My daughter is leaning heavily into the blame game with me her mom right now.  I just learned she is pregnant and I sent her my congratulations but she texted me today saying she is cutting me off. She has been upset with me for setting a boundary over the holidays where my husband and I had to cancel hosting Christmas. My husband was not well and my daighter and her sister were both emotionally abusive towards me while I was stressed taking care of my husband.  I was blamed for asking them for help and told I was a joke of a wife. My boundary was disregarded and I was blamed because my boundary was viewed as a punishment.  My daughter was diagnosed with BPD several years ago but after she moved across the country and lived on her own she seemed to thrive so I didn't think much about it because she was in therapy.  After reading some posts I am learning that smoking pot is not a good thing for BPD and she was also doing mushrooms as well.  She is also on ADHD meds which she did mention a while back that she would have to be off of them if she got pregnant.  If that is the case the pregnancy hormones, withdrawl from her meds explains why this has escalated to this.  I honestly believed that she was well because she had the emotional intelligence and taught me about boundaries but I think the boundaries she was setting were to keep me away.  I can see now how I was always having to apologize for her feelings.  Today I also realised she tried to cut off her mother in law last year and had a lot of rules around how her in laws are allowed to show up in her life. I am starting to see a pattern of behaviour here. As a mom I am struggling with next steps trying to figure out what i can do to help my daughter but she has told me that her husband does not know about her diagnosis and she didn't want me to tell my husband about it either. We are both deeply concerned for her especially now that she is pregnant.  It sounds like you have been going through a lot with your daughter and it's easy for self doubt to creep in as a mom and wonder if we did the right thing.  However, I believe you did the right thing leaving the call.  She will learn nothing if you allow her to rage at you.  My daughter won't have a relationship with me because I am not willing to say her hurt feelings are my fault.  Stay strong. My prayers are with you.

Thank you So very confused.  I just posted that she cut me off today.  This is so hard.Thank you for your support.  It's nice to know I am not alone.  So am I hurting her more by not being there for her?

Thank you for the reply CC43.  

I was hurt about not hearing her pregnancy news directly but I sent her and her husband my congratulations. Today I got a text saying she is cutting me off and never wants to see me again.  That hit hard and my husband was shocked that she sent that message when he had met with her the day before and they discussed about taking time to process and heal.  He doesn't understand why she did a compete 180.  I'm still learning about BPD and am trying to help my husband understand why she is doing what she is doing.  He is supporting me and doesn't know how to help repair this situation.  She was taking medication for ADHD and I believe she had to stop those meds and along with pregnancy hormones I think this is making the BPD worse.  I love my daughter and we want to help her through this but it feels like nothing I say or do helps her.  She just wants to hear me say it's my fault she is upset and if I don't then she will not have a relationship with me. Today I realised that this is not the first time she has tried to cut people out of her life.  She wanted to cut her husbands mom out of her life last year.  I'm just worried about her state of mind being pregnant and the harm it may cause her pregnancy.  Do I just let this play out? Do we try an intervention? I'm afraid she is going to have a mental breakdown.

Gosh, I can relate to so many of your feelings. I’ve done a lot of reading- it’s so common for moms to be the villains. It’s actually because they are most attached to us and therefore, we get the most intense emotion. Doesn’t soothe it, but it’s important to know it’s not because they hate us- it’s because we are important to them.

The demand to talk, the blaming… the emotion is her using you yo regulate her feelings. She can’t do it alone, so she lets them out on you. It is odd and hard to understand.

It is very ok to take a break. Snd if you can, I highly recommend a therapist, the Family Connections class or NAMI  to get support. I do all three at times.

She was supposed to stay for just one night. However, since she was a bit sick and feverish, I suggested she stay one more day. That same night, we had a minor conflict. The next day, we had a major conflict in which she started yelling the same stuff all over again.

At the moment, I just wanted to drag her out of my apartment's door by force. I said I would do it, and I meant it. But as I get close to her, I feel pity for her, and at the same time, I feel like I'm approaching something precious, so my body language says it, and she feels it as well. After some additional ranting from the bathroom (as if she were in danger), she unflips and stops her rant. Then my feelings start to unflip as well. As she drops the attitude and nonsense arguments, I approach. Then she drops the grandiose attitude, allowing herself to be vulnerable, and soon we are kissing each other. Yeah, it's crazy how fast all of that happened.

But this time it's not as if the outburst was forgotten, because she knows the consequence. It is obvious. She knows that now it will be very unlikely that I allow her to stay for another weekend in my place.

My conclusion is that just a little bit of confidence is already enough to "free her madness."

What I'm trying to understand is why she isn't ranting at her mother, given the fact that her mother, when drunk, does everything that triggers her. In the past she did scream at her mother, but she certainly hasn't bullied her mother like she did to me. Currently, as a rule of the house, her mother said she wouldn't tolerate that anymore. Ok, but I said the same, and it didn't work. And my word is much firmer than her mother's. Maybe it is the fact that she sees me as emotionally strong and "unshakeable," while her mother is seen as senior, vulnerable, and breakable. If it's not that, then I'm missing some piece of this puzzle.

Hey there and

So many of us here can relate to that sense of questioning reality when there's a pwBPD in our lives. What you're saying makes sense -- the facts might not be in dispute, yet we're left holding on to ... nothing, somehow, or a lot of doubts boomeranged back on to ourselves. Not easy stuff... And exhausting, too.

