[TootsiePeterson]

This will be lengthy, my apologies. In order for there to be proper feedback, this should be written with as much detail as I can give you right now. It is probably best to start in the beginning of the spring term of 2011.

I met my-ex in a music history proficiency exam which was taking place prior to the start of the spring 2011 semester while I was working towards my masters degree. I was immediately taken by this clearly intelligent, beautiful woman who had a sardonic wit about her that is so rare in most. I was seeing someone at the time and because of some changes in how I felt about things had taken place in my life with my son’s mother, my-ex was immediately only considered a friend. I saw to it we never did anything alone and I would only stop to visit with her on campus. We became friends quite easily and over the course of several weeks which became months, she would reveal little details about her and her past. When I found her, she was depending on a great number of things. She would disappear for a couple days at a time, and I learned later that she would keep some pills, a bottle of vodka, and a large pocket knife in her bag to use when she needed to while on campus. Some of these things I knew, some of these things I discovered, others she would tell me much later. What was clear to me in my interactions with her over our initial six months was that this was a woman with serious problems, had been seriously damaged, and was a greater danger to herself than anyone I had ever known. What I didn’t know about was the borderline. We began dating over the summer of 2011. It was only then that she revealed to me, almost completely, her affliction and her past relationships which she said almost all had some element of physical or emotional abuse. She told me that twenty minutes here or there with me talking had done more for her than years of therapy. I had noticed for less of the anything-goes-party-girl and possibly dangerous my-ex and saw her for what I thought (and still think) she really wanted to be, what she was always capable of being. Once I began to read and understand this disorder and attended a few of her therapy sessions, I realized I had to make a decision on what I was to do. I chose to continue with her. I cared about her very much and I began to take her more seriously than I had taken anyone else in my life with the exception of my son. I had seen the change in her and if I was one of the reasons for that change, I felt a deep responsibility to stay and not be frightened. My son was introduced to her and they got along reasonably well even though my-ex never had a fondness for children and their requirements.

That November, I was watching television when my-ex came to my house and asked me to marry her. She had asked me before if I thought she was the kind of girl someone would marry or if she was worth marrying and I told her that she was. It was true based on what I saw her become over the months. Her proposition came as a surprise to me and it was a bit scary but I accepted and we became married. Things were never quite easy, though. Even though almost all of her self destructive and dangerous behavior had subsided or disappeared completely, she was still prone to violent rages and destructive, frightening behavior. But knowing what I knew about the disorder, I stayed with her. I learned techniques in trying to help people in this condition and I did the best I could. It was extremely difficult to manage and it was made all the more difficult in that she ceased her therapy sessions which also meant a cessation of her medication. I would often make suggestions of her returning to a doctor but she would reveal reasons to me why she couldn’t or wouldn’t which, I wonder now, if they were manufactured reasons or not. I invested so much emotional energy in making this marriage work that I lost sight of myself in it. Counseling, therapy, group sessions, I tried them all to help me cope but also help me grow. Rages were common, destructive, and my efforts to create a constantly stable environment of support and care became my full-time job.

I graduated with my masters in the spring of 2012. Knowing my goal was to achieve a PhD, I had a choice. I could either leave to begin a new course of study, or I could wait. my-ex still had a year to go to complete her masters degree. I realized it would have been unfair at the highest level of me to insist she drop what she was doing to follow me. It would have been dangerous for me to leave her behind to achieve my degree, too. I chose what was best for her knowing there would be time enough for my goals later. I decided to stay with her and work in advertising while she completed her degree. Her last year was very difficult for both of us. Her beloved chocolate lab died at our home suddenly. I left work to console her and I risked my job to take it to her parents’ farm two hours away to bury it for her. She had several run-ins with faculty which I had to smooth over for her as I was on very good terms with the faculty there. A $1,000+ library fine had to be taken care of for a book she lost which was on loan to the university from another institution; I settled that for her. She worked three jobs at the same time and was completely exhausted. These weren’t necessary as I was making enough in advertising but she insisted. There were more things that I could reveal but I think you get the idea. Her last semester, she was so certain that she would not be able to get a job due to her disorder that she was considering going on disability and prior to that, she had contemplated going to a full-time inpatient facility for DBT but either time, money, or fear that doing that would appear on her permanent record and keep her from getting a teaching job kept that from happening. I completed her graduation paperwork, her resume, and her cover letters. I encouraged her to try and I found a job in Kentucky where one of the members of the search committee was a long-time friend of mine. She got the job and moved to Kentucky last July. We had considered my staying in Indiana to continue working while I tried to find a job in Kentucky; moving after a job was secured. But we both felt, considering her disorder, it would be better if I moved with her. Besides, we felt that my education, my-experience, and my professional demeanor, would make it easy for me to secure gainful employment quickly. We were wrong.

I moved to Kentucky two weeks after she moved down. I secured the rental truck and had everything from our house in Indiana moved to our new house in Kentucky. When I arrived, she had put everything it its place and I began to see a great new life starting for both of us. Now, I needed to get a job. One condition she gave me was that she was not going to be responsible for my child support. I agreed completely with her. After two months of looking and only receiving two interviews out of the twenty or thirty jobs I applied for, I began to worry that the only way I was going to ever make enough money to support my family was to get my PhD and teach at the university level. This would mean I would have to leave Kentucky, leaving her behind. I finally did find part time work at a Kay’s Jewelers in the mall. The pay was barely above minimum wage but it allowed me to pay my child support. Still, my-ex was working as a teacher and as a seamstress at nearly sixty hours a week and it was killing her. Seeing her like this, seeing my failure as a man and as a husband, compounded with the recent discovery of my mom’s cancer which would kill her faster than the doctors realized, was not only making me depressed, it was making me distant and I began to forget due to my own problems what I was supposed to do to help maintain a stable place for my-ex. It escaped me completely that every time I would bemoan our situation based on my failings and my one and only plan to leave to get my PhD that I was hammering the most dangerous trigger for someone with her condition. I did this almost every day from October until April 20th, when it was too late.

