Good to know therapy has been tried, multiple times.  That is often among our first comments in our replies.


She is escalating.  Unfortunately that is a common pattern we see here.  It's almost like she is pushing boundaries, as in extinction bursts, or perhaps seeking more ways to vent herself.  Either way, it is not something to ignore.

Does she have gainful employment, even part time?  The kids are all school age so she doesn't have an excuse she has to stay home and parent all day.  Even if her contributing to the family's income is not urgent, it ought to help her feel better to be keeping busy.  And if she is working, should there be a divorce, then she would have documented an ability to have her own income.

My ex too, in our final years together, would make repeated threats to either disappear with our toddler or to divorce.  I don't believe she truly planned to do so but she sure vented it.  Our son's first sentence, at breakfast after mommy stormed off to another room, was "Mommy bad."  I've always assumed he meant "Mommy feels bad" but I took it to heart that it truly impacted our son.

Your children are surely impacted too.  We don't tell our members what to do, that decision is yours alone.  We share our collective wisdom, what general approaches work and which don't, and what we've found to be helpful skills and insightful strategies.  With that in mind, here's a post I've made in years past.

Sorry that you are back again, pretty much in the same space as 5 years ago.  I completely understand what you are going through.  My uBPDh has the same pattern as your wife's current pattern, "something/anything" triggers them on Sunday night or Monday morning.  They stay "angry" all week until Thursday/Friday and then all of a sudden they are happy and its like nothing has happened, except we feel whiplashed and confused!  I have come to realize, in my situation, that this is about me leaving for work, and thus, abandoning him.  My uBPDh used to throw a temper tantrum a couple of hours before I had to leave for work, and I would call out sick, as I didn't think it was safe to leave the kids with him.  So he learned, that if I throw a temper tantrum, she will stay home from work.  Unfortunately, clearly, this is not a way to make a good impression at work, so I started finding other places for my kids to go on these days, which he fought against big time and forced me to leave the kids with him, but luckily, now the kids are all in full day school, so are out of the house for the majority of the time that I am at work.  He has other issues now, but I have learned that he will always have some issue and its best to ignore it the best I can (way easier said than done!) and keep my head up, moving forward.  As for the "we are done" comment by your wife...I will say that I have heard this numerous times over the years.  That comment seems to punch you in the gut each time it is said, and I think that is why it is said!  I think its probably the words that go with the over the top emotional state that they are in and really just want to hurt us...and they know how to do so!  I ignore that comment, as I do every other comment made during his temper tantrums, I try to look at it like a "pink elephant" comment.  Though, I will admit, that I do use these temper tantrum moments to up my documentation on their true behavior, in case I need it down the road...or to just prove to myself, that I am NOT crazy! 

Wow, blast from the past! 

Where have we been these five years? All over. Back around again.

Back to where I made that post from.

My wife (ex?) has been much of the same, since. She started therapy...but it only lasted a couple of months before she flipped on that counsellor. "I don't need her..." was her only justification. Bull_____! You NEED her, or someone. I didn't say that, of course. Tried a couple other counsellors over the years - it was all her own decision, I felt better. But, one after another, they would fall to the flip after just a few months. She always came up with reasons, but they were just her reasons.

I have learned a lot in the past five years. I started by just not communicating with her, when she is like this. It works, at least for me. I don't get hurt. Everything she says just washes over me. It's not her, its her condition.

I actually called the police to do a wellness check, earlier this year. She had left, again, without saying where she was going. So I called the police. She came back on her own that day. The police showed up later - she was still very angry, so she left with them. It was quite the site, watching them put her in the back of a squad car. She called me about 45 minutes later, wanting to apologize. She had been at the psychosis center - they seem to be able to calm her down in no time (this was her 3rd time being there). She came home and cried in my arms.

The kids - now 16, 14, and 7 - are all pretty much aware of the fact that she has a condition. They don't ask why, when she is angry. They just quiet down and hold on. My youngest keeps coming up to give me a big hug and say "you are a good daddy" when my wife is feeling like this. Probably after my wife has said something about me. Even our kids see through the BS. They can see the truth of the situation, or at least a glimmer of it.

