SURVEY | Hitting Bottom - why people leave?

[iluminati]

It wasn't any one thing that pushed me to file.  The cheating was definitely a big deal, but if it were just the cheating, there's a possibility of somehow reconciling.  What did it for me were two different things that happened within roughly the same time frame.  One was that my exBPDw started staying out late at night to be with her various paramours.  That led my now D5 to be inconsolable with grief because she missed the presence of her mom.  The other was that a business came with a small windfall that allowed me to fund a divorce and money to move.  Once I had those resources, that was it.  I was done.

I likely would have pulled the plug anyway, as I was getting sick of the cheating, the various addictions and the lack of care of herself, her child and our household.  Still, her abandonment of my daughter likely pushed up the timetable.  I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and it was clear that she was rejecting help.  She had been kicked out of DBT for the second time about a year before I filed for divorce.  One can only give out so many extra chances before one runs out.

In terms of something getting through to me, well, her actions got through to me.  The first exploratory steps towards divorce were steps that I couldn't afford at the time.  Then, I laid it out to her that if she didn't come through the second go-round with DBT and make an effort, I was going to leave.  The thing is that I'm not sure she even remembered that when I hit her with the papers.  She somehow thought we could stay together, if only for our daughter's sake.  By the point, I was done.  Like Maya Angelou said, if someone tells you what they are, believe them... .the first time.

[GreenEyedMonster]

My very short 15-week relationship revealed a growing pattern of selfish decisions on the part of my ex -- a blatant disregard for my needs, wants, and feelings.  I could not figure out why a man who seemed so desperate to be loved by someone, anyone would then treat that person so badly.

After being left behind or left out repeatedly, the final showdown was over a vacation he went on.  We had gone on trips together to places he had never been before, and I thought it was a lot of fun.  I have a goal to make it to all 50 states, and one of the last few states I have left to visit is Minnesota.  So he booked a trip to MN with a mysterious group of male and female friends he met at a music festival, and told me that he "deserved" to go without me.

When he called me and told me how much fun he was having with the other girls there, and he mentioned that he could have brought me along but just didn't ask, I cried on the phone with him.  His response was, "Well, I won't come here without you again until next summer, at least."

Yeah.  The end.

[Herodias]

I had no choice but to divorce my husband after 9 years together due to extreme violence (holding a gun to me after holding me on the floor with his hand over my mouth, then putting a pillow over my face) and affairs... .I caught a woman in my bed on Xmas and then he got another woman pregnant during our separation. He told me he wanted a divorce after I had him arrested for the violence. He said he no longer trusted me. After years of all the other chaos, this is what it came down to... .I could not risk my life as he told me he "had a plan for me".

[Mutt]

I don't think that there was a single incident that had me thinking about leaving my exuBPDw. Her negativity with everything was really getting to me and I started to think about how things may not get better than it was in the future and I didn't want to live like that. I told her a few times that we go through bad patches in life and the bad patches seem longer than the good patches but you work through the bad patches.

I'm sure that other members here can relate with this but I started walking on eggshells when it was quitting time at work, weekends and vacation days. I didn't know how my weekend would turn out, is she going to get upset with something that she thinks that I did? I didn't know about BPD at the time and she's not diagnosed, so it was very confusing because anything that I did made her unhappy. It was also confusing when she was nice to me because we may of fought for a week and the issues were not resolved, she never apologized, I apologized so we would stop fighting and sometimes that didn't work.  That said, these dreadful feelings was the catalyst for me, what are things going to be like 18 years from now?

What really did it for me was her cheating, a relationship can be repaired with counseling and a lot of work. I just couldn't trust her at that point and it was reason enough for me to get a divorce. I didn't anticipate how hard divorce was going to be or the emotional barrage and smear campaign that was waiting for me but it's the best decision for all of our family members. It didn't help the kids to see mom and dad fight. It's more relaxed, I can do what I want without having to worry about how my exuBPDw is going to react, I get to spend a lot of time with the kids. The future is much brighter and hopeful.

I don't think that a family member or friend would have been able to convince me that we we're going down the wrong road. Someone else's relationship or marriage is not my business and I would expect the same courtesy, it's an experience that I had to go through. I'm sure that some family members may of been hurt to see me go through what I did but everything turned out OK.

[Hopeful83]

Hmmm not sure how to answer this.

I was told a bunch of lies, but I pieced the puzzle together over the last year and came to the following conclusions:

He told his family he wanted to marry me, they flipped at him (I know this bit for sure) and began to emotionally manipulate him. They brought another woman into the picture (a woman from his past, and a woman from their community/culture whom they deemed acceptable) and attempted to arrange their marriage. A 'friend' who was in on the whole thing informed me he was 'talking' with this Z list ex of his. I talk with him, he tells me he's torn between the two of us and it was like talking to a 12 year old, so I break up with him. Six weeks later they're engaged, eight months later married.

That's the gist of it.

[puck]

Signs of potential, severe family violence; an increasing trend toward threats of suicide and emotional blackmail; and a long pattern of deceit. I couldn't recognise the person I thought I had married.

