Hi,
My husband was recently diagnosed with bipolar II after about 3 yrs of suffering without a clear diagnosis. Throughout this time, he has been consistently challenging to live with (irritable, mood swings, depression, etc) but has had 3 more intense manic episodes during which he is violent (throwing furniture, breaking things, etc) and mean and afterwards claiming he does not even remember what he did/said.

The most recent episode (~2 months ago) consisted of him blaming me for everything he is dealing with, claiming that if we had more sex he wouldn't have the problems he does, and saying he wants a separation. As predicted, he woke up the next day in a deep depression and begged me to forgive him, claiming he was "out of his body" when he was talking with me. Something about his certainty and meanness during this episode has been exceptionally hard to move on from and I feel a physical resistance to being around him now. To me, this reaction feels so dramatic but its not something I feel like I can control. Before this episode, something inside me was still willing to work on our relationship. But now it's like my body is telling me not to be near him. 

About a month ago, he started a mood stabilizer and SSNRI (cymbalta) and his demeanor/personality and even perspective changed completely for the better. He is now acting like the ideal husband and father (we have two little girls). He's taking accountability for everything over the last 3 yrs and seems healthy and in control. This is the stabilization we've been waiting for but I'm still left feeling so broken. I still don't feel comfortable with him touching me or asking for a kiss and I'm still very skeptical of whether he is even being genuine. He's saying all the right things -- that he knows it's his fault and that "he has to sleep in the bed he made" and be patient as we work to recover and rebuild trust. But I'm just not sure I want to work to rebuilt trust. Everything inside of me is telling me to divorce. I've been trying to rebuild trust for 3 yrs, and each time I think we are in a better place, he does something else to destroy it. 

The question I am wondering is if other people have felt this sort of physical reaction to betrayal / hurt. Is this something that is realistic to move on from and improve? It has been 2 months already and I still feel it. It has been 3 yrs since his first damaging manic episode, and I'm still not over it. At what point have others decided that it is time to move on instead of continuously try to rebuild trust. Any helpful questions to ask myself or books I can read?

At this point, I think I am just staying in the marriage for the sake of our kids, the fear of being a single mom, and not wanting to only see my kids 50% of the time. I'm hoping that I can gain clarity on if trust can realistically be rebuilt and how to go about it.

Thanks in advance for any advice the group may have

Living with someone with untreated or unmanaged BPD was like living under a totalitarian dictatorship. Every moment felt like being trapped in a surveillance state—24/7 supervision, constant monitoring, and extreme control over my actions and words. Any perceived “transgression” wasn’t just a mistake, it was treated like a betrayal of the regime, and I was branded the enemy—an externalized source of all “evil” that had to be punished and “made well.”

There was no room for dissent or privacy; emotional loyalty was demanded with ruthless enforcement, and fear of abandonment became a weapon to maintain control. I was not a partner but a subject under strict rule, where the slightest misstep could trigger harsh consequences.

I escaped 8 weeks ago, finally breaking free from the regime—but instead of peace, I’m now facing a vengeful crackdown. The smear campaigns, ultimatums, and harassment feel like propaganda wars designed to discredit and isolate me. It’s as if the regime won’t allow any freedom or escape, sending out spies and sabotage to control the narrative and keep me under siege.

If you're going through something similar, keep records, stay grounded in truth, and remember: freedom always comes with turbulence, but peace follows when you don’t go back.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of post-breakup retaliation? How did you cope and protect yourself?

I'm so glad for the positive outcome, but especially for putting a end to that chapter of your life, and starting a new, more hopeful one.  Even if you experience some setbacks, your positive frame of mind will see you through.  If you overcame your past trauma, you can handle just about anything I suspect.  Thanks for sharing, it's nice to read uplifting stories here.

I’m divorced at long last. It’s taken almost 3 years since I filed.

I arrived here over 2 years ago. A broken woman with very few words to describe my brokenness. I was lost, hopeless and very close to giving up on living. I was really close to that never ending dark tunnel where some have gone and never returned.

I didn’t have any support, apart from the help from services such as DV charities and my medical school ( I was a student) .

I had endured years of emotional abuse from my family of origin but it wasn’t until my bpd ex husband tried to ch0ke that it all became apparent what my whole life had been about.

This board gave me the words to describe what I was going through because I was dead inside- how does a lifeless body describe its experience with death.

The stories and accounts of abusive partners here were my story too. So similar to the point where I used other people’s experiences to predict what the future held for me.

