so afraid, about to file.

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I have contracted a lawyer and am having papers drawn up. I'm getting super nervous. UdBPD has been ramping up lately. I'm a sahm with health issues. He has threatened to cut me off financially. He's mad I made purchases with out his okaying for a third time. Spouse also drinks. He has been acting super crazy lately to bid drinking. Running numerous errands but not coming home with stuff. I intervied three lawyers and this one seems familiar with udBPD. I'm worried about losing some personal possessions. That he will get mad and destroy things. Is this common?

[Iforget]

I have contracted a lawyer and am having papers drawn up. I'm getting super nervous. UdBPD has been ramping up lately. I'm a sahm with health issues. He has threatened to cut me off financially. He's mad I made purchases with out his okaying for a third time. Spouse also drinks. He has been acting super crazy lately to bid drinking. Running numerous errands but not coming home with stuff. I intervied three lawyers and this one seems familiar with udBPD. I'm worried about losing some personal possessions. That he will get mad and destroy things. Is this common?

[livednlearned]

I have contracted a lawyer and am having papers drawn up. I'm getting super nervous. UdBPD has been ramping up lately. I'm a sahm with health issues. He has threatened to cut me off financially. He's mad I made purchases with out his okaying for a third time. Spouse also drinks. He has been acting super crazy lately to bid drinking. Running numerous errands but not coming home with stuff. I intervied three lawyers and this one seems familiar with udBPD. I'm worried about losing some personal possessions. That he will get mad and destroy things. Is this common?

My situation was similar, except I didn't have health issues. My lawyer recommended that I move anything meaningful to me into a storage unit, or to a friend's house. Even for non BPD divorces, people can get very emotional and things tend to go missing or get destroyed. If it's something you care about, and it's possible to remove it without him noticing, I would do it.

If it's not something you can remove, take video or photos of the items. Unfortunately, it's rather shocking how little value furniture and things like that have when you go through financial settlement. In my divorce, the value of everything was determined by what it could get on Craig's list. An armoire I bought with a small inheritance my grandfather left to me was worth about $250, even though I could probably never replace it for that.

I photocopied all legal documents, got a credit card in my name only, had a PO box that only my lawyer knew about, and rented a storage locker where I started storing things. After you file, there will be a period of time when the finances won't be clear. I had an apartment lined up, and the day I left, per my lawyer's advice, I went to the bank and withdrew half of everything. A very aggressive lawyer might encourage someone to take the whole thing. That way, you'll have money to cover bills and living expenses until your financial settlement has been determined. If you live in a state with spousal support, you'll get that until the divorce is final, at which point you'll receive alimony. In my state, for couples married ten years, alimony is usually half the length of the marriage. So alimony for me was set at 5 years. But still, from the time you leave until your case goes through mediation or whatever -- that can take months. And then once things are settled, there is the problem of your ex complying. It's better to figure out how you'll take care of yourself until that time, and if it means accessing your accounts without your husband's knowledge, that's how it has to be. It's very common, and there are no repercussions. Anything you take out in advance is just accounted for during the settlement. If he ends up owing you $15K and you take $15K out, then it's a wash. Usually it's more complicated than that, but the point is that you won't be reprimanded for taking money out of your accounts. Your ex will flip out, of course, so be sure you have a safety plan in place. Either somewhere to stay, or a way to have him removed from the house.

Be really careful right now -- I think when you start to get serious about leaving the marriage, spouses can sense it. I made plans to move out while N/BPDx was at a conference. My parents were going to fly out and help me move. But N/BPDx sensed something, and I knew if I didn't leave sooner something bad was going to happen, so I left a week earlier. Fortunately, I had a plan in place and for the most part it went off without a hitch. He was drinking heavily and being very erratic, and started throwing things at me, locking me out of the house at least once every night, telling me not to come home, hiding my purse, etc.

N/BPDx started to get very weird about our finances right before I left. He installed something on my phone and was tracking me -- I suspected as much (he synced our phones through Google latitude so he could see my whereabouts). So I started leaving my phone at home, and bought one of those cheap prepaid phones and used that to contact my lawyer or to use in an emergency. He was always accusing me of having an affair, not filing for divorce, which worked to my advantage. It never occurred to him that I would ever get the strength to leave.

