Married to a Boarderline Personality

Let me begin by saying I am no longer married. I was for twelve years and have two daughters from that marriage. My ex-wife was previously married and had a daughter from that marriage.

Shortly after meeting my ex-wife and we began dating, the behavior “anomalies” began to present themselves. In the beginning it started with random comments with no apparent provocation. We would be driving some place or hanging out at home or whatever, and suddenly out of the blue she would say, “You’re going to leave me one day, I know it.” I would be completely puzzled by her comment because I thought things were going well and we were having a nice time together. I would ask what caused her to say that and she would reply, “You just don’t seem to be interested in me.” Still puzzled, I would tell her I didn’t understand why she was saying that because I enjoyed spending time with her and doing things together. I was surprised when she told me that her previous husband was abusive and that was why she left him. I later discovered that was not true at all, but at the time I didn’t know any differently and had no reason to question otherwise so I accepted that as to why she was making those kinds of comments.

One thing about the relationship and marriage, there were radical peaks and valleys with respect to her changes in behavior and sudden outbursts. In the beginning everything seemed fine and it would be several months between episodes however, as time passed and we had our daughters, the frequency and intensity of her episodes increased.

The first couple of years of our marriage were mostly enjoyable; we went on trips, out to dinner, went to movies, and basically enjoyed our time together. When she would have an episode I attributed it to her telling me how her ex-husband had been abusive towards her. As time passed I began to question that claim and started to notice patterns in her personality and behavior. Almost daily after I would leave in the morning for work she would call me, sometimes not even ten minutes after I had left the house. Usually the first thing she would say was, “What are you doing?” I would tell her I was driving to work and then there would be a long pause of silence. This was often followed up with, “What else are you doing?” I really couldn’t respond with anything because I was driving to work and there wasn’t much else I could be doing so my response would basically be the same as before. This would usually result in another long pause of silence followed up with her either starting to talk about something completely random or she would get upset and make a comment about how I don’t seem interested in talking to her or very interested in her, and then should would hang up. In the early years of our marriage I would immediately call her back thinking I had done something wrong.

She would also do the same thing when she would leave work to come home. I typically got home before she would and as soon as she would leave work she would call me and tell me about every aspect of her day. Down to a word-by-word detail of the conversations she had during the day… “So I was talking with X in the elevator today. I asked him about xxxx and he said xxxx. I then said xxxx and he said xxxx.” That would usually continue until she said she was pulling into the driveway. When she would come in the house I couldn’t ask how her day was because she had already told about every aspect of it. This daily routine would eventually cause her to become upset and say I don’t care about her because I never ask about her day. I would try to explain that she calls every day on her way home and tells me all about her day before ever getting home. Realizing that it was true, she would change the focus and say we never talk about other stuff. I would ask, “Like what kind of stuff?” That only seemed to make her more angry as she would reply, “Stop making me explain myself!” Whenever she would respond with a comment like that I figured the best thing to do would be to stop talking. I began to realize that no matter what I would do or say, she would find a reason to be unhappy about it.

Occasionally I would send her flowers with a note, letting her know I was thinking about her… only to have her comment during one of her outbursts that she doesn’t know why I send her flowers because it was a waste of money because they die. So I stopped sending her flowers… yep, you already know where this is going. The next time she had an episode she would say that she wasn’t important to me and that I didn’t care about her. I would try to tell her that wasn’t true but she would say that I use to send her flowers but don’t do that any more so I mu-sent care about her. I later discovered these kinds of situations are not uncommon with Borderline people; it’s the classic ‘No Win’ situation and part of their self-fulfilling prophecy behavior. The Borderline accuses you of something or makes a claim in such a way that causes you to change what you do, only later to use the change you made as a justification to a different accusation or claim against you. It becomes a never ending cycle about something they aren’t happy with.

