Yes, over-responsibility is a thing with me.  Boundaries! 

 I've always been willing to fall on a sword when things go wrong.  I feel guilty that daughter #4's BPD prevented us from dealing with daughter #5's addiction, that we had to make a Sophie's choice. I've felt guilty that we had to put Son #3 back into foster care, 6 years after we adopted him, because we couldn't manage his Reactive Attachment Disorder.

I beat myself up that we did the best we could for these kids, and it wasn't enough.  I beat myself up that we took on too much. 

I grieve that none of our friends or family could relate to any of the bizarre things we went through.

I do believe, though, that these kids had the best possible chance in life they could have had.   It just wasn't enough.

Since we don't know the details of your divorce paperwork, we can't comment on whether it is practical for your local circumstances.  What your lawyer likely warned you is that things can go sideways in the implementation.  (If not, then this is the warning!)  The risk of police involvement or wild - though unsubstantiated - allegations of DV, neglect or abuse is lurking there just under the surface.

So be very cautious the next few months, especially before and after serving the paperwork.  Might not be wise to serve her yourself in a private scenario thinking to spare her embarrassment.  At least have some witnesses nearby who can prove you didn't misbehave or cause an incident.

This is a time to behave 24/7 as though you had the judge looking over your shoulder.  If she uses drugs or alcohol, that's on her, but you must be squeaky clean in case an "incident" does occur - or is alleged - and the police, children's protective services or whatever get involved.

And don't be surprised if she senses something is up in the coming days... she may be disordered, drugging herself or whatever, but your spouse also has years of experience attuned to subtle nuances and manipulating situations.

I recall the day I called the police, triggering our separation.  When they arrived my preschooler was clinging to me in my arms and quietly sobbing, not with his mother, yet their professional solution was to give default preference to the mother.  Yes, I was asked to hand our son to his mother and "step away".  I didn't get carted off only because our son shrieked and clung tighter to me.  When I later got a divorce lawyer, he was surprised, saying default police policy is to defuse a domestic dispute by removing the man.  Be aware.  Beware.

A lot of pressure on you now!   I am making the assumption you are locking yourself in one bedroom until she finds an apartment and she will be in the rest of the house. I am just looking from a different perspective but would it be possible to rent an apartment for her and while she is at work move her crucial stuff to the apartment and  then hire a mover to take big stuff on a different day that wife agrees to??I absolutely don't know all the details so I may be COMPLETELY out of my element ...if so, I appologize for any wrong thinking on my part! 

Hi there,

It's natural and even healthy to have some disagreements with the person you're dating seriously.  But I think there are some orange flags here.  First is the severity of the argument--a "huge" one.  Second is the nature of the argument:  seemingly out of "nowhere."  Third is his reaction to the argument:  ending the relationship "very abruptly," then blocking you.

What you describe is an emotional reaction that seems intense, over-the-top and maybe illogical; he could have taken offense when none was intended.  Some people are drawn to that intensity, that drama, at least at first.  But what I see is some unfairness too:  not "fighting fair," not listening, not trying to work things out, not apologizing, ending the relationship unilaterally over something that might have been inconsequential.  It's possible that "blocking" you initially served as a means for him to get some distance, and take a breather so to speak.  But to resolve conflicts, typically there must be some communication.  It seems to me he isn't "fighting fair" by blocking you.  I understand I'm old-fashioned here, perhaps reading a block as something more serious than it is.

Maybe with some time and space, he can calm down a bit.  He might change his mind and regret how he acted.  He might pretend the entire argument didn't take place at all.  He might conveniently forget what the argument was about.  But here's the thing:  BPD typically comes with intense, emotionally-driven, over-the-top "drama," "unfair" fights and giving up on the relationship easily.  I'd just ask, are you prepared for that?  I think some people are actually drawn to the drama and intensity, and they like to "fight" for the relationship, to play the role of "rescuer."  Is that what you want?  The good thing is that your partner is showing you early on what the relationship will likely look like.

My general approach with pwBPD and pwBPD traits is to give them an "adult time out" when their negative emotions kick in.  My unspoken rule is not to "interrupt" the time out.  In my experience, I find that they will reach out when they are ready.  Even though I might be concerned for their welfare in the interim, I resist the temptation to "check in" with them, because I feel like it would be violating the "block" that they erected.  In other words, if they tell me they don't want me to contact them, I respect that request.  I'm one of those people who doesn't relish playing games, such as "begging" them to communicate when they've stormed off . . . I think that the "begging" incentivizes them to stay away even longer in my opinion.

Just my two cents.

Hi there,

I'm sorry you've been dealing with the negative behaviors, for what sounds like almost three decades now.  There must be a ton of emotional baggage.  You must feel exhausted, while at the same time worried sick.  You might even feel some PTSD.  Do you tense up every time the phone rings, bracing yourself for more traumatic news?

