Grieving my marriahe

I'm thankful that someone close to me pointed out how my wife argues with me.

Her birthday is the simplest example.... This was three or four months after she told the kids she was divorcing me.

It's supposed to be my birthday. Did you even get me flowers?
- No, I got a flowering plant. it's on the table behind you.

Could you have bothered to get me a card?
- It's behind the flowers.

That's it? Not even a gift?
- There's a gift card in the card.

Could you have bothered to get wine so we can celebrate?
- It's in the fridge.

We didn't even go out for a meal.
- No, I made a special meal. We're waiting to have it together.

Where's the oldest kid?
- He doesn't want to be here.

Great. You can't even bring the family together for my birthday.
- With that, she took her gift, a plate of food, the bottle of wine, and left the room.

She had DECIDED there was a problem, then worked backward to find it.

I've lived my life for years playing defense, trying to foresee what the next problem would be.

Today, I feel sick to my stomach. Because today, and Monday, I am meeting with a butt-kicking lawyer.

This is not going to be a quick, easy separation. It isn't going to be painless. I have to fight for our futures. I don't like to fight and cause hurt. By telling the truth, and letting the kids tell the truth, my wife will experience extreme pain.

Several of you have said "narcissist". No. Me and the kids have each been in therapy for years. Separately, from different therapists, we have all heard about my wife's borderline personality traits.

She wasn't always like this, and, a borderline person is easy to injure. I've always wanted to take care of her, and now I am going to injure her for the sake of our futures.

She was a good person at one time, and she is in mental and emotional pain and contorted by alcohol into something else, and she can't see it and can't change.

This sucks.

Not supposed to diagnose on here but all her behaviors sound like a textbook example of a borderline PD. Might be just traits or full diagnosis but very very similar.

The relentless determination to find fault and have an argument is often seen among people who misuse alcohol.

Absolutely. I think it might be a combination of things with her. Also huge sense of entitlement.

I'm so sorry, RD.

As they say in codependency, you can't take more than 50% of the credit or 50% of the blame. So what is she doing? Probably expecting you to take 100% while she takes zero. It doesn't really matter what's wrong with her, except that it might give you some understanding, because in the end you really just have to take care of yourself and your kids. Which you're doing exceptionally well.

Big hugs for you.

Have you ever asked yourself if you are enabling her?

If the answer is yes, you aren't doing her any favours.
There is no opportunity for her to grow or learn that her behaviour if inappropriate. Therefore, in her mind she is fully entitled to act however she wishes. Everyone else is wrong. She doesn't have to be accountable.

I realize this would have been difficult for you to do, but you should have gone and retrieved that bottle of wine and told her it was for everyone to enjoy and celebrate her birthday, not for her to drink alone. That's calling her behaviour out. Then ignore her ranting about it.

As an onlooker, it's easy for me to type my holier than thou post. Just know I have great compassion for what you are going thru. I also have trouble causing pain or hurt to another.

You don’t want to hurt her but she is hurting you and the children.

She is making choices and if her choices put her in a bad place it’s her choice.

I’m sorry you and your boys have had to have so much therapy.

I had to get help so I could deal with my older sister. Different therapists told me I was dealing with either borderline or NPD yet one told me borderline can have strong narcissistic traits.

I felt so lost and like you I did not want to react in hurtful ways. It got so bad I had to reach out to a lawyer. When my lawyer met her she said “Omg your sister is a mean witch!” It’s only been a month and a half that I am finally rid of her. It was toxic to the very end.

I had to make some hard choices for my own mental health. So I understand how hard it can be.

There were things that were always tricky to navigate with her. But I loved her and accepted those things. They were challenging, but I had my glitches too

She was supportive of my education, she believed in my abilities, she was interested in connecting with my family.

I made big mistakes that hurt her and damaged her attachment to me. I know that.

She doesn't accept that always, alllwaaays suggesting seperation, divorce, time apart, etc., made it hard to attach to her. I was always in pursuit of her.

In later years that changed. I was still in pursuit, she still threatened distance, but the anger showed up. She changed, and there was no way to talk or reason or anything with her.

Ok... This makes me vulnerable to say this. I said some of this before.

She was extremely attractive to me for lots of reasons. I felt like there was something inherently wrong with me. Even when we got married I could accept that she loved me but she couldn't possibly be attracted to me.

I told her this often. To me, the ultimate validation of attraction was a willing sexual partner. I didn't have that with her. She straight up told me, "I don't need sex very much." When I said I really needed this, and just contact and affection, she suggested we divorce.

I said before that I read somewhere that a person who hasn't experienced secure love and attachment will mistake longing for love.

I wonder if that is part of what I experience with her. It's a lifetime of insatiable longing.

Because of that, I'm incredibly drawn to her, and there's no two ways about it, she's a beautiful woman. She has a great smile and a great laugh, and a good sense of humor. She is very sexually desirable to me, and I wanted to be around her forever.

