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I’m just wondering if anyone has ever told their ex that they have BPD?  We are separated (since June) with 2 kids.  My hope is that he might seek help, but my fear is he will explode. 

Anyone tell a BPD that they think this is what they have successfully?  I kept hoping he would see a therapist and that they would tell him, but so far he refuses to go.

Hey there,

Generally speaking, the accepted wisdom is to not talk about a disorder - rarely will anything good come from that.

You might want to focus on trying to work on an established, relatively clear and simple way of communicating practical needs.  Depends on what you are hoping for and why.

Thoughts?

Rev

My pwBPD is getting stressed out at work with other interpersonal relationship issues [it's not only me], and was exhibiting a lot of conventional symptoms in addition to the high-functioning invisible and I tried to do this UNsuccessfully.  If he is a high-functioning invisible (doesn't exhibit the violence symptoms, don't even think about it).

List of conventional symptoms:

• suicide attempts
• physical violence [reported to authorities by T]* & projected violence
• uncontrolled rages
• [MIS]diagnosed with depression and anxiety and prescribed meds for it, which doesn't help and actually makes it worse

She is still in denial of uBPD, thinks she has anger management issues [true] but is in denial of the emotional aspects.  Most T's will not diagnose :(

* Domestic Violence by a female indicates a 50% chance of being diagnosed on this trait alone, 30% for men.

Unless you want to piss your ex off and make it much worse, don't do it.

I agree with others here.  No good will come from it and it could make things worse.  Even my Counselor said that they do not like using the label BPD as it carries with it a horrible stigma.  She told my xBPDw that she, (x), struggled with the  "regulation of her emotions".

All the Best

Take a read and look here: https://bpdfamily.com/content/how-to-get-borderline-into-therapy

I told my ex once that I thought she had BPD and she later told me that it scared the crap out of her. I knew that she had been furiously googling (search history on our home desktop). She later referred to it as her "sickness" or "I'm sick." Yet when I urged her to get help, she replied, "I feel like you're throwing my sickness in my face!"

Well, yes. I was frustrated while she still lived with me and our 1 and 3 year old kids while living a double life with her paramour which was thrown in my face daily. I knew that she was already officially Dx'd with Depression, and years later I found out Anxiety (no surprise).

What the others said is wise: it's not a good idea.

I remember once before her affair that I called her crazy, in a colloquial manner, and she responded angrily, "never call me crazy!"

Telling someone that they have BPD is basically calling someone who thinks that they are worthless and unlovable at their core that they are just that...  crazy. That's how they'll take it.  It reinforces their core lack of self worth. Combine that with emotional dysregulation, and it's not good.

From case studies and experience of my own I can concur with Turk here that calling someone whom you suspect has BPD crazy is one of the worst things you can do. If you actually care about the person calling them crazy can wound them deeply and forever change your relationship with them. Then there are those who actually may take the route of upping the ante and hurting you worse and punishing you by actually being crazy, doing crazy things, or just displaying crazy behavior on purpose to prove a point.

So to get to the point...do not tell someone you think they have BPD and do not call them crazy.

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-

Yup. Was not educated on the matter, thought I was doing them a favor.

She probably used it against me. When she was having her episodes and I would defend myself, she would go "you just think I'm being CRAZY don't you??"

I didn't find out my ex-wife was Borderline until after our divorce was finalized. However, I knew something was seriously wrong.  Our divorce and child custody proceedings were split, and the final custody hearing was not heard until about a year and a half until after the divorce was finalized. After the separation and before the divorce was heard, I was granted sole temporary custody by the court. At the time of the divorce, all I was aware of as far as what her disorders were was that she had eating disorders, a panic disorder, PTSD, OCD, severe depression, etc.

Before the final custody hearing, we had a court ordered forensic custody evaluation done by a board certified psychologist (Phd). The evaluation took several months, and my ex-wife, myself, and our child were evaluated by the psychologist. At the conclusion of the evaluation when the report was released, the psychologist listed all of the disorders that we already knew about, except there were two additions: Borderline Personality Disorder and a dissociative disorder. I received a relatively clean bill of health on my evaluation except for mild depression with mild anxiety, which the psychologist described as situational.

