What next?

[Dragon72]

Hi folks!  Some of you may know my story from the Conflicted board. I am taking the plunge and moving myself to this place as I think my situation has evolved to a very critical degree.

In a nutshell:
-Married since January 2013 to uBPD/NPDw.
-I am a UK citizen. She is a Mexican citizen. We live in Mexico.
-We have a son, born October 2013.
-He is a pupil in the Kindergarten of the school where I teach at secondary level.
-My wife has slept in our son's bed every night (except 1 or 2) since he was born. 
-I made the school's child psychologists aware of this and they have twice recommended that my wife move out of his bedroom.
-She has been splitting me increasingly black with emotional and physical intimacy practically non existent.
-Many false and groundless accusations of:
dishonesty
infidelity
theft of my own money
bugging/tracking her phone
and - most recently - sexual abuse of our son.

These accusations have so far not been public, but just between us, and maybe her siblings with whom she is staying at the moment for a few days in their house half a mile away.

I felt that when she accused me of abusing our son, a line had been crossed. I don't feel I can live with someone who thinks I could be so evil.

However, if I say to her that it's time to split, my concern is that she will go public with the accusations and really put my livelihood at risk, given my profession.

If you were I, what would be your next move?

[Turkish]

What happens when sexual abuse of minor accusations are made to the authorities in Mexico?

Also, how is the dynamic with her family? I'm in California,  but my ex's family are all mechanism immigrants so I get some of the cultural dynamic.  Reporting is a no-no. Deal with it within the family. Eldest male, the patriarch, makes the decisions,  even if there is trouble with a wayward daughter.

[kells76]

Hey Dragon72, good to see you over here on these boards, but sorry for what brings you here... .

Abuse accusations are really horrible. There can be a weird dynamic around them for a pwBPD, though -- at least from my experience with DH's ex.

What "fed the fire" for her was defensiveness and pleading from DH. A few years back DH got a job teaching a the co-op school where the kids went. Mom told him she was pulling the kids out because he was emotionally abusive. He basically begged her not to do that, but she did. She even talked with the head of the school and one of the teachers, who (thankfully) called her out -- look, if DH is this way, then wouldn't the kids be safer around him HERE, with us watching? (Note, Mom made no changes at the time to the time the kids spent ALONE with DH... .*eyeroll*). Mom had no coherent answer to that (the head of the school filled us in on this afterwards).

OK, so, my sense is that many pwBPD have lost or do not have the ability to accurately identify actual abuse. Coupled with a lack of self awareness, this means that their radar goes off for things that are like a 2 with other people, while their own behavior can have actions that are like a 6 but they are oblivious. Having your son sit on your lap should be a 1, but it's a 9 to her. Her sleeping with your son should be a 6, but is a 1 or 0 to her.

If I were in your boat, I would -- for now, while coming up with a long-term plan -- practice not JADE-ing about her accusations. I would try some of FF's recommendations (from the other board) up front, while behind the scenes you carefully and thoughtfully put together a plan.

That's not because abuse accusations aren't a big deal. It's because you want to be in the driver's seat of this car until you can decide which exit to take. You can think about what actions (or non-actions), responses, and behaviors might keep the fire from flaring up at home -- not because it's your job to manage your W's feelings, but in order to give you space and time to come up with a solid plan.

DH just went through this again recently, and our T's advice was to not bring it up with Mom. Any angle of addressing it with her would only "validate" to her that her momentarily heightened awareness of "abuse" was real. He advised essentially letting the match burn and flare out on Mom's (brief and unfocused) timeline, instead of feeding the fire with denials and refutations.

Hope that makes sense. This is really tough stuff. Keep posting here and letting us know how you're doing. And keep loving your son

[AnuDay]

Kells said it best.  You need a firm plan in place.  Until then practice softening the blows using the skills from the other board.  Try to keep the peace.  Have you gone to marriage counseling?  You also want to get the paper trail started.

[formflier]

Hey Dragon... .good to have two separate threads... with very different thoughts.

Le'ts focus on legal arguments for a bit.

I get it that pushing a PD in court is problematic... .that seems to be the same all over the world.


Please get back with your lawyer guy with a list of question... .or more specific questions.  Let's try to get a good list together.

Assuming you don't start out arguing she has a PD... what if the court "discovers it through their own processes?

What if you focus on the behavior?  Can you put that into court documents?  Such as... .no co sleeping, no (fill in the blank) and tie that to professional recommendations about the health of the child.

