Word must have gotten out that I am getting a divorce. I have only told my secretaries and a couple of my partners, however, people have been acting differently around me. "How are you doing?" alot... I had a doctor call me, who hasn't talked with me in over 3 years I would bet. She called to ask a goofy question about her patient, and I really don't believe she wanted an answer, it was obvious and she is a good MD. But she lingered oddly, on the phone. Small talk from someone whom I haven't spoken to in probably 3 years??? God I hate this...

I don't WANT anyone else. I want my wife and family, but in a good way. I want my boys harrassing my girls as they run through the hallway. I want to come home and see my wife cooking supper and tell me about her day. Those things I had... and I really missed them today. The feeling of true love FROM my wife, I just didn't have, but I wish if she had it that she would want to learn how to show me. I wanted so badly to show her I loved her, but I just couldn't for the life of me, figure out how to do it so she could hear. I would give everything I own to just have a wife who wanted to WORK HARD at reconciliation. She can make me SO mad... SO dissappointed... SO ANGRY... but in the end... she is still my wife and I love her... and she has my heart, even if she doesn't want it, she has it.

Its been a tough couple of days. I think that my anger for how this all came about is diminishing, and my 'feelings' for my marriage have began to come back through. The abruptness of everything... the email to avoid all contact and the AVOIDANCE of all contact initially made me mad. I am still upset by it, no doubt, but the initial flare has subsided. I have not spoken to my wife in over a month. Not a word. I actually haven't spoken to her since the counseling session 3 days BEFORE she emailed me telling me she filed.

For everything that has happened... I still don't know what to think about the whole situation. Somedays it seems pretty clear... then others, I will realize that it makes no sense what-so-ever. Some days I will recognize the insanity of the situation, then others I will look at it all and feel nothing but sadness and love. Some days I can talk about it like it was 3 years ago, and then some days someone will ask how my 'kids' are doing and I will choke up.

I know its all normal... but that doesn't make it feel any better. When my first wife left during all her affairs, at least I could understand it. I didn't LIKE it, but I could understand the insanity she was living within. However, this time, it just makes no sense at all to me. I think about all the pain in the world, and then think about how much she and her girls are in, and look at it and wonder how THIS could be the answer, when her husband wants to work. THEN I realize that it isn't ME wanting to work it is her choice to walk away...

Man oh man... time and space... that's what I need... time and space...

Sometimes I think I should write or have written a 'pseudo Plan-B' letter explaining a 'way back' should she make that choice. She is the type of person who would THINK that I have quit, without really seeing the truth. But then I think what would I say? I would say the same thing I have said for 4 years. I would say the same thing I said in counseling 5 weeks ago, when she said "Nothing he hasn't said before"... so I KNOW she understands what would have to change for a marriage. I UNDERSTAND that fact logically... but emotionally, it just hasn't connected yet.

Heh... I think I will build a new deck and patio. That'll give me something to do which is relatively mindless.

Get out of your head for a while. Build that deck. Get your mind on something constructive (no pun intended).

Cant- I wanted to recommend a book to you that I just saw today on my lawyer's desk. It's called 'Splitting- Protecting Yourself When Divorcing a Borderline or Narcissist' by William Eddy.

My lawyer deals with a lot of divorces involving people with personality disorders (imagine that!) and he highly recommended this.

I know your situation is still up in the air with your W, however it might be good to have on hand in case things eventually come to that. If you Google the title you can find it on a BPD website ($25).

Hope you're doing well!

Thanks Sidney...

I don't know where we are headed. I vacillate between being 'OK' with divorce to wanting reconciliation. It is hard not having spoken to her at all. I guess in some ways it is hard in others much easier. She has always melted my heart, and her absence has allowed me to calm myself in ways in which I couldn't have being invoved with her or even 'potentially' involved with her.

