3 years and i cant get over it

[jo19854]

Its been almost 3 years since my wife left in feb 2014. Just leaving a note, no explanation, nothing. Only "I am leaving you and all of this, you can email me, thank you for everything, you will see this is the best way and the only way for me".
I’ve never heard from her since. No answer to any email. Like i never existed or meant anything. She took a plane and left when I was at work. I don’t know if she’s borderline. She told me in 2004 that she was diagnosed with BPD in 1985. She is alcoholic, and after she left I found out that she was on heroin and cocaine in the 80’s. She never told me that.

I visited USA last October, dropping clothes of and to challenge myself. I dropped the clothes of with a letter at one of her older daughters. Also a letter for her. The letter was direct and I mentioned where I stayed. No one showed up. I know she is staying with another older daughter and is taking care of a grandchild. She is sober now. Last month I sent 75 pounds of personal belongings (jewelry, and all of her things) but didn’t hear anything. I didn’t attach a letter anymore.

Both older daughters never were interested in me, my family and their mother. When their mother was locking herself up in a motel in USA for weeks in 2009 and drank herself to death they didn’t help her, didn’t visit her and let her drop dead.
When I picked wife up in 2010 ( she called and begged, said i was the only one who ever loved her) I took care of everything including getting her in a nursing home for 5 months in Holland, she was to sick for rehab.

In 2010 and 2011 it got better and better. I didn’t see borderline traits. By the way we never had a fight. Married in 2012 over here.
Several operations in 2010-2011 and 2012, chemotherapy 48 weeks for hepatitis C in 2013 and january 2014. She lost almost 20 pounds from the 135 .
I nursed , supported, cooked , actually did everything in household, she was so weak she couldn’t even eat properly. She got silent and apathic, no intimacy , nothing. She was living in a shell. The doctors told me it was a side effect of the chemo.

3 weeks after finishing she was gone, living with one of the older ones. They got babies in the year of her chemo.  On their facebook its “I love mom”. I guess I am replaced by the babies and the daughters. The first year I didn’t even know where she was, I only suspected. Her facebook profile picture was the statue of liberty and the daughter added “This is you”.

In october I did see my younger stepchildren, they lived here. One of them cried when seeing me and cannot express herself, she doesn’t want to see  her mother anymore. The youngest is 18 and she agreed meeting on Skype. They said I was good for them and their mother. It was the first contact I had after 3 years.
Ive spoken to her ex and he told me the older daughters destroyed his marriage and his (my) wife always defended them. Also the same experience with the withdrawl and depression.

My parents are very sick, and my mother was taken to a secured facility recently because of alzheimers disease, separated from my father after 60 years marriage, my father is alcoholic and drinks himself in coma every day. My daughter had a cardiac arrest in 2013 and was reanimated on the spot, she moved 9000 miles away in 2014 and I hardly hear from her. In 2015 I lost my job on age 59, 3 people close to me died this year, one of them was my best friend for 45 years. All the pain from this I can handle based on my capacity of rationalizing. But that’s the sword I run into, what wife did is so cruel, so inhuman and totally not her when she was with me. I just can’t comprehend.
The only good thing was I found a new job, so looking in the dark hole of bankruptcy is over.

I am abandoned like a pig, kicked in the dirt but every day I cry for the love that ive lost. She did hug me before she left. She knew. But she also deliberately ignores me, and her ex told me she called me a dramaqueen when he confronted her with the consequences of her actions. I had to deal with legal things against my feelings. I take care of the dog she left behind. (To top it all of it’s the dog from the daughter she lives with at this moment)
I read a lot on the boards, but I don’t think I will ever get over this. Its 3 years now and the pain doesn’t stop.

[Tobiasfunke]

Hey Jo. I hear you. Almost 2 years here and some days the pain is as if it  all just happened. I distract myself with other activities and work but I feel it just under the surface. You sound like you have been through some serious stuff lately. You also sound like a stand up quality guy with a lot to offer. I volunteer and coach youth sports. I work in healthcare and always find work to distract me. I know I'm codependent and because of this I get taken advantage of or treated like a doormat at times but I feel like when I can help someone they appreciate it and I don't feel as worthless. or like all I had  tried to do for my ex has been a waste so instead of lamenting the past try to focus my energy and busy my brain with things that I can accomplish now. It takes the sting away from the sense of failure of the loss of my ex.  You helped your ex get to where is today. Maybe she will be a positive influence of the lives of her grandchildren. They may grow to be great leaders, inventors doctors. They my someday attribute their success to their grandmother  who patiently help raise them. help to teach them to accomplish or become whatever great thing they become. And they would unknowingly owe it all to the sacrifice and love you gave to their grandmother when she needed you.

[Grey Kitty]

I don't think your wife is capable of giving you any sort of answer about why your marriage ended. Or at least not one that would make sense or help you.

Any peace you find with that is going to be without her help.

And besides this, you've been hit hard by so many other things recently.

Do you have friends or other family that can support you?

A therapist might be able to help you. Have you considered it or tried it?

[Julia S]

I have a long term female online friend who told me early on that she ha BPD but was very careful to manage it. Recently I had cause to ask her advice and request whether she could advise a friend of mine closer to home who has it. She said she had cancer and one or two other difficult things going on and was only just holding her mental health together because of this.

