Happy belated birthday. 

Your thread is posted twice, but I'll comment here, as this seems to be the more recent one. 

It sounds like you have some time to prepare before your attorney files and serves your STBXW.  I'd make sure to get organized now.  I don't remember if you're moving out immediately, or cohabitating for some period of time while the divorce is pending, but I would find a safe, secure place and keep all my records there: notes from your attorney, evidence or things you've collected or drafted about the divorce, financial, personal, medical records you might need (including for your kids), etc.

Also, create a timeline of next steps, deadlines, hearing dates, etc. so you can stay on top of things you have to do, decisions you need to make, or responses you need to send.

Hi Notwendy,

I think the Karpman Triangle dynamic is just a way of describing the roles in which pwBPD try to put us and themselves so that the drama can be promoted. However, this only happens when they want it. It does not occur in all of their relationships all of the time.

My wife's mom is obnoxious toward her daughters. She keeps complaining loudly about tons of stuff. She also criticizes my wife a lot, especially about appearance, which is exactly my wife's weak spot. Her mom is certainly the persecutor.

Yet, my wife is being neither the victim nor the rescuer. She is just not engaging in the drama. I think some people with BPD really can't control their emotions, but more often than not they can but don't want to.

At Bay, thank you for describing your process in more detail. I appreciate it.
CC43 and NotWendy, I also appreciate your insights. You are correct that all of my techniques listed were solitary. I didn’t clarify it, but these are emergency procedures that I can do wherever I am, usually in the evening when I am at home with my wife. Certainly exercising is important if it’s possible at the time, and it’s one of my major tools.And I know that I need a therapist, and that groups like COD, ACOA and AlAnon can be very helpful. I’ve actually spent a lot of time in AlAnon over the years. I certainly can’t do everything in solitary fashion.But there’s a catch here, and you’re going to see how strange my situation is. My wife does not trust me to go to group meetings where there might be women. There is a men’s Alanon group which I have been part of, but not recently. This is something I’m going to keep pursuing.

Welcome to BPD family while sad for the circumstances that bring you here! It may not seem like it now as you experience extreme push back for setting healthier boundaries with your disordered relatives, yet in the long run you are setting higher expectations for yourself and disordered family members. Time will tell if the newer boundaries bring out some positive changes in some of the disordered family members. What is certain, if we continue to enable disordered people, we hurt ourselves and do not allow for the disordered people to take the steps they need to get better. The situation with the granddaughter is tragic and sad; my heart goes out to you witnessing the abuse of this young adult who is a family member.

I guess it's no surprise to me to read that you're estranged daughter is projecting ill intent onto you--calling you abusive, sexist and racist.  If these accusations seem absurd, it's probably because they are--she's just trying to push your buttons, trying to hurt you while unleashing her anger in the process.  The same goes for insulting "Nicole," calling her dumb and psycho.  Given that Nicole is the same gender as your daughter, I suspect that your daughter thinks she herself is dumb and psycho, and thus these are "pure" projections.

Anyway the underlying theme to me seems to be one of perceived abandonment.  It seems to me your daughter is hurting because she perceives you are having "fun" with your "new" family, while she feels left out, probably usurped by "Nicole."  She thinks you aren't being "loyal" to her.  I think she demands that all your attention be devoted to her, and since she's not having her insatiable needs met, she feels abandoned--even though she has her own nuclear family now.  It sounds like she's "stuck" in a childish rut, mad that her dad pays attention to anyone else in the world.  She doesn't care if you're happy, have a stable marriage and can support yourself in retirement.  She admits she's keeping her son away from you and makes it sound like it's a punishment.

The message is ironic, because while your daughter states she wants nothing to do with you, if she really wanted that, she probably wouldn't have responded at all, or if she had felt compelled to respond, she would have written something shorter and colder like, Please leave me alone.  My thinking is that she only wants you in her life so that she can continue to blame you and unleash her anger onto you.  Does that sound about right?  My guess is that she is generating a victim narrative out of the relationship:  You are the abusive dad who abandoned her and treats her like crap, and she is the poor victim of endless traumas.  In order for that narrative to remain intact, she has to continue to treat you and your wife like you are toxic, even if you are the opposite.

