upside to a bad marriage

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

You will find my story dotted around this forum - I've probably been on most boards at some stage.

I recently filed for divorce from my uBPDw.

Now I'm in the process of changing my mind and wanting back in.

Married life with my W is SO similar to that of my FOO (mother in particular)... .the contempt the eye rolls, the conveyed you are of little value.

All this got to me and so after much effort I filed.

And now I am considering going back in, it makes me really wonder how together I actually am, or not.

Then in talks with T we look at my marriage. Yes I was always complaining about the chaos, angry at the treatment and generally 'unhappy', YET i was hugely productive, creative energetic and loads of other good things. I undertook huge projetcs and completed them, built great realtionships with my kids and generally (EXCEPT for my emotional life) thrived.

So there is a lot to throw away in leaving and I wonder if the chaos and the verbal abuse (or whatever it is) makes me thrive in some strange way.

So if I can keep the energy and somehow manage better the r/s... .who knows.

[earlgrey]

You will find my story dotted around this forum - I've probably been on most boards at some stage.

I recently filed for divorce from my uBPDw.

Now I'm in the process of changing my mind and wanting back in.

Married life with my W is SO similar to that of my FOO (mother in particular)... .the contempt the eye rolls, the conveyed you are of little value.

All this got to me and so after much effort I filed.

And now I am considering going back in, it makes me really wonder how together I actually am, or not.

Then in talks with T we look at my marriage. Yes I was always complaining about the chaos, angry at the treatment and generally 'unhappy', YET i was hugely productive, creative energetic and loads of other good things. I undertook huge projetcs and completed them, built great realtionships with my kids and generally (EXCEPT for my emotional life) thrived.

So there is a lot to throw away in leaving and I wonder if the chaos and the verbal abuse (or whatever it is) makes me thrive in some strange way.

So if I can keep the energy and somehow manage better the r/s... .who knows.

[SettingBorders]

Hello earlgrey,

are you sure you're not just going through a depressive phase of your life right now? A recent separation is painful, especially if one quits not because of lacking love, but because of a mental illness of the SO. I think it's normal that you're projecting your life on your marriage of many years.

But your life goes beyond that! Give yourself a chance to grow without the old bounds. When in one year, two years you still feel that you want to get back together, this is a good thing! :-) But right now you need to work on yourself WITHOUT her. Otherwise you'll slide back into the old patterns you suffered from.

This year of 2017 devote to yourself TIME.

[earlgrey]

Hi SB and thanks for your thoughts. FYI The reasoning and circumstances behind my change of heart are put in more detail here

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=303804.0

But in this thread I am trying to better understand the impact of living in an environment (hostile in my case) that actually would seem to stimulate me.

A bit like in Italy under the Borgias and you get the Renaissance (not that I'm comparing) 

[SettingBorders]

Seems I didn't tell you what you wanted to hear... .;-)

I read your story and I am honest: You don't need the chaos of another person to thrive. Get your own chaos. :-D But before, try to find out what really refrains you. I feel there is something else? The fear of beeing alone in your 60s? Do you have some good friends?

[earlgrey]

Seems I didn't tell you what you wanted to hear... .;-)

That's OK 

But before, try to find out what really refrains you. I feel there is something else? The fear of beeing alone in your 60s? Do you have some good friends?

Being alone at 60 is OK, being a single dad at 60 another thing - for me.

All valid ideas, but that is why I am posting I want to try and make an informed choice.

A gut feeling I have is that while the chaos has something disturbing it is also familiar and homey.

With a good use of tools and skills maybe I can better manage the chaos.

[Sunfl0wer]

Hi Earlgrey,

I have noticed your posts here and there and simply refrained from comment as I in fact was not wanting to seem offensive, or not "on your side."

However, at the risk of us all having opinions and you having free will to take what may work, leave what you don't, I'm gonna speak mine... .

I am hearing a man who is wanting to stop the pain of detaching... .Wanting to halt the loss and pain and consequences that come with loss of a relationship.

I am NOT hearing a man motivated to rebuild a relationship for the results of what the result is of two persons joining together into a partnership of some sort.

Your focus seems to remain on:
Stopping the loss and pain and consequences of detachment.

(Which is really detachment issue 101 and a necessary thing all detaching experience. We often all want to reunite to stop the pain, doesn't mean the decision is right or wrong, but just natural for our hearts to want relief with that.)

As a woman, I would not feel warm to you or flattered to hear you giving the relationship another chance just to avoid the work of being a single dad, or avoiding post divorce loss of child rearing, or even staying with me for the "sake of the kid's"  development.

