# I married my true love...and now my life is a wreck



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

Sorry, I don't come here with a happily ever after. I have come here because this seems like a very nice forum full of wise and compassionate people from what I have read, and I am lost in a bad place and hope for some thoughts and input, or just people to talk to. 

There is a long history between me and my husband, and I know no one really wants to spend an hour tonight reading my life story, so I'll abbreviate this as much as I can...

I fell in love with Josh almost ten years ago now. We actually first met online (long, dorky, unimportant story as to how), and only talked online and over the phone for the first three years we knew each other. I wanted us to be more, but we were basically just good e-friends. Though even then we tended to fight a lot, but I was a very melodramatic teenager, and he was too, and it was something that should have been a passing phase. We stopped talking for maybe a year, and then started again, and I was seeing someone else so I thought I was pretty much over the Josh phase. But he was going through a breakup that hit him very very hard and so he ended up leaning on me as his friend who helped him get through some rough times. After a while he proposed he was going to come visit me as I was then also going through my own breakup with the guy I had been seeing, and was pretty upset and lonely. So I was thrilled to have this sweet guy visit me, and while I guess it wasn't a big surprise to anyone who knew me, it was not really in my conscious thoughts that there could still be a romantic connection, but when we did meet in person, everything I had felt for him through knowing him online and on the phone just got multiplied exponentially, and now I was absolutely head over heels in love with him. And he seemed very enamored of me, as well.

Enter a period of an increasingly dysfunctional emotional state, where he was not at all over his ex, but he was sort of using me as a rebound, and I was totally convinced he was madly in love with me. Time passed, and he began trying to help me with my life, I moved up to be with him, and he showed me a lot of things about the world and myself that I am really glad I learned. But at the same time he refused to commit to anything with me beyond intimate friendship that involved doing and acting a lot like a couple (snuggling, physical intimacy, etc), but he insisted after his ex he simply could not see himself dating anyone again.

Then I moved back home for a bit, but I was still determined that he loved me and simply wasn't ready yet, and so I was going to move back to live close to him. I was saving up tons of money as I planned to go to school there, and pretty much start a life with him. But he became, in the meantime, meaner and meaner to me. He spoke derogatorily of me, said I was holding him back from all his life dreams, and we fought more and more. There's a lot more to it, but the gist was I realized the relationship we had and how he thought of me was not healthy, and I tried to put him at arm's length. I started seeing another guy (way too soon, like simultaneously with breaking ties with Josh), and Josh was not dealing well with my rejection, because he saw us as a couple, even though he refused to admit it, and he was deeply hurt and insecure and upset by my leaving him. But I determined that nothing short of a miracle would ever convince me to take up with him again.

Fast forward another year and a little bit...and that miracle seemed to have arrived. Josh had gotten himself into an impulse marriage to someone right after I broke up with him, but he contacted me, and once I was able to accept the fact he was married, I figured it was safe to talk to him and let him back in my life, as clearly now we would just be friends. We met up after a while, I met his new wife, and he dropped a bomb on me...he and her were not a serious marriage, they had not married intending for it to last, and it would soon end, and what he really wanted was to marry me and start a family with me. And then he said those magic three words I had longed to hear from him for so very long..."I love you."

I gave it time then. I continued spending time with him, broke up with the other guy, but I was very wary. I was watching for him to treat me the way he used to, or act irrationally the way he used to. And he didn't. Over months of time he was kind, loving, showered me with gifts and encouragement and positive things. We seemed to be stupidly in love, like we should have been all along, in my book. It looked like it was really happening...he HAD realized he was in love with me, and now we'd have our happily ever after. He even bought us a house, which I soon moved to live with him in. 

It was around this point that I feel some red flags were going up, and we were having some problems, but I refused to really face them. He was starting to get weird and controlling on some things, telling me how to dress most of the time, that I wasn't dressing modestly enough. There were some other things that made me uncomfortable, but the dress thing was the most major issue, and I kept telling myself "It's just clothes, it cant really be that big a deal". For nearly a year by this point we had been planning our upcoming life together, and it all seemed too perfect to be coincidence. I am pretty religious, and I truly believed Josh's return to my life was God's will, and His desire to see us married. So I tried not to focus on the things that disturbed me about the relationship.

But as time wore on, and various other issues stressed us out more than any new married couple should ever be stressed out, more and more red flags started going up. He got very demeaning again about a lot of things, not the least of which was our physical relationship. He felt I was very boring and plain and wanted me to come up with things to make intimacy more interesting, and when I didn't do that very well, he got very frustrated, sulky and even angry at me. He got more and more picky about clothing, to the point that he didn't like it that I wore pants, he felt women should only wear long skirts, or pants with skirts covering them, and nothing sleeveless or showing off any of my chest. Sometimes I ignored this somewhat, but I changed my wardrobe dramatically on the whole, and even so, if I wore something he didn't like one time, he would fight with me about it and not ask me to change, but tell me to, claiming that when he just asks me things I don't do them. He seemed to be acting more and more like a father would act with his young daughter, than how a husband should be acting towards his wife, in my opinion.

