Advice needed

[4Abroad]

Hi all,

To give a brief synopsis:

My wife and I moved abroad four years ago with our one child at the time. We have had two more children since.

Before the move, we were together for four years and I was well aware that my wife had "issues", e.g. anger, rages, lack of empathy, aversion to physical/emotional intimacy (worsened with time), inability to admit mistakes or, and I had finally come to suspect that there was some personality disorder playing a role.

After the move, I have tried my best to ameliorate the situation/our relationship using advice from numerous BPD books (recommended here) and reading on the forum. Nothing has worked thus far and being secluded from family/friends has not aided my ability to set boundaries as I had initially felt it would have. I am frustrated and physically/mentally tired, and more importantly I want to be independent from her to give our children the better reference point they deserve.

I've gone through so many different feelings about her and the situation: confusion, worry, anger, sadness, more anger, more sadness. Now I  am able to objectively (most of the time) look at the situation: I loved this woman immensely, I still care about her, she is an amazing person with some great attributes, but I am unhappy and I do not want to be her partner anymore. So now I have come to the point in which I am wanting to honestly prepare for an eventual separation. I think it will be impossible to make this an amicable separation knowing my wife. I think I will need family/friends' support nearby to help me and the children, so I am planning on looking for jobs near either her or my family.

This is going to be really hard for my kids: breaking up the family, moving to a new city, new friends, new schools, and quite possibly a raging mother in the middle.

So here are my questions: have any of you been in similar situations? if so, any advice?

Thank you in advance

[Fatherwith2girls]

I'm in a very similar situation, very exhausted and my feelings for my wife are wiped out.  I can't help but am interested in hearing what other folks have to say.  The only thing I have to hold on to right now is that my wife actually wants to change herself to keep our marriage.  I am concerned that it's a front to keep me though and once I say I'm happy again we'll go back to the same cycles.

[vortex of confusion]

I'm in a very similar situation, very exhausted and my feelings for my wife are wiped out.  I can't help but am interested in hearing what other folks have to say.  The only thing I have to hold on to right now is that my wife actually wants to change herself to keep our marriage.  I am concerned that it's a front to keep me though and once I say I'm happy again we'll go back to the same cycles.

My husband and I have been married for 16.5 years and I too am extremely exhausted. The pattern is that he will do just enough to keep me hanging on. He knows that I really want to give our kids an in tact family so he plays on that a lot. He is going to therapy and doing a 12 step program for sex addiction but I am not getting my hopes up. Every time things get bad, he will say stuff like, "Oh, I just had to hit bottom before I could realize that I needed to get some help." Last night, I mentioned that I wonder what the next bottom is going to be because that is the way it works. He will do just enough to make things somewhat better. I will get all relaxed and comfortable and then things will gradually slip back into a pattern where he is grumpy and does very little and is lost in his own little world. When I have had enough, things will get really bad and he will do a downward spiral and "hit bottom" and then he will try to change things only for the cycle to start all over again.

I definitely want to follow this thread because I have a feeling that I will eventually be parting ways with my husband when our kids get older.

[Pou]

I am in a similar situation.  I think first thing you got to ask yourself is that do you feel like that your wife really care and love you now?  One thing that I was in FOG for a long time was that I got married to love the person who I committed to for life.  So I stuck to that notion until about last year (after 12 years of marriage and 17 years of together), I started to ask that question.  When the one so called that suppose to love simply throw you under the bus and does all irrational stuff just to hurt you, I think that answer is apparent.  Something has changed from her end.  Like it or not, PD or no PD …. the fact is that people's feeling do change.  My conclusion was that my wife's feeling for me has certainly changed.  I am pretty sure that I can not even use love to describe our relationship.  We have 3 kids together and that is all our relationship consist of … other then that, that is pretty much it.  For all I know, she could be having an affair … and probably is, since we have zero connection outside of our kids stuff.  I get attack for little things.  She alienates my family away.  make up stuff to attack me in front of my kids, bunch lies, endless ... and etc.  So, I keep telling me this thing that I heard a while ago… "don't love anything or anyone that can't love you back."  I keep telling me myself that … and then last year... that has finally sunk in.  I don't hate.  I am frustrated with the fact that I really deserve to be in a better relationship than what I am having … but nothing I can do, but as long as I understand what love is ... and have carve a boundary for myself at least … emotionally (nothing going on between us physically as well, so that may made this easier) …. stay in safe distance.  Good luck to you.