BPDFamily.com

I have been lurking on this forum for a few months now.  I was with my ex-gf for about 5 years, at several points we lived together, but the last 2 years she had moved back with her parents and took our son, (now 4).  When she left the apartment, there was no explanation, she just left and didn't come back until it was time to move out.

Anyway, I am recently out of a very dysfunctional relationship of about 5 years.  I broke up with her about 5 months ago, and have been obsessing over the loss since Christmas Eve.  The reason it took so long to start with the obsession and regret is that from about a week after the breakup, we still hung out all the time, did things as a family, like trips to the mall, trips to playland, that sort of stuff.  In mid-November those things stopped, she was always busy or otherwise couldn't go.  December rolled around, and her mother matter-of-factly declared they were going out of town for Christmas.  No consultation with me, no asking, just stating of fact.  I let it go, but I was hurt, and I figured I would take him out of town when they got back. 

Christmas Eve, I went to her folks place to say goodbye to my son, this was the first Christmas he would be away from his dad, and I was taking it pretty hard.  Well after I had been at the house a while, he pulls out a new toy I'd never seen before.  i asked him where he got it, and he replied, "Rob."  I said, "Who's Rob?"  Almost instantly her dad came in from the back yard and asked her mom for help.  They went out back, and my ex went upstairs to pack.  Our son followed his mom, leaving me alone in the living room.  I got bored and opened up Facebook on my phone, and there it was, "YOUR EX GIRLFRIEND HAS BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH A GUY YOU THOUGHT OF AS A FRIEND SINCE DECEMBER FIRST"

I couldn't breathe, I could barely move.  I got myself upstairs and said goodbye to my boy, choking back tears the whole time.  I bee-lined for the door to get myself out of there before I totally lost it.  She followed me to the door, just to make sure I was hurt.  I've never felt so betrayed in my life.  I can't believe someone that said she loved me would be capable of doing that to me. 

As time has continued on, I notice a big change in the way my son acts.  He seems angry, and frustrated a lot.  Cries at the drop of a hat.  I realize he is 4, so some of this can be expected, but he was never like that before.  I tried to bring up the attitude change to his mother, but was met with animosity, and accusations of filling his head with, "nonsense."  He is 4 years old, still not potty trained, and has to co-sleep with his mom, or gramma just to get some rest. 

I did a bunch of reading on why my ex would do this, and stumbled upon some info on BPD.  I read an article on how a typical BPD relationship progresses, and it was like I was reading the script to the play, which I was the leading man in without even knowing.  I have done much research on BPD and its sypmtoms, and feel like my ex fits many of the traits of the borderline waif.  I'm no psychologist, and I don't pretend to be an expert, but the similarities to the behaviours of a BPD and what I saw first hand over the last 5 years are more than coincidental.

After thinking about the family dynamic of her immediate family members and the extended family that I met, I feel my ex's grandmother is a typical queen, her mom is as well, her aunt is a waif, as is she.  The ex's mom has a serious perscription drug problem, and is unfrotunately the primary care-giver to my son when the ex is at work.  This worries me a great deal.  I worry about my son every day, and wish I had the means to fight for custody, but right now I am barely making ends meet.

Last week my son was at her new boyfriends house and was bitten on the nose by a dog.  I wasn't informed of this until I saw my boy and had to ask him what had happened.  That day I also learned of a trip out of town again, without asking or even letting me know until the last minute.  I feel like I am being pushed out of my son's life, and it is killing me inside.  I cry almost every day, I haven't slept in months, I've lost 40 pounds since Christmas, and I feel like I'm at the end of my rope.

I am currently seeing a therapist, but I wonder if my issues go deeper than what a therapist can really help with.  I'm not sure if I am codependant, or if I have some BPD issues as well.  I have taken online self tests, but since I know what they are looking for, I'm not entirely sure that I'm not just tricking the test.  I know, I'm messed up. 

What should I do? 

Hi PD76,

Wow. Thanks for telling your story and letting us know what's been going on. I'm so sorry you're going through this, it's a lot of heartache and pain rolled into more heartache and pain. You've come to the right place -- there is a lot of support and collective wisdom here, from people who understand what you're going through.

BPD does have a tendency to have a family legacy, and it sounds like your ex's family is no exception. Part of it is also that they do not have skills to create a validating environment and yet crave validation, usually by demanding it from others around them including very young kids. This is probably the most important communication skill you can start learning right away and try it with your son. Very likely he spends time with his mom and grandmother and is not validated for how he feels. This makes it hard for him to know how he feels, so he deals with them in ways that put him at risk for other problems, both behavioral and emotional.

My son is now 14 and he was 4 when I started to notice odd behaviors -- you are fortunate to be noticing things when he is this young.

How much time do you spend with him? Are you in a financial position to be eligible for legal aid? You can post questions on the Family Law board if you want that kind of help, too.

We also have Lessons 5 and 6 to the right of this board, both about raising an emotionally resilient child, and about parental alienation, which tends to go along with kids who have a BPD parent. I highly recommend the stuff on validation, especially the validating questions. It has gone a long way in helping me turn my son around from some pretty worrying behaviors that track back as early as 4. He seems to have a sensitive genotype like his dad, so I characterized him as being particularly at risk. He still has a ways to go, but empathy, validation, and therapy has gone a long way, including for me so I could learn skills to model for him (having come from a dysfunctional home myself).

Hang in there, and even though it's hard, do take time to care for yourself. Your son needs a healthy dad to help him weather the storms.



LnL