When did you know it was time to leave?

[Depression = 72% of members]

I've been married to an uBPD wife for 17 years.  We have four kids.  For most of our marriage, I would have said things were fine.  We had our highs and lows.  However, for the past two years things have progressively gotten worse.  Coming into 2019 was a turning point.  In February, it got so bad that she slapped me several times.  She's broken things in the house.  For the past three months, it's been just a lot of yelling, criticism, or berating.  Often in front of the kids.  I've tried to leave the situation before, but she usually blocks the door.  We saw a counselor in the last half of 2018 before she stopped coming and then told me I couldn't see him any more.  We started seeing a psychologist now.  

She can act normal around others.  We have never maintained friendships for more than a few years at a time and I can't help but wonder if that is because, if a person gets too close to know the woman I know, she leaves them.  We are always walking on eggshells at home.  I dread leaving work every day to go home because more often then not, I'm going to have to deal with berating when I get home.  I've tried reasoning, validating her feelings, maintaining healthy boundaries, but it only seems to make her more angry.

Every time I think about ending it, I think of all the work it would be to go through a divorce, the effect on the kids. They are ages 14-9, so we would still have a lot of interaction raising our kids jointly.  Divorce has been brought up and she has said she plans on fighting for full custody, which I won't agree to.  So if she makes good on her threats, it will be an ugly divorce and if I were to get at least 50% of custody, I'd be dealing with her for a while because of our kids.

Part of what gives me hope for a future is that I'm not 100% sure it's BPD because there was a stark change around 2016 in her behavior.  She and her siblings had a rough childhood.  It sounds like they were dealing with neglect and abuse growing up.  She and her sister stopped talking to each other because of disagreements over the painful events.  To me, it feels like that was the start of the decline.  So it makes me think if that were resolved, we could get back to the good times again.

To describe the feelings trying to decide to push forward or give up, it's as if I have this horrible infection on my arm and my leg that is very painful.  Doctors can't seem to find a cure and I'm debating whether I should go through the short term pain of amputating my arm and leg and learning to live without the pain, but a different lifestyle with missing appendages, or keep looking for a cure that may or may not exist.  I'd hate to think that there was a cure this whole time, but I didn't persist long enough before amputation, but on the other hand, I don't want to put myself in more pain or risk the infection spreading to the rest of my body by fighting it for too long.  

[Wilkinson]

I've been married to an uBPD wife for 17 years.  We have four kids.  For most of our marriage, I would have said things were fine.  We had our highs and lows.  However, for the past two years things have progressively gotten worse.  Coming into 2019 was a turning point.  In February, it got so bad that she slapped me several times.  She's broken things in the house.  For the past three months, it's been just a lot of yelling, criticism, or berating.  Often in front of the kids.  I've tried to leave the situation before, but she usually blocks the door.  We saw a counselor in the last half of 2018 before she stopped coming and then told me I couldn't see him any more.  We started seeing a psychologist now.  

She can act normal around others.  We have never maintained friendships for more than a few years at a time and I can't help but wonder if that is because, if a person gets too close to know the woman I know, she leaves them.  We are always walking on eggshells at home.  I dread leaving work every day to go home because more often then not, I'm going to have to deal with berating when I get home.  I've tried reasoning, validating her feelings, maintaining healthy boundaries, but it only seems to make her more angry.

Every time I think about ending it, I think of all the work it would be to go through a divorce, the effect on the kids. They are ages 14-9, so we would still have a lot of interaction raising our kids jointly.  Divorce has been brought up and she has said she plans on fighting for full custody, which I won't agree to.  So if she makes good on her threats, it will be an ugly divorce and if I were to get at least 50% of custody, I'd be dealing with her for a while because of our kids.

Part of what gives me hope for a future is that I'm not 100% sure it's BPD because there was a stark change around 2016 in her behavior.  She and her siblings had a rough childhood.  It sounds like they were dealing with neglect and abuse growing up.  She and her sister stopped talking to each other because of disagreements over the painful events.  To me, it feels like that was the start of the decline.  So it makes me think if that were resolved, we could get back to the good times again.

