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.

Hi there,

I can relate to the delusional expectations of pwBPD.  Sometimes, the level of entitlement can seem over-the-top.  PwBPD seem to confuse wants and needs, because their wants are almost always dire, urgent needs.  Does that sound about right?

It may be possible to live in the pretty house your spouse desires, someday.  But right now, the reality is that you are both unemployed.  Not only that, but you are dependent on the charity of others to finance your life, and by the sound of it, you have some consumer debt to pay off.  Look, your spouse is an adult.  If adults want something, they are responsible for making it happen themselves.  If your spouse wants to live in a pretty house, then you could say, you're not stopping her.  Let her save up for a down payment; let her qualify for the lease.  You don't have to be the one to tell her NO.  She can go ahead and try to rent a place herself.  Unless she's saved up a ton of money to pre-pay several months of rent, I just don't see how she'd get approved for a lease with zero income and a questionable credit score.  She'd need a co-signer.  But you don't have to co-sign, and neither does anyone else.

If I do a little mindreading here, I might venture a guess that your spouse has NO IDEA how leases work, because she's never actually been reponsible for making rent herself.  She's entitled and caught up with the notion that she deserves only the best; at the same time, she's accustomed to others over-functioning for her.  The result is that she's never really learned the basics of adulting, such as how much things cost and how to stick to a budget.  She's a slow learner that way.  Like you say, she has "magical" thinking, believing that money will materialize into her lap.  The pwBPD in my life is a bit like that, believing she can move to one of the most expensive cities in the world, with no job, no savings and no meaningful work experience, and live a privileged lifestyle there.  She thought she'd be "discovered" as a top model, artist or internet influencer, magically, after only a day or two of effort.  She wouldn't entertain any realistic estimates of the wage she'd have to earn in order to support a modest lifestyle in the city, let alone create a budget for essentials like rent, utilities, food, transportation, taxes or insurance.  She was caught up in the fantasy of moving as soon as possible to the expensive city; she even posted her "new" city on social media and her resume, as if the dream were reality.  She thought, since "everyone else" makes it work, she could too (but without planning, saving, patience or effort).  So, instead of trying to caution her and discuss the budgetary realities, I completely changed my approach.  I said, "I can see why you'd want to move to the expensive city, that sounds great.  I'm not stopping you."  And then I waited.  I let her research apartments and try to sign a lease on her own.  Guess what?  She can't find employment, and she gets rejected for a lease, for lack of income and lack of a co-signer.

In other words, she'll only confront reality when she actually faces it all by herself.  Trying to talk sensibly with someone who's living in fantasyland doesn't work in my opinion--she'll think you're being invalidating and unhelpful.  Maybe you just let her dream.  If she's really serious about making her dream come true, then let her try.  Chances are she'll give up at the first obstacle.

This is admittedly difficult situation... the conflict of the ages - seemingly irresistible force (your spouse) versus the immovable object (reality).

It ought to be simple.  Just say No until you can afford a better residence.  But we all know that's so hard to accomplish.  She's using a threat of divorce (and child support) as leverage.  Until now you've been saying No, how hard would it be for you to continue saying No?

How long have you been married?  How realistic is your hope to find employment for either or both of you?  My guess is that she is unlikely to seek work for herself?

To be frank, if she is determined to divorce, then family court will be there to referee a divorce.  s you are both adults, all it takes is for one spouse to seek to exit.  Sadly, divorces do happen.  It's hard to predict whether she might follow through on the pressure to comply/appease or divorce.  If that does happen then what remains is to what extent you would seek as much custody and parenting time as possible.

These days more and more courts are willing to create orders where each parent has equal time.  The days where a mother gets default preference for parenting are fading in many jurisdictions.  Is she a caring parent?  Babies and toddlers would have schedules with frequent exchanges between parents, but older children (preschool through elementary age) often do best with exchanges twice a week.  One common schedule is called 2-2-3 (or 2-2-5-5 over two weeks) where one parent gets Mon-Tue overnights, the other parent gets Wed-Thu overnights and they alternate Fri-Sat-Sun overnights.

If my memory serves me right, William Eddy in his handbook Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder mentions that family courts start by presuming both parents are merely bickering and that given enough time they will calm down and come to a realization that it is better - to some extent - to work together.  It does not reflect the reality that some percentage of parents, reported to be 10-15%, have acting-out personality disorders that sabotage ever "working things out".  Combine that with court's history of (1) accepting they can't change people and thus (2) reluctance to deal with possible mental health issues.  No wonder our *PD cases take so long and are so distressing.

Hello,

This is all rather new to me so please forgive any faux pas. On Sunday, 13th September, my seven year relationship came to an end over 48 hours. Saturday morning started absolutely fine, yet, after stating that she was going to read for a while (we are long-distance at the moment), I never heard back from her. She quite literally left the call on until it cut out on it's own, and I didn't hear from her afterward, which is completely uncharacteristic of her (she will usually message me about 3 times a day if not responded to).

Concerned for her safety, and knowing that she might be struggling regarding a high stress environment at work whilst tapering off Setraline, I contacted her parents who eventually responded with a curt "thanks for your concern, she's fine, thanks." Mere moments later I received two messages from my significant other, ten minutes apart, telling me that our seven year relationship was over, and that she would check for communications on Sunday "if I felt like sending anything."

This has completely blindsided me. I knew we were stressed from long work hours that ate up most of the day, and that we weren't our most enthusiastic over the last four months, but we had weathered previous BPD flareups in COVID amidst similar circumstances without any breakup. We were planning to see each other for a long period of time over Christmas, and I was just about saving up enough money to start beginning application processes. Instead, she has completely shut down and ghosted me, giving me next Sunday to talk to her again, which she said I shouldn't feel pressured into.

I don't want to lose this relationship, the idea of losing it crushes me to my very core. They're the only person in my life who has left me feeling whole, and I truly love them, even now, despite this. I wish I knew what they thought I had done, or I wish I had done something terrible myself so I could be marred in self-pity and rage rather than being hopeless, knowing I haven't done anything wrong apart from be tired.

I feel stupid for not taking in every moment as I should've, I don't understand how this has happened so fast, and perhaps it's my bad for not educating myself enough, or being so tired from work I missed a key piece of the puzzle entirely. We argued a week or two prior about her venting her feelings regularly, which upset her, but I thought this was resolved, and we had made up. Could this really have been the trigger?

What is the best course of action in my position? If this was impulsive, what are my best steps to helping her and bringing her back? How do I navigate the week waiting for Sunday? In short - what do I do!?

Ditto, Mssalty.  That's exactly my experience.