Oops, I forgot the other issue- the house you're building.  Are you too far in to back out yourself?  If so, build the house and then sell it.  That's all you can do in this situation.

Some might say to sue your sister.  I wouldn't advise that though because she has nothing for you to sue for.  You're going to spend years in court with considerable legal costs to get...nothing.  You'll win, of course, but even then you'll still lose.

Hello and welcome to the family!  I'm so sorry you're going through this and I wish there were clear answers.  Unfortunately, there's not because mental illness is complicated.

First off, good for you for taking in your sister.  Good for you for offering to build her a home nearby.  Good for you for putting up with this for so long.  This is all noble stuff, helping a sick family member.  Because that's what this actually is, she's mentally sick and not making good decisions.

Second, while you had the best of intentions in everything from part one, they've backfired due to mental illness.  What you're seeing is manipulation from your sister as she paints herself a victim in all of this.  And in some ways, she is a victim- of mental illness and being sick.  But that doesn't mean it's your responsibility to fix her or support her.

In my home, wherever I've lived my entire life, there's been two simple rules.  #1 is respect others and #2 is help out.  At any time, if someone couldn't follow those two rules, I politely, calmly asked them to leave.  Now, that might sound like me throwing them out, but that's where the boundary comes in.  Others can do whatever they want- follow the rules or ignore them.  The choice is theirs to make and I'm going to give them exactly what they want.

Your sister is sick and should not be your burden under these circumstances.  But as long as you're offering financial support, she will remain in that victim mentality and take advantage of the situation. 

The clear path here is to make your own rules and then enforce them.  She's the guest and she gets to choose what she wants to do.  But she doesn't get to stay, not help out, and bad-mouth you on top of it all.

I hope that helps!

Hello and welcome back!

I learned a long time ago that an apology to someone else is more for you than it is for them...especially when mental illness is involved.  So my short answer is, reach out and apologize whenever you want.  Just don't expect a favorable outcome since it's not about you being forgiven.  This is simply to state how you feel and offer a genuine apology.

As far as timing goes, that's 100% up to you.  It's better to offer an apology when he's not disordered (if possible), and you should stick to your general guidelines of not accepting abuse while you apologize.  Other than that, there's no right or wrong time to reach out.

My advice is different as well. 

I raised a BPD daughter, also very high IQ, and things were progressively worse in her later teens.  My wife and I did what you're doing now- trying to figure out the best thing for her.

I now know the answer.  The best thing for your daughter is to accept that she needs help and decide on how to get help.  As mom and dad, you're involved with that, but your kid must be the one to take the lead. 

No amount of therapy can do an ounce of good until she's personally ready to work towards change.  If you try to force her, she'll only become more rebellious and things may go downhill quickly.  She has to be the one to ask for help.

