Today was hard - moving boxes and memories

[lighthouse9]

Hey everyone,

Today was a hard day. No reason in particular, just been hit with a wave of grief lately. I found myself getting stuck and was having a hard time reaching for a distraction or focusing to get work done. I'm packing up our home (she abandoned, and completely bailed on helping) and while every box packed is one box closer to moving out, it's also one more box of memories of a life that we seemed to be happily living until very recently. I still can't get it out of my head how fast this all happened and how quickly she devalued and discarded me. I've let myself get mad every now in then, with how much work she left  me with to pack up the house (she had to leave for a 6 week work trip, though she had plenty of opportunities to help before then).

I also recently talked to her childhood best friend about the separation and gained some insight on her past that she wasn't telling me about. First, she hasn't told many people that she left and hasn't changed her Facebook status from being married. She hadn't told this friend, who was pretty upset, but said "I'm not at all surprised" given some of her past behavior. We've been married for almost three years and I learned how much she had lied to me about past relationships, downplayed how long she dated people, and found out from her friend that she's essentially never once been single since she started dating at a young age. I also learned about some of the very unhealthy things they did as kids, enabled by her mother, which should have had them picked up by child services. I knew some of these things, but not other, and my heart just aches for the woman I committed my life to, who has lived through so much trauma and never knew what it was to be loved and supported. I certainly tried my best, but without therapy (which she lied about going to), she won't accept love and support.

I'm protecting myself by moving out of state and closer to my family, but these last couple weeks in this home are just too much to bear sometimes. All I see is memories, things we bought together, stuff we did together, happy times. The hard times came on so quick and then she was gone. Sure, I can still see the projection and the unhappy times, but I think having radically accepted some of that and accepting that none of that was really about me has helped me move away from it. I see her pain in that stuff now. But also, I have my pain. This is agonizing and I know you'll all get this, but I have no choice but to just go through it, to keep packing, to keep moving, and to detach - even though I'd still like another shot at this. That's out of my hands - the only thing in my hands is a bunch of moving boxes and memories.

[Speck]

Hey, lighthouse9:

I just did that, too, back in early January. Packing up all the happy memories, putting them in boxes, and then sealing them all up with masking tape. It's hard.

I don't have much to add here, but to tell you I have been there, know it's hard, and to encourage you to just take it as it comes. I listened to podcasts while I did the chore to free my mind a bit, and that helped.

You're right, though... .there's no way to it but through it. Hang in there!


-Speck

[lighthouse9]

Thanks so much for the reply Speck - the solidarity is helpful. Everyone in my life is at just as much of a loss as I am. My family, friends, neighbors, they all loved her and also didn't see this coming. It's hard for them to "get it" so posting here really helps. I'm sorry you had to go through the packing, too. It absolutely sucks.

One thing has come out of it though, that I guess I couldn't see before, which is how much I was the "keeper" of the relationship. Her investment was small enough that she could just cut and run, which I'm sure was somewhat premeditated. At the least, it was learned. She's always been able to cut and run and get out without much stuff. It was hard for me to see, until left with packing it all, how much I was the one keeping the relationship going or even being the historian of the marriage in a way. She had very little investment in any thing that was ours or anything we built together. I guess I couldn't have seen it before, but it is so apparent now and so unfair.

[Speck]

One thing has come out of it though, that I guess I couldn't see before, which is how much I was the "keeper" of the relationship. Her investment was small enough that she could just cut and run, which I'm sure was somewhat premeditated.

Holy Moly. Same. Exact. Thing.

Now, while all of my uBPDw's things were scattered all over the damn place, all in all, it amounted to not very much in the end. Her daughter is in boarding school, and she had all of her things still here as well, which doubled the boxes, but everything fit into one room in the end.

After multiple prompts, my uBPDw kept failing to come collect the boxes that I packed for her, so I rented a U-Haul and took everything over to her public storage facility for her. Stacking vertically, it all fit into the smallest storage locker offered.

My wife is a nomad. She comes and goes into people's lives at will. And, damn the consequences. She's got to have her freedom. A ten-year relationship meant nothing to her, except for all the goodies gained by marriage: free shelter, free utilities, free boarding school for her daughter, etc. Now that her daughter is almost done with school, my financial utlility to her is now over. My wife left me TWO DAYS after finishing her own advanced college degree!

Yeah, premeditation... .I know what you mean. We'll hang in there together.


-Speck

[lighthouse9]

Wow - 10 years and one small storage unit? For two people? Yikes.

But, if we made it to ten years, it would probably look the same here. I always felt guilty when I requested we do normal things like buy furniture for our home and boy did we get in a fight over some gifted artwork that was never framed. I hope Goodwill makes something off of that stuff, so someone can benefit.

My wife is a nomad, too. As her best friend recently said "she thrives on change and has always been a free spirit." She also said she never saw her getting married. I must have been something, for her to have committed as long as she did. Sounds like you are something, too, given all the security you provided.

Yes- we will definitely hang in there together, and I'll remember your story when packing my boxes. No more nomads for me.

[tlc232]

Good evening Speck and Lighthouse9-- I almost fell out of my chair (again) when I read your posts tonight.   I shared a little a bit back about my unexBPDSO... .  I'm back online tonight to look for comradery because it has been a difficult week through things.    I too supported this guy for 14 years --- I lost my first husband to cancer in 2002 and met the BPDSO several years later.   There were many good things, but he is textbook for the issues with BPD (anger, victimization, hypochondriac... .etc etc) and it was almost unbearable the last several years.    I bought the house... .paid the utilities... .everything and even provided (on the side after running my own company) all the business support to his.   I literally got to the point of having no life at all and did that for many years until I just had it and my resentment levels were through the roof.  I stopped and he had this meltdown (a really big one) in Oct and it ended up with cops taking him off property for my safety and family who came to help me.    Since that time, it has been a rollercoaster of blaming me.    My point here is that he got taken out of here and I changed all the locks on my home... .yet when I went around the house so much stuff was already missing.    It wasn't taken after that -- so it almost seemed like a planned meltdown to account for what was already going on.   I know he did not expect me to have him carted off... .   

So now I have been packing up things too... .and i have been trying for about 3 months to work a trade on things he has of mine (sentimental things in his business warehouse) and things he has here at the house.  He refuses to cooperate and picks days when he knows I'll be tied up to be when "he is coming here to get everything" prior to my allowance to get things... .     I am seeing that this type of departure is textbook BPD.    My issue overall is the lack of closure --- what the hell just happened?

[wellwellwell]

Just picked up my mail from the relative holding it after I finally sold up and moved out of the ex-marital home. It was so hard to pack. So little release - exactly the same situation - ex was out in weeks. Then she wanted me to help her move! There's something about the trauma and abandonment that's so different from a normal beakup. It's just a void - hard to even recognize real happiness in there. Anyway, writing in solidarity.

[tlc232]

Wellwellwell --  Welcome!   Just curious... .did you notice after the fact that maybe things had disappeared a little at a time before the final disappearance?   (Like you really didn't notice things going away here and there prior to the last straw)?   I see a pattern here that is bizarre as I've never seen that kind of thing in a normal breakup either.   Like the other person was storing away nuts a little at a time before evaporating?  I am dealing with the same thing right now on the "help me move" but I have been trying to set dates to do it (sincerely) and he ignores for 3 months.  When the lawyer finally mediated to put dates on paper to finish it, he has gone to cops saying I'm stealing all his things (a true 4 year old anger move on receipt of "let's exchange all things on Wednesday".

Just my opinion -- but I feel like a lot of us are missing "closure" ... .that's why I am here.   My family is like "you are not going to get it" and "what difference does it make".    To me, there is a reason they made that word... .human intuition finds it easier to focus on the future if you know what happened.   Not that you want to change it, but you just want to know why.   

Sorry about the circumstances, but nice to be in good company!        

[wellwellwell]

Actually, she'd left months earlier and quite suddenly, so I didn't experience that. However, there was always very little in the house that was hers. No furniture, decorations, nothing. In twelve years... .Feels like a variation on 'able to cut and run' or 'unable to stick'.

Closure is so hard to find. It's an abandonment. There's nothing to close, just an open space where I thought love was. I've just posted elsewhere here about the trauma of no-one (bar a handful of people) even believing my me. Where I am now (18mo since divorce, over 12mo NC), I think I'm slowly coming to understand that the closure has to be mine alone, and the only route to that is becoming whole, and the only route to that is a clear understanding of who I am, and why I stayed, and why I am too precious to be exposed to that harm ever again.

One of those months... .moving really took it out of me.

Wellwellwell --  Welcome!   Just curious... .did you notice after the fact that maybe things had disappeared a little at a time before the final disappearance?   (Like you really didn't notice things going away here and there prior to the last straw)?   I see a pattern here that is bizarre as I've never seen that kind of thing in a normal breakup either.   Like the other person was storing away nuts a little at a time before evaporating?  I am dealing with the same thing right now on the "help me move" but I have been trying to set dates to do it (sincerely) and he ignores for 3 months.  When the lawyer finally mediated to put dates on paper to finish it, he has gone to cops saying I'm stealing all his things (a true 4 year old anger move on receipt of "let's exchange all things on Wednesday".

Just my opinion -- but I feel like a lot of us are missing "closure" ... .that's why I am here.   My family is like "you are not going to get it" and "what difference does it make".    To me, there is a reason they made that word... .human intuition finds it easier to focus on the future if you know what happened.   Not that you want to change it, but you just want to know why.   

Sorry about the circumstances, but nice to be in good company!        

[Speck]

It is uncanny how a LOT of our stories, even packing up our pwBPD's crap, are so similar.


-Speck

[tlc232]

It is uncanny how a LOT of our stories, even packing up our pwBPD's crap, are so similar.

That and the fact that the non BPD is still the responsible one with either the house or all the obligations that have been left behind... .  the issues over having to be the adult (no matter how long) in getting things sorted.   For all that we have all likely been through, you would have thought WE would have cut and run.   It is pretty remarkable... .  I'm in good company!

[Speck]

Hello again, tlc232!

For all that we have all likely been through, you would have thought WE would have cut and run. It is pretty remarkable... .I'm in good company!

Haha! So true. Especially that last part. 

The house is mine (and therefore, all the responsibility, which has never been otherwise), and she left behind her cats. The ones that she used to tell me she "loves soo much!"

Nope. Just... .poof!... .she's gone. Off to her next adventure.


-Speck

[tlc232]

The house is mine (and therefore, all the responsibility, which has never been otherwise), and she left behind her cats. The ones that she used to tell me she "loves soo much!"

Speck - Interesting... .same here on the house.   I'm sure he could have bought into it, but anything with a bill attached to it was also mine to manage.   So forever --- as long as I've known him -- I have been the responsible adult.   But then (and I'll bet money that one of you have heard this over and over) I was always criticized for "everything being mine".   He never felt like he had ownership of the home, yet he refused to put a dime into it... .  It boiled down to this guilt trip to just give him everything and start over... .and that is not logical and simply not happening.   

I have the dogs (same declaration!), but I wouldn't have it any other way.   We are all learning everyday to enjoy the peace and quiet! 

Lighthouse 9 --- was today a better day?   

[Speck]

How are you doing, Lighthouse9? Sending you some positive energy.

tlc232, I hear ya! I paid off my home in 2007. Instead of buying into the home 50/50, my uBPDw kept repeatedly trying to get me to sell it! I imagine so half the proceeds would be hers... .

Anyway, I kept politely declining, because I could not logically figure out what was so wrong with the house we have, and also, deep down I felt this was what she was trying to accomplish.

What doesn't kill us... .


-Speck