This is all extremely helpful advice and I am so thankful for it. Deescalating is soooo hard. How do you do that when they're literally telling you that you're a piece a PLEASE READ, a bitch, a cunt, arrogant, stupid, worthless. I totally get that they are really describing their own insecurities and projecting. I don't say insulting things back, but what are you supposed to say to that? The stance that I have been taking is that I will no longer allow him to take my peace. When he says insulting things, I have said they don't hurt me anymore and just reflect on his character.Most of the time I won't respond at all, and that really makes him mad. Damned if I do and damned if I don't. He last text were that he wanted nothing to do with me. I always think Good!, but that usually only lasts a couple of days. Then he's telling me he loves me and needs me in his life, and I have to say no, and it starts all over again. I have apologized for hurting him until I'm blue in the face in an attempt to deescalate, but we have all been there. There's no pleasing or placating them. He just keeps on and on ....I do believe he is capable of physical violence. He hasn't put his hands on me, but he's come really close a few times, and on multiple occasions has blocked the door so that I couldn't leave, and basically held me prisoner until he had said every hateful thing he wanted to. After I txt him the info regarding the storage, I will stay with my daughter for at least a week, maybe 2. The advice for the phrasing about putting his stuff in a safe place a great. I will use that. I also picked a place that is closer to his house, a nice storage, and in a nice area. I will try telling him he needs to be able to find peace in his life, and I bring him strife, and I want good things for him. All of that true. Keep the advice coming. I can definitely use it!

Yes, be the parent proposing solutions.  While court may assume it'sboth spouses causing the friction, eventually court will take note they you're the one proposing solutions, not obstructing and sabotaging.

Sadly, court doesn't care how nice or fair you try to be.  So don't short yourself legally or parenting-wise with hopes of impressing the court. Just make sure you're not nasty nor the least bit threatening.  Always behave decently, have your kids' interests at heart, and -eventually- court may notice.

It is a little different with BPD people though.

Because they are collecting information and using it against you.  They are spreading their truth and distortions to whomever stands still long enough to listen.

I do believe you need to be very careful.

They are mostly indirect threats but none the less they are threats. 

My ex started to suggest I was stalking her, which ended up being because she was guilty of cheating.

Then she would contact me and turn it around to, I was contacting her.

I got a phone call from her father, and he delivered a strange, veiled threat, that I would watched and have a visit from his brother.  So, I know she has said some outrageous things about me. 

They word it so it is vague and not direct.  That made me decide to break all contact.

Yes you need to de-escalate situations.

But you also need to protect yourself.  Understand it isn't going to get better. 

There is a message in what he is saying, and you should listen to it.  Get out as gently as you can. 

I downplayed everything I was doing, was doing in the future.   I made myself a person in her eyes that nobody would want.   Because I believed that if she saw I would have a better life than her, that might trigger her.  She believes I am her object, I will always be there, she said that she feels like she "owns" me. 

I devalued myself to her.  So, she wouldn't come after me.

The more boring I was, without prospects in her eyes the better that is for me. 

Because I am scared of what she could do.   I have seen how psychotic she can get. 

I broke up with my ex with BPD June of 2023. I have tried letting time heal this wound but here I am, still ruminating about her and mourning the loss of our 8 year relationship. She immediately moved on and I am left here broken. Crying spells and bouts of rage come and go in my life and while this hasn't impacted my work or social life, its not something I want. I tried moving on like she has but it just didn't feel right and every time I was with someone else, my ex would pop into my mind. I tried going to therapy but I don't feel like my therapist really addressed my issues or understood how badly BPD messes you up.

Where can I find a therapist who can specifically help someone like me who has been through the BPD roller coaster?
Going on psychology today doesn't really help because of the vast amount of therapists. I feel like I need someone who has experience with this issue.   

My response would be (as calmly and as gently as I could say it): I understand you think it's all my fault.  I want to help, so please talk this out with me.  What could I have done differently to avoid this?

Her: Bla bla bla, and yappity yap!  You always do this, you never care.

Me (still talking very slowly and calmly):  I'm sorry this keeps happening between us and it's frustrating for me as well.  It hurts me to see you this upset and I'd love to find a way we can work past this together.

Her: Bla bla yappity yap (although with much less hysteria than before.  She's being validated so she's starting to calm down and her logical mind is starting to engage).  Why would you do that when you know it really bothers me?

