You've been abused and conditioned to focus on your wife's wants, needs, emotions, etc. over literally everything else in your life, including your kids. 

At this point, both of your patterns of behavior are pretty well established, and so any attempt to change them and stand up for yourself (and your kids) is going to provoke her.  It sounds like she's accustomed to getting her way, no matter how selfish or unfair her demands are, and expects little to no resistance from you.

You have to realize that it's perfectly acceptable to say "No" to her, for any reason or no reason at all, and let her stew.  Now, given the dynamic, she's going to react badly to that, and who could blame her?  This is the hole you've dug yourself into. 

Whether you want to get out of it is up to you, but you're not going to change who she is, or how she behaves.  This is always going to be a high-contact relationship; what can change is how you react to it and how you manage it. 

Keep in mind your kids are learning from watching this, both consciously and subconsciously, and learning to tailor their own behavior accordingly. 

I got into a legal battle over a conjointly owned property with my sister with NPD. I hired a lawyer to deal with the matter. I made it clear to him that he was to deal with her and I would not be involved though clearly he would consult with me. I can't tell you the number of times my sister tried to get me sucked back in through communications with her lawyer to my lawyer. She made all kinds of unreasonable demands, sent me all kind of stuff her lawyer had to give to my lawyer and then mail to me. She recruited endless flying monkeys to try to force me to sell the property to her. It just was going to make things worse my responding to anything. Eventually she had no choice but to settle the case and I got the property. Do find yourself a good lawyer and I can give you recommendations on how to do that if you are interested.

I'll share a quote from someone from a different site, that said this to me many years ago when I was first trying to make sense of why my then-wife acted like she did:


So, can you see the futility of reaching out to the person who made you feel this way, in order to resolve your feelings?

If drinking water from a well made you sick, you should not drink more from it. 

Hello and welcome to the family!  I'm very glad you found us.

When you say, "Final Discard", most members here would say no, it's never final due to how BPDs activley destroy all close relationships in their life and then try to rekindle them once they run out of people to talk to.

For instance, my BPD daughter will tell her mom that she hates me, wants nothing to do with me, and we won't talk for a period of time.  Then, out of nowhere, she calls and before I know it, she's bad-mouthing her mom and telling me what a horrible person she is.  And I just sort of shake my head- one of us is always the enemy and the other is a close ally.  That can flip week by week, month by month, or year by year.

My ex wife is also BPD (the quiet type), and I went through similar experiences like you've described.  However, she was much more reserved.  While my daughter would call and scream and challenge me, my ex would just remain silent and disappear.  If I didn't fight and beg my ex to return, she wouldn't.  So they're very different people and very different patterns...yet the same illness with all the underlying stuff.  One just fought it in secret while the other was in your face.

I hope that helps!

I've been separated/divorced for almost three years now and it still comes back from time to time.  I've learned to catch myself though and file it in the "don't think about this junk" category of my mind.  If I can't stop the thought pattern, I'll turn on the TV or a podcast just to have other noise in my head.  For me, the worst is always while I'm trying to fall asleep.

The more you focus on it, the more you'll question your actions.  That's not good since the past is set in stone.  There's nothing to change, nothing to fix.

I did get past it though and those thoughts maybe creep up a few times per year now.  Yet, the context has changed and I realize that my ex was sick and it made her very selfish in all aspects of life.  So even when I do catch myself in thought of the past, it's not about me anymore and that makes a huge difference.

That is a phenomonal analogy!  Well done sir.

How are you doing Bluebird?  Any updates?

The patterns you're describing fit BPD perfectly.  However, each person is an individual with unique thoughts and upbringing.  Some also have more traits than others and some of those traits are way more dominant.

My BPD daughter is a lot like your ex.  My BPD ex-wife is nothing like your ex.  Yet all three have BPD.

One more thing; BPD/NPD are like close cousins, so some of the traits overlap.  Some have one or the other with additional traits from the second category, some show dominant traits of both and could be diagnosed with both.

In any case, you did not cause this and you've been through absolute hell.  This is the time to focus on your own needs and mental health.  It's a time to heal and find yourself once again outside of the relationship.  I know it's impossibly hard because I've been there- my ex left me for another man after 23 years of marriage.  I felt all the same things and I fought for my marriage so hard at first.  Yet in time, I realized that it was a toxic situation and I had to move on for my own wellbeing.

Right now, this must be about you and you alone.  That's the path towards healing and it's what you desperately need.

OH that hits hard

I spent a lot of time feeling the way you do. Your care for him is obviously genuine and you want to help, and you want to make amends for any hurt you caused. This is genuinely kind.

The challenge is, he cannot receive this kindness due to his illness. He cannot handle the intensity of the feelings or balancing his feelings and yours.

I agree with others it’s better not to send the letter.

You are a caring person and also deserve healing. He is an adult, albeit an ill one. You didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it and you can’t control it.

I think the challenge now is to turn your compassion to yourself. Appreciate the love and care you offered him. Appreciate that he hurt and abused you. Understand you’re not perfect and it was a tough situation.

For those of us with CPTSD these relationships unfortunately tend to mirror our childhoods and bring up those wounds. That’s torture but at best it’s an opportunity to look with adult eyes at what we suffered as kids that caused our challenges.

In short - you can’t heal him, sadly. But you can help heal yourself.

Exactly right; the closer you are to them, the worse it gets. This is why they can appear perfectly normal to others who are less close to them and never see the meltdowns. Normally if someone likes you they'll treat you better than anyone else but with BPD the reverse is true. No wonder it's so frustrating!

Most family and friends of the BPD know there's something wrong though - I was warned about dating my ex by her own family, which should have been a huge red flag but of course at the start we're completely crazy about our seemingly perfect partner who matches us in so many ways.

How long have you been dating your ex, your posts don't say?