It's Time to let this go but it hurts

[scrayvic]

I've been in a relationship with my current BPD wife (#2) for almost 11 years 9 of it married.  I was previously married for 17 years to a woman who was an alcoholic and essentially abandoned me and the children to drink and party.  That relationship was not always that way but went bad after our second child was born.  She had her issues before she completely dove in the alcohol pool but don't we all.  The last 5 years of that marriage was hell and full of female on male abuse physical and mental. I had to call the police on her twice... .I hired a private investigator to document all this and the court kicked her out of the house and awarded me full custody of my 2 daughters ages 9 and 5 at the time.  I had a full time professional job 30 miles from where we lived so I had a support network (I am very grateful to this day for these people)  The kids and i went to counseling to help us recover from what we had just experienced.  Along the way I met wife #2 our BPD subject of this article.  Given everything the kids went though,  she was not introduced to the children for almost a year because I wanted to make sure this was a keeper relationship.  When we were not home she would sometimes come by to help clean the house and leave us meals.  My time with her was limited obviously because I had a job, two children to take care of, and was trying to make extra side hustle money to pay off debts from a business what had failed 3 years earlier.  But I found time to be with her when the kids would visit with my parents or stay over with some of my support network.  There are a couple of times I had to draw the line with her (No I cannot stay up to 2AM to talk to you I have to get up a 5:30AM for work) She didn't like it but I didn't get alot of drama around this.  It always seemed she was trying to help but didn't ask much of me.  (Honestly at the time I did not have much to give her time or money)  Long story short we got married about 4 months after she met the kids. After we married she moved in with us.  The move in was easy all she had were clothes, her car, a better TV than mine, and some household knickknacks.  Prior to moving in she was living in a house her parents owned and was paying them a minimal amount of rent.  She had a special needs son who lived with her parents.  Her explanation of this was she worked odd hours and her son needed a consistent schedule to function well.  She talked like she really cared about her son but she never seemed to spend much time with him and when I asked questions this was topic it made clear this topic could never be discussed rationally.   Hindsight being 20/20 this should have been a huge red flag for me but I accepted her explanation at face value because I didn't know much myself about raising kids.  It did not take long after the marriage before the drama started.  I should also mention she is very short and was proud of the fact she had lost alot of weight (60 pounds) prior to our dating so that she was now weight proportional to height.  That did not last too long because after the first year of marriage she had gained almost all the weight back.  We discussed she might have an eating disorder so I paid for her to go to private weight loss counseling. That lasted a couple months but then she decided she was done with counseling and appointed me the food police.  Of course after being married to an alcoholic who wanted me to dole out 2 beers a day I knew I was not the one with the problem and refused this role.  This infuriated her and I got called all kinds of names and told what worthless husband I was.  In the middle of all this the ex-wife decides to take me back to court to try and get custody of the kids.  Of course the drama this generated for the BPD was off the chart.  The ex-wife spent all the settlement money I gave her on a sleazy lawyer who fired her after the money ran out.  The next lawyer she hired ended up murdered in his parking by one of his clients ex-husband in a murder suicide (Really I am not making this stuff up) so this case dragged on for years with 3 different lawyers and in the end the ex-wife got no custody changes but I spent lots of money and got lots of drama from BPD wife #2.  Basically after the case was settled wife #2 to told me what a worthless husband and father I was and moved out very suddenly on a whim one day after I confronted her about charging $5k on my credit card.  Of course with 2 little kids in the house wife #2 had been functioning as there mother since wife #1 was pretty much out of the picture.  Of course when she left the kids were in tears and I was given a bible by her for what could have been.  After a couple of weeks I called an attorney and filed separation papers.

