It doesn't seem like a lot to ask...

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I sat down with uBPDw last night to talk; we've been in a weird limbo ever since I gave her dissolution papers a few weeks back.  Basically she's on her "best behavior" while refusing any sort of therapy and marriage counseling (two things I have deemed as necessary for me to stay in the marriage) in an attempt (I'm assuming here) to move past this limbo... .which is how things pretty much have always worked.  She acts out, I eventually have enough, she sees she has crossed a line, then is super nice so I will just forget about it, and the cycle starts again.  This time I'm not letting it. 

I asked her last night again (and for the last time in my mind) when she will be scheduling individual therapy and joint therapy... .she said she won't be.  I was very explicit in letting her know that I would be filing for divorce if she was not going to do therapy - she said she understood and was still not going to.

I've been told (by her) that my request for therapy is unreasonable (when pressed why she feels that way, it's because she believes all therapists are "quacks" and that it's a waste of time and money... .and that God is going to help her get it together)... .I honestly don't feel that it is even remotely unreasonable, considering some of the events that have gone on in my home over the past 2 years, some events involving my S6. 

I need to make the phone call... .I told her what would happen and I need to enforce that.  I cannot go on living like this.

[ts919]

I sat down with uBPDw last night to talk; we've been in a weird limbo ever since I gave her dissolution papers a few weeks back.  Basically she's on her "best behavior" while refusing any sort of therapy and marriage counseling (two things I have deemed as necessary for me to stay in the marriage) in an attempt (I'm assuming here) to move past this limbo... .which is how things pretty much have always worked.  She acts out, I eventually have enough, she sees she has crossed a line, then is super nice so I will just forget about it, and the cycle starts again.  This time I'm not letting it. 

I asked her last night again (and for the last time in my mind) when she will be scheduling individual therapy and joint therapy... .she said she won't be.  I was very explicit in letting her know that I would be filing for divorce if she was not going to do therapy - she said she understood and was still not going to.

I've been told (by her) that my request for therapy is unreasonable (when pressed why she feels that way, it's because she believes all therapists are "quacks" and that it's a waste of time and money... .and that God is going to help her get it together)... .I honestly don't feel that it is even remotely unreasonable, considering some of the events that have gone on in my home over the past 2 years, some events involving my S6. 

I need to make the phone call... .I told her what would happen and I need to enforce that.  I cannot go on living like this.

[talithacumi]

Big hug, ts919. 

Enforcing the boundaries we set to protect ourselves and the things you value can be really hard. It's understandable at times like this to question whether or not you were being reactionary, manipulative, controlling, punitive, harsh, selfish, or unfair when you set them - if only because enforcing them IS so hard to do and hurts so much. Deep breath. Be strong. Make the call and remind yourself over and over and over again as much as you can that you are something valuable, worth protecting, and this is a necessary step to feeling safe again.

[Lucky Jim]

Hi ts919, In my experience, pwBPD are reluctant to undergo therapy because they are afraid to confront their core trauma(s).  My uBPDexW changed her T at least 5 times.  Same story over and over: at first the T was awesome (idealization), but after a few visits my Ex would drop out when the T tried to work on difficult issues, after which my Ex would cite some excuse and discontinue.

So don't hold your breath waiting for your W to meet with a T.  Even if your W agreed to see a T, I am skeptical that she would continue with the process.  Hang in there, Lucky Jim

[mitchell16]

I dont see it happening. My exBPDgf is a therapist and we went to see one. Great person. I walked away feeling lot better and learned somethings. all my could do was wonder why they paid her a compliment. She kept asking about did I think that was strange, and she wondered was it a therapist trick. I could careless they paid her a compliment. They gave us some homework and I completed mine with in two weeks or so a month later she hd not even started hers. and befoe she got started she had broke up with me again. and during her break up raging she said she was going back to any therapist. Now, she is a therapist herself does this make any sense. I asked her once how would she feel if one of her clients had not completely their work she had gave them. Of course I got thetypical side stepping, around in circle explantion that didnt make a bit of sense.

Like someone else said Good luck but i wouldnt hold my breath of them going and if they do go, my expereince is they quit and dont complete it.

[ts919]

Thanks for the responses everyone - as usual, tons of great advice/support

Deep inside, I know it's going to be pointless... .and just cause this drag out even longer.  Some piece of me (probably the Caretaker!) desperately wants her to get better so we can have a normal, happy life together... .but the logical side of me knows that's more than likely a huge impossibility. 

She has now sent me a text telling me she will attend individual therapy, but no joint therapy (marriage counseling). 

