Don't Know If I Can Keep Doing This

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hi all,

I am starting a thread on the "conflicted" board because my uBPDw and I have hit another rough patch and it has me doing a lot of soul-searching about how long I can continue on in this marriage. I am remaining active on the "bettering" board as well and will continue to keep on doing the work on myself that I can to try to maintain sanity in the house but, if I am being honest with myself, I feel emotionally worn down to a nub. No amount of self-care seems to be able to refill what is being drained out of me when she is splitting on me.

For those of you who have not been following my journey, I started using strong boundaries to protect myself and our S2 from my uBPDw (petulant sub-type) about 7 months ago. This is 12 years into our relationship and her abuse of me had slowly progressed over that time until it included verbal, emotional, spiritual, physical, and even sexual abuse. I didn't find the backbone to stand up for myself until I realized that our S2 was observing this all and that it would have devastating life-long effects on him if I didn't bring some sanity into our home.

Back in August, she crossed my boundary about physical abuse for the first time (after having announced my new boundary) and I called the police who came and diffused the situation. It led to a month-long split/silent treatment that was difficult to endure, but I made it through to the other side of this extinction burst more or less intact. She has not been physically abusive since then, and when I sense that she is becoming tempted to get physical I remind her of what will happen every single time she does so, which has helped her check herself. I have likewise made significant progress on ending all other abuse because I am using the tools I have found on this site, taking the advice of you good people, and using what I have learned from several books to try to defuse the situation when she begins to become dysregulated. When that does not work, I remove myself (and when necessary our S2) from the situation. I simply refuse to participate in the "dance of intimate hostility" with her anymore and have removed myself from the Karpman drama triangle.

While ending the physical abuse and suicide threats were "low-hanging fruit" (she is very afraid of going to jail or being sent to a 72-hour psychiatric hold and how that would expose her abnormal behavior to people outside of our nuclear family) the other types of abuse have been much harder to stamp out. The divorce threats have significantly lessened (they no longer have any power over me after I called her bluff), and she no longer tries to stop me from going to church or taking our S2 with me. The verbal abuse (screaming, swearing, name-calling, etc.) has reduced in frequency and, most importantly, now rarely takes place. within earshot of our S2 (she has said things that show me she is aware that his observing this behavior is damaging to him.) The silent treatments have lessened in frequency and duration (they usually last one or two sleep cycles now), but her dysfunctional relationship with sex and intimacy has not improved much at all, nor has her passive aggressiveness. If anything, the PA behaviors and general negativity have increased as the less subtle behaviors are no longer available to her.

Over the past week, she split on me over not spending an extravagant amount of money on Valentine's Day, and then split much worse on Friday when she had to work the next morning and I wanted to stay up for a few hours and drink some beers and watch TV. She pretty much commanded me to come to bed at 9 PM on my weekend because she is afraid that I will watch porn/have an online affair/etc. if I have been drinking and she cannot keep a watch over me. It is controlling and hypocritical. She has "a drink or two" every single day and if she has had a really bad day, she will go down into the basement and get drunk while listening to loud dance music (thank goodness she finally switched to earbuds and stopped playing the music on the stereo).

I was in the living room watching tv with the sound turned down so low that I had to strain to hear the dialogue on the program I was watching because I didn't want to wake her up. It was getting close to midnight and I was getting ready to go to bed in the guest room when our dog had a seizure (he has epilepsy and a host of other mental conditions.) My wife had thrown his dog bed down to the bottom of the stairs in disgust when I refused to follow orders and go to bed when told. In these moments when she is dysregulated, our dog is "my dog" and just "one more problem I have stuck her with." Of course, the dog having a seizure made noise and sure enough she comes running down the stairs with her eyes blazing and is yelling and screaming at me for waking her up. I tried to explain that the dog was having a seizure and that I was doing my best to deal with it (talking to him in a calm voice until it passed and then cleaning up his pee) but she ignored the dog and made it all about me not listening to her.

After taking a few minutes of pretty intense verbal abuse I snapped back in a way I shouldn't have, and probably wouldn't have if the beers had not loosened my tongue. I told her that I was tired of being controlled, that I am an adult man who only wanted to unwind with some beers on a Friday night after a crappy week at work. I told her that I drank once or twice a month and that she drank every night so I didn't feel like she had any room to judge me. I said that I just wanted some peace and that I couldn't deal with her temper tantrums anymore. I said, "sometimes I feel like I am parenting two toddlers because you act like an emotional toddler when you are throwing tantrums." At this point, she tried to forcibly take away my phone to prove that I was having an affair because she wasn't getting anywhere with the drinking guilt trip. I just ignored her, made sure the dog was ok, and went to sleep in the guest room.

Unfortunately, she wasn't ready to let it go. She followed me into the guest room took my phone off the charger and tried to grab my hand to use my fingerprint to unlock my phone. When I snatched my hand away she tried to shove the phone in front of my face to unlock it using facial recognition. I had to turn my head into the pillow and tell her to "get the f@#k out of the room and stop grabbing me or I am calling the police and reporting you for assault." That finally got her out of the room and I was eventually able to calm down and get some sleep. Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was a disaster. It was me sleeping in the guest room and getting the quiet treatment peppered with some snide remarks for two days. Then last night she asked me for my priest's phone number.

She calmly said that she was tired of fighting and that she wanted to call the Father to ask him for some advice as he was the one who married us. I knew that she was trying to triangulate though and didn't buy it. I go to church regularly and am an Orthodox Christian. She is a lapsed Catholic who hasn't been inside a church since our son was baptized nearly three years ago. She hadn't been inside a church before that since our wedding (my S2 and I regularly attend and he is being raised Orthodox.) I told her that the Father was my priest but that I would be willing to talk to him together. That just made her angry, which confirmed to me that she had no intention of seeking spiritual advice, but rather just wanted to talk sh*t about me to my priest. Then she tells me that our marriage is toxic and that she is going to rent an apartment and move out and file for divorce. This is magical thinking on her part. She could never afford to do it, and I doubt that she would go through with initiating a divorce after having called her bluff before, but it did show me just how black I had been painted at that point.

So here is the point that I am at. I have booked a couples counseling session for tomorrow that I tried to book for us months ago, but she kept backing out. This is a thing for her. She says we need counseling and then I do the work to get it set up, and then she backs out. Our last counselor told her that she had "emotional dysregulation disorder" which I recently found out is a nicer way to say "BPD." So I guess I can change to calling her my dBPDw? Anyway, that diagnosis was the end of that counselor for her and she hasn't been to and refuses to see one since.

My question is this. If she continues to refuse to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with her or that she needs any help, do I stay and continue to just try to keep sanity in the house for my S2 or do I cut my losses and go? I would rather not get divorced for financial reasons and because I want to be able to protect my son from her as much as possible, which I feel I have a better chance of doing if I am in the house. I am not worried about her getting full custody. I have her suicide threats and a long list of other crazy stuff in long rambling texts she has sent me. I also have a record of the police being called to our house on her throwing things at my head and chasing me around the house. I am, however, worried about her poisoning our S2 against me when I am not around though.

