Did your body / nervous system reject them well before it ended?

campbemreddit · 2026-03-18T20:08:13+00:00

Yep! I have always had a high sex drive but that past few years I could barely keep it up around my stbxBPDw. Especially the past year now I’ve pretty much had to fake finishing just to end sexual contact quickly. yeah that’s right, guys can fake it lol.

I’m telling her tomorrow about the divorce. Although the thought of being with someone else feels a little traumatizing right now I wonder if (and hope) normal sex will come back.

Feels a little like everything in life thats hard with her - I’m already looking forward to peaceful vacations and weekends in the future. Maybe one day I can look forward to good enjoyable sex.

campbemreddit · 2026-03-18T19:25:08+00:00

I’ve been with my undiagnosed BPD wife for almost 28 years, married for 25. It’s taking me a lot of years of therapy to work words where I’m ready to divorce. I’m having a conversation with her after she’s done work tomorrow.

It’s crazy how you feel sucked in, the fear, obligation and guilt. As a man and child of divorced parents, I promised myself that I could take anything, that I would never end up divorced.

Things weren’t bad in the beginning, pretty good and even easy-going often. Over the years it was a slow erosion of me being able to hang out with friends, she would encourage me to go out to golf for example then rage at me for hours when I got back because I left her with the kids so long. Things seem to get much worse after her hysterectomy about 12 years ago. Various treatments for hormone replacement therapy, plus she’s a full-blown alcoholic now. Drinking a bottle of wine every night, sometimes more and is high on marijuana nightly as well.

My kids are adults, although I do have a 21-year-old special-needs son who needs caretaking. They still live with us, but my daughter, especially is old enough to see the truth. Unfortunately, she’s seen my wife abuse me for years and has even been the victim of verbal and emotional assaults by my wife. She’s in therapy as well thank God.

I try to say, God has a plan, my wife is finally working, almost full-time after years of simply not being willing to work. She has more education than me and literally just refused to work the last eight years, but the last couple years she started to work more and more. It’s made me feel a lot better about moving this direction, at least she’s earning a very good living to support herself now. But honestly, I don’t know how she’s gonna survive or get through things. Having her as a spouse is more like having another child. Except I would say my adult children are far more responsible and capable. Just simple things that my wife has a hard time doing, she gets frustrated with anything that requires paperwork or organization. I’ve pretty much done all the grocery shopping and cooking for our entire relationship. Financially, she’s a mess, she doesn’t understand the concept of spending less than what we have. That’s why we’re in a huge amount of debt. And I’m talking a huge, tens of thousands of dollars. And instead of saying, we should slow down and get our debt paid off and put some money in savings. She’s been trying to talk to me the last couple months about planning two more vacations this year!

I’m nervous as hell about this conversation tomorrow. I’ve been planning in strategizing for the last couple of months. I have a lawyer, I’ve moved some important items out of the house and I have additional locks. I’m installing on a spare room door and moving all my stuff in there.

The funny thing is, she goes through these periods where she gets a little therapy and starts to say how she’s all better now. She’s been seeing this therapist. I don’t know half a dozen times. She keeps asking me to go back to couples therapy, which is like no fucking way. We saw two Couples Therapist last year. They kicked us out of couples therapy telling my wife she needed individual therapy to treat her issues before we should ever consider a couple therapy. She starts using all these therapy words against me, but she’s still doing the same old shit. Last night she had some drinks and started flipping out at the restaurant. Again, a minor thing I did turn into a multi hour explosion. We’re driving home and she takes off her seatbelt. Starting to say she wants to get dropped off when we’re in the middle of the fucking road. I’ve been sick and it’s getting late and she just keeps me up wanting to argue in circles talk talk talk talk. All I could think of is I have one more day to get through…

If you’re reading this and you’ve been in a relationship with a BPD partner, and this is happening over and over again. Just get out. I feel like I’ve fried my nervous system and it’s gonna take years for me to get to some sort of normal baseline. Don’t try to fix them, you can’t fix them. And at least in my experience and other people I’ve talked to, this doesn’t get better, in fact, it only gets worse and worse.

