Survivors guilt again

[AlleyOop23]

I am preparing to “default” my spouse in the divorce proceeding. She has never gotten an attorney or participated in the divorce proceeding. Though this separation and divorce started with her kicking me out, threatening me, getting physically, she no longer wants a divorce.

She is despondent. Those times we are alone she talks about how she feels she’s a failure, no one wants her around, she’s fat and ugly (she is neither). She sobs like a child.

She has a therapist, a psychiatrist, a naturopath and an HRT specialist. Still, she spirals in obvious pain.

In an earlier post someone posted this story “the bridge” and I got great comfort from it. But now I wish the story included the man on the end of the rope gushed pain.  Snd begged g it the rope holder to love him snd hold him snd move back.

Help - it’s so painful to watch and feel.

[zachira]

One of the hardest lessons to learn when we have a relationship with a person with BPD is we cannot feel their pain for them. It does not help if we feel extremely sad or angry because that is how the person with BPD is feeling in the moment. Our taking on their feelings can provide them with temporary relief and then the cycle starts again: BPD gets overwhelmed with their emotions and finds someone to get  overwhelmed by how they are feeling so they don't have to deal with their emotions. Your story is extremely sad because your soon to be ex wife is so extremely impaired. How are your children impacted by your wife's extreme moods? Are any of them seeing a therapist?

[Notwendy]

It feels awful to see the kind of emotional pain in the pwBPD. I saw this and my father's emotional distress at seeing this.

I also saw where my father held on to the rope, did all he could to ease my BPD mother's emotional discomfort and while I think it made a difference for her, it didn't change that she had BPD and her emotional pain from that or her behaviors.

While the external solution may bring a temporary reprieve of it, it isn't the solution, and so the emotional need is continuous. No other person or their efforts could change this for my mother.

This emotional pain is internal, however, it's projected as if it's caused by something or someone else, and so they believe the it also is the solution. The pain is very intense and so their need for the external solution is also intense and desperate.

I won't say that showing this emotional pain to the people who care about them is deliberate- they can't help this feeling- it does get their immediate needs met because it's so hard to see. We don't want them to feel this way so we do what we can to help them. However, it also maintains the status quo of the relationship and the other disordered behaviors that you have chosen to not participate in. Should you agree to stop the divorce, it will relieve her pain and yours in the moment and return to the same situation.

The book "Understanding the Borderline Mother" desribes three personas: Queen, Witch, and Waif. I think you have seen these in your wife too. My BPD mother was mostly in Queen mode. We mostly complied with her wishes because, if we didn't- she'd disregulate and rage (Witch). However, if we held our grounds, we'd see the Waif. That was the hardest because the Waif is pitiful. I understand why my father couldn't stand to see her like this.

If I were to write my version of the Bridge story, my father held on to the rope, and they both went into that river of BPD. While I believe his efforts contributed to her comfort at times, they did not resolve her BPD or that emotional pain. I do believe the man "gushed pain" at letting go of the rope but I also believe he gushed pain in the alternative version of he story where he didn't.

You aren't chosing to let go of the rope because you don't care about your stbx. You aren't trying to hurt her, even if she perceives it this way. You were never the cause of her BPD. Being married to her didn't resolve her BPD.  What you are choosing is to not go over the Bridge with her.  Her mental health needs are being handled by professionals- as she has now.

I think other posters will share their stories of what happened after they let go of the rope.

[PeteWitsend]

...

I think other posters will share their stories of what happened after they let go of the rope.

I didn't feel any sympathy or regret for doing it.  I harbored - and still do - a lot of resentment for what BPDxw put me through during our marriage. 

And I feel vindicated in that she's been awful to coparent with most of the time, and was spiteful through the entire divorce process, so I didn't see much of the "waif" and even when I did, I had enough experience with her to question whether any of her feelings are genuine, or just different attempts to manipulate me or others to get what she wants. 

