New Guy. Made the decision to end the marriage, but it's complex.

[Red22]

Hi.
I've visited here a few times, registered twice, and this is my first day posting here.
Married, male, end of the line, made the decision to end the marriage, but it's complex. We're from 2 different countries and living in a third, there's the virus thing happening, it's not just about BPD, and, in this place, there's no real system for dealing with problems like mine / ours.
.
I'm not sure what to write, so here's my weekend.
Am I talking to the right people to deal with this here?
.
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Friday, 14 May. Written Saturday 15th.
I need to journal this again.

At around 6pm, I came upstairs from my workshop and the apartment stank of stale PLEASE READ. We have 3 dogs, and it smelled like one had taken a dump sometime earlier somewhere in the place.
I asked Z, "Where was the PLEASE READ?" and followed with, "It smells like PLEASE READ in here".
Z agreed there was a PLEASE READty smell, told me it was the personal smell of Joe, the oldest dog, and that she hadn't hidden a turd somewhere.
I searched out a stinking, opened jar of prahok in the kitchen and turds outside on the balcony.
Z went upstairs to the bedroom at 7pm. She always squats or lays on the floor at the side of the bed and uses her phone and work's laptop balanced on a cardboard box - watching Korean soaps or True Crime dramas on Youtube at the same time as playing highly simplistic, repetitive video games on her cellphone and typing long missives into Facebook Messenger, usually until 1, 2, or 3am.
This happens 7 days a week; I spend every evening beyond 6 or 7pm alone in this apartment.
I went to the bedroom to sleep at 10pm. It's the only room with a real bed, and she's always using the floor.
For the first time, and after perhaps hundreds of requests to do so, Z left the room to go do her thing elsewhere. She doesn’t use the bed just yet, but normally stays in the bedroom, flashing light making sleep difficult beyond the earplugs.
She left in silence and without request.
We have a very long-running dispute over my need to sleep and her disregard for that. This is the first time she's left and not continued until I eventually slept, then woken me at 1, 2, or 3am when she decides to pee and sleep.
In normal times, I'm a teacher; I get up at 5am for work, but there’s been none of that for a year or more.

Saturday, 15 May, 1.00am
We have several bathrooms; Z chose to use the one next to the bedroom door. In the bedroom, the dog woke and barked loudly on 3 occasions, waking me.
Z and I have a further 15-year dispute re letting me sleep for a few hours then waking me up - I can't return to sleep after sleeping a short period and so spend an age falling between almost asleep and being woken by jostling or the return of screen glow as she fires up her phone - she can't sleep. I typically begin the following day wallowed in bad mood and constantly tired.
This revolves 3 or 4 times a week. "Let me sleep".
The decade she spent unemployed was worse; she had had the whole day to sleep. At least now she has a job and needs to be present online at 8am sharp, so there are limits.


Sat, 15 May, 12 midday.
I woke at 11.30am; no idea what time I fell asleep.
Another fight weekend.
No speaking as she passed through the kitchen, went upstairs to the bathroom and bedroom, or came back down to the spare room with the camp bed, where she's closed the door. I’m a metre outside the kitchen door, sitting at a table, visible, invisible.

*> Prediction at time of writing: Z will spend the whole weekend on social media messaging, YouTube, and video games. She will confine herself to a single space within a single room. She will attempt no care of the house. She will not communicate without projecting great stress and/or provoking a fight. She will wake me after 2, 3, or 4 hours sleep on both Saturday and Sunday nights even if she's gone to sleep in a different room. <*

Here’s a repeating pattern: start a fight and use that fight as the reason to retreat alone to a single room for the entire weekend.
Attempts at communication will be reflected as stress responses, redirected into provocations, begin a fight, and facilitate her retreat to the single room. This cascade can begin as early as Wednesday and always carries through to the weekend.
If I successfully avoid engagement with provocations until the weekend begins, then, on the Friday evening or Saturday morning, she'll withdraw to the single room anyhow with sneers, scorn, contempt, derision, accusations of weakness of character, and muttered allegations of dishonest sexual identification. There simply has to be a fight. Even when it’s entirely one-sided and conducted alone from inside a small room.

Yesterday, Friday, I spent the whole day until 6pm downstairs in and about my workshop avoiding the inevitable, despite visits. I got the workshop oxygen bottle refilled, something of a small relief. Much larger was that of finally being able to leave the house to get it. We’ve been a locked-down ‘red zone’ for a week, been lockdown restricted for a month, and the alcohol ban is biting me deep down - I’m dry with 2 more weeks to go.

Same for Thursday, until 8pm in the workshop, maneuvering around offers and not engaging with opportunities.
I don’t want to eat or drink under such tight, straits-guarded self awareness of the possibilities branching from every utterance and implications of every possible interpretation of each single gesture or word; rather skip a meal. I’m not a chess player tight-roping carrying the balance of 10 moves deep in 4 dimensions and I don’t want to be one. And I don’t trust the bottle of water brought to me from the fridge any more, either.
Everything is a precursor to fight weekend.
Every road leads to stress, argument, spite, and her retreat to a single room.
.
So here's Saturday at 1.38pm.
The dogs are crying and whining outside the door of the spare room where she's chosen to be, and I'm eating alone again.
.
7.50pm
Z came out of the room, went to give the dogs biscuits, stopped when seeing I'd already fed them, and then went to shower. She didn't speak and returned to the spare room.
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8.50pm
Heavy heelstrikes, fast footfalls, stress boiling off dry ice. I'm on my desktop in an adjoining room. This is our first interaction of the day.
"Please can I have internet access."
"You have internet access. There was a slow WiFi problem earlier today. I updated the router software, and that fixed it. Nothing has changed."
She went away, came back and brought me her laptop. It just needed the WiFi password inputting.
"You've got internet access. I updated the router software this afternoon. No settings were changed. Same password."
"Thank you."
She walked away.
I'm guessing she lost connection during the reboot after the router had updated, then somehow didn't / couldn't sign in again correctly. That reboot was just after 3pm.
.
'Please can I have internet access.’
As if I intentionally removed it and now she needs to ask permission.
No grey areas; nothing in the middle. No chain or series of events - just on or off. Couldn't be anything except a man putting her down, holding her back, dominating, controlling.
It's polar; it's either that or everything works just fine.
How about:
'My laptop has no internet connection, but my phone's connection to the house WiFi still works. Plus I have the data feed to the phone from Cellcard, and I could hotspot from my phone, but I want to use the house wi-fi with my laptop. There's something wrong with the connection. I don't have admin rights to my work laptop and it doesn't remember settings. What’s wrong with it? Can you fix this?'.
But that offers the possibility of it not being my fault. There’s no ideological stance there - no mileage to be had in the fight for social justice. There’s no perceived political position or declaration of identity allegiance. She won’t take that direction.
Locating the password on her phone, which still worked and showed up in the router client list, and then copying it to her laptop would also not have been the firestarter she was looking for - too easy to see there’s no problem with the technology.
Labelling me as wilfully withholding from her what can be argued to be a basic human right was her route of choice to delineating her problem. That’s an anchor of argument - a call to a cause - a position to fight for - a relatable cry.
Who would disagree that I'm a monster to do that? How many people did she relate that little PLEASE READfer to over Facebook Messenger on her phone this afternoon or this evening?  How many more will turn their backs still further now?
.
Don't bite. You didn't do that. Let her walk away. Don't get pulled into a fight. Fight Weekend.
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Bed at 11pm. Writing this at 00.07.
Sam’s asleep on the bedroom floor. He's my burglar alarm.
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Sunday, 16th May, 9.09am
Z just got up and went to the bathroom. She didn't speak but went back to the spare room and closed the door. Router logs show her laptop was online until 3.38am last night, but I was wrong in yesterday's prediction about her disrupting my sleep in the middle of the night. She didn't wake me. That's the first time in months she's let me sleep. I was up at 7 and feeling much better. Cleaned up outside after the dogs, checked the irrigation for the garden plants, cooked rice for breakfast... I had 2 bowls and 2 coffees, checked email, and grounded myself in calm for the day. Dogs asleep around my feet.
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11.30am
She’s out and moving around the kitchen. No attempt to speak. I need items from the spare room; it’s also a pantry. But she’s back in there again and has closed the door. No talking.
Z's laptop was back online at 6.02am this morning.
.
5.30pm
I spent much of the afternoon reading Walking on Eggshells again. Followed the link to their online presence, looked around the website and forum.
5.30, I put the dogs indoors and went up to the bedroom as the afternoon faded, wanted a locked door, aircon, and privacy.
I've visited BPDFamily 4 times. First time it looked dead, archived and abandoned - frustrating to navigate. Second time not much better, but useful links. Third time I registered, but was led through a field of inaccessible, archived subforums and couldn't find signs of recent activity. The fourth time, I noticed the forum path, clicked back up the tree, found the forum main page and saw posts made today, so I commented.
She came out of the room as the place got darker - maybe 7pm - used no house lights I heard her feed the dogs and return to the room.
8.09pm and this place is in darkness and silence. Like a haunted house.
I'm in the bedroom, door locked, and am missing my guard dog.

[Cromwell]

Hi Red22

Welcome

This part of the community is for support  for detaching from the relationship.

Thank-you for sharing from your journal.

We are here to help and the support here for you.

 You are not a monster. These are very complex situations to experience.

We always respond to messages.

Take your time it sounds like you have been through a lot. I know how hard it is when sleep is affected, it is difficult to concentrate. It will get better. One step at a time. Well done for taking the first!
Cromwell

[Red22]

Thank you, Cromwell, much appreciated.
Thanks also, Cat Familiar, for the email welcome - also much appreciated.
Here's my Monday so far.
Let's give this a week and see if I'm in the right group.
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Monday, 17th May, 8.06am
Again, I was wrong in my prediction; she didn't wake me up in the middle of last night.
Logs show both her laptop and phone disconnected from the WiFi router at 1.28am this morning. Z was reconnected at 6.22am and up and about at 7am, showered, boiled the kettle and cooked rice, and was online for work at 8am. Looking rough, but present.
Not speaking.
No Zoom meeting.
Checking email and messages using her workstation in the main living room.
That was the third long weekend in a row. Holidays are falling thick and fast around weekends this year, and she's spent the last 3 shut away in a single room.
I made 2 coffees, sat outside the kitchen door, and slowly drank one, but she didn't come to the kitchen to take the other, turning up to reboil the kettle just after I'd taken the second.
"I thought you weren't coming so I took it."
Still no talking.
So it seems I've regained my sleep but we're back to the silent treatment - this being day 3; she's muttering and spitting feathers with highly visible contempt while walking towards, eyes up at distance and down when nearer, but not talking. We've been here before, a lot, but not recently. I thought I'd stopped it.
The last silent period was 10 weeks long. She refused to communicate at all for 6 weeks, then, when she broke that silence, I didn't respond but extended it for a further month. Two can play that game. When I broke the silence, she didn't carry it forward. That was quite a few years ago and was at the end of my patience with it, and, if this is a return, it's the first time she's done it since. Quite the break given it was a regular, go-to, manipulative tool of choice for many years.
So let her do it again. At least it's not fighting and it's not scaring the dogs, they're not hiding.
But there's surely going to be a Zoom meeting sometime this week, so she'll have to talk.
.
12.15pm
Z came through to the kitchen and asked, "Would you like to eat?”
"No thanks, I'm fine,"
She made a quick lunch and went back to her desk to eat.
Was that an olive branch?
Talking. Let's see what's next.
She looked tired and small, possibly scared, and looks to have lost weight in her face.

1.20pm
She's putting the kettle on. I'll go with the olive branch and back off again if there's a morph.
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1.28pm
I accepted the cup of coffee.
Mistake.
Instant stress.
Re letting me sleep...
a - "I didn't know I had permission to use a different bathroom on Friday night."
b - "I haven't had enough money to buy a separate bed for 15 years. But, now I'm working, I can buy one."
She smiled before finishing turning to walk away, but the dogs had already disappeared.
The change from a tired, put-down, possibly scared victim to God of Unreality took the blink of an eye.
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1.46pm and now what?
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2.00pm
I'm not a mental health professional. I don't know the difference between a fishhook and a skyscraper in this field; I've never had interest in it or connection with it, but here’s my take on the book.
I think perhaps what Walking On Eggshells has begun, or is doing, is the breaking down of a monolithic chunk, a fatberg, an atlas stone.
It started as a grit in my shoe, a drop of grease on my shirt, speck of dust in my eye, none of which I removed, and, over the past 15 years, I have carried, become accustomed to, and have allowed to grow.
I haven't noticed the burden because I have also grown; I have grown stronger daily, and, for long enough, I have been able to carry the end results as easily as their beginnings.
I haven't noticed before any of these changes in the light of the frame of reference of Walking On Eggshells - that's a whole new lens.
I have noticed discomforts, restrictions, and inabilities. I have seen through filters. But I have continued. It's been normal to do that. The growing limitations have been so incrementally small that I didn't see them happening.
I think I'm beginning to break up the lump now. I'm beginning to sort perhaps some pieces. I'm beginning to see the edges of shapes.
Granulation needs a language.
The time and space to think and step back afforded by unemployment due to the virus has opened dark doors.
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Do I like where I'm going?
Given their ultimate costs, do I want to continue along either path of BPDFamily or my marriage?
The Matrix is the world that's been pulled over your eyes...
This is what I need help with right now.
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3.00pm
Brought me a bottle of cold Coke.
"Want one?"
"Thank you."
She went back to work.

[Cromwell]

Red22.

Like you say, complex. But this is normal by default. Relationships generally. You know the score, a little bit each day. How did today go I was wondering if could make a few small victories. If worried about the drinks just buy canned from the store if these things help put mind at ease why not.

Little small victories each day add up. It was for me like digging escape tunnel surreptitiously each night with tea spoon. Took me 2.5 years but when its done and all is in place, the energy and will to sprint is there.

There is people out there to help but the awakening you've had and what follows is the courage to go for it.

I'm sorry that you have to live in fear in your own home and can't get restful sleep.

Keep in contact the winning chess move is not to play anymore.

