BPDFamily.com

Hi y'all.

I have an ex-wife with (probable) BPD who is making life very difficult. She has never been officially diagnosed, as far as I know. I first learned about BPD when our family GP pulled me aside and warned me in private that she showed all of the classic symptoms.

During our ~10 year marriage, she was abusive and controlling. Since we separated 18 months ago, she has continually tried to separate me from our two children.

She has constantly shocked me with new lows she is willing to stoop to. She has lied to the police about me and is trying to get a restraining order out against me to prevent me from speaking to my children. She has tried to discredit me with friends and family, and she has stolen money from my son's bank account.

Right now, we are locked in a legal battle over her restraining order application. So far it looks like I am about to win and have the restraining order thrown out of court - but I don't know what other attacks she has coming down the pipeline.

I'm exhausted, I'm over it, but the battles are never-ending. I just joined up looking for some others going through similar hardships for some moral support.

Greetings! Sorry we had to meet due to the difficult circumstances.  It is what it is.

It is best to be proactive when defending yourself.  Being an appeaser and acquiescing to demands does not work long term.  The person with BPD (pwBPD) will generally see kindness, niceness, fairness, etc as weak boundaries to be challenged and overcome.  So do not feel bad for choosing to set firm boundaries for better behavior.  (Boundaries by Henry Cloud.)  She may never respect them, seeing how she surely views herself as The Authority.  Fact is, however, family court is The Real Authority, even if it prefers to sit back and hope the parents work it out.  A truism I have repeated is, Court will almost always be "less unfair" than your Ex.  And court sometimes almost has to be led by the hand to realize how oppositional and obstructive your Ex is.  Courts and lawyers assume all the complaints will fade over time once the initial separation fades into the past.  That's mostly true for reasonably normal parents but not with our cases, sadly.

Most of our experiences in family court were similar, that a diagnosis was not easy to obtain.  If ther was already a diagnosis such as past rehab or hospital evaluations, that might be helpful, but court and the professional around the court were more interested in the behaviors and behavior patterns.  No so much about the poor adult behaviors (such as against you) but more so regarding the parenting behaviors (how the children were impacted).  Keep that in mind when developing strategies with your lawyer on presenting your case.

William Eddy & Randi Kreger have an excellent handbook - SPLITTING - for the legal struggles.  It has a longer title but their names and that word will pop it up in searches.
www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Yeah. Sorry it's so hard - try writing down (logging) your interactions with your children and your ex for your own sanity and if things are continually nasty in court. Avoid the phone and use email. The truth will come to light in time, maybe not immediately.   

This is exactly what I needed to hear right now. Thank you. Going into court and fighting for my right to see my children is the most terrifying experience of my life, but you're absolutely right. No matter how things work out with the courts, it will be less unfair than what my ex is trying to pull on me.

Also thanks for the book recommendations; I'll check them out.


This is one thing I've been doing since the start, and I am so glad I have been. In my state, it's legal to secretly record conversations you are involved in, and I have been. Both for my own sanity, and for my protection. The recordings have extremely limited use in legal situations, but they can be used to protect me against specific false allegations.

Thanks for the support. This has been a really hard journey, and it's amazing to hear from others going through (or who have been through) similar experiences.