For my BPD daughter, when she starts randomly laughing it's because she's thought something so vile, she knows it's not appropriate to repeat out loud.  And she has almost no filter, so if she thinks it's bad, then it's really going to be bad.

I've learned to just let her laugh and not ask, "What's so funny?"  It's almost always something perverted and twisted.

My BPD ex wife, on the other hand, would go through phases of being manic and depressed.  When she's happy, everything is perfect in the world and she smiles and laughs throughout the day.  It's not exactly the scenario you're describing, but this could also be an explanation- he's in a manic mindset and he's so happy because everything is "the best ever".

In either case, or if it's something completely different, your only options are to laugh with him or ignore it.  If he's happy, then at least he's not being a jerk....so I'd call that a win.

There's an old saying I really like- it's darkest just before the sunrise.

Now, I'm not sure if that's actually true or not, LOL, but it's a great reminder that when we're going through something stressful or challenging, the next phase can't come until we actually let go of the past.  And once we actually move on, we receive the light of a brand new day.

There are some on this forum who are stuck for months, years, and even decades because of a bad break-up with a BPD ex.  It's truly heartbreaking, and what actually makes the difference is to stop looking backwards and start facing forward.  It's so hard to do...and so easy to do at the same time.  You just stop letting it define you as you absorb the lessons and move on.

I'm so thankful that you were able to navigate this process in a relatively short period of time.  There will be challenging days ahead, but they're not setbacks...they're just your feelings coming to terms with everything.  It's perfectly normal to grieve and there's nothing wrong with it.  The only real goal is to not let it consume you to the point where it's the focus of your life.

Again, I'm thrilled for you and hope you won't be a stranger!

The mental health system has had a difficult time with the concept of parental alienation.  For many years it was dismissed when brought up in court, even by the mental health experts themselves.  Partly it was who presented PA, psychiatrist Richard Gardner.

However, between you, me and the wall (analogy here), we all know that PA really does happen.  How can the children not be impacted by repeated conflict in the home?  But for many years the courts and other professionals wanted hard findings and in real life there are few confirmed findings.

More recently there has been a better approach pursued by Dr Craig Childress, that PA is an aspect of child abuse, thus it aligns better with the DSM.  He recommends a jiu-jitsu approach.  You might want to look into that.  All I know is my court and it's associated professionals looked only for bruises and clear abuse and ignored the manipulation and virtual programming.

Now to comment on another subtle aspect of what can impact our children...

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I'm pondering how to make a post to our Psychology board, perhaps with the subject BEHAVIORS: Looking children in the eye.

Though I don't recall a specific incident, I can imagine my ex, in our final years together,  demanding of our child, "Look me in the eye!"

What I do recall is the time I brought our toddler to the pediatrician and asking, "Our son was slow to talk and he usually avoids eye contact.  Could he have some level of autism?"  The pediatrician had his doubts but he did know there was discord in our home.  No professional has ever confirmed to me that I was dealing with a spouse with Borderline traits but on one of those visits the doc offered my then-spouse a list of local counselors, which she of course refused.

I do recall reading that it is best to lower oneself to the child's level when communicating but why eyes are averted merits consideration.

Children with anxiety may avoid eye contact as a way to manage social discomfort or avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Ffs H O O V E R I N G !!!!!!!!

Edit that should read ‘charming’ not charming, don’t know why it changed it to that!

I had my wife’s business partner messaging me the other night. She has been a friend of ours for over 30 years. Earlier this year she broke up with a guy she was seeing, that had moved in with her. It transpires that he was a con artist, preying on women and defrauding them. He has even been in the national press because of this.

Back in the summer she asked me to do a few jobs to her house so that she could put it on the market. I spent a day doing this, but didn’t charge her for my time. Apparently this greatly annoyed my ex.

The reason she messaged me was because my ex has been bitter and horrible towards her, jealous because she is moving house and has been belittling her. She is downsizing and has had to move to pay her ex (father of her children) off for the mortgage so she has had to move house.

I am trying to help her deal with the situation with my ex, and have told her to just try and deal with her with as little emotion and ‘grey rock’ her, and just to reply with a simple ‘ok then’ or ‘whatever’

I really don’t think my ex is happy. She gets upset that Ive helped out our friend. She calls our son and starts crying about my girlfriend, and has called her names to me in text messages.
She has also been ‘charming’ again in the last few weeks.

