Afraid to divorce - anecdotes welcome

[pantherpanther]

TLDR; Discovered cheating and hidden debt 8 months ago.  I'm afraid of what's next.

I kept reading all these great things about DBT, so I held hope the root of the problem could be fixed.  I saw so many posts from betrayal trauma therapists outlining the steps for marriage recovery.  Little to no progress so far.  Instead, we skipped straight to the, "That was a long time ago and I only love you.  Why are you still mad?" stage.  Honestly, I'd have been re-hypnotized by the renewed and constant lovebombing if not for:

(A) understanding of BPD from sources like this site
(B) her saying, "I love you," plenty during the 1.5 affairs
(C) the newfound knowledge that she has uncanny lying skills

I don't normally fear much in life.  I think of myself as atypically Stoic and resilient.  Now I fear the consequences of both action and inaction.  Our nearly adult kids have birthdays, holidays, and major life events coming up, so I feel like I can't act now, for fear of ruining them.  Afraid of the fallout if I tell her I want a divorce.  Mostly, I'm afraid of what I'm becoming every day I stay and suck up the pain.  This is all consuming.

I'm scared.  Others here must have been through this, right?

[ForeverDad]

Our nearly adult kids have birthdays, holidays, and major life events coming up, so I feel like I can't act now, for fear of ruining them.

Most here were not able to find a "perfect" time to divorce.  You can decide to wait for a while, depending on what your circumstances are, but be aware that there will always be something that pops up to make you feel you need to delay again and again.

Here's another timing issue to keep in mind... Depending on where you reside and how quickly or slowly your local family courts proceed, divorce from a disordered spouse, especially one with BPD traits or similar "cluster B" group, is likely to take longer than divorces where both spouses are relatively normal.  Around here, most report divorce took at least a year, sometimes two years or longer.  So no matter when you start a case it will likely cover many family events, holidays and even vacations.

My divorce with a preschooler took about two years, the most intractable issue for us was the custody and parenting schedule.  Since your kids are close to adulthood, they'll likely age out of the system fast enough that custody and parenting issues won't be much of a legal concern.

Try to keep a perspective of the overall process, don't get bogged down overmuch trying to orchestrate the details.

Afraid of the fallout if I tell her I want a divorce.

First, before telling your spouse that, do you have your legal "ducks in a row"?

• Have you interviewed and selected an experienced proactive lawyer yet?  Not just any lawyer may be up to the task.
  Remember: You have a right to privacy and confidentiality during this entire process.
• Have you learned what typical outcomes are in your area?
• ... how property is divided?
• ... how assets, retirement accounts, debts are split?
• ... which time tested strategies are likely to work but also which hopes and "fairness" concepts you have that are likely to fail?

It is wisdom is to quietly educate yourself on the many issues that can and will surface during a separation and divorce.  Telling your spouse too soon may will cut that time short.

Of course, no matter how prepared you become, your spouse will probably still try to sabotage your plans.  We call them Extinction Bursts.  After all, your spouse will probably do anything to get you to retreat back to the prior status quo of prior years.

[PeteWitsend]

I second everything ForeverDad said, however, I'd add not to be overly concerned with the timeframe.  It could actually go more quickly if the BPD-spouse has already found a replacement or is eager to move on.  Or is cheap. 

One reason I stayed longer than I should have is that I got some bad legal advice from an attorney who was a friend of a friend (and needless to say I no longer trust).  He warned me that if I left her, she'd go "scorched earth" and "take me for everything I had."  This is a common thing you hear people complain about, but it's really uncommon in practice.  It takes a lot of money to go "scorched earth" in litigation.  Like $100,000's of dollars in legal fees and expert witnesses.  Unless she has access to those sort of resources, you don't have much to fear.  Baseless allegations in court may waste time and effort, but as the person making them is also spending $$$ making them, they tend to filter themselves out.

Pantherpanther, given her (repeated?) affairs, I wouldn't be surprised if she moves on quickly and is averse to spending time fighting over a lot of finer points.  She'll most likely just want as much $$$ out of it as possible and once that issue is resolved, she'll push to sign a settlement so as to avoid spending more in legal fees.  And she'll be eager to reconnect with exes and new lovers and move on.  This was similar to my experience, although I have no idea whether she cheated on me or not.  But early in the divorce process, BPDxw started to make noises through her attorney that I was a drunk, and demanded all sorts of records and such, but once she saw how much her attorney was spending to review things and draft motions, she quickly started reaching out to me directly and complaining about the cost and asking me to meet so we could resolve the case "without spending more money on attorneys."  (I didn't fall for that, but regardless, once I saw that email knew where her head was and things wrapped up fairly quickly.)

For you, I would absolutely be interviewing attorneys yesterday, given her infidelity, just to protect yourself. 

