How to explain divorce to son

[ugghh]

Have 3 kids s16,s18,d20

D20 is off to college and finally starting to thrive and learning to establish boundaries with uBPDw.

After latest chaotic Thanksgiving (I decided to stay on the couch from here on out), I have decided I am just done - whether she leaves or I leave after 25 years I am just worn out.  She has pulled out all of the stops and is in extreme dysregulation alternating between threatening divorce, begging me to stay, offering to move out to give me space.  While of course playing the victim to her Facebook supporters.

S16 gets it, simply stating Mom is crazy. 

My challenge is S18 who is dear, sweet child who despite his man size still sees the world with the simple innocence of a child.   I have tried to gently lead him to understand that there is much more peaceful existence than he has known his whole life.  He says all families have problems and why can't I just work harder with uBPDw? Basically the why now? I know he is scared of change and I am sure feels the need to protect his Mom.  How can I explain to him that I am out of gas and see no hope because of the BPD elephant in the room?

I don't hate her I just can't live with her anymore.

[ugghh]

I should add that as support for his argument that I should try harder he points to efforts by uBPDw in the last 3 days to things like take her foot high piles of clothes off the dining room table and actually put them away.  This happens about once every year or two and we have something resembling a table for a few weeks.

How do I look him in the eye and explain that this is not the norm?

Maybe I am trying to explain too much but I am also concerned about leaving too much to the abstract and creating an opening for the poisoning to begin.   Sadly this is the same son who had to call EMS on his mom a year ago as she threatened to swallow a bottle of pills.  I cannot stand how she manipulates him.

[momtara]

You have to tread carefully here so you are not seen as being the one who is poisoning him, or beating up on his mom.

I knew that things that my bipolar mother did were not normal, but I still defended her because she was weak and loving and my dad was strong.  The facts didn't matter - she was my mom.  So you just have to be diplomatic, like, "I know you love her, and she's a sweet mom, but she is causing problems x, y and z"

[livednlearned]

My son was very accommodating, very non-assertive. The type to protect the underdog. Meaning, like me.

Then I left. Leaving gave him strength to stand up to bullies in his own life. He's in middle school now, and he finally understands what it means to be assertive. By leaving, I think it gave him a way to sort out the whole victim-abuser-aggression-assertiveness spectrum. Nothing I said mattered, I needed to model it.

Your son is at risk of finding someone just like his mom. If you choose to have boundaries and take care of yourself, and model for him what it means to have self-respect, he will have that as an example in his own life.

By wanting you to stay, and covering for his mother, he is saying her behavior is ok.

We repeat this stuff  :'(

I can't get over how much I have repeated my family script. It wasn't until I left an abusive marriage and got into counseling, and got S12 into counseling, that the script started to shift.