I think what might be going on, she is a control freak, is she has lost control and is lashing out at the path of least resistance, which is now her business partner. She can no longer control me. She possibly feels that she can’t control her boyfriend, because she is taking everything she can get from him, and living rent free under his roof. She used to control her sister, who used to work for her but left after everything started going pear shaped, so my theory is she is now lashing out on her friend/business partner.

Hi. There's a lot of context so please bear with me, I'll try to not make it confusing. I'm devastated.

Context: (You don't have to read the whole thing, just the first part I guess...)

(MOST IMPORTANT PERHAPS; NOT IN ORDER BUT SORT OF A TL;DR): This is the guy I never liked and she knew why, she even agreed with me on many things. In hindsight there were many red flags because for months they spoke, at the time I didn't think anything of it and I didn't want to be controlling, but looking back at old messages, she said he was "kind" and "nice" multiple times, she even told me "we talk everyday atp" but I didn't think anything of it because she was talking to me about her friend group that was falling apart, and I was like "well now you met these guys" (people I introduced her to) and she said that, Idk why I'm so blind . This guy would rant about his day to her and she's told him jokingly "I'm happy to know more about your lore" and that he "writes well". He'd also send her anything he'd cook for "tips". I didn't think anything of it for months, but eventually couldn't take it anymore, and I mentioned it. She apologised and said she'd stop talking with him, and their dms did die down, but I think the damage was done. When we broke up she promised me she didn't like him and told me "wow you're obsessed with him" We broke up 23rd of august, 5th of september she was already putting up romantic statuses for him. Either way, not even a month later, October 17th she went and visited him in his country. We've known each other for 9 years, 2016 to 2017 we dated, we broke up, I moved on after 7 months, she didn't take it well AT ALL, last words she told me were "I'll talk to you in an hypothetical future ()" Well that hypothetical future actually came. 2024 we got together again, she told me she was jealous of my ex for 6 years and wanted to be in her place. Told me she'd manifest for me to come back to her everyday. I did, and I'm no saint I'm afraid, but it feels like she just erased 9 years of love and bond in 1 month. For a guy I introduced her to. EDIT: 22nd of september she messaged my best friend to vent about me and ask about my gym progress. I thought she was still interested in me, then not even a month later she went and visited him in his country. I have my problems. I contributed a lot in ruining the relationship, she wasn't bad at all during it, but I never expected this. Maybe I deserve it.

When my friend confronted her, because he could see her instagram stories, she said "I don't want to stop myself from living something genuine just because it ended up being with a guy he hated". She even basically said I'm inferior saying "I think he knew how intelligent especially emotionally this guy is, and that's why he couldn't stand him." when it's not the case at all and she knew the exact reasons why I didn't like him.

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We had a big argument on the 8th of august. Why? Because I found out that she had her ex "FP" (<- not the guy she moved on with, but still something weird happened) in her friendlist on a platform after promising (and she did show me, to be fair) she'd remove him from everywhere. I believed her but the damage was done because of how I reacted. By the way, a week after she finally blocks me this guy is back and playing games with her. When I confronted her about it she was mad and lied saying someone else had invited him, but it's probably not true. <- This was like, after august and after what comes next.

I thought things were fine because she was still messaging me, sending me photos of her cat or her city, although we didn't talk much for a week or two. Still, we had agreed to meet. After that, 23rd of august she messages me saying she has to block me. I never expected it.

And so she does, except the place where we met, facebook. So I message her there, she'd reply to me, I was pathetic, begging and pleading, but at least she'd reply to me, and she was sad but not angry or anything. I asked her "how come I'm not blocked here yet?" she said "I don't have the courage to block you." Silly me thought there was still hope after that.

Later, I find out she has a private twitter account and this guy (the one I was jealous of and the one she moved on with) was interacting with her. I was a bit confused so I confront her about it because she told me she wasn't going to use twitter again, and this is where she gets incredibly mad and accuses me of stalking her. The only reason I found out is because I had a gut feeling and checked his twitter. She told me she didn't like him and that I was obsessed with him.

