Final straw

[globalnomad]

Can anybody else point to a single incident crystallizing how disordered their partner is that made it near impossible to go on, even after years of indecision?

Mine was yesterday. A complicated chain of events that led to a bad accident for my son that my wife is (I believe totally unfairly) blaming me for.

Mid morning I get a call from an Aunt that I have not seen for close to a decade. For reasons I won’t get into she had to make a spur of the moment trip that would bring her by our town. She asked if she could drop by and assured me she didn’t want to intrude and could only stay 10 minutes. She had not yet met our two young children or my wife and just wanted to say hi. This is an aunt that has some common interests with my wife and who My wife had been expressing an interest in going to visit. I agreed and then told my wife. This immediately triggered a torrent of verbal abuse about how inconsiderate it was for her to visit at the last minute and for me to agree to such an outrageous request.

My aunt arrived. I quickly showed her our new apartment, introduced her, and due to my wife’s mood suggested we take a look at the view from the rooftop of our building (newly constructed and just moved in). My aunt and I took the kids up. There are planting boxes on the roof. A heavy steel grill on one side of those suddenly toppled when my son was sitting nearby and fell on his hand. It had (negligently) not been secured. The result was a very stressful trip to ER and two badly broken bones. We were told our soon needed surgery.

I calmly took my son and two days later am still in hospital supporting him. Throughout this I have been subjected to almost constant verbal abuse through phone calls and text messages. It’s all me and my aunts fault. If only that inconsiderate  b$$$ hadn’t invited herself over and I hadn’t agreed to it this would never have happened. So I have blood on my hands. I’m going to take the children and divorce you for your negligence, etc etc. Throughout this I have been trying to support my son’s emotional needs in hospital.

And this is it. I cannot go on when my partner viciously turns on me like this in a difficult time, and over a freak accident that I could not possibly have foreseen. I’m not even sure what my question is here, but does it resonate with anyone?

[Mommeredith81]

Sure, there comes a breaking point. Normal partners would support each other. Yes, it's annoying that aunt came at the last minute, but these are minor things; she's older and she's a relative and you wanted to accommodate her. That doesn't mean you deserve constant blame and abuse for the accident after that. It should have been a nice day, and when there was an accident, you and your wife should have worked together to make it as calm as possible. Maybe last minute changes trigger and stress her, and the accident likely added stress. But her reaction is outsized. You may now want to think about whether you want to try to get family counseling or just see how to get out of this situation - depends on how bad it is. In my case, my ex had a weekend when he was out of control, and that's when I knew it was time to go. It did become physical (barely, but it was enough.)

[globalnomad]

Sure, there comes a breaking point. Normal partners would support each other. Yes, it's annoying that aunt came at the last minute, but these are minor things; she's older and she's a relative and you wanted to accommodate her.

This is what I struggle with. “Normal” couples have healthy disagreements about stuff like this. It’s perfectly normal to feel frustrated because you weren’t consulted first, and to express that in an appropriate manner. But that’s not what’s happening. Last minute changes do trigger her. But I am just so sick of walking on eggshells and and I think I’m just all out of patience with the abuse and threats. I don’t think family counseling is a realistic option because she’s in denial. So I am now contemplating the prospect of an ugly custody battle.

[ForeverDad]

Our ex-spouses are typically triggered overmuch by incidents "in the moment" and no matter how we try to be objective, it's all our fault.

A few months before my marriage's implosion I had taken our son to a local park, it had a nice long bike path.  He was only 3.5 years old but the bike had training wheels.  He loved it.  Then, when stopped, he tipped his bike over.  Not a scratch on him but his arm was hurting.  Ended up in the ER with an elbow cast for a month.

Just like with you, I was blamed for it all.  Soon he was recovered but the marriage kept going downhill, she continued with rants and rages, threatening divorce, threatening to disappear with our son, etc.  When we did separate (police, she ended up facing Threat of DV charge) she went to family court and filed an allegation that I "abused" son (months earlier at the bike path in the park) and so I shouldn't have contact with him.  Fortunately, it was a ridiculous accusation and court ignored it.  (She eventually learned what kinds of accusations got reactions from CPS.  Now that was scary.)

Things can quickly get out of hand.  A few reminders to save yourself some grief...