It got to where there was almost nothing about me he seemed to like. We were traveling on a prolonged trip through Central America together, and he hated that I wanted to travel with more creature comforts than him, mocking and belittling me for it, and generally making me feel there was something very wrong with me. He would often complain he hated talking to me because I had nothing of interest to say to him. He told me he intended for us to go away overseas after this trip, far away to some remote place and live with almost no money (which we had almost none of at this time, either), in a tent or something. And then he would assure me I would probably never be able to come back home, we would never be able to make enough money where we're going to buy plane tickets back to the US. I fought and fought with him about it, telling him I could not do this, and nothing would get resolved. 

Every fight would only end if I started crying and then he would eventually switch over to become comforting and say he loved me and things to make me feel better, and then the fight would be dropped.

And then there was his comments about women. He would "joke" multiple times a day about having relations with other women, multiple women, or multiple women and me, and when I would tell him how it upset me and ask him to stop, he'd say he was sorry, but that he talks abut it all the time when he's not feeling I'm fulfilling his needs, then his focus will stray. Like that made it justified.

We came back from Central America and we had to be geographically separated for a period of time. I was telling myself when we said goodbye back last November, that everything between us was getting better. We WERE fighting less, but nothing had been resolved, I was just getting better at avoiding arguments. But once he was gone, things deteriorated fast. Him without me physically near him became needy and even more demanding on what I should be doing for him. Any questions or concern about my well being that had existed before vanished entirely and his whole focus was on what he needed from me, and how to get it. He started talking again about going overseas and I admitted I didn't think I could do it. He freaked out, and we fought for a while, then he resolved we would go back to Central America to live for a while. I grudgingly agreed to that one, just because I wanted us to get back to being together and have a place we could work on our marriage and get it fixed up. But then he went back on that, saying he absolutely refused to go anywhere but over to a backwoods part of Asia or Africa, and his compromise to me would be I could choose *which* backwoods part we would go to, but we had to go there, and we had to go in March, which was at the time only two months away. I was working, but he wasn't, and I was hardly making any money, so he was suggesting we cash out all the stocks my family has saved up for me, and blow it all on gettig over there. I refused roundly, and asked him to please come down to where I was so we could work things out. Again he initially agreed, then went back on it. 

Every day things became more of a hell. He just got more unstable, sometimes being pleading, and crying and begging me, sometimes screaming insults at me, sometimes coldly and rationally dressing me down as a terrible wife. 

I started telling him he has a serious mental problem, and he has hurt me, scared me, and I have lost any sort of trust in him, and he needs to get professional help, fix himself, and come to me and fix our marriage. He roundly refused, instead insisting I drop everything and come to him, if *he* is the sick one, he would reason, it was my job as his wife to come fix him up. I told him I could not fix him, but more guilt and crying and pleading followed.

Today I told him as long as he is the way he is now, we can't be in contact. The last words he said to me when I hung up on him were "Caity please listen to me!" but he had been talking for an hour, and not saying anything that made any sense. So much of what he says he changes, his stories change constantly, and he would do things like send me an e-mail telling me I'm scum and he has thought so all along, then write me another one a couple hours later just talking about random stuff, then text me saying he was really worried about me and praying that I would be okay. I would try to talk reasonably with him, but it seemed impossible. 

I am sorry for this being so very long. Believe it or not I am leaving out immense quantities of details, but I;ve been writing for 45 minutes, and enough is enough for now.

Suffice it to say, I know I have painted him as an utter monster by outlining all the reasons we had problems. But he isnt, and despite it all I do love him. I am traumatized because on the one hand I feel this immense weighton my shoulders, from having carried his demands and his derision of me and things I loved for so long, being lifted off, and I feel so much relief. But then at the same time I am completely devastated, because everything I had dreamed for us, all the things we talked about, the life I felt secure WAS my life, from here til the day I died, seems to be over, with almost no hope of reconciling or going back. I thought we would grow old together, I was proud to take on his family name and become a part of his family, I wanted to bear children with him...and all of these dreams, all of the good things I thought we would have, seem to have been my own delusion. Because he is so sick in his mind, and honestly writing all this was good for me, because I had never thought of our relationship on the grand scale to see the patterns that have existed throughout all of it. It's been one train wreck after another from day one, pretty much, and I guess I really look the fool for having spent 10 years on this guy. I am so ashamed that I got taken in by all this, but at the same time, loving him seems as natural to me as breathing. I have no idea what life without Josh in it would be like. He has always felt like my partner, long before he committed to be it...but that can't really be right, when he treats me this way, right? 

I am just very lost and confused right now, and I'm sorry if it's not even really clear what I'm writing all this for. To get it off my chest, I guess, and to share what is going through my head. Did I do the right thing, in cutting off contact with him? I know no one can really tell me yes or no, and I know the answer is probably yes, but in my gut I feel so wrong, and like I am abandoning him to his own demons, and they are mighty big ones...they will most likely win.

I just don't know. I took my wedding ring yesterday, after he wrote me an especiall venomous and devastating e-mail telling me how worthless I had always been to him and every other man I've ever had in my life. He really hit on my insecure points, and I thought, no, it's over, how can someone who considers me his wife say such things about me? But now my finger just feels more than naked...more likewrong or broken completely without the ring that meant so much to me...even if it never meant all that much to him. Does that even make any sense?


----------



## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

From what you have written, I think you have done the right thing in stopping contact with him.