No deal. 

[mitchell16]

ts919, I have to add one oterh thing after your last post. My said the same thing about no couple counsling except she dindt say it that way. On one occasion she said we should go to therapy but seperate. I dindt have a problem with that. next thing was she threatin that if we went to couples therapy they would tell us to seperate and work on our own problems and then come back togther. I checked it with my therapist and he said thats not always the case. I think she did that to back me off of therapy by using my fear of us being apart as a way to get me off of going to therapy. The next thing she wanted me to do was go to her best friends husband to get therapy for me, not her. I said no way on that it. To me it seemed that as way she could control it through the back door so to speak. Find out what I was saying, put her own two sense in a around about way. She is a therapist and these people she wanted to me see are therapist that are her best friends. When i told my therapist about that he about fell out from laughing. he said that not really a proper way of getting help. I agreed.

[bruceli]

Thanks for the responses everyone - as usual, tons of great advice/support

Deep inside, I know it's going to be pointless... .and just cause this drag out even longer.  Some piece of me (probably the Caretaker!) desperately wants her to get better so we can have a normal, happy life together... .but the logical side of me knows that's more than likely a huge impossibility.  

She has now sent me a text telling me she will attend individual therapy, but no joint therapy (marriage counseling).  

No deal.  

Good boundry to hold fast too... .PDw did this one too only to find out it was for her to get validation from her T that I was the one with PD issues... .Classic... .Would not allow me to go to any sessions with her... .

[ts919]

So I wrote her back, asking if she had changed her mind about couples therapy... .haven't heard anything back yet (although I'm pretty confident as to what I'll hear).  I'm not even sure why I'm playing this game... .some piece of me is looking for this 100% concrete truth that the marriage needs to end; but I know that's never going to happen and it's just a decision I need to make and be done with it.

[bpdspell]

It doesn't seem like a lot to ask but ultimatums don't work because a person's motivation to change lives within themselves. Our ex's will not change for us and it's a tough lesson that many of us on here must accept. The more we don't accept it the more pain we create for ourselves.

The sneaky self-deception thing that we tend to believe is that if a person loves us enough they'll change in order to not lose us. I participated in this lie myself for a real long time going back to my childhood. My parents we're pretty broken and toxic and as a little girl I NEEDED them to change to feel the love that I dreamed of having from them. And I carried that desperation with me my entire life.

It's a pattern of connecting our worth to the actions of the people we love. This pattern must be broken so that we can realize that our worth isn't based on how the people we love validate us. We cannot make our ex's face their trauma or their demons no matter what ultimatums we give them. If they don't want to face their own pain it is not our responsibility to make them face it. It's a tough lesson for us because it involves accepting that we cannot rescue others into loving us the way we want to be loved.

Spell

[Lucky Jim]

Well said, Spell.  In general, it is an exercise in frustration.  I attended couples therapy with my uBPDexW and, after every session, my Ex would disparage the T because the T refused to take her side (or mine -- he remained neutral), and this drove her up the wall.  The T refused to buy into her story that I was solely to blame for the breakdown in our marriage, despite her efforts to persuade him otherwise.    I found the T highly professional, with good instincts, and ultimately continued to see him long after my Ex dropped out of the sessions, as was her pattern.

I guess what I'm saying, ts919, is that to hold out hope that therapy will provide a "magic bullet" is unrealistic, which on some level you probably already know.  Unless your W is committed to the process and is self-motivated to get to the bottom of her issues, as Spell suggests, such efforts are likely to be futile, as they were in my experience.

Time to take a deep breath and jump off the diving board?  Only you know when the time is right for you.

Hang in there, Lucky Jim

[ForeverDad]

She has now sent me a text telling me she will attend individual therapy, but no joint therapy (marriage counseling). 

No deal.

Like she chose only the one because individual therapy is private and generally highly confidential - thank you HIPAA - you can't give input even though you're the one closest to her and see her the most in real life.  And there's no way to know how much or hole little progress she makes.

Joint therapy is different, it's not private and confidential and the goal is to stabilize and improve the relationship, although a very few here have used joint counseling to help them get though the divorce.

I was very explicit in letting her know that I would be filing for divorce if she was not going to do therapy - she said she understood and was still not going to... .  I told her what would happen and I need to enforce that.

