The end game

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

Dear All,

I haven't posted here for a long time.  My life has been going pretty well.  I still haven't got the divorce I want but I have not seen my wife for years and have been enjoying life for the most part.   I'm back in touch with some old friends, have enjoyed some trips back home and feel like i have my life back.

Sorry for my long absence, I had been trying to focus on other things.

I'm back because of some recent developments and to seek a little advice.

W was arrested last month for overstaying her visa in Japan.  She is being held at an immigration facility pending repatriation.  The immigration authorities had been asking me to pay for her flight but have finally backed down after I made my position clear to them.  They have asked me to write a letter explaining my position for their records.  

The following is a draft of that letter, I would welcome any comments or suggestions.

Best wishes to all of you

Q

To whom it may concern,  

I am writing this letter to explain my position regarding my estranged wife, XXXXX.

I first met her through skype a few months after my first marriage broke down.  We were just chatting as friends but found some sort of a spark.  I found her charming and fun and found myself going online just to talk to her.  After a while we met in XXXX and then I met her a few times in China before we decided we wanted to stay together and got married.  She was 28 and had never had a boyfriend. To me she seemed very shy and a little moody, but the only thing that really bothered me about her was the way she treated shop assistants and so on.  We only had a civil marriage ceremony with no family or guests and no reception.  We wanted to do it quickly so she could come and live with me.  We had had a couple of difficult moments in my previous visits to XXXX but the wedding day itself was the first time I really experienced her moodiness.  It seemed she wasn't happy with her hair in the official photo for the certificates and she spent the rest of the day in virtual silence.  I was very worried by this reaction.

When she moved to Japan, things began to get worse.  She wasn’t happy about living in the countryside and was very jealous towards my ex-wife and children. Insensitively, I hadn't made a good job of cleaning up the house and especially of sorting out my old photographs.  I never looked at them but somehow I didn't feel right throwing them all away, I felt my children might want to see them some day and that they were part of my life story, even if that part of my life had been with a different woman.  My wife found them and became very upset.  I tidied them up, gave a lot of them to my ex-wife and threw a lot of them away.  I accept my blame for this but not for the extreme reactions of my wife.  I’m writing this here because I think it explains some of the guilt I still feel towards her and why I found it difficult to stop supporting her when it was clear our marriage could not continue.

I’m sure these things give my wife justification in her own mind for her abusive and manipulative behavior towards me.  This behavior includes elaborate threats to kill my children, physically attacking me, throwing and breaking things in the house, throwing stones at my car, threatening to attack me with a knife as I was sleeping, sending abusive messages to my ex-wife, interfering with my business as an English teacher, tearing up my passport, referring to my children as “b___ kids”, soaking their teddy bears in vinegar before leaving them in a sex position on my son’s bed and tearing up my children’s photographs.  She forbade me to use certain innocent words because they upset her.  She would not allow me to take my children to their favorite park because I had been there in the past with my ex-wife. All of these actions she would justify by saying I made her do it.  Sometimes she would create situations where I would have to rescue her, for example telling me she had taken pills in a suicide attempt when, in fact, she hadn’t. I have been to therapists and to the police because of her actions.  I suffered with depression and anxiety but I kept thinking I had an obligation to her.  This was an abusive relationship and like many abused people I found it difficult to escape.  We did decide it would be better to live apart, partly because of the bad relationship and partly because she wanted to study and look for work in XXX.

About 4 years ago, we were separated but seeing each other occasionally.  I took a trip home to the UK and talked things through with my family. When I returned I asked her for a divorce but she refused.   We stopped living as man and wife at this time and I tried again to negotiate for a divorce.  She sometimes started to agree but always refused in the end.

After this time I had very little contact with her and my life improved.  I no longer felt the desperation and anxiety that marked every day I was with her.  I still have regrets but I feel I did more than could be expected of me under the circumstances. I continued to support her financially for a while out of a sense of guilt, but I was determined never to go back to her as anything resembling a happy marriage would be impossible.   Eventually I stopped providing her with any financial help and informed the XXXX town office that she was no longer living here and that we were no longer a couple.  I told her at the time that I had done this and advised her to register with the XXXXX ward office.

