Waiting it out, trying to feel my feelings, and trying to stop the bleed

[lighthouse9]

Hi everyone,

I posted a few days ago with my story (Separating and Feeling Hopeful) and I'm back looking for support and maybe some pointers for specific relationship skills in this moment. My wife, undiagnosed, asked for divorce 2.5 weeks ago and has been in and out of town since. We've spent the last week together and have been piecing through some good conversations about the affair I discovered and some of her behavior. BPD came up (she asked if I thought she had it) and we talked through some of her behaviors and thought patterns lovingly, and she has told me that she wants to start a DBT program and also plans to tell her affair partner it is offer either today or tomorrow before she goes out of town again.

Yesterday, we went on a walk in the woods (something we used to do often) in order to have a little bit of distraction while connecting with less pressure and also having short, smaller conversations about some of our current conflict. I'm learning how much the direct conversations are hard for her and what kind of environment helps her to have better conversations (and helps me be less "all knowing" and less of a fixer). I invited her on a walk because the night before ended in disaster and she woke up with tons of shame. After several days of good conversation and connecting, she came home at 4am and was in an area close to her affair partner's home. There's some validity to her story that she didn't see him, but there's also the fact that she's been lying for a long time and it's hard to tell truth from fact with her at this moment (and I'm not sure she can easily access truth vs. fact).

I should have let things go after she came home late, but I was too upset and had a hard time disconnecting (my work, I know). I was worried about her and have been fearful that she's going to turn one of these nights where she's "at a bar by herself" into a night where she gets too drunk and someone takes advantage of her, or when she'll drive home drunk. Sure, I'm worried she's still with this guy, but the worry that she'll do something to hurt herself is also there. It's only recently that I've started to see the BPD characteristics in her, and so nothing feels "off the table" in terms of behavior she could practice. I don't see signs of suicide risk, but I've never seen her this low, conflicted, or dysregulated so I'm not ruling it out.

My challenge right now: I proposed the idea of a healing separation for us to both take time and do our work and slow down the divorce process. I'm not 100% sure I want this yet, but I'm afraid to let my marriage go when it seems like everything tanked around the exact time this affair happened. I can see how much she dysregulated and how both of us had no idea how to handle it together. The story she was telling me before was that she was "already out of the marriage, which made the affair possible," but now that we've had some more direct, open, and honest conversations that story is changing. He kissed her when she was drunk, it threw her off but also intrigued her, and the pressure on our relationship was excruciating. Over time, she attached to him, split me even further down the "not good" side, and then the divorce came seemingly out of nowhere. Also, before I knew about the affair, and when I saw her in so much pain, I reminded her that while neither one of us felt good about the idea of divorce, sometimes it's the right path for couples because no one needs to live in misery. I was saying it more from a generalized "don't just hate on divorce" standpoint - not a "I need out" standpoint, but I can also see how that probably pushed her into the "reject her before she abandons me" place.

I'm struggling, because she has very little ability to send clear signals right now, and I am still just learning how to get back into myself and feel what I'm feeling. I know only time will make that happen, but I'm having trouble being patient. When we walked yesterday, we discussed putting a date on our next "big" conversation about the possibility of having this time away be a healing separation or not. She said that she won't think about things if there isn't a date in mind. I'm trying not to take that one personally. In my head, this is our marriage - and how could you NOT be thinking of it? But, I'm trying to step back and understand that she avoids conflict, avoids thinking about hard stuff, and that when she does think about hard stuff she instantly either goes to a place of pure shame or pure entitlement. Thus, we said that once she moves out (we don't have the exact date yet, but it is soon) and she has some time to be in her place, we'll set a date. In the mean time, I have to think about what I want too, plus I need to decide where to live, whether to stay in the state and get a place and keep my job, or to move away to my family and work remotely (and risk losing my job in time), or some kind of plan in between.

I'm trying really hard not to let her answer be what determines my next steps re: moving and my job. But, the lack of clarity on her end is killing me. I also know that if I push her for an answer right now, she'll say no most likely (because the pressure is still very high) and if she does say yes, I'm not sure I can believe it. I'm learning how much she does things out of mirroring and not out of some sense of self that desires things. She's been making me dinner lately and we've actually been connecting in ways that have been missing from our marriage for so long. After she went out until 4am, I told her that the two were sending conflicting signals to me and I asked if she desired to make me dinner because it was what her heart wanted (to spend time with me, to have normalcy with me) or if she was making me dinner because it was what I wanted and she wanted to please me. Her response was absolutely eye opening. She said: What's the difference between those two? I clarified my statement a bit, and then she said "yeah, I don't operate like that. I don't know how to feel what I want, communicate it, and then get it." That explained so much, hence me wanting to wait until she is out of the house to have this conversation. Once she's on her own, I know she could just drop me and also succumb to any bad influence around her that she's been cultivating for the last few months.

