Every time I think I'm on the fence or leaning toward staying, my uBPDw manages to find a way to push me back over toward the leaving side. I've all but made the decision, just a matter of time now.
So our poor old washer is just about to die. Any load could be its last. It's already been through a major rebuild, and this time it will be hundreds of dollars to repair, even if I do the work. A couple of weeks ago it flatlined, but I was able to resurrect it. Not knowing if I would be able to fix it again, I started looking at options for replacing it should the repair not work. We are trying to finish our house and really don't need to buy a brand new one (it's a fancy frontloader), so I was looking into refurbs, etc.
So tonight it almost bit the dust completely while my w was using it. I told her it was pretty well shot and that I had been looking into options. Whereupon she began to tell me we needed to purchase a new set and I shouldn't be wasting my time with used ones. I tried to explain my thinking, and the convo shifted to how she felt like we weren't communicating and I should not have been looking at washers without telling her what I was doing. She was doing a pretty good job of just walking right over me and trying to lead the discussion in circles as usual, but I kept trying to firmly keep the discussion on track with a minimum of JADEing. When she kept insisting "if I'd only let her talk" she had been trying to tell me something important, I said "OK" and stopped talking. Of course that did no good as she simply said, "Never mind" or words to that effect and refused to share what she said was so important.
I tried to explain (I know; the "E" in JADE) that I had no intentions of buying a washer without her knowledge and had only been trying to do some research. She said "What if I went out and used our debit card to buy something without telling you?" to which I replied that was the point I
didn't buy anything. I was only looking online, the same way she would pin things to Pinterest that she might want to look at later.
Once we got upstairs she began to tell me how my "yelling" and "anger" frightened her. I never raised my voice, not once. I was not at any time angry. Puzzled, a little frustrated, amused, incredulous, confused, bewildered, yes, but not angry
But according to her my "body language" frightened her (I must be pretty intimidating if standing with my hands in my pockets or leaning against the counter is frightening. I'm no Brad Pitt, but I didn't think my face was that scary!)
The convo was far too disorganized to try to summarize, but here are a few points presented basically at random:
--I don't respect her.
--I frighten her
--When I try to validate her, she says "It doesn't matter how I 'feel' or what I 'think'" and the proceeds to throw those words back at me several different ways.
--She "doesn't have a selfish bone in her body" (exact quote)
--I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to be getting from T
--She's constantly frightened of me that I could "blow up" at any time
--I'm not being a spiritual leader and God is not pleased with how I'm treating her
There's much, much more but it was coming so fast I can't remember it all. I just sat and listened. And listened. And listened. And had to work harder than ever not to laugh in her face. It's just too ridiculous.
She kept making comments about how if I didn't make some major changes, the marriage would be over. She said she didn't want that but unless I was willing to apologize and take responsibility to change, that is what will happen.
I have moved from 50/50 to about 95/5 after tonight. I cannot spend the rest of my life never knowing at which random moment I will be dragged from reality into her Twilight Zone. She is 100% completely unaware that there is anything wrong with her. She is perfectly normal and I am the one destroying our r/s. I can't see any hope of ever convincing her differently. If she is unwilling to acknowledge that I was only trying to help her by browsing through washing machines online, what hope do I have of ever convincing her it actually takes
two people to be married?
I'm pretty much resigned to ending it after this. Not because there was some big blowup, but precisely because there wasn't. That signals to me that no matter how quiet and nicely things may be going and even if I master every tool in the BPD toolkit, her crazy universe isn't going away.
There's still a house to finish and other preparations to be made behind the scenes, but I think after tonight the die is cast and it's a matter of "how soon," not "if".
