I just want to be divorced already

[Stockdoodle]

First time here...

My wife hasn't officially been diagnosed w/ bpd, but my therapist & her family agree her behavior is classic BPD/NPD. She had a stroke 6 years ago. Before that she was afraid she'd inherit her mother's NPD traits and worked hard to prevent that. She didn't do a perfect job, but we were happy.
The stroke changed all that. Overnight I was married to a much scarier version of my wife. First year involved threats of physical violence and substance abuse. Things cooled, the worst of her behaviors died off, and we found a new normal. We went through 5 years of regular doctor visits, PT, OT, hospital stays, MANY ER visits. We hit our max out-of-pocket for our insurance every year since the stroke and I spent hundreds of not thousands of hours arranging and taking her to her appointments. Her schedule was mine to take care of, in addition to my full-time job. It was exhausting. I'd wake up at 7, go to work, come home and cook dinner, then start cleaning. It was common for me to force myself to stop at 10pm so I could sleep. She constantly needed help, which honestly wasn't her fault and I didn't mind. Some of it was little things, like the several cups of coffee I made her every single day or putting out all her prescriptions for her. Some of it was getting dressed at 11pm to take her to the ER on a work night because she spent all day saying she didn't want to go.
We'd always had fights about intimacy. I won't go into detail, but she showed basically no interest in my pleasure. She'd ask me to do things, then get mad at me because I should be happy with what she wanted to do. She'd either tell me I wasn't making any sense, or go low and say she didn't think real men cared about that sort of thing. My mental health slowly eroded (in part) because of this to the point where I couldn't go an hour without feeling its effects. I decided I wasn't going to end up 70 and full of regrets, so I kept to myself for a few days to think things through. I had no intention of leaving her; I still considered the whole thing a communication issue. When I finally talked to her about what I'd been thinking about, she started crying and screaming at me to get out of her room. It was the start of an awful weekend. One of the worst of my life. At the end of it she'd just broken me. I just lied there in bed while she told me how disappointed she was in me.
Thankfully I got an awesome new therapist at about this time who helped me see who she was and what she was doing to me, but I never really got the chance to work things out with that knowledge. In early March while she was in the ER again, she blamed me for all her conditions, kicked me out of her hospital room, and had case management at the hospital open an APS case against me for neglect and emotional abuse (case was closed without any kind of action after the other people the case manager talked to said I was attentive to her and knowledgeable of her conditions). She spent the rest of that day and the following weeks sending literally hundreds of messages to our friends and family. She said her conditions were my fault since I'd neglected her. Note that she had a hospice nurse who came once a week to check on her, and that I spent the entire week before the ER visit trying to get her to eat and take her supplements. She refused and ended up with dangerously low potassium. She also said that I'd been emotionally abusive and manipulative. Ya'll don't know me, but no ones' called me manipulative before then. I'm down right gullible most of the time. Messages went out to both our parents, my sister, my friends, my freaking ex-wife, and my boss (whom she asked to stop letting me work from home twice a week).
She insisted I leave the house and go in-patient pysch. I refused and told her flatly that I would never, EVER, under any circumstances willingly leave my own house. I didn't immediately consider my marriage over until our last couple's therapy session. It opened with her pulling out an old cell phone of mine to complain about a ranting email I sent to an internet-only friend she didn't even know. She found one piece of misinformation (not a lie, I was just misinformed) and blamed THAT on why the kids and her parents didn't believe her. Nevermind the fact that I decided from the start my only hope to survive this was to trust my family to know what she was saying was nonsense. Thank goodness they did, otherwise this would have gone way worse.
She ended up leaving and moving into her parents' home. She FINALLY started taking her health more seriously and is doing better than she has in years. I'm still divorcing her. I sincerely miss her still. She was my best friend. All the events I've described here took place over a few months of a 15 year relationship. She's dragging her feet and trying everything in her power to hurt me financially. Thankfully I opened new accounts to prevent that from happening. She tried paying off $5000 of her personal credit card bills with my checking account. She was on that old account, but it only had like $500 in it so everything bounced. I quickly moved that last $500 over to my new account.
I think that's enough. I could go into more detail, but this is already really long.

[FarDrop77]

Something very similar happened with my wife.  I believe she always had bpd, but for the first 9 years it was manageable.  Then she had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery, and it was like a different, much angrier, more judgemental person awoke from anesthesia.

The blood pumping machine is known to cause temporary neurological issues - she had slurred speech for a couple of days, and they later found she'd had a small stroke.  But she describes the experience as being very traumatic and it may be that the trauma + existing bpd was enough to set her over the edge.

