Preventing slander - Ideas?

[Outdorenthusiast]

So the BPD emotional manipulator is a pro and I am not.  She ingratiates herself with my family, church, kids, work colleagues - everyone.  She has threatened to take my kids away, spread lies of adultery, and say horrible things about me to my kids to turn them against me if I ever thought of divorce.  For now I am staying with her because of my kids, however a huge part is also because of this manipulation.  I want that manipulation fear gone from my head.  If I stay I want it to be my choice - not from fear.

What are good tactics to prevent it if I wanted a divorce and slander were to be threatened or even attempted?  My sister knows all this garbage - so I know she won’t believe it.  However my parents are old and gullible and like the fairy tale of their son and the perfect marriage.  They mean a lot to me and she knows it and weaponizes it.  My sister and I both agree they couldn’t manage the complexity of this stuff at their age.  Church, colleagues, friends are more likely to believe the innocent manipulator - not me.

So how to prevent the slander? Thoughts?

[Couscous]

My mother tried to turn my siblings and me against my father but she only succeeded with my brothers, both of whom inherited her disorder, and she failed with my sister and I. And one of my brothers has now realized what happened, and he has since cut my mother off and has been back in contact with my father.

Fundamentally though, and the way I see it is that your friends don’t need an explanation and your enemies wouldn’t believe one anyways…

It will probably be quite enlightening to finally discover who your allies really are, but you will definitely need to count the cost here. For me, living my life as an emotional hostage was a price I was not willing to pay, but it definitely took me a while to get to that point.

Is there any possibility you could look for a new church? I know it sounds so unfair, but it could really be the lesser of two evils.

[BigOof]

Record everything.

[zachira]

Learn everything you can about flying monkeys which is the term used to describe people who are manipulated to slander and abuse others without really knowing what is actually going on. Dr. Ramani has some good videos on flying monkeys on Youtube.
There are many flying monkeys in my extended family and the community. I have learned that the best defense is to limit what I share about myself and who I share personal information with. It can help to say what is indeed true about the difficulties in the relationship in one short sentence on a periodic basis. This can help to keep people from blindly believing the slander they hear from the other party. You can say things like: I could not stand how my  exwife mistreated other people including me, so I decided I wanted a divorce. Keep it short like a slogan for selling a product, because if you go into a long narrative you can look like the crazy one, and most people will not believe you or listen to you.

[Couscous]

Keep it short like a slogan for selling a product, because if you go into a long narrative you can look like the crazy one, and most people will not believe you or listen to you.

Fully agree. Not JADEing is absolutely essential.

[ForeverDad]

I recorded much of interchanges with my accusing spouse before, during, and after our divorce.  I wanted some measure of "proof" as to the truth, whether her account or my account.  This was before cell phones that could record video or audio.  I eventually had three voice recorders because I couldn't risk misplacing one or being surprised by depleted batteries or memory.

It was helpful for my peace of mind, knowing I did have proof of reality and not her claims.

On the other hand, only a few times did our professionals want to hear The Reality.  With the myriad of allegations she made, they all ended with weak "unsubstantiated" rather than the more appropriate "unfounded".  That's life.  Eventually court and all the professionals there did figure things out, but they never voiced what they concluded.

Mutual friends and contacts can be misled.  That's why we mention our topics with trusted friends and family.  Also, others may pull back from both of you but it's mostly that they don't want to get involved in the conflict or don't know what to say.

[Outdorenthusiast]

So from the feedback - it sounds like nothing can prevent it which is disheartening.  It seems it is a credible threat, it is going to happen anyway, and mostly the tools I have are only countermeasures for after it happens.

1) Have true friends who know me and will discount what is said
2) Cut ties with friends/monkeys who believe her lies
3) Hope my kids will come around and see the truth in the end
4) Change churches to find peace

Quite discouraging and not very hopeful..

[kells76]

It is really difficult and we have mostly survived some nasty bad mouthing (that may still be continuing for all I know) over the last >10 years.

