Living in a Horror Novel

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I haven’t decided whether I just need to vent, or I am actively seeking advice. Maybe a bit of both? Either way, this is a story right out of a horror novel.

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin, but for the sake of providing context, I’ll just start from the beginning. I have a lot of emotions revolving around this entire situation, but I have been doing a bunch of research (for my own sanity) on BPD in order to understand it more. Like a lot of you, Walking on Eggshells brought me here.

Let me preface by saying that my husband is the sweetest, most hard-working, intelligent, loving man I know and he would do ANYTHING for this loved ones. He has a strong sense of family and is incredibly giving and empathetic. Through my research and scrolling through other’s posts on here, I have realized that people with BPD tend to attach themselves to people like my husband (and most of you guys) to try and fill that void and feeling of “emptiness”. With that being said [takes deep inhale], here we go…

I (29F) am married to a wonderful man (30M) who was previously married to an undiagnosed pwBPD (checks every box for unconventional BPD). They have a 5yo daughter together (unplanned) and only got married so his ex could have medical insurance while pregnant. In order to keep privacy, I can’t explain in detail how they met, but it was under “not great” circumstances. They met while working for the same company and she is older and was a superior to him with the company. She was engaged to another woman (that my husband was unaware of at the time) and they started a brief “physical” relationship.

Soon after, my husband moved to another state and broke off the relationship. She immediately started claiming that she was pregnant and that he was a terrible human for leaving her. This was news to him because she had told him previously that she couldn’t have children due to an ovarian torsion she had as a child. We know now that she was lying about the pregnancy. However, her guilt trip worked and he got back together with her out of perceived obligation. They were long distance at this time and she covered up the fake pregnancy by claiming that she had an abortion. Once they got back together, some of her true colors started to show with little rages here and there, but would tell him later that they never happened or that she “didn’t remember doing that.”

Fast forward a couple months and she insisted on moving to the state he lived in at that point. She was able to convince him into letting her live in his home rent free. Before he knew it, she had convinced him to allow her younger, pregnant sister to move in as well. Ultimately he ended up paying for everything for both of them, and she started to drag him into debt and became more and more erratic with her emotions and jealously, and constantly seemed paranoid that he was cheating on her. He knew that things weren’t going well in the relationship and started looking for a way out.

The final straw occurred when he attended his best friend’s wedding. She was specifically not invited by the couple and she promised not to go. Of course she showed up about halfway through the reception. There happened to be another woman at the wedding that my husband had dating years before. His BPDex got enraged that this woman was at the reception and proceeded to get drunk and cause a scene. She ran outside and started slamming her own head on the pavement. My husband begged her to stop, but she started tearing her own dress off and screamed that my husband was trying to rape her. Thankfully one of the family members attending the wedding was a detective and told my husband to just step away from her so she couldn’t claim anything else. She then proceeded to RUN down the street and yell that he was trying to hurt her. The detective just told him to let her go and sort it out in the morning when she was sober. He didn’t hear from her the rest of the night and she showed up to his hotel room the next morning all bruised and scraped up, claiming that she didn’t remember a thing. She was so convincing that he either believed her, or just wanted to believer her because it was too much to try and process.

Fast forward about a month after the wedding incident, and he started a new contract with his company and needed to relocate across the country. The BPDex claimed she didn’t want to move at the time, so she stayed in his current house with the intention of getting a job and just paying him rent. He promised her before he moved that they wouldn’t break up because 1) she was paranoid about this and 2) he was scared of her rages and didn’t want to provoke her. Once he relocated and got settled, he took his chance to break things off with her for good. She obviously didn’t take this well, aaaaaand you guessed it…she was “pregnant” again. He didn’t believe her and asked for proof of this. Instead of providing proof, she drove 14 hours to his new house and “surprised” him by showing up on his doorstep. She begged and pleaded that they needed to be together for the baby and SOMEHOW convinced him to let her stay. Since he was in complete shock that she drove 14 hours, and it was the middle of the winter, he allowed her to stay on a temporary basis.

Wouldn’t you know it, she had a “miscarriage” about two weeks later while he was at work. Obviously she had no intention of going back to live in his other house, and since she up and relocated across the country, she had no job, no income, no health insurance, and she refused to leave. My husband realized all too late that he made a huge mistake by letting her back into his life, but by this time he was too into the BPD abuse cycle to know what to do. There were times that were wonderful, where he was “the best thing that ever happened to her” and he thought that things would be better, but then he was also “the worst person the world and HE had a personality disorder!” She also claimed that she was abused by almost every single other person she had ever been in a relationship with (male or female). Now we know that this is “splitting,” but at the time he had no idea what was going on or how to handle it. She would spin into incredible rages and scream and yell and break things and threaten to hurt herself, and of course this was all “his fault.”

