Maybe It's Me.

[Aussie0zborn]

My BPD estranged wife almost had me convinced it was me. All the BPD qualities that she displayed she described me as having.  I seriously stopped to think about it and questioned myself.

Making a clean getaway and then learning about BPD, I noted she had all the BPD traits except for self-harm. She sucked me back in but this time I was confident that I was a lot wiser and BPD aware. I set boundaries and kept to them... .   for as long as I could, anyway, but in the last six months I found I didn't have the energy to keep it up and she sensed the impending abandonment. She paid me back for leaving her back then by ending our relationship with fireworks.

The result is that I am labelled "abusive" and now she says that she and her children live in fear and were walking on eggshells when in fact it was her children and I who feared her and we walked on eggshells.

Everything she did for the "family" (all four of us had different surnames, hence the inverted commas) was done with resentment.  Everything she did for her children was done with resentment (I almost always had to push her to do things for her kids and she resented that I would never let her payout on me for pushing her to fulfil her motherly obligations).

She isolated me from my daughter and blamed my daughter for being cold towards her when she made every effort to do things for her. What she didn't tell me was that she had told my daughter at age 19 she once had a lover who was more then old enough to be her father but that didn't bother her because he gave her overseas trips (17 trips to France in 10 months flying first class). I had just taken her and her kids on a round the world trip so my daughter realised that her Dad was with a user but didn't say anything, suffering in silence.

I took my wife, her daughter, my daughter and my mother on an overseas holiday. My wife answered her phone and my daughter heard her complain that we were "dragging" my mother and daughter around on our "family holiday". Like my mother and daughter are not my family!  Again, my daughter didn't say anything and suffered in silence.

When I left my wife while she was on an overseas holiday, she ramped up her smear campaign of me, while at the same time begging me to come back, stalking my mother, my nephews, my ex-wife, my ex-wife's children, my friends, etc. When we got back together again, her best friend cut ties with her "if you are getting back with that man don't ever talk to me again". Her sycophants dropped off and now it was me who was isolating her! I suggested that her smear campaign worked too well.  I also questioned why her female "friends" never invited us out as a couple when they all have husbands. The smear campaign worked way too well.

Without going into any more detail, I was constantly accused of all her BPD traits and I was constantly questioning myself. Now that I read what she writes about me I see that she is actually writing about herself. Has anyone else been in this position?

[Heartbroken Daughter]

My perspective is from a child of a single mother who was in and out of relationships and as a young child I always blamed the men in her life just as she did but as an adult survivor of abuse I can look back and say that all the traits she was projecting on the men that entered her life in reality she was also describing herself. Now I feel guilty for how I treated some of the men that came into her life and I refused to accept. Now she is almost 60 and her mental illness has surfaced enough that men stay away from her, I've become the target of her demonizing accusations of self reflection. To everyone in her life she makes me out to be the evil one and she is the victim but what they don't always see is that she is only describing herself and if they actually knew me they would the circles she runs herself in trying so hard to demonize me instead of taking responsibility for her own actions. When you love someone that suffers from BPD it's easy to get caught up in the reality they try to create and wonder about your own sanity but I've found the longer I force myself to stay away the more clearly I can see the actual reality of her illness and right through the reality she tries to create.

It doesn't sound like you have any children with her? I know it's never easy having to walk away from someone you love, obviously there are reasons you fell in love with her but it sounds like you have the chance to make a clean break. Divorce is never pleasant but sometimes you have to stand strong and push through something like that for your own well being. Take some time to yourself so that you don't just fall right into the same pattern again because once you've allowed yourself to be manipulated it's easy to let other abusers into your life without even realizing it. Hopefully you can put this behind you eventually and find someone that genuinely appreciates you because the truth is most likely your wife will never be the woman you want her to be and it's really not even her fault she suffers from her mental illness more than anyone deep down she knows somethings wrong and is to scared to face it but that doesn't mean you should allow her abuse to continue. Good Luck and try to remember when she does convince others you where the problem that they didn't live through your marriage and in a way they are being manipulated by the reality she's creating but you have nothing to be ashamed of.

[Eureka1]

Not in a marriage but my uBPD sister would do something then say that I did them.  (Like not holding the door open for Mom and letting door shut in Mom's face).  Projection.  I too began to doubt my memory.  But hang in there, over time people can begin to see the truth.

[StarStruck]

Hi AuzzieOzborn,

Im so sorry to hear about what's happening with your family. It's absolutely disgraceful. She sounds just typical of what this disorder can do, what they can do.

My experiences are different from yours but my lord what I've just read smacks of PROJECTION. This is one of their regular side orders.

This is not you, she is projecting all her traits on to you, like she expressing through you. Sorry about that, for want of better explanation... . it's a blimin awful thought isn't it.

This has happened to me on a lot of occasions with partners. when you have a word for it, it's almost laughable when they are in the middle of doing it, it's just so blantant.

Watch out for GAS LIGHTING too.

All the best, for all the clarity and strength you deserve. Stay strong, you know who you are. She doesn't know who you are or who she is.