Breaking point - Part 2

Started by escapingman, July 07, 2021, 03:55:37 AM

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escapingman

hhaw, wow! What an incredible insightful and helpful post! I am living in the UK and I am from another European country, I don't think cases go to court as often here but I am not really that aware of the entire process which makes it a bit tricky to know the steps.

Today has been an interesting day, exhausting day, enlightening day. UNPDw and GC went out for the morning, came back and it all kicks off. After saying hello them both when they came back, I asked GC if she was OK - clearly been fed all morning by her mum so shouts at me straight away "what about mum". I try to calmly say I asked you, you are my child and it's normal to ask your child when coming back home.... but, no she has been brain washed that it's more important how her mum is than herself, I just want to cry. Everything is on edge for lunch, and for some longer until it all kicks off. UNPDstbxW confronts me and start probing me why I am so mean to her, whatever I say she keeps pushing and shouting and in the end I cvan hear the front door slam and I see SG walking off with her bag.... I immediately goes for my shoes to go after her, but oh no stbx stands in my way refusing to let me get out the door so have to push past, hearing her screaming and shouting behind. Me and SG then drove round went to a couple of shops for a couple of hours to calm both her and me down. Back home and the other 2 has left going shopping so got some peace and quiet.

So when we are all back home and I sit down she comes into the room, closing the door behind and starts all over again. Accusing me of being cold and that she want the marriage to continue and question me why I want to flush it down the toilet. I tell her I am not accepting her abuse and she denies it all, I keep telling her she overstepped the mark last time and I had enough. She then admits to wanting to hurt me when we have an argument  :aaauuugh: Yes, she admits to really wanting to hurt me.... She has said it before but if I wasn't aware before I am now.  But she still thinks it is OK to hurt me and still asks me why I don't want to go out for a meal with her etc. She kept going on and on and on about why I want to give up the marriage when she is trying to be nice. Told her itäs not about being nice, it's about not being nasty and if she can stop being nasty time will tell, told her I can say whatever but she wont last one week without loosing it. So the end of the conversation as I left it was that next time she is nasty to me we are done, if she wants to get back together it will take whatever time it takes for her to prove she has changed and not lost her temper. Pretty safe bet as she cannot go a week without loosing it all..... So 5 minutes later when I am in the kitchen she comes and gives me a hug pretending we are now back on being a loving couple again  :doh:

At least my body, brain and emotional thinking has started to be on my side. I just want out, for me it's all about getting it right. I will try to get in touch with this other lawyers I found on Monday, my head is getting Out of the FOG for real.

square

One time when H was contrite after a meltdown I quoted an eviscerating thing he had said earlier. He winced and said "I didn't mean it, I just wanted to hurt you."

Oh, is that all? Well, no problem then. I guess.

escapingman

Managed to get away for a couple of days on a trip I had planned for some time, completely disconnected from everything about her and just enjoyed myself and the activities. Funny bit was she was trying to force me to accept her giving me a lift to the airport despite its so easy and cheap to get a taxi there. Normally when I have agreed to her giving me a ride she ends up loosing her temper and use the 20 minutes to shout and scream to make me in as bad mood as possible when leaving. Not this time, quite proud I managed to stick to my guns.

Whilst being away she has decided we are going to try to be nice to each other and keep the family together. Interesting this as that is what I have tried for almost 20 years, so now when I have told her I had enough and we are done she think she can just turn a switch and then be nice. Why has she not tried before? Anyway, I am laying low as I know her cycles and there is no way she will manage 2 weeks, never mind 1 week without loosing her temper and start another row. Kids are starting a new school in a few weeks, ideally I would like to keep it together until then as they are naturally nervous about the move from primary to secondary school. I suppose now is the time for her to show me it was only flies (severe) and not some kind of PD, however I am pretty sure it isn't.

MIL was here a couple of weeks ago (this is what triggered the last fallout) and the kids didn't behave in a way MIL and uNPDw expected (they were a bit mischievous) and uNPDw ended up hitting one of them in from of MIL. I stepped in and said it is under no circumstance OK to hit the kids whatever they have done. It ended up with both of them storming off and since then MIL has given the kids the silent treatment, who in the right mind gives a kid the silent treatment? One of them even texted her a sorry but she didn't even respond to that. I had another fight over this with my wife and told her that this is not acceptable and that MIL is no longer welcome in our house. Not that she will listen to that as MIL can do whatever she wants and uNPDw has dedicated her entire life to please her mum. I suspect MIL has severe NPD treats, FIL had too, and this is obviously the main reason for my uNPDws behaviour. I spend the first 15 years trying to save her from her parents, but I have given up now, despite her being beaten black and blue in her childhood they were the best parents ever.

