I thought it was getting better

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

After a hiatus from BPD Family, I thought my uBPD H was getting better.

He had been on thyroid medication for more than a year (see the posts on the connection between thyroid illnesses and BPD), he seemed to have calmed a great deal and with fewer episodes of dysregulation.

Last month, he had a birthday cookout (he is almost 60) and he got very drunk.  That evening, still quite drunk, he took me aside and started weeping.  He said it took most of our marriage (more than 20 years) to come to terms with his divorce from his uNPD XW, where she cheated on him while he was overseas in the military, then divorced him to marry her lover and took the children across the country with sole custody.  (H did not fight for custody as XW threatened him with the tricks BPDs do, likely abuse allegations, etc.  See Bill Eddy for more on this.)

While drunk, H said that he had "demons" in him that caused him to abuse me emotionally and psychologically, and to punch holes in the walls and damage furniture and property.  (The latter are actually forms of domestic violence that say, "This could be your face.")  Add to this name calling of the worst kind, and continual divorce threats.  He said, in a way, that he was sorry, and that I should have left him.

Now that H has sobered up, he's back to the abuse.  He wasted 20 years of our marriage covertly incesting his children (now all adults and over 30) and condoning their abuse of me.  The children verbally abused me while H did nothing, and in one case, one child threatened me with physical harm.  No surprise how miserable I was. H still alleges I was "jealous" of the affection he showed his children, still oblivious that parentification of a child is not healthy.  One of the adult children, now a parent herself, still calls her father her "BFF."  It's nauseating how she goes on about this, and I wonder how her poor H himself feels that he is not the best friend of his W.  I suspect this adult D of being uNPD herself as I have known her since early childhood.

His S is a drug and alcohol addict and is in and out of jail.  H sends him money that end up buying alcohol and drugs.  The other D is likely BPD, is also addicted to drugs, and was hospitalized for adverse drug reactions of which she is in denial.  She has the typical pattern of unstable relationships, abuses several types of drugs, and is emotionally unstable. She has most recently devalued her own uBPD F by cutting contact after a shouting match of disagreement.  She continues to abuse drugs almost daily, and has a history of several car accidents that her F has bailed her out of with the purchase of new cars.

Then there is the FIL, also likely BPD.  He is in his mid eighties, and lost his codependent W a few years ago.  His W, my MIL, was his workhorse until her death, at one time working two jobs while this loser of a man worked a series of low paying jobs so he could hunt, fish and play golf.  He was hospitalized for a medical condition where it was found that he had over $ 15 K of gambling debts.  He has no money in the bank and H has to pay thousands for his medical copays.  In the past, FIL lied to H about needing money for property taxes (his home is still not paid off) but was using the money to gamble.  FIL did this several times, each time lying about needing money.

So, my big dilemma is this:  I am now depressed about wasting a good portion of my adult years in a marriage in which I was put as a last priority (my own FOO was a mess), and now I am of retirement age.  What do I do?  I am happy H finally owned up to his part in the unhappiness, but is now minimizing my pay over the decades, saying it was not that bad, and that he tried his best, etc.  Seriously?  Letting his adult D make threats to me, and that's not bad?  He says how she graduated college, has a great career, has beautiful children, as if it cancels all the H%ll she caused me.  This young woman is likely uNPD herself, was abusive to a coworker (workplace bullying) and is also abusive to her codependent (emotionally battered) husband.   She dated him and had moved into his apartment in two weeks, she slept with him and hung all over him and he was hooked like many of us:  love bombing.   In a year they were engaged and married.

I am filled daily with indignation.  More than twenty years of misery that I tried to fix, only to be made out to be the villain.  One D is now suffering health concerns and I know exactly why.   I have a medical background, and yet I am silent.  I said some other things on the health of his family, only to be verbally abused and insulted.  Then things get worse and the person winds up with serious health issues.  (This includes his children's drug abuse, which H has been in denial of for many years.)  I just stand back and watch the sh$t show.

I think I have a right to be angry.  I have been reading Lundy Bancroft who discusses anger after abuse.  I am sick and tired of H's rages, and having to SET.  I want a normal, sane R/S.