Met a girl from US (40) five months ago (I'm UK 45), things escalated fast, talking til 3am on phone, connection very strong. Things went great, I love yous, letters and cards and lots of gifts, suggested loads of changes to my house which I made, foreign holiday for four nights and had great time. All until she had week's holiday in Italy with a friend - we were generally in touch lots and warm but she said a couple of unpleasant things towards the end, not deliberately but still unpleasant. When she got back she expected we'd pick up where we left off, but I was put out by her comments and I don't immediately warm back up after a while apart. She wanted several long holidays with friends, I worried how our relationship would work if that was the case. She said she'd find a solution as she wanted us to work, but as time went on it changed to "you have to accept it". We had a few little arguments, what I'd consider normal a couple of months into a relationship, all sorted quickly. She had another holiday and before this she wasn't keeping in touch much the days we were apart. On the night before she went I raised this, we had a decent chat and moved on. As the night went on she had a couple of beers and went back to the chat about keeping in touch and got really mad, blaming me for ruining our last night and trying to spoil her holiday, which was the last thing on my mind. We kept in touch on the holiday, I was distant as she'd said nasty things during the fight. Towards end of the holiday we were talking excitedly about meeting on her return, up to the morning of that day. She messaged proposing dinner, I made alternative suggestion, she went mad saying she didn't want to debate it and just wanted to go home and go to bed. We ended up not meeting, I sent a few frustrated messages about the way the day had went. The spat continued the next morning, she said we should split. I was shocked given how good things had been mostly, I called and asked if she was sure. She said no she was just not happy with our conversation. Anyway we talked through it and agreed a way forward. We had one more spat where she lost her head as she was showing me an exercise I couldn't pick up. She furiously swore at me, I told her she couldn't speak to me like that and I went to leave, we tried to talk it out but she wouldn't back down so I left. We then had a weekend away which went really well, she has a third holiday where we kept in touch well and remained affectionate, things seemed as good as ever. We had a weekend away in the UK which went great up but when we were driving back, she was tired and not speaking and became cold, and we couldn't get heating warmer. We were going for a massage, as we got nearer I tried to lighten the mood but she was very angry about the cold and blamed me and my "stupid car". I asked if we could have a pleasant chat before the massage and she started arguing again. She did then try and chat but I thought it best to shut up. When we got to the massage I said I didn't really feel like going given we had an unpleasant time, she got angry, we argued, she accused me of "screaming"....I may have raised my voice but no way I screamed. She often made extreme reactions when we argued. We had massages, she said she didn't want to spend night at mine as planned we kissed goodbye and that was it. I didn't say anything as I could see she was very angry and it would escalate. We spoke next night, I asked if she could try and be calmer if I was frustrated and to stop negative comments about the car. She agreed, but said I'd overreacted too. I agreed and apologised. Next day there's little chat, she goes mad I posted our pics as they weren't the type of her she liked (she literally suggested them all), and it had gone on Instagram which she did not want to be on. I deleted. She then said she was tired and grumpy and didn't want to speak. I rang a couple of times as I felt we needed to nip the argument from the weekend in the bud and get back to nice times, it'd been pretty perfect for about a month. She didn't answer. I now wonder if she was actually out with a friend or maybe someone new. She sent one message on Wednesday when she was off work saying she's call late on as she was spending the day with a female work colleague.. She rang and said it wasn't working for her any more. We had a polite chat on text just making sure it wasn't heat of the moment again and she said it wasn't. It did feel weird going from such a close loving time at the weekend to suddenly ending, without even discussing the issues. Its really hard for me to get my head round the shock of feeling things were perfect at the weekend to now her suddenly being a stranger. She has said she struggles with self esteem and had to work hard on self regulation before. She is sensitive to light, noise and smell. She often complained of feeling blamed, guilty, not good enough and was very touchy about any suggestion she'd change no matter how small. She did say she felt not good enough for me and often behaved in the argumentative ways to protect herself as she feared being left. Does it sound like BPD?

For me, emotional cheating is cheating.  If you want to connect to someone else just to talk and flirt, then you have no need for me anymore.  Why?  Because I'm worth more than that.  This must be a very clear boundary in any relationship.

What I would personally do probably wouldn't be constructive advice for the "bettering" forum, so I won't share any more.

Also, I can relate to wanting to be a good sister to him. I also wanted to be a good daughter to my parents, however, I don't know if it was possible to get that reassurance from my mother. I would visit, spend the whole time doing things for her and she'd find something I did or didn't do that she was upset about. It felt demoralizing.

I had to decide the criteria for being a "good daughter" to her according to my own standards, ability, and willingness to help her, as well as how much of her behavior I could tolerate and still maintain my own emotional well being.
Believing that enabling behavior isn't acting in the other person's best interest- even if they get angry that we don't, helped to avoid doing so. Sometimes we don't do this perfectly. We are humans, we make mistakes sometimes. We do the best we can with this situation.

It's possible your brother may not feel you are a good sister. I hope you can believe this for yourself.

