Understanding why we put up with it

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I am trying to keep the drama to a minimum now, since it is apparent she will be living with me for a few months more (sleeping on the couch). I hope to explore myself more with my T, as every week, it is about 35 mins update on what is going on, the T's feedback etc... .

As the only child of a single mother who had a severe depression problem (of which I only found out the year I left the home at 18), I realized my mom had some BPD traits, too. Though she is not BPD. Her severe hoarding (and yes, to this day, she could be on that show) gives away her being afraid of "loss" as my T put it... .something I had not thought of. Junk, animals, people... .rescuing me from foster care as a single mom, very controversial back in the day (and it was interracial, to boot).

My mother alternated between showering me with so much love and affection, and then reversing it. Smacking and hitting and yelling at me for things that even at a young age I knew weren't right. Still, I was mature enough to know when I did do wrong and deserved some kind of punishment. To this day, the only time she admits "abusing" me was when I was 14 and she was "ragging" on me so badly that I had a seizure and fell to the ground. I still think that was a moment of weakness for me (I wasn't crying or anything... .I had suppressed that a long time before). I guess that's because she never put my head through the sheetrock or raped me like her father did to her and her sister (and severe physical abuse to her brothers).

I've talked to her twice throughout my ordeal now, going on three months since the "I don't love you, can't be with you anymore" then two weeks later found out about my expwBPD's affair. My mother is still severely depressed, but functional, and a very intelligent woman. Agrees with my BPD assessment. The funny thing that to this day, she still devalues me. I am a tech engineer, a maverick, worked my way up the harder way. Make a good salary, take care of multiple people, including my mom when she needs it. Am not in debt except for a mortgage. Have rapidly depleting savings (due to the mess my BPD has put us into, but I will recover) and all of that. My mother, however, still thinks that I am not good enough. She isn';t mean about it, but sometimes she will drop a comment, like I should quit work and go back to school to be a PA, or an RN (her career) or something. The last time she did it, I showed her how I was budgeting, and showed her my retirement account balance, and that kind of shut her up, since it is far above average for my age cohort. Seemed kind of childish on my part, a middle aged man, but I just tire of the devaluation.

I'm also published (technically, in a real book that was extant for about 5 years) and have multiple patents. I even won a world-wide scientific photography contest for my industry... .two years in a row. Not good enough, I guess. I didn't do those things to prove anything; the situations just called for me to do what I did, as I think I always have done in life. I still classify myself as an overachieving underachiever. Self-esteem issues? Probably. Definitely, though I am a lot better than I was a decade and more ago. And on the inside, decades better than my ex/pwBPD.

My T said that not everything needs to be pathologized (my "rescuing women", though he does acknowledge it in me. But I can't help but do that, as we all know there is something in us, at least those of us who were in long term relationships with BPDs, that was attracted to it... .that ignored sign after sign, and still hung on.

As for my ex/pwBPD (sorry, not up on all of the acronyms yet), though she appreciated this and that, I never felt like she appreciated my accomplishments. I had long ago, due to my mother, stopped looking for validation. Like over 20 years ago. That is why, perhaps, I have always had a hard time taking compliments. To know right is to do right, and that sort of thing. But sometimes, I would show her things, as a partner, and she would not react much... .thus confirming why I never looked for validation of my accomplishments.

I do, however, have a fantastic support system of long time friends, the least of which I have known 20 years, and some almost 30. Every now and then, they throw out, "It is surprising how well adjusted you are, considering your childhood." I have learned to take that compliment, and even now and then it feels nice to hear it. The other is from friends who have had the same thing happen (cheating and leaving... .one long time friend even sounds like his ex wife had BPD or something similar). They say "you seem a lot better along than I was at the same point!"  My thing now is not to run, as I did once, moving out of state when I was in my late 20s. I found out that wherever I went, there I was. So it was ok to come back home after a few years. It also turned out to be a great career move, though that wasn't my intent at the time. I've tuned into my friends, who sometimes I think are better than I deserve, and also two of my ex's siblings, who thankfully do NOT agree with what she has done or is doing. I resisted doing so for over a month, but my fears were unfounded. Her older bro probably has BPD, too (in retrospect... .it makes sense), so not him.

No more running. No more denying. No more covering up things by diving into my responsibilities. I can barely function at work as it is now.

My ex criticized me for not leaning on her more. I replied, "and who, pray tell, CAN take care of me? YOU [Lt. Weinberg]?- movie ref :^)" Silence... .In the end, the fact that I couldn't count on her confirms why I never felt I could. Never felt "safe" talking about my real feelings. Instead, all of this "you're a MAN, this is what you do... ." in addition to changing diapers, taking care of the kids, cleaning, 100% of the yard work... .oh, how I spoiled this child! I was indeed too much for her, which makes sense of her running into the arms of someone 19 years younger than me, 8 younger than her. A juvenile.

