Awful divorce situation with likely BPD soon to be ex Can anyone relate?

[californiamomof3]

I was married for 18 years, I have a 22 year old son from a previous marriage, and two girls with my current (ex) husband - they are 16 and 7. The 16 year old (girl) has had problems since she was born. At 18 months she began pulling out her hair (trichotilomania) which lasted until 2nd grade, and then came years of depression, anxiety and out of control anger. When she was 8 years old, she I took her to a child psychiatrist who dx'd her with depression. From age 8 until present, her dx has changed to GAD, bi-polar, anxiety disorder, and most recently what her doctor feels is classic Borderline (though she is not 18 yet so obviously that dx cannot be officially made - but he said she is "text book".

She was hospitalized twice for auditory hallucinations, both times in August of last year.

In the midst of all this, my marriage seemed to implode. Soon after our daughter was hospitalized, my husband's dad died suddenly. His dad struggled with lifelong untreated depression, he was physically abusive to my husband growing up, and the mom was hospitalized many times for suicide attempts when my husband was growing up. He seemed to always want his dad's approval and went to extraordinary lengths to get it. The dad was a negative person though and never responded.

So my father in law died, and my husband had a very neutral reaction.  He didn't express any grief. He flew across country to attend the funeral. He spent a few days after the funeral staying with his mom - he ran errands for her, cooked for her.  The last day he was there, he seemed more upbeat, which made me happy;  Except our now-16 year old was having problems. I had kept most of her struggles between us, never wanting to talk to anyone else about it with the exception of her doctors and therapists. On this particular night, I was very stressed, much more than usual... .I could see that our daughter was not going to return to school in a short time like we had envisioned, and the BPD aspects were really showing up a lot. I "vented" to my husband about how upset she had made me that evening, and what a hard time I was having. I will never forget... .he said "you know, my dad died unhappy, and I wonder if I'm happy too". We then got into an argument because he claimed I was "accusing" him of not helping our daughter. I reminded him I was venting! He kept saying "it's not my fault, I'm not responsible, I did nothing wrong".

The next day, my husband changed his plane ticket from coming back to our home in CA, to flying to Reno where we had a vacation home nearby. The vacation home was occupied by our son (my son from a previous marriage whom my husband mostly raised). My son was attending college near Reno so we had him live at that home.   When he suddenly flew there instead of coming home, it was strange, and he didn't call me to tell me.  I tried to give him space, didn't ask questions, and let it be. Days turned into weeks, and suddenly it was 2 weeks without much contact from him.  When we did talk, he was very passive/aggressive. He drove home one day, collected some random items in a bag, and drove off again the same day... .unshaven, looking like he hadn't showered in a few days, and I assumed he was going back to our vacation place. Instead, no one heard from him for 3 days and I later found out he was sleeping in his truck. He bounced between our home, and the vacation home. He was withdrawn and acting mean to me, and ignoring our girls. He got in my face and yelled at me, and then moved into a hotel locally! He began telling everyone he wanted to divorce me... .

He lived in the hotel for a month. Over that month, I was a mess! He put $10,000 in my bank account and told me I was now responsible for the house - basically since he had always paid the bills, I had no access to money. He told me to deal with the house, pay the bills, and then I had to "decide" if I was going to "change" or not. If I didn't want to change, he would divorce me. He never could define what "change" meant!

One day, I got into a minor accident (hit from behind at a light) and called him. I was very shaken! He came to the accident scene and didn't comfort me at all - he asked the cops if there was any way the accident was my fault. It seemed he wanted to blame me, even though I was hit from behind. Very strange. But once he saw me in person, he did mellow out, and later that day asked to move back in. I was reluctant - by this time, I had told family and friends of our problems, and I had lost weight, and was a mess. I had no idea my marriage was this fragile! I ended up telling him yes, but under the condition that we go for marriage counseling.  But he Largely blamed me for our problems, and never truly opening up to our therapist.

