I think I'm processing the lessons from this latest relationship

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Update -- It's been three weeks since the fiasco with my calling the police on my uBPDw. (She threw a bottle and started hitting me but I was the one that was jailed for a night and a day, restraining order, etc).

The no-contact restraining order was actually a good thing. We mutually had it lifted after a week in order to co-parent our daughter. One week of no-contact gave me the clarity to see that I was much happier away from my wife and her rage response.

I stayed with some very generous friends for two weeks and have just moved into a house that I'll be renting for the summer. Staying with my friends gave me a chance to see, once again, how a functional, loving relationship should work. Sure, there were minor squabbles and I know they have their moments, but there is an undercurrent of love there that has felt absent in my marriage for years. I know I've made the right call by stepping away.

Since we have a child, the coming years will be complicated. But moving out has allowed me to re-set my boundaries with my uBPDw. I have to be careful around her still, because I still have a court date for the bogus "domestic violence" charges against me and she's inclined right now to ask that charges be dropped. My lawyer has warned me that this is a critical time to take it easy and not bring up contentious topics. If she does press on with charges, I WILL bring in the video of her violence, and my documentation of her patterns of verbal abuse in order to defend myself. I think she knows that she has flimsy grounds, and is embarrassed about the police being called in.

I'm in generally good spirits. Friends and family have been wonderfully supportive. The new house I'm renting is surrounded by trees and morning birdsong. After seven years with someone, I am feeling a bit of disconnection and loneliness — I cut off many ties with friends and community to appease my wife, and it's slow-going to get back into a groove. But I think I'm processing the lessons from this latest relationship:

1. Something I've learned about my co-dependency is that for some reason, I seek validation and "legitimacy" from being part of a couple. That perhaps I feel, as a single male, that people might view me as "untrustworthy" or an unknown quantity unless I'm part of a couple. Perhaps a bit of insecurity on my part. Lots to unpack with my therapist there.

2. That insecurity has caused me to tolerate and excuse some crappy behavior from a couple of exes and my current soon-to-be ex-wife, because of my fear of being alone.

3. I'm in no hurry to be in another relationship anytime soon. Last few times I've ended relationships, I'd hook up with someone within a couple of days. This time around, my focus is on my daughter, my dog, my family, my work, reconnecting with my support system of friends and community, and keeping myself healthy. I've thought about starting a Tinder account, but that would be the worst thing from a legal perspective right now. Learning to again be happy with myself is job one.

4. Still processing all of the red flags from this relationship that I ignored, but not beating myself up about them. (The rejected engagement ring! The first jealousy blowup about my band! The second jealousy blowup! The first ruined expensive dinner! The second ruined expensive dinner!) etc... .

And more to come, I'm sure. Peace to all of you and thanks for being part of this community.

[Caco Canepa]

Update -- It's been three weeks since the fiasco with my calling the police on my uBPDw. (She threw a bottle and started hitting me but I was the one that was jailed for a night and a day, restraining order, etc).

The no-contact restraining order was actually a good thing. We mutually had it lifted after a week in order to co-parent our daughter. One week of no-contact gave me the clarity to see that I was much happier away from my wife and her rage response.

I stayed with some very generous friends for two weeks and have just moved into a house that I'll be renting for the summer. Staying with my friends gave me a chance to see, once again, how a functional, loving relationship should work. Sure, there were minor squabbles and I know they have their moments, but there is an undercurrent of love there that has felt absent in my marriage for years. I know I've made the right call by stepping away.

Since we have a child, the coming years will be complicated. But moving out has allowed me to re-set my boundaries with my uBPDw. I have to be careful around her still, because I still have a court date for the bogus "domestic violence" charges against me and she's inclined right now to ask that charges be dropped. My lawyer has warned me that this is a critical time to take it easy and not bring up contentious topics. If she does press on with charges, I WILL bring in the video of her violence, and my documentation of her patterns of verbal abuse in order to defend myself. I think she knows that she has flimsy grounds, and is embarrassed about the police being called in.

I'm in generally good spirits. Friends and family have been wonderfully supportive. The new house I'm renting is surrounded by trees and morning birdsong. After seven years with someone, I am feeling a bit of disconnection and loneliness — I cut off many ties with friends and community to appease my wife, and it's slow-going to get back into a groove. But I think I'm processing the lessons from this latest relationship:

1. Something I've learned about my co-dependency is that for some reason, I seek validation and "legitimacy" from being part of a couple. That perhaps I feel, as a single male, that people might view me as "untrustworthy" or an unknown quantity unless I'm part of a couple. Perhaps a bit of insecurity on my part. Lots to unpack with my therapist there.

2. That insecurity has caused me to tolerate and excuse some crappy behavior from a couple of exes and my current soon-to-be ex-wife, because of my fear of being alone.

3. I'm in no hurry to be in another relationship anytime soon. Last few times I've ended relationships, I'd hook up with someone within a couple of days. This time around, my focus is on my daughter, my dog, my family, my work, reconnecting with my support system of friends and community, and keeping myself healthy. I've thought about starting a Tinder account, but that would be the worst thing from a legal perspective right now. Learning to again be happy with myself is job one.

4. Still processing all of the red flags from this relationship that I ignored, but not beating myself up about them. (The rejected engagement ring! The first jealousy blowup about my band! The second jealousy blowup! The first ruined expensive dinner! The second ruined expensive dinner!) etc... .