So I think, difficult as it may be to come terms with, your wife didn't cope as well in similar circumstances, and that BPD is a managed condition rather than a curable one, and when too many other challenging things happen, that management can fail.

Your wife may have chosen to leave because she knew she wasn't controlling her condition - even if you hadn't noticed at that point - rather than let your marriage deteriorate into rage and hatred or whatever she could feel would happen. And knowing you would have tried to help and only suffered for it.

Difficult to come to terms with, but maybe better than the alternative.

[jo19854]

Hi all, thanks for your replies.

Tobias, I thank you for the huge compliment, its true, without me she wouldn’t be alive anymore. I did what her daughters failed to do.
Something that she should realize even more than me. I am not the guy who feels better to help rescue the world. When wife was sick I did what a husband is supposed to do. But anyway … your compliment feels good and is so true

Grey Kitty, I have some friends and they are patient. They listen and are still flabbergasted about what happened. But after 3 years they don’t understand the pain. You know like…”if it would happen to me I would be done immediately”…. Or “there is plenty of fish in the sea”.
I went to several therapists, also one specialized on disappearance of spouses, EMDR, Mindfullness etc. but for some reason it doesn’t work. One said its unresolved complicated grief and my best help is talking and let time do its work. Exercise and focus on work.

Julia, you might be right about her choices, but to vanish and call me a dramaqueen, leaving all possessions behind (taking a picture of me with her and the keys of the house) and not even a letter after 11 years and all that happened. Being an official citizen here and way way more, that’s what brought me in this group. 
I am intensely grieving and feel so used while in the meantime I cannot connect it with the one I knew.

My life is completely ruined and on age 59 its not easy.

Thanks again for all the replies! Every bit of support helps

Jo

[Grey Kitty]

Jo,

I'm glad you have some friends, and glad you tried some therapy. (I've done mindfulness meditation, pretty extensively for a while, and am a better person for it. I would do well to get back to the practice.)

That said, friends who say things like ”if it would happen to me I would be done immediately”…. Or “there is plenty of fish in the sea” are trying to help, but I think better friends would accept that you are where you are, and while you are stuck, you aren't going to go looking for other fish.

The advice to exercise and focus on work (or something) sounds good to me--it won't fix everything, but it will make you stronger, at least.

I'm sure you keep wondering what she was doing and why, and trying to make sense out of her leaving the way she did three years ago. Also wondering if you could have done something different and she would have stayed.  I'd call that a rabbit hole your mind can take you down, and I don't think you will find anything good there.

You aren't going to figure out any real answers--they only exist in her mind, and she's not capable of sharing them with you. Or anybody else, I suspect. She may not understand herself. Even if you did know, it wouldn't bring you much peace.

I'd suggest a mindfulness technique I had recommended to me for when my mind wandered someplace I didn't want it to go: Gently telling myself (or my mind) "Thank you for sharing that. You may go now" and taking my focus back to something else. If I was meditating, that could be my breathing.

But do it gently--don't beat yourself up for thinking these things, and don't be surprised when they come up again. Don't even be surprised and upset if you spend 5 minutes "down the rabbithole" before you notice and go back to something better.

[jo19854]

You aren't going to figure out any real answers--they only exist in her mind, and she's not capable of sharing them with you. Or anybody else, I suspect. She may not understand herself. Even if you did know, it wouldn't bring you much peace.

I'd suggest a mindfulness technique I had recommended to me for when my mind wandered someplace I didn't want it to go: Gently telling myself (or my mind) "Thank you for sharing that. You may go now" and taking my focus back to something else. If I was meditating, that could be my breathing.

So true Grey K, I guess she has no clue and didnt learn from the past. Still hard to deal with the loss for me, i lost what i lost, a part of my past and a part of my future. It will take a while, maybe another few years, just wasted.

I surely will give your mindfullness approach a try.
Until now i tried to tell myself each time "Borderline... .borderline... .that's the answer". I will add your suggestion to that.

Jos

[lovenature]

Hey jo

I was going through the worst time of my life when I got involved with my uBPDexgf, I know how tough it is when loosing a loved one and trying to make sense of the senseless in a BPD relationship.
I really struggled for a while to try and remain NC, then when I did the really bad pain came. I found what helped me the most was learning all I could about the disorder, the more I learned and the longer I remained NC the clearer things became. It is almost 1 year out for me now, I no longer miss my ex. and have no desire for a relationship of any kind with her (she lives across the street from me ).
I still am effected everyday from the relationship, while recovery isn't linear I am doing far better than I was. I found the best thing for dealing with the ruminations was to accept that I was going to have thoughts and feelings, and to just let them come and go. Lots of long walks helped.

I believe we have to accept that it will take what it takes; there is a wide spectrum of PWBPD and their partners, your case is an example of why it takes longer to get over than if the break up happened during an average time of life.
Hang in there.

[jo19854]

Love nature, i will not contact her any longer. She doesnt reply anyway. I did sent her stuff because of the value. No response to that, so this was it.
I also believe circumstances and age are a factor in how long it takes. I will do my very best and hope that one day i have peace of mind. Thank you for your encouraging words.  Jo