To describe the feelings trying to decide to push forward or give up, it's as if I have this horrible infection on my arm and my leg that is very painful.  Doctors can't seem to find a cure and I'm debating whether I should go through the short term pain of amputating my arm and leg and learning to live without the pain, but a different lifestyle with missing appendages, or keep looking for a cure that may or may not exist.  I'd hate to think that there was a cure this whole time, but I didn't persist long enough before amputation, but on the other hand, I don't want to put myself in more pain or risk the infection spreading to the rest of my body by fighting it for too long.  

[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.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Wilkinson, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once explained his legal test for obscenity this way: "I know it when I see it."  I think the same could be said for determining when it's time to leave: you'll know it when you get to that point.  Everyone is different.  When and if you reach your limit is something only you can figure out.  I suggest you listen to your gut feelings.  What is the right path for you?

LuckyJim

[Scarlet Phoenix]

Hi Wilkinson, I read all your posts and times are rough for you right now. Just know that we are walking with you, shoulder to shoulder, to help and support wherever we can.

You ask when we knew it was time to leave. I'm one of those who knew it many times, and still stayed. In the end, my ex-dBPDh (diagnosed BPD husband) was the one who finally stood firm on a break-up. I didn't want it, but then after a while saw that it was necessary.

Whether you decide to stay or divorce, as long as you are living together and/or communicating often, it'll do you a lot of good to learn about some of the tools we have here. They can help lower tensions and make it less stressful for you. You'll find much more over at the Bettering board than the two links I'm leaving in this post. I see you've been posting some on the Bettering board, that's great. Anything you can do to make it more bearable for you up until the day you break-up, if you do, is good. So keep sharing if you feel up to it. These two tools are a good place to start: The first one is learning not to invalidate our partner and the other is boundaries.

Is your wife still violent?
How are you today?  

Scarlet

[Wilkinson]

No my wife is not physical any more.  She will just berate and call me names for long periods of time.  Could go on for hours. I'm reading the book Boundaries trying to learn to cope.  I keep feeling like there's got to be a way to solve this, because I know a divorce won't fix things.  All it could possibly do is give me a few days of peace every week.  This has been taking so much of my mental energy, I've really fallen behind and work, which adds to the anxiety.

[Scarlet Phoenix]

The place you're in right now is really rough. I've had those never-ending sessions of berating and yelling and threatening where I've been crawled up in a fetal position on the floor bawling with my ex just amping it up in response.

Great job on reading the Boundaries book! It can be overwhelming at first, there's so much to take in and we're in a place where we just feel exhausted. There are many experienced people here on Bettering who can help you with the berating situation and how to create a boundary around it.

[Wilkinson]

Yeah, I'll give that a try.

[Scarlet Phoenix]

 

[OutOfEgypt]

When did I know it was time to leave?  It took me a long time.  Others knew it was time for me to leave long before I did.  I had a counselor tell me it was time to leave about 8 years before we finally divorced - he rightly assessed without even meeting her that she's BPD and that she would continue doing this to me and our kids.  Every 1.5-2 years, she wanted out of the relationship, but would then come back.  I was blamed for everything, and I believed it was all my fault (which is why I was always in the counseling chair and not her).  Many of those cycles involved her having affairs with other men.  She had a few periods where she was an involved mother, usually when it made her look good or when the kids were younger, but she severely neglected all of the kids in different ways and had them living in fear due to her temper, so nobody would say anything to her.  She would also play the kids against each other to vie for her attention and would befriend their friends in weird ways (even to the point of sleeping with our sons teenage and young-adult friends -another thing that counselor predicted).

I spent most of my almost 14 years married to her living like a single person, but a single person who had a petulant adult child to manage.  I attempted to lay out an ultimatum a few times, but it never went well.  The other thing working against me was how deeply she held my self-esteem in a vice, squeezing it to keep me hanging on.  I believed I was a pathetic man that nobody would want because she was diligent in making sure I knew it and that I was the sole reason for all of her unhappiness.  She would be a radiant flower, if not for me.  I filed for divorce on her two times before we finally divorced due to her having two different affairs, getting her removed from the house so I could care for the kids, and each time she changed her tune to regain control of the relationship -becoming sweet when her back was up against the wall, and if that didn't work using lies and force and manipulation.  

