The Psycho Ex Wife

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Folks, this is a really long one.  If you think you’re going to try to do this all in one sitting, better wrap yourself in a Snuggie and have a nice, strong drink at the ready.

Go on, take your time… I’ll wait…

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(This is me, waiting…)

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We often fail to realize “things” when we’re right in the thick of it.  Thus, comes the beauty of hindsight.  You see, PEWs like mine never learn from the past and therefore are always doomed to repeat it.  I annoyingly speak of projection when it comes to PEW, but it simply cannot be helped.  One of the unfortunate by-products of my long layoff in 2007 and my long layoff last year is the dreaded trips to the courthouse for the waste-of-time conferences followed by the inevitable hearings.  Child support has to be adjusted one way or the other (and sometimes not) and this gives PEW the opportunity for PEW to recycle her old tricks, like her magical math that grossly over-inflates child care expenses and health care expenses and whatever else it is she can fabricate in an effort to maximize the child support number.  It’s especially nice for her when her fictional figures get rolled into the equation by the courts, because when she doesn’t actually incur those expenses, that’s cash-money directly into her pocket.

Dateline, early 2006. As discussed in general many times in the past, I had grown tired of being “ripped off” by PEW’s magical math.  I also had grown tired of “taking the (bullshit) high road” and simply sacrificing substantial credits due me when things were to be righted, just to avoid going to court.  While I wasn’t particularly smart and certainly not in low-contact mode, I was definitely trying to rattle the cage by calling her on her fuzzy math, even when it was just blowing smoke to expose her lies.

It was tax time and I was foolishly relying on PEW for some information I needed to do taxes.  I requested the tax ID numbers of the school, the church (for S2’s pre-k), and the babysitter she reportedly was paying $165/week to watch S2 for three half-days per week.  This was not good for either PEW or “Janice” because I was blustering about claiming my percentage of childcare costs that were part of the CS figure.

PEW wasn’t giving it, not only because she flat-out didn’t pay Janice what she had told the court, but Janice would also have to report the amount PEW told the court, every single week, as income… did I mention every single week for the school year?  Looks like this was a serious catch-22.  While ultimately I let it drop, her lies to compound her lies might make for great reading.  At the same time, you can have a chuckle about how ridiculous high-contact continued to make me look.  We’ll pick it up after the initial requests and back-and-forth…  I had called her on the figures she gave to the court and she replied:

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An email like this during the holiday season is about as great a gift to us as one can give.  It’s a gift from the writer to those who live a horrifying life with a personality disordered partner to others who believe there is no hope for themselves.  It’s very serious and illustrates just how far into the depths of despair someone can get when they become a willing captive in a relationship with a person who suffers from borderline personality disorder.  We likely won’t ever get the chance to hear from someone who has gone completely over “that edge.”  Today, we’ll read what it’s like from someone who has gone right to the edge and taken a peek over.  With his permission (edited for various protection purposes)…

Subject: Thank You So Much

Dear LM,

I would personally like to thank you for you have single-handedly saved me from my suicide. It’s been 2 months since I broke up with a girlfriend who suffers from BPD. After the break up I was unaware of how her manipulation had a strong grip on me. Right after the break up, a day after, I felt happy being out the relationship which lasted for 2 years  and 1 month.

I know I wasn’t the perfect boyfriend and I did cheat on her but I can now see why I did it. At  the start of the relationship she rewarded me with sex, items, but never ever true affection. Never having experienced a relationship I thought this was a normal act, but deep down I knew something was wrong with it.

There were times where she would seek to get intoxicated badly, or do some kind of drug so she could “feel normal once more.” I felt an odd vibe but I refused to associate it with any thing bad, even though my brain was screaming “CRAZY GIRL!!!” I was blinded by her reward system. I just ignored the warnings. Another big warning that I pushed aside was how her compliments never held a logical sense, like she was never really there when it was time to compliment and they always were the same thing. “You got a big penis.” “You are the only one that make me feel normal.” “I love.” “You are sexy.” The biggest one I should not have ignored was how she wanted our relationship to move so quickly.  In fact, before she broke up with me, she became upset that I didn’t marry her quicker.  When I told her this pace isn’t a normal pace, she grew even more mad and decided to break up. I was so hurt by her sudden decision that I was thrown in to a deep depression. I think I bombed my school semester. I began to have severe depression and anxiety attacks.  As a matter of fact, I was in such a shock that I started crying in my college math class and the professor excused me because she though I was crying because of the math difficulty.