[Red22]

Tuesday, 18th May, 8.04am
Z was up early to let 2 of the dogs out, the other heard from my bedroom floor and woke me. Another whole night's sleep. 5.30am and feeling physically good and mentally clear. I haven't had a head this level for a long time. Let the dog out and started preparing breakfast. Out of rice in the kitchen and couldn't refill - 6am and she'd gone back to sleep; she's sleeping in the spare room, which is also the pantry.
Her laptop was online until 03.04am this morning, then back online at 05.44am.
Two and a half hours' sleep, tops.
I woke her at 7, set the cooker going, and continued cleaning the yard. There was a cool rain last night and it was good to be outdoors early.
We spoke yesterday evening, from perhaps 5.30 to 8pm. I took her idea of takeout Indian to suggest a more participative route for the evening. I made a supermarket run to get a block of cheese, and she made the spag bol sauce. We both worked in the kitchen and with no friction, no teleports.
Dinner was quiet, but not unusual and had no argument. My stomach is settled today, and I feel good.
She was online from 9pm to 3am last night, evening through to early morning, same as every other night, six, seven, or eight hours straight, seven nights a week.
8.04am and she's at her workstation.
We just finished a calm breakfast with no shades of alternate realities.
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9.10am
A Zoom meeting
At breakfast, I asked Z if she had a meeting today. I want to do organised maintenance on the router, which means another reboot and loss of connection. This caused problems last weekend, but I can plan around her schedule to avoid that.
She told me no meeting today. Meetings were Mondays and Fridays, and that she'd had one yesterday.
There are voices in the living room now, and she's bright and breezy.
"Good morning, everyone."
Dodged a bullet, pure chance.
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9.24am
The voices continue downstairs, and she's skipped out up and found me to say she's in a Zoom meeting. I can hear that.
.
Even when it's real, it's not real.
.
Back to the workshop.
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We're in a recovery phase now. Fight's done. Circling demons retreated. She's trying hard to be friendly, to be social but not pushy, to make up.
.

[Red22]

Thanks again, Cromwell.
Yes, this is complex. It's not just about what I'm guessing may be BPD, it's also about the underlying person in which the BPD has manifested, and that's a whole other deal. I haven't begun to describe that yet.
I need to make this process work for me. I need to find a route through the mountains that fits the requirements of my own survival.
I know better than anyone how dead in the water this relationship is - there is no possible way it can continue, but I also need to reconcile that I took on responsibilities when I got married.
We can split our life's relationships into 2 groups: those of 'no choice', such as siblings and parents; or those of 'choice', such as spouses and drinking buddies.
For better or worse, I chose this person.
I can see the damage done. I can see it's dead. I need to work out how to deal with that. I'm not a young guy, nor am I a coward. I need to find a way that works for me.
On top of that, I need the language to begin to articulate and intellectuall manipulate what has happened, is happening, and what I would like to see happen in future.
Agreed again; that's going to take time, and I'm going to need advice.

[Red22]

Wednesday, 19th May, 10.15am
No issues with sleeping last night and no issues with breakfast or starting the day.
I'm catching up on the sleep deficit and feeling much better. I'm more articulate in speech, have more clarity of thought, and can make decisions without a hotfoot dance. Physically, the difference now is not quite so marked, but hey, that's age for you.
.
When she finally let me sleep at night by leaving the room to go watch videos and play games until the early hours someplace else in the house, she still managed to wake me up in the middle of the night by using a bathroom very nearby, thus negating the entire premise.
After my explaining that, she's started to use a different bathroom - the one I use to shower in the morning. That's good and I have slept well.
However, she's not flushing or sluicing, so for the last 3 days, that's been waiting for me when I go to shower.
Knowing the issues, I didn't raise this on day 1.
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My approach has been to wait and use that wait as reasoning. If that wait can be presented as underpinning a plan that was pre-stated, has a pre-discussed goal, and in which she's seen as already participating successfully, the chances are the approach to action won't be a firestarter.
This has worked well in the past and can completely sidestep the lengthy explanations in triplicate I usually need to give to support, explain, or vindicate a personal choice, something I may decide to do, or ask her to do.
So...
"Thanks for using another bathroom. It's working really well and I've slept well. The noise hasn't woken the dogs or made them bark either, which is excellent."
I got a positive response and she mentioned being scared of making a noise opening the door. I caught that by repeating that all is good.
"Now that's sorted out and working well, let's try flushing and see how that goes."
The clouds rolled in immediately, but I fielded that one with, "Let's see what the dogs do?" and made a soft exit.
There was no thunder to accompany the clouds.
.
10.40am
and we're good so far; I just offered to make a coffee. She didn't want one, but we're operating well within boundaries.
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10.30pm
Remained within boundaries for the day. She fell asleep for 2 hours from around 4pm this afternoon.

[Couper]

"Now that's sorted out and working well, let's try flushing and see how that goes."
The clouds rolled in immediately, but I fielded that one with, "Let's see what the dogs do?" and made a soft exit.

I'm really curious to see what direction that goes.  For a good long while my uBPDw was leaving surprises, as well.  A big one with me was spitting in the sink, whether brushing teeth or clearing sinuses, and just leaving it (sorry, gross, I know, don't know how else to tell it).  This wasn't a thing for a number of years and then one day it was.  If I said anything about it, there were a dozen excuses about why it couldn't be rinsed away.  If I noted that it used not to be a thing and now it is, she denied it and said it is something she has "done forever" (I'm not blind).  If I noted that it would have been unacceptable in her previous living arrangement with several girls renting a house with a single bathroom, it was met with silence.  The same with hair being left in the shower.

This was the point where I was just getting wise to not saying anything because I believe it was a cry for negative attention (a recurring theme) and by acknowledging it I was falling into a trap.  As soon as I stopped raising the issue, the problem magically went away.  Not saying that's the case you have on your hands (and I think you handled it quite well), but it's why I'm curious to see which way it goes.  My wife will almost never do anything to honor a simple request no matter how gently the issue is raised.  As she blurted out one day in a rare moment of truth: "Whenever someone tells me to do something, it makes me want to do the opposite" (something else that if you remind her of it today, she will deny ever having said it).      

[Cromwell]

You sound a lot clearer and sharper Red22 as you have noticed yourself.

Just goes to show that the sleep situation is paying into your favour. Youll need this, Id suggest consolidate more. every bit of energy is needed. Despite living in a different country from origin, do you have a support network of sorts that can help out. friends, family, anyone?

Its great you have reached out here, but the more the better I just feel when you mentioned the dog as a protector, I had this feeling of you being very isolated, is this a fair assumption?

Take care and well done with small victories youll get there.

[Red22]

Hello again, Cromwell.
Let's do this in parts.
A little obsessiveness has helped me a lot, so please excuse the detail.
.
I'm not looking for victories large or small; this is not a battle - there is no win here. This is loss of a wife to madness, and there is personal survival at best. I'm looking for strategies.
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First, I'm looking for an opinion from the people here.
"Do you recognise this behaviour as being BPD?"
I need to know this so I can move forward.
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Second, I'm looking for ways to accurately describe what's happening here so I can better understand it and deal with it.
For example, the concept of 'Gaslighting'.
I had no idea what that was, what it involved, it's effects, or how to address it before I started this journey.
She gaslights me, but now I recognise it, it's not the total confusion that it was.
I don't know what I don't know; and I don't want to randomly pull pages from the psych manual in the hopes of figuring this out. I need good information to form an action plan.
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Third, my reaching out here is entirely selfish. I need to deal with a problem.
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Fourth, I live in a sketchy city in a third world country. The dogs are a part of my home security. Their positioning both at night and day is done to maximise warning of intruders. Thus, one sleeps on the bedroom floor, the rest in different areas.
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Fifth, I'm a teacher, and have taught here for 15 years. I'm very well known in my local neighbourhood and work communities.
However, my wife's behaviours are antisocial and damaging to me, and this community's understanding of the topic of mental health is something I'm not sure of.
.
I'll get there when I can understand her behaviour  and have a plan that gives me back a productive future life. It's not about battles and victories.
.
Thanks again for your replies.

[Cromwell]

Hi Red

Gaslighting is not a BPD specific trait though (anyone can do it).

It is more of a cultural trendy term that gets misused to describe behaviours that can have other more valid explanations. Just a heads up to be careful with the term.

Would you say during the relationship that you have been intensely devaluated? this is the hallmark for BPD.

I was wondering also how you are getting on with sleep and so on. Be conscious of depressed mood I think you are, but take that however you wish to I hope constructively not as a judgement (im not a psychiatrist) i cant diagnose these things, as much as no-one here can remote diagnose your wife with BPD.

have a look here https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334834.0
and check out the "diagnosis" part for yourself. It is written for the lay-person.

You lived with her for years and have the advantage of knowing more what has been going on see what you make of it.

wishing you well today.

Would be good to know if you could Let us know how you get on, keep updated. Wishing you well today 

 Cromwell

[Red22]

Evening, Cromwell.
Sleep's good, thanks.
Intensely devalued doesn't even begin to describe the experience. I literally wouldn't know where to either begin or end relating that.
.
I'm up high on the depression self-test I found here, but have been aware of that for a while. Dealing with it.
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I saw a short list of BPD behaviours somewhere here, and she matched the required 6 from 9, or whatever similar was specified.
I've a list of her behaviours as long as my arm, but they all have my memory filter. That's why I'm giving a random week's behaviour as example.
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That's one heck of a list at that link. I can see several matches at first glance, but am not well versed in the terminology. Give me a few days to dig through it?
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Don't worry about my interpretations here; I assume positive intent unless I'm sure otherwise. I'm too far into this to be offended lightly.
.
Nothing to talk of re the behaviour today... It's been a calm and reasonable day.
She was asleep early, 12 midnight, and had a midday siesta.
.
I'll keep this going for a week and see what people have to say about it.
There seems to be quite an amount of information linked around here;  I'll be digging into that, too.

[Red22]

Friday, 21st May, 10.25am
Ok, let’s forget the early night I said she had.
Z was up at 1am, dog barking, and was online until 3.34am this morning.
I got right back to sleep at 1am and had no problems sleeping through.
She was up later than usual and was 1 hour late to get to work.
The ‘Monday, Friday’ morning Zoom meeting didn’t happen. Let’s see if it’s later today.
She skipped breakfast, just having a coffee.
.
2.39pm and no Zoom meeting.
It's been a calm day with no signs yet of it being a lead up to another Fight Weekend.
.
I’m looking through Cromwell’s linked list.
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334834.0
.
Here’s where I’m at so far.

BEHAVIORS:  Anger and Rage and passive aggression
Yes, anger and passive aggression. There’s no rage - she goes the other way into broiling silences.

BEHAVIORS:  Cutting and suicidal ideation
No cutting. No evidence of suicidal ideation.

BEHAVIORS:  Devaluation
Yes. She's very deeply into this, Idealisation isn’t much apparent or part of a cycle - I simply have no value in any regard.

BEHAVIORS:  Difference between projection and devaluation?
I need to learn more about this.

BEHAVIORS:  Diminished executive function (poor executive control)?
No. She has high function and is a working professional. No impulsive control issues at all - she’s most extremely conservative, very manipulative over time, and can wait out a plan.

BEHAVIORS:  Dissociation and Dysphoria
She’s daydreamy at times, but I don't see this interfering with her day at all.
I’m worse for this than she is; it’s a major part of my day in planning classes. It looks like I’m undergoing a software update, but it’s a useful device and works for me. The same skill is also useful in avoidance of her baiting.

BEHAVIORS:  Dysregulating
Yes. Destruction of countless objects.
Further, I’ve walked back into a room unexpectedly and seen her in the middle of outbursts of physical expression, but without loud utterances. On a visible level, such expressions are alien to her everyday behaviour and physical movement patterns.

BEHAVIORS:  Emotional Immaturity
Yes, absolutely.

BEHAVIORS:  Enmeshment?
I need to learn more about this. I’m not sure - enmeshed from which side, or to whom / from whom, or to what end. How do I link this to her?

BEHAVIORS:  Extinction Bursts
Yes. I’ve been inconsistent in enforcing boundaries.

BEHAVIORS:  Fear of abandonment?
Not that I have seen. She plays brinkmanship games using separation as a deterrent to my setting boundaries, but, like everything, I have my limits and eventually call bluffs. She always backs down - every single time. This used to be far worse than it is these days.

BEHAVIORS:  Fear of engulfment
No.

BEHAVIORS:  Fear of Intimacy
Yes.

BEHAVIORS:  Intermittent Reinforcement
I’m not sure about this coming from her. I have done this, which has empowered her - for sure.

BEHAVIORS:  Irreverent communication style. What is it exactly?
I’m not sure how this is applicable.

BEHAVIORS:  Lack of empathy (BPD or NPD trait?)
This has many facets, and this is a big one. There is a void of what I would call empathy, but there’s also something else in that empathy’s place. If compassionate empathy is understanding how someone else feels, then she has it - but its function in her is perhaps reversed, it’s a source of enjoyment over others’ suffering. That’s not the end of the matter; it’s complex.

BEHAVIORS:  Lack of object consistency

Tomorrow.

BEHAVIORs:  Memory lapses
BEHAVIORS:  Mirroring
BEHAVIORS:  Mirroring different from idealization?
BEHAVIORS:  Objectifying the romantic partner
BEHAVIORS:  Projection
BEHAVIORS:  Push/pull
BEHAVIORS:  Rage
BEHAVIORS:  Rejection sensitivity (impulsive aggression)?
BEHAVIORS:  Self injury and self harm
BEHAVIORS:  Sexual identity issues?
BEHAVIORS:  Silent treatment
BEHAVIORS:  Splitting
BEHAVIORS:  Splitting:  Painted black
BEHAVIORS:  Stress triggers and negative behaviors
BEHAVIORS:  Triangulation
BEHAVIORS:  Unstable self-image
BEHAVIORS:  Waif, Hermit, Queen, and Witch

[Cromwell]

Hi Red22

The link I should have given was https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=63511 this one! i hope I have not overwhemed you with a deluge of information. its good to see that you have found interest in some of the concepts though. Take your time, and as you please.

I have the feeling that over so many years together, youve became intuitively an expert at learning to predict and masterplan how to configure a lifestyle and behaviours that have a statistical best chance towards avoidance of chaos.

What i mean in focus is - things like engulfment. it could exist in her, as the fear of abandonment, its just that youve done such a supportive role in mitigating it? I wonder if this is a point to consider.

i wonder how her behaviours would alter if she did not have the support you provide 24/7.

i was hoping to write more but ive got a chaotic past 2 days with coronavirus visited the cromwell household, have to deal with it, but im pleased overall to hear you keeping the ship stable and hope you find some joy over the weekend minus the anticipatiton of unwanted drama and broilings. Take care, Crom

[Red22]

Morning, Cromwell.
Sorry to hear of your unwelcome visitor. Scary times indeed. I've no idea of your stance on vaccination, but I'm happier now I've had the shot - it's a weight off for me. We both had Sinovac.
.
That link certainly led to a waterfall of data, but it's interesting and is exactly what I need to be able to break this monolith down. I can look into topics at a surface level and focus where I recognise issues.
Linking concepts into relationships will take a lot longer, for example - 'fear of abandonment' is not obviously present, but if I link that with 'projection' and look at her using threats to leave as a manipulative tool, I can perhaps see that she's threatening me with what she sees as the scariest fear.
I have initial steps into a framework of understanding now. Thank you very much.
.
Yes, I have evolved coping, evasion, planning, etc strategies over time.
In much the same way as I learned to ride a motorcycle over several decades... picking myself up after making mistakes, I have learned to deal with Z.
I'm now feeling the combined effects of a lifetime of twists, sprains, knocks, and broken bones, and, in a similar fashion, my marriage is under similar effects of compounded events over time.
If my marriage were one of those Japanese Kintsugi cups, where damage has been fixed with a golden seam, then the marriage would be wholly recognisable not by the unbroken parts of the cup, but by the shape of the first few golden seams, as they are all that remains of the shape of the cup; the rest has been broken so many times that it's a clunky, saggy, dust conglomerate - and I stopped using gold years ago.
.
If I were not present, I don't know where she'd be. But if I am present, I'm just enabling yet further damage.

