Hi there CG4ME,

Sounds like you have a skilled and insightful therapist. That's really good to hear for your complex situation.

Is there a specific timeline or deadline that needs to happen for your separation process? I.e. do any parts need to happen at a certain time? If not, I wonder if there has to be any rush to tell your children.

Each situation is different, so I wonder if you could even tell your independent children after the fact.

In terms of your dependent daughter -- that is difficult. For her do you think it would work better to "ease into it" -- for example, you two take a little vacation together, then move into the new place immediately upon return? Or would she do better with a more direct move (current house directly to new place)?

With very young children you sometimes have to get creative, like "sending them to Grandma's for the week" while you move everything out. You know your D's capabilities best so you would know if something like that could help. Can she stay with a friend during the transition?

Finally, have you had a chance to read the book "Splitting" yet? Link here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=47078.0

It's about best practices when divorcing a person with a PD. Could be worth reading and also showing to your support team.

So sorry it has come to this... just take one step at a time.

Hello, ThemApples,
My former therapist said looking back at the fork in the road is hard to do, and you had valid reasons at the time to hope that life would have been easier.

You have time now to choose something different if you'd like to do that. My dbpdh elderly husband is a menace, and my therapist even cautioned me that I might want to avoid these years while I had the chance now that our son was out of college. Some new horror is just around the corner, without the breaks in-between as in past years. If he didn't leave for a couple hours to go to the gym or run errands, I would have lost it. He'll be 78 soon, but can still drive o.k.

I think whether your son would have had the same problems is hard to know. I've known too many people who had stable homes, but children that faced many difficulties of all sorts. I knew these families well, some are close relatives, and one just doesn't know.

I hope you're able to focus on yourself and your future, as you've been through a lot. Wishing you much better days ahead.

Probably one of the hardest lessons to learn for most people "other people's emotions are not my responsibility."

I do like seeing a success story in the vein of looking back on the relationship as an educational tool instead of casting it in such a negative light. Thank you for sharing and providing some insightful positivity back to our forum.

Cheers and Best Wishes!

-SC-

So I have decided to leave my marriage.  A month ago I posted about my husband (undiagnosed NPD (Covert) putting his hands on me when I got angry with him about our daughter being emotionally abusive towards me and my eldest with BPD cutting me out of her life.  I went to him in deep despair looking for support and instead he started to gaslight me and made me feel like I am responsible for making the relationships better with the girls - so my feelings didn't matter. 

I have been trying to figure out my exit plan.  I have an adult daughter living with us who has a mild intellectual disability and I have to protect her.  She is not good with change and has her routines.  She is cabaple and old enough to decide who she wants to live with but he is no good for her.  He disrespects her boundaries and often frustrates her but she is very anxious and dependent on us.  She has never held a job and I am the only one that tries to encourage her to be more independent and learn skills but he doesn't initiate anything to help her grow and learn.  He just sits and watches television all day long so he becomes the go to when she doesn't want to do things that require her to take risks.

 I have been getting all my ducks in a row and I am waiting for an appointment with a lawyer which is being arranged for me by the Domestic Violence people.  I have an inheritance that I have protected from my husband but he still thinks we are going through with the original plans of earning interst income and putting it in our joint account.  I keep putting it off and telling him I can't decide how to invest it and need time to figure it out.  In the meantime I am looking for rental properties that can accommodate my daughter and I.  I am just struggling with my codependency issues and the narcissitic abuse effects I have been living with for over 30 years.  I find myself worrying about how he will react and how hurt he will be.  He is very controlling and possessive around money.  I told him we should move my TFSA into a better fund and he said "our TFSA" so I know I am in for a battle. 

I read a book on covert narcissism and it opened my eyes.  I always knew our relationship was unfulfilling but because of my past trauma (father was a controlling narcissist) I didn't see it.  Now I do with great clarity.  The manipulation tactics are now so obvious.  When I told him I needed to set boundaries in order to feel safe in the house he seemed at first to comply.  Now I notice he is acting like nothing ever happened.  I bought a lock for my bedroom door (we don't sleep in the same room) and he said he was so hurt that I was sneaking around and locking my door.  He dismissed the bruise he gave me and focused on the intent and not the impact of what he had done.  He actually said I refuse to believe I am an abuser.  I kept telling him it was not the first time.  He shook me in front of the kids when they were little and they were traumatized.  I stayed in the marriage for my children and because I had no income and felt so powerless.  Now my body is telling me no more.  Enough!!!
My therapist is helping with emdr to heal the trauma with my father so I can separate the past from the present and not project it onto my situation with my husband.  I can tell that my brain is so used to not putting myself first because I should be less worried about how this will hurt him and accept that him hurting me is the reason why I am leaving. 

He said something to me a week or so before he physically hurt me that also made me realize that he never had the capacity for empathy from the get go.  What I thought was maybe me being too much or him just being a guy was really his inability to empathize.  He said to me that his recent medical crisis put him in a position where he didn't feel like he was in control and that he had never experienced such extreme emotions because he likes staying in the "middle", no highs, no lows. He said every time you shared your feelings with me I never really understood them or related to them. It confirms everything I felt about our relationship.  I would always say to him we never feel like an us, it always feels like a me versus you.  Now I understand. 