Maybe things will look better in a day or two. Often that happens. I have to wonder though, how many more times am I willing to let myself be emotionally raked over the coals forever? What is my limit? Should I make an ultimatum that she comes to counseling and does work on herself or that I am leaving? I am just seriously doubting how long I can take working on myself enforcing healthy boundaries while she keeps trying to pull me onto the BPD roller-coaster with her.

Thanks for letting me rant,

HurtAndTired

[HurtAndTired]

Hi all,

I am starting a thread on the "conflicted" board because my uBPDw and I have hit another rough patch and it has me doing a lot of soul-searching about how long I can continue on in this marriage. I am remaining active on the "bettering" board as well and will continue to keep on doing the work on myself that I can to try to maintain sanity in the house but, if I am being honest with myself, I feel emotionally worn down to a nub. No amount of self-care seems to be able to refill what is being drained out of me when she is splitting on me.

For those of you who have not been following my journey, I started using strong boundaries to protect myself and our S2 from my uBPDw (petulant sub-type) about 7 months ago. This is 12 years into our relationship and her abuse of me had slowly progressed over that time until it included verbal, emotional, spiritual, physical, and even sexual abuse. I didn't find the backbone to stand up for myself until I realized that our S2 was observing this all and that it would have devastating life-long effects on him if I didn't bring some sanity into our home.

Back in August, she crossed my boundary about physical abuse for the first time (after having announced my new boundary) and I called the police who came and diffused the situation. It led to a month-long split/silent treatment that was difficult to endure, but I made it through to the other side of this extinction burst more or less intact. She has not been physically abusive since then, and when I sense that she is becoming tempted to get physical I remind her of what will happen every single time she does so, which has helped her check herself. I have likewise made significant progress on ending all other abuse because I am using the tools I have found on this site, taking the advice of you good people, and using what I have learned from several books to try to defuse the situation when she begins to become dysregulated. When that does not work, I remove myself (and when necessary our S2) from the situation. I simply refuse to participate in the "dance of intimate hostility" with her anymore and have removed myself from the Karpman drama triangle.

While ending the physical abuse and suicide threats were "low-hanging fruit" (she is very afraid of going to jail or being sent to a 72-hour psychiatric hold and how that would expose her abnormal behavior to people outside of our nuclear family) the other types of abuse have been much harder to stamp out. The divorce threats have significantly lessened (they no longer have any power over me after I called her bluff), and she no longer tries to stop me from going to church or taking our S2 with me. The verbal abuse (screaming, swearing, name-calling, etc.) has reduced in frequency and, most importantly, now rarely takes place. within earshot of our S2 (she has said things that show me she is aware that his observing this behavior is damaging to him.) The silent treatments have lessened in frequency and duration (they usually last one or two sleep cycles now), but her dysfunctional relationship with sex and intimacy has not improved much at all, nor has her passive aggressiveness. If anything, the PA behaviors and general negativity have increased as the less subtle behaviors are no longer available to her.

Over the past week, she split on me over not spending an extravagant amount of money on Valentine's Day, and then split much worse on Friday when she had to work the next morning and I wanted to stay up for a few hours and drink some beers and watch TV. She pretty much commanded me to come to bed at 9 PM on my weekend because she is afraid that I will watch porn/have an online affair/etc. if I have been drinking and she cannot keep a watch over me. It is controlling and hypocritical. She has "a drink or two" every single day and if she has had a really bad day, she will go down into the basement and get drunk while listening to loud dance music (thank goodness she finally switched to earbuds and stopped playing the music on the stereo).

I was in the living room watching tv with the sound turned down so low that I had to strain to hear the dialogue on the program I was watching because I didn't want to wake her up. It was getting close to midnight and I was getting ready to go to bed in the guest room when our dog had a seizure (he has epilepsy and a host of other mental conditions.) My wife had thrown his dog bed down to the bottom of the stairs in disgust when I refused to follow orders and go to bed when told. In these moments when she is dysregulated, our dog is "my dog" and just "one more problem I have stuck her with." Of course, the dog having a seizure made noise and sure enough she comes running down the stairs with her eyes blazing and is yelling and screaming at me for waking her up. I tried to explain that the dog was having a seizure and that I was doing my best to deal with it (talking to him in a calm voice until it passed and then cleaning up his pee) but she ignored the dog and made it all about me not listening to her.

After taking a few minutes of pretty intense verbal abuse I snapped back in a way I shouldn't have, and probably wouldn't have if the beers had not loosened my tongue. I told her that I was tired of being controlled, that I am an adult man who only wanted to unwind with some beers on a Friday night after a crappy week at work. I told her that I drank once or twice a month and that she drank every night so I didn't feel like she had any room to judge me. I said that I just wanted some peace and that I couldn't deal with her temper tantrums anymore. I said, "sometimes I feel like I am parenting two toddlers because you act like an emotional toddler when you are throwing tantrums." At this point, she tried to forcibly take away my phone to prove that I was having an affair because she wasn't getting anywhere with the drinking guilt trip. I just ignored her, made sure the dog was ok, and went to sleep in the guest room.

Unfortunately, she wasn't ready to let it go. She followed me into the guest room took my phone off the charger and tried to grab my hand to use my fingerprint to unlock my phone. When I snatched my hand away she tried to shove the phone in front of my face to unlock it using facial recognition. I had to turn my head into the pillow and tell her to "get the f@#k out of the room and stop grabbing me or I am calling the police and reporting you for assault." That finally got her out of the room and I was eventually able to calm down and get some sleep. Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was a disaster. It was me sleeping in the guest room and getting the quiet treatment peppered with some snide remarks for two days. Then last night she asked me for my priest's phone number.

She calmly said that she was tired of fighting and that she wanted to call the Father to ask him for some advice as he was the one who married us. I knew that she was trying to triangulate though and didn't buy it. I go to church regularly and am an Orthodox Christian. She is a lapsed Catholic who hasn't been inside a church since our son was baptized nearly three years ago. She hadn't been inside a church before that since our wedding (my S2 and I regularly attend and he is being raised Orthodox.) I told her that the Father was my priest but that I would be willing to talk to him together. That just made her angry, which confirmed to me that she had no intention of seeking spiritual advice, but rather just wanted to talk sh*t about me to my priest. Then she tells me that our marriage is toxic and that she is going to rent an apartment and move out and file for divorce. This is magical thinking on her part. She could never afford to do it, and I doubt that she would go through with initiating a divorce after having called her bluff before, but it did show me just how black I had been painted at that point.

So here is the point that I am at. I have booked a couples counseling session for tomorrow that I tried to book for us months ago, but she kept backing out. This is a thing for her. She says we need counseling and then I do the work to get it set up, and then she backs out. Our last counselor told her that she had "emotional dysregulation disorder" which I recently found out is a nicer way to say "BPD." So I guess I can change to calling her my dBPDw? Anyway, that diagnosis was the end of that counselor for her and she hasn't been to and refuses to see one since.

My question is this. If she continues to refuse to acknowledge that there is anything wrong with her or that she needs any help, do I stay and continue to just try to keep sanity in the house for my S2 or do I cut my losses and go? I would rather not get divorced for financial reasons and because I want to be able to protect my son from her as much as possible, which I feel I have a better chance of doing if I am in the house. I am not worried about her getting full custody. I have her suicide threats and a long list of other crazy stuff in long rambling texts she has sent me. I also have a record of the police being called to our house on her throwing things at my head and chasing me around the house. I am, however, worried about her poisoning our S2 against me when I am not around though.

