So, here I am, standing for my marriage, taking a tough path, following my values, doing what I think is right. It's tough... .it's tougher than I'd imagined it could be. Even now I have no idea whether or not this path will lead to marital reconciliation or just the same result I could have got 18m ago had I have proactively pushed the divorce down the road she said she wanted to go down.

I feel like I am the only one with the map, I am going my way, on my own. In the distance I can hear my W and her cronies  procrastinating about which way to go... .It's quiet where I am... .but it's pretty lonely and I can also hear my old friends discussing with my W about the path I have taken, what I'm up to and why I'm doing this that and the other, they too are 'helping' her decide which route to take and how to approach it... .or are they just the voices of paranoia in my head caused by the complete vacuum of other interaction and absence of understanding from my peers. Either way I feel very much alone on my tough and long trail. 

I read something recently about Spiritual delusion, it defined delusion as:

"a false, unshakable idea or belief, which is out of keeping with the patient's educational, cultural and social background, it is held with extraordinary conviction and subjective certainty. One can argue with each case but delusion is a phenomenon that is outside normal experience, not ordinary"

So, in many if not all of my close friends view I have a false, unshakable belief that my wife has BPD traits. It is out of my educational, cultural and social background to believe that someone I have known intimately for 21 years has a personality disorder, yet I hold this belief with extraordinary conviction and subjective certainty... .It is not ordinary to believe your wife has a personality disorder. Yet this is the 'delusional' belief I find myself with and therefore this is the map I find in my hand and have chosen to follow... .yet this path takes me further down this definition of delusional thought as it takes me more and more away from the consensus view of my W and more towards the isolated, abnormal belief.

But they don't know what I know, they don't see what I hear, they don't hear what I hear... .

So, this delusional, solitary, paranoid filled, tough path towards an ill-defined destination  of mine, how's it going for me... .I might add that I had spent so long making things worse I was pretty much as low as one could get:

Pro's
Less, almost no conflict
Some sporadic communication
Awesome relationship with my 3 children
Ability to defuse conflict between my children
Greater understanding of D10's emotional sensitivities and how to talk to her about them
Greater understanding of D5's natural emotional volatility and how to deal with them
Greater understanding of the physical signals my body gives me about my own emotional responses to situations... .I'm able to interpret my own emotions via by their physical expression
Ability to create space and time to allow myself to respond vs react... .and response is often silence
Learning that showing is more powerful than telling
Learning that allegations and showing W evidence results in her adapting her behaviour to avoid detection, not her correcting  behaviour or making herself accountable
Accepting that accountability is unlikely
Wife's chaotic behaviour seems to be reducing as emotional intensity is sucked out of the home environment

Cons
Divorce proceedings continuing
Time is ebbing away... .over 2 years now
Awareness of extent of my W's lies... .maybe that's not a con
Paranoia that my close friends are talking to my W behind my back... .or she has approached them and they have not informed me. Friends seem more aligned to her narrative than mine. Resulting in me minimising my communication with them to avoid things getting back to her.
Opting to be there for my kids in the evenings, wife opting to go out, further isolation
Burying my opinions and feelings deep within to avoid expressing my true feelings about W behaviour.
Total lack of information flow with regards to the divorce and her intentions
Inability to plan for the future due to multiple different outcomes based on her choices... .I am okay with most of the outcomes and plan to manage out the ones I am not happy with (hence current path I have chosen to follow), but each outcome has different 'futures' so very little can be actioned and it's more thought than doing.
Sense of isolation
Constant self doubt... .that's kind of a positive in a way, but it's like walking through fudge... .the fudge of self doubt.

I 'KNOW' (delusional) that given what I have experienced that the path I have chosen is the best path to be on... .But it's not easy and there's very few companions and rest stops on this path. FWIW I'm not depressed, I'm not anxious, emotionally and spiritually I am strong as an Ox... .but I'm not happy either... .I'm just meeeeeeeeehhhh.

Enabler 

Hi Enabler, I see your strength like Cat and I really admire the way you were able to sift out the good in all this conflict. As you know I'm in a very similar place so I can relate to feeling strong but very unhappy at the same time.

I'm really sad to hear about the way things have gone with your friends. I'm lucky in that my best friend is not only not a mutual friend but also a mental health professional who has worked with BPD teenagers and gets it totally. For the rest of our friends I maintain the illusion.

Do you think that maybe there is just one friend in your group who could be swayed to your side if you gave them the details they would need to believe, e.g. a look at your records? I understand the risks in this if it gets back to your wife, but maybe they are worth it?

Sending you strength,
ROE

Yeah I totally get you here. In a way, you might be hurting those friends by taking away that mask, that is if the part of herself your wife gives to them is more positive than negative. I often wonder what my wife's friends would do if they knew about the hitting, the clothes shredding, the going out with random guys she meets at a bar.