[Meili]

The short answer is that the pain of the relationship got to be too much for me to handle and I didn't see any reasonable expectation of change.

[enlighten me]

Mine was a mixture of things. I was sick of the way she was treating me. I didnt trust her even though I had no evidence just a gut feeling she was cheating. I hated how flirty she was. I just got to the end of my tether and decided enough was enough.

Nothing anyone could say or have done would have made me wise up. It was something I had to do for myself.

[kc sunshine]

Rock bottom for me was when we we tried an open relationship and she was devaluing me and idealizing her other partner. She'd split me black before but not in the context of being in another relationship. That is not something I'd like to experience ever again.

[LilMe]

Within a month or two span I read Lundy Bancroft, uBPDx physically disciplined my 7 year old for a childish mistake and left bruises and welts, and my 14 year old attempted suicide because uBPDx would only allow me to see her for 2 hours every other Monday. It was like the fog cleared and I saw the reality of the situation for my children.

Counseling failed for us as well.  We tried it twice.  It also failed in uBPDx's 2 previous marriages.

[Freakedout66]

I left because I was emotionally drained. It became all too often about what I was doing, saying, thinking... .all of it filtered through the abandonment lense.

[earlyL]

After I found a letter from another lover, I waited out six weeks while she told me she loved me but showed the exact opposite. I couldn't take anymore and ended it when she said she wanted to get her own place, and would need to think about if she wanted to see other people. Four weeks later she was at an event with me and the new partner, obviously together. I am glad I followed my gut instinct but I have questioned it ever since if I did the right thing and if something could have made me wait longer.

Interestingly she feels that the six weeks were a short time to go through and I should have held on longer, she couldn't see that her actions were very clear to me that it was over.

[Dragon72]

What brought me to this stage is the glacially slow realisation that doing all I can to try to please her will never have the desired result - her being pleased.  She'll never be truly happy. She'll never validate me. She'll never give me true emotional intimacy.  She will never be someone I will feel comfortable with.  She will never be a friend with whom I can laugh, disagree, trust, comfort, open up.  Ever since she chose to be with me (marry me), she has gone out of her way to be distant - both physically and emotionally.
That's not a marriage.
That's not two happy people.

I haven't got to the stage where I have even mentioned divorce (anything more emotionally sensitive than "pass the salt" results in a rage), but I think I know it's inevitable.

[Aesir]

I ended it after she attempted to start another argument. She used a dumb issue (which she had brought up before) to shift blame for a larger issue that was going on with her. She couldn't let go of small things due to her low self esteem. She had been getting worse for months and I was walking on eggshells around her. In the end I was drained and couldn't fight or think of a reason to stay.

[Sadly]

I ended it. The pain of being with him was too much to bear.
He made rubbish out of all the love and care I gave him, constantly reprimanded and belittled me. Controlled, ignored, used and cheated me without remorse.  He took my heart, he took my trust and ripped them up, I gave them to him happily and he broke them all up like they were nothing.

[Huh?]

I was doing all the work in the relationship.  After she ended our engagement and threw me out, I had to move in with my family 60 miles north... .which led to 150 mile a day commute for work.  I did this for three years while we "worked on us" and then We could get married and I could come home.

She seemed to only want me around for a few hours on the weekends... .so I was doing th driving 6/7 days a week.  

I expressed my fatigue, how I couldn't keep up with the driving/effort; it made every day a 16 hour work day.  She didn't care.

She eventually told me during those three years, she started dating during our short breaks; breaks that came as a result of me asking for effort on her part... .which resulted in silent treatment on her part until I would cave a few weeks later.

Once I heard there were other guys who were "just friends that only wanted sex" involved, I finally dug up some respect for myself and ended it.

Haven't heard from her since; a woman who emphatically insisted she'd never be able to remarry if something ever happened to me after our marriage... .was dating "friends who wanted sex" within a few weeks.  I know now, that they say what they feel at the time... .at the time.

Most pathetic part is I miss her have zero desire to date anybody else.  I can't even image being with anybody else... .as toxic as that one sided relationship was.  

[AustenJ]

In retrospect I was very very lucky that her ex-boyfriend/BFF got laid off from his engineering job and left the state... .

At the time I was totally emeshed with diagnosed exBPDgf and was separated from my wife of 16 years. At the time I was angry at her ex for manipulating her during the time he was leaving... .she was spending the night at his house "on the couch", of course, drinking, and was an emotional mess... .after he left, I got her back to "normal" somewhat... .then the other shoe dropped as she told me she was going to spend 10 days with this guy over holiday break, totally leaving me in the lurch... .she then discarded me after she got back as she had a local replacement for me in the wings that she had been working on while she was with her exbf/bff... .what a peach! Now I just get to work with her every day! Gah

[whitebackatcha]

She ended things more times than I can count, and I finally told her I wasn't going to put up with it anymore. She unfriended me on a social media site in reaction to being annoyed by a post, and it pushed me over the edge. I told her it hurt me, and that I didn't want to hear her excuses. I ended up completely telling her off, saying all the things I had wanted to say for so long. She said she guessed we were done. I didn't respond, because I didn't have the energy. She's reached out a couple times, and I've stopped responding to that as well. I just don't see the point anymore. I gave up.

[vortex of confusion]

I ended things.

I was tired of being quiet and living a lie. I felt like I was living in a prison.

We managed to work through his porn use at the beginning of the marriage. Work through meant that I forgave him and kept my mouth shut about it. That pain festered for a lot of years because it was swept under the rug. Any time I tried to bring it up, he would focus on how difficult it was for him. I was made to look like a jerk because I kept bringing up the past. The past was never really addressed. It was swept under the rug and forgotten.

There was some other stuff that happened along the way. When my youngest was under 2, he shoved me down while I was holding her. I fell backwards. Luckily, I tucked my arms around her and she was safe. The backs of my arms were all bruised up. That was the moment that I knew that I wanted out. I had no idea how to get out though. I kept hoping that him pushing me was a one off kind of thing. He denied that he pushed me and said it was an accident. I wanted to believe him. After he left, the older kids said they saw what happened and that there was no question that he pushed me. They had been afraid to say anything about it while he still lived there.

And then, I went to him and asked him for help when I was feeling overwhelmed by caring for 4 kids. I told him I was tired and needed a break. I was honest with him and said that I was scared because I was having some dark thoughts. I just needed him to help me get some sleep and maybe get out of the house every once in a while. Basically, I wanted him to be a dad. At that point, I didn't work outside the house and I was home pretty much 24/7. I wasn't even getting to go to the grocery store. If I needed to go to the store, he would go instead. The one time I did go to the store back then, he got into it with the neighbor. I could only go places with him. The kids and I were discouraged from doing things without him. He would get upset and feel left out if I (or the kids) did anything without him.

The only other place he would encourage me to go was to go see other men. He couldn't watch the kids so I could go to the store or do healthy things but he could watch them so I could go have "lunch" with a "friend" and then come home and tell him about it so we could be intimate. I was feeling so trapped and alone that I did it. When I saw that complete strangers seemed to be more concerned about my health and well being than he was, it made me sick and strengthened my resolve to get out. 

Then, there was the kids. At one point, the oldest asked me, "Mom, when is dad going to leave." The last thing keeping me there was this notion that the kids wanted him around. Once the kids opened up to me and told me that they didn't like dad and didn't want him around, my decision was pretty set in stone. I just had to figure out how to make it happen.

[Sluggo]

What was the final straw... .

1. My father was in hospice just 5 minutes from my house.   My wife said I could not go and see him by myself and I had to go with her.  I agreed to that demand to prove I loved her.  He died and I only saw him twice.  One time I said I was going to stop by before work, and she said you never stay for me to talk you should 'lose work time' by talking with him.  I acquiesced and did not see him.   

2.  At the funeral, my wife was mad about how she perceived my family treating her.  I was ca retaking for her the day of my father's funeral, and not the other way around. 

3.My wife said I could not talk to my family which I had 'given up' doing over the previous 2 years because wife said that would help our marriage.  It made it worse and I felt horrible. 

4. The last fight, I realized that I did not parent my 17 year old son the way I wanted to when he was little.  My wife would disrupt opportunities to spend time with him,,, if that was watching a football game (only saw one entire TV game with him growing up even though we both liked football a lot), not play with him outside as my wife would call him inside or me inside to do chores, agree with my wife not to go to his football games because she wanted me at home, etc).

So another son I had had his 7th year birthday on our last fight, I realized I did not want to lose this opportunity with him as I allowed myself to do with my older son. 

5. Fights became more and more frequent from every 6 months over time to several times a day.  We were married 18yrs.

[FSTL]

Like a lot of people, I gave up.

She ended it so many times and I always came back to her. Not long after one break up, I saw her instant messages after she showed up drunk one night at 2am demanding that I "make her feel special".

It was like looking into the mind of a crazy person - I could see her messages to my replacement and the standby replacement of my replacement. And the messages to her friends in which she was expressing what she really felt about things.

I then had a calm discussion with her in the am about what she was doing on the following Friday. She said she was going out with her friends, but I knew she was going out with my replacement. To see her lie like that was chilling.

My head was spinning, but I confronted her about it after a few days and told her we were over. She knew she was caught and didn't fight it, but then tried to reel me back in a week or two later. We've been LC ever since, altough we spent a little bit of time together after she had two deaths in the family. At the end of it we agreed it was over and now I only see her in passing at work and for some life admin issues that are winding down.

[Suki64]

I ended things, I was pushed beyond my limit and although I still want to be with him, I can't mentally or emotionally handle it.
Within the span of 12 months, I caught my partner cheating with the same woman over 6 times, the woman he left in order to be with me in the first place. Why was 6 the magic number? Every time I caught him, I demanded more and more from him. The first time, I was asked him to try and be truthful and to try counseling. As the discoveries escalated, it led to hospital visits, couples therapy alongside individual therapy, letting me follow the location services on his phone, even removing him from our home until he could prove he was faithful.
By the most recent time I caught him, which was the 6th, there was nothing I could have asked of him that would make me feel better about the relationship continuing. He had done everything I had asked, but he had lied throughout. I left because I had no other way to turn. I miss him everyday.