Earlier this year, she contacted me to ask me to help her get a new visa.  I said I would try to help but would not lie to the authorities.  I researched her situation and asked for advice but I couldn’t see a way to help.  She hadn’t registered her domicile in Osaka and had not been paying taxes as far as I know.  I suggested she contact the immigration office for advice.

She didn’t do this and was arrested for overstaying her visa.  She sent me a message asking me to lie to the police and say I’d seen her three weeks earlier.  I didn’t reply and, of course, I didn’t lie to the police.  A few days later, the police came to my house with a search warrant because she had lied to them and said her passport was in my house.  I made a statement to them telling the history found in this letter.

Throughout this ordeal my family and friends, therapists, an online support group and legal advisors have always advised me to have no contact with her.  I didn’t always heed their advice and every time I didn’t I regretted it.  When I spoke to the police in Osaka, I was asked to help her to make things easier for her. I appreciate the motivations of the police but they didn’t know the whole story. Foolishly, I agreed without talking to my family first.  I even told her I would go and help.  I’m sorry I said this in a moment of weakness.  I do feel sorry for her but I realize that for my own sake I should not be involved in this matter.  I have been manipulated by her in similar ways in the past and have learnt how self-destructive it would be to try to be her ‘rescuer’.  

My own research and the mental health experts I have spoken to lead me to believe she has undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. In such extreme cases the recommended policy is one of no contact.  I have tried to follow this course during the last 4 years but the fact that we were still married made it more difficult.  Some of her extreme behavior such as suicide threats is designed to force me back into contact with her.  If I attempt to appease her again, it will only encourage this type of behavior.  It would not be good for me or her.

I did not take this decision lightly.   It is taken after considering legal and familiar advice and for the sake of my own mental health.  I have worked hard at recovering from the suffering caused by this woman’s abusive behavior and will not willingly subject myself to more of it in any form.  I have spoken to my father, a retired judge, about this as well as counsellors and legal advisers in Japan

I do not wish her any ill will.  I hope she goes on to have a happy life but I want no part of it.  The stress of this experience has taken its toll on me.  I need to get beyond this bad chapter in my life and helping the person who did such terrible things to me will not help me.  I am not seeking revenge and take no pleasure from her predicament but for the reasons outlined above I cannot help her.

Yours faithfully,

[Mr.Q]

Dear All,

I haven't posted here for a long time.  My life has been going pretty well.  I still haven't got the divorce I want but I have not seen my wife for years and have been enjoying life for the most part.   I'm back in touch with some old friends, have enjoyed some trips back home and feel like i have my life back.

Sorry for my long absence, I had been trying to focus on other things.

I'm back because of some recent developments and to seek a little advice.

W was arrested last month for overstaying her visa in Japan.  She is being held at an immigration facility pending repatriation.  The immigration authorities had been asking me to pay for her flight but have finally backed down after I made my position clear to them.  They have asked me to write a letter explaining my position for their records.  

The following is a draft of that letter, I would welcome any comments or suggestions.

Best wishes to all of you

Q

To whom it may concern,  

I am writing this letter to explain my position regarding my estranged wife, XXXXX.

I first met her through skype a few months after my first marriage broke down.  We were just chatting as friends but found some sort of a spark.  I found her charming and fun and found myself going online just to talk to her.  After a while we met in XXXX and then I met her a few times in China before we decided we wanted to stay together and got married.  She was 28 and had never had a boyfriend. To me she seemed very shy and a little moody, but the only thing that really bothered me about her was the way she treated shop assistants and so on.  We only had a civil marriage ceremony with no family or guests and no reception.  We wanted to do it quickly so she could come and live with me.  We had had a couple of difficult moments in my previous visits to XXXX but the wedding day itself was the first time I really experienced her moodiness.  It seemed she wasn't happy with her hair in the official photo for the certificates and she spent the rest of the day in virtual silence.  I was very worried by this reaction.