Well, that's it. No conclusion here (yet); I'm just trying to process myself, a middle aged father of two small children, now alone, but not alone. Thank you for listening.

[Turkish]

I am trying to keep the drama to a minimum now, since it is apparent she will be living with me for a few months more (sleeping on the couch). I hope to explore myself more with my T, as every week, it is about 35 mins update on what is going on, the T's feedback etc... .

As the only child of a single mother who had a severe depression problem (of which I only found out the year I left the home at 18), I realized my mom had some BPD traits, too. Though she is not BPD. Her severe hoarding (and yes, to this day, she could be on that show) gives away her being afraid of "loss" as my T put it... .something I had not thought of. Junk, animals, people... .rescuing me from foster care as a single mom, very controversial back in the day (and it was interracial, to boot).

My mother alternated between showering me with so much love and affection, and then reversing it. Smacking and hitting and yelling at me for things that even at a young age I knew weren't right. Still, I was mature enough to know when I did do wrong and deserved some kind of punishment. To this day, the only time she admits "abusing" me was when I was 14 and she was "ragging" on me so badly that I had a seizure and fell to the ground. I still think that was a moment of weakness for me (I wasn't crying or anything... .I had suppressed that a long time before). I guess that's because she never put my head through the sheetrock or raped me like her father did to her and her sister (and severe physical abuse to her brothers).

I've talked to her twice throughout my ordeal now, going on three months since the "I don't love you, can't be with you anymore" then two weeks later found out about my expwBPD's affair. My mother is still severely depressed, but functional, and a very intelligent woman. Agrees with my BPD assessment. The funny thing that to this day, she still devalues me. I am a tech engineer, a maverick, worked my way up the harder way. Make a good salary, take care of multiple people, including my mom when she needs it. Am not in debt except for a mortgage. Have rapidly depleting savings (due to the mess my BPD has put us into, but I will recover) and all of that. My mother, however, still thinks that I am not good enough. She isn';t mean about it, but sometimes she will drop a comment, like I should quit work and go back to school to be a PA, or an RN (her career) or something. The last time she did it, I showed her how I was budgeting, and showed her my retirement account balance, and that kind of shut her up, since it is far above average for my age cohort. Seemed kind of childish on my part, a middle aged man, but I just tire of the devaluation.

I'm also published (technically, in a real book that was extant for about 5 years) and have multiple patents. I even won a world-wide scientific photography contest for my industry... .two years in a row. Not good enough, I guess. I didn't do those things to prove anything; the situations just called for me to do what I did, as I think I always have done in life. I still classify myself as an overachieving underachiever. Self-esteem issues? Probably. Definitely, though I am a lot better than I was a decade and more ago. And on the inside, decades better than my ex/pwBPD.

My T said that not everything needs to be pathologized (my "rescuing women", though he does acknowledge it in me. But I can't help but do that, as we all know there is something in us, at least those of us who were in long term relationships with BPDs, that was attracted to it... .that ignored sign after sign, and still hung on.

As for my ex/pwBPD (sorry, not up on all of the acronyms yet), though she appreciated this and that, I never felt like she appreciated my accomplishments. I had long ago, due to my mother, stopped looking for validation. Like over 20 years ago. That is why, perhaps, I have always had a hard time taking compliments. To know right is to do right, and that sort of thing. But sometimes, I would show her things, as a partner, and she would not react much... .thus confirming why I never looked for validation of my accomplishments.

I do, however, have a fantastic support system of long time friends, the least of which I have known 20 years, and some almost 30. Every now and then, they throw out, "It is surprising how well adjusted you are, considering your childhood." I have learned to take that compliment, and even now and then it feels nice to hear it. The other is from friends who have had the same thing happen (cheating and leaving... .one long time friend even sounds like his ex wife had BPD or something similar). They say "you seem a lot better along than I was at the same point!"  My thing now is not to run, as I did once, moving out of state when I was in my late 20s. I found out that wherever I went, there I was. So it was ok to come back home after a few years. It also turned out to be a great career move, though that wasn't my intent at the time. I've tuned into my friends, who sometimes I think are better than I deserve, and also two of my ex's siblings, who thankfully do NOT agree with what she has done or is doing. I resisted doing so for over a month, but my fears were unfounded. Her older bro probably has BPD, too (in retrospect... .it makes sense), so not him.

No more running. No more denying. No more covering up things by diving into my responsibilities. I can barely function at work as it is now.

