Hard Times

[Torched]

I have continued dealing with my uBPD ex via text about co-parenting items and she has recently become more and more hostile and abusive.  I continue to be respectful and polite, except for refusing to be a punching bag and telling her that her behavior isn’t appreciated.  I am a very busy professional and I help her with transporting kids on her days when she isn’t able to because of her work;  she also has family here to help her, but I do not.  50/50 custody.  None of that matters, of course, and instead of her simply being polite during interactions, she has to be snarky and hostile.  The latest attack happened because, for the first time, I can’t take the kids to sports on a day that she has them and it is her responsibility.  I had promised her I could two months earlier, but something came up.  My mistake was that I forgot to give her advance notice.  Something that most people could understand and accept is a horrible transgression for her, something deserving of contempt.

She is still with her boyfriend so I don’t think she is triggered by that, but who knows.  My kids are doing great, especially after counseling to learn how to deal with mom’s devaluation of dad when they are with her.  They know that dad is exactly as he appears, not simply how mom “says” he is.

I just feel low from her constant comments lately.  She wants me to feel bad, to feel incapable, to feel like a horrible person.  I so wish I could go no contact with her but I’ll never be able to do that until the kids are grown.  She makes me feel so bad, still.

[Mustbeabetterway]

Hi torched,  I can relate.  Whenever I hear from my uBPDh, we are separated, it often activates some bad feelings for me, too.  

I’m sorry you are struggling with this.  Many people struggle with communication with their ex.  Maybe there are other members who have dealt with this more successfully  who could chime in.

Having a support system of friends who actually like me and think I am a good person is helpful.  :)o you have a support system of friends who can validate when you’re feeling low?

Peace and blessings,

Mustbeabetterway

[livednlearned]

Nice that your kids are doing great  

That must be a relief.

Is part of this about feeling guilt? I always felt worse about the hostility when I believed there was a kernel of truth. It took me a long time to truly feel ok about making mistakes.

Hurt people hurt people. When I realized my ex feels bad so he gets everyone around him to feel that way too, it made it easier to detach. It didn't stop him from being a bear to deal with, but I got less worked up about him being a bear.

Also, maybe texting is making things worse? I set a boundary around texting after he blew up my phone, and never looked back. My phone is too close to me at all times. I needed some distance, even if it was email, so that I wasn't carrying around a constant source of negativity that could come out of nowhere at any moment.

[Torched]

Having a support system of friends who actually like me and think I am a good person is helpful.  :)o you have a support system of friends who can validate when you’re feeling low?

I lost my best friend to this divorce due to both my actions at the end of the marriage (met someone else and decided to finally leave the marriage after one failed divorce attempt—he is very religious and supposedly couldn’t cope with my actions) and the fact that her immediate replacement was my best friend’s OTHER good friend.  I find this more likely to be the issue at hand.  I’ve always been the type to maintain a very close relationship with only two or three guy friends instead of wolf-packing it.  Losing that friendship was devastating when I really could have used it.  I now spend my time either with my children 50% of the time or when their mom has them and I have opportunities to see them at sports etc which is very frequent, and I spend the remaining 40% of the time with my girlfriend maintaining that relationship.  We are very happy together, but it is a one-hour long distance relationship and that is a whole other time draw.  I essentially have the support of my family who fully understands my ex wife’s condition having experienced it all first hand and my girlfriend.  I could really use guy friends but I have found it nearly impossible to find the time.

As for feeling guilty, I do feel guilty.  I always prided myself on treating everyone squarely and being good to people.  It is actually something that people eventually notice and like about me, I’m nice, I’m kind, I’m respectful of and helpful to people whom I don’t even really know.  I can honestly say that when I ended my marriage by hurting my ex  this way, it was the first really bad thing I had ever done.  I’ve seen how hard it is for people on this board to detach from their BPD spouses, and I was no different—but it took falling in love with someone else who was very different from my spouse to make me actually follow through with it.

livednlearned mentions kernels of truth.  I thought about how this could relate to how I feel guilty.  So when she tells me in texts that I’m “such a victim,” “an incredible narcissist,” and a “horrible liar,” I guess I do wonder about that.  Yes, I strongly feel like I was emotionally abused by her for years (truth), I see how she could surmise that I’m a narcissist because my girlfriend happens to be much more beautiful than she was and narcissists love to have status symbols, and I indeed was a horrible liar for about 30 days by carrying on before telling her about my decision to leave her permanently.