Maybe things will look better in a day or two. Often that happens. I have to wonder though, how many more times am I willing to let myself be emotionally raked over the coals forever? What is my limit? Should I make an ultimatum that she comes to counseling and does work on herself or that I am leaving? I am just seriously doubting how long I can take working on myself enforcing healthy boundaries while she keeps trying to pull me onto the BPD roller-coaster with her.

Thanks for letting me rant,

HurtAndTired

[M604V]

I feel for you, H&T.  I really do.  Based on your posts it seems to me that you take this all very seriously.  It sounds like you've done your share of the work, or you're getting there anyway.  You know all the lingo, all the terminology, and you're doing your best to employ healthy strategies.

Your story is similar to mine, so please allow me to put in my two cents.  Some of what I say will resonate, some will not.  Take what you want and leave the rest, as they say.

My relationship with my stbXw is going on 15 years.  We've been married nearly 13 and have two children; 11D and 8S.

I sense in you, like myself, that you take on an immense amount of responsibility regarding your wife's feelings and behavior.  Like you, I always approached it like any other problem or predicament: if I could figure out what the problem was and what caused it then I could fix it.  That's part and parcel with my character flaws, my need to be in control, my quest for the "thank you" that should come when I selflessly devote myself to fixing a problem. That's dangerous thinking in and of itself, but it becomes toxic when combined with the attitude of a BPD/NPD.  The attitude of "it's never my fault.  It has to be your fault."  See where this is going?  It got to the point where I almost wanted it to be my fault, this way I could be responsible for the solution.

And my wife was and is all too wiling to oblige.  EVERYTHING is my fault.  NOTHING is ever hers.  And never will be.  She has been this way for as long as I've known her.  Despite numerous close calls, crises, loss of friendships, damaged familial relations, and now a failed marriage she has NEVER been honest enough with herself to realize that she is, at worst, 50% to blame for her circumstances.

"A person's capacity for change is directly tied to their ability to sit with the truth."

Could your wife change? Might couple's counseling work?  Sure, it's possible.  But it's very, very unlikely.  Wouldn't it have happened by now?

We've dodged our fair share of bullets in our marriage and then some.  Many close calls, really bad nights, horrible fights, illness, addiction, loss and death, you name it.  Hey, that's life sometimes, right?  Sh!t happens, no one's perfect.  You know what scares me the most though?  How easily my wife is able to forget all her bad stuff, act like it never happened.  Fall down the stairs drunk while holding our two year-old son? Never happened.  Attempt suicide and end up in a three day coma? No need to talk about it.  Get caught in a pseudo-affair? Minimize it and brush it off.  She can't sit with her own messy, painful truth long enough to learn from it.

I think I'm the consistent, steadfast, stoic one?  Ha! Far from it.  It's she that is unflappable.  She has firmly carved out her position in the world (see: ego-maniac, perpetual victim, devoted to serving her base needs and nothing else) while the rest of us have to chase her around, constantly planning and re-planning our next moves cause we're so fvcking afraid of what will happen should we run afoul of her.  Meanwhile she sits on her throne, face locked in a defiant glare, ready to move the goalposts should you get too close.  Poised to change the subject, deny, shift blame or have you sent to the gallows should you dare challenge her and hold her to even the most basic of interpersonal standards.

My advice for you? Run and take your son with you.  But short of that? Stop trying to challenge her thinking.  You cannot fix her.  If you could, wouldn't you have done it by now?  I mean, you can smooth over a dispute with a colleague simply with a post-work beer, right? And that person isn't married and raising a child with you.  Your wife should have far more incentive to repair the relationship than a coworker.  My guess if that you've done that with your wife a thousand times over.  You've said every sorry, read every book, tried every communication strategy, gone to to therapy, prayed, consulted an oracle and a Magic 8 Ball.  If it was fixable you would have fixed it by now. 

What if it's actually her and not you?

In my marriage divorce started getting mentioned about a year ago.  Things have been hot and cold since then, ups and downs (mostly downs).  You know what she has done in an attempt to repair the marriage?  Nothing.  Not one fvcking thing.  No "sorry"; she "doesn't have time" to set up counseling.  Has never acquiesced on some of my simple, day-to-day complaints.  Not one thing.  You know what she has done to stave off divorce? Not one thing.  All the while I'm sitting back, trying to remain neutral.  Not forcing the situation, not desperately scrambling for a solution. Giving her all the time and space to decide, for herself, what "50%" looks like to her.  Don't want to do counseling but do want a couple's retreat? Great, let's do it.  Religion instead of meditation?  Awesome, let's do it.  Yet she has had a year and has done nothing but serve herself and blame me.  What more do I need to see?

It's not you, it's her.

Your divorce-related concerns are very real and very valid.  But as it stands right now, pre-divorce, she has essentially unfettered physical and legal access to you and your son.  A divorce would hypothetically limit that access and put it under the watchful (?) eye of attorneys, judges, guardians ad litem and CPS.  It's the best chance you got.  Run like hell and fight like the committed father you are.

You never owed her anything but you gave it to her anyway.  She didn't accept it; it wasn't good enough.  So now you can stop sparing her feelings.  Be a gentleman, sure.  Be dignified.  But it's time to start giving her what she's EARNED, not what you want to give her in a desperate attempt to one day be labeled the good guy.

It's not coming.  Go be your own good guy and spare your son from 16 years of misery that are headed his way should you stay.

Best of luck.

[HurtAndTired]

Thanks for your reply M6,

A lot of what you said resonated with me. I know that if I could fix it alone, it would have been fixed by now. I also know that even if I force her to go to therapy she cannot and will not change unless it is a change that she wants to make herself. I have been hoping that my refusing to caretake her any longer would force her to hit "rock bottom" and confront that she has issues that she cannot ignore. It's the whole "tough love" scenario that you see when people have an intervention with a loved one with substance abuse issues.

They usually say something along the lines of "if you refuse to get treatment, I will no longer (fill in the blank)." The point is that they have been protecting the alcoholic/addict from hitting rock bottom by caretaking. By no longer caretaking, they take the pillows off the "rock bottom" so that the next time the addict/alcoholic hits it will hurt..as it should. They offer the loved one a single chance to get treatment because most alcoholics/addicts realize that they have a problem (even if it is only subconsciously.) However, if they say no to that one chance to go get treatment it is tough love from that day forth. This is no guarantee that the person will get help, but it does save the family from wondering "was there anything else I could have done?" It may be that rock bottom is a DUI, an overdose, or even death, but the family can say that they did all they could to help without enabling.

I am starting to fear now that I will hit rock bottom before my wife does. Maybe she doesn't have a rock bottom. Maybe her rock bottom will be sitting in a jail cell after she has stabbed me. I don't know, but I do know that doing the boundary work has been exhausting and it is still not a guarantee of safety. I don't worry about S2's physical safety, but I do worry about his mental state mightily. I don't really worry about my physical safety anymore, unless she is severely dysregulated she is very afraid of going to jail.  This Friday, she got close but my threat to call the police stopped her. However, this means that I always have to have my mental guard up and be hypervigilant about if she is going to attack me which is draining me mentally and emotionally. Realistically, I have three courses of action in front of me.