Here's the thing though.  I get the sense from your post that you might feel overly responsible.  When your daughter was a child, you were responsible for her.  But she's 31 now.  The excerpt above stood out to me:  She's unwilling or unable to take interest in her life.  It sounds to me like she's abdicating responsibility for herself.  That way, she can blame her problems on YOU, or maybe on the world in general.  I think the victim mindset is perhaps the worst part of BPD, because it renders her helpless.  She thinks others should change, not her.  She thinks others should over-function for her, that they OWE her.  She's stuck, and the victim mindset keeps her there.  That could be why therapy isn't working--she doesn't believe she needs it.  She's telling you she doesn't care about her life--she thinks she's worthless.  The sad reality is that she has given up, while you hold onto hope for something better.

I think that's why on these boards we sometimes read that pwBPD have to "hit bottom" before they decide to get some help.  It's just that it sounds like your daughter has to sink even lower.  And if you rescue her, giving her a comfortable landing when she's released from the hospital, she might think, Mom's responsible.  Even if your daughter is miserable, her life is "working" for her.  She hasn't learned yet the "rules" of adulthood--that violence lands you in jail, that unemployment leaves you virtually penniless, that being mean leaves you friendless, that nobody owes you anything, that happiness is a choice, that adult life is full of tasks you don't necessarily want to do, but you do them anyway because you are responsible.  It's not your fault she didn't learn these things--her BPD emotions have gotten in the way.

My sense is that you could benefit from some happiness in your life, to get some distance and help get over the grief.  Maybe you could spend more time with the grandchildren?  I think you owe it to yourself to find happiness in your life, now that your kids have all grown.  In fact I think you should model for your kids what a healthy adult's life looks like--including time for friends, grandkids, hobbies and fun trips.  How does that sound?  That way, should you resume contact with kids in some sort of crisis, you interact from a place of serene happiness, and you uphold boundaries to keep it that way.  In addition, they might learn from you how to have a healthier, balanced life.  How does that sound?

Thank you for more insight.  Minus the not working, my son sounds a lot like what you describe.  Makes me think twice about his inheritance and I will have a talk with his siblings about that.Is there any online counseling that addresses this kind of disorder? 

Hi there,

I'm sorry you're in a tough spot, essentially wanting to protect your grandchildren from the disordered thinking patterns of your son.  I can relate a little bit, because I have an adult stepdaughter with BPD, and another person in the family with undiagnosed NPD.  But the situations are somewhat different because your son seems to be functional, at least in terms of earning a salary.  The people with BPD/NPD in my life are not as high functioning right now.

Anyway, the uNPD in my life is long-term unemployed, suffers from "fantastical" thinking and neglects his three young children.  His "fantasies" and his bizarre "narrative" of his life have gotten worse, not better, over the last decade.  Without a rigid structure of employment or a wife to cater to his every need and usher him around, he slipped into increasing dysfunction.  Even though he has three wonderful kids, he can't seem to get his act together, not even for their sake.  The underlying problem is that with narcissism, the only person he cares about is himself.  His distorted thinking--grandiosity, elements of paranoia, extreme arrogance, demandingness of others, exceptionalism for himself, vindictiveness--seems to taint his decision-making.  He basically makes little, if any, effort to be with his kids, and when he deigns to be present, he makes the entire visit about him and his extensive needs.  It's as if the roles are reversed:  he's the kid, and his kids are his caretakers.  When he doesn't get exactly what he wants, he can be cruel, to his own kids!  And yet he can "pull himself together" when he wants to.  He can appear almost normal and be very convincing with authority figures, such as CPS or cops.  He has no problem with lying.

Anyway, the "least bad" formula that seems to work for the uNPD father is this:  his visits with children must be supervised, and in practice that means supervision by his mother.  She's the one who organizes visitation, including driving and meal preparation.  She picks up and drives around the uNPD father, and my guess is that she "parents" him right along with the grandkids.  You see, the uNPD is generally unable to prepare regular meals for his kids or supervise them appropriately.  Since grandma is responsible, she'll ensure the kids get three meals a day and go to bed at a reasonable hour instead of staying up all night on screens.  And grandma is fun, she'll take the kids to a museum, beach or some sort of excursion, even if uNPD father stays alone to nap all day.  UNPD father is supposed to send child support, but he's generally negligent, and every payment is an argument with him.  Courts have mandated child support and sale of the marital home, but he is generally uncooperative, and since he has no income, there are no wages to garnish.  My point is, assuming ongoing "compliance" from someone who is uncooperative because of mental illness doesn't work very well.  The uNPD father has cited every excuse possible for noncompliance--it's never his fault, always someone (or something) else.

