My experience of getting H's BPD D and how I survived it

[Nordrhein]

Hi, everyone. This is my experience, even though I still live with my HBPD D, it is certainly not a success of a relationship, so I thought it made sense to post it here, where people are looking for answers on how to deal with a BPD suddenly leaving without explanation after what seemed the most profound relationship of their life, which it probably was, just not in a good way. Or any other type of shock after realizing what sort of person you were (or still are) in a relationship with.
My H is a dBPD with narcissistic and some psychopathic traits, as the extensive tests showed. BPD behaviour – by the book. I am grateful to him for  getting the D, though, ''kicking and screaming'' as it was obtained. Otherwise I don't know when or if I would ever stop the endless running round in circles, trying to figure out what was going on, to do the right thing to get him back to the "golden age" and failing, utterly exhausting myself in the process. Or, indeed, I would not really start asking questions about myself!
 
After the psychiatrist who diagnosed my H very soon after first meeting him, BIG thank you dr. G., I am also indebted to the following authors and works for seeing the light:
 
I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality,
Jerold J. Kreisman MD
 
Stop walking on eggshells, Paul T. Mason, Randi Kreger
 
Sometimes I act crazy, Jerold J. Kreisman, Hal Strauss
 
Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life, Margalis Fjelstad
 
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
Robert D. Hare
 
The mask of sanity, Hervey M. Cleckley
 
Women who love psychopaths: Inside the relationship of inevitable harm with psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists, Sandra L. Brown
 
Psychopaths and love, Adelyn Birch
and
Almost a psychopath - Do I (or does someone I know) have a problem with manipulation and lack of empathy?, Ronald Schouten, Jim Silver
 
There are, of course, many more, suited to more specific issues, but these really worked for me, and I still keep them on my Kindle and occasionally go back to them, so I just want to say a BIG THANK YOU, and hopefully they help someone else too.
 
H spent two months in the hospital which gave me precious time to get a break from his crazymaking and start researching and finding out as much as I could, to somehow make sense of the unbelievable situation I found myself in. First I read I hate you, don't leave me and then followed suggestions for further titles. All of a sudden everything made perfect sense. Reading these titles helped me get back from the brink and start realizing I had to forget any and all notions of what I thought I had with this person the previous five years. More importantly, I had learned what I would never have, no matter how badly I wanted it. No matter what I did. The person I lived with, had a child with and thought I knew simply didn't exist any more. Just like the authors describe, it's a grieving process with all the stages one goes through when a person close to them dies, basically.

I would go back to some chapters when I felt I was drowning and they would bring me back to the surface and help me breathe again.
 
This was nearly two years ago, and I am still processing. Seems like those of us ''lucky'' to have the actual D, take about two years to recover from the shock of finding out what we are dealing with.

Before he was diagnosed I thought he ''just'' had a problem with weed and some other ''lighter'' stuff, and when he would go into his completely unreasonable, weird mode it was because he had nothing to smoke. Well, I was VERY wrong. At the time of H's major meltdown, preceding his hospitalization for what I thought was drug abuse problem, I was already seriously run down with a demanding job, a toddler, a 14 year old (possibly BPD traits) and - dealing with his drug taking.
I was heavily codependent and isolated at that point, exhausted by all-out caretaking, but having to keep up the front for the kids' sake. Upon hearing the D, everything around me finally came crashing down. I couldn't fathom going back to work (thankfully, I'd had enough savings to keep everything running for a while). Depression set in, for the first time in my life I was paralyzed. Keeping the basic functions, but mentally - crushed.
 
But I had to go on. For me healing came with reading, reading and reading, slowly detaching and accepting it was all in fact so bad for me, not rosy how I IMAGINED it to be most of the time. The mind plays such ridiculous tricks on us, it's quite unbelievable. This is also quite important. You keep thinking about the best moments, yet if you really stop to think about it, they were in fact the rarest. If you are torn and confused, which most survivors of a relationship with a BPD person are, think hard about what was most often the case? DRAMA. BAD drama at that. That's not happiness and love. But those few moments of ''good'' were soo great that they managed to push all the bad to some remote corner of the mind and make you feel like the opposite was the case. Like you now have to give up this great love story, that has become your entire life, but it is, in fact, just a trick of the mind.