[AskingWhy]

After a hiatus from BPD Family, I thought my uBPD H was getting better.

He had been on thyroid medication for more than a year (see the posts on the connection between thyroid illnesses and BPD), he seemed to have calmed a great deal and with fewer episodes of dysregulation.

Last month, he had a birthday cookout (he is almost 60) and he got very drunk.  That evening, still quite drunk, he took me aside and started weeping.  He said it took most of our marriage (more than 20 years) to come to terms with his divorce from his uNPD XW, where she cheated on him while he was overseas in the military, then divorced him to marry her lover and took the children across the country with sole custody.  (H did not fight for custody as XW threatened him with the tricks BPDs do, likely abuse allegations, etc.  See Bill Eddy for more on this.)

While drunk, H said that he had "demons" in him that caused him to abuse me emotionally and psychologically, and to punch holes in the walls and damage furniture and property.  (The latter are actually forms of domestic violence that say, "This could be your face.")  Add to this name calling of the worst kind, and continual divorce threats.  He said, in a way, that he was sorry, and that I should have left him.

Now that H has sobered up, he's back to the abuse.  He wasted 20 years of our marriage covertly incesting his children (now all adults and over 30) and condoning their abuse of me.  The children verbally abused me while H did nothing, and in one case, one child threatened me with physical harm.  No surprise how miserable I was. H still alleges I was "jealous" of the affection he showed his children, still oblivious that parentification of a child is not healthy.  One of the adult children, now a parent herself, still calls her father her "BFF."  It's nauseating how she goes on about this, and I wonder how her poor H himself feels that he is not the best friend of his W.  I suspect this adult D of being uNPD herself as I have known her since early childhood.

His S is a drug and alcohol addict and is in and out of jail.  H sends him money that end up buying alcohol and drugs.  The other D is likely BPD, is also addicted to drugs, and was hospitalized for adverse drug reactions of which she is in denial.  She has the typical pattern of unstable relationships, abuses several types of drugs, and is emotionally unstable. She has most recently devalued her own uBPD F by cutting contact after a shouting match of disagreement.  She continues to abuse drugs almost daily, and has a history of several car accidents that her F has bailed her out of with the purchase of new cars.

Then there is the FIL, also likely BPD.  He is in his mid eighties, and lost his codependent W a few years ago.  His W, my MIL, was his workhorse until her death, at one time working two jobs while this loser of a man worked a series of low paying jobs so he could hunt, fish and play golf.  He was hospitalized for a medical condition where it was found that he had over $ 15 K of gambling debts.  He has no money in the bank and H has to pay thousands for his medical copays.  In the past, FIL lied to H about needing money for property taxes (his home is still not paid off) but was using the money to gamble.  FIL did this several times, each time lying about needing money.

So, my big dilemma is this:  I am now depressed about wasting a good portion of my adult years in a marriage in which I was put as a last priority (my own FOO was a mess), and now I am of retirement age.  What do I do?  I am happy H finally owned up to his part in the unhappiness, but is now minimizing my pay over the decades, saying it was not that bad, and that he tried his best, etc.  Seriously?  Letting his adult D make threats to me, and that's not bad?  He says how she graduated college, has a great career, has beautiful children, as if it cancels all the H%ll she caused me.  This young woman is likely uNPD herself, was abusive to a coworker (workplace bullying) and is also abusive to her codependent (emotionally battered) husband.   She dated him and had moved into his apartment in two weeks, she slept with him and hung all over him and he was hooked like many of us:  love bombing.   In a year they were engaged and married.

I am filled daily with indignation.  More than twenty years of misery that I tried to fix, only to be made out to be the villain.  One D is now suffering health concerns and I know exactly why.   I have a medical background, and yet I am silent.  I said some other things on the health of his family, only to be verbally abused and insulted.  Then things get worse and the person winds up with serious health issues.  (This includes his children's drug abuse, which H has been in denial of for many years.)  I just stand back and watch the sh$t show.