Today I’ve found myself wondering if I need to see someone to talk about this baggage.  It has been almost 18 months since the divorce was official and I’m still struggling with that part.  I’m happier than I EVER was in sixteen years of marriage to her, especially because my children are thriving and most of the chronic anxiety I had because of her has left the building, but this lingers.  There is conflict between how I always saw myself (good guy) and what ended up happening in the end.  I’ve tried to understand that I can be both and move on knowing that I made a bad judgement, but it is hard because of who I am.  I feel like I understand everything pretty clearly and how the parts are related, but the fact that she can make me feel so badly about things in an all-or-nothing way scares me still.

[takingandsending]

Hi Torched.

I still feel guilty about any forget on my part, but we have to learn a new way of thinking about ourselves. It's a lot of lingering FOG and part of who we are that got us into these relationships in the first place. This morning, I was feeling pretty bad about my S7 and S12 being unsettled because xw and I just both had to find new houses with the sale of our joint home and my landlord deciding he wanted to move his kid into the rental I was living in.

My brain was going down the path of feeling responsible for their struggles. I had to stop, reflect that right now, due to her own choices, xw has no home and is bouncing from one temporary house sit to another. Of course the children are feeling unsettled ... .and sick of driving since she has been out of state with her BF, out of county in her next place, etc. Yet my thoughts immediately accepted her projections of how I chose to move at the same time as her. Somehow, you need to allow yourself to be a normal human being, one who occasionally forgets to tell someone something or one who can't be there at every moment for your children. Go easy on yourself - you have a ill ex partner who never will nor can go easy on you because she'd have to deal with her own stuff then.

Remember to challenge your own thinking when you start feeling down. Think of all that you do, who you are as a person and give yourself credit. I'll make a deal with you - if I get through this, you will, too, okay? Time and steadfastness is our ally in healing. Hang in there.

[Torched]

I still feel guilty about any forget on my part, but we have to learn a new way of thinking about ourselves. It's a lot of lingering FOG and part of who we are that got us into these relationships in the first place. This morning, I was feeling pretty bad about my S7 and S12 being unsettled because xw and I just both had to find new houses with the sale of our joint home and my landlord deciding he wanted to move his kid into the rental I was living in.

My brain was going down the path of feeling responsible for their struggles. I had to stop, reflect that right now, due to her own choices, xw has no home and is bouncing from one temporary house sit to another. Of course the children are feeling unsettled ... .and sick of driving since she has been out of state with her BF, out of county in her next place, etc. Yet my thoughts immediately accepted her projections of how I chose to move at the same time as her. Somehow, you need to allow yourself to be a normal human being, one who occasionally forgets to tell someone something or one who can't be there at every moment for your children. Go easy on yourself - you have a ill ex partner who never will nor can go easy on you because she'd have to deal with her own stuff then.

Thank you very much for your insights.  I think another issue is the fact that she is essentially (to me, at least, but maybe not her therapists) an uBPD.  But anyhow, as to your rental situation and the kids feeling unsettled:  I had the same thing happen and I did everything I could to make the place we ended up in personal to them.  Got special bedding, some new things like stuffed animals.  They really ended up being excited about it when I thought there was just no way.  And we went from a beautiful, expensive home to a tiny, ancient ranch.  It puts a smile on my face thinking about the irony of how monied things don’t buy happiness.  We were happy in that house the first six months before I bought my new home.  The kids still talk about it!  Your kids will be o.k.

I appreciate what you said about her having to deal with her own problems if she could only be nice to me.  That is 100% true in a way I never thought before.