In the months since she has been (what to me feels) crazy, first she wanted another child via surrogacy, then a week later she told our 7 year old I don't love him because I didn't immediately start researching fertility clinics, then she wanted a divorce because she can't stand my mom (who lives on the ither side of the country), then her neurologist took awak her driving privileges because of her migraines, then she threw out all her meds and canceled her Dr appointments because she says she's only staying alive for me...  all of this while vehemently denying there is anything wrong and refusing therapy.

I initially just wanted to help her heal and get back to her old, not-as-bpd self - I felt like this was a clear "in sickness and in health" promise I'd made - but I fear I'm going to end up traumatized myself if I keep doing this.

[ForeverDad]

My then-spouse was gradually worsening her behaviors when I had the idea to have a child so she could enjoy seeing him discover the innocent joys of discovering life.  Totally clueless idea.  Having children when substantive mental illness is present will fail, it instead makes the future (whether together or when the relationship ends) vastly more complicated.

Me, I only had one child and never had a chance to try for more.  (Even that one was after we had made the effort for a reproductive clinic's services.)  Many, before arriving here, have tried to have more kids and it only made life worse.  I don't recall anyone saying, "We had more kids and that made life better."  No one.

If your spouse thinks having more kids will make her feel better, odds are it is one of her internal issues that needs to be addressed, not something good for the family overall.

[Stockdoodle]

I initially just wanted to help her heal and get back to her old, not-as-bpd self - I felt like this was a clear "in sickness and in health" promise I'd made - but I fear I'm going to end up traumatized myself if I keep doing this.

Dude, I feel this in my soul. For years I refused to be the jackass who left his sick wife. Aside from the past 9-10 months, it was a lot of work and I certainly had caretaker fatigue, but I loved her and made her a promise when I married her. Then in August last year something happened and things went downhill fast. In March she got diagnosed with Parkinson's and started on medication to slow it down. I know paranoia and delusion are symptoms, but I'd sooner eat my shoe than have that talk with her.

Despite all that, I wasn't giving divorce any consideration until she decided that I was abusive and neglectful and proceeded to scream that out loud to the whole world. Her family and I asked her to get help, but she dug in. It was too much. I can say without hyperbole it was the worst, most hurtful thing she could have done to me. At the same time, accusing me of what I accused her of is such a classic gaslight/npd projection move that I should have seen it coming.

As for you, I'd point out that the importance of "protect my kids" far exceeds "sickness and health".

...then a week later she told our 7 year old I don't love him because I didn't immediately start researching fertility clinics...

Children of divorce fair much better than children of dysfunctional parents.

[livednlearned]

The stroke changed all that. Overnight I was married to a much scarier version of my wife. First year involved threats of physical violence and substance abuse.

In my experience, a PD combined with substance abuse is what it looks like to drive 100 mph into a brick wall.

That isn't someone who wants to be married through sickness and health, that is someone who is determined to end up alone.

I remember reading somewhere that there should be a different label for pwBPD seeking treatment and those who won't. It's an entirely different story when someone wants to do the hard work. When you're married to a spouse with a PD who is also abusing substances, that's writing on the wall imo.  

Two former addicts were discussing AA on a podcast I listened to, and they were talking about who succeeds and doesn't in AA. It was their opinion that the % of people who can't get AA to work likely had PDs.

At some point, too, we become their triggers and start to contribute to the emotional dysregulations. It's tough when there is a real sickness involved but if your presence is (perceived by them) making it worse than in some ways leaving the relationship becomes a wish fulfillment.

Also, to my total surprise, I think my ex made choices to take better care of himself after I left. Maybe there was a rejection fantasy going on, and he was purposefully making himself sick and addicted so I would leave. After I left, he seemed to level out, at least judging from hearsay. I thought he was going to fall apart and for a brief period it looked like that was going to happen (his boss wanted to fire him), but then he ended up living alone in a city where he wanted to live, doing the kind of work he dreamed of doing.

[ForeverDad]

As for you, I'd point out that the importance of "protect my kids" far exceeds "sickness and health".

...then a week later she told our 7 year old I don't love him because I didn't immediately start researching fertility clinics...

Children of divorce fair much better than children of dysfunctional parents.

If having one child does not reduce or eliminate mental health issues, then having another child will make things even worse, not better.  Having children does not fix substantive mental health issues, it vastly complicates everything.

Living in a calm and stable home, even if only for part of their lives, will give the children a better example of normalcy for their own future relationships.  Staying together would mean that's the only example of home life they would have known — discord, conflict, invalidation, alienation attempts, overall craziness, etc.  Over 30 years ago the book Solomon's Children - Exploding the Myths of Divorce had an interesting observation on page 195 by one participant, As the saying goes, "I'd rather come from a broken home than live in one."  Ponder that.  Taking action will enable your lives, or at least a part of your lives going forward, to be spent be in a calm, stable environment — your home, wherever that is — away from the blaming, emotional distortions, pressuring demands and manipulations, unpredictable ever-looming rages and outright chaos.  And some of the flying monkeys too.