She went from a woman who showered me with love to a woman who wouldn’t give me closure, would attack my weaknesses, twist my words in to things only she felt, and she took a cruel enjoyment out of hearing me crying and having a break down. I thought I deserved all this because I cheated on her, but little did I know that this wasn’t normal.  The woman I fell in love with was now my tormentor. How did she go from a caring person to a person who didn’t understand how much pain I was in? She heard me pleading with her about how much emotional pain she was putting me through and all I wanted was closure - to say something nice about me before I moved on with my life.  Instead she would tell me how that is not what she wants. I would ask her, “Do you want me to be part of your life?” and she wouldn’t reply any thing that was logical. I was becoming more mentally sick as I struggled with her to the point that I thought I was suffering from borderline personality disorder. Since she also used a lot of projection tactics on me, I was forgetting she was the one diagnosed and took on the role of the abuser.

I was so confused with her attitude that soon after - I became the blamed for not understanding that. “Back off you’re smothering and you don’t care about me.” Isn’t that ironic? Or she’d say, “You only want me for sex and you don’t find me sexy!”  Is that a normal thing to say? I thought I was so insane that I wanted to kill myself.

She lead me to believe I was mentally sick with an illness that lead me to hurt other people for my own pleasure.  This was not true and when I fought back her claims she would grow even more upset. A woman who I loved and care so for so much was tormenting me and I was not able to see through the fog to see her lashing out at me.  If I did, she would justify it by blaming me for cheating. Right when she went back to her home for college break she decided to drop me out of her life like I was not worth it. Blaming me for all her “shitty mood and how she didn’t wanted to deal with it any more.” I didn’t understand how she could throw me away like that after tormenting me. I don’t know why, but at the time my mind just wanted to hold on to her even if she was tormenting me.

I wanted to kill myself and been thinking it for the past week or so in until I found your site. Reading through it and seeing how I can relate to some of the actions you experienced, even though some are not as bad as yours, I was inspired to not end this way - not for a woman who isn’t normal. Never did she appreciated me emotionally.  Instead she appreciated how normal I made her feel/seem because now that I think about it, her biggest fear was that I knew who she really was inside. A sad tormented soul who rarely truly smiles and is slowly losing her grip on reality.  She is slave to her ever changing emotions.

Thank you for granting me a Christian’s gift of inner peace and knowledge and I hope you can inspire more borderline personality victims like myself to not give up.

Happy holidays to you and your family.
From your fan - Another Non-BPD

This was quite a bit to digest. I am grateful to all of those who have seen fit to share their stories with us. If we are able to help people, in some small way, wade through such messes, I give you my word that it’s a priceless gift to us. If we are able to help in bigger ways like this, all the better.

We certainly can give “ANB” our promise that there is a lot of life left to live and a lot of people worthy to share in his life, including family, friends, and other loved-ones. Obviously, it will take considerable time and a lot of work to get life completely turned around, but I give ANB our assurance that it’s the best thing to do. I replied…

Dear ANB,

Please try to take comfort in the reality that you are the furthest thing from the only one going through such turbulent relationships with a disordered significant other.

The most important thing for you to do right now is to get yourself into therapy in an effort to repair the damage done to you and your personality. Get back to the person you once were, get yourself healthy, and put your well-being at the top of your priority list. Getting better after such an unhealthy experience isn’t easy, but people do it every single day with the right guidance and the ability to be completely honest with your therapist in figuring out how things progressed to the point they did before it ended.

Be aware that the split from your ex is just the beginning of turning your life around. More important - is getting to the root of your own issues that allowed you to walk so far down this path and learning to avoid these mistakes in the future.

We’re grateful to have had a part in helping you get started. Now, it’s up to you to get the help you need to climb your way out of that hole and live the rest of your life to the fullest! Surround yourself with great friends, family, and love this holiday season and recognize that there is so much and so many to live for.

Merry Christmas to you and yours. We sincerely hope the New Year for you and everyone is better than all those that passed before it!