Keep the emails to remind yourself of why you cannot have contact with him.

What you describe as his behavior sounds like bi-polar or schizophrenia. Does he ever talk about things that sound like delusions?


----------



## desert-rose (Aug 16, 2011)

It's a good idea to cut off contact. You're really emotional right now and that's not how you want to make decisions. Take a break, focus on yourself, find some strength and build back up the you that he tore down (whether or not he meant to, it sounds like he did). You're not abandoning him. Let him go get better. You get better, too. He is manipulating you and not owning up to the problem and you need to get some distance so that you can see clearly what to do next. No contact for a period of time. Let him know if you need to, but go no contact after that. It will help you see more clearly how to go about handling this.


----------



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

EleGirl- The way he's been acting lately, I'm not sure if maybe he is having delusions. It's so horribly frustrating because we can't even talk out our issues because he remembers everything wrong, and this has always been somewhat true, but in the past I was more apt to believe maybe I was remembering things wrong when we would fight. We would fight a lot because he would have said one thing, or told me a certain thing was what we were going to do, then the next day have no memory of this at all, and claim that his plan was entirely different, and yet I would have agreed to whatever he said yesterday, and be like, "what the heck?" I knew his memory was terrible and I never really thought it was a deeper issue than that, but maybe. I very much want him to go see a psychologist or psychiatrist, but part of the problem is he lives in Canada, and their medical system seems to be very poor. He hates doctors, and at first I thought he was just being cynical and arrogant, but having had my own experiences with the system, and listening to his horror stories, it is very hard for him to find the kind of care up there he would need. But my family offered he could come down here and go to doctors here and if we couldn't afford it my Dad would help pay for it all (I don't have insurance currently, since I wasn't even supposed to be back home for more than a few months), but he has refused.

It seems like he has started mirroring everything I say. At first he was bouncing around wildly on what our plans were, changing them all the time, but now that I have drawn a line in the sand and said "you have to get help for yourself, then come down here and be willing to work at fixing our marriage here, where I feel safe and secure", now he is making the claim that he's drawn a line in the sand that I have to go up to where he is and do it immediately, before he'll get counseling, and take care of him, and help him through his problems, because that is what a wife should do, and that by doing this, I am not being a wife to him, which puts him in the right, and I am the one turning my back on us. I tell him I am not comfortable being alone with him right now the way he is, and then he tells me he's afraid to come down here and be stranded in my town with ME. 

It's an entirely untenable position because both of us feel the other person has to give in or else we're not willing to continue the marriage. Everyone I know tells me I am in the right here, and I should not give in, and I know looking at the situation logically, I know they are all right, but it is so hard emotionally. I mean, I take marriage very seriously. I know that for everyone it is different, but I am Catholic, so in marrying Josh, I committed to be by his side for life. I know that in some cases that doesn't have to be, and this may very well be one of those cases, but it's hard to get my mind around that, because to me marriage is so final, when we said the I Dos, that was it, my destiny was tied to his. That fact has made me miserable many days since, but now it's hard to not feel the pull that if my husband says I have to come be with him now, I do.

( but yes, desert_rose, for the record I have cut off contact with him, as of last night I sent him an e-mail saying we cant be in contact the way he is right now, and I hope he gets help and that it changes in the future. But I feel like absolute scum because as logical as it is, as necessary as it might be, I know he views it as total abandonment, and it breaks my heart to think how miserable he probably is now, and I can't make him understand what to do to stop hurting and fix things)


----------



## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

I didn't read all of your post cause it's super long but read the part about him saying he had no memory of telling you things--it sounds like he is GASLIGHTING you. Look it up.

The bottom line is you are not happy with him: If he is unwilling to work on the relationship WITH you, remove yourself from the relationship. it takes two.


----------



## Lydia (Sep 4, 2011)

He sounds like he has some psychological issues.... I would get him some info for a counselor/psychiatrist. I'd tell him that you do not want to hear from him and you will not respond to him until he has seen a psychiatrist and agrees to pursue help.

It will be difficult if he really does have a mental issue, so you have to think about if you want to deal with that anyways. If you don't have children, to be honest (and I know it sounds cold), I'd leave the relationship and wish him luck.

I'd also make sure I'm in a safe place, because he sounds mentally unstable.


----------



## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

SilverPanther said:


> It's an entirely untenable position because both of us feel the other person has to give in or else we're not willing to continue the marriage. Everyone I know tells me I am in the right here, and I should not give in, and I know looking at the situation logically, I know they are all right, but it is so hard emotionally. I mean, I take marriage very seriously. I know that for everyone it is different, but I am Catholic, so in marrying Josh, I committed to be by his side for life. I know that in some cases that doesn't have to be, and this may very well be one of those cases, but it's hard to get my mind around that, because to me marriage is so final, when we said the I Dos, that was it, my destiny was tied to his. That fact has made me miserable many days since, but now it's hard to not feel the pull that if my husband says I have to come be with him now, I do.


I am also Catholic. Being Catholic does not mean that you have to stay with an abusive or mentally ill husband. Have you spoken to your priest about all this?

When I spoke to my priest about the abuse my ex dished out, his advice as a divorce and then to see him about annulment. There are valid reasons for ending a marriage, even in the Catholic Church.

