I was watching a video where a doctor explained that a young man ate only chicken nuggets - for years - started going blind.  Turns out that they don't have Vitamin A.  Once the deficiency was discovered, he was given supplements.  Of course, that man wasn't just picky, he was obsessive.  Still, just in case, it would be wise to ensure your wife takes multivitamins regularly, to ensure a deficiency does not aggravate life more than it already is.

She may resist a suggestion for her to make changes.  Perhaps it would be better to say we will do this or that.

OK, I understand how pwBPD can be extremely needy and demanding, but this seems ridiculous to me.  A monkey can peel a banana with no assistance, and so can your wife.  Billions of adults are really busy with jobs, childcare, chores and such, and yet they find a way to prepare meals and snacks every day.  Geesh, I made my own lunches and packed my own lunchbox at a very young age, like age 8 or 9--typically a peanut butter sandwich, a thermos of milk, an apple or grapes or raisins or carrot, and a cookie for dessert.  If a monkey can peel a banana and a 9-year-old can pack their own basic lunch for school, so can your wife.  It's just that she chooses not to.

To take things further, your wife is claiming dizziness and threatening to have a car accident, while blaming you for it.  This is a new level of weaponized incompetence in my opinion.  But what pwBPD want and crave is validation and understanding.  And you're not a doctor, right?  I think if I were in this situation, I might try radical acceptance, and agree with her 100%.  I might say, Yes darling, I agree, you're not fit to drive if you're dizzy and fear you'll get in an accident.  That sounds dangerous--I wouldn't want you to get hurt, or to hurt anyone else.  I'm sorry you're feeling so poorly all the time, you need to take the bus home.  I'll pick you up at the bus station.  Then, when we get home, I'm taking the keys to the car, and I'll keep the keys safe until you're able to deal with your dizzy spells, and I can trust that you won't have an accident, because that would be horrible.  Don't worry, I'll retrieve the car this weekend.  I believe you, and I'm taking it seriously because like you said, I'm responsible.  I'm your spouse, and I don't want anything bad to happen to you, especially something as serious as a car accident.  So until you sort out your dizzy spells, with a doctor if you have to, I think you should take the bus/Uber/train/carpool.  Your safety comes first.  I couldn't stand it if you had an accident that I could have prevented, because you're having dizzy spells.  I don't want you driving when you feel unwell and unsafe, OK?  Let's focus on your health and make sure you sort out your dizzy spells as soon as possible.

If your wife is feigning illness (or making herself ill on purpose) to try to get you to "drop everything" and take care of her like a child, then my advice is to slow walk, which is my technique for being available, but not immediately.  That way, you give her time and space to try to sort things out for herself.  You don't "drop everything" or even respond to her desperate calls or texts right away.  You are available, just not instantly.  You deal with her, but you don't rush and you don't gush; you try to stay as neutral, deliberate and non-emotional as possible.  If she wants you to pick her up and drive her home, or be her short-order cook, well, you might do that, but she has to wait a while, until you're ready.  Chances are she'll calm down, find another solution or sort things out all by herself (as she should).

PS, if your wife is a picky eater, then that probably makes things easier, not harder.  Picky eaters typically have a very limited range of foods they'll eat--cereal, pasta, pizza, chicken nuggets, burgers, soda, ice cream, etc.   If the only protein she'll eat is chicken nuggets, then consider serving nuggets for breakfast.  More protein earlier in the day can make one feel fuller for longer.  I don't love processed foods, but your wife might like something like a protein shake in the morning or for lunch.  That would take a minute to mix in a bottle, or maybe five minutes with a blender.  

Hi Exhausted,

You've come to the right place.  Many parents here are in a similar situation.  In my own experience with an adult stepdaughter with BPD, I think that 22-25 was the worst age, and I have theories about this which I've posted on other threads.  Similar to you, I came to realize that her problem wasn't just BPD, but addiction, too, to marijuana--the self-medicating kind.  And my opinion is that today's marijuana is very potent and deleterious, particularly in the gummy and vaping forms, because of the lack of negative biofeedback (e.g. smoke, noxious smell) that might temper usage.  Worse, it's easy to sneak gummies and vaping, making it easy to consume too frequently, too much or both.  Alas, with heavy daily use, I think my BPD stepdaughter did a number on her brain, reducing her IQ by a few points, as well as seriously interfering with her executive functioning and creating paranoia.  Anyway, my opinion is that it's really hard to treat BPD without treating the addiction to illicit substances, first or simultaneously.