There is so much I absolutely DON'T understand, that it worries me, because if I don't understand what happened, then I can't avoid it in the future. This was the case throughout our relationship in that I felt as though I was floundering around in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane in the dark. I just never understood anything about what she wanted, regardless of how hard I was CONSCIOUSLY trying. I mean... I didn't just cruise through our marriage like it seems so many spouses are doing. I actively TRIED to talk, discuss, and interact with her. I actively tried to understand what she needed, even to the point of asking her directly several times, getting the answer "I don't know" or the ENs questionaire where it boilded down to me being 'mean' but doing about everything she wanted. BUT then I know she didn't FEEL like I was doing what she wanted.

I have thought alot about it, and realize that when she was put 'on the spot' or needed to give an example of something for me to do differently or improve upon, she could rarely find something to say about what I was doing. However, her FEELINGS were that I was failing on all points. But she couldn't get her feelings in line with the reality she was living. I believe it was a basic disconnect from reality in that she would get what she wanted, and still be unhappy with it, and therefore unhappy with me. But when queried about it, she couldn't logically explain where I was going wrong, just that I was in her feelings.

I understand that this is part of the 'issue' of how she interprets outside events. But it doesn't make it much easier when you count on A + B = C for you and almost everyone else, but for her A + B = X. There was nothing I could do which would ever get us on the same page. And as I look back, I did everything to the point of driving myself crazy trying to find the answer. Not realizing that there was no answer to be had, regardless of my willingness to find it.

I am better... much better. I have the lability still, but it is calming somewhat. I miss her, I miss the girls, I miss going out to dinner, having someone to think about, and I miss hugs. I am working on readjusting my life and activities. I realize how much I focused everything I did on her and trying to improve our relationship. I almost completely put ME to the side in the effort.

Today would be a good day to have someone loving me at home. Lots of crap going on and it would certainly make it easier to deal with if I knew I had a hug and a "Everything will be fine." waiting at the end of the day. I KNOW everything will be fine, but it would be alot better if I had someone I knew loved me right now. Thing is... I wouldn't have had much consideration when things were going well between us anyway. But I might have been able to get something...

Sometimes when I begin to rewrite history in my head... I have to remind myself to go back and reread what I wrote here for the last 3 years.

What is it about a person which allows you to so easily forget the bad things? I guess that perhaps in alot of ways, I am the OPPOSITE of so many people in that my baseline is to forgive and love. It has gotten me in all kinds of trouble. I begin thinking that maybe things weren't 'that bad' and in reality they weren't 'that bad' they just weren't 'much good' either. And nothing was changing except moving further and further apart.

Man it just breaks my heart though. I really thought that God had put us together... I really did. Maybe so, but I don't think so. I don't believe God would put us together, knowing or expecting us to divorce. But who am I to know... I know my heart... but my wife either wouldn't accept it (which is my belief) or couldn't understand it.

I have thought alot about things, and I realize that I fell in love HARD... with both her, but even more so with her girls. I love them with all I have, and it is killing me to not be around them. I see things all the time, which I want to remember to tell them during supper... but they aren't there.

I took my boys to the mall Mom-day shopping yesterday and saw so many things that I kept having that initial "I should look at that for T... Oh wait... she isn't mine any longer." That was a bit of a difficult shopping trip.

I guess the one thing which was better, is that I could look at the lingerie and not get a knot in my stomach. My wife would not wear lingerie after we married. She wore a silk teddy, which was beautiful, on this last V-day, but otherwise, nothing in almost 4 years. I would get sad each time I thought of her caring enough to wear something like what I would see in the window or on a rack. When I saw it last night, I almost had a bit of 'hope' in me, when I realized that perhaps, someday, someone would 'WANT' to wear it. I know it sounds like a shallow thing perhaps, however, I don't know why that 'care' for me meant so much to me. For my wife to care enough about my desires to wear a beautiful teddy or bra/panty set or anything sexy and it be just for ME... that always made my heart ache when I thought about just how EASY it all seemed and how her refusal felt like CONSCIOUS withholding. Had it been reversed and there was something she wanted me to wear... I would have owned the store by the weekend, if it would have made her happy. It just was so incongruent... so confusing...

