Something else to keep in mind -- someone with BPD (etc.) can be highly intelligent and think, especially strategically, with great effectiveness. Some are high functioning and can hold down a job or have a thriving career. Some can keep things together long enough to build a relationship, like a marriage, and even have and raise children. The issue for them is mostly one of emotional regulation, not intellectual prowess, combined with the borderline portion, which is the capacity to dislocate from reality, the degrees to which affect their other success.

So, take someone with BPD who is high functioning. They have a job with responsibility and outwardly are polished and organized. They pay their bills. They take care of their homes.  They may have friends and a social life. Inside, though, there is emotional dysregulation and maybe even some breaks from reality -- just not as extreme as you'd expect of someone with deep psychosis or, say, schizophrenia.

So, for example, you get involved with them and for the "honeymoon period," everything is bliss. They are the perfect partner. But inside, they start to have deep and nagging doubts about the relationship which then begin to manifest in counterproductive thoughts and fears.

Maybe one night you come home from a long day at work and kiss them quickly but affectionately on your way to change out of work clothes. It's something you've done many times before, the sort of act couples do everyday with the understanding it's part of their routine and intimacy.

Only she's having those doubts, which by now have manifested into a kind of terror inside. Emotionally, she's in fear -- it might be because she thinks you're going to break up with her. Or maybe she thinks she made a deep mistake. No matter, fear is the emotion she feels. And now she associates that fear with your kissing her and doing so seemingly out of the blue and without asking for permission, even though you've done so hundreds of times before and with the same implicit permission she has to do the same with you -- and which she has.

She is in the phase where she is seeing you in negative light. You're no longer the love of her life. You're a villain. Or maybe not that far -- but you're not the person she was in love with a month, a week, a day, an hour ago.

And that kiss is now an assault.

Not because it was, of course, but because she feels it was, and feelings are reality. Add to that the panic she may be feeling from fear -- or maybe even rage -- and she can be a very dangerous person, just as any fearful or rageful animal can be.

Now, I'm very much oversimplifying for purposes of illustration. I'm not a therapist, and I'm sure any number of therapists would point out faults in what I wrote. Fine. I'm not saying all this to be clinical. I'm saying all this to point out the potential for disaster -- especially if we're fooled by what seems like a person who thinks clearly and rationally when in reality, their emotions are a mess, and those emotions can become their reality. You or I have no idea when that might happen or even how. But the way we get taken advantage of -- whether intended or not -- is by thinking we know what's going on.

I have struggled with this as well, and have worked really hard on this. Several years ago, my therapist told me that my uBPDh’s outbursts have nothing to do with me, they come from something that is off inside him. While logically I knew that was true, I still couldn’t separate myself from my uBPDh’s outbursts. I started to observe the time around his outbursts and saw that while I was the one who got the brunt of the blow, others (my kids, my step daughter, my parents, his coworkers, the lady who didn’t say thank you to him as he held the door for her)…they all got something thrown their direction as well. I also started to notice a pattern of things in the house getting put away in strange places when my uBPDh was having his outbursts…ice cream in the pantry, vitamins in the freezer, cinnamon in the key cabinet, etc. I also would try to put myself in my H’s shoes, to see if I would react the same way. 99% of the time the answer was no. All of these things started to line up and I started to believe that this didn’t have anything to do with me.  This took me years to truly believe. Then I had to figure out how to psychologically separate myself from getting sucked in or walking on egg shells. To this day, every outburst from my uBPDh I literally tell myself that this is his and has nothing to do with me and I need to let him regulate himself on his own. I repeat in my head or write a text that I know I won’t send what I really want to say to him to get it all out of me, I then respond with a neutral loving statement (I am really sorry you feel that way, the kids and I will miss you, I am here if you need anything, etc) and then I move forward with my day. There are days where I don’t want to move forward, I want to “fix it” but I remind myself that I have tried that so many times and it just makes it worse. The best outcome for me has been to realize this is his issue, let him deal with himself on his own, respond with a loving neutral statement and to continue on with my day…at least physically…even if I am a wreck mentally, I don’t let him know!

He’s 90 and under their protection. I’ve asked my father more than a few times if my brother has been “mean” to him. He’s told me no.

I think you hit the nail on the head, Wendy. He’s too ashamed. He would never admit it. I’ve told him twice about my brother threatening to hit me and taking some valuables from me. Both times he cried and said it was impossible. He’s said I’m the one who has a problem. He was in a daze for a few hours and looked to be in shock. I don’t want to see him suffer so I won’t ask or tell again. I’ll do my best to avoid my brother.

