uBPDxw Engaged to Replacement

[milo1967]

Hi, Everyone,

So my eight year old daughter broke the news on the phone: "daddy, horrible news: mommy's engaged!" Then my 11 year old son called me much more upset and hung up on me because I could not wave a magic wand onto reality.

I divorced my XW because of her ongoing affair with the man she is marrying. When she saw that I was serious and would not stop the divorce, she moved in with him and plunged my kids into hell. Police, family services... .This guy (never married, no kids) dislikes the chaos my kids have brought to his life and my children resent him, especially my son. He has begged his mother for a year to not marry him, to move out, to live with me. She will never put their deepest needs before hers and they realize this and are disturbed. Both are in therapy and tell their therapists how unhappy they are with their mother and now-fiancée but there is little to be done for now.

I have slight majority custody and keep my home an oasis and calm. No girlfriend, just the three of us. XW's time with them is consistently chaotic, with one or both kids calling crying to be picked up and not return.

The replacement is truly a nasty piece of work for doing his part to break up our family but the ultimate blame is on my XW; he took no vows to me.

Only weeks before their engagement my XW cried to me on the phone how she "found letters of mine and kept them" and admitted crying to our daughter that she "misses daddy." Yet just last night I was served with a lawsuit for modification of child support to zero (she pays me).

Most of the time my head is clear and I would never want her back, but I continue to suffer from a strong desire that her relationship with the AP-turned new husband falls apart. I don't want to remain stuck in this place waiting for the karma bus to hit them. But after three years it's where I am. As I've seen so often on this site, my question is, "is she really happy with this person? Is she different? Will she change?" It is hard for be to believe or accept that she will live happily ever after after devastating our family, leaving me, a shadow of myself, in her wake.

Sorry for the depressing rant.

[Turkish]

The replacement is truly a nasty piece of work for doing his part to break up our family but the ultimate blame is on my XW; he took no vows to me.

I'm sorry Milo. I'm in a similar boat (I think mine just got married to the OM this week or last). They "got away" with it because our kids are now 3 and 5 (and she lying to the kids).

You talk of karma, but consider from what you describe the two of them having together. It doesn't sound that great, and her inconsideration of her children says a lot. She crying over the letters isn't fair to the "new guy" is it? *sarcasm*

Unfortunately, the kids are affected the worst. From my POV, I not only had to deal with my pain, but also that of the children, as much as they could understand Mommy moving out a little over a year ago, and she introducing them to her "friend" right away.

[StarOfTheSea]

It's the kids that suffer most in situations like this. As adults, it hurts us and it's awful but we can process it. Kids don't get why one person left and boom! all of a sudden there's a new person in their life. These kids will probably never have a normal, healthy romantic r/s when they grow up.

[tangentcity]

I don't want to remain stuck in this place waiting for the karma bus to hit them. But after three years it's where I am. As I've seen so often on this site, my question is, "is she really happy with this person? Is she different? Will she change?" It is hard for be to believe or accept that she will live happily ever after after devastating our family, leaving me, a shadow of myself, in her wake.

Sorry for the depressing rant.

Hi Milo,

That's not depressing at all. It's real, and it's so honest it's ennobling to read.

("ennobling"? had to pause to figure out why I'd come up with that word here. I figure it's because coming here and hearing of your problems and worries reminds me that we're all in this together.)

Listen, I'm not exactly in a great place to be doling out advice, but let me say this, as a sort of aspirational goal (it's where I aim to be myself): the goal is to detach in such a way that whether she is blissfuly, guiltlessly happy matters to you not one whit. She has to become, emotionally, as a stranger to you. She's a chronic condition in your life (as the mother of your children). Some people manage to live well with chronic pain, or a chronic disease, while remaining reasonably happy. That's what I'm struggling to maintain, and it sounds like you're there too most of the time: an at least "2" on a scale of 10 of happiness - this is the image Dr. Craig Childress offered as the goal in another context (parents with an alienated child). Being happy yourself would be your best revenge against her. And to be effective such happiness would have to be really inherent, not a front meant to create a reaction in her. Maybe time for you to get a girlfriend?

Anyways: that's where I am. Way behind you, actually, my battle is just starting. But based on knowing my BPDSTBX, I don't expect "her", i.e. her "mood" and general attitude, to ever, ever change. Whether she becomes happy, remarries, travels the world in luxury or not, I will never "win" as in, see her get her come-uppance. I might, if I'm very lucky, organize my paperwork, am persistent, and always live near my kids' school and her house, eventually get some measure of "justice", as in, fairness, with regards to custody (right now I have 30%). But "justice" in the sense of righting wrongs, of punishment? The challenge with us "fair" people is really appreciating the existence of hard-core psychopathology that is incurable and unchangeable. Personality disorders are not amenable to cosmic justice. The suffering they cause others around them is akin to that caused by a natural phenomenon like malaria-bearing mosquitos: something to managed or resisted and conquered, all with the help of understanding. If you were still in a relationship with her, married, it would be a far different story. You could use your understanding to deal with her disorder. But since you're not, the challenge is detaching, while remaining attached because of your children. She'll become no more than a sort of scrotum-tighteningly unsavoury customer with whom you unfortunately must continue doing business. I have no idea how to do that. It seems like the way to go, though.

If you're inclined to invoke karma, think that maybe karma is working out exactly as it almost always does: somebody once did something very bad to her, and she was helpess to stop the suffering; that helpless suffering caused her to develop a personality that couldn't contain what life threw at her, either then or now. You as the healthiest, strongest, most stable person around, get slipped the unpaid bill from way back when: you suffer, just as she did, and there's nothing you can do to stop it, just as she couldn't stop it either, years ago. That's tragic.

What if we turned around and embraced it? Embraced the suffering? "BRING IT ON! I LOVE PAIN!"

Forgive me - I'm just rambling on. "Bring it on!" is the first "Tool" from that book "The Tools", probably the best self-help book I've ever read. That technique involves getting out of one's comfort zone. I read that book last year, and it's been on my mind a lot lately. I too can't do anything to stop it. My BPDSTBX is on a rampage, and I don't foresee it stopping. And yet - can I maintain a 2 out of 10 on a scale of "happy go-lucky"? That's our challenge. To not get consumed.

At the very least you can sleep easy with a clean conscience that you ARE doing what you can for your children, no matter what.

[OnceConfused]

milo:

I guess not much you can do about your xw marrying your replacement. That are the choice between the two of them. You also cannot change how she imparts chaos into the kids' lives.

The only thing you can do is ;

1. Just continue to be who you are with the children. Hopefully, you are the anchor for them through these tough times

2. Check with the laws of your state. I think children at age 12 or 14 can decide whom they want to live with. Then you have to wait it out, until then.

[milo1967]

Thank you, Everyone,

I know there is nothing I can do except be the best dad I can be. But my strong desire for justice is hard to combat. I know she is unhappy as evidenced by her unceasing anger toward me. One would think she would be over the moon with joy since she is engaged, but it doesn't appear so.

It's just hard to grasp (I know, trying to understand the BPD mind is futile) how someone can "fall" for someone she had known for a few months and give up what was a happy family life of ten years--seemingly with no regrets, no remorse, no time alone to grieve the previous marriage. It's been three years for me and I still cannot sustain a relationship with another woman as I am still grieving the loss of my wife. How can a normal person grab one branch while still holding another? Lead a double life and then ride off into the sunset with such devastation in her wake?