Leaving - what's it gonna take?

[IsleOfSong]

I'm new to this forum, but I've done YEARS of the work needed to get myself Out of the FOG and, ideally, out of a bad 22-year marriage to a PD. I've devoured endless YouTube videos on narcissism, worked with two different life coaches who have experience in divorcing PD partners, interviewed lawyers, researched places to get an apartment big enough for me and my school-aged kids, determined that financially SHE would have to pay ME alimony and child support (she makes more money than I do), etc. etc. The intellectual work has been done, but the "soul" work apparently remains, so I continue to stay put.

I cannot seem to get myself to the point of leaving. And I constantly ask myself, What's it gonna take?

My wife is emotionally abusive, petulant, and judgmental to our two kids (17-year-old girl, 14-year-old boy), not much nicer to me, and has frequent disagreements over trivial things with her parents, sister, and brother-in-law. Silent treatments, cutting comments, and guilt trips are her preferred weapons. I can rationalize the bad behavior very easily, or minimize it in my mind, but I do see the ill effects her actions have had on our son, who seems to never do right in his mother's eyes and has confided in me that he often thinks about running away. Most recently, she eavesdropped on his therapy (he was in his room with the door closed, doing therapy via Zoom), and when she heard him speak poorly of her, she made herself out to be a victim, sobbing "my son hates me" instead of thinking "hey, that was a private conversation I wasn't supposed to listen to" or "how might I change my behavior so that my son doesn't think of me that way?"

Of course, we know that enlightenment will never happen with a PD.

So here I remain. What's it gonna take? I guess I'll know when I know, but until then I continue to wait for the other shoe to drop. And drop again, and again.

[square]

As an imtellectual exercise, which ONE of the following scenarios feels like the easiest path to leaving?

Winning the lottery

Your wife dumping you for someone else

Your son and/or daughter literally telling you "please get a divorce"

Or any other situation? The point of the exercise just being a first step in identifying the biggest thing blocking you.

[IsleOfSong]

As an imtellectual exercise, which ONE of the following scenarios feels like the easiest path to leaving?

Winning the lottery

Your wife dumping you for someone else

Your son and/or daughter literally telling you "please get a divorce"

Or any other situation? The point of the exercise just being a first step in identifying the biggest thing blocking you.

First choice would be her dumping me; a close second would be the kids asking me to do it. The lottery thing doesn't move the needle at all.

[escapingman]

IsleOfSong, I am where you are and have been for a long time. What will be the final straw? I have kept moving that goalpost further and further and further to avoid the upset. I am finally there, I can't take anymore. What has been the tipping point is in seeing the damage on the kids, I can sacrifice myself, but not them. Just get out, I will, you can too,

[square]

As an imtellectual exercise, which ONE of the following scenarios feels like the easiest path to leaving?

Winning the lottery

Your wife dumping you for someone else

Your son and/or daughter literally telling you "please get a divorce"

Or any other situation? The point of the exercise just being a first step in identifying the biggest thing blocking you.

First choice would be her dumping me; a close second would be the kids asking me to do it. The lottery thing doesn't move the needle at all.

Seems like for you, your primary blocker is that you don't want to hurt your wife. (Which I get).

As a reminder, your younger daughter did ask you to divorce.

[IsleOfSong]

Yes, I fear disappointing/hurting/upsetting her, not that she has any problem inflicting difficulties on to the rest of us. I am getting stronger, however, and stand up to her bad behavior more firmly than ever.

To clarify, my daughter has not asked me to divorce my wife.

And EM, yes I am following your story here as well. Your wife sounds much more disordered than mine, for what it's worth. I'm pulling for you to break free before she breaks you completely.

[square]

Gotcha, that comment was for EM.

[Poison Ivy]

If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your children.

[IsleOfSong]

If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your children.

It does seem more important to me when put that way. Of course, then I go to the place where I worry about the upheaval that a split would cause in their lives. I need to remind myself that it would be temporary inconvenience in service of long-term gains. Kind of like surgery.

