This Time It’s Really Over

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

Hello Everyone,

This is actually the first time I have ever written on a forum like this. Despite being unquestionably certain that my ex partner has BPD, there is always the little part of me that wonders, perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps it’s me.

I know I’m not; and whilst I’m intimately aware of my own limitations that essentially lead me to enduring a highly abusive relationship for 6 years; I also know, it’s not me.

Some Background:

We met on a dating site, he had not long been separated from an ex (which only found out some time later)

And I had not long moved into my own home following a divorce - I had been single for some time, however my ex-husband & I had been separated under one roof until it was financially viable to split our assets.

Despite the big changes; I was in a very very good place in my life & felt really open & level headed about my decision to start dating again.

Fast Forward 3 months later, We move in with each other. I feel deeply ashamed to admit, whilst the first 3 months was lovely, the red flags were already apparent.

It was when we moved in together that I found out that he had been committed into psychiatric units on several occasions presenting with Schizoaffective disorder.

I also found out the various different anti-psychotic medications he was on. And the multiple self help & personal development routes he’d been on to be a healthy person.

I admired him for this.

About 3 months into us living together it became very apparent that his relationship with his ex wife had been highly problematic & co-dependent, despite him giving me the impression otherwise. And further to incidents I won’t go into, it’s quite clear that she too suffers from Cluster B personality disorders.

Having said that, I now wonder whether her behaviour is an extreme consequence of having been in a relationship with him & co-parenting with him.

There’s so much I wonder about. The saddest thing is, his two children are already exhibiting the symptoms evident of pathogenic parenting. And my deepest guilt lays in having exposed my own children to this madness.

Over the last 6 years I have turned myself inside out trying to comprehend this man. I have been a woman I have never wanted to be at times, emotionally fraught & unstable trying to make sense of a reality that was consistently being fabricated or manipulated.

I have been the perpetual victim, both literally & figuratively, to which he would point out & ridicule; admonish or exploit depending on what end of the emotional spectrum he was on.

He would do & say the most disturbing things, to which I would have the most natural human response - and he would act like and tell me - I am the problem, I need help. Many a times, when he had behaved unconscionably, and I would emotionally dissociate to cope, he would feign concern.

I often wondered whether he actually enjoyed seeing me out of control & powerless. Because as soon as I started taking stock of myself & how I showed up & related to him, the affection stopped, everything that resembled our loving relationship stopped.

When I stopped playing into his incessant victimhood or victimisation.
When I stopped trying to put out all of his fires.
When I stopped expecting him to emotionally support me.
When I stopped believing his constant lies & fabricating of reality.

I’m deeply devastated to to finally accept that what I believed was a relationship I could sincerely build a life with, the good times was simply a reflection of the love I put into him & our relationship. I has never, and will never be able to love me in a healthy way.

I use to say to him often, you don’t love me, you don’t behave like this with people you love, no matter what. How can you be having profoundly deep & meaningful experiences & then literally hours later you treat that same person like a stranger.

When I say I’ve been to hell & back with this man, it may be an understatement, I feel broken. Damaged, an aspect of the innocent & naive women I was before I met him, that still believed In that fairy tale love, has been quashed out. I feel sad for me. Although sadder for him. To live in a cage of turmoil of your own making, and the only way to get out is to constantly lie to yourself, and have your lies be reflected back in the eyes of the people that really love you. I’m devastated, but god only knows what it must really be like for him.

Here’s what I’ve determined are the more nuanced & I believe “crazy making” dynamics of the BPD interpersonal relationship traits that cause tremendous instability:

1. Inability to foster long term emotional bonds - a shallow affect that is covered by overt displays of affection, service, compliance etc - in short a very extreme fawn response - that creates stress in the BPD partner & at the very least insecurity or a sense of a question mark in the non-BPD partner.
2. Over familiarity & perceived strong relationships where there are none. Every time he’d meet someone new, he’d found a new best friend, everyone was very special to him, until they weren’t.
3. Inability to take responsibility for their uncomfortable feelings and so project it onto you. This can take form of simple projections of telling you your angry, when it’s in fact then; or a more disturbing form known as objective identification, whereby they will project their fear, feeling or insecurity onto you; then act as if you are treating them in that way & then consequently treat you as if you actually did - and at times, you may have due to simply being human - to which their initial dilly’s ion is now proven. Eg: They tell you you’re angry. You tell them that you are not. They then deliberately do something that makes you angry you are now in a psychological battle field - conflicted between having a natural response to being emotionally abused & not wanting to contradict yourself.
4. This of course leads to hyper vigilance & self sensitive & walking on egg shells.
5. He gave me strict instructions on how to talk to him, what to say to him so that I would not upset him, from an expression my face to the tone of my voice - anything that contradicted his sense of reality was forbade. He told me I was dangerous.
6. He would lie. All the time, in little ways, to cover up his fears, insecurities & delusions.
7. He’d lie about why he’s lost yet another job or friendship
8. He would fixate on thing
9. He had would take on the identity & or interests of friends, co-workers.
10. He was & is literally dead inside, other than his rage. And the only pleasure he gets is from plugging into others.

I love him. I loved him. And I feel deeply grateful that my sincere attempt to love him unconditionally has enabled me to foster deep unconditional love & respect for myself & my beautiful life. I feel grateful it was only six years, that we do not have children together. I am sick to my stomach about so many disturbing experiences that I forgave & over looked that sincerely put myself & my children’s life & health at risk. This relationship has been a big wake up call to which I am profoundly grateful. Yes, I have been broken down, dismantled. But it’s been so necessary to build new stringer foundations for the woman that I am now, standing stronger, firmer & clearer. I will never be a victim again. Nor will ever feel ashamed that I was.

My deepest love & blessings to everyone on this journey.

[Disturbed101]

Hello Everyone,

This is actually the first time I have ever written on a forum like this. Despite being unquestionably certain that my ex partner has BPD, there is always the little part of me that wonders, perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps it’s me.

I know I’m not; and whilst I’m intimately aware of my own limitations that essentially lead me to enduring a highly abusive relationship for 6 years; I also know, it’s not me.

Some Background:

We met on a dating site, he had not long been separated from an ex (which only found out some time later)

And I had not long moved into my own home following a divorce - I had been single for some time, however my ex-husband & I had been separated under one roof until it was financially viable to split our assets.

Despite the big changes; I was in a very very good place in my life & felt really open & level headed about my decision to start dating again.

Fast Forward 3 months later, We move in with each other. I feel deeply ashamed to admit, whilst the first 3 months was lovely, the red flags were already apparent.

It was when we moved in together that I found out that he had been committed into psychiatric units on several occasions presenting with Schizoaffective disorder.

I also found out the various different anti-psychotic medications he was on. And the multiple self help & personal development routes he’d been on to be a healthy person.

I admired him for this.

About 3 months into us living together it became very apparent that his relationship with his ex wife had been highly problematic & co-dependent, despite him giving me the impression otherwise. And further to incidents I won’t go into, it’s quite clear that she too suffers from Cluster B personality disorders.

Having said that, I now wonder whether her behaviour is an extreme consequence of having been in a relationship with him & co-parenting with him.

There’s so much I wonder about. The saddest thing is, his two children are already exhibiting the symptoms evident of pathogenic parenting. And my deepest guilt lays in having exposed my own children to this madness.

Over the last 6 years I have turned myself inside out trying to comprehend this man. I have been a woman I have never wanted to be at times, emotionally fraught & unstable trying to make sense of a reality that was consistently being fabricated or manipulated.

I have been the perpetual victim, both literally & figuratively, to which he would point out & ridicule; admonish or exploit depending on what end of the emotional spectrum he was on.

He would do & say the most disturbing things, to which I would have the most natural human response - and he would act like and tell me - I am the problem, I need help. Many a times, when he had behaved unconscionably, and I would emotionally dissociate to cope, he would feign concern.

I often wondered whether he actually enjoyed seeing me out of control & powerless. Because as soon as I started taking stock of myself & how I showed up & related to him, the affection stopped, everything that resembled our loving relationship stopped.

When I stopped playing into his incessant victimhood or victimisation.
When I stopped trying to put out all of his fires.
When I stopped expecting him to emotionally support me.
When I stopped believing his constant lies & fabricating of reality.

