BPDFamily.com

Just wondering... .once you stopped fueling the drama in general and disengage, how long did it take for the BPD to stop trying to get a reaction?  What kinds of behaviors did you see in the meantime?

Once I stopped fueling the drama... .I don't feel that I fueled the drama. 

How long did I learn to manage my reactions? How long before I understand the nature of his mental illness? Not sure exactly what you mean here. 

Maybe fueling the drama sounds too actively engaged... .I think the better idea would be once you really disengaged and only communicated when absolutely necessary. 

Once I took a big step back - physically and emotionally - quit engaging her on anything except practical stuff and more-or-less quit communicating by any method except e-mail - it didn't take long at all.  Within a few months things were much better.

By the way, my kids bought into her objections at first - "I just think you're treating her badly - not talking to her on the phone anymore.  I mean when was the last time you even saw her or said anything nice to her?" - stuff like that.  Took several months or even a year for three of the four to see it was working;  the fourth is so enmeshed she seems to still see her mom as the victim and there's probably nothing I can do about that til she's ready to talk... .

interesting question... .I raised this in another thread as another poster stated that after they "quit engaging" the BPD on the other side finally backed off. I asked how long that took as we have been out of contact except through email for almost three years and it doesn't seem to matter.

We only respond to logistical questions, where, when for exchanges and such and the hate stuff goes unanswered by us EVERY TIME.

It's been two and a half years, I see no change. If anything she seems to have no other pastime but to try to find ways to make our lives miserable. Since basically ignoring her email tantrums she has begun bullying me personally online. She has posted disgusting lies about me on websites that want to charge me to remove the posts, they include my full name, my children and my place of employment. They are anonymous so we can't prove it's her, but it's clear by the verbiage and same misspellings that it's her.

I wish I could do something to get her to move on. I was a very happy person with a fulling life and career before I inherited her through my current relationship. But her campaign against me has soured me in ways I struggle to recover from daily.

Disengage? I'd settle for a week off once in a while to regain a grip on my life again.

My ex left in 2007. I learned how to really detach in early 2009. Ex went through phases of quiet and then chaos (extinction bursts) since that time. The quiet phases have gotten longer and the chaos has gotten shorter in duration but it still occurs.

I used to get 30 to 40 emails a month. The majority had nothing to do with the kids. Usually less then five pertained to the kids. Today I get about 10 emails a month and less then five pertain to the kids. The last two months I have received no emails from ex at all. That is a record.

I send less then five emails a month about the kids. It probably is two or three.

Good question! I'm going to check up on this one for sure. Divorced nearly 2 years ago. We each send on average 5-7 emails pertaining to the kids. It's the followup conversations that drive me nuts. Her style of parenting is totally opposite to mine. She is also against the Special needs intervention and therapy for our kids. It's gotten so out of hand that she is calling me crazy (thrown in Munchhausen Syndrome). She does all of this despite irrefutable evaluations from doctors, various professionals, and school staff. I'm to the point of losing all hope she will ever be "normal." Things have actually quiet down a bit, but only because I'm pushing for a custody modification. Nevertheless, she still has done some crazy stuff like asking for the kids to be removed from Special Ed when it is clear they have benefited from it. Then the other day she texts asking when is open house. WTH? She says I am a terrible parent, yet she can't go to the school webpage and get the info herself. Sigh, I sent her the stuff and didn't feed to her non-sense.

Trying2coparent, I could have written that about my exH.

I am still trying to learn to disengage.  Problem is, I'm afraid he will turn around any attempt I make to set a boundary.  I ignore him, so then next time he has the kids, he ignores me.

I am going to start therapy largely to learn how not to overengage him.