Day 3, Crazy Making

There is a certain amount of satisfaction one gains in knowing that your friends have your back. Got a call from my girlfriend on the island, who told me that Robin had contacted the proverbial straw that broke the camels back of our divorce, and ripped him apart at the seams. It was tough on my friend, but it was redemptive for me. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not pleased that my friends had to be subjected to the rantings of a mad man, but I will tell you that it is important to get validation when you are married to someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder. Someone else could see a reaction in Robin. These were no longer just accusations from a disgruntled wife. Robin was showing somebody else who he was and he wasn't holding anything back. I am happy. Happy that someone else could say to me "What is up with that?" Someone else to hear the anger, and someone else to witness the behavior. It has been such a secret for so long. My secret. I would tell people but no one would believe that such a charismic man would behave like a loonie bird. I shouldn't be happy because it makes me sound vengeful. But I am. I am tired of wearing his stuff like a suit of armor. I am being witnessed.

BPD is insidious. It is crazy making at it's finest. Countless books have been written about women and BPD, but rarely are there any discussions about effects that it has on the male population. This disorder, for men, mostly masks itself in Narcissism. Men deal with the disorder differently, but many of the same “I hate you, don't leave me" behaviors apply”. Now, I am not and expert on BPD and men, but merely tell my own journey out of Oz. It is a strange place to be.

But I may be getting ahead of myself. You see I neglected to explain what happened in the first place. For several weeks, Robin and I have been playing the same dance tune over and over again. Deeply, neither of us wants to end the marriage; there is an odd connection in our dysfunction that makes it hard to completely break away. This extension of our familiar dance steps began when Robin recently went to Mexico. While there, he explained in a lovely card accompanied with a gift he brought back from his sanctuary, that he had a chance to deeply reflect on our lives together and had hoped that we could work it out. According to his scribe he wanted to talk. I sat in silence upon reading it. I was open, but fearful of another round of discussions.

The dialogue reopened, I knew it would only be a matter of time before we would be in the same place and as it turned out, the discussions would in fact, return to a usual point of reference. What do I produce? How do I contribute to the relationship on a monetary scale. Only this time, the detail of my financial statements became the inventory for my value. I was mortified. In all of the notes and letters of recent weeks, none professed love. Oh, yes, there was the proverbial “love Robin”, but as every woman knows, a salutation is not a form of love.

So, I did not respond. Then to the island Robin went to meet with our karate friends. My girlfriend said that when he walked into the room, he was like a peacock on the strut. There were mixed reactions to his presence. Some thought he had come in to steal the other Sensei's thunder. Others were happy to see him, and still others wondered why on earth he was there. Of course, as a surprise to all involved, the senior technical committee felt obligated to ask him to lunch. One of the members of the committee has a reputation of being a bit of a gossiping goose. Whether consciously, or subconsciously, Robin knew that the information that he would share over lunch, would find it's way back to me. So he spoke. “Last Night, Heather and I spent the night”.

To the shock and awe of all, the phone went ablazing. “Ann, you won't believe this” “You won't believe this! Robin stayed at his ex wife's house last night!”.

When I heard the news I was driving my ricketty old jeep. I pulled over, and to my own surprise found myself shouting over and over “ He did what?” “He did what” My heart raced rapidly, my blood pressure raising, the mortification of it all. For ten years, Robin had told me that Heather was trailer trash. She was morbidly obese, talked too much, was too loud, too drunk, too insane too, everything. He was horrible about her, and suddenly, out of nowhere, he was spending the night? I screeched, I reacted. I called him. “You stayed over at your ex wife's house, Are you out of your f)(&*(*& mind?” I am sure that at that moment, I sounded like the crazy person that he had made Heather out to be for all those years. The completion of the mold that he had begun to create and build me into, the replica of Her was in it's unravelling. Looking at our history, Heather and I had started out much alike. Both beautiful, both slim, both outgoing gregarious people who were fun and well liked and who would become, heavy, tired and worn out by his disease. And now it was I who was trailer trash. Now it was I whom he could say was nothing but shit. He had molded me and viewed me the same as he had viewed her for so very long. But, now in it's usual crazy making form, she would be lifted from her chains and they would be able to communicate again because he had a new vessel for hate. And it was I that he could blame everything negative of the relationship on and he could go back to the comforts of feeling idolized again. You see, She loved him. She couldn't go on after they had split and in fact, had never shared her life with a serious relationship again. She dated on and off of course. But he would set her up to take all the love that he could no longer justify with me and chanel it into something familiar.

It was the bottom for me. The absolute, no holds bar end. I pulled into my driveway and wanted every last remnant of his belongings out. Out, out, out! I called my friend back, and I tried to work through the tears. I wanted everything of his broken, but what would that accomplish, except for me to actually be the crazy one.

The tears weren't about us ending, but about anger. I was angry. Angry that he would have told her about me. He would have used the same words to describe Heather, to describe me. He would have told her that I was fat, and took advantage of him. He would have labeled me with everything that he had once labeled her. I would be the new enemy. I felt sick. I felt my head spin. How could this be?

He wrote me an email justifying his choice to spend time with her. The nail to the coffin had been set, hammered and life as I had known it was now really gone. I couldn't forgive the infidelity. It didn't matter about the sex, the intimacy laid in a different arena. He was not a sexual man, she told me so herself a few years back in a statement that all too soon after we were married, would become my truth as well as hers. But, he had gone too far now. BPD drama had shown its head again. I hate her, but since I don't have you anymore, and I need to be validated by someone, if not you someone familiar. Anyway, upon receiving Robins email about his justification for seeing Heather, I pulled myself together and graciously replied that “It was no longer any business of mine”. In response, he wrote a scathing email back saying “If you didn't care, why did you yell into the phone?” There were no salutations at all. Just four lines.

Which brings me to the beginning of this entry. I did not respond to those lines, and so he called the person who told me and apparently screamed into the phone that I was to be called post haste, and that the story must be recanted. He fervently claimed it wasn't true. Robin was clearly upset and angry that I had learned of the tryst. He told our friend that he had stayed at some hotel, and that the story must be repaired. He yelled. He demanded. He used profanity. He demanded some more.

Again, the traveling road show would visit my city.“You won't believe who just called!”

A shudder and a smile simutaneously crossed my lips. I would never go through this alone again. The heavens were listening.