Before he knew it, he was covering all of her bills, wasn’t allowed to leave the house without her (unless it was to go to work), and had to give her his apple ID and password so she could monitor all of his iPhone use on her iPad (that he had to buy her for this purpose). He was doing all of the cooking and cleaning and she was using his money and credit cards to rack up even more debt buying things for her new hobbies that she would randomly pick up and then drop just as fast. Every time he brought it up to her, she would rage and eventually convince him that he was the one to blame. Even when they would go to the CrossFit gym together, he would make sure that she completed the WOD (workout of the day) before him by deliberately going slow, because he knew that if he was “better” than her in any way, she would throw a fit once they got home. He eventually just gave up trying to better himself, accepted that this was his life, and became a shell of a person. He was numb, and just went about doing his day-to-day duties and did everything he could to avoid her going into a rage. It was during this time she did actually get pregnant (even though she told him and everyone in his life that she couldn’t have children due to that ovarian torsion as a child).

Of course every woman goes through hormone issues while pregnant, but he was not prepared for how much the pregnancy hormones were going to make the BPDex so much worse. Throughout her pregnancy, her rages became increasingly physical and violent. Throughout this time, she convinced them to get married at the courthouse, told him he couldn’t keep going to physical therapy for an injury because she was convinced he was cheating on her with his physical therapist, refused to quit smoking, ruined his clothes, ruined some family heirlooms, broken numerous dishes, threw his phone out of a hotel window, attempted to get him beat up by some random men on the street by claiming he was “following her and she didn’t know him,” and even totaled his car with a hatchet. Yes, you read that correctly…she totaled his car…with a hatchet. To this day he regrets not calling the police, but at this time he didn’t want to be the “bad guy” by getting her in trouble and he didn’t want to deal with the fallout rage that would inevitable happen afterwards. He was also embarrassed that this is where his life had gotten to. We are currently still paying off the loan on that car because he couldn’t explain how it was totaled to the insurance company.

Outside of all of these incidents, the worst thing she did while pregnant occurred while she was in a rage over lord knows what. She was 8mo pregnant and was so mad at him that she took a plate, smashed it against the kitchen table, and held a piece of the broken plate to her wrist. She threatened to kill herself and the baby unless he “apologized to her.” He was no idea what he was apologizing for, but of course he did it to stop her from harming the baby. My husband is a medical professional, and knows that he should have called the police to get her into a 72hr psych hold at the hospital, but again, she had him convinced that he couldn’t do such a thing to her.

She was also very good at presenting “normal” and played the victim when she needed to around other people. He felt more trapped than ever. On the outside, to everyone else, she seemed like a normal person. Only he knew how terrible she could be…or so he thought. He eventually realized there was a reason she didn’t have any close friends or family and always had an excuse for why she didn’t get along with someone, which always painted her as the victim. Since she had isolated him from everyone else in his life, he didn’t have anyone to turn to.

After their D was born, my husband took on all of the baby duties. He would go to work, then come home and cook and clean and care for their D.

Fast forward again about 3mo after his daughter was born. The BPDex informed him randomly that she was taking a job across the country and she would be taking the baby. The claimed that she was taking this job because the family was “broke” and it was his fault because he didn’t know how to handle money. He was still locked into his contact at work and wouldn’t be able to go with her. He saw this as his light at the end of the tunnel. He pretended to be supportive of the job and her necessary move. He even allowed her to take almost all of the possessions in the home. He was left with nothing in the house except some kitchen supplies, his clothes (the ones she hadn’t ruined), a lawn chair, a mattress, and his work computer. Since she had drained his entire savings and left him in debt, this was how he was still living when I met him.

Once she was across the country, he told her he wanted a divorce. This obviously didn’t go well. Without going into too much detail, she played the victim to anyone that would listen, claimed he cheated on her and that SHE left HIM, started a smear campaign against him on social media and threatened his friends who stood up against her claims. While all of this was going on, he was using all of his vacation time from work flying back and forth to see his daughter. The BPDex drug her feet at every step of the way, and then eventually…she started playing nice. The reason for this he didn’t find out until about three months later. He received a certified letter in the mail stating that he was divorced and that child support had been settled. He never signed any documents for this. Turns out she knew someone who was a notary and they allowed her to “sign on his behalf.” What did these documents say? BPDex had SOLE custody and was going to be getting $1300/mo in child support. He wanted to go after her for fraud, but he didn’t have any savings to hire an attorney. Thankfully, my husband was starting a new contract a few months after he received this news and was able to relocate again in the city where his D was currently living.

