"Erasing" me

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hello,

I have been really hung up on my UBPD wife recently telling me she is "erasing" me from her life.  Really hung up.  We were together for over 12 years and she wants me erased?  She will only discuss the kids at this point.  (Probably best because this means no more verbal and emotional abuse.) She says she has moved on with her new life and I am not part of it.  I feel so hurt and betrayed. 

In the divorce, I have lost most of our mutual friends and her family.  There's over 75 people that I thought would be in my life forever and they have gone to side with her.  This has just intensified the feelings of loss I have for her, our family and our life goals and dreams. 

She now moves around cold and calculated like a surgeon when she is around me or on the phone, yet when she interacts with out children, she is like an elated child meeting a new puppy.  This seems to get harder and harder with time and not an easier as it should. 

Any similar stories or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you,

TD

[Their Dad]

Hello,

I have been really hung up on my UBPD wife recently telling me she is "erasing" me from her life.  Really hung up.  We were together for over 12 years and she wants me erased?  She will only discuss the kids at this point.  (Probably best because this means no more verbal and emotional abuse.) She says she has moved on with her new life and I am not part of it.  I feel so hurt and betrayed. 

In the divorce, I have lost most of our mutual friends and her family.  There's over 75 people that I thought would be in my life forever and they have gone to side with her.  This has just intensified the feelings of loss I have for her, our family and our life goals and dreams. 

She now moves around cold and calculated like a surgeon when she is around me or on the phone, yet when she interacts with out children, she is like an elated child meeting a new puppy.  This seems to get harder and harder with time and not an easier as it should. 

Any similar stories or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you,

TD

[fromheeltoheal]

She reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where a facility sells services to 'erase' painful memories of someone or something, selective, targeted amnesia.

Sorry man, it is very painful when a borderline turns, especially with the fallout of kids and friends.  The best we can be is ourselves, fully and completely; her multiple states, one for you and one for the kids, makes us wonder which is the real one?  If your ex is anything like mine, there isn't a real one, there's just chameleon-like false selves fabricated in the moment to fit in and be accepted, to attach, unless someone needs to be the recipient of all the sht, you and me in our cases, then we get the disgust and the vitriol, most of it an outward projection of inner feelings.

It's doubly important to be our real, true selves at times like this.  She can fabricate anything she wants to turn people against you but people aren't stupid, and once they see through her facade for what it is, you'll probably get some of those people back, and you don't want the rest, the ones who buy into it.  I was blown away when my ex's son called me to commiserate; he apparently saw a sanity in me that was absent in his mother, validating yes, but he was too close to it all and I had to let him go with love.  Great kid that, don't know how he got there with all the crap he's lived with, but good prevails.  And good will prevail for you too, just hang in there.

[JRT]

Your post give me a little insight as to my ex's behavior; I can relate!

Through FB, my exBPDfiance blocked me, unfriended all of the people who she had met through me and then successfully convinced almost all (except 1 or 2) mutual friends to do the same. I can only imagine what she is telling them to get them to go along though I am certain that yours is making up some sort of fairy tales as well. How else would everyone so willingly go along with the abandonment.

I know how it feels: it makes an already horrible and tragic situation even worse. These were people that I was just months from calling family with the same responsibilities and loyalties that cast me off without so much as a call or letter from one of them telling me that they were sorry it went down and 'have a good life'. - not even one!  Sorry that you are going through this.

[neverloveagain]

   

Re: "Erasing" me

« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2015, 12:52:41 PM »

Your post give me a little insight as to my ex's behavior; I can relate!

Through FB, my exBPDfiance blocked me, unfriended all of the people who she had met through me and then successfully convinced almost all (except 1 or 2) mutual friends to do the same. I can only imagine what she is telling them to get them to go along though I am certain that yours is making up some sort of fairy tales as well. How else would everyone so willingly go along with the abandonment.

I know how it feels: it makes an already horrible and tragic situation even worse. These were people that I was just months from calling family with the same responsibilities and loyalties that cast me off without so much as a call or letter from one of them telling me that they were sorry it went down and 'have a good life'. - not even one!  Sorry that you are going through this.

This wow thank you.

