Inability to self reflect

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

Hello all,

Some of you have been kindly following my story. I've reached a point where I have liberated myself from the guilt and shame taken on-board over a 20yr relationship where uBPDw would accuse me of being abusive. I am comfortable with who I really am and what I'm about but somewhat floating in the wind still determined by the choices being made by uBPDw. uBPDw has called for a divorce and she has numerous flying monkeys advising her and believing her abuse rhetoric. I've made the conscious choice  that a 3 outcomes are managable... .fix (which would involve a bit of a miracle and I believe at this point a eureka moment on her behalf), remain (protecting my children from her erratic emotional behavior, living in a home I love, working on skills to improve my situation), split (seems most likely).

So, she has made contact with a legal mediation service which she found in a local magazine (felt a bit half-hearted but I have to accept it regardless as a move on her behalf), I reiterated that I didn't want this but would not stand in her way. I was informed of this on Saturday night. Last night (Sunday) she gets suspicious that my mother had set up some savings accounts for the kids, something that I made her aware of several months ago. She suggested that "what does your mum think I'm going to do, run off with all the money? As long as it's not a way of you siphoning off money!". I wasn't prepared and let myself down and JADE'd. I pointed out that she had done this for all the grandchildren, then pointed out that as part of the divorce process we have to do full financial disclosure with bank statements, pay slips and everything. I then intimated to her that it would be perfectly reasonable for my Mum not to trust her and that her behaviour hadn't induced trust in the last year or so. She was absolutely mortified and genuinely couldn't tally together how her behaviour such as having an emotional affair, constantly lying to me, withholding information, twisting the truth, gaslighting and warping historical facts is not trust inducing. NOW... .before you all go thinking, "hey, this guy needs to go and read up on BPD as this is a bit of a no-brainer that she wouldn't be able to realise this", I know, I know. I suppose I went fishing to see whether or not I could stimulate any sort of self reflection by her... .to tie up cause and effect in her head.

So the conversation progresses along the same lines of trust when she quizzes me about the suggestion that I now know everything about divorce all of a sudden when on Saturday she believed that I told her that I knew nothing about the divorce process. What I actually said to her was that I didn't know what the standard asset split was (which I don't as this isn't set in stone and is dependent on circumstances). I then JADE'd explaining what I did know and that any sensible person who was facing the threat of divorce would do their homework to prepare for the worst... .which leads us on to children. Again, she couldn't understand why a "flexible arrangement" would not work for me with the kids. She couldn't understand why I didn't trust her to adhere to any verbal framework and it would just be something she would take advantage of going forward. Although I wouldn't object to having the kids every weekend and would embrace the higher level of contact, it cannot be a situation where the arrangements for them are determined by her emotional state that week. It cannot be that the children are weaponised as and when her next relationship fails and she is looking for someone to blame for her emotional pain. Parental alienation is something I am acutely aware of since I have already experienced her trauma reenactment via the kids. I'm also aware that something legal in theory avoids the need for negotiation (impossible with uBPDw), or the need for being reliant on her carrying out anything she verbalises.

I know why from a traits perspective... .but it's so frustrating when someone has no ability to self reflect and even see why someone might want to protect themselves. I'm sure it's uncomfortable for her to hear, and I'm sure she can internally legitimize all of her deceit meaning these comments are just astounding to her. I'm torn since I want to sort things out butI know that these kind of interactions make that even less likely... .but I need to protect myself from our marriage disintegrating. I can't really play good cop and bad cop using the tools, I guess I could have just validated her and then allowed the mediation to do the rest. I've always been honest with her, never hidden my thoughts from her and always told her how it is... .which is probably how I've arrived at this juncture.

Rant over

[Enabler]

Hello all,

Some of you have been kindly following my story. I've reached a point where I have liberated myself from the guilt and shame taken on-board over a 20yr relationship where uBPDw would accuse me of being abusive. I am comfortable with who I really am and what I'm about but somewhat floating in the wind still determined by the choices being made by uBPDw. uBPDw has called for a divorce and she has numerous flying monkeys advising her and believing her abuse rhetoric. I've made the conscious choice  that a 3 outcomes are managable... .fix (which would involve a bit of a miracle and I believe at this point a eureka moment on her behalf), remain (protecting my children from her erratic emotional behavior, living in a home I love, working on skills to improve my situation), split (seems most likely).

