My second marriage has come to an end

[Jeffree]

Man, where to start?

So many years ago (around 2006) I found this great place and after such a long time and many posts worked through the aftermath of the abrupt end of my 7-year marriage to someone with BPD. I'd like to believe I also helped many others here through their trials and tribulations over those years.

I now find myself back here for a tune-up after my second marriage has come to an end. I see more NPD than BPD in my second go 'round, but find myself wondering how in the world did I manage to make the choice to marry another person with such serious emotional and psychological deficits after all I went through and learned the last time around.

I had it all eventually after my first marriage ended... .no debt, a good job, freedom, my head on straight, etc. I am now underemployed, filing for bankruptcy, with limited options and outlets for joy, and a complete disinterest in dating or even connecting to someone emotionally (It just doesn't seem safe.). 

I don't have this deep hurting heartache and complete devastation like I did the last time. I am just tired of struggling so hard to be seen for who I am as opposed to this assized, belittled, negated, insulted abused a-hole my STBx seemed to need to view me as.

Anyhoo, thanks for reading.

J

[heartandwhole]

Hi Jeffree,

Welcome back! I'm sorry for the reason, though. Divorce is hard, and adding financial and work problems into the mix makes it even more difficult.     I'm glad you reached out for support.

Can you give a bit of background and tell us what led up to your current situation?

How long were you married this time? What behaviors were you dealing with?

We're here for you.

heartandwhole

[pearlsw]

Hi Jeffree,

Welcome back to the site, although it is under such tough circumstances! Please do share more with us so we can also learn from it. How/why do you think you were with another person with such behaviors a second time? Did you not recognize it coming or think it would be fine or... .?

I hear ya on the limited financial options, that is one factor has kept me in my current situation longer than I might have been otherwise. I wish you must success as you find a way to rebuild. I hope you stay with us for awhile - having more engaged members really makes a difference around here!

Although money is tight in my life too I have made a promise to myself to find joy in every day. Okay, sure, the joys are small, but they are a lot for me! Can I ask you if you will please join me in pledging to yourself to find a small bit of joy in every day no matter how awful and big other stuff is? Let's not let life slip away from us!

wishing you peace, pearlsw.

[Jeffree]

OK... .a little background... .

My STBx was the first girl I ever asked out. I was 13; she was 15. I saw her riding a bike around the neighborhood, and could not believe my eyes, nor could this painfully shy kid NOT ask her out. It was as though some other force outside of my body pushed me to go for it. So I did, and, as I figured, she had an older BF and said no, but thank you.

For a few years I'd see her around the neighborhood, we'd talk, and I'd be left dizzy with the thought of how I could get her to go out with me. But that's how it would go. I'd see her around; she worked a few blocks away from where we lived, and I'd stop by and say hi to her when I passed by her store never seizing the moment to keep trying to ask her out.

Fast forward a few more years to college. I went far away for school and kind of had forgotten about her a little. One winter break I was getting out of my dad's car to go over to my mom's, and all of the sudden I hear this voice, "Hi, Jeff." It was her. I had grown a beard (though a pretty crappy one at that), and she recognized me. I couldn't believe it. It was her, still in the neighborhood, looking just as amazing as always.

We chatted a little, and agreed to hang out later that day. I could not believe it. I was going to hang out with, let's call her Dream Girl (DG) for the sake of privacy. It was the day before Christmas Eve. She gave me her last name, the buzzer to press in the building she lived in, and to give her a few hours to get ready. I was thrilled. But then I started to panic... .What if things go really well? How do I make THE MOVE? I'd still not been with a woman, so what the hell was I going to do?

Anyhoo, I got a grip of myself, got to her place, was buzzed in, and we hung out on her couch and talked, caught up, listened to music, and she smoked some pot. She offered me some, but I wasn't a smoker. All along while we're talking I cannot believe the vision before my eyes. She was even more breathtaking up close. My head was spinning, and I kept wondering is this it? Am I supposed to do something here? Move closer? Touch her leg? Hold her? There were all these thoughts, but it was as if my whole body was paralyzed. All I could do is talk. At one point she had bent over practically right in my face while I was seated on her couch and I could not believe what I was seeing.

I didn't wind up making any moves. I figured I had taken a step closer to connecting with her, had her phone number, and a plan to hang out again while I was home. Perhaps something would happen then. I called her a couple of times after Christmas, but never heard back. Then I was back off to college. Unfortunately, that would be the last time I saw her for many, many years, though I never forgot her.

Over the years on occasion I'd try to find her when the memory of her would pop into my head. I'd Google her, but never found her. Yeah, there was someone by her name far away, but I never thought that could have been her. However, about 15 years later I reunited with her on Facebook, and 5 months later I was married to her and father to her two children.

