Hi there,

A custody battle is generally a nightmare, but with BPD/NPD, it's an order of magnitude worse.

I think I'd advise that since you're dealing with a custody case here, the well-being of the children comes first.  Let's do a thought experiment.  Let's say you order a psych eval, and it comes back that your ex has BPD.  I'd ask, so what?  Parents can have all sorts of issues--physical, mental, financial, etc.--but nevertheless they're still able to parent.  So I think that what it comes down to is whether your ex is abusive, negligent or otherwise not capable of caring for your kid(s) properly.  My point is, it's not so much the diagnosis of BPD that's important; it's the behaviors that adversely impact the kid(s) that matter.  Things like screaming at the kid(s), insulting them, humiliating them, hitting them, scaring them, threatening them, punishing them excessively, blaming them, and making them over-function for their mom, becoming HER emotional caretaker and HER servants instead of the other way around, the way it's supposed to be.  You need to document a pattern of abuse in my opinion.

I have an ex BIL who is undiagnosed NPD and has a highly dysfunctional life, and who was also extremely combative in court, being an ex lawyer himself.  It took the courts a long time to "see through" his ploys--but once they did, they came down hard on him.  Basically they found him in contempt of court, and his parenting time was severely restricted, requiring supervision by another adult all times.

How did the court get there?  Well, CPS was involved, twice, and a GAL was appointed.  The GAL's investigations took several months.  And though a Cluster B can seem to "pull themselves together" for a short time, I think they don't have the stamina or consistency to "fake" it for very long.  Their self-destructive tendencies eventually shine through.  For my BIL, that included heavy drinking (and failing multiple breathalyzer tests), several missed appointments and court dates, the inability to produce requested documents, non-compliance with child support and general non-cooperation with court orders.  On top of that, in the intervening months he had run-ins with police and a few medical events, one requiring a long hospitalization.  In addition, he had a long track record of skipping visitation and neglecting to call his children when he had agreed to do it.  Together with the GAL report and recommendations, the courts saw through his BS and came up with a reasonable custody arrangement.  It was one of the very, very rare cases that wasn't settled and actually went to trial, because my ex BIL was so stubborn and refused to cooperate or negotiate.
 
But central to all that was demonstrating, not that my ex BIL was mentally ill, but that his parenting was inadequate for the children.  In his case, things like spotty driving/accidents, reports of not feeding the children, not attending to normal parenting duties (e.g. PTA meetings, doctors appointments, dental visits, kids' activities, etc.), parentification, allowing the kids to see porn/inappropriate movies, abusive language/insults and an unclean home were important in building the "case" of not being fit to parent on his own.  His inability to care for his own health issues (untreated diabetes, kidney failure, gout, alcoholism) also played a part.

Hope that perspective helps a little.

My DIL was diagnosed with bpd. She is married to my son. My son, dil, 4 yr old granddaughter and 2 yr old grandson have lived with me since my granddaughter was born ( 4 years) for financial reasons. My son is continually looking for a better financially paying job, but in the meantime, they live with me. My dil is very moody, continuously upset with me, leaves dishes with food in the sink for sometimes two days ( where there is no room for me to do my own cooking or dishes). My relationship with my son and grandchildren means everything to me, so I don’t complain, I help clean when it gets too unbearable. I feel like I have no control over my home or life. Not sure what to do. I don’t want to kick them out of my house until they can financially afford it.

Ok so a giant nightmare of a multi year custody battle.  Nothing but false allegations and coaching.  I have very thorough documentation, witnesses, and professionals showing it's all false and coached.  The other party is now claiming conspiracy.  I have multi agencies coming to testify for me, and basically I'm Epstein without the wealth, power, or connections in the other parties mind.  The other party represents themself no attorney and just files motions left and right and it is delaying over and over and over.   Multiple motions to recuse, transfer venue, saying they didn't get all discovery because the "epstein" files showing the conspiracy aren't there.  The other party doesn't even follow the orders and my attorney has filed multiple enforcements and sanctions and we won, the other party never pays.  I am tired of it, I think the judge, the witnesses, and everyone knows although nobody can actually come out and say it.  Is it worth it to come out and point out what the other party has done and request a full psych eval?  Or are they too smart and will pass it?  If I could get an actual diagnosis on the record I think that would end this circus.  It's legalized harassment at this point and there are no consequences except being awarded fees that never get paid, and those fees don't come close to what I've had to pay my attorney over the last 2 years.  Everyone says dont bring up mental illness in court, the other party does everything everyone says NOT to do in court and here we are 2 years later and still going.  So at what point do I just say screw it and ask for the psych eval?

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I got a knot in my stomach reading your story. My ex used to threaten me with police too. Admittedly I did inevitably lash out which seemed to have been her plan. You are a better man than I was.

I hope you get full custody.

I have set a boundary of not speaking to her when she gets mad or tries to force me to do what she says.
Even if I enforced that a few times successfully, it never solved anything, I just managed to get some breathing space before the next storm.

I also had just started enforcing a limit, I limited my time with her spending Monday to Friday in another house, as I worked from home and she constantly disturbed me throughout the day, preventing me from working, so I lost several jobs and my career got ruined eventually.

She also deprived me of sleep, that is why I started sleeping in this new house too.

She hated that after several warnings I actually moved to another house for weekdays, of course.

What happened this time was that she got madder and angrier with me refusing to do some things in our home routine in the way she wanted me to, I really believe the proper way was somehow else.

After me insisting I would not speak to her in this mood, she cornered me in a room, very angry, of course with very humiliating phrases, got closer and closer and when very close she put her arms up, to try to intimidate me with her physical presence.

