But I can't understand how you still love your ex wife after she did that to you. If you were attached to her and she had an affair, then she ruined your heart. Don't you agree that the greatest victim of this is you, not her?
Like everyone here, I went through stages of grief. First, I fought hard for our marriage. I suspected cheating and didn't think she was capable, so I took her word that nothing happened. It was so obvious though; her hiding her location, lying about where she had been, being super defensive with explosive anger whenever someone mentioned her relationship with that guy.
You're right, in many ways I was the victim, but I refused to adopt a victim mentality since you can't truly heal while holding onto that. I know people in real life that are still devastated from breakups 5 or 10 years ago, and guess what...they still feel like they are the victim. What happened in my marriage happened and my ex made some really lousy choices. She hurt our entire family and if I'm still harboring anger, it's because of what it did to our kids. Nobody messes with my kids, nobody. Someone can come after me all they want and I don't let it get to me. But you mess with my kids? Oh boy...
I even think that you may be unaware of the real cause of what happened with your ex. You said, "My marriage ended because my ex wife stopped talking", but it seems like she had a good reason to stop talking. Have you ever thought that, perhaps, only perhaps, she was already having an affair and that's why she got distant and quiet?
Also, have you noticed that in your family she would feel like a bad and insufficient mother for your older kid, while in her new family she feels like an appropriate and essential mother? Wouldn't you think that this was unconsciously her end goal, to feel worthy?
You could be right about all of this- it's so hard to think like someone with mental illness thinks because it's not a logical thought pattern. You see 2+2 = 4, while they might see in a disordered state that 2+2 = the square root of banana.
You are correct though that in her new family, she's the handicapped person's entire world. He could never really do anything to physically or mentally hurt her either, so it's a great person to label as a favorite. She gets constant validation and it just works for her mental illness.
But then why would she praise you on your birthday and then devalue you so much when leaving you one month later? Because she couldn't get in compass with her own decision of leaving you. She could not handle the shame that she would feel if she admitted to herself that she was being unfair with you. So her interpreter module twisted her thought to create a completely different narrative that would fit her decision of leaving.
Like I said, I think it's so much more complicated because it's disordered thoughts leading to more disordered thoughts. She couldn't even remember praising me a month earlier on social media, and called a few of her relatives a liar. Then they showed her the post and it made her rage. It's because she couldn't make sense of it either- how did she love her husband a month earlier, and now he's an abusive jerk? She had no answer, so it changed to me being abusive our entire marriage and her suffering in silence.
With BPD, everything is tied to emotions in the moment. What's true right now might be a lie in 5 minutes. Then it can be true again 2 years later. It's not tied to actual reality because it's impulsive emotional explosions.
Anyway, you don't seem to indicate that your ex-wife was too difficult. Did she ever get physically aggressive? Did she create nonsense out of thin air just to bring drama? Did she scream at the top of her voice for a long period? Did she persecute you through the house or harass you in your workplace? Did she break stuff in the house? Did she provoke you by talking about other men? Those are the typical unmanageable behaviors.
Finally, do you think you were able to use tools, compassion, and boundaries to keep things under control and make the relationship manageable for you for the time it lasted?
During the first few years, screaming was frequent and violence was at least a once a week thing. I've been punched, kicked, hit by a car twice, had countless household items thrown at me, etc. I was young and dumb though and figured that's how all marriages were.
For the other men stuff, that was a frequent argument as well. She'd go into graphic detail of driving a guy home after work, everything they laughed about, etc. I'd be like, "Surely you can see why this is inappropriate." And then she'd explode and I'd have to duck.
I think why we lasted so long is because I stopped fighting back, I stopped asking questions, and I just let her do her own thing while I stayed home. I worked big hours for most of our marriage, so she was free to visit family, take vacations with her parents, etc. In short, I ended the conflict and refused to argue...which was at least partially the right thing to do in that situation. It happened more from dumb luck than any wisdom though; I just got tired of the yelling and being attacked.
One my BPD daughter got old enough, my wife and I didn't fight anymore because it was always a war with the kid. She was more the traditional 24/7 traditional BPD while my wife was more the quiet BPD type. They were ultimately the same though; one hid until she had to explode, while the other exploded 24/7.
I always loved my wife and daughter though and in time, I realized that they were both sick. The final stage of grief was acceptance, and that told me that they were never trying to actually harm me...they were just unhinged. It took me a very long time to find compassion because I couldn't understand what was happening. But once I finally found it, I've had zero blowouts with my daughter or my ex.
For my kid, we had a heart to heart conversation attending a wake for a family member. She apologized for being such a tough kid, which absolutely blew my mind, and a few days later I told her that I forgave her for absolutely everything. It's been a different relationship ever since. I have been yelled at a few times when she was unstable, but I'd cut the call/visit short and follow up the following day. That's all the drama I get from her now.
For my ex, she kept bring up the past (a year ago, 5 years ago, 20 years ago, etc.) and wanting to blame me...almost like a kid does when they're making excuses for why they did something wrong. This went on for months and every conversation ended up there. So I finally told her, "Look, I've always loved you and I never did anything to intentionally hurt you. I've made mistakes in our marriage but I always did the best I could at the time."
Somehow that stuck, and we haven't had an argument since then (about 18 months now). It's like the admission took all the fight out of her and maybe she found enough truth to let everything go.
