Hard Steps

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

Hi, everyone. I love my wife and worry about her and I'm grieving from our breakup. The respectful way people here speak of those who struggle with BPD gave me courage to reach out.

I'm not sure where to begin, but I need a lot of help. I recently became aware that my wife has BPD to some degree. I've struggled to accept what is in front of my eyes. I have been told by my therapist that I am codependent. I feel deeply sad, and afraid.

We were married for fifteen years. All the signs were there, but I missed them. I always felt unworthy of her and blamed myself for anything that went wrong. I have moderate ADHD and some depression, and ingrained feelings of inadequacy come with the territory.

Part of the reason I couldn't see it was that she was such a good person in so many ways—insistently giving of her time and strength to those close to her, anticipating my needs and the needs of our kids, running a perfect house while I struggled guiltily with the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. She was a person with a strong and very conservative moral code and incredible resolve. In retrospect I can see that she was in constant conflict with her anger and fear.

Stress increased the paranoid ideation, so I thought it was PMDD, but I see now that any kind of stress had the same effect as her cycle—financial, interpersonal, etc... She was always a good listener but very rarely shared anything approaching emotional intimacy. I'm an extreme feeler and people talk to me, but with her I felt like I was on the other side of a pane of glass and could never truly reach her or know her. There were several examples of splitting over the years, but because of her well-earned reputation for perfection, I'm convinced anybody (not just me) would have assumed it was the other person's fault, until she starting splitting with old friends last year because she felt they were selfish, and did it with enough of them that they all noticed. I defended her.

Symptoms increased with the presidential election. Two months prior to the breakup, she expressed she felt like she was going to lose me. She immediately became obsessively attached to a new friend who was vulnerable and isolated, and began spending every waking moment with her, either in person or texting. I energetically supported her friendship because I loved to see her happy, and she felt she had found a best friend for the first time in her life. Life turned upside down. I became the primary caregiver of four kids while trying to keep my job.

She began swinging between rage and elation with fearful sadness in between. She started drinking, said her first four letter word, talked seriously about getting a tattoo, bought a sports car, and chastised me frequently. She had a hard time feeling things, and asked me to be rough with her in bed. I'm a pretty open minded person, and I felt happy to see her being more free with her feelings and desires, which she had seldom been willing to express before. Her aggression scared me, though. She told me she was worried because she felt so angry at people that she wanted to hurt them. She said she had an angry voice in her head she had to repress all the time. She said she had "black thoughts" that she was afraid of and angry about. Also "dark" sexual fantasies she was afraid/angry about. She said I couldn't be a friend because I was the person she had sex with, and those are incompatible. She told a friend after the breakup that she was suicidal.

Is this a conservative Christian manifestation of BPD? I was so confused. She wasn't crashing cars and running up credit cards or having affairs (that I know of), and the police weren't involved, but the feelings were just as intense as what I read about.

One day, trying to help her feel better, I told her that I knew I hadn't made life easy for her. When I expressed some of my regrets, she became volcanically angry and cut me off. First I was just a selfish jerk, then controlling, then emotionally abusive, then physically abusive, then psychologically abusive and manipulative, then I had raped her for our entire marriage. Within a couple weeks, she had successfully persuaded me that I had some combination of five personality disorders (especially narcissism) and probably bipolar. I was completely in shock.

I responded like her best friend and her presumed worst enemy at the same time. I desperately sought specialized help, thinking I was somehow so broken that I couldn't even tell I had been hurting her, believing her unquestioningly. No doctor/therapist would take me seriously, but I kept trying. It took me three months to realize that I was not an abuser. She cut me off from communication, later saying that it was formal no contact because I was disordered and she was unsafe. Via her new friend, she communicated with me in such an aggressive and demanding way that I was constantly on eggshells. I couldn't see how unreasonable and emotionally violent she was being, and felt I deserved whatever I had coming. At first, I thought I was a monster, then when I got an ADHD diagnosis I thought I was an accidental monster but misunderstood, and finally I've come to grips with having little more than garden variety inadequacies and forgivable quirks. The past half a year since the breakup has been psychological torture.

Within a month of the breakup I had signed to end our marriage using an out-of-court option that's available here in Washington where the judge just signs what you give them. I signed in blind faith, without reading, and without legal review, trusting her completely and terrified of myself, believing I was protecting my family from the monster I never knew I was.

She said nothing would change and it was just for her protection. As soon as the ink was dry, she cut me off from communication and became absolutely controlling. No vehicle, no money, no key to the house, told not talk to anyone about our situation including church ministers because she needed privacy. The terms left me with no funds to live on and no custody of our four children. I can't even claim dependents, though I'm the wage earner. My tax burden is now hopeless.