I'm sorry but it seems to me like she's not ready to reconcile; all she's ready for is to lash out at you.

Trying one last time to paste my entire post in here…

Feeling an little overwhelmed today as I just finished signing the Docusign and paid the retainer for the divorce lawyer.

Kind of in shock to be honest and almost feels a little out of body. I’m in a little disbelief with myself. Still a ways to go but this feels like a big step forward.

Nothing has materially changed, it’s just where ive been headed. A couple of interesting things this past week though…

First it feels weird processing things and moving towards divorce when it’s my birthday and valentines is around the corner. I feel a little like I’m having to act my ass off. But don’t really have a choice but to pretend like things are normal for now.

So it was my birthday week last week

I don’t know I was having all sorts of technical issues and my post was posting incomplete so I’m trying a new post. If mods read this, you could delete my other post…

Feeling an little overwhelmed today as I just finished signing the Docusign and paid the retainer for the divorce lawyer.

Kind of in shock to be honest and almost feels a little out of body. I’m in a little disbelief with myself. Still a ways to go but this feels like a big step forward.

Nothing has materially changed, it’s just where ive been headed. A couple of interesting things this past week though…

First it feels weird processing things and moving towards divorce when it’s my birthday and valentines is around the corner. I feel a little like I’m having to act my ass off. But don’t really have a choice but to pretend like things are normal for now.

So it was my birthday week last week

Rowdy,

It came to me that your ex might have felt like she had to choose between the drugs and you because she realized that continuing to use them would destroy you, so she chose the drugs instead of you. And then in that sentence about not destroying you, she was talking about her drug usage (and perhaps also how it worsens her behavior). Maybe you already knew this. But anyway, I was a bit insensitive, so sorry for that.

There were times in which my wife was distancing herself from me because she thought that her limitations were too extreme, and I didn't deserve having to go through this. This was her trying to "free me from her problems."

A couple of years ago, I had asked my wife to stay in her mom's house a bit. However, I was very frustrated at her rages, so I was treating her extremely distantly, so she felt like she would not make me any good, and so she decided to stay in her mom's house permanently.

At first, I didn't question it because I was expecting her to improve somehow, at least in the way she treated me. However, two months later, since she was 10x worse in terms of anxiety and depression, I decided to literally "rescue her" from there. Because of her specific phobia worsening, I had to use a blindfold before approaching her, and she would not come out of the room, so it was really limiting. She noticed the burden it was placing on me, so she resisted coming back to our home. I convinced her to come for a weekend, and she accepted to stay but still "ran away" back to her mom's house on Monday. It took me a lot of talking to get her back home again. Then it took me more than one month to restore her mental health state. I had to treat her as a "home inpatient," serving her food in bed while always using a blindfold when I was near her. But it worked, at least to bring her anxiety and depression to the usual levels.

The point is that sometimes having a mentally ill partner may mean carrying a big burden on your back, which at times you might not want to, or your partner may decide that you don't have to.

From what I read, I see signs of codependency. Do you agree?

Yes I agree absolutely - I have sought out help for myself and I know this is essential. I have found the tools page and discussion board on co-depedency here as well which was very helpful. Finding a way to NOT be so impacted by his emotions & behaviors is crucial for my own mental health. I absolutely do love him and want the relationship to survive. This is a very vulnerable time for both he and I. I need to become better at setting boundaries - I can set boundaries easily with other people but not with him - it's proving to be very challenging.

To be honest exactly the same as Pook.

My ex was my best friends sisters best friend, so I’ve known her most of my life. I was with her from the age of 21 until I was 48. My kids are similar in age to Pooks as well, 22 and 26 but both boys. Everything Pook says I can relate in exactly the same way apart from the religious part as I, my ex and family are not religious.

It was a little difficult earlier. My eldest came round to look in the loft for useful things for the birth of his child in a few months.
He brought down several boxes of photographs and we sat looking through them. My ex was 19 and I was 23 when we had him and there were many photos of us together as a family when he was a baby, which made me both happy and sad looking through them.