AIBU for thinking who TF does she think she is?

[CFornot123]

Aibu for thinking this is overstepping the fcking mark

Long story so will try to condense and keep to relevant details.

Been with ‘D’H for 13 years (married 6). We have 2 DCs aged 4 and 3. He’s 38, I’m 31. He has been bestfriends with a woman, let’s call her Jane, for 25 years (since they were teens) and there’s never been any romantic history between them.

In general she’s not really my kind of person. She’s quite blunt and a bit rude, uses racist language (I’m Asian) like it’s a casual word and tbh is a bit of a bully. However, knowing she means a lot to my husband, at the start of our relationship I made A LOT of effort to be friends with her and she was even one of my bridesmaids when we got married (the theory being that if she’d have been a guy, she’d have been a groomsman so wanted her to feel involved in the wedding as she Hs best friend). We were on maternity leave at the same time, both had baby girls at the same time (she’s married) etc. but around this same time (so 5 years ago) she stopped engaging with me, started ignoring messages, every plan I made with her she cancelled and then we weren’t invited to her daughters first birthday. Throughout all of this she maintained contact with my husband and they met up regularly for coffee. I raised concerns with H at the time and he brushed it off as “it’s just what Jane does, she’s a bit flaky, don’t take it personally”.

I’ve not spoken to her now for about 4 years, bar the odd hello if she happens to be at a family/friends event (a lot of shared mutual friends/large friendship groups). But she frequently meets up with H for drinks, dinner, brunch, they have regular video calls.

H and I have been going through a lot recently (we relocated from California after spending two years there for his job, I quit my corporate legal career to basically follow him around the world for his high paying role and have moved 10 times in the last 10 years) due to stress with house moves, redundancy and, me trying to figure out what career to do around the kids following a career in law (I’m a high achiever, degree from Oxbridge) and taking a back step. He works very long hours, lots of traveling as we moved to be closer to family as the girls are starting school soon so I said no more following him.

He met up with Jane last Saturday (they’d both been invited to their mutual friends wedding - I wasn’t) and when he came home on Sunday, he asked me to “make some time in my calendar to meet with him on Friday afternoon” (like I’m a business associate…). He told me today that he “discussed me at length with Jane” and THEY had decided that WE don’t communicate in our marriage enough. SHE also, in her expert opinion as a mental health nurse, diagnosed me with a borderline personality disorder based on everything she’s heard and seen from my husband over the last 13 years and that he should gently suggest I go to the GP. For context, like (so it seems) every other woman in their 30s I’m undergoing an ADHD assessment (VERY different to BPD).

So my AIBU - wtf has DH been saying to her about me that has led her to diagnose me with BPD after not speaking to me for 5 years? And who TF does she think she is?

We had no falling out, no cross words were said, I simply stopped making an effort with her and suggesting meeting up because she never made an effort with me and somehow that’s my fault and she hates me enough to say I have BPD?

Frustratingly H said she’s sent him to information to read up on about it.

So far I’ve not reacted or responded to H. I told him that I needed some time to process the conversation we’d just had and I’d discuss it with him when I felt ready

OP your husband is a gaslighting prick. You are his maid and he does whatever he wants. He’s manipulating the shit out of you. I see it- I was there at your age. 10 years on and I’m well aware of how much he abused me and I just didn’t see it. Please just take your children and leave him. Be calm, be moral, be reasonable and respectful but his abuse if you needs to end. Stop being a walk over. You have daughters who are watching-make them proud❤️

Don't get a private assessment, they will 199% tell you you have adhd. Have adhd and was diagnosed by a reputable practitioner on the NHS. Tens of thousands of college and university students get referred to these private clinics every year and most of them get a diagnosis of adhd and or autism

Has he given you any reasons why they are suggesting you have BPD? This whole story is problematic on so many levels, namely how easily your husband places his trust in someone else's opinion vs yours, but in your follow ups he seems to only be given you reasons why he isnt happy, not why he feels justified in giving you what is a pretty serious diagnosis? Its coming across more as his way of questioning your judgement? But is a pretty important point if there is any trust to ever be rebuilt.

That's not how it works for reputable companies.

It's not as simple as walk in and walk out with a diagnosis.

We paid privately for DS's ASD assessment and he had multiple appointments with separate psychologists and an assessment can only be given if they both reach the same conclusion separately, as is the case with the NHS.