Another point might interest you:  my understanding is that any inheritance going to uNPD father is to be held in a trust administered by a family member.  Why?  Because uNPD father has proven himself to be unreliable with finances, as he chooses unemployment while he binge-spends on frivolous items.  Apparently he has piles of unopened boxes of online orders shipped to his home.  His family obviously came to the conclusion that he'd be better off if he had someone more responsible manage his inheritance on his behalf.

I'm sorry you've struggled so much, probably for years.  I imagine that you've tried to protect your son, but he just won't cooperate.  Maybe it makes sense to focus on the welfare of the grandkids, provided you're in a position to help in some way.  In reading these boards, I've seen that a typical scenario is for the pwBPD to isolate kids from grandparents as punishment for perceived grievances.  That is heartbreaking as well.

Certainly, there is nothing like having a BPD child to expose all my own maladaptive behaviors.  I've struggled with enmeshment, depression and poor boundaries.  I know (now) that I have these issues.  It is a constant up and down.  I've learned how to block her from contacting me.

As some backstory, this daughter (caller her #4) is one of five children we adopted from social services.  We have no birth children. She is fourth youngest. #5 is also a daughter who was born addicted to heroin.  They are about 14 months apart.  #5 became addicted to heroin in her teens, and currently lives in a car with her boyfriend.  They are on and off of fentanyl.

#3, son, had/has reactive attachment disorder.  we have not been in contact for several years.  Son #2 just remarried his ex - wife and is stable living with a career.  Son #1 has been married for 25 years and has 3 lovely grandchildren. We see them often.

This is about daughter #2.    The most difficult part is that she keeps reaching out - if she left us alone that would be different, but I keep being dragged back into her life and have to deal with all the miserable aspects of it.

.... and, looking at what I just wrote, I clearly see a boundary issue.  If I were to set a boundary, though, and not see her or talk to her, I think about her.  How she's surviving.  How she's eating.  How lonely I know she feels.

Hey y’all, just felt the need to post and vent a little bit. My plan is still in motion to inform my wife in two weeks that I’m divorcing her, and giving her paperwork my lawyer’s preparing.

I’m having a lot of mixed feelings - some days, happiness and can’t wait to rip this Band-Aid off. Other days, almost feel crippled with anxiety over it. I only got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night. Woke up with disaster vision thinking of the various scenarios I might face.

Working through my task list week by week as I get closer. I’ve got my storage unit and started moving important things to me out of the house. I have a post office box to have packages and change mailing addresses as needed. Currently all the household bills are paid from a joint bank account. Leading up to the time I tell her I’m transitioning all the auto payments to a separate individual bank account. Once I tell her, I won’t be keeping any funds in the joint account. By the end of next week, I’m planning to get some banker boxes to pack up and get some files, passports, other docs I want to be sure are safe out of the house.

I’m resolute, but I still have a lot of moments where I feel like a fraud because of the lies I’m having to tell week by week. I know 100%. This is the right decision. But it does feel bad cause I’m still pretending as if I’m staying. I’m sure it’ll just be one more reason for her to split an attack me.


But even this week, it’s hilarious. There’s daily drinking and marijuana use. She keeps saying things like she’s changed so much, there are hardly any blow ups. (I just think in terms of if this was a spouse getting beat physically would she say “I’m only beating you once month now, you should be happy” ) Such baloney. The other day she talked about how she was respecting my new budget, I recently told her I wasn’t going spend more than $400 a month eating out. Soon to be zero dollars for her. Then last night she asked me if we’re still going out to eat for Thursday or Friday this week. I said yes, but woke up this morning thinking to myself, messed up it is. We have a family day planned out tomorrow that’s probably gonna cost at least $200. The kids are really looking forward to it, I’m hoping we can enjoy the day. Then this weekend my sister comes with her three kids so we have houseguests for five days. And this is the sort of nonsense, I’m already gonna be over budget tomorrow with the family outing, it’s gonna be an additional cost for groceries and what not hosting more people. So now I have to have the conversation which shouldn’t be uncomfortable, but it is because it’s her, letting her know that if she wants to go out for dinner Thursday or Friday she has to pay. And really if she has money to go out she should chip in for groceries instead. That would be common sense. Actually common sense would be not eating out every week, let alone twice a week, which is what she wants and expects.

I know this is gonna cost a lot financially to go through this divorce process, but I still feel very confident that in the long term I’m gonna be much better off financially.

