Filed for divorce

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

This is the hard one. I think it would be the merciful thing to do. I think it is what needs to happen for me, but also, ultimately, for her. But that sure is hard when someone you care about is telling you that their life depends on you not doing that.    

I might be totally wrong but it feels like what we are discussing here and what we have been discussing is ... Am I My Brothers Keeper?    and like any deep question, the answer is equally, Yes, No, It Depends, Sometimes and Never.

I know you want to be helpful to your wife as she grieves the loss of her sister but I think it's equally fair to ask ... is she grieving?   and how can you best be helpful?    where does the helping logically start?    and where does it logically end?   my two cents is,  at the end of the day the grief is hers.   she can bear it or not, that's hers.     you can not bear it for her.    no matter how hard you try or how well intentioned your attempts are.

she has been telling you for a long time her life depends on what you do or don't do.    there is no guarantee that she won't attempt to end her life,  there is no guarantee that she will.   as harsh and as cold as it sounds that is also up to her.   you can't protect her from that.    serving her with the divorce papers will hurt her.   there is no way to avoid that.    just like you getting an apartment hurt her.   what I see is the hurt you are both living through now never ends.   she tells you to come back or she will die,... you agonize over how to protect her and save her and the same hurt happens day after day.    the hurt over the divorce and you moving on with your life, will end one day if she can survive it.    ultimately that is up to her.   you can't make that decision for her.     you can't protect her from it.

it seems to me there is no way forward in which you are 'the nice guy'.     you can't be both the helpful supportive gentle kind guy and the guy who gets a divorce and separates from the dysfunction.    

I don't know. Guilty. Scared. Sad. Anxious. I'm convinced that it's right. I'm unsure about actually acting on it. I feel relief that I'm not that conflicted about the answer. Then cycle back through anxiety, guilt, feer, sadness.

Guilt is hard to let go of.  Its hard for us to say,  I've done enough.   I am enough.    what would make you comfortable (or more comfortable) that you have done enough.  how can you be more sure about acting on your convictions?

I would think you are going to have conflicted swirling emotions.  that's natural and normal.   it will take time for them to settle.  being sad and anxious is going to be part of this moving forward just as it has been part of this for every text message and email and phone call.      the only way out is through...  the only way out of the guilt, anxiety, sadness is to look them in the eye and walk through them.

respectfully
'ducks

[babyducks]

This is the hard one. I think it would be the merciful thing to do. I think it is what needs to happen for me, but also, ultimately, for her. But that sure is hard when someone you care about is telling you that their life depends on you not doing that.    

I might be totally wrong but it feels like what we are discussing here and what we have been discussing is ... Am I My Brothers Keeper?    and like any deep question, the answer is equally, Yes, No, It Depends, Sometimes and Never.

I know you want to be helpful to your wife as she grieves the loss of her sister but I think it's equally fair to ask ... is she grieving?   and how can you best be helpful?    where does the helping logically start?    and where does it logically end?   my two cents is,  at the end of the day the grief is hers.   she can bear it or not, that's hers.     you can not bear it for her.    no matter how hard you try or how well intentioned your attempts are.

she has been telling you for a long time her life depends on what you do or don't do.    there is no guarantee that she won't attempt to end her life,  there is no guarantee that she will.   as harsh and as cold as it sounds that is also up to her.   you can't protect her from that.    serving her with the divorce papers will hurt her.   there is no way to avoid that.    just like you getting an apartment hurt her.   what I see is the hurt you are both living through now never ends.   she tells you to come back or she will die,... you agonize over how to protect her and save her and the same hurt happens day after day.    the hurt over the divorce and you moving on with your life, will end one day if she can survive it.    ultimately that is up to her.   you can't make that decision for her.     you can't protect her from it.

it seems to me there is no way forward in which you are 'the nice guy'.     you can't be both the helpful supportive gentle kind guy and the guy who gets a divorce and separates from the dysfunction.    

I don't know. Guilty. Scared. Sad. Anxious. I'm convinced that it's right. I'm unsure about actually acting on it. I feel relief that I'm not that conflicted about the answer. Then cycle back through anxiety, guilt, feer, sadness.

Guilt is hard to let go of.  Its hard for us to say,  I've done enough.   I am enough.    what would make you comfortable (or more comfortable) that you have done enough.  how can you be more sure about acting on your convictions?

I would think you are going to have conflicted swirling emotions.  that's natural and normal.   it will take time for them to settle.  being sad and anxious is going to be part of this moving forward just as it has been part of this for every text message and email and phone call.      the only way out is through...  the only way out of the guilt, anxiety, sadness is to look them in the eye and walk through them.

respectfully
'ducks

[I Am Redeemed]

This is incredibly hard, stolencrumbs. I think if it were not for the fact that she is high risk for actually attempting/completing a suicide, you would be able to proceed with detaching and protecting yourself much more easily. There would still be feelings of guilt and sadness and you would still have to move through the stages of grief for the relationship that you once wished for or hoped you could have had. But, knowing as you do, that she has made attempts, and you have found the physical evidence of a suicide plan before, and with her family history of suicide and mental illness, that knowledge is keeping you stuck on the precipice of a decision that will impact the rest of your life.

'ducks hit on something here: the question of "am I my brother's keeper?" and the complex answers that come with that. Your wife is responsible for her own life and her own choices. But she is placing that responsibility on you: "I refuse to do anything to take care of my own mental health other than to demand that you come and take care of it for me; one thing and one thing only will keep me from killing myself and that is to have you back here soothing my feelings 24/7". You are being held hostage by her suicidal threats, and the fact that choosing to protect yourself may carry the lasting burden of guilt should she actually end her life is exactly what makes this threat such an effective tool. It's a form of psychological and emotional abuse, and it's coercive control.

She knows on some level you still care about her and she is using that to the most extreme measure possible to force you to not end the relationship. She's giving you two choices based in black/white thinking: either you're her savior, or you're her killer. The truth is that you are neither of those.

What kind of support or resources do you have for yourself right now? how often are you able to see your therapist? Are there any colleagues that may be experienced in situations like this (psychology professors, clinical social work professors)?

[Notwendy]

I know it's tough SC. I watched this type of dynamic in my parents. We were all enlisted as BPD mother's emotional and to some extent physical caretakers, but even more so, we were not allowed to say no to her, it was her way, her will, all the time.

I think I am redeemed made a good point with the choice she has given you: you are either her savior or the cause of her demise. But neither of them takes into account her own responsibility. She's an adult and she is responsible for her actions ultimately.

My guess is that the struggle is with you. I know for me, having boundaries with my BPD mother means that she frames me as the bad person and also I don't live up to my ideals for how I wanted to be in a relationship with my parents. Like many of us here, you seem to be a good person who wants to live up to ethical standards. But it's different when that person is abusive and manipulative and doesn't learn from their behavior because their thinking is in victim position and everything is not their fault. The struggle is knowing that choosing your own sanity and well being is going to somehow cause them to feel hurt- but it's their dysfunction that sets this up. Somehow we buy into this but then fail to extend our own goodness to ourselves.

I think you are also dreading the response that is to come. But part of that is that her behavior has always resulted in her getting what she wants. You know it will escalate- and it's going to take some strenght and resolve on your part to get through it. When my BPD mother acts waify- it's just awful. How can I do this to my own mother? But I also know that it's a manipulation. I wish you stregnth as you navigate your own needs in this situation.

[PearlsBefore]

First was some begging me not to do it, then some attempted negotiation that we try to make things better for a year and if it didn't work for me then she'd happily get divorced, then some pressure to not do it because we're in a pandemic and she can't possibly get a job and we can't sell the house and she'll be homeless and destitute, then some threats about making the process as high-conflict as possible, then on to how it doesn't matter because she's not going to survive it anyway, then the divorce papers became her "death certificate," then she promised I would never see or speak to her ever again, then it was just screaming and wailing. It was among the hardest conversations I've ever had with her. Since then, every conversation (phone, text, or email) has been some version of one the above. Usually during the day it is more pleading. Then at night she gets drunk and gets angry, mean, and belligerent. Literally everyone in my life tells me to just stay away, don't engage, turn off the phone, etc. It is just really hard to do that. I don't love her as my wife, but I do care about her a lot. I see a hurt and scared person who can't manage her own life but is trying in the only ways she knows how to hang on to something. And currently what she believes is that everything would be better if I just came back home. She wouldn't drink, she wouldn't be suicidal, she wouldn't rage, we would repair our relationship and all would be well. I don't believe that (and I also don't want that life with her), but it's very hard to watch this person I care about self-destruct while telling me I have the power to keep that from happening.

