What to do now

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

I have been reading the very helpful information on this site but this is my first post. My uBPDh moved out in a rage last February. We have been married five years and together six. He idealized me in the beginning, we married a year to the day we met (too soon I know now) but I really believed he was sincere. Insecurities started immediately- checking my emails, phone records, upset when I traveled for business even though I am 100 percent loyal and trustworthy. Jeolousy, insecurity was a part of our early marriage mixed with some of the most wonderful times of my life. Thought he was my soul mate but knew he was dealing with trust and abondonment issues from his childhood so I tried to be sensitive. Then the transition happened. I could do nothing right it seemed. This got much worse when he retired from the military. He was a senior ranking officer and used to being in control. He seemed to have lost his identity when he got out and things got much worse at home. The projection, gas lighting,  the fights/rages over issues that to this day I can't fathom why they upset him. I tried to walk away when he got this way. It made it worse. So I fought back and he said we were incompatible. He often packed his bags in anger and said he was leaving. Twice before he did leave but came back after 2 weeks and then again after 8 weeks. This time it's been almost a year. We filed legal separation papers. For the better part of the year he wouldn't talk to me. Just prior to filing the papers I asked him to please go to marriage counseling with me. He went into an uncontrollable rage and spewed the most hateful things possible- "I despise you, you are weak, pathetic, you need help, I don't know if I ever loved you" and on and on. This is just tip of the ice berg accusations. I love him so much but recognize there are major issues. Im seeing a T who told me it sounds like he had BPD. I wish I knew then what I know now. Maybe I could have done more to keep the peace. So here I sit. He won't respond to emails or texts. He didnt usually talk of wanting a divorce, just a separation. But with NC, it seems impossible to ever find a productive way forward. He told me to date but not sleep with anyone? Not that I am emotionally ready to do either but what the heck. I asked him over a month ago what his plans were and he said he'd wait till March 1st to file to see if anything changes. Why March 1st?  To see if he finds someone new I assume. Now he just he doesn't respond at all. I love him, would work on the issues with him but I am at a loss as to what to do now. Should I wait and keep my life on hold? Do I file knowing it's not what I want but do it anyway not knowing if he will ever come around? So hard especially when last Christmas was one of those good memories.

[linfh789]

I have been reading the very helpful information on this site but this is my first post. My uBPDh moved out in a rage last February. We have been married five years and together six. He idealized me in the beginning, we married a year to the day we met (too soon I know now) but I really believed he was sincere. Insecurities started immediately- checking my emails, phone records, upset when I traveled for business even though I am 100 percent loyal and trustworthy. Jeolousy, insecurity was a part of our early marriage mixed with some of the most wonderful times of my life. Thought he was my soul mate but knew he was dealing with trust and abondonment issues from his childhood so I tried to be sensitive. Then the transition happened. I could do nothing right it seemed. This got much worse when he retired from the military. He was a senior ranking officer and used to being in control. He seemed to have lost his identity when he got out and things got much worse at home. The projection, gas lighting,  the fights/rages over issues that to this day I can't fathom why they upset him. I tried to walk away when he got this way. It made it worse. So I fought back and he said we were incompatible. He often packed his bags in anger and said he was leaving. Twice before he did leave but came back after 2 weeks and then again after 8 weeks. This time it's been almost a year. We filed legal separation papers. For the better part of the year he wouldn't talk to me. Just prior to filing the papers I asked him to please go to marriage counseling with me. He went into an uncontrollable rage and spewed the most hateful things possible- "I despise you, you are weak, pathetic, you need help, I don't know if I ever loved you" and on and on. This is just tip of the ice berg accusations. I love him so much but recognize there are major issues. Im seeing a T who told me it sounds like he had BPD. I wish I knew then what I know now. Maybe I could have done more to keep the peace. So here I sit. He won't respond to emails or texts. He didnt usually talk of wanting a divorce, just a separation. But with NC, it seems impossible to ever find a productive way forward. He told me to date but not sleep with anyone? Not that I am emotionally ready to do either but what the heck. I asked him over a month ago what his plans were and he said he'd wait till March 1st to file to see if anything changes. Why March 1st?  To see if he finds someone new I assume. Now he just he doesn't respond at all. I love him, would work on the issues with him but I am at a loss as to what to do now. Should I wait and keep my life on hold? Do I file knowing it's not what I want but do it anyway not knowing if he will ever come around? So hard especially when last Christmas was one of those good memories.

[peiper]

Right now work on your healing. Your still in FOG. Not the time to make decisions until it clears.

[whythisgirl]

I am sorry to hear you are going through this. Your uBPDh sounds like my uBPDexbf. We were only together for 8 months and started showing the signs of gaslighting/projecting/anger early on in the r/s but I ignored those red signs. He had me so stressed out I had to report everything I did or he would falsely accuse me of lying and/ cheating with my ex prior to him.

He has not respected you by giving you silent treatment, hence you should not put your life on hold. How difficult this may sound, put yourself first, proceed with the filing, and move on with your life. You will find another man in the future that will treat you a lot better. Good luck. Xontnue to post here for support.

[fromheeltoheal]

Hi lin, and welcome!

I'm sorry you're going through that, and yes, the holidays tend to exaggerate everything.

I love him, would work on the issues with him but I am at a loss as to what to do now.

