Actually, if your daughter's actions were so impactful that her parental contact has had severe limits and conditions enforced, that almost surely was a blessing for the kids.  They will benefit from the "time out" apart from her while she gets her act together.

Yes, you feel torn with angst and empathy but this action (temp order for supervised visitation only) is a good thing for your daughter.  She needed to get this correction and the kids needed protection.

It will be hard to step back for now and not come rushing to "fix" everything.  That is beyond you.  Give your daughter the opportunity to improve her own life, to face reality, she's an adult after all.

What if she never gets her life and behavior in order?  Well, that might be what happens.  If so, then her having her parenting limited will be a protection for both her children and their father.  A 1986 book Solomon's Children - Exploding the Myths of Divorce, page 195, has a quote that is quite insightful... As the saying goes, "I'd rather come from a broken home than live in one."  Ponder that.

Of course, this is not written to have you ignore SIL or the children.  This is a wonderful opportunity for you to support your SIL in other ways besides supervising and strengthen yourself as grandmother with the children.

P.S.

I'll echo the comments of a previous poster about you supervising visitation with your daughter's children.  I know that your son-in-law is trying to do what's right for his kids, but what I don't like is that he's asking you to arrange and execute the the visitation.  My point is, if your daughter wanted to visit with her kids, she'd do everything in her power to make it happen on her own.  That she's not really doing anything (based on what you've written) indicates to me that she doesn't really want to see her own kids.  My feeling is, if you facilitate visitation, that will open the door for your daughter to be upset with YOU and continue to blame YOU for not doing enough for her.  And so like the other poster advised, I'd recommend staying out of it.

I have a highly disordered brother-in-law with undiagnosed NPD, and I've observed that many of the behaviors overlap with BPD.  He has three school-age children, and he has succeeded in turning visitation into a nightmare over multiple years.  My theory is that he uses visitation as a lever to re-engage and "control" his ex.  Correspondence that's supposed to be about visitation logistics turns into opportunities to hurl insults, accusations and threats, and to reopen past grievances.  Not only that, but he makes exchange logistics extremely difficult (mainly through weaponized incompetence), and he has been a no-show countless times.  And yet, he seems oblivious as to how this makes his own kids feel.  Here's the thing though:  when he is 100% responsible for executing visitation, most of the time, he doesn't execute.  He can barely manage telephoning or videocalling his kids on his own at an appropriate time (say, after school or after dinner, as opposed to midnight on a school night).  He has a million excuses:  he lost his phone, he forgot, he was sick, his phone service was cut off, he lost his charger, he forgot the phone number, he was too busy (though he's unemployed), etc.  But I think the reality is, he just doesn't want to talk to his kids; it's simply not a priority for him.  The same sort of thing happens with visitation.  When visitation is facilitated by others (his ex, his mother, his brother), it will generally happen.  By facilitating, I mean making plans, picking up the kids at the appropriate time and place, and arranging for activities, meals and sleeping accommodations during the visit.  But when he has to execute visitation all by himself, he oftentimes fails to make any plans in the first place.  When he does schedule visitation, he sometimes fails to show up, or he arrives extremely late.  Then he makes the visit so miserable for the kids (e.g. by not feeding them at regular mealtimes, by not putting them to bed) that they are catatonic when they return home.  He tends to drop the kids off early, too, sometimes two or three days early during a visitation week (think, school vacation week with dad).  All this means that he's unwilling and/or unable to expend the effort himself to see his kids.  It's tragically sad for the kids to see this, but I think they're better off in a stable home with their mom.

So my advice about visitation would be that your daughter should be proceeding with baby steps.  At first, she should be arranging to call her kids on a regular schedule, say before or after school, or every night after their dinner.  SHE has to be the one to establish a mutually agreeable schedule, and she has to be the one to place the calls on time.  If she can do that reliably, then she might proceed with seeing her kids during normal, quasi-supervised activities, such as attending a school function or school sporting event.  Then she might try a supervised visitation schedule for a morning or afternoon on weekly basis.  Once she demonstrates she can pull that off, over the span of a month or two, then she might try visiting her kids for a whole day, supervised by another adult.  She could take the kids to a zoo, park or beach or something.  But I don't think that she should insist on using your home and your babysitting capabilities to execute visitation, in my humble opinion.  I think she'd turn that into threats to take the grandkids away from you.  If she wants to host the kids, then she's going to have to get her living situation settled herself.

Just my two cents.

