How do I not fall into manipulation during divorce? Children are at stake...

[Evliya]

Hi everyone

I’m new here.

I am have a short-term question and a long-term question and some background below for those who have the time to read. I am grateful, in advance, for the support.

Short-term question: my BPD husband and I seem to have arrived at a point of amicable divorce but I am worried because he is just agreeing to all my terms. Letting me move to another state with our girls, agreeing to pay a high (but fair)  amount of child support, saying he doesn’t deserve a 50/50 split of my much-higher retirement account. He says he is doing it because he still loves me (hard to believe since he’s basically moved in with another woman) and I know how he can flip flop between being nice and mean, trusting and not trusting. What type of a mind game is this? Will it come to bite me later?

Long-term question: I am now awaken to the fact that I was manipulated to become a caretaker for an adult man. Obviously elements of my own nature prepared me to do this for him. I jumped over all the red flags. How do I now stop myself for doing the same as the custodial parent of our 3.5yo girls? How do I stop myself from helping when help is not needed... I feel like it’s going to take me years to recover from this... (and yes, I did just start therapy).

Background info for those who are willing to read:

I heard about this support group while reading the Eggshells book. My soon-to-be-ex and I have been together for 23 years... since we were 19. I knew of his mental struggles and just powered through them over the years but never thought to read about it... until our marriage dissolved. He got emotionally entangled with our play auntie, a younger colleague of mine who I treated like a sister, and now is onto that other life.

My husband has been in therapy as long for almost 15 years and is on medication. I had not heard a diagnosis — he never gave me one, other than fear of abandonment due to being raised by a schizophrenic mom. Yet there was  that one pysch consult that he had to have for his liver transplant that labeled him BPD and disqualified him... we had both cussed at that psychiatrist at the time and switched to another hospital. As I now read on BPD and reflect back on our marriage, I am realizing that I was constantly manipulated into the caretaker position, always being asked to prove my love. Never being enough. You know the drill...I almost believed when he told me that I had taken him for granted and not loved him (in the way he wanted to be loved). Until everyone I know reminded me that I had doted on this guy. That I had nursed  him back from a liver transplant. That I had taken him back 10 years ago after he cheated on me with a mutual friend and then tried to commit suicide. In our daily lives, I did  everything for him bc he simply wouldn’t (claimed couldn’t) and I could... to the point where I put his needs above mine. And that was the no win situation. I never wanted kids but he did. I let him push my boundary, yet another time. And then we had twins and I was swamped. It was even worse with the pandemic - working full time and taking care of two toddlers... he felt ignored. Now his narrative is that I had abandoned him way before he left me. I feel so hurt and so stupid at the same time.

But I’m claiming my life back. Putting forward what I want. Let’s hope I can get it...

[PearlsBefore]

 

Welcome to BPDFamilies, happy to meet you, sorry you're here.

Probably not responding to the parts you needed most, but what jumped out at me...

a) There is a correlation between parental schizophrenia and BPD. There's also a correlation between parental neglect and precursors of BPD which I assume might ultimately trace back to the same underlying issue. I'm not familiar enough with the subtypes of schizophrenia to really dive into how some would be negligent whereas others would vary between negligent and over-attentive, and how that would impress upon the mind of a toddler, etc.

2) At risk of practising family therapy without even almost, sort of, a kind of license...I'm neither surprised nor particularly worried by the fact he says he still loves you and doesn't see any contradiction between that fact and why he's currently living with another woman. BPDs have an unstable identity because they don't have a self-schema as we really define it - today they're a Nazi, tomorrow a Communist; but when they fall in love they fall in love hard and that can become the only thing they "know" about themselves. Don't know if it's related, but I do know a pwBPD who was bothered that their spouse was contemptuous of their fits of rage...so the pwBPD decided that having an affair would be the best method of...not revenge...but winning more respect from the non-BPD. It's insane, no rational person would think a spouse will take back a cheating spouse with even MORE respect for them...but since BPD splitting "everything is black or everything is white" is at play, they often fail to distinguish the difference between jealousy and love, love and respect, respect and casual friendship, anger and sadness, etc.

iii) Simplest little thing to do - don't aggrandize and feed your children's natural awe of you by pretending to know what you don't know. If they ask why the conveyor belts are blue in this grocery store instead of black, say you don't know but they can ask the manager over there. If they ask how to say "spaceship" in Spanish, don't just look it up on your ipad but suggest they should phone their uncle who speaks Spanish to ask him. Etc.