I finally accepted that the visions of a happy life together would just never happen. He didn't need more time to figure out his old scars, as I firmly believed was the case,(abuse in childhood by a BPD father) those scars simply could not – would not ever heal. BPD does not go away. Not that easily anyway.
 
I realize how bad it is for him and other BPDs. They cannot get out of their own skin. If it is of any comfort, we can choose to detach, not engage, leave, they can't. And the intensity of those feelings must be scary. But the hell they put through those closest to them is NO picnic either.
 
However, there is the up-side to all of this:  I have learned so much about myself, my buried issues and how to address them and learn from them. It can't have been pure coincidence that I ended up with him, I completely ''innocent'', and he with all his – devious skills. That is also instrumental, I feel, in getting better and getting some sort of balance back in your life. Know thyself first, as you will have to do the healing on your own. BPD will literally not lift a finger or help in any way, own up, admit fault, hurt they caused you. Nothing. They will remain in their forever the victim mode even after the well documented ordeal they've put you through, such as making you visit the closed unit of a psychiatric hospital where they will still refuse to talk to you, leaving you without any notice to deal with everything at home, etc.
After many – subsequent events, too many to go into in detail under this topic (I wrote about some of them on another thread) I still live with my H and our D5, for how long I don't know, but my boundaries are firmly set and I have stopped expecting things that will not come, stopped questioning his crazy moves, and I finally feel a lot calmer. There is a new challenge just about every day, I don't always have the patience, I must admit. But it is so much easier, having the KNOWLEDGE, not to take most of his illogical, hurtful behaviour to heart any more. Knowledge, indeed, is power. One step at a time… It gets easier.

[Stripey77]

What a brilliant and articulate post. Whilst I can't relate to all of it, and whilst my own ex has displayed traits (but not all of them) of BPD, I can most definitely relate to a lot of it and empathise with you. You must be utterly exhausted - I have a close friend whose husband is undergoing treatment for BPD and was also in hospital several times last year, and I watched her exhaustion and desperation as she also held down an extremely high powered career. That was without the added pressure of trying to maintain a secure and loving home for a small child. Well done you for your determination and strength to understand more about the situation, and do something pragmatic and positive for your family. Well done for not being sucked into the abyss of despair - because God knows, I think many of us on this board have stood on the brink of it and have had somehow had to find the resolve to get up and fight another day.

Thank you for sharing your story and your knowledge. Some of these book titles have been discussed on these pages already of course; for me, I've found enough support and information on this site, coupled with my own observations and experience to have got a fairly good grasp of what's going on. But then I'm not trying to hold a family or a marriage together, I will be letting my ex go... .it's just that I've done a lot of reading along the way to try to understand some of the craziest (crazy bad not crazy good) things that have happened to me. Knowledge is power, or at least, a comfort... .I think the greatest gift that this site has given me is the knowledge that I hadn't stepped into some bizarre twilight zone, these things really were happening, and no I had not lost my mind. Finding out there was a name and even a well trodden path for the patterns of behaviour  - many of which I then saw played out with my own ex - gave me so much strength. I had never ever even heard of BPD 2 years ago; now I am more than read up on it. I'm glad you've found something to give you strength and resolve, too.

