Please help me. I'm a 30yo man, I met my wife and her 5yo kid (was boy, now nonbinary) 3 years ago, we moved in together 2 years ago, we married 1 year ago, we bought a house 6 months ago, and now I'm sleeping on a friend's couch and agonizing over whether & how to leave her. She claims to have CPTSD and rejection sensitivity, and I've become certain (in secret) that her behaviors additionally/instead match almost every pattern for undiagnosed borderline personality disorder (BPD).
Any and all responses would be so so important to me!
I was in a gray place when I met her - coming out of yet another unfulfilling girlfriend relationship (but this time in an unfamiliar city), wallowing in lockdown, and yet starting to find joy in new hobbies and budding friendships. I've always been a thrillseeking overachiever who struggled with identity, follow-through, and self respect/care. We met organically, she asked me out, and we dove headfirst into a passionate romance like I've always dreamed of. She was mature, brilliant, creative, tender, assertive, and whimsical. For dates we found houses for sale on Zillow to drive by and imagine moving into. She introduced me to her kid, I fell in love with both of them, I started spending some days and/or nights at their house, I got to play make believe with her kid for hours, I learned their home and how I shoulder some of her burdens, and I got her kid's permission and help to propose to her - she said yes and we were all so happy.
I want to say that's when the relationship started to change, but there were always some yellow flags. She seemed to neg me randomly and become disappointed by seemingly anything, but I brushed these barbs off as just coming from her perfectionism/neuroses and not really about me. She had so many burned bridges with friends and family that didn't make sense, but I was certain it wasn't my place to pry or judge - besides, my family is "norma" and you two could just join mine. She painted herself as a cosmic victim of everyone's cruelty, but I reassured her that most people are kind and besides I could protect her from these financial and social problems with my savings and extroversion. She and her kid were very particular about every aspect of the home, but I learned parenting from her and imitated her cooking/cleaning/words/routines to avoid mistakes and meltdowns.
For all 3 years, we've always had so much love and affection and tenderness... and all the good things relationships have... and energy... and I feel like right now I'm not in a state of mind to properly paint the really good parts. I just want to say before this story turns dark that there is still light in both of us, in all 3 of us and our bonds... but it's slowly fading to a flicker of its former glory.
She could be mean on occasion, but eventually she was so mean every week. She had trouble apologizing, but eventually she never did (without undermining it by simultaneously blaming me). She cherished my presence, but eventually she threatened divorce every month, then every week. It just descended slowly into madness and isolation and loneliness for both of us... and her kid was regularly a collateral victim or direct target of her rages. Changing my job, moving, marriage, quitting her job, wedding, buying a house, moving again, pulling her kid out of school... none of it helped, and it all got absorbed into her victim narrative. She pushed me a few times, and both a distant friend and a one-session therapist told me I was being emotionally abused - I informed her in the hope that we could work on it but she felt betrayed that I'd painted her so negatively to strangers and she got more volatile. She still had good days, but they got fewer and milder over the years. She gave up her main passions and barely kept up with the demands of life, but she found some expression in frequent thrift shopping and infrequent tattoos. Her mental health struggles eclipsed her awareness of and empathy for mine, and her resentment towards both me and her kid grew and got louder. In hindsight, our weekly cycles often revolved around my work-life balance, for whatever I could manage of that, and how that drained her with single parenting "two children" and her feeling defaulted to a stay at home mom role she never wanted.
Sometimes I would comfort her kid (who, after a year of bonding, I considered "our" kid), and sometimes her kid would try to comfort me (who, in the same time, came to call me "papa" in private and then "dad" in public). Mostly we both just deflected the verbal and emotional abuse and tried to fix things. I never took a vacation or slept elsewhere or cheated on her or really told anyone what was happening after that therapist meltdown - I just shrunk into the flailing family.
We saw couple's therapists with no real progress, but at different points we all 3 got good personal therapists and began to understand ourselves better. She had long ago been diagnosed with CPTSD from childhood neglect (abandoned by dad young, raised by careless mom and mean older brothers), and she came to mention "rejection sensitivity" as well. She has been in trauma-oriented therapy off and on for the last year, EMDR for a bit, now non-EMDR starting back up. Her kid was professionally diagnosed with depression and started antidepressants with great success, alongside play therapy for a year and now equine therapy. I realized my codependency and eventually (through reading this Supporter forum) learned about BPD and everything suddenly made sense and I didn't feel crazy or evil any more. I requested (before and maybe after my BPD revelation) that we return to couples therapy, but she didn't trust me anymore to not paint her negatively.
Once my eyes were open to what was really happening, I started to secretly (as recommended) read books on BPD and learn communication techniques and the importance of boundaries and self care... but I was so unsure how to implement any of it. Immediately my defusing decreased and the rages got worse.
The next week when I walked away from an argument in front of her kid, she followed me down the hall, grabbed me by my collar, and, despite me pleading "stop stop"...
slapped me on my cheek!
Then she blamed me for gaslighting her as she walked away.
