i dont. you and i are brothers in christ, but we have very, very different views on some of the things being discussed. thats okay. it is my goal, bpdfamily as an organizations goal really, to help you live and act according to your values. it is my belief that every person is "living their best life" when they are living in a way that is true to their values/themselves.

so why bring up your beliefs at all? several reasons.

the first being that theyre very important to you. they guide you. as they should.

the second being that they are a significant part of the conflict between you and your wife.

the third being that there is such a thing as being too rigid with ones values.

i would really encourage you to read this. it talks extensively about boundaries, values, their differences, and the differences between independent vs interdependent values (how they play out in relationships), which is at the heart of the conflict of your marriage. https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0;all

in its summary, it mentions this:


"undefined" might also be thought of as "being a doormat".

but when we primarily seek information that reaffirms our worldview and reject out of hand what challenges it, when everyone else is weak and watered down, when we have all the answers but nothing seems to be working, we may be too dogmatic to have a relationship with very many people.


as for your wifes beliefs, i want to say, loudly, that you are seriously, seriously underestimating the extent to which this split happens in relationships all the time, in both major and minor ways.

do you know how many marriages end over one party changing their mind about having children? or changing religions? or disagreements over parenting that were once complete agreements? or, for that matter, how many relationships end over far, far more minor changes of mind?

my ex changed her mind, almost immediately, about a few significant things we had been in complete agreement about. i didnt think that was fair. she didnt think what i did about it was fair. i didnt think what she did about it was fair. they remained a major, constant source of conflict, throughout the entirety of our relationship.

trying to drag someone back to those beliefs, or preferences, or agreements, isnt only a losing battle, it is the perpetuation of conflict.

there is a lot right now that isnt in your control, and isnt your fault. marriage, moving to another country, these are major upheavals in a persons life. for a person with depression, or bpd, or both, it is not surprising that she spent a great deal of time, essentially in breakdown mode. no one is to blame for that. and to the extent that your role is to be a supportive husband, supporting someone with emotional special needs is not intuitive. it wasnt exactly an easy change of environment for you either.

the fact remains, if your wife came back tomorrow, you would, i think, continue to need a great deal of support in trying to repair the marriage. it would remain a tentative situation, where a lot could go wrong. navigating that is going to require a strong support system, and without a lot of room for trial and error.

it would necessitate a very different game plan and approach. it probably will necessitate doing some things that are outside your comfort zone (like resisting the urge to be heard and have your wounds acknowledged), and looking at different ways of managing conflict.

thats not going to work if you cant trust, or otherwise utilize the support youre asking for.


these all sound like nice things to say.

the problem is you have said them all before. she heard them the first time. repeating yourself might look needy, or it might look like pressure, or it might look like trying to be heard rather than listen, or any combination of the above.

tell her happy birthday. wish her well on her special day. let that speak for itself.

5. Jumping to conclusions
6. Magnification
7. Emotional Reasoning
8. "Should" statements


This is mainly because i am the person who's experienced everything in the relationship and the people giving advice only know as much as i have written. I've been treated extremely poorly and subject to behaviour that isn't deserved and its upsetting. So to then be told i should be being nicer or more compromising etc when i have actually done a lot to make things work is frustrating.


This is really again just frustration at being treated this way knowing that nothing i've done has justified this treatment and then endured it for 6 + months. If i had done something deserving of the treatment i would be more understanding and tolerant because i could understand why i am being treated like this and know i deserve it however this is not the case currently.


That is definetly not the case i value the people who are contributing in this thread and helping me. If i felt the advice and information being given here was useless or didn't agree with it then i wouldn't continue the discussion on here i would just go somewhere else where people agree with me.

That being said i don't have to accept everything a person on the internet tells me but i do take everything said into consideration and think about it alot.


I'm not really sure why you keep saying i've rejected the information i've taken everything onboard and into consideration and even agreed with some peoples input completely. I am open to logic and being compromising on things involving my marriage and there's some things i won't compromise on even if that means the marriage ends in divorce. (Male friends , Adultery , Unfaithfulness are all redline deal breakers for me i won't compromise on these and if these are the reasons that the marriage end in divorce so be it i won't have a single regret)

Everything else i am open to discussing with my wife and trying to be flexible and come to some kind of agreement that works for both of us. Infact she knows when she's been submissive in the past its worked highly in her favor she's seen how i react when she shows me she is willing to submit without question i am willing to do almost anything for her and i am very easy going and trusting of her when she has been like this in the past.

When she's been rebellious and fights me its gone the opposite way and this is why to me its very hard to understand why she has such a difficult time submitting to me. It's also why i think it has more to do with her past than with me.


I understand this but when you marry someone you go into that commitment believing every word they've said so if or when there is a split its extremely hard to comprehend especially when i am the type of person to stick to my word if i say something i mean it and its not changing. (within reason)


I've actually never told her that i want to stop being prideful and stubborn and feel like after her birthday and speaking with her father i would like to apologize for hurting her point out some of the things i want to change and ask her to forgive me. Then mention that i would like her to help me improve as well and to give me the opportunity to be a better husband before she decides to end the marriage.

In my opinion, I wouldn't jump to that conversation so quickly.  My advice remains that the goal is to first have a low conflict conversation first.  Don't be so quick to "work on the marriage", but just to have a conversation that opens the door to future conversations.

Assuming her father isn't / won't help what would you suggest i say or do ?

So far her father hasn't really seemed to be helpful in the situation at all he hardly responds to my messages and the last message he just asked me what has changed i told him everything and he never replied

My wife also stopped responding to my mother but still has her on facebook ...

How many unanswered emails/texts/dms/phone messages have you sent her since she left?

How many unanswered emails/texts/dms/phone messages have you sent to her dad?

4 emails , 0 texts , 0 dms , 0 phone messages (last email sent was about 2 and half weeks ago)


0 emails , 0 texts , 2 msgs whatsapp , 0 phone messages (last about 3 weeks ago)

Is this really too much contact ?

Can I get recount?  :)

Last email i sent her was on the 7th september.

She left 6-7 months ago. 

How many total emails/texts/dms/phone messages have you sent her since she left?

How many unanswered emails/texts/dms/phone messages have you sent her since she left?

15-20 emails / around 10 txt (while i was in her country) / whatsapp normal conversations until she blocked me ? / no phone messages


She replied to 3 emails / 2 txts / all messages until she blocked me / spoke to me 3 times on phone while i was in her country

I get your trying to tell me that im contacting her too much but for 6-7 months i don't think that is unreasonable. I've been contacting her less and less overtime giving more and more space.

That's why i was considering sending her another email after her birthday saying what i want then aiming for a month or more not sending anything ?

Don't you think by giving too much space its counter productive ? I've read about no contact and people say that sure it works in relationships but in marriages its not going to work and by just disappearing your making it easier for them to forget you (They also say the no contacting is not to help your relationship but to help you move on)

What would you say to that ? Others suggest smart contact which limited contact with space

Did you see the irony in your response (above) when you wrote it?

I can confidently speak for most everyone posting that they feel you have blown past or debated almost everything offered. Most feel that you have been disrespectful on several occasions to the very people that are trying to help you.

The problem is that you can't "read the room" (limited empathy).  And you think how you see your actions is how others should and need to see them (limited self awareness).

Now, this isn't about us I'll stay on point...

If you have exhibited limited empathy and limited self awareness at this level in your 30+ post-separation communications, this is a big problem that needs to be resolved. Based on your posts here, the reaction of the recipients (wife, fil, therapist), and your most recent gifts and draft post to your wife - its pretty obvious that this is how they feel and its why they have gone low-contact and then no-contact in response.

Communications like these have a cumulative effect. The more incidences of limited empathy, limited self awareness, the further down the Gottman scale you go and the  more people will feel committed to stonewall as it appears you can't change. And as you said earlier, you and your wife were already at Gottman stage 4 when the separation started.

I think the real question to ponder right now is whether you want to focus future discussions:

1) on what went wrong during your 10 months together, who was at fault, does she have a personality disorder, were you abused, how to heal from that abuse, etc.

2) on what the Bible says about marriage and how to deal with the various possible decisions you wife can make

3) how to acquire better emotional intelligence skills to apply during the last 5 months of the divorce court cooling off period

4) validating the course you have selected a few threads previously. https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=356387.msg13200587#msg13200587

To make any progress, we need focus.

3) how to acquire better emotional intelligence skills to apply during the last 5 months of the divorce court cooling off period

This to me is probably the most important but i am struggling to grasp the concept of just going into no contact for months on end and can't logically understand how this can be helpful which is what i am trying to understand.

I guess the only arguement would be like others have said has it got you anywhere so far ? No

I think its more insecurity and that fear that if i was to leave it for months and then things got worse or my wife moved on even before divorcing i would feel a lot of regret. I am going to try to change my mindset and trust her faithfulness and believe with time and space she will be more open to communication.

