I’m new - Navigating the end of my relationship

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

We met in law school and began dating after our previous long term relationships both organically ended. Things were great. We had talked about an open relationship but I back tracked on that. He was upset but agreed. Started our own firm together right out of school and got pregnant. He changed his mind about the open relationship and gave me an ultimatum. I stayed and gave permission. He went on Tinder and went to Mexico in summer 2022 but was unsuccessful. Had another baby right away. I knew things were rocky but I really wanted 2 kids close together and I believed we could get past it. Things just got worse. He was playing 20 hours of competitive online video games a week. I felt neglected and when he raged after a loss I felt scared. I left 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night with my baby because of his violent outbursts. He never hit me but he yelled at me and destroyed multiple computer monitors. He defended his yelling at me when we debriefed about it “it’s a normal way of expressing emotions” he said.  Almost didn’t want him at the birth. Left him for a weekend in January 2023. Came back and “scabbed” over. I began working through my codependency issues and setting boundaries. We had a family vacation planned for March with my parents at their condo in Hawaii. I say him down and asked him to suspend the open relationship for that month so we could focus on us. He accused me of trying to control him but agreed “barring unique circumstances”. The first week in Hawaii we were fighting constantly and he didn’t act like he wanted to participate in any activities with me or the kids. On Thursday night we were finally on a good page and went out together. He made a comment about hitting on the waitress and asked if it was ok. I said « yes in the sense that you’re allowed to and I can’t control you, no in the sense that I asked for the open relationship to be suspended this month”. This triggered another fight. Thursday night he came into the bedroom, woke me up and ranted at me. I set a boundary “it’s the middle of the night. If you continue to talk at me I will leave and sleep on the couch” he did and I did. He left at 4am and didn’t come back until 630am. He said later he went to look for a hotel. He was distant all day Friday. We tried to talk and he said he couldn’t do a family vacation and that he needed to express this open relationship side of himself. He left Friday night and didn’t come home until 1am. I sent him an email telling him I was uncomfortable with him running a hook up vacation out of the same accommodations as our family vacation (my parents condo) and asked him to leave, go home early or get a hotel. He accused me of kicking him out and spent over $6000 to fly to the Dominican Republic for 2.5 weeks, the rest of our vacation. He didn’t say goodbye to our newborn son before he left. He didn’t want to talk for over a week and accused me of violating his boundaries whenever I responded to one of his messages. I had decided that the relationship was over and that I was moving in with my parents when we got him (they’re snow birds and live 5 hours away from me during the summer). I was willing to reset and date if we were both willing to work on ourselves. We had a meeting with our therapist yesterday because he was finally ready to talk. I told him my plans. I asked him if he had slept with someone in the last 2 weeks. He said “yes kind of. It wasn’t what I was looking for but I accidentally hired a prostitute. I was really drunk and I’m not proud of it”. He didn’t apologize for anything and out the blame on me. He said “this is who I am and you either love me or you don’t”. We went an hour overtime on our meeting and he ended up hanging up on us. Our therapist reassured me that im not crazy. She thinks he has a personality disorder. So does my dad who is a doctor. I’m keeping it together for my kids and getting all the help I can, from here, from my family, from my codependents anonymous meetings, self help books, journaling, introspection. I dread going home and having to devise a parenting plan for our kids and figuring out how to deal with our firm. I just want him to get better. I think I could forgive him if he was serious about getting better and didn’t want to be the person he is right now. I know I can’t control him. I don’t want him to hurt and neglect our kids the way he’s hurt me. I know I have to detach but we’re so intertwined. I care about him, I want him to be happy and healthy. I think I make him unhappy and unhealthy right now. I know I’m unhealthy and I’m working on that. I don’t know what’s reasonable. Should I be trying to forgive him? Is it rational to be disgusted by him? Is my feta thing just going to hurt him more? I know that’s not my job. How do I protect my kids? How do I support him in getting help? How do I stop myself from trying to be there for him? He wants to just sleep in separate bedrooms. That’s not enough space. I know that but he’ll think I’m over reacting. I’m so tired and hurt and confused and scared and angry and sad. I just want him to be the man I know he can be.

