Who to confide in?

[LightAfterTunnel]

Hi all,

So I am posting here because I guess everyone reading this thread has contemplated and responded to my question. Specifically, in the buildup to your separation how did you decide who to inform of what was going on and to what detail of depth?

We live abroad and we have no family within thousands of miles. My best friends and BPDw's best friends live in the US. Here, in our new country of residence, we have maybe 5 couples that we have gotten very close to over the years who I would call our "best" friends. They are definitely mutual friends since we all have kids of the same age who play together. We celebrate together birthdays, holidays, parties, etc etc... .Then there are quite a lot of people who fit in the area of mutual acquaintances, singular friends, neighbors, work colleagues, etc.

All of the people who have been close enough to us have some idea of the disaccord in our relationship. Those who have been very close to us know much more than the rest. My BPDw is quite another person with many of these people so many may have no clue.

Over the next months, I know I will need to decide who to inform and to what detail as I prepare for our separation. My family and best friends back the US have been quite aware of the situation for years and I have been extremely lucky to have their support this whole time. I have informed without detail a couple critical people at my work place, and current confidants, so they were aware of what I am going through. I am sure they can sense my stress and they see me daily so I felt that I should make them aware of the general situation. I don't think that the majority of mutual acquaintances, neighbors, friends, and work colleagues need to be brought into the discussion whatsoever unless they are pulled in by my BPDw in the future (hopefully not).

I guess my main question would be about our very close mutual friendships with the 5 couples here. I know my BPDw has already tried to sway them to her side by telling them very misleading things and straight lies. I would expect this group to be the most vulnerable to my wife trying to use them against me in the future. I have never spoken to them about the issues going on behind the scenes and I think it wouldn't be correct out of respect for their friendships with my wife.

How did you handle this in your separation?

Thanks in advance,
LAT

P.s. Happy holidays to everyone!      

[I_Am_The_Fire]

That's a tough situation and it sounds to me like you're handling it very well. My ex is uBPD\NPD so I had to prepare myself for a smear campaign during and after the divorce. When it came, it was far worse than I had ever imagined because I never thought he'd do something like that yet he did. It was really hard to not say anything to most people in advance of his smear attempts. I didn't want to be accused of doing a smear campaign against him.

So I confided in those closest to me that knew something wasn't right in our marriage such as my family (to a degree) and super close friends. Mutual friends were tough. I left it up to them to ask me directly. If they didn't ask me, I didn't volunteer anything. To me, that spoke volumes about them right there. I also was pretty certain he tried to convince people (my family included) that I was abusive and a raging narcissist. I knew those things weren't true and the people who really know me wouldn't believe it. I did lose some friends over it and I'm okay with it. They were probably never really good friends to begin with if they believed his lies without talking to me themselves. I actually gained a new friend because of his smear campaign. This new friend saw the horrible things he said about me and asked me how I was doing. When I didn't smear him back, that spoke volumes about me to my new friend. My ex lost friends like this one as well due to his lies.

So I think if you trust your instinct and just be yourself, your mutual friends may sort themselves. If you feel they are believing her lies, be careful around them. My ex used at least one mutual friend to spy on me and tried to use stuff against me. I never did find out which person it was. I ended up dropping mutual friends on all social media or at least limiting what they can see. Good luck. I hope this helps.

[livednlearned]

I have never spoken to them about the issues going on behind the scenes and I think it wouldn't be correct out of respect for their friendships with my wife.

Moderating your behaviour out of respect for your wife is probably a luxury you will have to do away with... .

What are some of the things you suspect she has said?

I might start with, ":)o you have any questions for me about my marriage or what is going on?" Give them the option to engage you with as much information as they are willing to share.

Probably a good idea to not JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain) them. If you are worried that they've signed on to your wife's reality, then they become negative advocates for her, believing in her reality by proxy.

JADEing could put them into a role of judging which of you is telling the truth. You aren't trying to win them over, you're trying to figure out whether they already know what you know. Does that make sense?

If they have seen her behaviors, it may not be a big stretch for them to already know the real score.

Or, you could take the approach that you are concerned about your children, and ask them if they have noticed anything unusual about the kids, and how they are dealing with family dynamics.

