Next step after BPD SO declares intent to serve for divorce

[RedPill]

Hello,

As the subject says, today my BPD SO unexpectedly told me they are filing for divorce and that I will likely be served in the next few days. My SO has does not have a diagnosis from their therapist, but my current personal therapist and our marriage family therapist think BPD is diagnosis.

After taking a few deep breaths, I am considering what next steps I should take. Obviously I am going to consult with a lawyer ASAP.

Question: are there any practical actions I should take NOW to protect myself and are any of the following appropriate?

1. We have a teenage child. My SO can be a loving parent but also acts out/in with the child. Are there any steps I should take here?
2. We have a joint bank account for the family budget. My SO already has an independent account from an inheritance. Should I start an independent account? I am the primary wage earner of the family.
3. We own a home together. I do not plan to leave while this process is underway. Thoughts?
4. I have not received the papers yet but I do not think this is a bluff. Would it benefit me to serve her first?

Thank you,
RedPill

[livednlearned]

Hi RedPill,

You may want to consult with a few lawyers. Tell them what your goals are, and ask what strategy and tactics they would recommend. You may want to ask, too, how much experience they have with high-conflict divorces and how those cases turned out. A lot of us have cases that go to trial (sounds a lot worse than it is... .) so it's good to ask Ls how they are with litigation. Plus basic questions, like how long does it typically take for them to respond to emails, how often will you get an itemized bill.

First things first, order a copy of Bill Eddy's Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing an NPD/BPD Spouse.

I would definitely create an independent account and withdraw half of the joint funds. My L told me to do that (some aggressive Ls will suggest taking ALL of the joint funds) and said there would be no repercussions and there weren't. In fact, if you don't, I think some judges and Ls wonder what the heck you were thinking 

In terms of who serves who first, there are no real benefits, other than perhaps a psychological effect. If she serves first, you will be the defendant, and that might bug you. I wouldn't worry about it. And I wouldn't worry about the initial claim -- most judges don't read them and most lawyers figure whatever gets said is basically a bunch of angry hyperbole.

There are some Lessons associated with this board that might be helpful, especially Lesson 2, based on where you are in the process (the high-conflict law and personality disorders article might be particularly useful for finding an assertive lawyer).

Hang in there and pace yourself! Remember that these are marathons and not sprints.

How is your teen doing? Are there any signs of enmeshment with mom?

[SamwizeGamgee]

Welcome.  Unfortunately, it sounds like you are in front of a fast moving train.  There's a lot going on. 
I second the advice to read Splitting.  It's a good primer for what's ahead. 

Unlike you, I am considering being the one to file, and have taken two years turning it over, so I have time to read and plan.  And, I used the time to get me centered and healthy - ready for whatever lies ahead.  It looks like you don't get the luxury.  Also, I am only a student of game, not a star player, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Do interview a few lawyers. There are also some competent website forums for dads getting divorce.  You can do some research there, though the BPD specific things are certainly here on BPF Family.

I will emphasize Do Not Take Legal Advice From Your SO.

Leaving or staying in the house is a monumental decision.  It sets status quo, and leads into custody issues.  Do what you do after careful advisement from your lawyer.
I don't see a problem taking the bank money and putting it into your own account.  The key words are to prevent dissipation of funds, so the money is there to be split 50/50 on the court's order. Any money you leave will essentially be used against you in the battle ahead. FWIW, I started my separate bank account and have been directing money there to build up a war chest.

I think there is some advantage to filing first.  In many places being the plaintiff puts you in the driver's seat so to speak.  You can set a pace to the filings and motions. While it may not affect the outcome, by taking the lead, you can affect the pace.  In many cases, I think people in unhappy relationships benefit from it being over sooner rather than later - even if longer would have been more financially advantageous for example.   

You have a battle on two fronts - one: the divorce process. Two: your own emotional health.  Both are important but unfortunately the divorce process has an enforced time schedule.  Just don't forget your own wellness in the fray.

[RedPill]

Hello,

Thank you for listening. Yesterday was a tough day. As SamWize suspected, I was quite thoroughly run over by a very large, irrational, extremely fast-moving train. As the caboose recedes I am trying to take stock.

