Dealing with guilt...

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I finally broke off my 3+ year r/s with my uBPD/NPD ex gf about 5 weeks ago and have maintained n/c for the past 30 days.  Ex gf is a working professional with 3 young kids, all of which have emotional, behavioral and developmental issues (OCD, childhood anxiety disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder and non age appropriate impulse control issues).  Aside from the obvious emotional outbursts and covert and overt emotional abusive towards me by my ex gf, dealing with the children was extremely hard.  There was almost no structure in the house and the kids were allowed to express themselves in any positive and negative way they wanted.  I even had to nix my teen daughter sitting for the two youngest due to them being out of control and abusive towards her.  My ex used what she called unconditional parenting, but it looked more like "un" parenting.  It got so bad that I would limit my time around the kids and although we live on the same street, I wouldn't have them all over to my house very often due their behavior.  I had a hand full of base safety and respect based rules at my house and the kids couldn't deal with them.  My ex gf pushed hard for me to have a family meeting with her and her kids so the kids could renegotiate the rules at my house.  I mean she pushed hard.  I listened but said "absolutely not"!  She even told me of a T session her daughter had where the supposedly the T stated that my "strict" rules in my house had wounded the daughter.  Through all the chaos, my ex gf would object to me leaving her house when her kids were having huge blow-ups.  No matter that I'd explain to her that it was upsetting and not healthy for me to sit there for sometime hours and deal with the dysfunction, she'd say that it made her feel that I was leaving forever if I even left the house to walk around the block.  Again, I limited my time with them and in October began to detach from the situation because my gut was screaming "GET OUT"! 

My ex gf was a master at tapping into my guilt.  During one of the many rough times in the r/s, she'd say to me "you can't leave me because the kids are so attached to you".  During the course of the r/s, I didn't understand that this was all part of the emotional abuse I was enduring.  So, when I finally cut the cord in December I struggled with feelings I didn't totally understand.  Yesterday in a T session, my T helped me get down to the depths of my feelings and guilt was so strong it surprised me.  We used a technique of giving a voice to my intuition, my fears/guilt and my intellect.  It was a powerful exercise and one I will use for self talk in the future.   She helped me understand that I left the r/s with the ex gf and her kids in a better place than where they were when I entered the r/s.  My T said I had probably earned enough "karma" points for this lifetime and the next based on what I dealt with and how long I stayed with it.  I was like a 100lb wt was lifted off of me.  I'm still going to struggle with the loss of closeness and other positive things from the r/s, but I never understood how much the guilt was part of me staying in the destructive r/s.  Now I can breathe and move forward!

[Madison66]

I finally broke off my 3+ year r/s with my uBPD/NPD ex gf about 5 weeks ago and have maintained n/c for the past 30 days.  Ex gf is a working professional with 3 young kids, all of which have emotional, behavioral and developmental issues (OCD, childhood anxiety disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder and non age appropriate impulse control issues).  Aside from the obvious emotional outbursts and covert and overt emotional abusive towards me by my ex gf, dealing with the children was extremely hard.  There was almost no structure in the house and the kids were allowed to express themselves in any positive and negative way they wanted.  I even had to nix my teen daughter sitting for the two youngest due to them being out of control and abusive towards her.  My ex used what she called unconditional parenting, but it looked more like "un" parenting.  It got so bad that I would limit my time around the kids and although we live on the same street, I wouldn't have them all over to my house very often due their behavior.  I had a hand full of base safety and respect based rules at my house and the kids couldn't deal with them.  My ex gf pushed hard for me to have a family meeting with her and her kids so the kids could renegotiate the rules at my house.  I mean she pushed hard.  I listened but said "absolutely not"!  She even told me of a T session her daughter had where the supposedly the T stated that my "strict" rules in my house had wounded the daughter.  Through all the chaos, my ex gf would object to me leaving her house when her kids were having huge blow-ups.  No matter that I'd explain to her that it was upsetting and not healthy for me to sit there for sometime hours and deal with the dysfunction, she'd say that it made her feel that I was leaving forever if I even left the house to walk around the block.  Again, I limited my time with them and in October began to detach from the situation because my gut was screaming "GET OUT"! 