I'm thinking ahead here by a few days, weeks or months... .  You've been giving her "fair notice" about every step of your communication.  If she were responding, that would be wonderful.  Good communication helps a relationship prosper.  However she's not responding and that's when you need to weigh carefully whatever you say to her so that you're not sabotaging yourself by giver her Too Much Information (TMI).  How so?  Once you give her your last line in the sand (a stronger boundary, notice, etc) she may try to do an end run around it, such as by beating you to the punch, so to speak.  She might try to 'steal your thunder' by making DV allegations against you so that you're instantly on the defensive.  Yes, it's true, DV allegations are often used as a divorce weapon to make the other spouse look bad.  Or she could make allegations about child abuse, child neglect, child endangerment, etc, all to sabotage your efforts to walk away in one piece.

So my advice is to stop giving her 'fair notice'.  Ponder beforehand what you divulge to her, whether it be your strategies, mistakes, whatever she might twist to use against you.  Many here, myself included, were conditioned to accept interrogations as the price of being married, even though we knew that wasn't healthy.  We had to unlearn that for our own self-protection.  Peer support here is invaluable because not only do you hear objective observations and time-tested strategies but we also can warn you of typical looming pitfalls and traps.

[bruceli]

So I wrote her back, asking if she had changed her mind about couples therapy... .haven't heard anything back yet (although I'm pretty confident as to what I'll hear).  I'm not even sure why I'm playing this game... .some piece of me is looking for this 100% concrete truth that the marriage needs to end; but I know that's never going to happen and it's just a decision I need to make and be done with it.

If she doesn't feel that anything is wrong with her... .any type of therapy will be futile... .

[ts919]

True story... .I walked into work this morning and I'm planning on calling my attorney here in a hour to get this ball rolling and I decided to check this forum real quick; glad I did!  ForeverDad:  I decided last minute this morning that I wasn't going to say anything about what I was doing today; thanks for the validation there

LuckyJim: You should be a guru or something... .your posts always hit the nail on the head.

Everyone, thank you.  I'll post more later.

[ts919]

Just got off the phone with my attorney... .getting paperwork filled out today. 

My anniversary is on Tuesday, next week... .ugh. 

[Taolady]

Hi, TS919... .Although I usually post on the ":)ealing with a Parent... ." board, I just have a quick comment for you. I've gone NC with my mom who also will not get therapy and believes I am the "sick" one. I think that someday, if she ever desires to change, if she ever stays in therapy long enough, if she contacts me then - if many, many things have changed, then we could always attempt at that point to reconcile... .or not.  Perhaps there is an analogy there for you- If you do the hard stuff now, get on with your life in healthier circumstances without her, perhaps some time down the road there would be a time when you both could try again. You, of course, having grown from all this would be a different person and maybe would not desire such a connection then. Maybe you would be in your own wonderful, fulfilling relationship with a great woman (notice, I didn't say perfect) who values you.  It's hard to take that last step; you wish things could be different, but alas, they are what they are. Protect yourself, take a deep breath, and move forward. Good luck.

[ForeverDad]

True story... .dateline 2008 a few days after the final decree and also a few days after our wedding anniversary... .For whatever reason my ex and I are on the phone, I'm driving and ex asks about the next court date.  We had just spent the past 23.5 months in a lengthy divorce struggle, mostly about custody.  I had weathered child abuse allegations made to CPS, 911, sheriff deputies, police, child therapists, court testimony, urgent care, hospital emergency department, regional abuse center, you name it, it happened.  Even an attempt to put me on Amber Alert!  So now it was finally over - until she violated the order within a month but silly me didn't know that yet.  I just replied "we're divorced already".  She then suggested I take her out to dinner to celebrate.  You can't make these things up.

Be forewarned that when she gets the News she will likely overreact and try you make you look 'worse' than her.  Keep your recorder handy or try to have one with immense memory and just let it run.

Also, keep your cool, she may try to entrap you into venting at her (she could claim you were abusing), responding in kind ("but she hit me first... ." is not a valid defense), restraining her from hurting herself, you or property (never ever touch or restrain an upset spouse, not even to protect her from herself, record, get away if you can and call for the emergency responders).  However, if either of you two do call 911, be prepared for her to stop raging, compose herself and portray herself as a victim even though you were actually the target.  Many pwBPD and other acting out PDs are experienced manipulators, blamers and persuaders.  Let's hope those scenarios never happen but be prepared if they do.  Quite a few of our members, nice as we are, have spent time in jail simply based on a spouse's or ex-spouse's unsupported claims.

[Waddams]

Just to follow up on FD's comment - if possible, I'd recommend not being around for a few days after she's served.  Find a way to get out of town (and document it!).  A long weekend or something w/ the kids away from her.  Maybe a visit to the grandparents, or a trip to a hotel a few hours away.

