Intro - Near desperation dealing with BPD ex

[JIMB]

Hi Everyone,

I am from Australia and found this forum as I am struggling to cope with the situation around my ex-partner who is un-diagnosed BPD, I have no doubt she is a BPD after watching her behavior many years in the relationship. The constant projecting, splitting, aggressive raging, constant unrealistic and shifting demands, gas lighting and emotional mental manipulation were extreme. At about the seven year I started to became so dissociated from all the internalized anxiety & anger she stirred in me that I became suicidal and was omitted to psych ward where I was told not to return to the family home upon release. She of coursed begged me to return sighting her inability to cope without me there, and so I did. Inspite of all this I am such an internally strong person I managed to improve my career, run a national science education program while quietly fearing my home. I began to hate home & family life and disconnected from my kids as my levels of stress and frustration where so high I could never relax. My ex attacked me about my friendship with another ex almost daily until I cut this person off, then she still fought with me it about daily because I took to long to do it & accused me of secretly wanting to still contact her. She constantly put down my family, berated me about my mother who she would yell cared more about my sisters kids then ours. Even though my mother gave 4 months of her life to spend 3 days a week at our home to baby sit so the ex-partner could work on her arts program. She resented the fact as a male I had a good relationship with mum, and sometimes insinuated it was unnatural or sick in nature.

She expected me to pay all the bills and shoulder all the financial burdens and the few times she would work she would decide where own money went, and how it was used. She made going to work difficult, many days I would do all the dishes and clean the kitchen in the morning before I left work & return to find the place a total hovel. I could never go and work and come home to relax, and I would come home to cook 4 days a week and be called on to bath the daughter also. Id have to do laundry often on weekends also, yet she expected to be able to choose to not work or perform home duties. And if I would raise this I would get called misogynist for assuming she should keep the house clean while I worked? She failed too see the "primary bread winner" as an important role in the family at all. Oh god help me if she ever gave me a day or to to work on a project, she even used to claim that looking after kids when I was sent on business was doing me a favor?. Eventually the arguing got so extreme she started attacking me after gesturing threateningly in my face with a broom handle, and I knocked from her hands in self-defense. She then started punching at me and tore my shirt while screaming "help me" at the top her lungs while both daughters where there. I called the police who immateriality served cross domestic violence orders. I was so humiliated by this as I have never seen the inside of a court in my life, but for her this was normal.

The final moment came in January of 2014 after I had run a entertainment event as entrepreneurial opportunity and a lost a few thousands dollars, but was very successful for a first attempt in terms of attendance and reviews. She was apparently so angry at how irresponsible I was loosing this money, that she wanted to leave me & needed time to think about the relationship. She ran me around in circles for weeks and was also calling my mother and running me down to her, lying about my behaviors and basically coaching my mother into supporting her against me. When she returned a massive argument ensued abut the financial obligations, and she became so enraged she smashed a brand new phone, then proceeded to go after my music equipment, I tried to call the police to intervene and she unplugged the phone after they answered. She tried run out the house with my property and I grabbed her and pulled her back inside and tried to get her to release the item which then threw through a large screen TV. When the police arrived they immediately served an order on her,  and when asked by police if I wanted to charge her with property damage I declined (mistake). I could have sent her off to the police station in a squad car that night, but I thought about my daughter & I took her and went to my mothers for few days until things settled down.

From here I just tried to move on the best I could and be as fair as possible, I paid all the rent on the house for 6 months to give her time to find more affordable housing which she put no effort to, I also paid all of my child's education fees last year. And yet when I said I could no longer pay the rent and would be cutting back to just the legal amount of child support & school fees she became incensed, and spiraled between trying to gain pity and blaming me for the potential of her going out the street, or using the fear this would happen to my daughter. To which I kept answering that I had given 1/2 a year for her to find suitable lower cost accommodation, and obligation of paying all the rent was impacting my ability to find my own place. I left her with a car which was fully paid for to transport the daughter, all I asked was that during the separation she pay me a token amount for the car to help with debt she caused with the property destruction; which she refused to do.

She has made persistent false allegations of been afraid of me & that I have harassed her after many months of me just turning up and beeping the horn for my daughter to come out (as agreed), she then demanded we have drop offs in front of the Police station like I was some kind of abusive criminal. She then moved house and refused to tell me where my daughter lives. She took my daughter around for many months to various organisations and claimed in front of her I was abusive, both financially, emotionally. Claims that often come out in angry email tirades. Any communication with her seems to be conduit for her find some minor point and blow it into a ridiculous allegation, it becomes so futile trying to communicate with her that I cant achieve anything without enduring at least 10 emails of full of attention and pitty seeking tirades, and as soon as you ask to consider one thing about you its basically deemed worthless. She is in control of everything regarding access to my child & the only way I can resolve anything is spend 100s of thousands of dollars to go through an unfair and anti-male family law system in my country, where I will most likely loose everything and not gain any rights. I have seen many males go through this here... .

She is expert at manipulating all the various government bodies for free services and legal support and has dragged me to meditations, child support reviews and is now lining me up for family court time, all because I want her to agree to fair division of debts & all she wants is all the family assets and some of retirement fund without paying a cent herself. All along she will not except that she generated any hostility in the situation with her continued controlling and abusive behavior, and projects all of her own shortcomings onto me.

I am at total loss as to how to handle this women & I really just want a normal relationship with my child without all the psychological and financial abuse... .