When did I really know it was over, that I was done with her?  After we divorced, a short time later I started dating someone.  When she caught wind of this, it didn't take long for her to suddenly tell me how she realizes she has a problem and wants counseling for herself.  She was sorry, she wanted to change, and she realized she threw away our marriage and family and wanted to see how things could go if we tried again.  I reluctantly acquiesced.  That was quickly followed by an idealization period (and lots of sex).  But as soon as she moved back into my house, within almost a few days it was like a switch flipped - controlling, blaming, manipulating, using me, neglecting the kids.  I was in such disbelief that I was numb to the fact that she was cheating on me again within a month.  She had regained control, and I knew it.  I couldn't believe I fell for it again.  

So, I knew for sure when I saw this cycle play out right before my eyes... when I saw her manipulate me, move back in, and do it to me all over again.  It's like I was stepping back as an observer, watching someone else's life.  That's when I knew.  Leaving her at that time was easy because I was truly done.  The only hard thing was getting her out of the house.  I had to file for eviction to get her removed.  It took four months to get her out -four months of avoiding her, locking myself in a different room, not being around her when the kids weren't home.  She cried.  She would call me on the phone and tell me how she always dreamed we'd grow old together.  She'd call me in the night (I was sleeping in a separate bedroom with the door locked), telling me she'll "love me forever."  Nothing worked on me that time.  I was done for good.

Leaving a marriage is a difficult thing.  There were many times I wanted to leave out of wounded pride.  I felt ashamed that people knew she treated me like that, so I thought I had to leave her because I must look so pathetic to be treated that way.  But that never stuck.  I will say that if I had not gone through a few years of deep therapy and learned about BPD, I probably would not have had the tools to really recognize what was happening.  

[Lucky Jim]

So, I knew for sure when I saw this cycle play out right before my eyes... when I saw her manipulate me, move back in, and do it to me all over again.  It's like I was stepping back as an observer, watching someone else's life.  That's when I knew. 

Right, OOE, that's what I was talking about, above.  You know it when the time comes.  I was married to my BPDxW for 16 years.  Sad to say, when I got to that point, I was so depleted that I lacked the strength to leave. Fortunately for me, two kind friends and a family member conducted an intervention.  They knew I had reached a point of no return and gave me the courage and strength to leave.  It was humbling, yet I'm grateful that they cared enough to help me get over the last hurdle.

LJ

[PeteWitsend]

I think there were two times I knew it was time to leave, although the first was just a gut feeling, and I still held out hope that things could improve with the right attitude:

I. First time was a year and half into our marriage.  That was the first time it really "got ugly" and there was no mistaking her behavior for something else (anxiety over immigration status, pregnant hormones, postpartum depression, etc.).  

Her reaction was so extreme and yet her demands  were so inconsistent, that I figured our marriage was doomed.  I just couldn't see myself trusting and committing for the rest of my life to someone who could act like that.  A couple  family members that witnessed some of her outbursts (it was our S's 1st bday) told me they wouldn't blame me for filing for divorce.

II. Second time was a little different because by then I had reached out for help, and gotten some feedback that she was possibly BPD - but certainly on the spectrum - and that expecting change was indeed hopeless.

We had a series of fights - not mutual fights, rather her screaming at me on a daily basis until she broke down crying or I left to go for a walk - for two weeks around XMAS because she didn't like the gift my mom sent her (a nice vacuum cleaner), even though the first day she received it, she told me she liked it, she knew it was an expensive model, and my mom clearly had put thought into getting her something that would make her life easier.  

then on Day 2, I guess she decided it was more useful as a casus belli, threw it away, and proceeded to become an emotional basket case for the next two weeks.

After that I knew it was only a matter of time... I wasn't going to keep enduring that sort of behavior forever.   though I didn't file for divorce and move out for another 21 months

[Wilkinson]

We just hit our 17 year anniversary last week and it was spent fighting.  When I think about where we were a year ago, we knew things were shaky, but divorce just seemed like an option we'd never get to.  Our arguments could go on forever.  Here's what's weird when I try to recall what things were like.  It seemed like a year ago, we could argue for hours, but my uBPDw seemed to have some control of her emotions.  She could criticize and be on her phone.  During this time, I could really be defensive with her criticism. So, two of Gottman's four horseman were present.  I couldn't change her criticism, but I could change my defensiveness.  I freely admitted I had that fault in counseling.  So, outside of our counseling, I reconnected with a retired colleague of mine who took on the role of a mentor or accountability partner.  I got better control over my defensiveness.  I stopped reacting to her criticism.  I did some other things and focused more on validating her feelings.  I really feel like I improved.  As I got better at handling my emotions in arguments, she seemed to get more upset.  She started taking things further.  Yelling louder, saying meaner things, throwing or breaking things. 