[Monkey1235]

We met in law school and began dating after our previous long term relationships both organically ended. Things were great. We had talked about an open relationship but I back tracked on that. He was upset but agreed. Started our own firm together right out of school and got pregnant. He changed his mind about the open relationship and gave me an ultimatum. I stayed and gave permission. He went on Tinder and went to Mexico in summer 2022 but was unsuccessful. Had another baby right away. I knew things were rocky but I really wanted 2 kids close together and I believed we could get past it. Things just got worse. He was playing 20 hours of competitive online video games a week. I felt neglected and when he raged after a loss I felt scared. I left 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night with my baby because of his violent outbursts. He never hit me but he yelled at me and destroyed multiple computer monitors. He defended his yelling at me when we debriefed about it “it’s a normal way of expressing emotions” he said.  Almost didn’t want him at the birth. Left him for a weekend in January 2023. Came back and “scabbed” over. I began working through my codependency issues and setting boundaries. We had a family vacation planned for March with my parents at their condo in Hawaii. I say him down and asked him to suspend the open relationship for that month so we could focus on us. He accused me of trying to control him but agreed “barring unique circumstances”. The first week in Hawaii we were fighting constantly and he didn’t act like he wanted to participate in any activities with me or the kids. On Thursday night we were finally on a good page and went out together. He made a comment about hitting on the waitress and asked if it was ok. I said « yes in the sense that you’re allowed to and I can’t control you, no in the sense that I asked for the open relationship to be suspended this month”. This triggered another fight. Thursday night he came into the bedroom, woke me up and ranted at me. I set a boundary “it’s the middle of the night. If you continue to talk at me I will leave and sleep on the couch” he did and I did. He left at 4am and didn’t come back until 630am. He said later he went to look for a hotel. He was distant all day Friday. We tried to talk and he said he couldn’t do a family vacation and that he needed to express this open relationship side of himself. He left Friday night and didn’t come home until 1am. I sent him an email telling him I was uncomfortable with him running a hook up vacation out of the same accommodations as our family vacation (my parents condo) and asked him to leave, go home early or get a hotel. He accused me of kicking him out and spent over $6000 to fly to the Dominican Republic for 2.5 weeks, the rest of our vacation. He didn’t say goodbye to our newborn son before he left. He didn’t want to talk for over a week and accused me of violating his boundaries whenever I responded to one of his messages. I had decided that the relationship was over and that I was moving in with my parents when we got him (they’re snow birds and live 5 hours away from me during the summer). I was willing to reset and date if we were both willing to work on ourselves. We had a meeting with our therapist yesterday because he was finally ready to talk. I told him my plans. I asked him if he had slept with someone in the last 2 weeks. He said “yes kind of. It wasn’t what I was looking for but I accidentally hired a prostitute. I was really drunk and I’m not proud of it”. He didn’t apologize for anything and out the blame on me. He said “this is who I am and you either love me or you don’t”. We went an hour overtime on our meeting and he ended up hanging up on us. Our therapist reassured me that im not crazy. She thinks he has a personality disorder. So does my dad who is a doctor. I’m keeping it together for my kids and getting all the help I can, from here, from my family, from my codependents anonymous meetings, self help books, journaling, introspection. I dread going home and having to devise a parenting plan for our kids and figuring out how to deal with our firm. I just want him to get better. I think I could forgive him if he was serious about getting better and didn’t want to be the person he is right now. I know I can’t control him. I don’t want him to hurt and neglect our kids the way he’s hurt me. I know I have to detach but we’re so intertwined. I care about him, I want him to be happy and healthy. I think I make him unhappy and unhealthy right now. I know I’m unhealthy and I’m working on that. I don’t know what’s reasonable. Should I be trying to forgive him? Is it rational to be disgusted by him? Is my feta thing just going to hurt him more? I know that’s not my job. How do I protect my kids? How do I support him in getting help? How do I stop myself from trying to be there for him? He wants to just sleep in separate bedrooms. That’s not enough space. I know that but he’ll think I’m over reacting. I’m so tired and hurt and confused and scared and angry and sad. I just want him to be the man I know he can be.

[ForeverDad]

I left 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night with my baby because of his violent outbursts. He never hit me but he yelled at me and destroyed multiple computer monitors.

In some states destruction of property while "venting" can be viewed as intimidation and even DV.

He changed his mind about the open relationship and gave me an ultimatum. I stayed and gave permission... He didn’t apologize for anything and put the blame on me. He said “this is who I am and you either love me or you don’t”.

How do you stand up for yourself, and the children, and set appropriate Boundaries with examples for yourself?