Even before telling her you plan to divorce, maybe even before seeking intervention by police, if possible, get some legal advice ASAP in a few consultations with local family law attorneys.  This is high priority.  They can advise and warn on where you as a man and father stand in the local jurisdictions.  Lots of policies and procedures may surprise you, they are based on decades of prior case law and not on our typical common sense.

You have a right to privacy and confidential matters.  If you consult lawyers then that is confidential, your spouse does not have a right to pry or demand confessions.  Do you have William Eddy's Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

One motto to remember is that you have a right to privacy and confidentiality.  So no announcements, "I'm going to interview prospective lawyers this week."  You have a right to quietly find out what rights and methods you have available to you to pursue a divorce.  Despite your preparations, she may sense something has changed in you and start interrogating you.  Again, you have a right to privacy and confidentiality.

Our best manual for unwinding a marriage is Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder by William Eddy & Randi Kreger.  One of the first chapters describes how to find an experienced, proactive family law attorney, or lawyer.  Other chapters describe how to avoid the many mistakes Nice Guys and Nice Gals are apt to make when navigating the legal system.  The first lesson is that our "common sense" is not the court's common sense.  Its policies and procedures were shaped by decades of laws and case law.  The end result is we are quickly stumped as to what to do next.  Enter your support system:

• Your trusted friends and family
• Your local legal team
• Peer support such as those here who have "been there, done that"

We here are Nice Guys and Nice Gals.  Great, right?  Well... being nice people in a bad situation can be a disadvantage since our nice inclinations such as a sense of fairness can set us up for surprise sabotage.

How so?  You probably want to be 'fair' and inform her in advance of filing for divorce.  Well, that can give her an opportunity to sabotage you - negatively...

A perspective to be aware of, that we have a judicial system and not a justice system, fairness is often missing... The person behaving poorly seldom faces consequences and the person behaving well seldom gets credit.

[Mommeredith81]

Well, that's the issue sometimes - there will be a custody battle. Depending on your state, lawyers, evidence, etc. you never know what you can get. Do you think there's danger if she has them half the time or more? She may be in denial, but may have to come to terms with things if she risks losing everything. However, sometimes that's short lived. Yes, you have a lot of thinking to do, but if you and the kids are not in immediate danger, you can quietly plan and see how things go. Keeping a journal will help. Do you think your memory issues could affect how you take care of the kids?

And yes, healthy, normal couples disagree, even sometimes blame each other for no reason, but apologize quickly. Walking on eggshells is no fun.

[Cat Familiar]

To respond to the title of your thread and the lead question, YES. There was an incident in my first marriage that triggered that feeling from me that I could never continue. And it wasn’t even the worst of what I had experienced. But I knew it was the final straw.

Are you still feeling like this?

[I Am Redeemed]

Same as Cat, there was an incident of raging that was not the worst I had experienced with my ex, but it was the final tipping point that made me decide I was not putting up with any more of it.

Mine was connected to the realization that he really did not want to change and cared absolutely nothing for my well-being or my kids'. I decided to put myself first for once.

[globalnomad]

To respond to the title of your thread and the lead question, YES. There was an incident in my first marriage that triggered that feeling from me that I could never continue. And it wasn’t even the worst of what I had experienced. But I knew it was the final straw.

Are you still feeling like this?

Yes I am very much still feeling like this is it. Perhaps because we recently moved closer to my extended family and I have a greater support network here. After bottling things up for years I have started opening up about my relationship troubles with selected friends and family. And that has helped me feel stronger. This is far from the worst I have experienced too. But it has helped me realized that in difficult times I will never be able to rely on my partner for emotional support - conversely I will always be used as an emotional punching bag to resolve her difficult emotions.

[globalnomad]

Even before telling her you plan to divorce, maybe even before seeking intervention by police, if possible, get some legal advice ASAP in a few consultations with local family law attorneys.  This is high priority.  They can advise and warn on where you as a man and father stand in the local jurisdictions.  Lots of policies and procedures may surprise you, they are based on decades of prior case law and not on our typical common sense.

You have a right to privacy and confidential matters.  If you consult lawyers then that is confidential, your spouse does not have a right to pry or demand confessions.  Do you have William Eddy's Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

A perspective to be aware of, that we have a judicial system and not a justice system, fairness is often missing... The person behaving poorly seldom faces consequences and the person behaving well seldom gets credit.

Thanks for this post. Really helpful perspective. I’m early in that journey. Going to speak to a family lawyer this week just for informational purposes at this point - so I know what I need to do to protect myself. And will add that book to the reading list.

