Really sorry to hear that you're going through this, Dr. Me2.
It's hard enough to get through a break-up with a pwBPD -- let alone a divorce. And, when there are kids involved, well... .in my experience, it connects you with a whole new level of vulnerability.
Your comment on your s2b-ex's cycling is what's prompting me to reply -- but there's so much going on here aside from that... .
Just a few hours ago, she sent me an email threaten me that if I don't start the divorce proceedings she will start poisoning the kids against me until I breakdown. She is determined to inflict as much pain as possible. I am in pain but I am not sure if it is because my partner is dying (as she became a different person) or part of me is.
I knew if I stayed under such circumstances, the uncontrollable behavior and escalation will reach a level will both regret it. So I left.
It has been already almost 3 woks since I left (temp) the house due to the DV. She asked for NC although she email me to ask for more money.
Right after I went away she set me up for failure, she started to faint, feel numbness, dizzy, etc and turned the tables around blaming me for leaving in the middle of her getting sick and blaming was all my fault.
I was hoping by now she would have returned to baseline or at least heading in that direction so we can have a dialogue, but no, her attacks, blames and accusations have become more pervasive and intense.
The more I don't engage (JADE) or confront her the more dysregulated she becomes. The more I try to support and have empathy the more violent she becomes.
I am seeing a recurrent pattern, her negative projection is triggered by her setting me up for failure (me stepping on a mine field), or by ruminating on the past or blaming me anyway regardless.
I am not sure if she is going crazy or I am or both of us. This is insane!
Certainly posting here and venting out has kept me away from getting worst. Yet, her intensity is becoming unbearable and that is exactly what she wants.
Yes, it sounds like she's still getting what she wants. Even if you aren't voluntarily giving it to her, per se. Remember -- even if you
don't provide a PDI with some form of "emotional supply," their illnesses are able to make them believe that you are still a source, through disordered thinking.
You left the house to prevent further escalation -- but the escalation has continued. In other words, "you can't leave me to suffer alone --
you are inseparable from this mess!" In fact, in
her mind,
she is the victim --
you caused everything to happen. To further make this indisputable to her "audiences" -- not only did you
leave her, you left her when she was sick -- which would be in keeping with your "character" in her "play" (remember your audition? you are a heartless b*stard, likely prone to abuse, as well, no?).
She demands that you stop communicating with her -- then asks you for money. In other words, "don't talk to me unless I need something." That is an acceptable, rational agreement in her mind.
You do have it figured out, though -- anything you try to do the
right way can and most likely will be flipped over and used, by her, as evidence of how much you continue to do
wrong. If you don't JADE, you're a cold-hearted beast who ignores her. If you support her, you're a manipulative monster who is feeding off her emotions because you want something (probably sex, or control of the children).
You aren't going crazy, Dr.Me2. You're just being observant, and objective -- you're seeing reality, as it is, with a normal, healthy mind. Unlike your wife, who is seeing reality as she fabricates it to match up to her script. You
feel crazy because you're trying to make sense of it -- and it doesn't make sense. (That's why it's called "crazy-making behavior" -- it makes us feel like we're going crazy -- in fact, we are, if we begin to accept it as reality.) It makes no sense. It doesn't and won't ever make any sense. You are getting a front-row view of BPD, uncut and uncensored, my friend. And it's fascinating, and terrifying -- and very dangerous, and hurtful to you. Because you love your kids, and you still love her -- and you probably still sometimes feel like you're just having a really bizarre, really bad nightmare, and are just waiting to wake up. I know.
When I went through what you're going through (divorcing my uBPDexw, fighting for custody of our son), I learned through hard and often humiliating experience that I had to take everything that my ex wife told me with a complete grain of salt. Literally -- I had to learn how to let her words go in one ear and out the other. Those same words that I'd lived for, which I'd taken a vow to always listen to and consider -- I had to teach myself that they weren't much more than noise that sounded like sentences being spoken in English.
You have to try your best to detach with compassion. I see my latest ex going through cycles as well. Her pattern seems to be rapid-cycling at onset of dysregulation -- hates me one minute, can't live without me the next -- which then settles into a long anger phase. When we broke up last year, and she realized it really was a break-up, and not some dramatic argument that would follow the time-worn formula of teary apologies on both sides and make-up sex -- she spent about 2 full months sending me vicious, hateful, accusatory emails, txt msgs and voicemails. Then, suddenly and for reasons I still don't fully understand, she wanted to reconcile. And we did.
Lasted another year before the next complete breakdown. As with the last time, she started rapidly alternating between hating me and attacking me and everything about me and our r-ship -- with poignant longing emails and heartfelt apologies for every single thing she does to cause the r-ship to flounder (those same things which, when I attempt to bring them to her attention, are met with nothing short of outrage). When I consistently held to NC, she then switched into hate-smearing overdrive -- and has continued virtually unabated for about 3 months now. Then, the other day, she said she wants to try again. No idea why -- though she tells me that it's because, "despite everything you've done to me" (this, in her mind, includes physically, emotionally and verbally abusing her, relentlessly criticizing her non-stop, isolating her from her family and friends, and abandoning her while she was in the hospital), she "still loves" me.
Sure, I'd love to make sense of it. A year ago, I would have given anything to
believe it -- and I did -- I agreed to reconcile with her and to try again. I stayed in the counseling that we'd started together before we split up -- she didn't. I learned and practiced new communication techniques -- she didn't. I adjusted to her quirks, and opened myself up to trying to understand her issues -- the end result? Eventually, her cycling became a little less frequent (went from every 3-4 days to once a week, to twice a month) -- but it never stopped. And she continued to dodge and evade *her* accountability -- any mood swings are attributed to stress, family, job, money, asthma, PMS, pre-menopause, ADHD, mold, gluten, her daughter's behavior, her daughter's birds, traffic, etc. She still refuses to accept that she has a PD of any kind -- oh, wait, except for D.I.D -- which she feels is completely ok and she's comfortable with it. Surely, I can't think it has anything to do with our struggles... .
Last year, I believed it. This year, I want to believe that it's
true -- but I know it's not. Not that she's lying to me -- she believes it. Now. And she'll continue to believe it -- until she believes something else. And I'll lose again. We'll get along just fine, if I basically stay away from her, and we're never intimate. I'm too old for that kind of thing.
They like to believe that the formula is:
Love --> Intimacy --> Love --> Happiness.
And when the bliss is disrupted by the inevitable bump along the love trail, it's smoothed over by Open Communication and Understanding.
What the BPD makes them blind to is the actual formula. As soon as the intimacy line is crossed -- *bam!* It looks more like this:
Intimacy --> Engulfment --> Fear of abandonment --> BPD Partytime!
When the bliss is disrupted --> IT'S YOUR FAULT!
... .when you try to communic - --> IT'S YOUR FAULT!
... .when you try to underst - --> IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!
Thing is, and I say this with complete sadness doc -- it doesn't seem to end until you end it. I feel for you. It sucks.
Hang in there.
e.