[Evliya]

Thank you @PearlsBefore. I appreciate you taking time to write and providing helpful perspective.

[ForeverDad]

You asked why he's so cooperative now...  evidently his attention is focused on his new lover.  He's in the idolization phase and so he's being, um, "less obstructive" than you expected.

And whether he will be less cooperative later... If his current affair fizzles out — he gets dumped or dumps her — then he is very likely to be less cooperative and probably even obstructive.

The good thing about child support is that courts have formulas to calculate it, it doesn't depend on how nice you want to be nor on how little he wants to pay.  The calculations will ensure you and the kids get decent treatment.  However, be aware he may want to hide some of his assets or income to reduce his obligations.

Very important:  His agreeing to let you move out of state is a Gift you can't take lightly.  Is his promise to allow the move in writing?  I ask because he could change his mind at any moment and you don't want to spend valuable time and money in a challenge later on in court if you can avoid it.

Also, be aware that custody and parenting laws say that your moving to another state doesn't create your legal "residency" there until you've been there for 6 months.  Seek legal advice on the details so you don't make incorrect assumptions.

My final reminder... Don't share information with him except for necessary parenting matters such as exchanges, appointments, etc.  Why?  When you are trying to improve a marriage, you do share information.  But when the marriage is ending, you have to protect your legal options and strategies, otherwise you very easily could sabotage yourself and the children.

[livednlearned]

Oof. He's off with someone else and you have two toddlers and a full-time job during the pandemic. That is some raw pain there. Are you moving to be closer to family or friends who can help support you?

I know how he can flip flop between being nice and mean, trusting and not trusting. What type of a mind game is this? Will it come to bite me later?

Do you mean how could it bite you later in a legal sense? Or psychologically? Maybe both?

If he is BPD, he's most likely fully in the moment with whatever feelings are first and foremost. Perhaps he is in the idealization phase with the play auntie and so he's agreeable (and maybe somewhat contrite). Or he sees family matters as a distraction while he's experiencing his (short-lived) cloud 9. When idealization wears off, that could be a rougher patch.

Anecdotally, it does seem that BPD men tend to walk away from parenting responsibilities more than BPD moms. Although that can be complex. My ex fought to get more visitation in court but then gave it back freely in practice. Parenting can be overwhelming for people who struggle to take care of their own needs.

How do I now stop myself for doing the same as the custodial parent of our 3.5yo girls? How do I stop myself from helping when help is not needed... I feel like it’s going to take me years to recover from this..

You're so wise to be asking this question, and how wonderful to be asking it when the girls are still toddlers.

There are some wonderful resources that can help break the cycle of codependence for parents. What are some of the issues you see playing out with the girls?

I’m claiming my life back. Putting forward what I want. Let’s hope I can get it...

The silver linings can be hard to envision when you are getting steady on your feet, and yet they are there nonetheless. You have so many positive signs that come through in your post here, and they bode well for your next chapters  

 

[Evliya]

Hi @Forever Dad and @Livednlearned.

Thank you so much for your replies.

I do suspect as @ForeverDad  noted that he is being agreeable now because he gets to have his fun with his 31 year old lover. They fell hard for each other (both are emotionally damaged so there’s some bonding around that) so I’m hoping their fun lasts until the move date - May 15. I am working with a lawyer, without his knowledge (my mom sent money into a separate account I created), and feeding him legal language “I researched” on the parenting plan. That Plan, when signed, will enable me to move. He has qualms about parts of it (fears that I will “curtail” his visits) so I’m having us work with a child psychologist on finalizing the plan and thinking about how we operationalize it. It’s going to take a few more weeks but I think he’ll be more at ease to sign it. I was afraid that he might change his mind but I know he has now simply accepted it as a given because he’s telling family and friends that we’re separating and I’m moving to Boston — one of two places we were planning to move anyway when the kids start public school. I don’t have any family in the US but went to school there and spent ten years there —  my entire support network, job opportunities, and preferred lifestyle is there.

I am surprised he opted to stay in Atlanta and even keep the house by buying me out. To me it almost seems like he is actually relieved not to have to deal w raising kids even though he actually really does great hanging out with them. (Neither he nor the girl have anyone or anything tying them to Atlanta other than jobs). Also knowing him, it’s the easiest thing to do. He is making me do all the work with this separation too btw - he lacks motivation and follow through. The risk is that he can blame me if it doesn’t end up working for him which is why I’m going the child psychologist route to get him to buy into it more.