[BigOof]

Strategically, it is a bad time to file for divorce since she'll use this incident to win full custody, if not try and get supervised parenting time for you.

You need to plan your lawsuit out. You need to manage your emotions. You need to collect evidence of her (poor) parenting style.

1) Nuse the kid back to health and document the hell out of it
2) Record her saying it was an accident and you weren't to blame
3) Record a dysregulation
4) Get a lawyer
5) File for divorce

[globalnomad]

Strategically, it is a bad time to file for divorce since she'll use this incident to win full custody, if not try and get supervised parenting time for you.

You need to plan your lawsuit out. You need to manage your emotions. You need to collect evidence of her (poor) parenting style.

1) Nuse the kid back to health and document the hell out of it
2) Record her saying it was an accident and you weren't to blame
3) Record a dysregulation
4) Get a lawyer
5) File for divorce

Thanks. More helpful advice here. I recognize this would be a bad time to file for divorce but think I need advice fast so am speaking to a lawyer tomorrow. I suspect that on return home in a couple of days I am going to be severely tested. So my focus for now is staying Nonreactive in the face of verbal abuse, threats and rage. And documenting everything. (2) above is probably not possible. She insists the accident is 100% my fault. Fortunately I have a witness (my aunt) and I may even have a legal case against the builders who left the rooftop unsafe.

[BigOof]

Does she follow a cycle of going through each of the following phases:

1) Tension Building
2) The Explosion
3) The Honeymoon

https://jenesse.org/domestic-violence/the-cycle-of-violence/

?

[GaGrl]

Absolutely you should follow up on the contractor,/builder liability!

[Mack1]

Howdy.
Yeah I had one incident that spelled the end for me.
For the second time-and last, she game me the ‘I love you but…’ you know the rest.
Unfortunately I’m convinced she expected the same begging, pleading as I did ten years ago.
The smile vanished quickly when I told her ‘fair enough, f**k off then.’
This was before I understood BPD but I just wanted her to know she doesn’t define me and no one will.
I so much regret not doing it last time but hey, we live and learn.
Stay strong.

[maxsterling]

This incident is par for the course with BPD.  I've experienced similar more times than I can remember - even just tonight! 

I am guessing the "final straw" for you here is receiving the continued verbal abuse and blame at a time when you could use her support in caring for your son.

I can't say for sure what the "final straw" for me was because I am still in the marriage, but I do know somewhere along the way something like this happened that made me know the marriage could never get back to the point it once was, and everything foreword is now viewed through a different lens.  No amount of her changing behavior or apologizing could bring it back. 

[globalnomad]

Does she follow a cycle of going through each of the following phases:

1) Tension Building
2) The Explosion
3) The Honeymoon

https://jenesse.org/domestic-violence/the-cycle-of-violence/

?

Good summary. Yes this is the cycle. Every. Single. Time.

[BigOof]

Good summary. Yes, this is the cycle. Every. Single. Time.

Right, so you're undergoing traditional Domestic Violence (DV) from your wife. Next, you need to understand the Power and Control Wheel of domestic violence:

https://www.med.unc.edu/beacon/wp-content/uploads/sites/598/2018/03/GenderInclusivePCWheel.pdf

You need to manage your emotions. Don't let on you're getting a better understanding of her patterns. Document all the possible patterns of DV and map them back to the Power and Control Wheel.

Luck favors the well-prepared.

[kells76]

It is telling that all her emotional focus right now is on raging at you instead of lovingly caring for your son.

Has she been to the hospital at all? Are you the primary caretaker for your son in the hospital?

Kind of "interesting" that she "allows" you to be alone with your son, taking care of him in the hospital, when "you are the cause of his accident".

Hope you can see how much her accusations don't make sense.

...

Anyway, I strongly agree with GaGrl; when you meet up with a few L's to get a feel for what may happen, do bring up the accident -- maybe they have some leads on good ways to cover your bases and to ensure that the responsible party is held accountable. It will be important to share with the L's that your W is trying to blame you completely for the accident and that if there were a court case she would likely try to use it against you. That could help the L's advise you more specifically about this intersection between family law and (not sure what it's called) commercial liability law (?).

And agreed with BigOof -- plan for the worst, hope for the best. I can't think of anyone here who was like "gee, I sure wish I'd not prepared as well, now that things are better". It's unidirectional -- you won't regret "overplanning" if things settle down, but you will long-term regret underplanning if things blow up.

