Borderline Personality husband leaving
My husband (together 18yrs, married 12) has been struggling with borderline personality for a long time (I suspect more than that). In that time he's left me numerous times, cheated on me, claimed he's polyamorous, refused to take care of himself properly, been in and out of work and arrested, and smokes pot regularly. The list goes on. On top of all that he's constantly blaming me for what's wrong, telling me how I've been the reason we have problems. I can't have kids, so that's always been something he twists around. He always finds a way to make everything my fault. I've tried so many times to make things better. Husband started ghosting me, and then I get an email from him saying that I need to "set him free" and that the only reason he married me was because "society forced him to"... I don't understand how society forced him into asking me to marry him 3 different times. I was never in a rush to get married.
I don't understand how he can treat the one person who stood by him through everything and has mentally and emotionally drained themselves like this... I feel like I'm empty. I feel like I'm broken. I feel abandoned. I know divorce is going to be better for us, but I feel like I'm a failure at being a wife and partner. He waited until I was hundreds of miles away from home looking into continuing my education, jobless, and aside from my friend who I'm staying with, completely alone with no support to spring this on me via email...
@RiniDarklight I'm so sorry to hear about your relationship/marriage challenges and your upcoming divorce--that must be so hard. It's natural to feel sadness and frustration if your marriage doesn't work. However, overtime you will grow to understand how splitting from your husband will hopefully allow both of you to find happiness in your lives. And hopefully your husband can find the right treatment experience for his BPD.
Furthermore, I will say your initial post has many similarities to my experience with my wife--who has ADHD and I also suspect she has BPD (although she hasn't been formally diagnosed)
My wife is very well educated, smart and very successful at her career, however our marriage/relationship has been very rocky at times. I am a pretty chill person, educated, smart, driven, lively but not up for drama--I also have controllable anxiety which I take meds for. We also have two kids who are 6 and 8 years old. My wife of 12 years has ADHD. Her ADHD causes challenges in our relationship and I need advice/help/thoughts navigating them. The reoccurring issues surrounding our marriage/relationship and my wifes ADHD are:
- She says literally whatever is on her mind in the moment, which is good and bad. If what she says comes across as degrading to me I usually can shake it off, but sometimes I cannot and respond back verbally saying I didn't appreciate something she said, etc--which can create issues. Also, because she says whatever is on her mind/her opinion she can come across as a "know it all" or even aggressive to people outside of our marriage.
- She has gotten to the point where I cannot verbally share with her my feelings with her regarding if I feel slighted by something she said or did to me. If I do share, she often gets upset, won't hear me out, doesn't say sorry or even threatens for us to get a divorce, live in separate homes, etc.
- The day after making verbal threats like we should get a divorce, live in separate homes, etc--she doesn't address the threats, it's like she never said it. She has made these divorce/separate home threats about 3-4 times a year for the last 5 years--yet in that 5 years we have continued to buy/sell homes, go on family vacations, celebrate anniversaries etc. I usually don't bring up her threats again because in the past when I do, she gets upset our doubles down on the threats again.
I need advice/help/thoughts please. Thank You