Hi Csj,

I hope you come back to these boards soon, as I think you'll see that you're not alone in this.  It's OK to feel mixed up about what to do.  It seems to me that you want to have a loving relationship with your daughter, yet she's determined to cling to her convoluted victim narrative.  In short, she blames you (and everyone else close to her) for ruining her life, when the fact pattern is probably the complete opposite.  My guess is that you've gone above and beyond to support your daugher over the years, and yet she just doesn't see it that way--instead of thanking you, she lashes out in a destructive rage.  That sounds an awful lot like untreated BPD to me.  Though she probably has some positive personality traits, her emotional reactivity and negative thinking sabotage her at every turn.  It sounds as if you've been dealing with the fallout of her poor decisions for years now, maybe even decades, and yet you still feel guilty for not helping enough.  Here we have a shorthand for that:  operating in a FOG of fear, obligation and/or guilt.  If that's how you feel, you're in plentiful company here.

I think you're 100% correct that your daughter is reaching out to you right now because she has burned all her other bridges, and you're her last resort.  My read is that your daughter hasn't really committed to therapy and just wants to use you for free room and board, rather than to repair the relationship with you.  I think you're right in assuming that living with her would be a nightmare, because nothing will have changed.  With that backdrop, I'd advise not to let your daughter live with you, because you would be enabling the status quo.  What is the status quo?  Your daughter will continue to play the victim and blame others for making her miserable.  In my opinion, the victim mindset is worst part of BPD, because it renders your daughter powerless and feeling not responsible for her own life.  As a perpetual victim, she thinks it's OK to treat others badly, because in her mind, they "deserve" to be "punished" for perceived wrongs, slights or grievances.  That's why you'll never get an apology out of her.  And for as long as she blames you for a terrible childhood, for not supporting her or for treating her unfairly, she feels "absolved" from working on herself and being responsible for herself and her actions.  Worse, when you let her live with you for free, she'll only have YOU to blame for making her miserable.  So don't let her in, OK?  Your home is your home, and it's supposed to be a sanctuary.  You need to keep it that way.

As for your daughter, my humble opinion is that the first relationship she needs to repair is that with her own kids.  If she wants visitation, then she can arrange for visitation, and it doesn't have to involve you at all.  There are supervised visitation centers all over the place.  That brings me to another point, which is, if your daughter wants something, she needs to be the one to make it happen in my opinion.  If she wants visitaiton, she needs to make the arrangements.  If she wants to move to a new residence, she has to make it happen.  If she wants her car serviced, she needs to arrange for her car to be serviced.  If she wants therapy, she needs to seek it out.  Because when you arrange, facilitate or pay for these sorts of things for your daughter, what's happening is that you want these things more than she does, and YOU are working harder on her life than she is.  Does that sound about right?  That's probably why nothing you do seems to do any good.  It's because you're trying way harder than she is.  Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't support your daughter at all, if you wanted to support her.  I'm saying that it should be support to lift her up, rather than enablement of the status quo.

All my best to you.

I'm so sorry but, No, he likely won't come to understand unless he commits himself to serious therapy.  The extremes of alternating poor behavior including disrespect and disparagement are common traits of BPD.

You can't fix him.  Only he can do that and too often there is no incentive to make positive changes.  Maybe, just maybe he might be receptive to meaningful therapy (DBT - Dialectical Behavioral Therapy - is considered the best).  But, as with everything else you've suggested to him, the baggage of the past relationship has sensitized him from truly listening to you without him turning everything negative and critical.  His overreaction is to reject and retaliate, they are common traits of BPD.

Maybe, just maybe, if he were to start and stick with meaningful DBT therapy diligently applied in his life over months and years, it might make enough impact.

Since there are so many "ifs" above, it is practical and pragmatic to Accept having a healthy and functional relationship with him isn't possible, or at least unlikely.  It might be possible if he starts meaningful therapy and applies it in his life, thinking, behaviors and perceptions.  Only time can tell.

Meanwhile, until you can discern whether or not he is turning his life around, it would be far more productive to continue concentrating on improving yourself as you've been doing the past two years.   As many fishermen know, not every fish you catch in the ocean is a keeper.

i did a lot of soul searching 2 years back and realized i was the perpetrator in many past relationships. using drugs, completely hopeless towards any future. i did the work and 180d my mindset and got 100% clean but the mentality of always being the problem followed me. but this _____ that ive endured in the last year is like nothing else.

even in active use, being completely burdensome to anyone in my circle, actively doing SW, no one had ever treated me like my recent ex did and used the words he did for me. from the beginning he was gushing about me, not letting me go a few minutes in between texts, obsessing about my body, joking of marriage. one of the first things he let me know was that all of his exes were evil and cheated on him. that being cheated on was more traumatic than having a gun pointed at his head. any inkling of suspicion that i am leaving him or cheating on him (this was mostly associated with male friends and reaching out to others including men when he would threaten housing) was met with threats to kick me out, horrible push pulls where i wouldnt be spoken to for days, withdrawal of affection "youre not allowed to kiss me", and constant break ups. id be told i wanna go back to exes thousands of miles away. was told i would not be loved or accepted by anyone else due to my past. when i wasnt in the mood for sex daily he would pity himself which made me cave. he'd tell me head was a good apology for my mistakes and i complied thinking it was silly. ironically despite my past i was given my only STD from him.