My ex criticized me for not leaning on her more. I replied, "and who, pray tell, CAN take care of me? YOU [Lt. Weinberg]?- movie ref :^)" Silence... .In the end, the fact that I couldn't count on her confirms why I never felt I could. Never felt "safe" talking about my real feelings. Instead, all of this "you're a MAN, this is what you do... ." in addition to changing diapers, taking care of the kids, cleaning, 100% of the yard work... .oh, how I spoiled this child! I was indeed too much for her, which makes sense of her running into the arms of someone 19 years younger than me, 8 younger than her. A juvenile.

Well, that's it. No conclusion here (yet); I'm just trying to process myself, a middle aged father of two small children, now alone, but not alone. Thank you for listening.

[HarmKrakow]

Thanks for sharing this story broth! I sense a fair share of rationalization on your side. That is ALWAYS good Keep the rationality above the emotional decisions

[Escaped 30.Sept.2013]

An interesting topic/question... .thankyou for posting it. And for being so honest in your own description of your life.

In my case - my parents were maybe a bit too busy and a bit too bound up in themselves really to have time for children. My older sister and I were never maltreated - just what I could call "benign neglect". Once I was born, we travelled a lot, taking my sister away from the sole focus of the extended family, and then returned just in time for her to go to school each day, which must have felt like being banished or punished, and clearly my fault... .As a result, when I was only 4, she started a lifelong systematic campaign to emotionally abuse me. I grew up believing I was supposed to be dead and that 'they' would kill me at any moment if I didn't 'behave'. Our parents never realised and, like most abuse victims, I obediently kept it all silent, even in my otherwise-rebellious teenage years when she quietly urged me, sometimes multiple times daily, to kill myself as a sort of gift to everyone else, because it would be so nice for everyone once I was dead.

Many years of abusive relationships followed, until I gradually narrowed my life down (a form of self-protection?). I stopped socialising, almost stopped going out, stayed where it was 'safe'. Then I got home broadband... .yeah. Right.

So I had never known a normal healthy long-term relationship, until my uBPD ex-bf turned up in early summer 2012, nearly two decades after we first met at college, when he saved me from a nasty situation. I'd never forgotten him, nor he me, and over Facebook, phone and email with three nights and a lunch together over 15 months, we had the explosion that was our love.

When he told me he'd spent the weekend abroad at my Replacement's, it came out of the blue and hit me like a ton of bricks. The next week my tyrannical sister died. I lost my mind for a little. He rushed to my aid and supported and rescued and helped me. Luckily I had started seeing a good T a few days before my sister died, and so he was guiding me out of codependency slowly (still not quite there yet).

As the months went by, it became clear that my ex-bf was so desperate to 'rescue' me that he was also willing to be the one causing the wounds I needed rescued from. Eventually I started to try NC, on Sept 1st. It slipped on Sept 30th when I got angry for the first time in my entire four decades, and sent him a bitter angry hurtful email. Then on Oct 13th I emailed an apology for being hurtful (but not for the rest of it!) because I had learnt in here how much he must be hurting and I had said untrue things which bothered me once I calmed down.

We now have reached some form of peace, I think. He is starting to understand that I love him but I will not permit him to hurt me, and that I will not enter into dialogue with him for a very, very long time because I need the silence in order to heal. I think this allows him to feel he is still 'rescuing' me by giving me the silence I need.

Meanwhile my T is helping me understand how much my sense-of-self was imposed onto me by my abusive sister, and is helping me re-build my own, new sense-of-self, from the inside.

I couldn't have done it without a good T, and good friends.

But I can see that it wasn't all my ex-bf's doing. A large part of it came from my own insecurities, my being "chronically under-loved", my willingness to believe that my ex-bf's behaviour was acceptable because I closed my eyes to the bad parts and chose only to see the good things... .

[maxen]

thanks for posing this question Turkish and i will try to follow the honesty of the posts above.

i am the only child of immigrants who were 45 and 44 when i came along, unusual in the states but not unusual in the old country. my father was a genuinely decent guy, but we were never close. he only really spoke to me in a personal way after his last sibling died; this generational attitude is typical of where he's from. from his side of the family i inherited the predisposition to depression (everyone i know on his side has it, without exception: i've taken SSRIs for 19 years; one of my uncles drank himself to death). my mother, i now realize, has paranoia. i knew there there was a problem at a very young age but of course i didn't have the vocabulary to explain it to myself, and as i was growing up i thought she was just sickly arrogant. it's only relatively recently that i found the right term. she's 100 years old, and callous as it sounds, this is not a good thing for me. she's not the oldest member in her family and i have years of her insanity to live through yet.

