Pamela, please let me know about the best ways in which I might be able to support you.

I could offer you practical thoughts, make a very blunt assessment of the young woman (which you might find confronting), share some of my experiences and offer you emotional support. These are not mutually exclusive.

Whatever might work well for you is all that I am concerned about.

Kiwi, I would welcome your blunt assessment of this young woman and equally what I find confronting may well be the help I need in the healing process to find me again. A young friend of mine listened with horror as I gave a very skimmed version of his departure and she said to me, all I’ve heard is your concern for him, nothing of yourself, and it’s true, I’ve lost who I am in my efforts to be strong enough to deal with all my issues on my own these last 25years and carry him. So yes, I will value and treasure all you can offer and give. It’s what I need.

I have just now received this email from him to give an example of how detached he is and the world he’s living in.

“Sorry to keep sending emails. Did you pay my psych appt yesterday if not I will pay tonight But can you print out and keep for reclaiming Thanks. And What account do you want A to pay the rent into - the one she used to use. It’s more money towards the mortgage”

His Psych didn’t send me the a/c for yesterday, she knows I’m no longer responsible for his bills. He has moved out with A elsewhere, the account A used to pay rent into, and that would be 3 times in the 3 months she lived here, we closed on Thursday. Is he nuts, or is it just me??

This is how he was when he was in the deepest grips of alcohol, not thinking things through. As if his ex wife would be paying his ongoing psych appts that he’s attending after he’s moved out. As if I’m going to give over account numbers for her to pay money towards “our” mortgage, something she could use later down the track, oh I paid towards the mortgage...

He sent the email at 10.33, he is at work today and it pinged on my personal phone, my personal phone has never been set up to receive emails or ping on their arrival. But as of Thursday while we were at the bank, my phone now gets email alerts. So I have not answered the email. The phone rang at 11.22am, it will have been him, he always rang me between 11and 11.30am. I didn’t answer.

She has told people in our local community I’m an evil old woman, I’m violent and aggressive and have kept him a prisoner for the last 2 years making him go to work and not letting him go out.

I am truly frightened of this girl.

My blunt assessment of the young woman is that she has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Here are its official (DSM) clinical signs:

(1) frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment;
(2) a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships;
(3) identity disturbance;
(4) impulsivity in at least two areas that are self–damaging;
(5) recurrent suicidal behavior, suicidal gestures, threats or self-mutilating
behavior;
(6) affective instability;
(7) chronic feelings of emptiness;
(8) inappropriate, intense anger;
(9) transient stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

I know about BPD because I used to be an Admin of a now-defunct board which supported people who self-injure (cut themselves without suicidal intent) - this is part of criterion (5).

Usually somebody needs five of those signs to get that Dx but from what you have said she seems to have all of them.

People with BPD are very manipulative, as is reflected in your experience. For your own well-being (all that I am concerned with) please have nothing to do with her.

If you want to you could pass on the BPD list to DB as a "heads-up". letting him know what he is getting into with the young woman. Your call - whatever is best for you is the only thing that I am worried about.

Kiwi, I cannot begin to thank you for taking the time to do this assessment. It has confirmed all my thoughts and fears. But fears for me and my pets. I do believe the alleged rescue of Bronson was utter BS and I actually think she did shove her hand down his throat and cause damage to his windpipe. He was not having this laboured breathing before I went back into hospital the 2nd time, it only happened after she “rescued him” remember db came to 5e hospital and said he might have to put him down.

So db has made his bed, he needs to learn his own lessons and I am not in rescue mode in any way shape or form. In his current mindset and her prolific badgering of him re me is possible to prompt him to drink and openly tell her or worse show her this. So stay with me it will other than those few dear friends I trust with my life details.

Thank you Kiwi, thank you

Today’s email at 6.39am after the wild weather we had (very wild)! Hope all is good at home after the wild weather and hope you and all pets are doing ok. L&T

I imagine these will peter out soon enough, I notice the love has been dropped. If he truly cared, he will have remembered all the blinds needed securing, outdoor furniture secured and cat run made safe, none of which is truly easy to do when recovering from a 3 level spine fusion.

I had thought I’d managed it all with lots of small attempts over the course of the day, we had well advance notification of the storm intensity. But one of the blinds came free and I had to make a quick rescue dash, leaning back and looking up while pulling not an easy task in my state. Nevertheless I achieved it, the rain lashing seemed to reach its highest sometime around 3am, I checked on all the animals at 11, 1, 3 & 5. I got up at 6 and let them all in. In other words I had a very disrupted night. I would normally leave the cat run door open for the cats to come and go, but with the wind so strong it was sucking the curtain and smacking it against the open gap and whistling and flapping like Batman’s cape. I apologised to the cats and said I’m sorry it’s every cat and woman for themselves. Only my Manx looked at me reproachfully the Abyssinian, Black Russian and Russian Blue were up for a night of fun. My beloved boys (dogs) were hunkered down in their beds, didn’t even look up when I turned the light on to check, and as I had elevated their beds 8” off the ground in winter after the last storms when the back yard flooded I had no concerns about them sleeping in wet soaking beds. In all I think did a good job, in reality I did nothing more than I’ve done for the past 12 years, it’s always been me securing the furniture and blinds and making the yard safe from flying projectiles while he would sit inside in the depths of his depression or downing a beer or 4. Cats and dogs are all inside now and seem very well at ease.

