I feel really alone with trying to decide whether/when to divorce my wife and would like some "company" here. I would be grateful for your discussion, experience, questions, book recommendations, "sitting shiva" or prayers and good thoughts. I am in one of those uncomfortable "in between" times. I know it will pass and I will figure out what I need to do, but it is hard for me to hold on amidst the loneliness in the middle. I think of this place and people here first when I need emotional support. I really need to vent this all out instead of keeping it inside. And I need a safe place with safe people to do it.
I believe that my wife has Borderline PD and cannot tolerate either intimacy or abandonment, so bounces between the two berating me all along for not meeting her needs the whole time. I have been separated from my wife for 2-1/2 blessed months now. Every single day gets better. I have peace. I love life. I feel connected to myself and other people. I am very grateful to be where I am and to have done the work I needed to in order to get to this point. I am a recovering co-dependent, so moving back out on my own again was not an easy step for me. I had fallen a long way from my old, independent, bold self. I had to deal with my own fears and issues around intimacy, abandonment, lonliness, and worthiness for good things in order to leave. I was bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball at an Olympic match before that.
During this time, I discovered a relationship with God that I didn't know I had. I had rejected God many years ago when he didn't seem to be doing anything in this marriage. I had gone to church growing up, but never had much place for God in my life. It was a case of Him coming to find me this time, not the other way around. Looking for God was the last thing on my mind. Nevertheless, having this in my life has been a big help in giving me a feeling of acceptance and safety in taking the steps I have. I don't feel ALL alone anymore, but still want and need people in my life. I believe that it is a blessing from God that I have the house that I'm living in today. The answers to my prayers came in words to "move on" and "leave, go forth." I got this house that had been on the market 75 days, when all other houses were snapped up in less than 3 days on the market. The random realtor that I got by dialing the realtor's office main number had divorced a year ago and we talked for an hour after seeing this house. I really feel like this was a "God thing" and that I'm where I'm supposed to be. Don't take any of this that I think I'm holy or anything, far from it. I'm feeling my way around all of this new territory.
After reading several books on verbal abuse and BPD, I was able to see that there isn't anything to this relationship and never has been. The person I thought I was marrying didn't exist. It was all lies on her part to "keep me," her words. That stopped right after we got married. the real her came out. I tried to appease her, but things just got worse and worse. I made myself depressed running from the awareness that I had been tricked and used. I got therapy and ADs and got out of that, but the awareness came back. I "only" made myself numb that time. The awareness came back. I was no longer willing to be either depressed or numb or to do anything else to hurt myself to avoid it. I got angry. Full of rage.
I started reacting to my wife with screaming, swearing, name-calling and verbal abuse of my own. It scared the crap out of me because is NOT how I want to act. I felt completely out of control when it happened and I didn't know what else I might do. I felt like *I* had disappeared.
I decided I had to do WHATEVER it took to stop that and get my life back. Not depression, not numbness or anything else like that because IT DOESN'T WORK! In fact, those things had made it worse. My appeasement had made it worse. I started reading and surfing the internet looking for explanations, looking for understanding. I was ashamed that I had let her treat me and use me this way. I was ashamed that I didn't stand up for myself and leave. I was ashamed that I was ashamed that she fooled me. I wasn't ready to talk to anyone yet.
My wife had what should have been a disspointing discussion with her mother that turned into a potential estrangement. I and my daughter told her we would support whatever she decided to do and did our best to help her through this time. It hit me later, she was far, far more upset about a tiff with her mother than she had ever been about the shitty marriage we had. After a sleepless night I finally realized that no matter what I did, it made NO difference. My wife chose to have our relationship this way. I couldn't even force her to change, let alone wait around until she decided to. I asked her for a divorce. After 16 years of refusing to go get help (I had offered many, many times) she suggested a marriage weekend. I agreed because I wanted to be able to tell my daughter that I had tried EVERYTHING. One of the guided imageries was to picture your partner as a wounded child and my wife actually cried because she had seen me as a human being for the first time. I had always told myself that if she could just see me as a human being she would no longer be able to treat me the way she was. We went through about 9 months of couples therapy, but that only made things worse as she was still saying all the right things in therapy and completely denying her behavior outside of therapy (a BPD symptom). One day I woke up to find a note saying she was not going to joint counseling any longer but wanted to keep going on her own. She refused to talk about anything related to our relationship and just wanted to have "fun" and chit chat about how our day went.
During this time, I was seeing my own therapist and working through a lot of issues that I noted above. The big one for me was fear of abandonment. To the point where I had panic attacks every time I tried to leave. I was literally unable to leave until I dealt with those issues. I was true to my word and not being depressed or numb. Unfortunately, the awareness of this situation kept me from sleeping. After several weeks of sleep deprivation and deepening desparation, I got a new therapist and some sleeping pills. This helped me to take the final step and move out. I could no longer physically stay in that situation. The results are amazing. I'm feeling like myself. I like myself. I am relearning what I like and don't like. My old therapist told me that when I was done life would be "sweet. Sweeter than it is for people who don't do this work." It hadn't happened until recently. Now, I finally *know* what he meant. Life is good. Life is sweet.
