Stopping the financial bleeding of “necessary” therapies

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hey all,

So I’ve found my Zen in this monster of a divorce situation. I don’t how...but I feel removed and much more stable. I’m doing my best to concentrate on the kids.

Slowly the holes in the boat punched out by stbexBPDw are being plugged and the boat is staying afloat...for now.

One last big hole to plus has been my stbexBPDw’s high costs associated with the myriad of medical treatments she “needs”. Medical “needs”  (to name a few) lsuch as light therapy, high dose Vitamin D therapy, blood analyses, etc... Her weekly days consist of working out and these “necessary” medical treatments.

She started all these therapies around October and I told her we couldn’t afford them. Financially we are strapped. I’ve sent her detailed emails since the beginning so this is documented. Of course stbexBPDw didn’t listen and she has continued. We have now paid almost $3000 since October in copays and vitamins alone.

Today I will be sending an email to stbexBPDw letting her know I will not be paying these elective unnecessary treatments (which I already communicated last night to her again), to be followed by an email from my lawyer to her lawyer explaining as was precedently written that unnecessary costs are to be avoided.

These are her compensatory mechanisms to cope with stress...I’m guessing this will set off her off into more poor behaviors.

Have any of you had to confront a similar situation?

My stbexBPDw has pretty much demonstrated all maladaptive impulsive behaviors associated with BPD since the divorce process has taken off (reckless spending, reckless sexual behavior, eating disorder, paranoia...to name a few) and all these “necessary” medical treatments keep her from plummeting even more into the deep dark abyss.

Should I be concerned about her having even more volatile reactions when these coping mechanisms are taken away?

Thanks,
LAT

[LightAfterTunnel]

Hey all,

So I’ve found my Zen in this monster of a divorce situation. I don’t how...but I feel removed and much more stable. I’m doing my best to concentrate on the kids.

Slowly the holes in the boat punched out by stbexBPDw are being plugged and the boat is staying afloat...for now.

One last big hole to plus has been my stbexBPDw’s high costs associated with the myriad of medical treatments she “needs”. Medical “needs”  (to name a few) lsuch as light therapy, high dose Vitamin D therapy, blood analyses, etc... Her weekly days consist of working out and these “necessary” medical treatments.

She started all these therapies around October and I told her we couldn’t afford them. Financially we are strapped. I’ve sent her detailed emails since the beginning so this is documented. Of course stbexBPDw didn’t listen and she has continued. We have now paid almost $3000 since October in copays and vitamins alone.

Today I will be sending an email to stbexBPDw letting her know I will not be paying these elective unnecessary treatments (which I already communicated last night to her again), to be followed by an email from my lawyer to her lawyer explaining as was precedently written that unnecessary costs are to be avoided.

These are her compensatory mechanisms to cope with stress...I’m guessing this will set off her off into more poor behaviors.

Have any of you had to confront a similar situation?

My stbexBPDw has pretty much demonstrated all maladaptive impulsive behaviors associated with BPD since the divorce process has taken off (reckless spending, reckless sexual behavior, eating disorder, paranoia...to name a few) and all these “necessary” medical treatments keep her from plummeting even more into the deep dark abyss.

Should I be concerned about her having even more volatile reactions when these coping mechanisms are taken away?

Thanks,
LAT

[kells76]

Hi LAT;

Good job finding your Zen space    Those times when we can feel calm in the middle of the chaos are gifts.

Remind me if your stbxBPDw has any personal source of income?

Today I will be sending an email to stbexBPDw letting her know I will not be paying these elective unnecessary treatments (which I already communicated last night to her again)

Tell me about your goal(s) with this email... could be anything... primary &/or secondary goals... If I'm reading you correctly, a main goal is to stop the money going "down the drain" on what you see as unnecessary expenses. Any other goal(s)? Covering your bases/making a paper trail? Hoping to stop her from this spending? Other?

You're concerned about her reaction to this email, because you can see that even though she doesn't "really" need the vitamins and "medical" tests, they're some of her coping mechanisms that sort of hold her back. So maybe you want to word the email in a way that you hope would at least not make things worse?

You probably already know that you can't control or ensure her reaction. You could give your best effort at a sincere email that genuinely tries to not shame her, and then let the chips fall where they may. Is that sort of where you're at? Or somewhere else?

Want to work through any wording here with us?

[livednlearned]

These are her compensatory mechanisms to cope with stress...I’m guessing this will set off her off into more poor behaviors.

It sounds like you are setting a healthy limit with her and also fear what happens next. What is your main concern?

Has she ever been in a situation with this kind of stress before, and if so, how did she handle it?

[LightAfterTunnel]

Tell me about your goal(s) with this email... could be anything... primary &/or secondary goals... If I'm reading you correctly, a main goal is to stop the money going "down the drain" on what you see as unnecessary expenses. Any other goal(s)? Covering your bases/making a paper trail? Hoping to stop her from this spending? Other?

Main goal: Stop her out of control spending. She refuses to listen to any reason on spending and is in her own world where right now. No reality. Our family resources are literally going to be zero soon and then there is the high conflict divorce that will have to paid for!...stbexBPDw doesn’t care one bit.

If she’s going down in flames then she’s going to make sure we all burn with her!

Secondary goal: Document as much as possible of her inability to put financial security for family over her narcissistic impulses for self soothing.

It sounds like you are setting a healthy limit with her and also fear what happens next. What is your main concern?

Has she ever been in a situation with this kind of stress before, and if so, how did she handle it?

Very good questions!

StbexBPDw has been going around our little town and to friends and saying quite worrisome paranoid things. Such as:

- I am trying to poison her with her coffee

- (this last week I took my 3 kids to a Tibetan suspension bridge in the mountains...it was awesome!) StbexBPDw told some women that she’s worried I am going to push the kids off the bridge to get at her.

I know my stbexBPDw well enough to know that these are projections of ideas that she’s having...this worries me. In the past she had threatened to kill her self and our D10 by jumping off a bridge. I have the email where she wrote it.

All this has been communicated to lawyer and documents given as well.

I am about to pull the plug on a coping mechanism that is very important to her...self soothing and her appearance.

No I have never taken away these coping mechanisms from her, and what’s more is that the hearing is approaching and we (lawyer and I) have not submitted our so documents yet, which will probably be next week. StbexBPDw will learn that the vast majority of her close friends have written declarations and/or are willing to speak with the judge regard their worries about her with the children.

To me there is no option. Cutting off this spending is a must...you can’t spend money you don’t have. Unfortunately I have a feeling that it will compound her eventual burst that I’m fearing.

LAT

[zachira]

You are worried about ending the destructive spending that your wife is using as ways to cope with the divorce will cause her to act out in even more destructive ways. You are doing the right thing by not enabling her. The challenge is to do what you can to increase the possibilities that she will not act so badly when she no longer has the way to pay for all these expensive therapies she uses to cope with her distress. I have just started reading "Loving Someone With Borderline Personality Disorder". It is the first book out of the many that I have read, that really gives ways to cope with a person with BPD that I find doable while honoring my values and needs. The author Shari Y. Manning is a therapist that has many years of working with clients with BPD using DBT, the gold standard for treatment for people with BPD and their family members who often get training in DBT to increase the chances that DBT will be a more effective treatment. Her book is for family members that do not have access to DBT therapy and shows how to best respond to a person with BPD. You can look on Amazon.com and the book review section on this site for reviews. Hope this helps.