How to get through this divorce?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hello, this is my first post ever on any website. 

I am struggling through the most difficult experience in my life - a divorce that my wife initiated 10 months ago. She has had many changes in her life the past few years beginning with individual therapy about four years ago to explore some childhood trauma, which she was only partially aware of.   Her therapist used EMDR as the primary technique to recover the memories.  She began pushing her family of origin away three years ago (she was adopted after being born premature); left the ministry two years ago (she was a pastor); and began pushing me away one year ago.  She said she's sorry I got caught in the intersection of all this and that she still has a deep love for me but needs this separation to find out who she is. We have three beautiful children, pre-teen and teenagers. 

I began therapy myself about 18 months ago to help understand what was happening and how to support and save our marriage.  It has been the most enlightening and helpful experience!  My therapist has helped me see  aspects of our marriage that were working pretty well and also areas where our interactions were not healthy and mature.  Thankfully my wife joined me on several sessions with my therapist, who observed our interactions and my wife's near-continuous negativity towards me. Through this he was able to identify BPD traits in my wife  and gradually help me learn how to hear her more, begin to understand how she might experience our interactions, and find more effective ways to respond to her.   

I've also learned much about my own background that made it difficult for me to enter more fully into a mature, intimate relationship.   I wasn't as wounded as my wife, I believe, but I had my own limitations that prevented me from supporting her in all the ways she needed.  Since it all makes so much sense I've been able to put several  things into practice  these past couple of years.   My wife has has aknowledged all the effort yet it hasn't added up to very much for her.

More than a year before her divorce filing, and even after for several months, I asked my wife to go to couples counseling with me, and also to let me join her with her therapist, 
something I've been asking for for more than two years. Her therapist had written me several letters, which I thought was unusual, and the letters were quite condemning of me, full of distortions, yet she had never even met me.  Over time it became very clear that the therapist has an agenda of her own and that she and my wife had build up this highly negative narrative about me and didn't want to deconstruct it through actually getting to know me.

I had never even heard of BPD as an emotional disorder before.  As time goes on I recognize more and more of this fits both present and past experiences. 

My wife says that she wants to "do no harm" through this divorce yet she has found a very aggressive attorney and follows all he recommends. I have had to accept what is happening, let her go, and defend what is left and most important, my children, and retain as much economic skin as I can.   Through getting much tougher and setting firm boundaries, I've been able to secure a shared parenting plan (with equal parenting time) which I drafted, then was issued by my attorney, and later signed by my wife.   She had initially requested the court to consider sole custody for her due to "ongoing difficulties in communications with me". It took a lot of work to get here so far and I know I must continue the effort.

 My wife is now maneuvering  to take as much of our  financial resources as possible, including unreasonable spousal support.  I have been the sole breadwinner for our family the past two years and always have been the primary earner.  I've  always honored her many contributions to our family, including her profession and role as a good mother of our children.

Unfortunately, she now seems to have a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of responsibility as she moves on, and wasn't this way at all before.  I've learned to respect spouses in divorce situations who recognize there are  consequences of divorce and that they must take on additional burden.

It has taken me a long time to recognize and accept that my wife is actually very manipulative and deceptive, while projecting the same characteristics on to me, and then distorting this even further into other negativity.   I didn't even know what a projection was before all of this, but it is getting quite easy to recognize them now.   I've been a classic enabler and cannot do this anymore. I must protect myself and my children as best I can, and hopefully still find a way to have a respectful relationship with my soon to be ex-wife. This is by far the hardest thing I've ever been through!

[Tin man]

Hello, this is my first post ever on any website. 

I am struggling through the most difficult experience in my life - a divorce that my wife initiated 10 months ago. She has had many changes in her life the past few years beginning with individual therapy about four years ago to explore some childhood trauma, which she was only partially aware of.   Her therapist used EMDR as the primary technique to recover the memories.  She began pushing her family of origin away three years ago (she was adopted after being born premature); left the ministry two years ago (she was a pastor); and began pushing me away one year ago.  She said she's sorry I got caught in the intersection of all this and that she still has a deep love for me but needs this separation to find out who she is. We have three beautiful children, pre-teen and teenagers. 