I think I have a right to be angry.  I have been reading Lundy Bancroft who discusses anger after abuse.  I am sick and tired of H's rages, and having to SET.  I want a normal, sane R/S.

[Gemsforeyes]

What do you do?  Is that a real question?  Please understand, AW, I’m not being facetious... you KNOW I support you, always have.

I want to answer your question with honesty and compassion, so I will.  And this is just my opinion and follows not only this post, but most of your other posts.

You’ve been angry and felt depressed for quite a long time.  I’ve also experienced those feelings and can tell you (FROM experience) that when depression comes and stays, it’s “clinical” and needs to be addressed.  It’s up to you whether you wish to allow your depression to set up a permanent residence in your mind.  I hope you’ll move against it.

Your anger?  That’s bigger.  It’s hard to tell whether you’re  more angry at your H, yourself, your FIL, or your step-kids.  That anger is going to cut short your life.  It seems, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but it seems that this anger has become “comfortable” for you.  Why?

AW -  I wish you would leave the past where it belongs... in the past.  The stuff his kids did... car accidents, moving in with whosever lover after 2 weeks, who did or didn’t finish college, what daughter was nasty to a co-worker ... all has zero to do with your marriage.

Your H got drunk on his birthday, wept and began to open up to you.  That divorce was NOT a one and done.  He lost his kids.  And as a result, he lost the chance to be a constant influence on their upbringing.  You KNOW your H has a crap father; and he probably swore to himself he’d be a great dad.  If you don’t think that failure smacks him daily, you’re sorely mistaken.  You don’t need to remind him.  I’m not so sure he’s enmeshed with them... it seems he’s just trying to gain some love somewhere.  He just doesn’t know how.   And GOD only knows what their mother piled into their heads about him when they were young.   You don’t seem to love him.

What do you do?  Stop talking bad about his kids to your H.  There’s not a parent in the world who wants to hear that stuff and who would NOT become angry at you about it - whether what you say is true or not.  I know from experience.  Stop yourself.   Understand that every time you criticize his kids you are criticizing your H.  Every single time.  And that doesn’t mean he is enmeshed.  If he has something to say, MAKE yourself just listen quietly.  If he asks you what you think, tell him you want to think about it for a bit so you don’t give an off the cuff remark that may lead to anger.  I say this even though you say you’re “done with SET”.

What else do you do?  Either decide to work toward caring for your H or leave the marriage.  You are not without resources and neither is your H.  You’ve met with an attorney and you know you will not be left destitute.  I get that fear is a powerful thing.  If you work on that depression and get his kids’ pasts out of your head (perhaps some silent forgiveness is in order?), you’ll see a clearer path.

And Finally... find out what’s REALLY going on with you... why are you so concerned with the past behaviors of his kids?  What are YOU engaging in with YOUR time to fulfill yourself?  What CAN you do to broaden your world, bring in some “color”?

AW - please, for once... STAY here.  Talk.  Listen.  Communicate.  Please don’t brush this stuff off.  There is space to find more happiness.  For you.  For your H.  Maybe together? 

But please stay.

Warmly,
Gems

[formflier]

I would say that you see/push for if his actions will match up to his words (even though they were drunken words)

So...if he is remorseful, there are healthy things he can do.


If he chooses not to do them, I would suggest the drunken words were not really remorseful.

It's beyond my imagination that he can "get better" without a therapist to help guide him.  I would suggest this is a first stop.

Take a couple of weeks to sort out if he will do this...and then I think you will have decisions to make after that.

Clarity:  Focus on that one issue.  What steps is he willing to take so the next 20 are different than the last 20, given what he said to you.

Do whatever you need to do to drop all the other issues (for now).

How does this plan strike you?

Best,

FF

[Gemsforeyes]

Hi AW-

Sorry about the double tap.  Though I would like you to address my response above, can you please tell us in detail about your H’s and your conversation on the night he was drunk... and ONLY that conversation?  Please no history about the kids or anything else... JUST that one conversation and anything specific to That conversation.  A *he said, she said*.

Thanks,
Gems

[AskingWhy]

FF and Gems, thank you for reading.

