Dead Man Walking
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Relationship status: Very Strained & Feeling Hopeless
Posts: 5
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« on: December 04, 2019, 02:32:00 AM » |
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I have been with my wife for the last 11 years, living together for the last 10 and married for the last 9. This is not a first marriage for either of us and we share no biological children together. We do have custody of our (her biological) 13 year old granddaughter.
Until three years ago I had no clue what so ever why she acted and did the things he did. They made no sense what so ever but she seemed to always be the center of it all. The turmoil in the house was so over the top and out of control it was unbelievable. Everyone in the house was suffering and I had no idea of what the real root cause of all the drama and fighting was really all about. It literally had me on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Then came one facebook post that changed everything. The post was about an artists drawings of all the different mental illnesses. As I went through them, bi-polar, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, Border Line Personality Disorder...wait, what? I had never heard of that one so I Googled it. It was like a light came on. The behaviors listed that define BPD were like the Rosetta Stone to understanding my wife. It was the first ray of understanding and started to help me make sense of all the chaos and turmoil that was happening in our house. It came just in time. I was at the end of my end. I could not protect my kids (I still had biological children living at home) and we had just gotten custody of her then 9 year old granddaughter who came with a healthy set of issues from being neglected by her mother for (till then) whole life. Seeing that post did not fix things but it did start me on the path to understanding what I was up against and learning how I needed to respond and how I needed to fix myself if I was going to survive.
Now about four years later things have improved in some areas but not in others. You need to understand that I am a warm and fuzzy type along with being an extroverted introvert. I have always been the parent that was looking out for the kids best interest, making sure they got love and affection and would talk to them in an honest and age appropriate way about anything they wanted to know about. My wife on the other hand is a parent with a sledgehammer and dont tell them anything type of parent. The kids could never live up to her expectations. One thing she would do was tell them to do a chore and when they were done tell them they did a horrible job and needed to go do it again. Thing is she would never check the work. No matter how well they did the chore that was her automatic reaction every time. Nothing they did was ever good enough for her. She would pick fights with my son every time I was not around and I would then get phone calls from both of them about it. If I sided with my Son she would yell at me about not supporting her. If I sided with her my Son felt I was not standing up for him. In hind sight I really failed my children by letting them be abused. Living in our house at that time was hell on earth and I had no clue why. Until I saw that post and started to put it all together. Granted it took time but that was the start. I really started to look at the way she was behaving. The things she was saying to the kids. Usually she would start trouble when I was not around so she could play me against the kids.
One day I was sitting quietly in the living room when my daughter came home from school. She put her stuff down and then went out back to do some of her chores. When she came back in my wife was in the kitchen and as soon as my daughter set foot in the kitchen through the sliding glass door my wife yelled at her "Dont disrespect me like that!" All my daughter did was walk in the door. My wife had screwed up. One of her biggest complaints was how disrespectful the kids were to her but I never saw it because it never happened while I was home. Until that day. My Daughter had not disrespected her in any way. All she had done was to walk in the door. She didnt even say a word to my wife. So sitting there in the chair I piped up and told my wife that she had not disrespected her. My wife tried to insist but I stuck up for my Daughter and my wife ended storming in to the bedroom. After that I talked to my daughter and told her if my wife did that kind of thing again she should not react to it and tell me as soon as she got the chance. From that point on I kept a very close eye on how my wife acted towards the kids and there were many more occasions where similar things happened between my wife and the kids.
As for the relationship between my wife and myself. Well lets just say I was about as unfulfilled as a man can be. I had literally been begging her to go out on a date, dinner and a movie kind of stuff, for three years. During that time my business was really taking off and I was working very very long hours and we were making really good money. She cut me off from the finances, locked me out of the bank accounts and when I expressed any need or want I was told I should be happy with what I have. Happy with 16 hour days seven days a week? No down time, no diversions, no love or affection from her and god forbid any kind of sexual satisfaction more then once every six weeks. Too boot, in May, on my Sons 18th birthday her daughter (my step daughter) and our Grand Baby died in child birth. That tore her apart. I did my best to support her. I really did. But I was exhausted, very fragile and at the end of the day I needed some emotional support from her and there was none to be had. I was still learning and working on how to react to someone in a BPD fueled emotional rage and I failed again and again. I was totally empty and could not muster enough emotional strength to keep it together. That was May of 2016 and the year just got worse.