I truly believe I was just a means to an end for her: I checked the "husband" box; I did more than my share of the household labor, AND was the primary breadwinner.  I was faithful and was not going out drinking or partying with friends.  We had brought her mom to this country to live with us, which I tolerated, and she was already starting to say her dad needed to come next.  So she was getting what she wanted from me.  I was not; she was frequently hostile and argumentative; she made it difficult for me to work and further my career because of frequent accusations of infidelity and just general anger when I'd work late or attend or try to attend functions outside of work. 

I do think BPDxw had anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) either instead of or in addition to BPD.  There was more of a calculating, mean, and vindictive streak in her. 

Perhaps for that reason, I can't relate to people that feel sympathy for the pwBPD and feel their plight and their emotional despair is genuine.  I saw it as just another means to an end: when making demands didn't get the result she wanted, she resorted to anger and rage; when that failed, she tried a sob story.  When she saw that sobbing and a sympathy play didn't work either, the sob story quickly ended, and she resorted to pure spite.  I honestly question whether she has "feelings" in the human sense of the word at all. 

Regardless, I don't think another adult's deep emotional pain should become our own burden; those of us who were blood relations with a pwBPD didn't choose them, and in my case and most others' I've read here, the pwBPD was not up front with the non-disordered partner about the burden they were taking on in marriage and a committed relationship.

[Under The Bridge]

I do think BPDxw had anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) either instead of or in addition to BPD.  There was more of a calculating, mean, and vindictive streak in her. 

Perhaps for that reason, I can't relate to people that feel sympathy for the pwBPD and feel their plight and their emotional despair is genuine.  I saw it as just another means to an end: when making demands didn't get the result she wanted, she resorted to anger and rage; when that failed, she tried a sob story.  When she saw that sobbing and a sympathy play didn't work either, the sob story quickly ended, and she resorted to pure spite.  I honestly question whether she has "feelings" in the human sense of the word at all.

I have always thought that people wth BPD actually have more control than they would have us believe. Yes, a lot of it is pure impulsivity according to their emotional state but my exBPD also exhibited a lot of premeditation in her actions.

For example, after breaking up with me she'd still come to our usual haunts, not with the intention of getting back together but just to let me see her when she knew I was missing her. This is pre-planned, not spur of the moment BPD.

I'm still convinced that she had a mean streak anyway and wonder how much more the BPD amplified this and brought it out - quite a lot, I would imagine. Perhaps naturally mean and moody people are more predisposed towards BPD? Seems logical.

In any event, the time will come to let go of the rope, if only to save your own sanity and health, so don't feel bad about it.

[zachira]

People with serious mental health disorders like BPD rarely have just one disorder. Often there is a more dominant disorder and strong traits of other disorders. People with BPD can have narcissistic and sociopathic traits. Every person with BPD is clearly an individual. Some will have more control than others in how much they participate in consciously planning their disordered acting out behaviors.

[ForeverDad]

I have always thought that people wth BPD actually have more control than they would have us believe.

My ex displayed waif persona toward the end of our marriage.  She would moan and groan, locking herself sobbing in our bedroom or our child's bedroom.  But she'd also be a queen or witch at other times.

Once we separated, I never again saw the waif persona.  She was queen and witch as long as she had control of parenting orders.

Clearly, every person described here is slightly different from the others described, yet the behavior patterns are consistently negative.

You are a reasonably normal person.  We have confidence you will not be nasty in any outcome you specify in the divorce.  If you have minor children, then you also need to be cognizant of their need for you to be the primary parent.  The risk we have is a surprising one, that we may be too inclined to be overly fair and overly nice, to our long term regret.

[AlleyOop23]

Thanks all. When I take this all in o appreciate the support, gain the understanding that all situations have huge similarities but some differences, and feel good that there’s this board that delivers affirmation and the reassurance that this is in fact hard and also manageable. Sometimes others will attempt to empathy by talking about their own past divorce. As much as I appreciate it, what they went through was of course hard, but in many many ways not the same. I can only get that here. Thanks. I’m so glad I found this.

