I went through a lot.  I eventually did see a counselor for help understanding if I was part of the problem and what way was up.  I didn't want to walk away from a marriage - as unhappy as I was, and as isolating and dysfunctional as it was - without someone validating that for me.  This was my own problem though; I was not confident in my judgment, and didn't stand up for myself at critical times.  I viewed standing up & being assertive as aggressive, and felt it was not proper or acceptable to do that, but I now see that you can and must stand up for yourself, without worrying about how people perceive it.  And you don't have to do it aggressively, and angrily.  You can point things out and remain calm.  If the other person escalates, well, then you evaluate you options and choose how to respond.

Of course manipulative people will portray all your actions in a bad light, (and their actions as impeccable and justified), which is why you have to be prepared to walk away. 

I recently saw some comments from a mathematician who was debating someone else, and pointed out how unprofessional and flawed their reasoning was, and then said "If I had a person in real life try to discuss something with me like this, I would just stop talking to them."

Unfortunately, it's that way with BPDers... there's no basic trust, and therefore no real communication with them.  Everything is seen and felt through their distorted world view, and warped by their own selfish interests.  There are really only two possible outcomes with them: 1) you accept their worldview as true and give in to all their demands, regardless of how you feel and think, or 2) you leave. 

With better boundaries and understanding, you can avoid these relationships in the first place, but alas, a lot of people don't have that, and don't gain it until they go through hell like this and have the sense to try to understand it and stand up for themselves.

This is good.  I hope to see more of this, along with a better understanding of these situations among religiously-based counselors. 

Like I said, I've read too many accounts here of people remaining in dysfunctional relationships because they view marriage as a sacred vow.  And in a sense it is, and should be.  But we enter into marriage with certain assumptions in place, namely that our spouse will treat us fairly and equally, and there will be mutual respect and trust.  When someone has a behavioral disorder though, this is not possible.

It's like buying a car because the seller tells you it's driveable.  Then you buy it and discover it doesn't have an engine.  They say "we have a contract, and you have to honor it.  and it is driveable, you just need to put an engine in first" and you say "Well... he's right.  I guess this is my obligation."  So it is in marriage to a BPDer.  You enter into it, and maybe you've seen some red flags, or maybe not, but they tell you all the problems that you encounter together are happening because of you, and if you just learn to treat them better, love them enough, or give them exactly what they want, things will improve.  And of course they don't.  Then they need more.  You're in a relationship with a bottomless pit, and nothing will ever be enough, because the problem is entirely in their head, and there's nothing you can do to fix it; it's up to them. 

Yes @badknees1 , blaming us for wasting their life is what they do, but it's such an irony, because it's the other way around. Our life would be just fine if we had a normal wife. I wonder if that's just a projection, but I'm not sure if they understand how it feels to be their partner.

In my first two relationships, when I finally got worn out of them, they blamed me for having "robbed their youth." I think part of what keeps them going into the same patterns of behavior instead of looking to themselves is the illusion that they are able to maintain a healthy relationship. They aren't. Unless they get serious help and successfully use techniques to hold it together.

But here is one thing that has called my attention in your post. You said "I became the ultimate co dependent spouse." I hope you are aware that the other person can't create that. All they can do is exacerbate your perception of your weaknesses and use them to hurt you. And everyone has weaknesses, but over time you can improve and drastically reduce them. I have done that, and today I definitely do not feel at all the weaknesses that I had in my youth. I was relatively strong emotionally if compared to others of my age, but still quite weak when compared to how I am now.

It seems like you have done a lot of personal work to overcome your family upbringing, and that's great. Also, you can see that your sister has continued her behaviors. You can determine how much of a relationship to have with her. There are posters here who have gone LC or NC depending on the situation. LC is more doable when you are mutually connected to other family members and would be together at holidays and family events but still, you determine the closeness and frequency of interactions.

I would not recommend confronting your sister with being accountable. You can see she doesn't respond well to that. Boundaries determine your actions. If you live with her, it's harder to control having to interact with her but if you don't- you just decrease it or stop it, your choice. Being siblings doesn't obligate you to tolerate being treated poorly.