It’s just been tough having to grieve (I lost 20 lbs!), plan a future life, and do all the work for a separation in eight weeks while seeing him go in and out of the house to see the kids ( not to mention I still do all the cooking, cleaning etc). It is however a relief not to also be worried about if he is getting upset at me for  one thing or another or if he is getting depressed. His emotional weight is lifted of me. I will grit my teeth and continue in my caretaker role for another three months as it’s the only way to ensure that I get to exit this mess the way I want it. Then the self repair begins...

As for our  girls - I can’t replace the day to day with the girls but maybe I can emulate his free, fun spirit — much easier for me to be happy and silly when he’s not around anyway. But I also want to make sure I let them stumble through, learn by themselves, be ok with them doing things their way etc. Also because I will need their help to make this work - I can’t afford to lose myself in trying to make another person happy again.

I know what I want to do, I’m a planner and hard worker. I have no idea what will happen to him. Part of the challenge with the separation also is to ensure that he doesn’t come back crawling and trying to push my boundaries again.

[livednlearned]

Part of the challenge with the separation also is to ensure that he doesn’t come back crawling and trying to push my boundaries again.

That can be the biggest challenge for many here.

How are the girls doing?

As kids get older the parent's BPD traits tend to come into focus more. There were times with my ex I wondered who the child was. Kids need to individuate from their parents, and core boundaries begin to form around ages 5-6. That was the age when my ex began to emotionally, psychologically, and verbally abuse our son in ways I consider unforgivable.

How would you respond if he begged to reunite the family?

[Evliya]

livednlearned - I am so sorry to hear about your experience.

Yes - I do worry likewise about what emotional expectations he might place on our children as they get older. Especially if he ends up being by himself. He can't deal with being alone - emotionally, as well as in terms of being able to take care of himself.

Right now, the kids are doing great. We tried to shield them from everything. They realize now that dad doesn't sleep here anymore but they know that he shows up at 7:30am every day, takes them to daycare, picks them up, and stays until they're tucked in. So they haven't missed out like I have. On weekends, we've been doing this thing recently where he shows up around noon - they're told that he's hanging out "with his friend Nick". They're not phased. But it will be different when he is no longer there physically.

They are twins - so they have each other. It's an amazing bond. Since he left me and I started reading up on BPD, I've had the realization that he never leaves our kids alone - he's always wanting their love and attention. He couches it as "educating" them but it's also a way of getting affirmation for him. I imagine this scenario where this girl leaves him (she also has emotional issues - I can see much trouble ahead for them once I'm gone and he realizes that she is not a caretaker personality)... and then he decides to move to Boston to be closer to us. That's what I think about as I'm writing our Parenting Plan, and our Financial Plan to file with our divorce... I think at some point my girls will also learn how to love their Dad without being "caretakers" - hopefully I will be to help them out, having managed it myself.

[GaGrl]

In planning a move, you will find certain agreements to be important in the parenting agreement. Here are a couple that occur to me...

1) When a parent is long-distance, the phone call/FaceTime schedule becomes very important. If set up wrong, it can become very disruptive to your schedule. Things to consider are...how often? What time? Will the schedule interfere with dinner, homework, extracurricular activities? How long will the calls last? Can you monitor the calls? Who initiates the calls?

2) Should you have a long-distance parenting agreement, and he then moves to your location -- what happens to the agreement? Does it become completely null and require a re-do? Who pays for that? You might want to work in a conditional agreement on what happens if you at some point both reside in the same location.

[Evliya]

Thank you @GaGirl. Very important points. I do also wonder about the conditional on how we may coparent if we are in the same location.

As for the FaceTime protocols... The language we have now doesn’t specify times... I guess the hope is that we would coordinate but is that too much to hope for? Should there be times specified? Or should we specify that it shouldn’t interfere with other activities, etc?

“The parties agree that the children benefit from having regular phone calls and video access to their Father given his distance. Father shall have daily video access to the children during reasonable hours and of reasonable duration.
The children are allowed to call either parent at any time.
The purpose of this provision is to maintain contact with the children and shall not be used to harass, annoy, interfere or unreasonably pry into the personal life of the other parent.”

