Just popping in for an update. Have the current blowout and updates on tj legal front.

I mean the BS continues. I think one of my last posts I talked about how we went to Mexico for New Year’s and she had a couple bad blowouts on the vacation. Not uncommon, she seems to enjoy ruining special occasions. However, after that, things have been relatively calm for a few weeks. I was on the fence whether to bother having a conversation with my wife about cutting back some expenses. I just changed my tax withholding and because of that my take-home pay is being reduced quite a bit. So there were a couple minor personal expenses I told her she would need to cover moving forward, and also that I would be essentially cutting in half the amount that I spent on eating out every month.

At first, I was kind of hesitant to even have that conversation because I am essentially planning to file for a divorce in the next couple of months or so. So I kind of figured why not just suck it up and not create an issue. But it was interesting because I was starting to have that confused mindset of this feeling like everything is calm and maybe she’s doing better… And after all these damn years, I don’t know how I still think that’s even possible. Trauma bonding is a bitch. Ultimately I had that conversation. As usual I was calmly sitting down and just letting her know for a couple things on my end of finances that needed to change. That was Sunday. The circular conversations and anger started. It’s been a couple hours every day, this revolving door of what’s bothering her. And it’s really funny too because it’s always much easier for me to see the pattern afterwards. She started to make claims that she wasn’t even upset about the money, she was upset that I had the conversation when she told me she didn’t want to talk about money for a couple of weeks so she could see what her new pay was going to be like (she picked up a few hours at one of her jobs) so she did ask me to not have that conversation and she wanted to wait, but for me it wasn’t about setting up a budget together. This was simply about telling her what I could afford on my own. And I told her she really didn’t need to make any big changes at the moment but I needed to tell her since my take-home pay is reduced now. But it was really funny and ironic because she tried to make a huge deal about how she wanted to pause the conversation and I wouldn’t respect that. I almost wanna laugh if not cry about that. Coming from the woman who will never take a break. Who believes that I am there to exist as her emotional sponge and suck up whatever she wants to expel. Telling me that I’m not doing anything to help this marriage because I am refusing to go back to marriage therapy. And if we don’t work out then she’s going to tell everybody how she wanted to go to marriage therapy but I wouldn’t go. (As a quick recap, our previous two Couples Therapist stopped therapy together, stating my wife needed her own therapy to deal with her emotional regulation and anger, which he has not done.) I mean, I don’t really care, I told her I will not go to couples therapy until I feel safe and that we can manage conflict a lot more health fully. And I said the fact that she’s in a multi day blowout after that simple conversation tells me very clearly. We’re nowhere near ready for a couples therapy.

She talked a lot about divorce, maybe she needed to get an apartment and separate. She asked if I would help her look for an apartment if that’s what she wanted to do, I said if that’s really what she chooses to do of course I’ll help her. Of course she was mad about that because I wasn’t chasing her or begging her to stay… I slept in the spare room a couple of nights, she was very upset that I didn’t come in check on her in the middle of the night or try to come back to bed. Again expecting me to chase. Then she was also upset yesterday because I thought she was kind of calming down to baseline and we had texted a little bit back-and-forth while we were working, but she said that she was expecting me to make a grand gesture, such as offering to take her out first thing in the morning. And it’s so wild because she had texted me a couple things and then I called her in the afternoon and actually she said why don’t we go out and grab an appetizer tonight or something and just try to have a chill night. But of course that wasn’t good enough because I’m not chasing after her, I’m not begging. I’m not pleading. I’m not acting sad and for Lauren. She expects me to be matching her emotions and be upset about this as her. It’s very upsetting to her that I’m just letting her do her own thing, I’m very comfortable to sleep in the spare room . It’s really something to watch her scream at me and look at me with those BPD eyes of just contempt. Yelling at me one second and then telling me that she doesn’t feel my love and I need to do things to make her feel loved.