This is when I met my H. We fell in love and I made the decision to move with him. I knew some of the trauma that he had gone through with his ex, but I had NO idea how bad it actually was and that it would still be affecting us today. Additionally, just my presence in my H’s life made his BPDex enraged. From the moment she met me, she hated me. It may have been jealously, but I am convinced it’s because she knew I could see through her act. I was a threat.

I am what some would describe as “type A” and I have a strong sense of justice. When I fully comprehended what my H (then BF) was going though, I hired a lawyer for him to get a new parenting plan established and to correct the child support. This L specialized in paternity rights and we didn’t know it at the time, but hiring him was the best decision we could have ever made. He has been a godsend the past 3+ years.

Let me tell you that we have been through the RINGER with his BPDex. We have had to take her to court to return family heirlooms that she was supposed to return (we won and she had to pay thousands to my husband because she destroyed the items in a past rage that he didn’t know about), she has hid where she was letting their daughter stay when she was supposed to be at her home, she herself has disappeared without notice, she has attempted to smear campaign us, told people that I am infertile (not true), refused to sign any custody or child support documents, and even left the country for “work” so she didn’t have to go to court or update the parenting plan with us. While she was gone we did a step-up plan that was worked out with the attorneys to get 50/50 custody of his D. We found out that his BPDex was engaged to a woman that we had never met and had lied to us about his D staying with the BPDex’s mother when she was not at our home. We would drop his D off with her maternal grandmother at the drop-off location, and when we would leave, she would turn around and give his D to this woman to stay at her home. The BPDex, her fiancé, and her mother were all teamed up to hide every secret and plan the BPDex concocted. We were unaware of what was about to happen… Even though everything was WAY harder and slower than it needed to be with the BPDex, we thought we were making progress. Little did we know…

When BPDex finally got back in country, she was playing nice and a court date was settled to finalize the custody to 50/50, correct the child support to $0, and figure out the amount of money she was going to owe back to my H. She owed month because we were caring for his D 50/50, but still paying child support since she wouldn’t sign the documents while she was gone. She was not happy about this, but everything was looking up.

THEN, before the scheduled court date, in April 2020, we received a cryptic message from BPDex saying that she would not be allowing us to take the D for our schedule time with her due to “things she was hearing.” We had no idea what that meant, and when my H responded asking what was going on, we didn’t hear anything back. Within a few hours, his L sent us a document stating that BPDex was filing for emergency 100% custody and was filing sexual child abuse allegations against us. We were obviously blindsided by this. We had been caring for his D 50/50 for 8mo by this point and she was claiming that for the past 6mo we were abusing their D.

(story continued in the comments)

[herbivorestepmom]

I haven’t decided whether I just need to vent, or I am actively seeking advice. Maybe a bit of both? Either way, this is a story right out of a horror novel.

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin, but for the sake of providing context, I’ll just start from the beginning. I have a lot of emotions revolving around this entire situation, but I have been doing a bunch of research (for my own sanity) on BPD in order to understand it more. Like a lot of you, Walking on Eggshells brought me here.

Let me preface by saying that my husband is the sweetest, most hard-working, intelligent, loving man I know and he would do ANYTHING for this loved ones. He has a strong sense of family and is incredibly giving and empathetic. Through my research and scrolling through other’s posts on here, I have realized that people with BPD tend to attach themselves to people like my husband (and most of you guys) to try and fill that void and feeling of “emptiness”. With that being said [takes deep inhale], here we go…

I (29F) am married to a wonderful man (30M) who was previously married to an undiagnosed pwBPD (checks every box for unconventional BPD). They have a 5yo daughter together (unplanned) and only got married so his ex could have medical insurance while pregnant. In order to keep privacy, I can’t explain in detail how they met, but it was under “not great” circumstances. They met while working for the same company and she is older and was a superior to him with the company. She was engaged to another woman (that my husband was unaware of at the time) and they started a brief “physical” relationship.

Soon after, my husband moved to another state and broke off the relationship. She immediately started claiming that she was pregnant and that he was a terrible human for leaving her. This was news to him because she had told him previously that she couldn’t have children due to an ovarian torsion she had as a child. We know now that she was lying about the pregnancy. However, her guilt trip worked and he got back together with her out of perceived obligation. They were long distance at this time and she covered up the fake pregnancy by claiming that she had an abortion. Once they got back together, some of her true colors started to show with little rages here and there, but would tell him later that they never happened or that she “didn’t remember doing that.”

Fast forward a couple months and she insisted on moving to the state he lived in at that point. She was able to convince him into letting her live in his home rent free. Before he knew it, she had convinced him to allow her younger, pregnant sister to move in as well. Ultimately he ended up paying for everything for both of them, and she started to drag him into debt and became more and more erratic with her emotions and jealously, and constantly seemed paranoid that he was cheating on her. He knew that things weren’t going well in the relationship and started looking for a way out.