I'm so sorry it's come to this for you -- it can be very scary to actually exit these relationships. I hope you have a support network to help you through this. The peer support here is also an excellent source of advice.

Let us know how we can help you. You're not alone.  

[ForeverDad]

Relax (a bit).  Everyone goes through this, butterflies, fears and all.

Contacting a lawyer is a good starter step, finding out your legal options and rights.  Find a lawyer who has a strategy.  It is said 85-90% of divorces don't require special strategies because they don't involve disordered spouses.  If you found your way here then you're in that small percentage who will likely be obstructed, delayed, intimidated and pressured to choose quick but poor outcomes.  You have to be strong enough, supported enough and informed enough to get through the process successfully - or at least it sure helps!  The peer support here can help greatly, so can an experienced lawyer with strategies to deal assertively with what is to come.

"Spouse has been ramping up lately."  Even if you haven't directly stated it is over, he can probably sense the change in you.  Most disordered people, manipulators or controllers will try to stop the target from breaking away.  What he's doing now can be phrased "extinction burst" where the person tries to ramp up the conflict hoping you will shrink back into the old behaviors patterns as appeaser or doormat.

Don't forget that you need to have been documenting things.  For the best outcome for custody and parenting time, document what poor behaviors he has exhibited.  A log or journal is helpful, but be sure to include details such as dates, times, locations, witnesses, and specific of the incidents.  Make sure your spouse has no access to these things, keep backups with someone you really trust.  Going to court with "he always... . " or "she always... . " doesn't help much, without details it will be heard and probably largely ignored as hearsay.  Be aware that family court pays more attention to the poor parenting behaviors, the poor adult behaviors often take a back seat (unless you need a protection order).

Since your spouse has threatened to shortchange you financially, document (list and photocopy) all the accounts, cards, statements, deeds, titles, birth certificates, passports you can in case he tries to hide assets and obstruct you from finding it all.  Also photograph or video everything in the house, you'd be surprised how much can just disappear.

Essential books, top of the list:

Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder by Bill Eddy and Randi Kreger (for your legal issues, very good for your lawyer too)

Divorce Poison by Richard Warshak (for your parenting)

[Iforget]

Thanks for the replies. I stress and worry to the point I am ill. UdBPDh came home drunk this afternoon. Before I realized what was happening the kids had found him sitting in the car (this is where he hides to drink) and talked him into going out to dinner and bringing a friend. What a nightmare. He was staggering and speech was slurred. DD 14 kept saying to him, Dad, shut up, as he tried to interject into their conversation. We went to dinner. He fell asleep in the car.

I have started to take many of the steps you mention. I want to get a storage room but am afraid it will look bad when it comes out during the discovery process. Many of my things have ended up broken or missing. There is only so much I can do as I have no money of my own. Just yesterday he threatened to cut me off financially. He is letting the credit card max  out so I can't use it. And letting the checking account slid toward zero. Thank you so much for the support. I don't have any family near by for help.

[whirlpoollife]

Prior to filing and during, x2bh lived with me after filing, I moved items to a storage unit. H had many pages for me in the discovery process but I didn't need to list that I had a storage locker because he never knew about it so it was never asked. The items I put in it were asked to list so I did. (Unappraised small family heirlooms that h thought were worth big bucks) if I didn't put them in the locker they would have disappeared .  I put a lot of paper work in there too and sorry I didn't put In more cause a lot disappeared to him never to be seen again.  If you get a locker hide the key, sleep with your purse, shut off your phone when you meet with L. I got a cheap phone like Lnl said and left the other at home.

Planning is essential and doing so without telling h what your plans are.

If you have a local crisis shelter in your area it would pay to go in personally to ask for guidance, how to handle yourself when dealing with h, and to help you find work. 

It will be rough but keep moving forward.

[Forestaken]

I lot of great advice above. I used my kids gym bags as ways to smuggle documents in and out of the house to my work/desk/friends home. 

