Help, I'm lost, I don't know where we are

[Belljarescapee]

I feel totally lost and in unfamiliar territory here. Last place I knew I was in a Karpman / bermuda triangle. I guess I tend to go from victim to rescuer in my marrige to BPD husband and teen son. I have decided once and for all no more. I am not concerned right now with divorce or seeing other people.  I have a lot of work to do on myself before will be fit and whole, and have enough self respect to safely introduce new people in my life. The thing I feel like will free me from my role as victim or rescuer is living separately, and having separate finances from my spouse. I have told by BPD H that I will never live with him again and do not want a romantic relationship ever again. He seems to be accepting this for now although he knows I can't move for about a month still. I dont recognize the person he is since I asked him to leave. His voice is different,  he seems understanding, compromising,  apologetic, always complementing, encouraging, validating. He doesn't seem perpetually angry with me and my son. I guess what I don't understand is what is he doing. Is this the reconciliation stage of the cycle of abuse? Will he stay in this state forever or will he split me into evil wife and be the most angry vindictive version of himself? He seems to be feeling like a victim,  trying to compensate for his abuses but making excuses about his serious mental illness. Says he wouldn't leave me if I had cancer, he would take care of me. I think he has turned our 16 yr old into his rescuer. Although in the beginning my son was supportive of and encouraging an end to our maddness. Since living separately my BPD H has put nearly all of his energy into my son. Telling our son how sorry he is, and wrong, and sick. How much he loves me and will do better. My son is now believing his father has changed,  or wanting to believe it. His desire to please his dad who has always been too hard to please. The encouragement of having this man be kind and an eagerness to forget the bad times and forgive. My son and has told me several times that he thought maybe we could work it out. I know now how he has always felt when I have done this. I know he's been pulled back into the very same cycle i I've felt stuck in. I'm resisting the urge to try and convince him that he can't and won't ever change at least not for me. I hope it doesn't become a dynamic they continue.  I think my BPD H is being manipulative and this is his motivation for the extra effort in being a father, possibly not consciously. I'm glad my son gets to see a more understanding and reasonable man. My BPD H says that if I leave his family will be destroyed. My son will only be there part of the time and my step son will likely leave and live with his grandparents a mile away rather that deal with a BPD father. But he may be better off there. If I dont move out my son will not have enough control over his own life for my husband to treat him fairly.  For my step son when his father is unreasonable or wants to be done with him he can go to his grandparents. My son has never had that option but needs it. So I have to live separatly. Also Im totally done for me and will not stay. I think everything my H does lately is based on not losing control of the family. I just dont understand his behavior. Is this all just him still trying to get me to come around? Is he trying his hardest to show me what  he thinks I want to see? Do I just wait it out and let it unfold as it will when I'm moved out? Is there anything I can do to help me see what's really going on here? Or make him show his true colors?

[donkey2016]

Hello,
I must say I admire your resolve. That's great that you have decided to end the relation and to move out. It's also good that you realize that he 's probably just showing a "nice side" of himself to get you stuck with him again. I broke up with my BPD boyfriend who first acted crazy with suicide threats and then started to act like a very nice person. He even started therapy. We got back together. He's not a bad as before but I don't feel relaxed with him. I'm just waiting for him to get angry for something and he normally does to - but not so extreme as before. If I were you, I would stick to the decision to move out, if not for your sake for your son's sake. Once you live in separated houses then you can see if he continues being nice or not. Apparently (judging from what I have read on the boards here) a BPD person can behave nicely for a very long time (like even one year). I think that 's the most difficult part to accept. So they do have some control over their emotions after all?

donkey2016 

[Belljarescapee]

