Trigger Warning DV (Part 1)

[getout2020]

When I broke up with my partner just before New Year's, I still didn't know anything about npd/bpd. She has never been diagnosed, to my knowledge, and performing some ad hoc, Internet diagnosis had never been anything I was particularly interested in doing. In fact, I tend to believe these types of crowdsourced medical diagnoses that are seemingly becoming so popular these days can be quite dangerous.

I'm not a mental health professional, so I knew I wasn't qualified to give her condition a name, but I always knew things were not right. She knew it, too. And we were able to talk about it - which I loved and respected about her.

As you can probably already surmise, our relationship progressed very quickly. And yes, there were red flags that I identified as such - but ignored in the bliss of "new relationship energy." Even though I knew better, there was something intoxicating about her. My ego insisted I could expertly manage her drama because I'm not particularly prone to it myself. And she was beautiful, charming and made me feel like I was in on some secret. She made me feel like together, we would be an indomitable force. This was something I longed for - a life partner who was challenging, exciting and inspired me to greater things.

We met in Granada, Nicaragua (she is from nearby El Salvador.) From our first group "dates," she would become irrationally angry at seemingly small if-even-infractions and storm out of public places - expecting me to give chase or make some other dramatic gesture. I knew better - that these ploys for attention shouldn't be encouraged - but my friends who wanted to see me "happy" would bring her back.

Within a week of the official consecration of our exclusive relationship, she was living with me. Within a month, she got a tattoo I had copied on her own body. The tattoo unnerved me. I felt trapped. I had the sense that things were moving too fast, but I didn't know how to pump the brakes - and now that she had me marked on her forever - I very seriously considered what kind of man I would be if I broke her heart out of fear of something too exciting? I didn't want to risk everything because I was afraid.

What did I know? Maybe my fear was what had prevented me from finding something real for a decade before her? Maybe resistance was why I had been alone? This time, I told myself, I'd go for it - where ever it took me.

I did know I wouldn't be able to cope with constant drama, so I set about honestly addressing it. I had to set boundaries.

I learned very quickly that she had been the victim of abusive relationships; she was forthright about them and I prided myself in being compassionate and understanding. Traveling in feminist political circles, I've come to know that - unfortunately - physically and emotionally abusive relationships are far too common and women tend to be victims of abusers. I was determined to do better. She was worth the effort. This history, of course, helped explain to me her erratic behaviors. I felt I understood. And began managing. (I'm not certain now if this was manipulation or not; if anything was true or that she sensed I was withdrawing and knew expertly how to lure me back in. Maybe I'll never know?)

I wanted to be a partner she could trust to be honest with, who wouldn't victim-blame and who would engage with all the manifestations of past traumas with a level of understanding and a plan to work with her to mitigate the worst effects for the health of our budding partnership. I also appreciated the early, halcyon days of our relationship when I could share all the things I'd observed and learned in my previous relationships (about both myself and my partners) and in all the things we learn from our own parents, too. It wasn't just a "project" or saviordom. At least it felt like a mutual endeavor to grow better together.

From very early on in our four year relationship, we were engaged in the work of being open, honest and direct about our experiences and our traumas (I'm not perfect and believe in practicing rigorous self-criticism, particularly where my experiences have shaped how I interact and relate to others.) It was exciting. And often - it was good.

She first physically attacked me (hitting me, but only with downward strikes to the chest) about four months into the relationship. I was able to restrain her and - when we were calm - I told her that could never happen again. That I could tolerate anger, frustration and arguments - but I wouldn't tolerate physical violence. I would never hit her and I expected her to never again hit me. I let her transgress that boundary two dozen times afterwards, but that first incident seemed to have an impact and she didn't attack me again physically for a year. Of course, when she later did, I found excuses for her.

She had boyfriends who cheated on her, so I gave her all my passwords. Her father had been domineering with money (and my father had used money to control my mom), so I preferred her controlling our money. There were all sorts of ways I let her trample my boundaries, but I thought I was building trust and security. I wasn't. I thought I was doing everything right - but in retrospect - I did *everything* wrong.

She convinced me to quit my bartending/bar-managing job and try to start a business with her. She was flattering and I loved the faith she had that I could finally stop working for someone else and start working for myself after 37 years. But we couldn't do it in Granada. There were too many bars and restaurants. We decided to build a hostel on Nicaragua's Ometepe island (she had managed a hotel and I had managed bars - it seemed like a perfect match.) This would be how she started to silo me from my friends.