If you are restricted from leaving the house (BPD's are control freaks)

mail them to a friend / I did

To Forestaken

c/o: Forestaken's friend

1111 Street of Forestaken's friend.

Sun Tzu: "the art of war is the art of deception"

[livednlearned]

Sun Tzu: "the art of war is the art of deception"

It's unfortunate that we have to do these things, but it's even more important to protect yourself. Your ex is not going to be fair to you, not even when the court orders it. You have to be proactive and take care of yourself times ten so that your health doesn't further deteriorate. It's an awful power struggle in the marriage, and the power struggle continues when you file for divorce.

Like whirlpoollife mentioned in her case, (and it was the same for me) --  no one will know about your storage locker. And if they did, so what? You're allowed to get one and not tell your spouse. No one will judge you for it except your H. Get a credit card only in your name to cover expenses you don't want your H to see. Eventually, the charges will show up on your credit report, but your H will only see those charges if he checks your credit report. That's the only way he would know. Don't worry too much about how things will look during discovery, or what your H accuses you of. He'll stay anything to see what sticks, and all of it will be bad. You'll only get upset about the stuff that you feel guilty about, which is what he's going for. Everything else you'll recognize is a lie. Your job is to focus on feeling worthy, and start getting your strength back, and recognize that you deserve what the state determines is fair according to marriage law.

Honestly, I think judges and lawyers are relieved when high-conflict couples squirrel away their stuff to protect it. Courts don't want to hear squabbling and bickering over things in court, they really don't. It's a bit of a yard sale during the settlement process -- it will take your breath away how casually they slice up the assets, a few thousand here, ten thousand there. It's not an exact accounting, it's a rushed and sloppy process. Probably because your ex is controlling with money you feel like every penny is going to count, but it won't. People like us go into the legal process thinking that everything is going to matter, but from the court's perspective, only about 10% of makes any difference. And roughly 3% of what they hear is being processed according to guidelines and procedures and laws that many of us don't fully understand or know about.

My ex treated me like I was dumb and I used that to my advantage. It never occurred to him that I would doubt his word. He told me for five years that he was going to get full custody, that no judge would believe me blah blah blah. My ex is an attorney, and I believed him. Then one day I decided to go find out for myself, and it was a whole other world.

Sadly, when I started thinking about him like my opponent and not my husband, things started to get better for me.

You can do this. It's awful right now, and your body is jacked up on adrenaline and stress and anxiety because it's trying to tell you something. It's so much better to live in a home where you aren't fearing what will happen -- for that alone, it's worth it. The divorce process will be awful, unfortunately. Especially since you have kids. But your ex is a drunk and that means he isn't going to be much of an adversary. He'll be drinking while you're figuring out how to live your life without him, happy and whole and free.



LnL

[ForeverDad]

Apparently he drives intoxicated sometimes?  Does he drive while intoxicated with the kids?  DUI is bad enough, but he should never ever DUI with the kids.  The courts will see that as way worse.  If that happens, document it, but be aware he will deny it so you may have to let the police get the documentation with a traffic stop.  Don't feel guilty if you call the police and report it and where he is or where he's going.  That's a definite No-No.  Keep your lawyer informed of course, your lawyer needs to know all the dirty secrets so the lawyer can formulate a solid strategy without being blindsided.

[livednlearned]

Apparently he drives intoxicated sometimes?  Does he drive while intoxicated with the kids?  DUI is bad enough, but he should never ever DUI with the kids.  The courts will see that as way worse.  If that happens, document it, but be aware he will deny it so you may have to let the police get the documentation with a traffic stop.  Don't feel guilty if you call the police and report it and where he is or where he's going.  That's a definite No-No.  Keep your lawyer informed of course, your lawyer needs to know all the dirty secrets so the lawyer can formulate a solid strategy without being blindsided.

My lawyer encouraged me to call police if my ex ever got in the car and drove drunk. It will make your custody case 1000% easier if there is a documented DUI. It's a smoking gun.

And cops will take anonymous tips -- it won't be traced back to you. Just call and say, "There is a car/make/model driving on Some Road, and I believe the man driving it is intoxicated."