Focus only on what you can control.  Your BPD kid is far beyond your control; she has to live her own life and you shouldn't stake your happiness on her instability. 

You said that she "tries to get help" and "nothing seems to be working."  Think about that.  It's like me having a toothache and saying, "I don't know what else to do.  I walked to my mailbox, took a multivitamin, and did some pushups.  Yet my tooth still hurts and I'm so miserable!"

The way for your daughter to move past this isn't "trying a few things" that feel comfortable to her.  It requires a committment to therapy, medication, and self-reflection.  Until she is ready to go all-in, things will continue to be troubling. 

And that brings us back to my first point- focus on what YOU can control.  Your happiness can't be tied to anyone else; it has to come from within.  Right now, you are okay...but you're letting your daughter influence far too much of your life.  That's the real problem here and it's a "you probem."  You have to let that illusion of control go because you're not in control of anything with your kid.

I hope that helps.

Thanks for sharing.  My story was very similar and like you, my faith in God got me through the worst of it to see what was really happening.  My ex-wife was sick, broken, and running from her problems.  It's the BPD way...just throw away your entire life and start over chasing that new, exciting thing.

I also found an amazing Christian woman and we've been married for two years now.  The difference between then and now is shocking at tmes; complete polar opposites since I am now supported and appreciated.  I am so incredibly thankful for the entire journey and this site made a huge difference for me as well.

Thanks so much for this MWC! It's funny how similar all our stories are and hearing from people who have been through it all and made it out happy and healthy is inspiring

I've been doing my best to talk to people on here and I've been going to therapy and the occasional support group. I'm trying to stay busy with work and projects around the house. I feel so incapable of just being ok. There are so many days when I think about going back to him. I know it isn't what I should do. But I just miss the good so much. Yes, the thing that keeps me from going to him is all the bad. Which I constantly remind myself of. But I was just so in love with him. Which is also probably crazy given the tumultuous nature of our relationship. But boy is it a challenge to not get hung up on the good memories and the love making and the adventure of it all.  And then i just feel so depressed and hopeless thinking that I put all that time and effort into a future I was sure I was going to have with this person and that is all gone. And was it ever even really there or was it a construct of the mind? I get stuck in the back and forth. Trying to find the truth. Trying to move on.  But i can't shake this dark and looming feeling. What did ya'll do?

I first joined this group a number of years ago as I was dealing with my husband's ex wife with BPD. It was very hard.  My daughter was little at this time, but over the years we started seeing things about my daughter that reminded me of husband's ex wife.  We just kept hoping we were wrong though.   Several months ago his ex wife committed suicide.  That is horrible and a whole other subject.

Simultaneouly my daughter kept escalating with personal situations.  She has been away at college. Very brilliant student, works part time, no extreme behaviors like self harm or anything at least not to me.

The emotional intensity has been there her whole life, but overall I still felt like we had a loving relationship despite her emotional outbursts.  Lots of issues with friends and personal relationships always.  She used to call me constantly and I would spend hours talking with her, listening to her life etc.  She started going to therapy while at college and since then there have been multiple splitting situations were I don’t even know what the trigger was, and suddenly I was the worst parent ever.   This has spiraled into her telling my she wants no relationship with me and less I am willing to sincerely apologize and be “accountable” for being a horrible parent that ruined her life.

I have apologized for real, specific things (not being attuned to her particular emotional needs as a kid, etc.). I have offered joint therapy.  All of this has been rejected or reframed, I am told that I play the victim, center my own feelings, and my giant ego won’t let me admit I am wrong.   Joint therapy is rejected because “I will make it all about myself.”  I have tried validating her feelings over and over.  But she rejects all of it because I am unwilling to fully agree with her version of events.  I swear it feels like she read that book “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” and that is the box I have been put in, end of story.

I just feel devastated and I do not know what to do. I am taking the Family Connections class and trying to understand her and I know she is truly suffering.  But I feel trapped and there is nothing I can say to change anything.  Does this ever get better? Am I missing something? Or do I just accept her estrangement as is.


I am so sorry. It is awful. I feel the pain and the guilt too. Mine is compounded by the fact that now my young adult daughter refuses to speak to me, because recently she decided that everything is all my fault, I have no idea what to do.

OK, I think you're onto something here.  I'm not referring as much to your plan to move, as to the notion that you can take control of what you have control over, namely YOU.  If you can't work from home because your spouse is constantly interrupting, needy and demanding during work hours, then you can work outside the home.  It might be as simple as setting up camp at a local library with a free internet connection.  You might try it out for a few days and see if it works for you.

Nevertheless, if you are financially over-extended, then downsizing might be right for you.  Maybe you move to a cheaper home or apartment, or to someplace that enables one of you to walk to work (or take public transportation), or lets your kid take a bus to school.  Maybe you sell one of your cars.  Maybe you move closer to a family member who is willing and able to help with some childcare, which might free you up to work more hours, or maybe cut back on daycare costs.  These are all moves that are in your control (for the most part).  Your wife might kick and scream about the changes, but to me it sounds like she's not offering solutions.  You go ahead and take the reins, because you owe it to yourself to better your life, if not for you, then for your kid(s).