Later that year my wife began (as far as I know) an emotional affair with our son in law. Yes, the husband of our late daughter. Just a few months after she died they would spend hours sexting back and forth with her telling him she wished he was there with her. In December she and I got into an argument and she called the police. They came and she said I beat her up. She had no injuries so they told us to knock it off and left. A short while later she called them again. When they came back I asked them if she seemed ok mentally and they agreed she did not and told us if they had to come back again one of us would go to jail. A short while later one of her friends showed up with her boyfriend and she left. That was a big relief to me until the next morning when a deputy showed up at the door. He said he was there to arrest me. She had her friend take her to the hospital saying I had broken her arm. She then went to the court house and filed charged with the Magistrate for assault. The deputy took me to jail and on the ride told me that when she was at the hospital another deputy had to go and take a report. He said that he had spoken to that deputy and was told that she had NO injuries. But because the charges had been filed he had to take me to jail. He even told the booking officers at the jail that I should not be there. I spent three days in jail. I am glad I have great friends because they got me a great lawyer and gave me and my daughter a place to stay when I got out.
Have you ever tried to rent a house, furnish it, and restart your life between the week of Christmas and New years? It can be done. Its not easy but I did it. I had to find a place my Daughter could feel was her home. I spent the next two years living in that house.
Right after the first of the year my wife dropped the restraining order and the charges. She did this right after she found out that I had rented a house and was not going to crawl back to her and when she figured out that where I went the money went. Bring on the Love Bombing...
Needless to say we had a "Happy" reunion with all sorts of apologies, promises to change the whole nine yards. 2017 was rocky but I was learning as I went. I did a lot of reading on BPD and Narcissism, watched YouTube videos about them and worked on my abandonment issues along with really starting to like being and doing thing by my self. That was a first for me. I had always hated being and doing things alone. I also worked on finding things to do when I got upset that would help center me and not give in to my urge to rush towards her and force a resolution.
2018 as much much better. My wife had made improvements in dealing with my Daughter, we started going out a lot more and life improved greatly. So much so we bought a new house in December of 2018, sold the old house, moved out of the rental house and brought our lived under one roof. I got very good at seeing the changes in her mood and not making them worse. I would go to my neutral corner so to speak and keep things civil if she spoke to me. This would allow her to process through her episode and me to decompress and recenter myself.
2019 for the most part has been great. She has invested herself in my business and works very hard at taking care of the financial side of the business while always keeping me informed and I take care of the design side of the company. We have even started to expand into residential construction.
We still have issues that remain. Mostly her need to control the decisions in our relationship, her not validating my needs and wants. She always has to have the final say and my ideas are always wrong. This does not affect me as strongly as it has in the past because I started doing what I want with out consulting her. In the past I would always seek her approval before spending more than $50, Now I just buy what I want when I want it. I dont spend so much it puts our financial security at risk. That would be stupid on my part. I also will do things with out her when before I would not due to my own anxiety.
Our physical intimate relationship has not improved one tiny bit. Like I said I am a warm fuzzy type and skin on skin contact is very soothing to me. Sex is more than just physical it is emotional for me as well. I do not feel the least bit desired by her. Her words never match her actions and I feel bereft of any real physical intimacy. We snuggle on the couch, hold hands but when it comes to more than that it is a no go.
Her promises are worthless too. Every time she promises something it never happens and when I try to remind her of the conversation she conveniently can not remember it. Even if it is a text message conversation. For example. We bought a new car this year. We needed it. So I wanted to get a pickup truck. She was "not feeling good" so I went to look by my self. The dealer said I could drive it home to show her. I parked it in the driveway and when she came out to look at it her reaction was very angry and she told me that if I bought the truck it would be a "Big F**k you" to her sitting in the driveway every day. We ended up buying a sedan. It is a really nice one but the whole time we were looking at it I was saying I wanted a truck. We were buying the new car for me by the way because I do so much driving for my business. So anyway we bought the sedan she liked and she promised the next car would be a truck. Interestingly enough a month later she decides she needs a new car. Back to the same dealer we go and low and behold she picks a nicer version of the sedan we bought for me. When I brought up her promise she played it off and bought the sedan again. Part of me wishes I had gone ahead and bought the truck with out consulting her and had a vanity plate made for it that said "BigFU".
So at the end of all this I am a 55 year old, very tired man who is working very hard to better myself, keep things together and figure out what the hell to do next.
Oh and the kicker? I am starting to see signs of BPD in the 13 year old grand daughter...I know what my next therapy session is going to be about. How can I cope with two of them in the house?
Thanks for reading this long winded summary of my experiences.
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