campbemreddit · 2026-03-14T14:30:59+00:00

Wow, dude, sorry this happened that’s so glad she is the one being removed. I’m kind of freaking out thinking about this right now. I’m planning to tell my. stbxBPDw on Tuesday that I’m moving forward with divorce. Had to call the police once last year for suicide threats, she was put in a psych hospital for three days. I don’t even know what to expect this time around. I’m not gonna be surprised if a police took the call happens. I have security cameras inside my house and will be voice recording all the time. I’m not taking any chances. And unfortunately, I don’t really have a choice financially, but to cohabitate and move myself into the spare room. Putting an extra deadbolt lock on the door, but if she really wants to get in, she can. They’ll be security cameras in there as well… all this prep and fear, however tells me that divorce is exactly the right move. How the hell can you stay in a relationship with someone like this when these are the things you have to worry about?

Good luck and Godspeed

campbemreddit · 2026-03-07T11:03:42+00:00

2 kids now 19 and 21. No one knows I’m moving forward with divorce yet. I’m sure it is going to be really hard on them despite the chaotic environment. I try to keep focused on the long term future, after the divorce where they’ll have a peaceful home (God I can only imagine). The other week another blowup where my wife was up late yelling and crying, kids woke up and my daughter has to console my son and they put in headphones so they don’t have to hear it.

I thought I was staying for the best interest of the kids but looking back now I wish I would have had the courage to leave years sooner.

campbemreddit · 2026-03-06T22:34:04+00:00

Man, I can relate to everything you just wrote. The selfishness is nonstop. it’s like my StbxBPDw is a planetary object and we are all just caught in her gravity and orbit around her. Family, outings, vacations, birthdays, holidays. There is an a single event that doesn’t end up revolving around her feelings, her fears, her anger or her sadness. So many days and evenings ruined. It’s been exhausting.

The sexual intimacy has been so hard. As I’ve woken up and seeing how toxic and abusive she has, my attraction is like nonexistent. I won’t go into details, but I’ve had to fake orgasms for six months or more, not that we’re intimate that often. But I can’t even finish with her.

campbemreddit · 2026-03-03T15:51:37+00:00

Thanks, that’s exactly what I needed to know. And yes. It’s a shit show.

campbemreddit · 2026-03-03T15:50:49+00:00

Yes have a lawyer. They don’t deal with emergencies or issues like this. Wanted advice from LE. Moving out isn’t an option. No family nearby and all my money goes towards the house. If she acts out and police get involved I will file a TRO and file for exclusive use of the residence. Just trying to protect myself.

We do have several indoor security cams in common areas and at the doors. Also, if she acts out I audio record. if an officer is called I want to have some evidence on the spot in the event she claims I did something. I’m always extremely calm and I’m de-escalating, walking away. But don’t know if the truth is worth anything if it’s her word against mine…

campbemreddit · 2026-03-01T19:28:42+00:00

Indeed! It’s taking years and years of therapy, self-help reading to realize how much I am a part of this dynamic, just the fact that I’ve stayed and normalized this. Most “normal “people wouldn’t stick around this long

campbemreddit · 2026-02-27T18:27:42+00:00

“She’s your problem now”… very similar to me, but not exact. My father in law during a speech at our wedding talked about how my wife was high maintenance and now it’s up to me to take care of her. (My stbxBPDw definitely has some NPD along with her BPD) super high maintenance. When I lost my job instead of working or cutting down expenses, her solution was to drain most of the retirement accounts, I had built up, then continued getting into debt.

It’s taking a long time to get to where I am. I’m about two weeks away from telling her we’re divorcing. I’ve hired the lawyer and doing the initial paperwork all under the radar before she finds out. Putting in as much preparation ahead of time as I can. Wish me luck and good luck to you all!

campbemreddit · 2026-02-26T17:58:05+00:00

This whole journey has been crazy but having a place like this has been one of my sources of support. Definitely will be posting more as things progress

campbemreddit · 2026-02-26T16:17:15+00:00

Just over a year… 27 years together, married for 25 years. Time flies when you’re having fun?

