BPDw divorcing me. Wants to date me once divorce done. What is going on?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I have posted extensively my situation under staying and leaving and also under staying. Well, I feel that there will be no turning back and my wife is absolutley going to go through with the divorce. I dont want a divorce, she does. I never made the appropriate "changes" that she required, so she is done. We have been married 17 yrs. She is 50 I am 43. We have 2 teens.

Any way this morning she says she wants to talk to me. I can barely look at her because Im angry and hurt. She is giggling and smiling and asks me to please look at her. So I do. Then she asks me if i would date her after the divorce is over. She would like to have that kind of relationship with me. I said why are we getting a divorce? She said because that is the way she wanst it. I said I would not want to be having sex with her if she was sleeping with other men. She said she could let me know that if thats the case. I said thats not what Im about. She said she isnt either. We are Christian churchgoing people. I thought she was a Christian anyway. My head is spinning yet again. What the hell is going on here. Is this insanity?

[3rdID]

I have posted extensively my situation under staying and leaving and also under staying. Well, I feel that there will be no turning back and my wife is absolutley going to go through with the divorce. I dont want a divorce, she does. I never made the appropriate "changes" that she required, so she is done. We have been married 17 yrs. She is 50 I am 43. We have 2 teens.

Any way this morning she says she wants to talk to me. I can barely look at her because Im angry and hurt. She is giggling and smiling and asks me to please look at her. So I do. Then she asks me if i would date her after the divorce is over. She would like to have that kind of relationship with me. I said why are we getting a divorce? She said because that is the way she wanst it. I said I would not want to be having sex with her if she was sleeping with other men. She said she could let me know that if thats the case. I said thats not what Im about. She said she isnt either. We are Christian churchgoing people. I thought she was a Christian anyway. My head is spinning yet again. What the hell is going on here. Is this insanity?

[seeking balance]

Hi 3rd,

Sorry for the pain you are in - just remember, this too shall pass.

You brought up your wife being Christian, remember, mental illness does not descriminate with certain faiths.  If your wife is mentally ill, this is not a Christian issue - it is a personality disorder.  Try to keep this in mind as you will need your faith to help pull you through these hard times. 

I think when we have strong values no matter how we arrived at them - having someone profess they feel the same but act in a different way hurts tremendously.  You are hurt in ways you won't even realize for quite some time after 17 years. 

Personally, I would not be able to handle my wife dating others and me.  That is not why I got married - but you will have to decide what works for you.  Couples not dealing with PD's seperate and date others and get back together, so it is not an unusual request when it comes to divorce.  I think what is unusual is the manipulative way in which she seems to be treating you - "look at me" etc - she seems not to have regard for your feelings.  However, this is only my speculation from your post.

You cannot control her - you can only control yourself.  Take good care to protect yourself now. 

Peace, SB

[grimalkin]

She wants to string you along, keep you around while she's free to date others.  She obviously doesn't want to be a wife anymore, but wants to have you as her "backup plan" in case something goes wrong.

Don't fall for it.  It's greedy manipulation.  You deserve better than that.

Grim

[goldenblunder]

What the hell is going on here. Is this insanity?

Yes, it is insanity.  Don't even let yourself think for a second that this is anything but COMPLETELY BIZARRE AND INSANE.

Many of us, I think, see stranger and stranger things and eventually, we don't even know how crazy some of this stuff is.

[3rdID]

I told some of my confidants this and they are aghast. Thinks its insane. Couple of them know her but don't know about the NPD/BPD. They said she sounds like she is mentally ill. I still cant get over the conversation. Why would she want to continue a sexual relationship with me when divorced and right now even though in same bed still, I'm a pariah?

[brenbabe]

I was told this too, not by my most current BPD ex, but another BPD in the past. Maybe they just haveto sleep with everyone. I do wonder if they think of all that they have affairs with in some kind of order, like am I number 2 or number 100 on the supply list due to their opinion of me . Mine didnt seem that smart, I think he just think he had to sleep with everyone on the planet.

[3rdID]

I told her I wasn't going to be interested in having sexual relationship with her if she was going to be having sex with other men. Told her Im not about that. She says she isn't either. She said she could tell me if that was the case. Head spinning.

[brenbabe]

I think this BPD stuff can make a non crazier then the person that actually has the disorder. I am so glad I left. The more I think about it the more I know I saved myself alot of headache and heartache. These people seem to do nothing but use people till there is no life left in them.

[Crystal Ball]

She is toxic!  I’m sorry you are going through the divorce, but you deserve so much better!  Everything she does is about her… she doesn’t have an ounce of concern for you.   Her actions are appalling. 