Am I setting myself up for something bad by expecting her to really think about our marriage when she gets out of the house? How do I detach and do my work in the meantime, and not make my decision so dependent on her behavior? Thanks!

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[RolandOfEld]

Hi lighthouse9, that's a really difficult situation you're facing. On the one hand, you have real, major marital issues such as infidelity and divorce to cope with, which is extremely hard even for people in normal relationships, while on the other hand you have your partner's BPD, which can make these issues infinitely more complicated. You don't know quite how to view the affair as well as the idea of divorce, and the better communication you've been sharing recently only adds to the confusion. I think it is wise of you to propose a separation period first since it seems you need time to get clear on your feelings about divorce.

I can especially empathize with the drinking since alcohol abuse is a problem with my uBPDw as well. It sounds like you care about her very much. Do you mind talking a bit about how you feel about the affair?

I also really understand how hard it is to make meaningful decisions when your partner suffers from a mental illness (one of my first posts to the board was about the same topic, whether or not to live separately). My final call was to leave this in her hands since she was the one who proposed it and that she had to take care of all the details (finding / paying for her own apartment, arranging for the children, etc). The result was that it didn't happen.  

May I ask why it is necessary for you to move / change jobs? My first suggestion would not be to uproot anything in your own life - e.g. your home or your job - to accommodate her proposal of a divorce. I have received dozens of divorce threats starting from the first week we were married, and she has not acted on any. I have wasted countless hours seeing apartments with realtors, visiting new schools for our kids, and taking leave from work I shouldn't have. I'm not saying your wife will be the same, but in my experience decisions made during dysregulation periods are rarely ones that are stuck to.  

In terms of whether or not she will really think about your marriage during the separation, I do not think that is something you can determine or control. It also sounds like dishonesty is a big problem for her. I would suggest using this time to the fullest extent to examine your own feelings about the relationship and what you need moving forward. You mentioned she wants to do DBT, so I imagine if she is committed to changing your marriage (or just herself, equally good), she will take some action on that during this time.

She gave you an ultimatum in terms of a date; perhaps you should consider setting a condition, too, to measure her commitment to using this time apart for good.  

In the meantime, please take good care of yourself and your work and use your individual time to keep yourself emotionally healthy to face the challenges to come. Hang in there!

[lighthouse9]

Hey RonaldofEld,

Thank you for the very kind and thoughtful reply, and I'm really sorry to hear that you've dealt with this as well - especially the drinking.

How I feel about the affair: It's nuanced and everchanging, which I think is healthy. At first, I was angry and said a lot of awful things about her because I felt betrayed (she wasn't around, and didn't know that I knew). I had suspected an affair with this person for almost the entirety of their relationship (just under two months) and she constantly was either throwing me off her trail, dismissing me, or saying hurtful things to tell me that I was the one making things up. Thus, finding out about it on my own was extremely hurtful and it played into a lot of my insecurities.

However, with a little bit of time and after confronting her and getting her to confess (without her knowing how much I knew and how), some of that died away. We've had some talks about BPD lately, which she has surprisingly hung in there for, and with that as a framework the affair doesn't feel like something she did to get one over on me. In our many conversations this week since she's been honest with me, she talked to me about cutting and showed me her scars from the past, and then told me about some of her other behaviors she uses to cope with her emotions that aren't the most healthy. It hit me then - this guy is the same as her razorblade from her childhood or her alcohol from her adulthood, or her restricting her eating or working out excessively. He's just another coping mechanism. Now, he's a coping mechanism that didn't belong in our marriage, but I'm being honest when I say that I'm at a weird place of acceptance about the whole thing and almost feeling like "of course she had an affair."

It still hurts, and I think the fact that there is no real physical intimate relationship between us right now helps. I've had people do this in a relationship with me in the past, so there were some flashbacks for me, but I've been talking to a therapist, sticking to my daily prayer process, and using all of my tools to keep a traumatic reaction as just that - trauma and nothing more. I did tell her though that I was going to continue to do my work to lessen that trauma, but that if we ever did have an intimate physical relationship again it is likely that some of this will come back, but that I can commit to my side of the work if she can commit to hers.

She broke things off with him last night and came home relieved but also ready to fight, which she hasn't been for many days. I was able to keep the negative back and forth to a minimum and validate her feelings without breaking my own boundaries. I can tell that she feels used by this guy and a lot of the men that she works with, who sexualize her in an atmosphere where she shouldn't be sexualized. I'm sure she has some responsibility there, but so do the men in her life. In a world where she gets help and learns some skills, she'd be able to recognize her role in these places and set boundaries so that these kinds of things didn't happen.