My sister is coming tonight to clean and stay the night, I’m looking forward to her company. She has gone through this, her husband left her after 10yrs, he’d had multiple affairs and she had turned a blind eye. The day he left she was in hospital by nightfall, looking back, an effort on her behalf to garner his attention, I recall going to the house to get her X-rays and all he said was “what’s she done this time” with zero care factor. My sister is very different to me, she registered on an on line dating site and was with someone within the week, she openly admits she can’t be on her own. She’s able to take on someone else and become someone else with ease. I know she will recommend I do the same, but that’s not me & the thought of being in someone else’s arms churns my stomach.

I see my psych again tomorrow, she has chosen to bulk bill me for the next 3 sessions so I will not be out of pocket. I’ve spoken to Payroll and changed my pay to go into my new bank account and I’ve added up all his expenses since November 26 to tell him it’s his responsibility to repay them, by Thursday last week the setting up his new home exercise has cost $6876, money he has taken from our joint equity account which my wage was paid into. I notice he has spent more since then and also used the credit card. In contrast, I’ve spent $53. Maybe I should go back to November 10...

I feel drained, I pray I can become the person I was after I left my 1st husband, the one who was strong and put herself first for the first time in her life. The one who wasn’t controlled by others thoughts and actions, the one who said No and stopped trying to please everyone else. Ironically the one db (aka dead beat - no more dearly beloved) fell in love with. I need to be that person again, I know she must be somewhere inside me.

Post edit $9591.48 so much for telling me he’s not the flashy spend money man anymore. Miss BO has got herself a good one here. No way is she going to be releasing her claws.

Pamela, it is good that you and your dogs survived the weather and that your sister is coming round .

It might be an idea if you got urgent advice about the money things. This is not about me but my story might give you some context.

I have been separated from my wife for about eight years. I think that we just grew apart and, with the power of 20:20 hindsight, there are things which we both could have done differently. We have a joint bank account with a lot of money in it. Sometimes either of us needs to make an unusually large withdrawal from it. Out of mutual respect we always check with the other first and the response is always the same; "Yes, no worries.".

It worries me a lot that DB is taking a lot of money out of your joint account without checking with you first. It does not seem fair to me. Can you get legal advice and/or talk to your bank about this?

With care and concern.

I’m going to the bank again after I’ve seen the psych, he is going there on Wednesday to get his new credit card application completed but I want to do exactly that, I want to ask how I can prevent him from just helping himself. We agreed he could use the credit card until he got his own issued, but I don’t recall saying he could use the equity with apparent abandon....

He rang the landline at 10.53, I didn’t answer but he left a message and sounded very concerned, he then immediately rang my work mobile which I was using at the time of his call to the landline and left an equally concerned message. Given my sister will be here tonight, I opted to send a brief email just in case he decided to come over to check. I copied his email of yesterday from my personal email to my work email and responded to him via that way, (ensuring she doesn’t know I have replied, I have this feeling she has hacked my gmail, it’s the one account I haven’t changed but will after Xmas when I tell db I’m swapping my personal phone into my old work phone, that way she won’t think I’m on to her). It was the email he wrote about missing you, so I Just wrote “and your missed”. Nothing else, in hindsight I should have copied this mornings email but I hadn’t put that into the file and just coped the first one o came across, I could have said I’m ok, but I’m not and I can’t see the point in lying. I should have said the animals are missing you, because they are, his voice came over the voice mail and Bronson & Bono raced to the front room looking for him. The cats keep gong to the bedroom looking for him, only sit on his chair and keep meowing.

Pam,

I share Kiwi's concerns. He has some good insights and recommendations.

You really need financial advice. Even a phone conference can lead you with direction to follow and would be less expensive. There is good chance db will be responsible/share the expenses as well.

The person you mentioned is still there inside; "you will be back"...


Gerry

Pam,
Will be here for any support I can help in this journey you are on. Have you contacted a lawyer for advice in dealing with financial support, etc.?

As you may already suspect/know, he may be drinking again which is now out of your hands. He will have to learn to deal with these things on his own terms. He will find out in due time who she really is and whether this is something that will last or just a fling. Again,
he can no longer use you as his excuse.

Hold on dear friend.

Gerry