It’s good that you ended communications with him. He’s trying to get you into a situation where he has more control over you. It’s not good.


----------



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

I am actually planning to make an appointment with my pastor this week. I have never met privately with a priest before, but I guess if I call the office they will be willing to set up an appointment for me? I hope so, as my pastor seems like a very sensible person that I would value the spiritual and practical input of. 

Part of the problem is I try to tell him ways he can get to a therapist, but he says he can't because there are none close to him (possibly true)...so I say he should move, at least temporarily. He claims he has no money, but I point out my family and I want to see him get well and if he was serious about it, would help him to be able to live wherever the help he needs is at. But he doesn't believe that he needs counseling of any sort, the only reason he even looked at therapists was because he felt this was a stipulation I was putting on our marriage, but he refuses to see that he needs help of a mental kind. He claims if I was up there with him we could work on our marriage, but I know if I went to him things would not get better. At least, I don't think they would. Sometimes he can sound so rational and wanting to work things out, but I can't forget the things he has said about me, or how he changes his story, his memory, and his demands on me constantly. 

I am just worn out and don't really know what to do. I am devastated at the idea of losing him for good, but on the other hand, I can kind of see that is where this is going. He is talking about how he is going away tomorrow and I won't see him again. I don't know if this is another ploy of his or not, but I know there is a possibility he is actually going. 

Spiritually, I am pretty sure I have plenty of grounds for an anulment, but I'm not even sure how that would work in my situation. I made some mistakes in how I agreed to go about the marriage...we aren't married in the church yet. Since he is not American, we would have had to get a special visa for him to come be married in the US, and we felt that would be too long and onerous, so we got married in a private legal ceremony in Costa Rica while we were staying there for a bit. But not only does that mean I am married, but not married in my church so I have no idea what that means, but it also means I am legally married, but in Costa Rica, and as we never filed it in the US, I have no idea where that leaves me legally in this country. It was always our plan to both get married in the church when we had settled in to a location we had decided to live more permanently, and also to file the marriage in Canada and the US. But none of those things happened...and I have to say, I know they say hindsight is 20/20, but I was legally blind going into this. 

I guess that's what stupid, incorrigible love does. But now I am sort of left with nothing and my dreams are all falling apart at my feet.


----------



## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

SilverPanther said:


> I am actually planning to make an appointment with my pastor this week. I have never met privately with a priest before, but I guess if I call the office they will be willing to set up an appointment for me? I hope so, as my pastor seems like a very sensible person that I would value the spiritual and practical input of.
> 
> Part of the problem is I try to tell him ways he can get to a therapist, but he says he can't because there are none close to him (possibly true)...so I say he should move, at least temporarily. He claims he has no money, but I point out my family and I want to see him get well and if he was serious about it, would help him to be able to live wherever the help he needs is at. But he doesn't believe that he needs counseling of any sort, the only reason he even looked at therapists was because he felt this was a stipulation I was putting on our marriage, but he refuses to see that he needs help of a mental kind. He claims if I was up there with him we could work on our marriage, but I know if I went to him things would not get better. At least, I don't think they would. Sometimes he can sound so rational and wanting to work things out, but I can't forget the things he has said about me, or how he changes his story, his memory, and his demands on me constantly.
> 
> ...


You will need to see an attorney about your marital status. I believe that the US recognizes all legal marriage worldwide. And I don’t think you have to register them in the USA for them to be legal here. 

Is your husband Catholic? 

If you marry outside the church I believe you do not get an annulment but instead a dispensation. A google search will turn up a lot of info on it. Also you can discuss this with your priest.

A huge percentage of those with mental illness issues do not believe they need help and refuse it. It's part of the illness. I have dealt with this with a few relatives and friends who have issues. I have also decided that I cannot have these people in my life as they are too disruptive and in the end I cannot help them.

If your husband has a mental health issue, you wil become his caregiver. You will most likely become an enabler of his problems.. co-dependent. I really do not think this is a healthy husband/wife relationship.


----------



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

Well the frightening thing is, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to marry again, if that's true about the US recognizing all marriages, because I can't see my husband ever agreeing to a divorce unless he wanted to get remarried...he blames me for everything that went wrong, and I am sure he would want to "punish" me by refusing a divorce, even though he doesn't want to live with me, and doesn't even like me. 

Also, according to him today, he's taking off on his own, not telling anyone where he's going, and doesn't plan to ever contact me again. I don't know if this is another bluff of his, or not.

I agree that if I went to be with him now, I would not be helping him, I would be enabling his illness, and justifying in his mind how he is acting. I know that on a rational level, and I also know even if I go up there and physically drive him to therapy every week, unless HE wants to change and heal, it doesn't do any good. And he would only be doing it because I'm forcing him to, so it would do no good anyway. I know all this.

But it still hurts. I am trying to focus on practical matters, like figuring out how to handle things if it comes to a divorce, because that's usually what I do to deal with emotional stress- I plan and strategize and organize like a maniac, to try and put things in order I guess. But I'm trying not to get too caught up in that, and give myself some time to grieve, because when he pulled crazy stuff four years ago and I cut off contact with him then, I didn't ever deal with my grief or how I felt about him, and I think that is part of what led to this situation. At first I didn't think about things, and just repressed all my pain, and then it started being too hard to repress and I started missing him a lot and only remembering the good times, and so when he came back into my life, I wasn't as careful as I should have been...I guess. I tried, I really tried to be wary of these behaviors in him when he was first seeking me out again, and for months after...but I think I was still wanting things to work so badly I didn't see some signs that I should have...and certainly later on I should have dealt with some of the issues we were having and I didn't. 