But that said, I probably don't want to know everything about my close friends. That's for their spouses. No matter what someone does to us, no matter how many lines they cross, no matter how many public FB pages they post crap about us on, that doesn't mean we can do the same. You walk a high path, my friend.

Just to reassess our assets, what support do you have family-wise in all this (yours, not hers)? Anyone who knows the truth of what's happening? And those endless nights at home with kids because wife is out running around is an all too familiar scenario. Anyone who can help out? Sorry if we've covered this in the past but I need a refresher.

~ROE
  

I never "outed" my ex-husband's bad behavior to our group of mutual friends. I didn't do that for a variety of reasons--one I didn't want to involve them in our issues, I was really ashamed of what I was putting up with, and I wanted to maintain our social status in the group.

So when I finally couldn't tolerate any more of his behavior and ended the relationship, I was very surprised that some of my friends confided that, though they didn't know the details, they understood that I was dealing with someone who was disordered.

Ultimately more people ended up on Team Cat than Team Ex, not that I was trying to attract them to my side, but it just happened that way, about 90 to 10%, much to my surprise, since I was much more introverted and less engaging than my ex.

Enabler I was writing the same words to my Aunt back home in the US today. All that I've been through and I don't think I've had that kind of contact from an adult in years, maybe close to a decade. Someone to take care of us while we are rushing to take care of others who don't appreciate it. Wow am I there with you and would give you that hug if I could.

~ROE

Over the past year or so it has become pretty apparent that giving people details or clarifying actually achieves very very very little. People believe what they want to believe and people typically create their own truth based on assumptions and 'back data' rather than any real facts. For example, I have shown friends evidence of my wife's inappropriate relationships, I have read emails to them where she skirts around admitting that she and him had had an inappropriate relationship... .but I meet constant resistance when I suggest it still continues, why, because they don't believe it! Highly infuriating, almost "why let the facts get in the way of a good story". People have to find their own truth, BPD or non-BPD... .telling is futile.


Interesting concept and nicely summarised... .if not a little depressing

Married single is actually how I thought of myself. In the early years of my marriage, my H resented being married and was hardly home. He had painted me black. It was basically me and the kids most of the time. I can understand that loneliness. I recall one day at work another co-worker asked me " are you OK you look tired?" I was tired, and sad and although this was probably an ordinary question for him to ask, I realized nobody asked me how I was doing or feeling. Just like a hug felt like a glass of water in the desert, so did this simple "how are you doing?" feel to me.

We don't have mutual friends. Our lack of socializing together during these times resulted in no couples inviting us anywhere. Going alone in a group of couples is really awkward. I made friends with the other mothers, volunteered at my kids, schools and basically pursued my own friend group. I realized to not do this would be a very lonely path. I also think it is important to keep my marriage vows.  I wasn't dealing with someone who had another person or indicated he wanted out of the marriage. He also didn't act like he wanted in.

Eventually he did decide he wanted to be married to me. I don't know what your wife will decide but you can make friends regardless. It's hard to shake off the effects of the early years of my marriage but I have been able to work on my self esteem and find I don't feel a need to socialize as much. I have a few close friends and that is good enough. Even if we don't feel we get everything we need emotionally from a spouse, we can make bonds with other people and still keep marriage vows.

I suspect what she’s gleaning is validation for herself. I understand the recruiting - my mother does this and nobody is off limits. She tries to recruit my friends, children, and even tries my husband. In her own world she sees people as on her side or not her side. She sees others as “against “ her even if they aren’t. So to feel validated she has to get people close to me to be “against “ me. Fortunately my husband and kids don’t buy into this but her family and friends did. These were people who knew me since I was born. I thought of them as family. Lost them due to the things BPD Mom said to them about me. She has no problem making up lies.

My guess is that your wife doesn’t want to be seen as an adulteress and the person who broke up her marriage so she has to have people think she had significant reasons for her actions.

I need to maintain a soft heart and deal with probabilities. Maybe this is true, in fact I am sure she doesn't want to be seen as an adulteress. Maybe she is trying to explore her past better than her own perceptions allow... .maybe she is trying to understand me... .maybe understand why I have changed... .the thing is, I don't know what her or my friends motivations are, so all I can do is work on the balance of probabilities and balance of LONG TERM outcomes rather than my typical short term impulsiveness. My short term impulsiveness craves to run round, call a friends meeting and as what the heck they are all doing... .outcome I can imagine would be pretty disastrous. Instead, long term outcome orientated response is to put that conversation on the back burner until the outcome looks better or less bad.

I keep arriving home expecting to be met by and intervention party    "We're doing this for your own good... ." Siiiiiiiiiigh