I see the children weekly at her convenience, and they are under a lot of stress. She will not work with me at all on parenting or to improve the financial situation so I can live, not after repeated attempts at professional mediation. She has convinced her close family (some of them very well funded) that she has PTSD caused by my abuse and would be literally unable to handle any kind of two-way interaction even with multiple layers of professional mediation. I'm afraid of a costly legal battle that I will never recover from if/when this goes to court.

I badly need help. I feel like a colossal fool. I would be homeless if not for the charity of friends. I need specialized legal help too. The attorneys I talk to either tell me there's little hope or won't take the case at all. I need to know what to do in general. I have good therapists and good friends and personal faith and a good job and four wonderful kids. I have much to be thankful for. But I need help. I will do whatever it takes to make the best of this tragic situation.

I know this was a lot at once. Thanks so much for reading.

[San Diego]

Hi, everyone. I love my wife and worry about her and I'm grieving from our breakup. The respectful way people here speak of those who struggle with BPD gave me courage to reach out.

I'm not sure where to begin, but I need a lot of help. I recently became aware that my wife has BPD to some degree. I've struggled to accept what is in front of my eyes. I have been told by my therapist that I am codependent. I feel deeply sad, and afraid.

We were married for fifteen years. All the signs were there, but I missed them. I always felt unworthy of her and blamed myself for anything that went wrong. I have moderate ADHD and some depression, and ingrained feelings of inadequacy come with the territory.

Part of the reason I couldn't see it was that she was such a good person in so many ways—insistently giving of her time and strength to those close to her, anticipating my needs and the needs of our kids, running a perfect house while I struggled guiltily with the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. She was a person with a strong and very conservative moral code and incredible resolve. In retrospect I can see that she was in constant conflict with her anger and fear.

Stress increased the paranoid ideation, so I thought it was PMDD, but I see now that any kind of stress had the same effect as her cycle—financial, interpersonal, etc... She was always a good listener but very rarely shared anything approaching emotional intimacy. I'm an extreme feeler and people talk to me, but with her I felt like I was on the other side of a pane of glass and could never truly reach her or know her. There were several examples of splitting over the years, but because of her well-earned reputation for perfection, I'm convinced anybody (not just me) would have assumed it was the other person's fault, until she starting splitting with old friends last year because she felt they were selfish, and did it with enough of them that they all noticed. I defended her.

Symptoms increased with the presidential election. Two months prior to the breakup, she expressed she felt like she was going to lose me. She immediately became obsessively attached to a new friend who was vulnerable and isolated, and began spending every waking moment with her, either in person or texting. I energetically supported her friendship because I loved to see her happy, and she felt she had found a best friend for the first time in her life. Life turned upside down. I became the primary caregiver of four kids while trying to keep my job.

She began swinging between rage and elation with fearful sadness in between. She started drinking, said her first four letter word, talked seriously about getting a tattoo, bought a sports car, and chastised me frequently. She had a hard time feeling things, and asked me to be rough with her in bed. I'm a pretty open minded person, and I felt happy to see her being more free with her feelings and desires, which she had seldom been willing to express before. Her aggression scared me, though. She told me she was worried because she felt so angry at people that she wanted to hurt them. She said she had an angry voice in her head she had to repress all the time. She said she had "black thoughts" that she was afraid of and angry about. Also "dark" sexual fantasies she was afraid/angry about. She said I couldn't be a friend because I was the person she had sex with, and those are incompatible. She told a friend after the breakup that she was suicidal.

Is this a conservative Christian manifestation of BPD? I was so confused. She wasn't crashing cars and running up credit cards or having affairs (that I know of), and the police weren't involved, but the feelings were just as intense as what I read about.

One day, trying to help her feel better, I told her that I knew I hadn't made life easy for her. When I expressed some of my regrets, she became volcanically angry and cut me off. First I was just a selfish jerk, then controlling, then emotionally abusive, then physically abusive, then psychologically abusive and manipulative, then I had raped her for our entire marriage. Within a couple weeks, she had successfully persuaded me that I had some combination of five personality disorders (especially narcissism) and probably bipolar. I was completely in shock.

I responded like her best friend and her presumed worst enemy at the same time. I desperately sought specialized help, thinking I was somehow so broken that I couldn't even tell I had been hurting her, believing her unquestioningly. No doctor/therapist would take me seriously, but I kept trying. It took me three months to realize that I was not an abuser. She cut me off from communication, later saying that it was formal no contact because I was disordered and she was unsafe. Via her new friend, she communicated with me in such an aggressive and demanding way that I was constantly on eggshells. I couldn't see how unreasonable and emotionally violent she was being, and felt I deserved whatever I had coming. At first, I thought I was a monster, then when I got an ADHD diagnosis I thought I was an accidental monster but misunderstood, and finally I've come to grips with having little more than garden variety inadequacies and forgivable quirks. The past half a year since the breakup has been psychological torture.

