This goes out to all the divorced breadwinners out there who are stuck with a massive child support payment and feel totally and utterly dependent on your job to keep yourself out of family court and/or jail. I've found myself really enjoying alcohol, sex, video games, exercise, golf, and sleeping. I've been pressured to re-marry, but frankly that scares the $#%^ out of me after getting railroaded in court by my delusional HPD ex-wife.

My question is, does the feeling and memories of getting so majorly and royally %###$%ed ever subside? How do you enjoy your life again without wanting to tell everyone the scary outcome you endured? Does anything even come close to reducing the pain from that injury?

3 years ago I was shocked/confused/baffled/bewildered/devastated that my Cluster B wife of almost 6 years took my children, left town, filed for divorce, vilified me with everyone she knew, and then smeared campaigned me in court while painting herself as a victim. They believed the lies, and I got completely screwed. Today I look back on the whole mess as the equivalent of emotional rape. Of course I didn't know she had a disorder at the time. I found that out later. To this day I would love to hear any form of apology. But the majority of me knows it's never going to happen. Some people deal with their own issues by pretending the issues and the people that remind them of those issues don't exist..... essentially repeating the phrase "It couldn't possibly be me, so it must be them". Those people are hindering their own growth, and leaving a huge trail of confusion behind them.

The best we can do is move on, learn from the experience, and ensure we don't get hoovered back into a place we've already determined we don't want to be. Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

It was definitely THE worst point in my life (so far). Breakups suck in general, but it felt infinitely worse with my innocent helpless children involved in the clusterf_ck she unilaterally initiated. I'm thoroughly convinced based on my experience with her and her psych evaluation that it was all due to mental illness.

The good news is you WILL come out of this a much stronger individual. Part of the closure you will most likely have to reach on your own, will be realizing that you're left with more than just pain. You're left with the knowledge that you consistently put forth more effort into the relationship. You're left with the knowledge that you told the truth. You're left with knowing throughout your heart and soul that you did everything you could to save it. You will be able to look yourself in the mirror without guilt, knowing that you are just one person and you handled that one person's business to the best of your ability....... It took me quite a while to reach this milestone.... I couldn't seem to stop kicking myself for not doing more. But there really is only so much you can do, especially when a cluster B mental disorder is involved. Sadly, their soul is a bucket with a gaping hole in it. And they expect others to fill it because they don't know how. Until they realize they are responsible for their own happiness, it's the people closest to them who are held accountable.... She no longer appreciates everything you did for her because your attention supply has been devalued. And after we're devalued the past means nothing.... now we are simply expected to suffer their wrath and pay all the consequences. What did we do wrong? We failed to achieve the impossible task of convincing her to love herself and fill her own bucket. Normal people consider the impact of major decisions like ending a marriage, and how it will effect their children. In my ex's case, I truly believe the children are simply "mini-me's". If she hates me and doesn't want to be around me, then the children must feel the same way (in her delusional mind). I know better. I know the children know their daddy loves them more than anything. I can't be her rock anymore, but I will still be theirs. I will be loving and strong for them no matter how massive her smear campaign becomes.

Do whatever you can to take care of yourself during this time. Start a gym membership, jog, bike riding, sports, lean on friends and family for support. There is light at the end of the tunnel. One day at a time, man.

And consider this... How sad would it be to live in her shoes? ....in a fantasy world for decades, completely unaware YOUR disordered brain has forced you to endure repeated relationship failures? And then one day in your 40's or 50's or 60's (or never), long after the child support has stopped and the children can't get far enough away from you, another relationship fails and you've hit rock bottom, yet again for the billionth time.... and then miraculously the thought actually hits you.... What if it really IS me? Now you're old, poor, alone, and powerless. You've literally wasted a lifetime throwing genuinely awesome people out of your life like garbage, one after the other, over and over again.... And none of them want you back. C'est la vie, sweetie.

I'd much rather be sane and free

The sad thing is, many HPD's refuse to believe there is anything wrong with them and will aggressively defend their ego against any perceived threat.

For example: After 7 years of bliss as far as I could tell, my HPD ex-wife.... (who enjoyed staying home with the kids and ignoring most of the real chores while I worked).... starts having frequent emotional breakdowns. One night she wakes me up at 4am because she's crying in the fetal position. I ask her what's wrong. She tells me "I hate my brain! I feel like I'm going crazy! I need help!" This of course scares the $hit out of me because I had never witnessed someone going bat$hit crazy like this before. I try to be as supportive as possible and suggest she see a therapist. A few days later the counselor suggests she start taking anti-depressants. Of course she doesn't like this idea at all. Shortly afterwards she opts to blame me instead.... "you're the one who should be on anti-depressants!" she says. Then a few days later she says "I did some soul searching on why I've been so unhappy, and it's you."

(Looking back on it, that was the exact moment I began riding the WTF bus. )

Anyway within a matter of days, she completely nukes our marriage. The lie factory goes into full production. She tells everyone she knows that she's afraid of me. She then takes our children out of our house, moves to a different county, and files for divorce.....

Her list of lies was absolutely mind-boggling to me and my family (147 by my count). She wanted to make sure everyone in her fan club would side with her, so she could live out the rest of her life knowing that everyone else believed she was justified in making such a rash decision. I tried getting custody of my children but her smear campaign was just too much. Even though a PhD shrink reported she had a marked elevation on the histrionic scale (I paid for the evals on both of us), the custody evaluation FOC knothead felt bad for her and labeled me as abusive and controlling based on zero evidence whatsoever. The judge actually threatened me to give up my rights to my children or else get left with supervised visitation with my kids.... I was scared and completely devastated by the whole mess. It was hell on earth.

It took me a very long time to recover, but it definitely taught me some very important life lessons. There are delusional people everywhere, and like I said above, just because other people have negative opinions of me doesn't mean I have to accept them as truth. I think people like my ex-wife get to enjoy the benefits of learning this same lesson way before everybody else, but in their case it's akin to a completely oblivious driver going the wrong way on the interstate and calling 911 to complain about all the other drivers.

She took on the pity role to paint me as a monster and used that to justify ripping my kids away from me and skip town. It's very sad and extremely frustrating.

I know the truth. She denies it. Irreconcilable differences. I get that. But moving the children out of town to be closer to her family at the expense of damaging their relationship with their father was astronomically selfish in my opinion. The PhD psych report on her which highlighted HPD even stated as clear as day she "risks meeting her own needs at the expense of the children". Even the judge read that report, too, and yet I still get completely f*cked....

There should be a law against either parent leaving town during divorce proceedings to protect kids against mentally disordered injustices like this. The family court's primary goal is supposed to be looking out for the best interests of the children, and yet they accepted the fact she skipped town with our children while ignoring the mountain of evidence I provided showing that it wasn't justified. The system failed yet again. Simply amazing....