[Reecer1588]

Although I'm only 19 years old, I believe I have a story that can relate. I believe that your ex wife said that exact phrase because you told her, or inferred it to her, that it would hurt you deeply. In my case, I always made it clear that my ex being with someone else would make me really upset. And so what did my ex text me? "I AM going to find someone else. And I really hope you do too." As with you, time only makes this seem worse. I'm 54 days out of my last direct contact with her.Yet here still I am. And like you, the last bits of time and contact I had with my ex were either: Vitriol, or surgical indifference.

Here is the surgical phrase my ex girlfriend texted me during our fighting that I will never forget. "I'm not suffering. I'm glad I made the decision to eliminate you from my life." Um: I mean I don't know if it gets much more surgical than that... .

This indifference and surgical style statements come from the "detached protector"

It has been described to me by another user on this site as a way of protecting their ego.

Here ya go: 6.  :)etached Protector : cuts off needs and feelings; detaches emotionally from people and rejects their help; feels withdrawn, spacey, distracted, disconnected, depersonalized, empty or bored; pursues distracting,  self-soothing,  or self-stimulating activities in a compulsive way or to excess; may adopt a cynical, aloof  or pessimistic stance to avoid investing in people or activities

Source: www.schematherapy.com/id72.htm


Wanted to add something else: Remember that people with BPD (like your wife and my ex are... .probably) have not reached emotional adulthood. Therefore, they do not go beyond using "Early Maladaptive Schemas" for the most part. I'm hesitant to ever use concrete terms. Also remember, that it would take some sort of real or perceived threat/stress in order for them to USE (therefore letting us see it) these schemas.

Here they are: www.schematherapy.com/id73.htm

This is all my opinion. Armchair opinion. I'm not an expert on schemas in any way, shape or form.

[Mutt]

Hi Their Dad,

I'm sorry your going through this.

I can relate with what your going through with kids.

You had a long history together.

You have not only suffered the loss of a partner, you lost a network of family and friends.

I recall something my ex said during her dissociative phase "You want to play hardball? I'll show you hardball!" At that moment I didn't know the term BPD and Splitting.

Some and not all pwBPD will distort you for sometimes months, she started an affair in the marriage and was circulating stories that I was emotionally abusive to her and the kids and physically and financially abusive as well.

I lost the in-laws and all mutual friends.

fromheeltoheel has a good point she has different persona's or masks.

The truth has a way of working it's way out. It was a test that showed me the true colors of friends and family and her fabrications.

The friends that buy into her facade aren't people I want to associate with today. Her family have likely seen the pattern of behaviors with replacing boyfriends and heard similar stories of abuse.

You'll see who you true friends are.


Keep your chin up.


----Mutt

[Copperfox]

Agree with everything that's been said here so far.

I would just add that you need to be strategic in your actions here.  She feels "hurt", which is driving her actions.  Her inner turmoil.  And she is lashing out by "erasing" you.  Trying to hurt you back.

I know it hurts, but if you show that in any way, then it plays right into the game.  :)on't react. At all. Take the power back. The only way to win, is not to play .

[Their Dad]

Thanks for all of the responses. 

A couple other comments she has made include, "This is all your fault", "I should have divorced you sooner" and "I am going to find someone that will take care of me because you never did". 

She knows what hurts me and continues to cut my head off every time I stick my neck out.  We need to communicate due to our children however, we ar doing everything in writing with Our Family Wizard.  I have found the no voice contact to be very difficult beyond 7 or10 days.  My T states I would rather have the negative interactions than none because it is what I am used to with her.   

I have my goal set on one month with no phone contact. 

Thank you again. 

TD

[JohnLove]

A couple other comments she has made include, "This is all your fault", "I should have divorced you sooner" and "I am going to find someone that will take care of me because you never did".  

I have my goal set on one month with no phone contact.  

TD

This is ALL YOUR FAULT?... .really?... .even I find that hard to believe. It truly takes two, but maybe not in equal measure. This is black/white thinking. It absolves her in her disordered thinking of any accountability. Honestly she has got be joking.

I would wish her good luck in that quest... .while maybe not completely impossible... .I reckon she has better chances of winning the lottery. Her mental illness isn't going to just go away.

One month? Seems achievable. Good for you Their Dad.

[Mutt]

I'd like to echo JohnLove and Copperfox.

A relationship takes two.

You are split black and this is a reaction with rejection / abandonment and she's projecting her inner turmoil and trying to make you feel as bad or worst.

Keep your head down and maintain radio silence the quicker the emotional barrage will deplete.