Are you treating her the way you want to be treated in this decision?
Would you want your next partner to be attracted to you for the fringe benefits of being with you such as her being more productive and motivated, but what is lacking, is she really does not enjoy, appreciate, like being with you.  She literally would be tolerating you for the other benefits that are related to work and child or other?

When roles are reversed, is that how you want to be loved?

I am not saying you should stay or leave. I don't know.
I'm just wondering if you would benefit from questioning your own motives, and how it relates to your values to peruse someone for the reasons that are in your heart.

~SF

[earlgrey]

I am NOT hearing a man motivated to rebuild a relationship for the results of what the result is of two persons joining together into a partnership of some sort.

Hi SF and thanks for your direct thoughts. They are appreciated and most welcome.  

Your above comment is spot on, you have got my thoughts.

But I guess your opinion and common sense are coming from the perspective of a 'non'.

I am a 'non' and my W. is uB/NPD.

Your feelings as a woman to embrace my project are correct - you would not appreciate the underlying script. But when my real romantic overtures, which were there in abundance have been ridiculed and trashed, and I still have some kind of desire for a family unit, then maybe plan B,C,D or whatever can be a valid alternative.

[LilMe]

Hi earlgrey! It's good to see you back. I hope all went well with your surgery.

I wonder what your child is learning from your relationship with your wife? What the child is experiencing now is what her future relationships will likely look like. I see the results of my dysfunctional relationships in all my children. Thankfully we are working through it together now, with no more disfunction.

I totally agree with Setting borders and Sunfl0wer. I believe they have given you excellent feedback.

[SamwizeGamgee]

Hi.  I've caught a spotty record of your postings in the past. I hope all things are well with you, and you are moving forward. 

I'd like to first address what I thought your post was about based on the title.  I have used the analogy of a refiner's fire to describe the good that came to me from a marriage that has caused more suffering than any other experience in my life.  I am so much more in tune with myself because of what I have learned in the last two years.  I have compassion for the victims of abuse - and I know what abuse is now, physical, emotional, and verbal.  My heart goes out to men and women, and children, stuck in destructive relationships and families.  I have tasted and know the poison that comes from living with a mentally ill partner.  I have had to get to a point of inner strength and knowledge that I suspect I never would even imagined if I would have married a healthy happy woman.  So that's the upside.  But, it can't be the end story.  I have to get myself to a point that I can say I survived in order to be a survivor. 

What I am observing, is that if I was saying what you are saying right now, it would be me going back into the [train-wreck, the fire, the chaos], and calling myself better off - since I can manage, and I was becoming a better person because of it.

You have not survived crisis until it is gone and over.  If you stay with the familiar - because it's familiar - you stay a victim, and always a possible casualty in the future.  Even then, you will have lingering effects of the trauma.

I have seen it described in many separate sources that if a victim breaks away, then returns to the abuser, the abuse will worsen.  If nothing else you will be "punished" for trying to leave.  You will loose initiative and resolve with each return to her that you make.  I have seen charts depicting the abuse cycle.  Look at that and see where you are at the moment, but, like a wheel, you'll go from top to bottom eventually.

[livednlearned]

A gut feeling I have is that while the chaos has something disturbing it is also familiar and homey.

Familiar and homey is one way to put it  

It's likely that leaving your wife will throw you into some sort of grieving process, or full-blown depression, since you will no longer have someone to funnel all that suspended disappointment toward, no one to keep you busy and/or distracted from the full immersion of being you, separate from her.

The depression after leaving a BPD spouse is intense, and can be so powerful that it resets your attachment style, the very same one you developed pathologically with your mother. Psychologists call this an earned secure attachment style. There are plenty of people who find ways to avoid going through this process, and they may end up repeating the same thing in one form or another.

When someone behaves worse than us, it's a great excuse to avoid the deep work of the self. I didn't make up the rules   it's just how it is.

With a good use of tools and skills maybe I can better manage the chaos.

The skills look like they are about managing the chaos. They're really about healing ourselves so that we are not perpetually and repeatedly and chronically wounded by the words and actions of someone else. That's a bit Jedi level, though. She is rolling her eyes at her FOO, and you are responding to her as your FOO.

Interrupting that process is how you deactivate the dysfunction and being to activate who you truly are, separating yourself from a relationship based in FOO fantasy or old FOO grooves.

It sounds like you are asking how best to save your life, when both ways are options with slightly different outcomes. One involves on the job training and the other is a retreat.

[SamwizeGamgee]

Wow.  Job training or retreat.  Nice kernel for me to ponder. Thanks.