About 6 weeks later I got a call from her begging to come back, that she realized she had an eating disorder but had found a wonderful clinic that would give her counseling and do a gastric bypass.  By this point her BMI was over 40 and she was diabetic, had sleep apenea you name it when you are that over weight.  She also mentioned she had checked and the health insurance would pay for the surgery.  I told her well you work the weight loss program they require prior to surgery and then we can talk about where our relationship is.  Of course she wanted me to go to all her meetings with her but I told her no I don't have an eating disorder you do.  You need it I don't.  She stuck it out and I allowed her to move back in and supported her emotionally and financially through the weight loss surgery and later skin removal surgery.  (Emptying bloody drain bottles after surgery is disgusting but hey I loved her so I did it to support her)  Things got alot better after the surgery for several years because they had a support group which she attended regularly.  Of course there was still BPD stuff but the incidents were much less intense and rather short lived so it was tolerable... .Hey nobody is perfect and I have my faults too.  As my older daughter was gaining independence in high school the BPD began to cause problems again because wife #2 wanted to control every waking moment my daughter had so "Nothing Bad" would happen to her.  Unfortunately this does not work on teenagers and only produces major conflict and drama and now that you have kids that are old enough and big enough to strike back.  I tried to explaining to wife #2 this is just how teenagers work and was called everything but nice... .it was ugly.  But hey I am a tough guy so I can take it without turning into a pile of jello but it certainly is not a good way to make your marriage stronger.  I tried to reason with her of course that did not work and I got all the stuff the website describes: Splitting, Deflection, Gaslighting... .Reading this website the first time and realizing I could of written the stuff was eye opening.  I thought there might be something wrong with me for a long time.  Daughter #1 was pretty compliant for a teenager and just went along with most of the stuff long enough to go to college and move out of the house.  Of course according to wife #2 all the problems were daughter #1s fault and once she was gone everything would be ok.  I really didn't believe it but I didn't argue about it.  Of course once daughter #1 was gone now everything became daughter#2s fault.  Daughter #2 is a fighter and was not having any of it and there were times literally I had to step between them to prevent a physical fight.  OF course most of the worst stuff happened when I was not around or out of town on business.  The drama calls never seemed to stop if I was out of town.  I knew something was not right but could never put my finger on it because it was never possible to have a direct discussion or stay on topic with her.  She kept me off balance and I am a pretty level headed logical person.  The train really started to jump the tracks about a year ago.  She picked up my daughter #2 at school (High School Freshman) and somehow a verbal dispute in the car escalated and turned physical when the car was moving.  She took my daughter's cell phone and threw it in the car and my daughter jumped out of the car because she felt she was in danger.  This happened at night in a rural area.  Not many houses around and she has no phone.  She ran for the woods and wife #2 drove away.  The first indication I have is a get a call from wife #2 and she is yelling incoherently in the phone.  I cannot make out what she is saying.  Then a second line rings on my phone that comes up with a landline # I don't know.  I answer its my daughter telling me she jumped out of the car and I needed to come get her.  She saw a light at a house and walked to it.  An older couple let her use their phone.  For me I knew there were issues but now there was a major problem.  Since that day I have not trusted wife #2 and never will again in this lifetime.  We all went to a counselor to try and make some sense of this.  Wife #2 was told by the counselor her behavior was unacceptable, but of course it was my daughter's fault because she said something wrong. Wrong answer BPD at work.  About this time I started researching online and found write ups on BPD and realized then what I was dealing with.  It was made clear to wife #2 that she could never take my daughter's phone again ever which pissed her off big time.  I also told my daughter to protect the phone because that was her lifeline to me and if wife #2 tried to physically take the phone she had my permission to take any action needed.  None of this is healthy at all for anyone and I am realizing something has to happen.  Fortunately daughter #2 and wife #2 disengaged and left each other alone. They are not fighting but it sure isn't peaceful.   Of course now there had to be a new reason for wife #2s unhappiness now its my turn.  At this point I pretty much knew it was coming because there was nobody else left to blame.  Then in Jan. of this year I get a call from a finance company asking for wife #2 because she bounced a check.  Surely this can't be right we have zero credit card debt or debt other than a mortgage.    The guy told me more than he should have legally but I am good at getting people to talk.  I asked wife #2 about this and she admitted she got a loan 9 months ago and had hidden it from me.  Not cool at all if you want to keep a marriage or if you are planning for a future.  Then I found out she had gotten other credit cards in her name.  No idea what those balances are.  And then she also had one of my credit cards which our deal was she had to pay me the balance due every month so I could pay it off.  Come Jan 2017 $1300 charged to my card and she said she could not pay... .Needless to say before I got the card back $2700 had been charged and she has not paid a dime.  As part of working up our finances for the accountant I realized wife #2 had spent over $17K last year between what what I gifted, she made, borrowed, and charged to my credit card.  Of course there is NOTHING to show for any of this money spent and she paid NONE of the household expenses and she refuses to provide any kind of believable explanation for where the money went.  I do know it has not gone to drugs because she has been through 3 jobs in the past 12 months (BPD red flag) and passed all the drug tests.  After finding out about the $17k and being told I was not providing for her as a husband should I just about lost it... .  So now 6 years later we have a repeat of the last time as she has left again.  At first I was sad but I now realize I need to move on and be glad she left on her own and I didn't have to kick her out.  I am kicking myself for not seeing this sooner and am also very sorry for the unneeded crap my children have had to endure because of her.  And now even after she has left she keeps asking for money and my answer is no.  Until I speak with an attorney she doesn't get another dime.  She has managed to create more drama in the past 3 months over a minor traffic accident than most people deal with in a life time.  Oh and I was told I was boring to be with about 6 months ago.  All I want is my boring life back so I can recover emotionally from the last 10 years and move on with my life and live with normal people.  I know I need to deal with my hurt feelings on this which is really hard for me.  I have a bad habit of suppressing feelings and have been described once by a counselor as Spock like because everything I said had to be logical.  But hey I am an engineer and 6 years of college education drilled my head to always think logically.  I know its not healthy to not have feelings but it sure makes it easier when the verbal abuse starts.  I expect verbal abuse on a construction site but at home from your wife this is not cool at all.    I am gonna do the right thing and feel my way through this and come out a better person on the other side.  I expect the next 6 months may be kinda tough and lonely because my youngest daughter has been accepted and has a full scholarship to a residential high school starting in August.  This school is her dream and she has worked hard for 18 months to make it happen so I am super proud and happy for her.  I'll make, it just will be hard but that is nothing new around here.  Hopefully support from this group will make it easier to cope and see there will be something better on the other side.

[Mutt]

Hi scrayvic,



Wow, that's quite the story.

I am kicking myself for not seeing this sooner and am also very sorry for the unneeded crap my children have had to endure because of her.

Don' be hard on yourself. We're not medical professionals that can diagnose a serious mental illness, it sounds like did the best that you could. And identifying your feelings may come later on, maybe your FOO didn't express their feelings, you're writing your story down, that step is going to help you heal. It helps to talk.