The past month has been horrible. For the past four weeks she has been like clockwork: every Sunday night/Monday morning she will be mad at me (for something, anything). She will be mad until Thursday/Friday, then she acts like nothing ever happened. Until Sunday night 

This week, she has been hitting things in the house. The kids were all scared, but I managed to calm them down. On Tuesday she was taking a bath while shouting at the top of her lungs. About 30 minutes of this went on. She shouted "we are getting separated!". She took off her wedding rings and left them on my night table. "So, this is how I find out?" I said, as I picked them up. She got up and said "keep them!".

Now I'm not speaking to her. I don't know what to do.

Are you willing to accept this "on again, off again" relationship, probably neverending into the future?  As is, that's the likely outcome.

There are a couple realities I'll mention.  Maybe call them "truisms"?

(1) We can't 'fix' them.  They would have to want to work on themselves and our encouragement to do so would not be received well.  Why?  BPD is a disorder most evident in close emotional relationships.  Once we've been in a close relationship with them, the emotional baggage of the relationship makes it hard for them to truly listen to us.  In other words, they would too easily be triggered and overreact to our input.

(2) Since we can't fix them, then is there anything that works?  Yes, but it needs the other's cooperation and determination to make it work... meaningful therapy with a trained professional (one without an emotional connection).  Even then there is no guarantee of substantive improvement.  Many reject therapy from the get-go, others give up and quit.  It's not hopeless but you never know unless it is attempted.

A lot of people will say, When they hit bottom then they will recover.  It's not as simple as that.  In our cases, with persistent disordered perceptions in their lives, no one knows how many bottoms it will take before real recovery and improvement occur... if ever.


Generally, letting family or friends administer supervised visits can be opening a bag of worms.  A better option is to engage professionals to handle such visits, if locally available.

As for repairing her car, it may be helpful if... it helps her start and stick to a better path in life.  Otherwise it could be ultimately enabling her to sit back and expect others to rescue her.

Hello and welcome to the family.  You are certainly not alone and so many of us have faced the exact same obstacles.

Let me ask you, what type of mother do you think she needs right now?

From what you've shared, it sounds like you'd answer that by saying a mom that would let her stay with you, a mom that will fix her problems, a mom that would put up with her abuse, etc.

But is that the mom she actually needs?

What if she were a drug addict, begging for money to buy more drugs?  Would the mom she needs be a person who would buy her drugs that could kill her, or a mom that would insist that she gets into rehab?  Because in all honesty, that's exactly the same as your situation.  The mom she needs is the one who will enforce healthy boundaries and hold her accountable for the mess she's created on her own.

Why?  Because she has to want to make internal changes to actually start getting better.  She has to take therapy and medication seriously.  She has to work through this stuff, even though it's her greatest fear in life.  Nothing changes until she's ready to make those active changes from within.

If a mom allows a person like that to sleep in their home while paying their bills and making everything the best it can be, then where's the need for that person to change?  If things are bad, she can say that it's not her fault- it's your fault and her ex husband's fault.  You guys did this to her....she's the poor blameless victim.  That's the crux of the disorder, blaming everyone else so you don't have to take personal accountability.

I would encourage you to be the mom she actually needs...which is not going to be the mom she wants.  This is not about wants though or what makes her feel better today, this is about baby steps towards lifelong changes that can turn all of this around and let her become a productive member of society. 

My 27 year old BPD daughter was told last month by her therapist that they probably need to end therapy soon because it's not really needed any longer, she thinks my kid is stable and fully in remission.  We couldn't imagine that three or four years ago, but she's put in the work and is coming out on the other side of this.  There's still problems at times and she still grossly overreacts every now and then, but she now has the coping skills to work through it without the scorched earth approach.

Your kid can get there too, but it's 100% on her to put in the work.  So be the mom that encourages that work and doesn't enable her to avoid it.