A) I stay the course and continue to hold my healthy boundaries she either does or does not get help, but the behaviors slowly get better (with occasional outbreaks) because they no longer serve the purpose they were intended to, which is to drag me into her BPD drama.

B) I hold my healthy boundaries but I do it strategically and choose my battles. I could have easily gone to bed at 9 PM on Friday and avoided this whole mess. Yes, it is extremely controlling and infantilizing behavior for a middle-aged man to be ordered around by a woman three years his junior, however, when I compare it to demanding that I let her go through my electronics to look for evidence of my cheating, it seems like a pretty minor ask (albeit an unreasonable one.) I may have chosen to die on the wrong hill out of principle.

C) I hire an attorney and file for divorce. I do so in secret and spend time gathering as much evidence as I can. I record every conversation. I keep a journal of every weird/crazy/dangerous/mean thing she says and does. I conversely keep a journal of every positive activity that S2 and I do together and keep track of exactly how much time I spend taking care of him. When it comes time to tell her that I am filing for divorce, I will hit her with a restraining order and ask the judge to do an involuntary psych eval (I have suicide threats via text message and that is enough to consider her to be a risk to our S2 in custody in our state.) This would make the previous therapist's diagnosis of "emotional dysregulation disorder" admissible in court and would tip the scales dramatically in my favor regarding custody of S2.

My heart tells me to stick to my guns and go with A for as long as I can. Was I refusing to "go along to get along" on Friday? Absolutely. I feel that I have caved on so much for so many years, there is a strong need in me to reestablish my personhood and free will. Going the B route feels too much like catering to her whims, and I have had enough of that for several lifetimes. I know that a wiser, more patient, and more prudent man would take path B, but dammit I'm angry at undergoing years of abuse and I just cannot be that saintly all of the time.

If I do break and I can no longer walk the difficult path of A (if her rock bottom is deeper than mine) I will have to take path C and will have to remind myself daily, hourly, or even by the minute of how many times she brutally abused me whenever I find myself starting to pity her. I will have to be ruthless and meticulous in planning. I am also counting on the fact that under stress her BPD crazy will start to show in ways that she can't hide from the courts, the police, and others in her life.

If I am being completely honest with myself, however, I am scared. I am scared of having to sell the house (I can't afford to buy her out nor can I afford to live there on my own.) The money received would pay off my credit card debt and my credit score would be spectacular with a nice lump sum left over to use as a down payment for another, smaller house. In the economy of 2024, however, buying a house is a nightmare that I don't want to (and can't really afford to) go through. Our current mortgage is 3.25%. The best-case scenario is that S2 and I live with my elderly parents in a town 20 minutes away for a few months while I sell the house. This would give me time to save up some more money for a down payment, but the market is scary and interest rates would be more than double what I currently have. Plus with the reduced income (although as a teacher with an MA, I make a decent salary) there is no guarantee that I would be able to find a decent house at an affordable price. There is also the matter of our special needs dog. He cannot stay with my parents who are elderly and do not have a fenced yard. My wife would never take him. He has severe medical issues that make him unadoptable. Leaving my wife now would, unless I can come up with a better plan, kill my dog.

Like you, I am willing to admit that I have my share of blame in the mess that is our marriage. I am human. I make mistakes. I say things that hurt, and I do things that hurt, but I never do them intentionally. I never take joy in someone else's pain. I never, ever physically attack another person and have never been in a physical fight in my life. When I do make mistakes, I try to own up to them, apologize, and move forward in a better way. She cannot do any of that. Like your stbXw, my wife is always the victim and is never the victimizer. That can be pretty damn invalidating when I have been her victim for the past 12 years of my life.

You are also right, it IS her and it is NOT me. I am not saying I am perfect, far from it, but by being willing to admit it I can at least adjust and improve. She cannot. I can bend rather than break. She cannot. I am willing to do the work on myself. She is not.

If I had a million dollars, I think I would have already filed. Although it goes against my religious principles to divorce, even my priest told me that separation and divorce are preferable to submitting to abuse in God's eyes. I think that I will continue to follow path A, but financially work my a$$ off (gig work, remote data entry, DoorDash, etc.) to pay down debt and get my ducks in a row for if or when path C becomes the only tolerable way forward. I will continue to hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Thanks again for sharing. When I read what you wrote I feel like it could have been me writing many of your own words.

Thanks again,

HurtAndTired

[ForeverDad]

Could your wife change? Might couple's counseling work?  Sure, it's possible.  But it's very, very unlikely.  Wouldn't it have happened by now? ... You cannot fix her.  If you could, wouldn't you have done it by now?

BPD is a disorder most impactful of close relationships.  That's one of the reasons you couldn't "help" her to improve, you're just too close to her for her to listen to you, she has perceived emotional baggage that she just can't or won't set aside.

Your divorce-related concerns are very real and very valid.  But as it stands right now, pre-divorce, she has essentially unfettered physical and legal access to you and your son.  A divorce would hypothetically limit that access and put it under the watchful (?) eye of attorneys, judges, guardians ad litem and CPS.

You need to be strategic in how this discord is approached.  It is true that without any court order in place, both parents technically have equal rights and access as parents but that is undefined.  Should the marriage be failing or already failed, then family or domestic courts have the responsibility to define how parenting should be allocated.

We have a wealth of hard-won collective wisdom among us in peer support.  We've learned what strategies usually work and which don't.  Soak up what we can share.  Also, take advantage of local support such as trusted friends, family and associates.  Start seeking consultations with a few family law attorneys to determine how your local courts work and where you stand.  Consultations are free or relatively inexpensive, no need to hire (retain) the first one you meet.

I won't say run.  However, most here, when the conflict is substantial and the spouse refuses to improve with meaningful and long term therapy, do conclude the marital relationship is too dysfunctional to continue.  So, is there an advantage to choosing to divorce?  Here is a perspective to consider, especially for the benefit of your young child.

And for the children to see this discord all the time isn't good for them even if it's not directed at them.  Children learn by example.  If this dysfunctional example is their home life growing up, what life choices will they make seeking relationships when they're grown and gone?

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.  Nearly 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, 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.

[kells76]

Start seeking consultations with a few family law attorneys to determine how your local courts work and where you stand.  Consultations are free or relatively inexpensive, no need to hire (retain) the first one you meet.

Yes. Whatever you end up choosing -- and there are many choices -- having factual information about how divorce, parenting, and custody actually work in your area is critical. There can be county-to-county and state-to-state variations in what's considered "boilerplate" or "the norm".

Set up a few (more than one is really important) "initial consultations" with local lawyers. Sometimes you can do the consultations over the phone or via Zoom call. Do this privately (i.e., make the calls at work on a work phone, or out of the house).

There can be misconceptions about "I'm sure it would go like XYZ" that are really important to clear up so that you can make wise decisions. Gaining that information may show you more options, too, than you thought you had.

It is perfectly OK to go through the consultations, get information, and then not end up separating/divorcing. There is no requirement that after you consult with L's, you "have to" move forward. It's just learning about the reality of the situation.

[M604V]

I have been hoping that my refusing to caretake her any longer would force her to hit "rock bottom" and confront that she has issues that she cannot ignore. It's the whole "tough love" scenario that you see when people have an intervention with a loved one with substance abuse issues.