I do honestly appreciate the input you are giving.

i want to reply to you at greater length when i have the chance. there are a lot of moving parts here, a lot of important things to address.

focusing on here and now:

we talked about this, too. in my first reply to you, i said that no one is suggesting for you to go "no contact". "no contact" is a tool for Detaching that has nothing to do with your circumstances. its not something that anyone is going to encourage you to do on the Bettering board.

i also said there is a huge difference between "dont contact her" and "dont smother her".

the issue is not with the frequency of contact, necessarily (although that can be smothering as well), its the nature, and the timing.


from your vantage point, this probably feels like a different approach. it is certainly different than if you were to demand she speak to you, or demand she come home, or anything that would obviously push her away.

but for her, its not going to feel much different. its going to feel like more of the same things she blocked you for, or otherwise has not responded to. its a conversation that she is not ready or willing to have.

it will not get across the change you want to show her. it will do the opposite. it will work against you.

talk, at this point, is cheap. while you feel as though theres nothing you can do, at a time when you want to do something, anything, i think what members are trying to say is that there is a way to show this change, to communicate this change, without pronouncing it, in a way that will be far more effective (you dont have a lot of "shots" so you need to choose them wisely). doing that may work against your comfort zone, but thats what i mean about trusting in, and utilizing the advice youre getting.

ultimately, if you want to contact her and say whatever youre going to say, youre going to do it. so far, you have done so against that advice every single time.

when i was going through my breakup (yes, here we go again), i needed (or craved, at least) a lot of reassurance, in a lot of different ways. id beg my loved ones to tell me something that made me feel better; particularly, id beg them to tell me that my ex would eventually contact me, that id hear from her again. things like that. but id also ask them about contacting her, or whether my ideas for contacting her were good ones.

they would offer me their reassurance every time, as well as telling me that my ideas about contacting her were not a good idea (for example, i almost drove an hour to leave her a note pouring my heart out, while she was 3 hours away shacking up with the new boyfriend. different circumstances obviously, but im glad i didnt do it, because theres a good chance id still be kicking myself today for that).

but inevitably, in my anxiety, i would test them. i would raise similar questions as youre raising now. id ask them, if i chose not to contact her, wont she forget me? wont she think i dont care? wont it drive her further into his arms?

they had answers for that, but in my anxiety, i only had more questions (tests). they would eventually run out of things to say, become impatient, and throw their hands up.

ultimately, i white knuckled it, and i followed all of the advice i got, whether it was what to do or what not to do, no matter how uncomfortable it made me, and today, all these years later, im grateful that i did.

moreover though, i was learning from my ability to sit with and get through that anxiety. it lost a lot of its hold on me. i realized that my anxiety encourages me to act on it, and that thats almost always a bad idea. it was great practice at emotional regulation, at a time when it seemed impossible, or even felt like it was against my very survival. i navigate better when im centered. we all do.

can you see any of this? in your anxiety, youre not hearing what we are saying or suggesting. youre arguing the same things you did before.

dont get me wrong. its wise to clarify advice youre getting. it may be wise to reject any given bit of advice youre getting. but everything being discussed now has been said already, by us, and by you.

we share/support your goals and efforts in reconciling your family. we are mindful of the pitfalls that any move, or lack of a move that may appear. the difference is to varying extents, weve been here before, seen what helps and what doesnt, and since we arent in the middle of it all, we arent lost in the fog of anxiety, and everything else. we can help guide you out of it.

WHETHER TO CONTACT OR NOT

it makes sense for you, in your current circumstances, to contact her on her birthday. it makes sense for you to wish her a happy birthday.

but right now, everything is precarious, a lot can go wrong. it wouldnt take much, even something pretty innocuous, to tip this situation into "unsaveable". like Skip said, communications like this have a cumulative effect.

if you leave the relationship out of it, if you simply wish her happy birthday, and a special day, no more, no less, it will catch her off guard. she will be expecting something that feels obligatory, something thats already been said, something that makes her feel cornered. what she will get will be a lovely, heartfelt wish, with no pressure.

there is virtually no risk, either. if you were to send her that, and she snaps and leaves, then she was going to do that already, regardless of anything you did, or didnt say.

medium to high reward, incredibly low risk, and sends a stronger message than words can convey in these circumstances.

You're the leader. You need to summon the strength of the leader.

Once Removed suggested an article about twisted thinking that you read. Twisted thinking is common in depression. It's very reasonable you are depressed given the struggles of the marriage.

Look at it this way. With all good intentions and the haze of depressive thinking, you painted yourself in a corner (all those unanswered communications). When you are pointed in a corner, you only have two choices - exit across the wet paint and destroy everything, or sit and wait till it dries. Not great choices. Take the one that does the least damage. Remember reading High Conflict Couple?

.	"Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse".

An apology, as Fian discussed, is important. Timing is important. Content and style is really important. Genuineness is important.

The draft above has common mistake a lot of us make in apologizing after a breakup. Here is how it will likely be read:

.	I'm sorry I hurt you, not sure exactly how I need you to forgive me because i don't want to lose you   I'll be a better person and fix whatever is broken, not sure what that is, or even if I can fix it. Please do this for me.

This is not your intention, but 1) apologies have to be all about the person you are apologizing,  2) what you are apologizing about and why it is was wrong, and 3) they shouldn't ask for anything in return for the apology. An apology has to overcome the bias of Gottman 4; there is little trust and a lot of suspicion.

Let's look at how this might look if this were reversed. This is just an example to show you the contrast of a good apology and a "self-focused" apology.

Which would you prefer to receive?

This...

.	I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. Forgive me for moving out. Please respect that things are broken and we need to give it time and see what happens. Please don't call me so that I don't hurt you more. Our lives will be better in the future.

Or this...

.	I'm sorry understandingBPD for not being a meek and obedient wife and not living up to my vows. You lived up to your side of our dream and I did not. I was selfish, and I hurt you and I hurt your mother. You have every right to be disappointed and angry. I let you down. I was wrong and I'm sorry.

See?

Do you have a few of the last emails you can share? I think members need to understand what has already been said to be helpful on where to go next.

How will life change? This is the million dollar question for a little further down the road (some time after the apology). How will life change? How will you make the claim credible? She faced a lot. Living out of country is traumatic. Living with anopther person is hard. Her personal issues. You having an unusually large number of uncompromisable independent values / core values. What could / would be genuine (to her) and meaningful (to her)?

I can definetly see this.


Agreed


Undeniable.


I don't feel completely comfortable sharing private emails but its probably safe to say i have said / done a lot of the wrong things so far. I don't even know if she is receiving the emails or if shes blocked those too.


I tried to offer a few different solutions 1 was for her to return home to me with a return ticket back to her country so she knows she could go home when needed. The other was to make an agreement with her father that i would book her a ticket home anytime she asked (which i did anyway).

Another was that i would return to her country and we would spend a month together so she could decide if she wanted to continue or not this would allow her to be in the comfort of her own country and with family she could stay with me or continue staying at her parents.

The other was me going to her country to show her through actions that i've made changes and improvements the goal was to go there spend time with her and allow her to see things are/will be different but she denied any opportunity of that and even admittedly said if she see's me or spends time with me she will have feelings for me and there "dangerous" so she just denied any opportunities at all.

I've asked if we could even just talk via email or txt or whatever method she would feel comfortable with and just got ignored. I've been very flexible and understanding and have tried to offer as many realistic and fair solutions as possible but she just won't come to the table or be reasonable at all. (why i keep saying its childish because the way she is treating me is like i've cheated on her or something unforgivable)


This is where im stuck i don't think there's anything at all because she isn't behaving rationally , logically , emotionally her behaviour is completely erratic i don't believe there's anything she would acknowledge or accept at this point its like talking to a brick wall.

The parcel had an attempted delivery on the 20th but was unsuccesful i don't know if she rejected it or they were just unable to deliver but i was informed the parcel will be at her local post office.

I sent her an email just letting her know that my family had sent her some gifts for her birthday and gave her the tracking number and said the parcel would be at her local post office for collection if she could let me or my mother know she's received it.

No reply so far

To be honest, her not receiving the parcel is probably better for you.  The books you included would not have helped your reconciliation.

I do have a question for the board.  How long should he wait between attempts to contact?

Agree. It might be prudent to arrange to get them back from te post office.  |iiii


Yes: You did offer numerous reasonable ways to get back together on a trial basis. I can see that.

No: It is a mistake to dismiss her avoidance as childish or irrational. There is something very significant happening and her parents and the therapist are supporting her (possibly guiding her) in her actions at some level. This has gone on for months. It's not something that is going to be fixed in a 60 minute phone conversation (as you have postulated/hoped).

It would have been best to have a soft-hand when she was in crisis and learn exactly what was going on (hindsight is easy). That opportunity is past - it happens - we can get so caught up in our side of things we become blind to others (the beam out of thine own eye). I've done that. Many member have.

You will need to figure out what is going on from what she has already told you - rest assured, she has told you in some way - you have to try to pick through your memory and find it. Sharing things here that were said will help. We have many female members that speak "women".

She could have had a breakdown, she may have been suicidal, she could be having a crisis of faith, she could have been homesick, she could have hated the west, she could have just hated the day to day life she had, or a combination of all of the above. She may see you as the culprit, or she may see herself as making a bad choice and just be embarrassed and humiliated that she got this far into your world and changed her mind.

