BPDFamily.com

Wondering if any of you can share your research findings or experience whether you believe a BPD has a higher propensity to be a stay at home parent?

I'm trying to be gender neutral here, but I'm seeing a common thread in posts here and elsewhere where the Non Partner is married to or divorcing a stay at home partner with BPD. Wonder if this is in line with their need to have unconditional love that will never abandon them (from their child or baby) and the difficulty in working at a job?

My BPDw is a stay at home mom.  I think you have a valid point in that the unconditional love is their oasis.  Until the kids get to be teenagers, that is - and start exerting the need for individuality and a distinctly separate self (registers as rejection and abandonment).  I'm seeing boundary issues everywhere with wife and the way she interacts with our teens now.  She also takes every opportunity to demonize her stepson despite the fact the kid isn't mean at all and would help anyone who was in trouble - and he's really a quite respectful and good kid.  The problem is he doesn't agree with her overcontrolling ways and completely disproportionate responses and I don't either, so she ALSO splits ME black and sees me as "siding" with him when all I'm doing is NOT siding with crazy.  No compromise available.  Very ugly situation.  She's tried ultimatums (he goes or I go) and I simply refuse to play along.  I'm not sure if it's a control thing or a "prove how much you love me" thing.  Either way I'm not going there, it's utterly absurd over the menial and stupid things (mostly things she concludes he's thinking as a result of her "feelings" she cites.  She now claims that his sneaky (teenager) behavior and lack of openness (teenage again) TRIGGER her because it reminds her of her sexual-abusing father.  I think this is utter bull crap, since he's never hurt ANYONE and always comes to the rescue of any woman in potential distress.

Interesting. Thanks!

My exgf would not think of being a stay at home wife.  She feared engulfment too much.  She told me she would never not have a job because she did not want to be dependent on anyone.

Mine did... very much so. Why? They try to limit chaos in their life. Stay home... shop from home. At least that is my experience.

@cron65 - That seems unusual to me. I thought the desire for mother/father figure and dependence was a key trait of the disorder?

@upsidedown_world - HA! That's exactly what is happening here. She does really well with them when they are little but once they reach around 10-11 I think that surpasses her emotional abilities of parenting effectively so she defaults to being their friend or their peer, which is weird but pretty accurate when you consider emotional growth in BPDs was stopped in childhood and didn't fully mature.

... . sorry last was meant for @walfed, not @cron65. Haven't yet figured out how to edit posts after submission.

She was high functioning (working on her Masters degree) and I believe she knew she was not capable of being in a sustained long term relationship. She had more overt engulfment issues during the relationship. Her abandonment issues were typically very acute. She would start a fight (very subtle) and when I told her to get f@cked she would panic and plead. She was married before our relationship and lived at home instead of with her husband. She had strong waif and hermit traits.