My ex gf was a master at tapping into my guilt.  During one of the many rough times in the r/s, she'd say to me "you can't leave me because the kids are so attached to you".  During the course of the r/s, I didn't understand that this was all part of the emotional abuse I was enduring.  So, when I finally cut the cord in December I struggled with feelings I didn't totally understand.  Yesterday in a T session, my T helped me get down to the depths of my feelings and guilt was so strong it surprised me.  We used a technique of giving a voice to my intuition, my fears/guilt and my intellect.  It was a powerful exercise and one I will use for self talk in the future.   She helped me understand that I left the r/s with the ex gf and her kids in a better place than where they were when I entered the r/s.  My T said I had probably earned enough "karma" points for this lifetime and the next based on what I dealt with and how long I stayed with it.  I was like a 100lb wt was lifted off of me.  I'm still going to struggle with the loss of closeness and other positive things from the r/s, but I never understood how much the guilt was part of me staying in the destructive r/s.  Now I can breathe and move forward!

[seeking balance]

I'm still going to struggle with the loss of closeness and other positive things from the r/s, but I never understood how much the guilt was part of me staying in the destructive r/s.  Now I can breathe and move forward!

Thanks for sharing your "aha" - I think a lot of people can relate to that guilt feeling.

Grief and gratitude for leaving - opposite ends of the emotional spectrum which makes this detachment process  a bit more challenging at times.

Keep breathing and moving forward!

Peace,

SB

[State85]

Madison,

I can relate to your post. My exgf had two kids who were about as unruly as they come. I had never been around kids like that before in my life. I feel as they get older, they will probably hurt her in some way. They would throw stuff at her when driving, try to push her down the stairs, etc. And I believe they would trigger her, as one time I had to pull her off of one of them for fear of what she might do... . she was in a rage against one of her kids.

She wanted me to be the male figure for them. Their Dad (her exh) was not around. I couldn't do it. Dealing with her abuse, then on top of her kids, was not a situation I wanted to be in.

I got out... .

[Madison66]

State,

Your situation was very similar to mine.  I witnessed the craziest blow-ups by the kids, including the youngest (6) acting out violently to other kids and caregivers along with the oldest (10) exhibiting many rage/emotional dysregulation type BPD traits.  The mom's rage on the kids was constant and so was the emotional and verbal abuse on the middle child.  What bothered me for so long was that she couldn't understand that all the chaos and unhealthiness was destructive for me to be around.  She'd use guilt to keep me from leaving and that happened right up until the last day and a couple charm attempts since.  I just didn't understand how abusive it was and how much it was taking out of me.  Life is so different now... .  

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Madison, Guilt is like a hot potato that a pwBPD passes to us.  We don't have to catch it.  There is no obligation to carry it and, in fact, you will lighten your burden by letting it drop.  LJ

[santa]

However you feel about the starving kids in Africa is how you should feel about this woman's kids. They're just more random kids.

Actually, you should feel more sentimental about the kids in Africa because at least their moms haven't made your life a living hell at times.

[Murbay]

My step daughter was the same too, all down to how my exBPDw chose to parent. It was literally unbelievable at times when an 8 year old was able to make the important household decisions and nobody was allowed to question it.

When step daughter used to have her meltdowns, my exBPDw was always on hand to blame it on other people. SD was coming home saying she was being bullied at school and nobody wanted to be around her. School had a very different view on who was doing the bullying but it didn't stop exBPDw going up there to tell them they were wrong and then laying into the parents of the bullied children while SD stood smiling about it. Anyone said anything out of turn, including me and it was a full on rage burst.

I really felt sorry for SD as she wasn't learning real life skills and felt guilty for not being able to do anything to help her. It was part of that guilt that kept me in the marriage longer than I should have been. When I first left, I got an e-mail from MIL which she got from my exBPDw saying how she didn't know how to explain to SD that 2 men walked out on her and that it would scar her for life. I fell for it because it was never about SD but that's partly what kept me there.

[Madison66]

I hear you.  The chaos was ridiculous and it appeared my ex gf created almost a cocoon around her kids to control their environments and not listen to anyone.  I fully believe the 10 year old is BPD.  The other two are messed up by no coincidence.  It was so bad that there was absolutely no way we could have integrated our families.  My T told me yesterday that the thought of that possibility kept her up at night.  Thank god it never happened!