I don't know if it's just my imagination or just correlation, but if I'm not showing visible signs of emotional devastation, that seems to really bother her.  I don't act emotional to her meanness, but I'm emotionally drained from it.  I can hardly concentrate at work and right now (Friday afternoon) I'm stressed with the idea that I'm about to spend the weekend at home around her.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?  Because it sounds crazy to me.

[Scarlet Phoenix]

Dreading spending the weekend together does sound familiar.
Do you have possibilities to take pockets of time just for you? Like a long shower or a walk or a run to the store. Just some time to be alone and breath. I found that helped me.

The work you've done so far on yourself is really great and I encourage you to keep it up. What might be happening is that you wife sees you changing of course, and she might feel a loss of control. She's therefore amping up her responses (could be on purpose, could be completely unconsciously), to get the reactions from you she used to get. Sort of like a long extinction burst. The human brain likes familiarity. When one person changes significantly, the dynamic changes. And this change is perceived as invalidation by her and she doesn't like it (again: could be conscious knowledge or not).

[Scarlet Phoenix]

I should add that that doesn't mean you should stop changing. Change is messy and this could be a period of storm before the calm. Go heavy on validation, she's probably struggling with feelings of abandonment and insecurity even if she can't put her finger on it.

Could you give us a concrete example of validation? What she said/did and what you said/did. Maybe there are some tweaks we can do to it or focus it differently.

[Wilkinson]

The biggest incident that she still brings up is when I called her sister.  She had just asked me to give her $1,500 cash for her to retain a lawyer to divorce me.  She was then emptying my drawers onto our porch.  She said she was done with me.  I wasn't reacting with huge emotions.  I thought we're now at the end.  I just couldn't get over her ramp up of anger.  I thought I had one hail mary pass that I could try.  I called her sister to ask if she could talk with my wife.  I told her that my wife was leaving me and her anger seems to be out of control.

Well, my SIL never did call.  When my wife found out she BLEW UP.  She accused me of sabotaging her relationship with her sister as vengeance.

Well, first you should know that she wasn't talking to a lawyer, she only asked for the money to make me think that she was to try and get a reaction from me, when I actually gave her the money, she then started throwing my stuff out.

To this day, when she brings up calling her sister and accuses me of doing it out of malicious intent, I have tried to say things like, "I understand how you feel.  I can definitely see why you believe that it might have been done with malicious intent. Please understand, that I called your sister because I really thought you were divorcing me and I thought out of all the people we're closest to she knew us both the best and could be the most impartial.  I'm sorry it hurt you so much.  I didn't realize it would be so hurtful to you."

When I do things like that she responds with things like, "No it doesn't feel like... IT IS!"  Or she'll say in a mocking tone, "That's all I get from you, 'Oh boy, I bet it hurts'!" 

[Wilkinson]

She also banned me from going to the counselor I was seeing and forbid me from contact my mentor any more.  If I have anyone she knows I talk to, she immediately demands I sever the relationship.  We are seeing a psychologist together right now.  She seems to have him on board that I not interact with anyone whom she forbids because it affects our relationship.  So if I find someone who gives me strength, I have to keep it a secret.

[Scarlet Phoenix]

I have had been met almost verbatim with the same responses. Your validation is not bad all in all. Just some quick thoughts from me (this would make a great separate thread, why not post a new one with this validation example): I would shy away from saying you understand how she feels. It's often met with "you don't!" and more anger. And admittedly we don't really understand how they feel if we don't have BPD. When validating falls flat it's usually because we have missed the target. You can read more about it in Communication skills – Don't be invalidating. And we have this great video on validation.

Validation is a bit tricky in the beginning, but once you crack the code, it becomes a habit and you'll do it without thinking about it.

As for the forbidding:
I guess that a big dysregulation follows if you still go? She doesn't like it because she can't control what happens there. This is something we can help you with turning around. Working on a boundary for you and how to uphold it when she reacts to it with anger and outbursts. That would also be a good topic for a new thread. You shouldn't have to stop doing something that helps you and is healthy.

[Wilkinson]

Man this seems so hard. It wasn’t always like this. For 15 years things worked. I’m no longer myself and you can see this environment is affecting my kids.