my battered partner keeps returning to his mixed BPD/Antisocial PD wife...

[stuckoutside]

... .she's beat him down haneously in every way humanly possible. They are separated for two years, but very confusingly he keeps trying it on again.

He says theres absolutely no love there, but she guilts him in to returning for the sake of his children. He says he thinks if she's happy, his children will be happy. He tells me he never wanted to hurt me, but he keeps doing just that. He's gone back to her three times, each time with the same disasterous results.

I'm interested in all opinions, but I'd really love to hear from other men who were also physically abused... .Can an abusive BPD be so powerful that they can have you totally break down your own belief system and hopes, and in a sense "force" you in to making decisions that you know will ruin your life?

[GreenMango]

Stuckoutside,

How are things going?

You mentioned your partner has a wife with pd behavior?  Are they separated and going thru divorce?  Are you living together?

Abusive relationships can have a cyclical abuse, breakup and makeup repeats.  It may help to know where you are at with the relationship.  He may find the boards here helpful to dealig with his exwife.

[livednlearned]

He says theres absolutely no love there, but she guilts him in to returning for the sake of his children. He says he thinks if she's happy, his children will be happy. He tells me he never wanted to hurt me, but he keeps doing just that. He's gone back to her three times, each time with the same disasterous results.

Guilt is a powerful motive -- it tends to root back to childhood. He is likely fulfilling something familiar and that script is all-powerful. Maybe there is someone in his life, his mother, perhaps? If he could keep her happy, his siblings would be ok? That would explain why he would allow a woman to physically abuse him. He probably developed very core parts of who he is in an environment where someone rewarded him for tolerating abuse.

Was he married to this woman? Is there a custody arrangement in place?

What kind of disastrous results happen when he returns? Are the kids ok?

[Matt]

I'm interested in all opinions, but I'd really love to hear from other men who were also physically abused... .Can an abusive BPD be so powerful that they can have you totally break down your own belief system and hopes, and in a sense "force" you in to making decisions that you know will ruin your life?

Short answer:  yes.

I was fairly mature - in my 30s - when I got involved with a woman who I later learned had BPD and other stuff.  Married more than 10 years, with 2 kids and 2 stepkids.

I put up with way, way more than I should have.  Way more than I would have before I got involved with her.  She lied to me about birth control, and got pregnant, so I married her, and then the abuse began - mostly verbal for the first 9 years, physical and legal after that.

The biggest reason I put up with it all was because of the kids.

Two big myths here:

First, "If I could only make her happy... .".  That's how I thought most of the time, til I finally realized that nothing I did was making her happy, and I could never do that.  Her unhappiness was part of her.  Only therapy could help, and she wouldn't do that.  So I was giving up more and more of myself, and no closer to making her happy.

Second, "Kids do better in a two-parent home."  That's actually true, but not if the home is crazy.  My kids have done better since we split up.  I was able to get them into counseling, and I saw a counselor too, and I was able to create a safe, quiet, happy home for them - a place where they could be themselves.  Now they're doing great in school - some problems but generally very happy and healthy.

My suggestion to you would be, first see if your partner would like to join us here and talk openly about what's going on.  For you, it might be necessary to place some boundaries, like "I can't support you through these cycles where you get back with someone who is so bad for you.  I will support you to help your kids but not to be with your ex.  If you go back to her I will have to move on and not be with you anymore."  Might be tough to do, but you need to make sure you're not enabling this pattern of behavior... .

[ForeverDad]

Like Matt and others will confirm, we stayed hoping the last ranting and raging session would be the last.  But it wasn't.

For many of us, we were painted so black that the ex never tried to con us to come back, even when the cycles moderated.

I believe your ex has very weak boundaries.  Could be co-dependent, but I just know know much about that.  For him to relapse back into intimacy with her and then return sheepish shows he hasn't gotten the point that for it to be over he must make sure it stays over.  He owes his current relationship partner that much.  For some people, what he has done more than once would have been a Deal Breaker, perhaps not the first time but at least at some point.  I suspect that as long as you keep forgiving then he may not develop better boundaries.

[Matt]

Like Matt and others will confirm, we stayed hoping the last ranting and raging session would be the last.  But it wasn't.

For many of us, we were painted so black that the ex never tried to con us to come back, even when the cycles moderated.

I believe your ex has very weak boundaries.  Could be co-dependent, but I just know know much about that.  For him to relapse back into intimacy with her and then return sheepish shows he hasn't gotten the point that for it to be over he must make sure it stays over.  He owes his current relationship partner that much.  For some people, what he has done more than once would have been a Deal Breaker, perhaps not the first time but at least at some point.  I suspect that as long as you keep forgiving then he may not develop better boundaries.

Yes, if there's one thing we can say for sure, it's that someone who is behaving in an irrational and destructive way - not just once or twice but a very clear pattern - that behavior is going to continue, or maybe get worse, unless she gets the right kind of therapy and stays with it long-term (which is very unlikely).