Within a month of the breakup I had signed to end our marriage using an out-of-court option that's available here in Washington where the judge just signs what you give them. I signed in blind faith, without reading, and without legal review, trusting her completely and terrified of myself, believing I was protecting my family from the monster I never knew I was.

She said nothing would change and it was just for her protection. As soon as the ink was dry, she cut me off from communication and became absolutely controlling. No vehicle, no money, no key to the house, told not talk to anyone about our situation including church ministers because she needed privacy. The terms left me with no funds to live on and no custody of our four children. I can't even claim dependents, though I'm the wage earner. My tax burden is now hopeless.

I see the children weekly at her convenience, and they are under a lot of stress. She will not work with me at all on parenting or to improve the financial situation so I can live, not after repeated attempts at professional mediation. She has convinced her close family (some of them very well funded) that she has PTSD caused by my abuse and would be literally unable to handle any kind of two-way interaction even with multiple layers of professional mediation. I'm afraid of a costly legal battle that I will never recover from if/when this goes to court.

I badly need help. I feel like a colossal fool. I would be homeless if not for the charity of friends. I need specialized legal help too. The attorneys I talk to either tell me there's little hope or won't take the case at all. I need to know what to do in general. I have good therapists and good friends and personal faith and a good job and four wonderful kids. I have much to be thankful for. But I need help. I will do whatever it takes to make the best of this tragic situation.

I know this was a lot at once. Thanks so much for reading.

[zachira]

I hear your pain and distress over hitting rock bottom after years of doing everything to support your wife, and signing a divorce agreement that has left you homeless, with no access to your children, and with no money. You are now doing everything you can to take a look at your participation in all of this which is incredibly brave, and shows you are a man with character and integrity, and above all there is hope for the future, though it probably does not feel like that right now. With all you are learning and experiencing, what do you think your life will look like in the future? I have hit rock bottom a few times in my life, and I am now grateful because it has allowed me to change for the better, and I now have the kind of life I would never have had if I had not faced myself and my challenges.
I am concerned for your four children, and from what you have shared, it seems very apparent that they are being raised by a parent that is unsafe, as her behaviors are extreme and unpredictable. Do whatever you can to get custody of your children. Courts do change custody agreements, even ones that have been in place for years, when they learn that the children are in an unsafe home, and there is a better home available for the children.
There are many people on this Board who have been in situations similar to yours, and will support you and help you. Please keep us up to date, as we care, and let us know how we can be the most helpful. Things can get better, though it may not seem like that right now.

[San Diego]

Thank you zachira for the thoughtful reply and encouragement. In answer to your question of how I think my life will look in the future, I would say it is quite foggy right now. Personally this has been a period of a lot of growth. I feel more secure and have a lot of peace with who I am. That will be part of my future. My way of life and relationships are much harder to envision.

It's hard to imagine getting custody of my kids because I know how much they love their mom and how much she loves them, and that she has been their primary caregiver. I also know that they need me in their life also, and safety comes first. I trust myself to be good to my wife and supportive of her needs, while I know she is not able to be considerate of me at this time. I will be responsible with this and will do what it takes, but it will be hard.

I think the thing I need the most help with is selecting (even just finding) an attorney who can deal with a situation that is very difficult both legally and in terms of the psychological issues. No matter how it goes, I am told it will cost a fortune. I have to do whatever it takes, but I likely have just one shot. I need to be very well informed myself, but this is way beyond DIY. I know I need to have a team of very competent people. Any guidance for forming a good professional support team from anyone who has gone through something like this before is appreciated.

[ForeverDad]

Your ex sounds very much like mine, conservative heritage and religion a major part of our lives.  I had been a religious volunteer for over a decade, then once we married we were religious volunteers together for nearly a decade, until her behaviors caused increasing trouble with her duties.  It didn't get better after we both moved and started employment elsewhere.  I mistakenly thought having a child would make her happy and focused on the future rather than her past childhood.  Sadly, I didn't realize having children doesn't fix a dysfunctional relationship or marriage, but it does complicate any unwinding immensely.  We had a couple years of increasingly high conflict at the end, then about 8 years in divorce and post divorce until we attained an order that worked.  I ended up with full custody and majority time.  But until then it was pure misery and obstruction.