He made daily life very uncomfortable for me and our kids. He moved out of our bedroom, and sat in his home office all day playing on his iPad. He began to act very juvenile, playing Youtube videos loud at night and if the kids and I were watching a movie, he would come in and do something disruptive. He was verbally abusive, especially to our 16 year old. Finally I told him I was going to see a lawyer and file... .I asked him to move out, and he refused, but came back at me with a promise to "take care" of us and that I shouldn't worry because we had plenty of money. Sometimes he was still blaming me, other times he would say he was "no good" at relationships, and other times he had me thinking he wanted to reconcile. VERY confusing, but I felt if I moved out, perhaps that was the only way to wake him up.

Even though he was supportive of us getting attorneys, and was initially cooperative, he suddenly waged a war. We never even made it to a mediator, because he was so explosive - he made extreme demands and if I hesitated to do things his way, he threatened long and expensive litigation. I could NOT believe this was my husband!

Fast forward to today... .15 months later and I am defending myself against what I see as either someone with an extremely horrible personality disorder, or PURE evil. For the first few months, I tried so hard to "win" him back. I didn't date, but if I even went out with friends or on vacation with friends, he accused me of screwing every guy around me. In the process of all of this - I saw a bit of a change in my relationship with my son. I felt that some of our conversations were more geared toward my son (now 22) getting information to give to his stepdad. I had nothing to hide, but I took note of my son seeming to want information and suddenly my husband finding out... .really trivial things such as trips I planned to take, holidays that my family was planning to visit me, etc. I didn't really mind it but I did take note of my son's sudden interest in certain subjects, then my husband emailing me that he "knew" the plan already.

During this time, I found out thru a friend that my husband was on match.com. And the date he registered for the dating site was on Valentine's Day, during a time we had still been talking about any possibility of getting back together. When I told him that I knew he was on match, and I was so upset because I thought our marriage deserved a change, he told me "what am I supposed to do? I never get to meet anyone, I am too busy at work". I mean, he was THAT far away from what I wanted? I couldn't believe it. I will never forget how flippant he was about it. I felt he was sure he could find a replacement for me, that I was somehow interchangable. He continues to be on the dating site, my friend often looks him up, and he shows up as being "live" on it at least every 24 hours if not more. During our marriage, he was a bit socially awkward, didn't like parties unless it was with his co-workers or people he knew already, so it seemed odd to me that he would put himself out there.

We have made almost no progress with the divorce... .he turns down every offer I have made, and his own offers are set up to cheat me out of just about all of our money. He tried to get me to sign away my right to our vacation home while our daughter was hospitalized with an infection (he never showed up at the hospital to check on her, he just bullied me over and over by email to sign things, and when I refused he would threaten me). He pushed me hard during a child exchange, I called the police, and he tried to sue me for "malicious prosecution". Literally I feel this man HAS to blame me for everything and never takes an ounce of responsibility.

In the process... .this is the worst outcome yet: he turned my son against me. I have since read up on Parental Alienation Syndrome. I had no idea such a thing existed until things got VERY bizarre with my son. My husband wanted me to agree to let him buy another home ONLY in his name. Since we have not split much of our assets yet, I would be signing away my right to a house he was using to put some of money into. When I said "I am sorry, but I need you to split assets with me first" he told me that the house was really for my son; and that even though it was in my husband's name, my son would be living there, and how could I deprive my son of this house since it was closer to his college than our family vacation home (it made NO sense). Why would I in any event sign away my rights, regardless of my son? My son had a nice home to live in. Anyway, my husband repeatedly and relentlessly obsessed over this home purchase and told me he would make sure my son hated me if I didn't agree. I laughed it off. I mean, how could he really turn anyone against me? I even showed my son the messages and he said "you know it's not true mom". I felt good about that. Yet over the next few months, it became painfully clear that my husband did get to my son. He told my son I had ruined his chance to live in this great house, and that I was a horrible mom. My son is gullible... .I once had to tear him away from a cult-like company that was essentially making him work for free. But I could not believe my son would turn against me, in fact, his emails almost exactly replicated the tone and language of my husband.

My husband has tried the same approach with our 16 year old Borderline daughter. She however has not responded the same way - at some points she does seem to "turn" against me but she comes out of it.

