100% agree with that sentiment.  I think that pwBPD have an extremely negative mindset generally.  That's why they are prone to feeling slighted, let down, disparaged, criticized, ignored, rejected, excluded, etc. when nothing of the sort was ever intended.  Alternatively, if someone did actually criticize, ignore or reject him, he tends to have a disproportionate response, as well as take things out of context and way too personally.  I think that once he calms down, he'll probably regret his reactions, but his negative thinking patterns will take over once again.  He'll see no way past his mistake.  Instead of contextualizing, apologizing, making up for his behavior or moving forward, he'll flip the script.  He tends to re-write history, twisting the story or omitting essential elements to make someone else out to be the bad guy, whereas he's always the victim.  That way he converts his initial shame into anger and grievances over how he feels he's treated.  Meanwhile, this negative thinking pattern distracts him from what he should really be focusing on:  getting his license, moving forward and making an adult's life for himself.  His negative ruminations can literally prevent him from concentrating and getting stuff done.  Does that ring true?

I understand why you might try to prevent a negative dialogue with your son by asking to have a therapist present, a sort of referee.  Now, I'm not an expert, just a peer.  Sometimes on these boards people will advise to try family therapy.  I actually think family therapy can help in the right circumstances.  But my sense is that in many cases, it becomes a rage fest.  In other words, if your son seems obsessed right now with his theory about being irreparably harmed in childhood, and he wants to punish you for being a terrible parent, my sense is that he has no intention of healing and moving forward, let alone improving communication with you.  My guess is that he wants to take you down right along with him.  I saw that sort of thinking with my adult BPD stepdaughter.  My opinion is that the more and more she dredged up ancient grievances from childhood, the more and more her stories became distorted.  In addition, I felt that the exercise of talking about it at length only carved the negative thinking rut deeper and deeper in her brain.  Eventually, her go-to excuse for trouble at work or difficulty on a college exam was a bad childhood, because she ruminated about it so much that it was ever-present in her thinking.  Any time she felt a little stress and BAM!, a negative childhood memory would bubble to the surface, enabling her to blame her parents or siblings for causing all her troubles in her current life.  She had this idea that she wanted to air out these grievances and to "punish" the offending family members, thinking that would make her feel better.  I felt that would only backfire, because (i) she can't change her childhood, (ii) it would keep her stuck in the distant past and (iii) it had nothing to do with her difficulties adulting or her overly negative outlook.

Hope that perspective helps a little.

Many thanks. It is a professional license; unless he passes, his professional career and financial independence will not begin in earnest.  He'll be on his third try in a few months. I appreciated your insight on personal DBT therapy first, before family therapy. When I am facing the rageful communications prosecuting me for my failures, I say, let's meet with your therapist or my therapist instead of you being the jury and uttering haunting words in writing to the parent. I will tear you apart is his general response. Yes, it makes sense that I take back my suggestion. When he is not in that aroused state, it feels like a great opportunity to meet and clarify, but I see joint therapy does not hold the key.  It is rather his outlook that needs to be transformed.

Lots of gems in this post:


Not engaging when your pwBPD is riled up can be called "gray rocking":  being as still and boring as a gray rock, ideally leaving the scene completely.  If you don't feed the emotional fire with more emotions, chances are he'll get bored arguing with himself.  I also call this an "adult time out," when he's having an "adult tantrum."  My tip is, do not interrupt the time out!  Let him learn to calm himself down, by himself.  Take the kids to another room (or outside) if you have to.  Only engage with him when he has calmed down.

I also like the idea of not relying on the cooperation of the pwBPD when planning your life.  You don't have to explicitly exclude the pwBPD, but you don't rely on their cooperation, either.  That might look like taking separate cars to an event.  Or like Anonymous wrote, letting him have a temper tantrum right as she leaves on vacation.  If he calms down and re-joins the family later, great, that's gravy.  But if he doesn't show up, fine, you don't want a sourpuss around anyway.  If he kicks and screams that you abandoned him and took the children away from him, don't JADE (justify, argue, defend or explain), just keep silent.  If he trashes the house, call the cops and consider your next steps.

As for financial contributions, like Anonymous wrote, it's tricky because you can't control how another adult chooses to spend their money, short of garnishing wages or legally-imposed payments such as child support.  But you do control your own spending.  I'd advise, you need to discount all future promises of financial contribution, because chances are the pwBPD will renege on those promises, if that's what the track record has been.  Words are cheap, literally.  Only look at ACTUAL contribution to expenses if you don't want to get burned.  If you can't afford your lifestyle, then I think the only realistic option is to downsize, and/or earn more income yourself.  And you can stop paying for all the non-essentials of the pwBPD.  How does that sound?

