Introduction part 2

    My previous post laid out how the Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms apply to me, so today I thought I would share some additional information about myself.

 I am a 40 year old male, living in the USA and have been married twice. My first wife and I were married for 5 years and have 2 kids together. My current wife, Gwen and I have been married nearly 7 years, have a son together and she has a daughter from a previous marriage.

Below is an of significant events throughout my life:

Early years
When I was around 5 or so, my father sexually abused me. As I was so young, I don't know if this was a one-time incident or if there were more that I don't remember or blocked out. My father was also very physically/verbally/mentally abusive to my mother throughout my formative years. I remember seeing when he would hit her or call her vulgar names. I cannot imagine the hell she must have gone through, as I am sure that there were more incidents that I did not see. I went to a private, Christian elementary school and loved it. I was the class clown, had lots of friends and really enjoyed those times and excelled academically.

Preteen
When I was in 5th grade, my mother and father separated for a little less than a year. I can remember weekends with my father pretty vividly. For some reason, he wanted to take showers together, which at the time, didn't think was too odd, but of course looking back, I realized his intentions were not innocent. My parents ended up getting back together and it was time for me to start middle school. Public middle school...a place where I only knew 1 other kid. The middle school years were hell for me as I was constantly picked on. Those years are tough enough for anyone, but they really changed who I was and felt as a human. This was in the late 80's/early 90's, when the whole current anti-bullying stance was not en vogue. My parents never knew that I would dread every single day...that I lived in constant fear, praying "please God let me have a good day and not get made fun of". As a result of this, I went from being the outgoing class clown, to being extremely shy, withdrawn, scared and felt worthless.

Teenage years
I survived middle school and although I would still get picked on my freshman year, it wasn't nearly as bad. I believe the things I dealt with during middle school attributed to me being a total slacker academically in high school. My parents didn't graduate college and were successful professionally, so it was never really drilled into my head that I needed to attend college. I did the bare minimum at school and was at best a high C/low B student. I didn't have a girlfriend...never did drugs or drank. I did develop a passion for music, especially The Beatles, which still exists to this day. After graduation, I worked call center jobs for a few years...attended college for maybe a year, until I quit.

Early adult
When I was 21, I decided that my life wasn't going anywhere, so I should join the Army. I made it through Basic Training, but realized halfway throughout, that it wasn't for me. I even remember an incident when I told my drill sergeants that I was gay, in hopes of getting discharged. I got to my advanced training and just couldn't take it anymore. I went AWOL, knowing that I would discharged, which I did. I imagine that my family was disappointed, but  I didn't care.

Married Life
 The fear I felt reminded me of being in middle school, so I left. Shortly after I came back home, the Internet was starting to take off and I met a girl online and before I knew it, we were living together and then a few months later she got pregnant, so I asked her to marry me. In retrospect, I knew that I wanted to be a huge part of my child's life and wanted to try and be the family that I never had.  We had a very turbulent relationship. I would cheat on her, started drinking heavily and we were constantly breaking up and separating. During this time, I ended up getting a really good job in IT...a field I would remain in for quite a while. It was also during this time that I saw a psychiatrist, who determined that I was depressed and I began to take medication. I stayed on meds for maybe a year, but didn't continue therapy past a few months. I eventually started feeling that I didn't want to be married...like I felt trapped. In my mind, I didn't want to feel regret, so instead of just leaving, I did everything I could to push and push my wife until she finally said that she wanted a divorce. Once she said that, I felt a sigh of relief and a rush of excitement.

Single Life
The next 4 years were very a tornado. My drinking frequency increased and my destructive relationships with women were on overdrive. I dated a ton, but the relationships never lasted. It was often a classic case of devaluation. I would always put them up on a pedestal and think that they were perfect, incredibly quickly. Once I did this, it would take the smallest flaw for me to flip that switch and think that they were pieces of garbage, who would hurt me. Once that happened, I would stop dating them. I remember one incident where I went on a few dates with a girl and on one date, she was late. I was more annoyed than I should have been, but I kept my cool. On the very next date, she was late again. I remember just getting up and leaving. In my mind, I saw it that I wasn't important enough for her to be on time for our dates, so she definitely would hurt me at some point in the future.
After I would break up with them, I would sometimes try to get them back, as if I was testing to see if they truly liked me. Of  course, if I got them back, I would see that as a sign of weakness and break up with them again. When it came to dating, it was all about the thrill of the chase. I loved seeing/finding a women, getting her to like me and in many cases, fall in love with me. Once I felt that I "caught" her, I lost interest.  Things got really interesting and my life changed, when I met Gwen.

Gwen
I will never forget the fateful Friday night when I met my future wife. Gwen and I had exchanged messages from an online dating site and chatted online for a bit and on one particular Friday night, I was bored and wanting to hook up with someone. She was online and we made a plan for me to go to her house to watch a movie. I don't know if it was my understanding of how women work or my sheer narcissism, but in my eyes, I knew that it was going to basically be a booty call. Sure enough, we watched the movie and ended up having sex. She was different than the girls that I typically went for...older than me and not a supermodel figure, but she was really awesome to talk to and was great in bed, so over the next few months, she became my go to piece of ass. She would even find girls for me to meet or girls to have threesomes with. The whole time, she was really into me and began to fall for me. I saw this, but was having too much fun, so I ignored it...until I started to feel the same for her.

 Wake up call
 In December 2007, I told her that I loved her and wanted to be with her. She said OK,but in her mind, she didn't believe me. In my mind, I was all in and was super happy. The day after I told her that I loved her, was a day that will be etched in my memory forever.  I had previously told a friend of mine that I would go to her birthday get together for a little while that night, so Gwen made plans to go out with a guy friend of hers to a club while I was out. The guy was an awkward 21 year old kid, so I thought nothing of it. Around midnight, I'm leaving my friends party and text Gwen that I'm heading over and she replied cool and that the door will be unlocked. She also mentioned how the kid was pretty drunk so he was going to stay in one of her extra bedrooms for the night. I get to her house and go inside. I make the way up the stairs and I hear a noise...its the unmistakable sound of Gwen moaning. I'm thinking, man, she was starting without me. I get up the stairs and I realize she is not getting off alone. The kid was on top of her and they are going at it. To say I was in shock would be an understatement. I didn't say anything, I just turned around and walked down the stairs. She realizes I'm there and immediately gets up to go after me, screaming at me to wait and yelling at the kid to get the fuck out. I get in my car and race off. I got a mile away when I got extremely pissed, yet I was calm. I turn the car around and headed back to her house. I grabbed my knife and went back inside. She was telling me how she was really really drunk, which she was. The kid was getting his stuff together and was telling me how she started things, which she flatly denied.
I left her house, went home and tell myself that I'm done with her. I refer to this incident as "wake up call" for two reasons. The first is that if you listen to the words to the song "wake up call" by Maroon 5, it reminds me alot of that night. Also, it WAS a wake up call for me. I have always been the one who has cheated, but never the one who was cheated on, at least the best to my knowledge. Getting betrayed and lied to was a horrible feeling and I felt a ton of guilt for doing the same to countless women in the past.

To be continued...