We struggled mightily on Ometepe. We put everything we had into starting our hostel and the stress was enormous. We weren't eating well. We couldn't afford it. Every dime we could scrounge went into the business we hadn't even opened yet. Whenever she became angry, combative (and yes, violent), I blamed it on the stress. "Someday, we'll get to a place where these external strains aren't as brutal and we'll get back to those earlier days." We never did. Or, more accurately, it was always a cycle. It would get better. Be good even. But only insofar as I was managing not to take bait or let her provoke me. I became "unprovokeable." Or I just let her dominate.

Talking about Granada became a sore subject for her - which meant all the friends I had cultivated there were more-or-less off-limits. But who cares, right? I was with the woman I loved and who needs friends - anyway? The fact that I had had friends in Granada and she had been new in town, looking back, is what bothered her. I had a safety net. People who knew me, believed me, trusted me and were my friends - independent of her control of them or their perception of me.

Protests in Nicaragua in 2018 made us abandon our project there. We went to stay with her family in El Salvador and figure out our next steps. By now, we were engaged, but the complexity (and cost) of getting married were something we continually put off for the sake of the bedrock we were building in our shared business. We found a new location at a beautiful beach in El Salvador and began work to get it ready to be a hostel and bar.

When she argues, however - even over the smallest thing - it spirals. In recognizable patterns. I think if a word cloud was built of our frequent arguments, the words I said most would've been "can you stop yourself?" All the honesty I gave her provided her with incalculable weapons against me. The names of exes I'd had long, long before I ever met her were brought up in the smallest disputes. Her eyes glazed if she didn't get a reaction (and I never gave one because I didn't love those women, I loved her) and I'd have to hide sharp objects. (She had attacked me with a machete on Ometepe, menacing me with it over my head and I whenever I saw her getting angry thereafter, I made a habit of hiding anything that might become a deadly weapon in her hands.) All of this, I forgave. "It was the stress of the business. Someday we'll get open and things will get better!"

I was forever walking on eggshells. Forever relenting and doing what she wanted to avoid conflicts that might spiral. Her moods could change in an instant. She could have a bad dream and be angry at me for something I didn't do all day long. Everything was managing her moods. And still I loved her. Or maybe it was a project? Maybe I thought only I could caretake? Maybe I was trying to save her? Maybe I was a white savior here to heal the broken Salvadoran woman after my country desecrated it with weapons of war? I thought about all of these angles. But I loved us; all we'd been through, where we were going and most of all - the promise of what we could be if we could just get there already!

We were so deep, though, three years in. So close to opening our hostel - now in El Salvador. So close to "getting there" to where we could address our issues. We'd suffered so much together. Been so hungry together (literally.) Seen dreams dashed due to violent protests. I just needed to see it through. Love harder. Prove it. Suffer for it. Whatever stupid things I told myself.

When we opened the hostel (my birthday, February 22, 2019) we had a big party in our jungle bar. Several of my friends from Granada came, so the taboo subject of Granada was on everyone's minds - because it was the one experience we all shared.

The next night, one of her good friends from El Salvador and her boyfriend (also a Nicaraguan) and one of my friends from Granada sat in the bar and had some cocktails. We talked, again, about Granada. I could tell my partner was fuming and resentful, but I couldn't redirect the conversation to another subject. When everyone else went to bed, (M) snapped. She began hurling our brand new bar glassware at me in our brand new bar, so I ran...

I ran up the long, outdoor stairs of the hostel from the bar about 50 yards towards our room. I screamed the name of her friend because I wanted help - and a woman to restrain her. I wanted witnesses. I needed help.

I made it to our room and tried to close the door but she was on it - and brute forced it open. She came at me flailing, her eyes completely blank and vacant. Rage. I grabbed her arms to stop the hitting, and she started chomping her teeth trying to bite my face. I let go of one of her hands to try to push her mouth away from my cheek, took some blows to the head and she bit down hard on my finger. I thought she was going to bite it off. It felt like if my nail hadn't been there, she would have.

I howled every expletive I knew. The door had swung closed in the scuffle and her friend knocked. (M) stopped biting. She opened the door and stormed off - past her friend - crying. Her friend looked at me, shrugged and then went after her. She had seen nothing. Only heard the ruckus and my furious howl. I can't imagine what she thought. And I never talked to her again.

My finger was black for two months. Her friend, having not seen anything, assumed she was the victim of violent abuse and counseled her to leave me. She loved this new power and invoked it often after that. I was devastated. I had called for an intervention and nobody had seen anything, but gender dynamics being what they are - I understood why her friend assumed my guilt.

