What would you do?

[robi5918]

hi all, i am new here and i am after some help.

 

I have been with my wife for 6 years and married for 2 years, this is my 2nd marriage so i am trying my best to make it work but there are a few issues i need some help with so i would like some help on what to do.

 

Me and my wife have had 3 children but my wife got very depressed and couldnt cope, i have arthritis so limited to the things i could do at the time which resulted in our kids being adopted, i had a visectomy after this so she couldnt have anymore children and she had a novasure ablation so she cant have kids either.

 

My wife now has bad depression, arthritis, borderline personality disorder and fibromyalgia, i am her carer so dont work so i am stuck at home all the time with her, i love her very much and we have a great sex life but this is where i need some help.

As she is very depressed she never wants to go out or do anything,we just stay in all the time apart from when i go shopping but if i go out then she just has a go at me when i get home, we never go out for a drink, watch a movie or anything as she doesnt like being around other people, she is now wanting another child even tho she knows i cant give her one and its not safe for her to get pregnant anyway.

I love going fishing as ive been doing it sinse i was young and like to stay overnight, my wife says its fine but the night before i go she gets in a mood and has a go at me for leaving her for 24h, i only go night fishing for 1 night a month and go 1 day a week for just the day.

She is always saying bad things about my parents to me and she wont even try to get along with them which really hurts me.

everythime we make some new freinds she talks to them for a few times then just says she cant be bothered with them so we dont have any friends now.

the last time i left her she took an overdose and ended up in hospital so now im scared she will do it again.

 

Thats about the basics of our marriage and i feel trapped and unhappy but i do love her and want it to work out but i cant stay like this, i have tried talking to her about it but she says she doesnt wanna talk to anyone about her depression, she says theres no where to go or anything to do, if i mention going to the beach she wont cuz it to cold or to many people etc.

 

What i want to know is what would you do in my situation?

[scaredandalone1223]

You have three children and do not have a relationship with any of them?

 

WOW, you must really love your wife to let her depression be the main deciding factor on you giving up on your children. I understand you have arthritis and I know that can be very painful and make moving around difficult but there was no other way to handle the situation other than gicing up your children?

 

I don't really have any advice, other than professional help for you both, because quite frankly I just can't wrap my head around that. I could understand if you guys had one child and then realized you were unable to care for it, but to have THREE and then decide....Hopefully they at least got to stay together and did not have to bounce from foster home to foster home first.

[xxoo]

I agree with pp.....fishing seems to be the least of your problems.

 

Do neither of you work? You just sit around together?

 

If you are well enough to go overnight fishing, and she is well enough to be alone when you do so, then it seems that you could hold a job--which would be a healthy thing for both of you. Two people should not give up their productive lives--let alone their children--due to one person's mental illness.

[Philosoraptor]

"i feel trapped and unhappy but i do love her and want it to work out but i cant stay like this"

 

Sounds like my previous relationship. We just wern't compatible and I blamed everything on myself which made me depressed. Now that I am away I am happier and life has so much less stress in it. I enjoy things a lot more and I see now that if someone can not accept me the way I am then they are missing out on something awesome.

 

In your position I would try MC and give an ultimatium that you are willing to keep. Life is too short to be with someone who makes you miserable.

[robi5918]

ok about the kids, yes they did get to stay together, my wife rejected the 2nd 2 kids, the 2nd my mother inlaw looked after him and with everything that was going on i left my wife who was looking after the first child but then i had a phonecall that my wife had taken an overdose due to me leaving her, with my arthritis at the time i was well enough to look after the first child but he wasnt mine anyway but i treated him as he was my own so social services said they would put him into care just untill my wife was well enough to have him back, anyway my mother inlaw then couldnt cope with the 2nd child as all he did was cry and social services said they would help her by just taking him for a few days to give her a rest, to cut a long story short social services said that we either had both back together or nothing but my wife still couldnt stand to be around the 2nd child so after many trips visiting the kids to try and get my wife to bond with the 2nd she wouldnt and social decided that it was best for them to go into adoption.

The 3rd child came while she was using the pill and everything was fine for the first 5 months then my wife also rejected my daughter and i done everything in my power to help her but nothing would work so she got social services involved to get some help but that ended with the 3rd going into adoption with not much choice but she did get to stay with her brothers.

I dont think any of you would understand what i have been through and how it felt to see my wife reject our kids and to have social services to have them put into adoption, they were the best thing i have ever had and still think about them everyday so please dont judge me on this.

 

as for the fishing i have been fishing many years and i go with some other people who help me, i need my own space even if it means my wife having a go otherwise i will just go mad.

 

no we dont work as my wife cant leave the house without me and she cant do much on her own so i am her main carer and she is my carer so we help eachother.

 

I keep thinking that i should leave her even tho i love her so much but im scared that she will take another overdose and kill herself as im the only person she has in her life as she doesnt get on with her parents.