Anytime her BPD diagnosis was brought up by the attorneys, judge, or expert witnesses, she would get extremely angry and defensive. Prior to the evaluation, she gaslighted me as mentally ill as well as both of her parents and said we were the cause of most of her issues. During that time, she also labeled certain therapists, inpatient facility program directors, other family members (besides her parents), members of my family, friends, teachers, coaches as "abusive and neglectful." From the time our child was roughly 1-2 years old and up until she was about 6-7 years of age, my ex-wife claimed the child had mental and emotional issues and needed therapy. She stated this even though our child is a mostly A student and is happy and well adjusted. This greatly concerned the psychologist that did our custody evaluation and the court as well. The psychologist noted in his report that my ex had great difficulty separating her own needs from our child's needs, and he believed that my ex saw our child as an extension of herself. She thought that our child had many of the disorders that she has, and another Phd psychologist that was involved in the legal proceedings said it reminded her of Munchausen by proxy. She said it was her opinion that my ex was doing this to try and draw attention to herself through our child. It was really twisted.

I have great concerns being around someone that puts those types of allegations out there, especially being alone with them. Obviously, if we didn't have a child together, I would cut her out of my life completely. That's not an option though. Most of our conversation is over text or email with the occasional encounter when we exchange our child. It's too bad it has to be that way, but I still don't trust her to this day and prefer not to be alone around her. We've been divorced for 8 years. She has more visitation time with our child now, but fortunately I am still the primary residential parent with most of the important decision making regarding our child. For the sake of our child, I wish things could be normal. Unfortunately, they aren't. So, I try to make things as normal as possible for her.

Ok.  So, that’s a big NO from everyone.  It feels like I’m keeping this huge secret from him, but that’s what my fear was… that it would make things worse and that he would accuse me of trying to hurt him/ label him. 

We separated at the end of June.  We haven’t filed divorce papers yet and he is already online dating.  It’s this weird mixed feeling of happy that if he is seeing someone else, he won’t call me so much and feeling sorry for whoever he ends up with.  I know it’s ultimately on him as to whether he gets help, but it still feels like I’m setting someone else up to go through the same pain that I went through.

"The psychologist noted in his report that my ex had great difficulty separating her own needs from our child's needs, and he believed that my ex saw our child as an extension of herself. "


I can really relate to a lot of your post but the part about the child as an "extension of herself" hit home especially. With my ex, it was her dog. I loved that dog so much and it was mutual. During the break up my ex told me I emotionally neglected the dog and then related this to how I treated her. Then she still wanted me to take care of her dog when she was away. It was truly bizarre.

P.S. This is my first post. Apologies for any mistake. My breakup was fairly recent and devastating (she left me out of the blue, never saw it coming). Maybe at some point, I'll describe it as others have but I'm not there yet. Posts on this board have helped me feel less alone.

Just wanting to say "welcome" and no worries about an apology. You've come to a great place and everybody just sorta goes at the pace they need to go.

Rev

It is hard not to feel that. If it's any consolation, and part of what I am about to share is anectotal, i BPD is downward spiralling condition. What this means, it once a person with BPD hits a tipping point relationship where someone sees them for who they are, they don't tend to trade up. This means that, again anecdotally and in general, the "next person" will catch on faster that there is something wrong or the next person is also problematic, in which case you haven't "set up" that person any more than their ex "set up" your ex.

Make sense?

Rev

I can really indentify with your situation as well. My ex and her attorneys said that I was neglectful when I wouldn't put our daughter in therapy like my ex suggested. She even had her attorneys draft a motion with the court to try to force me to enroll our child in therapy.  I breathed a sigh of relief when our forensic evaluator said "There is nothing wrong with this child. She is developmentally on track, is happy, and is well adjusted." Fortunately, the judge took note of all of that. I must say, it is definitely bizarre how your ex is behaving that way with a pet.