what kept me hooked was the "positive" obsession, where hed get soft and tell me how precious i was to him, he took care of every bill for me, proposed an enthralling image of me in his mind, was crazy for me physically. in the beginning i seemed to understand that his behavior was odd and advocated for acknowledgment but never got any. with every push and subsequent dopamine rushed pull i lowered my standing more and more. i would ask him if i was so horrible, why he didnt leave. "because this is what love is", hed say. and i believed i had to learn how to adopt this mindset. the whole relationship revolved around me atoning for my mistakes and trying to convince this guy i wanted him. by the end of it i got rid of all of my friends, stopped interacting with my recovery community, was out of work, all to calm his hypervigilant sense of jealousy. our last fight was about notifications from realtors on my phone, i was searching for a place for us, and i did not reassure him correctly. he told me to GTFO for three days straight, ignoring pleas and concrete my "i dont want to go". after receiving absolutely no warmth from him when i was begging to be reassured i left, no job.

after leaving i was able to get in contact through emails and *67ed phone calls. i tried to explain what the last few days made me feel. he ended up getting resentful and would tell me to die, that he'd kill me, that im only allowed near him if he paid me to come over if i gave him a quick nut. after all hes said to me he wanted me to be his prostitute. invited me over once telling me we had been together the entire time and after cumming in me told me the invite was a lapse in judgment and he needed to "heal". to him i was a cheater and a liar despite being devoted to him through all of his mishaps. some texts i received from him during this time still haunt me; "used diaper of a human being" "you will never be wife material" "i wish i could kill you so you cant do this to another innocent victim". i continued pressing believing this was all stemming from a fear of abandonment and pain.

on to my part, i ended up doing grey area work for rent money that i regret. he had told me he'd help me financially and when i asked for rent help he assumed it was for a date and refused profusely. it was never understood to him why that work made up my past despite him being a drug addict having engaged in sex work as well. three months into "NC" (it felt like a break up to me) he softened and came clean about being miserable and wanting to be with me. i came back and rushed into moving in with him. after 6 weeks of guilt i caved and confessed to what i had done, and he began the process of eviction. not before moving all of my things before the cops arrived to make it seem like i was never there and claiming i was a one night stand. it hurt horribly. during the process of me finding another place to go he would get soft and told me he understands why i did it, that he was cruel, that he doesnt want to get rid of me. and then would switch up and invite me back into his bedroom solely for sex and discard me when i tried to speak about the situation. "i wish i didnt have to do this" hed say. i told him he didnt have to.

i regret what i did. one of my interviews was a success in the same week and ive never looked back. but i cant stand the hypocrisy. this is a man who told me he accidentally killed someone in active addiction, and i never brought it up to upset him. this is a man i forgave for acting cruelly continuously. when i told him, somewhere in the back of my mind id thought we could work through it. he would always tell me i "made" him this way. why wouldnt the same logic apply to me, that his constant pushing, and the condition he left me in, "made" me do what i did? why couldnt understanding and mercy be applied to me, just as i had done with his abusive behavior from the start?

since the breakup hes contacted my mother spewing sensitive and vulnerable information. i saw one of his "evil" exes post a video of her in his car to which i broke the no contact and spewed at him for hypocrisy to which he told me he was "helping her". holy _____ where was my help when i needed it. got two newborn kittens, got a new car and over 20 tattoos, including one that says "know mercy" on his back.. two new face tattoos. posts nothing but stacks of cash in his bare living room, himself at the gun range, 8k designer purchases. reposts about being slighted, signs of a female manipulator, all this toxic masculinity stuff and such. during a situation where i had to house my cat elsewhere i reached out for help he told me he'd only help me if i came with, because he couldnt "leave me out to die". oh.

since then my life has improved in some regard, friends without feeling guilty, work, knowing my housing cant be threatened, i can breathe again, but with improvement comes a lot of stress. i work two honest jobs and some mistakes ive made at one of them has me feeling very uncertain of my capabilities lately. and when i get uncertain of myself, i crave for the times he told me he was proud of me (despite not having any motion during the whole relationship), where the sex felt out of this world thanks to the coldness that came before it, where we'd cuddle and agree that we never felt a connection like this with anyone else. and i agree, the highs will never be replaced by any normal relationship due to how addicting this one became. similar to fentanyl, the withdrawals are hell fire, but once that fix was in my hand i felt more relief than i did under the previous dose.