My ex accrued £20k in mortgage arrears by the time our family home was sold. He did this because I receive child maintenance for our two children who live with me full time. My solicitor messed things up for me, and I didn’t check things before signing-meaning I didn’t get to deduct the arrears from his share in the equity in our family home. After all is said and done I I still got a substantial settlement perhaps less by a few tens of thousands. But I am free.

Thankfully it was a mortgage in his name and he would have ruined his chances of buying a home. I don’t see how any bank in the future would grant a mortgage to someone who owed 20 months of mortgage arrears.’ BPD miracle’s do happen but I await the drama unfolding. Hallelujah it’s not my problem anymore. I’m a free woman.

I just want to say thank you to everyone here who supported me to name a few: NotWendy, ForeverDad, Kells76, SaltyDawg, Pook75.
It’s very much appreciated. Thank you

Hi Dad,

I just read your last post, and my immediate reaction is, she's so young, meaning, she can turn things around before derailing her whole life!  You say she had a part-time job, and I'd say, that's fantastic, especially at her age.  My stepdaughter is much older, and she just went through the exact same thing:  working as a server for very part time, maybe 12-15 hours per week, at an easy/slow restaurant.  Though my stepdaughter has had some success with employment, by the same token, she creates drama and either quits or gets fired after a time.  I suspect that her general negativity and low energy play a role, too, and so when there's a poor customer interaction, her manager doesn't give her the benefit of the doubt.  At your daughter's age, I guess that is to be expected, but at my stepdaughter's age, it's even more painful, because the stakes are much higher, and the "price" of lagging behind her peers seems higher, too.  Plus it's a big hit to her self-confidence to get fired, even if she blames others for it and has a litany of excuses.  And the complaints that the job is too HARD, too TIRING, she can't DO THIS are exactly what I hear over and over.  And I'm thinking, when I was her age, I worked on average 80 hours per week (in a very demanding professional field), for two decades in fact, after which I downshifted to 60 hours per week.  But in my stepdaughter's mind, she thinks her fatigue is extreme, and she probably fails to realize that work is hard, but you choose to power through it, because you want the paycheck and to stay on track in your career.  Grab a coffee, put on a smile and get cracking like everyone else, and you can go to bed when you get home.  But I can't say this, because for her, it's all about emotions in the moment.  For me, it's all about actions.  She's a feeler, I'm a doer, and so there's that disconnect.  I don't know if that perspective is helpful at all.

My second reaction is, though your daughter probably thinks she can do whatever she wants, she really can't at her young age, and that's an advantage for you right now.  She needs you to be strong and help her decide to get help.  I know it's really painful and can be discouraging, but you are showing her you LOVE her by trying to get her help (by not enabling a self-destructive status quo), no matter what she says when she's in a mood.  Today, my stepdaughter (when she is stable) will say that her dad SAVED her life by getting her the professional help she needed.  She might pretend to forget that from time to time, but it is what she really needed.  And she is doing better, the stalled job search notwithstanding.

All my best to you.

Hi again Dad,

I feel for you and can relate.  I'm in a similar situation right now.  Alas, the middle ground doesn't always seem to work very well with my BPD stepdaughter, because she thinks, she's an adult, she can do anything she wants, and yet she expects her dad and me to continue to finance her life indefinitely.  The good news is that she managed to graduate from college, and she didn't give up after numerous failed attempts.  The bad news is that she seems allergic to working.  She was fired from her very part-time job a while back and didn't replace it.  Her college health plan is coming to a close, as is her apartment lease.  Her dad said that now that she's a college graduate, he expects her to get a full-time job with benefits and get on a path to supporting herself.  He offered to let her live with us so that she could save up some money, as long as she stayed on that path, and as long as she was respectful in the home.  He doesn't even expect her to do chores (she never has done chores anyway), or help pay any rent or living expenses.  But that's not what she wants.  She wants him to find her an apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the US, far away from us (her support system), and sign her lease without having a job lined up first.  She wants yet another summer vacation, and then to get cosmetic surgery, even though she won't have insurance, before she starts a job search in earnest.  She's being naive because she is underestimating the cost of living in the expensive city, as well as her job prospects, given her lack of work experience, and yet she's resistant to getting any sort of starter job, let alone a full-time one, that would bolster her skills, resume and wallet to put her on track for a job that she aspires to, in a city where she thinks she wants to live.  For now, she's declining the offer to live with us, because she doesn't want to, which I understand to a degree.  But her handicap of emotional lability is preventing her from getting on with what she should be doing (searching for a starter job and an apartment nearby that she can afford), and her priorities seem to be all mixed up.  She's focused on wants (cosmetic surgery, vacation, airplane travel, going to a city with a supposedly better dating scene, etc.) and not needs (leveraging her degree to get a job, any job, with health insurance benefits).  She has a list a mile long of all the reasons she doesn't want to consider this or that job, and it's both disturbing and tiring, because she can't express what type of jobs she WOULD consider.  Her entitlement and negative aura are so taxing, I don't even want her in the house at this point, and I really hate to say that.  The joy of celebrating her graduation, a wonderful milestone, only lasted a couple of days before the demandingness and petulance set in.  I understand she's anxious about the future, and we offered to help her ease into it by letting her stay with us, as well as assist her in her job search (I think I'm really good at that!), but she resents the help because it's not the help she wants, i.e. unlimited spending money and an expensive lease co-signer with no strings attached.

