Divorcing abusive Japanese wife with Schizophrenia

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

Married 10 years with Japanese wife, two kids (D9, S4). We moved 5 years ago from Japan to US(CA) because I wanted to be less dependent on my wife (on GC now).

My wife had issues early on that I didn’t understand, like outburst of anger (commanding me to clean up her mess, asking for excuses of stuff I haven’t done, rage,…). She told me that she has PMS and her symptoms clearly had a cyclic aspect. She was super nice at other times and won my parents and all my friends’ hearts. Nevertheless, I cancelled marriage because of these issues but agreed to go to MC. I told the T about my concerns, but he brushed it off saying that I am just afraid of commitment and need to learn to accept some range of typical female anxiety issues. So we got married.

A year later my daughter was born, and W behaved somewhat more reasonable throughout pregnancy until she stopped breast feeding (when my daughter was 1 ½). Her rage and controlling nature flared up again and I was looking for an exit plan. I convinced her to move to US for a new job opportunity that I had. We moved 2 years later.

During the first summer she asked for my parents to visit and stay in our house to take care of our daughter. I agreed but within 2 days of my parents being around she started to accuse them of being invasive and aggressive (which is the opposite of how my parents are). My parents literally needed to flee as she started to scream and hitting the walls of the house. I was totally shocked and felt that I can never forgive her - which I told her. She got into a depressive phase as I stopped talking to her and reduced interaction to minimum. To get things better I urged her to jointly visit a local psychiatrist. At that time, I didn’t know much about BPD but I asked the P if that is an option. He refused to talk about something that “would take him years to diagnose”. Later she refused to take the depression medication but somehow got out by her depression on her own.  She made some efforts to control her emotions (like sports and better nutrition) and we made plans to have a second child. My son was born, and she was good during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Her issues return but more severe.  I got a book on BDP but put it away because the outlook seems just too scary at that time.

A bit over a year later, one night she woke me up in the middle of the night wildly gesturing. That night, she started to write messages on pieces of paper not saying a word. I found this amusing initially but soon got to realized that she got completely paranoid. She believed she got “hacked” and this focused her attention, I was off the hock for a bit. She got somehow better in the coming weeks and went to visit her family in japan (with the kids). In Japan she had a complete psychic breakdown where she was picked up naked by the police on the local rail tracks. She was involuntary hospitalized for 2 months. I flew over to take care of the kids and I signed her release papers hoping that she was better (diagnosis was acute schizophrenia).

Back in US she started telling me about the voices that she hears (basically the Japan and US government have devices to communicate with her - but there is hope because one scientist on this secret program is trying to help us). W refused any further medical treatment. During the day she started to function somehow (like picking up the kids from school / daycare) but she returned to her BPD traits (heavy drinking, rage, blame, threatening with divorce). She started to hate the US and now blames me for living here. She tells me continuously that she wants to move back to Japan.
I started to educate myself about mental issues and attending peer groups. I realized that schizophrenia is not my only/main concerns, but I realized that her BPD behavior is.

W is reasonably good with the kids (e.g. she reads every night) but she only needs to take care of my daughter 2-3 hours/day after school before I am home. However, D and S see that she is aggressive to me. One-night W got so in rage and physically attacking me until D came in and started crying. Another day, my daughter complained to W that I have forbidden her to watch TV. W told her that “Daddy should die” (my daughter came crying to me).
On one side I want my kids to “have a mother” but also want to protect them from learning dysfunctional behavior (both BPD and schizophrenia). I would leave W if there were no kids immediately.

I am starting to create an exit plan and plan to talk to lawyer about divorce in the next weeks. Somehow I hope she will just move back to Japan and leave me here with the kids but things might be more complicated. I wounder if documenting abuse help my case to get more than 50/50.

[derosa]

Married 10 years with Japanese wife, two kids (D9, S4). We moved 5 years ago from Japan to US(CA) because I wanted to be less dependent on my wife (on GC now).

My wife had issues early on that I didn’t understand, like outburst of anger (commanding me to clean up her mess, asking for excuses of stuff I haven’t done, rage,…). She told me that she has PMS and her symptoms clearly had a cyclic aspect. She was super nice at other times and won my parents and all my friends’ hearts. Nevertheless, I cancelled marriage because of these issues but agreed to go to MC. I told the T about my concerns, but he brushed it off saying that I am just afraid of commitment and need to learn to accept some range of typical female anxiety issues. So we got married.

A year later my daughter was born, and W behaved somewhat more reasonable throughout pregnancy until she stopped breast feeding (when my daughter was 1 ½). Her rage and controlling nature flared up again and I was looking for an exit plan. I convinced her to move to US for a new job opportunity that I had. We moved 2 years later.