[Circle]

Thanks for posting. Reading this helps me appreciate the fact that I am no longer with my xSOw/BPD. Sounds like you are doing all that you can do. Good. To hear that you aren't backing down. You may want to post on the family-law board here. Personally, and not from any real experience of my own, but just because you have already done so much to support her (car, rent, etc., after splitting-up), I hope that you aren't longer doing so. She's just been ruthless toward you. I'm not sure what people on the family-law board would say. It seems to me, even though I lack experience, that you might want to start documenting what she does. Lock text messages from her on your phone that are of value. Save angry emails, or any emails with threats, or worthwhile content. You can buy a small digital recorder also and put her on speaker when she talks and back to normal when you do, while recording the whole conversation. Might be best to keep avoiding volatile conversations, of course, as best as you can. You can also use your digital recorder, to record personal meetings and when switching your daughters back & forth.

     Obviously you need to be careful around this woman. I wouldn't meet up alone with her. I would do it in public, if you need to talk and record it/keep your receipts from spending time at a coffee shop, etc. If you buy a recorder, a date/time marking feature would probably be wise.

     These might all be awful suggestions? I just feel that she has brought this sort of behavior on herself by making "persistent false accusations" against you in the past. Also, by destroying your belongings. Also, by insisting that you exchange your daughters at the police station. And, by punching you and tearing your shirt and threatening you with the broom handle.

     I'm so glad that you aren't with her anymore! I just hope that you will quit supporting her, if you ever still do. It won't hurt your daughters to see poverty up close... .they'll still have your world to return to. I also hope that you will take active measures to protect yourself; like recording, etc. Maybe, if you can swing it, you could gather a bunch of evidence against her; real evidence, not contrived; and then take her to court in an effort to get most of the custody. You could also use the fact that you are the breadwinner to support your case.

     Just ideas. Keep on keeping on, and good luck!

[UserName69]

You can buy a small digital recorder also and put her on speaker when she talks and back to normal when you do, while recording the whole conversation. Might be best to keep avoiding volatile conversations, of course, as best as you can. You can also use your digital recorder, to record personal meetings and when switching your daughters back & forth.

     Obviously you need to be careful around this woman. I wouldn't meet up alone with her. I would do it in public, if you need to talk and record it/keep your receipts from spending time at a coffee shop, etc. If you buy a recorder, a date/time marking feature would probably be wise.

     These might all be awful suggestions?

You can do all that with a smartphone. There are free applications for smartphones which allow you to record a phone call. You also can use a smartphone as a voice recorder.

[JIMB]

Hi Circle,

Thanks for your feedback... .

it's important to note I have little to no face to face contact with this women, the situation is so toxic maybe now that I refuse anything other than email discussion. I found after a very short 2 months of civil behaviour during do offs & hand overs, she started her tirades again when I had to move for my employment. An attempt renegotiate access broke down, because she insisted on calling me insane, all because I asked her if she could encourage the daughter to use the Skype I installed so we could be in contact more often?

Like I said she is very clever & manipulative in how she conducts herself. The last time she raged at me in a public place was a few weeks after the separation, where she screamed at me about my mum going in a box (coffin). This happened at a public cafe and as I was trying to leave and get into my car she chased me yelling the whole time, while a group of girls just sat there laughing at the whole incident - so humiliating!


I'm pretty sure unsolicited recordings are inadmissible in Australian courts anyway. Like our said our court system is extremely bias in these matters, and men loose at the rate of 98% here.

I'll jump into the family law section to see what's been discussed there... .

Thanks for posting. Reading this helps me appreciate the fact that I am no longer with my xSOw/BPD. Sounds like you are doing all that you can do. Good. To hear that you aren't backing down. You may want to post on the family-law board here. Personally, and not from any real experience of my own, but just because you have already done so much to support her (car, rent, etc., after splitting-up), I hope that you aren't longer doing so. She's just been ruthless toward you. I'm not sure what people on the family-law board would say. It seems to me, even though I lack experience, that you might want to start documenting what she does. Lock text messages from her on your phone that are of value. Save angry emails, or any emails with threats, or worthwhile content. You can buy a small digital recorder also and put her on speaker when she talks and back to normal when you do, while recording the whole conversation. Might be best to keep avoiding volatile conversations, of course, as best as you can. You can also use your digital recorder, to record personal meetings and when switching your daughters back & forth.

     Obviously you need to be careful around this woman. I wouldn't meet up alone with her. I would do it in public, if you need to talk and record it/keep your receipts from spending time at a coffee shop, etc. If you buy a recorder, a date/time marking feature would probably be wise.

     These might all be awful suggestions? I just feel that she has brought this sort of behavior on herself by making "persistent false accusations" against you in the past. Also, by destroying your belongings. Also, by insisting that you exchange your daughters at the police station. And, by punching you and tearing your shirt and threatening you with the broom handle.

     I'm so glad that you aren't with her anymore! I just hope that you will quit supporting her, if you ever still do. It won't hurt your daughters to see poverty up close... .they'll still have your world to return to. I also hope that you will take active measures to protect yourself; like recording, etc. Maybe, if you can swing it, you could gather a bunch of evidence against her; real evidence, not contrived; and then take her to court in an effort to get most of the custody. You could also use the fact that you are the breadwinner to support your case.

     Just ideas. Keep on keeping on, and good luck!