Should I show the BS card? Confusing messages around divorce

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

and... yeah... .don't say shrubbery either... or neeee.)

I don't mean to jump in here, but FF thanks for the Monty Python reference... .made my afternoon 

[ozmatoz]

and... yeah... .don't say shrubbery either... or neeee.)

I don't mean to jump in here, but FF thanks for the Monty Python reference... .made my afternoon 

[Enabler]

I am possibly the most risk averse guy on the planet and basically you are asking me to play Russian roulette.

Apparently we're having a chat tomorrow night regarding kids and house. I'm 100% FO at the moment... .G is long gone.

The question I ask myself is, was she planning on having that chat tonight but after seeing me with the kids and the kids so happy... .couldn't quite bring herself to do it... .after all, that doesn't fit with the narrative does it! She visibly hated them having fun with me.

I think the "I think you need to take ownership of the decision when we tell the kids" will be a big enough can to kick down the road... .

[Enabler]

I will try not to fart in her generrrrrrral direction either.

[formflier]

  I'm 100% FO at the moment... .G is long gone.
 

What does this mean? 

I may be dense... .sense I just got done yelling at my computer... because my online homework system for my MBA class went Tango Uniform.

Yep... .I'll give a special FF treat to anyone who can correctly interpret Tango Uniform.

Back to Russian Roulette.  The game I am asking you to play only has a few bullets in the gun... .the game you are playing has more bullets.

Big picture FOG (the fear part is working you over on FOG) and potentially driving you places you otherwise wouldn't want to be.

We may want to start a new thread about tomorrow nights talk, perhaps we can help.  Talking and listening is OK... she wants to be heard... .

Decisions and action should be avoided for a bit.


FF

[Enabler]

I fear the consequences of her choices and behaviour and the impact they will have on me and my future relationship with the kids, therefore as you say I'm being done over by my own fear of rattling the sabre.

I feel obligated to participate in this circus for fear of the above and provocation to more and more extreme behaviour.

I feel no guilt... .guilt has evaporated. Guilt is something I was given and it can do one.

One of my values is being a reasonable person. It's not working for me at the moment maybe it never has. I expect to be treated reasonably if I treat people reasonably. I have always regarded a loving caring relationship to have its foundations in the security you will always treat each other reasonably at the very least. Asking her to take ownership of the divorce should be enough to delay decisions and actions for a week or so plus. That is in line with my core values and is reasonable.

[Cat Familiar]

One of my values is being a reasonable person. It's not working for me at the moment maybe it never has. I expect to be treated reasonably if I treat people reasonably. I have always regarded a loving caring relationship to have its foundations in the security you will always treat each other reasonably at the very least. Asking her to take ownership of the divorce should be enough to delay decisions and actions for a week or so plus. That is in line with my core values and is reasonable.

With a pwBPD, you have to take "reasonable" out of the equation. Sure, sometimes it will happen, but it's not a given. It's like playing cards with someone who feels free to look at your cards or draw extras out of the deck if they don't like their hand. You can protest all you want about "fairness" but if you want to play cards with them, that's how they play.

Strategies I sometimes use are "purposeful laziness" or "being dense". Lots of times he says he wants to do something, but if I don't help the process along, it will never happen. So I "forget".

Being dense--once I got over being mildly ridiculed for not understanding something and needing a more detailed explanation from him, I discovered how wonderfully this strategy works. Often, when asked for more detail because "I don't understand" he will just give up and say "Never mind" and the subject is forgotten for a time, or forever.

[Enabler]

So, the can was kicked and the ball is in her court. The evening started with a bit of TV because the kids had just gone to bed, this was followed by a conveeaation about how the financial disclosure was going. I played a bit dumb before she started on about selling the house and how it didn't matter that the financials weren't completed and we could sell it anyway... .I then asked why she hadn't applied for divorce and how I wasn't keen to sell the house without a divorce process in place. She then pleads that she's not had enough time in the last 2 months... .sigh. I point out that I don't want a divorce and that it's not good for anyone in the family at all. She asks what the alternative is, I reply that we should work on our marriage, that I felt there was something that had kept us together for 20yrs and we needed to rediscover this. She claims she lives in fear and that was wrong... .he said she said... .bla bla bla.

If she wants a divorce she can get it. It's all well and good having these little chats where she tells me how tough it is to get her sht together because she has to look after 3 kids... .but it bull.

Small dysregulation with plenty of fog afterwards where she threatened to leave the house... .to which I said "I really don't care what you decide to do". She didn't like the fact that I pointed out that she loses it with the kids almost every day. She said "if I'm so dangerous you should get social services involved and you shouldn't want to be with me".

The can is kicked, the fence is almost complete and other house things will be done.

Cat,  caught between the desire to not force someone who doesn't want to be with me leave, and desire to do what is right and reasonable in the face of what I know to be BS rationale to throw away a family. Just before said evenings fun we all sat down to watch "sing" the movie with the kids, lovely family time, good laugh going to bed. It's just nonsense.

[ozmatoz]

Enabler, these conversations get on my nerves. I’ve had pretty much the same convo, and not trying to force anything. Her reasons are BS and my uBPDw would throw everything great away just to prove a point the she’s a victim.

As Cat says trying to play cards by the rules never happens and it really boils my blood. I do so much understand the fear of the mess she’ll unknowingly create.

I also fear for myself that there’s only so many times I can have a talk that goes “t-ts up” before I give up on my own.

Don’t forget to breathe.

