my story

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hi everyone. This is my first post. I was in a relationship for thirty-one years with a BPD. I know her family history very well and she was terribly abused. I stuck by her for twenty-five years, all the while pleading for her to get help, explaining, validating her feelings but it did no good. I separated in hopes that she would see the light. I did not leave her, just separated. We owned twenty acres of land which we worked on together for twenty-six years. I invested my life into her, the property not to mention a large sum of monies. After we separated she wanted me back but the words never came. She accepted zero responsibility in her behavior towards me. Total denial. I was then accused of having an affair, that being the 'cause' of our relationship demise. I continued to try for three years and I was there for her as I had always been, working on the property, taking care of her and things. It was basically as it had always been with the acceptation that she was living there and I was in our home in town. She decided that she was going to move back to NY and be with her dysfunctional family, an obsession (Still at age 63 trying to get the love and approval of abusive parents). My ex is one of the most honest people I know. She will not take one penny from anyone without repaying them a dollar. I trusted her explicitly in this area. She ask me to take my name off of the deed when the property went up for sale(against my wishes) so there would be no capital gains issues. I trusted her and removed my name. Can you see where this is going? I had no sooner taken my name off when it hit the fan. I was told it was never my property, it had always been hers and hers alone. She literally tried to erase me, 26 years of my life, the money I spent, all the work (we actually built a house by ourselves) as if I didn't exist. Her justifications were bizarre and she became psychotic. The verbal abuse and vitriol that came out was worse than anything I had ever seen and I had seen a lot. She tried to emotionally annihilate me and she succeeded. The betrayal has been unbearable. There was no reasoning, no rationale talk, nothing. I tried to explain... .you were my life, my love, the land was ours and our heart, half a life's work. I explained and she erased and then after all of the explaining... .she actually ask me what was wrong with me, did I have some kind of terminal disease or something because I was acting all 'sad'. God in heaven. I realized that she had no clue, no empathy at all. I was told I was thin-skinned, needed to grow a spine (don't cry or you are weak and it pissed her off to see me cry, made her feel guilty, all about her ). I had been in a relationship all by myself and I had been nothing but an extension of her. I was a nobody. All that I loved and cherished, my life's work was gone and she ask me what was wrong with me. She walked off with $200,000 and she benevolently said she would ":)O" something for me and paid a credit card off in amount of $10,000. ":)O" for me like I was some casual acquaintance that spent half of their life working on 'her' land and spent well over $60,000 of my own money. I was erased and accused of being sick, hateful, mean, needed help, selfish etc. Then she wanted to be friends! I'm six months out and I'm so devastated that I can hardly function. At the end she told me that there must be something very wrong with me if I loved her. That put the final nail in the coffin.I realized and it crushed me... .all the love I showed her never got in. All the effort, the kindness, the essence of my soul that I poured out to her and she never let it in. The self-loathing, the self-hatred, the inner rage and pain from what her parents did to her. She became them and I watched this horror happen before my very eyes over the years and there was nothing I could do. Her parents did nothing less than soul rape to her and my pain for her is consuming me. I'm a very strong person, had loving parents and family. I've had hardships, loss but this took away something deep inside of me. I am empty, sucked into her vortex of pain and mine. 

[gingin]

Hi everyone. This is my first post. I was in a relationship for thirty-one years with a BPD. I know her family history very well and she was terribly abused. I stuck by her for twenty-five years, all the while pleading for her to get help, explaining, validating her feelings but it did no good. I separated in hopes that she would see the light. I did not leave her, just separated. We owned twenty acres of land which we worked on together for twenty-six years. I invested my life into her, the property not to mention a large sum of monies. After we separated she wanted me back but the words never came. She accepted zero responsibility in her behavior towards me. Total denial. I was then accused of having an affair, that being the 'cause' of our relationship demise. I continued to try for three years and I was there for her as I had always been, working on the property, taking care of her and things. It was basically as it had always been with the acceptation that she was living there and I was in our home in town. She decided that she was going to move back to NY and be with her dysfunctional family, an obsession (Still at age 63 trying to get the love and approval of abusive parents). My ex is one of the most honest people I know. She will not take one penny from anyone without repaying them a dollar. I trusted her explicitly in this area. She ask me to take my name off of the deed when the property went up for sale(against my wishes) so there would be no capital gains issues. I trusted her and removed my name. Can you see where this is going? I had no sooner taken my name off when it hit the fan. I was told it was never my property, it had always been hers and hers alone. She literally tried to erase me, 26 years of my life, the money I spent, all the work (we actually built a house by ourselves) as if I didn't exist. Her justifications were bizarre and she became psychotic. The verbal abuse and vitriol that came out was worse than anything I had ever seen and I had seen a lot. She tried to emotionally annihilate me and she succeeded. The betrayal has been unbearable. There was no reasoning, no rationale talk, nothing. I tried to explain... .you were my life, my love, the land was ours and our heart, half a life's work. I explained and she erased and then after all of the explaining... .she actually ask me what was wrong with me, did I have some kind of terminal disease or something because I was acting all 'sad'. God in heaven. I realized that she had no clue, no empathy at all. I was told I was thin-skinned, needed to grow a spine (don't cry or you are weak and it pissed her off to see me cry, made her feel guilty, all about her ). I had been in a relationship all by myself and I had been nothing but an extension of her. I was a nobody. All that I loved and cherished, my life's work was gone and she ask me what was wrong with me. She walked off with $200,000 and she benevolently said she would ":)O" something for me and paid a credit card off in amount of $10,000. ":)O" for me like I was some casual acquaintance that spent half of their life working on 'her' land and spent well over $60,000 of my own money. I was erased and accused of being sick, hateful, mean, needed help, selfish etc. Then she wanted to be friends! I'm six months out and I'm so devastated that I can hardly function. At the end she told me that there must be something very wrong with me if I loved her. That put the final nail in the coffin.I realized and it crushed me... .all the love I showed her never got in. All the effort, the kindness, the essence of my soul that I poured out to her and she never let it in. The self-loathing, the self-hatred, the inner rage and pain from what her parents did to her. She became them and I watched this horror happen before my very eyes over the years and there was nothing I could do. Her parents did nothing less than soul rape to her and my pain for her is consuming me. I'm a very strong person, had loving parents and family. I've had hardships, loss but this took away something deep inside of me. I am empty, sucked into her vortex of pain and mine. 

[LonelyChild]

I can't imagine the pain you are going through. I hope you get better and find healthy ways to cope. Please understand that what she did has nothing to do with you or who you are, but rather with who she is or isn't. As for all the effort that was lost over 26 years, I cannot imagine your pain. I'm so sorry you had to go through this.

You might want to read up on Sense of Coherence (coined by Aaron Antonovsky). You obviously need to heal first, but I guarantee you that once you find a SOC all of this will be behind you.