May I add my welcome too. We've all been through this and it is truly heartbreaking - and utterly impossible to explain to those who've never experienced it. Please try to avoid feeling guilt, as it drains you both physically and mentally. You did your best and nobody can do more. You're the only one who can take care of your own welfare so prioritise yourself.

With a BPD partner you're playing a game where you have codes of conduct, rules and logic. Your partner has none of these and everything in their own mind is always 'the truth' and they are 'the victim'. It's a battle where you can - at best - only hope for a temporary cease-fire but you will never win the war.

I'll post again the 'Three C's'.. you didn't Cause their BPD, you can't Control it and you can't Cure it. Go easy on yourself.

Never worked with my exBPD; if I just ignored her this merely reinforced her belief that she was in the right. Plus she always had the habit of walking away after every outburst so you could say that she was ignoring me - until I chased after her yet again, which she knew I always would.

Even that became her pattern.. throw tantrum, walk away, stay away for 2 weeks, go back into the bar, wait for the mug (me) to come across and talk to her.

It worked well for her.. until that final day when it didn't

That one massive line alone would have decided it for me. Threats are a no-no.
That didn't just sound like a business-type NDA, more like a very controlling life 'NDA'.

As others have said, go with your gut feeling and tread very carefully.

I think you are a hero. Taking care of your sister's daughter is heroic. Your sister is not going to like it, but I am sure you are doing the right thing. Do not expect any grace from your sister. You betrayed her in her eyes, but you know you did not. You will take care of her daughter as you would do for her too, I am sure.

To be binding, an NDA lists explicitly what is not to be disclosed. If he wants you to agree not to disclose the names of his business clients that's one thing, if he doesn't want you to tell anyone that he was physically abusive, that is another. If he is willing to pay someone $20,000 not to disclose business information, many people would take that.


This is intimidation/control. He may be testing/grooming your boundaries by using a carrot ($20,000) and a stick (intimidation) to see how you react.

What does your gut feeling tell you? Or is you asking here perhaps giving the answer. You may ask yourself what needs to be covered up by this NDA. It does not sound like a base of trust to start a relationship like this. And treatening you if you don't sign? Be careful.

Hi
This is my first post. My 30 year old adult daughter with bpd has just gone no contact. I am devastated. She has gone from phoning me literally every day to this.
I think I am to blame for this last row - I was very clingy with my husband and had a row with him and my daughter came in the middle. But usually I don't think I do provoke these rows. In any case I am happy to put my hand up to anything I am doing wrong in the situation.
I miss her horribly but at the same time don't miss the volatility.

Yes, the walls do have ears.  While there is little you have been able to do to help your spouse, the children are a different matter.  You can do what you can to present a good example to your children.  They're impressionable and your example, even in these bad situations, can make a difference in their futures.  For one thing, you can help them to avoid choosing their own adult relationships in healthy ways so it isn't an unbalanced and dysfunctional controller vs appeaser.

In other words, our homes - as much as we wish it wasn't the case - were/are dysfunctional to a greater or lesser extent.  So our children don't know what normal family life is truly like.  So we have to make conscious effort to ensure that they don't think the life they've lived at home is their unavoidable future.  Make sure you share positive experiences and associations with them.

Another idea is to periodically have regular heart-to-heart conversations with your son.  Don't assume he's okay if he doesn't speak up or approach you.  There will even be times he won't even know what to ask.  Thoughtful parenting includes being proactive about it.

The phrase you're looking for is Grey Rock.  However, even that doesn't "fix" the conflict between sanity and insanity.  It will be more like keeping the discord somewhat manageable, not a complete solution.  Meaningful therapy to modify the self-oriented perceptions and fears is better, if only pwBPD traits didn't have such high levels of Denial and Blame Shifting, and even then therapy may take years and still not attain full recovery.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/grey-rock-method


BPD is like so many other disorders - it exhibits itself one a spectrum of behaviors and in a variety of ways.  There are so many common patterns but not all have every trait and even then it is to varying extents.

All of us, including pwBPD traits, are people that vary in a myriad ways, we're not identical robots on the same assembly line.  And we have the free will to chose to work toward becoming a better person.  That's why not every child in a family turns out the same.  So we find people with BPD traits in the best of families just as there are non-BPDs that were raised in the worst of families.

You can choose a better path for yourself, to improve, to be positive.  Unfortunately you can't make that choice for your spouse or partner.

My sister has BPD and Bipolar Disorder, last year she attempted suicide at which point she asked me and my husband to take care of her daughter until she got well enough to take care of her on her own. The problem is, she's not getting well enough to do that and I just had to hire an attorney to start the process of taking her daughter away from her permanently. I'm struggling not to beat myself up about it but I dont know what else to do.