When she moved to Japan, things began to get worse.  She wasn’t happy about living in the countryside and was very jealous towards my ex-wife and children. Insensitively, I hadn't made a good job of cleaning up the house and especially of sorting out my old photographs.  I never looked at them but somehow I didn't feel right throwing them all away, I felt my children might want to see them some day and that they were part of my life story, even if that part of my life had been with a different woman.  My wife found them and became very upset.  I tidied them up, gave a lot of them to my ex-wife and threw a lot of them away.  I accept my blame for this but not for the extreme reactions of my wife.  I’m writing this here because I think it explains some of the guilt I still feel towards her and why I found it difficult to stop supporting her when it was clear our marriage could not continue.

I’m sure these things give my wife justification in her own mind for her abusive and manipulative behavior towards me.  This behavior includes elaborate threats to kill my children, physically attacking me, throwing and breaking things in the house, throwing stones at my car, threatening to attack me with a knife as I was sleeping, sending abusive messages to my ex-wife, interfering with my business as an English teacher, tearing up my passport, referring to my children as “b___ kids”, soaking their teddy bears in vinegar before leaving them in a sex position on my son’s bed and tearing up my children’s photographs.  She forbade me to use certain innocent words because they upset her.  She would not allow me to take my children to their favorite park because I had been there in the past with my ex-wife. All of these actions she would justify by saying I made her do it.  Sometimes she would create situations where I would have to rescue her, for example telling me she had taken pills in a suicide attempt when, in fact, she hadn’t. I have been to therapists and to the police because of her actions.  I suffered with depression and anxiety but I kept thinking I had an obligation to her.  This was an abusive relationship and like many abused people I found it difficult to escape.  We did decide it would be better to live apart, partly because of the bad relationship and partly because she wanted to study and look for work in XXX.

About 4 years ago, we were separated but seeing each other occasionally.  I took a trip home to the UK and talked things through with my family. When I returned I asked her for a divorce but she refused.   We stopped living as man and wife at this time and I tried again to negotiate for a divorce.  She sometimes started to agree but always refused in the end.

After this time I had very little contact with her and my life improved.  I no longer felt the desperation and anxiety that marked every day I was with her.  I still have regrets but I feel I did more than could be expected of me under the circumstances. I continued to support her financially for a while out of a sense of guilt, but I was determined never to go back to her as anything resembling a happy marriage would be impossible.   Eventually I stopped providing her with any financial help and informed the XXXX town office that she was no longer living here and that we were no longer a couple.  I told her at the time that I had done this and advised her to register with the XXXXX ward office.

Earlier this year, she contacted me to ask me to help her get a new visa.  I said I would try to help but would not lie to the authorities.  I researched her situation and asked for advice but I couldn’t see a way to help.  She hadn’t registered her domicile in Osaka and had not been paying taxes as far as I know.  I suggested she contact the immigration office for advice.

She didn’t do this and was arrested for overstaying her visa.  She sent me a message asking me to lie to the police and say I’d seen her three weeks earlier.  I didn’t reply and, of course, I didn’t lie to the police.  A few days later, the police came to my house with a search warrant because she had lied to them and said her passport was in my house.  I made a statement to them telling the history found in this letter.

Throughout this ordeal my family and friends, therapists, an online support group and legal advisors have always advised me to have no contact with her.  I didn’t always heed their advice and every time I didn’t I regretted it.  When I spoke to the police in Osaka, I was asked to help her to make things easier for her. I appreciate the motivations of the police but they didn’t know the whole story. Foolishly, I agreed without talking to my family first.  I even told her I would go and help.  I’m sorry I said this in a moment of weakness.  I do feel sorry for her but I realize that for my own sake I should not be involved in this matter.  I have been manipulated by her in similar ways in the past and have learnt how self-destructive it would be to try to be her ‘rescuer’.  