As for the breakfast issue, I'll say that when I first got married, my spouse had a fixed idea of what constituted breakfast:  a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich.  I think he thought that when we got married, that I'd make him a BEC sandwich every morning before work.  But I hated that idea, not only because of the mess of the bacon grease, but also because bacon isn't healthy to consume every day.

So I had to re-train my husband about what constitutes breakfast.  My unspoken rule is that during weekdays, I'm cooking only ONCE per day, to prepare the evening meal.  I'm not dealing with pots and pans at breakfast, not when I'm dressed in a suit and trying to get out the door to avoid rush hour traffic.  I also want us to have a big, well-rounded breakfast, because we're both really busy and might need to rush through lunch.  While I packed my workday lunches ahead (on Sunday and Wednesday evenings), my husband ate lunch at his company's cafeteria.  Anyway, that meant we needed a balanced breakfast that is quick, convenient, easy to prepare, with lots of protein and fiber, so that we feel fuller for longer and have adequate fuel for the day.  My approach is to prepare a breakfast melange for both of us.

My workday breakfast consists of plain, whole Greek yogurt topped with seasonal fruits, a handful of plain nuts and some rolled oats.  It's basically a breakfast parfait, which happens to mean perfect.  I get protein, probiotics and needed calcium with the yogurt; healthy fats, fiber and crunch with the nuts; sweetness, fiber and antioxidants with the fruit; and fiber and whole grains with the rolled oats.  I think this combination works for me because of the mix of protein, fat, carbs and fiber; it really fills me up.  Total time to prepare:  maybe two or three minutes.  I keep things interesting by buying three different types of fruit every week, and rotating my selection of nuts (usually walnuts, almonds or pecans).  If I have a tough day ahead, I'll prepare a bigger serving, or maybe eat a hard boiled egg as well.

For my husband, I also prepare a melange, but suited to his tastes.  He gets the seasonal fruits and nuts, plus some prunes and a hard boiled egg (which I boil ahead on the weekend).  He doesn't do yogurt, but instead I make him a toasted bagel half with cream cheese.  To satisfy his desire for salty/fatty things, instead of bacon, I give him a slice of prosciutto, or sometimes a piece of cheese or smoked salmon.  With six or seven elements on his plate, it looks colorful and appetizing.  Eggs are nutrient dense and typically cheap, too.  Total time to prepare:  three to five minutes, about the time it takes to toast the bagel half.

The wonderful thing is, since the breakfast plate melange looks so colorful and yummy, and since it has some elements of the coveted bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, but without any cooking, my husband really took to it.  Meanwhile, I was relieved of cooking and grease clean-up.  The prep time is really quick.  Result:  happy and nourished spouse.  Even better, my husband likes his breakfast melange so much that he'll make it himself when I'm not around, just because it's so quick and easy.  He just needed me to change his conception of breakfast, to show him that it's not that hard to get a well-rounded, yummy breakfast.

To go with breakfast, we usually have plain coffee or tea.  In summer I'll make iced coffee and iced tea, and keep them in the fridge.  In winter, it's black coffee.  Typically I'll make coffee in the machine while I'm unloading the dishwasher.  The total time for both tasks runs at about 10 minutes.  Thus I can have the whole breakfast routine done in around 15 minutes.  Add another 15 minutes to eat, peruse the news headlines, clean up, grab the pre-packed lunch, and I'm out the door.  Yes it takes a little time and a tinsy bit of planning and preparation, but honestly, it would take me way more time (and money) to use a drive-through.  And since I had a high-stress, very demanding job, I absolutely need a hearty, healthy breakfast to fuel me.  Maybe I was a slow learner, because when I started out my career, I sometimes skipped breakfast or just had simple carbs (toast, bagel, muffin, cereal, i.e. the typical for my generation, when eggs and fats were vilified).  I was usually famished by 10 am, and I was all too familiar with the feelings of dizziness and fatigue.  It took me a while to figure out that my body really needed protein, fat and fiber earlier in the day.  But I'm glad I figured it out--the days of the dizzies are long gone.  I hope you can help your wife modify her routine to solve this simple problem.  It might be as simple as having a balanced breakfast, or a mid-morning snack of an apple, clementine or banana (three inexpensive, broadly available, portable fruits).

Good luck.

Yes, since currently I need her to drive our kid to school due to my work hours she managed to get money from me, but still not every time, and a reduced amount, still I see this as intermitent results and I know how bad this is, my plan to fix and fight this and other demands is a rather harsh one, moving to a house that is closer to everything including school, so I won't need her to drive anymore, also she will be going out less because now she will bring her workshop home.

On the other hand, currently I work from home, so I will need to put my office outside of home since she torments me daily if we spend the day together, with menial and petty demands damaging my work hours, I tried that, both of us being the full day at home, and lost two jobs in sequence due to this a few years ago.

I didn't accept things (her issues) back then, I thought I had to find a way for us both to coexist peacefully and successfully since we were married and us spending the day together should be a bliss, not a torment.

As you may assume, nothing I did ever made things right, and days were a torment, accepting this was so painful for me, still is, just less as I have been working on accepting this for a couple years now.

Then I got here and found about radical acceptance. I decided to stay as much as I can, but I accepted I will have to spend additional money to have my office out of the house and leave her alone at home.

I confess that there is nothing I would want more than to spend the day close to her in pure bliss, every day, but this is just not possible.

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.