I cannot believe my once cohesive family is in this condition... .I was told recently that my husband has always managed to slip in negative words about me to my son, I trusted my husband so much, I never would have suspected but he apparently had talks with my son beginning years ago where he painted a very bizarre image of me. Telling my son that I was a bad mom for not cooking every night, that I never earned any of my own money and that being a stay-at-home mom was hurting our family financially (not true, because we made over $1 a year for several years in a row, we had plenty of money!). So when my husband wanted to really paint a bad picture, he was able to.

This brings me to the here and now. After my husband pushed me, all custody was taken away from him for 2 months. He just regained partial custody of our two girls... .but, this is the first week he has had our girls, and tonight on Thanksgiving, our 16 year old had a severe panic attack and talked about suicide, and he took her to the ER after I contacted her therapist (the therapist told my husband he had to take her in!). For the past two months prior to this, she had made a lot of progress - I hate to say it, but not seeing her dad was the best thing that could have happened. She went back to school, began taking better care of herself, and even began to see friends again, and I saw less of the BPD attributes. When I found out she was in the ER and would probably get a 5150, my heart sunk. I emailed my soon to be ex, and he shot back an email that - you guessed it - blamed ME for this hospitalization. He claims everything was perfectly fine until I contacted the therapist, and that action somehow triggered our daughter to have a more severe reaction. Meanwhile, our daughter had been texting me since Monday that she was fearful of her dad, that he was ignoring her, and that she was having "flashbacks" to the times when he was physically and verbally abusive. So I believe those are the triggers.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I know this is super long, I really could not have written it without providing all of this information though. So much of my life seems like a lie now, and so much of my family seems to have not really existed... .I look at other divorced moms and I am so jealous of them still having all of their children;s support. I cannot believe what has transpired, especially given that family was always SO important to me. I would give every last penny to have normalcy. I feel this divorce will never end because my husband will first bleed us dry on legal bills before that happens, and I don't know how if at all I will ever get my son back. I know that I need to hire yet another attorney or expert who can address custody again, because I am very fearful of my two girls being victims of PAS (if that is indeed what happened with my son).

One more thing - this may or may not relevant. When I met my husband, I was sure he was gay. I almost didn't go out with him again because it seemed... .obvious. Yet I was told by mutual friends "no way", and that he was always talking about all of the girls he was having sex with. He has always almost gone out of his way to seem heterosexual yet he comes off as feminine. He has "mistakenly" bought women's shorts, and when I met him he mostly ordered "girl drinks" like cosmos. He stopped doing that when a business associated told him it is not manly to order a cosmo at a company event. He also used to "accuse me" of accusing him of cheating if that makes sense. To the point I would wonder if he IS cheating and it got me all confused. At one point I felt there is no way he is cheating and never responded to his weird "accusations" but that made him even more hell bent on seeming to portray me as a jealous wife. Does any of what I wrote in this post made sense?

[livednlearned]

Hi californiamomof3,

You're in the right place, there are many of us here who have been through similar heartache  :'( I'm glad you found the site and hope you continue to feel like you have a place to go where people understand.

It sounds like you are trying to have an uncontested divorce, and that this is not working out so well. Our divorces are often referred to as high-conflict divorces. A good resource that you may want to order as soon as possible is Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing a NPD/BPD Spouse by Bill Eddy. This will help you understand how the legal system works, in addition to helping you anticipate how your H may behave throughout the divorce.

It's hard to see this now while emotions are running so high, but in terms of custody and stabilizing your daughter, it may be a good thing that you were given custody for 2 months. It also sounds like your D16 wants to live with you. Do you live in a state where she is able to choose? In some states, it can depend on the age of the child. The more time your kids spend with you, the less susceptible they will be to parental alienation, too. How is your youngest child doing?

About your D16: I highly recommend the book BPD and Adolescence by Blaise Aguirre. He is one of the leading experts in the nation on BPD in adolescence and believes strongly in diagnosing kids before they are 18. Especially a child that may display textbook signs. Being BPD, D16 is going to have a much harder time with her dad, especially if he is also BPD. People with BPD have very high needs for validation, and yet can be very invalidating themselves, and this can be downright toxic.

Let us know what problem you most need help with. It's the holidays and a bit quieter, but people will be back and willing to chime in. You're not alone. 

LnL