One little thing I would note from your excellent post; I don't think it's entirely true to suggest that all BPDs are so uncaring/disassociated as to not ever lift a finger to help you or ease your suffering. I certainly think that some are more aware than others of there being 'something wrong' and some certainly suffer greatly inwards for the pain they know they cause but seem almost unable to stop. In the case of my friend's husband, he has willingly and wholeheartedly undergone his treatment, he wants to get better, he doesn't want to hurt his wife or lose his marriage. Yet he has displayed some of the most extreme traits of the illness, at the top end of the scale. On the other hand, my own ex, who one could quite easily dismiss as a 'b*stard' (and he has been by many, because he behaves like one) is very high functioning and also quite self aware. He knows and believes himself to be a bad person, or at least has told me that he has a very dark side. At the time I couldn't believe this loving and gorgeous man could possibly have a dark side - now I know very differently, to my own detriment and even almost at the cost of my own mental health. But I think it's just too easy to say that he is heartless, that he's going to hell, that he doesn't love anyone. I think the truth is that the person he hates above all is himself, and (I've posted this on several other posts in the past) in moments of profound lucidity and honesty, even his conscience has kicked in and he has told me to forget him and hate him. He's told me that he doesn't deserve me, that there's a darkness in his brain, that he has a dark side, that he can't explain it even to himself. One of his social media profiles states that he is bound for hell.  I've chosen to see his 'warnings' as being about as close as it gets as him putting  me first and in effect, telling me to get out and save myself.

It is all so utterly heartbreaking, for all concerned. This short but violently intense love affair has, I feel, changed me for life. I will never go through such an experience again, that's for sure.  But you are quite right when you say that they are trapped in their own skins, forever - we have the choice to leave. To the outside world it looks as though my ex is having a ball; drinking, taking drugs, and as I have recently ascertained, having casual sex with women I am quite sure he isn't even attracted to whilst still 'checking in' with me all the while and still being my sometime lover. (By the way, he emphatically informed me last year that 'sleeping with this girl and that girl' isn't actually what he really wants, but I guess unlike with me and him, it involves no thought or previous emotional attachment, and of course no responsibility.) In reality, he is quite a loner in some strange ways, permanently attached at the hip to a female best buddy he gained around the time he first left me. Other friends have been brutally ejected from his life, through his own terrible treatment of them.  I have cried many many tears over the last year and a half wondering why it is that he seems to be so ok, having such a great time, able to just axe our r/s without even blinking and feel ok as I wanted to die from the feelings of grief and loss. But of course, the truth is that they are masters at compartmentalising, and burying feelings or people in their minds. It's all a mask to cover up the pain inside. It's a coping mechanism. I sometimes have felt so envious of it and wished I could do the same... .it seems so unfair.  But of course, as you've written, they are stuck with this. For life.

Quite recently the (now ex) close friend of my ex remarked to me that he thought me ex is going to go to hell (for what he's done to all of us.) I replied... .he is already living in it.

[heartandwhole]

Hi Nordrhein,

Thank you for this insightful post. I can imagine how incredibly difficult it must have been for you at times. Knowing that there is a concrete reason behind your husband's confusing behavior must be such a relief. And also a burden in a way? Because now you know that change is often a long and arduous process.

Well done for mining good stuff out of this experience. I, too, feel that I've learned a lot about myself, and my FOO (family of origin). Suddenly, things in my childhood that had hurt and confused me made more sense. The painful family dynamic made sense, taking into account that perhaps there is BPD/traits in my family (alcohol issues as well).

Have you found any resonance in your family system?

heartandwhole

[Nordrhein]

Stripey77, heartandwhole, thank you both so much for such supportive replies!

Stripey77, you sound like you've had quite a BPD rollercoaster ride yourself, as I am sure heartandwhole you have as well, from what I can see in both your posts. I am so sorry. Sadly, no one on this forum had a lucky escape, it seems!

Stripey77, I would particularly single out your statement: This short but violently intense love affair has, I feel, changed me for life.