The final straw occurred when he attended his best friend’s wedding. She was specifically not invited by the couple and she promised not to go. Of course she showed up about halfway through the reception. There happened to be another woman at the wedding that my husband had dating years before. His BPDex got enraged that this woman was at the reception and proceeded to get drunk and cause a scene. She ran outside and started slamming her own head on the pavement. My husband begged her to stop, but she started tearing her own dress off and screamed that my husband was trying to rape her. Thankfully one of the family members attending the wedding was a detective and told my husband to just step away from her so she couldn’t claim anything else. She then proceeded to RUN down the street and yell that he was trying to hurt her. The detective just told him to let her go and sort it out in the morning when she was sober. He didn’t hear from her the rest of the night and she showed up to his hotel room the next morning all bruised and scraped up, claiming that she didn’t remember a thing. She was so convincing that he either believed her, or just wanted to believer her because it was too much to try and process.

Fast forward about a month after the wedding incident, and he started a new contract with his company and needed to relocate across the country. The BPDex claimed she didn’t want to move at the time, so she stayed in his current house with the intention of getting a job and just paying him rent. He promised her before he moved that they wouldn’t break up because 1) she was paranoid about this and 2) he was scared of her rages and didn’t want to provoke her. Once he relocated and got settled, he took his chance to break things off with her for good. She obviously didn’t take this well, aaaaaand you guessed it…she was “pregnant” again. He didn’t believe her and asked for proof of this. Instead of providing proof, she drove 14 hours to his new house and “surprised” him by showing up on his doorstep. She begged and pleaded that they needed to be together for the baby and SOMEHOW convinced him to let her stay. Since he was in complete shock that she drove 14 hours, and it was the middle of the winter, he allowed her to stay on a temporary basis.

Wouldn’t you know it, she had a “miscarriage” about two weeks later while he was at work. Obviously she had no intention of going back to live in his other house, and since she up and relocated across the country, she had no job, no income, no health insurance, and she refused to leave. My husband realized all too late that he made a huge mistake by letting her back into his life, but by this time he was too into the BPD abuse cycle to know what to do. There were times that were wonderful, where he was “the best thing that ever happened to her” and he thought that things would be better, but then he was also “the worst person the world and HE had a personality disorder!” She also claimed that she was abused by almost every single other person she had ever been in a relationship with (male or female). Now we know that this is “splitting,” but at the time he had no idea what was going on or how to handle it. She would spin into incredible rages and scream and yell and break things and threaten to hurt herself, and of course this was all “his fault.”

Before he knew it, he was covering all of her bills, wasn’t allowed to leave the house without her (unless it was to go to work), and had to give her his apple ID and password so she could monitor all of his iPhone use on her iPad (that he had to buy her for this purpose). He was doing all of the cooking and cleaning and she was using his money and credit cards to rack up even more debt buying things for her new hobbies that she would randomly pick up and then drop just as fast. Every time he brought it up to her, she would rage and eventually convince him that he was the one to blame. Even when they would go to the CrossFit gym together, he would make sure that she completed the WOD (workout of the day) before him by deliberately going slow, because he knew that if he was “better” than her in any way, she would throw a fit once they got home. He eventually just gave up trying to better himself, accepted that this was his life, and became a shell of a person. He was numb, and just went about doing his day-to-day duties and did everything he could to avoid her going into a rage. It was during this time she did actually get pregnant (even though she told him and everyone in his life that she couldn’t have children due to that ovarian torsion as a child).

Of course every woman goes through hormone issues while pregnant, but he was not prepared for how much the pregnancy hormones were going to make the BPDex so much worse. Throughout her pregnancy, her rages became increasingly physical and violent. Throughout this time, she convinced them to get married at the courthouse, told him he couldn’t keep going to physical therapy for an injury because she was convinced he was cheating on her with his physical therapist, refused to quit smoking, ruined his clothes, ruined some family heirlooms, broken numerous dishes, threw his phone out of a hotel window, attempted to get him beat up by some random men on the street by claiming he was “following her and she didn’t know him,” and even totaled his car with a hatchet. Yes, you read that correctly…she totaled his car…with a hatchet. To this day he regrets not calling the police, but at this time he didn’t want to be the “bad guy” by getting her in trouble and he didn’t want to deal with the fallout rage that would inevitable happen afterwards. He was also embarrassed that this is where his life had gotten to. We are currently still paying off the loan on that car because he couldn’t explain how it was totaled to the insurance company.