I guess my approach would be to figure out what people already know. I didn't talk about my family chaos with anyone until it was inescapable, and when I did talk about it, everyone seemed to feel relief and admitted they had been concerned for a long time, especially about then S8.

I only confided in people who seemed aware of my situation. I didn't want anything to get back to my ex (former trial lawyer) because that felt like tossing a flame on a stick of dynamite.

[LightAfterTunnel]

Thanks I_am_the_fire and livednlearned.

What are some of the things you suspect she has said?

I am not sure of all of what she has said but I am aware of quite a bit from this past year.

Things between us really boiled over from February to April. I told my BPDw that I wanted a divorce and that we needed to start discussing it seriously. Obviously my cool and unemotional request for a divorce, and further refusal to fight with her and respond to her lashing out made her dive off the deep end from perceived abandonment. 

She had some very nasty dissociative episodes that involved her acting out quite inappropriately and sending SMSs to many of these acquaintances (including a couple of our close mutual friends) accusing me of wanting to kill her. One of these friends, actually a woman who has been her best friend here for years, knows me quite well and has been around us enough to know at least that my BPDw is very emotional and can "overstate" things. Suffice to say that the message took her by surprise and she was worried. She came to me the following day and asked what had happened. I didn't even know about the SMS. The message bothered the friend quite a lot, in fact it was probably the first time she started to question my BPDw's version of events.

Due to a couple of events such as the one above I was aware that our close friends were talking about what was going on. I was informed by the same friend of this. I didn't say anything to anyone and actually no one asked me what was happening except for that one friend.

However, in this period we were seeing a psychiatrist for couples therapy and in these sessions my BPDw was claiming that I was a drunk and physically/emotionally abusive to her. So I suspect that she has said similar lies to our friends.

I do think that many of them have an idea of what is going, e.g. BPDw is very emotional etc, but I don't think they understand any of its profundity.

These close friends know me... .or should. I am extremely sociable and not an angry person at all. I don't drink heavily. These lies I suspect she has said in the past, and may say again in the future, don't worry me much because anyone who knows me would highly doubt them. BUT I just don't know to what depth I should engage any of them, if at all, if or when they may ask what is going on in the future.

Right after the SMS episode, I confided to a close friend of mine here whose wife is friend of my BPDw. He and I have been quite close over the years and so I felt that I could be honest about certain things. I didn't tell him that I thought she has XYZ but I did tell him concrete facts about what had been going on in our household and that I had asked her for a divorce. And I told him about the SMS message she had sent. He asked me "why the hell would she do that?" and I didn't know how to answer because I didn't want to open up the discussion about things that would invade my BPDw's privacy. I said to him "I don't know why" and something like "she's having a hard time staying in reality right now". I don't know if that was right to do or not... .

LAT

[takingandsending]

Hi LAT.

I faced similar challenges in trying to know what to tell mutual friends of my xw. One of the difficulties about being in a long term relationship with someone with BPD/NPD is that we lose our compass as to what is okay and what is not okay. Our boundaries and self values are often so weakened over years of supporting, managing and negotiating unreasonable behaviors (and maybe they were never all that strong to begin with) that we lose sight of what a normal person would do under similar circumstances. For myself, I did confide in a few mutual friends and my own personal friends what I was dealing with at home. While your wife needs and deserves support, so do you. If your wife is advising friends that you threatened to kill her, I think it is important to let friends that you need or even could use for support know what you are dealing with.

To your friend who asked why she would say that, you can describe the behavior pathology v. giving him a name/diagnosis ... .along the lines of STBxw often asserts as facts what she is feeling. And sadly, when I try to respond with facts, it only invalidates her feelings and causes her to lash out more. It's hard to understand, but I have been under incredible strain sometimes just sorting through so many things that she vehemently believes that area simply not true. I hoped and tried to work through these things with her, but it's not working. I don't believe she can help her behavior without treatment. She needs friends, but I also really need our friendship, too.

When you are in doubt about what to say or do, maybe ask yourself, if you saw someone you really cared about in a similar situation as you are, what would you tell them to do or hope that they would do? Then apply that to yourself. That's been a good guideline for me, and it sort of tricks me out of my habitual, co-dependent response into taking more positive action on my own behalf.