That sums it up so well.  When it starts, it's so intense, all-encompassing, and all about you. Who could resist that? Up to that point it's probably been all about other people and not so much about you, so you feel - finally, my time has come! This is exactly what I have been waiting for! It is, but it is an illusion. A beautiful, irresistible, funny, intelligent - mirage, a smokescreen. Life-changing too, but not for the better, unfortunately. The only way is – down! I now feel I have really understood this lesson and certainly don't see myself or other people in the same way any more either. In fact, I probably see too much BPD everywhere around me now, but I don't think it's too exaggerated. BPD is everywhere around us! It really should be discussed more in the public, and people, especially the young, who are just starting dating, should be better informed, so that everyone can recognize the signs and stay the hell away!
Through my reading I have also learned that you can't change other people, only yourself  - so I realized I had to change something about myself and my attitude to relationships. After I divorced my 1st H, (red flag - BPD heritage) I was in a couple of very questionable relationships, one with a married man, for three years? Now, I (and people who know me) think of myself as a fairly rational person, not prone to ''hysterics'', I generally like rules, follow them, function well at work, with other people and friends, everywhere except in the - affairs of the heart and – FOO. So, I kept asking myself why I was so attracted to evidently unsuitable people if I was, in my mind at least, so – pretty well grounded?

Literature says that it probably happens when people need some sort of a change in life, or excitement, or just a change of a boring, old routine. All of this really resonated with me. Another great lesson from the titles I have listed was: normally, people see this intensity, and they pretty quickly remove themselves from it. There was a reason why we were drawn to it. And the answer is probably in our background, and FOO, as heartandwhole pointed out.

In my case, I have a BPD mother – queen / witch combination. I learned that as well through reading about BPD. I hadn't heard of BPD either, but could usually ''read'' people quite well. Not because I had some super gift, but because I learned it in my childhood, and then buried it. Because there was so much all-round toxicity in my FOO. My maternal grandparents lived with us, so it was an ongoing feud festival, everyone against everyone, arguments, shouting, plus occasional alcohol abuse, so you had to learn to detect who was in a worse mood on a given day and try and evade ''capture'', i.e. shouting, criticizing, verbal abuse. You grow up, move away, get education, function pretty well at work, with friends, but those scars stay buried and resurface in your personal relationships.

When you are involved with a BPD partner, one of the most infuriating things you have to deal with is the absence of logic in their behaviour. You find yourself trying to connect the dots, but you get an abstract image of criss-cross lines instead of a recognizable object. And that is how their brains seem to work. On a very strangely wired system. There is no logic. There is nothing to hold on to. They say one thing, think another and do something completely unrelated to both. So before you find out WHY, and most BPDs' partners are no quitters (GUILTY) - you are hamster-wheeling away, trying to make sense of them, but it's just impossible. And you inevitably end up completely exhausted and even more confused, not to mention heartbroken,  depressed, and deeply unhappy.

I agree with you Stripey77 that they do in fact have their ''mea culpa'' moments, but I would have to go with the interpretation that it is just another way to reel you back in. ACTIONS, not words is what matters. You can pretty much bet that after they bombard you (again) with apologies, admissions of guilt, promises to get better, to seek help, to take the medication, professing their eternal love for you, whatever to get you back, next they will go and do something completely paradoxical (trying to avoid the very fitting word - insane!). From a - conventional point of view, anyway. Or rather, they will do anything to soothe themselves, to chase away the horrible (imagined) feeling of imminent abandonment, which to them is like-death.
Example: while in hospital, professing his love for me and our daughter and how we were the only people in the world he cared about, how much he loved us and missed us, and how he would do anything to get better and be the man we deserved, he was pretty much simultaneously t(s)exting a suicidal alcoholic girl he'd met on the ward (I saw the itemized phone bill - 10 pages of it). Erm - he was only trying to HELP HER? Then admitting in another message to a friend, which I unfortunately saw, that they - made out? He would come home for the weekend and show me the pictures of other ''patients'' and this girl and when I questioned him why he had quite a few pictures of this particular girl, he just have some bull... .answer. All the while I was losing my mind at home with worry about him being among some REALLY messed up people, where he NO WAY belonged. Not to mention missing him like crazy, (codependently missing him!) feeling so sorry for him, answering D's questions about daddy... .
Not a day goes by that he doesn't pull another incomprehensible stunt. The difference is I can now rationalize it, knowing what I know about BPD, but it doesn't make it easier knowing that it is ''only'' the product of his bad wiring. We are still human beings with feelings and, yes, egos.
The message to everyone reeling from a breakup with a BPD – it is nothing you did or didn't do. Nothing you could have done, no different way you could have acted, you are not less attractive, less smart or funny than you should have been to keep them. You don't lack anything. In fact, you obviously have so much to give that you were (or still are) able to cope with a BPD person. It is hard as hell to let them go at first, especially if you never got a chance for another talk, and they give no explanation. But… They just don't/can't see the chaos they cause, they are small, frightened children masked in bodies of grown up people, more than anything else. It helps to see them that way. Also: brutal truth alert: They are mentally ill people. As harsh as it sounds, as hard as that is to accept when you loved someone so much and thought you knew them so well and had this special connection with them. Gorgeous, smart people who once worshipped you and made you feel like you are the center of the universe (and vice versa) are – that. Mentally ill. I have decided that for me, there is no point in sugarcoating it.
 