I'm familiar with the fear of suicide attempts, and the fear of kicking a "kid" out on the streets.  I've witnessed several suicide attempts and their aftermath with my pwBPD.  I've been through several rebounds too, when my adult stepdaughter would try living independently, only to self-sabotage, give up on herself and land back in my home.  I've lost count of how many rebounds there have been, but they have been occuring for nearly a decade now.  It would be one thing if they were planned, but typically they entailed "emergencies" and "rescues."  All that means a lot of parental time expended, money squandered (lost tuition, lost rent and rental deposits, unrefundable skipped therapy), physical labor, administrative support, uncertainty, arguments, cancelled vacations, gigantic medical bills, etc., leaving us worried, tired, cash-strapped, frustrated, resentful, grieving and sick and tired of living in crisis mode.

Since you mention your daughter's addiction in your first post, and since it seems to dominate your concerns (even though there are many issues with BPD!), I think my advice to you would be that you need to start enforcing some strict boundaries in your home, including no drug use.  It seems to me your daughter isn't working on herself, and that you are enabling her dysfunction, by letting her give up on herself and use drugs, while living in your home for free, not helping, and treating you like crap.  Worse, you have an underage kid with you, while your BPD daughter is an adult--what sort of home environment are you providing for your younger kid, and what sort of example are you setting?  I think you take back control of your home and enforce some house rules.  I don't care if you were OK with letting your BPD daughter use marijuana in the past; you've decided that right now it isn't working for you, because YOUR life isn't working for you.  Like you wrote, you're exhausted, you're desperate, and while you can't control your daughter, you can control what you do, and what happens in your home.  You are changing things up because you deserve better.  It's your home, your sanctuary; your very health and well being are at stake.  There's no place for illicit drug use in your home.  If you find drugs, you throw them out, kick out your daughter or call the cops if you have to.  You want nothing to do with drugs ever again.  You're absolutely sick from seeing how they destroy the lives of the people you love.  You can't live with yourself anymore if you let them in your home.  So don't.

I'll tell you what my house rules are at the moment:  adult children can stay with me in my home, with free room and board, if they are respectful, pick up after themselves and do not use illicit substances.  In exchange, they must work full-time on themselves (i.e. 40 hours per week), through some combination of work, study, training/internships/volunteering and/or therapy.  They are responsibile for paying for their own luxuries, like phones, take-out/restaurants, travel, streaming services, etc.  In other words, they are not allowed to sleep all day, use drugs, skip therapy that I've paid for, leave messes around, be mean or disrespectful, or become idle freeloaders.  They can relax on weekends and such, but if they don't get a job (or work 40 hours per week on their job hunt), they will be asked to leave.  If they use drugs, they will be asked to leave.  If they want to use drugs, they certainly may, just not while they are living with me.  They are adults, they can decide.  But it's my house, my rules.  If they want to make their own rules, they are entitled to do that, but in their own home.  In fact, I would LOVE for them to make their own rules in their own home.  I'm not stopping them in any way at all.  If they want to move to New York, London or Paris, I can understand why they'd want to live there--that would be fantastic!  Go ahead, I'm not stopping them, I can't wait to visit.  But if they stay with me with free room and board, there are no drugs in the house, and they have to work full-time like an adult, and be respectful.  I'd say that's not only fair, but extremely generous on my part.  I'm not even asking for help with utilities or chores (other than picking up after themselves).  If they don't like it because they want to be free to do anything they want whenever they want, then that's OK with me, I totally understand and support that, but not under my roof.