[PlantFlowersNotWeeds]

My first thought, why do you care how/what she thinks?  She abuses you....
What are your fears?  being alone? your kids?  Isn't it horrible enough now?  Why do you think it will be worse?

Being the in fog for me, meant that I never had to face what I wanted it life and how I wanted to live.  I could always (in some part of my mind) blame him for what I didn't have.  For example, my husband always, and I mean always, found a way to sabotage my friendships.  So, over the years, I stopped having friends, because he ruined it.  Yet....I did allow it, because I wasn't willing to find the strength to find myself and seek out what I needed.  I let his comments and verbal abuse change my behavior. 

So, what do you want?  and how are you going to get there?

When I told a very close friend about the verbal abuse I was subjected to, it was the first time I said it out loud to ANYONE;  3 weeks later I told him I was getting a divorce.  I didn't ask for one, I said it's happening. 

We all take different paths, different time lines, etc...  you will find your way in your own time. 

[IsleOfSong]

My first thought, why do you care how/what she thinks?  She abuses you....
What are your fears?  being alone? your kids?  Isn't it horrible enough now?  Why do you think it will be worse?

I have a lifelong fear of being the "bad guy," even though my wanting to leave is totally justified, and the fact that she has a very unhealthy relationship with my son (it seems like every time I'm alone with her, she makes a negative comment about him, and she often says these things to him directly too). I call her out all the time, but she never really stops. It's like holding back the ocean.

Being the in fog for me, meant that I never had to face what I wanted it life and how I wanted to live.  I could always (in some part of my mind) blame him for what I didn't have.  For example, my husband always, and I mean always, found a way to sabotage my friendships.  So, over the years, I stopped having friends, because he ruined it.  Yet....I did allow it, because I wasn't willing to find the strength to find myself and seek out what I needed.  I let his comments and verbal abuse change my behavior. 

I can relate to this. So many things I want to do, I hold off on because she won't approve and/or will ruin it. Even minor things like working on stuff around the house, I do when she's not here so I don't have to have her tell me how I'm doing it wrong. But I've also not done bigger things like travel to certain places, go to certain music concerts that I'd enjoy, etc. etc. Some of this is probably garden-variety marital compromise, but a lot of it is due to a need for control on her part.

So, what do you want?  and how are you going to get there?

I want peace and quiet, less exposure to negativity and catastrophizing of minor things, and a lot more autonomy over my own life. And I want my kids to have a second home where they can be free of that stuff, too.

When I told a very close friend about the verbal abuse I was subjected to, it was the first time I said it out loud to ANYONE;  3 weeks later I told him I was getting a divorce.  I didn't ask for one, I said it's happening. 

So for you, the difference was when you articulated it to another person? I've told many confidants over the years about my crappy home life, but it hasn't had the same effect on me, unfortunately.

We all take different paths, different time lines, etc...  you will find your way in your own time.

I keep telling myself that. I just hope when the time comes, I realize it and am ready to mobilize.

[11JB68]

I think for me, if I were truly concerned that a teen might run away, that might be enough... That is a terrifying thought.
However I'm in a similar type of situation and KNOW how very hard it is and how many factors go into the decision process.

[square]

Same here, I know how hard it is. But also thinking that a teen even thinking of running away is in a great deal of pain and needs something to chznge.

And just for perspective, you don't have any "don't hurt anyone" options here. You don't want to hurt your wife and I get that. But it sounds like that is displacing the pain onto your son.

I'm not in any position to judge you, just offering that viewpoint as an outsider - because I think our responsibility to protect our children from harm is really the top priority.

Your kids have no choices or options - other than dire ones like running away. Your wife is an adult and while a divorce will not be easy, she has adult choices and adult options. (One of them being to stop her abusive behavior).