It's hard as we wish for a better relationship with a family member but since BPD affects relationships, sometimes that isn't possible to achieve. We do the best we can with it- but we also can protect our own emotional well being from this situation.

It's understandable that we feel badly over these accusations but in perspective- it's human to sometimes miss an email. If we don't hear from someone, we assume that and send another.

For someone with BPD, who feels in victim perspective- that small error that had no bad intent, somehow becomes "evidence" for neglecting them. But that isn't true about you.

It felt demoralizing when my BPD mother would do this- assume some bad intent over what was a minor error or even somehow a good intention. However, we can not control someone else's feelings or thinking.

A counselor helped me to deal with this by substituting something absurd for the accusation. If you got an email saying you were a pink elephant - would you feel bad? I think you'd probably think that was strange but you know it's not true.

You have some choices here. One is to just let it go. It was in May and she may have moved on from it. You can go LC- decrease the frequency of contact- if it feels safer for you, or even NC but that may be difficult if you are still connected to family members with her. Either way you can also reply to that email with an apology that would fit the "error" - not make it into something bigger- "Hi sister, I found this email and realized I didn't see it before. I apologize for not replying sooner. Love, Sis" but that may also trigger a dramatic reply that you don't want to get into. It's up to you, and if you feel better with an apology for not replying- do that but you are not responsible for how she felt about it and don't need to get into a big drama over it.

Another pattern with the more extremes of pwBPD is that we lose a sense of ourselves and our worth.  By that I mean that we find it hard to defend our right to privacy and confidentiality in the face of intense Extinction Bursts meant to get us to retreat back to prior appeasing or compliant patterns.

You have a right to balanced privacy and confidentiality.  Too often we forget it on those late night interrogations demanding that we confess to what horrible persons we are.

While you do share everyday normal stuff such as parenting decisions, you should not sacrifice yourself on the belief that you must share everything.  Full disclosures - and even our otherwise excellent quality of total super-fairness - must be tempered with reality.  What reality?  The reality is that a pwBPD often will not respect our decisions and almost surely will sabotage us if we share that we are pondering an exit.

Hi everyone,

Just looking for some advice/words of comfort about my ubpd sister.  I am 57 and she is 62.  I just found an email that I never somehow never read from May of 2025 in which she accused me of neglecting her...."I haven't hear from you since February and you haven't initiated contact since the pandemic.  I feel invisible even when we are together.  Mum tells me all your news and I feel abandoned because I never hear from you."  WTF?  How old are we?  I have accepted that my emotional needs will never be met by my family of origin....I have built a life and a family away from home....she has two great grown kids and plenty of friends.  I just can't be her buddy....she has been too mean and hurtful over the years....

I have dragged my family to visit her and welcomed her into my home multiple times since COVID; even included her in my family vacations against the wishes of my kids (they don't like the way she treats me).  I never saw the email, so didn't respond and I thought we were doing better.  We grew up with a BPD mum who was physically and emotionally abusive but she has never done therapy, despite having a degree in psychology (???)  I have actually had some dramatic healing from trauma informed therapy for CPTSD and was hoping to find some way to have a relationship with her. Recently she has been calmer and seemed happier....now I'm questioning everything since I missed her email...does she hate me? Am I horrible person....I try to call her every couple of weeks, but tbh, I avoid it sometimes because she is so unpredictable.  I have tried to think back to May of last year and I know I was in the middle of a busy time at work and I didn't intentionally neglect her....if I'm being truthful, I wish I could go nc.  She has made my kids miserable and ruined a lot of holidays and family vacations...Feeling horrible.

