I had no clue she was BPD until yesterday, but now her behavior an actions over 20 years make perfect sense.
Most of us here never knew what we were dealing with, well, until we had been locked into the dysfunction for years and years. I had been married 15 years before I consulted a counselor. I made sure it was a woman with degrees, for my spouse's benefit. Then my ex refused marital counseling, but added she would 'support' me in my sessions. She was told to wait in the lobby. Sadly, the counselor was totally inept, in the three sessions before I called it quits she focused entirely on my FOO (family of origin) and never gave any insight or suggestions regarding my ex, her rants and her rages.
However, a few months later I was again desperate and called my local university for help. I lived out of the county so they couldn't do a home visit as I had hoped but the man answering my call remarked, "This sounds like a
personality dysfunction." Only then did I have a clue what the core issue was. The counselor didn't give a clue, neither did my calls to CPS, neither did my otherwise excellent pediatrician.
After 20 years of marriage, my wife told me this week she wants a divorce... .
We are now going to initiate divorce proceedings, and she wants to keep ownership of the house jointly, co-parent, having dinners together regularly, be great friends... .but I am just exhausted and need a clean break for me and the children. She is going to be livid when she finds out we will need to sell the house, and will lose her status in our community (wealthy city in Bay Area) and her standard of living is going to decrease massively.
As LnL summarized, "Sounds like she wants her cake and to eat it too."
Do you really believe for a moment that being a "roommate" will fix all her issues? Rather it would leave you tied to her but without marital benefits or leverage.
Typically, a divorce from a person with BPD (pwBPD) requires as clean a break as possible and all remaining interactions kept to a minimum and clearly spelled out in a court order.
Co-own a house? Living in the same home? Eating meals together? To her that feels like a fix but it isn't, probably it reduces your leverage over her poor behaviors and stacks the deck more in her favor. You already know that won't stop her rants, rages, belittling, disparaging, guilting, controlling, blaming, blame shifting, etc.
Unless a spouse is in serious, meaningful and progressing therapy — and making demonstrable progress over time — then you can't depend on promises to improve. Words are cheap, it is actions over time that count.
What is the age of your youngest child? Subtract that from 18 and that's generally how many years you will have court orders regarding custody and parenting time schedules. By the way, you're benefiting from counselors, don't you think your kids will too? Be aware your spouse is likely to oppose counseling for the kids but rest assured that courts like the counseling concept. If you ask for kids' counseling, it ought to get approved. However you need to make sure the counselor is perceptive, experienced and not gullible to emotional claims and stories by pwBPD.
If your children will be adults soon, then your conflict in court will focus more on the financial aspects rather than both financial and custody aspects.
Your #1 best handbook will be William Eddy's
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder.