new member, considering my options with uBPDw

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hello,
first post: just found this forum and joined looking for support in figuring out the situation with my wife and where to go from here. I already found some support, actually, reading through some posts and seeing that my experiences are shared by others. It's a relief just to know that the problems in our relationship, while they have been incomprehensible to me for years, do have a reason, and that all the painful weirdness is not just us, but follows recognized patterns.

We have been together for six years and we have a toddler, soon to turn two years old.
In the beginning my wife idealized me to extend I was uncomfortable with. Also, I found her arguing style troubling from the start, but we didn't argue all that much so I lived with it.

Later she had a breakdown when finding out the "truth" about me, some real things but blown out of proportion, and I didn't know how to handle it at all. I was confused and scared, but since she was obviously in pain, for many months I just soaked up everything she dished out and didn't stick to any of my boundaries.

Eventually, facing of constant physical and emotional abuse, I learned to keep silent about my truth, step around her triggers (well, as much as one really can when those are often not actually tied to reality) and just accept blame for everything. This calmed things enough that it gave us an illusion of improvement. We made a pact to move on and in that optimistic period we got pregnant, on purpose. After the birth things went crazy again almost immediately, and while the physical abuse is not present anymore (save a rare minor, hurtful exception), I now live in an unloving, controlling marriage that lacks any emotional and physical intimacy, and suffer emotional abuse on as many days as not.

At the moment I'm wondering if I should stay or leave. I'm leaning quite heavily towards "should leave", since my thoughts have cleared a bit and I can see the situation really is unacceptable. I am afraid of the models for communication and relationships we give our child if I stay. Also I really don't know if I can stay without losing what's still left of myself. I know I could be a better father and an adult model for my son without all this burden and control on me.

However, I wonder how much things might be improved now I better understand what's going on and have become aware of some of the communication tools available. I think I have the option of delaying to see how things might work out without damaging our child with the delay, as our child is shielded from most of our conflict - my wife understands how damaging exposing him to screaming rages is. (Would I be too optimistic to think that this show of restraint is a sign of improvement? Anyway, somehow this shielding doesn't extend to constant criticism, or not letting me express an opinion that she doesn't share, or other unconstructive patterns that our child shouldn't have to witness either.)

Also, well, I am truly terrified by the possible consequences of divorce. When the possibility of divorce has come up (in the form of her planning to leave me since I am horrible person) she has on different occasions previously threatened me with taking the child and moving to her parent's home town (a full days drive away), cutting me and my relatives from the child's life, alienating the child from me, and even suicide + child murder. These threats aside, my wife and our child have a wonderful relationship and she's been a great mum so far. I can't help but to worry how that might detoriate with the huge stress of divorce and all the fears and delusions which will inevitably accompany it in her experience.

So yeah, for my own sake things really can't stay like they are now. But also I fear what divorce might bring (I've bought the divorce book, Splitting, it's in mail), and also I fear how much pain trying to improve the relationship would bring - and whether it would actually lead to improvement or not. So I feel quite stuck and indecisive.

Couple of things I wonder if anyone can shed some light on.

Firstly, is it common for BPDs to lash out delusionally against people they are not that close to? It seems my wife is intent on burning bridges with my relatives, one by one. Does this fit in with the symptoms, or is it something else? They have not been close, so I don't see how abandonment issues would come to play. It seems she's convinced people are bad-mouthing her behind her back, turning people against her, and she's adamant of "sticking to her boundaries", ready to cut anyone from her life when she perceives them as treating her badly. (She has very few people left in her life at this point.)

Secondly, my wife has told me about her previous relationships in detail, and I don't see the same problems there. Obviously I only have her description of things, and she's quite blind to the possibility that there could be anything wrong with her, or that in any interpersonal conflict she could ever be anything but a mistreated victim. All that being said, trust her when she tells me that in her previous relationships there had never been problems and conflict at the level that we have had. So I wonder. Has she gotten worse over the years, or even only gotten BPD due to some traumatic events that happened between the relationships? Or is it maybe something about me that sets her off more strongly?

[Versant]

Hello,
first post: just found this forum and joined looking for support in figuring out the situation with my wife and where to go from here. I already found some support, actually, reading through some posts and seeing that my experiences are shared by others. It's a relief just to know that the problems in our relationship, while they have been incomprehensible to me for years, do have a reason, and that all the painful weirdness is not just us, but follows recognized patterns.

We have been together for six years and we have a toddler, soon to turn two years old.
In the beginning my wife idealized me to extend I was uncomfortable with. Also, I found her arguing style troubling from the start, but we didn't argue all that much so I lived with it.

Later she had a breakdown when finding out the "truth" about me, some real things but blown out of proportion, and I didn't know how to handle it at all. I was confused and scared, but since she was obviously in pain, for many months I just soaked up everything she dished out and didn't stick to any of my boundaries.

Eventually, facing of constant physical and emotional abuse, I learned to keep silent about my truth, step around her triggers (well, as much as one really can when those are often not actually tied to reality) and just accept blame for everything. This calmed things enough that it gave us an illusion of improvement. We made a pact to move on and in that optimistic period we got pregnant, on purpose. After the birth things went crazy again almost immediately, and while the physical abuse is not present anymore (save a rare minor, hurtful exception), I now live in an unloving, controlling marriage that lacks any emotional and physical intimacy, and suffer emotional abuse on as many days as not.

At the moment I'm wondering if I should stay or leave. I'm leaning quite heavily towards "should leave", since my thoughts have cleared a bit and I can see the situation really is unacceptable. I am afraid of the models for communication and relationships we give our child if I stay. Also I really don't know if I can stay without losing what's still left of myself. I know I could be a better father and an adult model for my son without all this burden and control on me.

However, I wonder how much things might be improved now I better understand what's going on and have become aware of some of the communication tools available. I think I have the option of delaying to see how things might work out without damaging our child with the delay, as our child is shielded from most of our conflict - my wife understands how damaging exposing him to screaming rages is. (Would I be too optimistic to think that this show of restraint is a sign of improvement? Anyway, somehow this shielding doesn't extend to constant criticism, or not letting me express an opinion that she doesn't share, or other unconstructive patterns that our child shouldn't have to witness either.)

Also, well, I am truly terrified by the possible consequences of divorce. When the possibility of divorce has come up (in the form of her planning to leave me since I am horrible person) she has on different occasions previously threatened me with taking the child and moving to her parent's home town (a full days drive away), cutting me and my relatives from the child's life, alienating the child from me, and even suicide + child murder. These threats aside, my wife and our child have a wonderful relationship and she's been a great mum so far. I can't help but to worry how that might detoriate with the huge stress of divorce and all the fears and delusions which will inevitably accompany it in her experience.

So yeah, for my own sake things really can't stay like they are now. But also I fear what divorce might bring (I've bought the divorce book, Splitting, it's in mail), and also I fear how much pain trying to improve the relationship would bring - and whether it would actually lead to improvement or not. So I feel quite stuck and indecisive.

Couple of things I wonder if anyone can shed some light on.

Firstly, is it common for BPDs to lash out delusionally against people they are not that close to? It seems my wife is intent on burning bridges with my relatives, one by one. Does this fit in with the symptoms, or is it something else? They have not been close, so I don't see how abandonment issues would come to play. It seems she's convinced people are bad-mouthing her behind her back, turning people against her, and she's adamant of "sticking to her boundaries", ready to cut anyone from her life when she perceives them as treating her badly. (She has very few people left in her life at this point.)

Secondly, my wife has told me about her previous relationships in detail, and I don't see the same problems there. Obviously I only have her description of things, and she's quite blind to the possibility that there could be anything wrong with her, or that in any interpersonal conflict she could ever be anything but a mistreated victim. All that being said, trust her when she tells me that in her previous relationships there had never been problems and conflict at the level that we have had. So I wonder. Has she gotten worse over the years, or even only gotten BPD due to some traumatic events that happened between the relationships? Or is it maybe something about me that sets her off more strongly?

[GaGrl]

This site can definitely help and support you as you examine your marriage and options.

Is your wife diagnosed with BPD? If not, when did you see her behavior as BPD related?

A couple of comments...

People with BPD often parent very well with younger children but begin to have conflicts as the children get older and begin to have their own opinions, wants, and needs -- that is, as the children individuate.

It is also common for a person with BPD to isolate a partner from family and friends, as well as to lose his/her own relationships with family and friends.

So what you are experiencing is not unusual.

Taking time to use the tools you learn here, to see if your marriage benefits, is a perfectly reasonable position to take.

However, if you decide to leave, there are a number of actions you would need to take to prevent your wife from taking your son out of your current living area and preventing your parenting access. That is when it will be critical to have a lawyer retained.

[ForeverDad]

Eventually, facing of constant physical and emotional abuse, I learned to keep silent about my truth, step around her triggers (well, as much as one really can when those are often not actually tied to reality) and just accept blame for everything. This calmed things enough that it gave us an illusion of improvement. We made a pact to move on and in that optimistic period we got pregnant, on purpose. After the birth things went crazy again almost immediately, and while the physical abuse is not present anymore (save a rare minor, hurtful exception), I now live in an unloving, controlling marriage that lacks any emotional and physical intimacy, and suffer emotional abuse on as many days as not.

My experience was similar.  I had been married for over a decade but my spouse had been oh so gradually worsening, largely due to her childhood traumas, her mother supported her abuser stepfather, etc.

I imagined she'd feel better if we had a child and she could have joy watching our child discover life.  Oops, eventual disaster.  Clueless me, I hadn't heard of this truism:  "Having children does not fix serious mental health issues, it just makes everything vastly more complicated."  And that impacts the costs of ending a marriage and all the added issues with custody and parenting schedules.

That's now in the past.  Our child was 3 years old back then when we separated.  We were in and out of family court from 2005 to 2013.  He's grown now, lives with me.

[alterK]

Versant,
If you are reading the books, you will know you are a victim of splitting. Not a perfectly descriptive term, but it's generally accepted. You are seen by your W as either perfectly wonderful, or horribly evil. Many of us (me included) have been seduced by the first part, only to be slammed later when we become the devil incarnate.

The switch is often precipitated by some change in the relationship, or the family dynamic. In my case, it was my daughter-in-law's becoming pregnant and then having my first grandchild. In your case, maybe your "truths," maybe the birth of your child, or something else.

SO's past relationships. One of the several red flags I ignored at the beginning of my romance with my wife-to-be was the way she talked about past relationships/husbands. The breakups were always their fault, never hers. She would admit no part in causing things to go bad. This is a typical BPD attitude, which I didn't understand at the time. This is ultimately a sad position for them to be in. If you always see yourself as an innocent victim, you have no way of learning how not to repeat your mistakes or how to protect yourself.

Making things better: A basic truth we often repeat here is that the only person you can change is yourself. You hope that if you avoid your SO's triggers, fix some of the things you realize you have been doing wrong, that their bad behavior will cease and everything will be hunky dory again. It almost never works. Once you have been moved to the dark side in their mind, it's close to impossible to get back to where you used to be.

A great deal of BPD behavior is fear-based. The instant your partner  switches to seeing you as evil, they begin distancing, erecting barriers, defenses. They are too terrified to trust you, ever.

With a child, things become much more high stakes. I don't mean to say it's totally hopeless for you, but I'd suggest that the first piece of work you have to do is learn to see your relationship realistically, not through the lens of hope. Then start making your decisions, and try to be patient with yourself. It isn't easy.

[livednlearned]

It's just as much "abandonment of the self" as it is "abandonment by other," if that helps to explain her behaviors.

Something threw a wrench in regular development and if some experts are accurate in their theory (like Masterson) then pwBPD rely on a "false self" to navigate the world and abandon the "real self" because it was too dangerous or frightening for it to manifest.

I found that explanation helpful to better understand the whiplash of emotions whenever there was a shred of intimacy or vulnerability in the wind. Both seemed to trigger fear and elicit the full force of the false self, making sure to diminish any hope of accessing a real self.

Since I was the person closest to my ex, I bore the brunt, like many here do. Having no self or a weak self meant there was no one to accept accountability or blame for his actions, so it was projected outward with me being the prime target.

One time my ex accused me of not visiting him in the hospital when he had his appendix out.

Except he was 6 when that happened and I hadn't been born yet.

You have to kind of look at your partner from the perspective of a parent to see what mode they're in, and what role you're playing.

How bad is the control? Are you able to care for your daughter or have relationships with the family members she is battling?

[Versant]

Thanks for the replies. It a relief that there are people who understand, people who know more than I do, people who care.

I don't know how to deal with the casual death threats. I received another one yesterday. "I will kill this family yet." This was followed up a bit later with the explanation: "Just stubbornly be yourself and see where that takes us."

I know that threats of murder or suicide are not to be taken lightly. And if she was to say something immediate like "I'm feeling so bad I'm thinking of killing myself", it would be quite clear to reach for help even when she is against it. And once last year when she said something like that about killing our child, I did call the child protection (she's still mad about that). But when she brings suicide (or murder) up in the context of "behave the way I like or else", it's not so clear to me what to do. I try to tell her that's not an ok thing to say, and she doesn't care. And calling outside help when it's clear she's not about to do anything doesn't feel right, either.

Is your wife diagnosed with BPD? If not, when did you see her behavior as BPD related?

As far as I know, she is not diagnosed. She has diagnosed depression, though, and has earlier had medication for anxiety, too. Also she's self diagnosed as highly sensitive person. I tried to explain her behavior from these, as well as from trauma caused by childhood + earlier relationship disasters, and also from reaction to my supposedly super hurtful behavior. What confused me a bit too is that her grandmother and uncle have the same black and white thinking and tendency for conflicts where they never give in an inch, so it seemed like unhealthy family culture was also there making things difficult. At times I was convinced her depression had turned into psychotic depression. Anyway, over longer time I started to fear she might have something undiagnosed too.

Things finally clicked a few weeks back when a friend gave me the Eggshells book, after I had opened up to her. (It took me several years to reach out to a friend with our troubles.) So much of what I read was so familiar that I was amazed. Obviously I can't know for sure, but there's enough that I'm convinced.

I do worry about being wrong, or missing something, though. I might make things worse by explaining aspects of our conflict by BPD when they are not caused by it, or I might be so in need of answers that I mistakenly think she has BPD (doesn't seem likely, though) or there might be something else she'd need help with that I miss because I think it's all caused by BPD. 

People with BPD often parent very well with younger children but begin to have conflicts as the children get older and begin to have their own opinions, wants, and needs -- that is, as the children individuate.

This makes sense, but is a painful thing to accept. You never know about the future, but this is something to expect and watch out for.

I imagined she'd feel better if we had a child and she could have joy watching our child discover life.  Oops, eventual disaster.  Clueless me, I hadn't heard of this truism:  "Having children does not fix serious mental health issues, it just makes everything vastly more complicated."  And that impacts the costs of ending a marriage and all the added issues with custody and parenting schedules.

Yeah... I really can't regret having the child - he's the light of my life. I do wish he had been born into a healthy relationship, however, and I am acutely aware that, under the circumstances, trying for a child was highly irresponsible of me.

Versant,
If you are reading the books, you will know you are a victim of splitting. Not a perfectly descriptive term, but it's generally accepted. You are seen by your W as either perfectly wonderful, or horribly evil. Many of us (me included) have been seduced by the first part, only to be slammed later when we become the devil incarnate.

The switch is often precipitated by some change in the relationship, or the family dynamic. In my case, it was my daughter-in-law's becoming pregnant and then having my first grandchild. In your case, maybe your "truths," maybe the birth of your child, or something else.

Things started to go worse a lot faster once I stopped working from home. Before that we had spent most hours of most days under the same roof. In hindsight, this change must have made her feel more insecure than I could have imagined. I didn't handle the increasing accusations and digging for "what was wrong" well, and soon things went to hell.

SO's past relationships. One of the several red flags I ignored at the beginning of my romance with my wife-to-be was the way she talked about past relationships/husbands. The breakups were always their fault, never hers. She would admit no part in causing things to go bad. This is a typical BPD attitude, which I didn't understand at the time. This is ultimately a sad position for them to be in. If you always see yourself as an innocent victim, you have no way of learning how not to repeat your mistakes or how to protect yourself.

Yeah, this is so very true, and it breaks my heart. She's been long searching for the answer to why her friendships and other relationships fail - why is it that "everyone sooner or later turns out to be horrible". She can't really be the only decent person around, can she?

The problem is, she has unquestioned assumptions and blind spots that make finding the answer impossible. I mean, if she keeps seeing hostile intentions in neutral and even friendly behavior? If she also becomes sure enough of herself to ignore conflicting facts and other people's points of view? And if she is blind to how strong her reactions are, how hurtful language and frightening accusations she directs at people when she feels slighted? How could she ever find "people who treat her with respect" then?

And I feel helpless to help her. She doesn't trust me, in fact she hates me, so I'm the last person she would listen to.

Making things better: A basic truth we often repeat here is that the only person you can change is yourself. You hope that if you avoid your SO's triggers, fix some of the things you realize you have been doing wrong, that their bad behavior will cease and everything will be hunky dory again. It almost never works. Once you have been moved to the dark side in their mind, it's close to impossible to get back to where you used to be.

A great deal of BPD behavior is fear-based. The instant your partner  switches to seeing you as evil, they begin distancing, erecting barriers, defenses. They are too terrified to trust you, ever.

With a child, things become much more high stakes. I don't mean to say it's totally hopeless for you, but I'd suggest that the first piece of work you have to do is learn to see your relationship realistically, not through the lens of hope. Then start making your decisions, and try to be patient with yourself. It isn't easy.

I think in these past months, already before reading Eggshells, I had gotten some previously missing clarity into how little hope there is for this relationship. Reading up about BPD hasn't made me feel more optimistic.

So yeah, I expect that to stay is going to be horrible. What I need to figure out is how likely it is that leaving would be even worse. I won't be there to protect my son. There's risk of high conflict divorce causing trouble in my son's emotional development. There's risk of my wife's suicide. I think there's little danger of not getting 50-50 custody (at minimum) eventually, but little danger is not the same as no danger. (She can seem so persuasive and rational, and apparently she even has some blackmail photos of her bruises from a few years back, when she often assaulted me - somehow she bruised as much if not more than me even though I never hit her.) And I must say that even 50-50 feels painful to think about, because now I'm there for him on all days. Also there's high risk of alienation attempts, which terrifies me.

So yeah. I don't think it's worth staying for the relationship. I wonder if it's worth not to leave for safety.

Since I was the person closest to my ex, I bore the brunt, like many here do. Having no self or a weak self meant there was no one to accept accountability or blame for his actions, so it was projected outward with me being the prime target.

One time my ex accused me of not visiting him in the hospital when he had his appendix out.

Except he was 6 when that happened and I hadn't been born yet.

Ouch, that's quite something.

What gets me is not the plentiful obviously false accusations, but wondering how much truth there is in the constant  criticism and blame. I mean, she has some legitimate grievances for sure, but a lot of the time I don't have the strength to calmly sift through everything she says. Often I have to try not let it register or it gets under my skin quite quickly. So I guess I can act indifferent and unwilling to accept responsibility even when she's bringing up some reasonable concern.

How bad is the control? Are you able to care for your daughter or have relationships with the family members she is battling?

It's... bad, but it's been worse. I have taken some privacy back, that feels essential. But I have no life of my own. Either I work or then I am looking after the child, or taking care of chores - I am expected to be available at all times. Outside of work hours our son is my responsibility, in theory. However, where ever we go with him, she usually comes with (save for the occasional short trip to the nearby park, or the grocery store - those trips have felt so liberating at times!), so say, visiting my relatives with him is out of the question. Also she tells me how things should be done and expects me to follow her "advice", so I am not really free to parent. She micromanages me constantly (and is angry at me because she "needs" to do it).

Having relationship with my relatives is challenging. I no longer speak to them on phone except on the rare occasion when I can do it alone, since my wife tends to find something she doesn't like from any of my phone calls, let alone those with people she is fighting. My relatives don't understand any of this and it's quite painful for everyone, and they feel abandoned by me. This is a thing that is pressuring me towards making some changes sooner rather than later. Especially it's just unacceptable that our child is not free to get to know his extended family.

[livednlearned]

I don't know how to deal with the casual death threats. I received another one yesterday. "I will kill this family yet."

I don't think most people know how to deal with casual death threats  

It's really good you're sharing this with people who understand what it's like to hear these kinds of things. Nothing in my life has been more challenging than trying to figure out what degree of danger I was dealing with, and I'm not sure that's a one-person job to really get your head around it. My ex would say "say goodbye to your son forever" and "I guess you won't miss us because you don't have feelings" and other things that pitched me into a type of fear I had never experienced. Have you seen the MOSAIC threat assessment? Gavin de Becker developed it to help men and women in DV situations kind of do what you're doing so you aren't completely guessing. Do you have a safety plan in place?

when she brings suicide (or murder) up in the context of "behave the way I like or else", it's not so clear to me what to do. I try to tell her that's not an ok thing to say, and she doesn't care. And calling outside help when it's clear she's not about to do anything doesn't feel right, either.

In addition to MOSAIC, another resource that might be helpful is Shari Manning's Loving Someone with BPD. There's a chapter in the book on how to respond to suicidal ideation when someone has BPD. Handling it is not intuitive and must be learned. The suicide hotline also exists to help family member who are dealing with someone who is suicidal. Have you called the hotline before?

As far as I know, she is not diagnosed. She has diagnosed depression, though, and has earlier had medication for anxiety, too. Also she's self diagnosed as highly sensitive person.

No one here can diagnosis, we can only share our experiences. But this combination of issues plus the mention of psychotic depression sounds a lot like my stepdaughter (26) who was recently diagnosed with autism.

What confused me a bit too is that her grandmother and uncle have the same black and white thinking and tendency for conflicts where they never give in an inch, so it seemed like unhealthy family culture was also there making things difficult.

Some experts believe black and white thinking is a safety behavior associated with autism.

there might be something else she'd need help with that I miss because I think it's all caused by BPD.

 

Autism is a way of being differently normal. So anything that can be comorbid with neurotypical thinking can exist for someone who is autistic. When my SD26 was diagnosed, it didn't really change much because the BPD traits are the same. She still suffers from BPD. What's different is that autism is likely a factor in contributing to those traits.

Things started to go worse a lot faster once I stopped working from home. Before that we had spent most hours of most days under the same roof. In hindsight, this change must have made her feel more insecure than I could have imagined. I didn't handle the increasing accusations and digging for "what was wrong" well, and soon things went to hell.

Insecure that she was at home alone with your child?

What gets me is not the plentiful obviously false accusations, but wondering how much truth there is in the constant  criticism and blame.

Wouldn't the plentiful obviously false accusations suggest her thinking is impaired full stop? It seems unlikely her thinking would be impaired in some areas and not in others. However, there are probably improvements that can help make things less bad in terms of how you interact with her. What are some of the criticisms she's lobbing your way?

I mean, she has some legitimate grievances for sure, but a lot of the time I don't have the strength to calmly sift through everything she says. Often I have to try not let it register or it gets under my skin quite quickly. So I guess I can act indifferent and unwilling to accept responsibility even when she's bringing up some reasonable concern.

Sometimes it's about separating the emotion (she's upset) from the content (you're why) and just focusing on the emotion, for the purposes of stopping it from escalating. If she is dysregulated, the goal is to not make things worse, without letting her leave boot prints all over you or worse.

Having relationship with my relatives is challenging. I no longer speak to them on phone except on the rare occasion when I can do it alone

.

You've claimed a bit of privacy and are learning about BPD, and learning about suicidal ideation and how to make sure you're safe, as well as ensuring the safety of your child. Do you feel it would be safe to make small changes to reclaim some agency here? It won't be easy, it's more about what kinds of goals you think are realistic, at least while you try and recalibrate and figure out if the relationship is viable longer term.

These aren't easy relationships, they're the most difficult. Sometimes we can make tiny little changes that make things less bad, which is not nothing when everything feels impossible.

Keep posting, it really does help  

[SaltyDawg]

I don't think most people know how to deal with casual death threats  

It's really good you're sharing this with people who understand what it's like to hear these kinds of things. Nothing in my life has been more challenging than trying to figure out what degree of danger I was dealing with, and I'm not sure that's a one-person job to really get your head around it. My ex would say "say goodbye to your son forever" and "I guess you won't miss us because you don't have feelings" and other things that pitched me into a type of fear I had never experienced. Have you seen the MOSAIC threat assessment? Gavin de Becker developed it to help men and women in DV situations kind of do what you're doing so you aren't completely guessing. Do you have a safety plan in place?

Suicide threat assessment should be left to the professionals or volunteers trained and certified in it.  There is an example assessment that the 741741 text line uses at https://www.mhanational.org/sites/default/files/RickyNeal_CrisisTextLine.pptx, look on page 9, this is the same assessment that 988 uses.  Death threats are treated in the same/similar manner.

If there is an ideation/plan for suicide/murder, call/text 988 or text 741741 if in the US, there are other numbers for other countries.  If the person is in immediate danger (weapon of choice in hand - e.g. pills, knife, gun, etc), call 911 or local emergency number.

I've done the MOSAIC assessment on my pwBPD, and the score for her is an 8 (out of 10) with a level of confidence of 167 (out of 200) when I did this a year ago (when it was really bad for me), most people score 3 to 9 on this assessment.  It is a very comprehensive assessment covering over 30 pages of topics, and will take about 3 hours to complete if done fully.

The safety plan is a good one that LnL listed.

Take care with self-care.

[ForeverDad]

Suicide threat assessment should be left to the professionals or volunteers trained and certified in it.  There is an example assessment that the 741741 text line uses at https://www.mhanational.org/sites/default/files/RickyNeal_CrisisTextLine.pptx, look on page 9, this is the same assessment that 988 uses.  Death threats are treated in the same/similar manner.

If there is an ideation/plan for suicide/murder, call/text 988 or text 741741 if in the US, there are other numbers for other countries.  If the person is in immediate danger (weapon of choice in hand - e.g. pills, knife, gun, etc), call 911 or local emergency number.

Yes, suicidal or death threats should not be left for you to evaluate.  Typically they're in one of two categories, (1) real contemplation or (2) manipulation, pressuring, or similar to influence you.  While you can do your own personal research such as with MOSAIC, leave the assessments to the trained professionals.  They don't expect you to handle that task.  The item (2) is a more common scenario, based on what members report here.

However, it is wise to have such comments or behavior documented either by witnesses or written or recorded formats.  Why?  Believe me, no one likes to have officialdom quiz or scrutinize them, especially not pwBPD.  They are almost certain to Deny, Blame or Blame Shift.  So without some sort of documentation - recordings, texts, emails, witnesses - it will be each of you saying the other did it and the responders may walk away.

[SaltyDawg]

Yes, suicidal or death threats should not be left for you to evaluate.  Typically they're in one of two categories, (1) real contemplation or (2) manipulation, pressuring, or similar to influence you.  [...] The item (2) is a more common scenario, based on what members report here.

However, it is wise to have such comments or behavior documented either by witnesses or written or recorded formats.  Why?  Believe me, no one likes to have officialdom quiz or scrutinize them, especially not pwBPD.  They are almost certain to Deny, Blame or Blame Shift.  So without some sort of documentation - recordings, texts, emails, witnesses - it will be each of you saying the other did it and the responders may walk away.

I agree with ForeverDad on this, at least in my specific scenario - my wife made her attempts to manipulate my behaviors (1), on 3 of the 6 occasions where she had a deadly weapon in hand threatening suicide, and after I de-escalated it by physically removing the weapon from their possession, she said to me "you aren't (weren't) supposed to behave that way" this is etched forever into my brain due to the extreme nature of the emotional event - however, she expressed something entirely different to the therapist when she was questioned on it for her most recent attempt/gesture with pills, yet another false narrative that she fabricated to match her feelings.

I  also had an acquaintance at a NAMI meeting, and we were comparing each other's wive's behaviours regarding suicide attempts (a morbid, yet fascinating discussion to increase our understanding of the true nature of our respective wive's illnesses).  His wife was a PhD in a STEM field (he was too), she is a diagnosed borderline, both are scientists, and his wife initially tried her suicides attempts for manipulation; however, each successive one escalated to the point where the most recent two she was almost successful in ending her life (taken by ambulance to hospital being unresponsive), so (1) will become an eventuality if it is not addressed adequately.

My wife also escalated her initial gestures (initially holding a 10" kitchen knife over her wrist - possible but unlikely to be successful), and the last one was an attempt where pills actually went into her mouth (if she took a few more pills it would have been successful).

Also, I would like to bring up the "gender paradox of suicide" where if men attempt/gestures suicide it is much more likely a real contemplation (1) whereas if a woman attempts/gestures it is a manipulation tactic.  While this article does not specifically address suicide within the context of BPD, it has some alarming statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide where men are 3-4 times more like die than women; however, women are 2-4 times more likely to make a threat/gesture.

These startling facts are in alignment with a recent NIH article I read (but did not save, so I cannot give a reference) where BPD men are 8x more likely to die with an attempt; however, women are 8x more likely to make the threat/gesture/attempt than a man - so the numbers of men and women who die are comparable; however, women make up to 8x more attempts than men do.  This is also in alignment with what I have observed on this site, where I have only read mostly about men being successful in ending their lives who were either diagnosed or suspected to have BPD in their family histories so the success rate for men in killing themselves may actually be higher than 8x that of women.  Whereas, I read on this site women who make the threats/gestures of suicide.  It might be interesting to generate a poll, similar to the DV one to see the results of this.

In the US/Canada, if there is a suicide threat (weapon/method in hand) immediately call 911.  If there is a plan/ideation call/text 988.  All threats should be taken seriously, as I have seen my wife escalate from stage 1 to stage 4 just as fast as she became emotionally dysregulated with mood swings / rages and others I have talked to in person have expressed the same observation.  However, while waiting for the authorities to respond to the location, if it is a woman making the threat/gesture she has an 800% (+/-) better chance of not actually ending her life in comparison to a man having the same or similar behaviors.  Lifetime death caused by suicide for pwBPD is around 9-10%, one in ten will die by their own hand - a very sobering statistic indeed.

Circling back to what Versant said, "alienating the child from me, and even suicide + child murder[/u][/glow]" & "I will kill this family yet" this brings the threat to a whole new level!  Murder + Suicide is several orders of magnitude more serious than suicide alone.  For the general population who are in crisis it is about 1 in 10,000 is also contemplating a murder too vs 1 in 5 for suicidal ideation alone.  Once you have proof of this (recording/email/text message/voice mail), you need to go straight to law enforcement, 911 in the US, bypassing 988 as this is far more serious than suicidal ideation alone, murder/homicidal ideation indicates possible ASPD either in the form of psychopathy or sociopathy, neither of which are considered treatable unlike BPD which shares some of the same attributes/traits as ASPD (both are Cluster-B PD's) that Versant has described and ascribed to BPD, there can also be comorbidity of the two PD's.

Take extreme care, as this situation has the potential to end very tragically.

 

I am going to reiterate, get irrefutable proof (record with your cell phone, voice mail, text message, or e-mail) of your wife's intentions and then let law enforcement handle it from there. 

Make sure you have a safety plan in place, get help from your local DV shelter (even if they cannot accept adult males, they can point you to several local resources), do not tip your wife off that you are doing this.  Also do research on attorneys for both divorce and criminal ones in case your wife turns the tables on you.

I have personal experience with a pwASPD - a step-brother who is in the top 100 list in People Magazine for his infamy - this raises the level of crazy to a whole new level and it is not predictable like BPD behaviors are.  I also have separate volunteer experience with another pwASPD, you need to care of yourself and your child sooner rather than later.

[livednlearned]

People advised me repeatedly to file a restraining order when I was married to n/BPDx.

It was understandable advice given what I was dealing with.

However, I found great relief talking to people who helped center the situation. They helped center me, and they helped center what was already an inflammatory situation.

My situation would not have gotten better if we acted without evaluating all possibilities.

My L and n/BPDx's L were the kind of people who understood the situation and they guided us to the least inflammatory thing to do. That was a master class in how to de-escalate a highly charged situation.

You'll know when you find people like that because they have great empathy for what you are experiencing while helping you get centered.

It's hard to think straight and make good choices when your nervous system is jacked up. When you get advice that jacks your nervous system up even more, it helps to get centered -- however you do that -- so you can make good decisions in challenging situations.

I can't recommend Gift of Fear enough when it comes to someone who understands situations like ours. 

[27yrsalone]

Versant,

I thought for a few minutes I was reading someone else writing what I have endured for the past 27 years.  I blamed myself for everything.  I have had marriage counselors tell me there are things I did to exacerbate the situation, but it is far from my fault. 

I pray you find peace.  Some day, I hope to find my own.

[Versant]

I thought there was quite a twist this past weekend. My wife filed for divorce. Never saw that coming, and it sent me into total confusion. Had I gotten everything wrong, how was she capable of doing that? I have wished for such a long time that if she is as miserable with me as she tells me, she'd feel able to leave. And now, out of the blue, she actually does it? Wow.

But guess what. Untwist: she didn't actually send any of the forms, but expected me to act to try and stop her somehow. In the evening she finally gave me an ultimatum: either I'll fix everything right away, or then she's going to send the forms. I feel quite foolish for not immediately seeing the shape of things and actually taking her at face value.

I don't think most people know how to deal with casual death threats  

It's really good you're sharing this with people who understand what it's like to hear these kinds of things. Nothing in my life has been more challenging than trying to figure out what degree of danger I was dealing with, and I'm not sure that's a one-person job to really get your head around it. My ex would say "say goodbye to your son forever" and "I guess you won't miss us because you don't have feelings" and other things that pitched me into a type of fear I had never experienced. Have you seen the MOSAIC threat assessment? Gavin de Becker developed it to help men and women in DV situations kind of do what you're doing so you aren't completely guessing. Do you have a safety plan in place?

In addition to MOSAIC, another resource that might be helpful is Shari Manning's Loving Someone with BPD. There's a chapter in the book on how to respond to suicidal ideation when someone has BPD. Handling it is not intuitive and must be learned. The suicide hotline also exists to help family member who are dealing with someone who is suicidal. Have you called the hotline before?

Yeah, the kind of fear you describe no one should have to face.

I did the MOSAIC assessment, thank you for that. The result was a 7. Thanks also for the book tip. I have some books arriving soon, can't remember if Manning's book is among them. The safety plan I've used as a support for planning in the past when things were bad. I've called a crisis hotline quite often over the past few years. It always just seems it should be my wife on the phone, and she doesn't really take well any suggestions of trying to reach out.

No one here can diagnosis, we can only share our experiences. But this combination of issues plus the mention of psychotic depression sounds a lot like my stepdaughter (26) who was recently diagnosed with autism.

I can see how you find parallels between my wife and your stepdaughter. From what I observe of my wife's interactions when she's not dysregulating, autism doesn't seem likely to me in wife's case, however. I could be wrong, of course, so I'll keep an open mind about this.

Insecure that she was at home alone with your child?

Insecure about our relationship. At that point we had been spending most of our days together, so there was not too much going in either one's life not shared by the other. Then I started at a new job that took me away from her for the duration of the work day, had new experiences, met new people (including women) without her.

Wouldn't the plentiful obviously false accusations suggest her thinking is impaired full stop? It seems unlikely her thinking would be impaired in some areas and not in others. However, there are probably improvements that can help make things less bad in terms of how you interact with her. What are some of the criticisms she's lobbing your way?

Big one: I'm "refusing" to fix things that are hurting her and ruining her life. For a while now the mot pressing one is how I haven't convinced a relative of mine to go along with my wife's demands for actions of appeacement for supposedly slighting her. Another one that has been a major issue for a long time is how I "refuse" to treat her with respect and instead "insist" on being passive-aggressive. I know I have this tendency, which makes this one of those cases where I wonder when she's got a point and when not. I know she's probably sometimes right, but then again she's also accused me of this, and followed up with a serious multi-day fight, on the grounds of me suggesting I'd make us a meal she didn't like (no way for me to know it before suggesting it), or making a cup of tea without asking her if she'd like one too (apparently I had an expression that told her I did it on purpose to hurt her).

Then there's a lot of what I could maybe fairly characterize as nagging: small stuff where she definitely has a point, but does not use a constructive tone, and maybe could also sometimes let something slide. Things like forgetting to check that the fridge door closes properly or forgetting to check under the dinner table for toys before a meal. I guess this kind of thing is quite common when a relationship is strained.

Along with blaming me for not fixing everything, what I'm most troubled by is how she critizices my parenting. At her best she can be really observant, so she could be a great help in supporting there, pointing out things that I could do better, but two things ruin that. Firstly her tone is such that it doesn't feel like she's trying to help me, or even help our child, but rather to build support for the narrative where she's the capable parent and I'm the hopeless parent. Secondly, it seems to me that a lot of her concerns are not absolute and should not be resolved by her telling me to do things differently: they stem from style differences that we should work out between us rather than me being bullied into doing things her way, or even her misreading situations because of her preconceptions of me, my capabilities and motives.
The one that is being brought up a lot for a while now is setting limits for our child. She feels I'm too permissive, which is fair, as I feel she's unnecessarily restrictive. But rather than seeing this as us being on different spots on a spectrum, she sees me as having a problem, that I'm not sticking to limits because I'm trying to avoid having to deal with the disappointment of our child. A fair concern to have, but misplaced I think.

Suicide threat assessment should be left to the professionals or volunteers trained and certified in it.  There is an example assessment that the 741741 text line uses at https://www.mhanational.org/sites/default/files/RickyNeal_CrisisTextLine.pptx, look on page 9, this is the same assessment that 988 uses.  Death threats are treated in the same/similar manner.

If there is an ideation/plan for suicide/murder, call/text 988 or text 741741 if in the US, there are other numbers for other countries.  If the person is in immediate danger (weapon of choice in hand - e.g. pills, knife, gun, etc), call 911 or local emergency number.

In a situation of immediate danger taking action is straightforwards, there's no question of what to do. With this kind of "start doing what I tell you to do or eventtually this will lead to suicide" it is not so clear to me. Definitely it shouldn't be up to me figuring this out - I'm not qualified, and also trying to do it puts me in a difficult position and she's using that as a weapon. However, I feel that reaching out for help against her will would honestly be less about getting help for her suicidal thoughts and more about countering her using these threats as a tool to pressure me.

All threats should be taken seriously, as I have seen my wife escalate from stage 1 to stage 4 just as fast as she became emotionally dysregulated with mood swings / rages and others I have talked to in person have expressed the same observation.  However, while waiting for the authorities to respond to the location, if it is a woman making the threat/gesture she has an 800% (+/-) better chance of not actually ending her life in comparison to a man having the same or similar behaviors.  Lifetime death caused by suicide for pwBPD is around 9-10%, one in ten will die by their own hand - a very sobering statistic indeed.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It was sobering, as weel as the statistics.

Circling back to what Versant said, "alienating the child from me, and even suicide + child murder[/u][/glow]" & "I will kill this family yet" this brings the threat to a whole new level!  Murder + Suicide is several orders of magnitude more serious than suicide alone.  For the general population who are in crisis it is about 1 in 10,000 is also contemplating a murder too vs 1 in 5 for suicidal ideation alone.  Once you have proof of this (recording/email/text message/voice mail), you need to go straight to law enforcement, 911 in the US, bypassing 988 as this is far more serious than suicidal ideation alone, murder/homicidal ideation indicates possible ASPD either in the form of psychopathy or sociopathy, neither of which are considered treatable unlike BPD which shares some of the same attributes/traits as ASPD (both are Cluster-B PD's) that Versant has described and ascribed to BPD, there can also be comorbidity of the two PD's.

Take extreme care, as this situation has the potential to end very tragically.

Yeah, it's terrifying. Saying those kind of things can't be ignored.

I'm certain that she has some level of suicidal death wish but no intention to act on it. Also I'm certain she has no wish or intention to harm our child at all (if I had doubts about this, I would have taken the child and left already). She works through my buttons to control me, and this is one of many twisted things she says to get at me. Just the most serious, twisted and terrifying of them all. But yeah, the cost of being wrong is unacceptable.

I have to say, as a control mechanism, it had worked before. In the worst times a few years ago I would have left, but was stopped by suicide threats.

People advised me repeatedly to file a restraining order when I was married to n/BPDx.

It was understandable advice given what I was dealing with.

However, I found great relief talking to people who helped center the situation. They helped center me, and they helped center what was already an inflammatory situation.

Thank your for this, and also for recommending the Gift of Fear.

I thought for a few minutes I was reading someone else writing what I have endured for the past 27 years.  I blamed myself for everything.  I have had marriage counselors tell me there are things I did to exacerbate the situation, but it is far from my fault. 

I pray you find peace.  Some day, I hope to find my own.

Thank you. It's been amazing reading the stories here, finding so much that's familiar in other people's experiences.

[livednlearned]

Are you thinking the divorce papers are similar to suicidal threats as a way to control the situation (and you)?

On balance, a lot of the BPD behaviors are clumsy attempts to regulate other people as a way to regulate their own chaotic emotions. The question is how severe those behaviors are and how far they are willing to go to control the environment.

How do you plan to respond to the divorce forms?

I notice that despite initiating the divorce, she is placing responsibility elsewhere to complete it.

She seems to be testing her hypothesis that she's a terrible person you want to divorce, something she has suspected all along (it's her view of herself).

[Versant]

Yes, I think filling in the divorce papers is an other attempt to control me with fear. I don't think she's planning to go through with it. But like you said, it remains to be seen how far she's willing to go in the attempt to control me.

With respect to the dramatic arc of this, she's done something a bit similar in fights before. She's been adamant about doing something, usually throwing me out and then, when I already have my coat on, she gives me a change to make some big gesture. I guess then she "wins"? and allows me to stay.
It's the same here in that I have a strong suspicion she doesn't actually want to go through with what she's threatening to do. (As an aside: It took me a long time to figure out, but driving me out of our home in the middle of a fight is a lot worse for her than me. It makes me upset and miserable, but it also gives me some breathing room and space to think and calm down, whereas for her being left alone in the middle of a fight leads to panic attacks, dissociating, loss of function... So in the bad old days I was really confused by the way some of her most violently scary moments occurred at the door, when I was about to leave like she had - sometimes violently - demanded. Then she was either suddenly trying to stop me from leaving instead, or sometimes just attacking me - frightened out of her mind, like I now realize.)

For once, I'm actually ok with how I responded to her threat of divorce and the ultimatum that came with it. I didn't make any crazy promises like she wanted, and just told her I'll do my best to be good to her. Also I didn't accept responsibility for her decision regarding divorce, whatever that turns out to be. I just told it's her decision to make.

[SaltyDawg]

Versant,

I have some comments on your recent observations...

I thought there was quite a twist this past weekend. My wife filed for divorce. Never saw that coming, and it sent me into total confusion. Had I gotten everything wrong, how was she capable of doing that? I have wished for such a long time that if she is as miserable with me as she tells me, she'd feel able to leave. And now, out of the blue, she actually does it? Wow.

Even though you have come to think of this as an idle threat, or a manipulation tactic, and it likely is, you need to plan as though it is going to happen.  Much like her murder + suicide threats, you must take it seriously.  If she has thought about it happening, it there is a good chance of it actually happening.

My wife has made around 50 divorce threats, I had squirrelled away a $5,000 cash to be used as a retainer fee due to her threats of manipulation only later to be called out as keeping this money from her.  If you have actually seen the papers, and see the expense on your credit card/checking accounts (unless you maintain separate accounts), that shows intent.  Mine made threats, but had not done the legwork to follow though.

Also my wife had made 6 suicide gestures/attempts all to manipulate me, the last one with potentially deadly pills going into her mouth.  Again, under the advice of therapists, the proper course of action is to assume they are true, and 911 will be called the next time it happens.  Likewise, my wife doesn't think she is violent, yet she has hit, punched, and kicked me on several occasions.


But guess what. Untwist: she didn't actually send any of the forms, but expected me to act to try and stop her somehow. In the evening she finally gave me an ultimatum: either I'll fix everything right away, or then she's going to send the forms. I feel quite foolish for not immediately seeing the shape of things and actually taking her at face value.

No need to feel foolish for not immediately seeing the shape of things, in fact the opposite is true, you are much more lucent and self-aware than most having the ability to see through her smoke screens of manipulation.  Ultimatums indicate a very unhealthy relationship.  Since you indicate you are conflicted (the forum you are posting on), I am going to suggest to 'call her bluff', this will shift some of the power away from her to you if she backs down.  If she follows through, and this is a real risk, and you will need to serious think about if you want to stay in this relationship.  Unless she is self-aware of her issues and is actively working on them, my recommendation is to leave the relationship sooner rather than later.

From what you have described, in addition to BPD traits, she also has ASPD traits, which is a whole new level of crazy.


Yeah, the kind of fear you describe no one should have to face.

You are absolutely right.  I have literally stared down the barrel of a terrorist;s machine gun not once, but twice, and I felt a lot less traumatized than what my wife has done to me.  These kinds of relationships are really bad.  I too have done the MOSAIC, it is similar in score to yours, an 8.  The only reason why I am staying is that she has promised to work on her issues that she is self-aware of, and continually makes improvements.  I have successfully turned the tables on her.


I did the MOSAIC assessment, thank you for that. The result was a 7. Thanks also for the book tip. I have some books arriving soon, can't remember if Manning's book is among them. The safety plan I've used as a support for planning in the past when things were bad. I've called a crisis hotline quite often over the past few years. It always just seems it should be my wife on the phone, and she doesn't really take well any suggestions of trying to reach out.

Please be sure to have a safety plan, have enough cash on hand to leave for a few days, a bag packed in the car with spare clothes and other essentials, consider getting a burner phone if she has your tapped.  I too have had dealings with the crisis hotlines (988 & 741741), and your right, our respective pwBPD would benefit from it much more than we do, as I can say with reasonable certainty that my wife is in an emotional state of being in almost a daily crisis.


Insecure about our relationship. At that point we had been spending most of our days together, so there was not too much going in either one's life not shared by the other. Then I started at a new job that took me away from her for the duration of the work day, had new experiences, met new people (including women) without her.

Most persons with a PD are very insecure with their relationships.  Compare and contrast that to your home life, how did your new job make you feel?


Big one: I'm "refusing" to fix things that are hurting her and ruining her life. For a while now the mot pressing one is how I haven't convinced a relative of mine to go along with my wife's demands for actions of appeacement for supposedly slighting her. Another one that has been a major issue for a long time is how I "refuse" to treat her with respect and instead "insist" on being passive-aggressive. I know I have this tendency, which makes this one of those cases where I wonder when she's got a point and when not. I know she's probably sometimes right, but then again she's also accused me of this, and followed up with a serious multi-day fight, on the grounds of me suggesting I'd make us a meal she didn't like (no way for me to know it before suggesting it), or making a cup of tea without asking her if she'd like one too (apparently I had an expression that told her I did it on purpose to hurt her).

You are not a mind reader.  You also cannot fix her.  You cannot change her.  You did not cause this.  However, you can change what you do, what can you do to change your situation with her?


In a situation of immediate danger taking action is straightforwards, there's no question of what to do. With this kind of "start doing what I tell you to do or eventtually this will lead to suicide" it is not so clear to me. Definitely it shouldn't be up to me figuring this out - I'm not qualified, and also trying to do it puts me in a difficult position and she's using that as a weapon. However, I feel that reaching out for help against her will would honestly be less about getting help for her suicidal thoughts and more about countering her using these threats as a tool to pressure me.

No this should not be up to you, nor should you be qualified to make this assessment.  I actually got myself trained, as a volunteer, to do a suicide assessment, and that is why I shared the link, so you can at least be aware of the assessment process.  Best you can do is record the incident, and ring 911 if it escalates to the point of being a life-threatening emergency.  Also try to de-escalate it by validating their feelings; however, be careful not to validate the invalid, which are more often than not a false narrative.

Thank you for sharing your experience. It was sobering, as weel as the statistics.

You're welcome.


Yeah, it's terrifying. Saying those kind of things can't be ignored.

I'm certain that she has some level of suicidal death wish but no intention to act on it. Also I'm certain she has no wish or intention to harm our child at all (if I had doubts about this, I would have taken the child and left already).

My wife is also a good, caring person, with no intention to harm our children as well, when she is REGULATED.  She also had no intentions of becoming physically violent with me, when she is REGULATED.  She also had no intentions of being suicidal, when she is REGULATED.  I too have no doubts about my wife's intentions when she is REGULATED.  However, it is when she becomes irrational, or DYSREGULATED, emotionally activated, triggered, or in a an 'episode' is when bad things can happen, and they can happen incredibly fast, less than a second fast.  It is the Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde personality shift that is so dangerous.

Recommended precautions - If you have any kind of firearms in the house, make sure they are removed, or at a minimum put in a safe that she does not have the combination to.  Same thing for ammunition, in a separate locked safe that she does not have access to.

A potential assessment to see how willing she is to follow through on it, is to call your wife's apparent bluff on the divorce threat, to see if she actually has papers.  If she does, that increases the likelihood of following though on other bad behaviours including the suicide + murder threats.

Take it seriously, make sure you can document it (body camera is a hundred bucks at Amazon), so when it happens you have it documented, and it cannot be turned against you like many ASPD's do with their victim and potentially 'frame' you as the murderer.  If you use your cell phone, test whatever method you use, and make backups on a daily basis and offload to a cloud site to keep enough room on your phone for daily recordings.

If there are firearms, consider body armor if you are going to stay, so you can put yourself between you and your child if it escalates while dialing 911.  If there are only kitchen knives in the house, wear a knife resistant shirt or undergarment (to be less obvious).

Regarding calling 911, just call, even if you cannot talk, keep the microphone open, it is being recorded, and they will send a unit(s), and listen in, so make sure you say truthful stuff like "put the knife/gun down", "please don't kill yourself", "don't harm our child" in a steady voice that is loud and clear, but not yelling, and try to be calm even though it will be anything but that.

If you have more questions, ask.

Take care with self care.

SD

[kells76]

Yes, I think filling in the divorce papers is an other attempt to control me with fear. I don't think she's planning to go through with it. But like you said, it remains to be seen how far she's willing to go in the attempt to control me.

Can you remind me if you've consulted with any local lawyers yet?

She may lack the executive function to follow through with her divorce threats, but she may also be impulsive enough to "pull the trigger" on it without thinking things through.

It can be important to be informed ahead of time of how things typically go in your area when one spouse files. Better to know in advance what to expect, and never need that info, then be blindsided by her actually following through (i.e. moving from threat to action of divorce), and not have a plan for you and your toddler.

Initial consultations are usually low-cost (sometimes free if it's on the phone) and even talking to 2-3 L's can give you a really good sense of who you'd want to work with and how things can go for someone in your situation.

With respect to the dramatic arc of this, she's done something a bit similar in fights before. She's been adamant about doing something, usually throwing me out and then, when I already have my coat on, she gives me a change to make some big gesture. I guess then she "wins"? and allows me to stay.
It's the same here in that I have a strong suspicion she doesn't actually want to go through with what she's threatening to do. (As an aside: It took me a long time to figure out, but driving me out of our home in the middle of a fight is a lot worse for her than me. It makes me upset and miserable, but it also gives me some breathing room and space to think and calm down, whereas for her being left alone in the middle of a fight leads to panic attacks, dissociating, loss of function... So in the bad old days I was really confused by the way some of her most violently scary moments occurred at the door, when I was about to leave like she had - sometimes violently - demanded. Then she was either suddenly trying to stop me from leaving instead, or sometimes just attacking me - frightened out of her mind, like I now realize.)

That's a good insight to have, that as much as she threatens/demands for you to do things, again, there can be an impulsivity/emotional driver component to those, where when she actually "gets what she wants", she hasn't realized how it'll make her feel -- and how it makes her feel is the most important thing to her.

Knowing that now, do you have some ideas of how to cope when she gets violent/threatens/demands? I.e., ways to cope that keep you and your kiddo safer?

For once, I'm actually ok with how I responded to her threat of divorce and the ultimatum that came with it. I didn't make any crazy promises like she wanted, and just told her I'll do my best to be good to her. Also I didn't accept responsibility for her decision regarding divorce, whatever that turns out to be. I just told it's her decision to make.

I think that's huge. Often, in a relationship with a pwBPD, there's a lot of overfunctioning -- "I have to do this for her, she can't do it/doesn't understand it/she'll rage if I don't". A big step out of the overfunctioning/codependent dynamic is allowing the pwBPD to experience the natural outcomes of their choices by realizing that you really can't control or manage the other person, only your own responses.

How did it feel to try that new approach?

[PeteWitsend]

Filing for divorce is one thing; the process doesn't actually start until one is served with the petition for divorce, i.e. a process server formally hands you the petition and informs the other party and the court you've been served notice.

Filing a lawsuit but not serving the other party is a tactic one can use for various reasons... in the business context to show another party that you're serious and ready to go to court.  In the personal context, and here, I presume it's an intimidation technique / bully move.  She thinks you're afraid of court, so she'll use this to club you into line.  She doesn't actually want divorce.  While BPDers abandon relationships all the time, when married don't typically just leave.

You absolutely need to see an attorney, PRONTO, and have all your rights and context provided to you.

As far as a couple of your questions from earlier in the thread:

...
Firstly, is it common for BPDs to lash out delusionally against people they are not that close to? It seems my wife is intent on burning bridges with my relatives, one by one. Does this fit in with the symptoms, or is it something else? They have not been close, so I don't see how abandonment issues would come to play. It seems she's convinced people are bad-mouthing her behind her back, turning people against her, and she's adamant of "sticking to her boundaries", ready to cut anyone from her life when she perceives them as treating her badly. (She has very few people left in her life at this point.)

Secondly, my wife has told me about her previous relationships in detail, and I don't see the same problems there. Obviously I only have her description of things, and she's quite blind to the possibility that there could be anything wrong with her, or that in any interpersonal conflict she could ever be anything but a mistreated victim. All that being said, trust her when she tells me that in her previous relationships there had never been problems and conflict at the level that we have had. So I wonder. Has she gotten worse over the years, or even only gotten BPD due to some traumatic events that happened between the relationships? Or is it maybe something about me that sets her off more strongly?

First, yes, many here have had experience with their BPD spouse causing chaos within their family.  I did as well.  BPDxw would go out of her way to pick fights with my mom and attack her.  Also to a lesser extent she went after my aunt or my brother.  It was really sad.  She would even allege awful things to claim my mom shouldn't be alone with our daughter. 

BPDxw  also had a mean streak (perhaps anti-social personality disorder/ ASPD?) and I recall her once telling me "[she] got [me]" after telling me if we divorced she'd never leave our new state so I either has to abandon my daughter to move closer to friends & family  or stay.   So she bragged about having successfully isolated me from my family and friends where we used to live.  that showed to me an actual malicious streak... she wasn't just dysregulating and struggling with her emotions, but actually planned it, or consciously knew what she was doing.

Sick stuff.  But yeah, they LOVE to pick fights with 3rd parties and attempt to drag you in... either to force you to fight for them or vilify you for not taking their side immediately. 

and they view all your other relationships - no matter how innocent - as a threat to them, and seek to isolate you  by sabotaging them.

Secondly, regarding their past relationships, I would not put any stock in their claims.  I assume that they were all as bad - if not worse - than yours.  Any claims that their exes were better, nicer, more understanding, etc. are most likely attempts to shame you into complying with whatever they want at that moment. 

If any of those things were true, it makes you wonder why they didn't marry/stay with their ex or exes. 

[PeteWitsend]

pwBPD are notoriously unreliable narrators & witnesses, Versant.  As you seek to move forward and try manage this relationship better, or end it and move on, do not get hung up on her recollection of events or version of who said what.  It doesn't matter.

They will lie to your face over things both consequential and not, and change the story minute to minute, even while you're talking to them, if it serves whatever immediate goal they're trying to achieve. 

In my case, in one example, BPDxw was the one who told me it was over and we were getting divorced.  This was after the final blow up, where she picked a fight and screamed at my mom for literally no reason, and then screamed and cursed at me at a little kid's birthday party in front of other adults.  After I refused to accept her half-ass apology or normalize her behavior by accepting part of the blame and moving on, pretending to make up as we sometimes did, after demanding I "answer for my behavior" and I refused, SHE told me "we're getting divorced then."

Yet not even  a week later, after I had moved out, signed a lease and sued her for divorce, she was saying to me and to others that "I had abandoned the family" and "I left the marriage"...

As soon as she decided playing the victim card served her purposes better, she "re-wrote the script" to have me being the one who callously ended it and walked out on her, to her shock and disbelief. 

So you see... there's really no point in playing their games, unless you plan to stay in the endless cycles of abuse, disordered thinking, etc.

Just figure out what you need and you want, and go do it.  Don't leave the decisions or rationale to them.

[Versant]

SaltyDawg, thank you for your perspective and advice.

I try and not take any of the threats lightly. The threat of divorce doesn't bother me too much, since I kind of want her to go through with it (hence it very modest hasn't been too hard to call her supposed bluff). I think divorce is fairly likely anyway, and things might go a bit better if she is the one making the initiative. Or then not, if she feels once again the powerless victim who didn't really make the decision for herself but just did what I forced her to do. While writing this down I realize that this is quite likely, actually.

In any case, she seems to be backing down from the divorce threat. I think she has been rewriting events so that she thinks she somehow got what she wanted from the episode. I guess I'll know for  sure if she later accuses me of not fulfilling some promise I didn't actually make.

All in all, your experience and advice are grim. I constantly find myself in disbelief that this is where my life is at now - but I realize that's something I need to shed, since denial doesn't help.

Most persons with a PD are very insecure with their relationships.  Compare and contrast that to your home life, how did your new job make you feel?

The new job was a big step forwards at the time. Also having some more time to be my own individual rather than a half of a couple was welcome. There, I guess, is a big part of the issue, as she must have been unconsciously worried about that. The other part I think was jealousy, imagining me falling for a co-worker at the new job.

Can you remind me if you've consulted with any local lawyers yet?

I haven't. In any case, I don't think either one of us can afford one. We don't have property or savings to speak of, and we are living off of my salary and just getting by. (It is scary that she has no income of her own, as it might make her all the more desperate when it comes to the possibility of divorce).

I have talked to a volunteer helping fathers in divorce cases, though, to get some idea of what to expect.

That's a good insight to have, that as much as she threatens/demands for you to do things, again, Knowing that now, do you have some ideas of how to cope when she gets violent/threatens/demands? I.e., ways to cope that keep you and your kiddo safer?

I think better understanding makes it more likely that I can steer situations away from disasters, especially as better understanding helps not taking things personally (this is so very difficult at times!).

I think that's huge. Often, in a relationship with a pwBPD, there's a lot of overfunctioning -- "I have to do this for her, she can't do it/doesn't understand it/she'll rage if I don't". A big step out of the overfunctioning/codependent dynamic is allowing the pwBPD to experience the natural outcomes of their choices by realizing that you really can't control or manage the other person, only your own responses.

How did it feel to try that new approach?

It felt empowering. I guess this was a good situation for trying a healthier approach, since her threat wasn't as frightening to me as she hoped, so it was easier for me to stay composed. I haven't had many recent experiences of standing up for myself and feeling ok about it afterwards, so this was valuable. I hope this experience helps me to try and do the same again.

About codependency, I've had a lot of that. Still do, I guess, but I realize it now and try to resist it. I've done us the huge disservice of taking responsibility for her emotions, and going to lengths to shield her from the consequences of her own actions.

Sick stuff.  But yeah, they LOVE to pick fights with 3rd parties and attempt to drag you in... either to force you to fight for them or vilify you for not taking their side immediately. 

and they view all your other relationships - no matter how innocent - as a threat to them, and seek to isolate you  by sabotaging them.

Thanks for your answer to my earlier question (and other things in your response). This isolating behaviour is one of the things that feels the hardest for me to stomach.

Secondly, regarding their past relationships, I would not put any stock in their claims.  I assume that they were all as bad - if not worse - than yours.  Any claims that their exes were better, nicer, more understanding, etc. are most likely attempts to shame you into complying with whatever they want at that moment. 

If any of those things were true, it makes you wonder why they didn't marry/stay with their ex or exes. 

I know her accounts are unreliable, I've seen it often enough. In this I believe her up to a point, though. She's not trying to portray her exes as great to get at me: she tells me those relationships were miserable too. Just that things didn't get as out of hand as they have with us. Oh, she does also compare me to her exes on occassion, like "they were bad, but at least they had this or that redeeming quality, unlike me". But that's a different issue, I think.

As soon as she decided playing the victim card served her purposes better, she "re-wrote the script" to have me being the one who callously ended it and walked out on her, to her shock and disbelief. 

Yeah, this sounds familiar. I've occassionally had the misfortune of overhearing her on the phone telling a sympathetic person about some fight we have had, and it's just incredible. I've even interrupted her mid call to deny some particuliarly outrageous claim (this obviously helped no one, so shame on me).

So you see... there's really no point in playing their games, unless you plan to stay in the endless cycles of abuse, disordered thinking, etc.

Just figure out what you need and you want, and go do it.  Don't leave the decisions or rationale to them.

This is fair advice, thanks.

[Versant]

Learning about bpd gave some hope for a short while. Understanding leads to solutions, after all.

Now, not long after, I've spent what hopeful energy I got and everything just seems that much more impossible.

Finally got the books I ordered a while back. Talking to a loved one with BPD and Splitting. Splitting tells me my wife shows most of the warning signs of being a persuasive blamer. I was already scared of divorce, or even approaching the matter with her. Now I'm even more scared.

I'm not a brave person. Also, I abhor conflict, so much so that it's a character flaw that causes trouble in my life. Rocking the boat is the last thing I ever want to do.

I thought at the very least I had some time to make plans and gather my strength before taking any action. Also I thought I might try to ease into things, try setting some minor boundaries and work my way up from there. Turns out that's not really an option.

We have sort of a life plan for the coming years, and trying for a second child is coming up. My wife has brought this up, and is expecting us to start trying. I have not yet conflicted her on this, I haven't had the nerve. But the situation doesn't really leave me all that many options: starting to try for a child less than two weeks after divorce and suicide have been brought up in threats doesn't seem like a sane thing to do.

So if I plan to tell her that I no longer think the second child is an option for us, how much less upsetting is that for her than would be if I were to tell her I want a divorce? Not much, I think.

So yeah. To be safe, planning to call the local shelter to check with them that my safety plan makes sense. Other than that, I don't know. I really don't know how in the world will I manage.

There are some doctor's checkups and such we have planned to do first, so I probably can postpone this over Christmas and New year, but not much more. And it feels like a dishonest and cowardly thing to do to pretend to go along with it. But maybe still the best, to do what I can to prepare. I don't know.

[EyesUp]

Hello Versant.

I'll offer a few thoughts.

Some of the general marriage improvement / marriage repair literature promotes some version of "radical acceptance".  For the longest time, I understood this to mean that you must learn to accept your partner.  I'll bypass the parables and lessons and fast forward to the real lesson (for me):  Radical acceptance, in my case, was learning to accept what I could change in myself.

Do we need to accept that a partner is abusive (physically, emotionally, sexually, financially)?  Of course not - though many do, and understandably so, when it is to protect a child or for some other noble or practical purpose.

For me, I understood that my uBPDx was abusive to me, to her family, to my family, etc.  Similar to your situation, my uBPDx was often resentful of many others in her life who she felt did not support her, did not appreciate her, or who abandoned her.  After 14 years of marriage, she was still upset about perceived slights and insults from boyfriends she had in high school and college, long before our marriage, and a lifetime of perceived favoritism re: her parents' treatment of siblings, and on and on.  So much unresolved anger, disappointment, jealousy. Occasionally there was suicidal ideation, and I often recognized it as manipulation and dismissed it.  Like you, I was conflict-averse and had developed many ways of avoiding the issue. 

Which brings me to your question about the possible consequences of disappointing her re: 2nd child, etc.

Your posts suggest that you already know the answer here:  It's about knowing yourself.  You've arrived at this point because you've avoided a lot, for so long.  Your self awareness re: avoidance indicates that you know this.  You clearly have a lot of fortitude in order to navigate the rough seas to get to this point.

To connect the dots in my long post...  the thing you might be able to change here is not how she will react - that's not yours to control.  This is where the radical acceptance comes in:  You do have the power to change how you feel about yourself, and your choices. Radical acceptance can mean radical self-empowerment.

I spent so long avoiding divorce. When I finally realized that I could accept the thing that I had avoided for so long, it was a revelation.

The thing to keep in mind is:  You cannot control chaos through avoidance.  You can only control yourself.

For what it's worth, my X did the same thing you described:  Filed impulsively, then told me that she hoped it would make me wake up and realize what I had to change. However I had already accepted that D was inevitable, and that I would not continue to repeat that particular cycle... 

Good luck.

[PeteWitsend]

...

Finally got the books I ordered a while back. Talking to a loved one with BPD and Splitting. Splitting tells me my wife shows most of the warning signs of being a persuasive blamer. I was already scared of divorce, or even approaching the matter with her. Now I'm even more scared.

I'm not a brave person. Also, I abhor conflict, so much so that it's a character flaw that causes trouble in my life. Rocking the boat is the last thing I ever want to do.

I thought at the very least I had some time to make plans and gather my strength before taking any action. Also I thought I might try to ease into things, try setting some minor boundaries and work my way up from there. Turns out that's not really an option.

We have sort of a life plan for the coming years, and trying for a second child is coming up. My wife has brought this up, and is expecting us to start trying. I have not yet conflicted her on this, I haven't had the nerve. But the situation doesn't really leave me all that many options: starting to try for a child less than two weeks after divorce and suicide have been brought up in threats doesn't seem like a sane thing to do.

So if I plan to tell her that I no longer think the second child is an option for us, how much less upsetting is that for her than would be if I were to tell her I want a divorce? Not much, I think.

So yeah. To be safe, planning to call the local shelter to check with them that my safety plan makes sense. Other than that, I don't know. I really don't know how in the world will I manage.

...

There's a lot to unpack here. 

It really sounds like you have some issues with yourself you need to resolve first.

And no one can tell you whether you should or shouldn't have a kid, but creating a life is an awesome responsibility, and I don't think anyone should allow another person - even their spouse - to force them to do so.  And especially if that other person is disordered...

I have a few thoughts, but not the time to really organize them, so I'll just group them together.

on the topic of having a second kid before you feel ready: Just make up a reason why you feel not ready.  Tell her its financial or you hope your other kid can grow a bit before you have a second.  If/when she gets angry, practice the conflict resolution or avoidance tips in some of the books, as a fallback measure to keep yourself from getting too intimidated. 

regarding your own conflict avoidance and fears: you need to get a grip on that.  you're a father... consider what sort of behavior you're modeling for your son by sticking around and taking this.  Whether you leave or not, you need to show him its possible to stand up and set boundaries and not exist as a punching bag and victim.

do you have a therapist or go to counseling?  I'd consider finding one.  if possible see them w/out your partner's knowledge maybe?  she'll likely view your self improvement as a threat and seek to sabotage it.

AND on the topic of preparations to leave/divorce... it can be overwhelming to take it all on at once. 

I didn't.  You can plan for it and make preparations to make the final leap easier.

For example, here are some things I did that I'd recommend:

- see an attorney and pay (cash) for an hour consultation on your state's divorce laws and get an understand of how the divorce will likely shake out.  People love to talk about getting screwed or screwing someone over in divorce, but every state has rules on custody and property division and guidelines for judges to apply when resolving a dispute; MOST divorces end up following the rules. 

- keep a journal - PRIVATELY - documenting all the abuse, and any other possible behavior that would be relevant to the court when deciding custody (e.g. suicidal threats, substance abuse, mental health issues, criminal issues, etc.)

- private bank account with emergency funds available for hotel stays/move-out costs

- private storage unit to move things to for safekeeping

The last two were key for me... once we discussed getting divorced, my ex went and looted all our mutual accounts.  She didn't get the money I was saving for our daughter though, as the bank mistakenly didnt put her name on the account.  So I had enough to put a security deposit on a place to rent to move out to.  Hilariously... BPDxw was angry with me that her name was not on the account so she could take that money as well!!! (I was the primary breadwinner and more frugal... almost all the money that went into these accounts came from me).

And I had several boxes of family heirlooms, pictures, etc. that I was saving, as well as some family furniture pieces I liked.  BPDxw wife HATED them, and seemed to view anything I had from before I met her as a threat to our relationship and a sign I didn't love her (she didn't take the same view with her own things though, of course).  And a few times I caught her throwing my things out or trying to. 

So with a storage unit, I could keep all this stuff away from her and not worry about her throwing it out or destroying it as I moved out.  and having the storage unit ready also made moving out easier.

So you see, big steps are easier if you Plan carefully, and make more manageable tasks. 

[ForeverDad]

She's not trying to portray her exes as great to get at me: she tells me those relationships were miserable too. Just that things didn't get as out of hand as they have with us. Oh, she does also compare me to her exes on occasion, like "they were bad, but at least they had this or that redeeming quality, unlike me". But that's a different issue, I think.

But the difference is they are exes.  Perhaps they didn't stick around that long?  And you're the current interest and in the front of her attention.

I recall my ex telling me she had others interested in her but just so they'd become legal.  She always put them down, well, until I was out of favor too.

[livednlearned]

I'm not a brave person. Also, I abhor conflict, so much so that it's a character flaw that causes trouble in my life.

Being conflict avoidant is pretty true for many of us here, even if the degree to which we are that way might vary. Especially if it's a way you coped as a kid.

In what ways does being conflict avoidant impact how you think about staying/leaving?

What is it about setting minor boundaries that doesn't feel feasible?

Do you see your wife as a high-conflict person? Or is it mainly that you think she's a persuasive blamer (to you)? Has she been able to persuade other people about her narrative?

[SaltyDawg]

Versant,

I will address some of your newer points that the others have not...

SaltyDawg, thank you for your perspective and advice.

You're welcome.


I try and not take any of the threats lightly. The threat of divorce doesn't bother me too much, since I kind of want her to go through with it (hence it very modest hasn't been too hard to call her supposed bluff). I think divorce is fairly likely anyway, and things might go a bit better if she is the one making the initiative. Or then not, if she feels once again the powerless victim who didn't really make the decision for herself but just did what I forced her to do. While writing this down I realize that this is quite likely, actually.

Calling the 'bluff'.  I was terrified of it for years, until I ever so slowly came to the realization that I would be better off if we did indeed divorce, at least the crazy making would end.  Simply put, I didn't have the balls to do it, so I hoped she did follow through with her threats which turned out to be manipulation tactics, as she knows deep down inside she got a good thing going - she instinctively knows not to bite the hand that feeds her even though she has growled too many times at that hand.


In any case, she seems to be backing down from the divorce threat. I think she has been rewriting events so that she thinks she somehow got what she wanted from the episode. I guess I'll know for  sure if she later accuses me of not fulfilling some promise I didn't actually make.

Cluster-B's (BPD/ASPD) will rewrite their facts to match their feelings.  I see that you have some good insight in being able to predict her future behaviors.  Cluster-B behaviors can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy once you learn them, even if they are not present in normal people.


All in all, your experience and advice are grim. I constantly find myself in disbelief that this is where my life is at now - but I realize that's something I need to shed, since denial doesn't help.

I am sorry it is so grim; however, I do have personal experience (step brother, but I did not grow up with him) with ASPD (according to 'psychology today,' who wrote one of the first articles on him) - it does not end well.  Your wife's homicidal ideation, and your description of your wife (less impassioned, and more calculated than what I typically observe in a pwBPD) leads me to believe that there is more going on the being borderline alone.  BPD and ASPD are both cluster-B PD's and share common traits.  Homicidal ideation is not a borderline trait, that you have shared, a murder+suicide threats puts your relationship in a whole new dimension (of crazy) - if you are not careful, your story could possibly wind up on Dateline and other crime-dramas like my pwASPD did.


Now, not long after, I've spent what hopeful energy I got and everything just seems that much more impossible.

Having been with two BPD women, one of which I am still with, I will validate your feeling that it is very difficult; however, since there is the homicidal ideation component, which is not BPD, that escalates it to a different level which is next to impossible to deal with, statistically speaking, you will have better luck at winning powerball than getting a pwASPD into meaningful treatment.  With a pure BPD, you will have a better chance of winning a pick-3 to make it better (approximately 1 in 64)


Finally got the books I ordered a while back. Talking to a loved one with BPD and Splitting. Splitting tells me my wife shows most of the warning signs of being a persuasive blamer. I was already scared of divorce, or even approaching the matter with her. Now I'm even more scared.

I too am scared, to the point of being frozen in my fear.  However, I am navigating, setting boundaries, and my wife and I are on a general upward trend.  However, only had self-hatred, but not hatred towards me or the children - no threats of murder, she cares too much for others to do that.  Even my uBPD/uNPD+exgf cared for others with no ill intent towards others.  However, she does have a lot of unfounded fear toward me and the children.


I'm not a brave person. Also, I abhor conflict, so much so that it's a character flaw that causes trouble in my life. Rocking the boat is the last thing I ever want to do.

I used to be this way; however, I recognized my character flaws much like you have done.  I am here to tell you, that you can work through those character flaws with an qualified, and personally vetted individual therapist - well worth the investment into myself.


I thought at the very least I had some time to make plans and gather my strength before taking any action. Also I thought I might try to ease into things, try setting some minor boundaries and work my way up from there. Turns out that's not really an option.

Why is this not an option?  Do take your time to make plans (in secret), do muster the strength to do it.  When you do execute, make sure you have a good exit plan in place, as you and your child will be at the greatest danger when you execute this plan.


We have sort of a life plan for the coming years, and trying for a second child is coming up. My wife has brought this up, and is expecting us to start trying. I have not yet conflicted her on this, I haven't had the nerve. But the situation doesn't really leave me all that many options: starting to try for a child less than two weeks after divorce and suicide have been brought up in threats doesn't seem like a sane thing to do.

So if I plan to tell her that I no longer think the second child is an option for us, how much less upsetting is that for her than would be if I were to tell her I want a divorce? Not much, I think.

Like others have said, I would not advise this at this time of having a 2nd child, you yourself have said the answer - you know what must be done.  Being mindful you will be doubling the difficulty.  I am going to be blunt, what do you want with regards to having a 2nd child with her, knowing that her behaviors will be just as bad if not worse?  Also, what do you want with regards to divorcing her?  I cannot tell you what to do.  I can share my personal experiences with you, as a peer mentor, so you can make a better informed decision for your particular situation.


So yeah. To be safe, planning to call the local shelter to check with them that my safety plan makes sense. Other than that, I don't know. I really don't know how in the world will I manage.

At this time, based on what you have shared, this is probably the best thing you can do for yourself and child.  Most shelters have a LCSW assigned to them (licensed clinical social worker), bring your MOSAIC results with you when you visit in addition to your safety plan.  Be sure to mention the murder+suicide threat.  Be mindful that they are mandated reporters, so if you mention acts of child abuse, or DV against yourself, they can possibly escalate the situation for you in spite of your protests, depending on where you are located, these trigger points are different from location to location - they will be mindful of your situation and work with you on a workable solution, provided that they believe you (when I tried this in 2009, I was blown off; however, things have changed since then), also be more persistent, I was very timid when I tried to do this, and it caused me to suffer in silence for more than a decade longer than I needed to.

How to manage, ask the LCSW, they can often point you to free, or low-cost places to help you out, I suspect they will be able to help you out at the shelter, except for shelter as the vast majority of shelters are for women, not men.  Also suggest contacting your local NAMI organization, mental health for your county/parish run by the local government can also point you in a good direction.  If you feel that you are blown off, keep asking until you get an answer that you are kind of looking for.

There are some doctor's checkups and such we have planned to do first, so I probably can postpone this over Christmas and New year, but not much more. And it feels like a dishonest and cowardly thing to do to pretend to go along with it. But maybe still the best, to do what I can to prepare. I don't know.

By all means postpone this any way you can until you figure out what you want to do for you.  You are not being dishonest and cowardly, if anything you are becoming more honest with yourself, and standing up for yourself which takes incredible courage to do, especially the first time you do this.

I've been there, tried to do this back in 2009, it failed, I am sharing with you the mistakes and regrets that I didn't do, so you don't have to suffer any longer than you have to.

By all means ask questions, and I want to be here for you, to listen to you, and to support you. 

Take care with self care.

SD

[Collaguazo]

Couple of things I wonder if anyone can shed some light on.

Firstly, is it common for BPDs to lash out delusionally against people they are not that close to? It seems my wife is intent on burning bridges with my relatives, one by one. Does this fit in with the symptoms, or is it something else? They have not been close, so I don't see how abandonment issues would come to play. It seems she's convinced people are bad-mouthing her behind her back, turning people against her, and she's adamant of "sticking to her boundaries", ready to cut anyone from her life when she perceives them as treating her badly. (She has very few people left in her life at this point.)

Secondly, my wife has told me about her previous relationships in detail, and I don't see the same problems there. Obviously I only have her description of things, and she's quite blind to the possibility that there could be anything wrong with her, or that in any interpersonal conflict she could ever be anything but a mistreated victim. All that being said, trust her when she tells me that in her previous relationships there had never been problems and conflict at the level that we have had. So I wonder. Has she gotten worse over the years, or even only gotten BPD due to some traumatic events that happened between the relationships? Or is it maybe something about me that sets her off more strongly?

Hi Versant,

Regarding your first point, my exbpd gf towards the end of the relationship developed a delusional hate towards my family members. As you say, she was convinced they were bad mouthing her, or telling me she was not good enough for me, etc. She would complain that my brother didn’t sent her a birthday message (they literally only met once) and then complain that my mother’s message was too “cold”. Another time she was raging because at a family meeting, she was expecting everybody to roll the red carpet for her and treat her like royalty. And at one point she was convinced my family was doing black magic on her and that’s why she couldn’t get a job .

As for your second point, at the beginning I also thought that maybe it was my fault some of her reactions. After all she was married twice and engaged another two times. So naturally I questioned how was she able to have long term relationships and with me, after 3 months, already painted me black. And like you say she presented herself as a victim.

But eventually, I learned that those relationships were pure hell and even more toxic than ours. She even cheated on her partners multiple times. So, at least I my case, she was actually worse with her previous partners. So don’t beat yourself up thinking you made things worse or that her previous relationships were healthy ones.

[Gerda]

Hi Versant. It seems like our situations have a lot in common, though with the genders reversed.

About deciding what would be best for your son: staying with your wife or getting a divorce, I recommend reading the book Raising Resilient Children with a Borderline or Narcissistic Parent by Fjelstad and McBride. It goes in to the pros and cons of staying (so you can be there all the time to try to protect the kid from the disordered parent) vs. leaving (so your home can be a safe haven from the disordered parent while the kid is with you). It's a decision I'm also struggling with.

That book also has a lot of other great advice regardless of what you decide (since if you do get divorced, you'll still have to co-parent with this person).

When it comes to having a second child, I had a similar dilemma, but with a slightly different twist. We had to do IVF to have our daughter, and we had another embryo frozen at the fertility clinic to become her sibling later on. Then when my husband's BPD-like traits got so much worse after our daughter was born, I was really conflicted about implanting the second embryo. Especially after he started threatening to physically assault me, threatening to divorce me, etc.

I decided to go ahead and have the second embryo implanted anyway, and taking the risk of his behavior continuing or becoming even worse and then having to deal with getting divorced with two kids instead of just one. However, I ended up miscarrying the second embryo. It felt really weird grieving that loss but also feeling somewhat relieved. And really, the only reason I did that is because I had that embryo already waiting at the fertility clinic. I had already gone to all the trouble and expense of IVF and didn't want to just have it destroyed. I wanted to give it a fair chance to live.

But if I had been getting pregnant naturally? Then I probably wouldn't have tried again after seeing how my husband changed after our daughter was born.

So I'm not telling you don't have a second kid, but be prepared for the worst case scenario that your wife's behavior will get even worse after that, and then you might have to divorce her with two kids instead of just one. Is having a second kid worth that risk? I still feel a little sad that my daughter won't have a sibling, so I understand if you decide to take that risk.

[ForeverDad]

About deciding what would be best for your son: staying with your wife or getting a divorce, I recommend reading the book Raising Resilient Children with a Borderline or Narcissistic Parent by Fjelstad and McBride. It goes in to the pros and cons of staying (so you can be there all the time to try to protect the kid from the disordered parent) vs. leaving (so your home can be a safe haven from the disordered parent while the kid is with you). It's a decision I'm also struggling with.

Just to add a bit of reality:  Most of us have to go off to work, leave to go shopping or do other errands, etc. So literally "being there all the time to protect the kids" is not possible. And they'd be in a stressful environment all the time.

I had no choice, my marriage imploded so I worked with what I had.  Though I started with minority time, eventually I did end up with majority time.

So I'm not telling you don't have a second kid, but be prepared for the worst case scenario that your wife's behavior will get even worse after that, and then you might have to divorce her with two kids instead of just one. Is having a second kid worth that risk?

Also, having another child (restarting a pregnancy, baby, toddler, preschooler, etc) could cause you to dither and delay a divorce or a decision to divorce until much later. 

[Versant]

Your posts suggest that you already know the answer here:  It's about knowing yourself.  You've arrived at this point because you've avoided a lot, for so long.  Your self awareness re: avoidance indicates that you know this.  You clearly have a lot of fortitude in order to navigate the rough seas to get to this point.
...
The thing to keep in mind is:  You cannot control chaos through avoidance.  You can only control yourself.
...
Good luck.

Thank you. I guess this is what things mostly boil down to concerning my past  and up coming choices.

It really sounds like you have some issues with yourself you need to resolve first.
...
regarding your own conflict avoidance and fears: you need to get a grip on that.  you're a father... consider what sort of behavior you're modeling for your son by sticking around and taking this.  Whether you leave or not, you need to show him its possible to stand up and set boundaries and not exist as a punching bag and victim.

Yeah, tell me about it. It's a shame I can't take the time to resolve my issues before doing anything else, since I need to be there for my child right now. And to be honest, I think it's extra hard to improve myself while I'm still in this relationship.

do you have a therapist or go to counseling?  I'd consider finding one.  if possible see them w/out your partner's knowledge maybe?  she'll likely view your self improvement as a threat and seek to sabotage it.

Yes, I do. And you are quite right, I went for quite a while with my wife's knowledge at first, and yeah, not much came out of it when all the while she was trying to make sure I was always concentrating on fixing the perceived flaws in myself that happened to be the most offensive to her at a given time. So for a year or so now I have booked the appointments without her knowing about it.

AND on the topic of preparations to leave/divorce... it can be overwhelming to take it all on at once. 

I didn't.  You can plan for it and make preparations to make the final leap easier.

Thanks for the tips. Small actionable steps feel like the best way to approach things this heavy and big.

I actually moved the first things to a rental storage unit for safekeeping just today. She has destroyed a lot of stuff in the past, like scissoring most of my clothes a couple of times (which is annoying and expensive, but just stuff, I feel) and shredding my photos (which is not just stuff - some of those memories are gone for good now). It's been a few years since the last incidence, but I feel a lot more at peace with some items with sentimental value now out of danger for sure.

But the difference is they are exes.  Perhaps they didn't stick around that long?  And you're the current interest and in the front of her attention.

I don't know. She lived with a couple of her exes for longer than we have been together. I don't know if it matters. I guess it's just me turning this whole thing around in my head again and again, trying to see if I've got the whole thing wrong or not.

Like now I've been remembering the time when things were just getting really bad some years back. She was apologetic a few times then. Like she replaced a shirt she had cut to ribbons as an apology, and she was really horrified the first time she had assaulted me. All that went away later, and she hasn't apologized about anything for years now, instead she's prone to declaring how she feels no remorse about anything and everything has been justified.  And I'm wondering, personality disorders should be quite fixed, why was she acting at first like a normal person who had been pushed beyond her limits and lost control?

Being conflict avoidant is pretty true for many of us here, even if the degree to which we are that way might vary. Especially if it's a way you coped as a kid.

In what ways does being conflict avoidant impact how you think about staying/leaving?

Yeah, my childhood family had unhealthy dynamics in it, and I've learnt to not to rock the boat from an early age.
It makes leaving that much more difficult, since in addition to all the quite justified fears I have concerning separation and custody and safety of all family members, it also involves willfully heading into a huge conflict. It might seem like just icing on a nasty cake, but is a lot more than that to me. It's going against how I have learnt to survive.

What is it about setting minor boundaries that doesn't feel feasible?

It's not that doing that isn't feasible as such; it's that I don't have time for starting small.

Do you see your wife as a high-conflict person? Or is it mainly that you think she's a persuasive blamer (to you)? Has she been able to persuade other people about her narrative?

She tends to escalate conflicts while insisting she's not doing so, that it's the other people making things worse. So yeah, she's a high-conflict person for sure. She's always "just" doing something. Just sticking to her boundaries (when getting super offended by some perceived slight), just telling the truth (when offering offensive characterizations in aggressive tones), or whatever.

But she can also be quite persuasive, so yeah, that's worrying. She can be very calm, sound logical and be so full of conviction... You need to know her, need to have been on the receiving end or at least witnessed it, to not be convinced.

I'll continue later, but post this for now since I ran out of time.

[SaltyDawg]

I actually moved the first things to a rental storage unit for safekeeping just today. She has destroyed a lot of stuff in the past, like scissoring most of my clothes a couple of times (which is annoying and expensive, but just stuff, I feel) and shredding my photos (which is not just stuff - some of those memories are gone for good now). It's been a few years since the last incidence, but I feel a lot more at peace with some items with sentimental value now out of danger for sure.

If you still have the shredded photos, you can reassemble them with this software (intended for documents) https://www.unshredder.com/ - not cheap, as it is intended for law enforcement & PI's.

[Versant]

I used to be this way; however, I recognized my character flaws much like you have done.  I am here to tell you, that you can work through those character flaws with an qualified, and personally vetted individual therapist - well worth the investment into myself.

Yeah, if there's something good that has come from such a challenging (hellish) relationship, it's that it's made me look real hard at myself. So yeah, I have some issues to work on, and that work will definitely benefit me and those around me. It's just that that work would probably go a lot better in a context of a healthy relationship, or at least in the absence of a really unhealthy one.

I thought at the very least I had some time to make plans and gather my strength before taking any action. Also I thought I might try to ease into things, try setting some minor boundaries and work my way up from there. Turns out that's not really an option.

Why is this not an option?  Do take your time to make plans (in secret), do muster the strength to do it.  When you do execute, make sure you have a good exit plan in place, as you and your child will be at the greatest danger when you execute this plan.

I think there's going to be some sort of ultimate conflict that ends the relationship as it currently is before long now. Too many things that might force me to take a stand soon. So yeah, I'll plan for sure, and make preparations as much as I can, but I think in the end I won't be picking my moment but have it forced upon me.

Like others have said, I would not advise this at this time of having a 2nd child, you yourself have said the answer - you know what must be done.  Being mindful you will be doubling the difficulty.  I am going to be blunt, what do you want with regards to having a 2nd child with her, knowing that her behaviors will be just as bad if not worse?  Also, what do you want with regards to divorcing her?

It feels tragic that here we are, two people who both really do want a second child, and I can't let us go through with it anyway. What I really want is for her to be such, our relationship to be such that we can go on, have a child and live happily. But it is what it is, tragic or not, and me wishing otherwise doesn't change the facts. I know it would be total madness to try for a child when our situation is  like this.
I do want to divorce her. There, I said it. :/ But now how to get that to happen in a way that I can live with

Regarding your first point, my exbpd gf towards the end of the relationship developed a delusional hate towards my family members. As you say, she was convinced they were bad mouthing her, or telling me she was not good enough for me, etc. She would complain that my brother didn’t sent her a birthday message (they literally only met once) and then complain that my mother’s message was too “cold”. Another time she was raging because at a family meeting, she was expecting everybody to roll the red carpet for her and treat her like royalty.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. This sounds kind of familiar, even if it's not exactly the same. Also, things have gotten worse now that my relatives actually do have reservations towards her where my wife imagined them before...

About deciding what would be best for your son: staying with your wife or getting a divorce, I recommend reading the book Raising Resilient Children with a Borderline or Narcissistic Parent by Fjelstad and McBride. It goes in to the pros and cons of staying (so you can be there all the time to try to protect the kid from the disordered parent) vs. leaving (so your home can be a safe haven from the disordered parent while the kid is with you). It's a decision I'm also struggling with.

That book also has a lot of other great advice regardless of what you decide (since if you do get divorced, you'll still have to co-parent with this person).

This seems relevant - thanks for the book recommendation.

When it comes to having a second child, I had a similar dilemma, but with a slightly different twist.

Thank you for sharing. What difficult decisions we face in life!

Also, having another child (restarting a pregnancy, baby, toddler, preschooler, etc) could cause you to dither and delay a divorce or a decision to divorce until much later. 

This is it, I think.

[Versant]

In addition to MOSAIC, another resource that might be helpful is Shari Manning's Loving Someone with BPD. There's a chapter in the book on how to respond to suicidal ideation when someone has BPD. Handling it is not intuitive and must be learned.

Can I get some pointers for this? Is there somewhere I can read about this without access to the book?

[kells76]

Hi Versant;

Take a look at our workshop on Suicide ideation in others -- let us know what you think. It should generally track with any info in the Manning book.

Definitely take a look at this part of the thread, too, which describes approaches beyond calling 911 that may help:

Getting someone to professional help is important and there are many ways to do that.  Suicides tend to occur impulsively so how you deal with the immediate situation is important.  911 is one way, but there are other less dramatic ways, too.

1) Trying to get the person on a local Hotline number would be my first line of attack.  A local Crisis Hotline (not the National organizations) will have the ability to remotely trigger the police or ambulance while on the call.  These volunteers are trained to assess the situation and will dispatch if they think there is danger.  Most of the time, they will recommend an ER that sees suicidal ideation.

2) Another option is to call the Hotline and get the information and drive the person to the ER or have someone else drive them like a friend.

3) If either if 1-2 fail, if someone else is potentially in danger, or the situation includes a plan and a means, call 911.  It's pricey and dramatic - but at times, most prudent.

If you can't be there, getting someone else to be with the distressed person is important - a family member, friend, neighbor.  Making the ideation visible to others helps too - it brings focus, aid, accountability, and other resources to help out.

Not all suicidal ideation is equal and we need to make some judgments.  We often know the person intimately and while we what to be very conservative, we can't pretend that all suicidal ideation should be treated with a one size fits all response. We won't follow that when the time comes - so its better to think practically - know how to triage.  

I would never ignore, taunt a personal, or do anything to increase the crisis. This may mean getting manipulated a bit in the moment, but when the crisis clears, you lay the ground rules for handling the next crisis. For example, you could say that you are very concerned and encourage that next time that the person needs to call X for support, or that if they don't go to the ER, you may need to call 911 to be safe.   Making the ideation visible to others helps too - it brings focus and other resources to help.

And lastly, I also might suggest making a plan in times of calm so that you will know what to do when it happens - these can be highly emotionally charged events and it hard to think clearly in those situations. Learn your options and tipping points in times of calm so that you will be ready in times of crisis.

I'd add to that: stay away from telling or "reminding" the person things like "you have so much to live for" or "yeah, but things will get better", as that type of statement can be experienced as invalidating and can increase distress.

...

Are things escalating?

[SaltyDawg]

In addition to MOSAIC, another resource that might be helpful is Shari Manning's Loving Someone with BPD. There's a chapter in the book on how to respond to suicidal ideation when someone has BPD.

Can I get some pointers for this? Is there somewhere I can read about this without access to the book?

A lot of the books, including "Loving Someone with BPD" are also available on 'Hoopla' https://www.hoopladigital.com/ if your local public library uses this book app.  I find a book title I want to read/listen to I can often find it there.

[Versant]

A lot of the books, including "Loving Someone with BPD" are also available on 'Hoopla' https://www.hoopladigital.com/ if your local public library uses this book app.  I find a book title I want to read/listen to I can often find it there.

I'm not actually based in the US, and it limits my access to literature quite a bit. I can feasibly order only so many books from Amazon.

Take a look at our workshop on Suicide ideation in others -- let us know what you think. It should generally track with any info in the Manning book.

Thanks, this was good. Not that it really gave me clarity, though. There were posts emphasizing choosing the helpful approach, and those were thought provoking. I think it's understandable that being emotionally exhausted all the time there's a strong desire for clear cut solutions that have no gray areas or need for judgement, along the lines of "if she says X, then you just absolutely need to do Y", but I realize the responsibility for using personal judgement never goes away.

So yeah, I can't ignore her talk of suicide and the desperation underneath it. She definitely needs some help. It's just hard to figure out the most constructive way available to get that to happen.

This has me thinking:

It's my personal opinion that if someone is in the mood to rage, they will find something to rage about regardless of any attempts to de-escalate the situation.  If there's a contentious relationship and the non-suicidal individual is typically a trigger for the suicidal individual, I don't know that attempts at validation would make the situation improve.  I am a fan of 3rd party intervention.  Not even necessarily emergency personnel, but just someone less evocative to try and better assess the situation.

She hates my guts and believes I frequently go out of my way to hurt her. It's not ideal situation for reaching out and convincing her to talk to a professional. I'd need something in between talking to her and calling the emergency services. That is, something that in one hand doesn't require me to convince her to voluntarily do something, but on the other hand is not reserved for immediate life threatening emergencies, but rather general concern for someones well being.

Right now contacting the social workers about my concern for her, and letting her know I'm doing it, is the best course of action I can think of. It will probably still result in a major conflict and she will be convinced I'm just angling to eventually get full custody (or something similar, who knows exactly).

I have great concerns for her and nothing that has happened lately has diminished them one bit. If we leave me out of the picture, she has no social support network other than her aging parents, no means besides what her parents can spare from their pensions/savings, no hobbies or other things to bring her joy or meaning (other than our child), and no energy or optimism to put in the effort to change these (depression and colored thinking).

So she is both in a bad place and really dependent on me. If I were to leave her, like I think I must for the sake of me and our child, how will she fair? You could (rightly) tell me that it is out of my hands and ultimately not my responsibility, but because of our child I feel I need more than attitude of "let things fall as they may".

Our child is very attached to her, and their bond is strong and beautiful. Our child loves me and we are close, but it's clear that mum's lap is the safest place in the world for him. Can she still function as a mother if we separate? Can I trust her to recognize if she can't, and take the necessary actions that are in the best interest of our child? Can I trust others (CPS?) to be on top of the situation when I am absent?

Are things escalating?

Something is going on for sure. It seems she has difficult emotions coming up a lot now, and there's even more criticism than before (didn't think it possible) and lots of fights breaking out. However, those fights have not gone too out of control, and somehow she is also recovering from fights a lot quicker than usual - we can now often interact in civil manner in even less than an hour after her blowing up.

_ _ _

Something that has always bothered me and I could use some thoughts on. It feels to me that my wife acts as if she somehow had unquestionable priority to our child.

I see this whenever we have an argument: she starts controlling my access to him. It feels obviously wrong, but I have not tried to resist her because our child is necessary present in those situations and I try to spare him of the worst.

Mostly what I mean is when we need to be apart from each other to calm down, like go our separate ways if we were on a walk, or one of us needs to leave the home, the child stays with her. It's never that she goes out for a breather and I stay inside with him, but always me that leaves alone with them staying behind. Particularly hurtful, somehow, were the couple of times when we were just about to leave for a walk the three of us, when at the last moment she decided she can't stand me right then, and told me to not come with.

If we just go to different rooms at home sometimes the child stays with me, but even then it's her who decides what happens, not us agreeing or that I have any input on it. (As an aside, a couple of times this has turned into some sort of "teaching me a lesson" kind of thing. She has withdrawn like that, and refused to do any of the things she normally does with the child like putting him down for a nap, even refused to be available when he starts asking for her. I don't know if she's been disappointed that things have worked out quite well in those cases despite her non-participation - wrong lesson learned there, I guess - or if she has even realized that's what happened. She has this fixated idea that I don't manage well with him, and that she needs to be there to comfort him and to micromanage, and mostly the idea seems to be quite resistant to any evidence to the contrary. Even though, come to think of it, she seems to have no trouble leaving us alone when she has somewhere she wants to go, so I guess she can switch between realities to some extend.)

_ _ _

Another thing bothering me, once again, is how much of the confilct comes from legitimate reasons I am responsible for.

This is on the surface now, since I am trying to wrap my head around what happened yesterday. Maybe writing it out here will help.

As a set up, we had a fight in the morning. It was so predictable I could scream.

We were talking about something quite amicable. Then, probably encouraged by the positive interaction, she opened up a bit about how hopeless she feels.

I did my best with what I have learned, and suppressed my natural insticts to either try to comfort her up by bringing up something positive or to try to offer some practical suggestion on how to improve things. Instead I concentrated on being emphatic and validating her feeling. But here comes the problem, encountered countless times before. As soon as I said something along the lines of "I understand it is impossible to find motivation when you feel like that", she loses it: Once again I try to minimize her by suggesting it's just her "feeling" things! That it's all in her head and she is the problem! Like I said, this has happened a lot, and I should know better. (Not sure what that "better" would be though - how can you support someone when they think validating their feelings is just trying to weasel your way out of really supporting them by confirming that their observations and interpretations are accurate descriptions of reality?) Anyway, naively I thought it would be ok this time, since she used the expression herself, since she was specifically speaking about her feelings, but no.

Alright, so once again she tries to seek comfort from me and is hurt instead. And once again I think I have been handling a delicate situation quite well and put myself out there to help my wife, but have her screaming at me and trying to send me on a guilt trip as thanks. Sad, but nothing new.

I manage to keep my calm mostly. Some irritation and frustration do show, and she let's me know how she feels about that, I have no right and I'm being aggressive, but mostly I do ok job de-escalating I think. Lately we have managed this quite often. Once she has started to calm down, this usually, also this time, involves listening to a lecture on my faults and what I should do to fix them.
Like every so often, she demands I should read psychology to understand people and interactions, and says I can't afford to waste my time on reading non-fiction. (Reading has always been one of my favorite things to do, even if I only manage something like two books a month these days. Somehow this seems to tick her off.) She tells me I have the rest of my life to read non-fiction, but I should make a decision to only read psychology for the next year. When she makes an unfavorable comparison between me and some random other man, I finally end the one sided conversation and go about my day - she has calmed down by then.

Later in the day I need to push our child in a stroller for a while as he sleeps. There's not much to do besides go to the local library, so I do that, and end up taking out two books, one on psychology and one non-fiction. On the way home I start to think about the non-fiction book - she probably will not like seeing it. Should I leave it in the stroller to collect later? Hide it somewhere else? I feel tempted to do so but that just doesn't feel healthy. So I just take the books openly with me, and somehow, even after having lived with her for years, fail to really think through how she interprets this action.

She is livid. She is once again convinced I was just trying to send her a message and hurt her. My actions keep piling on evidence on how I have a personality disorder. No sane person would be so hurtful.

So yeah, that's where we are at now. Some talk from last night felt quite serious, talk of divorce came up once again (but not in a constructive "would that be best for us" way but "don't think I won't do it" way).

I acted in an insensitive way, and I need to own that. There was no need to check out any books on the very same day she had told me she doesn't like it. Is she reasonable in trying to limit me in this? Definitely not, but I guess with the timing here was still just asking to be interpreted as picking a fight or stating "I don't care what you think".

I don't know if there was any real point to writing all this. I guess it has to do with how her perception of our relationship bothers me a lot. She has quite a consistent narrative where I am sadist/autistic/narsistic and she is the helpless victim suffering in my clutches with no way out. And she can tie that narrative to a lot of this sort of incidents where it doesn't take a lot to make me the bad guy.

[SaltyDawg]

I'm not actually based in the US, and it limits my access to literature quite a bit. I can feasibly order only so many books from Amazon.

https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EBook_Lending_Libraries#Widely_Accessible_Libraries_and_Subscription_Services has a fairly comprehensive global list of paid and low cost lending services around the globe.  If you are comfortable sharing what country you are in, perhaps I can look up some local resources for you.

Not sure if it has the literature that you are looking for...

[livednlearned]

I acted in an insensitive way, and I need to own that. There was no need to check out any books on the very same day she had told me she doesn't like it. Is she reasonable in trying to limit me in this? Definitely not, but I guess with the timing here was still just asking to be interpreted as picking a fight or stating "I don't care what you think".

If you came back with 7 books on psychology, she would find something wrong. It was too much, you must be mocking her.

The purpose is to get you to choose between her and you, and even when you pick her there is another test because if you picked her, something is wrong with you or the test.

Once she sees you are engaged in the game, she loses respect for you because any self-respecting person would see there is no winning here. She won't quit the game because the alternative is to feel abandoned and that's the one thing to avoid at all costs.

I know it's not easy, but the only way through is to be the emotional leader. "Is there a book you want me to read? I'll let you pick one out that you think might help." Put responsibility for what she's asking for on her.

She won't like it, but look at what happened this other way: you listened, tried to do what she said, and she attacked you. Asking her to pick out a book puts some responsibility for making these improvements on her.

Does she read books on psychology?

[EyesUp]

If she's in the "split" mode, i.e., you've been "painted black" - there is nothing you can do that won't be recast, somehow, as wrong.

How long this continues or if it can be reversed is difficult/impossible to predict.

There are really just three things to keep in mind when you're in this situation:

1) don't be invalidating - which really means, become a sphinx and grey rock as much as possible.  this doesn't mean don't engage - because the perception that you're ignoring her = rejecting her = ultimate offense.  it's another tightrope walk.  near the end, my uBPDxw didn't like it if I responded to "how are you doing?" with "pretty good" (no matter how flat - or chipper) because "pretty good" was somehow another insult to her.  this had never come up in 14 years of marriage, but suddenly there was nothing I could say that was right.  ok, fine - feedback received.  "I'm good" became the default - and there was one less trigger.

2) think long term - accept that there are no quick fixes, only a million micro-adjustments that can influence your trajectory over time.

3) prioritize your health and wellness for your own sake, and for the sake of your child.  it's easy to get sucked in to your wife's emotional state and become preoccupied with it, and entrapped/enmeshed in all the codependent behaviors that accompany this dynamic.  try to put yourself first.  please take care and consider your own needs.

[PeteWitsend]

...
Our child is very attached to her, and their bond is strong and beautiful. Our child loves me and we are close, but it's clear that mum's lap is the safest place in the world for him. Can she still function as a mother if we separate? Can I trust her to recognize if she can't, and take the necessary actions that are in the best interest of our child? Can I trust others (CPS?) to be on top of the situation when I am absent?

Something is going on for sure. It seems she has difficult emotions coming up a lot now, and there's even more criticism than before (didn't think it possible) and lots of fights breaking out. However, those fights have not gone too out of control, and somehow she is also recovering from fights a lot quicker than usual - we can now often interact in civil manner in even less than an hour after her blowing up.

_ _ _

Something that has always bothered me and I could use some thoughts on. It feels to me that my wife acts as if she somehow had unquestionable priority to our child.

I see this whenever we have an argument: she starts controlling my access to him. It feels obviously wrong, but I have not tried to resist her because our child is necessary present in those situations and I try to spare him of the worst.

...

Couple thoughts:

1) it's normal - or at least common - for very young kids to be overly attached to their mothers, although this ebbs and flows over time. 

But the poor boundaries pwBPD have apply ever more in their relationships with their kids.  They get "enmeshed" as I've read that the pwBPD views their kids as an extension of themselves.

Eventually the kids grow up and are forced to make a decision (be mom's appendage, or be my own person), and if they choose the latter, will be painted black as sure as anyone else the pwBPD splits with.

2) She's using whatever leverage she can against you to try to force you to comply and (long term) not leave her b/c she'll keep you from seeing your son.

BPDxw did this same thing to me; I was glad I saw an attorney and learned my rights with respect to possession and time with my daughter.  I think BPDxw was LIVID when she realized her threats were empty, and in order to actually prevent me from seeing our D regularly, she'd have to prove I was abusive (I wasn't so she'd have a big hurdle to overcome) and it would cost her a huge pile of money to fight like that in court, which she didn't have and would prefer to spend on herself if she did.

For me, I considered staying married just for our daughter, but weighed the harm she'd suffer growing up in a broken home, vs. the harm she'd suffer if I left.

Ultimately, I concluded if I stayed, our D would be exposed to fighting and conflict 100% of the time, but if I left, at least when she was with me, we'd be calm and happy.  and 35% or 50% of happy time is better than 0% happy time.  Plus BPDxw was making it hard for my family to see our daughter, and doing all sorts of awful things to try to isolate me from family and friends.  I didn't want my daughter seeing me get treated like that and normalize it. 

The fact that your wife has said so much suicidal stuff is certainly troubling... you need to talk to professionals about how to handle that.

basically there's no easy answer, and in real life , when you have young, vulnerable kids, it's hard to come up with a bright line rule that makes leaving a simple decision.  You need to really think about this very thoroughly, and consider your own feelings and thoughts, as well as maybe outside opinions and expert advice, to the extent you can get it.

[Versant]

I had a bit heavy day. There was frustrating stuff in the morning, followed in the evening by suicide threat and the emergency services.

I managed to have a friend and their family over. I've withdrawn from people a lot and was really looking forward to this, something that is healthy for me and the rest of my family. Instead of a good experience it was another reminder of why I find it so hard to have people over.

We had agreed that I'd take care of everything and my wife just enjoys the visit. Well, the preparations I had made, cleaning, cooking, were not up to my wife's standards even though I felt like I put a lot of effort into it. The morning before my friend arrived was really tense, with my wife re-doing things I had done and us both being annoyed with each other. This didn't leave me in a good mood to enjoy the visit.

Then, once the guests had gone she explained to me at length how ashamed she was by me again, because of the food and how I lack consideration for others and how it was showing to the guests. Everyone other than her seems to be with a man who know how to be hospitable, but I don't.

This is one reason my social life has withered. After we meet people, it's so often either this, i.e. once people have left she recounts all the things I've said or done wrong this time that either hurt or embarrassed her during the visit, or then it's some negative observations about the people we met, how they don't seem like her, or were flirting with her, or said something that was meant to be a covert insult to her, or something. It's so tiring.

Well anyways, so there was already a lot of tension from earlier in the day, and then she got angry about something else. The reason, out of context, I feel was not that big deal (the food I was planning on bringing for us on our upcoming little trip was not what she wanted, and she felt by now I should have known she wouldn't want it) - but I understand the real reason has to do with repeated disappointments and feeling that I don't care enough about her to try and make her feel good. Anyways, after we tried to talk about it a bit she told me she can't stand me and wants a divorce. Then, later in the evening, when I was putting our toddler to bed, she storms about, packs a couple of items in a backpack and declares she is leaving now for good.

She monologues to our child a bit about how she loves him and would have liked to be in his life but his daddy hurts her too much and she has to go away for good. Then tells me she's preparing a "final letter" for our child exposing everything about me to him once he's old enough, and some other things that also have some "when I'm gone" feel to them. I no longer remember if she said anything about self harm, but that's what I took it to mean.

Once she went, I tried calling her mother so she would check on her, but didn't reach her, so I called the emergency services. They informed the police to try and locate her. Soon after I reached my wife on the phone, and she was like "here I am, choosing between killing myself and coming back home, so do you best to convince me". In the end, she didn't take much convincing before returning home. Only to be really mad when the police knocked on our door soon after to check up on her.

So now she is once again convinced that I am a narcissist playing power games with her. I cannot have been worried about her - surely I know that people who kill themselves don't shout about it before hands (uh - actually, no) and I must have been just trying to get some attention and make her look bad. I am sick and everyone else sees it, and she will take the child and move away.

[Versant]

I know it's been a while, but here are some replies I've neglected to write.

SaltyDawg, thanks for bringing up alternative book sources. Inspired by you I managed to find some locally.

Does she read books on psychology?

Yes, a lot. I use to be very impressed by her understanding of people, and how well she knows herself. Later I've come to see there are some fairly major blind spots and filters in her take on things, though.

When describing the events I think I failed to convey the context properly. The topic about fiction books vs. relationship/psychology books was actually not new for us - even when these events took place, we had a pile of books at home she had picked in the hopes (and occasional demands) I would read them.

In any case, your point about it being useless beating myself up for annoying her is totally valid. She gets annoyed by so many things I wouldn't guess that it's pointless to try to avoid it. I'm wandering about in a minefield. I used to be quite talkative, but these days I mainly keep my mouth shut.

If she's in the "split" mode, i.e., you've been "painted black" - there is nothing you can do that won't be recast, somehow, as wrong.

How long this continues or if it can be reversed is difficult/impossible to predict.

There are really just three things to keep in mind when you're in this situation:

1) don't be invalidating - which really means, become a sphinx and grey rock as much as possible.  this doesn't mean don't engage - because the perception that you're ignoring her = rejecting her = ultimate offense.  it's another tightrope walk.  near the end, my uBPDxw didn't like it if I responded to "how are you doing?" with "pretty good" (no matter how flat - or chipper) because "pretty good" was somehow another insult to her.  this had never come up in 14 years of marriage, but suddenly there was nothing I could say that was right.  ok, fine - feedback received.  "I'm good" became the default - and there was one less trigger.

2) think long term - accept that there are no quick fixes, only a million micro-adjustments that can influence your trajectory over time.

3) prioritize your health and wellness for your own sake, and for the sake of your child.  it's easy to get sucked in to your wife's emotional state and become preoccupied with it, and entrapped/enmeshed in all the codependent behaviors that accompany this dynamic.  try to put yourself first.  please take care and consider your own needs.

Good advice. Thank you. 1) I sometimes find very difficult, probably because often it requires approaches that I somehow feel are like letting her walk over me. 2) is something that could be immensely useful if I managed to keep it in mind. 3) is on the spot - it's very easy for me to fall into making everything about how bad she's suffering.

For me, I considered staying married just for our daughter, but weighed the harm she'd suffer growing up in a broken home, vs. the harm she'd suffer if I left.

Ultimately, I concluded if I stayed, our D would be exposed to fighting and conflict 100% of the time, but if I left, at least when she was with me, we'd be calm and happy.  and 35% or 50% of happy time is better than 0% happy time.  Plus BPDxw was making it hard for my family to see our daughter, and doing all sorts of awful things to try to isolate me from family and friends.  I didn't want my daughter seeing me get treated like that and normalize it. 

Yeah, this sounds familiar. I'm leaning heavily towards leaving for the same reasons you left. 

The fact that your wife has said so much suicidal stuff is certainly troubling... you need to talk to professionals about how to handle that.

basically there's no easy answer, and in real life , when you have young, vulnerable kids, it's hard to come up with a bright line rule that makes leaving a simple decision.  You need to really think about this very thoroughly, and consider your own feelings and thoughts, as well as maybe outside opinions and expert advice, to the extent you can get it.

I've been talking with professionals quite a bit now, without my wife knowing. I think the next step will telling her I am worried about her and then contacting professionals with her knowledge (but certainly against her will).

[kells76]

Quick thought on this topic:

I've been talking with professionals quite a bit now, without my wife knowing. I think the next step will telling her I am worried about her and then contacting professionals with her knowledge (but certainly against her will).

Like EyesUp said, there are no quick fixes/magic wands -- yet we do have opportunities to try to do things more skillfully. Even if our skilled attempts don't "work" (don't go the way we'd prefer), it can be the case that approaching hot topics more skillfully (less unskillfully) can lead to "less bad" outcomes -- again, maybe not the outcomes we'd prefer, but maybe skilled--->7/10 intensity outcome vs unskilled--->11/10 intensity outcome.

Have you had a chance to read I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help! by Dr. Xavier Amador yet?

Given that you would like your W to get help, but she (I am assuming?) does not think she has a problem, it could be well worth it to read through the book and see if some of the approaches apply.

Dr. Amador wrote the book from the perspective of a family member trying to help someone with schizophrenia (his brother had it), but the principles and tools are applicable to many situations where you have a loved one who needs help but may see you as "the enemy" and may also not have insight/perspective into their behaviors.

I bought a copy a few months ago and it was eye-opening in terms of laying down the fact that persons struggling with mental illness will not be receptive to force, coercion, guilting, or "proof" of how ill they are, as incentives to get help. People get help for the problems they think they have, not the problems we think they have.

Dr. Amador lays out his LEAP approach of Listen, Empathize, Agree, Partner, as a way to build trust and rapport with loved ones, so they experience you as an ally helping to solve their problems, not an enemy forcing your "solutions" on them.

Take a look -- it could be a more skilled way to approach the "you need help" interaction.

[Versant]

Like EyesUp said, there are no quick fixes/magic wands -- yet we do have opportunities to try to do things more skillfully. Even if our skilled attempts don't "work" (don't go the way we'd prefer), it can be the case that approaching hot topics more skillfully (less unskillfully) can lead to "less bad" outcomes -- again, maybe not the outcomes we'd prefer, but maybe skilled--->7/10 intensity outcome vs unskilled--->11/10 intensity outcome.

Have you had a chance to read I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help! by Dr. Xavier Amador yet?

Given that you would like your W to get help, but she (I am assuming?) does not think she has a problem, it could be well worth it to read through the book and see if some of the approaches apply.

Thanks, this looks like a book that, well, I should have read a few years ago.

At the moment it seems it has become a bit academic what approach from me would be the best one, though. Some professionals I talked to a while back were worried enough that they they notified the CPS.

To be honest, I have quite hard time waiting for the CPS to contact us. I feel like I'm sitting in the cockpit of a plane that's about to crash. We are approaching the ground fast (apparently they are required to make contact this week) and I can't stop it from happening, I have only little change to influence anything in the short time available and things moving with unstoppable momentum. I don't know what's going to happen, and it might be a big disaster no matter what small adjustments I might make to our trajectory. But also it might be that I have some change to influence things in a way that we miss a cliff face and instead crash into a field or something, and things don't go quite as bad as they might. So I feel at the same time powerless and afraid I'll miss some action I should take.

My wife doesn't know it's coming. It seems fair to tell her beforehands. Then again, they are the professionals and can probably handle things better than I can, so maybe just not telling her might make sense too.

Also there were several difficult conversations I've been putting off. Should I try to have those before the contact? That would feel like piling things on top of each other. Delaying further doesn't seem right either. (Not dragging my feet in the first place would have been best, no surprise there, but I can only look forwards now.)

I don't know. I'm afraid and feel like I've made a mistake letting this happen. I am firmly of the opinion we need help, but yeah, since I can't force my wife to seek or accept help, I wonder if there's much of chance that the CPS will be able to provide us with any that is useful. Also I've internalized enough of my wife's perspectives that I feel like a villain bringing this down on us.

[PeteWitsend]

...

My wife doesn't know it's coming. It seems fair to tell her beforehands. Then again, they are the professionals and can probably handle things better than I can, so maybe just not telling her might make sense too.

...

Also I've internalized enough of my wife's perspectives that I feel like a villain bringing this down on us.

Fairness shouldn't be a concern for you here; do what you have to do.  Trying to be fair to a pwBPD is like trying to dry out the ocean.  It's an exercise in futility. 

And regarding the statement that you've internalized her perspectives... you need to fix that.  You cannot let a disordered person create the reality you're living in, or you will just continue to go in circles with them, regardless of whether you stay or leave. 

[kells76]

At the moment it seems it has become a bit academic what approach from me would be the best one, though. Some professionals I talked to a while back were worried enough that they they notified the CPS.

To be honest, I have quite hard time waiting for the CPS to contact us.

I'd have a hard time waiting, too. Are you feeling anxiety?

Which professionals are making the report? Are they letting you know where they're at in the process?

I was sharing some stuff with my therapist a few months back about what was going on at H's kids' mom's house While the thought had somehow never crossed my mind before, after I had told her a bunch of things that had happened over time (no heat in SD15's room, oven broken, rat issues, broken smoke detectors, SD18's bed broken, etc), she said, "You know, if you're not comfortable calling CPS, I can do that for you". It kind of floored me. We talked through it and she ended up not making the call, because each situation has nuances where a call doesn't necessarily improve things. There are new issues at Mom's house now so I'm not sure if a call would now be warranted.

All that to say -- yeah, sometimes we're kind of blind to how bad things are.

My T was telling me that in our state, at least, CPS will generally try to work with the parents/family first to improve the situation for the kids. They won't just swoop in and grab the kids first. It'll be really important for you to try to cooperate with CPS's suggestions, to show them that in your family, you are the parent who prioritizes the kids' well-being. If CPS can feel confident that in your family, at least one adult has the kids' best interest at heart, they may be able to end their involvement.

...

What do you think the issue(s) is/are, that the professionals called CPS about?

[PeteWitsend]

...