[earlgrey]

Hi lnl. There is a lot of content in your post - can I ask for some explanations?

It sounds like you are asking how best to save your life, when both ways are options with slightly different outcomes. One involves on the job training and the other is a retreat.

You talk about a grieveing process or depression, which can lead to a new (secure) attachment style. That i guess is a healthy scenario, and one achieved once separated.

You also talk about deactivating the dysfunction and separating from FOO habits. That i would guess is an OK result too, but requires the training you mention and would take place within a couple environment.

Am I understanding you correctly?

[michel71]

Hi Earl... .my uBPDw and I do not have kids together. That adds a whole new level and I am sorry that you are going through this. I am too and I can totally related.

I am 53. I never thought that I would be in this place, looking down the barrel of divorce, to the woman that I thought was "the one" finally, after all my years of failed relationships.

I have extreme FOO issues that I don't feel that I have fully dealt with. Really deep stuff. A narcissistic mother who emotionally abandoned me, was critical and reduced my self esteem but all the while insisted that she loved me, gave me lots of gifts and made it seem to the world that she was the best mom ever. She taught me what love is... .to accept pain and put downs as part of it. Through therapy I have come to realize that I have been trying to "fix" the relationship with my mother through my romantic relationships, essentially picking the same sort of woman.

Yet I love my wife. I never wanted our marriage to end but it has been so destructive to me as a person that I couldn't ignore it any longer. I can honestly say that I have tried everything and the verbal, emotional and financial abuse continued. I kept waiting for that magic moment where she would finally see the error of her ways and start to respect me. In her mind she was doing nothing wrong and it was all me.

She has moved out now and I am looking forward to continued clarity. I can tell you that already my house feels better, the energy is more positive and lighter and I am relaxed and at peace for the first time in 2 and a half years. I don't want to cut all ties to my wife but I can't imagine her moving back in. I don't think she deserves to be married to me. That is where I am at now. Legally I am about to make the next move.

I can't give you great advice as I am in the midst of it myself. I can only tell you that not having her in my space feels good. And I can think more clearly.

[Lostman]

After 28 going on 29 years experience I can tell you this.  There is no "UPSIDE" to a bad marriage.  It took me 27 years to figure out that nothing I did could change another persons reactions, thoughts, and feelings.

[Healthy88]

Hi Earlgrey,

I am new to the group. Haven't read ur former posts & have only read some of the replies to this post. In a similar situation. My uBPDh with narsisstic & sociopathic tendencies & I have been married 20 yrs. Currently separated & two amazing kiddos.

First ur not completely crazy. Actually, probably fairly intelligent trying to make sense of it all. I had no idea what was wrong with my SO until a few wks ago. Been digging deep since then. Discovered people with BPD brain's r actually structured differently. They usually have more white matter. Us nons more grey matter. Next men & women r totally wired differently, as r their hormones. Stress, which is often anxiety producing for women can actually be stimulating & motivating to the male brain. Just do some research!

How long have u been married & how many kids do u have?

My SO & I have tossed around other options as well. Like LAT living (married, but living separately), while working on our individual selfs and maintaining a family unit for the kids. I have absolutely no issues with my SO maintaining his responsibilities to his children & I from another dwelling. Just bc he has issues, why should he get a free pass to walk away after destroying 3 innocent people's lives. I assume he knew he had issues when he asked me to marry him, I did not.

Our kids have done amazingly well so far, they r pretty bright & I was able to provide them the stability they needed up until the last yr. Being female, I have the opposite problem. His instability, lies & chaos has led to major anxiety & depression for me until I could no longer hold it together for our precious kids. I gave all my emotions away to them & never had anyone to refill my emotional tank or keep things stable for me.

I am definitely not interested in going through this he77 with any other man. I worked hard to help keep him stable & help him be successful and, I don't know if it is just selfish on my part, but I am not in any hurry to throw away our childrens' financial future either. I see it as we built it together for them & our primary responsibility is to them, under one roof or two.

After 20 yrs, there is a lot that needs to be weighed. Also, my SO can be a lot of fun to do things with, if I just don't have to live with the daily stress & clean up all of his messes constantly, while he is out playing. I am not his mother & I don't want to be his maid. I wanted to be his wife, but am now understanding that an equal & emotionally mature relationship may never be possible with him.

So, play from ur own place & when u r with the kids & I just be decent. Maybe no one else will agree with me, but I just want my sanity back, two healthy kiddos & peace. He isn't a horrible person all the time, he just isn't a good partner due to his issues. Maybe one day he will own them & seriously get help, I don't know? Even, with all his issues, I respect he is willing to try this at least. We r both trying to do what is best for the kids. Honestly, I enjoy being around him a lot more when we aren't always together & he isn't always hurting me or stressing me out. He is a lot to handle in large doses, but I seem to do better taking him in smaller doses.