As the links above demonstrated above, boundaries are for you.  That may not make sense at first.  Understand that boundaries ("do this" or "don't do that") often fail with someone resistant to respecting you.  That's what has happened here.  Not that you've done wrong, it is simply the wrong approach.

Instead, think the reverse... boundaries are for you.  A bare bones example might be this:  "If you do or don't do ___ then I will or will not do ___."  Ponder that and you'll see that what IS in your power is your response to whatever the other says or does.

I just want him to get better. I think I could forgive him if he was serious about getting better and didn’t want to be the person he is right now. I know I can’t control him. I don’t want him to hurt and neglect our kids the way he’s hurt me. I know I have to detach but we’re so intertwined. I care about him, I want him to be happy and healthy. I think I make him unhappy and unhealthy right now. I know I’m unhealthy and I’m working on that. I don’t know what’s reasonable. Should I be trying to forgive him?

Sadly, you can't fix him.  For any significant improvement he has to want to fix himself and typically only with an experienced therapist and years of diligent application of therapy in his perceptions, behavior and entire life.

It is what it is.

[Kayteelouwho]

Hello

I can completely relate to all those things.
you have mentioned above in your post and I am sorry you going through this.

I do agree with the statements Monkey1235 has stated about the DV and where I'm from those behaviours amd actions are considered DV towards the child if they are present.

What is your core beliefs? The boundaries are for your protection and when I first joined it took me quite a while to really think on it and get it and I was so emotionally drained. it was only when I was out of my realationship and I worked on in my own therapy.

Not one person can tell you to forgive him or not that is only you can decide for your self.

Even if we want the bpd partners in our life to be happy they need to do that themselves we can't make them and some do choose not to or promise they will and won't so I think a question is for you how do you feel if things continue the way they are?

Unfortunately You can't really stop him from hurting the kids how your hurting. But you can be strong and stable for them.

Also personally I don't think its you personally are making him unhappy that's  sadly the truth with personality disorders it's their own inner conflicts and self esteem not always the people that is being blamed.

I will ask what future do you see for you and your children.

I do understand its alot to think about especially with young children.

With my exbpd he only actually went and got a diagnosis of bpd and bipolar polar after very serious situation. and I left after that but did talk aftwards.

My other ex father of both my children however refused to try any treatment or therapy and made excuses and for me I encouraged because it did affect our family and me and the children after 13 years I realised my hope wasn't going to change anything.

Only you have spent time with your partner to know which would apply to you.

I also think it sounds like your second guessing if your disgusted or not maybe

and I will ask is it normal to display emotions like that for normally maybe if someone has a disorder and not treated.

Also wanting to leave doesn't mean overreacting it's sometimes looking out for you and your children.

Look at the tools and tips page and keep talking  to others there's alot of good people here that can help with all different situations that arrive.

Take care and message anytime.

Kaytee

[EZEarache]

Monkey, that sounds like the vacation from hell. I'm sorry you are experiencing all of this, it must be incredibly painful and confusing. There are some threads on this board that discuss how triggering vacations are for BPDs. I was just looking for them, but I couldn't find them.

Trust your own gut on what is the best decision for you and your children. Definitely get lots of therapy to help you find the right path forward.

I ended my relationship with my BPD ex a little over two years ago. It's still very difficult, at times. However, while I was looking for the thread about terrible vacations with BPDs, I reviewed some of my earlier posts from a long time ago. I'm in a better place now, regardless of the complexity of co-parenting.

You will find that journaling on this board is very useful for a lot of reasons as you find your path forward. Not the least of which is having a document to remember where you have been.

Ultimately, you need to do what is best for your children. How old are they?

[zondolit]

I'm sorry for all you are going through.

I don’t know what’s reasonable. Should I be trying to forgive him?

That's a hard feeling--to not know what is reasonable. No, do not focus on forgiveness now. There will be plenty of time for that later, if you wish.

Is it rational to be disgusted by him? 

Heck, yeah! I'M disgusted with him.

How do I protect my kids?

This is the key question. Only you can answer this, but keep asking this question. Focus on what is right for your children.

How do I support him in getting help? How do I stop myself from trying to be there for him?

You likely cannot help him. You can help the children and you can help yourself. Focus on the children and yourself.

As best you can, forget about words (his words to you, your words to him) and focus on actions. At this point, promises, apologies, pleadings, hopes, and plans mean nothing. The truth is in the actions. What do his actions say? Believe the actions over the words. What do your actions say? At this point, it is your actions alone that have power to change the relationship.