For those asking about my kids they have therapists and are seemingly talking about their feelings and are engaged in their own lives productively having successes and setbacks in blessedly normal teenage ways.

Their mother for all  I have to complain about and for as despondent and forlorn as she shows to me, has taken her mental health seriously and is far more functional with those kids than she was 18 months ago. (Perhaps there’s a clue for me in that as I write this). Regardless I’m
Grateful my kids have a better version of her than they did.

[Notwendy]

For those asking about my kids they have therapists and are seemingly talking about their feelings and are engaged in their own lives productively having successes and setbacks in blessedly normal teenage ways.

Their mother for all  I have to complain about and for as despondent and forlorn as she shows to me, has taken her mental health seriously and is far more functional with those kids than she was 18 months ago. (Perhaps there’s a clue for me in that as I write this). Regardless I’m
Grateful my kids have a better version of her than they did.

It's good that the kids have therapists they can talk to and seem to be having normal teen experiences too.

If your wife's efforts are internally motivated- they will persist after the divorce too. Change takes time and effort and is over the long run. I hope for the kids' sakes she does this.

You still can follow through with the plans you have pursued to have your own life and peaceful home- which will be a calm place for the kids too.

[PeteWitsend]

I have always thought that people wth BPD actually have more control than they would have us believe. Yes, a lot of it is pure impulsivity according to their emotional state but my exBPD also exhibited a lot of premeditation in her actions.

...

I had a later relationship that seemed more like "pure" BPD, where it was equally unpleasant, but it seemed that my partner truly couldn't control herself and would just dysregulate.  And it wasn't only toward me, but other family members (particularly her mom).  One Christmas holiday, I watched her go from fighting with her mom & seeing me as her "rescuer," to fighting with me in the car when we left to get a break, to then picking another fight with her mom as I came back into the house, telling me "we're getting out of here." I remember on the car ride home, she was happy and cheery toward me, as though nothing unpleasant had happened between us all day. 

I could see feeling some sympathy for her. Over time I learned she had made herself a bit of a "black sheep" in the family by finding ways to get in fights with lots of different relatives of hers.  The conflicts she provoked or found herself seemed to only serve to leave her more isolated socially; she seemed to be more hapless than mean and vindictive. 

In contrast, I didn't see the pure "dysregulation" as much with BPDxw; she did seem to manage her emotions carefully, as unhinged and baseless as they might have been.  Over the course of our marriage, I didn't see the hysterical sobbing and crying as often as I did early on. I think by trial and error she learned that being aggressive and threatening got her better results than being the "waif."  Creating conflict was her main modus operandi, and often in hindsight, after the initial blowup it seemed to me that she knew what she was doing, e.g. fights would start based on some pretext that had nothing to do with what she was later upset about. 

After I filed for divorce, I only briefly saw the "waif" persona, when (after lots of threatening posturing and general nastiness), she sent me a text message begging me to reconsider and promising to go to therapy again and not scream at the therapist.  I didn't respond.  After that, it was back to the "witch" behavior. 

The calculating aspect of it, and the way she seemed to relish picking fights and hurting other people (especially in public ways that made her look cunning or strong) made me suspect ASPD.  When I first learned about ASPD in fact, I was like "That seems to be more like what I was dealing with" 

[PeteWitsend]

People with serious mental health disorders like BPD rarely have just one disorder. Often there is a more dominant disorder and strong traits of other disorders. People with BPD can have narcissistic and sociopathic traits. Every person with BPD is clearly an individual. Some will have more control than others in how much they participate in consciously planning their disordered acting out behaviors.

That seems to align with the genetic predisposition theory to BPD. 

And for the non-disordered partner, it speaks to the need to respond according to the behavior we experience, not any supposed diagnosis. 

Imagine the amount of observation that a psychiatrist would have to perform in order to correctly diagnose a BPD person with multiple comorbid conditions... yikes.