I’m afraid my father would pass away of a broken heart or stroke if I reported my brother.  I’m waiting until my father passes away to file a police report. I know nothing will happen without proof. It shows a pattern if I have another incident after my dad’s passing.

My dysfunctional family dynamic is: the myth of my brother being the golden child dies hard. My parents perpetuated the myth that my brother is a highly intelligent saint.

He refused to speak in junior high. He wanted to become a Catholic priest and failed the entrance exam for high school seminary. He failed the entrance exam for a local Catholic high school.  He was finally  accepted into the Catholic seminary. I don’t know why or how. These things caused anguish for my parents.

Again his high school teachers complained he wouldn’t speak. Nothing was said but there was anguish in the house. It was palpable and uncomfortable.

 He graduated high school and made it to the seminary college. He  passed all four years and graduated. BPD mother continued to have issues during this time but the anguish and misery weren’t as strong during his college years. He’s six years older.I was in high school when he graduated college.

He was accepted into divinity/graduate school for priests. He was no longer going after a year. My mom told me he left without telling me why. I asked and she said it wasn’t for him..

There was another bout of anguish in my family. My mother was in tears and upset for a few years. My dad gave my brother the silent treatment for two years.

I’m guessing he didn’t leave voluntarily.  His lying and manipulative behavior may have been noted by a professor. He may not been able to hide disordered behavior under the pressure of grad school.  He may have been quietly asked to leave. My parents’ behavior seems to suggest there’s something more to the story than he left voluntarily.

I’ve never had the school problems my brother has. I was accepted to that Catholic high school and went to a pretty decent college. I don’t have any BPD tendencies.

My brother may be on the spectrum too. I don’t know why they didn’t test for this. Maybe they see it as a failure so they avoided it?

Where there’s a golden child, there’s a scapegoat and that’s me. My mother and brother told me I’m stupid, inferior, ugly and totally incompetent. My mother and brother gleefully told me this throughout my life.

I can see how entrenched these beliefs are with my mother and brother. My father’s treats me much better but goes along with my mother and brother when pressed.

I’m not happy with the dynamic but it’s a relief to clearly see the cause of lifelong depression and low self worth. Years long denial has been lifted a bit.I knew it was there but couldn’t get a handle on it.I have a clearer path now.

I see the costs I’ve paid for my parents hoisting my brother onto a pedestal. I can’t change them but in therapy  I can work towards a better, realistic self-image.

It’s interesting how my brother’s unusual behavior surrounding an inheritance has brought insight into parts of my upbringing in a dysfunctional household. Sometimes there’s no growth without pain.

Thank you. <3

You do have to take care of yourself. I keep thinking about the airplane protocol that tells you to put your oxygen mask on first, before helping others. I think I’ve been afraid to do that because I feel it’s selfish of me to take care of myself before taking care of my D. In reality if I don’t take care of myself I know I won’t have the strength to help her, whatever that entails.

This is all so helpful to me.  I have a D w BPD.  She attacked me this weekend and I have cut off all communications since Sunday.  I am very sad. 
I went to an Alanon meeting today.  Am in close contact w my therapist and all of my support team.  I came flying back to this forum because no-one except maybe my therapist understands BPD like you all do.
I appreciated what you said about apologies.  I know she will never apologize to me. 
She relied on me for transportation daily and many other tasks.  She bit the hand that fed her.  I don't know if she will learn from this or not, and  from all of your posts it doesn't really matter that she change.  What matters is that I take care of myself.

Hey whoboyboyy, that sounds like a painful situation to be in, and confusing, too.


It must be hard to go through the grieving process of an old relationship, when there is still intermittent contact between you two. Not saying "it's over forever between you two" -- more that whether you reconnect or not, the old relationship will need to "die" and be grieved, no matter what.



If you were to ask her what's going on, what do you hope that she would say, ideally?

Lot of great questions and stuff to discuss in your post.


I'm looking at a career change and while unlikely, there is a small chance that I may need to pass a physical fitness test. My baseline is good but many others would be starting from zero. I Googled around to see what people going into this field typically do for training to pass the test, and many replies were "do the Couch To 5K program". This takes you from a "couch potato" (unable to run, or never have run) on day 1 to jogging for 30 minutes straight in week 9... but for all of week 1, you spend most of your time walking.

So, while it's not what we'd want, 30 min of therapy EOW is a start. We get to marathons by walking.

That's not to say that she's committed to change; only time will tell what her overall trajectory is, and what her motivation is. Just to say that if she's been essentially untreated for nearly 2 decades, she can't run a marathon right out of the gates, and she might not even have the skills (that you and I have) to tolerate the discomfort of therapy for an hour once a week. If her T really "has her number" then he may be being very deliberate in not overwhelming her, and laying a strong foundation of trust before pushing. He can't help her if she isn't there.