Outside of all of these incidents, the worst thing she did while pregnant occurred while she was in a rage over lord knows what. She was 8mo pregnant and was so mad at him that she took a plate, smashed it against the kitchen table, and held a piece of the broken plate to her wrist. She threatened to kill herself and the baby unless he “apologized to her.” He was no idea what he was apologizing for, but of course he did it to stop her from harming the baby. My husband is a medical professional, and knows that he should have called the police to get her into a 72hr psych hold at the hospital, but again, she had him convinced that he couldn’t do such a thing to her.

She was also very good at presenting “normal” and played the victim when she needed to around other people. He felt more trapped than ever. On the outside, to everyone else, she seemed like a normal person. Only he knew how terrible she could be…or so he thought. He eventually realized there was a reason she didn’t have any close friends or family and always had an excuse for why she didn’t get along with someone, which always painted her as the victim. Since she had isolated him from everyone else in his life, he didn’t have anyone to turn to.

After their D was born, my husband took on all of the baby duties. He would go to work, then come home and cook and clean and care for their D.

Fast forward again about 3mo after his daughter was born. The BPDex informed him randomly that she was taking a job across the country and she would be taking the baby. The claimed that she was taking this job because the family was “broke” and it was his fault because he didn’t know how to handle money. He was still locked into his contact at work and wouldn’t be able to go with her. He saw this as his light at the end of the tunnel. He pretended to be supportive of the job and her necessary move. He even allowed her to take almost all of the possessions in the home. He was left with nothing in the house except some kitchen supplies, his clothes (the ones she hadn’t ruined), a lawn chair, a mattress, and his work computer. Since she had drained his entire savings and left him in debt, this was how he was still living when I met him.

Once she was across the country, he told her he wanted a divorce. This obviously didn’t go well. Without going into too much detail, she played the victim to anyone that would listen, claimed he cheated on her and that SHE left HIM, started a smear campaign against him on social media and threatened his friends who stood up against her claims. While all of this was going on, he was using all of his vacation time from work flying back and forth to see his daughter. The BPDex drug her feet at every step of the way, and then eventually…she started playing nice. The reason for this he didn’t find out until about three months later. He received a certified letter in the mail stating that he was divorced and that child support had been settled. He never signed any documents for this. Turns out she knew someone who was a notary and they allowed her to “sign on his behalf.” What did these documents say? BPDex had SOLE custody and was going to be getting $1300/mo in child support. He wanted to go after her for fraud, but he didn’t have any savings to hire an attorney. Thankfully, my husband was starting a new contract a few months after he received this news and was able to relocate again in the city where his D was currently living.

This is when I met my H. We fell in love and I made the decision to move with him. I knew some of the trauma that he had gone through with his ex, but I had NO idea how bad it actually was and that it would still be affecting us today. Additionally, just my presence in my H’s life made his BPDex enraged. From the moment she met me, she hated me. It may have been jealously, but I am convinced it’s because she knew I could see through her act. I was a threat.

I am what some would describe as “type A” and I have a strong sense of justice. When I fully comprehended what my H (then BF) was going though, I hired a lawyer for him to get a new parenting plan established and to correct the child support. This L specialized in paternity rights and we didn’t know it at the time, but hiring him was the best decision we could have ever made. He has been a godsend the past 3+ years.

Let me tell you that we have been through the RINGER with his BPDex. We have had to take her to court to return family heirlooms that she was supposed to return (we won and she had to pay thousands to my husband because she destroyed the items in a past rage that he didn’t know about), she has hid where she was letting their daughter stay when she was supposed to be at her home, she herself has disappeared without notice, she has attempted to smear campaign us, told people that I am infertile (not true), refused to sign any custody or child support documents, and even left the country for “work” so she didn’t have to go to court or update the parenting plan with us. While she was gone we did a step-up plan that was worked out with the attorneys to get 50/50 custody of his D. We found out that his BPDex was engaged to a woman that we had never met and had lied to us about his D staying with the BPDex’s mother when she was not at our home. We would drop his D off with her maternal grandmother at the drop-off location, and when we would leave, she would turn around and give his D to this woman to stay at her home. The BPDex, her fiancé, and her mother were all teamed up to hide every secret and plan the BPDex concocted. We were unaware of what was about to happen… Even though everything was WAY harder and slower than it needed to be with the BPDex, we thought we were making progress. Little did we know…

When BPDex finally got back in country, she was playing nice and a court date was settled to finalize the custody to 50/50, correct the child support to $0, and figure out the amount of money she was going to owe back to my H. She owed month because we were caring for his D 50/50, but still paying child support since she wouldn’t sign the documents while she was gone. She was not happy about this, but everything was looking up.