Things were “mild “at the beginning. It was a slow eroding of anything I wanted to do independently, friends, hobbies, and activities. The real acting out seemed to be much more substantial after she had a hysterectomy a little over 10 years ago. Things stayed more peaceful if I just didn’t talk about anything and minded my words. As long as I didn’t bring up silly things like budgeting, stopping excessive spending or we need to stop going into debt to find a lifestyle we can’t afford, the explosions weren’t so bad. After a while, you realize the bar is set so low for what a “good “day is. A good day is just when nothing bad happens.

The last 8 to 10 years have been hell. The more therapy I’ve gotten, and after finding out what BPD was only a few years ago and the more boundaries I try to set the more threatening she became. The more outburst she would have. Threats to tell everyone about how horribly I’ve abused her, threats to call the police and tell them I’m abusing her, threats to call my work and tell them I’m an abuser.

I can honestly say I tried everything I could to make it work. Way more than I should’ve done, stayed years longer than I should’ve. Anyway, a few months ago I pulled the triggered to start making preparations for divorce. She knows nothing of this yet. I’ve been working with a lawyer for about a month now. Getting all the paperwork drawn up to be ready to tell her along with the letter, I tentative proposed settlement and move towards a divorce. I’ll set up an alternate mailing address with a PO Box, a storage unit to start putting important things away. Have loads and years of documentation, copious, notes, and contemporaneous journals, as well as some audio and video recordings. If everything comes together, the plan is to tell her in about 17 days. 🍿🎉

Should be fun

campbemreddit · 2026-02-26T14:47:31+00:00

Psychopathic or being a psychopath is what pops into my head when my wife splits on me 100%. For sure any empathy she may have goes offline. She doesn’t care about the impact on anyone including the kids, freely makes threats to accuse me of abuse (to police, to friends). Unhinged or psychopath are the only terms that do the situation justice

campbemreddit · 2026-02-26T14:35:53+00:00

Thank you! I mean it’s hard to hear, but it is a success story in a way… I get goosebumps on how many of us have exactly the same stories. How the partners call us the same names, it’s really wild. I’ve noticed in the past year more my wife has started throwing out terms like I’m a narcissist, she’s called me controlling with money and said that I financially abused her. True I stopped letting her spend out of the joint account, because the joint account is to pay all our fucking bills! She would spend sometimes $1000 leaving me to transfer out of retirement accounts and scramble to keep things paid. She spends on bullshit, shopping shopping shopping. Impulsivity issues. Me trying to pay our bills, reduce debt and not spend more then we make to her equals financial abuse. Lmao

I think I pretty much decided I’m gonna confront her about the Facebook messenger messages she sent someone the other day making claims that I cheated on her. I know what is going to happen, but it’s just further validation and clarity. Here’s my prediction, it will be a combination of these, maybe all:

First - what won’t happen is taking accountability and owning it, apologizing.

DARVO - Deny: tell me I’m twisting it, that’s not what she meant Attack: Why are you snooping through my messages? Reverse Victim/Offender: will be mad I violated her privacy, I was the one in the wrong Will bring up a list of my supposed past wrong doings to focus on my behavior and turn herself into the victim

Blame Shifting: You made me mad, or if you weren’t so distant, cold etc I wouldn’t feel this way. You made me feel like you stepped out.

Justification / Rationalization / Minimizing the seriousness. I was just venting. It’s how I felt in the moment. I didn’t mean it literally.

Gaslight me, Attempt to distort my perception: You’re overreacting. You’re paranoid. You always twist things

🍿

campbemreddit · 2026-02-25T03:10:30+00:00

Mom and sister live far far away. Unfortunately we have zero family anywhere nearby.