Thank you donkey2016,
That's all I needed. Just someone to tell me what I know. It's so ridiculous how we let ourselves do it every time. Believe it can change. Doubt what we feel is true after the fact. I know it's how we've been conditioned by our BPD others. It's their primal Darwinian adaptation that they developed to keep what they need. But what I need right now is just to be told over and over I am going through this stage again and its not something different or new that just seems similar.  It's the same thing that I have to get away from and if I'm not careful I'll find myself waking up to that same terrible feeling of "oh no, I've made the same wrong turn and I'm at the same wrong place that I hate to be." I have to quit going in circles once and for all. It sounds like you are afraid you may be going the wrong way too. You can always change your path though. I think the reconciliation times are the hardest for me. which it sounds like the kind of place you are in with  your relationship. They genuinely try to be better for a while. Maybe even are fair to say what we asked if them.  I always had a hard time accepting the better person. For one reason I didn't feel like he deserved to be forgiven,  because he did so many unforgivable things to me. And I couldn't forget all of the hurt. And it didn't seem fair to treat him like a good husband when he had treated me so badly. But I was conflicted with wanting to give him another chance to do the right thing by me and prove he could treat me like he should. But I knew how much it was gonna hurt when I fell again, especially if I didn't see it coming. I always struggled with myself more during those times. "Why can't I be happy, and move on, and we can have a peaceful family." But the reason we feel that way is we know it's a repeating cycle and we keep doubting what we know.  

[Belljarescapee]

Donkey2016,
H@#! Yes,  they have control of their emotions. That's why they are so toxic to us. They have too much control and they use it to manipulate us into what they need and want from us. I don't mean to make them sound like preying animals but it's almost an instinctual behavior for them.  They wait until we have shown them that we are going to love them and be vulnerable to them to return with the abuse.  Somehow they sense we are hooked.  I don't understand how they know like a dog showing it's belly. But they know when the guard is down and they can chew on our guts for a while and fill their stomachs. I'm sorry if that's way out of line. I'm in a really raw defensive place right now.

[donkey2016]

Hello Belljarescapee,
You put it exactly as it is. It's so hard to accept that. Yes, I feel like I'm stuck in this relationship. I want out but don't seem to know how. I had so many chances to break up but I didn't follow through. I think the hardest is the suicide threats. I even moved to another apartment to be further away from him (we already lived separate apartments). Luckily for me he has found work in another city a few hours from here, so he has moved there.

Is your husband really nice now? My boyfriend is nicer no longer getting into rages but he still gets very annoyed about little things and I feel he's like a bully. Sometimes we have very nice moments together. We don't have kids together so that would make it easier for me to leave him.

I also feel like you (I could have written the exact words!) that I can't let go of the bad memories - all the hurt that he has caused me in the past- all the times that I have been crying because I thought he had broken up with me. It's impossible to just forget that and have a "wonderful" relationship.

What has helped me the most - is to detach from him - not let myself be so bothered by him as before. I learned that from this web site. It's sad that it has to be that way - but I can go through all that pain again.

I hope you'll find the right path for you. Try to do something nice for yourself (take a walk or see a friend, go to a dance class) - you deserve it!
donkey2016

[Belljarescapee]

Donkey2016,
He SEEMS nice. But he doesn't sound like himself.  His voice is the one he uses to make appointments, and job interviews, and speak to elderly ladies at work. It's not really sincere

[donkey2016]

Hi B.

I'm almost laughing since I know what you mean with that voice! My boyfriend also talks in different voices - it's so weird. He does that with my kids too.

I read your other thread - wow - the things they can do to manipulate with us - sometimes going to far and it feels like they are advancing on our own territory (like with your church). I 'm also scared like you to write about details since my boyfriend is also computer savvy so maybe he'll find out.