The NHS is overwhelmed at present. If people can afford private assessments, after researching legitimate psychologists (that are NHS approved), they shouldn't be discouraged.

In OP's case, time isn't necessarily on her side. She may not have years to wait before needing to prove she is a fit Mother.

When he asked you to give examples of how you've had his back, the absolutely BIGGEST and most IMPORTANT one to me, was moving to California to support him and his job! If you'd refused to do that, then yes, he might have cause to say you haven't had his back, but a decision like that, which affected your life, and that of your children, in so many ways, was huge! He effectively asked you to leave your family and friends, make a new home for him and the family, make a new friendship group, and all while having to find a new job in a system which was not familiar to you, and you did all of that, in order to support him and his career. Would he have done the same for you OP?

I've not read the full thread, but have read all of your posts, and quite frankly I think your marriage is over, or certainly should be. I know people say that men and woman can have friends of the opposite sex, and it shouldn't be a problem, but quite honestly, more often than not, sooner or later it becomes one. You've done your best to be reasonable about him maintaining a friendship with this woman, and the pair of them have stabbed you in the back. Tell the treacherous bastard that he has broken your trust by sitting picking you apart with this woman, who has had the cheek to diagnose YOU, his WIFE, when she hasn't even seen you for years, and because of that, and all his other failings, the marriage is now over.

Ask yourself what he has to do for you to decide you deserve more.

Maybe politely remind her that a nurse was recently struck off for racist comments. Because understandably people didn't think they would be able to treat everyone fairly.

They both sound bloody vile.

No, No, No! He's disrespected ypu by talking to her, you've said how you felt about it, and he's carried on.
There's your answer OP.

I have a lot of knowledge of bpd having lived with someone with this condition. If anyone here has had the experience of living with someone with bad, they'll just how manipulative and gaslight get they can be..
My money is on Jane having BPD which is why she suggested to your husband that you may have it. ...deflecting
People with BDP can really get under your skin very quickly and intensly. Why else would the friendship with Jane lasted with Jane. Who texts their childhood friend constantly, visits them every week in a different county ?.
Jane has created this triangulation because of fear of abandonment .
I'm afraid your DH is totally under her spell, but an outsider it's blatantly obvious.

https://apositivestart.org.uk/therapy-blog/triangulation/
This is a really good article

I think at this point you need to sit him down and say her or me. Because he’s taking you for a fool, which you’re clearly not

OP don't even fight for your marriage with this horrible man. They are being awful to you. Start getting everything sorted and tell him it's over, he can move out and go and live with Jane.
He won't have any objections because he clearly doesn't think your marriage is working.

3 weeks on antibiotics -your dog was deathly ill (likely an abscess that burst internally causing pus to drain into the abdomen or bloodstream resulting in sepsis).

Your husband is gaslighting you big time. The dog was on death's door, yet he claims you are being overly dramatic. A man who treats a dog so poorly tells me everything. I don't like your husband, I don't like how he treats you, and I absolutely hate how he treats a defenseless animal.

OP, I am absolutely shocked that your own husband and father of your children has displayed such an utter lack of loyalty. He has opened the door of your marriage wide to an outsider and invited her into the inner sanctum, which is a total betrayal. I don't know how anyone can be so disloyal to their spouse.

As Princess Diana famously said, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."

I don't know what her game is - it does sound like she wants your DH for herself, but why would she start all this trouble after so many years? My guess is that your DH started all this a few years ago by talking about you negatively behind your back, and that that's why she stopped talking to you. It doesn't make a lot of sense that she wants him if she's also married with kids and had years before you and he met to make her move. Unless you think she's always carried a torch for him? What does your instinct tell you about that?

Ultimately though, you have a DH problem. His total lack of loyalty is astounding. Does he know nothing about being a marital team and does he not understand the concept of loyalty? I would be reading him the riot act about that, and also allowing a third party to interfere in your marriage.

I am so sorry, OP. I think you're going to have to have some firm words with him and tell him that a married couple are a team and that he's meant to be loyal to you, and not expose your marriage to the kind of serious interference that Jane has practised. If you want things to work, you are going to have to demand his loyalty. And get him to marriage counselling with you asap. They should be able to make him see that there is no place for third parties in the inner sanctum of a marriage.

