How did you know it was time to go?

[Thread]

I feel like it's time I make some decisions. I'm curious when you realized, or at what point you finally decided to leave?

How did you take healthy steps in starting the whole process?

I love him so much and there are so many things but I feel like I'm dying on the inside. I don't see improvements in therapy it's been a little over two months. The therapist I don't honk is understanding since my hBPD is now twisting all the situations to it being my fault. Again he says we're doing the same things, but it's not I have to stand my ground and be firm, my hBPD belittles me, calls me crazy, calls me robotic, calls me names in disagreements. I can't keep going through these cycles every two weeks. Or week.  :'(

[disillusionedandsore]

It sounds so insane but he was breaking things around the house and leaving them for me to find.  There was a series of things one after the other,  when I asked him did he know anything about it,  he denied it,  when I applied logic and said well if it wasn't me sure how else would you explain what happened he lit a fuse said I was blaming him for everything,  how did he know who did it etc etc Because he was gaslighting so much,  I called his bluff and said I was going to contact everyone that had been in the house in the last few days to see did they know anything about the broken (in smithereens) items... .He said 'go ahead'... .I actually did because I wanted to get to the bottom of it,  I knew it sounded crazy... .Well that's when I realised he would do anything regardless of the consequences.  I was embarrassed dragging other people in to it but I had to find the truth.  He had lied not just once,  twice but several times over to my face... .I had always given him the benefit of the doubt, thought I would 'know' if he was lying to me, believed he would confess if confronted or put under pressure... .No.  I was so wrong about him.  I was no match for this skilled manipulator.  When I let that sink in I was done!

[mitatsu]

After she went on a 2 week drink and legal high bender did not speak to me in all that time save for snide comments and threatened to cut me and her into a meat sculpture... .

and i raaaaan i ran so far away

and she has followed the Bpd script to a tee in the three months since... .push pull anger love blah blah blah

[Beach_Babe]

Oh wow, maybe when I found out he had been spreading lies about me to mutual friends. When confronted he screamed,  hit his head and rocked back and forth. Two days later he threatened the police saying I sent him a poisonous text that would kill him... .yep, the a$$h*le was bonkers.

[Beach_Babe]

threatened to cut me and her into a meat sculpture... .

good one!  Mine threatened to urinate blood on my lawn.

[Hadlee]

... .yep, the a$$h*le was bonkers.

Hahaha Beach_Babe - that made me laugh

Hope you are doing well xx

[Beach_Babe]

Im super! Why do you ask?   . My BPD was AWESOME!   312 pounds of poor hygiene, mental illness and L-O-V-E

[Hadlee]

It's one hell of a journey to crazy town, isn't it?

[disillusionedandsore]

Bb,  thank you so much for this irreverent piece of truth... .I really needed a good laugh today and I laughed so hard my back hurt! 

[UserName69]

She kept playing with my feelings later she started to neglecting me. I warned her before about it I told her she's going to lose me if she is going to keep playing those games with me. Probably she didn't think I was serious about it. Her bday was coming up. I asked her a couple times what kind of present she wants she told me she doesn't need any because I already gave her a lot of presents. Later she told me that she doesn't know what she's going to do on her bday, later she told me she had been planning a bday party and that she didn't invite me.

And the lies, oh man what a liar she was. She used (still) to lie about almost everything. She doesn't have a job but on her FB page she claimed that she has a high function... .yeah right. Whats the point of lying about that while all your friends know you don't have a job? Later she used to post on her FB that she went to a lot of parties, as far as I can remember she didn't even had money for toilet paper yet a ticket(s) for a party.

Once she told me that she didn't feed her cat for a couple days because she wanted to stimulate her hunting skills, I knew she lied she didn't had money for cat food. She didn't know this was the way for her cat to get a lot of parasites which would cost her a fortune if her cat got ill.

She believes in conspiracy theory, whenever she started to talk about any conspiracy theory I made a funny comment about a tinfoil hat. She had an enormous wooden chest in her living room. I asked her once whats inside it, she opened it for me. I took a look and I saw all kind of crazy survival items. Gasbottle, tent, rope, rations, blankets, medkits, medicine and a lot of other bs. She told me "Well if they're coming I will be ready to leave". At this time I knew there was something wrong with her. Later she told me I should never mention her cat on FB or via sms because "they" would probably hurt the cat. She also didn't register her cat because if "they" would check the registration database at the vet they would find out about her cat. who are "they" and seriously do you really believe someone will wake up and tell himself "hey lets go to UsersName69 exBPD's vetenarian and check the animal database and hurt all the kitties". My exBPD believed so.