This was a "friend" () group of people I introduced her to, but they all blocked me after me and her broke up. There was this one guy I didn't like, she knew why I didn't like him, she even agreed with me on many things.

Our "last" (I broke NC multiple times, sadly.) interaction was 2nd of sept, that's when she blocked me on messenger too, I guess she did have the courage. She promised me that she didn't like him, that I was obsessed with him, that I never listen. Either way, 5th of september she was already putting romantic statuses on discord for him. A friend told me. But 22nd of september she messaged my best friend, venting to him and ranting about me, asking about me and my gym progress even, said she was "sad and disappointed" and that she was feeling a lot of "rancor" towards me. So I thought she was still somewhat interested in me... Yet in october she had already gone to see him. Told my friend she doesn't want to stop herself from having something genuine just because it ended up being with a guy I hated. She lied saying the reason I didn't like him was because this guy is intelligent on many things especially emotionally and that's why I couldn't stand him, which is not the case at all she knew exactly why I didn't like him.

I read (well, listened) Divorce Poison. Very conflicting emotions. I feel more prepared, and that's good, especially since some of the actions to take against alienation are not intuitive. I also feel more terrified. There were examples in the book that create the impression that at times things can really be on a knife's edge, and some combination of, say, vindictive ex, unfortunately clueless social worker and some fairly minor mistake from the other parent can cause a parent-child relationship to be damaged in a way that will never be fixed.

I have now started Don't Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce which seems quite promising too. (Well except for the being terrified part, since it is mentioned that the emotionally unstable parent doesn't necessarily even need to take any conscious action or bad mouth the other parent: sometimes the intense emotions being visible to the children is enough to change their feelings towards the other parent...)

Our eldest child is D6, she is too mature for her age and definitely parentified. My dbpdw (Mummy) has recently been more dysregulated due to pressures of studying and having new friendships. D6 and D4 generally understand that Mummy doesn’t like to not be involved so she doesn’t want them telling me or showing me things when she’s not around. (It’s more often that she’s not around as I’m working less to care for the kids when she’s at college).

There have been a few incidents recently but this was the worst. D6 told me excitedly one morning, “My friend drew me a picture, can I show you?” I said, “yes but do you think we should wait until Mummy gets up?” (She was still in bed, I get the kids ready every morning). D6 said, “I’ll show Mummy when she comes down..” And I thought, ok on a good day dbpdw might be fine with that but we’ll see.

Dbpdw was very angry (upset) that D6 had shown me the picture before her. She screamed at D6 making her cry. I stood up for the child, saying it wasn’t fair to  treat her that way as we both thought it would be ok. My wife then turned on me as to why I didn’t say anything to D6 about how Mummy would feel. I said that I had told D6, but we both thought Mummy would be ok with this. D6 then lied to Mummy saying that she didn’t understand what I had meant. I am fully ashamed to say I then lost it and shouted at D6, “How dare you lie?” making her cry again. I apologised to D6, saying, “I’m sorry Mummy isn’t ok with many things most people would be ok with”. My wife was seriously triggered by this (as I wanted her to be in that moment), screaming at me to “get out!” Just as I thought I might arrive at work at a good time she challenged me to make up with her before leaving by saying I shouldn’t leave after an argument etc, which is a nice idea but we’ve never done that in our marriage before. Anyway we had a normal conversation and she agreed that certain things upset her that wouldn’t upset most people but that’s ok she’s just different but we should still all think about her feelings etc. and try not to upset her.

I feel terrible at how I reacted towards D6. In future I will be wary of this and do better to understand the child lied about me because she was scared of Mummy. But my question is.. do I encourage them to “walk on eggshells” to some extent… because they can start to understand somewhat that their mother is mentally ill and needs special consideration? I know that walking on eggshells is not encouraged. But when parenting, surely it’s better to face this situation by saying, “Your mother is not normal” rather than pretending she is? I found it interesting that my wife even is on board with this to some extent, she denies still having bpd symptoms, but knows she is “not like other people”.

That afternoon I asked D6 how her school day was and she told me, “I forgot to tell Mummy so I better not tell you, I don’t want Mummy to get angry again”. I let this go, but again, what would the advised response be?

Correction