Reality Check

[Peter Deveroux]

My (working to become my ex) wife with uBPD and I had a text... discussion... this evening, involving me getting my youngest off electronics for the evening. She told me to not throw her under the bus about telling him it was time to be done. (For context, I have had a past history of accidentally throwing her under the bus, never on purpose, and I have made significant progress in this regards). I asked her to give me some credit, and since texting loses tone of voice I added a smiley at the end.

Her response: "I am, <hurt emoji>".

I expressed my hurt at that. She expressed her hurt over having thrown her under the bus in the past and the betrayal of that, and how it takes awhile to regain trust. She also said I should think about why I'm feeling upset about this.

I told her I was pausing the conversation so I could think about what she said and see things from her perspective; I also asked her to try to think about my perspective, to which she responded "I do think about yours."

After thinking about it, I came back to the conversation and validated her feelings about having been blamed for things, and how it would take a long time to earn back that trust. I then expressed my own feelings that while she says she thinks about my perspective, she doesn't do anything about what she thinks about; that she says she gives me credit for my progress but she doesn't actually do so. I told her I didn't want to talk about it right now because I had a lot of feelings to sort through. Part of those feelings is reconciling the contradiction between understanding it can take a long time to rebuild trust and the desire for recognition for the progress I -have- made.

I need a reality check here, someone to tell me straight if I'm making excuses, or if I have a right to my feelings, or what.

Thanks in advance.

[Pook075]

I could be way off here, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Raising a kid is tough, but it's so much harder today because of electronics and their instant connection to the outside world.  Everything good and everything horrible is only a few clicks away.

With my kids (one BPD), I was the tough parent while my ex wife (also BPD) couldn't imagine being the bad guy and having the kids mad at her.  She always caved because the BPD kid would punish her ever harder. 

An example, "We're not going to McDonalds because you didn't clean up your room."  So the BPD kid rants and terrorizes for two hours and BPD mom says to get it the car to get McDonalds so the BPD kid will leave her alone.

This obviously caused chaos in our home and taught bad behavior is rewarded, so I had to be even more of a strict parent 99% of the time.

Was it right for me to have to be the jerk?  No.  But the kids needed it regardless and I don't regret it...even when the mom would bad-mouth to me to the kids behind my back.

Here's the thing though, it takes a village to raise a child and mom/dad have to be on the same page.  One can be the "bad cop" or both can be, that part doesn't really matter.  What does matter is being on the same page and supporting one another.

If your wife said to limit the cell phone time, but wants you to be the bad guy for delivering the news, then she's not co-parenting in a fair way.  It can work that way, exactly like it did in my situation, but then you get those "throwing me under the bus" type of comments that are completely unfair.  Isn't your wife throwing you under the bus by asking you to enforce something that she won't enforce on her own?  It's a two-way street.

What helped me was focusing on the end goal, which was raising a balanced child.  So I never cared about being the tough parent if that's what had to happen, and if my wife objected then I found it really easy to say, "Okay, I'm sorry if that upset you...maybe you should handle it directly next time so there's no misunderstandings." 

In those situations though, she'd state what she believed was right, and when the child objected (the BPD kid or the other one), she'd say, "Well, go ask your father and see what he thinks."  I'd always try to back mom's opinion but it wasn't perceived that way.

My point here is simple; you're going to hurt your wife's feelings from time to time, no matter how noble your efforts.  And the reason why is also simple; she's mentally ill and takes things out of context from time to time.

I hope that helps!