Confused Any insight or advice appreciated.

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hi there,

Ive posted full story before.  It seems that my therapist and a person that has experience with BPD think she will return due to the pattern she has displayed in the last 19 years.  I've posted more details about my relationship previously.  I'm not sure what to do.  This time around I have healed quite a bit through therapy and very little contact.  We do have four kids but I've really kept this boundary.  So basically, she will create this horrible image of me to friends and family, stray and then come back.  She's always ended the other relationships.  I don't know whether to go file for divorce or not.  She's caused a lot of damage this time around but this time around I see more of what could potentially be wrong with her and I feel guilty.  Any advice.

Joe

[Joem678]

Hi there,

Ive posted full story before.  It seems that my therapist and a person that has experience with BPD think she will return due to the pattern she has displayed in the last 19 years.  I've posted more details about my relationship previously.  I'm not sure what to do.  This time around I have healed quite a bit through therapy and very little contact.  We do have four kids but I've really kept this boundary.  So basically, she will create this horrible image of me to friends and family, stray and then come back.  She's always ended the other relationships.  I don't know whether to go file for divorce or not.  She's caused a lot of damage this time around but this time around I see more of what could potentially be wrong with her and I feel guilty.  Any advice.

Joe

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Joem, Why not put your energy where your power is, i.e., the things you can change and/or control.  No reason to feel guilty.  You are not responsible for another adult. 

LuckyJim

[Joem678]

Thanks luckyjim,

I have been.  Therapy has helped me tremendously and I've bounced back from all the financial strains that have been caused.  After 20 years of guilt treatments and focusing the moving in part is really hard.  I hope this makes sense.  It took me a while to stop seeing her as a victim.  A long while!

[Lucky Jim]

Took me a long time, too.  Those w/BPD are expert guilt trippers.  No, she is not a victim.  LJ

[Ceruleanblue]

It's nice to see guilt trips mentioned. My therapist and I were just talking about that last week. How BPDh uses guilt to get his way. And how susceptible I am to it. It's hard, because you want to be a good partner, and if they say something, you want to take it into consideration, but I think this is where the "guilt" comes in. It's basically manipulation.

You are not responsible for her actions, and I'd bet your wife has used guilt a lot to get her way, or to play on your sympathies.

Is your wife at all accountable after she strays? Will she go to therapy, or is she ever truly sorry? Does she become transparent when you have reconciled? I mean, how could you trust her, when it's been such an ongoing pattern? I think those who have cheated, if they want the marriage to survive, have to be transparent(you have the right to look through her phone, emails, you name it). Especially when it's happened more than once!

Only you know if you can forgive her again, or want to put yourself through that again. I forgave BPD for what I think of as cheating(he disagrees), because we were separated. It happened only a couple weeks after he left though, which is WHY it hurt so badly. It was like he couldn't wait. It had to feel even worse for you, to have it happen while still together, and have it happen over and over.

I'm so glad you got in therapy, for your sake. Being with someone who is acting out like that, due to BPD, or anything else, can really do a number on you.

[Joem678]

Ceruleanblue, thanks for responding.

[Is your wife at all accountable after she strays? Will she go to therapy, or is she ever truly sorry? Does she become transparent when you have reconciled? I mean, how could you trust her, when it's been such an ongoing pattern? I think those who have cheated, if they want the marriage to survive, have to be transparent(you have the right to look through her phone, emails, you name it).

She is not accountable.  She will say I'm sorry and then like it never happened.  She is transparent but then uses it to paint me as a controlling husband to others.  I don't know if I can trust her again. What gets me is right before she left this time, she admitted that she needed help. 

What gets me this time is that I noticed something off this time around.   Researching personality disorders has answered all the questions I've ever had all these years.  And now I know I'm not alone.

[Reforming]

Hi Joem,

It's sounds like you've already found some answers to your questions from the work you've been doing.

My ex told me that she was sexually abused as a child and I felt enormous sympathy for her. I excused a lot of behaviour because of this and I still feel very sorry for her. Nobody deserves to be harmed in that way

But one of the hardest lessons I've learned - and I wish I learned it earlier - is that her pain and dysfunction is not an excuse for harming others.

At a certain point of our adult lives we all have to take responsibility for our choices and our behaviour. She had the option of trying to heal, but she never chose this. This is one of the hardest things about BPD. Healing only begins with personal responsibility, but most people with PDs are so smothered in shame and denial that they really struggle to do this.

It takes a lot of hard work, dedication and courage to treat BPD and it only works if the pwBPD needs drives it themselves.

I think you're right to prioritise the well being of your kids and your own well being and mental health. These relationships can take a huge toll on everyone involved and it's really important to try and remind yourself that you deserve love, respect and stability and so do your children

Good luck

Reforming

[Joem678]

Thanks reforming for responding.  Her telling me she was sexually abused did the same for me.  You feel so sorry for them and blame their behavior on their past.  It is hard to be tough when all you see is the little abused girl.  I always blamed the abusers for what I was going through.