You need to try and get a handle on the problem before you can evaluate if and how you want to address it.


She has used the word "dangerous". What danger could she be talking about?

If she said all this, and it fits with the ongoing conflict it could very well be saying she has changed her mind about the life plan you and her had in mind. Her comment about fear of reconnecting with you could mean that she has an attachment to you (as you should expect) but she doesn't see it as realistic that you would be a part her "changing her entire life".

This is where the your uncompromising independent core values may be seen by her as precluding the ability to build new inter-dependent values with her. She won't be thinking this clinically - more likely it would just be a feeling - "people never change".
https://bpdfamily.com/content/setting-boundaries

People do change.

I'm just tossing ideas out to help you cull through the prior conversation.

Emotional intelligence is a challenge. It's not easy to read others. We really have to put our narrative aside for a moment, and focus to do that. Some people have impaired empathy and can't do that. Have you every assessed you r empathy level?
https://bpdfamily.com/content/listen-with-empathy


Understanding the past timeline will help understand that. We have no sense of when the trip was - knowing when that happened and the an approximate date and synopsis of the follow-up communications would helpful. Was this sent? https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=356387.msg13199858#msg13199858

If that package doesn't make it, it helps. The package will consume the air for a while.

If it was me, I would think really hard how to not have any more unanswered communications. I would not do anything that has a high likelihood of failure/rejection.  I would also not try to go in heavy - try to have a big discussion. I would try to take baby steps to get the door open.

For example... if the gifts and the letter are out of the picture, I would (personally) go with the apology in two weeks or so. Open with, I'm sorry the package got side tracked. I did want to... <apology with "no ask">.  

I'd let that sit for weeks to sink in. Not clutter the situation with "my need" messages. She will need silence in order to hear the apology. She may initially think its a ploy. It will take time to sin in. I would probably send it in a really interesting (not relationship oriented) card. Maybe an art card.

Around the the holidays, I would reach out (maybe through my mother) to tell how things are going (just good and happy news) and inquire about how she and her parents are doing - ask some specific questions. Send some fun (or funny) pictures of something you are doing. Take all the pressure off.

Violating someone boundaries can take on a life of its own. It will take some time to unwind the spring.

This is what i am worried about.

She claimed her mother was abusive her entire life.
She claimed her father wasnt around a lot of the time because he worked far from home.

Her father didn't seem to care or even flinch when i told him some of the serious issues going on when we sat down face to face in her country. He went even further to blow off my concerns about her struggles and serious traumas by saying its normal for people when there growing up. I tried to clarify that what is happening is far from normal and stated the reasons why.

He just listened and said he would support whatever decision she makes he didn't seem to care or want to help at all. He's also had his own fair share of marriage issues and has basically given up in his marriage and is defeated her parents were fighting a lot and possibly going to divorce while my wife was still living with them before she came here. So he should understand the difficulties i am facing.

The therapist is someone from america who i believe she was speaking to online this to me is concerning for so many reasons first the divorce culture in america but also red flags about him saying she could religiously divorce me because i wouldn't agree to  her 30 min time windows and lastly because he made no attempt at all to contact me or involve me in anything and then started advising on divorce. That to me is already extremely negligent because he only has 1 side of the story.


She was suicidal and told me multiple times.
She was homesick. (which is why my idea was for her to go home for 1-2 months)
She did hate the west.
She hated day to day life but that's because she was depressed and wouldn't do anything.
She blamed me for everything. (Later acknowledged she has emotional baggage and may be self sabotaging once she got home)
She implied she regretted marrying me and it was a mistake. (as i said she was always 1 foot in the door never fully committed and always ready to run = disaster)

She probably did change her mind because she didn't commit fully but she's probably conflicted because she claimed she does not believe in divorce only wanted to be with 1 man for her entire life and now she's blowing it up (Some say BPD people aren't even capable of loving someone the fact she can just abandon me like this and show no empathy is mindblowing and makes me question if she even knows what love is or if she just used me for a visa or something else.)


This was said on the phone in 1 of the only conversations we had while i was in her country and she basically just said everything possible to give me hoops to jump through and at the end of it was met with a "Then maybe we can talk" there's no way in the world im going to change my entire life around for someone who's abandoned me when i need them stonewalled me for 6 months left me alone in her country and refused to see me and then do all of that while she does who knows what for 1 year and then "hope" for a "maybe" at the end actually the most ridiculous thing i've heard someone say.


Impaired (2)

I think initially i had no impairment as time went on and the fights and poor behaviour , mistreatment and constantly putting me down combined with the fatigue of holding everything together with her doing nothing took a toll on me and i started to see her more as an enemy or someone i needed to protect myself from because she was capable of hurting me and i was slowly losing trust in her each time she kept doing things that really hurt me.


talked on facebook start of 2018
we met end of 2018
married in january 2020
finally arrived in aus may 2022
here for months 10 months left march 2023 (tried to resolve issues she forced a fight few days after going home then started limiting contact into stonewalling from my perspective she didn't really care for the marriage and would say shes done and im the 1 trying to save it not her)
Trip to her country was mid june 2023 (3 months after she left refused to see me , managed to see her for about 20 secs she went into her room refused to talk , spoke 3 times on phone all negative refused try to talk about issues went home after 5 weeks later had seen her parents a few times to talk and ask for help)

I've apologized i've written letters i've tried compromising with everything i've offered all kinds of solutions or meet you half way or meet you the whole way (literally) i've asked for forgiveness i've told her about books im reading to improve myself i've asked her to tell me what she needs from me to improve the situation i've said and tried everything you can probably imagine and she's refused rejected and won't communicate or engage in anything at all.

Leading up before she left we still loved each other were still intimate and clearly upset departing she communicated with me we talked on telegram(msging app) as usual she told me she already missed me etc. soon as she got home she saw someone in a discord server that had a japanese singers picture (the person using the picture is a guy) got angry at me started a fight intentionally extremely forced. I tried to defuse it told her its a guy that she's welcome to talk to the person if she wanted to confirm it asked her what she would like me to do (keep in mind i was not even talking to this person there just in like the equivelant of a chat room with 200 people and she randomly picked 1 of those 200 people then picked a fight with me made no sense at all).

From there the communication got rocky she said she's going to speak to a therapist after the therapist is when the communication was basically cut said i had 30 mins a week to speak to her and report what im working on / changing i tried to talk to her about this and said its not a healthy way to communicate she ignored it tried to do the 30 min thing few times failed i was being stubborn for sure but also felt she was just being manipulative trying to get control then she blocked/unblocked me told her im still not going to do things like this she said shes done trying and that therapist said she can divorce me and blocked me.


She's already been told the package is at the post office waiting for her to collect it (if she rejected the delivery) then she more than likely won't collect it anyway but think its pretty poor behaviour considering there's gifts / cards from my family for her birthday wasn't just my stuff.


Well this is where it began her boundary was she's apparently traumatized and gets anxiety and stress to point it gives her health issues from speaking to me. Which is why she said i had 30 mins a week and she was doing that because therapist said she has to give me that opportunity before she can religiously divorce.

I ignored that because at the time i can't understand how she's traumatized gets anxiety and stress when she was literally here 1-2 weeks before hand sleeping in the same bed being intimate talking to me normally when travelling back to her country saying she misses me then all of sudden im the cause of all these issues to point she can't speak to me even when shes on the otherside of the world.

I believe she was just using this as a way to manipulate the power / control and it worked well because when she cut me off it killed me inside.

In hindsight i should of just played her game and went along with it instead of letting her force fights to justify her behaviour.


This is something i wanted to do i wanted to apologize and say why/what im apologizing for ask for forgiveness etc and then leave it for while to sink in.


Well she didn't reply to my mothers last msg which was about 1 month ago but still has her on facebook but i just think having to speak to my wife through my mother will just make her look down on me even further. I also don't think she'd care about anything im doing no matter what it is.

She is in a really destructive lost mindset and i am certain she is using social media for attention seeking from men (posting photos of herself etc cause she knows i didnt like these things could even be why she kept my mother on facebook also)

I don't think her family is really doing anything to help her (assumption) and i think her therapist is terrible based on the progress so far which to means she's at high risk.

The real question is how do i proceed from here because the longer this goes on the more resentment and anger i feel and the more damage she is doing to the marriage. I know i said i can forgive most things but the way its going she might even do something i can't forgive and that's what is making me feel like times running out.

I love her i really do and i want to make things right and she deserves a stable marriage and to be loved but the way she is treating me is just slowly building resentment and i don't want to become that kind of person towards my wife.

Here is how I would approach things.  This list below assumes that she rejects every advance, so obviously ends with divorce.  Hopefully, you get a positive response before the last step.

1.  Ask her dad to arrange a 30 minute, low conflict meeting with her.  No fighting or blaming or trying to convince her of anything, you just want to hear her voice.
2.  Assuming that fails, next step would be to send her an email directly asking her if she had any objections to you canceling her cell phone plan.  Her responding would indicate that she still reads the email.
3.  If you don't get any response, I am not sure how to proceed, but the next step assumes you can contact her.  Basically in the email you say, I haven't heard from you in a while.  Do you want to work on reconciliation of the marriage, or do you plan on getting a divorce?
4.  Assuming her plan is divorce, state that is not what you wish, but you will respect her choice and stop contacting her.  Based on your understanding of the Bible, remarriage is not an option for you, so if she has a change of heart later, she can send you an email.

