Checking In

[HurtAndTired]

Hi all,

It’s been a while since I posted (April 18). I wanted to give an update and get perspective from those who’ve been through this.

Since then, a lot has happened. I’ve fully committed to leaving my marriage and have made significant strides in getting my financial house in order. I'm close to reaching 30% credit utilization and my credit is getting back to where it needs to be to be able to walk away financially intact for bot my S4 and myself. I realized a few months ago that I’ve been emotionally and physically abused for years, and there’s no going back. Even if my wife were to change, I don’t think I could ever trust her again or feel safe in the relationship. I am fully emotionally and spiritually divorced from her even though we share a house. She can no longer hurt me with her words.

Some updates:

I’ve been sober for almost 6 months now—not because I had a problem, but because even one beer seemed to make her more likely to lash out. Sobriety has given me clarity and calm.

I’ve redecorated the guest room and made it fully mine. That space has been a sanctuary and a small declaration of independence. S4 calls it "Daddy's room."

I’m documenting everything. I’ve consulted with an attorney and have a detailed plan to file for a TPO, temporary custody, and then divorce early next year. I'm also working with a DV advocate and checking in with her weekly. I'm giving her copies of all the evidence of abuse that I have been collecting.

I’m doing everything I can to protect my son, although there have been some challenges. A few months back my dBPDw disappeared overnight with SS26 to go out drinking. She was out of touch for 27 hours and didn't return calls or texts. S4 was freaking out and I had to call the police to do a wellness check. Then again just a few weeks ago I was gone to an academic conference tied to my doctoral studies for 2 days. To get revenge on me for going, my wife took our son to a local amusement park on the day I was to return. She did not tell me where they were going or when they would be back. His bedtime came and went and I had no idea where they were and she was not answering calls or texts. Again, I had to call the police for a wellness check. Not surprisingly, she answered their call on the first ring and was furious at me for calling them. I told her that if she ever pulls a disappearing act with S4 again to expect exactly the same thing.

She has been in therapy (if she’s telling the truth about going) for a few weeks, but I’ve seen little evidence of real insight or change. She still accuses me of affairs, snoops through my belongings, and tries to control the narrative.

I’ve also started to process the full weight of her abuse—physical (including strangulation), sexual (consent violations), and emotional. It’s horrifying to realize how long I minimized it to survive. I ran everything that she has done to me through ChatGPT to see what the legal weight of her actions against me would be in my state had I reported them all. It turns out that many of them are felonies including assault with a deadly weapon and marital rape. Even had she been convicted on just a few of them, she could be looking at decades in prison. I remind myself of this any time that my resolve starts to fade.

My question for the group:

For those who’ve gone through a divorce with a high-conflict person, how did you keep your resolve when they made last-minute gestures of working on themselves or tried to derail your plans?

How do you navigate the period between emotionally detaching and filing when you’re still living together?

I’ve made it this far because of support from people like you. Any advice or encouragement would be appreciated.

HurtAndTired

[eightdays]

I had a journal I kept where I saw how many times my partner would behave terribly and cruel, and then come out of it and say they needed to work on themselves.   I saw in my journal over time the repeating pattern.   Every time it happened she would say she needed to work on herself when she became afraid of losing me because part of her knew the behavior was weird.    A counselor told me it would take many years of therapy, including having someone that would be available to her 24x7, not just once a week, and that is the protocol.   I did not see my partner ever doing that.   So I didn't have any hope at all at that point that my partner could change, and I took what they said with a grain of salt.   

[Pook075]

For those who’ve gone through a divorce with a high-conflict person, how did you keep your resolve when they made last-minute gestures of working on themselves or tried to derail your plans?

If she claims to be working on herself, then that's fantastic...encourage her to keep up the good work.  This is a person you love (or loved) and of course you want to see what's best for them, despite what's happened and the current situation.  So be encouraging, even though you're not seeing progress.

However, her last minute attempts to reverse years of abuse doesn't mean you should just blindly accept things from her perspective.  BPDs work in cycles, ranging from idolizing their partners to despising them.  Who's to say this is any different, or that changes will be long-term?

Again, support her desire to receive therapy and make meaningful changes.  That has nothing to do with whether or not you should file for divorce.

How do you navigate the period between emotionally detaching and filing when you’re still living together?

You do the best that you can every single day, and you get through it however you can.  You focus on what's best for the kid and what's best for your own mental health, even though things are a mess at the moment. 

If you're dead-set on divorce, then this is the only path forward and it requires quite a bit of steps.  All you can do is take one step at a time and react appropriately when she challenges you.  If that means leaving early, so be it.  If it means being kind and patient, even when it feels like the last thing she deserves, then so be it.  You just keep moving forward and do the best you can.

[Notwendy]

Hi all,

I’ve been sober for almost 6 months now—not because I had a problem, but because even one beer seemed to make her more likely to lash out. Sobriety has given me clarity and calm.
My question for the group:

For those who’ve gone through a divorce with a high-conflict person, how did you keep your resolve when they made last-minute gestures of working on themselves or tried to derail your plans?

How do you navigate the period between emotionally detaching and filing when you’re still living together?

I’ve made it this far because of support from people like you. Any advice or encouragement would be appreciated.

HurtAndTired

First, I want to congratulate you on your sobriety. I've been in 12 step groups from the CODA/ACA side and know this is an accomplishment. Some people attending the group began with AA, got sober, and then decided they'd benefit from CODA, ACA, so I learned their journey.

I used to think that because I don't have an issue with alcohol, I didn't have a connection to these groups, but learning more- I could see the connection between addiction, and enabling, and the family dynamics- which were also similar to families where there is a person with BPD. So whether someone's steps to changing this begins with not drinking, or less enabling- it's positive change on your part.

I don't have personal experience of leaving a high conflict relationship but I did observe one, and while there wasn't divorce, there were behavior patterns. Abusive and disordered relationships are complex and involve both people. They are also cyclic. I think this is one reason the decision to leave is confusing.

The abuse is a way of releasing difficult emotions. After the rage/abuse cycle, the feelings are "out" and the person may act remorseful and make attempts to improve and the partner then has hope and remains. But the feelings build up again until the next cycle. There's a push-pull dynamic with a pwBPD.

After one of BPD mother's "episodes" I think she did have some awareness that she'd push too far, and there was a period of "being good". While she had a reason to blame us or something else for the issue- a rage or dissociation would happen even if we didn't do anything to trigger it. She'd seem to find something to be upset about.

Yes, if your wife is going to therapy this is a good thing, but if it were me, I'd be thinking long term and looking at patterns- is this the push-pull, or the abuse cycle? Real change takes work and time- years, not a few days or weeks. A quick "I'm good now" isn't long term or consistent change. You also don't know how effective the therapy will be. Your decision to divorce is based on you and your boundaries, not whether or not she goes to therapy at the moment. 

The lawyer is the best advice on staying in the house/moving out, so I assume that is what you are following. I have heard that leaving may be construed as abandoning the children so it's important that the lawyer directs what to do about that.

The pattern I observed with BPD mother with boundaries or wanting something was that she'd rotate through the character descriptions in "Understanding the Borderline Mother", until one of them hopefully worked. If being nice didn't- then she'd be Waif and then, become abusive (Queen, Witch). I don't consider these as being completely consciously manipulative. It's that these behaviors worked for her and were reinforced by our compliance.

You've been in a certain pattern with your wife. Now you are changing the pattern- but she hasn't learned new ways of relating. It would make sense that she'd escalate the behaviors that have worked for her (extinction burst). This includes her abusive behavior so be aware. Ask your lawyer about what to do if this happens and how to stay safe and keep your underage child safe.

Keep your plans to yourself as much as possible.

[HurtAndTired]

Thank you all for your answers so far. They have been very helpful. I do want to add some pertinent information though. For a long time I have been wondering why my dBPDw does not behave in the same way as many of your significant others. I have been tracking her symptoms carefully, doing a lot of research, and running the symptoms past my therapist. While I am not in a position to diagnose her, I began informally trying to diagnose when I realized that there is no push/pull in our relationship, but rather just push/act like things are normal. In 13 years there has never been a sincere apology or any real efforts to mend the relationship/second round of love bombing. It turns out that she has, like many pwBPD, comorbid traits of other cluster B personality disorders.

My wife has 7 of 9 traits of BPD, making that her main disorder. She is of the petulant subtype. She also has 5 of 9 traits of NPD, which meets the threshold for diagnosis. This explains her total lack of empathy and sense of entitlement. She also has 3 of 7 traits of ASPD. While this technically makes her diagnosable, she is not full ASPD because she has been able to keep a job for decades and has not been arrested multiple times. However, it does explain her repeated violence against me and treating me like an object rather than a person. It also explains her shallow and performative emotion outside of fear and rage.

This makes her what is referred to in popular terms a "malignant borderline." She is not a typical BPD by a long shot. There have never ever been frantic "mea culpas" and desperate attempts at repair or trying to draw me back in with promises of change. It is simply abuse, silent treatment, and then acting like nothing happened. I am expected to just go along with it and "reset to normal" after a period of abuse/silent treatment. This is a large part of why I have C-PTSD, but also why it has been easier than most to break free emotionally. There is no trauma bond that has been reinforced by periodic "good periods," there is only the storm punctuated by brief periods of calm while bracing for the next storm to roll in.