I know the situation I describe is a bit different, but there are some parallels.  My husband is saying "You are welcome here if you work towards getting a job with health benefits," and you are saying "You are welcome here if you focus on therapy right now."  Around three years ago my husband said the exact same thing you are saying right now.  Maybe that could give you a little hope?

She is 19. She moved out on her 18th birthday because she didn't like our boundaries (she never has - hallmark of BPD, I know.). She lived with her boyfriend and his parents for almost 6 months before they broke up and she moved back because she had nowhere else to go. She moved back in with in December. She has not really held a job very long. She just lost her most recent job because she was saying inappropriate things about upper leadership and creating drama. She has at most been working about 20 hours/week for $10/hr and claiming that it is too hard (she was a hostess at a restaurant that isn't super busy) so she doesn't have the energy to do anything else or find another job. It's hard. I was very much in freeze mode on Monday (I literally couldn't move from my desk or get my hands off the keyboard). The whole world felt tilted. I'm doing better now, but it still sucks.

Given the circumstances, that does sound like a lot of hopeful signs. She is with relatively safe people, is talking about proving that she is getting better, and is in contact with multiple family members.

It's great that you could validate her expression about getting better 

Not sure if you've mentioned -- how old is she?

This is so painful for both of you. It is just so much to carry.

Couple of thoughts in no particular order.


That seems to ring true. If she didn't want connection she wouldn't be reaching out to you (albeit in disordered ways).


She cares about her cats and wants them to be well and happy. That is validate-able in the swirl of everything else. I wouldn't validate the why of it ("when I'm gone") but there is something positive in there -- she has a loving heart for her cats, and that is a connection to the present and to living life.


McLean Hospital has a discussion about General Psychiatric Management that could help, in terms of broadening the pool of potential resources: A Guide to General Psychiatric Management

You are here and sharing with us and getting support for you, and you are taking one step at a time, one day at a time. Every minute that your beloved daughter only talks about suicide, but doesn't do it, is one minute closer to her making it through this chapter of darkness and getting a bit of respite.

Not sure if you've already looked at the NEABPD Family Connections™ – Managing Suicidality & Trauma Recovery Program -- could be an additional resource for you right now.

Keep posting as much as you need to... we'll be here  

Hi Josie,

Indeed, it's heartbreaking to see some steps forward, and then steps backwards.  I can relate to that, seeing glimpses of her "old true self" during periods of relative stability, followed by a period of unhinging and regression, which is usually preceded by outrageous demands of others tinged with anger and/or desperation.  I fear my adult BPD stepdaughter is about to enter another of those phases, if not now, then in the near future, because the typical signs are there:  a period of increased neediness/demandingness, followed by dislike/rage because she can't tolerate being told no, followed by cutting off contact with loved ones.  The next step is usually a brief period of calm (for us) as she proceeds to struggle on her own, while feeling alienated from her support system of her own volition, and eventually she falls apart and spirals downward into a pit of self-loathing and despair.  I really hope that she doesn't go down this path again, but history has taught me not to get my hopes up too high.

Anyway, I guess I'm saying that you're not alone, and that the see-saw, the push and pull, the steps forward and backward are typical.  But you are her constant, and you are her biggest support, even if it feels like you are failing to get through to her.  Deep down I'm sure she knows that, even if she seems to forget it temporarily when she's in a mood.