[Poison Ivy]

 

[IsleOfSong]

Same here, I know how hard it is. But also thinking that a teen even thinking of running away is in a great deal of pain and needs something to chznge.

And just for perspective, you don't have any "don't hurt anyone" options here. You don't want to hurt your wife and I get that. But it sounds like that is displacing the pain onto your son.

I'm not in any position to judge you, just offering that viewpoint as an outsider - because I think our responsibility to protect our children from harm is really the top priority.

Your kids have no choices or options - other than dire ones like running away. Your wife is an adult and while a divorce will not be easy, she has adult choices and adult options. (One of them being to stop her abusive behavior).

Those are reasonable points. I will say that, by my staying and pushing back on my wife's behavior as often as I can, I know that I've spared my son a fair amount of hurt from her over the years. I'm not excuse-making for inaction on the stay/leave front; it's just truth. I've also shown him that it's acceptable to confront her when her behavior is deserving of criticism, and he's now at the point where he can articulate it to her very well. Whether I stay or leave, this will still be his mother, and he needs to figure out how to deal with her, at least until he's 18 and can decide to stay far away from her 100% of the time if he'd prefer to do so.

The other piece of this is that, as is typical of high-functioning PDs, she can be quite sweet to the kids at times. It's that insidious sweet/mean cycle that keeps non-PD folks like me off-balance, and my kids are susceptible to it as well. If my wife was consistently terrible, the marriage would have been over a while ago, I am sure.

I've been doing this back-and-forth for a long time. I'm getting tired of it. But your suggestion that this is ultimately about keeping my kids' best interest front of mind... maybe that's the kick in the pants I need. Thanks.

[notrightinthehead]

You have been given good advice already. I am going to add my own experience. I also felt I would not be able to leave my NPDh and that made me quite cross with myself. Eventually I decided to accept my Co-dependency and started to implement medium chill, grey rock, non JADE and other tools from the toolbox in my interactions with him. I learned to get up and leave, taking the kids with me, when he started to rage. Sometimes I had to get into the car and spend some hours in a parking lot in order to escape the raging. If that was not possible, I would record it on my phone. I stopped arguing, stopped explaining, and I stuck to my plans. Ruthlessly. If I had planned to meet up with someone and he had a drama, I still left. If there was an activity with the kids and he had a disaster, the plans took precedence. When he yelled at me for that, I left.  It must have been really hard for him and he complained even more than before about me to his work colleagues, friends and anybody who was willing to listen. Someone suggested he register on a dating site, which he did, on several. It took him about 4 month to replace me and ask me to move out, because he wanted to live in our house with his new partner.
I moved and I had a terrible time for years. Working through C-Ptsd and my co-dependency is painful. I still know that I might never have left had it been solely up to me. Gladly, I had become such a useless supply for him  that he had to replace me, setting me free.  So, that was my way out. But even before the final discard I felt so much better thanks to the implementation of all these tools and proper boundary setting.

[Boat Babe]

I work with children who have lived with domestic abuse in the family.  A few key points for you to consider:

Witnessing abuse IS abuse. It is one of the ten criteria on the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale. (Do looked up the A.C.E. studies) The higher your ACE score the worst your health, social, economic outcomes are as an adult

A child caught in a domestic conflict is in high stress response mode. Their adrenaline and cortisol levels will be on a par with an adult combatant in a war situation. This fucks with their health, big time. The link between autoimmune disease and sustained trauma is recognized by the medical professional.

Witnessing unhealthy parental relationships set kids up for repeating the same pattern in their adult lives, either as victim or perpetrator. I mostly lurk on the Elderly Parents board, cos at 64 I am still dealing with the fallout from having a uBPDmum, who is at the more benign end of the PD spectrum. The board is full of highly intelligent, articulate and compassionate adults still suffering from their childhood experiences with one in or more PD relatives. Most of us then went on to have relationships with PDs as adults.

This is difficult to hear but so necessary to know if you want to make the best choice for them.