THEN, before the scheduled court date, in April 2020, we received a cryptic message from BPDex saying that she would not be allowing us to take the D for our schedule time with her due to “things she was hearing.” We had no idea what that meant, and when my H responded asking what was going on, we didn’t hear anything back. Within a few hours, his L sent us a document stating that BPDex was filing for emergency 100% custody and was filing sexual child abuse allegations against us. We were obviously blindsided by this. We had been caring for his D 50/50 for 8mo by this point and she was claiming that for the past 6mo we were abusing their D.

(story continued in the comments)

[herbivorestepmom]

We were visited/interviewed by both the sheriff’s office and CPS. Thankfully, but told us straight away that they suspected that the “mother was pushing the narrative.” During the 6mo she was claiming that we were harming the D, she never once asked us anything, never called the police, never asked the hidden fiancé to take D to the doctor, nothing. This completely came out of the blue and the accusations were both disgusting and wild. When the D told the CPS forensic investigator that we never hurt her, the BPDex tried to schedule another appointment so the D could “get the story correct.” They denied this request.

However, due to COVID hitting, getting this cleared up in the courts took another 6mo. Thankfully the court ordered that we were allowed to FaceTime with his D while we were waiting for the court dates. During this time, the BPDex went through 3 different Ls, caused nothing but drama, and only allowed our FaceTime calls to last about 7 minutes each time. She hovered right next to the D during the calls so she could monitor was she was saying to us.

Eventually the court dates came, the judge ruled in our favor and ripped the BPDex apart during his verdict. It was glorious. We were re-awared 50/50 custody and were also awarded our time back with his D that we missed while waiting for the court date. This meant that we had her almost every day for 7mo. His D was flourishing during that time, but since she had been put through so much mental trauma by the BPDex, we put her into therapy to help process what she had been through. The most puzzling part of all of this is that almost immediately after the court case was concluded, his BPDex acted like nothing ever happened. She just completely ignored that she ever filed false child abuse allegations, attempted to ruin our lives, and tried to sabotage my H’s relationship with his D.

It was like living in the Twilight Zone.

Sadly, my H and I had to relocate a couple states away for work. We petitioned to have his D relocate with us, but since she is now school age, and we weren’t able to file charges against the BPDex due to this being the first occurrence of “false allegations,” we couldn’t relocated her without the BPDex’s consent. We tried to reason with BPDex, but failed. During this time, my husband was kicking himself for never calling the police on her when she got violent in the past. Those records would have helped us gain majority custody. Lesson learned.

Through hours and hours of mediations, my H and his BPDex were able to establish a long-distance parenting plan. We get his D whenever she isn’t in school, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Thankfully, she still sees her therapist. She does voom calls with her T while she is at our house, and she sees the T in person when she is with the BPDex. The T refuses to do voom calls when she is at the BPDex’s home, because the T caught her spying on the calls with a baby monitor.

Since we have relocated we have found out that the BPDex was arrested in the past for breaking into an ex’s house (but this was expunged after her community service) and she has physically assaulted her now wife more than once. Unfortunately, the BPD’s wife won’t press charges. The D brought this up once in therapy, but when the T had to ask the BPDex about it, the D suddenly changed her story. My H and I and the T know that the BPDex is telling D to lie to us and the T, but the T is still trying to help her. Due to the consistent drama, my H and I have also found a wonderful T for ourselves in our new state.

As of late, the BPDex has been causing a lot of drama again, and the D has been showing signs of aggression at school. She has physically assaulted three different peers and one teacher by either hitting kicking, or pulling their shirts in a forceful manner. This is obviously distressing, and is most likely the result of witnessing this kind of behavior in the BPDex’s home. The D is coming to stay with us over her winter break from school, and I’m hoping we can help her.

This is a constant uphill battle and it is incredibly exhausting. Reading what others have been through on this forum has been very therapeutic for me. I know this was a very long post, but I needed to write it down, and I hope it was insightful or helpful for at least one other person.

For others that are married to someone with a BPD ex, what helped you? Things have been understandably turbulent in our relationship during all of this, but we love either other and we love his D very much. We are constantly moving forward, planning our future, and preparing for our own children. Through all of this, attempting to remain true to ourselves, pushing for boundaries with the BPDex and utilizing different communication techniques have only been so helpful. We are attempting to exercise parallel-parenting with the BPDex, since cordial co-parenting is obviously not an option with her. Her BPD is seeming to only get worse over time, and there is no chance that she will ever get help for it, let alone admit to having a problem.

We have another 12 years of dealing with her legally. I am hoping that there is some light at the end of this never ending, rollercoaster-like, tunnel.