Who knows where it’ll be today. I’ve had thoughts back-and-forth if I should’ve just avoided that conversation but in the end, I think I’m glad. You know every time something happens. It’s just 100% validation that I don’t wanna be married to her. And to be honest, sometimes I don’t think she really wants to be married to me either. There’s a piece of me that kind of hopes she’ll be relieved at the end of the day. I mean, likely not but…

Onto some more substantial updates. I had a couple really big meetings this week. I had a consultation with the divorced lawyer, also had a consultation with a guardianship attorney regarding my adult disabled son.

This was at least the third divorced lawyer I talked to and I liked her the best. She is a little more expensive than when I talked to last year. However, the one I talked to last year, had absolutely no concept of high conflict personalities and didn’t really even understand. There might be a problem with us cohabitating, pulse accusations at all that. The one I met with this week seemed very well informed, shared a lot of examples of divorces with men whose wives made false accusations, or were exhibiting high conflict behavior. And I think we definitely agree on their approach, definitely going to go for the easiest approach to start with and really avoid escalating if it all possible. She was very generous with her time as well. I had to pay for the 30 minute consult, but we spent well over an hour on the phone and she was not rushing to get me off or anything.

So I’ve talked to some family members and trying to cobble together the $5000 retainer to get things started.  I’ll be able to borrow some from family, but we’ll either be using a credit card or getting some money liquidated out of an IRA in case I need to have funds ready and available quickly. I guess does that mean I can call my wife, my STBX? I do feel a little guilty, the last few days when my wife was seemingly calm she even brought up the prospect of divorce and separation seriously. And it seems very confusing moments where you’re kind of like is she for real or is this a game or can I trust that she’s going to stay calm if I actually agree with her that maybe it’s time to start talking about divorce? She basically said neither of us have been very happy for the last eight years, which is very true. She said maybe it’s time we really think about making a change so we can enjoy the rest of our lives. And if it wasn’t for the hundreds of hundreds of times that she’s exploded it felt like that would’ve been a good time to have that conversation with her. But reading Bill Ed’s book and reading some of the other material it’s pretty pretty clear that I cannot take that chance. So I do feel like I’m being deceptive at the moment. Just being affectionate and calm and kind and loving and taking her out but meanwhile in the background, I’m basically planning documents and preparing to file for divorce.

I feel like I’m reaching the point of no return very soon. I’m about to shell out a substantial amount of money for this. We have some family events where some out of state family is coming in about five weeks to visit. Ideally for me I wanna wait until after that. So right now I’m thinking mid to end of March. But I think it’ll be comforting getting everything ready as soon as possible then just being prepared and having someone available in the event I do have to call the police and DV charges or a TRO becomes necessary. And also someone that can help me if there’s false accusations made against me. So I got 6 to 8 weeks too figure everything out.

I have my two adult kids who live with us. I think I might be able to get one out of the house for the week. I’m gonna talk to my wife about it. I don’t know yet what I’m gonna do with my son. Ideally it would be best if he was away somewhere as well.

I’ve installed a couple more internal security cameras. I’m making a checklist of all the important items around the house that I want to make sure I box up and move out into storage, including important documents, passports, and what not. I’m gonna be installing a deadbolt on the spare room door. I don’t know exactly how I’m gonna time it, but I’m gonna have to pick a day when she’s out of the house at work, I can literally get everything staged, pack, and move the things out of the house that I want to be sure are safe and install that deadbolt and get some of the security cameras up all before she gets home.

It’s exciting, but it’s terrifying. I was actually fantasizing this week in between all the anxiety about all this stuff, fantasizing about what it will look like afterwards. To live in peace. I know I’m gonna be broke financially, but I’m still thinking about some sort of a trip I could take, either a solo trip by myself or take my kids somewhere. Just to finally have a vacation in bloody peace.