I'm sure it was difficult to post this issue, and while it appears that your previous post about money is a different topic- both these issues are versions of the same dynamic. Your wife wants something- and when she makes threats, accusations, and even some self harming behavior- this affects you emotionally, because you care about her. You give in, and it reinforces the behavior she has which gets her what she wants.

To say "no" in the face of possible escalation is difficult. Giving in may temporarily ease the issues for you. If this was a "one and done" concession, and it led to some long term peacefulness between the two of you, I'd be for it. The problem is, it doesn't fulfil her wishes for long. You are compromised financially, emotionally and physically by the situation.

Unfortunately- we can not change another person. As much as you wish your wife would "see the light" and think more responsibly- she is who she is, and she wants what she wants, and has ways to get what she wants. For her there's no incentive to change even if she could. This is working for her.

BPD also can include emotional immaturity. Refusing to eat is a toddler MO. Toddlers seek autonomy and yet are under parental control. However, they can control what they put in their mouths and so, parents might bed, cajole the toddler to eat, and the toddler is in control.

Hunger though is a survival instinct and if the toddler is hungry enough, they will eat what is given to them. If the parent gives in to the toddler's demands for sweets, they will eat sweets. The job of the parent is to say no to sweets and offer healthy food, even if the toddler pitches a fit.

Your wife is an adult and adults are responsible for their own bodies- so functions like eating, drinking enough fluids, brushing teeth, taking a bath- these are adult responsibilities. A boundary is deciding what is mine, what is someone else's. Your body is yours, your wife's is hers. It is not your responsibility to decide what she eats or if she eats.

You are responsible for feeding yourself and your child, and so, your wife isn't reliable about preparing food. You then will need to prepare food for you and your child. It's not much different to prepare enough food for 3 as it is for 2. Go ahead and prepare your meals for you, your child and your wife but it's up to her to eat it or not. She does not get money to eat out at a restaurant as you can't afford that. My advice is to stay out of this decision. If she doesn't eat, she doesn't eat. If she gets too dizzy to drive, then she can't drive. If she's not safe with the child, then don't leave the child with her.

If she chooses to eat sweets and popcorn, she will then deal with the consequences of that - however, another possibility is, if you take yourself out of the food and eating decisions all together- she then may find it doesn't get a reaction out of you and so will realize this doesn't work for her. She may even decide to eat some food on her own.

Sometimes changing behaviors requires some support and therapy. It seems counterintuitive that you would be in therapy while she has the disorder, but it can be helpful to the person dealing with this at home, that being you.

People with BPD traits (pwBPD) are well known to exhibit many negative traits including Blaming, Blame Shifting, emotional dysregulation (rants and rages), and so much more.  They resist responsibilities, consequences and boundaries of behavior.

What are ways to deal with that?  One not very intuitive is regarding Boundaries.  Since they generally resist boundaries, then the alternative is for us to assume the boundary placement.  How so?  Our boundaries are how we respond to poor, unhealthy or dysfunctional behavior.  Our Tools & Skills workshops board has several topics dealing with Boundaries.

If I were to make my simplest example of a general framework, it might be something such as this: "If you do or don't ___ then I will do or not do ___."  Some specific response/boundary concepts might be:

• If you leave before I have prepared food for you then you are responsible for buying food or waiting until your return to eat.
• If you continue to rant or rage then I will take the children (so they are not exposed to conflict) and we will go to the park or go grocery shopping and return when you have reset and have calmed.

It won't be easy to establish new and better patterns, there will be pushback known as extinction bursts where the other tries to force you to retreat to past appeasing patterns.

And of course she blames me for her disorganized routine, while doing things like visiting her family members at the wrong time even if I advise her to come home for chores like preparing food.

Somehow I'm responsible for her "not having time" and "being too tired".

Hello, there is this difficult situation I have been facing, wife basically makes herself hostage by not eating unless I prepare the food.

She goes out of the house for her day without eating breakfast, and in the streets unless I send money for her to eat in an expensive fine restaurant she likes going to, she just starves through the day, by the end of the day she messages me telling me she is dizzy since she didn't eat anything.

