To tell or not to tell

[Safe]

I'm new to the board and am at the beginning of the divorce process from a high functioning BPDH (diagnosed). As many members new to the Board have expressed, I have been benefiting tremendously from all the wisdom shared on this board.

I still have to put together my intro, but I have one question that has been on my mind for a long time but haven't seen it discussed. So here it is:

Do you tell your BPD's family and friends the full extent of their abusive behaviour?

When the abusive behaviours first started after a few months into my marriage (verbal, emotional, throwing things, blaming me for his suicidal thoughts, following perfectly the cycle of violence with intermittent insights/remorse and good behaviours), I reached out to his parents and a few close friends for help. The MIL was in complete denial and blamed me (she likely has a disorder herself as she has ruined her family relationships and sabotaged past female relationships of my stbx husband) and the FIL (while sensible) was not able to make independent decisions to take action. His few close friends did speak with him at that point and apparently he admitted that he had anger issues to them.

However, the family and friend didn't do much as the situation escalated. The friends "stuck by his side as friends do". Yes, it's true that my stbx BPD husband hid his abuse behind closed doors so his friend haven't witnessed the abuse first hand. But they also chose to not ask/find out, and stopped talking to me (I didn't pursue the communication because I was bullied/threatened to keep quiet and feared that it would be construed as harassment). I suppose they don't want to be in the middle of a divorce (a normal response in normal situations), but they are basically enabling the abuse by adopting the "don't ask/don't tell" attitude. My stbx H has always been over the top generous financially to his friends and they all shut up!

These friends have young children and there are days I really feel tempted to reach out to them/their wives to say, look, if your children are being abused, would you take the stance of don't ask/don't tell and just shut the victim out?

Any one out there struggled/struggling with the same thoughts? And how did you deal with it?

[livednlearned]

Good question.

The MIL was in complete denial and blamed me (she likely has a disorder herself as she has ruined her family relationships and sabotaged past female relationships of my stbx husband) and the FIL (while sensible) was not able to make independent decisions to take action.

I think this is probably pretty typical, unfortunately. My ex's mom was BPD or something, and his dad was a wallflower, very passive, codependent type. I don't think everyone with BPD has a BPD parent, but the research says 40% of BPD is environmental, 60% is genetic. Chances are your H grew up in a very invalidating home with a very invalidating BPD parent -- the mom by the sounds of it.

One of the curses of this particular mental illness, imo, is that it strikes hardest in intimate relationships. So people in one rung out from the inner circle of intimacy (like spouses and children) don't have a clue what's going on. And no one understands BPD, so they don't get how someone can be sort of ok with friends and acquaintances, only to completely unload on the spouse in private. I know my ex's few friends introduced him to divorced friends thinking he was this great guy whose crazy ex-wife just upped and left with the kid one day, scorching the earth behind her. I've seen pictures of some of these women on FB and they look so nice. They had no idea that he could be so completely crazy, up all night in some psychotic state, raging and yelling, being abusive and terrorizing his family.

How to deal with it when people seem to take sides? I don't think there is a good answer. I chose to build from scratch, partly because I didn't have the strength and went into a year long hiatus trying to recover from the shock of leaving.

I do think that people are afraid to be put in the middle. It's not unlike parents trying to settle a fight with siblings where you aren't sure who did what, only that there is some kind of fight. Even judges can't tell with much accuracy.

At the end of the day, friends want to be friends, not therapists. They want you to resolve some of the complex stuff that they aren't skilled to help with in the presence of a therapist who knows how to handle those emotions. That's what I felt. A few of my friends who knew what was going on have drifted away. I think we had some kind of hangover from the drama and both sides needed some breathing room to regroup and come back together as friends, a little more levity and less one-sided drama.

Do you have a therapist you can talk to? Someone who can help you pick and choose who to talk to, and sort through what it is you want to get from these friendships? If it is justice, or resolution, or whatever it might be.

[Safe]

Livednlearned,

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Yes, I’ve also learned (the hard way) that the illness with the attendant rage/violence/abuse strikes the hardest in intimate relationships.