[kells76]

Hello herbivorestepmom, glad you found the group 

Yes, you guys have been through the wringer -- when a child's other parent has a PD, or even "just"  traits, it's incredibly exhausting, confusing, and unhealthy for everyone involved. Glad to hear you and your H have found therapy to be helpful. A strong, broad, and deep support network is critical to making it through the stepparenting years.

My H's kids' mom has plenty of BPD traits (though no formal diagnosis that I'm aware of), and ~3 months after the divorce was final (this was like 10 years ago, now), she got engaged to his best friend, and they were married 3 months after that. My H's (now former) best friend has strong NPD traits. Neither the kids' mom nor stepdad has shown meaningful signs of change over time, so like you mentioned:

Her BPD is seeming to only get worse over time, and there is no chance that she will ever get help for it, let alone admit to having a problem.

Radically accepting that the other parent will likely stay the same, can help, in a weird way. There's less disappointment and surprise when the craziness rears its head.

For others that are married to someone with a BPD ex, what helped you?

Marriage counseling, individual counseling, selective sharing (i.e. figuring out which friends/family members "can handle" hearing about it and at what level), trips with just DH and me, having outside hobbies/interests, leaning on past contacts for support (i.e. reaching out to previous professional contacts for info about how to help the kids), not relying on the kids' mom for any information and doing as much info-gathering independently/in parallel as possible, counseling for the kids (when she agreed to it), this message board, free online legal message boards, BIFF as a communication template, having time to zone out and drink whiskey and watch dumb stuff on youtube to decompress, working on past FOO (family of origin) issues/trauma.

It is a really long haul.

On a more detailed level, I agree that this is concerning:

D has been showing signs of aggression at school. She has physically assaulted three different peers and one teacher by either hitting kicking, or pulling their shirts in a forceful manner.

What's you and your H's strategy been for interacting with the school about this? My gut feeling is this could be important in turning the tide/having D with you guys more.

Hang in there, and again, welcome,

kells76

[ForeverDad]

Sometimes when I read accounts of extreme misbehaviors I'm inclined to wonder whether there is more than BPD involved.  There have been a few members who had an ex that was using social media to advertise allegation of DV or child abuse that never ended and there was mention of possible comorbidity with Histrionic PD.

Whether that's a factor here, I don't know.  So much of it sounds like pure BPD.  That's just my non-professional observation.  Whether there is more than BPD may not mean that much since courts, and the professionals dealing with the courts, typically are reluctant to name a diagnosis.   Courts generally (1) don't try to fix the misbehaving parents, (2) focus on the documented behaviors and incidents and (3) prefer to make small changes to improve the children's situations which can mean it takes longer to attain a custody and parenting schedule that works.

My court involvement started when my son was still 3 years old.  It took 8 years to go from a temp order with alternate weekends... to a final decree two years later with shared custody and equal time... to me getting full custody but still equal time... to full custody with majority time during the school year.

I weathered innumerable child abuse allegations to all sorts of authorities.  When she lost the pediatrician during the divorce's long temp order — she raged at the staff because I told her I had made an appointment for a needed vaccination and so in response they permanently "withdrew services" — she prepped our kindergartner and got the hospital to refer the matter (dad supposedly beat son on his shins of all places but told me he was on the monkey bars at a park with his mother) to CPS.  And that was just one of the CPS cases.

Strangely the one claim that was rare was DV.  No doubt it was because when we separated she was the one charged with Threat of DV (I had recorded the incident).  So she focused on child abuse allegations.  However once she did claim some DV aspect and I never knew until the court made a decision.  I had filed for Change of Circumstances so I could seek custody.  It was during that testimony she claimed she obstructed my winter vacation notice by claiming she wanted to observe Kwanzaa with our son despite her not being of Jewish descent.  Um, Hanukkah is Jewish, not Kwanzaa.  My lawyer had a field day, repeatedly asking her to describe "Jewish Kwanzaa".  Anyway, the decision stated some of her testimony was "not credible" — courtspeak for "Liar!"  It added, almost as an aside, that she had claimed I had choked her years before.  However, court granted my petition and allowed me to proceed.

As of late, the BPDex has been causing a lot of drama again, and the D has been showing signs of aggression at school. She has physically assaulted three different peers and one teacher by either hitting kicking, or pulling their shirts in a forceful manner. This is obviously distressing, and is most likely the result of witnessing this kind of behavior in the BPDex’s home. The D is coming to stay with us over her winter break from school, and I’m hoping we can help her.

I had a GAL (Guardian ad Litem) who focused on children but I later realized her focus was probably more on juvenile delinquents, not parenting disputes.  We settled for her solution (which the court would have accepted anyway if forced to decide) where I got full custody but parenting remained equal time so she could have access to child support.