After my SO hit with me with the divorce bombshell in the late morning, I went to work. A few hours later, I received a message from my SO saying that they were going to tell my daughter as they picked her up from school an hour later. I asked them to wait for me to be present, they declined. I asked again, another negative. As I didn't want my daughter alone with my SO when this came out, I dropped everything at work and rushed home. My SO told my daughter that "we" were getting divorced, my daughter was shocked and cried, and I became emotional as well. I did try to focus on my daughter, let her know that we both loved her, it wasn't her fault, and that we would always be there for her. Of course later my SO sniped at me for being emotional and weak. I'm fighting to keep my self-esteem up; I was completely unprepared for the conversation. I only had time for a ten minute phone conversation with my therapist as I rushed home, who did help buck me up and sent me some quick notes about "how to tell children about divorce." My SO went to a class for the evening, so at least my daughter and I had time for ourselves for a while.

LivenLearned, I'm going to have to look up "enmeshment" to respond to your question. My SO and daughter laugh and have fun together, but I've also seen my daughter looking to me for cues how to respond when my SO acts out. She's aware something is up.

I'm looking for a lawyer to consult with. My SO and I are alternating sleeping in the bed and couch. It is hard to manage all this with work responsibilities. I'm trying to stay positive and get my humor back.

Thanks for listening,
RP

[Ulysses]

I don't know if it matters, but I would suggest you document your SO's actions around telling your daughter.  And that you called your therapist to consult on the best way to tell a child about divorce.  When it comes to a parenting plan and the best interest of the child, the information might be able to be used.  I guess you'd have to ask your lawyer.

If your SO files first, can they have you removed from the home in the initial filing (e.g. RedPill must vacate the family home within 30 days)?

[Portent]

Buy and read

Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder

[ForeverDad]

The reason you need to stop sending your paycheck to your joint account is that it is at potential risk of being snatched from the account.  Same goes for the money already in the account.  Take at least half.  If it's a lot of money then I'd side with taking a bit more.  After all, you're the major income for the household and if the professionals quiz you then you can simply say you were or will be using the excess for the household bills - mortgage, utilities, insurance, food, etc.  Courts won't care if you take more, they figure it will all wash out in the final financial settlement.  I don't recall any member ever reporting a court getting upset about taking too much out of an account as a case started.  Generally while the case is in process it focuses on what IS not what WAS.  Final finances are handled nearer the end of the case.  Besides, you will have documentation that you paid the big bills anyway, so you're defended in the rare instance the court scrutinizes details.

I was the plaintiff in my divorce.  Mostly it did not impact the case though it made me feel more positive that I was the proactive one.  One benefit was that I was able to state my case first because I knew she would respond with blaming and allegations.  And she did.  Even filed a harassment case, though primarily it was trying to include our preschooler to block my parenting.  She claimed I called her every day.  Wrong, I called her phone (that I paid for) when trying to reach my son.  She claimed I stalked her.  Wrong, one instance was during an exchange drop-off at a friend's home and when I was leaving the limited access street she arrived.  Called 911 on me for driving on the street doing the drop-off.  Another time was that I attended the same religious service, the most important of the year.  Over 100 were in attendance, it was the same location we had attended for years, I was on the opposite side and behind her, no way I could cause a problem with her.  However, though she was fussing about simple things it did cloud the parenting issues.

[RedPill]

I'm about a week in and it is ROUGH. But first a bit of business:

• Splitting. Very informative but also a little frightening. I had Randi Kreger's Stop Walking on Eggshells for about six months which helped lay the groundwork on BPD while we were in couples counseling before stbxndBPD blew that all up.
• Money grab. Thanks for the advice; I withdrew most of the rest and started a new bank account to deposit my pay. We're keeping the joint account for auto-pay bills for now with a plan to be worked out ... .sometime?
• Lodging. I've been staying in the house because a) can't afford a hotel and b) nowhere else to go. Sad to say, I've been successfully isolated from friends and don't have any family in the area. I stay on the patio couch when StbxndBPD is home, although they have been either coming back VERY late or staying away with friends. I never said they had to leave, but things get pretty frigid when we're both in the house.
• Lawyer. I interviewed 3 and retained a lawyer this week. Pretty painful - another unequivocal step toward letting go. I've been scanning documents and gathering information on my own but am looking forward to some direction and advice. I need somebody in my corner.