I know, you live and you learn, but I feel now like how can I ever trust my judgment again? Not only did I marry someone who was like this, but I married someone who was like this and had already hurt me in the exact same way before! And yet no matter how much I tried to be shrewd and cautious with him, I just fell into the same pattern of trusting him, and feeling I belonged with him...it was so insidious, and it will take me a long time to trust my judgment of people.


----------



## Stryker (Feb 3, 2012)

*Mere Emotional Realms are Antagonistic to Clear Reasoning..

Think with both head and heart...logically ,analytically and emotionally in balance., n stronger in heart and intellect.

Have a Balance about your Self-Interest and The Selflessness in his case...Handle* *with maturity n wisdom.*


PS: Hope , people wont make it an issue about the Terminologies...


----------



## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Caity (aka, "SilverPanther"), the behaviors you describe -- emotional instability, verbal abuse, controlling behavior, temper tantrums, inability to trust, blame-shifting, and lack of impulse control -- are the classic traits of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), which my exW has. Significantly, only a professional can determine whether your H's BPD traits are so severe as to satisfy 100% of the diagnostic criteria for having the full-blown disorder. 

Yet, even when those traits fall well short of the diagnostic threshold, they can undermine your marriage and make your life miserable. Moreover, they are not difficult to spot because there is nothing subtle about traits such as verbal abuse, temper tantrums, and emotional instability. Hence, given your inability to hire a psychologist at this time, I strongly recommend that you read more about BPD traits so you can better understand what you are likely dealing with.


SilverPanther said:


> I have no idea what life without Josh in it would be like. He has always felt like my partner, long before he committed to be it...but that can't really be right, when he treats me this way, right?


Yes, that is exactly how it feels when you fall in love with a BPDer. He will seem such a perfect fit for you that you will be absolutely convinced he must be your "soul mate" -- the very person chosen by God to be your mate. This illusion is created because a BPDer has the emotional development of a 3 or 4 year old, leaving him with a weak and fragile sense of who is really is. 

He therefore has no strong ego to guide him in how to behave around new groups of people. Instead, he learned to figure out what type of behavior is expected and to then behave in that manner, emulating the people around him. Significantly, a BPDer does not do this to be manipulating but, rather, to simply fit in and be accepted.

This means that, when a BPDer becomes infatuated with you, he will pull out all the stops and emulate all the best features of your personality. This process -- called mirroring -- is done so perfectly that you and Josh likely were both convinced that you had met your soul mates. 

Sadly, he is unable to sustain this view of you when the infatuation evaporates because his two great fears (abandonment and engulfment) will return. You will see occasional periods of it, however, when he is "splitting you white." But those periods will become increasingly farther and farther apart.


> I was absolutely head over heels in love with him. And he seemed very enamored of me, as well.... he was kind, loving, showered me with gifts....


BPDers are very VERY easy to fall in love with. If Josh is a BPDer, he likely is a basically good, well-intentioned man. You saw that good and loving part of him during the periods in which he was "splitting you white." Yet, because he will do black-white thinking, he will sometimes "split you black" and he will abuse you during those times.


> He was starting to get weird and controlling on some things, telling me how to dress most of the time, that I wasn't dressing modestly enough....


BPDers have such a great fear of abandonment, they typically try to control all aspects of a loved one's life to prevent your walking away. Moreover, because a BPDer is unable to trust himself, he is incapable of ever trusting you. Significantly, this presents a HUGE problem because trust is the foundation on which all LTRs must be based.


> He got very demeaning again about a lot of things, not the least of which was our physical relationship. He felt I was very boring and plain and wanted me to come up with things to make intimacy more interesting, and when I didn't do that very well, he got very frustrated, sulky and even angry at me.


Although a BPDer craves intimacy (like the rest of us), he cannot handle it when it occurs. Because he has a fragile sense of who he is, he will get a frightening feeling of being engulfed and suffocated by your personality during intimacy. That is, he will feel like he is evaporating into thin air or being dominated. This is why, immediately following a great weekend or intimate evening spent together, a BPDer typically will push you away by creating an argument over absolutely nothing.


> It got to where there was almost nothing about me he seemed to like.... Every fight would only end if I started crying and then he would eventually switch over to become comforting and say he loved me and things to make me feel better, and then the fight would be dropped.


As I said, a BPDer creates meaningless fights to push you away, giving him relief from the intimacy that engulfs him. Yet, as you back off to give him breathing space, you will trigger his other great fear: that of abandonment. This is why, a few hours or days later, he will suddenly switch to trying to pull you back into the relationship by being extra loving or by pleading, if necessary. 

The result of this push-away and pull-back behavior is an almost endless cycle of push and pull. This cycle is one of the hallmarks of being in a relationship with a BPDer. I say "almost endless cycle" because, with an unstable person, you never know when his fears will become so intense that he will permanently split you black -- as my exW eventually did with me after we had lived together for 15 years. Indeed, the usual length of such BPDer relationships is 12 to 15 years because, as the years go by, the BPDer grows increasingly resentful of his partner's failure to fix him or make him happy -- an impossible task.


