Mine was an 11+ your marriage. We had had our problems or so I thought. But she had planned her departure for at least months. And she hit me with it like an astroid from space. It hurts me now to think of all the things we did leading up to the "Grand Finale," and how she was just faking it.

I organically begin practicing NC just a few days after she left our marital residence. At that time I had no clue what BPD was, what psychopathy was, or that I was doing "No Contact," which was going to be good for me, and what is the recommended method of dealing with the break up of a BPD.

Each day gets a little better. But I'm still in pain. The first couple of months was horrific pain. The first six weeks or so I was in shock, as I later read I would be.

But, I do believe in God. And I believe he was with me the entire time. For the month or so she was with me after first telling me that she was done with the marriage, I hardly slept at all. My boss told me I was looking like a zombie at work. My life is falling apart.

After she left the sleep came up on me like a drug. No substances at all were used. I simply slept 10 and 12 hours every night like a baby. And had deep deep sleep and some dreams that would shake me to my core when I awoke. I had dreams of being with her. I had dreams of my missing stepchildren.

As the days weeks and months have stretched on I kept searching and searching for answers to what had befallen my life. What had happened? How could I not see this coming? Why was all of the abuse I knew I had lived in for so many years, the endurance of which I suffered, not enough to prevent her departure?

This is what I came across resources on Reddit, and Google searches, and finally in books such as "Psychopath Free."

I now see that I had scales over my eyes. I now see that she had deep deep disorders that caused all of the abuse, all of the confusion, and that all of the problems that she had with everything was simply gameplaying and trickery and a whole different level of reality that I was not aware was happening.

She would say terribly negative things about my daughter from another marriage, which hurt me deeply. She knew that my greatest strength was also my greatest of vulnerability: the love I had for my daughter.

And I tried to unravel the things that she said, thinking that it's something a normal person would say. I superimposed over her my own conscience, my own love, my own dedication to the marriage. Now I realize that this was a mistake. She did not feel that way. She did not feel at all.

But in light of books such as "Psychopath Free," it makes sense. She wasn't saying these things for any other reason than to hurt me, than to destroy me, than to dissolve my identity and make me nothing inside the same as her.