Like everyone here, I went through stages of grief.  First, I fought hard for our marriage.  I suspected cheating and didn't think she was capable, so I took her word that nothing happened.  It was so obvious though; her hiding her location, lying about where she had been, being super defensive with explosive anger whenever someone mentioned her relationship with that guy. 

You're right, in many ways I was the victim, but I refused to adopt a victim mentality since you can't truly heal while holding onto that.  I know people in real life that are still devastated from breakups 5 or 10 years ago, and guess what...they still feel like they are the victim.  What happened in my marriage happened and my ex made some really lousy choices.  She hurt our entire family and if I'm still harboring anger, it's because of what it did to our kids.  Nobody messes with my kids, nobody.  Someone can come after me all they want and I don't let it get to me.  But you mess with my kids?  Oh boy...


You could be right about all of this- it's so hard to think like someone with mental illness thinks because it's not a logical thought pattern.  You see 2+2 = 4, while they might see in a disordered state that 2+2 = the square root of banana.

You are correct though that in her new family, she's the handicapped person's entire world.  He could never really do anything to physically or mentally hurt her either, so it's a great person to label as a favorite.  She gets constant validation and it just works for her mental illness.


Like I said, I think it's so much more complicated because it's disordered thoughts leading to more disordered thoughts.  She couldn't even remember praising me a month earlier on social media, and called a few of her relatives a liar.  Then they showed her the post and it made her rage.  It's because she couldn't make sense of it either- how did she love her husband a month earlier, and now he's an abusive jerk?  She had no answer, so it changed to me being abusive our entire marriage and her suffering in silence.

With BPD, everything is tied to emotions in the moment.  What's true right now might be a lie in 5 minutes.  Then it can be true again 2 years later.  It's not tied to actual reality because it's impulsive emotional explosions.


During the first few years, screaming was frequent and violence was at least a once a week thing.  I've been punched, kicked, hit by a car twice, had countless household items thrown at me, etc.  I was young and dumb though and figured that's how all marriages were. 

For the other men stuff, that was a frequent argument as well.  She'd go into graphic detail of driving a guy home after work, everything they laughed about, etc.  I'd be like, "Surely you can see why this is inappropriate."  And then she'd explode and I'd have to duck.

I think why we lasted so long is because I stopped fighting back, I stopped asking questions, and I just let her do her own thing while I stayed home.  I worked big hours for most of our marriage, so she was free to visit family, take vacations with her parents, etc.  In short, I ended the conflict and refused to argue...which was at least partially the right thing to do in that situation.  It happened more from dumb luck than any wisdom though; I just got tired of the yelling and being attacked.

One my BPD daughter got old enough, my wife and I didn't fight anymore because it was always a war with the kid.  She was more the traditional 24/7 traditional BPD while my wife was more the quiet BPD type.  They were ultimately the same though; one hid until she had to explode, while the other exploded 24/7.

I always loved my wife and daughter though and in time, I realized that they were both sick.  The final stage of grief was acceptance, and that told me that they were never trying to actually harm me...they were just unhinged.  It took me a very long time to find compassion because I couldn't understand what was happening.  But once I finally found it, I've had zero blowouts with my daughter or my ex.

For my kid, we had a heart to heart conversation attending a wake for a family member.  She apologized for being such a tough kid, which absolutely blew my mind, and a few days later I told her that I forgave her for absolutely everything.  It's been a different relationship ever since.  I have been yelled at a few times when she was unstable, but I'd cut the call/visit short and follow up the following day.  That's all the drama I get from her now.

For my ex, she kept bring up the past (a year ago, 5 years ago, 20 years ago, etc.) and wanting to blame me...almost like a kid does when they're making excuses for why they did something wrong.  This went on for months and every conversation ended up there.  So I finally told her, "Look, I've always loved you and I never did anything to intentionally hurt you.  I've made mistakes in our marriage but I always did the best I could at the time."