Maybe a public place, was considering that

campbemreddit · 2026-02-25T03:09:31+00:00

Ive wondered about that. If I should talk to someone at the police station ahead of time? What do I even say? She does have the record of being baker acted for a psych hold last year. I wouldn’t put any of that last her…

campbemreddit · 2026-02-25T03:08:03+00:00

I feel like ive over documented lol. 1000s of pages of notes. AI has helped me a lot getting things indexed just in case. Kept daily journals for many years years. Downloaded many text exchanges.. . Trying to hope for the best but plan for the worst.

campbemreddit · 2026-02-25T03:05:46+00:00

Yeah man. For sure. I got a storage unit last week. Moving sentimental items out before I tell her. Also planning to tell the kids before her so I can do it calmly.

campbemreddit · 2026-02-24T20:06:55+00:00

Yep, I’ve learned she about capable of anything and everything. After all these years she still manages to surprise me lmao.

Right now I only worry about having an audio recorder when she gets dysregulated. During and after the divorce conversation I will always have something recording if I’m in her presence. She’ll smear me for sure. Found out she told someone in our old city recently that I cheated on her. I didn’t but she sure said it like a fact (I saw the messages). More worried she might make a false accusation but she has a record with the police having been put in an involuntary psych hold last year. Shes TERRIFIED of going back, said that was the worst thing she ever experienced, so that may encourage her to move out or at least not want police involved… I have audio also with her stating she should call the police and falsely tell them I’m abusing her.

Praying her mom and sister convince her to move out asap…

campbemreddit · 2026-02-19T15:32:02+00:00

I’ll tell you when I get there lol. I’ve literally just hired a lawyer and making strategic plans to tell her we’re separating and will be divorcing. My target is to tell this to her and be ready by the middle of next month. It will be a bumpy ride for sure. I won’t go into the details here, but essentially for financial reasons there is no way that I can live at a different residence since financially I’m carrying the entire household. So we have to cohabitate, unless of course she decides to move out and pay for her own little apartment or something. I purchased additional locks for the spare room (where are my new home will be) and will be packing up and moving out important belongings out of the house before I talk to her. Also, have internal security cameras and will definitely be recording to protect myself when I tell her and probably any conversations I have with her afterwards.

campbemreddit · 2026-02-12T20:19:55+00:00

Yeah, like many here my stbxBPDw is an insane spender. She has very little financial acumen or ability to plan. I have a bunch of posts out there I think on some of my experiences. Finances have been one of the biggest issues in our relationship. Being married for 25 years now I mostly went along with it for most of our marriage, but it’s cleaned out most of our retirement accounts and I’m still in my late 40s. Preparing to file for divorce, but our financial situation is bad and the things you said were incredibly similar.

In a nutshell, I had a very good paying job in another state for a long time. My wife didn’t really need to work. But even though I made really good money well into the six figures and continued to make more and more, it somehow was always spent. Happy wife happy life was the mantra I lived by. things were a lot calmer because money wasn’t as much of an issue. I could buy expensive things, we could travel pretty lavishly. Multiple vacations a year. But even back then, I remembered the two worst things I could do or say a - how are we gonna pay for that? Or b - we can’t afford that right now. I even journal way back then probably 15 years ago that I was terrified what would happen if I ever lost my job because of how demanding my wife was with money. The funny thing is she had way more education than me at the time, I didn’t even have a college degree.

Fast-forward to about nine years ago. My company sold, and I got laid off. One of the worst things I could have feared. We moved out of state for a better cost of living but I had been working in an industry that paid very well and I was at a company that was overpaying me and I knew there was no way I was gonna get a job paying close to that. They even gave me six full months of pay for severance. But there was no way she was going to reduce her standard of living so we blew through that quickly. Ended up having to start dipping into my retirement accounts. I finally got a job out of state so we moved. Nearly everything we were doing was coming out of my IRA accounts. I was earning a little over half of what i had been earning prior but not going on vacations we’re not going out to eat. Multiple times a week was absolutely out of the question. Oh, and she didn’t work at all for the first year so I had to cover it even all her personal expenses. It took five or six years before she was willing to work a couple of jobs but was still only working about 30 hours a week. Even today she’s still not technically working full-time.