Because, if you do – they will seize on every opportunity to change your opinion, to claw their way back in, they will play nice, understanding, cooperative – moments before you feel that stab in the back again. We did nothing to deserve that and whatever our shortcomings, we all deserve to be treated well. BPDs cannot EVER do that for us.

[Breathe066]

Nordrhein,
I can't thank you enough for posting this. I am separated from my HwBPD who was diagnosed and then rejected his diagnosis. Our year and a half together was mostly hell but on my bad days all I can remember is how handsome he is, how articulate, how he made me feel like the center of the universe. He really did feel like my other half, the man I had always wanted, my Prince Charming.
For me, detaching is an extremely difficult and painful thing. You mentioned that we (the non-BPDs) can leave but they can't. My husband left me seven times in less than two years. Each abandonment nearly killed me. Each time he did it, claiming that I had emotionally tormented him and intentionally made him jealous, I lost more and more of my self esteem because I would do just about anything to get him back--including saying I was sorry for things that I hadn't done, and propping up his delusions. He has aspects of paranoid personality disorder (with delusions) and he is an alcoholic. All those times I was abandoned and humiliated took more and more of me. He completely isolated me and his constant need of "reassurance" wore me down to nothing (I'm putting reassurance in quotes because that's what he called it but it was more like making myself an appendage to him with no will or personality of my own in a doomed attempt to fill the bottomless pit of his neediness).
He was incredibly verbally and emotionally abusive. He not only called me things I wasn't and accused me of things I never did, but he defamed me to anyone who would listen.
And yet, because I am so very codependent and so very socially shy, I often miss him.
Meanwhile, he has picked up where he left off with previous lovers, broadened his circle of friends, held parties at his new place. Honestly, I feel that anyone looking on would think that I was the one with the serious mental illness, not him. I feel as though I have crawled into a tomb since he left a little more than two months ago. He left then because I said I was tired of the abuse. He called me a cold b*tch and I said that I had to be because every conversation was a minefield, any topic was a potential trigger that could set off one of his episodes of rage and abandonment, so I had to become a little distant because I was so afraid.
Now, he says we can stop the divorce if I will just 1) "Admit" that I intentionally hurt him, gas-lighted him and sought to make him insecure and jealous and 2) Retract what I said about him being emotionally and verbally abusive and basically a human powderkeg.
That's all I have to do to win him back: Violate my own integrity, deny the truth and abandon myself to someone who once stood over me, screaming abuse at me as I sifted through the glass of the medicine cabinet he'd just shattered, as I tried to find the medication that would keep me from having a stroke.
And there are days when I am so depressed that I almost do it, almost say "I'm sorry, I was crazy, I didn't mean it, you didn't do those things, or say those things, please come back."
I am so depressed that I am barely keeping it together. It's hard to work, to do basic chores, to see any light at all at the end of this very dark, painful tunnel.
I am a caretaker. I am co-dependent. I have read almost all the books you list and a few others that relate more to my specific set of circumstances.
Like you, I kept thinking that he only needed to come to terms with his childhood abuse and then all would be well. Now I have come to believe that he doesn't even want to gain peace over that, that it may not even have happened, that he just needs it as an excuse for his actions; the story of his abuse was one of the first things we talked about when we started dating.
In reading your post and those of others who have similarly remained, I think I should count myself lucky that he is gone, I should wash my hands of him. Instead, I am paralyzed by grief. The person I knew as a teenager, the beautiful man I married, is gone. It's as if he doesn't exist and I need to grieve him and our marriage, but meanwhile there is this person parading around in his body--someone who looks and sounds like him, but who seems to despise me and who treats our marriage in such an offhand, arbitrary manner, like something he can pick up and put down at will.
What Stripey said about a child in an adult body is painfully true--my husband acts like a frightened, cruel child having a meltdown. Adult couples can acknowledge their differences and learn to live with them, but my husband absolutely cannot tolerate differences. Any refusal on my part is seen as a betrayal, and I am a rebel whom he believes must be crushed.

