Experiences: My ex-wife had BPD

Thank you to the posters of this site….

I am struggling with issues regarding my ex-wife who was diagnosed as having BPD. She was also under 3 to 5 different mood stabilizers and anti-depressants which very much complicated life for her and for us.

I asked for a divorce last summer after being emotionally and verbally abused, and withheld from intimacy for a good majority of our 3 year marriage. I gave this woman everything and rarely said “no”. When she sobbed on the bathroom floor, I would pick her up and hold her until the crying stopped. I would then be insulted in some way a few hours later.

I loved her intensely, but she insulted family members, her friends, my hobbies/passions, and anything that didn't involve praising her. She was also extremely jealous of others, and would lay on the couch all weekend if someone had a baby, bought a new house, or went on a elaborate vacation.

One day, I had just had enough and decided to it was time to end it. She had seen multiple counselors on her own while we were married to sort out her own issues, and we saw two different marriage counselors together. We honestly tried to save it. We were also both faithful to each other, no cheating occurred.

We had no children, which she desperately wanted despite the fact that we maybe had sex ten to fifteen times during our entire three year marriage. It was this distorted way of thinking that I really struggled with.

Shaking an ex who has BPD is incredibly difficult to do. She, like many others was BPD was very beautiful, intelligent, and sunk her claws into me so early on with admiration of me that it was impossible to leave her. Even to this day, I struggle with our separation and will go into relapses of wanting to desperately to be with her again, remembering those beautiful first two years before we actually got married. She has sunk into my very soul like nobody ever has. When a woman is beautiful, intelligent, and the sexual chemistry was there...it was an absolutely devastating combination for which a man finds nearly impossible to escape. It was hard to look at the big picture - but somehow I did.

I have remained strong and have had very little contact with her, but when I recently tried to get some closure from her (very big mistake) she used it as an opportunity to hurt me. Since I am no longer her husband, I'm not even classified as a person with feeling, therefore I am seen as completely useless to her, even though I tried to be cordial and nice to her and truly work things out.

Emails with basic questions about past financial documents are never answered, thus proving her complete phase out plan of me – the guy who would have taken a bullet for her.

A mere three months after our marriage was over, she has started seeing someone else (something she clearly did to rub in my face and inflict emotion pain when we talked face to face a week ago). She is clearly beginning a new destructive pattern. She has not allowed herself to heal, which was apparent in our last meeting. I truly hope this guy doesn't have to suffer as much as I did.

The more I read about this disorder, the more it really fascinates me and educates me. I have read that people with BPD will sometimes come back into your life...I have heard this happens quite often when they are feeling defeated, rejected, and they realize how good you were to them.

I am worried about this happening again. Do you think it will?

I hope I am not coming off slanderous to those who suffer with BPD, but this was my experience being married to someone who suffered with it. I'm making some progress moving on.

Thoughts? Please share.

The first thing you need to do is to stop worrying about whether the guy she is seeing now, as well as the whole set of her future partners throughout her lifetime, would get hurt by her. After that, stop attaching any hopes as to the course and outcome of her currrent and future relationships with anybody other than you.

After those two steps have been taken, we can discuss your next steps.

Just to mention a curious disconnect in your account: you report both very low. Frequency of sexual activity and high level of sexual chemistry at the same time.

In regards to the practical issue of access to past financial documents, do you have a GPA. Who can take over communication with her?

When she feels alone and as though no one can help her or cares, the abandonment feelings are likely to hit and she's likely to try to come back. I have no answers for you on what to do. If it's definitely over, make it stay over. Has she tried DBT or meditation? Those do really well with some people to control the emotions. Best of luck to you.

What I meant by this is that people with Borderline Personality Disorder will usually use sex, and constant admiration to lure you in at the very beginning. This is common in some relationships, but it more or less used by someone with BPD to get control, and less for emotion and pleasure.

Our sex life died after marriage. People with BPD often experience a love-hate relationship with others. They may idealize someone one moment (when we got married) and then abruptly and dramatically shift to fury and hate over perceived slights or even misunderstandings. This is when the sex ended. This is because people with the disorder have difficulty accepting gray areas — things are either black or white. For instance, in the eyes of a person with BPD, someone is either good or evil. And that same person may be good one day and evil the next...but the reality here is that I did not change!