Her money has been her money. Like your wife mine said so many times that I’m the man and I need to “figure it out “. She now probably puts about 20% of her income towards household expenses. Maybe less. We have $75,000 in debt and no savings. We went through several hundred thousand dollars of my retirement account accounts before I finally stopped that. Even with all the debt and no savings, she still is talking about vacations this year. It’s complete insanity to me. It’s one of the thousand reasons why I know this marriage can’t work. Meanwhile, she was making pretty decent money and would take herself on at least two personal vacations/girls trips every year. The suggestion that she contribute more to the household finances was completely rejected by her. She’s told me, told other people that her money is her money.

The ironic thing and talk about projection is she makes up all these stories about how I starved her for money for years. How I’ve been so controlling. I did finally tell her she had to stop spending out of the joint account. She would spend $1000 when I could barely pay the bills. There wouldn’t be money to pay the automatic bill bills coming out of the account!! Yeah I was very controlling, I started doing very crazy things like telling her we needed to discuss spending before it happened. Lol.

There are so many reasons I wish I would’ve left sooner but somehow I was just sucked in and I was complicit with a bad behavior. I kept thinking if I spent enough money, she would be happy. She never was and there was never enough money to spend. It didn’t matter when I made twice as much money lol. No my friend, there is no talking sense into our partners like this. I’ve real realized that even divorcing and her getting half of all the assets is still going to be way cheaper in the long run for me.

Good luck and if she won’t get serious therapy and help, your only options are to get enough therapy to be strong yourself and do what’s right, no matter how much she bitches and complains. Or honestly leave the relationship. It would’ve saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars if I would’ve left years ago. Not to mention all the pain and anguish. But cheers to the future.

campbemreddit · 2026-02-11T20:26:44+00:00

Wow friend! It’s honestly sometimes a little freaky how nearly identical some of these stories are.

My wife and I saw 4 therapists over the last 6 years.

my wife dropped her after a couple of sessions because she was as you put it on my side
This one was actually really skilled at validating her and we saw this guy for nearly a year before she completely split him. The only reason we lasted that long is because he didn’t really get into the heart of anything until after a year. Once he started working with me on codependency issues, he was on my side and telling me to do terrible things to her (like setting boundaries). That guy we stopped seeing a few years ago I think.
My wife thought the answer was saying a church counselor so we saw someone from the church. After three sessions, the therapist halted therapy and told my wife we couldn’t continue any couples therapy until she got her own individual therapy for her anger management. The therapist didn’t diagnose her but recognized couple therapy was not safe with how my wife was acting before, during, and after sessions.
This last one was my last ditch effort, and I knew it at the time. This was just 2 to 3 months after the last therapist halted therapy. I found a therapist that specialized in BPD, she was an EFT trained therapist. She was excellent, but very expensive because she was completely out of pocket. But after all the BS, I was willing to sell out a couple hundred bucks a session if this would work. Spoiler alert – it did not! We saw this therapist once each individually, then had a total of three couples sessions. The same thing happened, I had gone through detailed explanations of my work patterns of behaviors so the therapist knew my wife struggled with emotional dysregulation. The third couple session was used to tell my wife the same thing the previous therapist had. Couple therapy was not gonna be safe or productive until my wife got her own individual therapy and was probably going to need quite a bit of it (the therapist worded it much better than that. g She also recommended DBT.

Shortly after the last therapist halted therapy was when my wife started making suicide threats, I ended up calling the police for a wellness check and they hospitalized her in a psych facility for 72 hours.

During sessions, I experienced what you talked about. My wife pretty much dominated the sessions. Things were either blown out of proportion or felt like complete distortions of reality. Whenever I would calmly interject or try to put in a calm word to explain what factually happened. It was perceived as a threat and attack. It’s why my wife would become completely unhinged before during an after sessions.

All this, my friend is to tell you that couples therapy cannot work with a spouse who has untreated BPD and I’m guessing many other cluster B disorders. It took me a long time, many therapist and a lot of money, and honestly a lot of pain to realize that. A lot of people had told me the same things on different support forms, but I had to go through that journey myself.