Additionally, my ex said that I was a terrible and abusive husband and that she "was terrified to be alone with him (me)." Like I said above, she accused both of her parents of the same. When the court found no evidence of abuse by me, she dropped all of that nonsense and had no issues being alone around me. She did the same with her parents. She accused them of being verbally and physically abusive. It was in deposition transcripts. When we had our court hearing, she denied all of in regards to her parents, even though she stated it in depositions. The attorneys noted the differences in her testimony and questioned it. Her reply was, "They did not abuse me, they just didn't understand my needs." WTF?  :(  That's just another reason why I don't want to be alone around her.

I also understand about being left out of the blue. Long story short, I entered into a relationship with a woman I'd known for 18 years, but more as an aquaintance for those years. This happened 4 years after my divorce.  Like my ex-wife, she also most likely had BPD. I saw signs early on in the relationship, but I chose to ignore them. I take responsibility for that as well as my own codependency issues, so I played a role in all of that as well. We were together for close to two years. When I wouldn't commit to marriage, I was dropped like a bag of trash, and she was with a replacement (a guy that she had already recycled 2-3 times) a week later. More than likely, she had him lined up in advance. She proceeded to tell me that I "made her miserable" and that she was "sick of my indecisiveness and anxiety." There was no mention of her own mental illness of course even though she'd begged for professional help in the weeks prior to our split.

As I said, I can really identify with your current situation. I was in an emotional gutter for 6-9 months but was able to pull through it with the help of a good counselor and the help of everyone on this forum. I felt really alone before I found the forum.  You don't have to apologize here for anything. Feel free to get your feelings out, and we will do our best to help. It will get better in time. I promise you that.

My moral compass absolutely HATES secrets, so as delicately as I could, in no uncertain terms, informed my uBPDw [undiagnosed BPD wife] of my suspicions, I felt compelled to inform her especially since we have two children 11 & 16 together who have their own issues as a product of our increasingly extremely toxic marriage -- I wanted to shield them more than I already have.  There was a lot of benefit to this information as she knew something was really off with her rages; however, the uncontrolled rages have stopped [a big plus] for over a month now; however, so has any meaningful relationship discourse [a bigger minus] -- extreme silent treatment and divorce threats and has fallen out of love with me.  I do enjoy not having to worry about her exploding emotionally on me or the children; however, I do hurt knowing the way she thinks of me now.  She is growing emotionally as she can now recognize her anger and splitting triggers which have become a lot less severe and a lot less frequent; but, are still there.  I too am growing emotionally, and that is very hard for me too.  It is CHANGE, and CHANGE is scary.

With regards to your pwBPD's next relationship [victim] -- that is moral dilemma that I have pondered.  If it is a friend or an acquaintance, I would tactfully inform them once -- just to clear my conscience.  However, keep in mind how you felt about your partner when you first met them and they had you up on a pedestal -- it won't make a difference, as the feelings that they generate will more often than not negate your warning.  However, think of it as a 'seed', so when the next partner eventually sees things aren't right, they might, just might take it seriously and take appropriate action before bringing new life into the picture which complicates matters by several orders of magnitude making things worse for all those involved.


BigEasyHeart, Welcome to the club.  Read, vent, commiserate as much as you want.  It is comforting to know that we are NOT the only ones going through the psychological terrorism, and it is a terrible mind f**k; however, our pwBPD [person with BPD] are much worse off than we are, as nothing will ever fully satisfy their emotional needs.  With respects to taking care of the dog, there is likely a strong narcissistic component of entitlement to it and wants you to take care of it, even though she has accused you of neglecting it.

Thank you for that comment about the moral compass, Salty Dawg.  This has been my issue as well.  I guess I won’t say anything.  We have some peace at the moment since he is happy with his online dating efforts and has been a lot nicer.  It won’t last.  something always triggers him and somehow, its always my fault still, even though we are no longer together.  At least it no longer makes me angry.  Just sad. 

What's your living situation and divorce and custody status? It was easier for me, I think, hashing such things out while she was obsessed with her paramour. I did it while she was living with us. I also used the communication tools to reduce conflict.

Dealing with that, and a few years later when I moved my dBPD mother in with me and the kids were the two most difficult times I'd experienced in my adult life both logistically and emotionally.