Of course there’s the guardianship matter as well. I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do if she creates a stink about that. It’s really a separate matter entirely. And could be even more costly than the divorce if I had to essentially litigate, removing her as coguardian. Gonna start with the simplest options first which is simply try to see if we can work out a deal then we technically don’t have to change anything on the guardianship papers. Ideally, our son would live with me and go stay with her whenever they want and we would just kind of leave it open. But I’d be ultimately responsible for his care, finances and all that. I mean, if it comes down to it, I’d offer her a little more alimony to keep that arrangement. .But if she does act out and I end up having to call the police or file DV charges or get a temporary restraining order, I’m gonna let the guardianship lawyer know who will advise the court then we may have to go from there on other options.

Wish me luck, as always, advice and input are very welcome!

My BPD ex-wife isn't evil, she's mentally ill and she made some really bad choices that crushed me for a period of time.  I got back into church around that time and started reading my Bible, which led me towards the path of forgiveness.

What I realized was that by carrying around all that hurt, anger, sadness, etc, it didn't do a thing to my ex because she was off living her best life.  She could care less that she hurt me for quite some time.  But all that hurt stayed with me and in a way, consumed my daily life.  I had to actually let it go in order to heal myself.

I think my ex's plan was to be ugly to me, I'd be ugly back, and we'd quickly learn to hate each other.  But when she became ugly and I showed compassion, she had no idea what to do with it.  She was telling everyone that I was mentally abusive but it was plainly obvious to everyone that the opposite was true, that I was keeping my cool and trying to help her despite what she was doing.

There was a stretch for about a month that my anger/hatred got the best of me and I'd bad-mouth her to our kids.  Luckily I didn't hang onto that though because like I said, in many ways it's a pure cancer that eats you up from the inside out.  I didn't want to be that person and I didn't want to carry that around, so through prayer and patience I was able to let it all go.

For me, the biggest thing was that we had to be parents for the rest of our lives and I hated seeing other ex couples fight over everything with the kids in the middle.  So I told my ex over and over, for the kids sake we can't go down that path.  I would always love her and want the best for her because of the kids.  Eventually, my ex got there as well.

My current wife knows that I have to have some degree of relationship with my ex because of the kids and she encourages it.  Whenever something happens, my wife tells me to call my ex and talk it out.  It probably does bother her a little deep down but at the same time, she knows that my ex was terrible to me and I have no desire to ever be in that position again.

I talk to my ex maybe 3-6 times per year though, and it's always over the kids.  We definitely are not friends and we don't keep up with each other's life.  But when we do talk, we get along well and I'm thankful for it.

Currently I'm living overseas, but in the next 3-6 months I'll be moving back to the same area my ex and kids are in (I'm finishing the marriage visa process with my current wife to come there).  So we'll see if that changes things; there will be kids birthdays, holidays, etc.  We've briefly talked about doing those things together sometimes since we're both re-married, but I don't know how that will go or if I'd be okay with it.  We'll see.

That's a two-part question so I'll give a two-part answer, starting with the second part.

There's no way she understands your boundary or this wouldn't even be a conversation.  If she understood, she'd be doing this in secret or not doing it at all.  So she feels that there's nothing wrong with following her desires and you should accept her line of thinking.

Again, this comes back to feelings.  She feels like she needs this to work to make her feel whole, so it's a good thing that will make her happy.  If you don't agree, that makes you the enemy because you don't care about her happiness.  This is distorted thinking at its finest and where all the BPD problems come from.

For stating the boundary now, that's tougher to answer because of what I just said.  For her, this is about how she feels, what she thinks she needs.  If you say "Don't do this or else...", she's going to respond very badly and things will be considerably worse.  Then again, maybe that's inevitable, maybe there is no other option than to fight this out and see where it leads. 

My advice would be to get mental health involved somehow, whether it's family therapy or something similar.  Or, have this discussion with a neutral friend that your wife really has respect for.  That way, there's a chance that a real conversation can take place.