And more to come, I'm sure. Peace to all of you and thanks for being part of this community.

[Lucky Jim]

for some reason, I seek validation and "legitimacy" from being part of a couple. That perhaps I feel, as a single male, that people might view me as "untrustworthy" or an unknown quantity unless I'm part of a couple.

Hey Caco, What makes you think people will view you as "unworthy" without a SO on your arm?  What "legitimacy" do you think you gain as part of a couple?  Presumably you are still legitimate even when you are not part of a couple, too.  Right?  I am uncertain why you suspect people are making these assumptions about you.  Why do you suspect it?

Fill us in, when you can.

LuckyJim

[Insom]

Hi, Caco Canepa.

It sounds like you're in the process of making some strong, positive choices to tend to the (many!) good things you've got going in your life - family, work, dog, support and so on . . .  while also exploring codependency.    I can relate very much to needing to take time out to reflect.

Lucky Jim's questions about legitimacy are interesting.  Is this something that comes up in your role as a single parent of a daughter?  Or is something you've felt for a longer time?

How are you feeling today?

 

[Caco Canepa]

Hi there and thanks for the replys! I'll answer to the "legitimacy" question after the asterisks. *

Firstly -- I feel a little better today although I'm considering making myself less available/exposed to uBPDw.

My sister and her family visited this weekend and I wound up spending a lot of time at uBPDw's house so that all of our toddlers could play together. The weekend was mostly pleasant interactions while the relatives were here, and after they left uBPDw invited me to stay over for dinner. I made the meal, we had a really pleasant conversation, and then uBPDw asked if I could stay to bathe our daughter while Wife showered. When Wife emerged from the shower, her demeanor had changed — she came out angry at me for not being able to do a favor earlier in the day, criticized the pajamas I had chosen for our daughter etc. I just chose to not engage, said goodnight, and left for my house, with uBPDw making snarky comments as I was on my way out — ":)addy's leaving again." etc.

This is telling me that I shouldn't let myself get lulled into a false sense of security around her, and that she can turn and dysregulate at a moment's notice. It is good that I have a place of my own to go to now, and I probably should limit my exposure during this time. (Especially with the recent police history and pending court case, even though she asked for charges to be dropped. Talk about eggshells!)

******

Regarding the legitimacy thing — That's something I've been needing to unpack and which I thought I had addressed and made peace following my first marriage. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself during college to date, find a girlfriend, and marry early because it's what my parents had done. And perhaps I thought about it as how one becomes a "legitimate" adult: get a good job, marry, buy a house, get a dog, have kids, buy a bigger house... .

I got engaged to my college girlfriend right after graduation, and was devastated when she broke it off to join the Navy. Honestly we were too young to settle down, I just didn't see it. I found myself in a new town surrounded by people who were coupled-up and married, and rather than embrace singledom, I found myself feeling like a lone wolf and treated with suspicion. I was also desperately trying to find full-time employment at a company where I worked part-time during the early-90s recession. I felt that my co-workers, who were very social with each other and their spouses outside of work, held me at arms-length. I briefly dated a single co-worker who was well-liked in the company, and that seemed to prompt peoples' acceptance of me. And I liked how that felt.

During that time in my life, the world felt like a very negative, un-friendly place to me. I'm still not sure whether it was my mental state coloring everything, or whether I really was surrounded by jerks. (A little of both is possible). I met and married my first wife (who I now think was BPD herself). After a while, I changed jobs and industries, and gradually met a new circle of friends and lived a pretty conventional life while being accustomed to high levels of conflict at home, because I thought that was normal married life.

(Ha-ha the Lockhorns cartoon... .)  

At some point I discovered marathon running, gained a lot of self-esteem, and found that my abusive married life was not aligned with how I wanted to live out the rest of my days, and had to get away from it. After my divorce, I was happily single in some ways, but always with a female companion in one capacity or the other. Sex was a great security blanket.

But after 10 years single-ish, I started wondering whether I was copping out on my life by refusing to commit. Not growing up. Being Peter Pan. And I took the plunge with a woman who seemed aligned with everything I wanted in life — adventure, travel, athletics. Little did I know that she was trying to fill a gap in her own life, painting me as a white knight, mimicking what I wanted... . 

But maybe with this marriage, I committed to it because I thought it would be important to prove myself as an adult _ that I'm not going into my late middle-age as some sort of man-child. A little insecurity creeping back in again clouding my judgement.

Does that make sense? That's my snapshot of it for now, I might revisit it. Thanks for prompting me to write that, It unpacks some things for me.

[Insom]

It is good that I have a place of my own to go to now, and I probably should limit my exposure during this time.

This sounds like a wise strategy.  FWIW, on the advice of my therapist I'm recently back from a shorter-than-typical visit with a difficult family member and the shorter amount of time together helped things go very well.  Is there a window of time you're aware of in which interactions tend to go well with your ex?  Or could it be the pending goodbye that triggers her difficult behavior?

******

I found myself feeling like a lone wolf and treated with suspicion

   

It sounds like there've been at least a few times in your life when you've felt like an outsider.  i can relate very much to what it feels like to sense there's something different-from-the-norm about my life but to not feel exactly certain what it is or how to fix.  Would it be fair to say you've looked toward engagement in relationship and family life to solve hard to answer questions about life's purpose?