I have been where you are now, and while I can't promise that the process itself gets easier (you wouldn't believe how much time can be wasted if she just falsely claims that actually the paperwork is wrong and she filed for divorce from you because you are her and she is you and she thinks maybe there's something mentally wrong with you) - I just want to reassure you that you're almost certainly doing the right thing. In my case it's doubly ironic because we only got married because after years of stalking me and sabotaging other relationships I sought, she informed me she was terminally ill and just needed this one favour before she died...so apparently the marriage certificate and divorce certificate were both going to be death certificates. Sigh.

The best advice I can offer is that while she tells you that you have the power to fix all this pain and tumult - face it man, you don't. That's just part of her over-idealizing you and believing you are a deity (when you're not a devil). If you had the power to "fix this problem" then you would've already done it years ago, right?

I got involved through youthful naive arrogance, "Oh sure they SAY nobody can cure BPD - but I'll find a way, my unique blend of emotional support, self-discipline and compromise will overcome all odds" and it was a humbling but liberating realisation years later that no, no I cannot fix it. Sometimes a thing gets broke, can't be fixed - and that's her, that's BPD. As decades pass, often they'll lack the energy to throw bricks at your head or lose interest in phoning your few remaining friends to stir drama and the overly-dramatic suicide attempts decrease (though real ones I believe remain), but the problem doesn't go away - that's not just medical opinion, sadly it in indeed medical fact.

It was an annoyance to me to hear a judge listen to the facts of the case (and deciding entirely in my favour) state that it damaged my credibility in his eyes that I explained that even after her attempted murder and insane accusations, I did not hate her or wish her any harm, because to his simple mind it wasn't possible for someone in our shoes to care about somebody who does what they do - but that's life with severe mental illness, and while the world gushes over how brave and deserving of applause and benefits the SICK are, they rarely remember the heroes who are actually carrying them. But the deeds will not be any less valiant because they go un-praised.

Rushing back into that inferno would be your own version of self-harm, keep your distance, keep firm - you've done what good you can for her in life, it's time to walk away. There's a short-term X% chance she'll self-destruct over the coming months, but you have to measure that against the long-term Y% chance every year she'll self-destruct anyways (taking you and possibly children, friends or others with her) even if you did return, simply from the fact she once again has the same stimulation she had when these problems were at their peak anyways...you.

(And look at me, barely projecting at all!)

[Notwendy]

Pearls Before Swine made a good point- this thinking "I am the one who can fix this" - sure- others couldn't but somehow I can. There's a bit of ego in this, maybe some narcisism or arrogance- but it's on the line of thinking I'm somehow more capable. We discuss the reasons for "victim perspective" ( the role I think pwBPD tend to take on) but not as much the "rescuer" role and why this is appealing in some ways- and can even be the "sticking point" for a relationship.

Maybe there's some help in understanding this role and why it's hard to give it up. I recognize my own tendencies to take this on in a relationship- and where they came from- I was raised to be an emotional caretaker and helper with BPD mom and this was a a way to get positive attention. But to have the "one up" status of the rescuer, there has to be someone to rescue.

While it may feel like the "merciful" thing to do- be an emotional caretaker for a disordered person, it's also what can stop them from seeking help and stunt emotional growth. I can understand why the fear of my mother's possible break downs and self harm attempts led to all of us trying to keep her as emotionally stable as possible - was it really in her best interests or was it to manage our own fears? Maybe it's a combination of both.

SG whatever you decide to do, I think it's important to identify why you are in this relationship and what it is about you that keeps you in this pattern with her,

[Goosey]

I here you in the “cycling” through emotions.
  I’m sure every divorce situation is somewhat different though somewhat the same.
  Took me two times to finally serve papers. Agonized over it.
  Then wife just signed em. And looks like it may  go to “default” divorce. No contact with her except for once a month to pay health insurance premium.
  I assume she is ok. She texts our daughter occasionally and seems to be traveling to all the party spots. (Vegas, Miami).
  Head scratcher since we never had money to pay the bills for twenty years. So she is fine it seems.
Now I just have to get myself “righted”.
  Thank you everyone for your advice. I the only thing I can say is “today” is better for me so it’s possible for you also as time passes.

[babyducks]

how are you doing stolencrumbs?    how are things going?

[Cat Familiar]

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