I began to notice changes in my-ex in November. They followed a gradual crescendo until late March of 2014 when something happened that made me, finally, realize something was seriously wrong. But I hadn’t yet realized that it was partly my fault and I was unprepared due to my own depression to effectively do anything for her. I got word from the company I now work for that they wanted to hire me in mid March. The pay was substantial and I began to think that maybe my biggest and best legacy was to be a present husband to my-ex and to be a good father who could support my son in the way he needed to be supported, to forget the life of a conductor; it was a selfish goal. By this time, as I wrote a moment ago, this realization came too late. The day after my mother died on my birthday, I found my-ex having sex with a student helper. I did everything I could think of to try and save her from herself. I undertook plans and strategies and actions that had many of my closest friends and family wondering if I, myself, had lost my senses even going so far as sacrificing everything I own, not taking anything in an impending divorce stating that she and I wouldn’t even have to try and come back together as husband and wife if she would just go get help. The only way I could explain my actions to them was to say, “If you honestly loved someone the way you’re supposed to love someone in marriage, as much as I love my one and only son, then what I am doing, what I’m trying to do, should not come into question. You act because you love. Because you made a solemn promise.” That was the only answer, or something like it, each time because it was the truth. I tried to enlist help from some of her friends and even her parents. I was the only one who was seeing what I was seeing. Neither of us had anyone in Kentucky so efforts were made over the phone, email, and Facebook by me to try and get others to see what I was seeing and hope that someone might convince her to slow down, see what wheels she was setting in motion, and get help. But she paid most of her attention to a handful of people who didn’t know of her disorder, hadn’t known her long, and gave her a very “you go girl” Thelma and Louise pep talk and she felt empowered, I think, in starting up again old habits that had been long left alone.

I am resigned to the fact that my-ex is an adult, disorder or not, and she is responsible for her actions. I had been improving over the last month. I still love her and I still missed her, but I was starting to heal until I got a phone call from a friend yesterday. He told me, “I talked to your ex a couple days ago. I’m having a hard time knowing how to deal with what she told me.” When I asked what he was talking about he said. “Well, she said she’s having sex with five or six different guys and they’re kind of all on a rotation. She called herself a ‘real *****’ and she sounded dead inside. It’s like she’s trying to fill a void or something.” Hearing this put me right back where I was back in April and May. Desperate to save her but I don’t know how. I can’t talk to her. Back when everything fell apart in April, when I learned she was buying a handgun and knowing about her past suicide threats from years ago, the last thing she needed was a handgun so I took out a protective order so she couldn’t purchase one. Doing that caused her to take a protective order on me because she thought the only reason I did it was to have to give testimony to my statement which would make her lose her job and she felt she could use it as leverage. I eventually dropped mine because I wanted to show her I wasn’t trying to do that, but was trying to protect both of us. She kept hers, though, because she felt that if I had one, I wouldn’t go to her school to tell her administrators about her disorder (which I could do by email or phone, anyway, so I didn’t see the point).

She needs help, she’s putting herself and others now at grave risk, but I don’t know what to do. I don't know if there's anything I can do. I still care about her and knowing what she's doing has me in pieces. She's risking so much of what she and I helped to create for her, not to mention her own life.

[Travelinglady]

Hello, TootsiePeterson, and welcome to Psych Central! Before I say what I have to say, I want to tell you that years ago I was diagnosed with high-functioning borderline personality disorder. And alas I did cause problems for my husband and my family. But I stuck with counseling and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and I took my meds, and I am no longer considered borderline.

I am concerned that your ex-wife chose to stop her therapy and her meds. You did all you could do and more to try to help and support her. She chose to stick with her problems. I honestly think you just need to let her go emotionally. You can not help her. I am sad to say that, but it is true.

Please just try to keep a check on your own mental state at this point. Okay?

[TootsiePeterson]

Originally Posted by Travelinglady

Hello, TootsiePeterson, and welcome to Psych Central! Before I say what I have to say, I want to tell you that years ago I was diagnosed with high-functioning borderline personality disorder. And alas I did cause problems for my husband and my family. But I stuck with counseling and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and I took my meds, and I am no longer considered borderline.

I am concerned that your ex-wife chose to stop her therapy and her meds. You did all you could do and more to try to help and support her. She chose to stick with her problems. I honestly think you just need to let her go emotionally. You can not help her. I am sad to say that, but it is true.

Please just try to keep a check on your own mental state at this point. Okay?

That's difficult. I invested so much emotional energy into the relationship that simply letting go is something I can't seem to be able to do. When I caught her, she was certain I was going to go to her school and inform them, let them know of her condition, and her addictions. From that point, I was wearing the black hat, I'm pure evil to her. This, of course, couldn't be further from the truth.

[Kimaya]

I don't know if there is anything you really can do without getting more involved. That is going to be something you will need to decide if it is right for you to let her handle things on her own or if you can balance your life and own struggle alongside hers.

I would try making a list of priorities. If any action compromises a higher priority, then you should proceed with care. If caring for her puts your job at risk because you are exhausted, then you need to draw the line because she needs financial support more. Or, if she doesn't need financial support more, then you may risk your job to spend more time helping her.

I respect your decision to stay involved in her life, especially since you have a son together, it may be hard to know how much you can handle, but remember to take care of yourself too. GL.