Sorry I am a little late to the party from your initial post, but, unfortunately, I have been in a very similar situation, so figured I would comment anyway!  My uBPDh does not use alcohol or drugs, but the rest sounds very similar to what I have been through.  While he still cycles, and life still is really hard, I have learned how to deal with everything the best I can, which has helped me tremendously.  I started by walking away (I have never felt comfortable leaving the house when walking away because he won't let me bring our kids, but I just go to a different room) whenever my uBPDh would start into me.  At first, he would follow me saying all sorts of nasty things, but eventually, after I held silent (which took me a long time to learn to just not respond) and he knew he wouldn't get the response he wanted he stopped following me.  If I made one response, my progress would be stopped and we would be at the beginning again, so I had to learn to not say a thing, they are looking for a fight to then blame you for the chaos "you" have caused, don't give it to them.  To this day, he will say something to me and I will walk to a different room and be silent and he comments in a not nice voice that I am doing the silent thing again and he goes to his office.  The next thing I did was to plan my life around not relying on him for anything.  We have a shared calendar where I put all of my and the kid's actives and I try to schedule activities around both of our availability and invite him to everything, but I don't wait on him.  If he throws a temper tantrum 2 minutes before we leave, then its ok, the kids and I are going no matter what, and I have made that known, by actually following through.  If I was you when your H threw all of his suitcase over the floor before you were supposed to leave for a vacation, I would have packed my suitcase in the car and left for the vacation myself, letting him know that you would love for him to join you, but you will be going no matter what.  He may show up or he may not, but no matter what you get to go have fun with your friends.  Then go have fun. If you are like me, you will be dying on the inside, but fake it until you make it on the outside!  As someone once told me, your kids' mom (me) deserves to be happy and your kids deserve to have a happy mom!  I have not had to deal with the alcohol or drug issue, but if it was me now and my uBPDh left the house completely trashed to drive, I would call the police.  I had to do so for a completely different event, it was horrible, but my H needs to know that while I can take a lot, I won't take it all and he has to be held accountable for his actions just like everyone else in this world.  Its very hard to do though.  Lastly, finances, unfortunately, I am not sure what to tell you for this.  I have the same issue and have not found a solution yet!           

Distance provides clarity, and you've had some of that distance. 

Once he returned, it sounds like there were several abusive situations.  I'm so sorry.  Breaking doors and smashing things in the house sounds more like a pattern than a one-off thing.  That's not acceptable ever and I hope you realize that deep down.

Then there's the finances, that's a massive problem too.  Have you ever had calm, rational talks about who will pay what?  If you haven't, now may be too late if he's becoming violent at the mere mention of acting like an adult.

Again, I'm so sorry.  As an outsider looking in, I have very clear advice and you already know what I would say.  Did you come here today to hear the obvious?  Or are you more looking for emotional support right now?  Please talk this out and let us know how we can help.

No one here wants this for you anymore either.

Thank you for responding. I can clearly see that I engage and it makes things worse. I am able to step back and rationally see the wings for what they are, but in it - I want to cry and hide. I tell myself I am leaving and not coming back. That this time was the last time. When the storm calms, that is when I am pulled back. I feel for her. I try and see it from her perspective and my boundaries dissolve. She becomes helpful, unnecessarily loving and needy, and I sit in silence, unhappy with myself because I do know this is won’t last. Rational actions are hard and she knows that.

I am on my way to see my children who refuse to engage with her. My partner is having a hard time with it of course. They just don’t want to participate any longer and see the impact it has had on me. My brother has asked that I attend my neice’s wedding right after the visit with my children, and I can’t even seem to broach that subject with her knowing that it will not be received well. I am going to go though. I just am not brave enough to let her know.

Hi again,

Much of what you write mirrors what happened to my adult stepdaughter with BPD.  Though she was always a sensitive, moody, (over)reactive and hesitant/avoidant child, her BPD behaviors and general dysfunction didn't emerge until she went away to college.  She lost all her friends.  She self-medicated with marijuana.  She'd get into trouble (with eviction, failing classes, quitting jobs, dropping out of school), but lacked resilience and couldn't find solutions by herself.  She had suicidal thoughts and attemped suicide multiple times.  She had raging outbursts directed at her family, blaming them for a terrible childhood and all her current problems.  Like your son, she's obsessively worried about finances; the irony is, she took on zero student debt, so technically she started adulthood financially much more comfortable than most people, myself included.