[Red22]

Saturday, 22nd May, 11.57am
This is the last post re my journaling here.
I'll continue visits looking at resources, and am looking for opinions on any of this behaviour, including my own.
I need help in understanding this and appreciate any and all of such.
.
Saturday. Last night finished with tears and sniffles.
We made a pizza together and ate it watching a movie, "The Walk".
As usual, with my invitations to watch a movie, she joined for the food but didn't stay for the duration, and went back online in the spare room.
I cued up another movie, back to back, and finished both at around 11.30pm.
That's when the sounds of crying and sniffing became apparent. I shut down the equipment and packed up for the night, giving time for development and to think.
Passing the door to the spare room, I checked in, "You ok?"
"Yes, it's my nose, you know? I always have this, don't I."
She has no sniffling and crying problem with her nose. Knowing what would come if I questioned that, I kept it light, friendly, and short… then left carefully.
.
She slept late until 11.30am this morning, then made 2 coffees, came to sit with me, and was fighting in less than 20 minutes.
Apparently, I looked at her the wrong way, and, in doing that, I suggested that there was something wrong with her sense of smell.
She retreated in silence to the spare room immediately.
I gave her 5 minutes and followed.
"Do you still want to eat later?"
We'd planned a BBQ grill and beers.
She escalated immediately.
"I want a calm weekend. This was a calm morning and I want to go back to that. You're escalating a fight; I don't want to fight. I want a calm weekend. Do you want to eat later?"
A petulant "Yes" while looking the other way, and I left quietly.
.
There goes my weekend.
Experience tells me this won't stop, and, if I try to coax her out of there again, the situation will blow up like Vesuvius. If I do that and I'm unlucky, it will run right into next week.
This is another weekend alone.
Fight Weekend.
The dogs are around my feet, looking into the house but not going in; they were in and out of the spare room all morning while she slept.
.
12.31
She came out, masked up, picked up the house keys and headed for the front gate in silence.
"Is somebody here?"
"No... I'm going to get… My officemate is here."
This is a natural break. An unexpected outside influence can be a chance to reset.
As she returned, I asked what had been delivered, it was renewal of governmental documentation and an insurance policy renewal card, but this was a tangential occurrence that gave neutral ground to talk.
I invited her to sit with me again, which she did, but her speaking was restricted to the perfunctory, there was no eye contact, and she sat sending messages on her phone.
.
2.30 and just back from the market.
I knew this would end badly if I coaxed her out of that room.
We went shopping for beers and meat to grill.
This area is very recently out of lockdown and wet-market prices are high for bad quality; distribution chains are not yet well re-established.
The market is historically a point of fight initiation. She'll mock and sneer as locals price gouge even in a regular month, but now's worse… nobody will give the pre-covid prices, everything's jacked up.
She started as shop after shop wanted up to 20% more for a case of beer.
Annoying to be unable to get past the gouging in the first place, worse to be mocked for that by the person shopping with you.
I let it pass for a while, then took her home. Better done alone.
.
When I got back home, the dogs didn't run to greet, and her escalation was almost immediate. I asked her to stop shouting and she started to speak like a gonzo-bigot attack comedian mocking a person with learning difficulties - caricaturing slow speech and huge gesturing. I told her not to speak to me that way and that it was highly disrespectful, and after that, she went back to the spare room again and stayed there.
I salted the pork, cut it up for grilling, dropped it in the freezer, and I want to eat alone this evening.
.
We have our second Covid jab tomorrow. Our queuing was in silence for the last one 3 weeks ago. I caught her during the site entry procedure as she'd missed out on thumbprinting the paperwork, queued nearby throughout, and sat with her as she had an anxiety attack in the waiting area after the jab.
.
Tomorrow's another day?
No.
Tomorrow's Groundhog Day. I'm Bill Murray. And when I wake up, it won't be years in the past.
.
3.43pm
The beer's cold. I have my crutch back.
It's the first in 5 weeks as there's been a nationwide alcohol ban.
I'm off to light the grill.
I'll finish your linked list another day, Cromwell. Thanks for that - much appreciated.
Congratulations on graduating.

[Couper]

All of the stuff that you have going on reads sort of like what I was experiencing up to six months ago.  I can share with you what I did with the caveat that it's not a suggestion that you do the same.  I don't know that what I did is right or recommended, but I am currently experiencing the longest period of peace that I have had in over a decade, though I am under no illusion that it is permanent and I fear that the longer the peace lasts, the worse the storm will be when it breaks.

This staying up late at night stuff: that has gone on here for a long time.  For the last several years she had a work-from-home / laptop job.  Unstructured.  Log in and work when she wants.  It could just as easily be done during idle hours during the day (in lieu of time spent Facebooking, etc.)  It can vary from 20 hours a week or down to 5 (currently I think it is nearly zero).  Staying up late has been a thing both before and after the job.  It hurt me for the same reasons you described, like I'm sound asleep and she comes stomping in the bedroom and starts slamming dresser drawers.  Interrupted sleep is the worst.  I have to get up but cannot get out because my kids are early risers and they need food, etc.  For so long I told her that I wanted us to be "us", to work together, go to bed at the same relative time, get up at the same relative time, each take care of our respective obligations and support each other.  Be able to enjoy time together on the same schedule.  Nope.  It holds me back going out the door, then I have to work later to make up for it and it sets off a very unhealthy cycle.

{I'm not saying this is a look into a crystal ball.  It is just what has happened here.}

What's different is I reached a point where I "snoozed" her which I would describe as a step beyond a refusal to engage (I still acknowledge her existence, of course).  I no longer raise the staying up late topic.  She can stay up as late as she wants while melting into the couch watching t.v. and antagonizing people on Facebook while I operate completely independent of her on a responsible adult schedule.  I go to bed a little-to-a-lot earlier than her and get up a lot earlier than her.  When she needs help with something that we could have done during time together with synchronized schedules, I say "nope".  This is no longer a deal where she shows up at her convenience and I have to drop everything I'm in the middle of because she doesn't want to like a healthy adult.  There are many similar circumstances aside from this where her intent seems to be to make me choose between her and something else.  I have made a conscious decision that whenever I am forced to choose in an instance where it is fabricated purely to put me in an unsavory position, I will choose the other thing.  I refuse to reinforce negative behavior.

When she first caught on, things were not pleasant and I let her stew because I feel in my particular set of circumstances, placating is enabling.  I'm not uncivil, I just don't fold.  There were lots of high-conflict encounters where it seemed she was testing me.  It finally boiled over and I told her that her actions are either going to ruin both of us or ruin her and that there was no net gain in the former.  I told her that I spend too much time looking for the good and formulating solutions to simply have them automatically discarded every single time. 

What is perplexing to me is that the last couple of months, she seems ("seems" is the important word) to have adopted my outlook of only embracing positive actions.  This is the longest period of peace I have known in a decade.  There's still the occasional flare-up, but I don't take the bait and I move on.  She bought shirts with positive slogans on them (Be Happy, etc.).  The anti-answers to every encounter have virtually stopped.  She has a habit of adopting the persona / ailments / behaviors of other people (identity issue stuff?) and now it seems she is mirroring mine.  The old demons are surely still brewing, but they aren't on the surface.  However, if I were to drop my "snoozing" policy, I feel she would go right back to her old ways of trying to manipulate.  I've been burned too many time to believe that decades of self-destructive behavior has finally resolved itself all on its own. 

It's not the happy, cooperative, interactive relationship that I dreamed of, yet it is also better than the years of abuse I have grown to expect.  I believe there is a better life out there waiting on me, but that I'm stuck here in limbo until I figure out what's the next move.

For now, if I want to go somewhere, I state that I am doing it and do it (short of anything that conflicts with my kids stuff, etc.).  Particularly with work and whatnot, whereas before there were always conflicts because of a "You're having fun and I'm not" attitude.  Nope, it's work.  It was all about making me choose between her and {insert task here}.

When there is time for me to work on my pet projects, I work on my projects.  I no longer give my time to her hobbies (she was notorious for begging me to do things she couldn't do herself and then telling me everything that I was doing was wrong). 

All that said, I think you're doing good holding your ground.  You're not getting sucked in to the crying episodes.  You're demanding peace and nothing less.  It takes a lot of discipline to do what you're doing.  What have you got to loose?  You already know what the outcome will be if you strive to placate, so I say keep doing what you're doing and see how it plays out.  If you're getting better sleep and ripping out less hair, you're moving in the right direction.  That's the best I've been able to do after coming to the realization that there is no magic wand.  Thanks for sharing all that you have.  I'm rooting for you!         

[Red22]

The sleep deficit is a serious problem, Couper; it undermines the resources needed to deal with everything else.
I've recovered that for now. She's still sleeping in another room, and I have found it much easier to deal with her as this past week has progressed. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this rested.
I'm also beginning to see in her some of the behaviours mentioned here, and I now have the mental clarity to take better notice, step back, and look at events post and prior to those problems.
.
Same here with the laptop and her working from home, although she has a regular 9 to 5 office job that's moved online through necessity.
She's keeping a reasonably good approximation of those hours while working from home, too. The job is scaffolding her day, which is a blessing as it's structuring her downtime to a degree.
.
In the past, we have achieved that regular rhythm of shared schedules and relaxation time, but she was unemployed for a decade and had no real structure to her days. It was very difficult to deal with her during a lot of that time as she had no other motivation to keep ‘regular hours’, and it was a cyclic issue that sometimes we managed living like an organised couple sharing compatible timetables, many times not.
.
I recognise the ‘snooze’ option, but I found it really difficult to avoid the hooks back into fighting. I found I needed to be hyper-aware of my expected outcomes at all times, then also entirely vigilant on the lookout for actions that would / could effectively sabotage my day. Second-guessing her intentions and trying to avoid pitfall traps, being pulled into half-heard comments, and those dropped cartoon pianos drove me into paranoia.
I found it far more sustainable not to tell her what my game plan was, where I was going, what I would like to do at the weekend, etc. It even got to the point where if I mentioned that a plant in the garden looked good that day, it was the kiss of death for that plant - guaranteed it would be dead within a fortnight.
So I stopped telling her.
Not so much snoozed as removed from the loop. She fishes a lot, and, as said, it’s tough to maintain constant vigilance. I also recognise the effectiveness of stopping raising issues, as well. Sometimes, they’re just bait. Zero reinforcement is effective. Let her act it out to no audience.
.
Absolutely spot on with saying her actions would destroy the both of us. I’ve lost track even of how often she damages / has damaged our life here, let alone the topics she covers, and I see no gain at all from any of it - it’s pointless destruction to no end, for anyone.
.
Adopting ailments is also recognisable. I have three, permanent, long-term health issues which are all degenerative, and she worries she has them. It’s patently obvious there’s nothing there, yet she continues to point to nothing on her leg or stomach, or has visual impairments that are not correctly described.
It’s not hypochondria; it’s echoing me.
.
All of which most certainly lead to it ‘not being the happy, cooperative, interactive relationship that I want’. It is indeed a purgatorial limbo.
It’s dead. There’s no spontaneity, laughter, good times, but especially no relaxation - relax and you’ll find it was a fishing trip and now you’re hooked into junk all over again - got to keep that in mind.
.
What do I have left to lose? I have nothing left to lose, put simply.
It’s been a waste of time. Getting out is what I want most often now.
.
Thanks for the encouragement, and for showing a little that I’m a standard size in this issue.
I have some new tools to go try out thanks to this forum.
.
Thanks all.

[Unaware]

Couper,

I adopted that same policy, why it took years for me to figure it out puzzles me. It was very successful and it kept my head from exploding, I was certain it was going to.

That said, after five months living that way he moved out. It seemed too easy and was. Five months after he left, the smear campaign went full blown, the harassment and stalking began.

Even the PFA didn’t stop him but I just attended, what I hope will be, the last court hearing. He opted out of that hearing, a no show, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. He was found guilty and when they catch up to him, I will not be needed for sentencing.

Praying it’s the last chapter in the book of nightmares and that I’m in as good a place as I believe I am…no longer overlooking the red flags or RED BANNERS. I almost feel like the me I was prior to the train wreck. I choose to find silver linings rather than have regrets. In this case I’m wiser and unwilling to fall down that rabbit hole again!

It’s a process, mostly good days and very few bad. I see my responsibility in it. Occasionally struggle to forgive myself. And often tell myself what I’ve told my children, all of their lives…
“Mistakes are a good thing as long as you learn from them and do your best to never repeat them”

[Couper]

I'm glad to hear the sleep deficit is rectified.  It's so hard to process things when all you can think about is how much you want to sleep but cannot.

It's amazing the parallels both here and in the accounts of others.  Wish I had found this site a long time ago.  Even if we didn't have synchronized schedules for whatever reason, it wouldn't be so bad if she would take care of all of her responsibilities (and do so without blaming me as being the reason that she doesn't take care of her responsibilities).  A few years ago I started telling myself sort of as a joke that, "I'm a single parent of three children" and then after a little bit I started to realize how accurate that was.  It's an interesting thing now that as my two minors are closing in on becomming teenagers, I am actually seeing them surpass her in emotional maturity.  I try to drill into them personal responsibility, the value of being honest even when they have done something wrong, and it's starting to stick.  They have attained to essential human qualities that their own mother does not possess.

We're on very similar paths.  Maybe I'm not using the word "snooze" correctly (we're doing very much the same things) but I use that to differentiate from the other tact regarding "engaging with validation" and whatnot.  I've tried things like that in the past and in my case conversation = escalation.  No question can be asked right (almost always perceived as a trap) and no statement can be taken for what it is (perceived as a criticism).  After years of that, it was time for a different approach.  I don't-not talk to her, I just don't communicate any more than what is essential.

It's interesting that you mentioned plants.  We both like yard work and she has much more time for it.  Anything I plant (and usually things I plant have some significance to me, like from my old family place) she will neglect it.  There are many instances like that.  I like to collaborate, plan, and design things, so what you mention about avoiding the "hooks" was very difficult with my current approach because I want to discuss things, but inevitably it was never about the question... the question was just a tool used to start a conflict.  The question never gets answered and then I have a new problem on my hands.  Now when she comes to me with some small tree she wants to transplant and asks, "Where do you think we should plant this?" I just tell her to tell me where to dig the hole.  When I find a tree to transplant, I don't even ask her, I just go put it where I want without telling her.  Not the life I envisioned for myself (literally not the life I envisioned because way back when I never knew this dreaded condition existed) but this approach has brought relative peace.