The concern I would have is that she doesn't have an actual therapist, but a life coach. Life coaches have no training and no oversight and they love to "diagnose" estranged partners as psychopaths and tell clients they are victims (it sells). You have one of these life coaches in Sydney (SpartonLifeCoach.com). He has no training, sounds intelligent (certainly some of the things he says are true and some is just made up) and sells victimization. For example, A Cult of One (https://www.amazon.com/Cult-One-Deprogram-Yourself-Narcissistic/dp/154453356X) - junk psychology, but people buy it.

If she has a pastoral counselor, it will be better. They are trained and have oversight. However, your (and her) association with Steven Anderson could likely be a red flag. Anderson is mostly known in the US for news clips of him screaming "kill the homos" (his words, I apologize to everyone reading) and is widely considered a cult leader. She could be in cult recovery / cult deprogramming therapy.

You fighting for communication control after she left would likely be seen as a red flag by either, unfortunately.

Either of these situations could explain her use of the word "dangerous".

She sounds very impressionable from what you have said.  How old are each of you?


There is a lot to be learned from this.


I would guess 2-3. You can learn to be more empathic. It's not terminal, but know you have this weakness for now  *)


This hindsight summary reflects the empathy impairment we are talking about. Try not to paint her actions as malicious or toxic, it will make matters worse and possibly guide you to making bad decions. Stay with the big picture.

This might be a more realistic (but difficult) narrative:


If I was going to restate your "hindsight" comments with a view of the bigger picture...

.

1. I should have made being my bride a lot more fun and a lot less dutiful in the first 2 years. I needed to solidify the relationship foundation first. 2. As leader I should have been more of a coach and motivator that an authoritarian. 3. I needed to have fewer independent core values, so that as a couple, we would have room to develop inter-dependent values together which would serve our unity and marriage. [Don't say it! I know the Anderson style was her idea, initially.]

Is this a good foundation to start looking at what to do next?

Do you see why the books are not the best thing right now (hint, red flag for therapist, dutiful rather than fun for her)?

I don't think this is something that can be resolved by sitting down for 60 minutes and talking about it. If you want to resolve this, you will need a much bigger, staged plan and time to play it out. Both of you need to self sooth, get your priorities in order, be open to some significant changes, work on yourselves, and slowly and safely reconnect (like a year).

Do you want to talk about how you might be able to do this?

Agree with 1 & 2.

No interest in 3 and 4 divorce isn't an option and i see no point in bringing it up because i wouldn't accept it or respect it.


Australia has like 26 million people american 330 million or more i know for a fact its big business in the US and hear about divorce culture. Point im making is therapists a lot of the time are quick to suggest divorce and don't always have keeping the marriage together. They also have much higher divorce rates in there profession.


I don't really care to argue but nobody should be advising on a couple in individual therapy without speaking to the other partner its negligent.  (individual therapy is for individual when you are married you aren't an individual)


I tried to figure out who the therapist was if my guess is correct the guy seems more like a celebrity therapist than a real therapist so you could be correct.

(https://www.facebook.com/p/Dr-Ashkan-Amlashi-100063038180402/?_rdr) My guess of who the therapist might be lists himself as a "public figure"


Unlikely


She used the word dangerous because she's stubborn and to her this is probably a game she was determined to not see me. I went to her home with flowers and her brother invited me inside that's when she saw me and said what am i doing here i told her i came to see you and to talk. She went in her room i waited in living room with her brother she called her father and the father asked me to leave which i did.

The entire time everything was calm i didn't try to force her to talk and i just spoke with her brother. She was obviously angry that i did see her and that she didn't get her own way like i said to her its a game (she lost) so afterwards she called me abusing me telling me to not speak with her family and threatening me. I told her she should calm down and call me if she wants to talk. So after that she told a friend of mine "today i found out his dangerous" same person she told she isn't married.

Apart from this she's never said im dangerous and i've never done anything to even make her feel scared and its just her exagerating situations as she's done with pretty much everything even when there's proof of the opposite.


She is 26 and i am 36


Yeah most of the issues are her not me.


Agreed i don't want to see or think of my wife in a negative way and im trying to shake the resentment and just love her. Going to really focus on this because i know resentment is building and i can see it in the way i speak about her after reading my previous posts makes me quite sad because i still believe she is a good woman with a good heart if i thought she was bad i wouldn't want to fix the marriage.



1.Agreed
2.Agreed
3.Agreed


I am happy to be patient and take time i don't even mind if it takes a year but the condition for me is that she has to be faithful and stay commited to her vowels.

I don't see this approach being realistic because the longer your apart the worse things get the more chance of moving on and once another relationship is started on her end the marriage is over for good no exceptions.

Since she refuses to communicate i don't know what her current stance is on this commitment in the past in early stages she agreed we wouldn't speak to / see other people and when asked during my trip what her plan is she said she isnt ready for another relationship so she may be staying faithful and its entirely possible its my insecurity.

That being said i have seen on facebook she does speak with guys and is receptive to compliments so its not entirely just my insecurities in my eyes she is a married woman she should behave like 1 by behaving this way she is damaging the marriage and trust i have for her and if reconciliation was to happen its something that would be a problem.

Especially when on my side i am faithful i am not using social media i speak to no females at all and have 0 intentions of moving on from the marriage or accepting it might be over at this stage i consider myself married and i should honor those vowels ive made to her until we are officially divorced and i think its fair to expect the same in return.


She collected the package yesterday afternoon from her local post office. Also messaged my mother and thanked her for the gifts and said she would email me to let me know she received the package. (im not expecting an email or reply at all)

Dr. Ashkan Amlashi is very well educated, with a Psy.D. Psychology, Masters of Christian Leadership Theology, Masters in Psychology, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. He is currently in training/internship and he works for the local government behavioral services and serves Iranian community.

The University he attended is a respected interdenominational Evangelical Christian seminary.  He gives sermons at a small local church. He has been a guest on SAT-7 PARS, an Iranian christian channel broadcasting from Cypress.  

He would understand the culture of Iran and of the west and is tapped into the small Christian community in Iran. He would understand moving into a different culture. He would understand the Freedom Movement of Iran.

Whether he is treating her or she is just following his sermons online, he is not a Fundamentalist Baptist.

Hope this information is helpful.

Which my wife is by her own choice not mine i didn't even know what a Independant Fundamental Baptist was until she explain it to me.

Again this was a guess i could be wrong that being said any "christian" who suggests divorce without speaking to the spouse as well in my eyes is negligent regardless of his qualifications.

I think regardless of who the therapist is its likely she's gone in told them a story of me painted black to get there support then used that to also get her parents support. This combined with the lying , twisting and exaggerating of what happen got her parents support. Previously her father was neutral and actually sided with me which she hated the first time after a week of marriage she was fighting and wanted to go home her father said no. When she was living with me she kept saying she wanted to go home her father kept telling her she had to resolve the conflict and i spent time speaking with the father weekly. It eventually got to the point where he asked me what is going on i told him the truth and said i think its good if she goes home for a month or 2 she is homesick and struggling and depressed and it will be good for both of us and we had originally planned for her to go back to see her family anyway so made sense.

She kept trying to push me to get her ticket and i was worried about the covid restrictions at the time explained that to her and she kept saying she didn't care and said i was trapping her here (untrue) i told her speak with her father if her father agrees for her to go home i would book the ticket the same day. Father kept telling her to be reasonable with me she got worse and worse then she started crying everytime her parents called i dunno if she told them i did something or not (i didn't) the day her father said if i agree for her to go back to her country i said i do temporarily i booked her ticket the same day.

I do hope i am wrong and she's gone into therapy being truthful about everything afterall i do believe she is intelligent and is self aware of her issues and had admitted them which is really good first stap and i pray God will continue to work with her as well.

If you aren't planning on doing 3, I wouldn't recommend using 2.  2 verifies that she is still monitoring the email address, which allows you one additional communication.  I wouldn't use it unless there is one final communication you want to make.  As for divorce not being an option, in the end that will be her choice.  You refusing to accept it won't change things.

I am almost certain the email is not blocked mainly because she has a lot of her sentimental stuff still here. She called me 1 night while i was in her country and sounded stressed and upset and asked if i would let her have her friend pickup her stuff i said ofcourse if you want but it would be safer at home she insisted i said okay. Her friend wasn't able to make it which kinda proved my point to her that she wasn't that reliable.

I told her that her stuff is safe i would never do anything spiteful regardless of what happens its not the type of person i am. Since then she hasn't asked me or my mother if she can get her stuff which to me is a good sign and i've ensured i don't get angry or do anything spiteful towards her and keep my word. For this reason i believe she will keep the email option open either for that or if she is planning a divorce on the 12 month mark she will want to contact me.

The reason 3 isn't option is i don't have any intention of considering the marriage over so making a final comment seems counterproductive that would be something used if i was planning to accept the divorce and move on which im not.