Anyway, I have my plan and I am ready for when I need to execute it. It could be next week, it could be in a month, all I know is it will have to be done at some point. 

escapingman

I just don't feel I am living anymore, just existing. After her last outburst I don't care anymore, I have no feelings towards her other than apathy. Sitting in my office working and pretending to work whilst she is running round the house inventing jobs so she looks busy and has the right to complain. Until she eventually gets her food ready and moves into the living room watching her TV and her programs I can't rest. Then I can get my own food ready and go back and eat in my office often joined by SG. She has now as I wrote before decided that we are going to try to save the marriage, I just can't believe that she really thinks that it is up to her and only her to make that decision and I should just try as well. No apology, no remorse, and guess who has to change to save the marriage?

Yesterday I picked up the kids from football camp, they had been set a task to clean their boots and to participate in a competition for who has the cleanest boots the next day. Both kids came home excited about this and started cleaning the boots straight away, all in calmness as uNPDw was at MILs house. But the same second she came home all hell brake loose, she started screaming and swearing at SG for the mess and for cleaning the boots in the wrong room and then for being dirty and for not having showered and so on and on. During all this shouting she kept coming to me and asked me to back her up. Back her up? I didn't agree with a single thing, they are kids, kids are supposed to me kids and sometimes they are mucky and they also need to be let go sometimes. Anyway during all this chaos SG took her bag, put her shoes on and just left the house, second time this week she has done it. So I obviously get my shoes on to follow her and calm her down and to get her home, but uNPDw just kept screaming and swearing and not caring one jot that one of our kids left the house.

But, she is still thinking she is trying to save the marriage and keep the family together.....

hhaw

What do you say to SG.... to get her back into th house? Does she know you're planning to leave the marriage and perhaps take her out of the abuse?

And....what was gc doing while sg child was getting screamed at for the shoe mucking mess?

I will say this.....
during my time in therapy /marriage counseling with the ASPD..... and while I was attemtping to negotiate LEAVING him...... our therapist suggested we divide the assets and get that out of the way of reconciling....bc.... it was a power imbalance in the relationship. Really, the T was trying to help me position myself better in order to divorce, but you might think about things you can negotiate under the guise of working on the marriage.  Not saying you should.  Not saying there's anything at all to be gained, just suggesting you look at what's in front of you from many different perspectives, bc it's hard when you're in it and your children are suffering, IME.

Have you made appointments with other attorneys yet?

What do you feel would be a good plan for leaving, when you go?

Do you have strong supporters who can facilitate staying safe and documenting for and with you as things go?  Can you, would you, stay with any of those strong supporters when you leave?



hhaw



What you are speaks so loudly in my ears.... I can't hear a word you're saying.

When someone tells you who they are... believe them.

"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."
Nietchzsche

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
Eleanor Roosevelt

escapingman

SG knows, we have come very close as the abuse escalated. She is only a child but way to clued up with what her mum is doing and she is playing the game as well, I think she is actually getting Out of the FOG and only at an age of 11. I have actually booked 3 days away just me and SG, uNPDw not happy one bit but as she is currently trying to save the marriage  :aaauuugh: she is not getting to vocal other than moaning about how jealous she is. I am trying to teach SG about MC, no JADE,GR and the rest of the tool box as much as it is possible with an 11 year old, she takes out a lot of frustration on me - it's hard for me but at least she has someone to vent on.

GC is going through struggles at the moment, but she thinks that going to her mum will solve everything. I am trying to work on her as well but that is currently very tricky as she sees her mum as the best thing in the world. I think she is in more danger for long term damage by the abuse from uNPDw but it is so much more difficult to get close to her.

I need to prioritise those 2 little girls before anything else, I want us all to be free but right now I just need to protect them as good as I can.

square


escapingman

She upped her nastiness, as I wrote in another post she is now hundred percent committed to turn the kids against me. She can sit and back chat me and tell them all sorts of stories, I catch her red handed and she completely denies it and makes it out it's all in my head (I have it all recorded). Then she starts shouting at me and whatever my response is (MC, calmly answering or shouting back) the kids takes her side. I am really crumbling here, it is impossible to live with someone that is doing all they can to ruin your life and then blame it on you. She makes fun of everything I do, and the kids believe her. She makes fun of daily tasks as if I am not allowed to do them, me going to the supermarket to buy food has now become a joke and they laugh at me for it. She makes fun of me taking the kids to training as she states it, I am only doing it to meet the other parents. Sure as hell she hates that, I am not allowed friends or family. I feel so discussed looking at her, hearing her voice as it all is so false and its all a game to her. What the kids doesn't understand, is that, if I back down and "join team" with her again one of them or both will be the new Scapegoat and get all the abuse. It is NOT possible to all of us get along being happy, she can't handle it. Now I am getting called immature and a 2 year old for doing MC and letting her do the things I was supposed to do with the kids but she "took over" to play me.

