I know I've taken on a caretaker role. I know all of this yet I can't seem to

[Strugglingthroo]

So thankful for this board and being able to read about others' experiences.  It helps to know that I'm not the only one.  

I have recently received the papers from my attorney to file for divorce from my BPD wife.  We have been married over 20 years.  The symptoms and behavior have been there from the beginning but of course I had no idea what BPD even was.  The past year has been a living hell and she has been officially diagnosed.  All of the pain she has caused, the accusations, telling me for years that I am the one with the "problems", and yet I still find myself wanting to please her and am struggling terribly to sign the divorce papers and send them back to my attorney.  It is absolutely mind boggling to me that I am struggling with this.  She has put this all on me, saying she doesn't want to divorce and that it will "destroy the kids" and will be all my fault.  She has started and stopped DBT now 3 times.  I know she will never complete it nor get serious about the therapy.  I also know that there is no hope of her getting better and that the cycle will continue if I call off the divorce.  If anyone else would tell me a story of what I've been through I would have no trouble at all telling them to leave as fast as they could leave.  I know that's what I need to do.  I know that's what I have to do.  But why is it so hard?  I feel like I am going crazy.  I have taken the abuse, know it will continue if I stay, yet I am struggling to bring myself to leave.  It truly makes no sense.  My therapist says I have taken on a caretaker role and am struggling to get out of it.  I've read on here all about FOG and it just seems so ridiculous but it is so real!  It truly feels like she has some kind of mind control over me.  I am typically a confident person but this has all reduced me to a shell.  I could understand it more if I couldn't bring myself to see the pain I've suffered or if I felt like she was trying hard to change but neither of those things is true.  I know I've suffered pain.  My therapist says I've been traumatized.  I know she will not do what she needs to do to try and help her illness. I know I've enabled.  I know I've taken on a caretaker role.  I know all of this yet I can't seem to feel good about leaving.  

Is this just another part of the detachment process?  Is there a typical timeframe of how long this phase lasts?  I'm seeing a therapist weekly, reading books, and have recently started anti-depressants.  I feel like I'm trying everything I can yet I almost feel as if I'm regressing and struggling more now than I ever have.  Just wondering if this experience sounds familiar to anyone and what, if anything, they did to push through it.  thank you so much.

[Harri]

Hi Strugglingthroo

But why is it so hard?  I feel like I am going crazy.  I have taken the abuse, know it will continue if I stay, yet I am struggling to bring myself to leave.  It truly makes no sense. 

Well, the role we take in relationships was deeply ingrained in us as kids.  Behaviors become almost reflexive.  It is not easy to change a lifetime of behaviors.  Everything feels wrong when we do try.  Think of it like trying to use your non-dominate hand to write with.  It is going to feel awkward, your hand will cramp more easily, your writing will look odd, you have to learn how to place the paper properly, everything changes and it is hard.  Emotions are far more complex.  Often out biggest struggle is not with the other person but with ourselves and out sense of what is right, kind, fair.  Changing those things and the beliefs that accompany it all takes time.  You have to learn to walk a new way.  (Gee, how many analogies can I possibly use in one paragraph?  )

It gets better.  I swear you are not losing your mind.  You are finding it.

[Mutt]

Hi Strugglonethroo,

If anyone else would tell me a story of what I've been through I would have no trouble at all telling them to leave as fast as they could leave.  I know that's what I need to do.  I know that's what I have to do.  But why is it so hard?

 
A r/s is complicated, remove the disorder from the disorder frmo the person for a second the disorder doesn't define the person she is someone that you cared about, she means something to you. The only other life event that is as difficult or more difficult is the passing of a loved one, divorce is hard.
 
 

Is there a typical timeframe of how long this phase lasts?  I'm seeing a therapist weekly, reading books, and have recently started anti-depressants.

 You need more time behind you.