FF, all I can go on is what H does, not what he says.  People say anything when they are drunk.  If H feels remorseful, he has to follow through.  H is back to his old ways.

Gems, thank you for the long post.  Your kind thoughts are well-intended and usually very long and thoughtful.  

You mention that I dwell on the past regarding my H's children.  Maybe I did not make it clear that his children's behaviours, near the ages of 30, continue in the present day.  

The adult drug addict uBPD D comes to our house then picks fights.  She asks for money when she uses her wages on drugs.  She leaves slamming the door and screams that she hates her F.  Ditto for the drug addict S.  He has cell phones that are paid for by his F, and he always loses them.  These phones are not cheap as the S always insists on the ones that are close to $1000 with all those features, and H is too happy to comply.  The S may be selling the phones for drug money.  The other D, likely uNPD, calls her F at all hours of the day to talk, sometimes several times a day.  She lives in a far time zone and this interrupts our meals, relaxation time (watching movies), and even our intimate time.  You can see why this is so annoying as H will drop everything to take a call, and I do mean everything.

This said, issues with his  children are not just in the past.  As I suspect you have children, this might have caused you to have blinders on empathy with what I am going through.  This is so common for many. As well-meaning as comments might be, the person offering insights just might not "get it" due to other biases.

As for "in the past," you state my H suffered after his childhood with his uNPD F, and the divorce from his uNPD X W.  You state it is not a "one and done," and that he is still suffering from the pain of having his children taken by his X W.  I think it's fair to say he has a right to this pain and the pain of his own unhappy childhood.  He does not, however, have a right to project his rage at them onto me.

You want to deny me of the right of mourning what I have suffered.  I had a BPD parent as many of use have.  I have had to suffer with a BPD man for almost 20 years as he put his children and his entirely dysfunctional family ahead of me.  This is not a "one and done."  Why is my H allowed to mourn the loss of his ability to parent and I am denied the right to mourn the loss of a happy marriage? These years, from my mid thirties to almost 60, should have been the summer years of my life with my husband with joy, good times and prosperity.  Instead, I was relegated to baby sitter, punching bag (for H and his children), financial source (I spent money on groceries, utilities, upkeep for more than two people) while H spent untold sums on child support that was spend on X W and her new H (they had cars every year and several vacations.)  This is not to include the untold amount H spend on children being in and out of rehab, and the luxury items he bought for them when they emotionally blackmailed him, and continue to blackmail him.

Perhaps this perspective will help you see what I have gone through and continue to experience.  I hope you can understand my point of view.

When H tearfully spoke to me, he said he was sorry for all the abuse he caused me to endure, and that I should have divorced him when I considered it.  This was last month, and H is back to his controlling and abusive ways.

My coping mechanism is to sit back and watch H's entire family make a mess of their lives through their own cruelty to others and selfishness.  Everyone who makes his bed must lie in it.    

 

[Cat Familiar]

I understand. I dated a really nice guy whose young daughter I now realize had a personality disorder. Fortunately I figured it out and distanced myself before it got serious.

But later I heard about the suicidal threats, the eating disorders, the general mess she made of her life. And I was so grateful that I didn’t have to participate in any of that.

So I really do understand where you’re coming from.

That said, it’s a decision point. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life dealing with a man who is so enmeshed with his dysfunctional children?

And if you don’t, then when do you want to exit this relationship? Or can you manage to hang in there and hope that things will be different at some point?

[formflier]

FF, all I can go on is what H does, not what he says.  People say anything when they are drunk.  If H feels remorseful, he has to follow through.  H is back to his old ways.

Yes...I agree.  I would also add that what he says needs to be kept in the mix.  Hand it back to him and see what he does with it/ask him to do something with it.

"Hey babe...I was really hopeful after our conversation on (describe time).  Can we move forward on this."  (let him fill in details for now)

Best,

FF

[AskingWhy]

I understand. I dated a really nice guy whose young daughter I now realize had a personality disorder.

But later I heard about the suicidal threats, the eating disorders, the general mess she made of her life. And I was so grateful that I didn’t have to participate in any of that.