A lack of boundaries was another area that periodically would trigger an outburst from her. I have always respected other people’s privacy and would never pry if I ever asked about something they didn’t want to talk about. My ex-wife on the other hand had a completely different opinion. Whenever I was on my laptop she would ask me who I was emailing and if I was on my cell phone she would ask who I was texting. If we were sitting on the couch by each other she would lean over and point at either my cell phone or laptop screen and ask, “Who’s that? Who are you messaging?” If I ever sat in such a way that she couldn’t see my cell phone or laptop screen she would accuse me of trying to hid things. On one occasion as she was walking behind me as I was sitting on the couch going through email she asked, “Who’s Ally?!” I asked her what she meant and she pointed to my laptop screen to one of the email folders I had labeled ‘Ally’…. for Ally Bank. I told her that was the mail folder for the statements from Ally Bank. She refused to believe me and was accusing me of seeing other women until I opened the folder and showed her the emails from the bank.

Fast forward to after our first daughter was born. I loved every aspect of being a new father. My ex-wife on the other hand didn’t seem to want to be bothered. If our daughter cried at night she wouldn’t get up to check on her. We did discover that our daughter would sleep for several hours after feeding her so we took advantage of that. For several months we were able to go to movies and out to dinner without worrying about our daughter crying or fussing…. provided we fed her before going. We did this for several months without any incidents but unfortunately that wouldn’t last for long. One afternoon my ex-wife began commenting about how we never go anywhere or do anything. I tried to explain that for the past few months we had been going to movies and out to dinner almost on a weekly basis. Her response was that it didn’t count because our daughter had been with us. I was shocked and beyond words because it was our daughter she was talking about. When she was born she was just over 3.5 pounds and on a heart monitor we had to carry in a backpack for four months. I felt fortunate that we had her and that she was doing well… I wanted to be around her as often as I could.

Things between my ex-wife and I continued on the up and down cycle but the frequency seemed to be more frequent. The environment became so mentally exhausting, I wasn’t eating right or sleeping very well and began to lose weight. I reached a point where I finally told her we couldn’t keep going on the way we were. She asked me what I wanted to do and I told her I felt we should go to marriage counseling. Boy was that a mistake… she immediately became irate and began cussing and saying she knew all along that I wanted to leave her. I tried to explain that going to a marriage counselor might make things better. Her only response was, “Why do you want to go to a marriage counselor, so you can use it against me in court?” I didn’t try to continue the conversation any further at that point… and the following week I had divorce papers prepared. When I gave her the divorce papers she had an immediate change in attitude and repeatedly asked me what needed to be done to keep me from filing for divorce. I told her I felt marriage counseling would help but she adamantly refused to go to counseling. I told her the accusations needed to stop, telling me to leave whenever we had a disagreement needed to stop, telling me that I don’t care about her or that she isn’t important needed to stop. She said she would try but that I needed to be patient.

The next two years were a huge improvement; the episodes were not as frequent and her outbursts didn’t seem to be as hostile and aggressive… and our second daughter was born. Unfortunately this improvement would not be long lived and things would spiral down worse than before. Due to renewed litigation between her and her ex-husband we had to move to Texas where she was originally from. After getting settled in Texas things seemed to deteriorate as my ex-wife seemed to insist on arguing and fighting with her ex-husband and this naturally carried over into our family environment.

Over the next few years I felt as though my only purpose was to be a buffer for our daughters and to insulate them from their mother’s yelling, cussing, and hostility. During one of her outbursts she repeatedly told me to leave because I didn’t care about her and that I would be happier with someone else. I told her those comments needed to stop and if she told me to leave again… I would… and she did. A week later I moved out.