I should clarify that I do not want a relationship with this person again. Because of her illness, she does not feel bad about us or myself, only herself. She will not grieve the loss of me in her life. But people with BPD tend to come back and begin the cycle over again - idealizing, seducing, etc. However, in our case, I think the divorce was possibly too traumatic for her to return to...and I think it's really for the best.

She is on to repeating her cycle with the next guy who she feels is her next vehicle.

OK, understood. I wish you the best! You seem to be on the right track recovering and extracting lessons learned.

To clarify: if you need the documents, then it is a practical problem that should be solved using creative practical means, such as employing a neutral third party.

If you email her because you still want some sort of communication and the need to get the documents is an excuse to initiate such communication, then you should start by being honest and direct with yourself.

So the approach to this issue begins with the understanding of your motivation.

You've got it wrong...it is not "used" by them. They often do not know they are doing it. They feel abandonment and being alone and will do anything, including manipulation, to avoid that, but it's not intentional most of the time, and it's not "At the very beginning". Their feelings are genuine; they are just also very, very volatile and can change on a dime. That does not make their feeling ingenuine. They do not realize what they are doing until way after the fact and sometimes not even then. Do not insult people with BPD. What you said is very, very invalidating, which is the main reason most people have BPD...because of being invalidated time after time when they were young, being told that our feelings don't count, are not real, and don't matter. They do not purposely "lure" or "get control". I think you need to learn more about the disorder.

And before you state that I'm acting or saying the things I am because of my BPD...that is incorrect. I have seen and lived through both sides of BPD. My mom was BPD and so was one of my best friends. This isn't meant to be insulting, but before you accuse someone with BPD with something, you need to learn the "whys" and reasons behind the behavior so you can try to understand it. We don't purposely hurt people. I'm not saying it doesn't sometimes work out that way, but it's not intentional...

I think you are going overboard with the BPD stuff you have read about and applying it to this person. This person used and hurt you, that's all you need to focus on. Trying to make yourself feel better because "people with BPD do X" takes the focus off you and her relationship and onto some mythical construct about "people with BPD". Everyone is an individual; there are loads of beautiful, intelligent, women who sink their claws into a man but do not have BPD and/or were not married to you!

Your marriage did not work because you feel your ex-wife did/does not love/care about you and did not take any responsibility for herself in the marriage. Maybe later you or she might want to be friends but I would not marry or have an intimate relationship with her again.

Whether the disordered know they are abusing or not really doesn't matter to the victim. The result is the same. It is not "accusing", it is a fact. It is not "wrong", it is right to them. The victim is not obligated to consider the feelings of BPD's in general who might be offended.

Hmm. I have BPD, and while we're capable, like all other people of being hurtful, manipulative and cruel, our general perception of someone like you, who loves us and is a 'safe' place is to yes, perhaps take out our emotional explosions, but also, we wouldn't just let you go like that.
One of the most common things about this disorder is the -need- and someone like you, we would likely cling to. Generally the hurt would be unintentional but I cannot speak for your ex-wife's character. She could indeed cause intentional pain.
BPD individuals want so desperately, almost above everything to be accepted understood and viewed for once in our lives as whole, beautiful and cherished; the conflict comes from being taught so fundamentally that we can never believe that about ourselves, even if it's true to everyone else.
Your ex-wife seems by no means perfect, but aggressive you see in BPD individuals generally comes from pain, not from hate or malice.
You did not deserve to be the subject of her emotional releases by any means, but try and understand her more deeply before assuming she's just out to cause trouble.

My ex husband has a prognosis of Borderline; I still have to interact with him on a regular basis, due to us having minor children together.

Why are you worried about her coming back into your life? Why entertain this, at all? With less than 10 years of marriage, in my state, there is no alimony. And the divorce contract, that I have, clearly states who is responsible for which debts.

Perhaps, that's where I am confused about where you are coming from.

I can appreciate the victimization that comes from marrying a borderline, however, at some point, a victim deals with what being a victim is about, grows, learns and becomes a survivor, strong enough to realize, they don't need to worry about being manipulated into another round of break up/get back together.