[seeking balance]

I told some of my confidants this and they are aghast. Thinks its insane. Couple of them know her but don't know about the NPD/BPD. They said she sounds like she is mentally ill. I still cant get over the conversation. Why would she want to continue a sexual relationship with me when divorced and right now even though in same bed still, I'm a pariah?

By definition, BPD is all about abandonment.  Keep remembering, in her head "I hate you, don't leave me".  It is common for pwBPD to keep you hooked one way or the other.  It is your responsibility to yourself to untangle the web and live in your own integrity.

I will add that some marriages have affairs, they seperate and date other people while dating each other - It is not the norm, but when I was trying to figure out what was up in my marriage and trying to save it - I read quite a few things about this happening.  Now, all literature prefaced it with if this can work for you and if you spouse is does not have a mental illness - but separating and continuing to date is not unheard of in trying to determine if a marraige is salvagable.

Trying to get into a BPD's head - good luck.  Try to accept she is disordered in her thinking and for her, this seems reasonable.  It just doesnt work for you and that is completely ok.

[3rdID]

but separating and continuing to date is not unheard of in trying to determine if a marraige is salvagable.

seeking balance... .

In my case she wants to divorce first then start dating me. So the marriage would be terminated. I can't help but wonder if this is some twisted way for her to go back to the very beginning of us. What it was. She has exhibited more jealousy over the last year and in some cases I provoked it as I was so aggravated by all the male friends she seems to keep. One time this past May I went out with some colleagues in the city. Had been drinking some. So we hung at my friends apartment and I left to come home around 5am. I didnt call. She comes home some ridiculous late hours also, never calls. So Im driving home at 5am and the phone ringing. She was irate. Still talking about it to this day. Says all her girlfriends say I was tagging some girl somewhere. Not true. I think this part of reason she is gone off the deep end. The fact she keeps bringing it up amongst many other things.

[bluebond6]

I am right there with you 3rdID!  My first marriage failed when I could not be failthful to my first wife.  Since then I have become Christian and will not cheat.  My ndBPDw calls herself a Christian, but cannot seem to keep her panties on around her ex-husband these days.  Before that it was my neighbor.  I am still not sure about some other guys along the way either.  My brain hurts to think she can still seduce me so easily. It is all four seasons in one day at my house!  I threaten divorce and amidst all the hurting from her affair and honesty after lies and more honesty after more lies she can still seduce me?  OMG what the hell is wrong with me?  I am holding very contradictory emotions simultaneously all the time, so perhaps I AM the crazy one.

[The_411]

It's pretty simple as poster earlier indicated she wants to be free to keep you in rotation while seeking out other men.

My suggestion is to think what you would say if a friend told you that his wife wanted to divorce but then start dating ... .you'd say are you f'ing kidding me?

Same applies here there are no positives for this arrangement except the divorce and that assumes you go strict NC post divorce and never speak to her again.

Clearly she wants to be free of any responsibility or accountability. Sadly the fact that she called you on that night you stayed out late and didn't call and accused you of cheating suggests that she's likely stayed out late and cheated on you with another man.

I hate to say that but with pwBPD there's not really a too low or too despicable point for them.

She haranguing you to emmesh you in guilt that somehow it's your fault and you need to kowtow to her because somehow in her whacky mind you screwed up.

It was a one night you didn't call and nothing happened. In a normal relationship it's a mistake and likely you would have called or earlier because you wouldn't feel like you would get yelled at for calling, but in this relationship you knew that calling to say you were staying out late would result in getting yelled at and you'd never hear the end of it.

[seeking balance]

but separating and continuing to date is not unheard of in trying to determine if a marraige is salvagable.

seeking balance... .

In my case she wants to divorce first then start dating me. So the marriage would be terminated. I can't help but wonder if this is some twisted way for her to go back to the very beginning of us. What it was. She has exhibited more jealousy over the last year and in some cases I provoked it as I was so aggravated by all the male friends she seems to keep. One time this past May I went out with some colleagues in the city. Had been drinking some. So we hung at my friends apartment and I left to come home around 5am. I didnt call. She comes home some ridiculous late hours also, never calls. So Im driving home at 5am and the phone ringing. She was irate. Still talking about it to this day. Says all her girlfriends say I was tagging some girl somewhere. Not true. I think this part of reason she is gone off the deep end. The fact she keeps bringing it up amongst many other things.

Hope that it doesn't come across that I think that you should do this, I am simply saying it is not completely foreign in troubled marriages.

Look, mine said this too - I said no way - the point of my post is that it should only matter what works for YOU.  That is it - if you want to save the marriage, people have done stranger things.  If you want to leave the marriage then that is your choice.  My post was really more about seeing all sides of the spectrum so you can make a choice of what is best for you - that simple.