They usually say something along the lines of "if you refuse to get treatment, I will no longer (fill in the blank)." The point is that they have been protecting the alcoholic/addict from hitting rock bottom by caretaking. By no longer caretaking, they take the pillows off the "rock bottom" so that the next time the addict/alcoholic hits it will hurt..as it should. They offer the loved one a single chance to get treatment because most alcoholics/addicts realize that they have a problem (even if it is only subconsciously.) However, if they say no to that one chance to go get treatment it is tough love from that day forth. This is no guarantee that the person will get help, but it does save the family from wondering "was there anything else I could have done?" It may be that rock bottom is a DUI, an overdose, or even death, but the family can say that they did all they could to help without enabling.

I hear that completely.  Totally.  You and I can make sense of that type of scenario.  But that's because you and I can, I presume, rationalize and weigh options and look inward and be honest.  We recognize that hard work requires sacrifice, sacrifice requires honesty, and honesty is sometimes uncomfortable. 

But does your W have that same capacity?  If she's like mine the answer is a resounding NO.  I've given my wife ultimatums in the past, very clear ones.  "Go back to rehab/treatment/AA or you're out of the house.  An active alcoholic is not welcome here."  She dug her heels in and refused to budge, all the while chastising me for even dreaming of removing her from the home.  So I did just that, I removed her from the home via a court order.  Did that ever result in a "realization" or a "wake up call" or a "come to Jesus moment"? Absolutely not.  It didn't really do anything except put the "topic" to rest (her drinking) but nothing to deal with the issue itself.  Furthermore, it painted me as the unfeeling monster who dared to remove her from her home and her children.  Lose-lose-lose.

Additionally, what is the intervention/ultimatum in essence? It's you playing the role of puppet master, basically.  Right? Instead stepping aside and allowing her to do whatever it is she's going to do, it puts you in the position of trying to dictate her behavior.  Might it work? Yea, I guess.  But why did it work? Did it work because you backed into a corner with a gun to her head? And how is that going to go over?  She may acquiesce temporarily, or may just force the issue underground.  Is it likely that someone in her condition will see this as an act of love or terrorism?  Do you want to have to do it again in a year or two when she relapses into her old ways?

I am starting to fear now that I will hit rock bottom before my wife does. Maybe she doesn't have a rock bottom. Maybe her rock bottom will be sitting in a jail cell after she has stabbed me. I don't know, but I do know that doing the boundary work has been exhausting and it is still not a guarantee of safety. I don't worry about S2's physical safety, but I do worry about his mental state mightily. I don't really worry about my physical safety anymore, unless she is severely dysregulated she is very afraid of going to jail.  This Friday, she got close but my threat to call the police stopped her. However, this means that I always have to have my mental guard up and be hypervigilant about if she is going to attack me which is draining me mentally and emotionally.

The fact that you mentioned stabbing, even hypothetically, seems very telling.  Do you actually consider that even a remote possibility?  And she can only be controlled by a threat to call the cops? In other words control of and responsibility for her behavior lies with you? She's free to dysregulate, etc. unless you call the police?  You're damn right it's draining you mentally and emotionally.  You're living with a terrorist, no?

Interestingly scenarios A/B/C, as you describe them, have one thing in common: YOU.  Your choice, the power that you DO have to control your life and the environment in which you live.  A/B do have undertones of "If I do [X] maybe she'll do [Y]" but it does underscore the control you do have over the situation.  [C] seems like the nuclear option for you, but an option nonetheless.  Like you I live in a real estate hellhole and am only able to make a "move" because I pulled a chunk of money out of retirement.

I'll be out of the house, with the kids, in about a week.  No one knows yet.  I've consulted with my attorney a few times, fully brought her up to speed and we've developed a plan moving forward.  Nervous? Yes.  But I'm so, so, so excited to see what it feels like to live life for me and my children and greatly reduce the amount of needless noise and stress in my life.  I'm going all-in, pulling the plug, going for my Option C after years and years of Options A & B.  I'll let you know how it goes. 

[ForeverDad]

About legal consultations.  When separation and/or divorce are distinct possibilities then, as kells wrote, privacy and confidentiality are paramount guidelines.  Why?

If you had hopes the marriage could be repaired then of course you'd work together to restore the needed trust.  But if the marriage is failing or has failed, then you don't confide (or confess) seeking legal advice.  If you did then in all likelihood your spouse would use that information to discourage you or even obstruct and sabotage you.  Remember the old signs during wartime?  "Loose lips sink ships."  You surely don't want your ship sunk.

So what is appropriate to share with a soon-to-be ex (stbEx)?  The minimum required.  You can talk about bills and such things, also parenting and child health information and when the time comes later the child exchange details required and set by family court.

Court will set rules on both parents.  It won't force you to be nice, kind or even fair to each other.  But it will require that you both behave decently.  Problem is, women and mothers are easily cast as "victims" so you as the husband and father need to be especially careful nothing you say or do can be twisted into claims of abuse or being threatening.  (StbEx may claim that anyway no matter how polite you are so be extra cautious to be non-threatening.

As consolation, my ex too claimed (aggressively) that I was Mr Evil Personified.  Eventually the court and the professionals figured it out and perceived the reality but it took quite a while.  Meanwhile I was the most polite Edward P. Dowd * ever, though with my own personal boundaries.  It was astounding how she was such an aggressive self-proclaimed victim.

* Reference to ever-polite James Stewart in the movie "Harvey" costarring the invisible six foot tall pookah.

[HurtAndTired]

Thanks for the resources and advice Kells and Forever Dad,

I will dig deep into the resources available here. One of the reasons that I am a teacher is because I want to use my experiences, difficulties, and failures to help prevent young people from making some of the same mistakes I did when I was their age. As such, I really appreciate having a wealth of hard-won knowledge at my fingertips. As for consulting with a divorce attorney, I have already spoken to one back in August when I first started laying down my boundaries. This was when she pulled her last divorce threat that had any effect on me. I called her bluff and was getting my ducks lined up in case she wasn't bluffing. That was where I got the basic knowledge about what to expect in regard to divorce and custody, particularly in high-conflict/BPD divorces in my town/county/state.

That being it was just one attorney, albeit one who specializes in high-conflict divorce, is local, and has faced off with BPD spouses several times. I really should talk to a few more and gather more information. My parents even volunteered to pay the attorney's retainer back in August when I told them what I was doing and why. Thank God I have them and a few close friends as a support network. I have also been rebuilding the support network that I backed away from over the years in an effort to appease my wife's possessiveness and jealousy.

As for keeping any billing a secret, that is not a worry. Other than the mortgage, and taxes our finances are and always have been separate. This is a second marriage for both of us and we both have ex-spouses who were lousy with money. We never felt the need to have a joint bank account, credit cards, etc. and it has worked pretty well so far. This way when she spends too much money on shoes, I don't have to worry about not having enough to buy food or pay the bills that I am responsible for. So far she hasn't gone off the deep end enough to run out of money to pay her third of the mortgage or the bills that she is responsible for (electric, water, and gas.) This means that when she is broke from "retail therapy", it stresses her out and only tangentially stresses me out. But I digress, no worries about her going through receipts.