During the first summer she asked for my parents to visit and stay in our house to take care of our daughter. I agreed but within 2 days of my parents being around she started to accuse them of being invasive and aggressive (which is the opposite of how my parents are). My parents literally needed to flee as she started to scream and hitting the walls of the house. I was totally shocked and felt that I can never forgive her - which I told her. She got into a depressive phase as I stopped talking to her and reduced interaction to minimum. To get things better I urged her to jointly visit a local psychiatrist. At that time, I didn’t know much about BPD but I asked the P if that is an option. He refused to talk about something that “would take him years to diagnose”. Later she refused to take the depression medication but somehow got out by her depression on her own.  She made some efforts to control her emotions (like sports and better nutrition) and we made plans to have a second child. My son was born, and she was good during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Her issues return but more severe.  I got a book on BDP but put it away because the outlook seems just too scary at that time.

A bit over a year later, one night she woke me up in the middle of the night wildly gesturing. That night, she started to write messages on pieces of paper not saying a word. I found this amusing initially but soon got to realized that she got completely paranoid. She believed she got “hacked” and this focused her attention, I was off the hock for a bit. She got somehow better in the coming weeks and went to visit her family in japan (with the kids). In Japan she had a complete psychic breakdown where she was picked up naked by the police on the local rail tracks. She was involuntary hospitalized for 2 months. I flew over to take care of the kids and I signed her release papers hoping that she was better (diagnosis was acute schizophrenia).

Back in US she started telling me about the voices that she hears (basically the Japan and US government have devices to communicate with her - but there is hope because one scientist on this secret program is trying to help us). W refused any further medical treatment. During the day she started to function somehow (like picking up the kids from school / daycare) but she returned to her BPD traits (heavy drinking, rage, blame, threatening with divorce). She started to hate the US and now blames me for living here. She tells me continuously that she wants to move back to Japan.
I started to educate myself about mental issues and attending peer groups. I realized that schizophrenia is not my only/main concerns, but I realized that her BPD behavior is.

W is reasonably good with the kids (e.g. she reads every night) but she only needs to take care of my daughter 2-3 hours/day after school before I am home. However, D and S see that she is aggressive to me. One-night W got so in rage and physically attacking me until D came in and started crying. Another day, my daughter complained to W that I have forbidden her to watch TV. W told her that “Daddy should die” (my daughter came crying to me).
On one side I want my kids to “have a mother” but also want to protect them from learning dysfunctional behavior (both BPD and schizophrenia). I would leave W if there were no kids immediately.

I am starting to create an exit plan and plan to talk to lawyer about divorce in the next weeks. Somehow I hope she will just move back to Japan and leave me here with the kids but things might be more complicated. I wounder if documenting abuse help my case to get more than 50/50.

[Another One1]

This will be a long road but you are on a good first step. From what you have written my assumption is you are in a fairly strong position if you are calm and careful about how you proceed.

From what you have written, I would expect a good lawyer could get much better than 50:50. That could cost $100-300k.

In the absence of that money available it would be harder to know what would happen.

As part of your exit plan look into what needs to be done to prevent her flying with the children. There may be a register you can apply to to prevent them having air travel.

[ForeverDad]

As part of your exit plan look into what needs to be done to prevent her flying with the children. There may be a register you can apply to to prevent them having air travel.

Japan puts their citizen's parental rights over the spouse's rights.  They haven't signed on to the Hague Child Abduction Convention.  Hopefully you still have the medical, mental health diagnosis and police documents from her prior incidents in Japan.  That should help you next time (if there is a next time) should she refuse to return the children.

The US Dept of State does have a register where you can list the children to get alerted on passport or international travel actions.  But that may not be helpful if they also have dual citizenship.

[livednlearned]

My son (17) recently told me "I wish you had protected me sooner."

We left his uBPD dad when he was 9.

What would you wish your stable parent would do if you were your kids?

Emotional safety is key to their healthy development.

We don't get to have do-overs 

[mart555]

My son (17) recently told me "I wish you had protected me sooner."
We left his uBPD dad when he was 9.
What would you wish your stable parent would do if you were your kids?
Emotional safety is key to their healthy development.
We don't get to have do-overs  

Geez... that hits hard.  Better late than never but I frequently regret not pulling the trigger earlier (did it 6 months ago, kids 10 and 14, and I'm soo far from being out of the woods!).   This does reinforce my need to keep fighting for more than 50-50. I cannot leave them with her half the time!  It's really a pain that they feel like they are the best parent and cannot see the truth, well they do, but it only lasts ~2 days then they are off the rails again.