In my stbxBPDH’s case, he has had a pattern of volatile intimate relationships - his family knew and denied it; his friends chose not to find out/intervene. So they essentially enable his abuse/bullying by “being there for him and offering him the friendship/unconditional love without drawing the line in the sand that domestic abuse and violence is not acceptable”. And to the innocent potential victim, his circle of friends actually functioned as the bait for the trap! I still remember thinking a guy with such long lasting friendships can’t be bad…

I have explored with my therapist about the motivation of wanting to disclose the full extent of the abuse to his friends. It’s primarily driven by a sense of justice - I’ve been bullied and abused, and somehow staying silent feels like I’ll just become part of the machinery that enabled him to become the bully and abuser that he is. It’s a decision that could lead to escalation in raging and I’ll not act lightly. So still pondering…

Quote

At the end of the day, friends want to be friends, not therapists. They want you to resolve some of the complex stuff that they aren't skilled to help with in the presence of a therapist who knows how to handle those emotions. That's what I felt. A few of my friends who knew what was going on have drifted away. I think we had some kind of hangover from the drama and both sides needed some breathing room to regroup and come back together as friends, a little more levity and less one-sided drama.

Unquote

This is great insight. I have not thought about this angle. I have been blessed with a very supportive group of friends but I do need to be mindful of the line between friends and therapist.

[maxen]

hi Safe  

well ... .that makes three of us! i did not tell my wife's parents about the full range of her irresponsibility. they knew she was financially wasteful because she was hitting them up during the marriage after i put my foot down, and they must have had some little idea about her drinking. but her mother is juvenile and may herself have BPD, and her father, otherwise very successful, is an abdicator in his role of father and is in thrall to his wife. i never saw either of them intervene emotionally or morally with any of their children, imo because they're too arrogant to believe that anything any of them do is problematic. my exw's brother ruined his first marriage with philandering; but the reason they divorced is not what the son did, it's that his wife "wasn't committed to the family." my wife was unfaithful and bolted; but "there's two sides to every pancake, as Dr Phil says" (yes, a quote). so while i wish i did give her family the full picture, i don't think it would have made a bit of difference. her family cut me off instantly and my exw cut my family off, although a few of them tried to reach out to her. when i reached out to mutual friends, she was enraged.

so it seems that what you're experiencing Safe is characteristic of the end of BPD r/ss. do you have a network of your own, friends or family or a counselor? and where do you stand legally? do you have a lawyer?

[ForeverDad]

Trusted family.  Trusted friends.  Mutual friends could be swayed less by your facts and more by your ex's emotionally compelling allegations, even divulge your strategies to the ex, so be cautious about sharing such things.

[Safe]

Hi Maxen

Ugh, the family dynamic sounds eerily similar! In fact, the MIL’s behavior (extreme possessiveness mixed with scathing criticism towards my stb ex husband) made me feel sorry for my ex initially and wanted to help until I realized he was not willing or able to do the work to resolve his mother issue and in fact was projecting the whole mother-son dysfunction onto me.

Yes, I’m experiencing the end of the BPD relationship. He hid it for well over a year until we got married, then the switch got flipped. My ex kept saying he’s a “private person”, little did I know that was code word for “I keep abuse behind closed doors”. At every stage, I thought it couldn’t get worse (because it was so bad already and I couldn’t imagine what’s worse) but it did. Until I have experienced the full journey of leaving, I couldn’t really understand the advice that “the most dangerous time is when you try to leave.”

Luckily I have a strong group of friends.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find an assertive but not aggressive lawyer yet. I had consulted two previously, but after spending $$ telling them the raging and the dangerous/out of control behaviors (threatening to ruin me professionally and financially, actually showing up at my office, emailing my boss with accusations, etc.) one lawyer asked me to bring him to the table and go through collaborative process to agree on the separation!

ForeverDad

Thank you for the advice re caution!

I won’t do anything until I have a good lawyer and have thought through all angles. There a side of me that screams “I want to stand up to the bully/abuser, and the way to do it is to expose his bully/abuse”. But I understand the safety trumps “justice”…

Perhaps there are other ways to achieve the same result of exposing the bully/abuser so they can’t keep on abusing unsuspecting people? Any ideas would be most appreciated!

[livednlearned]

Perhaps there are other ways to achieve the same result of exposing the bully/abuser so they can’t keep on abusing unsuspecting people?

When you first met him, if someone told you he was abusive, what would you have thought?

I think about this in my own situation. I think I would've told my ex, and he would've smooth-talked his way out of the allegation, and I would've sided with him.