The other little wrinkle happened this past weekend. The details don’t even matter, it’s the same pattern. Escalations, she’s threatening separation and wanted  me to go with her to look at apartments for her. I said she can go look, but it’s not what I wanted to do that day. She wasn’t serious about it, she’s just trying to get attention or wants me to beg for her not to go. I did bring up the apartment listing website on her computer to show her apartments in our area. I left the house to do some grocery shopping and just get away from her. Apparently she had posted something on social media saying she was looking for apartments or something like that. I didn’t see it but while I’m out my 19-year-old daughter text me and asked me what’s this post mom just did about an apartment? My wife must’ve taken it down right away because it wasn’t on her page when I saw it and my daughter said she didn’t see it either anymore. But my wife talked to her mother. And that’s when her mom told her she wanted to come down right away…


Now my MIL is pretty good and definitely sees the patterns and extreme behaviors. But I would also consider her an enabler. She doesn’t call my wife out on her behaviors. And even though she’s seen my wife explode, she still says platitudes to me that it takes two to argue… after my wife rages that takes two?? Anyway, I’ve texted my mother-in-law a couple times since then and she hasn’t responded, which is fairly unusual. I just texted her and let her know she’s of course welcome anytime and if she had made any decisions about what dates she might come down. Crickets so far. For me the dilemma is I don’t know if this is going to mess up my plans on how I’m going to tell my wife. I actually think it may be a really good thing if her mother is here to give her support, maybe even be present when I tell her.

Logistically this messes me up a little bit however if my mother-in-law is here the week, I’m telling my wife… I had it all planned out that while my wife is at work for the day I would be doing the last-minute packing up of my things frantically, moving a few things into storage so making a few trips there. But the bigger thing was installing a deadbolt on the spare room door and moving all my belongings from our bedroom to the spare room, essentially moving myself in there and having a locked room to keep things in complete with cameras.  If my mother-in-law is there, she’ll be staying in the spare room is the issue. There’s no other area that’s really available for me to put my clothes and bedroom belongings.

Anyway, it’ll be what it’ll be. Trying to look at this positively. Her mom might be able to calm her down somewhat and it would be good for my wife to have support, or help her in finding an apartment asap would be a dream. But don’t know for sure if she’s coming so continuing as if she won’t be here for the time being.

He will be 44 in April.  He had a forceps delivery that caused a head injury at birth which gave him headaches since birth until I realized at 10 that he had issues and sought manual therapy and helped that but he struggle in school with LD in reading, writing,math.  He kept it together at school and blew up at home.  I tried taking him to a counselor but that caused more scars (I didn't know what he need but I knew their technique wouldn't work).   He was also ADD.  He was always oppositional defiant and by the time he was 5 he hated me.  With spiritual warfare that improved and our relationship was good in early teen years because I evolved with approach--pulled from public school, tried 2 private schools (drew picture with dagger through heart at 8 in private school).  Finally homeschooled him and was able to improve his learning environment for all those issues with innovative approaches.  All the time raising his sister and brother (he would literally kick his little brother).  Since it was a challenge to find a counselor that was appropriate for him, I resorted to counseling for myself to learn how techniques to use with him and to address my issues with my past and how to deal with my husband who apparently had his own mental deficits (in denial about our son's mental state and not providing a consistent united front for our son).  So, we made it to adulthood without major issues, he married (2007) and finally he had kids(all und 7 yr.) .  He has always been gainfully employed (never blew up on the job).  Blows up at home.  I raised him to be independent and ultimately he went into business for himself and they have never been financially destitute.  He is a workaholic. Currently they actually have a beautiful house down the block which is quite an accomplishment considering all I have been through with him since the day he was born.  He does not have an offical diagosis BPD and I also believe he is absolutely narcissist ---I think it is a combination.  He has never viewed the world correctly.  Currently he comments that his wife is evil because he says she just stares at him.  After looking at the video about BPD (he has not been suicidal) I heard the comment about reading faces----it fits.  When he first married,  he commented when they were apart, he couldn't visulize her face.  He may not be 100% borderline but the issues include BPD traits and I do need a counselor for me to help me approach him in way that we can even discuss counseling and what to say to my grandkids.  I NEED SKILLS to make through this unbelievable dark time.  We have made it to this point without him taking his first drink ever (ETOH is genetic)---his brother and sister had a big argument with him when he was a young adult.  He wanted to drink "to fit in".  He has been faithful in his marriage and not gone down a path of self destruction.  But if his mousey wife is no longer his wife, I am very concerned.  We have never had the heart ache others have suffered .  I love my daughter in law and she loves us but I want her life to be better but if she does divorce,  my world will be more of a mess.  My husband has mentally always been a challenge to communicate with (due to environmental challenges I now realize) and it has progressed to just a little bit of dementia.  I need a counselor for me that understands borderline personality so I can receive wise counsel for myself !  My daughter talked with him and told him he need counseling but he is convinced he is the only one that is right and refuses to go (my daughter in law is in counseling and that is why she had the courage to leave---she believes in joint counseling) .  In his eyes no one else knows anything! Sorry for the long response,  This is it .