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Author Topic: What recourse do I have?  (Read 440 times)
jc100

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 5


« on: May 08, 2021, 06:09:03 PM »

Hi this is my first post here. I have been married for 15 years to a woman who was neglected and abused as a child and then transplanted to the United States when she was 14 years old. She was required to be the breadwinner for her family until she was able to break away and get her own job in another state. She is highly functional and independent. I am not an irresponsible person myself and have always worked and I'm willing to be involved in childrearing I have four children ages 13 down to seven. I have always been the dad who does dishes and diapers and house cleaning and runs to the grocery store whatever she needs My wife is a very good mother to them but constantly be rates and ridicules me. On top of that she has an alcohol problem that presents itself when there is a crisis in our relationship. I have not always responded in a healthy manner to her raging and bulldogging me. And this has resulted in her convincing herself and others that I am the abuser in the relationship. I am not allowed to discuss things with her and it is usually implemented by me being interrupted and not allowed to talk. I am always the one who is blamed to have the problem by her and even though we have been in therapy for multiple years she has been able to maintain that illusion so that the therapists are always playing the neutral party card and having to equally look at me and her. She has been arrested multiple times and alcohol has been a factor in different times where she has put the children in danger by driving them while inebriated or raging at me with them in the vicinity and in the house. I am blamed for having exposed to behavior to others and no one understands her because she is a minority and that she is the one who is so alienated and I am the problem all the time. She does not allow me to put my feet up and relax on a Sunday afternoon. She has made some progress over the years in recognizing her fear based relationship with money time and efficiency. But she has effectively forced me into a lot of decisions that I have allowed to happen. For example it was my desire to get rid of the television and the elders at my church told me "well just take it down and when she comes home it'll be gone."They don't understand that they're dealing with a street fighter she will go back out and spend three grand and buy a brand new TV and put it up herself if she has to. I'm the one that frequently is asked to leave and then when I do leave is accused of abandoning her. I myself am a hard-working individual but grew up American and did not grow up in poverty with a hypervigilant fear of starvation. But for many of our years I have been asked to live that way. We have a business together we have 36 units of apartments I do the maintenance and she does the financials. I'm not given much leeway although I have changed a lot from at the beginning being a perfectionist to now being much more common sense and reality based in my decisions. Never were able to discuss things in a healthy way because she simply would demand it yes or no to her black and white narratives and if she didn't get the yes she would dog me until I either exploded in rage or abdicated. I leave now instead of giving in to her bait of escalation and then she accuses me of abandoning her and the children. When I leave it is often the trigger for her to drink which is dangerous for my family. If I leave now and pursue separation and then divorce I am worried about my children being in danger and being used against me. People in my life tell me that this may be a short-term hardship that will be necessary for long-term success. I also have read the BPD book and done most of the workbook. I am overwhelmed at trying to document her behavior and maintain an even and measured approach. She has physically damaged my guitars and threatens to alienate my children from their grandparents. It seems that it is always someone else's problem not hers. I have reached out to the Christian community I.e the elders at churches and the Christian counseling community and I have also been very involved in secular therapy as well. She has been involved in that as well but anything that is happening in the past is often off limits and many of the therapists are willing to do that because it is so volatile. As a way to warn her I had begun to fill out divorce papers but she found them in my truck and was enraged I also had a restraining order filed against her and she had to stay with a friend for a week. Unfortunately my Christian friends convinced me to shred my divorce papers and dismiss the order of protection. And to this day she lists the divorce papers in the order protection as capital crimes against her and cannot understand that they were only consequences of her actions. It is frustrating when there are periods of weeks of normalcy and then there is some unreasonable demand that escalates and I am forced to act as she dictates. Most of my Christian friends I believe don't really understand what it's like to be married to a woman like this. Also the psychological community doesn't understand the female domestic abuser. I know that there are some books now and people talking about it and that is good. But one of the books I read is like saying if she's not submitting to you or if she's acting up etc then just take her to the elders. It seems nice for them to say that but nobody's really willing to get down in the muck and make the hard choices. Law enforcement is also a dead end because child protective services can get involved which they were involved at one point. She blames me for that. Anyways thank you for listening.
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Cat Familiar
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« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2021, 09:28:28 PM »

You ask what recourse do you have? Yet you document issues where she “won’t let you” or you’re “not allowed to” and you are blamed and you are “forced into decisions” and “forced to act.”

I understand that you are submitting to her demands in order to try to keep the peace, but does that happen in reality?

She has tried to destroy your property and relationships so you haven’t been motivated to try to resist her demands, which is understandable, but no way to have a positive relationship.

