AlleyOop23,

I know that many of us on this site relate to the mixture of thoughts and feelings you describe.  And I think that we are often inclined to see that mixture as indicating a deficit in ourselves.  Somebody said something to me about this recently that I found really helpful.  She said that the impact of a rip tide isn't a sign of how weak the swimmer is but how strong the pull is. Your situation is challenging.  You are on your journey in learning how you want to and can deal with it -- which may not be linear but is a journey of progress.

Hi there,

This sounds exactly like the situation of a pwNPD (undiagnosed) in my life.  He's supposed to communicate with his ex about visitation and various affairs affecting the kids, but he uses any contact as an excuse to vent his ongoing dissatisfaction with the former relationship.  His missives dredge up ancient grievances, and he continues to insult his ex.  Sure, he's supposed to use a co-parenting app to coordinate logistics, but he has a million excuses not to use it.  He prefers texting and emails.  Meanwhile, he makes each and every interaction tense, with non-cooperation, threats and endless accusations.  It's emotionally draining.

I think the reality is, you can't control your disordered ex.  Though there might be a divorce decree and a parenting plan in place, your ex doesn't necessarily comply with it, and the courts can't do much, either, short of a restraining order.  Your ex carries all this emotional baggage, which is unleashed during your ongoing interactions.  And the reality is that the interactions are ongoing because of the kids.  You recognize that her missives/complaints/accusations are triggering to YOU.  Of course they are, the messages are highly personal, and I think they are DESIGNED to be triggering to you.  Maybe they make you feel defensive, angry, guilty, fearful or plain exhausted.  My guess is you feel dread every time you see a message from your ex.

Maybe if you sit with the issue, you might be able to accept it.  Try not to take the messages personally, hard though it may be.  Maybe you could ask a trusted third party (or AI?) to read the messages for you and reply regarding the logistics only.

"Part of me wonders if I don’t really actually wanna cut ties because I’m still in love with the fantasy that was that relationship and this is the final goodbye."

It's good that you can be insightful about your own thought processes.

Detaching from a toxic person is one thing, and detaching from the fantasy that the person or the relationship represents is another. I, too, find myself "wistfully missing my own ignorance". For example, I went through a process of reframing certain positive memories with former partner sp that I would no longer feel the same habitual sense of warmth, closeness etc by juxtaposing them with the reality of manipulation, deceit, callousness, etc.

But one day, when the memory came up and I felt no warmth, I felt a sense of shock and sadness and habitually tried to reach back in my emotions to rekindle it. To an extent, I still feel that sadness. Losing the relationship is one thing, losing the person by realising they never existed is another, and finally, losing the feelings associated with them. Just because something was illusory doesn't mean that losing it isn't a loss. I hope you can continue to detach as you seem to be doing.

There is a certain kind of app that divorced parents use to communicate about the children they have shared custody of. I am not sure if that would limit how much she could write that did not have to do with the children. You can ask your lawyer.

As far as still feeling an unhealthy connection to her because of all the accusations and complaints she continues to repeat over and over, any normal human being would feel uncomfortable reading what she is sending to you. It certainly would be best for your well being to not have to read all those. Do you want to have the emails sent to your lawyer which you will have to pay for or is there a third party who could read the emails and send you only what is related to the children?

Certainly I would continue to have the court alerted to what she is doing. The children are subject to all her out of control ranting and raving. You might have a possibility of getting a more favorable custody arrangement because of how badly she is behaving.

No, what you're saying makes perfect sense.  With my BPD daughter in her teens, I lived in constant fear of what would come next.  Not what happened, not what I expected to happen, but the unknown of it all and constantly adapting...it was exhausting and I ended up having a heart attack from the stress of it all in my early 40's.

In short, I couldn't do it anymore...I hated feeling that way and never actually being in control of anything.

So whatever you do moving forward, it has to involve not getting to that place where the wheels can fall off the bus at anytime.  That means you have to be mentally prepared going into any interaction and until you have that confidence, I wouldn't do anything further (other than respond appropriately when he reaches out).

Let me ask a question- have you told him specifically what you just told me?  Because if you ever got to the point of replying with a letter, that's exactly what it should be.  Not, "You did this and caused that..." but more along the lines of "I stayed so stressed out all the time and I struggled to be a great mom and work full time because of it.  I never knew what to expect or how to handle things when we were struggling.  It made me so upset not knowing how to help or how to even function myself."

Notice how I wrote that- it was all about me, my feelings, my thoughts, etc.  I didn't blame him or challenge him, and my goal of the letter would be to say what I never could before. 

Could that be a place to start?  You don't have to answer now, take some time to think it through what you really want and need out of all this.  We're going to talk this out on your timelines, at your pace.

Thanks again Pook075 for your reply.

Everything you are saying makes sense.

The thing is, I've done all this before - cycling between periods of calm, followed by dysregulation, followed by me reaching out and helping my husband come back to stability. The thing is, something snapped in me after his last cycle and I just don't want to do these cycles anymore. I don't want to rescue him.