[alleyesonme]

As Pearl said, welcome to the board, but sorry you're here. Especially given the fact that you two have been together for so long and from such an early age, the divorce in itself has to be really tough on you. Then, like you said, everything that has come with it and is right around the corner.

Personally, I feel that when two "normal" parents divorce, the kids should almost always share equal time with the parents. When one parent is a BP, everything changes in my eyes. The fact that you'll get your kids the vast majority of the time is huge for you and your kids' long term health and development.

As others have said, try to make sure that every possible contingency is covered in the settlement you two agree on. The great thing about it is it'll be legally binding, so even if he has buyer's remorse several months/years from now when his other relationship inevitably fizzles out, you'll still have that agreement to protect your parenting time.

I would also imagine that you will be a much better version of "you" when this is all said and done. I'm currently going through a divorce right now, and I feel much more at peace when I'm with our daughter than I did during the marriage because I'm no longer worried about getting my head ripped off for no reason at any second. The dynamics between you and your husband are obviously different, but I think the same general concept could apply to you as well.

[alleyesonme]

Thank you @GaGirl. Very important points. I do also wonder about the conditional on how we may coparent if we are in the same location.

As for the FaceTime protocols... The language we have now doesn’t specify times... I guess the hope is that we would coordinate but is that too much to hope for? Should there be times specified? Or should we specify that it shouldn’t interfere with other activities, etc?

“The parties agree that the children benefit from having regular phone calls and video access to their Father given his distance. Father shall have daily video access to the children during reasonable hours and of reasonable duration.
The children are allowed to call either parent at any time.
The purpose of this provision is to maintain contact with the children and shall not be used to harass, annoy, interfere or unreasonably pry into the personal life of the other parent.”

Regarding FaceTime calls, you'd be surprised at how difficult a BP can make them. In our situation, my stbEX will often just put our daughter in a crowded and noisy room and refuse to put her in a quiet place, which completely ruins the call. She also frequently just puts the phone on the floor and leaves the room (our daughter is a little younger than your kids), so I barely see our daughter during the call. Try to cover as many of these issues as possible in your agreement. Once the kids are older and more independent, it won't be as big of an issue.

[ForeverDad]

As for the FaceTime protocols... The language we have now doesn’t specify times... I guess the hope is that we would coordinate but is that too much to hope for? Should there be times specified? Or should we specify that it shouldn’t interfere with other activities, etc?

My usual "Danger, Will Robinson!" voice jumps out on this.  Beware of "reasonable" telephone/video contact or "mutually agreed" exchange locations.  What is reasonable?  What if you don't agree?  Those boilerplate phrases may be okay with reasonably normal people but those phrases can sabotage us because we don't have reasonably normal ex-spouses.

"The parties agree that the children benefit from having regular phone calls and video access to their Father given his distance. Father shall have daily video access to the children during reasonable hours and of reasonable duration."

Daily?  That sounds too much.  At least as part of an order.  Regular is fine, 2-3 time a week, but daily...

"The children are allowed to call either parent at any time."

This too sounds well-intended but what if it's at an inconvenient time or at bedtime or just as you're walking out the door...

You may think I'm paranoid but I I got slammed hard by court over this.  My divorce was over and there was some reason we were going to court the next week.  Well, my cell phone died the Friday before, canoe trip and a few drops of water got into the bag containing my cell phone.  So I changed my greeting to say to call my house phone.  I didn't think any more of it.  Well, it was such a  quiet weekend that I listened to my VMs late Sunday night.  Oh, oh.  My ex was screaming that she wanted to talk to her son.  In order to leave those VMs she had to listen to the updated greeting to call the house phone.  Of course she refused to do that.  He was already asleep so before we left that morning I had him talk to her on the phone.  I then bought a new cell phone.  On Thursday in court my Ex virtually cried saying she couldn't talk to her son last weekend.  Magistrate was peeved about her schedule already behind but declared, "I'll fix that."  Without even asking me my side of the real story she ordered calls between 8:00 and 8:30 pm.  So no cinemas, parks, religious events or similar activities in case she called.  Fortunately that was undone by a more experienced magistrate a few years later.  Imagine what that did to vacations in the Rockies and California where you never can be sure of reception in the rurals or mountains.

It's hard to predict where you'll have difficulty in the years to come.  Many (but not all) disordered fathers seems to drift away and less parenting is within their comfort zone, hard to predict.