We resolved afterwards to get her therapy. She suggested it. But El Salvador is weird - or my Spanish not quite good enough - and she ended up going to a Psychiatrist instead. One session. Got prescribed anti-depressants (I knew she wasn't depressed. I thought she was bipolar, but beside that - I hate drugs and had wanted to explore therapy for both of us, not just medication.) I was crestfallen when this didn't happen, but maybe the anti-depressants would do something. She hated them. She stopped taking them.

The hostel was open so we were able to manage not having any more huge fights (because arguments are private things or whatever), but as I had been on a tourist visa, I let my visa lapse because we couldn't afford my traveling to Mexico or Costa Rica to get a new stamp or to leave her alone running the hostel without me. She would use that against me and it broke my heart every time. In any argument from April, 2019 until I left this past February - she would threaten to have me deported. Any argument. The smallest disagreement; where to eat, what liquor to order for the bar, what bands to get to play... She'd threaten to have me deported if I didn't comply with her indomitable will. Or - now that we were in El Salvador (her country) - she'd threaten to have gangs kill me.

Both of these were unrealistic. I didn't believe she'd do either. But that she'd so quickly invoke them hurt me deeply. It wasn't that I was scared of them happening - it was that I felt so betrayed that she'd weaponize them. Especially the "deportation." I was over my visa *for us*. How low to use it against me? I'd tell her when she was calm that these were off-limits for arguments. Boundaries - haha! She'd agree. Then do it all over again next time. My old refrain, "can you stop yourself?" Never.

In April 2019, I committed the first unforgivable sin. With my finger still black from the biting attack in February, we got in another argument. She threatened to have me murdered. Or she was going to kill herself. Or have me deported. Maybe she invoked all of these threats? She slept in another room that night and after she left, I sent my sister a picture of my thumb with the note, "if anything happens to me, it was (M)."

Of course she found this. She had all my passwords. All my "swipe" codes. My devices were all hers. She was furious at me for breaking out of the silo. She now hated my sister and my sister became another on the list of prohibited topics.

And still we stuck with it. I knew if we could make it to "high season" in December, we'd start turning a profit. I just had to make it work. Tip-toe harder. Avoid conflict. Concede more.

In November, we got in an argument and she packed to leave. The codependency was so fully developed, my *need* to make it to December so entrenched, I threatened to kill myself if she did. She had done it a thousand times, but hearing myself do it shook me. I knew it was an empty threat. But it was my last straw. We were so close. I just wanted to see it through. She stayed, but everything changed.

After that, I had no power at all. There was nothing left to play. We were still ostensibly in a relationship, but even the tiny things I could debate over were gone. I had played a card I had no intention of fulfilling and she knew it. She brought her friends to "volunteer" at the hostel. Spent her days smoking weed. Left work to go to parties while I had to watch the hostel. I was the stereotypical, 50s abused housewife: cleaning, catering to her whims, running the hostel almost alone while she went out and partied and tried to keep her happy.

High season came. Money was starting to flow. We were at 75% capacity. Then full. Our first "high season" and we were the darlings of town. But our relationship was a shell of even what it had been just months before, which wasn't much. I still had hope we could make it. String together a few months of the business and take some time for us (and therapy!)

But it wasn't to be.

[to be continued maybe]

[[if you all read this, you're too kind]]

[getout2020]

Sorry I just came in here out of nowhere and vomited all this on whatever unsuspecting person suffers to read it. I didn't even hardly finish this horrible story, but I feel like maybe I wrote this all out for myself. It has been 6 months since we broke up, but only 3 since I left El Salvador, our business and our dog/cat - and all that time has been COVID or riots back here in the States. And only a month since I last talked to her. And just days since she last pinged me to try to get the Pavolvian response she's sure she can still get from me.

This is a really bad time to be trying to start over. For a codependent. .

Anyway. If you read all that. Thanks.

I don't know what I'm doing. Just trying to make sense of things that don't want to be made sense of, I guess.

[DiscoDave]

Hi getout2020,

WOW, what a situation you have been through. That must've been incredibly difficult to not only leave your relationship but business and pets behind as well. It sounds like you really had no choice in the end but had to make that brave step.

Similarly to you I hadn't come across cluster B personality disorders, specifically Borderline until the very end of the relationship when a lot of the traits made sense, I still wouldn't say verbatim that my ex is BPD but certainly displays many characteristics. The violence is really difficult to deal with too, I didn't have it quite as bad as you but it certainly takes you by surprise, fight or flight kicks-in and on several occasions I would have to use physical restraint and then feel very bad after for doing so almost as if I was the abuser!