Hard to know -- I'm not there, and you know her better than anyone else -- but not impossible that that's what's going on.

Also important to know that unless you're in the session, you don't really know what they're talking about, either. She may come back and tell you "he just asks me how things have been" but unless you are in person hearing that, it could be anything else. They could be working on some shame stuff but she can't pull herself together to tell you. Recall that pwBPD lack even basic emotional management skills -- stuff you and I may take for granted. Trustbuilding and basic skillbuilding often have to happen in therapy before the pwBPD has the tools to address bigger behaviors.


Again, hard to say based on this point in time how things will go. It's possible she found a "yes-man" therapist who doesn't want to rock the boat... it's possible she found a really canny T who absolutely understands what the deal is, and knows to go slowly.

Either way, there's a sense in which her understanding what BPD is, is not important... not as important as her having the tools and stability to work on behaviors that negatively effect her life and her family.

To me, that ties in to a book that I'd strongly recommend you check out (if you haven't already): "I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help! by Dr. Xavier Amador.

While he wrote it with schizophrenia in view (his late brother had it), the concepts apply to many mental health issues, and the one that really stuck out to me was:

people get help for things that they experience as problems, not things that we experience as problems.

This is a problem for you, not for her:


For her to be motivated, she needs to want to change things that she experiences as problems in her life. The things that you experience as problems (coming from her) aren't going to be what motivates her, so even though -- and I agree with you -- full commitment to DBT could be so helpful, trying to "get her to grasp" that is going to be a dead end right now, and just frustrate both of you. This dynamic often comes up with parents with BPD children -- the more the parent tries to get the child to see that "you should take a college class, you need to get a part time job, you have to enroll in therapy, you need to attend your therapy sessions", the more the child digs in and resists.

Again, these are good things! But you can't want it more than she does. There are still appropriate boundaries to have in life, but they are rules for your own life that you decide on for yourself. You are the only person who can decide if you can be married to a spouse who does 30 minutes of therapy every other week. It's not on her to do more to fix your problem... it's your choice to watch her trajectory and decide for yourself what you are and aren't able to live with, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I wonder if it might be helpful for you two, and take some pressure off the relationship, for there to be understanding that she is working on her problems, not your problems. (I'm not speaking to what she should be doing regarding how her choices impact you, only because she isn't here. There are plenty of things she should be doing, but it's not helpful to bring them up, because you're here, and she's not. I'm definitely not saying that there is nothing for her to work on, or that she shouldn't make changes in areas that you experience as problems). I'm guessing she can sense some "push" or "encouragement" from you, some sense that you want her to be doing more? What would happen if you dialed that back?


Another interesting factoid to file away is that there is a lot of self-selection on these boards.

People generally don't join when they have a high functioning BPD spouse or family member where things are "mostly fine". And, people typically don't join when they have a low functioning pwBPD who is in long term treatment.

People frequently join when they have a "worst of both worlds" scenario -- a pwBPD in their life who isn't getting treatment at the moment and who isn't improving or a livable person to be around.

Theoretically, the "intractable" pwBPD in our lives could actually be the smaller % of all pwBPD... it's just that it's the majority of the pwBPD in the lives of members here, because the difficulty of the situation draws us to more support than we'd need with a much higher functioning pwBPD ("life is great most of the time") or a much lower functioning pwBPD ("it's difficult but I have a family support group and family therapy and individual therapy and skills group and... at the hospital my pwBPD is in").

It totally makes sense to me that 88% of patients in the study met remission criteria after 10 years, and at the same time, it's not like 88% of 10+ year members here are experiencing their pwBPD improve. We get the tough ones 

...

All that to say --

My H and I had a marriage counselor for a while, and he suspected that both my H's mom and my mom had BPD type traits. Both moms survived childhood abuse and my mom has been open about having cPTSD. Infidelity was never present in either of their relationships, so that is different, but both my H and I would agree that our moms have definitely calmed down a lot from our childhoods. Both of them had or have ongoing therapy and both have a significant spiritual support system. If they were assessed maybe 30-40 years ago they may have received a BPD diagnosis -- hard to say for sure -- but now they definitely would not, and things are not getting worse.

So anecdotally, yes, it is possible for persons with "BPD traits" to recover and go into remission. But neither of them would've been captured in the McLean study because neither needed or went to inpatient or long term DBT. And that doesn't mean that our childhoods were great or that our dads/stepdads had an easy time.

...