Though she did sideline you and your parenting, you can return to court and file for changes.  You can ask for at least half the deduction years.  (If she doesn't work enough to use her full deduction possibilities you could propose that you file all years and she get her equivalent amount reimbursed in what would be her alternate years.)  You can ask for a Custody Evaluation (or whatever your state calls it).  You may need to file for these corrections as Change of Circumstances.  In my filing for CC it took about 18 months, including a Custody Evaluation could make the process take longer.  (Besides my two year divorce, I twice went back to court until the big issues finally got corrected.  My first requests were what I asked for from the beginning but court preferred to make baby step fixes.  That why it took 8 years (2006-2013) from start to finish.

One thing is certain.  Nothing will improve if you don't consult some attorneys, determine which one would be best for you with the most practical strategies and experience in court, and head to court to obtain improvements.  The peer support here is priceless too.  Keep posting, keep asking, we have an immense sum of collective wisdom.

[San Diego]

Thank you for the reply, ForeverDad. I appreciate the input on filing changes, the deductions, custody, and so on. I'm sorry to hear about the 8 year ordeal. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that. I finally talked to an attorney who feels she could handle the case (most just shake their heads and pass). It is going to be incredibly expensive, at least $35,000 for my fees alone, because of the legal complications of it being finalized already with the court. I'm just sick. It's hard to comprehend all this. I love her and have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that I will do absolutely anything to work with her.

I'm wondering if it would be better to try to explain the seriousness of the situation more urgently and try get the understanding and support of the people she is close to before I go down this road. I'm imagining our kids being involved and I'm afraid of what she might do if she feels attacked by the litigation. At this point, her relatives will probably fund her case, and it could be so, so ugly and painful before it is over. However, I'm also afraid that if they do come around to seeing what I see, she could feel they have "turned on her" and that she has been abandoned by everybody, and become suicidal. What are everyone's reflections?

[ForeverDad]

While you don't want to manipulate her into being suicidal, she's an adult just like you.  You can't fix her, nor should to try to assume responsibility for her. Overall she is responsible for herself.  Focus on yourself, on the kids and what's best for them.  You and they are high on the priority list.  Sadly, you can't make her a priority or your priority list becomes skewed - and skewered.

Remember, she had you believing you were the problem.  Likely she's had her entire life to become a master manipulator of others too.  So protect yourself and the kids.  Besides, courts have so many policies protecting women as presumed helpless victims that you worrying over her is downright redundant - and self-sabotaging.

Ponder well over who you can trust.  Even friends you may think are your friends could turn out to side with her.  So when we talk about trusted friends and family we really mean your trusted friends and your family.  Perhaps some in her family are fair enough and less gullible enough to be trusted, but only time will tell.

[San Diego]

ForeverDad, it is good for me to confront what you are saying and realize just how much reluctance I have to accept that she could have been manipulative. There is so much evidence now that I couldn't possibly defend my doubts, and yet it just feels so unreal. I'm plagued with the thought that somehow I must have made a mistake. That I must be missing something.

I also have a hard time accepting that those closest to her aren't to me who they once were. I am grieving, and I need to be careful that I see those relationships for what they are today and not let my feelings of affection for them cloud my perspective. They have made choices too. I have already given them many opportunities to hear me. I can't do more than that.

I can see that what you are able to share came at great cost, and I value you sharing it with candor. I am in a lot of conflict over this still, but I have to look at facts. Evidence. What is and has been done. I have already done everything that can be done to give the benefit of every doubt to this person I love. There is literally nothing left to sacrifice except my own future and that of my children.

[ForeverDad]

Do you have counseling sessions?  A trained and perceptive expert is so helpful to provide you independent and objective perspectives.  You're inside the box looking out, a counselor can be one on the outside looking in.  As with many things in life... .recovery is a process, not an event.  You won't dig yourself out of this hole in a single session or a few sessions, give it time and focused energy.

Not every counselor or therapist is skilled and experienced, like everything and everyone else, they come in all levels of capability and experience.  Feel free to have consultations with a few before you settle on one who is not only comfortable to talk to but has clear strategies to help you over time.  With a good lawyer, a good counselor, trusted friends and family, and with the collective wisdom of peer support who have "been there, done that" your life and prospects will surely improve.

A method you can use with lawyers as well as counselors is to describe your situation, how you got there, how dire it is and than ask, "If you were facing my problems and issues, who would you recommend most to help you?"  Those may be the ones to consult with next.  Don't feel too timid to ask, these professional ought to know very well that not every person walking in the door needs to hire them, or even ought to hire them.  Their task is to point you in the best direction possible, not to get the most clients or fees.

[San Diego]

Thank you, that is a very helpful piece of advice, ForeverDad. Something I'm thankful for is that early on, in my desperate quest to find a doctor who would take my gaslit belief that I was an abusive narcissist seriously, I ended up working with a therapist specializing in abuse and personality disorders. This has been a big help to me in getting to the place where I could see the reality of the situation.