My therapist says that this "witches brew" of BPD/NPD with significant ASPD traits means that she is either lying about being in therapy, or it is merely performative and is an attempt to reel me back in because her old tactics of abuse no longer work on me. She also said that people like my wife usually drop therapy after 5 to 7 sessions because this is when the therapist has noticed inconsistencies in their victim narrative, suspect a cluster B disorder, and gently start to have the patient focus on working on themselves. Cluster Bs cannot take this kind of self-examination and accountability and quit therapy at this point. There is almost zero chance (if she actually is in therapy) that it will last. She says she has had 3 sessions, so I will know if it falls apart in the next month.

The hard part for me is that I am a good person to a fault. Even if there is zero chance of therapy working, I am struggling with feeling some obligation to stay and see it through to failure on the off chance that is actually in therapy and that it starts working. I am not holding out hope, I am just struggling with staying true to my morals/values which would make me feel guilt about exiting if she is finally making progress. This would throw off my meticulous plans for how and when to exit. I know that it is very, very unlikely to happen, but after all I have been through I feel the need to plan for every eventuality. How do I justify leaving, to myself, on the small chance that she does continue therapy and make progress (no matter how unlikely)?

The other part of my question is related to her increasing desperation as my boundaries become rock solid and she is realizing that this is different than other times that I have put distance between us. I have lived in my room (formerly the guest room) for over 8 months now. We have not been intimate in that time. I have also stopped engaging with her entirely as soon as she becomes dysregulated. I simply say "get out of my room," "leave me alone," or "I'm leaving now" and end arguments before they even start. I am not trying to validate any more. The days of trying to repair are over. It was only ever effort on my part anyway, she never met me half way. As she is finally realizing that I have pulled away permanently, she is freaking out.

Her abusive behavior no longer works and it has become very uncomfortable for me to live in the same house with her. I am counting down the days to filing for my TPO, temporary custody, exclusive use of the marital home, and divorce, in that order. If all goes to plan, and my plans have been meticulous, my attorney assures me that the day that the TPO is served is the last time I will ever have to talk to her or be in the same room with her. Any custody communications would be handled through OurFamilyWizard or a similar app. My status as an abuse survivor who suffers from C-PTSD is taken seriously in my state and the judge should allow my attorney to appear in my place and shield me from having to be in the same room as my abuser. Any advice on how to get through the next six months of having her sleeping in the next room, extremely dysregulated much of the time, would be very appreciated.

HurtAndTired

[ForeverDad]

How do I justify leaving, to myself, on the small chance that she does continue therapy and make progress (no matter how unlikely)?

How much would she have to improve for you to decide to remain with her?  I can't imagine she could become sufficiently mindful, calmer, introspective that quickly.  As is often said here, promises and hopes are meaningless unless proven by actions over time.

A prolific poster here when I arrived years ago, JoannaK, said this: If persons do work to attain some recovery then they would not be the same persons as before and there was a real possibility the relationship would not survive, one or both had changed that much.

So even if your spouse did improve to some extent, it's not just a matter whether it would be sufficient improvement, but she would be a different person, the relationship dynamic would be different and the marriage could still fail.  So her managing to restrain herself, even that, might not be enough to make your marriage a success.

The other part of my question is related to her increasing desperation as my boundaries become rock solid and she is realizing that this is different than other times that I have put distance between us... If all goes to plan, and my plans have been meticulous, my attorney assures me that the day that the TPO is served is the last time I will ever have to talk to her or be in the same room with her.

I am very worried that the longer this simmering impasse continues, the more likely she is to at some point to sense that you're contemplating legal action and she would be very likely to try to "frame you for mischief".  Many here had "plans" but the other sabotaged them.  Your lawyer's positive perspective is great but your spouse can easily cook up allegations and as a female courts and agencies will feel compelled to protect her from claimed abuse, at least initially, even if it is unsubstantiated.

In my case, I recorded her threatening my life and that got me temp possession of the home but until our divorce's final decree she had temp custody and majority parenting time of our preschooler.  And during all that time she made repeated unsubstantiated allegations against me and (as I would 'joke' about this to others) each time they investigated as though this time it might stick.

So I repeat, the closer you come to trigger time, the more careful you have to be not to let something slip about your plans, meanwhile doing absolutely nothing to lend basis to any false allegations.  Sadly, the other will sabotage you if she can.  Hers is a negative world and she will want to keep you there with her.