First of all- condolences to you on your loss.

I can relate to your feelings about other people making statements like this. When people offerred their condolensces after my BPD mother passed away, and made statements like this, it felt odd. It helps to keep in mind that they are trying to be supportive, from their own point of view.

There is grief, but it's complicated.

The way I managed this was according to my own values- not wanting to speak poorly of her.. If people thought positively about BPD mother- then let them have their thoughts. I would just say "thank you". When your step father says these things, you don't want to falsely confirm them- or refute what he's thinking. Sometimes you don't need to say anything about your mother. One tool mentioned on this board is to validate the feeling, not what is false. When he says "you have lost the best mother" -you can say "I know you miss her"- turning the topic back to his feelings.

Your step father is going to have his own ideas about her. He was married to your BPD mother for 30 years. To have done this, he also had to have a part in the dynamics. It feels strange to hear this but keep in mind- he was in a romantic relationship with your mother for 30 years and perhaps, he had to believe this or be in denial as a part of it.

Consider boundaries. It is possible you have been the emotional caretaker for your BPD mother. I think it's fine to have empathy for and be supportive to your step father. He's grieving. His thoughts are all over the place. However, his thoughts and feelings are his own. You aren't responsible for them. I think that once a week is a good idea- it's contact and support but you aren't hearing this frequently. You also are not responsible to help him get adjusted. I think the best approach is to just listen, don't make suggestions to fix or soothe his feelings. However, keep in mind, if his moods continue, or he seems depressed, he may need professional help and even medication for a while to help him get through this and you can suggest it if you feel her needs it. Hopefully he would be open to the idea.

Self care for you is important. Seek out support that can be of support to you. For me, this meant counseling and I recommend that anyone in a situation similar to this does this. Recognize that extended family, even if they are well meaning- they too are part of the dynamics. In counseling- you can talk about the relationship with your mother, and family freely. You can speak your truth and be heard, and a counselor can help you to process this.

I don't have any advice but a lot resonates with me, it's sad seeing similar patterns play out for someone else.  Accountability is what I've been looking for but it seems an impossible task for my pwBPD.  He's started therapy recently and he did say interesting thing that came out of it was he felt blamed a lot as a child.  Subsequently he now can't seem to take blame well or (as you said) will take the majority of the blame as long as I'm held responsible for some too, and that says "everything wrong in the relationship must be his fault" - with the tone being -he's the poor blamed victim.

I've probably not been any help but I hear you and it's hard

I'd be grateful for some advice on how to communicate with family members during grief. My UBPD mother passed away just a month ago.  I won't go into all the ways my mother was domineering, empathetic, cruel, supportive, critical, organized and irrational.  We've all been there. 

Today I'm struggling on how to talk about grief and how her death has affected me with family members, particularly my stepfather. I didn't grow up with my stepfather (I was an adult when he married my mom), but they were married for 30 years.  We were never really close - my mother had to be at the center of every interaction or would get furious - but he and I both are trying to work on that now. 

We have a phone call once a week and check in on each other.  He talks a lot about the work he's doing on grief, going to meetings, reading books, volunteering at the hospice, etc., which I'm very proud of him for.  He's struggling so much, trying to figure out a life without his partner.  What is hard is when he says to me, "But I imagine it's so hard for you, too, since you've lost the best mother anyone could ask for."   Well, considering that he was present for some EPIC blowouts with my mom, I'm left speechless that he could have this rosy, golden view of our relationship. 

The man is barely holding on at the moment, not getting any sleep, and having to deal with massive amounts of red tape, all while facing a life without any relationships except a stepdaughter and two adult stepchildren (he cut off all contact with his own family because my mom asked him to and she rejected any overtures of friendships).  I don't want to blast him with my version of our relationship, but I also don't want to start building this relationship on a dishonest, unhealthy foundation.  I'm finally free of walking on eggshells, there's no way I'm going to start that up again!  Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi everyone, this is my second post, and after reading some of your stories, I'd like to tell you mine, it's going to be a bit long...sorry!

I'm a 35-year-old "guy" with a high-profile job that requires a lot of responsibility (for real). I come from a wonderful family. My parents love each other, there was never any abuse or betrayal, and everything I know about love I learned from them...

I'm in a relationship with a beautiful 25-year-old woman who has a great job at a large company. She comes from an extremely toxic and dysfunctional family, which she identifies as the root cause of her "problems."
Our relationship is trapped in a cycle of "you're the love of my life" followed by "you're the worst person I've ever met."
This cycle has been going on for two years now.

