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Originally Posted by hamster-bamster
What is DV? A Driving Violation? Bad enough to be arrested for?
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Domestic Violence. According to my attorneys (I had one previously before switching), it would have greatly helped my case.
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Ask the attorney about more time with the 2.5 year old. I assume the 8 month old is being breastfed, and that puts limitations on how long you can stay with him. To the best of my understanding, courts honor and respect the needs of breastfed infants - the needs for close proximity to mom most of the time. But the 2.5 year old is old enough to spend long spans of time with you. And make sure the attorney gets some kind of a clause into the agreement that would allow for revisiting the issue of visitation as the baby gets older and stop being dependent on breast milk. If your wife breastfeeds past the first year, night feedings should suffice - you can ask to have him for a whole day -- you will be feeding him table foods or baby foods.
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Will do. My wife had decided to pickup a new job (more for her than $$) but I was taking care of the kids several evenings through bedtime (bottle feeding, etc. I won't likely get overnights with the youngest, but I am going to push for two overnights with my eldest son.
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Originally Posted by hamster-bamster
I think you should also tone down the negative self talk - you posted about your "horrific choices" - it seems that you made a bad choice once. I do not see a multitude of choices to berate yourself for - you tried your best to get through to her, and, given that you had been dx'd with BPD before you got married, the "in health" part of the vows was blatantly not upheld by the wife, since she knew that she was marrying a person who might need joint therapy sessions. Had you been dx'd with BPD while already married, we could speculate that she was not able to adjust because of the shock of the diagnosis or whatever, but no, she knew what she was getting herself into - you said that you had counseling pre-marriage, so I assume that she was fully aware of your mental health issues.
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I need to go back and re-read, but I was married to a dx'd BPD, I was the Borderline stream (codependent). Sorry if I was unclear. Nonetheless, I have been diagnosed with poor self esteem, severe separation anxiety, and issues with self-validation (essentially a validation junkie). I have been MOSTLY open and transparent (to the extent that she would tolerate) around my issues. There were many times she just wasn't willing to hear it or be a part of the solution. She was fully aware of my mental health issues, codependent, need for more emotional validation, self-image/self-esteem problems, anxiety.
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Originally Posted by hamster-bamster
You speculated that she might have BPD traits herself given the black-and-white thinking. Could be, for sure. That might explain the drastic reaction coming from her. Another hypothesis is that she used the opportunity to get rid of you, hence the drastic reaction without any shade of doubt, hesitation, or regret. I am leaning in favor of the latter hypothesis, because you said in the OP that she just is not an emotional person. A person with BPD would manifest the BPD in the course of day-by-day living, and not just when presented with an extreme stressor. Sure, the stress would trigger a BPD person, but not from 0 to 10. Say, a BPD person would have symptoms at 3 during peaceful times and symptoms at 8 during stressful times - it is a matter of degree. Per OP, she was quite unemotional before the affair happened. Also, there was no push-pull coming from her.
Apparently this is common in BPD. She did not display any of it. I do not know if a sudden onset of BPD in response to a stressor is possible; you might want to discuss it with your individual counselor.
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Will do (discuss with my counselor). The reason I believe she has some BPD tendencies is that she did some significant things throughout our relationship. a) mirroring (she loved what I loved, until she just didn't -- I have tons of examples of our early-on relationship)
b) Splitting - People are either good or bad -- there is very little gray. My brother has some issues. She "cut him out". Her mom made her mad 15+ years ago, she "cut her out". She does this over and over with a lot of people. Once she "paints them black", she doesn't come back.
The only other thought that comes to mind here (and may support your hypothesis) would be NPD vs. BPD. It would also speak to the way she treats others... Nonetheless, I am not qualified to make a diagnosis. I will work with my therapist to figure out what portions of my "gut" I ignored when she and I got together (and there WERE portions I ignore). I will also work more on figuring out how to co-parent (wither BPD, NPD, or whatever).
I will continue the fight on the legal front. Regardless of how I am beating myself up here (and believe me, I am my own worst critic -- I am very hard on myself), I am not willing to give up my kids. We live in a no-fault divorce state, so at the end of the day, I will eventually get 50/50 time with my kids.