I started hiding from her rages in a locked bathroom, and the door took fists and thrown objects, and I started regularly calling the domestic violence hotline for reality checks, though she never hit me again. The next night I actually did what she regularly yelled at me to do - get out of the house. I stayed the night on a friend's couch. The next day we met at a cafe and both tried to explain our perspective and set boundaries, but we didn't get very far or very specific and we both went home after in silence.
The next week, when her kid was having a semi-normal meltdown, in addition to verbally abusing us both, she seemed to have also...
smacked them on their arm?...
...during the chaos of stopping them from throwing things (her kid has taken to throwing and breaking her things). I couldn't make out what happened from the other room (I'm ashamed), but later that night her kid reenacted a slap on my forearm. They were both indignant during/after, and her kid (now almost 8yo) asked me for a ride to their grandma's house for a sleepover (standard procedure for a bedtime rage) as my wife stated that she didn't mind because she'd be better off without them and shut her bedroom door. My wife's mom was too tired to snuggle them to sleep, so I did, and then I stayed the night for the first time at her house. In the morning, after leaving them there for preplanned daycare, instead of going home or to work I finally reached out for the help I've been needing for years, from a newly-reignited support network of friends and family. I also started staying on that friend's couch indefinitely. I realize now that I could be making her kid's life worse with my attempts at loving them both, and I'm also emulating toxic fatherhood dynamics from across my family tree (but to the extreme). All week I've been having emotional revelations and doing grueling self-work, but I need more time.
I'm meeting my wife on Friday to tell her my next steps, but all I know I want is more time and space away from her - meet in a month? I've painfully come to accept that I might never see her kid again, as I have no legal rights to them (a necessary step before I felt safe reaching out for help), but I had a lovely phone call with them a few days ago that reassured them of my situation and reassured me that they know I'll always love them. She's bombarding me with guilt tripping and affection and remorse and anger and everything I expected her to do, in line with my first-ever major step away from her.
She's asking for us to see a couples therapist whose website features CBT prominently, and I wonder if that's not a coincidence. I'm holding relatively firm on my boundaries of communication and space. My therapist helped me realize how much I need to work on figuring out who I am and what I want before any intense relationships right now, and I'm already making satisfying progress on that work this week. I finally feel safe, and I have a second chance at life... but I still have so much love in my heart for her and her kid and aspects of the family we made and future we tried to make... but I don't want to confuse or traumatize her kid any further...
...so I don't know what to do!!! Divorce? (we're in a no-fault state) Counseling? Boundaries? CPS? Visits? Money? House? Custody? Years from now? Try? Pause? Run?
I could type more, but that probably enough. Please reply with anything, it will help. I'm spinning. Thank you for reading.
Any and all responses would be so so important to me!
I was in a gray place when I met her - coming out of yet another unfulfilling girlfriend relationship (but this time in an unfamiliar city), wallowing in lockdown, and yet starting to find joy in new hobbies and budding friendships. I've always been a thrillseeking overachiever who struggled with identity, follow-through, and self respect/care. We met organically, she asked me out, and we dove headfirst into a passionate romance like I've always dreamed of. She was mature, brilliant, creative, tender, assertive, and whimsical. For dates we found houses for sale on Zillow to drive by and imagine moving into. She introduced me to her kid, I fell in love with both of them, I started spending some days and/or nights at their house, I got to play make believe with her kid for hours, I learned their home and how I shoulder some of her burdens, and I got her kid's permission and help to propose to her - she said yes and we were all so happy.
I want to say that's when the relationship started to change, but there were always some yellow flags. She seemed to neg me randomly and become disappointed by seemingly anything, but I brushed these barbs off as just coming from her perfectionism/neuroses and not really about me. She had so many burned bridges with friends and family that didn't make sense, but I was certain it wasn't my place to pry or judge - besides, my family is "norma" and you two could just join mine. She painted herself as a cosmic victim of everyone's cruelty, but I reassured her that most people are kind and besides I could protect her from these financial and social problems with my savings and extroversion. She and her kid were very particular about every aspect of the home, but I learned parenting from her and imitated her cooking/cleaning/words/routines to avoid mistakes and meltdowns.
For all 3 years, we've always had so much love and affection and tenderness... and all the good things relationships have... and energy... and I feel like right now I'm not in a state of mind to properly paint the really good parts. I just want to say before this story turns dark that there is still light in both of us, in all 3 of us and our bonds... but it's slowly fading to a flicker of its former glory.