I told her one time that I wanted to be with her for the rest of our lives, and it was selfish but I hoped I passed first, because I wouldn't be strong enough to be without her.

The times we connected and had good sexual experiences together.... I felt complete. I felt loved, I felt wanted, I felt secure.

Those times were fantastic and very rare.

Those times, that feeling, it's probably worse than nicotine or heroin for me. I don't know how to stop pursuing that with her.

I’m sorry RD but you can’t fix or change or make someone love you. Also, some kinds of people are not capable of loving the way you want to be loved.

YES! Even when a person reduces their intake or completely stops using alcohol this behavior persists and is known as dry drunk behavior.

I told her this often. To me, the ultimate validation of attraction was a willing sexual partner. I didn't have that with her. She straight up told me, "I don't need sex very much." When I said I really needed this, and just contact and affection, she suggested we divorce.
………………………………………………

She told you long ago that your needs were not important to her.

That has not changed RD. When people tell you things like she did and still does BELIEVE THEM.

This has nothing to do with your worth. She was NEVER going to fit into this ideal you created in your mind. In fact, she is controlling and cold with your two sons as well.

I agree, it stems from attachment issues.

It sounds like you want bread crumbs from the unavailable. She told you she wasn’t into sex. She was honest to say if that was important to you, you should divorce. A good question to reflect on is Why didn’t you divorce then? How did you proceed instead? Did you try to change her or yourself? Did you take the incompatibility on as a challenge or something to cause pain from a massochistic viewpoint, even subconsciously?

This issue you had resonates with me in my marriage (now separated). We started out very compatible though, but he changed shortly after we married which started the incompatibility issue. Then it went steadily downhill due to both of us and we couldn’t fix it to get it on track again. Also, thinking it was a begging for breadcrumbs from emotionally unavailable.

The Four Attachment Styles of Love - YouTube
Attachment Styles In Love video

Wow ...

So many of your points make me feel like you're reading my mind . It's both uncanny and semi disturbing at the same time. I feel for your situation so very much .
Thank you for sharing this wisdom. It's nice not feeling like I'm the only one who thinks like this or has a spouse who is doing so many similar things while trying to blame the person who is going above and beyond to try to appease them .

Thank you.

Those times were very rare - you have to look at the reality of what she actually became, and the realities of the relationship.

It IS akin to breaking an addiction. You are addicted to the most rare good times that you had with her, and likely, those were long long long ago at this point.

You're still in the longing, idealistic, and fantasy world of what it's like to be with her. You likely have been in this fantasy world for years, holding onto a mirage of who she is.

The only way forward and the only way to break the addiction is to come down to reality. To accept what she is today and who she has become: a harmful and toxic person who abuses alcohol, who is angry at no fault of your own, and who has harmed both you and your boys. You've got to take her off the pedestal you've placed her on. She doesn't belong there.

You're spinning your wheels, stuck in the same spot. Realize that it IS an addiction - its' the trauma bond at play. And the trauma bond tricks you into idealizing this person and keeps you stuck, like a hamster on a hamster wheel.

You have to get off the hamster wheel. Otherwise, this is how you're always going to feel - constant longing for her and guilt.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of trauma bonding. Being immersed in it, and subjected to it for a long time can make it hard to fully conceptualize it. But I digress a bit...

In learning about trauma bonding, it seems there was a study where they found that the effects of trauma bonding on the brain were very much like the effects of cocaine. So it's an extremely powerful force. It's hard to consider that being in an awful trauma bonded situation may not be much different than being a coke addict. Ugh. At least if you are doing cocaine, you probably have some idea that it isn't good for you. In a relationship, you convince yourself it's a healthy situation.

It's also important to remember that it's not black and white. There probably were genuinely good times in there throughout the years, it's just there was also a covert, underlying pattern of control and manipulation that took a long time to be recognized.

Hope you're hanging in there okay, RD.

I haven't read all the replies yet, but...

I wrote and deleted a letter to her about 10x before posting that on the forum.

Then I went outside and worked hard for about 2 hours.

Then I shut off my phone for a day.

And WOW did I feel better by Monday.

Then I met with my lawyer who said:

Good luck getting a judge to push a happy adjusted family out of the family home. You're probably there until your youngest is done college. At which point your wife is entitled to half the value of the home at the time she left.

Your wife is voluntarily underemployed. She's been given ample support and time to complete an education. She also already HAS an education worth over $100k a year depending where she lives. You have the kids, so it is her CHOICE to not earn that. Therefore, you owe her little to nothing in spousal support. She can actually be expected to contribute significantly in child support to you.

She won't want to see that be argued in court, or have the court hear about her reckless driving and day drinking, so you're probably years away from a settlement.

If you DO end up owing her support payments, the fact that you assumed all the responsibility for the family, and the responsibility for maintaining the home and paying off debts will offset anything she'll be owed.

Oh. My. Goodness. 😀

So, me and the kids are baking cookies and going out for burgers for supper.

I'm really happy right now.