Over the next several weeks she was calling me several times a day, every day, saying she wanted me to move back in. I told her we needed to go a month without her accusing me of something before I would. She kept insisting that I was making her say and do the things she said and did. No matter what I said it somehow got turned around as being my fault. Then one day she surprised me and asked if I would move back in if we started going to a marriage counselor. This was a complete surprise and I agreed, hoping it would help us to address whatever was causing the random and sudden accusations and outbursts of rage and anger. We began seeing a marriage counselor every week. The first couple of sessions focused on what my ex-wife’s concerns were and the counselor suggested things I could do to help improve things. When we went for our third session it began as the first two had, with my ex-wife commenting about me being the cause of our difficulties. I expressed my concern to the counselor that the sessions seemed to be one sided and that all of our difficulties were solely my fault. The counselor recognized my concern and the focus of the third session transitioned to concerns from my perspective. At our fourth session we continued where we left off from the previous and at the end of the session the counselor suggested several things my ex-wife could do to help improve things. When we go home from the fourth session she told me she wasn’t planning to go to the counselor any more and that it wasn’t her focus. At that point I felt everything was just a big game to her, but I continued to go to the counselor in an effort to try and get advise as to how to interact with her when she would have a sudden outburst or accuse me of things. The counselor suggested I keep a journal of every time she had and outburst, what happened right before, during, and after. We would then review it during each session. After seeing the counselor for four months and reviewing the journal he said her behavior and actions align with a Borderline Personality profile. He suggested I read the book ‘I hate you, don’t leave me’. As I read that book I was shocked at how many of the situations presented in the book were almost identical to what I had been experiencing for years. The counselor had been giving me suggestions on how to communicate with her but also warned things might get a little worse because I won’t be reacting the way she expects. He wasn’t wrong.

As for things between me and my ex-wife, her outbursts had become a weekly occurrence, sometimes lasting several days. The intensity of her outbursts got to the point that it was causing our daughters to cry. During one of her outbursts her yelling and cussing became so intense our youngest daughter began to cry and crawled onto my lap. I asked my ex-wife to stop and to look at what it was doing to our daughter. She yelled, “I don’t f@cking care, you need to listen to what I’m saying!” At that point I got our daughters and we left the house for a few hours. During my next session with the marriage counselor we discussed that event and he asked me why I was staying married to her. He explained that his job it to help couples stay together but it was obvious she wasn’t interested in working on the marriage. I told him I felt I needed to be a buffer for the girls. He asked me if I wanted our daughters to grow up thinking that is how marriages are and said I didn’t need to become a victim and needed to file for divorce. He said by having my own place, regardless of how often I had visitation, our daughters would be able to see the difference in environments and recognize which provided stability and consistency and which did not.

Deciding to file for divorce was the most difficult decision I have made so far. The divorce process and family law in Texas is not father friendly and the uncertainty of how much time I would have with my daughters was my greatest fear. But I decided that it would be the best thing long term for our daughters so I moved forward with it.

The week leading up to my ex-wife getting the divorce papers consisted of daily verbal attacks. On a daily basis she would tell me we needed to end the marriage and that she was going to contact an attorney. She would wake me up in the middle of the night just to continue commenting about how our marriage was a waste of time. The day she got the divorce papers I made sure to not be at the house. As soon as she got them she repeatedly messaged me asking why I was divorcing her. When I returned to the house that evening she was very calm and looked worried. She asked why I was divorcing her and I explained for the past week she had continually told me the marriage was over and that she was going to contact an attorney. She tried to tell me I had misunderstood her but when she realized I wasn’t going to change my mind her entire attitude changed. She became extremely angry and began yelling, “See, you never loved me! NEVER!” I didn’t say a word.

What I have presented here only scratches the surface of what occurred over the twelve years of marriage. My hope is that if there is anyone who reads this and finds they are in a similar situation, you need to take care of yourself because if you don’t you won’t be able to take care of others. A Borderline creates an environment of manipulation and isolation for those they are involved with.

It has been several years since the divorce was finalized and my daughters and I are together 50% of the time, every other week. We are 100% happier and have comfort in knowing there is no yelling, cussing, or outbursts of rage and anger when we are together. I can’t say the same for their mother; she had a guy move in the month I moved out when I filed for divorce. They ended up getting married the same month the divorce became final only for him leave her three months later. She is now working on marriage number four… once she convinces him to marry her.

Stay strong and push on.