My T was telling me that in our state, at least, CPS will generally try to work with the parents/family first to improve the situation for the kids. They won't just swoop in and grab the kids first. It'll be really important for you to try to cooperate with CPS's suggestions, to show them that in your family, you are the parent who prioritizes the kids' well-being. If CPS can feel confident that in your family, at least one adult has the kids' best interest at heart, they may be able to end their involvement.

...

Here they take the approach that given the volume of complaints and issues they're facing, and how they're chronically understaffed, they have to really see something that's a physical threat before they'll do anything other than close the file.  They won't dig, they won't continue to monitor the situation.  Their questions toward kids seemed to me to be leading them to that point.

I can sympathize with them, as I live in a very red state that doesn't prioritize "taking care of its citizens," but expecting calls to CPS to result in any sort of action is wishful thinking.  Yet the stories you hear from people are rife with tales of CPS overreach, taking kids from worthy parents, etc.  I haven't seen that. 

BPDxw had CPS called on her home twice by other family members (one of the calls was retaliation against the person who called first), and they asked a lot of questions about sexual abuse, - BUT that wasn't why they were called in the first place!!! - and of course after finding none, closed the file with no action taken, and a note that that the record shouldn't be admissible in any court proceedings.  Nice...

[livednlearned]

Some professionals I talked to a while back were worried enough that they they notified the CPS.

What do you think the specifics were that triggered notification of CPS?

You can learn some things online about how CPS is (at least in theory) directed to act. It can be algorithmic. Some people have a lot of animosity toward CPS because it's a bureaucracy. Same as family law court. If you get people with a brain and a pulse, things can work in your favor. A pulse without a brain, though, and you can get some weird and at times harmful outcomes.

One thing to be aware of is that they can look at both parents as complicit. When I talked to my family law attorney about my ex husband's BPD behaviors, she said: "I believe you, and it sounds horrific. You have to realize, though, that the longer you wait and the worse it gets, a judge will wonder why you didn't act sooner to protect your son."

You don't want your codependent traits to contribute to worse outcomes for your kids  

It's not uncommon here for a parent to realize a difficult choice has to be made between protecting the marriage and protecting the kids. There may be some lucky people out there who can figure that out but I imagine there is quite a bit of luck involved and maybe things get so bad the decision sort of gets made for them, which is how I see my situation, except that I was trying to have it both ways: planning for the worst, trying unskillfully to manage the best, which wasn't ever good.  

I wonder if there's much of chance that the CPS will be able to provide us with any that is useful.

It sounds like you told the truth of your situation. You brought some sunlight into your circumstances, which (unsurprisingly, because it's a severe mental illness) is beyond what you can manage on your own.

Your wife will likely go ballistic after the CPS call and there may be a period where she aligns with you, the two of you against the world kind of thing. She might be a better mother temporarily until it becomes too hard to keep it up.

If it were me, I would not tell her you're the source of the CPS notification unless you have a plan in place for what will likely follow.

Being 7 or 10 or 20 steps ahead will help stabilize her as she adjusts to changes that trigger her defense mode to code red. Planning helps increase the probability that you can stay stable to help her stabilize -- something she isn't good at. You'll probably have to make decisions that go against your codependent tendencies but are healthy in the bigger picture, especially the long term wellbeing of your kids.

Give your wife opportunities to make good decisions, but always be prepared that she didn't win the lottery when it comes to making good decisions.

[ForeverDad]

My wife doesn't know it's coming. It seems fair to tell her beforehands. Then again, they are the professionals and can probably handle things better than I can, so maybe just not telling her might make sense too.

This is a community of overall reasonably normal Nice Guys and Nice Gals.  One trait we all seem to have is a desire to be fair, even overly fair.  Unfortunately that equates to a sort of a "fall on your sword" or "put your head on the chopping block" experience when dealing with our emotion-driven BPD-like relationships.

This is a time to relate the truth (to the authorities but not to the perpetrator!) and "let the chips fall where they may".  You are not required to sacrifice yourself.  Let each person own his or her own consequences.  In addition, if minor children are involved then ensuring the truth comes out is crucial.  Odds are that if you 'confess' to involving children's services, then the other parent will likely have no qualms trying to sabotage you and try to make you appear worse than her, as in retaliatory allegations.

[Versant]

I'd have a hard time waiting, too. Are you feeling anxiety?

Which professionals are making the report? Are they letting you know where they're at in the process?

Yeah, I feel anxiety. There's a knot in my stomach, I jolt awake a couple of times a night and feel short of breath all the time for no other reason. Mostly it's because I'm terrified by what my wife's reaction might be, and not so much about the actual CPS involvment. I guess that says a lot.

It was the social workers I talked to that made the report. I knew they are legally obligated to notify CPS if they feel there's concern, but somehow I was caught off balance by this nonetheless. CPS has to make contact within certain number of days after receiving the report, so it will happen on next Monday the latest. The report apparently asked them to contact me before my wife.

What do you think the issue(s) is/are, that the professionals called CPS about?

What do you think the specifics were that triggered notification of CPS?

They were worried about our situation already, but tight roping, between making things worse by upsetting a delicate balance in a situation that was not directly treatening to the child, and allowing things to get worse by not getting involved when intervention was needed. Apparently what compelled them to action was me telling them about the incident a month ago (see my post before the last), where she left the home in an upset state while vaguely referring to how final this was and refusing to elaborate what she was planning (this in the context of earlier suicidal ideation) and involving the child in the situation by telling him mom was not coming back, ever, and it was his dad's fault.

My T was telling me that in our state, at least, CPS will generally try to work with the parents/family first to improve the situation for the kids. They won't just swoop in and grab the kids first. It'll be really important for you to try to cooperate with CPS's suggestions, to show them that in your family, you are the parent who prioritizes the kids' well-being. If CPS can feel confident that in your family, at least one adult has the kids' best interest at heart, they may be able to end their involvement.

Here they take the approach that given the volume of complaints and issues they're facing, and how they're chronically understaffed, they have to really see something that's a physical threat before they'll do anything other than close the file.  They won't dig, they won't continue to monitor the situation.  Their questions toward kids seemed to me to be leading them to that point.

I can sympathize with them, as I live in a very red state that doesn't prioritize "taking care of its citizens," but expecting calls to CPS to result in any sort of action is wishful thinking.  Yet the stories you hear from people are rife with tales of CPS overreach, taking kids from worthy parents, etc.  I haven't seen that. 

You can learn some things online about how CPS is (at least in theory) directed to act. It can be algorithmic. Some people have a lot of animosity toward CPS because it's a bureaucracy. Same as family law court. If you get people with a brain and a pulse, things can work in your favor. A pulse without a brain, though, and you can get some weird and at times harmful outcomes.

Between us, it's my wife who's terrified by the CPS. The fact that they have the power to take custody of the child is something she cannot see past.
I know that despite some horror stories, taking custody is a last resort, and as long as there's at least one parent (or even other adult relative) capable of taking care of the child, and no clear threat, they won't take custody, but offer support and monitoring instead.

I'm not hoping to swiftly get rid of them. I'm hoping they can help us, and to be honest, I wouldn't even mind them keeping an eye on us for a prolonged period of time.

We have had CPS involved once before. That time they left us with agreement to go to couple's therapy (which my wife then declined a few months later when we were finally at the front of the queue to get an appointment).

Fairness shouldn't be a concern for you here; do what you have to do.  Trying to be fair to a pwBPD is like trying to dry out the ocean.  It's an exercise in futility. 

Your wife will likely go ballistic after the CPS call and there may be a period where she aligns with you, the two of you against the world kind of thing. She might be a better mother temporarily until it becomes too hard to keep it up.

If it were me, I would not tell her you're the source of the CPS notification unless you have a plan in place for what will likely follow.

Odds are that if you 'confess' to involving children's services, then the other parent will likely have no qualms trying to sabotage you and try to make you appear worse than her, as in retaliatory allegations.

I'm afraid I wasn't clear when stating my dilemma about letting my wife know in advance. I was told that as a parent, she will receive basic information about the CPS notification, including the basis for it. Which in this case is concerns raised by issues I have brought up in conversation.

In other words, she will know I was involved, whether I tell her or not. My choice is just between letting her know what's coming or just letting the CPS contact her out of the blue.

So I'm weighing two risks against each other. Firstly that of having an extreme reaction from her before the CPS is yet involved if I tell her beforehands. Secondly that of her having an additional grudge from knowing I knew but didn't warn her, which would further decrease the chances of something good coming out of this.

So when I mention fairness, there's two sides to it. Obviously there is trying to be a decent person for my own sake, an instinct ForeverDad rightly warns against. But most of all there's the effort of managing her perception of things to make more constructive results possible. The latter might be an exercise in futility too, like PeteWitsend warns, but there's spectrum here, I feel. At one end there's sacrificing myself on principle with no hope of gaining anything by doing it, and at the other there are situations where there's little risk of harm in trying not to treat a loved one unfairly.

I'm thinking this situation is probably closer to that other end. Like I said, she'll know it was me anyways. Also the CPS apparently will contact me first, so I can try to time telling her so that there's not a long time before they will be involved already. And knowing her, I think if I don't warn her, she will be fixated on that, so avoiding this one pitfall makes sense to me.

In putting these thoughts to words I think I have now convinced myself with this on how to approach this one small part of the whole thing.

One thing to be aware of is that they can look at both parents as complicit. When I talked to my family law attorney about my ex husband's BPD behaviors, she said: "I believe you, and it sounds horrific. You have to realize, though, that the longer you wait and the worse it gets, a judge will wonder why you didn't act sooner to protect your son."

You don't want your codependent traits to contribute to worse outcomes for your kids  

For sure. My codependency has had us stuck in a bad situation for a long time already, stopping me from doing what would have been necessary to get us outside help.

Your wife will likely go ballistic after the CPS call and there may be a period where she aligns with you, the two of you against the world kind of thing. She might be a better mother temporarily until it becomes too hard to keep it up.

For better or worse, this us-against-all won't happen. She'll know I triggered the CPS request.

She's a great mother already, save for those situations when she's really, really mad at me. Which I guess means she really is not a great mother, but I hope you get what I mean. Our issue is not her parenting, but the dynamic between me and her, the fights it exposes our child to and the example it sets him, and also us parents being so exhausted from trying to maintain so unhealthy a relationship.

And regarding the statement that you've internalized her perspectives... you need to fix that.  You cannot let a disordered person create the reality you're living in, or you will just continue to go in circles with them, regardless of whether you stay or leave. 

Yeah, no worries. I'm aware and brought it up because I know it's a problem - I feel it helps to say these things aloud (or write them in a forum post).

[livednlearned]

She's a great mother already, save for those situations when she's really, really mad at me. Which I guess means she really is not a great mother, but I hope you get what I mean.

It's more important that you understand what you mean.

How she treats you while in a rage is part of parenting. She's modeling for your kids acceptable behavior toward a loved one. Because her illness is untreated and unchecked, she's creating an atmosphere of fear and emotional instability. Your kids will develop personalities in the shadow of that, studying you as well to see how to manage a volatile, difficult, and at times abusive personality. Should they be submissive? Is this love? Should they try to appease her? How will they manage their anxiety? Do they feel there's a point in telling others how they feel? Is this what it means to love and be loved?

Bill Eddy wrote a book called Don't Alienate the Kids: Raising Emotionally Resilient Kids When One Parent has BPD/NPD that can help broaden this perspective. The normal-range parent often gets overly focused on what the disordered parent is doing. The whole family tilts in that direction, trying to manage someone who, at times, is totally unmanageable, at least without that person agreeing to treatment and following through on it.  Eddy's book helps shift the focus back to what you can reasonably do as the normal-range parent. You can model flexible thinking, managed emotions, and moderate behaviors. That perspective can help you realize how closely your kids are studying you, and drafting off your emotional state whether you are aware or not.

Not surprisingly, my failure to manage a bully (who also had wonderful qualities, like your wife does) meant my son struggled to do this himself, not just with his father but with his peers. He seemed to end up in friendships with strong personalities who degraded him intermittently, just like his father. Only when I took steps to stabilize our family and shine light on what was happening did anything I say have an impact on my son, because it was (at last) modeled for him.

Our disordered spouses/ex-spouses allow their emotional instability to drive the family dynamic, and until we choose otherwise, we enable that instability. CPS, family law courts, and others insist on making emotional safety a priority, which is what's best for kids, even if insisting on that safety makes the disordered parent feel bad.

I don't know if it helps to see it that way -- it's tough when you're inside the dynamic trying to hold all the pieces together. There is often so much denial and maybe even delusion about how ill our partners really are, even when we know they're ill. I didn't just fall in love and marry a person with a mental illness, I found someone very mentally ill, and an addict on top of that.

It is not easy to recognize how normal we feel when to anyone else our situation is anything but normal  

[ForeverDad]

We have had CPS involved once before. That time they left us with agreement to go to couple's therapy (which my wife then declined a few months later when we were finally at the front of the queue to get an appointment).

So CPS will know she agreed to couple's therapy and she declined.  They ought be concerned about that.  Mostly about her but perhaps a little about you.  They may ask you why you didn't report her failure to follow through to them sooner.

She's a great mother already, save for those situations when she's really, really mad at me. Which I guess means she really is not a great mother, but I hope you get what I mean. Our issue is not her parenting, but the dynamic between me and her, the fights it exposes our child to and the example it sets him, and also us parents being so exhausted from trying to maintain so unhealthy a relationship.

If she is not relatively consistent in being a decent mother, then she is not a great mother.  Sorry, "usually" doesn't count.

Beware that you, in effect, defending her as "usually great" is sort of defending her.  You can't defend two different behaviors.  She is not two people, she is one person who can't be risked to continue behaving poorly.

And even if it is not directed usually at the children but at you, there are issues with that (1) the children are exposed to it and (2) at some point in the future her actions may worsen and she may directly rage at the  children.

In other words, she will know I was involved, whether I tell her or not. My choice is just between letting her know what's coming or just letting the CPS contact her out of the blue.

From my prior post concerning the typical and scary results from sharing TMI:

This is a time to relate the truth (to the authorities but not to the perpetrator!) and "let the chips fall where they may".  You are not required to sacrifice yourself.  Let each person own his or her own consequences.  In addition, if minor children are involved then ensuring the truth comes out is crucial.  Odds are that if you 'confess' to involving children's services, then the other parent will likely have no qualms trying to sabotage you and try to make you appear worse than her, as in retaliatory allegations.

[Versant]

How she treats you while in a rage is part of parenting. She's modeling for your kids acceptable behavior toward a loved one. Because her illness is untreated and unchecked, she's creating an atmosphere of fear and emotional instability. Your kids will develop personalities in the shadow of that, studying you as well to see how to manage a volatile, difficult, and at times abusive personality. Should they be submissive? Is this love? Should they try to appease her? How will they manage their anxiety? Do they feel there's a point in telling others how they feel? Is this what it means to love and be loved?

If she is not relatively consistent in being a decent mother, then she is not a great mother.  Sorry, "usually" doesn't count.

This is important and I understand that you want to stress it. Don't worry, though, I get it - hence

Which I guess means she really is not a great mother

Probably it didn't come across very clearly, especially since my phrasing separates her treatment of of other people (and the modeling of acceptable behavior that comes to) from other parts of parenting. But yeah, I know what you are saying.

[EyesUp]

Probably it didn't come across very clearly, especially since my phrasing separates her treatment of of other people (and the modeling of acceptable behavior that comes to) from other parts of parenting. But yeah, I know what you are saying.

FWIW, I've struggled with this, too.

My uBPDxw has generally directed anger and occasionally rage at me.  This has served her (first, surprisingly - later, obviously) well...  as our kids have learned to respond by seeing mom as a victim and adopting some protective/rescuer behaviors - without the ability to recognize that their response is at least partially motivated by fear - they don't want to be on the receiving end of the behaviors that they've witness and also occasionally experienced.

I was in the "she's a good mom" camp for a long time - out of an abundance of fairness as well as consideration for the kids - after all, kids benefit from a healthy relationship with both parents, and I certainly didn't want to expose them to adult dynamics that could in any way cause them stress or undue concern - about mom, or about themselves - but I've come to realize that it's just avoidance on my part, and mom has no such qualms about doing the same to me.

The thing that really sucks here is that sometimes doing the best thing for your kid is doing the lessor of the bad options.  It's taken me a while to see it.   Very, very carefully keeping your kid grounded in reality - to foster self-sufficiency and independent thinking and confidence - is so much better than allowing a disordered parent to induce trauma bonds, dependencies, loyalty conflicts, and other attachment behaviors that won't easily dissolve...

As parents, we can only do our best.  It might help to view this as a continuing process rather than as an all-or-nothing, every-moment-counts situation.  I do believe that slow and steady wins this race.

Parenting with a disordered partner / x-partner is one of the hardest things, as we don't have the luxury of going fully NC...  Hang in there!