She could be mean on occasion, but eventually she was so mean every week. She had trouble apologizing, but eventually she never did (without undermining it by simultaneously blaming me). She cherished my presence, but eventually she threatened divorce every month, then every week. It just descended slowly into madness and isolation and loneliness for both of us... and her kid was regularly a collateral victim or direct target of her rages. Changing my job, moving, marriage, quitting her job, wedding, buying a house, moving again, pulling her kid out of school... none of it helped, and it all got absorbed into her victim narrative. She pushed me a few times, and both a distant friend and a one-session therapist told me I was being emotionally abused - I informed her in the hope that we could work on it but she felt betrayed that I'd painted her so negatively to strangers and she got more volatile. She still had good days, but they got fewer and milder over the years. She gave up her main passions and barely kept up with the demands of life, but she found some expression in frequent thrift shopping and infrequent tattoos. Her mental health struggles eclipsed her awareness of and empathy for mine, and her resentment towards both me and her kid grew and got louder. In hindsight, our weekly cycles often revolved around my work-life balance, for whatever I could manage of that, and how that drained her with single parenting "two children" and her feeling defaulted to a stay at home mom role she never wanted.
Sometimes I would comfort her kid (who, after a year of bonding, I considered "our" kid), and sometimes her kid would try to comfort me (who, in the same time, came to call me "papa" in private and then "dad" in public). Mostly we both just deflected the verbal and emotional abuse and tried to fix things. I never took a vacation or slept elsewhere or cheated on her or really told anyone what was happening after that therapist meltdown - I just shrunk into the flailing family.
We saw couple's therapists with no real progress, but at different points we all 3 got good personal therapists and began to understand ourselves better. She had long ago been diagnosed with CPTSD from childhood neglect (abandoned by dad young, raised by careless mom and mean older brothers), and she came to mention "rejection sensitivity" as well. She has been in trauma-oriented therapy off and on for the last year, EMDR for a bit, now non-EMDR starting back up. Her kid was professionally diagnosed with depression and started antidepressants with great success, alongside play therapy for a year and now equine therapy. I realized my codependency and eventually (through reading this Supporter forum) learned about BPD and everything suddenly made sense and I didn't feel crazy or evil any more. I requested (before and maybe after my BPD revelation) that we return to couples therapy, but she didn't trust me anymore to not paint her negatively.
Once my eyes were open to what was really happening, I started to secretly (as recommended) read books on BPD and learn communication techniques and the importance of boundaries and self care... but I was so unsure how to implement any of it. Immediately my defusing decreased and the rages got worse.
The next week when I walked away from an argument in front of her kid, she followed me down the hall, grabbed me by my collar, and, despite me pleading "stop stop"...
slapped me on my cheek!
Then she blamed me for gaslighting her as she walked away.
I started hiding from her rages in a locked bathroom, and the door took fists and thrown objects, and I started regularly calling the domestic violence hotline for reality checks, though she never hit me again. The next night I actually did what she regularly yelled at me to do - get out of the house. I stayed the night on a friend's couch. The next day we met at a cafe and both tried to explain our perspective and set boundaries, but we didn't get very far or very specific and we both went home after in silence.
The next week, when her kid was having a semi-normal meltdown, in addition to verbally abusing us both, she seemed to have also...
smacked them on their arm?...
...during the chaos of stopping them from throwing things (her kid has taken to throwing and breaking her things). I couldn't make out what happened from the other room (I'm ashamed), but later that night her kid reenacted a slap on my forearm. They were both indignant during/after, and her kid (now almost 8yo) asked me for a ride to their grandma's house for a sleepover (standard procedure for a bedtime rage) as my wife stated that she didn't mind because she'd be better off without them and shut her bedroom door. My wife's mom was too tired to snuggle them to sleep, so I did, and then I stayed the night for the first time at her house. In the morning, after leaving them there for preplanned daycare, instead of going home or to work I finally reached out for the help I've been needing for years, from a newly-reignited support network of friends and family. I also started staying on that friend's couch indefinitely. I realize now that I could be making her kid's life worse with my attempts at loving them both, and I'm also emulating toxic fatherhood dynamics from across my family tree (but to the extreme). All week I've been having emotional revelations and doing grueling self-work, but I need more time.
I'm meeting my wife on Friday to tell her my next steps, but all I know I want is more time and space away from her - meet in a month? I've painfully come to accept that I might never see her kid again, as I have no legal rights to them (a necessary step before I felt safe reaching out for help), but I had a lovely phone call with them a few days ago that reassured them of my situation and reassured me that they know I'll always love them. She's bombarding me with guilt tripping and affection and remorse and anger and everything I expected her to do, in line with my first-ever major step away from her.
She's asking for us to see a couples therapist whose website features CBT prominently, and I wonder if that's not a coincidence. I'm holding relatively firm on my boundaries of communication and space. My therapist helped me realize how much I need to work on figuring out who I am and what I want before any intense relationships right now, and I'm already making satisfying progress on that work this week. I finally feel safe, and I have a second chance at life... but I still have so much love in my heart for her and her kid and aspects of the family we made and future we tried to make... but I don't want to confuse or traumatize her kid any further...
...so I don't know what to do!!! Divorce? (we're in a no-fault state) Counseling? Boundaries? CPS? Visits? Money? House? Custody? Years from now? Try? Pause? Run?
I could type more, but that probably enough. Please reply with anything, it will help. I'm spinning. Thank you for reading.