I don't know how to tell him I want to separate.  He has already been triangulating with my two oldest daughters so I know he is going to make them believe something is wrong with me.  I have evidence of the bruise and texts admitting he was sorry.  How and when do I tell my daughter with MID?  She will be afraid and confused and I can't leave this house without her.  I am also afraid he is going to try delaying dealing with things and I will have to use my inheritance to buy my freedom.  In other words he is going to make me pay.  A part of me wants to negotiate with him but based on how he has dealt with this recent situation with his DARVO tactics I think he is only going to delay.  Actually I know he will because that's his MO. It's on his time not anybody elses.  He always used to say things like, I don't like your tone or delivery.  He doesn't like people telling him what to do.  I am so exhausted but I have to be strong and prepare as much as I can before I say anything to him. 

Any advice would be so appreciated.  I want to get on with my life and help my daughter improve hers.  We both deserve better.

Thanks in advance

Hi there,

Well there's a lot going on here.  I'm sorry about the miscarriages--that must be incredibly heartbreaking.  It makes sense that you and your wife wouldn't be happy about that.  But here's what I see:  your wife might be reacting to that disappointment in potentially misguided ways.  The recent traumatic experiences could put her in fight-or-flight mode.  It seems to me your wife is in flight mode, wanting a divorce from you, and simultaneously cutting ties with her mom.  It could be possible that your wife has reflected deeply and determined that this is an inflection point--she wants to exit her current life, to get a fresh start.  But to talk about severing two important relationships all of the sudden seems extreme to me, especially when just a short time ago she was trying to have a baby with you.

I can't help but wonder if you read your MIL's text, or if you are solely relying on what your wife told you.  I wonder because pwBPD tend to perceive ill will when none is intended, especially when under stress.  In addition, when pwBPD talk about feeling abused and aggrieved, their emotions might be genuine, but the fact patterns don't always align.  You might have experienced this yourself, if and when your wife has misread your intentions or accused you of hurting her, when you never meant to.  Her emotional reactivity tends to be super-sized, right?

I think if I were in your shoes, I'd try to be empathetic for the pain around the miscarriages and would try to be a calming influence, as well as buy a little time.  If your wife were serious about divorce, then she could move out and/or hire a lawyer.  My guess is she will do neither.  In the meantime, you can reassure her.

My mother with BPD would once in a while tell me how she wanted to divorce my father. She always seemed and looked very dysregulated emotionally when she would tell me this. I doubt she ever told my father she wanted a divorce. My aunt once said that my father was happily married to my mother (which I believe was true) and my mother was unhappy in her marriage to my father. My father did everything he could to please my mother, and there was nothing he could really do, as she was just one unhappy woman with untreated mental illness.

One thing that stood out to me in your update is how easy it can be to grab onto a hopeful moment after a hard one. After enough years of Jekyll/Hyde, even a calmer breakfast can feel huge.

It may help to watch patterns more than moments. A softer exchange is welcome, but the bigger question is whether there is real follow-through, consistency, and willingness to work inside some structure.

Your daughter also sounds pretty clear about what she needs right now: steadiness, routine, and a calmer base.

You don’t sound punitive to me. You sound tired, grieving, and like someone who has spent a long time trying to hold too much together.

Hi DustyCabbage,

That sounds like a really heavy few days… especially with everything you’ve both been carrying around the miscarriages and now this situation with her mom. It makes sense that things would feel intense right now.

One thing that stood out to me is how quickly things seemed to shift after that message. When someone is that overwhelmed, the feelings can spill over and often get directed toward the person closest to them. It can come out as “I don’t feel the same” or “I want out,” even if that’s not the full picture long-term.

With possible BPD traits in the mix, it can help to remember that feelings can feel like facts in those moments. The people closest often end up taking the full impact of that shift, not because they caused it, but because they’re right there.

You mentioned this has happened before after really painful moments, which might be something to gently keep in mind here. Not to dismiss what she’s saying, but to help you stay grounded while things are heightened.

In moments like this, it can help to focus less on convincing her or fixing it right away, and more on how you show up… staying calm, not getting pulled into defending every point, and giving things a bit of space to settle.

How have you been responding when she brings this up?

Mutt

The dear groom hasn't been mentioned yet.  I'm assuming you've met him and have a sense of how much balance he can generate in the marriage.  Maybe he has even suggested you be included, remarking to your sister that he was expecting that.  While we don't want to overthink this, he might be a positive influence on your sister's actions and reactions.

I'll mention my experience, though it was a bit opposite to what you've described.  My son is grown now but I recall when he was just a baby and my spouse (now ex) had drawn away from me.  I didn't know about personality disorders and had no idea what was causing the discord in our relationship.  At the time I suspected some level of postpartum reaction.  Then it suddenly stopped when she stopped nursing.  All of a sudden life with our new threesome was normal.  Well, until she got triggered a couple months later by one of her friends and things went downhill again.

Could something have changed in your daughter's life to trigger your daughter?  The trigger could be almost anything.  Did she stop nursing?  Is she under more stress with the baby teething?  Did she get pregnant again?  Did something happen with her relationship partner?  It could be something mostly or entirely unrelated to you.