OMG!!! I just read an article from Fred which almost exactly describes my wife. It is amazing, and had I read it 1-2-3-4-5-6 years ago, I wouldn't be where I am today. I recognized individual pieces of all this long ago,however I sequestered them so they wouldn't 'touch' and become overwhelming, essentially, I enabled their continuance by refusing to look at them in total, and only looked at them in individual 'bite sized and chewable pieces'. But still, I felt that I had been 'placed' in this situation and because I loved her and especially her girls, I kept thinking that it was something I needed to continue, because I was not the kind of guy who walks out on his family. Even though the girls weren't mine, I STILL felt every bit of love for them as I would have had they been my own.

But reading this article was such an eye opener. The only things about it which didn't fit were some of the helplessness, pity, and brainwashing of 'me' or the man.... I pray all the time for guidance... and you never know how HE is going to send it to you. I KNEW things were crazy, and I KNEW things made no sense. I never felt I was wrong about my perceptions, I simply thought I had to 'muscle through' because 'my girls and my wife' were in great need, and I was 'vainly' their best hope of success. I felt crazy some times, but it was a lucid crazy in which I UNDERSTOOD the problem, but just couldn't walk away, regardless, because of an ill-suited Knight in Shining Armor Complex (KiSAC).

Here is the article, and I wish there was a place which allowed it to be more accessable to readers. I think that ALOT of the people on here, MEN ESPECIALLY, could get some good out of reading the article. If anyone has any ideas on how it could be put in a place easier for someone lurking, to find, it would be beneficial I believe.

http://www.gettinbetter.com/anycost.html

There is also a version for WOMEN as well

http://gettinbetter.com/casanova.html

Had to Change my screen name... because I DID!!!

YOU KNOW I prayed for guidance and understanding everyday for several years but ESPECIALLY recently. Fred... whether you understand it or not... you were guided to add that post in the D/D thread... and I was guided there to read it.

Wow!!! A very timely breakthrough, huh? I have no doubt that you came across this info. at just the right time for it to have the most meaningful impact on your life. God knows what He's doing.

It seemed like you were already making good progress toward understanding that the problems in your marriage were really beyond you (with a BPD spouse, it always is), so it's great that you've now had this light-bulb moment to enforce it all. It was starting to become painful to see you beat yourself up again and again wondering what you could have done better or different or why she did the things she did, etc. etc. The plain fact is that she's BPD, and relationships with BPD's are just downright painful and impossible.

So I'm wondering...now what? Have you had any contact at all with your W? Do you have a plan? Is the ball in her court, or yours?

I do not have a plan at this moment. I have not spoken with her at all, which is fine in all actuality. Odd, and somewhat frustrating to be divorced via 'email'. But after reading more and more about BPD, I realize that it might not be the worst thing for me at all.

That website would have been worth millions to me every single day of my existance for the last 6+ years. I feel bad for her, but reading these articles, is almost like reliving my life. I have jumped up, dropping my laptop on the floor and said THATS HER TOO!!!! at least 20X tonight. I realize just how troubled she is and I wish I could help her, but been there, done that... no way am I going back now. I can finally see the REALITY of what I was up against. I can REALLY finally see that I could have been exactly what she wanted at any given time, and it wouldn't have mattered because she didn't have any standards for what she wanted. SHE didn't know what she wanted. I just kept thinking that if I did enough, she couldn't help but respond. Now I can see she didn't have a chance because of her baseline.

It is erie reading this, because I have written about 90% of these things just in this thread. I some I didn't recognize for what they were... like Tricotillomania; the ongoing compulsion to pull out facial hair (eyelashes, eyebrows, etc.) or body hair. Considered a facet of self-mutilation.She CONSTANTLY is tweezing something... even to the point that she tweezed her eyebrows almost OFF one time. She checks and tweezes at least 20x a day if not more. Always has a pair of tweezers close at hand. As I had been reading books/articles I kept thinking, 'Well she doesn't have self mutilation or suicidal ideation, but that is about it.' Well... it appears she does have the mutilation... just in a 'socially acceptable form'.