As FD suggests, most of us find it very, very hard to accept that.  I kept thinking, for more than 10 years, that "any day now!" my wife would decide she didn't want to be unhappy anymore, and she would get help.  I was convinced of it!  And 100% wrong.

To show you just how hard it is for us (guys who marry women with BPD) to accept this, I was literally - literally! - in jail when I realized, "Maybe this marriage isn't working out... .).  Until that happened - after years of verbal abuse and multiple incidents of violence - nothing would get through to me.  Only the experience of being cuffed and taken to jail - after my wife accused me of assault - if the officers had believed what she said I would have been charged with attempted murder - only then did I finally accept that nothing I had tried had worked at all, and nothing I could do would fix her or make her happy.

That was the bottom - the worst moment for me and for my kids too.

Since that moment, I started to take a completely different approach.  I got my own place - everything I did was focused on creating a safe, quiet, peaceful place - no chaos.  I was pretty successful with that, even during the 18 months before the divorce was done.  I also got a counselor for my kids.  After a few bad weeks, they did very well, and have continued to do well most of the time since then.

Usually I think a two-parent home is best for the kids, but at a certain point - when the craziness gets to a certain level - I don't think that's true any more.  Then it's better to create one safe, quiet, chaos-free home for them, and try to have them there as much as possible.  I think that's where you guys are, but it's important for your partner to accept that he can't fix the relationship or create a good home with someone like that in it.

[stuckoutside]

hi everybody,

its late, but thank you so much for sharing with me and helping me to begin to understand what has happened to me, to my partner and to us. i feel so grateful for you... .

as of today, im faced with two issues: 1) stay or go? 2) if i stay, what is the best way to support my partner through his recovery without becoming codependent myself?

Thoughts about "stay or go":  When you left your BPD, would you have wanted a partner to support you through your process or does having an extra body on the scene (and our flailing relationship) to worry about only make it that much more difficult to heal yourself?

Am I setting a poor example for him of how a person should uphold their boundaries if i readjust mine and stay?

My partner is new here (also a member of this website) and we are both new to BPD being the underlying cause of his reactions to the wife. He describes himself as "hit in the face with a shovel" awake now and he's very sad and very angry. He is in therapy, filing for divorce and most comforting to me he has a No Contact boundary in place... .still, I'm living in terror that once the dust settles, she will work her black magic (their children are a favorite target of hers) and he will go back again.

He believed that she was simply a passionate person. The extreme control, the jealousy, the rollercoaster moods that kept him confused, the abuse (she convinced him he deserved)... .she was very good at making him believe "wow. she loves me SO much." He seems to realize the truth of BPD now and how it manifest in their relationship, but all of that was powerful enough to hold him for 22 years, and to pull him back in from our relationship... .our peaceful, equal, loving, nonabusive relationship. I know there are no guarantees, but I want so much for somebody to promise me he's awake now, this wont happen to us again.

A couple of points: we do not live together. he has four daughters ages 21 down to 16. The two oldest live with him 10 hours drive away from the wife. The two youngest live with their mother. His greatest fear, and one that he is managing well so far, is that the wife will transfer her negative attention to his youngest. There is already evidence of this, as mom has already proclaimed to her "everything is your fault." The youngest is most often her pawn to get him back.

Also, he lost his mother at age 14, his father was alcoholic and one brother drug-addicted and he married the wife very early in life. The codependency/no boundaries explanation fits him like a glove.

One last question: is it appropriate for him to read this thread and come in on this discussion or should he stick with the other boards more focused on his own healing? Thanx again for your support... .

[Pearl55]

Hello stuckoutside

I truly feel your pain, I don't want to be rude to anyone here but let me explain to you my experience. I was involved with my BPD husband more than 13 years. I always thought he was madly in love with me but he's very short tempered and is not able to control himself. Why I didn't ask anyone before what was wrong with him and kept carrying on? Because I have narcisstic traits myself which means unlogical thinking but I thought I had very logical mind!

Accidentally I found out about my husband but still didn't want to believe because unconsciously I couldn't acknowledge my failings and tried so hard to help or save him and felt sorry for him. I tried to learn what is BPD first and took me more than 2 years to reach my level of intelligence to work out what is going on although I consider myself an intelligent woman.

Unfortunately when you don't know what is BPD you keep doing the same mistake. For a narcisstic man or woman is only aknowledble when they lose their entire fourtune and health to be able to wake up. That's happened to me, I've lost everything even my son.

He won't wake up until he will go through his own hell. I can see my cousin who is a very genuine man and stucked with his wife and is not able to walk out. He is addicted to chaos and drama to feel lively himself and doesn't see the reality even though he's been witnessing my life as a case study. He's ego wants to keep trying against all the odds. Very sad.