Leaving the house: The home is provided to us contingent upon our marriage and her job. When she moves out, I technically have 30 days to vacate. We're not going to tell anyone that she's gone, so I potentially have a bit longer, and I think I can trust my neighbors to keep things quiet. If I leave the home, I'm not ready to jump into a long term lease, mostly because my support network is tied to her job and our neighborhood, and living away from here means losing access to that. Not having support during this time could be very difficult, so I have been exploring the opportunity to move home to my family for a period of time while working remotely in my job. There are some big downsides to that with my job, so I've been weighing the options. One thing I've been working with a therapist and a coach on is being more secure during uncertainty. Thus, I'm really trying to just sit back for a bit and let things play out a little and trust that the right thing will be revealed when the time comes. I saw an apartment the other day with a short term lease (read: expensive) and just came home and cried - it just didn't seem like a place where I could heal and do my work, and after a talk with my mom I knew that it wasn't the right one.

One thing that has been coming up in our talks that is very revealing and clarifying, but hurts like hell and scares me, is that she really seems to have no sense of self and thus has no real way of identifying her desires and what she wants. This has come up a few times in conversations, where she was mirroring my behavior, which was close, loving, and connected. It seemed like hope to me. But then, after doing that one night, she stayed out until 4am and completely dysregulated again. It's making me realize how much she is who she's around, and that I'm making myself sick trying to keep her here (hence backing off). She's realizing it too, and I know it's throwing her through a loop - and it's also making her pull away for fear of leading me on. I was pretty hurt last night, because this week has been so close and intimate leading up to her confronting her affair partner, and I probably played too much of a role supporting her in breaking it off with him. Then, after she came home, the closeness and intimacy was completely gone. I felt used, like I was only there to help her do hard things. I brought it up carefully, which set her off a bit, but she said what I've heard a lot of BPD people say "I don't intentionally think about manipulating you or hurting you." I believe her - but it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.

So here we are. I was thinking about your note about setting a condition, too. I'll think about that some more. In my mind, it's "you start a DBT program" but I'm very hesitant to name that condition. I've named therapy as a condition before and it lasted for two sessions. I need her to do this on her own, so maybe it's a silent condition for me (though, I've brought up before how supportive I was of the idea and how much I think she'd get out of it - and I was the one that introduced her to DBT). If she can make some moves towards getting help for herself once she's out of the house, then I could see myself approaching a conversation about a healing separation wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, my sense is that she just really wants to cut and run right now. So, like you said, I can't control that. I'm in the process of getting insurance authorization for my own therapy at a place that treats borderline folks, in the hopes that they can really help me set some boundaries and work through my own stuff.

What has helped you during these tough times of uncertainty?

[Tattered Heart]

You are in a really tough spot. I'm sorry. I can tell that you are really torn on how to proceed. I can imagine how hurtful it is to see that her behavior is dependent on who she is with, especially when she can go from loving you to forgetting to come home.

What is your mom's suggestion on how to proceed?

[RolandOfEld]

HI lighthouse9, thanks for sharing. It looks like you've shown incredible compassion and understanding to your wife regarding the affair and are operating on a very high level of EQ. I understand that even though at our best moments we can truly understand what kind of place their behavior comes from, it doesn't do much to erase the hurt of their actions.

Now I'm very clear on the housing situation. That is indeed very difficult. Beyond inconveniencing your work, how do you feel about living with family during this time? How much about your wife's situation do they know, if any?

Regarding facing uncertain situations, I'll share an extremely helpful quote I recently found: "It's fine to pray for rain, but dig a well in the meantime." I pray every day that my wife can get better, but once the prayer is done I get back to focusing on the reality of my situation and what I control. Right now I'm working on Radical Acceptance, that is first accepting our reality for what it is before we try to change it. You can read the workshop on it here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=89910.0

I also found this video about Radical Acceptance from Marsha Linehan, the creator of DBT, extremely helpful in understanding the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTG7YEWkJFI      

[lighthouse9]

Hi again Tattered Heart!

Your questions have been most insightful, thanks for popping in again.

Yes, it is really tough to see how her behavior changes with who she's around. She cried pretty hard the other night about not having support in her life (besides me), and learning that "just letting someone do what they want" is not the same as support. She said it made her sick that her friends and family who knew about the affair said nothing and just expected crappy behavior from her. Her friends that would care, but would still love her, were not told about the affair. She said she was going to try telling some of those friends, to practice being honest and to let good people hold her accountable, since it felt so good when I did it. If I can believe her, she's out of town at a conference and staying with two of those people now, so I'm cautiously hopeful that they've been another good influence. She broke things off with the affair partner, too, so I'm also cautiously hopeful that some pressure has been relieved.

