BPDFamily.com

People with BPD (pwBPD) are known to overreact to triggers or what they feel are traumas.  When they're in that Zone you can't reason with them, they're not listening or refusing to listen.

BPD is an emotion-driven disorder where the closer the relationship, the more intense and more evident the disorder.  Part of that might be the person feels you're locked into the relationship now and so they can act out in private (or within the family) scenarios and you're relatively powerless as Fix-It Spouse do do anything about it.  Part too is that they can't/won't see past the huge amount of emotional baggage of the close relationship and therefore you get obstruction rather than cooperation.

BPD has often been called the Blaming Disorder.  Also, Blame Shifting, nothing too horrendous or shocking or illogical to allege.

When a partner is determined not to work with you consistently, nothing works, at least not for long.  She is what she is, she does or doesn't do whatever she does or doesn't do.  Once you can wrap your head around that level of twisted illogic, even obstinacy, the only alternative is to determine what you will do to change yourself, your tactics, your strategy.

Look at our Book Reviews and Article Reviews boards, we have a number of resources there:

• Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder - William A. Eddy & Randi Kreger (a must-have handbook!)



• Stop Walking on Eggshells - Randi Kreger (she has a newer book now)



• Richard Warshak's Divorce Poison (how to help children handle the divorce and alienation attempts)



• Dr Craig Childress (advocating a better way to address parental alienation with the mental health community)



• DrJoeCarver.com (various articles about Users, Losers and Abusers - note that this clinical psychologist writes to the reader, sticks to the behaviors and does not use diagnostic labels)

Most divorces described here are a year at a minimum, often about two years especially with children (mine was 23.5 months) and some even longer.  You have to accept that you can't deal with someone who refuses to negotiate and who always demands more.  You can't.  Once you accept that, then you can see that you have to muddle through all the court's required steps as quickly as you can until you can get before the Real Authority - court.

Most divorces, including many of ours, end with a settlement.  It's just that our divorces take a lot longer until we can get the ex's entitlement reigned in a little at court.  So the key is to get to Court with as little delay as possible.  Yes, court may require mediation and settlement conferences, we will of course work with that but the difference is that we don't dawdle in those stages because the odds are so low to get realistic offers.  Odds are, the judge's decision, as much as they rattle their paper sabers and threaten that any court decision will make both parties unhappy, is probably going to be better than anything you can squeeze from the obstructive spouse.

So you need to decide what your boundaries are and whether you can sustain them in the divorce process.  As I wrote above, Odds are, the judge's decision is probably going to be better than anything you can squeeze from an obstructive spouse who has blacklisted you.


She has to control or else feel controlled.  She has to win or else feel the loser.

Court won't care in most cases whether she has a mental illness diagnostic label or not.  Court won't try to change either one of you, it generally deals with you both as you are.  Court goes by the behaviors and behavior patterns.  Mostly the counselors and evaluators do too.  You would do well to focus on the behaviors and patterns with them.  Yes, they do have some PD (or co-morbid with traits of multiple PDs) but it's not the blazing insight that we wish it would be for court.

Also, court pays more attention to parenting behaviors than adult behaviors.  (For example, her ranting/raging/hitting you won't do much for custody, but documenting her ranting/raging/hitting at the children will.)  Yes, document it all, but give priority to how the children are impacted.  The good with you, the bad with ex.

There's the phrase I hear from time to time "the only thing worse than marrying a Borderline - is divorcing a Borderline."

Nevertheless, we are stuck with choices that lead to outcomes we don't like either, but, we have one life to live.  I am adopting the mantra that I can help raise my kids to be Abusers, Victims, or Resilient Survivors.  I can influence that.  So I will try.