I've seen every red flag since we started dating, but I chose to stay against the advice of my friends who said, "Why don't you run away? You could have anyone, more stable person!"  My mind often agrees with them, my whole body tells me she's the right woman for me.

I've been in therapy since before I met her (my job requires a lot of stability and I decided to seek support five years ago), and she started therapy a year and a half ago to talk about problems with her family, not because of problems with me. Up until then, everything was fine, but then the crises began.
According to her therapist, "I wasn't good for her; not all people are compatible; she should try to repair her relationship with her father," and so she began to reconnect with her family. She became extremely suspicious of me, started checking out women on my social media, and would start arguments based on jealousy strictly arguing she wasn't jealous at all.
She often broke up with me, only to regret it and come back within 12-24 hours. 
After one of these discussions I was completely confused, nothing seemed to make any logical sense, everything seemed the opposite of how I've always lived my life and I ridiculously decided to copy our messages, about 200, and paste them into to Google Gemini with the message "help me understand what's going on?" .. it seems stupid but it was Gemini who told me for the first time about BPD, DBT, splitting and so on.  So I changed my approach, I read 6 books that talked about BPD, I started putting the suggestions into practice and some of them worked sporadically and I also started investigating what she was doing in therapy and I discovered that she was doing EMDR and that the only diagnosis she had was an "anxiety disorder"... I expressed my doubts to my therapist who confirmed that "maybe an anxiety disorder treated with EMDR sounded unusual" without ever talking to me about BPD... so I decided to ask my girlfriend if she wanted to start couples therapy where I made sure the therapist was specialized in BPD.
In the six months of couples therapy, she felt better in the hours following the therapy, she left the room happy, she felt understood, she was enthusiastic but after a few weeks (usually 3) there were some nasty arguments... in the end she decided to end both her individual therapy and couples therapy... officially because it was too expensive (as a old school man, i was paying for the couples therapy) but this decision strangely came after a disappointment at work for which she blamed me partly.

During the last session with the couples therapist, where I was alone, I asked the doctor to be more clear with me because I was convinced my girlfriend had borderline personality disorder. The doctor said that in the six months of therapy she hadn't been able to give a specific diagnosis, but that she also believed that the individual therapy my girlfriend had undergone hadn't been adequate, because she had very strong traits of borderline personality disorder, with ADHD and OCD traits. A psychiatric evaluation, perhaps with pharmacological help, would have been very helpful. She also told me that, given her family history, she was actually lucky: she had never harmed herself, and she didn't have extreme sexual behaviors or substance abuse, but she did have severe emotional dysregulation.

Officially, BPD has never been diagnosed...if it makes any difference

Over the next 4 weeks, we went on vacation and spent quality time together. We started planning to look for a house to rent together, and everything was going well. One day, while we were looking at a house we had our heart set on, we realized it wasn't what we expected, and we were disappointed.
That same day, she was diagnosed with some health issues that required testing, and this was causing her a lot of stress.
That same evening, she grabbed my phone and started scrolling through conversations, opening every chat that had a photo of a woman (sometimes it was colleagues telling me they'd be late for work or asking me work informations, sometimes women I didn't respond to, other times it was my cousin). She ended up with an 8-month-old conversation where I was venting to a woman about "why I'd been dumped even though I'd never cheated on anyone."...in those days I had been dumped and I needed to talk to someone in my same situation. This message sparked the argument.  I was called "half a man, disgusting, a traitor, the worst being in the world" and she threatened me to leave.
Ufortunately I lost control, my body collapsed, I had a panic attack, I punched the car door few times, I pulled my hair, I cried desperately....and in the end I screamed at her with all my lungs to get out of my car and disappear from my life.

I'm really ashamed of this, I'd never lost control like this and I was afraid of hurting myself, maybe hitting a glass or something not because I wanted to... I didn't know who I was anymore. I was desperate... my individual therapist told me a few months ago that I was exhibiting signs of C-PTSD (I slept poorly, I deleted myself from all social media, I quit the gym, I almost never saw my friends and I was often dissatisfied with my life). When I had the emotional breakdown, she changed her attitude, she tried to be there for me but all I wanted was for her to disappear from my life.
I kept telling her like a broken record, "I want to go home, please go away" and so after an hour she eventually got out of the car...

She sent me several messages telling me she apologized for dragging me into her abyss, that she would do anything to restart the relationship, she would resume therapy and that she didn't mean all the things she said.  I haven't replied to any messages, and now after 3 days I feel lost... really... and saying these words is tearing me apart. I don't know what to do.

Sorry if this story is so long... but it's the first time I've written down everything that happened...

