Dealing with the GUILT

[FreeSophia]

I have been separated for just over two weeks now. I initiated it. I have been with my pdH for almost 21 years. Ever since we were teenagers. He has severe anxiety disorder and PTSD and elements of borderline personality disorder. Our lives have been filled with a roller coaster of good times, yes, but also many paranoid accusations, rage, and destruction in the home. I left after two severe incidents occurred that made me so scared that I just couldn't physically handle any more. I spent the first week so riddled with anxiety myself that I was jumping at every sound, I lost 7 lbs because I just can't eat, and crying multiple times a day. now as I am entering week 3 I am no longer so jumpy unless its a really loud, unexpected noise, and I am starting to eat again. I feel like I am recovering. My pdH just called me today, sobbing and accusing me of turning his sister (who he is staying with) against him. He says he can never go there again because I told her "my side" of the story of what happened. I was shocked because yes, I had talked to his sister, but he had told his sister everything that happened when he destroyed the house, and showed her pictures of what he had done. The only part I filled in was what he did when we were camping because he couldn't remember everything due to being blackout drunk and she had called to ask me what happened that he didn't remember. I was in no way trying to turn her against him. I am beyond grateful that she was letting him stay while he looked for a place. the problem is that she is very particular about her house and very, very explosive herself. She had called me to complain to me about a list of things that he had done so far while staying with her. I thought she was being ridiculous. Her complaints were that he put the mixing bowls in the wrong cupboard, he accidentally sprayed her pant leg with water when mowing and fertilizing and watering her yard, and he left a bit of ice cream out. she was telling me she just couldn't handle him any more. I felt so bad for him- all he was trying to do was show that he was grateful for a place to stay by doing her dishes and taking care of her yard. But then apparently she talked to him on the phone while he was away at work to tell him that after talking to me she is "no longer comfortable with what's going on." so now he says he can never go back there ever again and it's my fault because I told her bad things about him. It was never my intention to turn her against him! and it is beyond frustrating that she led him to believe that it was what I said that made her not want him to stay when I KNOW it had nothing to do with me filling in some details and everything to do with how fussy she is about her house. I didnt want to hurt his feelings so I did not tell him that she was really calling me to complain about him. I guess he can just believe that I am the reason she doesn't want him to stay there. but it sucks because I would never ever try to turn her against him. And it sucks that she wasn't truthful with him and that she didn't just say "Hey, it's really hard for me to have someone else living here. I love you and appreciate everything you are doing around the house, but I do need you to keep looking for a place. You can stay a couple more weeks, but you gotta be looking for your own place." Instead I look like the jerk, and I dont want to hurt him farther by telling him that it's her fussiness about him putting the dishes away wrong and accidentally spraying her pant leg with water that is making her want him to leave.
I'm also riddled with guilt about "abandoning" him. it goes against my very core. You don't turn your back on family. You don't give up on someone you love. But now I feel like I'm just throwing him away and I know that he is a really good person but I also know that he is not doing what he needs to do to take care of his mental issues. Instead he essentially blames me by consistently accusing me of cheating when he feels paranoid, telling me I don't love him enough and that's why he's depressed, getting black out drunk and destroying our home and raging at me for hours, calling me a b*tch and a c*nt while I'm trying to sleep at night. I just can't handle it any more. I'm a nervous wreck. But I still feel like I am a terrible person for turning my back on someone who is a good person but who struggles with so many problems. Can anyone relate? How do you get rid of the guilt???

[blunk]

I left after two severe incidents occurred that made me so scared that I just couldn't physically handle any more.

This is more than enough reason to leave. You should not have to live in fear.

You don't turn your back on family. You don't give up on someone you love.

You also don't abuse them and make them afraid in their own home.

Instead he essentially blames me by consistently accusing me of cheating when he feels paranoid, telling me I don't love him enough and that's why he's depressed, getting black out drunk and destroying our home and raging at me for hours, calling me a b*tch and a c*nt while I'm trying to sleep at night. I just can't handle it any more. I'm a nervous wreck.