Sincerely,
Mister-M

We’ve exchanged some other pleasantries and I hope ANB stays in touch and gets back on track.  This is the foundation for a success story and we pray for ANB - that he continues to climb that mountain back to good health and lives a fulfilling life.

This is what the effort is all about.  And ANB - your story and willingness to share it will help others, too.  Thank you for a wonderful Christmas gift.

It’s the annual rite of passage for most of us dealing with the high-conflict ex-spouse.  It’s exacerbated if you’re dealing with a borderline or other personality disorder.  This holiday season is shaping up to be no different than those past.  They were predominantly chaotic and terror-filled when married to PEW.  It’s simply been status-quo since the split if you’ve followed this blog regularly.

Like clockwork came the pre-Thanksgiving email from PEW which indicated confusion over the holiday schedule.  We have Thanksgiving in odd years, PEW in even years.  If I had to pick one thing that has been clear and consistent since our split - it’s been Thanksgiving.  Her repeated emails this year were met without reply for as long as I could make it happen in keeping with low-contact principles.  I’ve actually gone back several years and reviewed emails in advance of Thanksgiving.  Unsurprisingly, they stop just short of being copied & pasted from one year to the next, this, despite clear language in the court order which details the custodial arrangement during Thanksgiving that has been the one true constant during this entire mess.   The court order reads:

Thanksgiving to include the entire weekend of Thanksgiving. Father shall have custody in odd years and Mother shall have custody in even years.

It doesn’t get much clearer than that.  It’s what we’ve practiced since 2004, though there have been disruptions along the way.  These are the disruptions we can count on every single year around holiday time.  This year would be no exception (11/10/2009):

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After Part 7 of the custodial interference via phone calls series, we begin winding things down and we’ll make this the conclusion of the series.

For one thing - I’ve beaten this topic to death, but felt it was important to see how a child’s mind can be influenced by a disordered parent.  Parental alienation exists and it’s an effective tool of the malicious ex-partner when left unaddressed.  When it’s done on the phone, you’re not very likely to figure out what the hell is going on and why.  I know I didn’t.  I had my suspicions, but could never prove anything.  The recordings simply confirmed those suspicions.  The other reason this is the conclusion is that after this phone call, she would refuse to allow the recording of phone calls.

The was one phone call between the one I document today and the one detailed in Part 7.  It was more of the same where she initiated discussions about the things she had bought them and that was the bulk of their discussion.  Again - it contained nothing about what they were doing or did or anything about the kids.  It was all about the gifts, all about PEW, and all about practically counting the minutes until they would be reunited again.

In this phone call, which took place after our August 2005 court hearing and during my next custodial time, we discuss a disciplinary action I took because S1 refused to eat his dinner.  We were supposed to go fishing at the lake.  His refusal to participate in dinner cost him that excursion.  If you’ve read any of the stories in the discipline category - you’ll realize that the approaches to discipline between PEW and I are quite different.  She has none.  I do.  There is no means of discipline I could impose that PEW will ever think is appropriate.  This makes sense because she simply has no concept of boundaries, expectations, or managing the children’s behavior (in positive ways or through appropriate disciplinary action).  Aside from her outbursts, smacking them in the mouth or head, or bull-rushing them into fearful situations, she just couldn’t bring herself to depart from the buddy-buddy Disneyland Mom gift-giving role, probably because she viewed the children’s disappointment at having to be punished as them not loving her.  See: Abandonment Issues.

As a result - she informs the children that they don’t have to follow the rules at our home.  Further, she undermines my punishment by promising them a fishing trip when they got home.  (Of course, in keeping with the theme that she doesn’t do much with the kids directly, someone else - her brother - would be responsible for providing that.)  After opening with our mutual recording exchanges, she starts her conversations with S2.  In his usual fashion, he was short and got off the phone quickly.  Nothing too unusual about the discussion.  Then, “the target” we know and love as S1 got on the phone…

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Being the glutton for punishment that I obviously was in the summer of 2005, part 6 was a morning phone call.  I actually took an evening phone call from her the same day.

PEW: Hello? You recording?
LM Hey. Yes, I sure am.
PEW: Okay, good.
LM (inaudible)
PEW: Yeah, you change your mind?
LM No, I didn’t change my mind, did you change yours?
PEW: No.
LM I did speak with my father, though.
PEW: Mmmhmm.
LM He asked me to ask you what he told you.
PEW: Hmm?
LM To ask you what he told you.
PEW: Well, I didn’t really talk to him.