[Nordrhein]

Breathe066,

you sound like you are going through an absolute agony right now, I hope you are in a position to seek some professional help, honestly, your hurt is coming off the page so strongly!
I am no expert, I just had the wish to post my experience here, I didn't mean to sound like some goddess of wisdom on this subject, but I am glad if you found something you could relate to. Also, ''my'' expertise comes from the books I've listed, so if you've read them, or some similar titles, as most people here have, of course, you'll recognize where my lines are coming from. Ok, expert opinion and testimonies of other people don't necessarily completely reflect your specific situation, but it's all helpful when you are at your wits' end.

I understand the ''burning'' you are going through, it is basically like coming off a drug. You know it's absolutely harming you, but you want more of it and need it soo badly regardless, and it's taking every atom of your energy to stay away! You say you are codependent and shy, well, even if you weren't socially shy, being with a BPD will eventually make you like that. Or at least much more reclusive than you ever were before. I literally had to make myself go out and see friends, but it was still with trepidation and just wanting to get back to the - captor.

Also, the thought that my whole oh so lovely planned life would NOT happen, that I would be a single mom AGAIN if I left, at the moment when I was utterly physically and mentally absolutely exhausted... .It was crushing.
All the obssessive thoughts, the fights you have with the BPD in your head, thinking about all the disappointment and betrayal... .It IS hell.

I wanted this relationship so badly, as I thought I would finally have a steady partner again after being a single mom for so long (my abandonment issue) so the ''worst'' thought was - I will be alone again. With a small child and a teenager. And then - that ''worst nightmare'' actually happened. And what I realized I had experienced was - wow, how peaceful this is! Because I kept deluding myself that I actually had a loving, caring partner. On closer inspection - I DIDN'T! Not really. I was doing most of - everything on my own anyway, be it chores or organizing family events, trips, kids' appointments... .things. Plus caretaking him. And still he was never happy. If we went anywhere, he would be ok for an hour, then it would start - until his next joint.  So when the dark cloud of misery wasn't in the house any more, it was in fact such a relief! So, all I can say is - try and really question what it is you are actually feeling such pain about? To me it sounds (only too familiar) like one of those mind tricks. Of course, your pain IS very real right now, but that is not a state you want to stay in. You have surely done everything to accommodate your husband's pain, to make him feel better about his issues, which are certainly painful as well. But you should not sacrifice your physical and mental health in the process. Which is how BPDs so often end up. 

All you can really do, whatever you decide, stay or not, is - turn to yourself. YOU are important, take care of YOU! Think about what YOU want, what YOU haven't done in a long time because you didn't want to upset your H. YOU matter, however long you might not have heard or felt that. Whatever it is, you don't need anyone's approval. Just do something for YOU because you want to.

[Breathe066]

Nordrhein,

Thank you. Yes, this is the most horrific, painful experience of my life and that's really saying something.