Hardest part has been the kids. Get yours into counseling and be as involved as you can with checking in with the counselor. Read Dr Craig Childress' article on (I think this is the title) Coparenting Ju-Jitsu about how to counter the narrative about you with your kids and with professionals.

We actually outlasted DH's uBPDx and her uNPDh at our church! It took a while but they kept being themselves and bad mouthing us, and over time people noticed that we never bad mouthed them and parented really differently. We didn't use church as an audience to "perform" our "wonderful family" act to, and that was how uBPDx & uNPDx used it. People who are truly open will see in time. It was pretty excruciating for a while though, to have to sit there and see and hear them "perform". The way I made it through was that our marriage counselor also went to our church, so I would make sure to look at him during the service and remind myself, "he knows the truth, and he isn't fooled by their act. I can draw strength from him being here".

We have lost some friends and acquaintances over the years, which saddens me for H (he lost a long time friend). However, a long time mutual friend of all of ours finally came to us last year to say he was done with Mom and Stepdad, having finally seen, over time, their lies.

While I agree that you can't really stop the smear campaign from happening, you can counter it long term by having integrity, playing the long game, and 100% prioritizing your kids getting into counseling.

It's a crucible, it isn't over fast, and you can make it through. We'll be here with you.

[Cat Familiar]

As kells stated, integrity is your shield. There’s no way to stop slander. My ex trash talked me around our little town. Much later some people told me they easily saw through his lies. A few sided with him; they were in his camp anyway. Behavior outs itself in the long run. I’m still here; he’s long gone.

[ForeverDad]

Remember too your Boundaries.  They aren't respected by your stbEx, in fact they're even trampled on and sabotaged.  But boundaries aren't for the ex, they for you to establish, your response and even your entire stance long before this all imploded.

A few bright lights will shine through in your doom and gloom moments.  In the weeks following my separation and eventual divorce, the congregation was mostly silent.  I came to understand that it wasn't taking sides, they were feeling awkward by the situation.  There was one poor immigrant family who invited me to lunch one Sunday afternoon for a surprisingly simple meal, nowhere near as plain as I had expected.  And their apartment was small and had paint peeling from the walls.  My Spanish language abilities were better for Bible based sermons than for conversational chit chat when I often got lost.  They were apologetic for their humble home and even more so for my disaster in my family but I told them the building wasn't at all important, it was Family and their peaceful family made them precious.

[Outdorenthusiast]

Thank you guys for being honest.  Truth although painful sometimes can be liberating.  Man  - this type of situation sucks.  A lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda happening in my head I need to manage through.

  Suicide trigger warning

Separately amongst friends here - Last night was exceptionally rough.  Her anger is much more under control lately (it ebbs and flows) - but not the words, and she is spiraling now because I am not enabling, and I have disconnected emotionally.
1) Accused me of affairs
2) Said she wanted to take sewing shears and open up her veins due to the emotional pain.
3) Wanted rough sex. When asked why - response was “to fill this empty hole inside” - I politely declined
4) Trashed the bedroom to “declutter her life” - hence making it WAY worse.
5) Decided to go online shopping - blowing the whole weekly allowance I give her in one go. (A boundary I had to put in place due to several bank accounts being emptied and overdrawn hundreds of times)
6) Devoured an entire huge bag of potato chips
7) Told me I don’t care and she can’t trust me and it is all my fault
8) Blamed my daughter for her lack of clean clothes (5% true as most daughters borrow clothes from mom in high school time to time)
9) Explained that she felt incredibly and overwhelmingly emotionally overloaded.
 
I empathized SET and listened and then yeah - after all that in 90 min I decided to call it an early bedtime and I went into my separate room in the house. (At least this time there was no yelling - so that is a counseling improvement)

Today where I live is a shining spring day and I feel great, and I slept well last night so I feel good.  Church was a good message on being vulnerable with others to build relationships.  So here is me being vulnerable with you guys.  My relationship is exhausting.  Just wanted to share my night last night with some people who get it.  Not exactly your typical Sunday School class bonding moment type of share.