I began therapy myself about 18 months ago to help understand what was happening and how to support and save our marriage.  It has been the most enlightening and helpful experience!  My therapist has helped me see  aspects of our marriage that were working pretty well and also areas where our interactions were not healthy and mature.  Thankfully my wife joined me on several sessions with my therapist, who observed our interactions and my wife's near-continuous negativity towards me. Through this he was able to identify BPD traits in my wife  and gradually help me learn how to hear her more, begin to understand how she might experience our interactions, and find more effective ways to respond to her.   

I've also learned much about my own background that made it difficult for me to enter more fully into a mature, intimate relationship.   I wasn't as wounded as my wife, I believe, but I had my own limitations that prevented me from supporting her in all the ways she needed.  Since it all makes so much sense I've been able to put several  things into practice  these past couple of years.   My wife has has aknowledged all the effort yet it hasn't added up to very much for her.

More than a year before her divorce filing, and even after for several months, I asked my wife to go to couples counseling with me, and also to let me join her with her therapist, 
something I've been asking for for more than two years. Her therapist had written me several letters, which I thought was unusual, and the letters were quite condemning of me, full of distortions, yet she had never even met me.  Over time it became very clear that the therapist has an agenda of her own and that she and my wife had build up this highly negative narrative about me and didn't want to deconstruct it through actually getting to know me.

I had never even heard of BPD as an emotional disorder before.  As time goes on I recognize more and more of this fits both present and past experiences. 

My wife says that she wants to "do no harm" through this divorce yet she has found a very aggressive attorney and follows all he recommends. I have had to accept what is happening, let her go, and defend what is left and most important, my children, and retain as much economic skin as I can.   Through getting much tougher and setting firm boundaries, I've been able to secure a shared parenting plan (with equal parenting time) which I drafted, then was issued by my attorney, and later signed by my wife.   She had initially requested the court to consider sole custody for her due to "ongoing difficulties in communications with me". It took a lot of work to get here so far and I know I must continue the effort.

 My wife is now maneuvering  to take as much of our  financial resources as possible, including unreasonable spousal support.  I have been the sole breadwinner for our family the past two years and always have been the primary earner.  I've  always honored her many contributions to our family, including her profession and role as a good mother of our children.

Unfortunately, she now seems to have a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of responsibility as she moves on, and wasn't this way at all before.  I've learned to respect spouses in divorce situations who recognize there are  consequences of divorce and that they must take on additional burden.

It has taken me a long time to recognize and accept that my wife is actually very manipulative and deceptive, while projecting the same characteristics on to me, and then distorting this even further into other negativity.   I didn't even know what a projection was before all of this, but it is getting quite easy to recognize them now.   I've been a classic enabler and cannot do this anymore. I must protect myself and my children as best I can, and hopefully still find a way to have a respectful relationship with my soon to be ex-wife. This is by far the hardest thing I've ever been through!

[livednlearned]

Hi Tin man,

Welcome and hello 

I'm so sorry for what brings you here, and glad you found the site. You fit right in here!

People with BPD tend to have no real sense of self and can take on the qualities of people around them, and lawyers and therapists can do a lot of damage if they have their own issues. How completely unprofessional and strange that the therapist wrote you letters! That is just   I know you have a lot going on right now, but have you considered filing a complaint with the professional association in your area?

As for entitlement and deception, that is unfortunately standard operating. Being emotionally immature, she will probably be 100 percent focused on getting her needs met, and that can be exquisitely painful to deal with when it's linked to legal action, where the means justify the ends.

Have you read Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing a BPD/NPD Spouse by Bill Eddy? It's the Cliff's notes to these high-conflict divorces. That book, and this community, will help keep you sane. You already have a therapist and that is soo important, especially to help curb any codependent tendencies you might have to self-sabotage.

For now, focus on having good, healthy boundaries. For many of us, this typically meant that we felt a good deal of guilt, which has to be set aside. Doing the right thing for yourself and the kids is critical right now and feeling guilt will only help your wife steam roller the family.

A lot of us noticed that the FOG lifted (fear, obligation, guilt) after a few years post-divorce, and it can feel like our old selves are almost strangers to us as we get healthy and teach our kids how to be emotionally resilient and mature.

Where are you in the divorce process at the moment? Are you living together? What kind of custody arrangement is in place?

Again, glad you found the site. This place changed my life. The people here understand what you're going through and the advice is priceless. You're not alone.

LnL