My mom has kind of backed off on giving advice lately, which has been pretty nice. She just keeps saying "be careful" but then also says things about how she still ultimately loves my wife, but is also heart broken and disappointed. I told her honestly that I was embarrassed to talk with her now that I'm not feeling so "to hell with her" about the situation, and she just said "don't be embarrassed, but be aware that you could get your heart broken even worse." My mom is pretty good at letting her kids fall on their butt and not rescuing until you ask for it. Her and my dad gave me some emergency cash before they left after their last visit, which I've tucked away in a go bag, so we all have a bit of peace of mind that I'm safe and looked after if anything catastrophic goes down.

RonaldofEld - thanks for chiming in again, too! I've been keeping up with your situation - I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this with kids and work issues. Thanks for understanding my semi-complicated housing situation, too.

As far as living with family during this time, I have mixed feelings. My parents are wonderful, but I've done counseling in the past for codependency issues because my dad has some narcissistic traits that I had trouble untangling from before. When my folks visited, he pushed me pretty hard on something and wasn't able to back down, and I erupted in anger. Everyone expects it from the two of us - he pushes my buttons until I break, then he wants to rescue me from the distress he caused me. I've been able to maintain a really good relationship with him as an adult by recognizing this pattern and managing my triggers, as well as removing myself when it didn't seem possible to do so. Being this vulnerable around him was hard, and could be very hard in a living situation. At the same time though, my parents are a lot of fun and I would ironically probably have a bit more of a social life than I have now, plus I'd have the benefit of seeing my sisters (who are each, unfortunately, mired in their own stuff). I'm trying to weigh out where I feel safer - on my own here, where I have to ask for a lot of help from folks I don't know well, or at home, where I know people well but I'm susceptible to not growing because the patterns I need to break started at home.

My parents unfortunately know everything that is going on. They were on their way in when I discovered evidence of the affair, and not having friends here to turn to with that information, I let them support me through it. That meant that they saw and read everything, which I'm slightly regretting let happen. In my upset, I called her some not great things and also really regret mis-characterizing the love I have for to them. My mom gets it (and went through a nasty divorce herself), and can take the nuance and also understands mental illness better. My dad is more of a black and white thinker himself, so he just kept encouraging me to get mad and stay mad. Thus, any signs of me working on the marriage might not go over well with him, and it might be a thing I'd like to keep private for a bit. He raised me to not be weak, and this looks weak to him, though I can't tell you what crazy amount of strength it's taking to be in these conversations with her lovingly and non-judgmentally.

Thank you for the radical acceptance stuff. I've practiced this in my life before and it's a great reminder that I need to re-cultivate that approach. I also like your quote about the rain. I've dug some pretty excellent wells in my life, so I know I can do this.

Here's the latest that's a bit confusing, but I don't want to read into:

She was supposed to know her move in date for the new apartment a few days ago, but hasn't found out yet allegedly. She also accepted a calendar invite for counseling this week and told me she wanted to go over text when I asked her if she knew her move in date yet. (I keep a standing invite on her calendar for when I go, for now, though I'm getting linked up with a DBT person for myself here soon and will probably keep those sessions for me) She's been super sweet over text, with good boundaries, and before she left town she said "I'm tired and confused" before hugging me goodbye (she couldn't touch me the night before, so the hug was a nice gesture). I'm seeing myself reading into all of this - she doesn't want the apartment, she wants to work things out now that she broke things off with the affair partner, etc etc. I'm having a really hard time not going into wishful thinking and also strategizing what it is I want, even if she does decide to stay.

Do you two have suggestions on reasonable things or boundaries I could set?

[RolandOfEld]

"She cried pretty hard the other night about not having support in her life (besides me), and learning that "just letting someone do what they want" is not the same as support."

In terms of boundaries, I think you said it very well here. When I set boundaries that pushed my wife to the edge, she would cry and ask me "Why I wouldn't just be behaved and do what she asked". She often seems to view support as me solving problems for her or doing extreme things (such as leaving my job) to support her.

I'm not familiar enough with your relationship to suggest which boundaries to set, but I suggest you focus on one at a time starting from most important to you. I think you could also break them down into boundaries in terms of things that effect your day to day life (her moving / not moving, making appointments, meeting commitments) and boundaries in terms of how she treats you. For me, a life boundary is that I won't quit my job. A treatment boundary I'm working on is not to respond to commands for me to do things rather than requests.

What do you think is the most important change you need right now to move forward with her?