> Him without me physically near him became needy and even more demanding on what I should be doing for him.... his whole focus was on what he needed from me, and how to get it.


BPDers typically behave differently toward you after you've been physically separated only a few days. This often happens even when you are out of town on business or a vacation for a few days. It occurs because BPDers have great difficulty with perceiving "object constancy," i.e., seeing that your feelings and your relationship is basically unchanged even though you are out of sight. Indeed, they have difficulty with object constancy even when you are still in the room. 

This is why a BPDer can flip in ten seconds from adoring you to demeaning you -- based solely on a minor comment or action. Instead of thinking of you as a person whose personality remains basically constant, a BPDer will perceive of you in a distorted manner -- seeing you as "all good" or "all bad" depending upon whether he is splitting you while or black at the moment. Significantly, there is no middle ground (no grey area) because he has little tolerance for ambiguities and mixed feelings.


> He just got more unstable, sometimes being pleading, and crying and begging me, sometimes screaming insults at me, sometimes coldly and rationally dressing me down as a terrible wife.


Yes, that is typically black-white thinking and it is a hallmark of BPDers because they are emotionally unstable.


> I started telling him ... he needs to get professional help, fix himself, and come to me and fix our marriage. He roundly refused.


It is rare for a BPDer to have the ego strength and self awareness to be willing to seek therapy. Even when a BPDer does enter therapy, it is rare for him to stay with it long enough to make a difference. Because a BPDer is filled with shame and self loathing (carried from childhood), the last thing he wants to find is one more thing to add to the long list of things he hates about himself.


> So much of what he says he changes, his stories change constantly.


Yes, with a BPDer, his "reality" is the intense feelings he is experiencing at any one moment. Because his emotional development is frozen at the level of a young child, he never learned how to intellectually challenge those intense feelings. Moreover, he never learned how to do self soothing to calm himself down.


> I know I have painted him as an utter monster by outlining all the reasons we had problems.


On the contrary, you have given a very sympathetic description of a young man who is struggling with strong traits of a very painful disorder.


> I really look the fool for having spent 10 years on this guy. I am so ashamed that I got taken in by all this, but at the same time, loving him seems as natural to me as breathing.


No, you look like a caregiver, not a fool. As I said, BPDers are very VERY easy to fall in love with. Moreover, for caregivers like you and me, the notion of walking away from a sick loved one is _anathema_. It goes against our family values, our religious beliefs, our sense of commitment -- indeed, against every fiber of our being. 

Yet, walking away is exactly what we should do. As you already know, you will only harm your H by staying with him because you will become an enabler -- destroying his only chance for having to confront his issues and to learn how to control them. I therefore applaud you decision to leave him. If he is to have any chance of improving at all, he must be held accountable for his own actions. That is, you must allow him to suffer the logical consequences of his own bad behavior.


> Did I do the right thing, in cutting off contact with him?


Yes, absolutely. If you hang around to be his "soothing object," he will never have an incentive to learn how to do self soothing (a skill the rest of us learned in childhood). Moreover, you won't really accomplish much as a soothing object anyway, because your continued presence will serve to frequently trigger his two fears (abandonment and engulfment).


> I am just very lost and confused right now.


You should be. Living with a BPDer is so disorienting and confusing because an unstable man can flip on a dime between loving and hating you -- and he will sincerely believe the outrageous rationalizations he gives for his current feelings. This is why a substantial share of the partners and spouses feel like they are going crazy. Indeed, of the ten personality disorders, BPD is the ONLY ONE that is notorious for making the partners feel like they may be losing their minds. 

If you had been living with a narcissist or sociopath, for example, you would have felt abused and miserable -- but you wouldn't have that terrible feeling of confusion and disorientation. On top of that, you likely have the feeling that you have lost not only your loved one but also lost YOURSELF. This occurs because, after walking on eggshells for so long, you've not behaved like your "old self" for so long that you start forgetting who it is you were. This is why the #1 best-selling BPD book (targeted to the partners) is called _Stop Walking on Eggshells.

_If you would like to read more about BPD traits, Caity, I suggest you start with that _Eggshells _book. And, on this forum, I suggest you check out my discussion of BPD traits in Maybe's thread at http://talkaboutmarriage.com/general-relationship-discussion/33734-my-list-hell.html#post473522. If that discussion about Maybe's abusive spouse rings a bell, I would be glad to discuss the traits with you and suggest good online resources. Take care, Caity.


----------



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

That does sound very familiar!