Sorry if I missed this -- are you two officially "broken up" right now? If so, do you want that to be permanent, or are you wanting to reconnect, or...? No right or wrong answer, just getting a sense of where the relationship is at.

Was your relationship pretty intense and did your lives kind of revolve around each other? Again, trying to get a sense of where you've been emotionally.

What kind of outside support and perspective do you have at the moment? Friends, family, therapist, clergy, coworkers, hobby...

I found that even though I'm not the one with BPD, I needed a significant amount of support to navigate having a pwBPD in my life.

You found a good group ... Looking forward to hearing more of your story.

Hi and welcome to the group -- you found people who will really understand the confusion of a BPD relationship. "The words sound so good, so why am I so confused and feeling like I did something wrong?" You're definitely not alone in that.

Am I tracking with you that you initiated the breakup, after a big crisis? What was the crisis?

Is she attempting to reconnect with you at all? Would you even want to reconnect if she tried?

Has she tried to contact your gym, or people from your gym, yet?

The paranoia and exhaustion make sense. While the pwBPD in my life isn't a partner or ex, it is my husband's kids' mom, and she married someone with uNPD, so I really understand the "paranoid" sense of "what are they up to now".

I'm also curious what the rest of your support system (besides us!) looks like right now. Loyal friends? Family? Therapist/counselor?

Feel free to keep sharing ... We'll be here.

What exact technique is bad, and what is the alternative?

Do you mean the strategy of preemptively controlling your words, tone, and body language to avoid triggering a dysregulated reaction, essentially trying to “manage” the other person’s abandonment/rejection sensitivity by acting extra careful?

Is the alternative to control our feelings and not feel anything negative towards the pwBPD and focus on helping them out, making them feel heard, and so on?

I doubt my ex would try to come back anyway, it’s just something my youngest son said the other day. She was supposed to go away with her boyfriend but apparently he couldn’t go so she asked our son to go. He said the reason given was the puppies they have got, and said she didn’t want his son looking after them. My son pointed out that before we split up and for  a while after, she would get his son to come round and look after them while we were at work, and that excuse didn’t make sense, and believes his mum and her boyfriend are not getting on too well.

I spoke with my eldest earlier today, and he said the reason she gave for leaving me for the boyfriend was apparently because he could look after her financially better than I could. He also said she would make a mess up and say it doesn’t matter he will pay for that. So pretty toxic relationship.

Hi there,

Well it sounds to me like you know what's going on with your man.  Like you wrote, you've been taking care of yourself more lately, which seems to have provoked increasingly toxic behavior.  Indeed he's having "adult tantrums," shouting and saying mean things with an adult's vocabulary (calling you a c*** instead of a poo-poo face).  If you substituted c*** with poo-poo face, maybe you'd see how childish he's being, and you wouldn't take his insults to heart.  It sounds to me like he's projecting--saying you're the one creating a scene, when it's really him (and he knows it).  Look, if all your man can come up with is to call you a c***, then he's not very creative, or you're so nice to him he can't come up with any insults that really sting!  It's almost confirmation that it's 100% his problem.  Granted, I bet he wants 100% of your attention, 100% of the time, and the fact that you're showing a little independence and taking care of yourself is "triggering" him.  But let's face it, being a full-time indentured servant is not healthy for anyone.  I think he should be more supportive of your self-care efforts.

Earlier today I posted a reply on the son/daughter section about how pwBPD seem especially triggered at holidays.  It's as if they can't stand seeing other people be joyful and provide cheerful updates, because they themselves feel so miserable.  It's like a little kid who screams at his friend's birthday party, it's my birthday next month.  He just can't bear not being the center of attention at all times, and instead of enjoying the celebration in honor of somebody else, he makes a scene to spoil it.  I call that "spoiling" behavior, and unfortunately I've had to endure it countless times with the pwBPD in my life.

I've had so many holidays and vacations ruined by the pwBPD in my life that I've vowed not to allow that to happen anymore.  In practice, what that means is (i) not relying on her participation for the event to happen and (ii) if she throws a fit, I let her have one, but I don't cancel plans because of her.  Maybe what you could do is to travel to events separately, so that you're not reliant on your husband for transportation or for arriving on time.  He can arrive late (or not at all), or leave early, it's his choice.  And you can go at your leisure, without worrying that he'll make YOU late.

I'd say, if your husband sends you mean texts, delete them like spam, because they are spam.  If you reply, you're dignifying his text with a response, and "rewarding" it with your attention.  I'd say, not responding is generally better.

I understand he can be mean, a real bully.  My guess is he is extremely insecure, maybe even jealous of you.  One way to counteract this is to try to be reassuring when he's not in a bad mood.  One phrase I use is, "I choose to be with you every day."  And then I throw on the praise when my man is being nice--bringing me coffee, taking out the trash, giving me a hug.  It's not hard for me to do that because I do appreciate the nice things he does for me.  Similarly, when he engages in self-care, I lay on the praise:  I'm glad you're seeing the doctor for a check up, I'm glad you're going to the gym, I'm glad you're taking good care of yourself.  Then when I perform acts of self-care and he starts to complain or push back, I say (firmly and just one time), I support you when you take care of yourself, and I expect the same from you (end of discussion).