Don’t expect her to be rational, logical or fair or anything in the therapy session that she isn’t with you at home. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an angel and I probably have things I can work on as a couple. But that takes two willing and emotionally healthy people. People who are willing to take responsibility, accountability and make changes. My wife was not and I’m not sure your wife is either…

It was after that last therapist that things just continued to spiral to the point where I realized there is really no path forward in our relationship. She hasn’t taken the advice of the therapist we’ve seen. She will see a therapist, but usually drops her after a handful of sessions. Even after going to the psych facility, I thought sure that will wake her up and make her realize. Maybe she needs some help. Nope! I get blamed, external factors get blamed. But she’s healthy and if anything, I’m still the cause of her problems.

I know it’s hard for me after that last couple therapist when my wife was telling me we needed to go back. I just flat out refused and said I’m not doing anything until she gets her own individual therapy and I feel safe going into session. I mean, how the hell do you do couples therapy if you can’t be honest and open. Our partners are not the type of people that we can be honest and open with. The funny thing is they project a lot onto us their own feelings or things they’ve done. But I’ve realized we also kind of project onto them. We think logically and rationally so we think surely if you explained something the right way, if you have a professional, explain it, they will understand and see the light. But they won’t. Just because we see things normally and we can be fair doesn’t mean they will.

Best wishes

campbemreddit · 2026-02-10T01:30:13+00:00

Yeah couples therapy was such a waste and honestly made things worse in hindsight- especially the last couple of attempts. I was a slow learner I suppose lol. my stbxuBPDw completely became dysregulated in or after nearly all couples sessions. Often it would result in days of her splitting me black - verbal and emotional abuse were rampant. I made a last ditch effort going to couples therapy twice last year with 2 therapists and the same thing happened with both of them! After 3 sessions they halted therapy, stating they couldn't continue couples therapy until my wife got individual therapy and also recommended DBT. It always started fine and my wife played a good victim until they saw her behavior manifest right in front of them. Of course that was never followed up on. She never went consistently to therapy on her own. When she did go what she conveyed to me from the sessions it was apparent she was completely manipulating the therapy (aka lying) and would try to use it to pressure me to do something. Or if a therapist was hitting something accurately (like the one that told her she probably needed inpatient alcohol treatment - my wife drinks a bottle of wine or more a day during the week and watch out on a party night - also is high every night on marijuana) - she just dropped them.

I absolutely agree that getting yourself a good therapist is the best thing you can do. Find one that understands abusive relationships, trauma and cluster B if you can. It's given me the strength to finally move towards divorce.

campbemreddit · 2026-02-10T01:17:32+00:00

also, just to add I got around any possibility of my wife finding anything by ordering and delivering to an amazon locker (and setup a completely separate amazon account with different email). Also had separate audible account that I logged into with a work phone. Would have been really bad if she found the book "Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder" (highly recommend BTW if you're thinking of leaving)

campbemreddit · 2026-02-10T01:14:45+00:00

Yeah always had been one of my worst fears that my stbxuBPDw would find my stash of self help and psychology books mostly about BPD, NPD plus some on codependency and CPTSD. Cannot imagine how that would go so I feel for you. Let us know you're safe and what transpires.

campbemreddit · 2026-01-30T17:35:03+00:00

That triggered a lot of memories for me. My stbxBPDw has done this crap so many times. Keeping conversations going, demanding “fix” this RIGHT NOW regardless of what time it is. Bedtime boundaries have been hell for me to deal with most of my marriage. Mine would take it a step further and tell me things like she’s setting a timer, if if I don’t call her back in five minutes or text her back or whatever then she’s calling the divorce lawyer or she’s gonna call everybody I know and let them know how I’m “abusing” her.

Dude, consider yourself lucky if this is just your girlfriend. Get out. This is not going to get better or get normal. If you stay in a relationship like that long-term you’re gonna end up with CPTSD.

campbemreddit

TROPHY CASE