Keep us posted what happens,
donkey2016

[Belljarescapee]

Hey D,
Yesterday he came by to pick the sons up for dinner. He was all dressed up from church in the morning with new clothes and cologne, hair cut,  shaved. I was in the back yard with the dog working in my vegetable garden. I had just finished my 3rd in a row 13+ hour shift and had a t shirt and my duty pants on. If I could put on an ugly suit when I saw him coming I would. He saw me outside and came over. He told me he had talked to the pastor at the church again. He was bragging to me about how he had been ministering to some guys in the psych hold with him and he was thinking about starting his own bible study. The tone in his voice was even more unnatural. It was his "I'm doing something really important" tone. Its way too loud and overly authoriative. I can only really remember having heard it when he was doing things to get custody of his other son. Then when I only answered with the least enthusiastic repeating "uh-huh" I could muster he got a little mad and pushy. He said why can't you just be my friend,  and continued to press the issue the boys getting annoyed and walking to the car.  I told him he was being rude they were waiting. He left after I reminded him a couple more times and wouldn't say anything else. What does "friends" mean to him?  I don't understand why it's so crucial

[Belljarescapee]

And D,

I was thinking about the little things last night. I was a teen in the 90's and loved Bush, so you'll have you forgive me for my gen x brain, but it's "the little things that Kill"  You  shouldn't underestimate how the little things effect you. Especially if they make you feel like your being bullied. I can tell you about a few of my little things  and let me know if you are referring to similar situations. I didn't want to make dinner after a 14 hour shift one day.  I usually do, but wasn't feeling quite as codependent as normal because my husband had been a jerk the night before when a meal I spent a lot of time on didn't turn out like I hoped and he spared me no criticism (another little thing). So he was going to grill burgers. Him cooking is a little thing that causes me anxiety. It challenges and frustrates him to cook and since I have more experience it always ends up being my fault if I'm in the house and it doesn't go well. I did my best to not help at all.  It's not like he ever helped me with anything. He asked me how to tell the burgers were throughly cooked.  I said I would only know for sure if I cut one open.  He didn't like that option.  He got mad when he saw they weren't done and slammed the sliding glass door shut on the way back outside. When he came back in my son made a comment about the door breaking. He took an opportunity to rage at someone and yelled and called him lazy for sitting on his couch playing a video game while he was making dinner, he said he was disrespectful, he said he didn't slam it,  he said it was his door and he could slam it if he wanted to and if my son didn't like it he could get out of his house. My son continued to be respectful and wouldn't engage, saying I'm sorry,  why are you getting so mad? I couldn't listen to another word and had to tell my BPDh that the problem was that he was mad that what he was doing was not working the way he intended. That he got mad every time things didn't go his way and I am amazed every day when he is able to successfully accomplish anything without throwing a fit first. We argued and he went to bed. No one ate burgers. If my husband says he wants to go to IKEA I break into near hysteria. Please,  anything but DIY furniture. I'll give you its frustrating but he takes it to a new level. And what is going to happen when BPDH finds out someone misplaced the alumn wrench he needs.  It's gonna be WW3. I can't handle another one of his projects in this lifetime. Or high utility bill,  or dish SOMEONE left IN the sink.

[donkey2016]

Hi B.

Wow, that 's the only word that comes to my mind and I can totally relate. Although, lately it hasn't been that bad. True, him cooking also gives me anxiety - it takes forever - and sometimes the food if so weird that no one but him wants to eat it. And of course it's my fault if the food doesn't turn out as it's supposed to. Even if he's not raging lately still he's criticizing me a lot. It's endless. Like your husband, he starts different projects or has different ideas, and I'm always cautious since I know he rarely completes them - and instead leaves a mess. 

My boyfriend keeps calling me every day - and today I noticed he talked with that strange voice again. Why? I find it so weird. I just would like to have a normal boyfriend that I don't have to worry about being in a bad mood but covering it up with talking with a strange tone of voice. Do you understand what I mean? When you told me about your husband dressed up in a new suit - that reminded me about my boyfriend dressed up for him work and spending hours to prepare himself for that. I never have time for that. Still when we go out together - he normally put on something very ugly - old t-shirt and shorts - so it doesn't matter when he goes out with me? Makes me feel so trashy.

Let me know what happens - are you going to let him back home?

Donkey2016

[Belljarescapee]

D,

Never,  ever,  ever.

[donkey2016]

Hi B.

That's good that you're decided . Must be so much easier then to think it might work. I'm again feeling undecided.

Donkey2016