Don't be around for her initial reaction.  If you are, you'll be her target and if she really is BPD, there will be no limits to her raging.

[ts919]

I'm finding out more about how it will all go down here in a couple of hours.  Thankfully, I do have somewhere to hide out if need be (parents house is within a half hour). 

My S6 goes back and forth between his mom and i on a weekly basis (one week with mom, one week with dad - we live in the same town and it works great!) and I'm worried because he will be with me next week when she will likely get served.  His mom knows what is going on (we have a really good relationship... .her and her husband offered to let me crash in their basement if need be... .weird, I know) so I can take him to her house if things get out of hand.

uBPDw has never shown signs of faking abuse, but I wouldn't 100% put it past her... .she's more the type to disappear for a few days and then come home and act like nothing ever happened.  I can't tell you how many times she's raged at me and then within 2 hours it's like it never happened... .happens all the time. 

[Lucky Jim]

Thanks, tse919 -- I have always wanted to be a guru!

I suspect there will be some rough sailing ahead when papers are served.  Batten down the hatches!  Don't be surprised if your integrity is called into question and remember to take the high road, as hard as that is, if your BPDw seeks to taunt or goad you into acting out.

Hang in there,

Lucky Jim

[ForeverDad]

I'm worried because he will be with me next week when she will likely get served.

Actually, that's good if your child is with you.  Even a normal person could 'lose it' with the impact of being served, when dealing with a person who is driven by disregulated emotions and feelings... .oh my!   There is no 'right' time or 'best' time, but it would be best for your child to be with you while she gets any reactions - or overreactions - under control.

uBPDw has never shown signs of faking abuse, but I wouldn't 100% put it past her... .she's more the type to disappear for a few days and then come home and act like nothing ever happened.  I can't tell you how many times she's raged at me and then within 2 hours it's like it never happened... .happens all the time.

This time may be different.  But on the positive side, you two have already separated so at least it's not a total blindsiding.  Also, we comment here that the risk is higher if the spouse has previously contemplated or threatened to block parenting or to make allegations.

[ts919]

ForeverDad:

We haven't separated; my S6 is uBPDw's step-son.  My son's mother and I get along quite well though!

uBPDw and I are still living under the same roof as of right now; I can't afford to move out and pay for the house as well (she definitely can't afford the house on her own and I want to avoid foreclosure at all costs).

[ts919]

Met with the attorney this afternoon, he wants me to start with "official" looking dissolution papers.  The previous papers were drawn up by myself, downloaded from the county website.  He thinks coming from an actual attorney may carry more weight with her.  I'm not so sure... .by just filing for divorce will definitely be adding tons of time/money to the equation.

What a trip! 

[Waddams]

my S6 is uBPDw's step-son.

Ah hah.  My uBPDxgf constantly started crap over my son, and would try to create alienation between him and I, and then would rage when I wouldn't buy in, and would go absolutely b*t$h!t crazy when I held boundaries to stop that behavior. 

In true abuser fashion, the goal is to separate and isolate you, including isolating you from your son.

I'd just coordinate w/ S6's mom for him to have a little extra mom time next week when she's served.  Then you don't have to worry about it and concentrate on taking care of you in the middle of what is sure to be firestorm at your house.

Do you have a plan for how to co-habitate with STBX until one of you can leave the home?  In a different relationship, I was divorcing and took over the basement as basically my separate apartment in the house.  It had it's own bedroom, full bath, etc.  I put a lock on the door and wouldn't let my ex-wife down there until she was moving out (6 months after I filed) to get the property we agreed she could take.  I hung out down there when I was at home at the same time she was with the door locked.

[ts919]

Waddams - I don't really have a plan yet.  We have a spare bedroom that currently is used as her "craft room" - basically meaning it looks really nice in there but never gets used... .hahahahaha.  My plan is to turn that into my bedroom until she moves out.  We do have a full basement but I don't want to be down there at night while S6 is upstairs in his room.  Plus there is a full bath that S6 and I can share upstairs as well.

I did talk to my S6's mother today - she's on board and let me know to just call if I need to drop him off unexpectedly. 

Here's the real kicker... .my anniversary is next week... .not really sure how to handle this as I'm almost positive uBPDw will expect it to be celebrated regardless of what is going on.

Any advice on that?

[ts919]

Paid the attorney today - should have the official dissolution paperwork in my hands, mid-next week.  I'm feeling good about it, although I wish I could get it a bit sooner as my anniversary is on Tuesday... .and I will feel like a giant ass not doing anything.