I’m deeply devastated to to finally accept that what I believed was a relationship I could sincerely build a life with, the good times was simply a reflection of the love I put into him & our relationship. I has never, and will never be able to love me in a healthy way.

I use to say to him often, you don’t love me, you don’t behave like this with people you love, no matter what. How can you be having profoundly deep & meaningful experiences & then literally hours later you treat that same person like a stranger.

When I say I’ve been to hell & back with this man, it may be an understatement, I feel broken. Damaged, an aspect of the innocent & naive women I was before I met him, that still believed In that fairy tale love, has been quashed out. I feel sad for me. Although sadder for him. To live in a cage of turmoil of your own making, and the only way to get out is to constantly lie to yourself, and have your lies be reflected back in the eyes of the people that really love you. I’m devastated, but god only knows what it must really be like for him.

Here’s what I’ve determined are the more nuanced & I believe “crazy making” dynamics of the BPD interpersonal relationship traits that cause tremendous instability:

1. Inability to foster long term emotional bonds - a shallow affect that is covered by overt displays of affection, service, compliance etc - in short a very extreme fawn response - that creates stress in the BPD partner & at the very least insecurity or a sense of a question mark in the non-BPD partner.
2. Over familiarity & perceived strong relationships where there are none. Every time he’d meet someone new, he’d found a new best friend, everyone was very special to him, until they weren’t.
3. Inability to take responsibility for their uncomfortable feelings and so project it onto you. This can take form of simple projections of telling you your angry, when it’s in fact then; or a more disturbing form known as objective identification, whereby they will project their fear, feeling or insecurity onto you; then act as if you are treating them in that way & then consequently treat you as if you actually did - and at times, you may have due to simply being human - to which their initial dilly’s ion is now proven. Eg: They tell you you’re angry. You tell them that you are not. They then deliberately do something that makes you angry you are now in a psychological battle field - conflicted between having a natural response to being emotionally abused & not wanting to contradict yourself.
4. This of course leads to hyper vigilance & self sensitive & walking on egg shells.
5. He gave me strict instructions on how to talk to him, what to say to him so that I would not upset him, from an expression my face to the tone of my voice - anything that contradicted his sense of reality was forbade. He told me I was dangerous.
6. He would lie. All the time, in little ways, to cover up his fears, insecurities & delusions.
7. He’d lie about why he’s lost yet another job or friendship
8. He would fixate on thing
9. He had would take on the identity & or interests of friends, co-workers.
10. He was & is literally dead inside, other than his rage. And the only pleasure he gets is from plugging into others.

I love him. I loved him. And I feel deeply grateful that my sincere attempt to love him unconditionally has enabled me to foster deep unconditional love & respect for myself & my beautiful life. I feel grateful it was only six years, that we do not have children together. I am sick to my stomach about so many disturbing experiences that I forgave & over looked that sincerely put myself & my children’s life & health at risk. This relationship has been a big wake up call to which I am profoundly grateful. Yes, I have been broken down, dismantled. But it’s been so necessary to build new stringer foundations for the woman that I am now, standing stronger, firmer & clearer. I will never be a victim again. Nor will ever feel ashamed that I was.

My deepest love & blessings to everyone on this journey.

[Husband2014]

Thank you for sharing and I’m really sorry you and your kids had to go through this. This is a monster emotional climb and you have done yourself and your kids a huge service by posting here.  There are a lot of people here who can and will help you.  Bottom line which you have already realized is you can’t fix your spouse and the priority has to be you and your kids.

I have come to the same realization about a month ago and decided my children can not be raised in a toxic house like mine. The woman I fell in love with is dead inside and just a shell of who I met.  I contacted a lawyer and within a few weeks I will present her to option to get into therapy or I will unfortunately have to end the marriage. No one deserves to be beaten down like you and no one deserves to grow up in a house like your kids. You all deserve better. Great job and thank you for sharing. 

[Turkish]

That's a thorough analysis. You've put a lot of thought and reflection into it. Blame-shifting, caretaking, and Projection are certainly stressful. We've been there.

What's the living and contact situation now?