[GaGrl]

Along the lines of what ForeverDad says, you want to ensure that FaceTime/phone calls do not interfere with regular meal times and other scheduled activities. We have had parents here who had to ensure phone calls were made during a dance recital or school orchestra concert, because the time was locked in with no priorities over that time.

[livednlearned]

It's always a fine line between encouraging a relationship with the BPD parent and getting yourself out of the care-taking role.

Like FD described, you can have these weird situations where the BPD parent becomes dysregulated over something that a normal range parent could easily solve. Instead of doing the easy thing, they do the most emotionally intense thing, and then we feel responsible for cleaning up the mess.

The key is to frame things so that your ex is responsible for non-compliance with the specifics of the order, not you.

For the calls, has the child psychologist weighed in on what's reasonable (number of calls, duration, etc.) for the age of your girls? Getting a neutral third-party to set the limits might give you a small buffer.

Your ex is also likely to be erratic and probably impulsive, missing calls and then wanting to have them at his convenience. It can be hard to finesse the language, but the more you can set these boundaries up clearly on the front end, the better for you.

"Ex will call the girls day, day, and day to talk for x minutes. Dad will notify mom in advance if he cannot make the calls, and if a reschedule is needed, he will give mom x hours advance notice. If mom hasn't received a call after 10 minutes on scheduled date, calls will move to the next scheduled date. Both parents can initiate calls at any time; however, it is up to the discretion of the caretaking parent to determine if this is feasible given daily schedules."

This essentially means he is responsible for sticking to a routine and when/if he can't follow it, you aren't expected to make everything all better for him unless you opt in.

I didn't have watertight language in my first order. This type of thing happened only after the calls became a problem.

Your situation seems likely to have a part 1 (relatively agreeable, engaged in magical thinking, functioning because of your structures in place) and part 2 (feels abandoned, victimized by the move away, disillusioned by play auntie, etc.).

[DefiantRaspberry]

Since he left me and I started reading up on BPD, I've had the realization that he never leaves our kids alone - he's always wanting their love and attention. He couches it as "educating" them but it's also a way of getting affirmation for him. I imagine this scenario where this girl leaves him (she also has emotional issues - I can see much trouble ahead for them once I'm gone and he realizes that she is not a caretaker personality)... and then he decides to move to Boston to be closer to us. That's what I think about as I'm writing our Parenting Plan, and our Financial Plan to file with our divorce... I think at some point my girls will also learn how to love their Dad without being "caretakers" - hopefully I will be to help them out, having managed it myself.

OT from the thread, but just wanted to say - omg - this makes so much sense! I can't believe I didn't think of this, as I think I've always been fixated on how my pwBPD is obsessive with *ME*, but he can be the SAME with the kids. If he's not playing with them directly, he literally calls out "are you okay?" every 10 minutes and is constantly begging them to play board games, etc, like a lost puppy. It's 100% another form of affirmation. But then rages at them when they demand his attention away from me.

My stbxH is also being very "reasonable" at the moment, which is also making me nervous. He can be 'good dad' in public and on paper and there is no record of the 'bad' times, so it's a huge mental struggle to think about how much parenting time he should get. When he's in a good place, he's good, but when he's not, I know for a fact he'll just stick them in front a screen the whole day :-/

[Evliya]

Thanks to all who pointed out the need for more specific language. I agree that I need to focus on this and push for feedback from the child psychologist as a validator. STBX has a habit of pushing boundaries and I definitely don't want this to become an issue.

The "part 1" and "part 2" behaviors that LivedNLearned described are absolutely on point. [Part 1 (relatively agreeable, engaged in magical thinking, functioning because of your structures in place) and part 2 (feels abandoned, victimized by the move away, disillusioned by play auntie, etc.).] I know Part 2 is in my future.

Just to give you a sense of much of a cloud his head is in right now... after we dropped off the girls at daycare today he said ... "I know this is going to sound insensitive but"... as soon as he said that I knew what was coming. He continued "do you want to do something for Valentine's Day?". I had a mask on thankfully so I scoffed internally and said a firm "No". He then laughed uncomfortably. WTF is he thinking?

I know I am going to be somewhat tied to this emotional abuse for life, because we have the girls together. I just hope that I will feel much freer and happier when it's just limited to 15-20 minutes a day (or every other day). It's just TOO MUCH.