genuine paranoia isn't a matter of thinking that aliens have put chips in your neck. it's a relentless drive to find problems where problems don't exist, and to create a problem if there is no problem present, and then to have an opinion about the problem which has to be correct, and if that opinion conflicts with the opinions of others, all the better, as it gives an opportunity to impute motives to the people who disagree with you: they're ignorant, or lying, or hostile. everything that happens is deliberate, there are never mistakes. there is no end to it. and, when i was young, my mother would accuse me of doing things i'd never done, or of thinking things i'd never thought, and this would drive me to insanities of pain and weeping, and to develop a tendency to strongly rational argument to protect myself, as i could never match her skill at superciliousness (this tendency to rationality would work very much against me in my marriage to a BPDer). but under no circumstances ever would she acknowledge that she'd been wrong. i was endlessly grasping after some kind of validation, or just to be paid attention to personally and not as yet another member of the universal conspiracy of inferior people. one example: when i had my first professional paper accepted, it was mistakenly addressed to ":)r. Maxen" (it was submitted for presentation at a medical conference). this is a landmark event in any grad student's life, and her reaction to it was to accuse me of lying to the organization to get it accepted, and i'd never get anywhere in life that way. as patiently as possible i explained the situation but all she did was backpedal: organizations don't make mistakes, it's no big deal what she said, if i have a problem with it there must be something wrong with me.

so from neither parent did i get some kind of nurturing attention. i was an immature kid, and my friends dropped away at each stage (after grammar school, after high school) and i can't blame them. but it left me with a fear of venturing into friendships, and yet an overwhelming desire for an intimate, emotionally secure relationship. i'm shy and don't find it easy to socialize or date. i went out seriously with two women before i was married. the first one was herself damaged (her father was violent and she had been raped) and i didn't have the core strength to respond to her love. i did her wrong and i hate myself to this day for it. the second was a clinical narcissist, i realized afterwards. i had the same sort of grasping relationship with her that i learned at home, pining for attention that couldn't come. and that's what happened again in my marriage to a BPDer. after the end of these last two relationships i was suicidal.

so i have intense attachment issues, and little expectation of good things coming from relationships. half the reason i got married was her, the other half was to be married and thereby get a purchase on the world; i was getting scared of being alone. the result of everything, now that the marriage is gone, is that i am in extreme social isolation. i have a few fantastic friends, but they're not in this city; i have an enormous family, but they're in the old country; i now have no partner or in-laws (her family are enormously self-regarding and they cut me off immediately); and no children, as i was so scared by her drinking that i couldn't go through with it (she accused me more than once of thinking that she "wasn't up to it" as the reason we didn't have a child; no ownership of responsibility on her part). there is literally no person in my cohort group whom i can just call up and say, let's hang out. (i also now have no refuge from my parental situation.) as long as we're divorcing i have a kind of relationship with my wife, but that will fade and then i'll have nothing at all. i live in terror of my future every day. (i'm going to a Divorce Support Meetup Group event today, so let's see).

as many others have experienced with their own BPDer i was hugely attracted by her live-wire personality and clear desire to be attached to me. she's also a brainiac and we have interests in common. after we were married (before, to be honest) i began to see the problems individually but i didn't realize she has BPD, in fact is a poster child for it (abandonment issues, confusion of identity, reckless behavior, projection, an infinite capacity to feel hurt, love during the marriage but now furious hate). i reacted to her neediness, to her refusal to do even simple things for herself as long as i was around, to her rejection of any personal discipline about her drinking or her slovenliness, with increasing frustration, which was exactly the wrong thing to do. i hurt her very badly the way i spoke sometimes, and she has never forgotten it (and never will i think, though she pays no attention to why i got frustrated). the frustration was itself a manifestation of my own lack of confidence in setting boundaries. i thought she was trying to establish the sort of reactionary relationship she saw growing up, where couples marry young, the women are bags of hormones, and the men put up with it and take care of things, including financial things, though my stbxw had a higher salary than i did. i found it hard to embrace what i thought i saw. i come from a corner of the culture where women have been personally and financially independent for the past century (three of my mother's 5 sisters didn't marry and all 5 of them left gobs of cash). the stated reason she left was that she "didn't feel cherished."

but why did i put up with it overall? one, i was panicked over losing what i had, and truth be told we actually had an active marriage. i was very happy to have it, and usually happy in it. two, it's clear that she never really saw me as a person, but as an emotional punching bag, an object whose purpose was to supplete her own needs. she was often patient with me but she never seemed to know me. in other words, i was back in the pattern of grasping after personal attention that just wasn't going to come, a miserable pattern but one i have practice with. (the very first point the therapist made was that i have to learn to want more for myself and be comfortable doing it.) and since she walked out, i have poured my heart out twice to her; she said she read the first note but never responded to it, and she said she received the second note but wasn't going to read it.