-Oz

[Enabler]

Thanks Oz. To be fair, I was very much breathing and very much in control of what I said for once.

I tried to see if I could stall having the conversation at all but she was clearly keen to have the talk to some extent and see how we (but really mainly me) could push the process along. I in effect derailed any hope of us having a sensible conversation by pointing out the glaring inconsistencies in her priorities and by stating clearly that I did not see a divorce as being aligned to her values or the benefit of any of the family members.

She knows what she has to do and it doesn't involve having cake and eating it.

Yesterday I completed the fence work and cleaned out her car as she has to take a prospective new vicar round the village on a guided tour and the car looks like someones had a mud fight in it... .  Why?... .Because that is a nice thing to do and I am nice person. Church is important to her and I want to support that, regardless of whether or not she wants to kick me in the head. She was appreciative. But I didn't do it for that.

[ozmatoz]

Glad to hear you had a level head in the conversation.  That is something I've been struggling with lately.  I DID have the level head for so many years that I feel like I've hit some internal limit that I have yet to figure out... .

My T often tells me to make her (my wife) do the work when it comes to divorce and it seems like you are swinging things around that way for you.  Keep up the good work,  the cake reference is often used by my wife.  She tells me that it annoys her when people tell her she can't have her cake and eat it too because "what the f--k do they know, its my cake and I'll eat it... ."

Lately I've been busy on house projects too.  Figure it keeps me away from her, they need to get done, and if she does ever follow through with divorce it will be less on my to-do list to sell the house.  You are a nice person and do nice things for people, I am too and have no intention to change that.  I just have to change my expectation that my wife would say thank you... .

[Cat Familiar]

Lately I've been busy on house projects too.  Figure it keeps me away from her, they need to get done, and if she does ever follow through with divorce it will be less on my to-do list to sell the house.  You are a nice person and do nice things for people, I am too and have no intention to change that.  I just have to change my expectation that my wife would say thank you... .

I’ve never gotten a thank you either and I do house projects constantly. Oops, I lied. He did say thank you when I grouted and sealed the floor in his studio. And then he has the nerve to tell me that I don’t appreciate all that he does for me, and I’m thinking, um, what exactly is it that you do?

Sorry for the hijack, just couldn’t help myself.  

[Enabler]

I was thinking a bit about gratitude whilst I was digging post holes. I think that pwBPD confuse the emotions of gratitude with guilt. They are close cousins and certainly from my wife's experience my MIL would drag her through the coals for anything she did for my W... .therefore gratitude = guilt. so, portraying gratitude is "I owe you", "you have one over me." Rather than "Thanks, that was just a kind thing you did for me, you're the best".

[ozmatoz]

I was thinking a bit about gratitude whilst I was digging post holes. I think that pwBPD confuse the emotions of gratitude with guilt. They are close cousins and certainly from my wife's experience my MIL would drag her through the coals for anything she did for my W... .therefore gratitude = guilt. so, portraying gratitude is "I owe you", "you have one over me." Rather than "Thanks, that was just a kind thing you did for me, you're the best".

Very interesting take on this.  I hear all the time from uBPDw that I owe her xyz... .and then on the flip side she will say that she owes me nothing!

I believe her mother piled the guilt onto her when she was a kid, that could make some sense... .I will have to think about this one for a little bit.

Cat... thanks for the laugh, I often find myself after doing the laundry, dishes, pets, lawn, bills, taxes being told I do nothing and wondering... .what exactly did she do today?

[Enabler]

i think my W knows she would struggle to hold her ground if she even though "enabler doesn't do anything" BUT instead she's constantly telling me how busy she is and how she doesn't have time to do things... .a good example being applying for the decree nisi, the wording was "agreed" at the beginning of Nov17 but yet she claimed she didn't have time. She made huge efforts to tell me what a priority it was that she got divorced! Apparently looking after the 3 kids whilst they were in full time education soaked up all those hours... .and the jogs... .and the bike rides.

I really don't want to sound like I don't have any respect for my wife. She has soo much potential and does some wonderful things. Things that are important to her such as church work and looking after the kids (assuming nothing else becomes a priority to them). I just find it so difficult to really respect someone who doesn't couple their potential with consistency in their word, consistency with their values, consistency with their feelings towards me... .the sense that she doesn't respect me. Now I know the latter comment is on shaky ground, she's not capable of showing me she respects me for the above reason so my ability to sense her respect and care is challenged.

[Enabler]

Wrapping this thread up and started a new one on W's fear of me and the chat.

[formflier]

Wrapping this thread up and started a new one on W's fear of me and the chat.

I'll check out your new thread.

For clarity to all:  It's not our job to solve the time pressures and business of our pwBPD.  Plus, deep down we know... .we know if something really is a priority that they will figure it out.

We know that.

If we look at this interaction from a drama triangle point of view, perhaps it makes more sense.  

"I'm so busy with all I do I just don't have time to  (fill in the blank)"  The blank really doesn't matter, it just happens to be divorce for Enablers thread (or financials or whatever we want to call it)

Of the three choices  victim, rescuer, persecutor... .it "makes sense" that she is "bidding" or "trying to assume" the position of "victim".  Life has got her so busy... .that she just cant... get it done.

She is hoping you will assume rescuer or even persecutor, because she knows how to respond to either one.

The worst for her is for you to stay "in the center" or "out of it"...

She doesn't get rescued... that is worst for her.

FF

[Enabler]

I'm making that happen!