Just want to thank people for their support. It means a lot. It's been almost 2 1/2 months for me since she left me out of the blue. I know that's not a long time but I'm still amazed at how deeply this hurts. How I can still break down crying about it all? I'm definitely better than I was at the beginning and I have a good therapist and friends and family support. But I feel like this is going to take a long time and sometimes I get tired of all the work it takes to rebuild myself.

I feel like a normal breakup is sort of like being in a really nice room with a comfortable bed and someone you love, and then that person leaves the room. It sucks. It hurts for sure. I've been through that. This experience is something different altogether. I feel like the person I loved left, layed all the blame at my feet, and slammed the door on the way out. Then I looked around and realized the whole room was gone. Then you look back and wonder if the room was ever there in the first place. I feel like my whole foundation has been ripped away. Forget about trusting another person right now. I wonder if I can ever trust myself again.

Thanks again for listening.

I feel like a normal breakup is sort of like being in a really nice room with a comfortable bed and someone you love, and then that person leaves the room. It sucks. It hurts for sure. I've been through that. This experience is something different altogether. I feel like the person I loved left, layed all the blame at my feet, and slammed the door on the way out. Then I looked around and realized the whole room was gone. Then you look back and wonder if the room was ever there in the first place. I feel like my whole foundation has been ripped away. Forget about trusting another person right now. I wonder if I can ever trust myself again.

Very relatable, that room analogy.

I think it has a lot to do with boundaries. Well, the lack there of. Just today I was thinking how much of me obsessing over my BPD ex after the breakup is just me on a subconscious level knowing she might come back to me and "at least" have sex with me. The chaos is real and nobody is a real person. You lose a big chunk of your personhood! The rules you've probably spent your life learning suddenly don't apply.

The girls and I moved out a few months ago.  I told my Ex that I wanted a divorce and that I wanted him to move out.  6 weeks later, he was still there with no plans on moving.  It was horrible.  So, I borrowed money from my parents and moved us out.  I’m so much happier now.  It’s weird to me how you get used to the constant tension and then when its gone… It’s an amazing feeling of peace.

Isn't it though? Same feeling for me.

It took me some time to find solace in the emptiness after my breakup. I just suddenly realized how tranquil the feeling was. An element of bleakness and grief mixed in, but tranquil at the core.

I really identify with the "tranquility" post breakup, yes there is grief and sadness, but I really appreciate the lost feelings of tranquility without the BPD involved in my daily activities.

And yes, I did tell her many times I felt she had BPD.  It's a mental disorder where she believes things that are not true, and then she acts on those false beliefs with anger, hate and retalation and it is destructive to her and everyone around her.  Her disorder is not her fault, but it is her responsbility.  And, unless she takes the consequences seriously and is accountable for her treatment and recovery of BPD, the relationship is over.

That's a succinct summation.

I did it. I received something like "is that the amount of your faith? Do you think you're a real Christian by accepting Jewish medicine?" And then in a moment of clarity he said "what if I actually have it? The person who loves me will accept me like this". Then I just gave up. I should have given up when he said "Jewish medicine".

That's Kanye West...

Oy vey.

Accepting of it is fine; however, he must also be held accountable for his actions for it as well -- just like being an alcoholic [similar pathologies], you can have an alcoholic problem, but you need to be held accountable for your actions if you do something bad.

I'm being a bit sardonic here [grimly sarcastic] with a brief history lesson of Abrahamic religions:  Jesus was crucified for being the 'king of the Jews' by some accounts.  Christianity is an offshoot of the Jewish religion.  The Bible, both old and new testament is full of Jewish Law especially when it comes to relationships (Corinthians comes to mind) which are identical to each other.  Both Christianity and Jewish religions worship the same God of Abraham as does the Muslim religion (the newest one of the bunch by ~600 years) is also an Abrahamic religion.  Your husband presented an illogical and irrational argument.

The problem with him is that he didn't want to be held accountable. From his perspective, accepting him meant enabling his mess, paranoia, accusations, control, him unleashing his internal mess on you with no compassion. If you didn't endure it, you were called unloving. In regards to his argument, he is like that, he has certain delusions and fixations and you won't convince him otherwise. It's a loss of energy and time.