I'm going to repeat parts of a prior post here about a BPD daughter to help explain what I think was going on.  In essence I think it's a combination of immature emotional skills, unrealistic expectations (rooted in black-and-white thinking), plus shame and fear about "adulting": 

I have a few theories about BPD behavior, and they might clash with some of the classic recommendations on these boards (e.g. validate the feelings, not the facts).  First is that your daughter is blame-shifting.  She's not really mad at you for what she's accusing you of, even if that is what she THINKS she's mad about.  I bet what's really bugging her is fear about the future.  She knows she's an adult in age, but she still feels like a dependent adolescent, and it's killing her.  She doesn't really know who she is (she lacks a stable identity), and she doesn't have stable relationships (friends, co-workers, family, romantic partner).  Without the high school routine that was forced upon her, she feels rudderless.  Is she having trouble in college, and does she have a hard time finding (or keeping) a job?  Has she lost her friends?  She is discovering that she's not functioning well as an adult, and that makes her SCARED as well as inferior.  "Everyone else" seems to have an easy time making friends, finishing college and/or working, whereas she completely falls apart.  This induces in her a deep SHAME.  Rather than take setbacks in stride (failing a class isn't so bad--she can retake it; having a fight with a roommate can happen, but apologizing goes a long way; getting fired isn't the end of the world, there are a million other jobs out there), and rather than take some responsibility (I'll never make any money or friends if I stay lying in my childhood bedroom all day), she regresses in AVOIDANCE.  What does she do?  She dredges up ancient history from childhood and blames her dysfunction on that--terrible/unsupportive/abusive family members, they are the ones who are making her dysfunctional.  This thought pattern makes her MAD, because she doesn't have what she wants today.  When she sees you, she sees an opportunity to lash out and unleash all this anger and frustration onto you.  If you're up for listening to her, you become her punching bag.  If you try to validate her feelings, then I think you're giving credence to the notion that a terrible childhood is the central problem.  However I think it's not--I think it's just blame-shifting.  The accusations against the family serve to AVOID dealing with current problems and taking responsibility for her life and her decisions.  That is simply too scary.  She RESENTS you because she still NEEDS you desperately, and it's killing her inside.

On top of that, generally speaking, her expectations are totally unreasonable and unrealistic.  I think this is rooted in adolescent or childish thinking patters.  She's impatient.  She's demanding.  She still expects adults to over-function for her.  She still expects to be the center of attention at all times.  She expects too much devotion from friends.  She pines for the amount of leisure time she had as a child--long summer vacations, ample holiday breaks, a life mostly devoid of responsibilities and pressures.  She wants to make decisions, but if something goes wrong, she expects you to face the consequences and "rescue" her, because you "owe" her.  Now, when she was a kid, this was normal.  But now that she's an adult, she's having trouble adjusting her expectations, and at the same time, her childish expectations simply aren't being met, which sets her up for constant disappointment.  She still probably expects that you continue to pay most or all of her living expenses.  She's resistant to doing adult administrative tasks, and she's frightened because she doesn't necessarily have the know-how, either.  She's afraid to ask for help, say from a friend or an employer, because she'd be "exposed" for her lack of knowledge, for the fraud she feels she is.  She wasn't really prepared to do autonomous, self-guided study in college, or to figure out how to apply for jobs, or even how to accept coaching from a supervisor.  Any "criticism" would be taken personally, and she'd completely fall apart.  I bet she hasn't really embraced the notion that she's responsible for herself now, because she's probably blaming you, full-time.  Let me guess, your daughter says she suffers from anxiety?  My bet is that's because she feels incompetent, inferior and scared.  She's so afraid of a failing and a little stress that she gives up before she even tries, and to cope, she's lashing out at you.  Does this sound familiar?  If it does, it's because I've lived though it, all of it.