It's not because the relationship is unfair, I honestly can come to terms with the fact that his contributions may look a lot less than mine  (e.g., taking care of kids, employment, household chores). I can even come to terms with the fact that he doesn't love me the same way as partners do in a healthy relationship, and it looks different because of his mental illness. I can come to terms with the fact that I am often very embarrassed by his behaviour and that he is unreliable. I can even handle the fact that I can't trust him (I'm not talking about cheating here - that I could not handle - I mean can't trust him to babysit or to be consistent or have a job etc.). I am happy to  support him as he heals, even if it takes years. I am ok with living separately for years if that's what it takes, even if people think we are pretty strange for adopting this arrangement.

What I can't handle anymore is living like I am in a minefield, where an explosion can go off at any second and derail my stability. My psych just can't take it, and then I find myself not being able to talk care of our children and be there for them the way I want. It's too scary to live in a minefield. So yes, I know how to stop the current cycle - reach out to him and say the kind words you suggested - I have done this countless times before. I just don't want to anymore. Not because it's unfair, as I said before, I am ok with unfair. Because by being the rescuer, I feel like I am constantly perpetuating the cycle. I just don't want to participate in the dance of the cycle anymore.

I could handle it if there was a baseline accountability, and he slipped up, even if initially he slipped up often. I guess that's what I am waiting for - to see if he can pull it together by his own initiation. He has all the resources he needs to pull it together at his fingertips - a therapist he likes, a community that would be there for him, me. He is an adult, and it is his responsibility, and I will be there all the way if he does. So when he reached out to see the kids, I am ok with responding and setting up a visit if it's good for them to see him. But I don't want to bear the responsibility for whether or not the visit works out - if he can pull himself together and make it happen, great. If not, I just want to leave him be and see if he can figure it out.

What I am saying probably doesn't make sense in the realm of BPD, but that's where I'm at. Thanks for listening . I am open to further suggestions and comments (and even being told that my approach doesn't make sense )

My ex-wife and I separated four years ago (which sounds crazy...four years already!?!).  Every now and then she'll call over something with the kids, our previous finances or things one of us has in storage, etc.  And when that phone rings with her on the caller ID, I feel a pinch of panic and a pinch of excitement at the exact same time. 

Why?  I really don't know, but I still enjoy talking to her from time to time and sharing little nuggets from our current lives.

I think what you're going through it completely normal and I do understand the hesitation to cut off all contact.  The email is a great option because you can choose to read it or skip it, and you get to decide when you do that.

Maybe a compromise would be to ask your attorney to mention the rules of communication?  You don't mind hearing anything kid or finance related, and you don't mind little things about her life.  But the ranting and blaming are crossing a boundary that's ultimately against the judge's orders and the reason you separated in the first place.

I actually think it's a good thing for the judge to see that you're not treating her like an enemy combatant; you just don't need the abusive language while trying to be kind and civil.  I'd recommend to keep the email chain but give a reminder on what it's actually for.

It took me such a long time to stop playing the "what if" game in my mind. 

- What if a day before everything fell apart, I did this instead of that?
- What if I said something different in that final discard to make everything better?
- What if I talked to this person, or that person, and asked them to help?
- What if I did this or said that, or did the other thing I thought of yesterday?

Although all of this feels logical and sound, it's basically the disordered thinking that made our BPD partner fall apart in the first place.  We can't go back, we can't change things, and we can't un-say what was said.  All of that is carved in stone and can't be changed.

The only thing we can actually control is today since tomorrow is not promised.

So what do we do?  We've been under a mountain of emotional stress and we need to find our way back to the new normal.  We do that by prioritizing ourselves for a little while.  Get out in the world and enjoy it.  Pursue old hobbies or find new ones.  Visit friends and family we haven't see for awhile.  Prioritize health and fitness; a healthy body leads to a healthy mind...plus, exercise releases "feel good" chemicals in the brain. 

So we get to it, we start fresh and focus on today.  And somewhere in that process, we actually heal and move on.

One sign of my successful detachment is that I was imagining going back in time to the day of the cheating - grabbing former partner as he walked out the door and saying, don't do this, you're going to destroy everything we've created together.

But why? The act of cheating wasn't the fundamental issue. The dishonesty and selfishness which enabled cheating, were. I could have grabbed him and sat him down and enacted some science fictional scenario where I explained that I come from the future and do you know what's going to happen, it's going to be bad for both of us (there are reasons to believe this has been very bad for former partner as well - likely, in the long wrong, worse than it is for me).

But that would merely continue and reproduce a dynamic where I am his keeper, his caretaker, responsible for his emotional needs and failings. It would solve nothing.

I do not want to turn time or go back.

Thank you for the wisdom everyone.

The thing that has helped most is recognising that my values are my values, the reality is the reality and these do not need to be validated (indeed cannot be validated) by a distorted and inconsistent mind.

As Tom Petty sings, the future was (is) wide open.