"You say you are codependent and shy, well, even if you weren't socially shy, being with a BPD will eventually make you like that. Or at least much more reclusive than you ever were before. I literally had to make myself go out and see friends, but it was still with trepidation and just wanting to get back to the - captor. "

Where can I read more about that? Because what you said perfectly captures what has happened to me. When I started reaching out again to the friends he had insisted I forsake, the best way I could describe to them what I've been through was like this: "It's kind of like I have been held hostage for nearly two years," and one of them, a military nurse, said something that really stuck with me, she said "And you developed Stockholm syndrome to stay alive." We laughed, but it's not that different. I did gloss over his behavior and make things that were definitely NOT okay seem okay to myself because I just couldn't bring myself to ask him or tell him to leave, until a few months ago.

Currently, I am not in counseling because I am shouldering so many expenses on my own in the aftermath of his ejecting from our marriage like a scared child, blindly fleeing back to his mother and leaving me with all the wreckage to clean up. And, in truth, at this point I have counseling fatigue. He was a big one for counseling. He loved it. Each session was like his star turn. Until the counselor suggested he take medication or do anything at all that he didn't want to do and then he would get angry and say we had to find a new counselor. So, we went through a bevy of them.

I just became weary of it.

We went two or three times a week at a cost of $200 per session minimum while important repairs or bill payments were not made. The counselor would tell him not to drink, we'd leave the session and he'd open a bottle. At the end, the trips to the counselor, for me, were like a forced death march, it was as if he had set out to make the only slender line of hope we had--counseling--a complete mockery. He might as well have been a kid on a playground giving the teacher the finger: "Look what I'm doing! You can't make me better!"

And then I finally just broke down because he was fired for drinking on the job and he was lying to me about where he was and his verbal and emotional abuse had become unbearable. Our last session was a phone session and he sat there playing games on his tablet and occasionally chuckling as the counselor listened to me sob and made her best effort at trying to save us. I have so many painful memories, but that one is one of the worst.

So, I am paying for a divorce by myself, for a leaky roof by myself, for the car repairs by myself, for all the things that we should have split by myself because so many of our resources were wasted on useless counseling--made useless by him.

And he has moved on. This man who has so damaged me and wrecked my life, nearly destroyed my reputation with lies he's told to anyone who would listen, shared personal information about me in terribly irresponsible ways,  he is peppy as a cheerleader, rising early to take on the day, making plans with friends for after work because he has a new job that's far more tolerant, and just generally enjoying life as I crawl through my days with constant prayers, sad little pep talks to myself and knowing that I am a drain on my old friends; I am, because I am so needy right now and I can see myself clearly enough to know that I am basically tugging on everyone's shirts saying, "Please, please help me. I am living a nightmare and I am beginning to think it will never end."

[Nordrhein]

Breathe066,

I think you are being so hard on yourself right now. DON'T BE.
Great that you are reaching out to friends, KEEP DOING THAT. You are not a burden, and since you were in the captivity for two years and probably more or less completely cut off from most family and friends, didn't talk about what was going on in your marriage, well, they maybe just don't know whether they should contact you or not. They are waiting for your move. I KNOW how hard it is to reach out again. You were probably not the one to ask too much help before either. Whatever you do, you do NOT want to continue the isolation. Even if it's the last thing you want to do in the world, make yourself open that door and just get out in the street, or wherever there are people, noises, just change the scene from the silence in the house where you will most likely keep on with obsessive thoughts and further exhausting yourself.
  I presume you have grown weary of people, I know I stopped looking at people and was quite weary of them looking at me. You feel like you're becoming smaller and smaller and more invisible for everyone, but you're NOT. I know it's easy to say, but you basically have to relearn how to behave like a free person! It is VERY MUCH the Stockholm thing.
I think Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist - is where I got the ''positive shock'. That lady (Margalis Fjelstad) did not mince the words. At first even I found it a bit too brutal, the way she was describing BPDs and what life with them is like and what it would be like if you stayed with them, but that is because I was still very much ''in the Stockholm''. And being the expert, she knows that you need that ''tough love'' to jump start you into breaking the illusion that has been created around you and to start seeing the truth.
Also - definitely Women who love psychopaths - this is where I found so many great answers about - ME. What type of person am I to seemingly function ok in other areas, but then go on to marry! a - psychopath, for all intents and purposes. Ok, an ''almost psychopath'' to be fair. )

You say you have therapy fatigue, I'm sure you do, but that is because the therapy was focused on HIM, NOT you!