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Struggling, I'm with Harri and Mutt: it is hard, but gets better.  Of course the decision to divorce is a tough one after 20 years.  In my experience, love doesn't conquer all when it comes to a BPD r/s.  It's not from any lack of love or lack of trying on your part, I'm sure.  Just the way it is.  Leaving a BPD r/s is somewhat like quitting an addiction, in the sense that we know it's unhealthy yet we still want don't want to stop doing it.  Let's not sugarcoat it: if you proceed withy divorce you are in for rough sledding ahead, yet it leads to greater happiness, which is what it's all about, right?
Keep us posted.

LuckyJim

[Chicken Soup]

Dear Strugglingthroo:

I've been married 27 years and I've assumed the caretaking role at least 10 years ago.  Maybe longer, I've lost count of the years.  Gotta be the adult so I can help my sons deal with this craziness.  They seem to have turned out ok, they're all 18 and older.

I was trying to find a lawyer last fall when my wife was diagnosed with cancer.  She's about done with treatment.

It hurt so much I used to yell obscenities at her in my sleep.  Got on antidepressants, so it's smoothed that out.

Thank you for sharing and letting me know I'm not alone.

[Red5]

My therapist says I have taken on a caretaker role and am struggling to get out of it.  

I've read on here all about FOG and it just seems so ridiculous but it is so real!  

It truly feels like she has some kind of mind control over me.  

I am typically a confident person but this has all reduced me to a shell.  

I know I've taken on a caretaker role.    

Is this just another part of the detachment process?  

Good Morning Strugglingthroo;

This a good and safe place to be, writing it all out and then having others come by and comment has been a great help to me, I am also a veteran of a first marriage that went on for some twenty-two years, and now I am remarried again, after a brief five year respite, now this time about eight years… the first woman I was married to was no doubt multiple disorders; CPTSD resultant from childhood sexual trauma; so maybe BPD, mpd, and maybe a few others, of course the entire marriage I was completely clueless, and thought I could “save” her… my current marriage, is pw/BPD “lite” in comparison to my first, seems I am programed to seek this out, I also had a GF during the time I was single, and she was no doubt (now) to me as traits of npd, BPD… when will a guy learn eh’ !

*My therapist says I have taken on a caretaker role and am struggling to get out of it.
I did this in my first marriage, and am now doing it in my second marriage, and I have to say I have settled pretty much permanently into this role, there is not much left in my heart of hearts that feels like any kind of empathetic love now, more like apathy ~ sympathy now.

*I've read on here all about FOG and it just seems so ridiculous but it is so real!
FOG is VERY real, FOG keeps me with my uBPD/w… I am her caretaker, she is now completely dependent on me, and now a stage four cancer diagnosed…

*It truly feels like she has some kind of mind control over me. 
I used to feel this way as well, but the more I learnt about BPD, the more I understood just how much little control a pw/BPD actually has over their own emotional state, I have learnt much about the BPD phenomena in regards to how they may be developmentally/emotionally delayed due to trauma in early childhood, or else (later) adulthood which make them unable to process feelings and emotions normally.

*I am typically a confident person but this has all reduced me to a shell. 
Me as well, but thankfully as I came upon this BPD phenomena, a reason why, and explanation as to why, I have turned this around, now I am much more knowledgeable (?)  to the point that I have regained my own “self-worth”… my own inner self/being after my pw/BPD tried so hard, whether knowingly or not to destroy me, I was to the point of complete breakdown, but this is different in me, with me now (inner strength).

*I know I've taken on a caretaker role.  
Again, this is where I am now, you see, so much has been destroyed, so much is gone now, and it will never return, or be rebuilt, it’s just gone, I now realize whom/who my u/BPD wife really is now, certainly NOT whom I thought her to be when we met, dated, and then married, now I can clearly see the stages, ideation, mirroring, .the false persona… then some devaluing, projecting, then the inevitable splitting (constant), and then the slide into seemingly eternal gray and sadness… now she seems more like a wounded child to me, a person who is somehow mortality wounded, and whom I cannot fix, or help, she is just “stuck” in this… it saddens me, but I cannot let her destroy me too, it angers me so, who did this to her, why?… and I anger myself, you see I was free, and clear, even had my children with me, we all survived the destruction of the first marriage, only to fall for it all over again, but you see I did not know, I was not informed, or knowledgeable, I was a complete “non”… I would have been far better off staying single, with my sanity intact, at least now I know right?