With no fault divorce ofcourse she has the option does not mean i need to accept it or make it easier for her to do it because it goes against everything i believe and i am certain what she believes by accepting it or making it easy or even initiating it myself it relives her of the guilt/blame.

We both agreed divorce wasn't an option and we shouldn't talk about it since we don't consider it an option i am sticking to what we agreed to which is why i am not mentioning divorce to her at all so she knows its not something i consider or an option in my eyes and hopefully she is slowly realizing it shouldn't be in her eyes either.

if you are going to continue to reduce her concerns, her actions, or the words that she clearly articulated to you when she was still willing to speak, to the above, you are fundamentally not serious about repairing your marriage. you just arent.

the word "dangerous" may be a hard one to hear. especially from a loved one. and i imagine it doesnt reflect how you see yourself. but the fact is, nothing sends the signal that youre dangerous like dismissing the concern (and the efforts to flee) of the person that fears you.

if you want to send the opposite message, then it makes sense to examine what you might have done that communicated that youre dangerous, why your wife sees you that way, and of course, what you can do to send the 'right' message.

but weve done that already. right? throughout this thread.


lets just assume that youre right in that assessment. lets assume that she pulled the word dangerous out of her ass, and that it had nothing to do with your actions, shes just being a difficult woman.

if this is really still your narrative, then what are you doing? what are we doing? theres nothing to be done, and for all any of us know, she will come to her senses and return tomorrow.


i believe this, and its why i get that when you have the hardest time seeing things from your wifes perspective, youre speaking out of hurt. thats when its hardest for everyone. i had an old high school girlfriend call me a stalker once. being called dangerous? by your wife? ouch.

so i probably wouldnt push the point, except that setting aside your hurt (at least as its directed at her) and understanding hers is both the central problem and solution, and doesnt really seem to be improving in a way that matches the urgency of the situation.


i dont recall you mentioning this before, and to me, its very significant.

it suggests to me that not only is your wife contemplating divorcing you (which may or may not have been a given), but if she has been led to the conclusion, that she didnt have before, that she can religiously divorce you, it is possible (not certain) that she is planning to divorce you, and has been advised not to have any contact with you, run out the clock. that would be advice that you might give to a person who was in a dangerous/abusive situation.

it is possible im wrong about that, or that im partially wrong about that. and whether i am or not, it is my sense, and i think the sense of participants in this thread, that your wife has not fully closed the door. if i thought that she had, i wouldnt still be telling you how to improve things.

my point is like Skip mentioned, about painting yourself in a corner. whether or not you are a danger, whether or not you would ever harm your wife or anyone, it is probably not stubbornness or game playing or mental illness on her part, but your actions that have reinforced her avoidance and the lengths to which shes gone. youve got to accept that reality in order to work with it, and you are continuously working against it, both in your actions (toward her) and in your words (toward us).

its not because we are on her side or because i think youre the bad guy here. there are no good guys or bad guys. this is about a family. the survival of that family is on the line, and every move, good or bad, counts extra.

this is probably the biggest, and most important challenge for you. if you can learn and put into practice these empathy skills, then frankly, navigating the rest will be far easier. as its been said, the first step to repairing a relationship is to stop making things worse; just not doing those things. it is my assessment that you are by and large still at that step. the urgency of the situation requires digging in.

Assuming she does have BPD and painted me black its not exactly far fetched for her to say this right ? She's already lied about multiple things and accused me of cheating and also not supporting her despite there being extreme amounts of evidence proving otherwise. Explain this to me i wasn't dangerous when she was here but after she went home despite me being on the other side of the world between then and when i saw her i somehow became dangerous ? I know how my wife is she is very stubborn and so am i and i believe she's not used of losing (in the context of someone being more stubborn than her). So more than likely she got triggered because i did see her so she threw out the word dangerous to someone i know that's only time i've heard her say it along with we aren't married (either lying or having some kind of denial).

Let's assume she does genuienly feel that way i am not really sure what to do since i haven't done anything to justify that label and if you say to me well you don't need to do anything that's how she feels i would say then what's stopping her from waking up 1 day and saying im *insert problem / behaviour here* and then me having to say well she feels that way so i should act accordingly.

To me that's bringing her unrealistic unjustified and irrational thoughts and affirming them im not sure if im wording it properly but as an example she says im dangerous (i believe im not) if i start accepting that behaviour and saying im sorry for making u scared or im sorry for being dangerous or something that affirms to her that i accept that label does it not ?

What i'm doing here is slowly learning and getting help while working through my own struggles of being mistreated and hurt.


She did mention divorce like i said and she claimed the therapist told her to do the 30 min a week reporting stuff as her (boundary) because i said to her that it wasn't a healthy way to communicate and said ignoring me weekly or blocking me (stonewalling) is self sabotaging the relationship she said the therapist said she has to give me that chance for religious reasons before divorce.

Keeping in mind i explained to her i was willing to discuss things and compromise to make her happy but didn't feel comfortable with 30 min weekly conversations it felt rushed and telling me i had to report felt pressuring and didn't want to do things like that. She said talking to me causes he stress and anxiety my issue is she had no issue talking to me when she was here she had no issue talking to me while she was leaving or even when she got home and the issue only became an issue when she purposely started a fight with me this is why i believe its a game to her i didn't do anything inbetween to cause any kind of stress or anxiety whatsoever.


I agree the pride/stubborness is the stuff i need to work on but this is where it comes back to when she behaves in a masculine / malicious way its extremely difficult for me to show empathy because i feel the need to protect myself because i start to see her as destructive/evil the more submissive / feminine she is the less she triggers these thoughts the easier it is for me to see her as my wife and the (weaker vessel) who needs protecting and love and kindness.

She is making it incredibly difficult for me with her actions and i think in all honesty i've done well so far to not get angry or lose my temper at all and limited my frustrations to venting in here rather than directed at her.

Let’s talk about the word she used, *dangerous*.

I’ll tell you a story from my life in hopes you can understand how your behavior might have impacted her and led her to make that word choice. I understand that not only does “dangerous” seem inaccurate and ridiculous to you, but that you think there is some gamesmanship or manipulative behavior behind that claim.

When I was young, I was dating a guy who I realized had more interest in me than I had in him. (I’m not claiming this is true in your relationship—I’m just getting to the word “dangerous”).

At a certain point, I realized that his extreme focus on me was getting kind of scary since I was understanding that I really didn’t want to get as involved with him as he’d hoped. He started showing up at my work. I was working in a large department store and I told him that I couldn’t talk to him while I was on shift. Yet he’d stand far away and watch me. It started creeping me out. I think I even told a security officer to tell him to leave on one occasion.

Then he began doing overly nice things for me—giving me gifts I really didn’t want, painting little decals on the side rear windows of my car (he was a gifted artist—and he’d asked permission I’d granted), offering to buy me a dog. He began showing up at my house unannounced, when I’d refused to see him. Then he told me some wild story about how he nearly got killed in a motorcycle race he’d just participated in. (I was suspicious of the details so I checked out his story and the facts didn’t support his narrative.)

Anyway, at that point, I started to get really scared. Finally one day he showed up at my house and my mother read him the riot act, “Don’t ever show your face around here again!” She could be really scary when she showed her frightening BPD side.

So he never again came around, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then, that summer I took a photography class in college, and guess who also took that same class? I don’t think he intentionally signed up, knowing that I had as well. We did our best to avoid each other, which wasn’t easy.

Then a couple of decades passed. Suddenly I got an email from him. It totally creeped me out. I certainly would have used the word *dangerous* to describe him, based upon how I reacted to him contacting me so many years later.

I have no idea if he is actually a dangerous person, but the continued contact when I made it really clear that I didn’t want that, made me think he had no interest in complying with my wishes, and also caused me to wonder what else he was capable of doing. It was scary.

Undoubtedly you have very little understanding of women’s perspective. You don’t have women friends and you have no contact with any women apart from your mother. I tell you this account because it can feel very vulnerable to be a woman and to tell a man “no” only to have him continue to ignore it.

i dont know what sort of bpd material youre reviewing. i know that about 99% of what is on the internet is garbage, and will probably confuse you more than help.

surely you dont think that just because someone has (or doesnt have) bpd that there is no logic or rationale, no validity to anything they say or do?

because if thats the case, its difficult to love or respect someone you see that way.

it doesnt hurt me when you dismiss or minimize her perspective. it hurts your marriage.


i think we are all trying to tell you that they arent unrealistic, unjustified, or irrational. they make sense.

on the flip side, if you push to reach someone trying to get away from you, you are affirming their fears.

but, this is another example of seeing things in extreme, black and white terms. accepting that your wife (and her support system) see you as dangerous, whether you agree with it or not, is accepting reality as it is. from there, you can more easily determine how/why youre sending those signals, and how to stop sending them. no one is suggesting that you say "sorry for being dangerous". no one is suggesting you say anything. i am suggesting you step back, and with empathy and self awareness, see that you, through your actions, have created that impression, and what now, to do (or not do) about it.


okay. do you think you may need to be heard more first, vent your struggles, before its easier to hear us/her? thats not unusual, if so.