[Reforming]

I know exactly where you're coming from and it kept me stuck in the FOG for a long time.

I still feel huge sadness for the little girl who was robbed of her childhood and lot more

It's terrible how much damage CSA can do but I realise that enabling her didn't help her heal or help take responsibility for her choices.

And it's not an excuse for harming others. You deserve better

Reforming

[Suzn]

Hello Joem

You're seeing her as a victim when you're feeling guilty for what happened in her childhood. You can't fix this part for her, she has to see there is an issue and be open and willing to address it.

What gets me is right before she left this time, she admitted that she needed help. 

How does she feel about therapy? Does she know you see a T?

You've been living alone for 3 months, how is that going? Do the children live with you? How are they adjusting and handling you and mom being separated?

[pallavirajsinghani]

My ex told me that she was sexually abused as a child and I felt enormous sympathy for her. I excused a lot of behaviour because of this and I still feel very sorry for her. Nobody deserves to be harmed in that way



It is amazing how much we see this on the board.  Two points puzzle me:

1)  With For a person with this disorder, feelings = facts.  That is,  "I feel bad... .therefore you must be bad." type of thought process.  So given this, the abuse may or may not be real.  It is real to them because it feels to them as real.  They "feel" abused, therefore abuse must have happened.

I don't mean to say that we do not believe these assertions nor that we should underestimate the life long pain... .what we should take into account that these are emotions and feelings and need to be addressed at core levels with professional help... .there is no amount of "making up" that you can do to heal the damage you did not cause.  So, there is an enormous amount of guilt for something that happened to her... .but of which you were not the perpetrator... .and then there is additional guilt because all your love and dedication has not healed these core wounds.

2)  Every personality is different.  My mother is a survivor of awful physical childhood abuse (not sexual, but violence... .at the hand of her mother), so much so that she was sent to live with her grandmother for her safety.  My mother is also a survivor of two genocides... .in one, a raped women showed her carvings of religious sayings on her breasts done by the rapists... .this was during one genocide... during the second genocide, she walked around the streets next morning and identified my cousin's husband from a stack of dead bodies in the street... .by his fair feet... .

Now, there are all the reasons for this woman, with these experiences to become a disordered personality herself... .but she tells us that when she was being hit... .her first thought even as a child was,  "I will never do this to my children... ." she said that it became like a chant in her mind and her coping mechanism... .that she will never repeat this behavior.  And she never did.  None of us siblings have ever been hit... .not even as a discipline measure.

So, we have to take into account how an experience affects a person.  How an experience affected her, has little to do with you and you believe that it is your calling, like a sacred duty to "save" her, to heal her wounds... .I call this "misplaced altruism". 

Guilt is not a rational emotion.  You cannot just make it go away by using your capacity to think clinically and objectively... .this has nothing to do with the level of intelligence or understanding.  It has simply to do with being a moral person.  You are a moral person and you want to behave ethically.  When your ethical behaviour and ethical motives do not bring in productive results, you are bound to feel guilty, as though you did not work hard enough.

In that case, only professional intervention can help cut through the Gordonian knot... .and you, my dear, are smart to have already sensed this.

I am so proud of you in that you have a counselor... .

Thank you for sharing your story.

[Joem678]

Suzn thanks for responding,

[How does she feel about therapy? Does she know you see a T?

You've been living alone for 3 months, how is that going? Do the children live with you? How are they adjusting and handling you and mom being separated?]

She never sought therapy.  She is now pretty arrogant.  Yes she does know I'm in counseling 

Living alone was a big adjustment.  I couldn't be in my own house alone.  I literally would wake up and leave and not come back home until it was time to go to sleep.  Slowly but surely I was able to adjust.  We are co-parenting right now.  It was her idea and my assumption was to get to know "people".  The kids are adjusting ok to the situation.  The only thing is that her life right now is a big lie.  And the oldest two (17/16) pick up on her lies.

[Joem678]

pallavirajsinghani, thanks for responding.

Your response is no uplifting.  I sought help because this time around I was having suicidal thoughts, I was experiencing panic attacks and anxiety.  I realized this was not healthy and I couldn't go through with it again.  I did stop seeing her as a victim.  I just need to keep my distance.  She tends to want to be ugly and/or guilt me whenever she has the chance.  I know I have kids with her but the analogy i was given is: You are on an airplane that just lost cabin pressure, you must put the oxygen mask on yourself first then your kids.  The process has sure felt like that.  As I heal, my kids raise concerns and I am able to answer their questions. 

That is the one good thing about all this.   In my healing, my relationship with my kids has improved greatly.  I was always on edge.