I don't love my wife anymore. Not even a little bit. I don't hate her anymore (thanks to a lot of forgiveness work), but I pity her. She truly didn't ask to be this way, it isn't her fault. However, she hasn't been willing to even acknowledge it, let alone do the work to stop her abusive behavior. I guess now I'm indifferent to her for the most part. She called to ask about buying something for our daughter today and sounded normal. I had to retrace my steps and remind myself that I was getting the facade, not the reality. It didn't take any time for me to get back to reality. It's where I live now. Goodbye OZ, hello Kansas!
Even if she completely admitted the way she is and started working on it today, I think it would take her 5-10 years to get to the point where she would really be able to have a true, mutual, intimate relationship. I have not heard or seen that she has made that commitment. I haven't hearn much at all. I asked her to only EMail unless there was a time pressure, like this morning. Not having to face her crazymaking statements and struggle not to react is a joy.
In short (ha ha!) I don't even like my wife and don't want to have anything to do with her. She would HAVE to be pretty much cured of her issues before there would even be anything to talk about. I don't want to wait around. I'm sick and tired of being around her and trying to keep things sane. I want a chance in my life to find someone who I want to share my life with. Even though one of the inseparable ironies of this is that I am now aware that I don't NEED anyone with me to be OK. I don't want to have to worry about whether my wife is going to raid the money or do something destructively spiteful to punish me for not meeting all her needs. For the first several weeks in this house my heart would race and my adrenaline would shoot sky high when I heard a creak or a groan. My immediate thought was that my wife was back and fight or flight would kick in. I believe I have some low-level Complex PTSD from this as well. I literally cannot be around her anymore. Maybe all these things could change, but I'm not willing to put any effort into changing them.
So why don't I just get a divorce right now? I'm moving closer to it, but there are a couple of things that have been holding me back. One is that I want to take care of my daughter and afraid of hurting her even more with the divorce. I see as I write this that is my co-dependent nature kicking in. I will be much better able to help my daughter by taking care of myself first in this situation. Trying to take care of someone else, even my daughter, would leave me drained again. I can't do that. I won't do that anymore.
The big reason I'm in the middle right now is trying to figure out whether it is OK with God that I divorce my wife. Please, don't tell me not to worry about it or anything like that. If I could have done that, I probably would have by now. Whether you believe in God or not doesn't matter. I do, and it isnt't something I can ignore or pretend otherwise. And after my experiences, I wouldn't do that anyway. I realize that the conventional wisdom is that the bible says that you can only get divorced for infidelity and even then should not remarry, but try to reconcile. There are others who believe that this has been taken out of context of the times and that abandonment phsyically or emotionally qualifies as well. I bounce back and forth between these, so I know my mind is not made up yet.
Certainly, my wife has not lived up to her vows, and I don't believe that she ever intended too. I believe that she thought she had me forever because I couldn't leave. I expected to feel one of two ways after moving out: either more miserable for being alone and carrying all my problems which really did cause all the problems in our marriage, or I would feel better every day, lighter and joyful.
I don't love my wife. I'm not willing to do any work on our relationship any longer. I am committed to working on my own issues and continuing to grow. I am committed to taking care of my daughter. I'm not willing to take ANY chances with my wife. I resent financially supporting my wife after all this. I want to get a divorce and be done with it!
What holds me back? I'm afraid deep down that I really am the cause of all the problems and that I haven't tried everything because I haven't tried living with my wife with all my issues resolved so I can tolerate her behavior. Maybe she would come around?!? I don't think so. Besides, I CANNOT be around her. Maybe I could at some point the future, but not for years at least. That is no longer an option. I feel ashamed that I wasn't able to save the marriage. I failed. I didn't realize it until my finger just now started typing it. I feel unworthy and ineffective, but I also recognize those as coming from my childhood. Shame and fear are not reasons to prolong this relationship. I did fail. I also failed to pick a safe person to marry due to my family issues, youthful ignorance, and her facility with deception. That is certainly not a reason to continue to suffer. I have issues and so does she. It makes no sense to work through all my issues so I can throw my life away tolerating hers. She shares as much responsibility for this marriage failing as I do. I think I just got that. Yes, I know she caused many of the problems due to her issues, but it didn't hit me that she is really responsible for this divorce as well. (co-dep again on my part
) She has had, Oh my God!, thousands of opportunities over the years and all she had to do was reach out. She didn't. *I* have not failed in this marriage, *we* have. I have continued to grow and I hope she does as well. For so many years, it has been just me trying. It no longer even feels like there is an "us." I am feeling sad now.
I don't think that I had grieved this part yet.
Thanks for reading all this. I didn't expect to write so much, you'd think I was used to it by now. I guess I just have to go through a lot of stuff to get to the bottom of things. Thanks for being there.
P.S. This was too long even for me to proofread. Sorry for any typos.