M6 thank you for your concern,

Yes, stabbing me unfortunately is a possibility. She has generally used blunt objects to assault me in the past, but that was because they happened to be nearby when she went into a BPD rage and her pupils dilated so much that they looked black like a shark's eyes. She smashed a large glass picture frame on my head while I was sleeping on the couch once. So yes, it does feel like I am living with a terrorist at times. I am ashamed to admit that I did not dare to stand up for myself when it was "only" my own life at stake, but having my son did finally allow me to find the backbone to try to end the terror so that he doesn't have to see it. Better late than never I guess.

As to the analogy of the family staging an intervention, perhaps that was a poor choice on my part. I am not giving her an ultimatum to go to therapy. I am finally getting out of her way and letting her let her freak flag fly. I am no longer covering up her bad behavior and I am telling friends and family about what I have been going through all of these years. It has been an amazingly freeing experience to have the shame of being an abused husband lifted off my shoulders after so many years of trying to appear "normal" to everyone else. They have also been grateful that I finally opened up. They could all tell I was off and something was wrong, they just didn't know how far down the rabbit hole went. This has really helped me rebuild my support network and has taken away a lot of the FOG that kept me in her power.

What I have been hoping is that once I get out of her way she will hit her rock bottom naturally and we will go with a natural resolution that results as a consequence of her actions from there. If it is therapy, great! If it's jail, then that's fine too. Psych ward? You bet! My boundaries are meant to keep me physically safe while she does her thing and I get out of the way. If it ends in divorce, so be it, but I want to be able to hold my head high and know that I did everything I could reasonably do before I grab a shoot and jump off the crashing plane. It sounds like you did something really similar to path A with your stbX and the natural resolution was that you realized that it was time to bow out and took route C when her behaviors did not resolve.

In retrospect, this is a part of what I suspect is a large and prolonged extinction burst. Many of her behaviors have decreased in frequency, duration, and severity, so the plan has been working, in general. When she has a flare-up like she did over the past week, it is the exception rather than the rule and it still does not get her what she wants. I am not re-engaging in the "dance of intimate hostility" with her. I have really vibed with Salty Dawg over on the "bettering" board as I see a lot of similarities between our situations and he has seen dramatic improvement from just refusing to "feed the beast" anymore. That being said, it does seem from my discussions with him that my wife tends to be more severely dysregulated, the violence more frequent and more severe. What gives me hope is that it took her five years to escalate to the point where she hit me the first time. I know that she can keep the violence in check even when she is extremely dysregulated because she did it for so long. It was me not doing anything (e.g. call the cops) after she hit me that first time that sent the tacit message "this chump will take a beating and not do anything to me, so I guess I can be physical with him from here on out."

Will my wife's path follow your stbX's or will it follow SD's wife's path? I don't yet know. Some days it seems like I'm nipping at SD's heels, other days she relapses and I lose hope again. The violence is something that I am keeping a close eye on. My strategy is to call the police after she is dysregulated and starting to lose control, but before she hits me if possible. After 12 years, I can read the signs as easily as I read a storybook to our son and I am never, never wrong. The only time that she has caught me by surprise is when she attacks when I am sleeping. Those could have also been avoided had I been more vigilant. I knew in each of those cases that she was dysregulated when I went to sleep and I should have had the sense to have a safety plan to sleep in the guest room with the door locked (current safety plan.)

I know as I read this that it sounds insane because it IS insane. I know that I keep talking about the things I can control because I know that I can never (nor do I want to) control her. I can only control my reactions to her actions. I can also be proactive instead of reactive, and I can retrain her to her prior levels of demonstrated restraint that lasted for years (5 years of verbal and mental abuse but zero violence) the same way that I trained her that it was "ok" to be violent with me. I don't know where this will go, but I suspect that you tried path A for as long as you needed to before you knew it was time for path C. I think it has to be the same for me. Path C is probably the best long-term solution if I am being honest, for both myself and my son. However, I need to get my finances in order before I can realistically think about that.

Today was better. She actually went to a counseling session with me for the first time in four years! Not only that, but she admitted that she has an anger problem and that she thinks it stems from her mother abandoning her and her father dying when she was little. Don't get me wrong, she was still filling the therapist full of delusions about things that I said or that I did to paint herself as a victim, but I met with the therapist beforehand and let him know about her diagnosis. I also asked him to please not mention it to her as it caused her to run from the last therapist, but to rather treat her symptoms as she names them and he sees them without hanging a label on the treatment. He agreed that this is a good strategy for BPDs (he's a specialist in them, that's why I picked him) who are treatment-resistant.

I still don't know if the marriage is salvageable and told my wife and the therapist that. I told them that my goal was for us to learn how to treat each other with respect and dignity even if we did not feel the other deserved it for our son's sake. I told my wife that even if she chooses to file for divorce our son means we are connected for life and we need to learn how to get along for his sake, even if we do split. She actually apologized for calling me names in front of him the other day and said she knows she shouldn't do that! I don't want to get my hopes up, but even if divorce IS inevitable I would rather try to work out a "peaceful surrender" rather than wage "total war" (while of course, preparing for total war should it be necessary. I think my limited and more realistic goal of exploring whether we should stay together or separate (more) amicably for the sake of our son was a better approach than blowing smoke up her a$$ about how we are going to make things perfect. I think it made her feel that I have heard her frustrations with me and the marriage and that I am acknowledging that she is right to say that we are in a toxic situation (we just disagree on the root cause.)

I will keep you all updated here and will also keep my posts on the "bettering" board. I AM "conflicted about staying", but if they are being honest I think all but the most delusional people on the "bettering" board are conflicted about staying at least now and then. How can you be with a pwBPD and not feel conflicted about staying?

Thanks again all,

HurtAndTired

[CravingPeace]

So sorry you are going through this! Some of this sounds very familar to me, although the only difference is there has not been violence for me. Althoigh sometimes it looms like she wants to be when shouting and the hateful eyes.

One thing you said :

"emotional dysregulation disorder" which I recently found out is a nicer way to say "BPD."

Where did you hear this? My wife is undiagnosed but she told me her therapist says she has emotional dysregulation issues, but not sure the therapist said disorder?

[ForeverDad]

I AM "conflicted about staying", but if they are being honest I think all but the most delusional people on the "bettering" board are conflicted about staying at least now and then. How can you be with a pwBPD and not feel conflicted about staying?

Perhaps it's better to say "staying for now" as you allow time to see how things go.

[HurtAndTired]

Thanks for the replies CravingPeace and ForeverDad,

My understanding from doing a little research on Google is that the terms "emotional dysregulation disorder" and "borderline personality disorder" are synonymous and interchangeable. The significant difference is that many insurance companies will not pay for treatment of a personality disorder they will, however, pay for treatment of emotional dysregulation (which is one of the main symptoms of BPD.) I didn't understand it at the time, but I think that the therapist was giving the diagnosis in that way because she was angling for a way that my insurance would continue to cover treatment and that my wife's insurance would cover treatment for her should she seek individual counseling.