I'm curious: Does your wife ever make statements or does she only really ask questions?  It took me a long time to realize that's part of the reason it is impossible to have a conversation with mine.  Every statement she makes is a question and every question she is asked she answers with a question.  Even with the kids she will say, "Will you go clean your rooms?", "Will you set the table?".  Those should be orders.  Kids take things literally, so when they are asked and they don't (because they weren't told, they were given an option) then she has an opportunity to play the victim and scream and yell and cry that they don't listen to her when actually... they did.  My kids are great.  When I tell them to do something they hop-to and go do it.

Perhaps you have seen this:

https://bpdfamily.com/pdfs/carver.pdf

I stumbled across it last night while scrolling through the library section.  Very eye opening.  I'm still not clear on how to proceed but this article did add a few steps to the list that I think need to be checked off and I'm also surprised at how many I have already done without knowing.  The biggest eye opener is, "becoming boring", which I have sort of done.  Last year when she was really amped-up over all the crazy things going on, I learned that she has a real issue with things being boring.  Since I'm not getting the daily harassment anymore I have been wondering if she has already gone in search of a new host and this confirms that perhaps she has.  I've said before that my dream would be to just wake up someday and find she took a bus to Siberia.  That's not likely to happen, but maybe in a proverbial sense she already has.  Stick to your guns.  I have a hunch you are at a tipping point with your approach.

Were it not for my kids being stuck in the middle of all of this I would have been done with it already.     



 

[Couper]

Couper,

I adopted that same policy, why it took years for me to figure it out puzzles me. It was very successful and it kept my head from exploding, I was certain it was going to.

That said, after five months living that way he moved out. It seemed too easy and was. Five months after he left, the smear campaign went full blown, the harassment and stalking began.

Even the PFA didn’t stop him but I just attended, what I hope will be, the last court hearing. He opted out of that hearing, a no show, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. He was found guilty and when they catch up to him, I will not be needed for sentencing.

Praying it’s the last chapter in the book of nightmares and that I’m in as good a place as I believe I am…no longer overlooking the red flags or RED BANNERS. I almost feel like the me I was prior to the train wreck. I choose to find silver linings rather than have regrets. In this case I’m wiser and unwilling to fall down that rabbit hole again!

It’s a process, mostly good days and very few bad. I see my responsibility in it. Occasionally struggle to forgive myself. And often tell myself what I’ve told my children, all of their lives…
“Mistakes are a good thing as long as you learn from them and do your best to never repeat them”

Hi Unaware, thanks for the note!  It sounds like you have come out the other side with all of your marbles intact.  It's a sad, but encouraging story given the outcome.

At the risk of hijacking Red's thread, can you tell me if during all of this your kids were minors or adults and how that played out?  That's my biggest concern.  My kids are still little.  The thought of her being able to skate through the courts if she can hide her true self (because let's face it, I think there is still a bias favoring the mother with respect to the children in the court system) is my biggest hurdle.  Right now I'm present as a buffer and positive influence.  If she can take off separately with them they are going to be exposed to things the likes of which their little brains do not yet have the objectiveness to process.  I don't want her issue to become a generational issue.

Sad as it sounds, what you described happening would be ideal so that the outside would could see for themselves what really goes on here behind closed doors.  I had one very good friend in whom I tried to confide about this stuff when they could tell that my life was getting difficult and didn't know why... and as a result lost I that friend.  Not that they are angry at me, but I think they didn't have the emotional capacity to process how messed up all of this is.  I never should have said anything but they sort of pushed by wanting to get involved and now a 20 year friendship vaporized.  I won't make that mistake again (that wasn't meant to play off your last sentence now that I have re-read!).

I'm a "silver linings" person too and it sounds like you have arrived at the destination I am seeking.  I want to be like Unaware when I grow up!  I tell myself that maybe there are those of us that have to experience stuff like this because there are better things coming in our lives that require this level of understanding.  At least that's how I justify it.  Everything has a purpose.  Thanks again for reaching out.  (My apologies to Red for the detour.)

   

[Unaware]

I didn’t intend to hijack you Red, my thoughts were to, perhaps, guide you into what appears to have been a successful method in dealing with the craziness of these relationships. May not work in your situation, as everyone is different.

My marbles are stabilizing, in tact is debatable given the day! My “boys” (grown men) provided early insight to this relationship and I did not listen. Both, separately, spun my “mistakes are a good thing…” around on me multiple times, wish I had listened!

I do realize that having minor children brings a much more difficult situation and I’m thankful that wasn’t the case for me.

As for the all night pacing and mumbling, just loud enough, that you know they are unhappy about something (never knowing what) only that it’s your fault (insert sarcasm) resulted in my sleeping with earplugs! It was the only way to get sleep! When the craziness would ante up I’d sleep with one earplug and switch it to the ear that wasn’t pillow side. It felt safer that way, hear just a little in case things went completely off the rails. Heck of a way to live, right?

I am incredibly lucky this method worked successfully as I (and my family) had concerns as to exactly how it would play out. This board has given me wonderful ideas and knowledge and more importantly an acceptance that the outside world couldn’t possibly get their heads around. I have great friends and an awesome supportive family to afford me the ability to, what sometimes felt like, clinging to my sanity in an impossible situation.

Red, Couper…there is hope. Don’t let go of hope, most days it very well may be all you’ve got! I commend you for protecting the children and doing your best to shield them as much as possible. I can’t imagine where I’d be in this had minor children been in the picture, my heart goes out to on that front.

[Couper]

I suspect Red will forgive us for the detour!  On some forums it's frowned upon and I am new here, but I am grateful for what you shared.  It is a relevant addition in my eyes.

You have surely earned your stripes.  I'm so sorry that you had to go through all of that.  Your story does provide hope and sometimes it is easier to find hope than patience!

[Red22]

I don't see a hijack, here. It's all good information.
Thanks very much for it, Unaware and Couper.
Unaware, your original post looks to have disappeared, but I saw it; thanks for your input.
I can't see myself on your exit ramp just yet - there's too much to learn about this and too much I need to consider about how to go about achieving that. I'm lucky in that this is not my home country, and I have the choice to up and leave if it gets to that point. However, I've learned that quitting does nothing to solve and always deteriorates a situation - so I need to consider well. I also like it here and want to stay, which she knows and plays to.
This is accurate in thinking of the future:

I ... had concerns as to exactly how it would play out. This board has given me wonderful ideas and knowledge and more importantly an acceptance that the outside world couldn’t possibly get their heads around.

.
Re this thread content - information is good. If anyone would like to comment with behaviours I might recognise or solutions and strategies they have found, please do so, they will be much appreciated. I'm on new ground and need a map.
.
Re my own additions here, I'll try to keep my replies to behaviours I recognise elsewhere in this forum confined to this thread. I think this will help me to localise or centralise information and make it easier to find what I need in reflection.
The Z thread.
Here's an example.
I was reading elsewhere and saw this post from Couper.

I call that: "Setting up the pins so she can knock them down".

Here's my version of that.
I recognise this as her setting me up to fail.
She'll offer opportunities for me to make a bad or uninformed choice, many times with a view of showing that decision to a third party as being reflective of my character.
Moral, legal, professional decisions over how to act or whether to act or not can be proffered with her waiting for a mistake in my judgement.
That's easiest to spot when she steps into the professional arena, but there are many other areas in which she does this.
She'll use her knowledge of my tiredness, a packed schedule, illness, personal greed, etc, to suggest and endorse short cuts, minor transgressions, or lapses of responsibility as tools to try to push or encourage a bad decision, which she'll then broadcast and hold up as example.

Here's an old one.
Her brother had a old bicycle that he kept here for storage. After a while, he wanted to sell it, so I sold it for him - he wanted $50.
He rarely visits, and it was months before he came around. When he finally arrived, I remembered the money late after he'd been here a while. I told Z about it - asking for confirmation if I'd given him the money yet, and she told me to keep the money as he'd probably forgotten about it.
I didn't keep the money. If I had, she'd have told him I'd done that even after remembering and that I was the bad guy.
Really, she'd have been correct - it would have been my choice to do that, and trouble arising would have been all my own doing, but the fact she tries to set these things up adds a new dimension.
This is the easing and encouragement of small acts of self-sabotage by the traitorous guardian of the public cleanliness of my conscience and responsibilities.

[Red22]

... it wouldn't be so bad if she would take care of all of her responsibilities
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No question can be asked right (almost always perceived as a trap) and no statement can be taken for what it is (perceived as a criticism).  
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I'm curious: Does your wife ever make statements or does she only really ask questions?  
.
Perhaps you have seen this:

https://bpdfamily.com/pdfs/carver.pdf

... The biggest eye opener is, "becoming boring", which I have sort of done.  Last year when she was really amped-up over all the crazy things going on, I learned that she has a real issue with things being boring.

A repeating issue over time is her almost total abdication of responsibility. It took years to get past this, but now she does organise essential items, such as visas and work permits, herself. She now has a job and has taken on some financial responsibility for living costs and services, especially in the last few months. She still has no personal pension arrangements, medical insurance or much in the way of savings.
She helps with the housework nowadays, but it's a small amount of the total work and is done with bad grace.
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Getting communication correct is always an issue. Many times, both questions and statements need to be explained in depth or she'll accept neither. I need to drill down right back to foundational thought processes and justify the entire linked chain of ideas that led to the question or statement, then she’ll discard my ideas or question or scoff at some point of opinion. I see this as perhaps ‘devaluation’ - if I understand that correctly.
.
She uses questions more.  She won’t say “I’m hungry” - she’ll say “Are you hungry?” and I’m supposed to guess what that means. In such a simple situation as that example, I can recognise what she wants, but it runs into complexity when I need to start considering the ramifications of the topic of the question when seen from her reality and how that affects today - and I’m usually only given a short time to respond. This becomes truly an epic quest when I need to answer the question based on her memory of something that happened in, say, June 2007 and then consider how she’s acting today and how that old event somehow connects to eating breakfast this morning, and I have 5 heartbeats before it starts to turn sour.
Questions or statements aside, allusion is used far more than anything else. She won’t be direct. But that’s women in general in my experience.
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That PDF is a winner! Thank you so much.
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When I first read your ‘becoming boring’ comment, I connected it to her saying that “Life is boring without fighting”. I never thought to flip that into a useful strategy.
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Thank you very much for all of that.
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Cromwell, I’m still looking through that list of behaviours.

[Cromwell]

Hi Red

Good luck with it glad to hear it is informative.

I know it is formidable

personally I have read a fraction of it all

I just dipped in during my recovery journey a bit like consulting a glossary. Some subjects I found the need to go deeper.

How have you been doing.

[Red22]

Doing ok, thanks.
I'm finding ways to describe my situation and recognise what I'm dealing with.
I didn't have either the vocabulary or the differentiated terrain before. Now I'm picking through things like an archaeologist and recognising layers and artifacts.
When I have both the site fully exposed and a grouped inventory of items found, that in itself will describe the way forward.
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I've had good sleep for a week, have had no major problems with her over the weekend, have a possible way forward that's positive and actionable, access to a group that have similar experiences, and map of the area - I'm in a much better place than I was 2 weeks ago.
Thanks to this forum for that.

[Couper]

I connected it to her saying that “Life is boring without fighting”. I never thought to flip that into a useful strategy.

Yikes.  Another one of those moments of honesty that slips through the cracks once in awhile.  I have been told, "Whenever I am told to do something it makes me want to do the opposite" (which I already knew), but the one that really scared me is, "Words don't have any specific meaning.  Words can mean anything you want them to."

I admire your methodical study of things.  I think you're getting a good handle on the situation.

[Red22]

Re Cromwell's linked list, I'm changing 'fear of abandonment' to a tentative 'yes'.
She has started so many fights just as I am leaving for work or just as I am going out to class.
For years, I left the house mad-angry and so damned tired.
Is this in the BPD pattern of behaviours?
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Another topic / question.
Making utterances that sound like alarm calls - the boy who cried wolf.
She very regularly uses entirely the wrong tone, pitch, speed, and volume to make sudden statements.
I'll hear her voice, but not her words, from another room, and it sounds as if she's seen a snake or a burglar. I quickly go there, and she'll say something banal like "Oh, I forgot where I put my keys", or somesuch.
A variation of this is to suddenly bang and clatter objects or drop something that makes a racket.
Outcomes are nervousness and an unsettled atmosphere, although I'm wise to it nowadays.
Is this in the BPD pattern of behaviours?

[Couper]

The morning stuff was several years ago back before I was wise to what was going on.  Every morning it was, "You can't leave, I don't have your lunch made yet" or "These papers have to be signed before you go".  Always things there was plenty of warning to prepare for but somehow never comes to light until it can make me late.  Numerous discussions about how important it is for me to be punctual fell upon deaf ears.  Just like you said, a bad way to start the day... every single day... until I started ignoring it and it moved on to some new attention grabbing scenario.  It seemed to fall into the category of being put in a position where I was made to choose between her and something else (opening up before employees arrived, etc.).

There are similar issues with noises.  Along those lines, panicked reactions to statements I make about very minor things.  For awhile she went through a phase of sighing heavily... about every single thing as though it was a major burden.  Pointing it out got met with, "I have always done this".  Nope.  It was new and after a few months and many fights it only finally went away when I quit saying anything about it.

The most embarrassing is when I welcome others into the house.  If a visitor is staying over downstairs she will walk very heavy on the floor, just short of stomping.  Most the time she won't speak in a volume where you can hear her, but when I had a visitor that needed to use the bathroom and she happened to be sitting right outside the bathroom door reading to the kids, rather than relocate for a bit and give him some privacy, she went back to reading but now very loudly.  Lots of awkward attention-getting behavior like that about which I have learned I cannot say anything because 1: there will be hell to pay and 2: it won't stop it.

    

[Couper]

What about a need for constant noise?

In the last couple of years she has to have something playing her every waking hour.  When she manages to get up early enough to catch me on the tail end of my breakfast, down she comes, phone in-hand, with something playing on it and my nice quiet morning is over.  If not the phone, then the radio, t.v., or computer (many times more than one thing is playing at a time).  On top of that she'll start talking to me.  She knows I can't hear clearly with other things playing, but will almost never turn off the device first.  If I ask her to, she gets irritated.  If I can't understand her, she gets irritated.

Even when she works in the yard, the phone is in her pocket playing something.  As soon as she gets in the car, the radio is on.  My guess is that she can't stand to be with the silence of her thoughts.  It's not all music and, if it's a talk radio program and if I turn it down so I can talk to the kids, it's "Hey, I'm listening to that" but if you ask her what they were talking about, she can almost never tell you.

