I have a couple of posts to make, mostly because I've had all day to think about things and also because this is a pretty thorny issue for me. I'd like to break them up to make them easier to follow.
Finah: Thanks for your thoughts on what she wrote. Makes me feel a lot better knowing that this is WAW-talk and nothing of any real worth. Also, to answer your question, OM was somebody that my W met while working at a factory. He is in his early thirties, while both my W and I are in our mid-twenties. He is a mechanical laborer, though I'm not exactly sure what he specializes in. He has had many R's before -- he has slept with 9 women, including my W. To be honest, it's hard to know what about him is true. All I get is info from my W which I realize at this point is completely distorted and hard to take seriously. Also, he looks almost exactly like me, only bigger-built.
KML: I appreciate knowing that her vitriol is something that I should never have to take. I used to think that it was normal, used to think that I "deserved" this kind of treatment because I did something "wrong." Now I'm just seeing it as abusive. Also, my OCD is definitely "stuck thinking." I am working very hard on un-sticking my patterns of thought -- it is only causing me horrible depression and forcing me to hold onto things that I have no control over.
Concerning my W's behavior: The more I read up on borderline personality disorder, the more I agree with my W's old therapist that she has "elements" of it. Here are the symptoms that I have observed:
-Self-mutilation. Fortunately, this happened very infrequently, maybe only twice during our whole R. She still has noticeable scars on her arms from where she had cut herself after some kind of emotional crisis that we were going through. --Mood swings --Inappropriate displays of anger. These happened from time to time and usually only occurred in the privacy of our apartment. When my W would get super-stressed, sometimes she would throw things around while screaming or bang her hands on her laptop violently when it wasn't working. --Feelings of emptiness or aloneness. She was often depressed and felt as though she didn't know who she was or what she wanted. I have frequently cited her fantasy of "driving away" and escaping everybody she knew, including me (despite the fact that I would be sitting there comforting her and listening to her -- weird). --Now the big one is fear of abandonment. BPD lit. calls this "I-Hate-You-Don't-Leave-Me." She makes me out to be this awful, selfish person, yet she can't stand the notion that I would voluntarily exit her life and refuses to respect the reasons that I have for going dark. This has apparently inspired her to react to me with venom and threats...
I must also note that this might also be an extreme reaction to my new boundaries. During our R, I don't think I ever once stood up to her and said "no." I made feeble attempts at times, but she would eventually get me to give her what she wanted or agree with her either through logic, crying, or threats. I always felt because of the foolish mistakes that I made at the beginning of our R (lying, misrepresenting my feelings, internally lusting other women, etc.), I was always in karmic debt to her. I never felt that I was ALLOWED to say no or NOT give her what she wanted... I think at times she realized this and would TRY to get me to stick up for myself, but I never understood. Eventually, I think this caused her to lose respect for me, inspiring her to look elsewhere.