I actually know quite a bit about BPD, because I have self-diagnosed myself as having some of the same traits, though nowhere near as severe. I have forced myself to overcome a lot of things that I struggled with when I was younger, and what inhibiting my friendships, family relations and romantic relations. Actually, to give you a little more detail, I mentioned how I had broken up with my husband four years ago when he was acting this same way...that came about after I started making changes in myself. We had had a very unhealthy relationship, and I had a VERY unhealthy outlook on life. I felt that I *needed* Josh, I was terribly insecure, and my life sort of revolved around him, my moods swung wildly and I went through some pretty bad stuff. I started researching, trying to figure out what might be going on with me, and found that of all mental illnesses, my symptoms fit best with BPD, and from there I used different self-help techniques, posted on BPD forums, read books, and started making a lot of progress. A whole new world opening up to me when I stopped letting my emotions rule me...but the more stable I became, the less stable Josh became. He got meaner and meaner, berating me for my flaws, insisting that I wasn't getting any better (even though I was marking my progress and *knew* I was), and it just went downhill from there to where I finally told him I needed space, and we needed to back off our relationship, and he completely lost it, threatening suicide, screaming at me, begging, pleading...pretty much identical to this time around. 

What troubles me, and I'm not sure if you know anything about or not is since that point I have pretty much gotten my own emotional state under control. I had a very nice, functional relationship with someone for a year and a half, I made much better friendships, and even my tenuous relationship with my family improved a lot. But then when Josh came back into my life, and after he and I began to get closer and get serious about a life together, and he started to become controlling and more erratic, I found myself losing control more and more around him, too. I was still fine in all other areas of my life, but when we would argue, I would have a hard time remaining rational and calm, I would lose it again like I used to, and cry or yell at him, sometimes even over small things. I feel like there was this huge conflict going on in me, that was causing all this unrest and crazy emotional responses from me, because I kept telling myself everything was wonderful, and when we weren't fighting, I would believe it, but then we would have a fight, and he would treat me horribly, and then I would be forced to see that things weren't wonderful, and it was this constant nagging feeling that I wouldn't really pay any attention to, that there were issues here I wasn't strong enough to address.

Anyway, again while I was in Central America with him, I recognized I needed to get myself under control, and I did. And I believed that if I did, that this would improve our marriage, but in fact it only made him worse. He became more resentful of me, more demanding, and more unhappy, the less I fought with him and the calmer I was. 

So I guess it's not really that odd that someone who has BPD would bring out those tendencies in me. He always made me feel like I was a very mentally sick person, that he had this tremendous burden on him to put up with me, that I was the problem with the relationship. A few months ago my self esteem was in the toilet, I really thought I was a total nutcase, Josh would say things like he could get me committed if he wanted to and so forth. I know I didn't always act the best, but the things I did, and the way I acted with him, was nothing nearly like how he has acted towards me, are nothing like you or Maybe have described. I guess it just makes things even more complicated that I have struggled with similar issues, though. 

But boy are you right about me feeling like maybe I'm the crazy one, or just feeling confusion. It's so impossible to try and sort out what really happened from all the changing stories he told. At the end he kept going on about how I won't even come be his wife in his home in Canada, talking like all he ever did was ask me to come be with him and I refused because I am a monster. But I feel certain had that actually been what we were discussing from the start, I would have agreed to that. But he started out with the outrageous demand that I go with him in March to a country thousands of miles away, with no money, and probably never return. That I raise my children in a place with abject poverty, danger and disease. And I don't really get much of a say in where or when we go, because, according to him, I wasn't competent enough to be included in planning. This I know is untrue, as one of my gifts tends to be for attention to detail, organization and planning. I have often said I might enjoy a job as a planner, especially a party or travel planner. 

So I have to keep reminding myself of everything that happened because it changed so frequently and erratically, I'm often left trying to figure out if I really did abandon my husband or not.

But I do agree, had I gone to him, it would not have helped him, and it certainly wouldn't have helped me. The abuse would not have stopped, he would not have suddenly embraced me and loved me and wanted to care for me. And while I am grieving over losing him, I am also feeling this incredible feeling of relief and liberation, because for so long I have been basing so much of myself off his demands- what I wear, what I do, sometimes even what I think. As much as I fought him on his desire to change me entirely, I was always seeking a middle ground of compromise, so everything I did was tempered by "what would Josh want me to do?" 

Which made it that much more hurtful when he kept telling me I never cared in the least about his wishes or what would make him happy. I cared very, very much. Some might say too much.


----------



## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Caity, I'm glad you found the BPD discussion helpful. I'm not surprised to hear you discovered that you have BPD traits. We all do. Specifically, every adult on the planet occasionally exhibits all nine of the BPD traits, albeit at a low level if they are emotionally healthy. These traits become a problem only when they become so strong that they distort one's perceptions of other peoples' intentions, thereby undermining LTRs. Hence, BPDers differ from the rest of us only in degree. Not in kind.

It is very common, as you found out, for one's own BPD traits to become much stronger when living with a BPDer. This does not imply, however, that you are a BPDer. Indeed, I've never heard of a BPDer having the ego strength and self awareness to get well -- as you did -- in just a year and a half. I therefore suspect that your "strong BPD traits" did not begin until you started living with your dysfunctional H. And they reappeared only when you started living with Josh again.

If you were a BPDer, you would have experienced serious issues starting in early childhood and the strong traits would have been apparent by your late teens. Such traits would have been persistent and would not have disappeared for two years. I therefore ask when you first noticed having really strong BPD traits? Have you always had a feeling that you don't really know who you are?