And let me tell you, after I'd broken away from the - illusion, which took a couple of months AFTER H came home from the hospital, actually! I was quite pissed remembering how the other psychiatrist who was discharging my husband, and I was there picking him up (of course, the loyal dog) wished us all the best and said she was sure we would work it all out? KNOWING full well that there is no working out ANYTHING with a BPD! She was talking about it like he'd just got over a flu, not like he had been diagnosed with BPD! But because in hospitals the focus is on the patient (o yes, my H absolutely LOVED that too!) the family is not so much involved, you are just supposed to - manage somehow when they come home? With a person you never knew had a serious MENTAL ILLNESS in the first place?

You have every right to be livid right now, of course they will just up and go and leave you to deal with everything.
I understand you're feeling like this dread you're going through will never end, but all I can tell you is - it is a process and it WILL.
But - the road to ACCEPTANCE is - what it is - hellish. It comes when you relearn shifting the focus FROM him TO YOU. I know your whole life had been revolving around what HE wanted and needed, and now it's become about what HE had done and how HE is doing. THAT bad habit is so hard to break, I know. Shifting the focus from him to YOU. You are just not used to thinking of yourself and what you want anymore without first considering whether that would ''hurt'' him, anger him or both. Usually it WOULD - BOTH, so you would just give up before you even asked for it. Great news - you don't have to do that anymore. I know also that now there is this VOID - but, so many things you can fill it with. Maybe you think that nothing can replace the intensity you had experienced. Another word that better describes that intensity you had with him i - DRAMA. And a healthy relationship should not be ALL about drama. Especially when the drama only comes from one person - BPD, and you are there to constantly deal with it, it's never just a comfortable - being with someone who cares about what YOU want and you are not constantly on your toes about the next stunt they are going to pull.
There is NO LOGIC in BPDs' behaviour. You can keep torturing yourself for years and years with - why did HE, how could HE have... .? They simply function on a different system. They don't even realize what it is they are doing wrong, and even if they do - they simply have next to ZERO EMPATHY, so they cannot say sorry or change their ways.
So all you can do is try and start making that ''seismic shift'', parting of the sea - i.e. turning the focus towards yourself. I know you want the world to know about what he has done to you, and through this forum - WE now DO and many people are here with similar experiences, and here to give you support. Peace will come eventually. You can't do anything about the past. It's done. But you can do everything about what happens next. Again, easier said than done, but - one step at a time. And don't beat yourself up about stuff, you've suffered enough!

[Breathe066]

"And let me tell you, after I'd broken away from the - illusion, which took a couple of months AFTER H came home from the hospital, actually! I was quite pissed remembering how the other psychiatrist who was discharging my husband, and I was there picking him up (of course, the loyal dog) wished us all the best and said she was sure we would work it all out? KNOWING full well that there is no working out ANYTHING with a BPD! She was talking about it like he'd just got over a flu, not like he had been diagnosed with BPD! But because in hospitals the focus is on the patient (o yes, my H absolutely LOVED that too!) the family is not so much involved, you are just supposed to - manage somehow when they come home? With a person you never knew had a serious MENTAL ILLNESS in the first place?"

He selected our last therapist because she was completely out of her depth. She had no prior experience with BPD or anything like it and she agreed ahead of the appointment to never ask for any previous files/records. I think she probably did the best she could with very little experience or expertise. I felt sorry for her.

She enabled him to the point that he was drunk and verbally abusive to me in a therapy session and she allowed it. I was so angry I made an appointment with her after he left me and explained that I had been afraid, and being terrified of abuse in a counseling session simply shouldn't happen. She said "I almost feel like you're blaming me. Is there anything you want me to know?" Then I felt awful and apologized and left.

No kidding. True story.
It is not easy to think about myself in a strong, healthy, secure way. My vulnerability has brought me reams of trouble in life. It's hard to reach out. I doubt my own judgment and am afraid of rejection and cruelty.