Hope you have the fortitude to avoid her come ons to you, if she were to try and return to you.

Are you no-contact with her?

Very true. When dealing with someone with BPD, it's important to bestow compassion, and realize that BPDs are not vindictive nor manipulative. Reading Marsha Linehan will show that.

I've seen such venting before from mainly husbands about their wives, out there on a couple other online sites devoted to those with BPDs in life. And I'm usually astounded to see, that Marsha Linehan's approach to compassion, isn't generally followed. She's the expert and mom, so to speak on this illness.

And yes, BPD's do want to be seen as beautiful, even when their disorder limits them from seeing that in themselves.

This sounds nearly identical to my situation. I dated a girl with BPD for a year, got engaged and then a year later got married. It seemed that after the marriage everything completely to hell! Basically the focus was not on her anymore and she was now completely miserable. She would say things like, "this marriage was never supposed to happen", "This isn't the way my life is supposed to be". After three months she would sleep in the guest bedroom nearly half the time. I honestly thought that she just has really bad PMS but it was something more. Everything that I did was wrong, I didnt make enough money, I wasnt home enough, our house was too big, I didnt mow the lawn correctly, we didnt have enough friends, our house was not fully furnished, we didnt go on vacations enough. She hated everything I did, and any hobbies that I enjoyed. She would take weekend trips with her girlfriends because she was sick of being around me, or she needed a break from me. She ended up hating my parents, my mom, my dog, and even my 4 year old son. She never made me dinner, rarely cleaned the house. The entire time it was always about her. I would continually hear how she was sad all the time, she said she married me hoping that I would change. She claimed I wasn't man enough to take care of her, she didnt want to work, she wanted me to pay for everything. I have a really good career, but it was never enough. She hated the cars we drove, so we got a new car, and after a few months that wasn't good enough. Anytime there was a problem she would run home to her mom and dads house. she would continually tell me that I needed to leave, I needed to move out. And then when i did she claimed that she was only trying to get me to fight harder for her. basically, she has the mentality of "I hate you, don't leave me." I loved being married to her, and I loved being married. But after about 10 months I decided to leave during a weekend she went out of town with friends. We sort of tried to make things work a couple of months later, basically we had sex a few times and that was it. Nothing ever got solved. She stated that we could only move forward if we fixed the problems from the past. When those problems get fixed then we could start seeing each other again. Total ridiculous mentality. I cut off all contact with her, but she would always find a reason to contact me. For example, she text me asking if I had the TV remote control, and this was 7 months later. She would text asking about stupid stuff like pillows, sheets, etc. etc. When I didnt respond, a month or two later she posted all over facebook her new relationship status with a new boyfriend, pictures galore etc. etc. I never looked at them, only heard about it from friends. It does bother me a little, but in the back of my mind I know that it will never ever work between us again, she never got over our separation/divorce, she has never gotten any help for her BPD condition, and she is only going to dump her emotional baggage on the idiot that comes along. A small part of me wants her back, but she has done so much damage to the marriage and our relationship that it would never work. She needs serious counseling, and or medication. It's kind of interesting, her mom had asked me on numerous occasions if I wanted to put up with this for the rest of my life. I received a text from her mom a couple of months ago, and she said if I ever wanted to be happy again I should move on and forget about her daughter. Now I'm dating, working, going to the gym, focusing on upcoming things, and slowly forgetting about my crazy ex wife with BPD. At times I'm still in shock that I never saw any indication of this behavior while we were dating. I would love to be back together with the girl I fell in love when we first started dating. That girl is gone, she is never coming back, and I'm moving on.... Thank you for reading, sorry for the choppy inconsistent sentences.

expos,

Go to shrink4men.com. Excellent site run by a female clinical psychologist who writes articles and works almost exclusively with men in abusive relationships. That's where I found the answers I was looking for. Haven't left her, yet, but now in therapy to get me to that place. Stay strong, brother. Men and women coming out of abusive relationships share something with people who are chemically dependent; whether you ache for a drink, dope or sex with your ex. Work on not thinking about her or whom she's with or what she's doing. Easier said than done but enjoy your freedom. I'm the same way; caring, sensitive, empathetic and all those positive emotions earned me was a kick in the 'nads.