 

 

[Red22]

Ok, so not the same with startling noises.
Possibly the same with leaving for work.
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I recognise the embarrassment of visitors coming around.
1. She'll either not talk voluntarily at all, or, if greeted, will mutter a reply.
2. She'll start telling them about 'all our problems'.
3. She'll come up with a whole new narrative of our life in that place.
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Not constant noise, but more often than not there's a video playing in the background - it's very rarely music, if ever. Korean gameshows, Korean soaps, true crime documentaries, unsolved crime documentaries, and gay community comedy shows are the staples.
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Doing two things at once - big yes. Watch YouTube and play a video game at the same time - for hours straight. Says "I'm multitasking".

[Couper]

Maybe more similar to your startling noise thing, if she's in the other room reading something on the computer you'll hear a lot of exasperation: "Oh my gosh.  Oh no.  I can't believe it.  What next?" all designed to get you to come in and express concern and then you find out it's something trivial like laundry detergent isn't on sale this week.  I think that falls more into the "crying wolf" category.  I don't acknowledge any of that stuff anymore.

Muttering is a big gripe of mine.  When eating out the waitress will ask her something and she'll either look down and shake her head or mutter something that puts the waitress in the awkward position of having to ask again.

This still happens all the time.  At home she'll make a statement and then ask a question that trails off into a mutter.  "I'm going into town.  Do you want me to..." and then the rest is unintelligible.  I'll ask her, "Do I want you to what when you go into town?" and she'll reply with, "I'm going into town" and then I get sucked into this circle of telling her, "Right, I heard that part, there is a second part where you asked if I want you to do something.  Do I want you to what?" and I'll either get told, "Nothing, I'm just going into town" or she will finally repeat the question after a lot of probing.

What about putting herself in harms-way?  This sounds really stupid, but I see this a lot of times when I'm mowing grass.  Our yard is pretty big and it's not uncommon to hit a rock or chunk of wood and send it flying.  When she wants something, she will appear out of the blue and walk up on the discharge side of the tractor.  I quit telling her why she shouldn't do that because it became obvious that she was doing it for exactly that reason.  What really upset me is when she would have one of the kids in tow.  I finally realized that I couldn't teach her, but I've now got my kids trained not to do that.  What I've had happen several times is when she's working diligently in one part of the yard, I'll pick the opposite area to mow (we're talking a few acres of distance here) and the next thing I know now she's working right within chucking distance of the machine when there is no reason for her to be there.  This spring she did that at dusk and I hit a small pile of debris that I couldn't see that she had left piled up in the tall grass and I think something hit her in the head.  Needless to say, after years of that behavior she hasn't gotten close lately.

  

[Cromwell]

I didn't live with her so i didn't experience this to that level. Although i reckon based on what I've pieced together it would be that way. It helps to read these accounts.

If this is first foray into this Red22. Id say to maintain open mind whilst taking notes. Conclusions may not be necessary yet? Maybe it was easier for me, my ex had a professional diagnosis. What I'd say is, you are in the right place. If the material resonates with you, it's a heavy emotional subject. I get the impression you are comfortable pacing yourself i found the archaeological analogy reassuring. I've found strength in stability. Stability from balanced living. I had to decide at a. Juncture, do i want that? Or do i want to continue a life that is dissolved in drama, chaos. Quite frankly, I think once i figured out the games and repetitions. It got incredibly boring. Just cowardly texts, cryptic, bizarre. But trying to hurt. I found it senseless. Banal.

How are you doing? If you get ever difficulties we get it here and just a few clicks away

[Red22]

How am I going, Cromwell?
Slowly. But this definitely resonates. I'm recognising a lot by reading here... this process is interesting in the same way a train wreck draws one in.
How are you?
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Here's my Saturday.
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Saturday, 29 May, 10.58
No fighting, but no talking, either. Separate lives. I’m ok with that.
But I’ve a bad stomach again - feels like food poisoning with recurring cramping up. I've no idea where this came from, but I won't be going anywhere today.
I've managed to avoid fight weekend by only eating breakfast together over the last 3 days, leaving the table quietly at the first sign of a hijack, then staying away for the whole day and not accepting any further invitations to eat with a very calm and clear, "No, thanks. I don't know why, but I'm just not hungry", re “Become Boring”, - Joe Carver.
She’s back in the single room now with a video playing, but this time she’s cleaning it - dusting and sweeping. She commented on how dirty it is when I went to look.
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Possible link - but I don’t know how to classify it. Physical attack? My own paranoia?
I had my second haircut of the year yesterday and now look presentable again. It’s been around 3 months since the last, but the vaccinations are in place in this neighbourhood now. He took off a good inch above the ears to go back to a military short back and sides, and I took the same off the beard when I got home - that's a number 3 now.
A big change, and it got no comment at all. She said nothing.
Speculation - Did she think I was going somewhere or had an appointment this weekend and want to mess that up?
I've linked food poisoning with her before, not so much through the issue that I get sick as the timing of the sickness. It almost always interferes with major plans or events - such as starting new jobs. In the past, within 2 weeks of new work, I've had to deal with food poisoning, stomach cramps, the runs, and a new position; I’m a teacher and can’t just step out to the bathroom whenever I like, much less every hour or so. This has occurred with regularity and in differing spheres and makes life very difficult.
Last night, I cooked pan-grilled pork shoulder myself and had a handful of beers and some Pringles. She shared the pork and isn’t sick. The meat was good, so where'd this come from? I've eaten nothing in the past 12 hours that I can think of that would cause it, and I’ve spent the last 3 days almost completely in my workshop and only eating a meal at breakfast.
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Couper, yes, the exasperated airs drawing me to question or help is a regular event, thin ice which I now skate over quickly with the expectancy of problems.
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Muttering, yes. Comments half heard as aural hallucination leading directly to a plausible denial. That's also skimmed over now.
It's clear or I didn't hear. Period.
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Putting herself in harm's way - is that open to interpretation?
She doesn't drive a car, ride a motorcycle, or ride a bike as her physical coordination doesn't sync up with or match her environmental input.
Same for catching or throwing things like a tennis ball or bunch of keys; she can't do it - not even close. She couldn’t play Dodgeball and not get hit, and would have problems catching the ball or throwing it at people - it’s a perceptual issue.
Perhaps because of this, she avoids situations that require involvement in a physical process involving gross motor coordination with a moving environment. Even crossing the road can be a problem.  
Way back when I didn’t know any better, her first time riding a motorcycle as pillion with me was terrifying. Although she used moto-taxis regularly to get around town, she had no clue what to do and wouldn’t take advice. These days, I’m Driving Miss Daisy if she’s on the back, and I’m constantly expecting the entirely unexpected.
So “being in harm’s way” is perpetual for her, but it’s from an unusual source.
However, she has the sense to avoid a shower of sparks if I’m grinding something in the workshop and can effectively see what’s coming in relation to where she’s standing and what I’m about to do, and she can clear the area right behind the bike so I don’t hit her as I get on it.
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Aside from the physical coordinative side...
- She’s socially suicidal and absolutely cannot sustain social contact over time. This is harmful to us both. There are a handful of people she communicates with through Messenger services, including her family, and everyone else is avoided, commented about, sniped at, and avoided.
Forget good relations with the neighbours - it’ll never happen.
- Until very recently, and for a decade or more, she was entirely financially dependent on me, and still has no medical insurance, pension arrangement, and nothing much of any savings. The constant fights over this have been more harmful to date, perhaps, than the fear of the future outcomes.
Is this putting oneself in harm’s way?

[Red22]

I recognise this from the 'Early red flags you ignored' thread.

- Continual and increasing snipes at my masculinity because I didn't want to dominate and control her (devaluation, and dependency).

This behaviour has no upper limit in its scale.
She'll step further and further into this area until she's acting like a full-on Alpha lesbian in attack mode.
Devaluation I can see, but dependency? How does this connect to dependency?

[Couper]

The food poisoning thing is really scary and, if correct, completely unacceptable.  Does it clear up on it's own each time, and after the same period of time from when it begins?  Just thinking out loud about something you may have around that wouldn't seem out of place in the home, would be hard to detect, and would generate the symptoms you describe -- I wonder if it's a laxative?  

It's interesting the perception issues you describe.  Mine is a terrible driver.  Partly because she regards any well-intentioned instruction (re: any self-improvement exercises in general) to be a personal attack, so I gave up on helping her with her driving years ago.  The other part may be that she genuinely has perception issues.  It is hard to tell.  She only knows what she can see and has no comprehension that her back wheels trail her, so they hit curbs and drop off in ditches when making turns.  Someday I expect her to get creamed on the interstate because when everybody else is doing 70mph, she's doing 45mph... and "they should all be going slower".  

I can see some of what you shared as perception and I can see other things as being self-sabotage which I would think can be a type of putting one's self in harm's way.  I'll throw a third one in there that you can see if it fits.  Ever heard of Dunning-Kruger Effect?  Mine definitely has that going on mixed into everything else, but I can't say if that's a BPD thing or something separate, but it definitely doesn't help matters any.

I like your, "It's clear or I didn't hear it".  I try to enact that whenever possible but it's hard to be "on the ball" all the time.

I've experienced two things the last couple of days that made me think of this discussion.  Yesterday she, my son, and I were at the table eating during the afternoon.  I was picking on him for his "bed head".  We bantered a little while she was off in space (she very rarely has play-type interaction with the kids like I enjoy doing).  That interaction passed and several minutes later I went out on the porch and then I hear her laughing hysterically in a fit of giggles and I just had this feeling that it was bait to get me to come back in, so I stayed put.  It went on for some time and I haven't heard a reaction like that to anything in a few years.  Later I asked him what that was about and he said his "bed head".  She was totally absent for the whole exchange when I was present, but as soon as I leave it turns into a very over-the-top giggle fit?  He looked that way all day, not like she saw it for the very first time.  Odd.

The other was today.  We went out at sunup to light our very big burn pile (that's the first time she has been up that early since I can't remember when).  While I'm going back and forth to two positions stuffing cardboard and trying to get it lit, each time I move she is right on my heels.  It's a hard task because I have to climb in, get tangled, it's raining, etc.  There nothing for her to add but each time I stumble out and back to my feet she's in my path just making things harder.  Later, part of the process is as the middle burns down, going around and pulling the stuff from the edges that won't burn, untangling it from the tall grass so I can mow around it, and throwing it in.  The heat is intense, so you have to keep your face down, yank out the branch, swing it around behind you and toss forward without looking up.  She's right on my heels again in harm's way when any rational person would be standing at a distance if they wanted to watch.  I can only see peripherally while doing this and I think something finally whacked her and she moved back a few steps, but still directly behind me as I went around and not to a safe distance.  No point in saying anything because I know it's an attention grab and saying anything will just reinforce it or give her an opportunity to argue.  This went on with other things during the process, too.  I've gotten to the point that for pretty much anything I just prefer to work alone.      

[Red22]

The food poisoning thing is really scary and, if correct, completely unacceptable.  Does it clear up on it's own each time, and after the same period of time from when it begins?  Just thinking out loud about something you may have around that wouldn't seem out of place in the home, would be hard to detect, and would generate the symptoms you describe -- I wonder if it's a laxative?  

I live in subtropical southeast Asia. Much like India, it's not difficult to find a bad stomach here. As I said, it's the timing of events that gives it away. I very rarely get sick here these days as I know the score locally.
Antibiotics are always needed - Flagyll is the name. I don't bother with the doctor any more; it's always the same. New staff want to go for a beer somewhere, a get to know, but I'm on antibiotics.
It's been 4 days now and it hasn't cleared up, so I'll be starting them today or tomorrow.
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I had a second job interview this morning. The first interview was way back in February - it looks like first choice moved along after the first term.
I had a call about it out of the blue yesterday and told her last night.
There was something salty on my breakfast this morning, a homemade jam affair with no need for salt; thanks for taking the time.
I didn't eat anything further, inexorably leading to a fight as I left the house. I didn't play the dodge it and tiptoe game, just shot her between the eyes with it and left the building.

1. Eat the offered, messed-up food, you're weak and framed as emasculated, scorned, derided, mocked.
2. Don't eat the messed-up food and there's a fight because she went to the trouble of making it.
3. Say why you don't want to eat the messed-up food and there's a round denial, angry rebuttals, a snarling face and a long fall into a day or more of fighting.

I chose number 3 above, and immediately left the house 90 minutes early; I got my sh1t together last night and hit the kitchen this morning already ready to leave.
It's pointless even being here expecting anything normal to happen. I avoid all but breakfast, so she destroys breakfast.
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There was no reaction later when I told her later that I got the job - blank expression .
She said, "I don't know what happened to you this morning".
I said, "Nothing happened to me this morning", and quickly, calmly and completely ducked the bait, and went to make some lunch - a pile of cheese on toast.
I went back and asked her if she wanted some and saw the old Z, a tiny, frightened, personality looking at me with relief and as if to say thank you.
She came to eat, and, within moments, after a few bites sitting at the table, returned to the aggressive nightmare Z. I'd capitulated, she'd won.
There's no win for me here; it's a loss in every direction. Staying is a loss, leaving is a loss, fighting or not are both a loss, keeping to another part of the house is the best option, but then I'm weak and avoiding, so I lose. Utter stupidity.
I'll be on antibiotics for the next 10 days or so - the new job starts on the 14th but with a few training days before that.
I'll be working from home and teaching online - upper secondary through to university aged adults. It'll be a relief to be working again.
If I can juggle her attacks around maintaining classes, that'll be a start.
I need to look at my workflow and see what's vulnerable. It doesn't help that I'll be on camera as they're all synchronous classes.
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Dunning-Kruger, yes, I've heard of that. She is university educated, has 5 languages, and works a professional office job dealing with large amounts of money and heavy responsibilities re care of others in very vulnerable conditions. This is not a case of dealing with a 'stupid person'.
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I haven't seen dissociation to that degree. She gets dreamy, but is not absent.
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Yes, working alone is far more productive. It's less stressful, there's no argument or fighting, I don't need to consider what may or may not be going wrong or happening with her, I can get far more done, and, most importantly, I get a break from her.
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But, to flip to her world,  my working alone is effectively giving her more time to play video games and watch YouTube, because a day off work equates to a day off the responsibilities of life, which means she wins, and I'm weak because I let it happen, so therefore I'm not a man, so I lose, and she gets to mock to rub my nose in that loss.
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Fight and lose.
Don't fight and lose.
Avoid and lose.
Don't avoid and lose.
Blend any aspect of any approach in any amount to any shade grey and lose.