Do not show your hand in anyway.  Be sure to keep your thinking to yourself; you owe her as much honesty and disclosure as she has shown you: none. 

[PeteWitsend]

I guess I could've said all that more concisely as: take all precautions you should, and do not make any concessions to her, but do not allow fear of what she may do to dictate your course of action. 

And again, do not allow her to make any emotional appeals to you as a spouse to grant her anything or concede anything.  She through away the right to any spousal privilege when she cheated.

[ForeverDad]

There are a myriad of pointers to give you, here are a few more.

Don't assume you have to enable her potential sabotage inclinations by paying for her lawyer.  Although my spouse had worked up until our son was born, she hadn't been employed for a few years and yet I never directly paid for her lawyers.  Then how did her lawyers get paid?  From her share in the equity of our house and her share of my retirement account.  Of course, the details of those funds didn't get decided until the final settlement day, but her lawyers made sure they got their portion then.

Also, worrying about a Custody Evaluation even before you have the initial "temp" court order is getting the cart before the horse, so to speak.  Your task now, besides diminishing the impact of potential DV or child abuse allegations, is to seek the best ("least bad") temp order possible since you - and the kids too - will have to live with it during the divorce process, however long that takes.  In many cases there is a tendency for a temp order to morph into a final decree, so be sure to try for a "less bad" one.  For whatever reason, courts and lawyer are not inclined to modify even an obviously bad temp order, presumably since "it's only temporary".

I recorded some of my interactions with my  spouse, especially before, during and after separation.  I thought that by "recording myself" I could document that I wasn't the aggressor, that it was the so-called victim who was aggressive, nasty, ranting and raging.  Too bad most of it was never used, but I had it just in case.  Those were the days before smart phones so I used digital recorders.  I never waved them in front of her, I didn't want to trigger even more outbursts.  I did it quietly.

I did have a Custody Evaluation, it took 5 months and was done by a child psychologist who had the total trust of my lawyer and the court.  Our child was a preschooler who could not be quizzed directly, so he chose to monitor how we parents interacted with our child in his office.  There were psychological tests too, probably one of them was the MMPI.  This was the most expensive court expense of all, excluding lawyer fees of course, but mine were minimal considering that others have reported $10-$20K billings and higher.

The quality and experience of a custody evaluator is so important that it is said that the selection can make or break a custody case.

[awakened23]

I am following this thread as I am in a similar dilemma. Thanks ForeverDad and PeteWitsend for sharing your experiences and advice. very helpful.

@PP - I'd like to add that once you make your decision and in case you decide to file, give a good thought about what your post-filing separation plan would look like. Can you live under the same roof etc., of course with legal advice. Also stick with the decision no matter what gets thrown at you good or bad.

In my case I did file once and did not think what the separation would look like, I naively assumed I could live under the same roof in separate rooms until the process moves forward. This is possible in normal relationships but can get unrealistic in a BPD relationship. I was subject to relentless hovering, tears and guilt, until I finally caved in to the overwhelming guilt and self-doubt. I put the process on status quo first and later withdrew the petition, when there seemed to be the possibility of a "new awakening in our relationship". Months later I am blamed for stopping the process, blamed as the  main cause for the affair and subject to even more horrendous abuse.

[awakened23]

I'm afraid of what I'm becoming every day I stay and suck up the pain.  This is all consuming.

I can 100% relate to this statement.

[eightdays]

It is terrifying, I was a wreck.   But I felt it was an emergency to stop the money clock and get a date of separation.   I am just about over a year into it, and it is looking like this is going to take two years, until she is finally out of options.   It is about money and keeping her involvement with me.   She is going scorched earth, and is going to lose but seems to be deluded.   It was suggested that her attorney may be scamming her as well, which I can't tell one way or the other.   But she is spending thousands she doesn't really have to spend on motions, discovery, subpoenas etc.    The attorneys are the ones making money on this.   I expect to be alright in the end.    I did not tell her I wanted a divorce.   I went away for a few days while she was served the papers, and my attorney wrote her a letter.

[PearlsBefore]

Trying to divorce her cost me my reputation and years of my life and years of hard-fought court battles; she retaliated by making false accusations (later explaining she'd feared the law would believe my reasons for having her removed from the house and divorcing her, which she acknowledged filled her with shame and self-loathing over her guilt); there's not much "if I could do it all over again" wisdom I can offer - a person with BPD intent on defending themselves against the consequences of their actions and with a driving need to cause drama and misery to drag others down to their level to feel better about themselves...doesn't really have a defence.

I mean, "lawyer up", "record everything", etc...but ultimately I'm not sure it's going to matter.

[pantherpanther]

Thank you all, especially those who've been through it and are here to help those on the path!  May we all emerge stronger in the end.