I hate her.

square

That sounds completely, completely intolerable :(

escapingman

What makes this extra hard is that suddenly, again, she want everything to be good and complete forgetting how she behaved. So told her I am really upset for how she behaved yesterday and she replies she is upset with how I behaved  :stars: Funny she can't ever take responsibility for how she behaved, suppose that is the PD and nothing I can do anything about.

Kids were good to me as soon as we all were out the house without her and even appologised.

hhaw

EM:

Does it help to picture your wife as someone who was wounded as a child and perhaps got stuck at that age emotionally?

Does it help to think of your wife as a mentally ill person who's broken and can't do better, or she would have?

I, like yourself, was highly triggered when adults, who should know better than to weaponize, manipulate and/or terrorize children.... did not know better.

I wasn't able to SEE the PD parents as people who were once likely abused vulnerable children too. 

With some distance, many years and a very good Trauma Informed Therapist, I've managed to gain some emotional distance I wish I'd been able to access during the most stressful years of my life.... similar to yours in some ways, where adults were using children as pawns and to terrorize or harm me or someone else in my family.

Know this...... what they're doing can't be controlled.

HOW you handle it.... how level you can stay during it.... THESE things you can control.

You remaining logical and level is better, IME.
You'll be more responsive to your children, who're being manipulated and harmed by their mother.

You RESPONSIVE, rather than REACTIVE means you have access to your frontal lobe....
it means you aren't caught in fight or flight/reptilian/survival brain where logic/reason/creativity and problem solving is IMPOSSIBLE, bc your biochemistry has been hijacked.

Trust me.....seeking out a good trauma informed T, perhaps with Buddhist leanings, could help you navigate the nightmare ahead, IME.

I wish I'd had access to that kind of help BEFORE filing divorce from a very disturbed person.

Good luck to you,
hhaw



What you are speaks so loudly in my ears.... I can't hear a word you're saying.

When someone tells you who they are... believe them.

"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."
Nietchzsche

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness."
Eleanor Roosevelt

escapingman

hhaw: She was abused as a child, she is still by her mum, but I tried and tried and tried to save her. But I can't.

Today she has won, I lost it. She has turned theGolden Child against me to a degree where I just couldn't take it anymore. I shouted at GC after she had been shouting and swearing at me using the exact same words as her mum. She shouted at me for ignoring her, I never, but I have been doing MC to her mum. uNPDw not happy with me doing MC so she involves the kids pretending I am ignoring them.

uNPDw has now told me and the kids that I am the crazy one and that I need help. I am about to explode. I really can't take this anymore. I think for my sanity and for my relation to the kids I have to just pack up and leave tomorrow. How can it be me being the crazy one when I have never had a problem ever in my life before I met her?

square


escapingman

Square: I can, but I really don't know what they would do to SG if I leave. She is scared, she is really suffering, she is fed up with all the shouting (so am I), but a change is needed and I just have to find out how to.

Poison Ivy

escapingman, can you take your child with you?

square

Right, did you get legal advice on that? As I recall, SG is asking you to leave, and take her?

square

I think whether you physically leave tomorrow or not, it's time to get the plan together. Legal advice on custody. A place to go and the basic furnishings for it (beds for you and both kids, Internet).

You're in hell and it's not going to get better. But the thing is, your kids are there too. You can exit and also get your kids out at least a portion of the time (I hope over 50%).

I really feel for you. I am glad some obstacles apparently aren't an issue - sounds like this is financially and physically doable. Emotionally, hard, yeah. Harder than the hell you're in? Yeah, hard to unfreeze. But once you've unfrozen, you can provide safety for yourself and at least some for your kids. Right ow you can provide almost none.


escapingman

Thanks everyone for your kind messages. I will start making a plan for my exit, this time I am 10000% committed to leave and I don't care about anything else than getting away from her and what I might lose in the process. She is treating me like dirt in front of the kids and are doing her best to set them against me, this I cannot defend against and not should I have to. Looking at the 100 traits she has most of the nasty ones, I can only hope the kids will be able to see as if I try to say anything they kick off and blame me. I am sick and tired of seeing my oldest throwing her childhood away to pander to uNPD. I have ended the relationship with uNPDw in my mind, I don't need to inform her as she ignores anything I say anyway.

I am going to come back telling you more in an new thread when my plan is up and running. It could be later today, in a week or two. But I know what I want and I am going to have it, and that is freedom.

square

I wish you godspeed.

That blaming you thing, partly is likely survival for GC to maintain her tentative status, but for SG could also be like "you are the reasonable parent, why are you setting mom off and ruining the day, why can't you fix this." People tend to let PDs off the hook and hold reasonable people responsible, because who else could be responsible?

But you can't fix your wife, you've tried everything.