After an incredible pre-marital bliss and a really spectacular first year, things started to slowly deteriorate. At first, I was appalled at how she spoke to and treated her daughter, and she'd hate on me for undermining her parenting. We'd argue, then make up, argue... .make up. Then the arguing would become more frequent, and the insults went into the gutter and became more hurtful, and the making up would be shorter lived. Daughter matriculated out of the house, then DG's hatred had one less outlet and become about 75% focused on me, 25% focused on her teenage son.

I was persona non grata in my own home. Everything I said and did for the betterment of our lives was met with insults, conflict, and dehumanization. I kept trying to set things back on track, but nothing I did helped and only seemed to dig my own grave. Where once we couldn't take out hands off one another, all affection had evaporated.

She wasn't coming up to bed until very late at night; we slept as faraway from one another as we possibly could; and when she wasn't rebuffing me she would appease me with this resentful angry s3x. After a couple of times of that crap, I was officially done. I requested separate bedrooms, and she went apesh1t for some reason. I don't know what she was expecting, or why she would give a turn about what had become the empty gesture of sleeping in the same room, but after a year of being run out of my own home on weekends to stay with my dad downstate for sanity's sake, I moved into the spare bedroom.

She'd continue to incite drama continually, even calling the cops on me for, as she said, "being a passive-aggressive ass who she doesn't want in the house (which was MY house that I paid all the mortgage payments on and her name wasn't on the deed) all the while sitting at my desk in my room with a hammer in her lap. The stories were abysmal, but nothing nobody here hasn't seen in spades.

Talk of divorce and her moving out continued from there until this past July 4th weekend, when after being away for work and disappearing and going silent the whole holiday weekend and into the week following work week she came home and couldn't even look me in the eyes. She's one who, despite whatever transpired between us, would always look me in the eyes even as an attempt to intimidate me. I thought that was really weird, but just dismissed it as her just being her one person one day then a whole other person the next.

At around 3 that morning, I got up to go to the bathroom. I heard her having a hushed conversation (at least hushed by her standards, because she is almost always a very loud talker). I thought once again, "Hmmmm, that's also weird." Now I figured something was up. Between not being able to look me in the eyes earlier, and
now this quiet convo that she clearly didn't want anyone to hear, I had to check her phone records.

Yup, it turned out she had spent 6 of the previous 10 hours speaking to this guy. I don't know how she met him, what she did with him, or what her plan was with him, but it looked as though they had started talking about two weeks before this, and this was by far the most active day they had. I was tempted to keep this little ditty to myself, but resentment got the better of me so I texted her that I knew what she was up to. Her first reply was just LOL. Then she proceeded to try and tell me this was a business arrangement, possible employment opportunity. I was like, "At 3 a.m.?" And she had the nerve to tell me that he lived in Phoenix. "That's still 12 a.m. there. What could be SO important?"

Two weeks later she moved out. I told her that he better be worth it.

And that was pretty much that save for snarky texts back and forth and one night where I had to restrain her from hitting the kids after they came back from a party. 

[Jeffree]

What can be learned from my mistake? I don't know.

I do seem to be attracted to the attractive, to the chase, to the sex, as opposed to the person first and foremost. This is not to say that a down-to-earth person can't be attractive and sexual/sensual and all that, BUT I think when being and staying attractive in an extremely vain way is of utmost importance to the other person, there is an inherent Narcissism in that which lends itself to a lack of emotional intelligence.

Again, I am not saying all attractive people are Narcissists while all mature, genuine people are not attractive or that the two can't be contained within the same good person. I am making a distinction between the type of person who would take hours to get ready, shows up late all the time, need to go to the salon and have hair colored and styled, nails done, etc. EVERY single week as preparation for the days ahead for work and socializing irregardless of the financial burden of such endeavors, and someone who is just modest and humble in all she does.

I'd like to be with someone for who they are as opposed to what they look like, though I'm not sure I'm attracted to someone who would be good for me. Maybe now that I got this out of my system, I can age peacefully with a truly good person the next time around. Yet, at the same time, it feels like it will be quite a while before I am ready to venture back into the dating world. I have some stuff to figure out yet.

I still say 'tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved. I took a chance on someone I was familiar with from years ago who was very wonderful to me for a long enough time to bamboozle me in the end. It's unfortunate that she didn't realize how hurtful she had become and how disappointing failing in marriage with her would be. On top of that she had to go and cost me my career (temporarily, hopefully) with her dramas and my financial well being with her extravagant spending.

Any time we venture forth with strangers there's a risk. How can we prevent tragedy from striking at the heart of our lives? I don't know. Someone almost always is the giver and the other person the taker. Maybe we have to balance out that disparity at the risk of losing the other person?

I might also add that my STBx was a pretty heavy drinker in the evenings, and an avid pot smoker in the early morning. Yes, she was riddled with issues, but at first she seemed enamored by me, even referred to me as the answer to her prayers, was able to make changes to her habits for the betterment of the relationship, and I ate it up. First everything was white, then it all went black. You know how that goes.

J