One more thought to toss back and forth: have you checked out the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder's Family Connections program? It could be a good supplementary support for you, and they have a lot of very good, clinical, up-to-date research and training material. It's focused on making family life more livable when there's a pwBPD in the family structure (whether spouse, child, parent, ex, etc). When I took it last winter, it was clear they were looping in the most recent research they could, to their teaching and toolset.

I also appreciated their Family Guidelines for how to structure and navigate family life with a pwBPD, in a way that doesn't build frustration and resentment in you and me. It strikes a nice balance between: "OK, you're the non, so yes, there will be changes you make in how you interact" with "don't protect the pwBPD from the natural consequences of their choices". It's not all your fault... and, it's not all their fault. It's not all on them to make the changes... and, it's not all on you to make the changes. But everyone wants a more peaceful family life, so here are some guidelines to try.

I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts if you check out the NEABPD links and material, given that you're navigating this gray area of -- do I stay, is it good enough, do I go, the kids are older but not that old, she might be doing better but she might not. Having some guidelines to orient you could help provide you with structure as you're in a decision-making chapter in life.

None of this is easy... I get it.

Hi mitten;

I also struggle with fearing that others will be angry with or around me.

There was probably a period of my life in childhood where it was very important that I not make people upset (for my own survival). So, I'm pre-wired to avoid conflict. My body also tells me through how it feels, that I'll feel better when people aren't angry, and I'll physically feel worse if people are angry.

I wonder if there is a part of your past, where it was really important that you not make people angry, or where anger was frightening or overwhelming to you, or felt unsurvivable.

These messages helped us for a long time. Now that we're adults, we still get those messages, even though we may not need to be so careful or so vigilant any more. We still "feel like" it is life or death to avoid setting others off.

It is a difficult thing to work with.

Would you say that logically/rationally you are aware that you can survive someone's anger, it's more that it doesn't feel that way? Or is there another description that fits better?

Hello fitdad and welcome to the group 

So much of what you describe will sound familiar to other members here -- you are not alone in this. The blame, lack of support when a family member is ill, threats, trying to parent young children in the chaos... this is beyond difficult, and many members have been in your shoes.

While there aren't easy solutions, it is possible to make a relationship more livable for yourself beyond just "suck it up and be stoic". A lot of the potential for making your relationship more livable for you rests with choices you make (versus trying to make her do or not do things), and a big one is getting support for yourself. You mentioned trying counseling -- are you still going? If so, do you feel understood by your counselor?

Does your W work outside the house? Is your 3YO in daycare or out of the house yet? Just getting a picture of who is doing what and where.

There are a lot of moving parts to your situation, and I get the fears and wondering about "OK, if we have to divorce, will I ever see my kids again". Let's take it one step at a time -- that's certainly not an unimportant question, and yet getting yourself to an emotional baseline now can help you make some wiser choices for a path forward. It might look like staying together, if things can stabilize/get "livable enough"; it might look different; but all you can do is what you can do in the present moment. I do think I hear you wondering about staying together, so we can focus on that for now.


The person in my life with BPD is my husband's kids' mom, and yes, it is hard to find people who understand how difficult BPD makes a family situation.

For many years, my H and I had a marriage counselor, and I currently have an individual counselor... even though I'm not the one with BPD, my H doesn't have BPD, and I was never married to the pwBPD. It's that pervasive in a family system. So the #1 way I've dealt with it is by getting professional support.

I also learned a lot about BPD and about why my preferred communication methods (of pointing out inconsistency, using charts/graphs/numbers/logic, and trying to "win the argument") were ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. We have a great section of threads on managing conflict that could be helpful in turning down the temperature in your home. Getting educated about BPD has helped me understand the reality that it is a serious and impairing mental illness, and me doubling down on how I wanted to approach conflict was not helping at all, and was making things worse.

For folks here on the "Bettering a Relationship" board, a new approach that can be helpful (that doesn't require the partner's cooperation!) is to Stop Invalidating Others. If I could only recommend one tool to members, this would be it. And it's important in all relationships, too (parenting, for example), not just BPD relationships.

Take a look at some of those links and, when you have a moment, let us know what stood out to you, or seemed do-able, or resonated with your situation.

We'll be here;

kells76

Hello WifeofaBorder and a warm

What a really, really difficult half a year you two have had. And then to feel so unsupported by the health system... that's a lot to carry 

How old are your kids, and how have they been coping lately?

There are some great questions and comments for you in this thread, so I'll wait to ask too many more, but I am curious if you have further support for yourself right now -- a therapist of your own, or another support group, or perhaps a spiritual group. When BPD is in a family, no matter who has it, everyone needs a lot of help.

Glad you found us;

kells76