Definitely feel your pain - had the same thing happen, but I had to choose for myself  based on what works for me not on what anyone else told me to do.

IMHO - I would plan not to date and to get out , placate the situation while you are living there and move on with your life. These games you just descirbe is what they do - it just is.  So, take your power and say "heck no - I am not dating you!"  I would however, only say that to yourself as you wil be opening more problems up if you actuallly say this - pushes hte abandonment buttons.

[Howzah]

What the hell is going on here. Is this insanity?

Yes, it is insanity.  Don't even let yourself think for a second that this is anything but COMPLETELY BIZARRE AND INSANE.

Many of us, I think, see stranger and stranger things and eventually, we don't even know how crazy some of this stuff is.

^^^^^^^^ Echo this post

Im going through the same bizarre behavior at the moment. It's a circular argument and situation that will go on forever until you stop playing the game.

[3rdID]

Does the BPD after breakup/divorce try to sabotage future relationship the non may find for themselves? I could imagine my wife post divorce trying to use sex with me in this way. If I have ever tried to resist sex (cause angry at her) or she think someone had designs on me she would work the seduction without fail. I have kids with her. I know I'm going to be dealing w this for life. I just know. I know her too well.

[greenlove]

Hi 3rdID:

I went through this in a way with a former NPD partner.  We were married for a month... .had been together three and a half years, and he said, I think I'd rather go back to being boyfriend and girlfriend.  He actually advocated for this one month after the marriage, explianed why he thought it would be better!  I explained why we obviously couldn't do that.  We stayed together only a year after that.  What I have been able to see after years have passed and I have been able to look back on the relationship, is that it had to be all about him, his carisma, his needs, his schedule, etc.  We used to fight about how cooperative I was with his way in the beginning, how I would do the things he wanted to do when he wanted me to, in the beginning.  Well that was when I saw you once or twice a week!  When we were living together, every day, it's different.  Oh, I realize there are so many factors.  Anyway, we got a divorce, and about a year after the divorce, I did fall into his arms for about two weeks, but it was easy for me to see that as long as I was expecting him to be a partner in the relationship, it wasn't going to work.  I had to be all centered on him for him to feel loved.  In addition, he needs, as your wife may, more than one romantic interest at a time.  I am friendly to him now, years later.  We work a block away from one another.  He's married to someone else now, and when we run into each other, he complains in a way, and tries to flirt with me.  He talks about the memories.  I takes a lot for me not to yell in his face on the street in front of everyone how disgusted I am with the fact that he's now trying to say I'm special, while he disrespects his wife!  They are just so selfish.

[skyeblue]

Don't fall for it. My uBPD has been doing this to my stepdad for years. Staying, leaving, getting married, leaving, getting divorced, going back to him.

They now live together but are technically divorced. I dread any thought that she will leave him, as previously she would end up in my city, and start stalking me. She moved to a place one street away from me one of the times she left him. It was dreadful - she would only communicate with me by putting letters in my letterbox because she said he was monitoring her. Shudder! At that time she was yet again abusing her Pandora's box of pills and having paranoid hallucinations etc.

She is a bit more "stable" at the moment, mainly I think because she has very serious health issues from smoking and has to be on oxygen. She knows I won't have her with me, so she has to stay with him as she does not have any other means of income.

You need to protect yourself, and move on with your life. My stepdad has his own issues, but his life (other than his work) basically revolves around her and her little dramas or self-isolation. I would not want  his life for all the tea in China.

Cut the psychological/emotional ties with a huge-ass sword! Have the life you deserve  x

[bluebond6]

Skyblue sure has a different angle on this issue!  Thanks for that input. 

[lostoc]

My wife is pulling the same nonsense. I don't get it.

[The_411]

Does the BPD after breakup/divorce try to sabotage future relationship the non may find for themselves? I could imagine my wife post divorce trying to use sex with me in this way. If I have ever tried to resist sex (cause angry at her) or she think someone had designs on me she would work the seduction without fail. I have kids with her. I know I'm going to be dealing w this for life. I just know. I know her too well.

Absolutely, my exBPDgf was furious that I had even seen another woman. They want you to be completely available for them while they give nothing of themselves. It's like they mark their turf everywhere so if they've been there it's hands off meanwhile they're marking turf everywhere.

You getting a new life and seeing someone new is annihilation for her because it's abandonment which is what the disorder is all about. Nevermind the fact that she's running around sleeping with other people and probably lambasting you when you're not around telling others compelte lies and mistruths about their partner. She still expects you to be waiting for her and not to do anything.

We're like video games to them. The new game comes out they'er excitied to play and they play it religiously and then after a while the game isn't as popular and they're not as interested in and then their eye gets caught by a newer better video game. They come back to the old video game when their friends oh I'd like to borrow that game. They then want that game until there's no interest in it.