I also had the problem with my exH of being very dismissive of what I said. One time, we were watching TV after dark. We lived quite high up on a flat. Through the window, on a hill some distance away, I saw that there was a cross on a church, and it was illuminated. I said "Hey, there's an illuminated cross over on that church." He immediately said, with zero hesitation, "No there isn't." Even though he couldn't see out of that window from where he was sitting. Why the F would I say I could see an illuminated cross if I couldn't??? I think this dismissal that many men display towards their partners is a sign of sexism.

Anyway, if you want this marriage to work, you are going to have to insist on his loyalty. If he resists, say that you cannot continue in a marriage with a disloyal husband who invites serious interference in your lives from a third party, one who is negative towards you.

And if he still doesn't see it, and he refuses counselling, maybe some of your friends could diagnose HIM and see how he likes it.

And you are coming across as increasingly unhinged.

Right from your first post you said you’d been unfairly vilified by people in your life and that you were expecting to be raged at here. Next you declared you work in a role that people “hate”. You call people sheep for seeing things differently to you, read meaning into comma placement and what you claim to know are deliberately manipulative wordings, Every time someone points out a flaw in your rant you ignore it and bring up a new objection instead or act personally attacked.

It’s almost like you want to be seen as the target of persecution because that validates your belief that whatever happened to you in your life was undeserved.

I'm sorry op I think they are both completely out of line. And for context my ex husbands 2 best friends were female and that was never an issue. Friends are important and men and women can just be friends.

However, these two sound totally enmeshed. It's not OK for your husband to go running to Jane to discuss your martial issues. You are the person he needs to be coming to with that and I'd also have felt very betrayed by his actions.

You're doing much more than just organising pt sessions or making lunch, you are clearly highly capable and have put your own career on a back seat in order to enable him to follow his own goals (even though they benefit your family that's still HIS success being enabled by you. ) you are quite literally revolving your life around him and he is too self absorbed to see it.

Personally I'm not sure I could tolerate the lack of respect he's showing you, how comfortable he seems to be with other people insulting send passing judgement on you as his wife, and the betrayal of sharing private issues with others. None of it is okay. I'd be telling him that you are seriously questioning the future of the marriage and you want him to commit to marriage counselling with you.

I think you need to be sat in a room together where there are no distractions and you are both equally accountable to a neutral third party who can reflect things to you both to help you each really hear them. I think that'll very quickly show you a) how committed he is to changing what he needs to in order to make this relationship better for everyone b) the scale of Jane's involvement c) how he reacts to a third party reflection - is he actually capable of hearing you and your needs and acting on those. I think by the end you'd know if there's hope for change or not and then you can make an informed decision.

But I'd say yes their behaviour is highly inappropriate and you are right to be concerned. The other side of this is that it does sound like there's a bit of gaslighting here, undermining you and dismissing you. It may be something he's doing to justify his own behaviour because he doesn't want to see it but it's not OK and it's not an acceptable way to treat a spouse. I'd be watching to see how much is intentional and how much is unconscious. It does sound like he's got an echo chamber in Jane and people can justify anything to themselves if they try hard enough.

I'd be trying to get savings etc in order behind the scenes. Eta: I think you'd have been well within your rights to leave after his 10 day disappearing act at a stressful time. He's very clearly shown you that he doesn't consider you his 'partner' in practice. Jane is who his partner is in those moments and that is not okay and definitely goes beyond the realm of normal friendship.

OP this whole situation is hideous.

I think you are at ultimatum time. If he wants the marriage to work. He needs to stop contacting Jane and both of you get to couple therapy.

if he won’t do that, then you know where you sit in his priorities . To be fair he’s made that pretty clear already.

you are young and can earn well, you will
be ok if the only right answer for you is to leave.

As for Jane, she is racist. She has a controlling relationship with your husband. Whether she wants something from this herself, who knows. But this isn’t about her, it’s about your DH and how little he respects you or treats you as equal in your marriage.

Yes! That's EXACTLY what OP should say!

Firstly, a mental health nurse is not allowed to diagnose anyone with anything. Secondly, her behaviour indicates that she might be the one with the personality disorder. A lot of emotionally damaged people are attracted to the mental health industry as they can compare themselves to the patients and they feel powerful/superior/comparatively sane & functional. Inserting yourself into someone else’s marriage with a clear objective of breaking it up is called “splitting”. This is one of the things people with some personality disorders are known to do.
I genuinely think you need to make your DH handle the consequences of his actions. You need to set very clear boundaries and have all the paperwork like financial information - cc statements, loan info, bank statements, etc, joint subscriptions, utility bills, joint assets, cars, money in and out of accounts, everything. You need his income and pension details and you need to do this without him knowing. I would also recommend that you get this quickly and see a solicitor and get the ball rolling for a divorce. It’s going to be ugly.

