Hi,

My wife has strong borderline tendencies. My kids are mid to late teens in age.

I've been in counselling for 5 years trying to figure out how it is that I am such a total cluster-F in my marriage. The counselor finally, after 5 years, said, "You do realize I am guiding you based on your wife's borderline personality, right?"

Our oldest has been in counselling sporadically for two years. He recently told me his counselor is working with him on his mom's borderline personality traits.

Our youngest has been in counselling for three years for extreme anxiety and depression. Her counselor advised her to interact with her mom as little as possible, and put up strong boundaries because of the effect mom has on her. Her counselor told her not to expect the have a normal relationship with her mom.

My wife, in the last two - three years, has latched onto a couple of new BFFs that have told her all the benefits of not being married. So, my wife announced she is divorcing me to the kids last summer. We are separated now since January.

I think she expected she was going to have this grand liberating moment, and the kids would flock to her, and she told me all the money she was going to collect from me in support payments, etc.

Well... The kids are all with me. They won't live with her, and they have all gone no contact.

This is extremely hard. I love my wife, but her pain and her inability to manage her emotional pain and illnesses, and her inability to put anyone else first, and her unwillingness to even examine that her behaviors are at the root of these things has lead us to this point.

As someone who assumed a lot of WRONG things for a long time, recognize that your Dad is trapped in a codependent, trauma bonded relationship.

He receives a lot of blame, and little support and love. When he does, it feels amazing, like the FINALLY got things right enough to get a compliment or affection.

Along with blame, he carries a lot of responsibility.

Here's the thing... A BPD person fears abandonment terribly and are hypersensitive. As soon as he whispers that there is a problem, or suggests she has to change something, she will withdraw from him hugely to further protect herself.

My wife was berating me one time for all the things she felt I needed to do more or better at home. I said, If we are talking like that, then please quit taking your take out coffee cups from the car into the house and putting them in the sink. No exaggeration, almost 2 years later she was still bringing that up, because How Dare You Say That To Me.

My wife's mother was BPD. Her father wrecked himself to provide for everything, and look after her. On his death bed, the doctors wanted to give him an anti-anxiety medication. He declined it because his wife had concerns about him taking it. Right to the end, her worries came first.

I love my wife. I do believe it is possible to love someone with BPD, but if the person doesn't seek help it will be a one sided life.

Your father doesn't know he is good enough, he doesn't know he is loved, he doesn't know there is another way, he doesn't know that her opinion of him isn't the only opinion.

Things degraded in my home terribly in the last 2.5 years because I had multiple people close to me open up and tell me deeply personal things that they appreciated about me; about my emotional intelligence, about my hard work, about my willingness to care for others, about my abilities as a parent, about my leadership at work. I also began seeing, as our kids got older, how my wife was treating them.

Because of that, I began having some expectations of my wife. Things like, "I worked today, and made supper, and did two loads of laundry. I'm done, and I've contributed enough. If the bathroom needs to be cleaned it can wait or you can do it." "You can't get that angry in front of the kids because it effects them. And you can't get angry at me late into the night. After an hour of it, I'm leaving to sleep on the couch because I have to work tomorrow." "Your anger is effecting the kids. Please consider counselling with them. I won't go, but I will pay for it."

Boundaries and small expectations..... Those things destroyed the last of our marriage. Because of that she began finding reasons she had to leave.

Hearing my children say, "you're a good dad, and you're good to mom, and we need you here for us" gave me a backbone to stand up to her too. And I didn't get angry or tell her off, I just had some expectations and boundaries.

My wife remains convinced that I'm the issue, and that I've manipulated the kids against her and put all these things in their heads.

We have a nice home that, for now, I am in alone with the kids. Separation agreements take time, and she will now have to contend with her kids saying to lawyers or in court the things they experienced.

Your Dad's situation is messy. I would have been there in 10-15 years myself. As it was I was emotionally broken and just working to support our family, and exhausting myself at home to support her.

In my case, there was no way to have boundaries that she didn't take as a cause for even greater distance. I couldn't find a solution or a way for her to see that she, and we as a family needed support and counselling together.

My wife threatened to discard me all the time, pretty much monthly she would spend several days threatening me with divorce.

One night in 2017 I was sitting on the floor (because I am much bigger than her, and she said I was intimidating her by standing up) and she was standing over me berating me and calling me names, and telling me how much I suck. I said, "I can't take this anymore. If this doesn't change I am going to have to ask for a separation because this is breaking me and is causing me a lot of problems with depression."

Not only did it not change, I spent the next five years apologizing for saying I wanted a divorce, and reassuring her I wanted to be married.... While she continued to threaten divorce regularly.

If this is truly a long term BPD relationship, without help and intervention, and support, then count on it that your father thinks he is worthless, and carries a huge degree of guilt and responsibility, that he has to stay due to her health and he has to *earn* her love. He's trauma bonded.

Take from that what you can. I don't have answers.

I still love my wife. I always have. If she hadn't taken steps to leave me, I'd still be trying to *earn* her love and appease her.

I see the good in her. If she could be more confident and feel that love more, we could have a good future.

RDMercer