Anyway, I have some thoughts about your last post.  First, the license--is that a driver's license?  If it is, my guess is that your son feels shame about not having one yet.  He can't put things in perspective (maybe he didn't have a car available to practice on?  maybe he was busy with other things?  maybe he was saving up for classes?).  Perhaps he thinks "other people" will think less of him for not having a license already?  He lets all these negative, extraneous, irrelevant thoughts inhibit him . . . when the central issue is probably just fear of failure.  That would be indicative of BPD black-and-white thinking.  So what if he fails at his first attempt?  Millions of people fail their driver's test, and so what?  They just have to get more practice and try again.  I'd say, if he has a graduate degree, he's probably way smarter than the average driver.  But his negative thinking gets in his way.  If he's like my adult BPD stepdaughter, the go-to coping tactic is AVOIDANCE.  But avoidance just delays the problem and often seems to make it worse in the long run.

Second, you ask about family therapy.  My gut feeling is that therapy with you might become a raging blame-fest.  Like I stated previously, it might lend credence to the notion that his "horrible" childhood is the source of all his problems.  Whilst he might have some unresolved issues there, my gut tells me it's not the main issue for him right now.  I think that therapy sessions which revive ancient grievances might only serve to magnify them, and not help him get past them.  Maybe I'm off base here, but I sense that repairing the parental relationship is more likely to happen if he addresses his core BPD issues first--emotional reactivity, fragile sense of self, feelings of worthlessness, etc.  If his life is looking really dysfunctional right now, my sense is that he might not be "ready" to repair things with you yet, and that he might need to focus on therapy for himself right now.  I'm not sure, but my sense is that there would be a better chance of relationship repair if your son had gotten his act together and had a more stable, positive adult "identity."  I think a sign of that would be repairing some relationships with friends first, where the stakes are lower.  I don't know if that perspective helps?  At any rate, I'd recommend that you do not try to arrange any therapy for your son.  If he wants you to attend a therapy session, then he should be asking you.

Just my two cents.

yeah, well, me...'you're never there for me when I need you!'...all the while calling in to work to take care of her when she's sick. Helping her move out of her ex fiance's house which was awkward as heck. After her grandma's passing I went to that woman's apartment a dozen times and went through all of her belongings which was also awkward. Helped her dad move out of his apartment. Drove her everywhere. The list goes on. But, I was NEVER there.

They twist everything to be a victim. Exaggerate things. Truly make things up. And never back down. Then they run off telling everyone how awful you are and people start to hate you.

We had a period of 2 weeks where he was making a big effort and staying at my house the whole time- I didn't want to fully commit to emotionally connecting until I saw how the payday went (hugely triggering to him being asked to contribute but he'd had 2 weeks rent free and my bills still need paying regardless if he's been mooching off his mum and not in my home due to his behaviour) .  I think I was more detached than previously - during the 2 weeks there was a night where he punched a hole in my bedroom door and poured beer over my head- then expected the next day to be okay.....

he stayed another week and sure enough payday comes and he doesnt mention anything about contributing (it was a common theme even when he was here full time, it would not get mentioned until I finally begrudgingly brought it up and half the time he's kick off (sometimes running to his mothers to avoid paying).  I asked him then got called a c**t (because I brought it up late at night..........I waited til the last minute hoping he'd take responsibility) he chucked things around my house, tore up an old valentines day card and drove off drunk.

It's been over a week, we've cycled between nasty texts, turning up wanting to see me, sending photos of us together , back to nasty texts.  I've been using Chat GPT to talk with him (to avoid me exacerbating him and to also try and hold my boundaries).

I thought I was completely at the point where I was done , but then the doubt crept in and I've agreed to see him this evening to talk.

2 non-negotiables are being abused and being used.  He cannot simply pick and choose when he lives and contributes to my household .

I really dont know if I want this anymore

I agree with 'Under the Bridge' in terms of lying- to a BPD, it was their convoluted version of the truth because they actually believed what they were saying.

For example, my ex said that I mentally abused her.  I did not, I was kind and patient.  But in her mind, taking everything out of context and struggling mentally, something like, "Do you want to go to the grocery store with me?" could feel like mental cruelty since she had no intention of getting out of bed that day.  Maybe she took it as me judging her or trying to make her feel guilty...I have no idea.  But that's how you get "someone's truth" that's also a bold-faced lie.

For your situation, "I never cheated", he could have justified to himself that they relationship had serious problems, it's probably over, so therefore I'm not cheating since she's basically abandoned me anyway.  None of the "facts" might be true, but the disordered thinking delivers them to what they believe is a truthful outcome.

You're so right in saying that instead of focusing on his feelings, it's time to look at yours instead.  His feelings were based on the moment while yours were based on the entire relationship.  That's like comparing apples to owls...there's no comparison.  That's why you have to let it go and focus on what actually matters- you right here and now.