How does she tell you these things? I.e., via email, phone call, text, in person...?

Email was my H's kids' mom's preferred method, followed by in person and text. Phone calls basically never happened. Occasionally we would hear things about ourselves from others, and it seemed likely that Mom had talked to those people.

Minimizing your exposure to the wacky things she says could be helpful for reclaiming some peace in your life. Some members have friends or family screen incoming communications and filter out anything not related to the kids.

Thank you everyone for your responses!!  It feels better just knowing that I’m not alone and that this is clearly extremely common. Had no idea but I do now!!

She is absolutely projecting. And yep, I’ve been called, abusive, cruel, neglectful to her and our child, and so on. She’s even said I have magical thinking. Which I found out is an NPD thing. And I was like “wait, she’s the one with these traits…..”. Kind of a Mind F that she does these things.

I took an NPD quiz (not a medical diagnosis of course but it gives an idea) and nope, lowest range of it. I took the BPD quiz too for fun and same thing.

She is incredibly abusive and manipulative and exhausting. And our daughter is now showing these traits..Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries!!!!!!

Gigi,

If it's true your daughter has BPD, then my inclination is to think that her mental faculties aren't impaired to the extent that she actually believes she's had a baby--that she buys into her delusion--though she clearly wants to believe it, and for everyone else to believe it, too.  It seems to me that her problem is that she's a pathological liar, as implied by the title of your post.

I tend to agree with the others posting that trying to confront her outright about the lies might backfire, just serving to anger and destabilize her.  I've seen this issue with my diagnosed stepdaughter.  She will cling to her version of events--that she was traumatized and abused--like her life depends on it.  That's because she has to be the victim, and others are the enemy.  Admitting that SHE was the abuser and/or liar would be too painful for her to bear.  She'd rather change the details of the story or stop the conversation completely than to admit any wrongdoing.  Usually this meant cutting people out of her life.  Then she would become isolated and alienated, and her "exit" strategy had to be a suicide attempt--an extreme cry for help.  I think this was because of the intense shame and self-hatred she felt for her past behavior, made worse by the alienation.  But it was suicide attempts, not an admission of lying or any apology, that ultimately got her treatment.

I imagine that your daughter knows she's lying, but she's compelled to keep the delusion going, because she wanted her ex back, and she wanted the attention.  Maybe she thought she might be pregnant at the beginning, and she wanted to believe it so badly that she started with a lie that snowballed on her.  Admitting she did anything wrong would be too painful for her, so she had to keep the fiction going.  And now her "exit" is probably saying the baby died, having some sort of memorial, and maybe even a fundraiser.

Even so, this could be a prelude of an actual cry for help.  Only she can decide when she's ready to receive help.  If you challenge her lies, maybe she has a breakdown, while blaming you for provoking it.  Maybe she "confesses," but I tend to doubt that, given the lengths she's gone.

I don't know.  If you try to take stage an intervention or take her to a hospital, she could see you as the enemy.  That's what happened to my stepdaughter.  I think she has to feel ready to get help.  Maybe she faces a crisis herself with her housing situation.  If you don't let her move in with you, or pay her bills, thereby "enabling" a dysfunctional lifestyle, she might decide she's ready to change.  But if she's comfortable (others are paying for her upkeep, she's getting attention because she's a new mom, etc.), she probably has little reason to change or seek therapy.

There might be a way to coax her towards the truth, by being a compassionate listener.  But she'd need to trust you, and she'd need to be calm.  You might open a conversation asking about how she felt when she first thought she might be pregnant--the excitement, a chance to get back together with her ex, the joy of bringing a new life into the world.  And then you might gently state that losing those hopes and dreams would be devastating.  It would be understandable to cling to the idea of a being a mom and having a happy family.  That's a dream come true for many women.  You'd understand how awful it would feel to lose that dream, and how hard it would be to tell others about it.  Then maybe she confesses?

This touches upon the crux of the matter.

BPD cannot exist in a world without dichotomy, and we cannot occupy that same space with them without injury.

By definition, BPD-in its dichotomous universe-doesn’t invite resolution, and whatever consolation we seek has to be self-prescribed.

“Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble, and the sculpture.”

I can intellectually accommodate the nuances of BPD, but emotionally resolving the behaviour(s) is still something that I live with daily.

It would be invaluable if you could share your thoughts as you progress through therapy, and I wish you every success.

Hello Bdx4365 and a warm

"Fortunately", no diagnosis of your partner is necessary to join here and learn new tools and skills. I've mentioned this in a couple of other posts here, but the issues we have aren't what the label or diagnosis is, it's the behaviors -- no matter what the behaviors are or aren't called.