I had a couple pics on my Fb of myself she told me that she used to masturbate on them. Now that's craziness at level 999. I told her I don't even understand, why she would do that if she can get the real deal.

Later when I thought about all these things I mentioned I couldn't even believe I used to stick with her. And her BPD behavior made me hate her, it made a lot of things easier when I knew about BPD. Thank God she isn't a part of my life anymore. I'm glad everything is over now.

My BPD was AWESOME!   312 pounds of poor hygiene, mental illness and L-O-V-E

I can relate to this. I have the same with my exBPD. I can't believe she used to be my girlfriend. Especially the poor hygiene, maybe a personal hygiene course would be a great bday present for her.

[Beach_Babe]

He believed a committee was responsible for bad things that happened in his life. This committee lived in his head, and thats why life sucked so much for him.

[Arcturus81]

It was during a recycle post BU. I went to her work to surprise her with dinner. I went to her office in the back of the store when I heard her laughing on the phone. I decided to listen for a bit. She was on the phone with my replacement. She ended the conversation with the words "I love you too". When I confronted her about it she admitted to sleeping with him the entire time we were trying to work on things. Final nail in that relationship coffin. Didn't even look guilty and actually asked why I was upset.

[Hopeless777]

Let me count the ways:

1. She committed DV on me and was arrested.

2. She was going to a therapist for years but had no mental issues.

3. She threw dangerous objects at me.

4. I slept in a locked room while she pounded onthe door yelling obscenities.

5. She hid things and didn't remember.

6. She threw $3,000 diamond hoop earrings at me.

7. She hid my wedding ring.

8. I hid in the bedroom and urinate in a bottle.

9. I slept in the shed when she locked me out.

I finally took off... .fast. But I endured all the above for two years. Now she blows kisses at me when I have to see her in court. She is the sickest person I've ever met, and I stayed married to her for 28+ years. I was in denial... .no more!

[StarOfTheSea]

Three weeks before the b/u he started acting real squirrelly: taking calls on the porch ( in the middle of winter ), closing his laptop when I was around, getting texts but not answering them. I knew it was done the morning he stared straight ahead when I kissed him. There was a part of me that was hoping he was being weird because he was stressed and the other part of me knew but wanted to see how it would play out.

He was cheating on me with my replacement the three weeks prior to the b/u. Big surprise.

[Isa_lala]

Hanging, in can be a long going-on process... .I am still in it. I understood that there is no future with by BPD BF, I know exactly what I must do (leave him) but up to now, I haven't got the guts to do it... .maybe until last night where he had one of his crisis I can't take anymore and it did push me a little bit closer to the exit door of the relationship... .

so it can take a while

[fromheeltoheal]

How did you take healthy steps in starting the whole process?

There was only one step really: the pain of staying became greater than the pain of leaving.  So I left.

Real decisions have power.  If you look at the roots of the words, incision means to cut into, decision means to cut off, meaning cut off any other possibility.  For me leaving was the easy part, there was no debate with myself and only one choice.  The mental gymnastics I went through later, as the fog cleared and I became aware of what I'd just put up with, now that was the work, but the best kind.

[llor]

For about a year or so,  she became quite unhappy about a few things, I tried many time to make her happy but was failing miserably. My whole purpose in life had become to make her happy and failing at that made me very sadOn top of that I had other personnal issues to deal with and was feeling very depressed. It came down to the point where I comtemplated commiting suicide.

Then one day we had a fight and she told me she thought we should break-up. I was so tired of everything I said yes. 3 Days later she was with another guy and that was about it. For me that's when it really ended. From that point on, she stopped being my wife.

What convinced me to not look back to was that later on when I realized that I was always there for her and that in my darkess hour, her first reflex was not to help me out, but to save her own skin and abandon ship, thats where I realized that I what I had with her was not a real relationship; It was a one way thing for her and always was since the beginning.

Anyhow! Enough of me, Hope you feel good about yourself now that it is over too for you

[Isa_lala]

How did you take healthy steps in starting the whole process?

There was only one step really: the pain of staying became greater than the pain of leaving.  So I left.

Real decisions have power.  If you look at the roots of the words, incision means to cut into, decision means to cut off, meaning cut off any other possibility.  For me leaving was the easy part, there was no debate with myself and only one choice.  The mental gymnastics I went through later, as the fog cleared and I became aware of what I'd just put up with, now that was the work, but the best kind.

it is exactly how I feel... .I do not want to end the r/s but end the suffering. When the only option to stop the suffering is leaving, you leave... .

[Tomzxz]

Wow, It sounds like you had the exact same couples therapy experience I had.  Waiting two weeks for sixty min of hearing how I was the problem was the last straw for me.  It's my own fault, I agreed to go to her therapist and that was a conflict of interest.  Focus was on me for three sessions. I listened, I owned up to my codependent traits, but near the end of that third session I told the therapist that I was feeling threatened coming there and wanted to concentrate on the relationship as a whole, saying it takes two to tango.  I tried pointing out my fiancés inability to have empathy and adversarial nature but the T wasn't seeing it or wasn't ready to go there.  After that I called the T and asked what her professional opinion was.  She said we were miles apart and my ex already said she wasn't compromising any more.  A few hours later I ended it.

I went back and saw our T one last time by myself. I asked her what type of method was she going for by singling me out -  No response. However, to her credit, our therapist cleared the fog when she told me I would be much better off with an independent woman rather than the financially dependent and emotionally independent woman that she is.  The look on my face must have been priceless because if you had listened to my ex's stories you would think she was the most independent person alive.  The T knew my ex was full of it and a week later She mailed me some documents about overcoming grief.  I want to point out that “independent” doesn’t mean “distant” as she adopted it to mask her less desirable qualities: stubbornness, selfishness, and the fear of intimacy. People who are truly independent know that they still have to be giving, emotionally-open partners, willing to compromise on important issues and to make time for their loved ones.

She on the other hand is immature and insecure and I realize nobody can live with her as long as her attachment style is “avoidant-ambivalent”, push pull and filled with drama.

It took some time to reach my conclusion that inevitably allowed me end my relationship but couples therapy was useless and was the ultimate insult during the entire relationship.  Sitting in therapy, I can vividly recall going over three things in my mind.  

Firstly, you need to love yourself more than your partner.  I know that’s a hard concept at first and I still struggle with it but you really do need to put your needs first and be in a stable mental condition before you can fully love your partner.  

Second. Ask yourself if you are happy in your relationship or just afraid of not having a relationship, this was a big one for me.  

Third. I started to think about my partner in ways that I never could have imagined towards the end.  I asked myself if she would have ever cared for me if I had become terminally ill or became crippled in some way.  I realized from watching her interact with people in our lives that her selfishness had no boundaries and she would have dropped me fast if I couldn’t take care of myself because of an illness or injury.  I know I was surmising what I think she might do but by then I knew her well enough to know she doesn’t care for me the way I care for her.  She simply can’t care for me the way I care for her, it’s the fundamental source of the whole problem - a lack of empathy.  I simply can’t allow somebody like that into my life.  

[Phoenixxx]

I already had my foot out the door but I knew it was time to go when last Monday he showed up at my front door with a gun telling me he was going to make my life a living hell if I didn't give him my car. I called 911 and have a restraining order now. The ultimate peace!

[going places]

After spending time with an Abuse Advocate, and coming to the realization that I was and had been abused, my entire marriage, and it was never going to stop, and never going to get better... .

When I told my oldest daughter and son how proud I was of the baby (then 19) for joining the Marines; how tough she was, how brave she was, how honorable she was... .my son said "well who do you think raised us and taught us those things?" (implying me).

When I took off the rose colored glasses, and stopped thinking this was going to have some Disney ending, which it was not.

When I started seeing things for what they really were, instead of the way I wanted them to be.

When (looking to find out what was wrong with ME) I started reading every Psych book, PD book I could get my hands on; only to discover um, it's not me... .I'm not the monster he told me I was... .when I realized that the gaslighting, manipulation, the abuse, the mean spirited control... .was WHO he is?

Those things all clicked in a 2 week time frame April 2014.

On April 15 I filed for divorce.

On July 8 I threw him out.

Every day my life gets better and better.

[Madison66]

I did individual T during the second half of my 3+ year r/s with uBPD/NPD ex gf. As I got stronger and more aware of the abuse I was allowing, I was slowly changing my attitude about the r/s and her actions/words. Believe me, I stayed in way to long! I can also tell you there was a fight or flight feeling burning in me and two physical abuse instances during the last month together sealed our fate. I felt a force in me move me away from the dysfunction and abuse. I was just done with it and had nothing left. Then came the long road of recovery and detachment.

Sounds like you may be at this point. Be good to "you" and maintain n/c while you heal from this toxic crap! I'm nineteen months out and I can tell you that life does go on and it can be fantastic away from the dysfunction and abuse. Good luck!

[llor]

Every day my life gets better and better.

Pretty much sums up how I feel. Since my relationship with with ex-fie wBPD ended I have been feeling better every day !