 

i know alot of you wont understand all this but its been hell for me and i just keep hoping that she will change, i dont wanna ruin a 2nd marriage but at the same time i wanna run for the hills and try and build my life back up but if my wife done did do something stupid i would never forgive myself.

 

Anyway thats about it really this is why i dont know what to do and why i feel trapped, my wife wont talk to anyone so it feels like im doing it all on my own.

 

So should i stay and hope things get better or just leave her and hope she doesnt do anything stupid?

[scaredandalone1223]

You have asked us not to judge you and I usually work really hard on not passing judgement on anyone if I haven't walked in their shoes. On this one though I can not really do that. The fact that you completely relinquished any responsibility for your children to stay by your wife's side I just can not wrap my head around that...just can't.

 

Few things infuriate me more than parents who treat their children like objects without feelings or pets, which is basically what you and your wife both are doing. You had them and then because she 'rejected' them you let that be that and walked away. That's not how being a parent works. You ever think maybe the reason your 2nd child cried all the time is because he wanted his mom and dad?

 

If she went through severe PPD I have been around women who had that and know it can be unimaginable but THERE IS HELP! I see nowhere where your wife has tried to get any kind of help. You can find people to help you fish but have no one willing to lend you assistance on raising your children?

 

IMO you should have left your wife long ago and fought for what was right....your children! If you are that disabled there are programs that offer child care assistance, in home child care, something....anything other than giving them up. I know a guy who had 2 children then his wife left him. He was majorly disabled so he and his two children moved back with his mom. His mom passed away a few years ago of cancer and he is left to raise the children with only the help of his elderly grandparents. He is in a wheel chair and has a host of disabilitating health problems but he LOVES his kids and will do whatever it takes to raise them.

 

In the end I guess it is best they are where they are and not with two parents who are so self consumed that they can only have pity for themselves and hang out at home all day watching soap operas and 'taking care of each other' Quite frankly if fishing is what you are worried about then go the **** on and fish. Your wife didn't seem to care about your feelings when she decided the kids weren't good enough so why should you care what she thinks if she spends a day out of the house.

 

Like I said I usually try very hard not to pass judgement but in this case you and your wife both sound like you need some SERIOUS mental health treatment. Other than that there is no advice I can give to people I have ZERO respect for! Just thank god the children are in a home now that hopefully has some stability and two decent parents!

[xxoo]

IMO you should have left your wife long ago and fought for what was right....your children!

 

That's the bottom line. You shouldn't be with this woman at all.

 

You want advice on how to fix the relationship. This relationship could NOT be more dysfunctional. You should have left long, long ago, and taken the kids with you.

[robi5918]

i'm not gonna argue about whats been done as i know i made the wrong choice and i regret how it has worked out, i just wish i could turn back the clocks but i cant, i know i should have left her and taken the kids with me now but at the time we didnt have any help apart from what social services done, i didnt know i would of been able to get help, my parents live in spain, i dont have any family who i get on with so didnt have any support, i felt isolated and alone doing the best i could at the time.

 

well i am looking at leaving my wife now, i know its to late but i wanna build my life back up to how i was before i met her, before i met her i was in a job for 12yrs, well paid and had many friends and i had a life, now i have nothing.

i will be seeking help for my mental health as i now dont have any confidence, i feel low, i suffer with anxiety and i have made many mistakes sinse i have been with her which just eats away at me.

 

as for where to start i have no idea but ive had enough of my life.

[Downtown]

Robi, I agree with the other posters that you should leave her, given her unwillingness to confront her illness and seek therapy. It is rare for a BPDer to have the self awareness to see her own problems and the ego strength to do anything about them. Moreover, BPDers are so afraid of abandonment that they are very controlling. Hence, as long as you remain with her, she will attempt to keep you isolated from friends and family members so as to make it easier to control you.

 

Granted, there is a risk she will make good on her suicide threat. Like you, I lived with a BPDer exW for 15 years. To better control me, she tried to isolate me from all friends and she repeatedly threatened to kill herself. I followed her on two occassions to high bridges, walking about a half block behind her. When I stopped following her in that way, she stopped going there. Instead, she started calling me from the subway platform, claiming she was going to jump in front of the next train -- and then hanging up. I ran down there twice to get her. When I stopped doing that, she stopped making the threats.

 

The problem is that, by taking the suicide threats seriously, you are encouraging her to make such threats more often as a way of controlling you. Hence, you may be causing far more potential harm (by encouraging the behavior) than by simply walking out. That is what I eventually decided for myself and, in my case, my exW's suicide threats stopped. Moreover, as long as you continue walking on eggshells so as to live with her, you are harming her by allowing her to continue behaving like a spoiled child.

[littlebit35]

get some sex toys and make her your indoor sex slave , get into some light BSMS and have a lot of fun since your home all the time .