That said, it’s a decision point. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life dealing with a man who is so enmeshed with his dysfunctional children?

Cat, thank you for the post.  Children of any age have the ability to destroy a marriage, and this is especially true in blended families.  This is because of parental guilt, and putting the children ahead of the spouse.  This can also happen in intact families.  Many parents are totally oblivious to this and are in denial of the damage they cause to their marriages.  Several people have said they put their children ahead of their spouses, and therein lies the problem.  I would not be surprised if these marriages fail.  No spouse will accept being treated as second fiddle.  Early in my marriage to uBPD H, his guilt allowed him to put his children over me.  My poor self esteem allowed this.  In time, they used me as a punching bag over the hurt they felt over their own uNPD M.  I finally recovered my self esteem and learned to defend myself.  This is because my H failed to protect me as his W.  In fact, his own children would abuse him and he would say nothing.

[Gemsforeyes]

Hey AW-

I apologize that my response came across as insensitive.  That was NOT my intention in any way, shape or form.

I too was a stepmom, to three, for 19 years.  One of those kids was extremely challenging and I did all I could to hide my true pain all those years.  He didn’t hide his utter disdain for me; but when he read in the police blotter (from another state) that his dad was arrested for felony domestic assault (against me, my body), he wrote a long letter to me apologizing.  Go figure...

But no, I’m not on this site because I found it on a fluke.  None of us are, AW.  I found this site in a desperate search trying to find out what on earth was WRONG with my BPD/NPD BF (after my marriage).  Yea... I did it again...  so 25.5 years total.

We all know the pain.  We mourn together.  You DO deserve the space to mourn your lost years of well-deserved and expected happiness.  And I’m truly sorry that my words made you feel silenced.

You DO have a right to your anger, your mourning, ALL of your emotions.  My point is that you don’t have to stay in those feelings.

Before I let it end in February 2020, I would have these quiet moments of solitude and wonder... how am I supposed to heal from these verbal batterings when he’s constantly doing them?   How do I keep forgiving when he steals things from me?   And then I learned that he lied about me.  BIG ones.  How do I deal with a grown man who’s more “married” to his mother than he is to me?  I knew there was something odd, but the twisted nature blew to the surface when his stepdad passed and his mother took over my exBF’s life.  Very very nauseating situation.  And so so many other things... I just couldn’t find any more answers I could live with.  And yet every single day I miss him.

It was only when I realized that I’d come to respect myself LESS than he respected me that I said “enough”.  And at his next awful, unprovoked RAGE, I was finished.  I wrote my own walking papers.

And AW..  during these months, I have processed anger I never knew was inside me.  A LOT of it at myself.  But also at my exH, my exBF... my mom.  A really hard process.  An ugly process.  But a good process.

You’ve got to give yourself the space to feel what you feel.  And when you live with a disordered person, you know you can’t do that.  They don’t allow you that space.  Not without a HUGE cost. 

So how can you do that?  How can you process these feelings and move through them?  How CAN you figure out what you want?  Do you want to stay in that bed? 

Warmly,
Gems

[AskingWhy]

Gems, thank you for the post.  On a key board, it's not always what we want to say and things can come out wrong.  Thank you for the support.

I really respect you for having the guts to leave.  I am still with my uBPD H.  For now, that is.

All of us here are at different levels of awareness and pain. 

My H is married to his adult children more than me.  He is specifically close to his younger D, the married mother with children.  H is vicariously enjoying the grand children as he was deprived of fathering his own by his uNPD X W. The other D is likely BPD with suicide attempts, shallow notions of identity, substance abuse, a chameleon every few months, etc.  The S is homeless on the streets, a drug addict and alcoholic, and you get the picture. 

Yes, there is a cost to living the lie.  Every day I am on edge as to how H will come home from work: angry at his F or loser B, or amourous and pawing at me for sex.  (His real fulfillment is with his adult Ds, but he comes to me for sex.  He can be chatting with one of them on the phone, laughing and telling jokes, telling them about his day, and then rage at me for dinner not on time or whatever. 

For now, it is where I am.  Thank you for reading and replying.