Main problem is, I can do this and be perfectly nice, but he gets so angry at times. Why can I treat him so nicely when I don't live with him, he wants to know? It is much easier when they aren't hurting u all the time or turning ur life upside down, just as they run in and out of it.

Can't predict the future. Don't know how it will all work out long term. Only God and time can answer that.

H88

[Sunfl0wer]

But I guess your opinion and common sense are coming from the perspective of a 'non'.

I am a 'non' and my W. is uB/NPD.

Not sure where your thoughts were at with this, but I'll state my perspective.
"Non" spoken of here is a term relative to BPD.
I do not have BPD.
I do have my own issues I am working through with CPTSD/DDNOS, yet they are not BPD ones.

Anyway, ... .just felt like sharing some ramblings.

I often share from personal perspective cause imo, it is ultimately up to you to relate to what you like and take what resonates, leave what does not.  I am not a professional in this, and to speak as if admonishing you to take one route over another, imo, is out of my scope of being a peer here... .as would be speaking as if I know what is best for any general population.  ... .again, just my opinion.

Anyways... .
So gonna just ramble parts of my story that come to mind reading yours... .

For me, I had a hard time in my relationship deciding when to pull the plug.  Even when my husband just about killed me, I had a sense it was my wife duty to be there "in sickness and in health."  With my most recent ex, similarly, I kind of had a difficult time letting go of the idea that "if I just did xyz" maybe it would work.  When things went wrong, I had a perpetual habit of looking to myself thinking I must be able to alter something to get a different result.

So in both cases, I felt I really couldn't just make some executive decision and walk away.  (Maybe that is a skill I will learn in the future, idk)

So I do think that the process of detaching for me included those last few months together.  In both relationships, I did tidy up my efforts, did my very very best to be as perfect as I could to make the effort to repair the relationship.  We were in MC and I did do my part as best I could to allow him to turn towards me to give it the effort it needed.  MC was hopeful, let me know that it really only needed one of us to be able to be an objective observer and guide things.  With the support of T it became my job to be patient for him to come back around.

It turned out that in these months, after many threats of r/s ending that I did effectively gain some objective distance.  My enmeshment with him was cut off to the point where I was able to begin and work on lots of self care stuff and managing and processing my own thoughts and emotions.

Long story short... .
I guess what I am saying is that... .

- I do feel that couples may benefit from getting some distance between them so that the enmeshment is broken enough that one party can create for themselves an objective observing perspective in things to help guide things.  (Some achieve this via therapy.  Some via therapeutic separation.)

- I also feel that when I was undecided on whether to leave or not, I took sorta a limbo position that was very healing for me.  I stayed in it, but not so tied into every emotion happening.  I became what I call an objective observer.  I was able to translate in my head the meaning behind his words without reacting to them, being mindful to a "T" as best I could.  I used this time to work with MC to sort out strategies such as behaving in a way that gave out olive branches and such making it easier for him to come back to me.  What I did different this time though was also having resolve in who I wanted to be.  I realized who I was had transformed due to my enmeshment with him, and I didn't recognize myself at times.  I used this time to reaffirm my original values I let by the way side and stood by them.

The result was that I learned so much about him.  As I could observe from this distance of non reactivity, I was able to piece together so much of what was continually occurring in this relationship.

I am so glad that I did because it removed for me many of the "what if's" that many folks are left with.

I am also glad I did because I learned a ton about finding balance with enmeshment and objectivity and self care.  I also grew so much in my self care and reaffirming, cementing my values within me.  I feel in the future, I will be less likely to have them eroded over time because of these last months I spent with the ex.  I was able to know clearly where I began and he ended... .this view watching the same dynamics play out was quite enlightening. (Not to sound too hokey! :P)

So what the result was, that me being me, maintaining my values.  Knowing what my deal breakers were clearly. (And they were not a ton.  My deal breaker was on him allowing myself and son to be exposed to danger as I saw it dangerous... .for the sake of whatever he excused... from his exW, and kid who threatened us both.)

So the natural result of our relationship, with me maintaining my values, was that the relationship could not exist.  He fell apart, challenged that value of mine again and again.  I knew I was risking the breakup, but by now, I also knew, if my boundaries eroded any further than this bare minimum, I was not suitable to exist as a whole person that could withstand this relationship or myself anyways.

I allowed the relationship to take the course it would, while upholding my safety values.  BF raged and raged and tantrum'd, extinction bursts got very ugly, police and all.