 I’ve went through multiple estrangements with my daughter lasting initially a few months.   After my son died 12 years ago there was a 5 year stretch she was absent from entire family.  When she “came back” she was upset because I wasn’t “close to her” like my nieces (who lived with me growing up).  I told her that our relationship would always be superficial unless we did therapy together, work through what caused her estrangement, and pain from it.  Til that happened we couldn’t be close.   For 5 years I made the offer multiple times and would cover the cost because I desired to be closer which she adamantly refused to do therapy with me.  
There was another blow up when I refused to go along/agree with a lie she was trying to spin concerning an affair she had that was causing her divorce.  This led to another estrangement, this one has been for 1.5 yrs.  She has berated me publicly and privately.  Even though she got a divorce, her ex supported her and really tried to help her despite pain she’d cause him.  He recently had his fill when she started publicly accusing him of things that are not true.  He evicted her from an apartment he had been letting her stay in.  He let me know what was going on, how her behavior was escalating, and what he was doing.  I did a legal commitment on her because she was posting news clips about suicide and some other concerning things after he evicted her.  I let her stay with me til bed became ready at the crisis unit.  Told her she couldn’t live with me.  I don’t trust her.  She has rages where she says the most hateful and hurtful things.   The only reason she reached out to me is because she’s burned bridges with all her immediate family and what friends she had have distanced themselves from her.  
She was discharged this past week and left without having housing arranged/lied and said she had a friend that was taking her in.  
I’m currently getting her car serviced and hopefully will be ready today. My nieces partner is putting her up in a hotel for the week til her car gets ready then she can live in her car.
She really hasn’t apologized for anything (and there’s a lot of pain she’s caused) but she’s willing to go to counseling now when it’s been complete refusal for over 10 years.   Her ex husband went against her wishes before he evicted her and brought kids over to my house a couple of times.  
I feel bad for her, and especially feeling the guilt trip about “your my mother and should help her only daughter, only living child who’s at the worst point in her life”.  
Doesn’t understand why I don’t want her living with me after all the help my mother has given me through the years.   I know the only reason she’s speaking to me is because of her current circumstances.  I want to help her but she still doesn’t acknowledge her responsibility or take any accountability for the pain and lies.   Says she does.   I’m on eggshells when she’s around and physically ill from the stress of it.  My nieces who have been there for me throughout all these years.  Since they lived with me also, they know how I was when they were children and as adults.  One of them asked her to please explain what kind of trauma did I cause her because she didn’t see anything.  Which she replied that it was because I worked all the time.  (I was a single parent raising 4 kids) They (my nieces) were there for me grieving the loss of my son and grieving the living death of my daughter.   My daughter would make posts about being “an orphan”.  
They are all in their mid to late 30s now.  My nieces don’t want their children around her because of her behavior.  
I struggle with wanting to help my daughter and let her live with me but I know her behavior and my home wouldn’t be a peaceful place.  I’d be limiting who would come to my home because others in family don’t want to be around her or have their kids around her.  
Her ex husband has a temporary restraining order against her that includes the children and full custody.   He’s also charged her with defamation and harassment lawsuit.  He asked me if I’d supervise visits with her and kids. Crazy how she’s called unsafe so much but I’m safe enough to supervise her visits.  
I know this can be seen as a “bottom” and I’m not helping her by giving her a “safe place” to rest and restore.    I feel terrible for not “being the mother she needs right now” and wonder if this really is a moment of change.   But also have the fear of a rage attack when I don’t respond just so….
Thanks for helping me to know I’m not alone.

It might help to look at these behaviors as a pattern and their reason for them. One concern of yours is your SO dysregulating/emotion dumping/being critical of you, and no matter how hard you try to meet their needs, not succeeding. You have realized that this relationship isn't "normal". That's a very difficult point to emotionally process. While you wish to make the situation more manageable by finding a way to quell your SO's reactions, it isn't possible to change someone's thinking or feeling. Another approach is to look at how you can manage yourself in this situation.

How manageable this situation is- that is also an individual decision as well as a function of the two involved. BPD is on a spectrum and it affects how someone thinks, behaves, and functions in a relationship. Some partners may choose to tolerate a level of dysfunction more than others. One isn't right or wrong for staying or leaving- as each person's situation and tolerance is different. However, I do think you are correct- this isn't normal. A relationship with someone who has a mental illness isn't the same as one with someone who does not have one.

So why does your SO persist in bringing up her hurts, blaming you, demanding an answer or you do something and it's not correct or enough? Because this isn't the function of this behavior. The behavior serves to release uncomfortable emotions by projecting them- often on the closest person to them. BPD affects the closest relationships the most. Your SO may be able to hold it together with less familiar people. However, the people closest to them are the ones they project on to- due to the nature of that relationship. Why- I am not completely sure. I just know that for me, it was my father and then, us kids in that position for the most part.

So, the answer isn't going to be right, the action isn't going to be right, because it's the release of emotions that is needed. This may not make sense but BPD thinking isn't rational, it's emotional and run by disordered thinking.

If doing things to manage your SO isn't helping, then another option is to consider how to manage yourself in this situation, not your SO. Your SO is doing what they need to do to manage their feelings. Try to stop it, or respond to it- its going to happen anyway.