I think that you are correct ForeverDad. I should change it to "staying for now" while I see how things go. The situation is just so toxic and the posts that I have read from other members who are going through the divorce process with older children scare the sh!t out of me. The alienation of having the BPD parent trying to triangulate your child against you is terrifying. I think that I need to get my financial ducks in a row ASAP, talk to a few more divorce attorneys, and prepare for the worst. I do not want to divorce, but if it is inevitable I would rather have it done and over with before my wife can try to turn S2 against me. I will continue with my individual therapy, maintain my boundaries, and continue with couples therapy as long as she is willing to go (the basic goal is civility, nothing more.) Divorce would financially ruin me. It would ruin her too, but she does not care one whit about that. This is just so damn hard.

[CravingPeace]

Hurtandtired, I think you should prepare.

I stupidly said I had booked to see an attorney then canceled as I would rather work on things.

She told me I was deceitful, lied, and betrayed her. Why didn't I tell her. I said I am telling you now to be honest as I am struggling.

Shen then told me weeks later she had done the same, but was looking for probono and couldn't find it... But it was ok she did it as I had.

So if you do, you will have to be ok with feeling guilty/or like you are betraying her. That's how I felt. Do not under any circumstances feel guilty enough you tell her.

We are now thinking of going to a mediator, she says I can have shared custody, I have said she can have half the house, and spousal support.

We have been married for over 10 years, so I know I will be paying 40-50% of my income over 10 years, it will likely cost me over $1m when all said and done.

I just can't quite do it. I have 3 kids 6 month-8 years old and I know it would devastate them.

I am just so tired. When she is regulated she sometimes even smiles at the moment, and I think maybe I should stay. But then I think is someone being ok to me and smiling enough, this is my list or pros to stay, cons to leave

Pros:
We have a lot of history
When she is happy things are ok
When she is regulated she is kind to the children, and clearly loves them.

Cons:
My Children would be devastated, and It would hurt them. I play the conversation in my head explaining it to them, moving out of the house etc (this alone stops me)
No sex life for over a decade (other than to procreate)
A lot of criticisms
Constant need to control me
Constant need to argue/ She says she doesn't want to/ But there is always something I have done wrong because she feels bad I guess. And she wants to resolve it. If I refuse to engage, she finds another thing, then another to come at me with.
Gas lighting (I have recorded)- I don't even think she does it on purpose just gets so dysregulated
Passive aggressive comments. She was lecturing the kids on why they shouldn't have white bread for breakfast and it must be brown and how unhealthy it was and wont fill them up. Fine I get brown bread fills for longer. But it was like she was telling them off to get at me as she knew I made them, without saying it directly to me. I say lecturing as she said it 3 or 4 times in a row over and over.
Serious victim/negativity - We were getting in the car to go off to the park. Where are we going daddy say my oldest. "of to the park to ride your bikes". Wife says "paradise" sarcastically.

She was having a go at me the other day about not making her feel emotionally cared for, even though I had been doing everything baby at night, kids in the day, trying to work from home while she recovered from surgery. Bringing her food , going to grocery store for her meds etc etc to the point I am absolutely burned out and sick today. I explained all this and she said well you didn't hug me before my surgery. I explained at Christmas when I tried to hug you, you told me to stop touching you , you were not comfortable being touched and I would know when it was ok to do so. It's honestly crazy making. Anyone else would have seen everything I was doing to help her. But to her she feels bad, so finds a way to blame me. She later did text me to say ok thanks for what you have been doing but it is just logistics. My love language is acts of service so thats why I don't feel appreciated. So what was all the tasks I was doing if not acts of service to help her get better??? And how does me not hugging fit into acts of service? Round and around and around we go!

I have alot of anxiety and I keep thinking I must leave, we must split. Then my fear for the kids, I don't want to hurt them. I love them more than anything. But I need some peace in my life.

So I guess sorry for the rant on your thread, but I hope you know you are not alone!

[ForeverDad]

Hurtandtired, I think you should prepare.

That is why I said "run" is not the best answer.  Educating yourself about all the myriad of variables takes time.  There are all sorts of gotchas for which common sense just doesn't prepare us.  Sadly, court logic does not match everyday common sense.  Taking the time for planning and preparation will win the day or at least limit your losses and clueless mistakes.

We are now thinking of going to a mediator, she says I can have shared custody, I have said she can have half the house, and spousal support.

We have been married for over 10 years, so I know I will be paying 40-50% of my income over 10 years, it will likely cost me over $1m when all said and done.

Mediation might work but be forewarned that your spouse may be too entitled to actually negotiate.  If your spouse is too inflexible on truly negotiating then you may end up concluding mediation failed.  That's okay, for many of us mediation failed too, it was simply too early in the process and our ex-spouses hadn't yet realized that court is The Real Authority.

There is a difference between child support versus spousal support or alimony.

Child support is usually expected until the youngest of the children reach adulthood.  Courts have calculation charts for determining the amount to pay.  I was surprised by my court.  During the divorce I had to pay a certain CS amount while I was limited to alternate weekends.  Two years later in the final decree I was assigned equal time yet my CS amount went up!  Did my ex make that much less or did I make that much more?  I never did figure that one out.

A few years after that my ex was still causing a lot of trouble.  Court called it disparaging and granted me majority parenting time.  As majority time parent I no longer paid CS.  Court of course - predictably - stated that since we hadn't submitted current incomes that it would not require ex to pay me CS.

Spousal support or alimony these days is more of transitional support while the ex transitions to post-marriage life.  It may include a couple years of career training or similar goals.  It may be quite limited, depending on how long the marriage had lasted.  In general, usually alimony is no more than half the length of the marriage and often much less.

In my case, the divorce took a couple years so by the time of the final decree my marriage had just passed 18 years by two days.  I paid alimony for 3 years, using a scale of two months for every year married.  That was far less than half our marriage's length.

I just can't quite do it. I have 3 kids 6 month-8 years old and I know it would devastate them.

Look at your situation from another perspective, as illustrated by an observation made decades ago.  Could it be that the kids would do better because the parents have separate homes?  Yes, there are no perfect solutions but this approach often is the most practical one for both you and the children too.

A few decades 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, as appropriate, will enable your lives or at least a part of your lives to be spent be in a calm, stable environment - your home, wherever that may be - away from the blaming, emotional distortions, pressuring demands and manipulations, unpredictable ever-looming rages and outright chaos.

In short, you can choose to make the best of a lousy situation, whether you stay with demonstrated improvement, "stay for now" pending improvement or whether you go.  The reasonable best.

Your decisions of course will be affected by your spouse's actions and behaviors.  But it's always up to you to decide what boundaries you will set in your life, what you will do or not do, etc.

[HurtAndTired]

Thank you all for the feedback and I appreciate hearing more about your story CravingPeace.

It sounds like you and I are in very similar situations. Your pros and cons are nearly the same as mine, albeit mine include occasional extreme dysregulation that leads to violence. To sum it up, I don't want to break up my family, devastate our son, and financially ruin myself in the process. I will do whatever I have to do to protect myself and my son, but I really cannot afford a divorce. I am a teacher with an MA's worth of college debt, credit card debt, and a mortgage. Heck, just buying groceries in this economy puts us under financial strain (the price of everything in the supermarket is INSANE right now!)

When I have been reading accounts of people going through high-conflict divorces on these boards the prices of everything they are mentioning make me feel faint. $15K here for someone to do an evaluation for this or that, hourly attorney fees, paying $25K for experts and doctors, the list goes on and on. Your estimation of a million dollars when it is all said and done sounds about right. The only sure thing for me would be bankruptcy. No exaggeration. I will do it as a last resort to save myself and my son, but only as a last resort.