I was telling her I was afraid of her and that I wanted her to leave us alone, our 3 year old toddler was behind my back all this time, hiding from her.

I then feared for the worse, and grabbed my phone and started recording video.
After some more screams she attacked me, grabbed my hand and my phone and threw it against the wall.
The video caught this.

I was already recording audio before that.

This left scratch marks in my hand, with light bleeding.

I managed to grab my phone again and started recording again, insisting on her leaving us alone.

She then told me I had 10 minutes to leave the house else she would call the police for me. What would she tell them I don't know, but she could just say she wanted me out of the house and probably they would have taken me to the police station at minimum.

So I left, am somewhere else now, filed a police report including the audio, video, and picture of my scratches.

I was already afraid of her, now I am very afraid of her.

I also feel very sad, as physical violence was the line I drew for divorce, and we had talked about this several times over the years, that we both had this line, that we would leave the other if the other had hit.
Yet she did it.
Systematically and progressively violating every limit I had.

I'm in the middle of the book "Stop caretaking for the BP...", so far it said that if abuse happened, most likely the only path forward is without that spouse.

My sadness comes mainly from my shattered dream of having a happy family, wife and kids in the same house.
We even had plans for a second kid of ours after some time.

But I have to look at her, how she actually is, right now, right in front of my eyes, and how she got worse over the years, instead of my dreamed up version of her where she is what I want or suddenly becomes what I want.
She hit me.

I know I can try again with a new wife eventually, but still this saddens me too much.
I really love being with my toddler every day.
This pains me the most. That I will no longer be with my kid daily.

Hi!  I had to jump on your story!  Quick version, my 25 y/o daughter was diagnosed with BPD when she was 21 years old....I researched EVERYthing, etc.; I "was" her "favorite" person (which, I have since learned, is not a great place to be!) a few months into this, she told me I was "enabling" her (doing all of the things she asked me TO do, like hide her pills, sleep over, many etc.) and she needed "space"; a couple days after that she said, "do you know why I am like this" (no!) and proceeded to say, "because I worked all the time & was never there for her" (I researched NOT to argue with BPD, just try to facilitate the conversation" but, I said, "I cannot apologize for working" (I know, in my heart, I WAS always there for my kids, though, I cannot deny working aLOT and strange hours (a Management position), after that, things went quickly downhill, I have been accused of being toxic, abusive (I have NEVER, ever laid on hand on my kids) and have not "seen" my daughter for nearly 4 years; we were texting quite a bit, but, my last round of holiday texts were never answered; (it sounds like I am "non-chalant" about this, I have just talked about it SO much, that I am rather immune to the whole situation); she cut ties with her father, (he got the biggest brunt of this, he was the "first" to go", her sister, her beautiful nieces; I found a therapist who specializes in "parents of adult children with BPD" and my daughter (another odd twist, b/c she DESPISED my mother) is closer to my Mom, who shares information with me, so, I know I am lucky in that regard....until than, I just keep on keeping on (I text on holidays, birthdays, and leave gifts for her, with my mom); I am VERY sorry that YOU are going through this....BPD seems to be a beast; feel free to reach out, if you like!

It may help to take an objective look at these behaviors. All behaviors persist because somehow, there's a payoff or benefit to them. It's how all living creatures operate- with positive or negative reinforcements for behaviors.

PwBPD have difficulty with their own emotions and so project them on to others, other situations. The anger episodes, dissociative rages, serve a purpose, to get these emotions out. After they are out, there is also a period of calm and relative clarity. These are the times where she appears able to recocile, apologize, make things better.

These are the times you feel more hopeful, inclined to discuss the situation, seek some reconciliation. IMHO I would not tell her "how much she's hurt you". This, with my BPD mother, would trigger shame in her. Shame feel intolerable, and she'd disssociate into a rage. It's worth saying this to someone who is capable of managing their feelings- as it might lead to understanding, but when someone is not and they dissociate from it, it doesn't change anything because they can not process it. You know how much your wife can or can not manage hearing this but my BPD mother could not.

The pwBPD may feel a sense of relief after an episode but those of us who also experienced this do not. However, the pwBPD may feel better, act nicer and so there's the all is well idea and do not bring up what happened assumption.

You have been helping to manage your wife's feelings for her for a long time. Your recent change in how much you do that has led to what is known as an extinction burst. To try to get you back to doing what helped before is a normal behavioral response. Your task is to maintain your changes through this.

Also sorry to hear your BPDx has not taken the many chances that must have occurred these last 38 years to turn things round...

Thank you, Under the Bridge. In fact some long held plans and dreams have turned out quite beautifully, and it's a very special time. I know this couldn't happen with the dishonest deadweight that was uBPDx demanding all my effort and attention. I'm sad for what they did (and sometims quite horrified and dusgusted). But I'm happy it's turned out as it has.

I’ve had several dBPDexs and mostly they do come back.  I noticed the ones where I caught them cheating red handed or saw too many of their secrets were more likely to do a hard discard and never come back after that, but that was usually after several rounds of break ups and getting back together.  I only had 1 out of probably 5 I’ve been involved with who did a hard discard on the first breakup, but even she would show up and see what I was up to occasionally without interacting with me directly (at the same social events, etc) before she finally disappeared from my life forever, but it was obvious she wanted
me to chase after her so she could ruthlessly discard me again and fortunately I didn’t take the bait.  The others were a lot nicer, they at least tried to be cordial in the end and provide some form of closure, although the BPD version of closure is not very satisfying at all.