Now on to me. It's been a blur. I can function pretty well when working or with my teen, but alone I'm falling apart. I'm beating myself up far too much and feeling devastatingly sad our marriage is ending, while at the same time remembering how chaotic, dysfunctional, and lopsided our relationship has been. Sometimes the unbidden wish jumps into my head that we could put it back together and be a family again, and then I remember the constant blame, criticism and unhappiness and I hate myself for having no spine. I've been living in the FOG for a long, long time. My future financial reality is terribly frightening (more on this later, perhaps). I'm trying to be strong for my daughter and at long last I have been able to reconnect with my parents, but it is REALLY hard right now.

Most of all it's the self-doubt. How could I be so blind? How could I let this happen? Why did I keep shoveling my life into the endless pit of unhappiness within them? It was always, "maybe getting married will make them happy" or "maybe having a child will make them happy" or "maybe buying this house will make them happy" or "maybe if I make more money they will be happy" or "maybe when it's just the two of us again we will be happy." Even after all that, the loss of the dream of what someday might be a happy marriage cuts deep.

My handle is a reference to the film The Matrix, where the hero is offered a blue pill to allow them to forget reality and return to the dream world, or a red pill to wake them up and make them aware of the true nature of things. In my weakness and anguish, sometimes I wonder which I would really choose.

[Portent]

Be ready for a smear campaign. I just learned this past week that my replacement who is also an engineer has been spreading around the engineering community that I beat my ex wife. I'm sure he believes it. He believes anything she tells him. She had to come up with some story about how their affair was special and not just her being a cheat.

[SamwizeGamgee]

It's normal, and I think healthy, to feel conflicted at this stage RedPill.  I was for a long while.  I am still staying married, so I'm not forced with all the heavy stuff at once like you are. But, it took a long time to balance the ideas of my wife being both good and evil.  I accept that there will always be memories of something good about her, or moreso about our marriage.  I mean, if my uBPDw was really a full-time psychotic abuser, I wouldn't have gone near her and never would have married.  So, don't think that you're crazy because now you see things differently.  I think of the good times as the spoonfuls of sugar that help the poison go down.  We were probably just young, naive, average guys who thought marriage has its ups and downs - at least at first.

On that note, I know exactly what you're referring to with the Red Pill analogy.  I was at my rock-bottom early in 2015.  I came across the acronym BPD while reading about intimacy in marriage.  Out of curiosity I looked it up.  The rabbit hole of knowledge about BPD then appeared, and life has been forever different.  I wonder if I would have had my coping skills before marriage if I would have stayed happily surviving in the matrix.   Maybe, since my improvements have made life around me better.  But, I think sooner of later my psyche would catch all the little glitches and found the truth behind my wife's behavior.  You don't get two swipes at the Blue Pill, I think. 
So, here we are. 

You can't unlearn it.  You can't unsee it.  Now you have to trust your gut in spite of the crazy raining down on you.

[livednlearned]

I'm so sorry, RedPill. This is a massively disorienting and stressful time of loss and grief. The worst, whether the marriage was good or bad, this part is pretty awful.

I'm beating myself up far too much and feeling devastatingly sad

There are psychological and emotional stages to divorce that many of us go through. 

The best thing I did during my divorce was to see a therapist. Is that someone you might consider?

When there is no clear reason for why the marriage failed, many of us blame ourselves because it provides a known target.

Try to be gentle with yourself.

It does get better.

It takes a while.

 

LnL

[RedPill]

Thanks LnL and Sam, I appreciate the thoughts. Yesterday I was feeling oddly numb or neutral to the whole situation, like the sadness agony just moved out leaving a strange vacuum. I do have a great therapist (thank God!) that I'm seeing weekly.

Today guilt got a foothold, although an unearned one. My stbxuBPDw has long accused me of affairs, hacking her phone, spying on her, and other suspicious behavior. The dam broke after the Ashley Madison dump in 2015 when she searched and found my email on one of the gotcha sites. Problem is, I've never been unfaithful and I certainly never signed up for any online dating sites. She believes I'm a genius computer wizard who infected her laptop and phone with spyware; yet I would also use my real email to sign up for an adultery site. A few days after she confronted me with her "evidence" of adultery, I stupidly downloaded the dumps directly to seek out if my name actually was on there. I did not find anything, but what was the point? You can't prove a negative. I suspect now that she lurked on my computer (always unlocked, no password), saw the dumps and assumed it meant her theory was correct. In all of this, I know the truth of what I didn't do ... .but the fervor of her accusations makes me feel guilty nonetheless.