[Red22]

Here's today's gem.
10:25, Friday, 4th June.
She just finished her Friday Zoom meeting; I was in an adjoining room ironing my laundry.
First, and very clearly, she asked her immediate, local boss for permission not to return to work in the office, but to continue working from home - her reason being that she's not sure what will happen here if she's not here.
That got my cogs turning. It would be a far calmer and better place to be if she were not here.
A short while later, and she's speaking to higher management, an Australian, and the volume of her voice rises to the point I can hear very clearly, as before, and she's saying she thinks I'm manic depressive. Her boss replied with "If he is manic depressive, there's a good chance he's going to be saying things about you." followed by a resigned, sighing tone, "Ok, well..." and I lost the thread.
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'Intermittent reinforcement' be damned, after the meeting ended, I went into the room and asked her if she would be returning to work in the office. I did so with a very long and direct gaze. She met my eyes, sighed, and said, "No, not yet". I continued the gaze a long time and she stared right back at me.
I turned to leave with nothing more said, got 5 paces away, and she let out a "Yes!" as a loud unvoiced whisper - the type you'd shout if your team scored. I kept walking away.
I need to add here that I just got a new job; I'll be teaching online from home very soon - 14th June. Induction begins Monday, 7th.
She's arranging to be here during my working hours.
She is entirely cognisant of what she is doing.
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Re her story to management, this is 'painting black'? This is definitely social sabotage. This is also a deliberate provocation right in my face, and as usual is designed to lead to a pitched fight over what's said, or a 'devaluation' over my refusal to fight - both of which will wreck the day.
Hey, guess what - it's fight weekend again. Not wreck the day - wreck the weekend.
I should have kept out of the house.
Last weekend I ended up on antibiotics, this weekend I'll have her workplace junk story rattling around my skull and with no beers to take the edge off.
In the house and it's fight weekend - out of the house and my head's mashed.
There is no win.
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A pertinent question to me now is, how does my ability to give her behaviour a label, to pigeonhole it in terms of a description others understand in the same way, and to communicate to others what's happening here make this stop.
How does my reading pages and pages of information here stop her?
I could do an MA in Psych101, be armed with all the terminology, be aware of all the possibilities, permanently walk around carrying a bagful of coping strategies, but how does that stop her?
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I will still be walking into the room not knowing which of a thousand of those strategies I'll need to pull out of the hat in a heartbeat and implement successfully, then switch - on the bounce - to any number of other further strategies of any concurrent combination and number, pulling that off successfully, then sit there - drum tight in expectation of another walk off the edge of the world, while she swings in a hammock like some Roman Emperor lazily throwing random sh1t my way and in full knowledge of what she's doing.
I will still be walking on eggshells.
My life will still be a minefield both at home and outside of it.
What's the use of spending so much time to label this if I'm still getting blown up anyway?
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In the last few weeks, I've found this online resource - it's incredible what's been made available - and I've found this community - it's incredible how open and expressive you are - and I've found that none of it is any concrete solution.
If anything, now I can see that there is no end to this. What was my own marital problem has become a well-defined, well described, well understood series of behaviours that is known to have absolutely no end.
Of all this information, and of all this chatter, what will make her stop?
Of everything I can learn about psychiatry here, what will make her stop?
For all my talking and reading, and this nightmare Psych topic sucking away at my so much of my time and my life, what of my efforts will make her stop?
From what I can see of answers to coping strategy questions here - none of it will.
None of it will.
The best any of this can provide is a conversation about terms of description of the nightmare.
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You guys are probably just as pissed as I am, and just as stressed, and just as trapped, but how does this stop them?
Much of this forum reads as if someone farted in the room at a wine tasting event, and everyone's spending hours learning how to describe the fart because opening a window to chase it out is impossible, so talking while standing in the middle of a fetid stink is all anyone can do.
I want to know how to open the window and chase it out.

[Red22]

I tried to edit / modify a paragraph, but the forum software won't let me.
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Here's the modification.
'Intermittent reinforcement' be damned, after the meeting ended, I went into the room and asked her if she would be returning to work in the office. I did so with a very long and direct gaze. She met my eyes, sighed, and said, "No, not yet". I continued the gaze a long time and she stared right back at me.
I turned to leave with nothing more said, got 5 paces away, and she let out a "Yes!" as a loud unvoiced whisper - the type you'd shout if your team scored. I kept walking away.
I need to add here that I just got a new job; I'll be teaching online from home very soon - 14th June. Induction begins Monday, 7th.
She's arranging to be here during my working hours.
She is entirely cognisant of what she is doing.
I can fully expect an attack on my employment.
This is not the first time she has attacked my employment; I can track that back to 2008.

[Cromwell]

Hi Red22

Doing much better thanks the unwelcome visitor was a big problem to solve and inconvenient but its resolved.

Its great to see your doing some reflection based on the new material

I was wondering about the change of taste of food. Could be linked to the infection. Could be linked also to other conditions both physical and psychologically derived.

At the worst stage of 'play' to continue the point scoring game analogy, i recall taking a bite of turkey sandwich and could not taste anything at all. Not sure why.

Today i get paid to taste samples for the food industry. Try to journal some of this {here if you find it convenient}. It could be useful insight to your own state of health.

Her disorder is a moot point? You told me before that there is no battle. Anymore. So why did you continue the gaze for a long time? For her to then signal another point scored.

Sometimes in life its appropaite to stand up and overthrow the table and have a tantrum of our own. Then get the hell outta dodge.

I think your due yours. Controlled explosion. Keep stable and build up the diary. You have only so much energy conserve it, endurance not sprint.

I hope you hold on to the vision of a better life that each day getting closer to achieve. No more chinese water torture slow erosion.
Do it before you get ill, is my friendly advice.

I can give links to the correlations of deleterious health outcomes of members if that helps? It sobered me up. I took it as warning claxxon to kick disorder out. My life is not stressed today for those reasons.

When was the last time you had a good time out, with friendships, laughter, joy, that sorta thing. Own hobbies? Im asking to encourage self appraisal of the damage. Sometimes in the midst of it can get lost. Focus on the escape tunnel, even if one day amounts to a spoon only of soil. You came here because I presuppose you made the decisive choice to leave, not to. Fix. If you want to stay and try the tools maybe the bettering part of this board would assist better?

[Red22]

She's going to work in the office from next Monday.
Now I wait for the 'extinction bursts', which I suspect will come from a distant sniper.

[Couper]

Last night I was reading yet another something somewhere about BPD that I'm sure we have all seen before that, "we can't force change on others, we can only change ourselves".  Along those lines, I'm sure in the generic sense we have all heard, "You can't help someone who will not help themselves".

From what you have said, she is not willing to help herself.  However, you have gone out of your way to study, understand, and seek to find a solution to this horrible solution you have at home.  I'm a believer that there is a solution to everything and that even when it seems like there is not it is just because we have not yet cast a wide enough net.

On the 23rd you made the comment that you have the option to leave but you were not yet at that point.  Where do you stand with that today?  I hope I'm not running afoul of the rules here by asking that, but it is merely an inquiry as to your comment.  It is clear that you have put forth a yeoman's effort in trying to find a solution, and there is a solution and there is hope, I'm just suggesting that perhaps the solution is something you have not yet considered.  If you choose to change course, you have not failed.  Failing (or quitting) would have been throwing in the towel without having put any effort into it.  Your efforts are noble -- you have not failed.

You mention spending a lot of time in your workshop and it sounds like you are working metal, so I think we speak the same language.  I have spent my whole life in various skilled trades mostly revolving around machining, welding, and fabrication and spend about 16 hours per day in my own shop.  Today most of what I do has extended into other unconventional areas and revolves around saving artifacts.  There is this notion that everything can deteriorate, be rebuilt, deteriorate again and go through an endless cycle of being saved.  Even I used to think this, but what you learn after you start handling these damaged goods is each time a little more of the base material has to be removed to get to a solid foundation and then replaced with something else.  When finished, it may look new and unblemished on top, but the substrate has changed and how you care for and handle it must change also. 

I've started thinking people go through similar cycles in their lives -- our base material gets chiseled away, we repair ourselves, and we can look new on top, but our perspective has changed, the empathy we extend to others has changed, but most importantly we must change how we handle ourselves.  Be a little more forgiving to oneself, but also protect oneself from the elements that cause the deterioration.  For those of us that do this work, we're hardwired to repair things (not just tangible objects, but everything in our lives), but maybe it is best to exercise preservation before conservation is needed.  I think it's okay to be a little selfish and look out for you.  There are lots of other wonderful things going on out there in the world and it's okay to want to be a part of that rather than what you're suffering with at home. To me seeking those things is at the complete opposite end of failure.     

[GaGrl]

She's going to work in the office from next Monday.
Now I wait for the 'extinction bursts', which I suspect will come from a distant sniper.

I

What happened that changed her work arrangement?

[Red22]

18.42, Friday, 3rd June
First up, I need to begin by reminding that my contributions here have been based around daily events in my life since joining. I had no idea of where to start in this forum as the list of dysfunction at home is so long. Journaling helps me, so that's what I wrote here.
What I've done is link each day's behaviours to the past and give a little background of prior similarity of behaviours. We're barely scratching the surface so far.
.
Today's second (forum) journal input is to share that my wife identifies 2 different ways.
One is Z, my heterosexual wife, and the other is "Jo March", a character with sexual identification confusion from classic literature.
She has twin social media accounts for these characters and there are clearly two people living with me in this house.
In the past few years, I've been dealing far more with Jo March than Z.
Jo, here in my marriage in 2021, is an aggressive, domineering lesbian.
Back in 2005, when I first met Z, Jo was invisible. The fighting began around 3 months after we got married.
Jo is the driving force in my marital issues. It's Jo that argues endlessly. It's Jo that matches the lists of behaviours above. The problem for me, especially these days with being stuck at home, is Jo.
.
After 15 years of marriage and fighting, 16 years together, and perhaps 5 years of knowing about Jo, I took Jo on today.
For Cromwell, this is changing my behaviour to suit - well said.
For the first time, I ventured onto her ground and controlled her there.
I don't like it one bit.
.
Couper mentioned controlled violence; that's where I went.
I took it in stages.
I suggested her working from the office so as not to interfere with my work and was mocked.
I strongly suggested the same and was mocked further.
I told her straight to go to work from the office as I knew she would repeatedly attempt to mess up my work, and Z appeared, saying it's not safe due to Covid and she's scared.
I shouted and told and saw confusion, but no agreement.
I got close, roared from a foot away, and was mocked by Jo.
I shoved, pushed, and roared from an inch away and saw Z scared and heard Jo commenting.
At this point, Z was in a defensive posture, arms up to protect her head and looking scared as can be, while the comments she was making were derisive and mocking what I was saying.
I switched from physical to mental at that point, continued shouting, and said I'd learned what was happening, and described what she had been doing using terminology from this forum. Z was crying buckets, Jo repeated 'devaluation' with a haha, and 'painting black' with a wooh, again, mocking.
I got closer, touching faces and still roaring, saliva, snot, sweat, everywhere pushing and shoving into a corner, I'm 6foot and 220 pounds, and Jo disappeared.
I backed off and Jo said she'd think about going to the office.
That started my first 'recycle', and I did it all again.
I left Z sobbing in a corner.
Committed and totally freaked out, I walked around outside for 5 minutes and then went back inside and started the whole deal again from the first, sane, calm and collected suggestion of working from the office.
Jo looked at me in confusion, said she'd think about it, and I started again - the whole thing.
Then I went for a walk again.
Then I restarted again from calmness.
Then I went for a walk again.
Jo still wouldn't agree to go to the office from Monday.
After the third walk, I switched it up and threatened her laptop instead of her. Shouting and raving, I sized up swinging it against a doorframe and Jo quit immediately, agreeing to go to work in her office.
.
What did I learn?
Jo doesn't back down until we're riding right on the wire.
Z is scared for her own physical safety, Jo is not.
Z will back away from violence, Jo will not.
Z will move to physically protect herself, Jo will mock.
Z is confused by intense aggression, Jo is not.
Z will not escalate while in a physically threatening situation, Jo will escalate with amusement.
Jo has knowledge of psychiatric technical terminology.
Jo values the laptop much more than her own physical safety.
Z dissociates when under intense attack.
.
Cromwell again, I'm a teacher, would I believe, in shame.
I find solutions, give second chances, develop ways through, cope with problem students, have endless patience, and grow new people.
New day - new start is the best foundation for all that. But I can see now not with Z.
.
Coupler, my workshop is perhaps 20 square meters. I'm relearning bronze brazing, which I used to do as a teenager working on an old-style light engineering shop floor - mum was a QC and I went there young.
.
My marriage has been over for years. I need to detach from this fugly mess, and I need to survive the detachment.
We have no kids. A medical examination in 2007 showed that she has a mioma blocking conception transit and which is only removable with a hysterectomy.
Cromwell again, this is part of my basis for saying I can leave; we have no kids.
Also, this is not my country. Z is not from my country. Leaving here would not technically be leaving home. However, this house and neighbourhood has become home; I've been here a long time. Some of this year's crop of uni grad students were or have been students of mine since grade 6. Others graduated years ago. Many more are undergrads, policemen, shop assistants, whatever. I know their parents and I'm known well here. This is home in that way. This is also security in that way. I'm known. That's my shield in this place. She's poisoning that.
I have a new job in a school less than a mile from home. Start Monday - kids start in one more week.
That's what I'm protecting, and that's why I don't leave.
.
Here's the new normal, feels like utter sh1te.

[Couper]

I'd like to clarify that I haven't used the term "controlled violence", nor have I advocated taking any physical measures.  Looking up the actual definition, it is the furthest thing from how I handle situations in my home.  I am clear and absolute, but I do not raise my voice or take an aggressive stance.  Even when she is flying off the handle, I am conversational and if she gets aggressive, I tell her that I am removing myself and we can revisit things when she has settled down.  My response to any of her antics (as best I can in the heat of the moment) is to remain completely nonplussed.  However, I do not under any circumstances capitulate with the hope of buying momentary peace because it will not happen, and history has shown that it will only embolden her.

With respect to this alter identity of "Jo", my wife apparently went through a phase of the same thing but in a different way.  It came and went (I think went) before I came along.  She used her alter identity to become the heroine version of herself to right the wrong from her childhood that she cannot fix herself.  None of what her alter identity did happened anywhere but on paper, yet this baggage she still carries around was also not resolved.  I can't imagine having to deal with "Jo" on top of everything else this horrible condition brings to the table and for that you truly have my sympathy.  Thank you for sharing it to further put your situation into context.  

[Sappho11]

You mention spending a lot of time in your workshop and it sounds like you are working metal, so I think we speak the same language.  I have spent my whole life in various skilled trades mostly revolving around machining, welding, and fabrication and spend about 16 hours per day in my own shop.  Today most of what I do has extended into other unconventional areas and revolves around saving artifacts.  There is this notion that everything can deteriorate, be rebuilt, deteriorate again and go through an endless cycle of being saved.  Even I used to think this, but what you learn after you start handling these damaged goods is each time a little more of the base material has to be removed to get to a solid foundation and then replaced with something else.  When finished, it may look new and unblemished on top, but the substrate has changed and how you care for and handle it must change also. 