Ask it another way... .is the Mexican court primarily focused on welfare of the child?


Can you "impute" income from her income sources she is "choosing" not to use?

Some of these questions and the answers will affect advice in another thread.

For instance... .I think it would be a good thing for her to start using her sources of income... so there is more parity.  You can force that choice... .although she may choose to do without.

FF

[formflier]

  Eldest male, the patriarch, makes the decisions,  even if there is trouble with a wayward daughter.

I'm very interested in this idea.  I don't think I've heard much of anything about her extended family or Dragon's relationship with them.

FF

[Dragon72]

AFAIK, I have a good relationship with her family.  They have always made me feel welcome and I have never gotten the sense that they think ill of me.  They have done favors for me in the past, and I have done some for them.  I have always been made to feel part of the family.

It's a big family.  My wife has 6 siblings (3+3).  2, a bro and a sis, live in houses within half a mile of us. They're the ones I see the most, for obvious reasons.  Her nearby sister is the only wife-approved babysitter we have actually used. Another brother lives a little further away, but we see him about 7 or 8 times a year at birthdays etc.  Another (my favorite) lives in a city 90 minutes drive away.  We see her and her family about 4 or 5 times a year and sometimes go there to stay a few days during school vacations.  2 more live with my wife's parents in Northern California (USA) where they spend most of the year. My parents in law usually spend the winter months here in Mexico City at their family home, which is occupied year-round by my wife's brother. It's one of the ones half a mile from here.

MIL is the power-broker.  The Doña.  You can tell she has queen bee status when she's here.  All her children call her "Usted". Very respectfully.  She is really pleasant and mothering, and I get on well with her, but I can tell that you'd never want to get on the wrong side of her.
FIL is quiet, amiable, but definitely takes a back seat to his wife who wears the trousers.

My wife casually threatened me once when we were in couple's therapy.  She warned me that "you're not the only male member of my family you know".  Both the T and I interpreted that as a veiled threat of violence that she would ask her brothers to visit me if I ever did something bad enough, and we challenged my wife to clarify that at the time she said it.  "Just saying," was her reply.  I can see that sort of thing happening in Mexico, where blood is thicker than water. All depends on how successful she might be in converting them into flying monkeys.  And it would depend on what my wife's fertile paranoid imagination might decide that I've done.

But, for the time being as far as I am aware, they're cool people, I like them and they like me.

I'm not sure how much they are aware of my wife's, ahem, instability, but I remember once being pulled aside by one of them when our son was born and warned that post-natal depression could be an issue. It wasn't.  She was still in relative idealization phase in the months after he was born, with the occasional sign of things to com.
Another time, I got a barely discernable bit of advice from a sister in law that my MIL had treated my wife pretty mean when she was a kid.

That's the scoop on her FOO.

[formflier]

So... .since you have extra money in the budget (from the allowance)... .take your FIL to lunch... alone.

We can help with some questions... .perhaps Turkish can help with cultural dynamics.

FF

[Dragon72]

FIL's thousands of miles away in Northern CA.

I think it might be worth talking to one of my BIL's though. He has great respect in the family as being intelligent, sensible and rational.  Plus, I have talked to him before about one or two of my wife's dysregulations, but not using BPD terminology, just describing events.

[formflier]

FIL's thousands of miles away in Northern CA.

I think it might be worth talking to one of my BIL's though. He has great respect in the family as being intelligent, sensible and rational.  Plus, I have talked to him before about one or two of my wife's dysregulations, but not using BPD terminology, just describing events.

Generally... the advice is to leave family out of it.  My interest in the FIL thing was only because of the cultural angle.  Hopefully Turkish or others can advise.

Tell me more about the conversation you had with BIL.  What did he do after this that made the situation better?

FF

[AnuDay]

Personally, in my cross-cultural relationship I didn't have any luck with the ILs.  The FOO for the most part was just as mentally ill as the BPD... .otherwise my ex would've never had BPD to begin with.  The FOO can really screw things up by restarting patterns that they engaged in in the past which probably led the person into developing BPD to begin with.  It's just a cycle.  I was so glad when I was able to get out of the FOO's country.  On a positive note, there were situations where I was able to find 1 or 2 allies in the FOO that were able to change the BPD's behavior temporarily.  The MIL was really the initiator of the unstable behavior, I was never able to neutralize her though. 

[Dragon72]

The MIL was really the initiator of the unstable behavior 

The root of the problem is usually the mother, sadly.