I was left with peace of mind that I did all I could.
I still see where it "could have" worked.
Yet, I can only control my part.

He also had his values.  He valued his kid and exW having control of many things to express his love to his kid and wear a metaphorical badge of "greatest dad" and he will not let others between that.  He rather put his head in the sand when his kid gets homicidal than confront that reality, so... . I suppose, he has his values too.  So we could not maintain our living arrangements that way.

So when you asked if I am a "non" and I convey that I have DDNOS/aka a great capacity to dissociate to survive.  It is possible this actually factored into my ability to cut off from being reactive to him.  I literally can cut off feeling triggered to an extent.  Not promoting this, just explaining how my perspective is shaded here.  Just appreciating that becoming unmeshed, and nonreactive and an objective observer of things is a skill that may not at all be easy, and certainly even after able, still takes work

[Sunfl0wer]

Uh, oops, wrote so much as I tried to summarize my long winded... .
It was out of characters!

Summary on things I feel are important/ "take aways":

-Some folks can decide to stay or leave.  Imo, there is a third option.  Yet, at the same time, I do hope one day to be able to make a more decisive leave if warranted.  (Maybe if I keep reading others stories, something will eventually sink in that I may have improved capacity here, idk)

- Must learn how to become objective observer, non reactive.  Learn to respond with mindfulness and not personalize stuff.

- Must know clearly what your deal breakers are.  What is bottom acceptable relational dynamics, actions, etc.  Cause if one is not willing to ever walk away from anything, then it's really challenging to command respect... .or have self respect.

- Getting Values cemented is soo valuable! Seems so much decision making that seems difficult becomes simplified when this is tended to!   (For me, this is process, not event.  I really learned so much of that from peeps here! )

- Self care, self care, self care, repeat self care.
Valuing the preservation of the relationship over the preservation of my safety, or my values, simply does not work!  At some point, my "self sacrifices," were selfishly enabling the relationship to NOT run the natural course it was going to go to... .

[livednlearned]

You talk about a grieveing process or depression, which can lead to a new (secure) attachment style. That i guess is a healthy scenario, and one achieved once separated.

Dr. Amar Levine (author of Attached) does a nice job describing how our attachment styles (that develop in our FOO) impact our adult romantic relationships. Many of us who get into BPD relationships have insecure attachment styles (I've read elsewhere where BPD attachment styles are described as "disorganized," or "ambivalent," which Levine does not address). I guess some people can have a secure attachment style and develop an insecure one in these relationships, though I suspect that is less common.

Whether you can do the work on your attachment style on your own or post-separation... .I would guess both are possible. For many of us, we are way too attached to our attachment styles   to let go of them. Meaning, we cannot admit that we have choices (we usually want choices to be easy... .).

You are in an interesting position, where you live separately together, and you had the strength to file for divorce, then hit pause. It's not how it worked in my situation, my relationship was different, we are different, so it's hard to say how things might work for you. In general, I do think our defense mechanisms are extraordinary... .they deceive us (they protect us). It's hard to admit that we work at cross purposes against ourselves. That seems crazy  

You also talk about deactivating the dysfunction and separating from FOO habits. That i would guess is an OK result too, but requires the training you mention and would take place within a couple environment.

Training? Not necessarily. I feel we all have some sense of an authentic/real/whole self and know, on an intuitive and emotional level, when we are not there.

My marriage is a classic example of picking someone who in no way supported me (or our son) in developing a strong, real self. Way too threatening. So in a way, he was the perfect excuse to not do the work because he made it so darned hard.

After I divorced him, I started to tend to my son's traits in earnest. Then met and moved in with my SO, who has BPD family history and a D19 who is most certainly BPD. The more I worked the skills in order to abide her, the more peace I found in my own healing, tho I will say that having physical distance from her definitely helped. To Sunfl0wers point, self care is critical. If you can carve that out in your relationship, it's a big deal.

[Healthy88]

Wonderfully stated Sunflower. I wholeheartedly agree that not making the decision to stay or go out of emotion, but from a more objective, stable, logical mind does reduce a lot of regrets & what ifs. Some are able to gain that detachment & objectivity while living with their SO & others need the physical distance to help with clarity.

It helps one to feel more confident in the outcome either way & I think, prepares all parties including the children in a way that lessons the blow, if it is not going to work out long term.

In a sense u r disengaging to some degree in the hopes of one of two outcomes: things can be improved & get better or u realize that is simply never going to happen. Either way, u invest the time in ur SO, ur children & urself to find out be4 getting out.

H88