My own research and the mental health experts I have spoken to lead me to believe she has undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. In such extreme cases the recommended policy is one of no contact.  I have tried to follow this course during the last 4 years but the fact that we were still married made it more difficult.  Some of her extreme behavior such as suicide threats is designed to force me back into contact with her.  If I attempt to appease her again, it will only encourage this type of behavior.  It would not be good for me or her.

I did not take this decision lightly.   It is taken after considering legal and familiar advice and for the sake of my own mental health.  I have worked hard at recovering from the suffering caused by this woman’s abusive behavior and will not willingly subject myself to more of it in any form.  I have spoken to my father, a retired judge, about this as well as counsellors and legal advisers in Japan

I do not wish her any ill will.  I hope she goes on to have a happy life but I want no part of it.  The stress of this experience has taken its toll on me.  I need to get beyond this bad chapter in my life and helping the person who did such terrible things to me will not help me.  I am not seeking revenge and take no pleasure from her predicament but for the reasons outlined above I cannot help her.

Yours faithfully,

[catnap]

I think it would be in your best interest to get advise from an attorney familiar with Immigration Law on how much information needs to be put in the letter explaining your position.  I would also ask how difficult it would be to serve her with divorce papers as well. 

[PleaseValidate]

It's a very descript letter, but I feel like you might be over sharing a bit regarding her being upset w your first wife's picts, items, etc. I'm assuming they really just want to know that you are in progress of divorce and do not claim responsibility for this woman. Adding some of the more major points of abuse and that she has a suspected severe mental illness should be enough imho.

[livednlearned]

Mr. Q, this is way too much information for something as serious as immigration. They don't care about any of this. They just want to know, for the legal record, what the nature of your relationship is. Are you married, filing for divorce, legally separated, estranged, etc. They only care about the legal angle here.

Like something for their records that says, "I married my wife day/month/year. We lived together for x years. At that point, we went our separate ways and have not lived in the same country for x years. We are estranged, and I sought a divorce, which has been complicated by the fact that she was living in Japan (or whatever).

If your estrangement from your wife for 2 years counts as a legal separation where you live, then tell them that you are legally separated. Find out from a lawyer.

And like catnap says, get an attorney to look at the letter and give you some advice. You don't want to end up dragging yourself back into her legal mess because you over shared. This is definitely not a letter you want filed in some immigration database that shows up every time you cross a border.

This ordeal motivate you to get divorced asap -- it would be awful if her actions land you into court over something that is entirely outside your orbit. The amount you disclose in this letter could lead to you testifying, and no matter how you feel about her, or how long you plan to go no contact and no matter how much you feel like you've moved on, you are legally married. It's a contract, first and foremost. Better to get it over with and file for divorce so you don't have to do all this explaining.

[ForeverDad]

And like catnap says, get an attorney to look at the letter and give you some advice. You don't want to end up dragging yourself back into her legal mess because you over shared... .

This ordeal should motivate you to get divorced asap -- it would be awful if her actions land you into court over something that is entirely outside your orbit. The amount you disclose in this letter could lead to you testifying, and no matter how you feel about her, or how long you plan to go no contact and no matter how much you feel like you've moved on, you are legally married. It's a contract, first and foremost. Better to get it over with and file for divorce so you don't have to do all this explaining.

Better to find a way to get it over with and file for divorce so you don't have to do all this explaining.  Asking for a divorce didn't work, is there any way you can get a divorce without her cooperation?  In most cases a spouse can delay a divorce but can't block it.

And yes, while it may be emotionally satisfying to vent all the particulars in hopes they see and agree how obstructive she is, it likely is TMI.

[Mr.Q]

Thanks for all the advice.

I ended up sending a shortened version.  I felt I had to include some of the details, because I had once agreed to help her out, before reflection and talking to family, friends, etc.

I probably still included more than many would have recommended I'm afraid.  But it's in the post now.  It's all stuff I've said on the phone to immigration already when they were pushing me to help her out.  They asked me to either go in there for an interview or put it in a letter.  I chose the latter.

It's also the same as the statement I gave to the police when they came here looking for her passport.

Thanks again, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Q