If you do decide to do this alone, make every statement about you.  For example, "I believe marriage is between two people and I would never look for someone to replace you, even if it was just for sex.  I want us to be together, to raise our kids together, and this topic completely goes against my values.  It hurts me to think about it because doing this could destroy our marriage."

Something like that, tying into your feelings without judging hers.  It's a slippery slope and it won't go well no matter what.  But if you feel it has to be said, then it should be said one way or another.  If you're worried that she won't let you talk, you could always do it in a letter as well.

Welcome ClaireG
So far you seem to be going well working out how the site works. I hope you find a feeling of being supported here. It is a great place to discuss all things BPD and to know you are talking to people who understand what this journey is like on a day to day basis.

A motto here from years past is "Facing the Facts".  To summarize your post, your daughter is disordered and acting out (harming others even more than herself) and you find yourself in an increasingly impossible situation.

Well, think for a moment you're about to start an airplane flight.  What does the cabin attendant say?  "In the event of an emergency, put on your oxygen mask before helping others."  This instruction give you the right to take care of your own needs first or else you won't be able to deal much more with your demanding and disrespectful daughter.

People with BPD traits (pwBPD) are known to resist boundaries.  So what we encourage here is that Boundaries are by us and for us, that is, how you respond to the other's poor behavior.

For more information, we have a couple Boundaries topics, among many others, on our Tools & Skills workshops board.

Meanwhile, as you gain insight and education here in peer support and perhaps too in local counseling for yourself, you may have to temporarily step back from involving yourself as much in your daughter's chaos.

Wow, CC43 - I could have written this. Incredible how perfectly similar the behaviors are. What a thorough explanation.

Hi Pook075,

Ok, I understand how this can work, to a certain extent at least, but this is easier said than done... Well, at least for me.

It's comprehensible that you have unconditional love towards your daughter. However, I don't understand how you can love your ex-wife after she did what she did with you. Also, I would expect your current wife to have a big problem with that. Because I suppose your current wife would not understand it as well and would feel threatened by that kind of close relationship.

What am I missing here?

Did you not hate your ex-wife for a certain period in the past after the event? If you did, then why would you love her back again?

P.S. -- If the program follows the structure, noted above, but isn't certified, I would feel totally comfortable with it.

Hi,

I'm sorry I'm coming late to this. The evidence and data on the success of DBT therapy is based only on certified DBT programs, so if you do have access to one, I would definitely choose that first.

Why? It's intensive. It includes one group skills session per week, one individual therapy session per week, and access 24/7 to the therapist for support in using skills before the loved one takes actions that might be harmful, whether drinking or cutting or suicide attempt, etc.

In addition, the program requires the therapists to meet as a group about their caseload to get support from other therapists, too. That's important because it provides them with care as they manage pretty difficult patients and their actions.

DBT-certified therapy is a gold standard, but if that's not available, I certainly think your child's willingness to do therapy anywhere should be followed up on.

Hi,
So much great advice here, and the comment from Pook about failing and trying again in all 4 suggestions is spot on!

I wanted to mention that NEA-BPD is an organization that has free classes for loved ones and while you wait for a spot (sign up - it can take weeks to months), they also have a lot of videos on the site that teach skills and explain what we are dealing with. It's all evidence-based, drawn from DBT and leading scientists.  The class is called Family Connections, and it is excellent.

Other places I find community? Reddit groups. Facebook groups. I also use ChatGPT to distill my thinking and get ideas for how to word things. You have to be intentional about telling it to only use evidence-based strategies and prove where they came from, but I do find it helpful.
I'm really sorry - I am pretty much in crisis with my child continually, so I do understand that desperate feeling. And like Pook and others have said, perhaps the hardest part is accepting that our relationship with our child - right now - has to be different than societal norms and typical maternal instincts would lead us to.

In fact, our maternal care and empathy can often fuel this behavior, and taking a step back, regulating our own emotions and leading with self-respect where we stop participating in their abusive conversations are just baby steps that do help.