I am going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the couples therapy that we are in right now works. Remember, I am setting my sights pretty low.  I am simply asking that the abuse stops and that we learn to be civil to each other for our son's sake. I don't know if having a romantic-love based relationship with my wife is possible, or if I'd even want one (the level of re-parenting she expects out of me has really turned me off, as she feels more like a dependant than a partner.) However, I would gladly live a celibate, civil, sexless marriage with her if it would only bring peace and tranquility into my home.

I would also be willing to go through a divorce if it could be civil, fast, cheap, and would result in me being the custodial (decisions about schools, doctors, etc.) parent, and her having 50/50 physical custody while fairly dividing the marital assets. I know that she got primary custody of my stepson and a pittance of child support (which he never paid) in her barely contested first divorce because being a dad was never a priority for her ex. She expects the same again but with a bigger payday from me. The one time I called her bluff, I told her if she really wanted a divorce to go ahead and file, but that she should expect that I would fight her tooth and nail for our son, that "I wouldn't go down easy and roll over like her first husband" that "alimony isn't a thing in our state (it isn't)" and that with her history of mental illness and DV "things won't go down the way you expect." I wanted to disabuse her of the notion that divorce would be an "easy fix" for her.

I may have made a mistake. I know that what I said would make a rational person think twice about taking an extreme and last-resort measure, but she is not a rational person. She does often fantasize about how she would "just be happy if..." Mostly the blank space involves me making more money so that she didn't have to work. It also can be her getting in her car and driving off into the sunset and never coming back, or having never met me. The one thing they all have in common is that they are both overly simplistic and would not really make her happy. After all of these years together, I know that nothing will ever make her happy because her unhappiness comes from within. I fear that the "I would just be happy if I was divorced" daydream may be too powerful for her to be rightfully afraid of how terrible the reality of a drawn-out divorce would be.

The reality of a divorce would be that we lose the house, we'd both go bankrupt from attorneys' fees etc., and end up living in crappy apartments with neither one of us getting any child support from the other. She has worked at the same job, full-time for 22 years, and only makes about $15K less a year than I do (I'm a high school teacher with an MA, she's got a high school diploma and a good-paying factory job.) Neither one of us is financially dependant on the other one, and neither one of us is wealthy. Alimony is only awarded in my state in the rare case that  one spouse is totally financially dependent on the other and cannot survive on their own. Child support is usually related to who has primary custody and is dependent on income disparity. She does not depend on me financially, I plan on get primary custody (if I have to fight, I'm in it to win it), and there is no major income disparity. It would just be a lose, lose, lose situation. She would lose. I would lose. Worst of all, our son would lose. I want to avoid that if at all possible.

[CravingPeace]

Hi ForeverDad

"Spousal support or alimony these days is more of transitional support while the ex transitions to post-marriage life.  It may include a couple years of career training or similar goals.  It may be quite limited, depending on how long the marriage had lasted.  In general, usually alimony is no more than half the length of the marriage and often much less."

I did an online calculator for Utah and it said usually spousal is the length of the marriage? So married 11 years, pay it 11 years.

[ForeverDad]

An experienced local lawyer could give you more authoritative legal advice than us in anonymous peer support or even what the generic government guidelines may be.

It would have been better for me to have described "ex-spouse" as the "disadvantaged ex-spouse".  Since your incomes are so similar, then alimony may not be an issue?

[CravingPeace]

Thankyou I did manage to speak with someone, they told me the rule was that is the maximum legally allowed not the normal

[thankful person]

I would gladly live a celibate, civil, sexless marriage with her if it would only bring peace and tranquility into my home.

I couldn’t have put it better myself. My dbpdw would never hear of this though because, “you would be happy with that and it’s not fair that you get to be happy and I don’t..” The dysfunctional dance continues…

[livednlearned]

H&T, I admire how you're working through an incredibly hard situation. Learning what you do on the bettering board will go a long way in all of your relationships, there is a lot to learn regardless of what may happen in your marriage.

I haven't been on bettering for a while so I'm not sure if anyone is sharing insights on parenting with a pwBPD -- if not, I highly recommend Bill Eddy's Don't Alienate the Kids and Power of Validation for Parents (can't recall the author). You Can't Make Everything All Better by the Lundstroms is also great. Eddy's book is written mostly for parents who have divorced but the core message is applicable for raising emotionally resilient kids when one parent has a PD. I imagine much will be intuitive to you as an educator, but if not, there are few books out there that help us be better parents when the other parent has a PD. That's one of them.

When I have been reading accounts of people going through high-conflict divorces on these boards the prices of everything they are mentioning make me feel faint. $15K here for someone to do an evaluation for this or that, hourly attorney fees, paying $25K for experts and doctors, the list goes on and on.

Divorce is expensive, no question. There's an estimate quoted on the site somewhere that it takes roughly 8 years to recover financially from a high-conflict divorce.

However, not all divorces here are technically high conflict. Bill Eddy (who wrote Splitting) has a specific definition for high conflict. He describes a high-conflict personality as someone who has a target of blame (you), recruits negative advocates, is a persuasive blamer, and has a PD. Not all people with BPD will be an HCP, but all HCPs will have some kind of PD.

This isn't to say that your wife isn't abusive, or extreme, or dangerous. HCP is more about the way someone uses his or her environment to regulate internal chaos. There are varying degrees of HCP, too. Some might do a lot of cage rattling and then settle to avoid court. Others, like my ex, were certain a judge would punish me. Going to court was a way to settle scores.

You won't get rich in a divorce   and your financial plan for stability will be postponed. No question about that.

However, your situation will be unique and given what you've shared here, your wife might not have the stomach for court. Plus, you're learning skills on bettering, including skills that can help lower the dial on volatility.

If it comes to it, there are also ways to save money that members can share with you.

Think of divorce like a giant BPD dysregulation that will be easier to manage the more you understand and learn and practice. It's only a catastrophe when we don't know what's happening and may inadvertently make it worse.

[Gerda]

Hi Hurt and Tired, I just have a couple of comments to add to this discussion.

When it comes to what is best for the kids, I've had two therapists now say they strongly suspect that my mother has BPD. And my current therapist thinks my now-husband has BPD, and the reason why I didn't notice some red flags earlier in our relationship is because having a mom with BPD made me think that certain behaviors were normal and acceptable.

So, to put it another way, do you want your son to marry a woman with BPD?

My second point is about not being able to afford a divorce. It reminds me of a YouTube video I saw about staying vs. getting out of a relationship with a narcissist, but a lot of the same advice works for BPD. She said you need to distinguish between the "can'ts" and the "won'ts". The can'ts are things like "I can't get a divorce because I can't afford it." "I can't get a divorce because I can't sell the house." etc. The won'ts are things like "I won't get a divorce because I still love her/him." or "I won't get a divorce because I think she/he might get better with counseling."

The can'ts are about practical things like money. The won'ts are about the relationship.

She said that you need to get rid of the won'ts first. Once you do, the can'ts kind of end up working out. (And even if it turns out that you truly can't get divorced, getting rid of the won'ts will still be better for your mental health and sanity.)

Good luck!