Somehow that stuck, and we haven't had an argument since then (about 18 months now).  It's like the admission took all the fight out of her and maybe she found enough truth to let everything go.

It's sad to see that others in the family are affected by the dynamics and possibly BPD. My younger sibling has had significant struggles due to the emotional issues in our family situation, not BPD but still very difficult struggles. Fortunately now, employed and doing better-but not because I did anything to make that happen- I think this is something important to know- we can't "save" or change anyone. Family can make suggestions, give advice, but it's up to the person.

We are in contact because there isn't BPD or BPD behaviors.  In my own situation, my tolerance for this is pretty low. I also learned through trying that if someone is going to change their behavior- it's up to them. Since you were last on this board, my BPD mother has passed away. She didn't live near me but I was involved with her care and well being in her last years. She had some self destructive behaviors- and if I could have changed that, intervened- for her own well being (and I tried) I would have but she remained legally competent to make her own decisions and so that was up to her.

She also remained in her victim perspective. This is important to keep in mind. If she acted out with someone- and that person kept a distance as a consequence of that behavior- BPD mother would still say she was abandoned. Like your brother- even if he told you to leave and cursed you out- and you did- he still is saying to your other siblings that he was abandoned. It's as if she didn't make the connection between her behavior with someone and that person's reaction- either she truly couldn't or she felt like she couldn't or didn't want to acknowlege that.  It's hard to know.

Where I would advise you on your response to your brother is to shift your thinking from his "control" - waiting for him to apologize- to you deciding about this relationship and how much contact to have with him. In general, I think pwBPD don't usually apologize- this might come with shame and shame is a very difficult emotion for them. Or they are thinking from victim perspective and believe they didn't do anything to apologize for.

You also can decide how much contact you want to have. You can decide that you don't want to speak to someone who is cursing at you, no matter who they are. If you make contact and he begins to curse at you, you can disengage from the conversation. How to do this is up to you.

Consider not giving advice. It isn't working anyway. What I learned is that giving unsolicited advice to my mother felt invalidating to her. If she asked me for advice- it was more like emotional caretaking for her- she didn't follow it. I would reply with something more empowering to her "I don't have a good answer but your doctor, accountant, friend (whowever could advise her) would know better than I do" and let her decide to call them or not.

What made this situation different was age and her physical condition. I was her POA. If she truly needed help with a task, I could be involved.

Your brother is 23 and whatever his potential is, enabling could inhibit him from getting there. On the other hand, with his mental illness, it's hard to know what his potential is. You also can consider how much you want to be involved in caretaking a mentally ill person, the relationship (a sibling isn't an elderly parent) and even if you can make a difference, because he needs professional mental health and you aren't his provider.

Also consider his behavior towards you and adjust your expectations. Does he only contact you when he needs something like money? Or is this one way- you are the only one making contact? You can still have a relationship with him and also be aware of the dynamics and nature of his participation. This may be what he's capable of emotionally.

Right now, if he's in a psych care facility- he is where he needs to be. They will determine placement, and also are aware of his lack of housing. If he ends up homeless, this is not any fault of yours. If he is unable to hold a job- they can help him access funds like social security disability, Medicaid, if you are in the US. If he is legally incompetent, they can facilitate guardianship- it can be a family member or the state in this position. It does not have to be you unless you want to do it. Not all mental illnesses render a person legally incompetent though and it sounds like he still is legally competent which still puts him in control of his own choices.

This is a sad situation for him and for you. However, you are not obligated to be involved with this. It's your choice to decide. You can prioritize your own emotional and financial well being.

I should add: she's in all kinds of therapy. I don't know what they're telling her based on her version of events. I really wish our therapists could compare notes because I suspect they're taking her perspective at face value and encouraging her to keep up these communication boundaries given her story. And really that's just leading to disaster whereas a mediated conversation could have prevented all of this. I'm guessing.