I am CONSTANTLY amazed at the number of OH CRAP... THAT HAPPENED ALL THE TIME's I keep running across. I can remember the exact incident and how I was thinking, "You are ust CRAZY!!!" But then I would look at my girls, remember my vows, and shoulder it on through. I feel for the girls... I really do, because I know she had a tough childhood, and it appears it might have been tougher than she either let on, or remembers, The girls are going to have something similar... hopefully not as bad, but learning from her inconsistencies is already affecting our (her) 7yo pretty badly, and the 11 yo is beginning to just 'dissappear' as in 'hide' in her room away from the drama.

Man, I do feel sorry for her. I do love her. But as I always thought in MY head... it was like loving a DRUG ADDICT. You do everything you can, and finally you realize that you have to just step back and let it go. Love doesn't have to stop, but you can remove yourself from the terrorism (as our MC calls it) of the situation.

I think I couldn't REALLY believe that BPD was real for HER. She seemed so different than my patients with BPD were back when I was a psychologist in the hospital. But... I worked with the socially dysfunctional ones... she functions in society just fine, because she and it can run away. Me as a husband, couldn't just BOLT. I had responsibilities and I WANTED those responsibilities, but I had no real idea that what I was working with COULDN'T make different choices. It is all so much better this evening, REALLY UNDERSTANDING THAT FACT!

iTS QUITE LITERALLY LIKE i WANT TO JUMP UP AND DOWN AND DANCE SINGING I'M not CRAZY... I'M not CRAZY... IT was real!!!

edit... clarity in purpose via Kaylalady.

The post served no purpose other than to help me to understand what I have witnessed. I do understand better now, and the post serves no further purpose.

Thank you Kaylalady...

While the diagnosis may be applicable in your situation, honestly speaking, many women have a few or many of these issues, who are still mentally and emotionally healthy for their situation.

That's why I CAUTION people here to be very careful about armchair diagnosis of their spouse.

ALL WAYWARDS ARE MENTAL!

Period.

The rest of us just have issues.

The label stops progress and assesses blame and allows for excuses.

And here's the clinker for you.

If I cared and had the time, I could pull out A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT diagnosis off the internet with a list of symptoms that would look very similar to your list here.

That gets scary.

Because what happens when someone in a position of power makes a false diagnosis or a misdiagnosis?

Lives get destroyed. Beyond repair.

I'm still picking up the damaged pieces from a misdiagnosis for someone I care dearly about who got labeled as paranoid schizophrenic when he had a bad case of workplace-related solvent intoxication-triggering bi-polar.

If your relationship with her is done, finito, no future ties to her via children, and the label gives you comfort, fine. But keep it to yourself. You could do more harm than good by letting it go any further.

If you do have ties to her, then deal with your need to have a diagnosis/label on her because the issue will harm you more than it will her, I assure you.

edit to add: if you feel the diagnosis makes her a danger to YOUR children, then get a court-ordered psych eval for BOTH of you, so that you can show you are willing to undergo the same fitness evaluation that you want her to go through. Let someone else who is infinitely more qualified than someone who can read a link on the internet to assess and diagnose.

I was not trying to diagnose her. I am trying to understand the last 6 years of my life WITH her.

But I appreciate your candor and thoughts. I agree, diagnosis is not up to me, nor do I want to deal with it. I only wanted to understand...

Thanks Kayla

The difference is that waywards are mental while they are in the fog of their affair, and their spouses are left seeing the huge difference between who they used to be and who they are now.

People with mental disorders are ALWAYS different, day in and day out and that can leave the people living with them desperate for answers as to why life feels so crazy all the time.

I'm a Clinician and I see the devestation that mental illness leaves in its wake every day. I don't feel like anyone in this case has made a careless diagnosis about Just's wife, as in reading his posts it is clear to see the pervasive features she's exhibited all throughout their marriage.