  Hi, I found this site today and hopefully can get advice . I have a sibling with undiagnosed BPD and is aware of it because they have bought up the conversation multiple times themselves but still refusing to get proper help with it . For some background information they are 8 years older than me . We both grew up in an emotional unstable household and constant fighting and stress . If I’m being honest with my very early memories i remember them always being mean to me . Around the age 5-6 i remember them always hitting me when sleeping in our moms bed and when we got older and  they became a teenager it was almost like they wanted nothing to do with me and would make fun of the things I did and judge me for the things I liked . Once I was in middle school they had graduated and only continued to still have a nasty attitude towards me but then once I started to hang out with other people and stopped trying to make a relationship with them they got mad and got into a fight with the person I was hanging out with and then accused them of trying to take me away from them and then threw it in my face and said I was the reason they got into a fight . Throughout my teenage years I never once remembered ever being able to go to them with any of my issues like most younger siblings should be able too . Flash forward a few years later and things never stopped . They would start random arguments with me and would range from them accusing me of being the worse person and not caring about them etc etc and given I was 19 at this time and still didn’t stand up for myself because they made it hard to bring anything to their attention and then they would apologize and say I’m the best person ever and the cycle would continue and it started to play heavy on my self esteem. Over time they basically burner bridges with most of her relationships with people them always somehow being the problem and then they started attaching themselves to me and suddenly wanted to go places I was going and wanting to join me on trips I would plan with my friends and basically self invite themselves and it felt like I couldn’t tell them no not to come because then they would accuse me of not wanting to hang out with them and it was crazy because you suddenly wanted to be involved in everything I did because they themselves no longer had friends . Flash forward now and as I’ve worked on my mental health and getting better for myself it feels like things are getting weirder. I’m currently making my career and school my priorities in life and working meanwhile when they were my age I am now they were the complete opposite and treated people terribly me and my mother included and call me crazy but I feel like they have now developed this jealousy towards me and sometimes feel like they’re throwing subliminals towards me in certain conversations . I do feel they are jealous of my relationships given they don’t have any long term relationships themselves anymore and recently they accused me of some of the most ridiculous things and was projecting very very very heavily onto me . It’s reached a point now where I no longer have the energy to enable this cycles and when I finally held them accountable they still somehow switched the conversation and made them the victim and honestly I’m done.  Once again like I mentioned they were offered help and in the process of it but then stopped , they’ve had therapist drop them because of how they talk to them and still blamed the therapist. I don’t have any more patience and so tired of feeling like I’m always the villain to them but the hero when convenient. I feel like either option is going to be painful , option one is me holding them accountable about how I don’t feel their apologies are sincere because you continue the behavior and going forward think there needs to be boundaries put in my place for me to continue having a relationship with you but I know that’s gonna turn into an argument somehow as they’re gonna tell me to live my life then and forget about them and option two is only dealing with them at a distance but either option I know is going to trigger an argument and I can’t do it it anymore . I’m over the tunnel vision and them only acknowledging parts of things I told them they have done and to be honest I feel that’s why there’s real easy way out because a big issue is them continuing what is starting to feel like borderline emotional abuse at this point and then apologizing but like I said I don’t even believe their apologies anymore and how am I gonna be able to even bring up their behavior without once again an argument starting and them justifying their behavior. They’ve burned bridges with other people and me witnessing first hand how they still didn’t really care and justified it lets me know they’re never going to take full accountability. Please help with any advice even writing this I’m still scared they’ll somehow come across it and throw it in my face .  It’s bringing so much stress to my life

Pook and Til,
I can relate to both of your posts. I just typed out a long response and must have accidentally deleted it. So, I'll keep this one shorter.  I had a short and sweet phone conversation with my bpd son. Til, my hope shot through the roof. Maybe since things in his life are going well and stress is reduced he'll maintain and be willing to learn dbt skills... I started thinking maybe our interaction was so nice because I called instead of text, I kept it short instead of sharing too much or asking questions... As if I can control his emotional reactions. That's what helped me from your share. That hope based on my efforts to control this painful disease is a slippery slope to disappointment. Pook, you help me by reminding me not to take personal the words that cut like a knife.  Also, accepting emotional reactions for what they are.  My son began exhibiting signs of this illness at about 14. That's 30 yrs ago. There has been so much drama over the years. One 2week facility stay because of suicide threats. He's had periods that are relatively calm which is where he's at now. Life is manageable at the moment. He's self supporting and feels good about himself. YET, you'll love this - I just saw his name come up in an incoming text and my heart stops for a sec until I see it's him saying I love you Mom.  Sometimes the needy emotionally can be hard too. I'm looking for balance in him and maybe it's a space I need to create in me. Thank you both.

I love when they blame you 7 days to Sunday within their apology."you never tried to get me help" meanwhile ive suggested therapy half a dozen times.