Let's put that into context in my situation.

We are talking about my wife who i've known for years we've lived together shared a bed together. She didn't feel this way at any point until she (lost) and was clearly angry not scared if you were scared you wouldn't call the person your scared of abusing them threatening them etc it was very clear that she was just peed off that i did see her when she was being difficult and unreasonable knowing that i had come across the world to sit with her and discuss what is happening she thought she was in control and it was a game to her.

You can say well maybe she didn't want to see you because she's scared okay but i also asked if we could sit with her family together for dinner or to talk all together in her home which would be the safest place possible she refused she wasn't scared she was stubborn.

I didn't continue showing up anywhere i saw her 1 time and made no attempt after that to see her and i told her i wouldn't unless she agreed i kept my word. My reasoning behind going there to see her was it had been months since she went home she was being unreasonable and the least she could do for her husband is to give me a few mins to talk because if the roles were reversed i would do the same.


Prior to meeting her and in the early stages i actually had a lot of female friends i was a lot more active and social and never had issues with any of them. After meeting my wife she caused fights over my instagram which i used for my travelling photos etc to the point i just deleted it then it was the facebook but i chose to delete that after marriage.

As i said earlier i've been isolated lost a lot of friends while she's kept her social media is attention seeking from guys and does not seem to be phased by any of this

I'm sorry but i don't see her as a victim i don't see her as a woman who is scared if anything based on the current situation combined with her actions and behaviour i see her as malicious destructive and spiteful.


Out of curiousity did you ever just meet with him and explain you don't have interest in him and you'd like him to not do these things as its coming across creepy and you'd like him to respect what you've asked and if he does actually care about you to give you space as that would give the best chance of anything happening in the future or something along those lines ?

Or did you just keep rejecting him and call him creepy but never actually take time to speak with him directly ?


Well then perhaps acting like a mature adult and behaving like a married woman would go a long way to resolving that. She could take the time to speak with me or see me and discuss the marriage and what is going on with her and what she's planning to do etc to give me some idea of what is happening.

If your going to stonewall , lie and behave in a destructive way don't complain when your husband comes to see you and speak with your family its your own doing.


I think based on the events that have occursed combined with her behaviour , lying and exaggeration i think there may be things said that might be irrational or not valid or exaggerated for sure becuase there's facts to support that. That's not to invalidate everything just things that don't really match the situation.


If i go and tell all of my family and therapist a bunch of lies and exagerate a 1 sided story about my wife there going to think my wife is dangerous and horrible does that mean its the reality ? Nope

What i am trying to tell you is i have not done anything to justify this and she has painted me black and then lied/exaggerated to her support system despite proof showing it to be untrue your telling me to accept a false reality.

I'm fine with taking a step back and not pushing contact its already something i agreed to do a few posts back.


The easiest way i can explain this is i believe my wife has been unfair unreasonable extremely difficult mistreated me and never comitted fully to the marriage or her vowels she has caused a lot of issues for me and then abandoned me when i needed her. She now stonewalls me and is potentially going to divorce me and she has has clear issues throughout her entire life serious issues that have messed her up she has treated her husband of many years like someone she has dated for 1 week then decided to not continue this is ridiculous behaviour and childish.

I come here because i wanted to find a solution on how i can help her fix her behaviour i already know what my flaws are and mostly how to fix them but im constantly coming up against people blaming me for everything and its extremely irritating. I can sit here and show you messages of all the ridiculous things shes done and said and lied about and how she's treated me and somehow you will comment and blame me.

I tell you my wife stonewalls me for months and i wanted to see her so i went to her country she calls me dangerous i start getting stories about some creepy guy who wouldn't leave someone alone ... i tell you she's been abusive unfair mistreated me isolated me and been unreasonable and then tried to make me look bad to her family and even to my mother and i get told her behaviour is justified and reasonable and i deserve this because i defend myself and protect myself from someone being evil and spiteful towards me.

I don't really understand how some of this is meant to help me when half the comments i get are basically attacking me or assigning blame on me for her poor childish behaviour.

I don't think its unrealistic to be angry that she's treated me this way used me discarded me acts like a brat attention seeking and has impacted my life severly and then pretended nothing happened she should be held accountable and take responsibility for her problems and people shouldn't be supporting someone with clear issues. I wouldn't treat a dog this way let alone a human let alone my wife so why on earth should i accept being treated like this and be okay with it and ignore all of that and say yes its all my fault yes im dangerous yes i deserve this that is actually insane.

Hi, I'm no expert. I have been reading this thread and following it. Do you have any examples of these times you "won" and your wife "lost" and how that all went? I am wondering how one or two of those sort of situations might have gone from start to finish if that's something you are comfortable to share?

“Out of curiousity did you ever just meet with him and explain you don't have interest in him and you'd like him to not do these things as its coming across creepy and you'd like him to respect what you've asked and if he does actually care about you to give you space as that would give the best chance of anything happening in the future or something along those lines ?”

Yes, I did tell him I wasn’t that into him and that I didn’t want him showing up unexpectedly. It was years ago. I didn’t have much emotional intelligence then. If I did, I could have phrased it in the way you suggested and perhaps gotten a better response.

In no way am I comparing your story to mine. You can let that assumption go.

Did you inform her that you were coming to her country? Or did you just show up?

If you told her, did she agree to see you?

And did you appear after the point where she had limited contact to only one 30 minute phone call a week?

If I were to put myself in her shoes and imagine that you’d been told to only call once a week for 30 minutes, then you show up at my house on another continent, I’d be totally freaked out. That is stalker behavior.

This board cannot fix her behavior, we can only fix yours.

As for her saying you are dangerous, you are trying to analyze it logically, instead of emotionally.  Your relationship was stressing her out, to the point where she was contemplating suicide, and ultimately chose to protect herself by relocating back home.  You then show up unannounced and removed her protection of distance.  She felt that was sucking her back into suicidal feelings, and that made you dangerous.  She may have displayed anger towards you, but she was also afraid.

When you hear the word dangerous, you think of causing her physical harm.  She is probably thinking of emotional harm, and via suicide that would put her in physical harm.

Initially as i previously mentioned she was used of always being right and having people agree with her because she's intelligent. So an example would be i was driving in her country i was certain about directions because im good at remembering places and routes. She argued with me because were in "her" country and she knows best i told her she's wrong she got annoyed i continued to trust in my ability and not just do what she wanted which resulted in poor behaviour. After continuing driving in the direction i believe was correct it turned out to be correct and she was suprised. (I proved she was wrong in her decision actively chose to trust in myself this is what i mean by losing/winning).

These kinds of scenarios happened often i would say 99.9% of the the time i was correct with my decision there were times where i was wrong and i was happy to admit it as well i always listened to what she said but i chose to make the decision based on what i believed was best or correct. A majority of the time she would thank me later for being so smart / praising me and saying i am a great leader with good decision making skills.

Most of the time it wasn't arguements or fights and it was lighthearted and funny and we'd laugh about it. But after we got married it progressively got worse. I mentioned we are both stubborn so sometimes i would out stubborn her an example of a more difficult win/lose situation would be she was angry at me because i decided i was going to spend some time how i wanted.

So she got upset i tried to comfort her she told me to go away she then started refusing to eat i asked her if she wanted food or me to order something etc she'd say no being stubborn. So i was more stubborn i would order her something i know she likes she would say she does not want it and isn't going to eat it id say ok no problem i would put the food in the room next to her she would tell me its just going to go to waste if you leave it there i would be more stubborn and say that's okay i can afford it.

I would then go back to spending time how i wanted she would be angry given a few hours eventually she ate the food. I would go back in there to check on her and see she ate and take the plate to the kitchen and then she would be fine or happy or say thank you. (in this context i won she lost) we were both stubborn had i just given in i would of not been able to spend time doing something i wanted , i would not of ordered her food so she prob wouldn't of ate and in the end i don't even know if she would of been happy.

These are just some examples some are on the light side and others progressively get more serious based on her actions.


She had blocked me and i had no idea what was happening she didn't respond to anything i waited over a month. In the time she left i spent time working on myself fixing the issues and then went to visit to speak with her and also her family to find a solution.

If i was able to contact her there's no doubt she would of said don't come i agree but she's also a very stubborn woman. I am her husband i wanted to show her that she is important to me what shows you are more important than someone who loves you travelling across the world to see you ? (Prior to her leaving back to her country she wanted me to go with her)


I wasn't told to call once a week i was blocked because i refused to let her manipulate the situation. If you had behaved like that i would of called you immature and disrespectful. I am her husband not some random guy she dated i've invested a significant amount of my time and emotions into our relationship you don't get to just block someone disappear and pretend they don't exist. It don't work like that and even legally it does not work like that you can't just disappear pretend your not married and go re marry you have obgligations and commitments.

I would also say don't get into a relationship with someone promise someone things commit to them get married and then expect to treat them like someone you've known for a week and think when you have obvious issues and aren't behaving rationally and what seems to be "discarding" your marriage or husband and expect the person to just sit there blocked with no idea what's happening in there life and not expect them to try to resolve it.


