He is restrained from coming into the marital home and I found him in our bed last night. I said what are you doing here. He said I thought you were sleeping at your dads. I said even if I was you can't come here. He asked to see the baby. I said no and after he left I filled out a police report.
Did you get any indication the police might arrest him? Good that you enforced the only real authority you have - the temporary court order. When I started reading your post I feared I'd read that you let him right back into your life with his presence and multitude of promises.
Promises are worth their weight in packing peanuts, it's the
actions over the long term that count and his actions promptly violated your boundary, however temporary the court order may be.
His family keeps calling me wanting to see the baby despite my plea to give me time to let the dust settle. I'm getting bombarded on all fronts and it is getting to me.
Fortunately in your case - since you are are not an unreasonable obstructing parent - parents have strong rights and relatives have much weaker and in some places no rights. You can assure them, as you no doubt already have, that you need time to let the dust settle and figure out how best to handle future contact. They probably can't put any legal pressure on you, it's just emotional pressure. Remember that.
I need support and advice about how I can protect myself from this mental manipulation. I actually considered working on things... .the only thing that's helping keep me straight is the fact that I have access to his email and I read the things he is saying to people which sound more like the man I remember. Also my family will disown me if I went back with him. They have been taken hostage as well.
Please help me stay strong. How is it possible that I can question myself after all that I've been through. Don't I love myself... .help... .he is sucking me in again.
Frankly, we all have faced that. I've been painted black for 9-10 years, separated for nearly 9 years, divorced for over 6 years and yet still I sometimes feel the tug wondering "What if she changes and wants to back together again?" (Fortunately after all this time it is a brief and weak emotional tug.) Everyone here would exclaim, "Huh? What in the world are you thinking?" But the fact is that we are emotional creatures, that's one one the things that separate us from robots, animals, plants and rocks.
Part of the answer is to build your support network. Your supported are not in the middle of the relationship and can be objective (as in an outside-the-box perspective) and not overwhelmed by the repeated tugs of emotional manipulations. Matt calls it a three-legged stool, you can't sit on a stool with less than 3 legs, right? (1) Your family and trusted friends. (2) Local professionals such as counselors, police and even your lawyer. (3) Remote peer support such as here.
Another part of the answer is to keep your contact to the bare minimum. You've already pondered and answered the issue of whether to continue the relationship. The answer - wishing it wasn't so but "bpdfamily.com" (title of this site) - was a firm No. Now that your decision has been made, don't go back and revisit it over and over again. Doing so, second guessing yourself, would torture yourself needlessly and risk weakening your newly established boundaries.
Always keep in mind that there is only ONE way you can successfully go back... .IF AND ONLY IF your spouse stops Denial of his issues, gets into meaningful therapy, applies it meaningfully in his life and sticks with it long term. It can't be done with a few visits for even a few months. It must be long term, so he can prove by his actions he's well along on the Path to Recovery! Without that, any reconciliation will put you back into the dysfunctional relationship all over again. As I wrote above, promises mean absolutely nothing, actions over the long term are what count.
This disorder is most evident when people are in a close relationship. Give it some space and boundaries, as you have now, and the behaviors don't seem so bad. It's because of the distance and boundaries. Get back together and it will restart the past behaviors, patterns and cycles. Sad but true.
Side note, it sounds like he doesn't have good judgment at the least and in some cases is actually going too far. Taping a pacifier to a weeks-old baby's mouth is Child Endangerment, though I am no professional.