You need to carve out some time and space where you are away from it, for your own sanity. Listening to this all the time isn't realistic. How much your SO can manage on their own is a factor. My father who stayed (it was emotionally difficult for him but that was his choice to make) coped by - going to work, and after he retired- he would go to exercise, go out for breakfast (she slept in), but a lot of his time was spent being the emotional caretaker. Yes, he enabled her but she was very affected by her BPD and her own emotional coping skills were very poor.

After my father passed away, we kids also experienced being in this situation. It's difficult. We chose to not live too close to BPD mother and even on visits, needed to take some time to ourselves so we could manage our own selves- not attempt to manage her feelings or reactions. She was going to do what she was going to do. We knew it too. She'd act like she wanted us to visit but something about us being there- would just open the gates of venting. On the other hand, we didn't want to not visit her at all- due to her being an elderly mother, that didn't seem right to do- but we had to visit in ways we could manage. We also tried to do nice things for her and to be supportive but the emotional venting would happen anyway.

It also wasn't just with us. In her elder years, she had caregivers- and caregivers spend a lot of time with their clients, and they too would experience the emotional venting. However, they were trained to manage elderly clients and also could go home to their own places afterwards.

You have come to the realization that your relationship isn't normal. This is how your SO copes. You've tried all you know to do to change this pattern for your SO, change your SO's reactions but - its possible that if this is how your SO manages their emotions- this is who they are. One suggestion is to shift to how you can manage.

One is to have a boundary on your schedule. If you are at work during certain times, then you are unavailable then. Also, if you have an exercise class, or some other commitment. Then decide when and how much to listen to your SO vent- an hour in the evenings, yes, there will be insults. We kids would even describe our visits as "time for another verbal lashing". Sometimes they were hard to hear, but eventually, it got so predictable, we just knew we'd hear it. If you have a counselor for emotional support this helps.

However, even though we kids chose to have some contact, this is not the same as living with someone 24/7 and listening to this all the time. We chose not to do this. Admittedly, it's harder for you in this situation, but you still have the choice. Should you choose to stay- shifting your focus from your SO to some ways for you to cope may help.

My PWBPD starts out most mornings with a trauma dump on me.  It’s a very detailed list of things bothering them and a series of questions to answer about that list of things that they want answers for but all answers are the wrong ones.   

No matter what I might have going on (in the middle of work, pondering my own issues, doing something for someone else), I hear it.   If I stop listening, react the wrong way, or do anything negative, I know I’m in for it.   

What are the best ways to tell them “not now” without triggering their frustration even further?   

Hello, dear friend. You arrived here just a few years after I did - and I've been here a long, long time, too long probably.  That you're still together after all these years is a commendable effort on your part but with few rewards.

May I ask what has kept you both together over the years?  Sometimes having children together impels us to feel we must stay together "for the sake of the children".  Is that a factor in your life?  I guess what I'm asking is why you've not chosen a better outcome.

Reminds me of old Proverbs: "A quarrelsome wife is like a constantly leaking roof on a rainy day." and "Better to dwell in the wilderness than with a quarrelsome and irritable wife." - 21:9; 21:19; 25:24; 27:15

Millennia ago we didn't have today's mental health descriptions for such patterns of behavior.  These patterns have existed over the centuries, though with the recent breakdown of societal norms, these days it seems to be much more common than before.

We're here on the Bettering board, so my question is whether you have decided you can't go on suffering like this or are considering whether to continue limping along in an unequal relationship?  It's obvious the other will not improve their disparaging and disrespectful behavior patterns otherwise you would have seen it years ago.

I'm not sure how much more we have to say as new suggestions that we haven't said before.  Please let us know if you have come to Accept there is no more you can do (reference is to the many stages of Grieving a Loss) and need to choose another path to improve your life.

Let me tell you a story... In my youth I many times visited an old man who lived a mile from my home.  Though I quoted many citations from the Scriptures, he was sunk low into feeling there was no hope for him.  By the time I left, he would have come around to feeling much better.  Sadly, on my later visits he would have reverted to the same level of hopelessness, over and over.  (I never knew what he finally did with his remaining years since I thereafter moved to Brooklyn and continued a couple decades of religious volunteer work.)  That said, dear friend, I don't want this feeling of despair to continue to be your lot in life.