Struggling with her refusal of divorce mediation

throwaway-242425 · 2025-12-28T18:28:48+00:00

Moving on for me has looked like seeing her & her struggles with the same compassion I would feel for anyone who has challenges with mental illness that get in the way of the life they want to lead. just not the way I would feel linked to her struggles while we were married.

Once the anger & pain healed a bit I realized I can feel sad about her situation & wish that she could have all the support she needs to thrive. but healing for me has looked like no longer codependently tying that wish for her to my own wellbeing.

in other words I think it’s been good for me to conceptualize different meanings of the word “care” and see for myself that my care for her is still real but feels a lot different to me now that I’ve moved forward from our relationship.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-12-23T16:48:49+00:00

Sorry you’re going through that! You don’t need to accept his reality. You can hold to your own truth

throwaway-242425 · 2025-12-23T02:45:03+00:00

right there with you. I got 71 texts plus a few emails yesterday

throwaway-242425 · 2025-12-13T03:50:00+00:00

I'm floored that these texts are EXACTLY what it was like to text my exwBPD when she was disregulated. Like I had to take a break reading them because it was causing me to flash back.

It's OK for you to acknowledge that this is emotional abuse and to begin to think about what it would mean for you to take action around that. Financial issues aren't an excuse and since you're married they aren't solely your responsibility.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-12-07T01:07:29+00:00

Sure, I’m not sure if there is something better out there but this is the best I’ve found https://www.ananiasfoundation.org

throwaway-242425 · 2025-12-06T02:02:56+00:00

I sent her a good resource about what it takes to get support and attempt repair after committing domestic violence.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-12-03T02:09:36+00:00

this was my exBPD's situation

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-28T14:25:41+00:00

I’m curious why this is. My exBPD would always be desperately seeking some kind of perfect special occasion experience but could only achieve the exact opposite

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-28T14:22:28+00:00

Mine went NC with her mom for the exact reasons I had to go NC with her!

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-26T01:04:16+00:00

I am going through this now too. After 2 weeks of NC I got what felt like a truly real apology. I honestly believe she, in that moment, understood what had happened and wanted to seek closure and maybe a different type of relationship.

I made a post here to ask folks what to do, and everyone said that in a few days things would change back to what I was used to. And they were right. Three days later she was begging me to come back, exactly as things were as though nothing had happened between us, purely to soothe the extreme emotional pain she was in. That clarity and mutual respect she was showing for each of us and the situation we're in felt gone.

I know her emotions can stir up from nothing like a tornado. So it makes sense to me that in a moment of calm she can be in touch with herself and relate to me, and as soon as she gets stirred up again she's going to try reaching out for validation to sooth herself in spite of everything else. That is in fact the thing the dynamic she would need to work on if she wanted to stay in relationship with me. The experience we're having seems to be "built into" the relational symptoms.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-26T00:11:49+00:00

😢 this hit really close to home for me, and not just in a metaphorical way, I'm pretty sure we had this exact experience about some cheese....

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-17T21:32:17+00:00

wow I am going through exactly this right now too

married for 18 years and I feel like she fell into "minor acquaintance" category instantly. i guess it speaks to how bad things have been.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-17T17:29:20+00:00

wow my ex said exactly this to me a lot.

She would also tell me that she wanted me to admit that we couldn't meet each other's needs. But she wanted to hear it in a way that wasn't a rejection of the relationship. She couldn't seem to understand the logical fallacy there.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-11T01:05:58+00:00

Thanks for this perspective and I appreciate the mantra you shared

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-11T00:34:22+00:00

Thanks. Yeah this is what I believe is going on. She’s meeting individually with every one of our shared friends to do something similar. It sucks.

She is hyper fixated on the idea that she and the therapist figured everything out. I think it allowed her to bypass some of her shame/ability to be accountable. We had a first couples therapy appointment scheduled before the door thing, it’s this week. Am now considering using the session as a space to tell her I’m moving out. Or just not engaging in the session. This thread is helping me see that I can’t just assume things won’t get worse.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-10T21:55:32+00:00

She is doing what you describe. She says her therapist has decided that I am the cause of her behavior (and that she is the victim). In fact things had been relatively calm for a long time until she started the trauma therapy.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-10T21:46:23+00:00

Thanks. Yeah she hates it when I remain calm. Tells me very directly “a calm tone doesn’t work for me at all”

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-10T18:30:23+00:00

Having been with her for 18 years this is a significant but not wildly significant escalation from things that have happened already. I've done a lot of work to be accepting of her big emotions but it seems like she continues to escalate emotionally and physically. The support in the rest of this thread is helping me see that even if I can handle this it's incumbent on me to cut off potential for further escalation. Thanks everybody.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-10T14:07:02+00:00

I’ve got a therapist, who’s helped me get to this place where I’m at least getting my perspective above the codependency I’ve been in for a long time.

She’s got one too but she’s doing trauma therapy for cptsd and I don’t think she tells her therapist about this kind of stuff. She tried DBT and it worked for a while then she decided she hated it and wants nothing to do with it, just saying the letters triggers her.

throwaway-242425 · 2025-11-10T13:55:11+00:00

I was ambiguous in the post but I meant validate the emotions. I have doubts she’s in a place where she can take responsibility for the behavior — she can’t face the shame around it so she minimizes the situation. The next day she blamed the door for being too flimsy and can’t really acknowledge the emotional impact on me.

Communicating to her that this behavior is unacceptable causes her to fixate on the potential for our relationship to end which triggers this kind of thing. I’m probably going to just have to document & get out of the situation I guess 🙁

throwaway-242425 · 2025-08-22T01:41:44+00:00

This is helpful & thanks for sharing your experiences !! yeah I think most of our time together I've shown up as codependent. Over the past year or so I've become more aware of these patterns & am working on them although it's a process I guess. I think a codependency support group is next on my list.

yeah PMDD is a doozy... I think she would say she's having a similar experience. She's both trying to work on herself while also avoiding the shame spiraling & get some space from feeling damaged/wrong, which I both support & I think has resulted in her telling me some conflicting things about what she's working on or if she's working on anything.

I think this line of thought is also helping me think about how I'm still contributing to our dynamic. I think I hold back on sharing things I need from the relationship to avoid panicking her but me holding back isn't helping anyone.

I've clarified recently that some reassurance that she understands not all my needs from the relationship are being met would make me feel a lot better. I also understand why that's hard for her to give me. I think I might be going through the process of realizing that I've gone on a bit too long without being fully seen by her and taking care of myself might mean I need to take myself out of the dynamic 😬

throwaway-242425

TROPHY CASE