In those most intense of moments like you I wanted a witness, someone to validate to me that I'm not the crazy one here. On one occasion when the knives literally came out and threats of self-harm made I called upon support from a place of genuine love and concern. However the people that witnessed her in that state were from then on painted black, the resentment towards them remaining for many years after, my involvement with them thereafter limited or curtailed through guilt trips.

Like so many familiar stories one of the greatest tragedies in all this is the erosion of our own sense of self. It sounds to me though that before you met her you were a healthy and confident guy with boundaries, now is the time to get back to the core of who you are. Good luck, I am on that journey with you.

[Rev]

Sorry I just came in here out of nowhere and vomited all this on whatever unsuspecting person suffers to read it. I didn't even hardly finish this horrible story, but I feel like maybe I wrote this all out for myself. It has been 6 months since we broke up, but only 3 since I left El Salvador, our business and our dog/cat - and all that time has been COVID or riots back here in the States. And only a month since I last talked to her. And just days since she last pinged me to try to get the Pavolvian response she's sure she can still get from me.

This is a really bad time to be trying to start over. For a codependent. .

Anyway. If you read all that. Thanks.

I don't know what I'm doing. Just trying to make sense of things that don't want to be made sense of, I guess.

Hello my friend...

Just wanting to reach out. And if respond right now, then I will be able to find the thread more easily.

I will read this - and I will write back.

For now, just know that you have come a great place, where no one is going to judge, where people are going to take you at your word, and where everyone has been there.

So ... I'm sorry you are here, but I am happy that you found this place.

Hang in there.

This is work, but you do get better - even if it may not feel like it.

Rev

[Rev]

Hello again,

Wow - a story that went a few steps further than mine - which makes me glad that I got out when I did.

Mine was just getting to the point that it was moving from abusive to dangerous.  I must tell you that I could have written the same story. Just the location and business arrangements would have changed. The emotional dynamics are the same - identical even.

I have just finished an MA Thesis paper on the Male Victims of Domestic abuse - the target population are Euro American Men - so I am not sure how things translate in a Latino culture. Mind you, I am half Italian and my own Latino side was very present in my relationship - which makes me wonder if there is any significant difference except to say that emotional responses are more overt.

One the major findings in the research project (I read over 80 articles and books) was that in general, men hold women in high regard and "want to do better" - for all the reasons you describe. No savior complex - just to do the right thing.

I have no way of knowing, but I question the "abuse" angle. Research and in my own work with families bears out a couple of things.

1) The vast majority of female abusers (over 70% in one study) suffer from a mood disorder.

2) Their abusive behavior is generally unprovoked and when abusers are lucid, will rarely claim self-defense as a motive, but rather a desire to coerce and punish.

3) The psychological abuse disorients the male victim. She doesn't break him so much as she picks him apart - and then when he doesn't know which way is up - she has him where she wants him. (Men will try to dominate and intimidate - women will manipulate and threaten to ruin the reputation - generally speaking)

Understand that these are generalities and every situation has its own context.

You haven't asked any questions really - so I offer this as a point of reflection.

Personally, I am really glad to hear that you are out - and if I were in your shoes (because it sounds as if I was on my way) I would just keep walking until the addiction wears off.

Today I am dating one of my friends - its different that what I have known - its honest - its not without baggage - and its loving.  

So it can be done.

Be blessed and be safe.

Rev

[getout2020]

Thanks for reading all that. Of course there's so much more. I think maybe I tend to go for the high-key drama rather than the subtle, low-key low-intensity daily conflict. Maybe someday I'll find a way to tell it. The breakup was two months of hell because I tried to stick around for the business and there was just no way to make that work. She was intent upon making me suffer and I wasn't eating, bottling up everything so as not to give her a reaction when she tried to provoke me.

Right now, as I learn more about how her (presumed) disorder and my codependency interplay - I'm struggling with what good "knowing" does? Like... Sure... I know now. I can identify all the red flags. I see what parts I played. But I'm still here *more* concerned to this day (now four months since I fled El Salvador) for her than I am for myself. She's surrounded by enablers; her universe and self-image there is secure (because I left and can only imagine what she tells people now that I'm gone) - they all believe her narrative (and to some extent, are doing "the right thing" in being supportive.) But none of them have any idea. And she so skillfully silo's people, there's no way they'll compare notes and realize she needs a different kind of support.