I've started thinking people go through similar cycles in their lives -- our base material gets chiseled away, we repair ourselves, and we can look new on top, but our perspective has changed, the empathy we extend to others has changed, but most importantly we must change how we handle ourselves.  Be a little more forgiving to oneself, but also protect oneself from the elements that cause the deterioration.  For those of us that do this work, we're hardwired to repair things (not just tangible objects, but everything in our lives), but maybe it is best to exercise preservation before conservation is needed.  I think it's okay to be a little selfish and look out for you. 

What a beautiful analogy. Man, this is true poetic wisdom. Couper, you should write a book.

[Couper]

What a beautiful analogy. Man, this is true poetic wisdom. Couper, you should write a book.

I sure don't feel worthy of such kind words but I'll gladly accept it as "Praise from Caesar".  

[Red22]

I was dreading reading this page today.
Thank you for not becoming a firing squad. I'm sure that is coming from some quarter sometime, but thank you for that not being today.
.
Couper, my apologies for the misattribution.
Cromwell, my apologies for the misquote.
Yesterday was my choice, neither of your suggestion.
.
Agreed with Sappho11.
.
Couper, I'm relearning brazing by repairing fences. Doors are next - all the doors in this place are steel with a glass pane and are heavily barred, most having rusted out to some degree at the bottom. I have a perhaps 20m first-floor balcony railing that has rusted in part, with sections becoming unsafe.
I started from scratch by refurbishing and redecorating an empty spare room around 6 months ago.
The language barrier around technical terms for brazing tools and materials was the first hurdle. Then finding the correct shops for the torch, pipes, gas and bottles, etc. This is an undeveloped country that doesn't have the hardware store outlets or equipment availability I'd have back home.
Figuring out which unknown white-powder / rocky chunk of flux was the correct temperature for anonymous yellow metal rods found at random was fun. I spent 2 weeks trying to match a gas flux to tig brazing filler before realising what rod it was.
Next was flux removal and cleanup, which I'm still working on; wet and dry with elbow grease works best, but is painfully slow.
After that, I built / brazed my own welding table by balancing long pipes on stacks of books and rolls of sandpaper on old wooden and rattan tables until I had a frame, straightening pulls out by eye and by hand as I had nothing to clamp or reference to.
I still have no chopsaw, everything is handcut with an angle grinder and filed to fit. This is intentional as I'm aiming to build bicycle / green transportation peripherals and active seating stations for classrooms and home, and want to brush the rust off the pipe notching and fitting skills.
I'll move to Tig and mma when I can properly flow a brazed joint and drop a smooth and regularly sized  fillet inside a 90' angle first time, which I'm not far from now.
I'm copying the original railing design of 25mm square 1.5mm section box profile pipe in mitred square within mitred square, framed, and separated by verticals.
After a heck of a lot of practice and more burn blisters than I'll admit,
I've almost finished the first complete panel. I've no idea how to fit the panel by brazing, and there's
18.5m to go, but the ball is rolling now. It took the past week to make the panel, and 6 months to get to being ready to do that.
.
In retrospect, and below a conscious level, I'd already identified doors and fences as areas needing attention, and had started rebuilding boundaries and re-fencing unsafe areas.
I'd also returned to what I did at a safe point in my life, working with and learning from 100 time-served apprenticed blacksmiths all older than God, and with family in charge of quality control.
And I'd started looking at a greener future away from my current situation.
I'll keep teaching in future as it's the best job in the world, and there are plenty of part time options, but I'm wearing thin these days and can see I'll not have the personal resources on tap much longer. At 54 years old, I can still swing a chance at growing something else to do without quitting entirely.
.
In my whole life, and I've worked in some pretty tough places both before starting teaching and after, I have never done before what I did yesterday. It's disgusting, and I'm sure every house in the street thinks the same.
.
She's retired to the spare room, as usual, with the door closed. She's made a coffee, cleaned the kitchen floor and beyond the floor immediately outside, and we're back in the silent zone again.
I'm tiptoeing around myself today.

[Cromwell]

How do you feel about the 2 personas? Was this something that surfaced during the marriage or were you aware before?

I'm conscious that she is aware of psychiatric terminology. Id consider whether it is worthwhile imputating the info you have picked up on and browdsiding her with it. The resources here are your up the sleeve trump card. If she gets suspicious it could cause issues and trigger abandonment fear prematurely.

My detachment was akin to engineering an escape tunnel and not have it discovered. It took 2.5 years to get her out my life. Its not just practical detachment of course it's complex, its a big mix as you also outlay. You want to stay where you live and work, community etc.

It felt reassuring to get a lot of 'I' statements in your journal. Its powerful. It may help also defuse conflicts and let you vent in tense times.

'I feel angry right now, im going for a walk'

Is not provoking shame or accusatory {a feeling is something we experience regardless of any judgment we post mount upon it}

And nope you are not firing squad here we dont do this to those who have put out hand in trust for help.

You shouted at her, it sounds like anger. I don't believe it is all your anger. I believe you have good reason for feeling it.

Keep us in the loop, you are doing good. To cope with what you have so far is a sign of strength as is reaching out. I believe in you and you'll get through this.

[Red22]

She went to work with no fight first.
Left 45 minutes too late, needed a reminder of the lateness, then decided to go find what she could have found last night, but left nonetheless.

[Couper]

No worries and no apology necessary.  Sorry if it looked like I dropped out.  I have been out of town for work the last 48 hours and have limited access when traveling.  I just spent a wonderful two days surrounded by mentally healthy people and would highly recommend it to anyone!  I agree with Cromwell and have been impressed by the lack of a firing squad here.  We're all going through the paces of some very complicated things and it's a welcome relief to find shelter here.

I'm impressed with your brazing project!  You are having to contend with hurdles that we don't even have to think about in the industrialized world.  It is clear that you are a tenacious sort and will persevere.  Brazing is not my strong suit.  I once had some good instruction on a heavy iron repair and the result was great, but it's not intuitive to me and when left to it alone I rarely encounter success.  MIG and TIG is not a problem and is usually the first place I start.  Here recently I bought a new inverter TIG and there is much to learn.  My old transformer machine simply wasn't capable of performing the delicate work of a special job I had come in.  Having originally learned TIG on a machine that was the size of a refrigerator, this new inverter technology is really incredible.  It does everything and more of the old machine, it's only as big as a couple of shoe boxes stacked up, and weighs a whopping 40 lbs.  It can even do 110v or 220v and it simply detects whatever voltage you plug it in to and the whole thing only cost half of what a single accessory feature would have cost on a big TIG 20 years ago.  At least welding machines are one place the world seems to continually improve!        

Keep us posted on your metalworking progress, too.  I tend to think the work we do with our hands is directly tied to the things going on in our head.

[Red22]

I just spent a wonderful two days surrounded by mentally healthy people and would highly recommend it to anyone!  

I spent the morning today with management and another new teacher on a very nice international school campus; my afternoon has given me the property here to myself.
This is the first time since March 2020 that I've been to my regular working environment, and it's also the first time in a long time that I've had time alone at home. The gates are locked, she'll call when she gets back, and it's a huge relief to have the space to relax.
Highly recommended indeed.

Tig will be new for me, and Tig brazing will be an interesting challenge. I knew stick years ago; reviewing that will be like the brazing is now - brushing off the years, finding the correct materials, and relearning.
The tech these days is amazing, as is the development of skills to match the new machinery. I'm looking forward to the progression.
I don't do the restorative work saving artifacts as you describe in that fine analogy beyond very basically fixing up old vehicles once in a while - two in the last decade have been an original gen1 Mitsubishi Pajero from their first year of production 1988, and an original CB400 Superfour also from their first year of production 1992. Getting the mechanicals working again then going on road trips can be rewarding, especially here, where so many parts need to be scavenged, adapted, or shipped in and there's such a gulf between city and countryside.

How do you feel about the 2 personas? Was this something that surfaced during the marriage or were you aware before?

I'm conscious that she is aware of psychiatric terminology. Id consider whether it is worthwhile imputating the info you have picked up on and browdsiding her with it. The resources here are your up the sleeve trump card. If she gets suspicious it could cause issues and trigger abandonment fear prematurely.

My detachment was akin to engineering an escape tunnel and not have it discovered. It took 2.5 years to get her out my life. Its not just practical detachment of course it's complex, its a big mix as you also outlay. You want to stay where you live and work, community etc.

It felt reassuring to get a lot of 'I' statements in your journal. Its powerful. It may help also defuse conflicts and let you vent in tense times.

'I feel angry right now, im going for a walk'

Is not provoking shame or accusatory {a feeling is something we experience regardless of any judgment we post mount upon it}

And nope you are not firing squad here we dont do this to those who have put out hand in trust for help.

You shouted at her, it sounds like anger. I don't believe it is all your anger. I believe you have good reason for feeling it.

Keep us in the loop, you are doing good. To cope with what you have so far is a sign of strength as is reaching out. I believe in you and you'll get through this.

‘Jo’ appeared relatively recently, and brought about an end to close relations here. Things had been rocky for a long time, but Jo’s appearance closed that door. Looking back, I don’t know if I had indicators or not - I certainly didn’t pick up on them if there were.
I don’t like it; it’s another broken article of trust and is a large-scale betrayal for me. It shows dishonesty from the outset and is an unbridgeable rift. Even talking to Jo is not talking to Z, they are very different people.
.
There’s not much speaking here at all these days; browsing would be difficult. However, I'm onto that now and will be following up as I can... if it’s not the silent treatment from Z, then of the last few weeks it’s me getting my head around the new situation of the realisation of what is or could have been actually going on.
There’s certainly anger, that’s been here for years, but now there’s a new, additional layer of it coming only from me in regard to this.
.
Thanks for your messages, guys.
It’s like having a space to breathe underwater.

[Skip]

Leaving here would not technically be leaving home. However, this house and neighbourhood has become home; I've been here a long time. Some of this year's crop of uni grad students were or have been students of mine since grade 6. Others graduated years ago. Many more are undergrads, policemen, shop assistants, whatever. I know their parents and I'm known well here. This is home in that way. This is also security in that way. I'm known. That's my shield in this place. She's poisoning that.
I have a new job in a school less than a mile from home. Start Monday - kids start in one more week.
That's what I'm protecting, and that's why I don't leave.

Red,

The marriage you are describing sounds deeply broken... and deteriorating to very unhealthy lows - on her part and your part, too. Have you read the stages of relationship breakdown:
https://bpdfamily.com/content/your-relationship-breaking-down

And while I understand that you live in a culture that is highly patriarchal and tolerant of husbands’ violence against their wives, it is nonetheless, a highly and deeply damaging act to a person (her) and the relationship. Sure, it is effective in getting her to do things you want. A gun will do that too. Do you really want to be that person?

While the two of you are focused on battling this relationships on a day to day basis, because "the other person is more abusive than I", it might be a lot more productive to look at bigger picture. Where are you two going with this? Where are you going with this?

Marriage/Divorce:

If this relationship is over, there are no good reasons to delay the inevitable. Or are there? If you both want to stick it out, it will be important to start working together - with you taking the lead (as the patriarch). If she does not want to work on it, you might be better served to shift your focus to making reasonable plans to dissolve the relationship and be civil to one another in the process.

Reputation in the community:

If this is a concern, the points above are even  more important. Being in a relationship that is as bad as yours, especially where there has been physical and verbal intimidation, it's almost a certainty that your behaviors will become public knowledge. I would think that could be harmful to you and could make you vulnerable to accusation (real, perceived, opportunistic) by others - your profession is vulnerable to that.

All said, changing the direction you are going seems critical and necessary.

What do you think? Lot's to unpack here.

Skip

-------------------

PS:

1. Can you elaborate on why you believe your wife has a second personality and that it is a gay/lesbian personality. Is there some sexual indiscretion related to this? Did she name the two personalities - or did you? 2. She says you are manic depressive (Bipolar). Is there any substance to that. Sometimes when our partner has "issues" we tend to discount our own issues. 3. As you deconstruct this (which I agree with you that it is a good idea), be careful not to pathologize everything that she does that you don't like. For example, many couples who have one partner with sleep sensitives (you) and another without (her), it can be an area of great tensions - but it is not necessarily pathological or a strategy to affect sleep deprivation - just incompatible sleep habits and the inability to solve them - which could range from carelessness to environmental constraints (small house, barky dogs, noisy plumbing).

[Red22]

Hello, Skip.That's a lot to think about; thanks for your time.

The marriage you are describing sounds deeply broken... and deteriorating to very unhealthy lows - on her part and your part, too. Have you read the stages of relationship breakdown:
https://bpdfamily.com/content/your-relationship-breaking-down

I haven't read this, but I'll take a look today. This marriage is very deeply broken and has been for years.

And while I understand that you live in a culture that is highly patriarchal and tolerant of husbands’ violence against their wives, it is nonetheless, a highly and deeply damaging act to a person (her) and the relationship. Sure, it is effective in getting her to do things you want. A gun will do that too. Do you really want to be that person?

I do not want to be that person. But I see this now as self defense. If I don't save me, who will?
.
At the very top, this is a matriarchal culture - granny is God and can do no wrong. Age has ultimate authority - nobody trumps Grandma, and extended families live together or in very close proximity. Violence is not culturally acceptable in the home or family, but that's not to say it doesn't happen. There isn't even close to the same levels of familial diaspora caused by education, employment, and the housing market as back at home, so families most often stay close together and fix their own problems.
There is no legacy of 'therapy' here nor is it widely available much outside of charities working here.

On a day to day level away from the home, yes, it's patriarchal, but with very strict limitations - this culture is not tolerant of violence at all; that's as dysfunctional and unacceptable here as in the west if not more so. Shouting as I did is looked down on, and that's a correct view imho. In fact, even losing your cool and showing impatience is a major issue in this culture, and, if you do that in public, you're socially doomed.

If things get to the point of social violence, then it's totally uncontrolled - there is no stopping it. Robbers / muggers / thieves are always beaten and often killed by a mob if caught and if the police don't get there fast enough. The same goes for 'witches' and 'crazy people', but that's rare these days.[/i]

While the two of you are focused on battling this relationships on a day to day basis, because "the other person is more abusive than I", it might be a lot more productive to look at bigger picture. Where are you two going with this? Where are you going with this?

I have been asking for a divorce since 2017 and have brought up the topic half a dozen times at least. I've seen a judge twice; he advised patience. I cannot start the process without local support, and the locals are saying, "Be patient". I've respected that for a long time, but this has not changed, and, reading this board, it's not going to change. I want out.

If this relationship is over, there are no good reasons to delay the inevitable. Or are there?

There are no good reasons to delay.