Oh and try and get screenshots of their conversations as evidence of their emotional affair.

Normally I would agree one hundred percent. It sounds EXACTLY like they are having an affair. But they've known each other since they were teens. Why would they be having an affair NOW?

The term splitting has absolutely nothing to do with involvement in anyone's relationships, the term is to discribe what happens in the brain of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder when the person they are in a relationship with suddenly becomes less than "perfect" in their eyes as many idolise their partners and causes the pwbpd to view them as all "bad" or "hurtful". The term is used to discribe splitting from one emotional state to another, e.g. from all good to all bad in a blink of an eye, It has to do with the black and white thinking on part of the borderline, they'll see you as a good person or a bad person. It has nothing to do with breaking up relationships. I hope this is informative and in no way ment as disrespectful, it is important not to give out disinformation even with the best of intentions as it can cause more problems.

Who the fuck do they both think they are? She sounds absolutely awful and jealous of you, I’ve come across one or two women like her over the years. 100% she is jealous of you and likely she needs to see her own G.P. I couldn’t forgive that behaviour from my husband, discussing your marriage with this woman. There would be absolutely no going back for me. You sound like a great person btw. Fuck them both.

@CFornot123 Hey OP I am so sorry you are having to go through all of this.

I'm going to keep it short as I don’t want this being lost in all of the posts.

Is there any way you can access his phone?? You need to get into it & see for yourself what your Husband has been saying to Jane and others. At the moment we think it’s only the 2 of them but I think this conspiracy extends far beyond them & make sure you take screenshots of everything as you will need it come the divorce and if needs be Family Court.

At this point he may be laying the groundwork to paint you as volatile etc and you are anything but!!!!! Only by doing this will you get a complete picture of what he has been saying to Jane and others. He might be trying to get you labelled as an unfit parent so he keeps the kids and he doesn’t have to pay you any maintenance.

Go detective on everything, all financials related to property, pensions, cash in accounts etc. Start to get your ducks in a row. Look at divorce lawyers and engage one so you are directed as to what info you need to get to ensure you receive the right settlement. Personally if that was my husband he would be lucky if I gave him a cardboard box to put his stuff in.

Could he have bought property/properties without you knowing? Check Companies House in case he has created a property company etc.

Time to ring the friend whose wedding you apparently weren’t invited to & let’s see what clangers are dropped by this friend. Tell the friend you were sorry you couldn’t attend the wedding after you were disinvited but that you wanted to wish the happy couple well. Don’t fill in awkward silences let’s see what the friend says about it all. N.B. Unless you find something on his phone that tells you why and you can leave out making contact.

Keep building the picture that your disloyal husband has been painting. This will come in useful when it’s time to divorce him.

Time for you to keep a timeline from the minute you dropped your career, had kids to the number of times you followed him around that allowed him to become successful in his career, what input if any he has had in the children’s upbringing, DEFINITELY detail the incident which led to your dog finally being seen by the VET! Be very clear about the sequence of events and that it took for you to call a family member to make him understand the severity of your dogs injury.

Get the kids passports out of the family home and log with the authorities that he cannot take them out of the country. Your solicitor can tell you exactly what to do.

This is why it is so important to get into his phone as you need to see for yourself exactly what he has been saying to people and for how long. Once you know the game he has been playing can you then formulate your own strategy and pull the rug out from him.

Start the Job hunt ASAP! You need to have your own financial independence away from him.

Report the witch to her regulatory board, find out how to request who has looked at your medical record without your consent. She wanted to diagnose you & blow up your world so you need to repay the favour! Let’s see if she likes to be on the receiving end. Don’t forget how she is a racist either. A person like that should be nowhere near anyone vulnerable.

Plus if you can find screenshots of her telling him you have BPD you have the evidence to show just how spiteful and unprofessional she really is. She does not get to come in and walk away unscathed. Every action has a consequence and she needs to learn hers.

Remove any material possessions you have been given so he cannot take what is yours.

OP, you are an incredible woman & mother! Channel your inner warrior and show these 2 how they underestimated you. You have got this!!

Time to wake your inner Dr Foster!!

Hideous is the word.

Yes, Jane is racist, and if you think about it, she's been disrespecting OP from the very beginning, saying racist things in front of her even though OP is non-white.