I have tried preparing food for her, but since my schedule is very full, including due to other responsibilities she dropped on me, like working to pay all the bills and caring for our toddler when not in daycare, not always I can prepare that, since in the morning she doesn't wait until I made something for her to eat, she leaves before that, citing she is very busy and has a lot to do and can't waste time waiting for food to be ready.

And in the times I did prepare food, in time, for her to eat and also to take with her, 30% of the times she just brought back the food intact when she arrived home by the end of the day saying she didn't have time to eat or just didn't like the food, while complaining she is starving. She is a picky eater.

She says if she is dizzy and causes a car accident while driving it will be still my fault and I will have to deal with the fallout myself, like stopping my day to go rescue her and our toddler and also paying for damages and all that.
I do have car insurance, but still there could be additional liabilities.

I did say I don't her to hold herself hostage like that, and some days I did not send money and she just starved. Other days she just eats random garbage with money she earns, which isn't much, like sweet popcorn.

I'm trying to not be responsible for that but she just seems to be intent on escalating this further and further, making it as damaging as she can, the more I tell her to organize herself and that I can't help her if she has such a disorganized routine.

Absolutely -- sometimes that feels like the only way out.  BUT IT IS NOT.  It takes a long time to get, but keep trying to hear what's being offered on this site and the pain will ebb and eventually joy will reenter your life.

I have a cautionary tale as I observed this through the decades long marriage of my parents where my BPD mother's behavior with money caused issues. When your wife gets what she wants by threatening divorce, this reinforces for her that doing this works. So she is more likely to do it again. However, unless you say no to these unrealistic and unwise requests, your financial stresses will most likely continue and so will these kinds of threats.

This isn't an uncommon situation. While this is the bettering board- giving in to requests that cause financial stresses, affect your emotional and physical well being- is not a way to "better" your relationship- because it increases your stress and this affects the relationship too. 

While the threat of divorce is frightening to you, it's hard to know if that is realistic or a threat she won't act on. With the financial threats, I am not a lawyer but I don't see how the courts can legally require you to pay more in child support and rent for the nice apartment than you can afford.

Saying "no" is hard, I have seen that too, however, continuing to spend above your means is a stressful road to walk on.

I really don't even know how to start or know what to say. I found this forum because I desperately typed into Google, "what to do when you feel like you don't like your daughter who has BPD." I'm mentally drained. I don't feel like I have it in me to continue with her but at the same time I can't imagine putting her out. Her behavior is all over the place. She's 23. We've known about her being an "alcoholic" for a couple of years now. I'm realizing now that she's an addict... it's not just alcohol. She went to rehab 3 times i think. This last time she went through with moving into Sober Living just to get kicked out not even a week later because someone heard her huffing from a can of nitrous oxide. They searched her belongings and found the cans. I paid to get her back home with her promising she would never do it again bc it caused her to hallucinate. She's been back for about 6 months. Things have been up and down with her lying about drinking and stopping meetings. She was seeing a therapist by stopped after she got a job. She rarely leaves her room despite me constantly telling her she needs social interaction. Anyway, I recently learned she's been huffing nitrous oxide again. I found cans of various sizes... there were around 15 i think. I'm scared to death that she's going to kill herself or end up on the street (I have a homeless schizophrenic brother who we believe caused his schizophrenia through drug use). I was so desperate that I told her to please stop and I would get her THC gummies if she just has to have something. You can guess she's asked for a gummy each day since I gave into that.

Anytime I ask my daughter to do anything, no matter how small, she goes on a 21 questions rant expecting me to explain why for each question asked. She always has a way of making me out to be the bad person. Then, like clockwork, she'll come apologizing within a couole hours to the next day, at which time I'm supposed to stop whatever I'm doing to listen to actively listen to her.

I don't know what to do. My youngest daughter is also growing tired of this. My son tries to be there to support but he lives out of state and and try not to worry him. My youngest daughter and I basically do all housework while my oldest daughter sulks around all day when not working. I'm sick of walking on eggshells but don't see any other way. I'm terrified that I'll lose her altogether.

I apologize for the stream-of-conscious writing. I'm usually much more coherent. I'm just tired... mine, body, and soul.