So, she has made contact with a legal mediation service which she found in a local magazine (felt a bit half-hearted but I have to accept it regardless as a move on her behalf), I reiterated that I didn't want this but would not stand in her way. I was informed of this on Saturday night. Last night (Sunday) she gets suspicious that my mother had set up some savings accounts for the kids, something that I made her aware of several months ago. She suggested that "what does your mum think I'm going to do, run off with all the money? As long as it's not a way of you siphoning off money!". I wasn't prepared and let myself down and JADE'd. I pointed out that she had done this for all the grandchildren, then pointed out that as part of the divorce process we have to do full financial disclosure with bank statements, pay slips and everything. I then intimated to her that it would be perfectly reasonable for my Mum not to trust her and that her behaviour hadn't induced trust in the last year or so. She was absolutely mortified and genuinely couldn't tally together how her behaviour such as having an emotional affair, constantly lying to me, withholding information, twisting the truth, gaslighting and warping historical facts is not trust inducing. NOW... .before you all go thinking, "hey, this guy needs to go and read up on BPD as this is a bit of a no-brainer that she wouldn't be able to realise this", I know, I know. I suppose I went fishing to see whether or not I could stimulate any sort of self reflection by her... .to tie up cause and effect in her head.

So the conversation progresses along the same lines of trust when she quizzes me about the suggestion that I now know everything about divorce all of a sudden when on Saturday she believed that I told her that I knew nothing about the divorce process. What I actually said to her was that I didn't know what the standard asset split was (which I don't as this isn't set in stone and is dependent on circumstances). I then JADE'd explaining what I did know and that any sensible person who was facing the threat of divorce would do their homework to prepare for the worst... .which leads us on to children. Again, she couldn't understand why a "flexible arrangement" would not work for me with the kids. She couldn't understand why I didn't trust her to adhere to any verbal framework and it would just be something she would take advantage of going forward. Although I wouldn't object to having the kids every weekend and would embrace the higher level of contact, it cannot be a situation where the arrangements for them are determined by her emotional state that week. It cannot be that the children are weaponised as and when her next relationship fails and she is looking for someone to blame for her emotional pain. Parental alienation is something I am acutely aware of since I have already experienced her trauma reenactment via the kids. I'm also aware that something legal in theory avoids the need for negotiation (impossible with uBPDw), or the need for being reliant on her carrying out anything she verbalises.

I know why from a traits perspective... .but it's so frustrating when someone has no ability to self reflect and even see why someone might want to protect themselves. I'm sure it's uncomfortable for her to hear, and I'm sure she can internally legitimize all of her deceit meaning these comments are just astounding to her. I'm torn since I want to sort things out butI know that these kind of interactions make that even less likely... .but I need to protect myself from our marriage disintegrating. I can't really play good cop and bad cop using the tools, I guess I could have just validated her and then allowed the mediation to do the rest. I've always been honest with her, never hidden my thoughts from her and always told her how it is... .which is probably how I've arrived at this juncture.

Rant over

[Enabler]

So my situation seems to be getting bleaker although my understanding of how and why it is is also increasing. Held a letter for uBPDw up to the light on the weekend and it's from the Police's Victim Support team. I can only guess that she's filed something against me. Again, just supposition and something she mentioned in legal mediation about me following her down the street but I believe she's heard that I followed her down the road to check whether or not she was lying about where she was going (I bumped into one of her friends on the way). This is tough for me, on the one hand I feel no guilt in my actions since I was defending my reality, a reality she has sought to manipulate with lies and deceit especially with regards to meeting up with her OM. I was looking out for myself, my marriage and a family unit I'm desperately trying to hold together. I guess I feel that if I know the truth then I can in some way make better decisions based on a clean reality rather than poor decisions based on deluded and distorted ones. It's odd, even though I believe it to be completely irrational I can also empathise with why she might have done it. I'm constantly reinforcing the delusional view that she has that I am abusively controlling by my via my own behaviour... .Even though the initial assumption is based on a warped foundation. But if you can't compute cause and effect it makes sense. If you lie to me I will try and find out the truth and I will attempt to validate everything you say, if you don't do the things you say you were going to do I will ask you to do them, if you spend more money than we have and refuse to get involved in the household budget I will ask you to stop spending so much money. This is becoming a dangerous game, one I know will not cease when this divorce finally happens.