Pearl it isn't so much that he didn't want to be held accountable it is more that he couldn't...the core shame, guilt, etc...too much weight to deal with. Doesn't make it ok of course, but in his mind he couldn't survive otherwise.

Also, just a general note directed at no one in particular...arguing with a disordered person is pointless because logic doesn't apply. All that will happen will be a circular argument and the whole point will be about the disordered person arguing just to be right just like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Cheers and best wishes!

-SC-

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Glad I found this post. It talks about something which I am wrestling with now.

Background: Married to uBPDw for over fifteen years, have 2 kids in elementary school. I set up a second home when I was forced out late last year. We patched up soon (she saw benefit in the setup, also the fact she caused it) and started living as couple in two home setup with children splitting time. A month back, she got triggered, started splitting and blew up badly. Three days later, we did the initial filing for divorce on her stubborn insistence. Our mediation is couple of months away.

As I was not expecting this sudden divorce pursuit (and I was planning to continue the two-home setup while staying married for foreseeable future), I am thinking (wishfully) if there is a way I could de-escalate the situation and put her on a path of recovery.

On my T's advice, I was drafting a letter for several months now on how trauma (she had childhood sexual abuse) affects people, how it has a long lasting effect decades later (without their awareness) and how therapy could help process the past trauma. I was explaining that the approach could be two pronged - 1) process trauma and making meaning out of the experience 2) handle immediate mental health issues like anxiety (which she acknowledges as an issue). My T reviewed the letter and said I had drafted it well without any blaming and in a very positive encouraging way. Before I could time and give it to her, she threw the divorce bomb.

I am thinking (wishfully) if I could give this letter to her and somehow it would make her seek help. She may not come to any substantial realization that her condition causes the marriage issues (and the divorce may still proceed). But I have a (wishful) hope that she might at least seek help, which will greatly help the kids (I had never spoken to her about how her childhood sexual abuse could have an impact on her, how she is a victim, how much she has weathered it to achieve so much in life and how processing it properly will help her. Until now, I had made only general suggestion that she seek help, which had very marginal effect of attending a session and stopping for years). It may work. Or very likely may make things worse.

I was trying to sell it "without any label", "giving a cause (trauma) that was outside her control", "reinforcing her acknowledged challenge (anxiety)" and "how it will help her most important pursuit now (finding a full time job)".

I already got advice in my post that this may likely not work. I agree with it, with the primary factor being she emotionally dysregulated more frequently now and her trust is likely at a very low point (I read TRUST is an important factor in making pwBPD seek therapy).

My question is about - packaging the disclosure in a more marketable (non-stigmatizing), more appealing way to pwBPD. Anyone has any experience here?

By disclosure, you mean introducing a treatment approach? 

I have experience, and it requires a boatload of work.  What I am about to share with you is the exception, not the norm.  

In essence using an American football analogy, you are in the 4th quarter, with 1 second left on the clock and are down by six points, from your own 10 yard line and are making a 'hail Mary' pass after the clock expired to the end zone to put the game into overtime with a tied score.  The chance of this succeeding in this play is very very small; however, there is a chance.  And if you make that play, it ain't over, you have just prolonged the game where you can still loose in overtime.

While my wife [undiagnosed BPD] has made multiple serious threats of divorce; however, she has not followed through on them [as of yet].  It took several months, and an accidental text message our daughter which described the symptoms which she was aware of [physical abuse, 6 suicide attempts, rages, etc.] and our daughter confronted her, she admitted to it, and our daughter thought she was a 'monster' -- in essence she it hit her version of 'bottom' and finally became partially 'self-aware', this was about 3 weeks ago -- there has been dramatic improvement on the symptoms that she is aware of; however, none on the ones that she isn't aware of.  The course of our relationship has changed, but, it is still in dangerous waters, and we need to navigate our relationship very intently until we are no longer in danger.  We each have individual therapists, we have a couple's therapist, and we also have a different family therapist [4 active] as our aids to navigation and we are moving slowly through an uncharted reef with muddy waters... and I am still in dangerous waters.  I will be posting a much longer version of this later on today, I will edit this post with the link, once I have made that post.