This is why she's after you because someone else is showing interest or your showing interest in someone else.

[3rdID]

My wife is pulling the same nonsense. I don't get it.

I know. Me neither. Other than they want to date and FXXX other people? I think mine just wants to punish me for not making all required changes in the marriage. I tried to get her to have SXX today. Why not since she planning  on it with me after divorce. I told her seperated people have sex all the time. She said she didnt think it would be a good idea right now. Im like, but it will be a good idea once we are divorced? Its so messed up. I could probably have my pick of many attractive women (just being honest here anomously, i dont go around acting like Im all it. NO NPD LOL!) My point is, I didnt want any other woman. Maybe a quick fleeting fantasy when you see an attractive woman but quickly put that out of my mind when i think of the guilt and complications of all that, plus I reall only love my wife. The BPD on the other hand dont see it this way.

Side note... .had a realtor come and do a mkt analysis on my home for divorce mediator. She told me she has 6 homes she listing where each case the wife abandoning the marriage and in some of the cases kids to. She said its like an epidemic or something. She been in the biz many years and it used to be the men who bailed, now she says she sees its primarily the woman walking out.

[bluebond6]

Just caught the wife in a lie and drove right to where she was to catch her with her ex-husband.  'magine that after she talked me into reconciling and getting rid of my attorny who has now taken too much work to keep my case.  Rats again for trusting my wife!

[2010]

Side note... .had a realtor come and do a mkt analysis on my home for divorce mediator. She told me she has 6 homes she listing where each case the wife abandoning the marriage and in some of the cases kids to. She said its like an epidemic or something. She been in the biz many years and it used to be the men who bailed, now she says she sees its primarily the woman walking out.

Having discussions like this with the realtor is only going to facilitate you to completely split your wife into a bad person-and that will not be good for your children.

Divorce is never easy. There are, however, better ways to deal with the emotions that arise without involving black/white statements which might affect the kids. Kids soak up everything they hear. They dont need to hear that the realtor say that the wife is "abandoning the marriage and in some of the cases kids to"- even if you and the realtor believe it to be true.  If you haven't hired a counselor yet and/or are not willing to go into therapy because of the stigma attached, be aware that these rogue discussions with realtors, etc. are out in the open and not private, which paid therapy is.

A therapist will help you put together your feelings and guide you through this process. Divorce may happen or it may not- but it's a decision that your Wife is making. You need to take care of yourself and the kids- seek counsel and protect yourself with privacy. The outcome will be to your advantage and your childrens advantage as they re-adjust to the new life of two divorced households without taking sides with either parent.

[3rdID]

Just caught the wife in a lie and drove right to where she was to catch her with her ex-husband. 

Dude, how awkward is that? Whats the ex husbands reaction when you caught them? Did you catch them fooling around? That must be so painful.

[3rdID]

Having discussions like this with the realtor is only going to facilitate you to completely split your wife into a bad person-and that will not be good for your children.

Kids soak up everything they hear. They dont need to hear that the realtor say that the wife is "abandoning the marriage and in some of the cases kids to"-

A therapist will help you put together your feelings and guide you through this process.

Divorce may happen or it may not- but it's a decision that your Wife is making.

Hi 2010. No the kids didn't not hear the Realtor nor would I ever mention it to them nor my wife what she said. I dont see my wife any worse than I do as a result of what realtor said. Its just a fact of what the realtor is seeing. A trend. I am in therapy for myself. Cant say it really makes a difference other than its someone to talk to. As for my kids, they already have resentment towards my wife. More so my son. They arent little kids anymore s17, d15.5. They know their mother basically has checked out and its been for some time now. I cannot change their perception of it. I mean she did not come home Saturday night. Said she stayed with girlfriend after night out dancing. My kids are old enough to question and wonder the validity of that. The damage being done is the damage that she alone is doing.

[bluebond6]

I called her cell and she sad she was having coffee. I asked if she was meeitng anyone and she said she wasn't. I thought for a second, got a familiar gut feeling and drove to the shop to see what was up.

I walked in on them where they were sitting close looking at the same laptop. She says she was helping him with his divorce paperwork.  I might as well have walked in on them fooling around. She was a major hit_ to me all weekend saying I treat my daughter from my first marriage better than I treat my sons which I think is not true. I called her on it and asked why she is dragging up an old issue to get space. This was Monday after an awful weekend. She was gone most of Sunday and would not say where she was but told me she was not with her ex-hubby.  She was making things stormy in order to feel better about leaving the house to go be with him, I think. in the coffee shop, I walked up calmly and said, "I'll go ahead and file now. Bye."  This is like a horror movie for me.  I don't even want to go home and now she is trying to be overly nice.