A broad support structure and willingness to try new, unintuitive approaches can be key for trying to make changes in your relationship. And, "fortunately" again, you don't need your W's cooperation, approval, or agreement, for you to start learning about better ways to relate to her.

I hear you that she wasn't interested in MC... do you have an individual counselor of your own?

How many kids do you have, and how old are they? Do any of them seem aware of the conflicts?

And would you say that the main issue for you is the constant stream of criticism, or maybe something else?

Fill us in -- we're here to walk alongside you.

I didn’t so much as run into it as it ground into me like grousers on the tracks of a Caterpillar.

It was so incongruous that it was like she was doing a read-through as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

There’s no denying that her internal narrative was a perpetually looped film of The Perils of Pauline, with me as the maniacally laughing moustachioed villain tying her to a set of railway tracks.

Yes, it’s such a common feature that it’s absence is would make me second guess a great many things.

Hi jj0804 and

That would be really disappointing, to start to have hopes for a future together, and then to feel like things kind of fell apart. I know that hurts.

How long were the two of you in a relationship, before the "big event"?

Could mean a lot of things -- probably at some level, it's about whatever is going on inside of her, and her trying to get her impossibly deep emotional needs met, while coping with wildly varying and often harmfully intense emotions.

If BPD is involved, then a key part of the acronym to remember is that it's Borderline Personality Disorder -- so the ways pwBPD try to get their needs met won't necessarily "make sense" (disordered thinking).

A big question for you would be -- no matter why she does what she does, are you OK with having that kind of behavior in your life? You're in the driver's seat for what you choose to let in.

Thanks so much for your thoughts guys - I appreciate it so much.

Yes, his actions have massively confused and hurt me. He has come in hot offering the world and begging forgiveness... then changed his mind and gaslighting me into thinking he wasn't actually offering that... so so SO many times now. Coming back and forth like the wind. Obviously I've stopped letting him come in again, but even allowing the opportunity for him to even be suggestive about it gets into my head and throws me completely off balance. So I do need to get to the point where there's no contact. It's just been baby steps to get there.

Our pattern has always been that I feel incredibly uncomfortable about leaving things in an unresolved/unpeaceful place and I make contact with him to soothe, resolve and tie it all up nicely. It seems my nervous system needs that. Especially because we live in the same community and see each other around. But once I've done that, he comes back in again... sometimes it takes him minutes, sometimes days/weeks and in the past many months and a relationship for him in between. But he always comes back. And he goes hard with the love-bombing.

I told him the other week about how anxious I was feeling about him reappearing and then disappearing again... he went through a range of reactions to that - first he tried to gaslight me into thinking he hadn't 'reappeared again'... then he was really nice about it and said he understood, and then in the same conversation thought we could maybe hang out and have coffee sometimes... and then he tried to tease me about my anxiety... which I went along with, but when I teased him back about being indecisive, he got nasty... and he sent me a meme about being a 'stage five clinger'. And when I told him I would be upset if that's what he really thought of me... he got angry... shut the conversation down.

I tried to explain to him what effect the back and forth has had on me... how it's actually taken me to a dark place and made me anxious and insecure in ways I didn't used to be. He didn't respond to that. It's obviously easier to label me an anxious, clingy, psycho ex... than to acknowledge that his actions have upset and damaged me.. as they would upset and damage anyone.

When I talked to my psych about it, I was able to see that I just keep going to him with how I feel and hoping he will suddenly get it or acknowledge it... and that's because 1 or 2 times out of 10 he WILL acknowledge it and be kind. But the other times he just ignores me or gaslights me, which makes me even more anxious. It's like a fruit machine. And that's the intermittent reinforcement that keeps me hooked into the game.

Over time I have turned from being a high-value partner who he didn't feel he deserved and had to work at to keep in his life, to a low-value partner who he can pick up and drop whenever he wants. Neither of those positions are healthy. So while I want to keep compassion and love for him, it's important to state that I really don't like the way he has treated me, and I do want to catch my heart up with my head... really hoping therapy will work, but I'm also reading articles that suggest interrupting thoughts about him with other things, and re-reading the truth of the relationship and how bad it was for me... to start re-wiring my brain.

Hi Garlic70;

As odd as it sounds, you could consider contacting a local DBT clinic, explaining your situation (that you don't have BPD but are processing the end of a relationship with a pwBPD), and asking for either an external recommendation, or if they're willing to see you as a client.

Even if your city/town/location doesn't have a DBT clinic, maybe find a larger city in your state/province, and call them up. It's possible that they could provide telehealth services (if you're OK with remote sessions).

Have you officially ended things with your current therapist yet?