You cannot take responsibility for his paranoid thoughts, his depression, his drinking, his raging, his name calling, or his choice to interrupt your sleep with that kind of nastiness. I remember having an honest conversation with my bpdxh in which I said, if anyone else in my life treated me this way they wouldn't be a part of my life anymore. He asked in return, then why am I? After thinking about it for a few minutes, my honest answer was, I don't know. You don't deserve to be treated like this by anyone, least of all someone who you say is a good person, and who claims to love you.

But I still feel like I am a terrible person for turning my back on someone who is a good person but who struggles with so many problems. Can anyone relate? How do you get rid of the guilt???

I had a lot of guilt when leaving my x, I suspect for many of the same reasons that you do. How can I be mad at him for something that is an illness?...I should want to stay and help him...In good times and bad...for better or worse. And those were just the words I put in my own head. Then there were his...you're abandoning me...I can change...you're throwing away 20 years...I don't know what I'll do without you...you can't make it without me...nobody else will ever love you. Have you read, Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft? It made me realize that despite his illness, it was still his choice to treat me as he did, that realization definitely helped to ease my guilt in divorcing him. As did his alternating between hoovering and hatred during the divorce process. I wish you peace and strength as you find your way through this.

[Outofhere]

It's scary how much your husband sounds like mine, the drinking, the blackouts, rages, and destroying the house. When I left, I was jumpy and had nightmares for the first two months, but then my brain began to reset to 'calm'. My husband had already burned all his bridges with his equally dysfunctional family years earlier; it's just me and our daughter, who like his sister at first tried to help him despite an already strained relationship. He's currently burning that bridge, though she's making that choice based on his behavior.

Regarding guilt, I know I did all I could to keep the marriage going. But in 33 years, things only got worse, never better, at least never for long. My husband had become someone I didn't recognize. This was a stranger, unpredictable, volatile and dangerous. Not someone who I could speak to, he controlled all conversations and had no tolerance for "anything negative" and if I didn't like it, "you can leave, c*nt."

He got what he wanted. But as usual, that didn't make him happy. Now he wants us to "work it out."

But there's nothing to work out. Alone, the nightmares passed, and I don't wake to fresh ones each morning. I live with no one screaming, raging, smashing and breaking to prove their point (?)  None of that anymore. In the beginning, I'd start to wonder if I should feel bad that I actually felt good while he was now so miserable. But then I'd remind myself he was always miserable and how bad things were, and that I left for my safety, and I felt better. Each time I felt any guilt, I'd go through that whole loop, each time reaching the same conclusion. I decided if the conclusion was always the same, there was no point putting myself through that. And if I seem un-empathetic, it's simply that I'm returning all the empathy I ever got from him when he was terrorizing me.

I know, it's not easy. For years my husband used my own empathy against me and kept me trapped in that nightmare through guilt. That guilt did me no favors, so I'm working on developing new boundaries. It's not something we're allowed with people like them, and one more reason I'm embracing my independence. If that makes me a terrible person, so be it. I lived with a terrible person for years, now I'm supposed to feel bad because he's unable to function without me? I can't fix other people, only myself. I'm done taking care of him, he's a grown man, and he can start acting like one. 

So yeah, I can relate only too well.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

I can relate to feeling "How can I abandon this person I love who is in so much pain due to his very traumatic past, which was no fault of his own."  Sometimes I would feel almost like a mother throwing away her child. 

What finally became clear is that my "help and support" was really enabling him to keep up the destructive dynamics of his PD, which would have him avoid facing the truth about himself at all costs.  Seeing and getting help for that painful truth is the only real help there is, I'm convinced.  So I no longer want to "help" him soothe his ego & neediness by acting out sick PD patterns, or stand in the way of the pain that might possibly motivate him to seek professional or 12 Step help.  Anymore, I feel sadness, definitely.  Guilt, no.

[Poison Ivy]

 

[SeaGlass]