This is a forum based on dealing with people who have BPD i suspect my wife has BPD therefore there are issues with her behaviour.

While fixing mine is also a reason i am here if i am not able to help her fix hers as well then how am i expected to have any kind of workable relationship ?


Here's the problem with that she was suicidal while living at her parents while we waited for her visa she would complain and cry and say how much she hates living there she would tell me stories about them treating her like a slave. After she went back to her parents she told her parents the exact same thing about living with me.

So which 1 is it ? is it me ? is it her parents ? is it both ? or is it her ?

Here's the facts she was sucidial all throughout her life since her traumas so much so her parents removed her door in her bedroom. She was suicidal when living with her parents after she met me. She was suicidal after living with me as well. She's suffered from a range of other issues before during and after our relationship throughout her entire life.

So in knowing all of this is it likely i am the problem ? did i somehow influence her life before i even met her are you also going to blame me for her being sucidial before i even knew her ? actually ridiculous and i think your analysis of this is wrong.

What i would like to see if acknowlegement that the person i am dealing with is not behaving well or rationally which is obvious at this point understanding she has some clear issues. Then pointing out my side of what i am doing wrong and giving me advice on not only how to help fix my issues but also how or what i can do to influence / help her.

I can fix myself i can become the most perfect man in the world if she does not see her own problems and fix herself and she came back i would be in the same situation again listening to everyone blame me ?

It's like having a car and your back 2 wheels (me) are flat so you pump them up and your front 2 wheels are gone you don't have any (her) you can tell me all you want how to pump up my 2 wheels but when i get in that car and go to drive it i am not going to go very far unless i find a way to fix the 2 front wheels. (and yes i know someone will probably say maybe you need to get new front wheels not fix them in my case i want to try to fix them because i love my car "marriage")

For the sake of trying to make progress i am going to stop defending myself and arguing with people here and just listen to what people say regardless if i disagree with them or there wrong and see what i can get out of it. I know i've mentioned enough for it to be clear about the situation so im going to just try to focus on not being resentful/angry and showing more empathy and understanding of the situation accepting that she has issues and trying to deal with them.

In a nutshell, here’s the problem. You’ve mentioned that she has repeatedly been suicidal. OK. We know that is an issue that is connected to mental illness. Whether or not it’s BPD, that’s another question. For our purposes here, it doesn’t matter what the diagnosis is. Repeated suicidal ideation = mental illness.

A theme that has recurred in your posts is that her behavior is not fair to you. I’d agree. Anyone who exits the marriage, goes to another country, and refuses to communicate—that’s some messed up  :cursing:

Let’s set aside blame; we are not trying to blame you—we are merely trying to figure out the dynamics of what went wrong.

Going back to the first presumption that we share without reservation, we would say that making threats of suicide repeatedly throughout her life seems to indicate some level of mental illness.

Here’s where your logic runs into a snag. You are saying you want to “fix her” and have her recommit to the promises she made in her vows to you.

She’s mentally ill.

Sure, we’d all like to “fix” our dysfunctional partners, but THEY ARE MENTALLY ILL. That’s why they’re dysfunctional in the first place.

Even therapists struggle with their BPD clients, assuming she is BPD. And other types of mental illness are not easy to “fix” even with professional help.

Yet you want to take on a do it yourself fix job on someone who is mentally ill. Can you see how unrealistic that is?

Fian made the point that we can help you “fix” yourself so that you will be perceived by her as a more desirable partner (assuming she allows you to communicate with her in the future). But you cannot “fix” her, even with her consent. The only person who can “fix” her is HER, and so far, she seems to be pursuing that on her own with a well-trained clinical psychologist.

I can yes im being too logical.


Who's seemingly told her she can divorce me without knowing anything about me. We know she's exaggerated & lied about certain things to her parents accused me of cheating to my own mother what do you think she's told her psychologist ?

This is where my concern is if she's gone to this psychologist and told him a fabricated story and he seemingly hasn't even bothered to perhaps speak with me and ask about things then told her to divorce he's set her on a path that's extremely destructive and reinforced to her that idea is right.

What can i do about that because right now nothing is improving.

I suppose you could contact him, pay him for a session, then tell your side of the story. Not sure if it would be ethical for him to consult with you—there are specific codes that professional psychologists obey as far as ethics, and he may not be able to speak with you.

Would this not also be something perceived as a bad thing ? That i tried to find her therapist then talk to him ?

I have asked her if we could talk to her therapist together she rejected it and I asked if she was willing to talk to mine or find 1 together she didn't even respond.

Perhaps if everything else fails and things aren't looking good this might be a last ditch option but again this therapist might not even know her.

I just think its crazy how any professional can advise divorce without speaking to both parties mind blowing

Perhaps contacting him via phone or email explaining who I am asking if he knows of my wife and ask if he would be willing to assist if she gives permission and see what he says would be a better route ?

Have you seen Ground Hog day with Bill Murray?  If not, you should see it - it is a great movie and has actually been used as source material for many sermons.  What you saw in the movie was a man who was locked into living the same day over and over.  His first time through the day, he reacted to everything, was a jerk to many people, and they responded in kind.  He repeated much of the same behavior the next day, and got the same result.  However, he decided to try to approach people in different ways, and he would get very different responses from them.  Instead of reacting to them, he instead interacted with them strategically.  By taking a radically different approach, he got a radically different response from them.

You can look at your relationship with your wife in the same way.  If you repeat the same behaviors, reacting to what she does, you will get the same responses from her.  If you change your behavior radically, you may get a radically different response from your wife.  This board can't impact your wife, but we can impact you.  We are trying to help you to change your approach towards your wife, so that you can get a different result.  Who is at fault doesn't really matter, if the goal is to get a different response from your wife.  If you just react to what she does, and focus on who is to blame, your marriage will not succeed, as you will continue down the road that you already started.  If you instead focus on changing your behavior with an eye to causing a different reaction in her, then your marriage has a chance of success.

It very well might be though of that way. Much depends upon your attitude and how you communicate.


She has indicated that couples counseling is a *no go* for her at this time.


You don’t know that he has advised divorce. Typically therapists encourage their clients to tell them what they want/plan to do, rather than advise any particular outcome. She may have mentioned divorce and wondered if it were possible to retain the tenets of her faith should she pursue that route.


I would bet the above would be a violation of ethics. What I see that could be possible is if you were to tell your side, and how much you would like to reunite. NOTHING MORE

He is likely restricted from entering into anything where he would advise both of you. Should you have entered therapy together at the outset, seeing you on an individual basis would be possible.

But there’s no way he is going to violate confidentiality with her and serve as an intermediary in helping you obtain a reconciliation.

I think for now its best to avoid contact with the therapist assuming it is the right person.

Unless others here think it might be a good option i feel like as soon as she hears that i figured out who her therapist was and then contacted him i don't see anything good coming from it if anything she will just use it against me.

Plan for now is to continue focusing on getting rid of resentment and frustration and showing more empathy towards the woman i love.

Her birthday is in 2 days she's received the package and i've sent her a decent amount of money for the next month or so with enough for her to spend on her birthday.

Will send her an email on her birthday just wishing her happy birthday and to have a good day etc nothing more and will have flowers delivered to her.

I'll wait 1-2 weeks speak with her father about organizing a call to hear her voice low conflict not talking about marriage etc or ask if his willing to help mediate to improve the situation or if he can ask her what needs to be done on my end for us to have communication again.

If he helps great ill go from there if he refuses / does not respond i will write an apology email laying out what im apologizing for how it impacted her and asking her to forgive me for the things ive done wrong and ask for her to give me the opportunity to correct were i went wrong when we were together. (i'll ask here first for help to write it in a good format)

After that i will leave it for a month or longer (my birthday is mid november so will see if she completely ignores me or reaches out)

"Unless others here think it might be a good option i feel like as soon as she hears that i figured out who her therapist was and then contacted him i don't see anything good coming from it if anything she will just use it against me."

Ok so let's pretend you are the intended target here. How would you feel? How would you respond?

Cheers and Best Wishes!

-SC-

Would make me more angry especially if i've lied to the therapist then my husband/wife came into the picture able to show i was fabricating a story.

