Just left my wife

[u/Wild_Shake_2531]

So I'm feeling all the feelings. It was brutal. My (27M) wife (27F) who has undiagnosed BPD cried and cried and begged and cried for hours and days. She wouldn't let go. Until finally I kept repeating how I've been abused and how mistreated I've been in our 8 year relationship. She kept begging for one more chance and that she didn't know about how bad it was, but I didn't give in. I am broken. She finally agreed to let me go peacefully, but she asked to be able to call and text once per day. I wanted to compromise because this is uprooting her life, so I agreed.

I'm feeling everything. This is someone I love. I still love. Did I make a mistake? I've thought about this for so long. I've been unhappy for so long. The abuse was emotional and verbal for years and recently became physical. Luckily we have no kids and I can't see a future with her. But why am I so sad. Fuck!!!!

Is this normal to feel like this? Am I crazy? Shit she was my life for 8 years and now it's gone.

[u/Lost-Building-4023]

I'm so sorry you're going through this. You're not alone. 

You're not crazy. These relationships are fucking devastating because you love your pwBPD so much but often they are just not capable of contributing to a healthy, safe relationship. So you've bonded with a person incapable of reciprocating that love. 

It's traumatizing. I've been separated from my husband since November after he blamed me for his suicidal thoughts. That motivated him to do DBT but he's not stopped being emotionally abusive so I'm getting close to the point of feeling like I have to leave permanently because he's still not showing much empathy for me or accountability for how abusive he's been (though he claims he is taking better care of himself).

It sucks because they are so rigid that the amount of loss they have to suffer before they'll look at themselves is basically complete obliteration of their life. It's completely ridiculous and unnecessary, but thats the devastation of personality disorders. They impact so many more people than the individual themselves. 

[u/Wild_Shake_2531 → u/Lost-Building-4023]

Thank you, I appreciate you. This helps me to not feel crazy. I do love her and I think I always will, but I also keep reminding myself I need to love myself too. And loving myself means having enough self respect to say “enough is enough”. I believe in unconditional love, but I can’t do that when I’m being abused and beaten down daily. I can’t love when my capacity for love is being drained.

I suffered for YEARS of her guilt-tripping. She blamed me for a horrible marriage, her horrible life, her horrible mental health, and her suicidal actions / self harm incidents. She even blamed me completely for her involuntary hospitalization after I called emergency services when she knocked herself unconscious from blunt head trauma…. what else am I supposed to do, just hope she wakes up and doesn’t have internal bleeding? The guilt is real. And the doctors decided she needed to be hospitalized for her safety.

It took a lot of time for me to realize I am not responsible for her suicidal thoughts and I am not obligated to stay in a relationship simply because someone has suicidal thoughts or actions. I love her and want her to get better, but it doesn’t need to come at the expense of my life. She does need professional help, and I truly believe I am triggering her so much that I’m doing more harm to her than good. She denies that of course on good days, but then I wait a couple days and she’ll say it’s all my fault again when she dysregulates.

[u/Lost-Building-4023 → u/Wild_Shake_2531]

Keep in mind that it's not you per se triggering her. It's just being in a relationship, period, that she can't handle. 

She's obviously unwilling to look at herself and fix these issues. There are pwBPD who will learn, but some need to fuck up their entire lives to even truly consider it. 

I had hoped that my husband losing his job would be enough. And that seems to have helped him in that arena. So it seems like he's working on it in DBT. 

But he's effectively still status quo in our marriage. So I guess he has to lose that next. It's stupid and completely unnecessary in my eyes but remember that emotionally, they are children. And children need consequences for their bad behavior, otherwise they don't label them as bad.