[Meili]

Oh, no! I certainly hope that the letter is related to something else.

I've never been convinced that pwBPD traits don't understand cause and effect. I think that they are just unable to handle the intense emotions and utilize maladaptive coping mechanisms to avoid feeling the consequences of their actions.

The thing is, that when anyone is emotionally aroused, the ability to reason with them is greatly reduced. It is really helpful if we calm the situation and then use one of the communication techniques to give us the best chance at conveying what we want to say so as to be heard.

[Enabler]

Yes Meili, I guess that's what I meant. I think when she was calm (ironically when she was sitting in a legal mediation session) she could tie together why I might have wanted to check emails or find out her whereabouts since she could empathise what it felt like to be lied to all the time. Since then and since she's now calm she's been a different person. Different enough to cease the divorce process I doubt, calm enough to realise how her own emotional reactions to our relationship may not be in-line with other peoples emotional reaction, I doubt.

Was talking to T last night and discussing how she is getting a lot of cheerleaders pushing her into divorce. She's always looked to other people to help her make a decision and always looked to other women to gauge what they think about me and things I might have done. The issue is, most people use emotional intensity of the "victim" for want of a better word, to establish how severe an experience was rather than using the facts at hand. I compared it to a young child who's hurt. You gauge how badly their arm hurts by the intensity of the screams since you can't actually see inside their arm to check if they've broken a bone. The whole package means that the advice provided isn't appropriate for the situation in hand. She's convinced divorce is something she has to do owing to the 20yrs of emotional and verbal abuse she has suffered! There's something ironic about that!

[Meili]

It may be very difficult for her to end the divorce process or look at her own emotional reactions. Remember, pwBPD traits tend to experience emotions far more intensely than others. Dealing with the shame of being wrong about the divorce, facing her friends, and looking at her emotional reactions may be overwhelming to her. I experienced this very thing when with my x when we first started to talk about reconciling.

Showing her consistently that you are strong and safe is a way to combat the situation. It has worked for others, and it worked for me until I decided that it was time to end things.

pwBPD find strength and safety attractive. They need that in their lives.

[Enabler]

It really is the little things that make you doubt whether or not they have the ummmmph to actually go it alone. It's the reminders of how and why you find yourself in this position in the first place... .why did we argue... .was it that she wouldn't take responsibility for anything ever, was it her inability to accept guilt and shame, was it the violently oscillating mood changes, the projection or the accusations.

The little things I talk of... .I get a TXT today saying "How long has the dishwasher been broken? Can you order a part for this please" <pictures of the little clips that hold the plate holder upright>. Now if that were me, I was at home and clearly far better placed to order a new part on ebay or espares, I would have had a go myself. Instead she feels the need to be nurtured and rescued. She is perfectly capable of ordering it herself and has access directly to the information such as make and model etc yet there was never any thought of having a go herself. Over time this becomes burdensome, emotionally and physically. My time is worthless to her. I of course rescued, at this juncture I need to stop making things worse and get myself into a position where I can improve the relationship rather than see if further deteriorate. Be nice and kind... .nice and kind.

I wholeheartedly agree that the about turn re the divorce is going to take a monumental effort or excuse I'm not sure where it would come from. I just have to continue along my own path.

[Meili]

I agree with you that you have to stop rescuing her. One of the things that we tend to do is rescue them out of fear. We are afraid that they will rage, go silent, they will think that we've stopped loving them, or any number of other reasons. That fear holds us hostage and subject to their whims. It is a bad place to be; and you're right, it's draining.

As I'm sure that you're aware, monumental does not mean impossible. I can't remember, have you looked at understanding your role in the relationship?

[Enabler]

This is my 3rd hopefully recycle... .actually to be more specific my 3rd being painted completely black so I feel like a triple Phoenix already. At the moment I'm conciliatory of my rescueing and trying to ensure that I rescue things that on her reflection she could perceive as our problems, whilst not rescueing things I deem to be her problem... .e.g. I will order the part for the dishwasher but I will not assist in the divorce process other than to do what is required to not disrupt the process. It's not ideal but I have to accept that I can't make someone with broken legs run... .and that might be a bad annalogy as she's perfectly capable of ordering a dishwasher part.

Reading through the links, I've read more in the last year than I have in the rest of my 39yr life! Thanks