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restoredsight
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« on: March 08, 2014, 07:58:53 AM » |
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When my wife and I started our second relationship, I was very wary. I had every reason to worry, since our last breakup was horrible and she showed some serious BPD traits the first time around. The first time we lived together, we made it 4 months. This time we were together for 2.5 years.
As time went on, she honestly seemed more normal. There were sexual issues, she often had trouble with how she felt about sex, as she was terribly abused as a child. The bizarre behaviors from our first relationship vanished and she was consistent in how loving she was. She seemed more secure in our relationship than ever before. She was becoming very responsible, taking care of complex matters, and holding onto a normal job for the last year and a half. She had been helping around the house without any coaxing, which was something she never did before.
In our personal interactions, I tried to encourage her to not bend over backwards for me, as she always seemed to take note of things I didn't like and make rules about how she behaved. An example was music; she would often change the radio station from things I didn't like when we were in the car together. I tried to remind her that I didn't mind these sorts of things and she should listen to what she wanted to. This is jsut one example of many little things, many little fires that were put out. All in all, a lot of the first half of the relationship was more about letting her be herself and trying to allow her to become self sufficient. I told her from the beginning that I wanted a partner. I believe she made huge steps towards this. She was almost a different person in many ways by the time she gave birth.
She had a lot of idealized thinking when it came to child rearing, but how much different is that from most of us? She wanted to raise our son in a "crunchy" style, using cloth diapers, and breastfeeding him for the duration, all of which was a good idea, but reality got in the way in several ways, and she just wasn't able to keep up with the demands of pumping while at work, and couldn't keep up the supply. When she quit breastfeeding, I started to take over a lot more, while she seemed to drift away. She was working a lot, covering our bills, but when she was around she seemed more detached. I was a lot more busy with the baby and suffering through a depression of my own, so I know I wasn't of much help. I honestly thought things would stabilize after a time.
But, then this latest breakup happened, and the experience with how she acted towards me was so similar to the first breakup. An emotionless mask hiding contempt, the denial, the disassociation, the lies, a good chance of cheating, and a complete refusal to try and work on anything.
She started staying out all night, something she knew was a serious trigger for me. Then she took our son out all night. I've heard from a concerned ex-coworker (he, my wife, and many people involved in this situation all used to work together) that he'd heard that when she took our child out, she left him in a room crying while they did cocaine. I've spent about a week working through my feelings on this. It could just be a rumor, and I find it hard to believe that none of the people there did or said nothing to stop that. I thought a few of them were decent people. But, even my wife's mother says that if someone went out of their way to tell me, there must be a grain of truth in it.
I'm honestly shocked. As far as I know, my wife has never done any drug harder than marijuana. When she first told me where she had been with our son I had been more upset about the company she was keeping and the fact she may have been cheating with my son in tow, which was horrible enough. Now, I don't know what the heck to even think.
She has seemed content to let her parents take care of the baby in the last three weeks, while she's visited him for maybe 5-6 days. She hated the way her mother brought her up, was against the way she treated children in general, and would have never accepted this state of affairs a few months back. This whole thing is baffling, as I get the idea that she just says that we "drifted apart" and that I'm a great father. She hasn't been smearing me at all, as far as I know. Even with her parents, I'm told that she just seems brittle and hasn't spoken much about it. She's just adamant about it being over. She hasn't made contact with me on purpose since the 16th of Feb. In one of our last talks she said that she hadn't felt like herself since she gave birth.
I've been reading about postpartum depression and I've read stories about women becoming disconnected and angry at their husbands when they have it. I'm seeing that the first year of being parents often are the worst, and that divorces happen pretty frequently. The thing that I'm not seeing is how this might effect someone with BPD traits. Does anyone have any insight on this?
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