The best thing you can do right now is read a lot of posts here and see if your husband fits in with the rest of our exes, and also talk to your therapist about any and everything.  If you do connect with everything being said about people with this disorder unfortunately the prognosis is grim, there is no cure for the disorder, but there are ways for borderlines to learn how to deal with it, it just takes a long time and a lot of commitment, and most don't stick it out.

The fact that you haven't interacted with him much lately is a good thing, you're probably thinking straighter than most of us where when we got here, and really the bottom line is to make a decision.  Decide what you want and need from a partner, and then decide if he could ever or would ever meet those wants and needs, and then act accordingly.  It's easy to get caught up in "if only" when we love someone, and folks with personality disorders have a lot of good traits too, if it was all bad we'd leave right away easily and this site wouldn't be necessary.  So it's time for some brutal honesty, with yourself.  And if you do decide it's time to move on, for you, then it's a process of letting go of the hope that it could work, which is painful but necessary if you're going to move towards the life of your dreams, dreams based in reality, not the ones that include a different version of him, but ones that exclude the real him if you so decide, and include people who can meet your wants and needs consistently.  Take care of you!

[linfh789]

Thank you for your kind words. He has been so successful in his career that I know he knows right from wrong. And yet he feels justified in his actions. He went from making me feel like I was the best thing that ever happened to him to making me feel like I never mattered at all. He cannot remember any of the good times, only what he feels I did wrong. He told me I didn't do enough to make him happy yet I can show him a 1000 pictures of our good times with him smiling or laughing, to include last Christmas.  I just can't wrap my head around it but I guess I'm no different than most on the forum. But it's a hurt like I have never experienced.

[fromheeltoheal]

He went from making me feel like I was the best thing that ever happened to him to making me feel like I never mattered at all.

Idealization and then devaluation, the standard cycle of the disorder, which has nothing to do with you, in a sense.  Borderlines are need-driven, and you were once the solution, the thing outside himself her turned to, to help soothe his emotions and make him feel better when he was triggered.  And then at some point you became the trigger, not because of anything you did, except love him and get too close, which is triggering for borderlines.

He cannot remember any of the good times, only what he feels I did wrong.

Pure defense mechanism, and to borderlines feelings are facts; if he's feeling triggered, engulfed, whatever negative emotion, he will warp reality to fit those feelings, and if he sees you as the source of those feelings, everything you did together has to be bad for him to feel better.  Plus, with black and white thinking, it's either all good or all bad with no grey between.  Very hurtful to us on the receiving end, we understand.

[BorisAcusio]

He went from making me feel like I was the best thing that ever happened to him to making me feel like I never mattered at all.

And then at some point you became the trigger, not because of anything you did, except love him and get too close, which is triggering for borderlines.

I would prefer to view this from a slightly different angle. You become a trigger when the fantasy bond is broken and they they finally realize(!) that you're were not the solution. The once idealized person, the “all good”, powerful object, protecting them against bad “persecutory” ones is dropped for not serving it's purpose anymore. The mask is dropped. For you and for her.

I think what you referred to constitutes towards the push and pull cycle. They want to be safely and completely(!) dependent to a point of fusioned psyches while there is a strong wish for remaining autonomous.

[linfh789]

Ever since my T suggested he has this disorder from the terrible abandonment he had as a child and the events of our marriage I recapped for my T, I have been doing research on this disorder. He has almost every trait. Idealization, devaluation, and discard. The examples are so numerous. What I am trying to come to terms with is exactly what you just said. I have become his trigger. Where once I was his solution/answer to his happiness, know I'm somehow the cause of his pain. No matter how I try to reason with him, to show him pictures of the good times, (he just says people can pose for pictures), he cannot find a middle ground. (I've been split black) and there is no dialoguing anything. As heartbroken as I am because I thought he was my soul mate, I have to let him go. Trusting again or even wanting to try again is unbearable.

[fromheeltoheal]

He went from making me feel like I was the best thing that ever happened to him to making me feel like I never mattered at all.

And then at some point you became the trigger, not because of anything you did, except love him and get too close, which is triggering for borderlines.

I would prefer to view this from a slightly different angle. You become a trigger when the fantasy bond is broken and they they finally realize(!) that you're were not the solution. The once idealized person, the “all good”, powerful object, protecting them against bad “persecutory” ones is dropped for not serving it's purpose anymore. The mask is dropped. For you and for her.

I think what you referred to constitutes towards the push and pull cycle. They want to be safely and completely(!) dependent to a point of fusioned psyches while there is a strong wish for remaining autonomous.

Yeah, in a larger sense you're right Boris; it kinda matters where we are in the cycle.  We do start out as the fantasy completion, the solution to the persecution, and at some point we fall from grace and become one of "them", only because we're perfectly human and the fantasy was just that.

And in another sense, a tactic to push someone away when feeling engulfed is to make them feel like they "never mattered at all", only to cycle back to "the best thing that ever happened to him" when abandonment feelings show up, the push/pull.

It's context-specific and dependent on the relationship, and maybe both are factors concurrently.

[BorisAcusio]

It's context-specific and dependent on the relationship, and maybe both are factors concurrently.

I guess they can work concurrently. From my own experience, after the devaluation, even the push & pull cycles were "different" or rather to say "non existent", at least in the original sense of the word.