It's also clear that no matter what he tried (he's been on MB for years trying to make his marriage work) it just wasn't working. In the case of BPD, trying to apply MB principles (or any marital principles) is like giving someone cough syrup for a cough they've developed from lung cancer- no amount is going to stop the cough because the true problem, hidden deep within, is MUCH bigger and more problematic.

I know how important that diagnosis can be for families living with BPD because they finally 'get it' as to why their lives have been turned upside down despite everything they do to try to make it better. The diagnosis isn't needed for revenge or legal reasons (usually) or to rub it in their faces, the diagnosis is needed for peace of mind to finally understand what has really been happening in their lives and why!

You're right - diagnosis is important to the family. But it's also important that it be done by a clinical psychologist, with the proper tools to accurately assess the problem?

Have you ever seen the devastation to the family that has an amateur label the patient first, then everybody else sees the label, and are then biased in their observation tests to see that label, rather than think independently?

I have. I've watched what that family and that patient had to go through afterwards.

Amateur diagnosis is the issue here, Sidney - not that there shouldn't be one done by a professional.

I agree that a false diagnosis can be devastating to both the individual and the families involved and I'm sorry you had to witness this first hand. And I also agree that a true diagnosis can only be done face to face by a Clinician.

I don't believe Just is looking for an official diagnosis to 'put his crazy wife away' for to 'take her down in court', etc. He's looking for explanations as to why his life has been turned upside down throughout his marriage.

When I came here, I presented the facts about what my WH had said and done before he suddenly moved out, and there was not a person on MB who did not immediately recognize that he was having an A. How did they know this without solid proof? Because they themselves had lived it, they've studied it and they've read about numerous others who have lived through the same exact thing. I believe we can do this with not only A's, but with other issues as well (like mental illness). If the signs are there, why not point them out to help steer a person in the right direction?

Just like MBers are quick to recognize wayward behavior, BPD is not difficult to recognize when someone is familiar with the signs and behaviors involved. Is it an official diagnosis? No! Does it offer some peace of mind as to what the truth is and where to turn to for help? Yes, I believe it does.

But there are other explanations for BPD behavior than BPD. Just like bipolar can look like schizophrenia.

edit to add:
The important thing to realize is that something is off and it has little or nothing to do with you, nor can you fix it. Once you've accepted this, you can put together an action plan for yourself and act accordingly without waiting for a mentally ill person to change or get help.

Amen!

I am a physician and I was a psychologist before I went to Medical School. It is odd how it is so much easier to see issues when you are NOT involved within them, compared to looking at them from the inside.

While all my knowledge doesn't give me the right nor the desire to diagnose, I have lived WITHIN this mess, blinded by my emotions. Even when Sidney pointed out the book about BPD and I read it and STILL I understood that this seemed applicable, but in some ways I remained hesitant. Hesitant to be willing to do just what you said Kayla, LABEL. I don't care about a label, but just as my patients need to understand what is happening with their body, I needed to understand what had happened with my life and marriage.

Physical ailments which are NOT diagnosed or understood by the patient or the doctor can be the absolute worst type of problem, regardless of the symptoms. Because it is not UNDERSTOOD. The patient knows something is 'wrong' but no one can give him an answer, so the frustration is sometimes worse than the actual problem itself.

For me, I really did consciously try everything I could think of, MB, counseling, read every relationship book and attempted to implement, etc. Nothing I did made any difference what-so-ever. It was the same as a patient who searches doctor after doctor, looking for someone who can tell him what is wrong, and every one of them say 'this should work, but it doesn't, I don't KNOW what is wrong.' Then those patients can believe it is all in their head, and sometimes the DOCTORS can believe it as well. This is the basis of the frustration, and was the same for me.

WAS I implementing MB principles? Was I doing it well? The outcome was not occurring appropriately, therefore, all points stated I WASN'T doing what I needed to be, and being that I was ACTIVELY WORKING AT IT, and CONSCIOUSLY AWARE of my actions, attempts, and failures, I had begun wondering whether it was truly 'all in my OWN head'. Although, I didn't believe it, I couldn't get my head around the fact that it really did seem that we lived on different planets, but in the same house. Our perception of reality were so drastically different, that I began doubting what I KNEW to be true, simply because I had someone I cared about vehemently stating that I was WRONG.