How would you hope to relate to her in the future so that you don’t feel so overrun by her demands?
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“The Four Agreements  1. Be impeccable with your word.  2. Don’t take anything personally.  3. Don’t make assumptions.  4. Always do your best. ”     ― Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
jc100

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 5


« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2021, 10:26:40 PM »

Thank you cat familiar for replying. I know I have decided not to fly into rages and just leave. But then it just becomes her abandonment issue which she uses as an excuse to drink and she is left alone with my four kids. We are very enmeshed when it comes to finances. That is her strength and she really enjoys managing the finances but I am aware of what money we have and what we're using it for and we're both pretty responsible with our money. For almost 3 years now I have been building a large addition on our home and so she has a much bigger house now to raise her children and I'm constantly doing projects and fixing things up in the house. I also maintain our apartments and save us a lot of money that's been my main means of income these days. But she will often say that the only reason we are where we are is because of the finances she brought into the relationship. She brought a lot of money in from investments and stock options from where she used to work. I brought some money too but not on the level she did. But I've always worked. Today I was thinking it would be good for me to get my own place and start divorce papers and file another order of protection and have it in my truck like I did before for like 6 months before I had it served when the necessity arose. Right now it's a matter of me admitting that it's such a problem that I have to take drastic action. I would hate to take that kind of drastic action because of my kids. When things are good they seem really good but this is a constantly recurring nightmare that happens to me. So the first step would be for me to individuate from her, open my own bank account get my own place and find a way of income that is separated from her. That's scary to me because I'm the one that keeps our apartments running. But I don't believe she understands the worth of it because I never get a paycheck so she never sees the money that we don't have to pay for contractors to do the work which can be really expensive. But she always threatens and says oh I don't need you I'll be fine without you I can run the apartments I'll hire people to do the work. And I've told myself many a Time that I will call her bluff but I have been too afraid to do it. When we used to flip homes and she acted so irate and violently I would just take off my tool bags and say you lost me. Talk about a major trigger. But the necessity of carrying on and making money always overrode all those problems. I read on another post today that bpds instead of asking for their needs to be met will just blame the other spouse. She did recognize that today but I've had to deal with the fallout. So taking care of myself in this situation is going to take a lot of guts and I'm going to have to do it strategically because she will escalate and start throwing my stuff out of the house and and say okay what are we going to tell the kids when are we getting divorced what do you want to tell the kids. Last time this happened a week ago I told my older daughter when I came in the morning to help them get ready for school that Mom was super mad at me and that's why I left. But I don't want to start having conversations with them oh Dad's going to divorce me blah blah blah. I also don't understand why I'm the one that always have to leave the house when she's pissed.

I know you asked how will I treat her in the future? I think I have to follow through with reasonable healthy consequences for actions that are criminal. I've told her in the past that the police will be called if she is engaging in criminal activity against me or my family. She mocks me. After she destroyed my guitars I filed the police report a few days after and I told her that I did it. She added it to the capital crimes list. I really am hoping that she will do something so bad that she will get herself locked up so that it will be clear to all involved and the public that she has a major problem. Because she has no problem lying to the police and to other people over generalizing and characterizing me as some kind of monstrous abuser. Just a week ago after I left for the evening she drank and when I came back in the morning she was drunk and when I came home from a maintenance call she threw two knives at me and a magnifying glass. But she was the one who asked me to come home and talk to her. She was drunk. I then orchestrated with my friends and my dad a way to pick up my children from school so she wouldn't pick them up drunk. She did actually drive herself drunk to the school and got there shortly after we had picked them up. But if you ask her she doesn't have a problem with alcohol. She also equates my smoking on an equal level with her drinking even though many people have told her that the consequences aren't the same or as dangerous. Also the same night that she drove drunk to pick up the kids I had orchestrated me and my friend to come talk to her to see if she had sobered up so that I can bring the kids home and she ended up going over to my parents house where the kids were and creating a huge scene screaming and yelling and so we had to rush back over there and deal with her and she even grabbed my younger son had put him in the car. Yet she has the gall to continually dictate to me what it is I will do and won't do. And trust me I'm not trying to be some kind of chauvinistic do as I say person. 95% of the decisions we make I'm very open to compromise and suggestions and sometimes and very often actually defer to her strengths.
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jc100

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 5


« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2021, 10:29:50 PM »

Forgot to say that this last incident where she was screaming and yelling and burst into my parents home when the kids were there both my dad and I did call the police.. of course the police force here where I'm at is way down and they don't respond very quickly so like 3 or 4 hours later they called and said they could come if we still needed them... But by that time we had resolved it and she went to a friend's with a promise that she wouldn't come home that night. Which she broke and came home and I just went to bed and told her I didn't want to talk to her.
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Cat Familiar
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Gender: Female
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 7480



« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2021, 11:45:39 AM »

Your lives are indeed very entwined. There are a number of issues you are dealing with:
Mutual ownership of business

Your services to business are not independently paid, nor valued by your wife

Your wife’s alcohol abuse

Your wife’s violent behavior

Custody of kids should you initiate divorce proceedings

To begin to untangle some of these issues, it seems the financial might be a good first step. Could you agree to give each of you paychecks for work performed?





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“The Four Agreements  1. Be impeccable with your word.  2. Don’t take anything personally.  3. Don’t make assumptions.  4. Always do your best. ”     ― Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
jc100

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 5


« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2021, 06:47:38 PM »

Thanks again cat familiar. Your response helps me clarify things. Going to talk to my wife tonight about giving us each paychecks, I think it is a brilliant idea.
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