revealing the secret

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I have been thinking a lot about this recently.   When I filed for divorce from my wife it was because I believed she has traits of BPD and other emotional problems that I don't think were going to be things we could resolve.   I believed she was a threat to my well being and I did not feel safe.   I heard and read quite a bit, there was nothing good to be gained by sharing my perspective, and I saw the wisdom of that in that context.   So I kept it private and only shared this with a few trusted friends.

The context is different now.   There are no kids, and we are not together.  So we don't have complications in that area but we are involved in protracted litigation and are not on speaking terms.   My ex though, instead of establishing some distance from me when she moved out stayed close by and began getting involved in my social circles in what appeared to be attempts to find negative advocates and isolate me from my own community.   She is now involved with someone who was a friend of mine for several years.    I wondered at first why he didn't say anything to me about it, and it appears that she told him very little about us or our marriage and that we split amicably.    He said to me recently that he hoped this wasn't going to be hard for me, them being involved and my response was that, if he was curious I would talk about that with him.   I think he knows now that things were not as she descibed between us.   I know I must assume anything I say to him if he were to take me up on that would get back to my wife.   But then I thought, does this really matter anymore?   It is just my opinion what I believe about her, and maybe it doesn't matter at all if she learns the real reason I left.   But it might help people understand where I am coming from, and honestly if I was in his position 10 years ago I would have wanted to hear it.   Yes he is an adult and make his own decisions.   So was I, and I did not understand what I was getting into.

[eightdays]

I have been thinking a lot about this recently.   When I filed for divorce from my wife it was because I believed she has traits of BPD and other emotional problems that I don't think were going to be things we could resolve.   I believed she was a threat to my well being and I did not feel safe.   I heard and read quite a bit, there was nothing good to be gained by sharing my perspective, and I saw the wisdom of that in that context.   So I kept it private and only shared this with a few trusted friends.

The context is different now.   There are no kids, and we are not together.  So we don't have complications in that area but we are involved in protracted litigation and are not on speaking terms.   My ex though, instead of establishing some distance from me when she moved out stayed close by and began getting involved in my social circles in what appeared to be attempts to find negative advocates and isolate me from my own community.   She is now involved with someone who was a friend of mine for several years.    I wondered at first why he didn't say anything to me about it, and it appears that she told him very little about us or our marriage and that we split amicably.    He said to me recently that he hoped this wasn't going to be hard for me, them being involved and my response was that, if he was curious I would talk about that with him.   I think he knows now that things were not as she descibed between us.   I know I must assume anything I say to him if he were to take me up on that would get back to my wife.   But then I thought, does this really matter anymore?   It is just my opinion what I believe about her, and maybe it doesn't matter at all if she learns the real reason I left.   But it might help people understand where I am coming from, and honestly if I was in his position 10 years ago I would have wanted to hear it.   Yes he is an adult and make his own decisions.   So was I, and I did not understand what I was getting into.

[kells76]

I'm seeing two things to consider.

In terms of telling the other man some things: it makes sense that the fact that you have no kids together does open some doors for your conduct/decisions, that wouldn't be there if you were sharing parenting for many more years -- if a decision crashes and burns, there won't be fallout on the kids. So yeah, you might have some more leeway to consider choices that wouldn't be there in a coparenting situation. I think I'm tracking with you that these are some things you'd consider telling him:

my opinion / what I believe about her...
the real reason I left...
where I am coming from...
what I (he) was getting into...

What do you hope would happen, ideally, if you were to tell him those things -- for him, but importantly, also, for you?

Are you hoping that he will understand your experience and where you are coming from? Are you hoping for something else?

What would be the best case outcome? What would be the worst case outcome?

...

Secondly -- although you don't have kids in the picture, you do have this going on:

we are involved in protracted litigation and are not on speaking terms.

Remind me if you have a lawyer?

What has your lawyer recommended (or required) about you contacting your ex or anyone involved with your ex, while litigation is ongoing?

I would think through, and consult with a legal professional about, if you contacting your ex's partner unsolicited would have an effect on your case.

...

Everyone wants to be really seen, really heard, and really understood, especially by a partner, and when we don't get that, it has an outsize emotional effect on us, that impacts our decision making.

I wonder if you felt unseen, unheard, and not understood during your marriage.

I'm curious if that significant loss is in play here?

[PeteWitsend]

That's a good callout, @Kells76.

If you're in active litigation, you should not be talking about your relationship to any third parties, let alone one actively dating your ex. 

I'd politely tell him you don't want to talk about it right now. 

Not sure what you're still fighting over if you don't have kids, but presumably it's the property settlement.  I'd be weary of her trying to get some leverage in it via him, like an admission from you that you did something or had more money, or spent money a certain way. 

pwBPD can invent things out of whole cloth, but also, they will build a mountain out of a molehill.  So don't give them anything; even if you are candid with them, they'll still accuse you of lying.

[eightdays]

The dispute is over money, and I have not concealed anything, but she believes I may have.   She regularly accused me of that while we were married, so that would be consistent.  She also believes that I assigned her rights to property that I did not.  Anyway, my telling her new boyfriend that I would be willing to talk about it did seem to shift something.  He had no idea that there was a war going on between my ex-partner and I.   He was under the impression that we mutually decided our marriage didn't work anymore and decided to divorce together.  So was behaving as if all was well.   But now he knows.   I think this was enough to restore some of the boundaries that were being crossed, which is what was troubling me.   As far as telling him I believe she is mentally ill, I will cross that bridge if I ever come to it but I wouldn't offer that unsolicited.   My attorney did not give me an opinion about that, other than that it would be smart to keep clear of them, but I think it really is not relevant to the case.

[PeteWitsend]

The dispute is over money, and I have not concealed anything, but she believes I may have.   She regularly accused me of that while we were married, so that would be consistent.  She also believes that I assigned her rights to property that I did not.  Anyway, my telling her new boyfriend that I would be willing to talk about it did seem to shift something.  He had no idea that there was a war going on between my ex-partner and I.   He was under the impression that we mutually decided our marriage didn't work anymore and decided to divorce together.  So was behaving as if all was well.   But now he knows.   I think this was enough to restore some of the boundaries that were being crossed, which is what was troubling me.   As far as telling him I believe she is mentally ill, I will cross that bridge if I ever come to it but I wouldn't offer that unsolicited.   My attorney did not give me an opinion about that, other than that it would be smart to keep clear of them, but I think it really is not relevant to the case.

ugh, hopefully it doesn't end up dragging on much longer.  At some point she'll have to show proof to substantiate her claims and that should end it. 

During my divorce, BPDxw kept claiming I "stole" money from her.  I produced everything, I even went back and provided seven years of statements from all my accounts, and while she was not officially contesting anything in court, she kept sending me emails that I had "stole her money" for months after our case settled.  They love to make things up!