Another warning I find looking back was that she has like four different facebook pages. Three of them were defunct. But I surmise she had them in different places she lived and had to abandon them so the people wouldn't overlap and start comparing notes. I'd always rationalized the existence of these multiple accounts as, "well, she's gorgeous and gorgeous women get harassed and stalked. Her exes were terrible and I'd want to move on, too." But I'm beginning to think I was very wrong about that.

I don't know. It's all heartbreaking. I know I'm not supposed to feel responsible, but I still feel like I was able to take it - to absorb the bullPLEASE READ - and someone else might not be. I'm a pretty good glutton for punishment. Or a masochist. Or whatever. Obviously, I need to interrogate why that is. But I really don't want to hear that she gets killed or kills someone in El Salvador (a very macho/misogynist culture, unfortunately) without having done something to alert people.

Put another way, I care about her and love her (or whatever I imagine is love, which probably isn't since "love" shouldn't be this destructive) and don't know how that's going to go away. Should I have gone to her family? Should I have talked to her few close, longterm friends? I'm torturing myself thinking about things I could've done differently to at least have achieved some kind of outcome where my conscience is clear and I truly did all I could for someone I care about.

[Sirnut]

Part of loving someone is knowing when to let go. There’s a certain satisfaction in being able to say, I did all I reasonably could, i can’t help her anymore. Is that where you might be getting up to?

[Rev]

Put another way, I care about her and love her (or whatever I imagine is love, which probably isn't since "love" shouldn't be this destructive) and don't know how that's going to go away. Should I have gone to her family? Should I have talked to her few close, longterm friends? I'm torturing myself thinking about things I could've done differently to at least have achieved some kind of outcome where my conscience is clear and I truly did all I could for someone I care about.

Hey Get,

So yeah - this is all really normal in the sense that every single person I have read here has gone through the same questioning.  And from what I read, the best thing about it is that your questions are really pragmatic and rational. Which means the "detox", as I like to call it, is unfolding as it should.

So - what is love is an important question, I think, and for some, answering it after a break-up like this one can be rather painful, because disordered relationships can drill their way down right into our nervous systems - no joke.  PTSD is a common symptom for male abuse victims - as is substance abuse - although the research I read pointed out the substance abuse may  be to adapt to the PTSD and not a direct result of the abuse per se.

Which is a segue into - so now that I know about BPD, so what?  Well, from my point of view, it's just to identify the reasons for the ruminations that may occur. Rational knowledge doesn't solve the problem of ruminations so much as it offers a place to hit the reset button when the hamster starts to run on the wheel.

And then - yes, once there, the work actually starts on why you may or may not have ignored, suppressed, repressed, whatever, the red flags you now identity.   The key is to find a way to do this without beating yourself up - shame is another key symptom of male abuse victims - so even here, in this conversation with yourself, even if you are not a victim per-se, it's something to watch out for.

One thing that really worked for me we to live into new habits - there is something to the "fake-it-until-you-make-it" thing. New habits require new thinking and the new thoughts take time to take root.  My positive psych prof did here PhD research in connection with Olympic Level athletes, performance and understanding how emotions are translated into feelings.

In time, you may find out that nothing you would have done would have produced the outcome you write about. That's the thing about mood disorders - they make no sense and it makes no sense to try to make sense out of them because any attempt to make sense will produces answers that make no sense.  (Hyperbole is intentional) As my mentor said to me when I finally got out of the relationship I was in (which was full on abusive) - Rev, you can't just have a little bit of heroin.

Hang in bud,

Your heart will grow back bigger with a built in BS-meter that will be top-of-the-line.

Rev

[getout2020]

Part of loving someone is knowing when to let go. There’s a certain satisfaction in being able to say, I did all I reasonably could, i can’t help her anymore. Is that where you might be getting up to?

I think that's where I'm trying to get. I just have a hard time accepting that I did do all I reasonably could.

It's amazing that for someone with so little outward confidence, somewhere in my core is an ego that won't relent and admit I'm helpless when it should be obvious that I am. This is not a thing that "gets solved." It's a thing that gets treated and managed - with the help of professionals - over a lifetime. I know that.

I just don't know that I'm not a person willing to still do that. She isn't (but she's in the "love bombing" phase of her new relationship, which will - inevitably falter.) Why am i still willing to give it another go? Does it ever work?

[getout2020]

I just want to thank you, Rev, for the considerable knowledge you've shared. It has been really edifying and helpful.

[Sirnut]

I just have a hard time accepting that I did do all I reasonably could.

I think you did.