I KNEW I wasn't, but there began to be more and more doubt within me, simply because A + B =/= C no matter how much it made sense that it should.

When I read that website, finally, all the balls I had up in the air, tossing around, trying to keep alive, dropped into place. I read my LIFE over the last 6 years on a single page. The things I encountered were written almost verbatim, and countless instances welled up within me, finally all abutting one another.

I had lived my life, segmenting and sequestering incidents, I believe in an effort to maintain my family rather than the good of my life. I couldn't allow the 'craziness to touch' because while I could handle each incident separately, I knew that if I looked at everything together or even just a couple together, I would break and know that this whole thing was wrong. But when I read that page, and memories came flooding back at each new point, I finally was able to acknowledge that reality was REALITY. I HAD to look at everything together. I had to acknowledge the *Hypersexuality or asexuality (non-sexual--especially after marriage). *Lying and deceitfulness, mixed messages, self-contradicting.*Projection; when they assign their own deficits/faults, to you.*Seductive/sexual up until marriage, or the relationship gets solidified.*Selective memory *Splitting; idealizing or devaluing behaviors.*Intense, irrational abandonment fears/concerns.*Dissociated, disconnected, shut-down, 'checked out' or numb.*Unstable/rapidly-shifting patterns of relating; *Crazy-making interactions. Poor comprehension skills, lacks common sense.*A desperate need for attention/approval *it's always (supposedly) your fault. etc etc etc... all on a single page. As I read that, and moved to the next, and the next etc. I was bombarded with memories of each and every one of them, and there was no sequestering any longer.

Things just finally made sense, and the weight of MY inability to make things work lessened substantially. My understanding about how I stayed made much more sense. MY understanding of why nothing had a reasonable outcome, despite everything being done 'by the book' became more clear.

The diagnosis is less important to me, than the TRUE INNER understanding of the issue, and why I FAILED. This personal failure was the REAL ISSUE for me. I just couldn't get my head around the fact that I, CFIO, couldn't make it work. I guess that is vain, but it is like potting a plant, fertilizing it, watering it, ensuring sunshine, etc and it constantly is spindly and about to die. THEN finally finding out that the altitude does not support this particular plant, and there was NOTHING you could have done which would have made any difference, because it was something OUT OF YOUR CONTROL, no matter how much you thought you could control.

THAT is what this means to me. The REALISTIC UNDERSTANDING, DEEP DOWN... I had thought I had understood before, but I believe that was superfically. Last night, it all hit me like a ton of bricks, one after the other in a perfect time frame and state of mind, which allowed for the REALITY to be there. As Sid said,

Thank you for sharing. That makes sense and I get the relief you feel now.

I grew up with a crazymaking mother. She cheated on my dad - I witnessed it as a toddler - and she spent most of my pre-ten childhood either trying to shut me up with some kind of insane "you have a great imagination" kind of thing, or outright physical abuse, when a gossipy neighbor befriended me and Mom was afraid she'd pump me for information and get it.

It would be such a relief to have an explanation for why someone would do that to her own daughter. After college, I worked in a clinical setting for a while along side a clinical psychologist. It was then that I started opening up about memories Mom had labeled as "dreams" and "imagination" and confronted her. She still has no clue what her adultery did to me as a toddler and child, and no recollection of the magnitude of the abuse.

But thankfully, the family member who was mislabeled came at a time in my life where I could support him in getting the help he needed and fight the mislabel that occurred. (it happened while I was working in that clinical setting).

Every time I want to label my mother as bipolar, I go back to the principles I practiced years ago; I'm not qualified to diagnose my mother. The label doesn't help her get better. It makes me judgmental about her and dismissive of her.

As you look into the future, is there any reason for you to have ongoing contact with her - like children? If not, is your plan to wash your hands of this relationship completely, and take the lessons forward?