Conflicted after telling him to stay away

[SweetCharlotte]

Married to uBPDh for 3 and a half years. Courtship of 8 months before that. However, we've known each other "from birth" because our parents were all close friends (this is part of why he searched for me on Facebook when we were in our mid-forties). It's the second marriage for each of us. I have a son from my first marriage and a daughter I had on my own (through a sperm donor) after that one ended. Ages 15 and 10. He has no children. I have an excellent career, a car and a house that is 3 years from being paid off. H lives in the major city where we both grew up and I live 400 miles (6 and 1/12 hours by car) away in a less interesting city. It is a commuter marriage.

H has a good job too, and makes nearly as much as I do. However, he has debts of all kinds adding up to over $120,000. He refuses to file for bankruptcy. He does not keep me informed about his finances; we operate in two different economies. My salary goes to support my children and pay off the house and car, while much of his goes toward paying off creditors.

Back when I filed my tax returns as "single, head of household," I made out very well. I always got refunds on my returns from the IRS and the state. Since we have been married, as a couple we always owe thousands to the IRS and the state at tax-time. Usually he doesn't have the cash, and I have to pay. We both changed our with-holding, yet we still owe so much. It doesn't seem possible. H hasn't let me go to a tax professional yet because he mistrusts all "professionals" (especially in mental health care!). However, I got him to agree to see one with me for the 2013 return. There has to be a way to stop this fiscal bleeding.

When we married, he had not filed a federal or state return in over ten years. He assured me that he would have gotten refunds. The month after we married, I did all his back returns and found, to my horror, that he owed the IRS tens of thousands and the state thousands of dollars. He had to cash in retirement accounts and take a 10-year payment plan in order to get on top of it. Since I was involved in the discovery of this new debt, and referred him to a tax accountant who unfortunately charged him a fee but did not help him with his appeal, he blames me for the added burden.

So we are finally getting to some of the BPD traits that have resulted in my h and I being apart, and me feeling conflicted and missing him. His financial picture definitely haunts him. I hoped to help him with that but now I'm being blamed for part of it. In addition, I have the feeling of being dragged down with him at times, into the money pit. Each of us nags at the other about unnecessary expenses, but I have always been solvent. I have been diagnosed as mildly bipolar (type 2) but take nothing for it. I've also sought help for alcoholism. One of my therapists suggested that h has BPD from my reports.

He lost a brother to suicide nine months ago. From descriptions, the brother sounds like anti-social personality disorder. He collected weapons, had anger issues and violent fantasies, and like my husband was insolvent. He was sued by people he had threatened, and they won a lot in damages. When he could not pay, he offed himself to protect his estranged wife and daughters from collection. My h was not in touch with him, regarding himself as one of the victims, but it was a shock nonetheless. The brother had physical health issues that contributed to his premature (at 56) demise.

Which brings us to health issues. My h has contemplated suicide a lot but never made an attempt. He hits himself in the head and bites his fingers next to his fingernails until they are bloody. He drank heavily for one year and has liver damage. Since then, he only binges on food, and he wound up with severe diverticulitis as well as obesity. He had part of his colon removed four months ago and is still in pain from recovery. He lost most of the excess weight after surgery, but has been slowly gaining it back, another thing he manages to blame on me. He has had chronic back pain, perhaps because of the binge eating. Unfortunately he agreed to have experimental surgery 15 years ago and had a disc removed from his spine. So the top half of his spine sits on the bottom half with nothing to really support it, causing further erosion and intermittent severe pain. Fortunately, this pain never gets really bad when he is around me, but it causes him to miss about a day of work per month. Along with his other health issues, that adds up to many excess absences. His last and most severe health issue is swollen aorta in two places (one right next to the heart), which could lead to an aortic aneurism which would be fatal. Doctors recommend a wait-and-see approach to this; there is no easy way to correct it. His Dad died of this at the age of 70.

My mother and my h's mother were best friends for about ten years. That was one reason I let h into my life when he contacted me via Facebook. However, now he says that his mother physically and emotionally abused him and is responsible for all his current problems. I try to sympathize with him, but early on I said nice things about his mother, and he always throws this in my face. Also, it turns out his mother criticized me when I was young for becoming promiscuous for a time (and I certainly was!). Yet he throws this in my face still, bringing up specific incidents and asking why I married my first husband. My past is always fair game, even on a normal day when we are not fighting.

Our relationship went through a clear arc of him idealizing me, then bringing up complaints that at first I did not understand, then devaluing me using any ammunition available. His ego is so weak that anything I say can be twisted into a hideous put-down. Any tone of voice or look on my face will do if I have been careful to utter no words. I get stone-walling/silent treatment for days at a time on a regular basis, which means when we are apart that I don't even know if he is alive or dead from one of his health issues or has made good on a suicide threat.

For a long time he would not let me have the key to his apartment. I found this suspicious but it was just his mistrust. I now have a key (what a glorious victory!). However, he has walked out on me after a sudden argument, saying as he often does that I "created an unsafe situation." With him, that can mean anything. What situation is truly safe? Certainly none that he is involved in, with his topsy-turvy emotions.

After walking out on me in the middle of the night and flying back to his city when we had been planning to spend some time together at my home, he was posting on Facebook about the fun things he was doing in his city. Then he would text me his "Love you's" as though nothing were amiss. I snapped. I texted him that I never wanted to see him or hear from him again. We have broken up about once a year in our 3-year marriage, and each time I have shelled out money right away to begin divorce proceedings and then lost it all when we reconciled. This time I am waiting to let some time pass before making a decision that might cause me to backslide.

He has not tried to phone or text or email me during the week of NC. I am starting to miss him terribly. I do love him very much. However, this time I thought it was really time to cut my losses and my children agreed. Even though my daughter had been calling him ":)ad," she urged me to divorce him. They are onto his controlling behavior, which irks him severely (he claims they are avoiding his disciplinary measures, which are so much more efficient than mine). Have been reading my old favorites about BPD along with new things. Don't know what to do.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.