If you both want to stick it out, it will be important to start working together - with you taking the lead (as the patriarch).

She doesn't want to leave. I want this finished. I also want to keep living here. She won't listen to a patriarchal figure, she'll deride one.

If she does not want to work on it, you might be better served to shift your focus to making reasonable plans to dissolve the relationship and be civil to one another in the process.

She will not cooperate.

If this is a concern, the points above are even  more important. Being in a relationship that is as bad as yours, especially where there has been physical and verbal intimidation, it's almost a certainty that your behaviors will become public knowledge. I would think that could be harmful to you and could make you vulnerable to accusation (real, perceived, opportunistic) by others - your profession is vulnerable to that.

I'm acutely aware of my vulnerability. However, I'm very well known in this community. I have support here for a job well done for so many years.

All said, changing the direction you are going seems critical and necessary.

Agreed

1. Can you elaborate on why you believe your wife has a second personality and that it is a gay/lesbian personality. Is there some sexual indiscretion related to this? Did she name the two personalities - or did you?

Z identifies with / relates to the character "Jo March". Z named Jo. Jo is a female literary character who has sexual identification issues as a teenager. Z chose Jo many years ago, as a student at uni, and Z has seen Jo as never growing up. She's still the teenage girl who wants to be a boy. In my view, Z is living vicariously through Jo. Z sees Jo as light and bright, as the book's character. I see Jo as dark, heavily brooding, and a possible physical threat. Jo turns my wife into a silverback gorilla.

2. She says you are manic depressive (Bipolar). Is there any substance to that. Sometimes when our partner has "issues" we tend to discount our own issues.

I have no idea where I lay on any mental health spectrum, but can see that this is relationship is massively abusive. I've never had therapy or seen a psychiatrist. I've had no issues even approaching those of my marriage in the past.

Looking back at past events is always one-sided, but I can see these BPD behaviours in contribution so many past fights with Z / Jo.

3. As you deconstruct this (which I agree with you that it is a good idea), be careful not to pathologize everything that she does that you don't like. For example, many couples who have one partner with sleep sensitives (you) and another without (her), it can be an area of great tensions - but it is not necessarily pathological or a strategy to affect sleep deprivation - just incompatible sleep habits and the inability to solve them - which could range from carelessness to environmental constraints (small house, barky dogs, noisy plumbing)

I agree with the over-attribution caution, and that my personal dislikes are not a problems that lay within other people.

I'm not a light sleeper. She constantly and repeatedly allows me 2, 3, 4 hours sleep, then wakes me up. I've told her after what must be hundreds of nights, and she just does it again the next day.

With the exception of a 2.5 month period in which she left the country when her mum died, this past few weeks has been the most stable sleep pattern I've had in years, maybe a decade. Wherever I go in the house, she'll wake me up. I have no doubt it's intentional.

Today, as yesterday, I needed to wake her up at 6am for work. She was up late again last night, as always.

[Cromwell]

What do the community think of the clutter?

Does she involve you with what she is up to on the Internet?

Im suspicious of the likelihood of a smear campaign. She already projecting bipolar on to you. Was that a rare one off moment? My ex did the same. Its mendacious it is sly. It is product of disorder

[Skip]

If this is true...

Skip, we're right through this and out the other side. Stage 4 is very well established. When I first asked for divorce in 2017, we had already reached the loss of trust of stage 4.

I keep trying and keep going, but it's getting nowhere.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/your-relationship-breaking-down

and this is true...

I shouted and told and saw confusion, but no agreement.
I got close, roared from a foot away, and was mocked by Jo.
I shoved, pushed, and roared from an inch away and saw Z scared and heard Jo commenting.
At this point, Z was in a defensive posture, arms up to protect her head and looking scared as can be, while the comments she was making were derisive and mocking what I was saying.

I switched from physical to mental at that point, continued shouting, and said I'd learned what was happening, and described what she had been doing using terminology from this forum. Z was crying buckets, Jo repeated 'devaluation' with a haha, and 'painting black' with a wooh, again, mocking.

I got closer, touching faces and still roaring, saliva, snot, sweat, everywhere pushing and shoving into a corner, I'm 6foot and 220 pounds, and Jo disappeared.

and this is true...

She's still spending hours online in the corner of a spare room - 5pm onwards every night and almost all of the weekend time except basic necessities like using a bathroom or finding food.
This is not unlike Hikikomori, if I understand that at all.

She is likely in a serious, potentially dangerous depression.

There are no good reasons to delay.

She doesn't want to leave. I want this finished. I also want to keep living here. She won't listen to a patriarchal figure, she'll deride one. She will not cooperate.

So you both want/need the house and that is what is keeping you together? You're trapped financially?

[Red22]

What do the community think of the clutter?

Does she involve you with what she is up to on the Internet?

Im suspicious of the likelihood of a smear campaign. She already projecting bipolar on to you. Was that a rare one off moment? My ex did the same. Its mendacious it is sly. It is product of disorder

The local community will let me know what they think when they reach a decision, if they're even doing that. There's always a council of elders sat under a metaphorical tree somewhere watching, discussing, and deciding, but I'm not in those circles.

For the longest time, she would close up the laptop or put the phone into standby whenever I approached. Less than a year ago, I called her on that and she stopped doing it. I saw Facebook Messenger to friends and family on the phone - and random content on the laptop, sometimes work-related. She also plays simple, repetitive video games a lot.

She could be saying anything.

I don't remember having any discussions, issues, or accusation relating to psychiatry before. I remember general conversation including the topic, but always branching from the context of the moment.

[Red22]

If this is true...
It's accurate

and this is true...
It's the first time ever, also accurate

and this is true...
for years

She is likely in a serious, potentially dangerous depression.

So you both want/need the house and that is what is keeping you together? You're trapped financially?

Again, thanks for your time, Skip.

A depression dangerous in what way?
Is there a rubric or scale on which I can see the level of seriousness?
Is there anything I need to do, facilitate, or consider day to day right now?
I'm lost here.
I took control to create a space I badly needed. I need this space to be able to be employed.

Z employment and financial.
When we met and married, she had stable employment and a good income matching mine. She worked in the aid industry.
In 2007, 3 months after marrying, she quit her full time employment.
In 2019, around 4 months before the pandemic started, she found another job.
She'd basically been entirely dependent on my income since we got married.
In the interim period, she had two, short-term contract jobs. One for a fortnight organising and managing the logistics of a large, international conference for women journalists, and one advising a local charity for around 3 months.
She won't take a job that doesn't have an impressive title, an authority she can boast of, an impressive online presence she can share, or that offers a package she doesn't see as complete - she gets embarrassed if there's an element missing.
Now, she has a small income, comparatively the same as local people would get in the same position and around a third of my pre-covid income, but it has all of the elements above.
She has a small amount of savings.
Her family back home expect financial help - this is cultural.
She has 2 brothers living separately in this city.
.
My employment and financial.
I'm an educator. Ive worked here continually in various schools since 2005, having a second evening job all through up to the covid shutdowns.
I've earned a reasonable salary during that time. For the past 11 years, the evening hours have been private students so have paid better than outside employment.
I took my private classes online asap, and they continued for around 10 months. The income there was around 40% of pre-covid. I had no outside employment after the shutdown.
I have financial difficulties. I have had limited to no income since March 2020, cannot access any form of state assistance, have no passive income or pension, have very limited savings left, and am extremely lucky to have landed a good job in today's employment market.
I can ask my family for financial help.
I have no direct family living here.
.
The house
This is a privately rented house in a good residential development; neighbours are white-collar - military officers, government types, police officials, managerial level employees of charities, and business people. It's in a relatively quiet part of town, is spacious, as safe / secure as could be reasonably expected, and has good access to most amenities.
We've lived here since just before we got married - moved in in June 2007.
We're both foreigners here, and there are few other foreigners here.
The owner of the house lived onsite with family, but is currently in the US for medical treatment. This family have moved to live in the US over time.
Within this neighbourhood, I'm very well known as Teacher Red. For over a decade, many dozens of neighbours and their friends have been my students; I teach language in evening classes.
For the past 5 months, I have been deferring 50% of rental cost.
.
Reading this, maybe I just realised why she wants the house. How did I miss that.
Could this be correct?
This is why she won't go live with either of her bothers despite everything - she sees herself in this place as a social climber, same for her employment. They are here for work and to send money to their respective families, who live at home. They live like church mice.
I've seen a person dragging around at home in holed, torn, stained clothes and shoes that would be an embarrassment to be found in my trash, eating and living the cheapest way possible right down to severe economy of living space, social contact, and basic communication, and she's seen 'a pause in career progression' and a comparably 'higher social position'.
.
I want the community benefits and security of the working life I've built here, and that includes continuing to live in the house and immediate community. I don't want to start over with new neighbours in a new area.
She wants the house to maintain the outward appearance of stability and social position?

[Red22]

I didn't need to wake her this morning - she was sitting as I arrived.
She left at 07.25 after shouting about a misplaced phone charger, which she wanted to take along - "I put it right here".
I didn't try to help find it.
As she left the door of the house, she remembered that she'd left her phone indoors and went to get it.
There was a vague shadow of 'you missed that'. Or was there?
There were no messages or calls after she left.
That's better.

[Red22]

07:33, 10 June

She was up and about before me and was letting the dogs out of the house as I left the bedroom.
There were no barbs or other attempts at a fight and she left the house calmly at 07.25.
Best yet, and a good start to a busy day for me.

[Skip]

Again, thanks for your time, Skip.

A depression dangerous in what way?
Is there a rubric or scale on which I can see the level of seriousness?
Is there anything I need to do, facilitate, or consider day to day right now?
I'm lost here.
I took control to create a space I badly needed. I need this space to be able to be employed.

The definition of "took control" is "to capture by force".
https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/took+control+of.html

Practically speaking, the relationship is over now. No good is going to come from continuing on the trajectory that you are on.

A depression dangerous in what way?

Suicide. Homicide.

I want the community benefits and security of the working life I've built here, and that includes continuing to live in the house and immediate community. I don't want to start over with new neighbours in a new area.
She wants the house to maintain the outward appearance of stability and social position?

It probably is best to think that you two are only held together by the home and that both of you value it for valid reasons.

It's a rental, so that is not as complicated as owning it.

She financially dependent on you so she doesn't have many options to leave. Neither of you are willing to work on the relationship. You are angry. She is deeply depressed and fearful and that will make her more and more helpless.

It seems that you would be best to file for divorce. That takes a long time. It will get both of you a different and more constructive focus than fighting with each other.

What do you think?

[Cromwell]

Red, this test may be of interest it combines for depression as well as anxiety https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/guides-tools-and-activities/depression-anxiety-self-assessment-quiz/

Its only 18 questions and they are straightforward, should not take too long. take care.

[HopelessinNJ]

Oh man, can I ever relate.  Like you, I get up early.  Pre-covid 5am on a regular basis, with covid I have been waking with the sun, which is now anywhere from 4:30 to 5:30.  My wife has a habit of starting fights just when I get into bed.  I should put "fight" in quotes, because it's really just a long session of her complaining and insulting me.  She does 98 percent of the talking.  I can't get a word in, not that it would help.  I find that no matter what I say, it's just fodder for more of her abuse.

I came here looking for help and support.  I hope you find it too.

[Red22]

She left yesterday morning, and she's not getting back in through that front gate.
.
Rewind to a week last Sunday, and I'd gotten out of the way if it all again by disappearing to my workshop.
As always, workshop safety, I leak-tested the bottles, lines, and torch before I started brazing.
I found a finger-loose regulator on my propane bottle.
That bottle has been tested at the outset of every welding day for months... and it's always passed with no leaks - these fittings are mature technology and can be left for extended periods in adverse conditions and be dependably reliable... there's no way that loosened by itself.
I tightened it up, tested the rest again, and finished the railing section. I said nothing to her as I went back to the house later.
.
I initiated the fight the following day as she came home from work and was passing through the outer gate.
I blocked her way and quietly and directly confronted her about her reckless endangerment of me, the property, and maybe the neighbours, too, by tampering with gas equipment.
She was standing in public in a social situation out in the street, and I didn't let up.
I ran through all of the ramifications of messing with gas appliances while she tried to control herself in public... it was a joy to watch.
After I let her in, she ripped straight into a screaming rage attacking animate and inanimate alike.
.
Knowing the deal by now, and knowing how this latest disturbance could be used, I filmed the meltdown from a safe distance; she took around an hour to quieten down.
The following day, when the neighbours came asking, I showed them the video and explained the situation.
.
Looking good in that I now have a house in which I can relax without interference.
.
She was living within an area protected by my inhibitions and social conditioning.
She knew very well where I would and would not act, and placed herself beyond my reach within my own value system - from there reaching into me and playing me against myself.
.
That will never happen again.
.
Thanks, all, for the resources, space to talk, absence of a firing squad, and time given me by those who helped and replied.
The crux was the comment that the strongest personality will always win... That's the one that made the break.
.
Regards
R

[Couper]

You are absolutely right.  I have never had a regulator, line, or any other flare-type gas connection come loose on any of my equipment.  Mine stays setup all the time.  Once a flare fitting is torqued, it stays that way (which is precisely why hazardous equipment is designed as it is).  That takes a good amount of discipline to keep up with your equipment that way and you were very fortunate to have caught that.  The consequences could have been devastating for you and others around you.  Sabotage such as this is truly the act of a self-absorbed person.  I'm curious -- did she acknowledge doing it?  

It sounds like you're on the road to a better future.  Please keep us posted on your progress.

[Red22]

Her denial of doing it and my rundown of the intrinsic safety of a mature technology is what I think sent her over the edge and into leaving.
There are 2 people in this house; I didn't loosen off that regulator and there's no way in hell it happened by itself.
If I'd started brazing, the oxygen pressure would have pushed the propane straight back up its own line, out of the line, and into the room.
I was absolutely resolute on that and she couldn't stand toe to toe on it.
.
Bye, Z.

[Cromwell]

Well done Red

Onwards and upwards. The sooner you make the change the sooner youll notice the upsides. Its not easy but it is worth it. This im sure of.

[Red22]

Well done Red

Onwards and upwards. The sooner you make the change the sooner youll notice the upsides. Its not easy but it is worth it. This im sure of.

Thanks, Cromwell.
This is the first weekend for many years that there hasn't been a foul mood lurking around, a broiling silence dragging on my nerves, and an energy drain and a fistful of fights started around the place.
I'm more chilled than I can remember being and there are definitely no regrets.

[Skip]

This is the beginning of the end... there are likely to be complex feelings in the future and some retrospect on yourself. It's all part of the process. Be patient with yourself. We'll be here to work through it with you.

[Couper]

That's a beautiful thing.  Here's to sustained peace!

In all seriousness, you will see an improvement in whatever new skills you pursue.  When your mind isn't in a good place you can only go so far, but there is no limit once you can devote more neurons to it.