But like i said i agree its not a good idea and can't see how that would help at all and i am certain there are many other options that could yield a more positive outcome.

it is the emotionally mature strategy.

all of us here understand the difficulty of loving someone with bpd traits. for me, it was the greatest challenge of my life. there are moments im proud of, but man, i got my ass kicked. and especially at the end, she did a number of things i did nothing to deserve, that i would chalk up to really nothing but poor character. i can understand why she did them, and its not like i cant fill a thread with the poor ways in which i treated her, all of which had to do with the breakdown of our relationship, but there isnt a justification for some of the the things she did. she stole from me. if anyone tried to tell me i had a role in that, id tell them theyre out of their mind.

many years ago now, a member came here who was having difficulty with her marriage. i dont remember the specifics, but she had ongoing conflict with her husband, and was on the cusp of splitting up. in her hurt, she was having a lot of trouble with the advice she was getting. it felt, to her, like blame. her hurt was real. she was wronged. but when another member asked her "do you want to be right, or do you want to save your marriage?", things started to click for her. she started to look at the conflict differently.

there are all sorts of common conflict that kill marriages (whether mental illness is present or not). for example, fights over money is one of the most common, and one of the biggest marriage killers. i named others in a previous post.

what actually kills the marriage isnt the conflict, but the inability to resolve it. there are lots of couples out there, for example, who fight more than average, but have a healthy and happy relationship, because at the end of the day, they resolve conflict in a way that works for them. even if they have a lot of it.

it is the need to be right that ultimately drives conflict, and makes it hard to resolve.

dont get me wrong. i believe there are hills to die on. for example, if i marry someone who agrees with me that we want to have children, and she then changes her mind, there are not a lot of fixes or compromises for that conflict. either one of us gives, or we have irreconcilable differences (or, for that matter, one of us gives, and permanently resents the sacrifice). it largely depends on how committed we both are to our position. our independent values vs our interdependent values. if having kids is an uncompromisable position for me, and not having them is uncompromisable for her, its hard to see where we bridge that gap. if it were a disagreement over who cooks dinner, that would probably not kill the relationship, because thats likely not a hill to die on for either of us.

im 36, as well. ive never been married, so ive never been through this, specifically, but its not too hard for me to imagine that if my wife left me, went to another country, and refused to speak to me, i would be beside myself. certainly, i would have gone to lengths to speak to her. while i think its important to critically and objectively understand how things got to the point, who is right or wrong, what caused any of it, would have little to no bearing on how i felt. i would feel abandoned, and betrayed, and id also feel scared and out of control, like i would if my child were missing. and i would probably do just about anything just to bring her home.

as your support system, we are in a tricky position ourselves. if all we do is validate your hurt, we run the risk of further polarizing the conflict. or, for example, if we were to start attacking your wife, well, you might feel less alone in your hurt for a time, but if you love her and want to reconcile with her, we would sort of be acting like the devil on your shoulder, and youd probably rightfully start to resent it. and of course, if we minimize your hurt, or dont acknowledge it at all, its pretty hard to build trust, right? we dont know your wife, so it doesnt make much sense to jump on her side, we wouldnt be credible, and we wouldnt be serving you.

there are moving parts to conflict. often times, a two person system (a marriage or relationship) will cope by adding a third party to that conflict. the addition of that third party can be good or bad - stabilizing or destabilizing.

in this case, the relationship has reached the point of stonewalling, and both of you have added another party.

we dont know, exactly, how the party she has added is acting. we can assume that that party has her best interests in mind, but also, as her support system, has primarily her interests in mind. they may be toxic, they may be outstanding, they may just be doing their job. we dont really know.

personally, i wouldnt see her being in pretty much any mental health support environment as a major threat to your marriage. whether they have a bias against you or not, they will be working to help her reach a baseline of stability. if they overplay their hand and try to push her against you in a way that doesnt make sense to her, that will likely reveal itself. sort of like when you feel like we are telling you that youre to blame, you push back.

your hurt is as at least as important part in this equation as hers. continuing my "if she came back tomorrow" scenario, you would still have your hurt. you wouldnt trust her. youd be afraid of it happening again. its probably essential for you to feel and process that hurt in order to repair the marriage (whether, and to what extent, she is able to be a part of that is independent.)

what we, as your support system, are trying to do, is strike that balance between acknowledging and working with your hurt and asking you to what extent you are willing to let that hurt deteriorate your marriage. we are asking, in essence, whether youd rather be right, or save your marriage. its not unreasonable that sometimes, that can feel like blame. for that matter, its not necessarily unreasonable to say youd rather be right.

but the need to be right is what drives conflict, and unresolved conflict is what kills relationships major and minor. even determining that the conflict is unresolvable and walking away from the relationship is letting go of the need to be right. but the prioritization of our wounds (while reasonable for a time) over resolving the conflict, is the perpetuation of it.

i realize that telling you that, and restating it, as a response to your hurt, can feel dismissive. it might kind of feel like being told "get over it". i want to be clear that i dont think thats what anyone is saying. its that in order to resolve the conflict, you will necessarily have to make it, at least for now, a lower priority. she may be able to acknowledge it at some point, or she may never be able to. certainly, whether she is or isnt, you need a healthy outlet to process that hurt, which can come in many forms, including here.

part of processing and prioritizing that hurt, when youre feeling it the most, part of focusing on getting rid of resentment and showing more empathy to the woman you love, is asking yourself "would i rather be right, or save my marriage". because if you answer it honestly, it will always tell you what to do.


this seems like a pretty solid overall plan to me. i really think if you send a birthday wish with no attachments, that it will catch her off guard, and plant a seed. i do also think that like Skip said, any seed you plant may take some time to grow. dont underestimate that. simply not acting, or changing gears, if weve been doing anything that works against us, can have a really powerful effect, and be the start of reversing the damage, but dont expect that to happen over night, or even for a long time. think of it as an investment.

in that light, im curious what others think about the timeline. im of the mind that its less the date and time of the contact, and more the nature and timing...whether it serves you, or whether its too much, too soon. for example, while i think trying to establish communication with/through her father is a great idea, im not sure id go with the apology so soon after trying to talk with him if it doesnt go well. it might look like trying too hard, or throwing a hail mary. that could look like pushing too hard to talk to her, which you dont want to do.

My only concern about the time line is that she is likely to view the gift as a negative (marriage help books).  She may have that in her mind when he contacts her in 2 weeks.

I didn't just send her marriage books perhaps i should clarify what was sent. I sent her 3 books (The Excellent Wife , The High Conflict Couple and Let me be a woman)

The excellent wife is a book that goes in hand with the 1 i am reading which is called the exemplary husband i told my wife i was reading this and using it as a guide to become a more biblical husband and learn how to spiritually lead because she firstly told me to read the bible (i previously said i read 2 verses a night this was a mistake i read 2 chapters per night and i am currently in the middle of 1 Samuel to give a context of how far in i am) I pray every night over this situation and have done both of these since she left.

So it made sense to send her the book about being a more biblical wife as well. I previously gifted her the transformed wifes book and created to be his helpmate 2 books from 2 ladies she has high respect and after learning about them further agree with there teachings.

This may not sound like much but i don't usually read books at all i didn't actively sit down and read the bible front to back and learned slowly through sermons / my own readings of different sections so this is the first time comitting to reading which is something my wife wanted me to do. So far i've finished the high conflict couple and i am nearly finished with the exemplary husband.

The high conflict couple was sent because it was suggested on this site as a book that could be sent to someone with BPD without directly naming BPD which may help them and i also read it so i learned about validation and communication skills the idea is if she decides she does want to talk with me we have a foundation of something we have read together and there are activities that can be done as a couple.

Let me be a woman is letters from a mother to her daughter and since my wife has claimed her mother was abusive and not a very good role model i felt it may give her some guidance about biblical womanhood and marriage and what she would expect first hand in early marriage.

These books combined and having direct email of the transformed wife if she wishes to seek biblical counsel further makes me know that later on she could never say she didn't know or didn't have the information avaliable to her especially because all of these people she looked up to and respected. My wife enjoys reading and reads alot of books so she may or may not appreciate or read them but at least she has them if she ever decides to.

The other gifts were a band shirt from 1 of her favourite bands , a music box that had our initials and her birthday date engraved and a bracelet , a necklace from my mother of a kitten (she loves cats) , some bookmarks that were cat themed and a letter i wrote her which i asked to be opened and read after her birthday since it obviously involved the marriage.


I don't care about being right i would do whatever it takes to fix things and make it up to her because it upsets me that we are in this situation. When she first left i was relieved it took about 2-3 weeks for it to hit me and after the fight and the 30 min stuff and it becoming very real she might not be coming back. I changed my attitude completely and felt devastated and said anything i could to try to get her to communicate with me which she wouldn't do.

Even now i don't care who is right or wrong the only reason i talk about what she's done is its hurtful being treated like this by someone you love and had the idea you would be sharing the rest of your life with to have it pulled away from you without any serious issue is heartbreaking being ignored and stonewalled is extremely painful.

When you talk about irreconcilable difference i don't see any at all in our marriage which is why its so hard for me to understand why this situation has become so destructive. There isn't really anything i cannot see us being able to agree or compromise on even the male friend stuff wasn't a big issue in the grand scheme of things and sure enough if we talks about it i am certain she would of deleted social media or just those male friends if the circumstances were different and she was in a happier mood.

Yes. Contacting therapist would be catastrophic

Sending flowers on birthday - not a good idea (you already sent her a boat load of gifts).
Sending email on birthday - not a good idea (you already sent her a letter with the gifts).
Contacting Dad (shortly after sending dutiful books) - not a good idea.

All of the above are doubling down on tactics that have failed over and over and screaming "I can't change". The gifts will be seen as being all about what you want... and not hearing her.

Sending an apology a week after your birthday (without asking for anything, including forgiveness) - good idea, the first step in months long effort to shift the tone and message and maybe opening a line of communication.

The reasons have been explained in detail in prior posts.

You are at a crossroads. Do you want to do more of  the same that has resulting in increasing silence, resistance, and annoyance? Or do you want to change?

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