I knew this.  She often lied about such things.  I’m not sure I even talked with my father at that point, but I did confront her with the above - mostly because that’s what my father probably would have said to me, had I talked to him or not.

LM Why would you suggest then that my father would be calling me?
PEW: I don’t know. I can’t believe that you did this to the kids.

QUICK!  MUST CREATE DIVERSION!  MUST CREATE DIVERSION!!!

LM I really wish you would stop saying that I did anything to the kids. The kids are, again, downstairs having a grand old time. Disappointed that you’re not coming down here to get them.
PEW: That was never… that was never supposed to happen.
LM Well, I guess you didn’t communicate very well, then. But all I told them is that we forgot to work on the specifics and that uh, if things didn’t work out for today that I would take them back on Tuesday night because I had to go back up there anyway.
PEW: Well the, I want to call them back at bedtime.
LM You can talk to them now if you want.
PEW: No, I don’t want them getting all upset and then (long pause) (inaudible) This definitely has to be the most vindictive thing you ever did.
LM I’m not doing anything to you and I’m not doing anything to the kids. I, I don’t know where you conjure up these things. You know, I’m sorry that our signals got crossed…
PEW: No signals got crossed…
LM …stop acting like I promised you any such thing, cause I didn’t.
PEW: No signals got crossed.
LM Please don’t act like I promised you any such thing, cause I didn’t. Number one. And number two, please don’t intimate that I’m doing anything to the kids. I said it before and I’ll say it again, just like two weeks ago. Your coming down here is… is of your own free will.
PEW: No.
LM If you want to come down here, I’m not keeping the kids from you, I’m not telling you you can’t see the kids, I’m just telling you that circumstances are not gonna permit me to bring them all the way back today, so…
PEW: Well, you wouldn’t even meet me in [halfway point]. That’s wrong. It’s wrong.
LM Why is that wrong?
PEW: And you know what? Tomorrow, I am having the contempt thing trialed. I’m not, not going to spend 14 years like this, no.
LM I don’t intend to spend 14 years like this either, I just don’t know what “like this” means.
PEW: Mmmhmm. Well, what would make you think after all, I’ve never driven down there except for the one time that you refused to meet me…

PEW logic:  Since she has never driven down “there” before, she should never have to drive down “there.”  I wonder how she would react if I were to use such a childish approach?

LM You mean, the one time that I made you stand by your commitment to come down like you had promised all week.
PEW: Right. Then why would I… why would I come down there?
LM You’re the one saying that you really miss the kids.
PEW: Hmm?
LM You’re the one saying that you really miss the kids.
PEW: I do really miss them, LM, but…
LM Stop making it out like I’m keeping them from you, because I’m not.
PEW: You are.
LM No, I’m not.
PEW: You are. I can’t drive my car down there. First of all, my lawyer said I can’t. I shouldn’t.

Which is it?  Can’t?  or Shouldn’t?  Let this be lesson 1,478,522 of how lawyers can be such scumbags… that is, assuming her lawyer actually told her that.  Her last one told her to move back into the marital home and so she broke in, so it’s entirely believable.  Maybe this new attorney was the same as the old.

LM Shouldn’t and can’t are two different things.
PEW: Yeah, I shouldn’t. And, advised strongly against it, so. (Long pause) (Inaudible) I mean, I can’t, I’m not gonna feel bad about what… whatever consequences you have tomorrow.
LM You don’t feel bad about anything.
PEW: Yeah, I do.
LM No, you don’t.
PEW: I felt more bad, obviously I feel the worst about the kids, but whatever you’ll sustain as a result of what you did today, I can’t feel sorry for you.
LM What exactly did I do today?
PEW: LM, you and I both know what you did today.
LM What did I do today? I’ve asked you repeatedly to send me the evidence that you have that I told you…
PEW: I did. Did you see the email I sent you?
LM No.
PEW: Oh, it says in there three separate times that your vacation was over.
LM Right.
PEW: Right. And you’ve returned them. Since you moved in March, you have done all the returning. So how all of a sudden…

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