*Is this just another part of the detachment process?
Like when a large engine / generator gets shutdown, slowly… things will start to drop off line so to speak, you will begin to notice that you may not do things for her anymore, you will start to see things slip away, never to return, you will catch yourself not thinking the same way about her anymore… anger will replace kindness, and apathy will replace empathy… and slowly the lights will go dim, and then dimmer, then out altogether… any good memories will have been completely replaced by bad ones, ... .your life, your home will be full of little scrapes, holes, broken things, all reminders of the never ending fights, and arguments, and hopeless attempts to "fix" via JADE'ing... .you will be shelled shocked, you yourself will seem to relate to the term of CPTSD... .as it happened over and over and over again... .you will no longer “rescue”… the BPD behaviors will kill off everything else, like an ivy vine choking off a tall and healthy tree… it is almost like (comparison), this illness, and that’s what is is, a mental illness, this illness, akin to maybe alzheimer’s, slowly steals away your love of the other person, .and from any semblance of love and or compassion, .you may slip into apathetic caretaking… it is very sad, I struggle with it every day… it seemed the more I chased, the farther away she went… now I am starting to just give up.

Hang in there Strugglingthroo, this is never going to be easy or pleasant unfortunately, best advice is to take care of yourself first and foremost as if you do not, you will be of no use to others, ie’ your children.

Best regards, Red5

[Strugglingthroo]

Thank you all for your replies.  It is really therapeutic to read and just know that I'm not the only one in the world in this situation.  Sometimes it has felt like that. 

Red5, you and I are very similar in our line of thinking.  I am sure the caretaker role is even stronger now that she is ill.  I think the toughest part of taking on this role, in an unhealthy way, is that it really is a "good" thing to be doing.  We are supposed to take care of our spouses when they need us.  The problem is, when it becomes one sided, it becomes extremely unhealthy.  I had a good friend that gave me some real words of wisdom.  I was explaining to him that I had taken on the caretaker role and that I had become codependent.  He said that codependency is great in marriage, as long as both are codependent to each other.  If one is and one isn't, it's a recipe for disaster.  Made a lot of sense to me. 

Chicken soup you are most definitely not alone.  With so many years gone by as you and I have with our BPD wives, I think it is even more difficult to move on.  The sense of loss is enormous.  Counseling and antidepressants have helped me greatly.  I've been in therapy for over 6 months now and it is really helping me see things that I had never been able to see before.  Even seeing it though, it's still so difficult to leave it.  I'm basically just forcing myself to continue the divorce.  My every instinct is to continue to take care of her, have sympathy for her, etc. but I know now that I cannot continue to do that.  If I continue down this path I will eventually be destroyed.  I've learned in therapy that I do matter and that it's okay to think of my needs.  As simplistic as that sounds, it's something I've never done in this relationship.  I keep pushing forward and even though it is so hard, and I know there are even harder times coming as her fear of abandonement kicks into overdrive, I can see the other side once I get through this and I can already see how much better things will be and how much better I will feel.  I can almost feel what it's like to be me again once I get there. 

LuckyJim you're exactly right.  To get to happiness it's going to be a rough few months, but I am so ready to get there.  It's finally hit me this past week.  Just getting to that point is huge progress for me.  I know this has to be done.  I also know that even though it will get tough, it is going to be so worth it in the end. 

Thanks for the reassurance Mutt and Harri.  It is definitely a process.  Kind of like sitting in traffic.  As long as I'm moving foward and making progress, even if it is very slow, I know I'm getting closer to my destination.