> But he started out with the outrageous demand that I go with him in March to a country thousands of miles away, with no money, and probably never return


Caity, this absurd demand is such a classic example of typical BPDer behavior that it almost seems funny (if it only were not so sad). BPDers have little sense of "object constancy" and, on top of that, are incapable of trusting you. They therefore do endless testing of your professed love by demanding one outrageous thing after another. No matter how many hoops you jump through to prove your love, they always are quick to hold up another hoop. 

What I find amusing, then, is that Josh jumped so quickly to holding up the penultimate hoop: the demand that you demonstrate your love by showing you are willing to follow him to the ends of the earth. Although my exW had created hundreds of absurd demands, she never ever insisted that I follow her to an impoverished country in Africa.


----------



## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

You do not have to be concerned about him refusing to give you a divorce. He cannot stop a divorce. If he willnot sign the papers the judge will. If he disappers u can still file for divorce. The are steps to follow for divorcing someone you cannot locate.

The family law ,code for your state will have what to do. Research it online. And see an attorney.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

Uptown- As a teenager and young adult I did struggle a lot with relationships, both romantic and friendly. I tended to be extremely insecure in them, to the point I was overly clingy, or, if I saw the other partner as not being as devoted to me as I was to them, I would get very nasty or cold to them. I think it was the push/pull phenomena you were talking about.

I did have a rough time in childhood, though *nothing* like the childhoods of some BPDers, it was all verbal abuse. I suspect my Dad is also walking the line somewhere on the BPD scale, as he is also extremely insecure about his relationships, and this causes him to build his kids up one day and cling to them, and then the next to break them down and push them away, too, leaving me with a very uncertain idea of whether or not I am a good person, and whether or not anyone in my life truly likes me, or secretly hates me. 

You are correct, I would not say I am truly clinically BPD, and I have had a fair amount of success as I get older controlling and changing my outlook on life and on myself, and improving my relationships. Now it is really just my husband that brings out the insecurity and irrational behaviors in me anymore. 

It's funny though, for all the work I have done on myself and my BPD traits, and for all i have read and researched about it, it never occurred to me Josh struggles with the same sort of thing. He is very good at convincing you he is the most rational, smart and competent person around, he is extremely arrogant and I think I struggled a lot with hero worshipping him, because I loved him so much, so even though a lot of what he has said to me throughout our brief marriage has not rung true, or seemed right, I would always tell myself that he must be right and I must be wrong, the same thing he was always telling me. There was just so much conflict created within me from this, because deep down I *knew* he was not treating me well, and not acting rational or the way a caring husband should act, but I didn't want to face the idea he might have problems, because it is easier to fix my own problems, than realize the man I love might be the problem. But that is just my regret now, not having dealt sooner or more honestly with our problems. I just ended up despising myself, feeling like there must be something wrong with me that he can dislike me so much and disrespect me so totally. 

Elegirl- I am not ready to start actively pursuing divorce, but the truth is, he seems to be gone completely, and I know that soon I need to start finding out what legal steps I need to take if he never even comes back. I can't be married to a ghost. I also called my priest today, but left him a message. I really hope he calls back, though I am nervous about talking with him, since Josh and I didn't exactly follow the traditional Catholic route to marriage. I'm not entirely sure what his thoughts on it will be. I just know I did and agreed to some really stupid things I regret now.


----------



## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

SilverPanther said:


> You are correct, I would not say I am truly clinically BPD.


Caity, perhaps you have mild to moderate BPD traits. As I said, we all have all nine of the traits and we differ from each other only by degree. I note that, even if you did have strong BPD traits, that would not prevent you from being attracted to a BPDer. On the contrary, it is not uncommon for BPDers to pair up for many years. They provide each other the drama that each needs to avoid getting bored. 

And, because neither of them can tolerate intimacy for very long, the numerous fights provide the "vacations from intimacy" that both of them desire. This is one reason that a person who has trouble handling intimacy will be strongly attracted to folks who are emotionally unavailable much of the time. 

Moreover, the repeated push-aways give the two BPDers an opportunity to feel love for their partner. This is important because, when the partner's love is continually available, a BPDer typically has difficulty feeling the love that he has for her. To a BPDer, being is love is usually experienced (as it was in childhood) as a _pining_ for a lover who is just out of reach. This, at least, is my understanding of it.


----------



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

I guess things really fell apart for us when I wanted to put a stop to the constant push and pull, and just have a peaceful marriage. It seems he can never be happy with that. And maybe I am wrong, but towards the end I got the feeling he could never be happy with me in general, that he married me because he needed someone to be there, but that he honestly just doesn't even like me. This is very painful for me, since I have genuinely loved him for a long time, warts and all. But nothing about me, and nothing I tried to do satisfied him about me, ever.


----------



## desert-rose (Aug 16, 2011)

SilverPanther said:


> Well the frightening thing is, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to marry again, if that's true about the US recognizing all marriages, because I can't see my husband ever agreeing to a divorce unless he wanted to get remarried...he blames me for everything that went wrong, and I am sure he would want to "punish" me by refusing a divorce, even though he doesn't want to live with me, and doesn't even like me.
> 
> Also, according to him today, he's taking off on his own, not telling anyone where he's going, and doesn't plan to ever contact me again. I don't know if this is another bluff of his, or not.


Depending on which state you live in, it is possible to get a divorce even if he doesn't sign and abandonment is one of the ways in which that happens. This just takes longer. You need a good lawyer.


----------