 I need to talk.

However you decide to handle the separation or possible divorce, and whether he is self-sabotaging, worrying, triggering himself or whatever, I would suggest you make any visitation as reduced-stressful as possible.  As previously commented, maybe a schedule might not always work since his mental state doesn't run on a schedule.  Perhaps having planned visits leaves too much time for expecting that next date to find him in a good place mentally.  Playing it by ear, watching for one of his good (or less bad) days and having brief visits might be a strategy that works for him.  Courts generally don't favor such flexible (vague) visitation arrangements but he might be willing to join you in settling on such terms.

On a pragmatic note, he's been in therapy for a few years and there might not be much improvement for even more years.  Sort of, reality.  You might not want to lock him into overnights or entire weekends since that might be more than he can handle.

And of course the children shouldn't be stuck in the middle on his bad days.

We've been together for almost 3-4 years now and we are both young adults. We did have an instance where we did break up a year in because I got really overwhelmed with personal stress with school, but we did end up rekindling and we got back together and it's very well ever since. We are long distance but we see each other every few months when possible.

There are other instances where they isolate themselves over a conflict we have and I tend to give them space and we talk it out. I also do research abt BPD in my spare time and we practice DBT skills a lot.

We've had some conflicts like minor misunderstandings, but we were able to set successful boundaries over that. Sometimes they isolate because of a conflict we have and I tend to give them space and eventually we talk it out after a couple of hours, but they did get better at opening up to me little by little about what bothered them/me or what made them/me upset.

We haven't had conflicts as of recent within the last few months, it's not a common occurrence for us, but I would say of recent there have been some of conflicts outside of our relationship like friendship conflict or family conflicts on their end. Majority of the time it's their friends ignoring the fact my partner has BPD. My partner has been open to me several times about how I've been the only one who's put in a genuine effort into learning about their BPD besides the professionals they've been to. Even people they've known since childhood don't bother to look into it either. What really is a pain for them is the attachment they have for those people. The attachment stems to trauma back from childhood.

This is the first time that they have been isolated from me for this amount of time. They also have a disorganized attachment style alongside this as well so that might play a big factor into this as well. I've been in contact with a family member of theirs and she's been aiding my partner to getting better treatment and more therapy.

Hello and welcome to the family.  I'm so sorry you're in this position and please know that many of us have been right there with you.  It's so incredibly hard for everyone involved.

For your current situation, it does sound like splitting (or just disordered thinking in general) and it's a hallmark of BPD.  When those dark thoughts creep in, everything feels like doom and gloom without any path forward. 

It sounds like your partner sees this pattern clearly and is talking it out with you...that's a very good thing.  Continue talking, if possible, and keep the dialogue about their (and your) feelings.  Don't focus on the relationship at the moment because that may feel like a burden, a weight to carry when things are already heavy.  A break is fine if that's what they need.

How long have the two of you been together?  Is this the first time you've faced something like this in the relationship?  Talk that out a little bit so we can have more insight on the relationship dynamic.

Also, if feels like the two of you are younger...is that correct?  Sometimes BPD is more intense for those who are still maturing.

I'm sorry that you're still in the exact same place as earlier...I remember us having this conversation over a year ago and I don't have anything additional to add.  I will remind you though that you're a legal parent and have every right to do with the kids as you please.  Her saying, "You can't do that under any circumstances," are just words.  You are choosing to abide by those words to appease her.

She has an 11 day trip opportunity- tell her to go and have fun.  Go visit your mom with the kids during that time.  It's a win-win.

There's two paths here. 

1)  Tell her to take the almost free vacation, and take the kids to see mom without telling her.  Then talk to her about it once she returns.

2)  Tell her the kids are visiting your mom for the week, so she might as well take the almost free vacation.  Now you're fighting before the trip instead of after.

In either situation though, the key is standing your ground and making it very clear that she does not get to dictate some things in life.  If she doesn't want to see your mom, fine.  But you have every right to and so do the kids.  Why let her dictate that kind of rule in the first place?  If anything, it only hurts her mental illness condition since she's emboldened to make more ridiculous demands.

Stand your ground!  This is worth an argument over and potentially a separation.  I know you don't want that, but you should want your opinion heard and respected over something this serious.  If you did separate and got split custody, you'd be with your mom and the kids at least half the time.  Ask your partner if that's what she wants while you sort this out...it may help her to see reason.

There's definitely an addiction there and it does take a while for our minds to sort of reset.  I'm glad you're in a better place now though and your mind can start to heal.  Hopefully the kids adapt quickly as well!