So it popped into my head today that the day my name turned up after her query was the first day of the end our marriage. Our marriage had tough times and she had exhibited BPD behavior long before that, but I didn't know it for what it was at the time, and wouldn't know until much later. I will never know the circumstances of it. I know it's totally out of my control ... .but reflexively I feel badly about it. So messed up.

I'm also feeling the desire to talk to her about it ... .as if now that we've reached the final ending of our r/s that I can go back to that subject and tell her how I feel about it, how I would never do it, how ridiculous and random it is that everything is hinging on that falsity. Even though it isn't really.

I'm trying to learn to shed these trained feelings of guilt and the need to "fix" the problem. But it's come to define me. And not in a good way.
--
RP

[SamwizeGamgee]

There is healthy guilt, and unhealthy guilt.  You've got to hold a candle to your own heart and see what fits and what is real.
I also ended up numb to mostly everything about my wife.  When you numb the bad, you numb the good too, and marriage becomes a contract or going through the motions.  At least hat's been my experience. Sorry you are feeling the way you are.  

I can also support you saying that there's really no point in arguing.  They (BPDs) base their facts on their feelings.  And, just like no argument can tell you how to feel, nothing can change a BPD's "facts."  Except maybe dig you deeper into the black hole of hate.  

I know the feeling of wanting to talk about your marriage status, and try to be organized, dare I say business like, about how to proceed.  I have that desire and think I could deal with it rationally. But, to be fair, I see marriage just as a contract now, so it's business, and not feelings and life / soul mate material to me.   I think a way to possibly deal with it is to write everything that you plan or want to say to your wife.  Think it over, and phrase it just right.  Then when it's done, and you're ready to give it to her, put in in an envelope and store it at work somewhere for future reference.  

[livednlearned]

I'm trying to learn to shed these trained feelings of guilt and the need to "fix" the problem. But it's come to define me. And not in a good way.

A lot of us who ended up in BPD relationships have emotionally immature parents, if not full-blown BPD.

It can be like getting stuck on a bad loop. You are doing the deeply ingrained biological thing where you act out these loyal closely bonded relationships, only there is no there there.

You are being aware of how you feel and reflecting on it, noticing when you feel numb and when it hurts to breathe.

That's a good place to start, with how you feel, noticing and observing.

It may be too soon to say this, because your grief is likely to be red hot. But I'll say it anyway   The loving relationship you are on the path to having with yourself will far surpass anything you have ever had. The first step is to have compassion for yourself, and to be gentle and forgiving for what are human foibles, no more no less.

Also, she can not talk to you about your relationship in a way that will ever feel like resolution. To be able to do that, she would need to be emotionally mature. Her feelings would need to be emotionally integrated with her sense of self, and that is sadly not how it is for her. Letting go the dream that she is able to be someone she is not can be freeing, tho I know it is very sad to grieve that loss all the same.

[livednlearned]

I'm trying to learn to shed these trained feelings of guilt and the need to "fix" the problem. But it's come to define me. And not in a good way.

You are being aware of how you feel and reflecting on it, noticing when you feel numb and when it hurts to breathe.

That's a good place to start, with how you feel, noticing and observing.

It may be too soon to say this, because your grief is likely to be red hot. But I'll say it anyway   The loving relationship you are on the path to having with yourself will far surpass anything you have ever had. The first step is to have compassion for yourself, and to be gentle and forgiving for what are human foibles, no more no less.

Also, she can not talk to you about your relationship in a way that will ever feel like resolution. To be able to do that, she would need to be emotionally mature. Her feelings would need to be emotionally integrated with her sense of self, and that is sadly not how it is for her. Letting go the dream that she is able to be someone she is not can be freeing, tho I know it is very sad to grieve that loss all the same.

[SamwizeGamgee]

LnL - so good it's worth saying twice.  No, seriously, thanks for bringing up the goodness in ourselves.  I overlook it to often.