That didn't change ex's disparaging behaviors so when I went back for majority time we had the same GAL and this time wow was she peeved with my ex.  This time we really dug into her pattern of poor behaviors.  By this time our son was in 5th grade.  School records noted the tardies, one or two on my time but nearly 20 on her time.  School teachers testified how she arrived at an overnight field trip (which started on my time) demanding her son and created a scene.

Guess what happened?  Despite my testimony of disparaging incidents at various times, including summers, the court granted me majority time only during the school year.  That's when I learned that independent professionals — such as schools — had as much or more influence than me (dad) in court outcomes.

So my suggestion is to determine whether you can document the school report of child's behaviors and use those records to ask the court to change his child's residency and school to him.  As happened with my experience, school documentation seemed to have as much if not more leverage than my own testimony.

No doubt the therapist could also provide some background to recommend a custodial or parenting change so dad could provide an environment to improve school behaviors.  Be aware, though, that many counselors refuse to testify in court fearing lawsuits or licensing complaints, but often will provide information indirectly such as to GALs.

Another thought... Most courts seem to limit testimony about incidents to the past six months but you can include older incidents if it is to demonstrate a pattern of poor behaviors.

Footnote, once I had custody and majority time my ex caused fewer problems.  Eventually my son aged out of the family court system.  My ex hasn't caused any recent strife (she lives nearby but son still lives with me so she visits) but I do have to be very careful in what I say or do so as not to trigger overreactions from her.

[herbivorestepmom]

Radically accepting that the other parent will likely stay the same, can help, in a weird way. There's less disappointment and surprise when the craziness rears its head.

Hi Kells! I completely agree. It took me about two years to finally comprehend that no matter what we do, she will behave the same. The only time she acts "cordial" is when she wants something (usually a ridiculous demand, like us allowing a photo of her up in our house? Absolutely not.) Finally realizing this has made it easier to just laugh it off when she does/says something absurdly.

What's you and your H's strategy been for interacting with the school about this? My gut feeling is this could be important in turning the tide/having D with you guys more.

This has been another ongoing battle. It's a long story, but D is insanely smart and was enrolled into an A+ rated public school. She was going to be a candidate for the gifted child program and was more than likely going to skip straight to 1st grade. A little under two months before the school year started, we were informed by the BPDex that she moved out of that school district (the PP states that her residence will be used to establish the school district for D). We were not given notice to this. Her and my H have to make major decisions together for their D per the PP, but she all of a sudden NEEDED (wanted) D to be enrolled in a private school. H fought her on this because this private school doesn't have the gifted child program and doesn't allow students to skip grades. Additionally, kindergarten there is $14,000. They went back and forth on it, but ultimately the BPDex drug it out long enough that it was too late to enroll D into a different public school. Since my H was very against the private school, she last-ditch-effort offered to pay for the private school by herself. At that point, he just wanted his D to get enrolled into a school so that the BPDex couldn't homeschool her (she tried to offer this as well).

D has only been in this school for a few months and she is turning into a different kid. We are aware of DV that happened in the home in the past, so more than likely that is still happening. D had never hurt another friend/peer before in school before, and we think it's a mixture of her seeing violence at home and being bored at school since she isn't being challenged. Unfortunately, she hasn't disclosed anything to her T or her teacher. Her headteacher has been very vocal with my H on D's progress at school, but he isn't able to get ahold of the principal. This guy has only returned one phone call and one email, but didn't say anything useful.

We currently feel like we are at a stand-still until we can speak to the administration on what's going on and what they are noticing. We were informed that one of the assaults ended up involving the other child's parents. Every time something happens at the school, my H informs D's T. He knows that BPDex won't do it, so he is the one that makes sure she is always informed.

I had a GAL (Guardian ad Litem) who focused on children but I later realized her focus was probably more on juvenile delinquents, not parenting disputes.  We settled for her solution (which the court would have accepted anyway if forced to decide) where I got full custody but parenting remained equal time so she could have access to child support.

We spoke to my H's L about using a GAL. Once the false allegation nightmare was over, there wasn't enough time before we had to relocate for a GAL to be established and collect enough data to make an informed decision for the court. The BPDex drug her feet long enough that we simply ran out of time and had to get a long-distance PP in place before we moved so she couldn't play any games about not having something in "legal writing."

Another thought... Most courts seem to limit testimony about incidents to the past six months but you can include older incidents if it is to demonstrate a pattern of poor behaviors.

Yes, I completely agree. We overprepared for the false allegation court dates and had multiple people write and sign sworn affidavits on what unstable behaviors they witnessed from the BPDex. Two of these included first-hand experience of what she did at my H's friend's wedding and the threats she made against his friends after he asked for a divorce.

We ended up not needing them at that time, but we have them in our back pocket for the future.

~HSM~