[PeteWitsend]

Sure, there comes a breaking point. Normal partners would support each other. Yes, it's annoying that aunt came at the last minute, but these are minor things; she's older and she's a relative and you wanted to accommodate her. ...

Good post, but this isn't even a "minor thing"!  It's something that happens from time to time, and "normal" partners adjust to it, and make allowances for it, without getting angry and taking it out on the other person.  

It reminds me of a time my aunt came to visit us, and on a phone call to another family member, my aunt kept mentioning that our daughter was "so smart" and "just like her father"... This sent BPDxw into a rage, because of course, my aunt's comment could only be interpreted as an insult to BPDxw, and an implication that she wasn't very smart.  (sarcasm).  The whole thing blew up, and - to my shame - I took BPDxw's side and made my aunt apologize and explain herself.  

This happened during a really tough time in my life, when I actually reached out and sought T to deal with the all the stress I was facing both at work and at home.  I mentioned this event to the T, and said I wish my aunt had been a little more diplomatic and not said the wrong thing.  The T stopped me and said "There's nothing wrong with what your aunt said or did.  It's a perfectly normal thing for a family member to share, and your wife is WAY out of line for picking a fight over it."

That comment (among others) helped me see that I was allowing BPDxw to actually change my perception of the world; I was moving toward her view of things, rather than standing up for what I saw and believed.  I needed to stop caretaking her and making excuses for her, because in the end, BPDxw was never going to be happy with me, but in the process of trying to keep her happy, I would lose myself and all my relationships with my family members.  That was just not something I was going to allow to happen.  

[globalnomad]

It is telling that all her emotional focus right now is on raging at you instead of lovingly caring for your son.

Has she been to the hospital at all? Are you the primary caretaker for your son in the hospital?

Kind of "interesting" that she "allows" you to be alone with your son, taking care of him in the hospital, when "you are the cause of his accident".

I am the primary caretaker for my son in hospital. To be fair to my wife, the local hospital was unable to do the surgery and i had to take him to another hospital 90 minutes away. So my wife is stuck caring for our four year old daughter without a car. I’ve arranged for some local help and support. My parents also offered to help get her to the hospital but she’s broken off all contact with my family for now because in her mind I’m responsible for the accident and they are of course taking my side. I will hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Spoke to one family lawyer yesterday and I have another consultation today. .

[ForeverDad]

Spoke to one family lawyer yesterday and I have another consultation today.

A question that is very proper to make is this:  "If you were pondering a divorce with a very high conflict spouse, who would you hire to represent and defend you?"  That lawyer would want to select from the very best available in the area, right?  Why can't you build a short list of excellent experienced lawyers to choose from too?

Reminder, you're consulting with lawyers, not yet hiring one.  They should know they won't get everyone who walks in the door as a client.  They should know you need one who can handle your very difficult circumstances.  You need more than one who usually fills out standard forms and holds hands.

[Liren]

My final moment was him raging and threatening literally in front of our child.

He had screamed at me, locked me out of the house, thrown out the dinner I made, kicked my car, then let me back in to scream some more.  This would have been one of those times I left the house until later that night, but we had an event to get to.  Trying to ignore the screaming and "retarded, selfish bitch" comments, I went upstairs to get the children ready to leave, with him following me.  Peaking into our teen son's bedroom, I saw him crying on his bed.  I went to give him a hug but husband was not done screaming at me.  Continued his tirade, didn't care that our child, our little guy, was weeping and begging him to stop.  No, in fact threatened to kill me and then get me fired, or vice versa.

That was it.  Over the years I've managed to keep this away from the kids, by and large.  But this was right in front of our son, and he didn't care!  

I can't have the kids in this environment.  I can't let them see me treated that way.  It's like a veil is lifting and I wonder why I've let myself be treated like that for so long.  I always said I was staying for the kids, but I was letting them be exposed to THAT!  

[globalnomad]

My final moment was him raging and threatening literally in front of our child.!  

That’s a very understandable last straw. For me too one of the hardest things has been realizing that my wife has no boundaries at all - and is literally not capable (or willing, hard to tell) to modulate her rage episodes in front of the children.

[BigOof]

For me too one of the hardest things has been realizing that my wife has no boundaries at all

I can relate.

Subsequently, I've learned on this site boundaries are gifts you give yourself. That's very empowering to understand.