The pattern here is that when she's disordered and unstable, the ONLY goal is to calm her down (or cheer her up if she's depressed).  You do that by validating her feelings and focusing on yourself.  Notice that first line was all about me- what could I do, etc.  That didn't work and she lashed out again, so I keep it about me while validating her feelings, her frustration.  And I'll keep doing that....focusing on her while making me statements...until she asks a question I can actually answer with reason and logic.

What you're doing unknowingly when she says, "It's all your fault" is making her feel less secure and more defensive, which in turn makes things even worse.  Again, the ONLY GOAL is to get her to calm down and talk to you like a person.  Nothing anyone says matters until you get to that point.  It's like arguing with a baby...or a crocodile...the words are useless.  It's the emotions being conveyed while speaking those words that actually matters.

I know that this is tough and it doesn't make any sense at all...at least at first.  Welcome to the club, we've all been there and most of us are still there the majority of the time.  This is something learned through practice and patience.

Thanks for that post.  I will read it a few times.

Right now, I am out of words. 

I can't speak to the best way to initiate a divorce, but I would say you need to be ready for your ex to turn into your worst enemy as soon as the divorce is underway -- no matter how civil and cooperative you may attempt to be. That has been my experience -- and it was my wife who initiated the divorce proceedings. (To be fair, I'd told her months earlier I was only sticking around for the kids after years of living separately in the same home.)

My anecdote is that my ex began a relentless barrage of verbal abuse that then switched to text and email abuse when I went no contact with her and ignored her confrontations. My lawyer has contacted her lawyer requesting an end to the harassment, but my ex just can't help herself and has to attack me once a day if not more. I really only am sticking around for the kids now, as I don' t want to leave them with her in such an unhinged state. Once we have a parenting plan that guarantees my time with them, I'll be moving into a separate residence as quickly as possible.

So once you pull the trigger, you need to be ready for the explosion that may come your way. Be ready to move out ASAP and have all your affairs in order to support that move (finances to pay for it, new furniture picked out or movers ready to move your stuff, plan to take care of the responsibilities at your shared home, etc.). The person you divorce will likely be much worse than the person you are living with now.

The more things you have in place before you make the break, the easier and quicker the break will be.

Good luck with it!

Thanks! I've been using BIFF ever since a therapist and a friend of mine of helped me understand she was BPD. But I've had to move to no contact as much as possible because if I engage at all with her she quickly uses that conversation to attack me. And once I've engaged her with her, she'll return to that subject over and over for weeks, using it to attack me and hopefully draw me into engaging with her again. There is absolutely no way to effectively communicate with her at this point. I've had my lawyer contact her lawyer to complain of the harassment and abuse, to no avail. I've asked her to leave me alone when she's being verbally abusive, so she just switches to email and text abuse on a daily basis.

I've heard of JADE before, although SET and DEARMAN are new to me. Because of her volatile and hostile nature, though, all of them are not an option at this point.

I'm hoping to propose through the lawyers that we switch to an app for child-related items to cut down on emails and texts as much as possible. I don't know that she'll respect it any more or even go along with it, but if the request comes through the lawyers she may have to consider it. And I'm continuing to establish a record of her hostility and my attempts to negotiate past the conflict rather than make it worse.

A very close person in my life with BPD left my life a couple months ago after a conflict which triggered their fear of engulfment, and after I made some rookie mistakes like begging and pleading and making overtures, I've done the reading and accepted that No Contact is my only chance at rekindling. The person has explicitly said to me that they want me to do many of the tips I've read here and elsewhere that seem to be successful with getting someone back in your life, like they said not to initiate contact and let them do it and they said to live in the moment without trying to set up more when an interaction happens, so I feel like it's a good sign that they are telling me they want what the general consensus states regarding No Contact success.

What always has me second guessing, though, is the lack of object constancy in people with BPD. Even when we were very close, I definitely felt that "out of sight, out of mind" vibe from them when other friends or events or distractions came into their life. I'm not saying that was all the time, though, because they certainly expressed missing me when they were more on the "fear of abandonment" end of the spectrum and they've mentioned missing me many times since our conflict.

So my question is, how does a lack of object constancy affect the odds of No Contact working when you are solely waiting on the person with BPD to initiate contact? Is it likely they just stop feeling your connection after a long enough period of time and just never think to reach out? Why does No Contact lead to successes in spite of a lack of object constancy?

Thanks  Pook. I think this makes sense, but I still struggle with it when the complaint from her is "it's all your fault!!!". The explicit message at these times is that she doesn't want nice words, she doesn't want a hug, she just wants a clear apology for what she thinks I've done wrong, in a way that acknowledges that it's actually my fault. I know this may not be what she actually needs, but if everything other than that is rejected it seems hard to get through with the validation approach.