my social stalkings continue and i cannot let him go, despite me telling this story constantly and getting the same answer. with time i get less confused and understand patterns, yet i cannot let go of the fact that i will never experience such a powerful soul tied connection like that again. i failed. i mourn and grieve him, entering the relationship and hearing of his past traumas i believed i could convince him that he could be loved, that he could be cared for, but i ended up on his list of "evil whres". i wish i could help him understand how much he means to me as a human being, and that i would always be there to help him if he was in crisis. recently ive understood that if i ever want him to come to the conclusions i wish he did with me, i cant be with him. he will have to face the music or run through more girls to understand how his behavior affects others. its been 27 days since ive contacted him last, and i wish i could say its been easy. i ask the universe daily to show me signs of whether we are meant to be or not, and i continuously receive the same answer. i wish i could control that answer.

i am moreso trying to understand if what i have done has warranted this amount of pain, and how to detach knowing logically that this relationship was not for me. i do not want to adopt his victim /rageful "you afflicted me" mindset. i would also like to theorize that if i stay away for a period of time if he will understand the damage caused. id like some thoughts.

Hi Phillip and welcome.

Why does she follow those familiar patterns?  It's a few reasons, most of which have nothing to do with you.

First, she's mentally unstable and constantly doubts herself, the relationship, her self esteem, etc.  Whenever she has doubts, she gets so worried that you'll leave her that she starts arguments and leaves you...to make sure you can't leave her.  Then what happens?  You chase her, which makes her feel desirable and wanted.

How do you get past this?  Affirm your feelings for her often, make her feel special and appreciated.  This cycle will still happen at times, but the closer you are and the more secure she feels, the less extreme it will be.

Second, her mind works like an attorney that gathers facts for an important case.  They build flawless arguments- my client was at the restaurant at 7:42 PM, so they couldn't have been where the police claim at the time of the crime.  Only with BPD, the facts don't matter as much as the emotions driving the facts.  Maybe you say or do something that upsets her, and her mind instantly connects it to something that happened last month or years ago.  Aha, that proves you're doing it on purpose...so it's time for her to confront you and make you pay!  Only, the facts don't add up and it just frustrates everyone.

How do you get past this?  Exact same answer as last time.  Affirm your feelings for her often, make her feel special and appreciated.  When she wants to argue, look past "the facts" and lead with empathy- what's going on?  How can I help?  Be on her side, avoid the bait to argue, and it makes a world of difference.

I hope that helps and again, welcome to the family.

Hi Philip and

You wrote:

Bad news Philip, borderline personality disorder is a mental illness.  I understand how you might see her behavior as immaturity.  But she will not "mature" out of her mental illness.  Her pattern of unstable interpersonal relationships is a symptom of her mental illness.

And I know you wish you could get the good and not have to deal with the bad in the dynamic of her unstable interpersonal relationships, but if you truly accept that she has borderline personality disorder, you will need to accept that her behaviors,  *both* the good and bad, are aspects of her disorder.

Her behaviors will not change on their own, at least not without working with professionals towards recovering from this disorder.  But she will not want to bother recovering so long as she continues to find people with whom she can continue having these unstable relationships.

You have to decide for yourself if you want to be part of her pattern.

I hope this helps.  Best wishes,

Schwing

Hi. I'm Philip. I need help with my bpd ex?girlfriend. In 2024, me and my ex girlfriend had a 6 month relationship. For the first 3 months, everything was going great and there was no issues. After 3 months, we started arguing, and then I ended up always being the one broken up with and then ended up having to chase her back, missing her completely. At the end of 2024, we had the final breakup and then she had this new dude for about 2 years, In june 2026, they broke up and then in july 2026, i met up with her, spoke things out and asked her did she get better w her stuff, and is she more mature now? we got back together. For the first month or so, we were arguing but no breaking up. Now it feels like she always tries to argue with me,  then breaks up with me on purpose, just for us to get back together 2 days later. It's exhausting, but i always loved her and i don't know what to do, Please any help will be appreciated. I need advice on this. I'm tired of the cycle of us always breaking up even tho i love her and im pretty sure she loves me.

Welcome to BPDFamily. We just wish, of course, that it was under better circumstances.  It is what it is.  So let's look to the future as we deal with the past and current problems.  Over the years we have accumulated a vast amount of insight and strategies... a collective wisdom of sorts.  On the other hand, people with BPD traits (pwBPD) are just that, people with a variety of abnormal traits and therefore they react and overreact in slightly different extents though the patterns are recognizable.


I think this is where the "splitting" description arose - viewing the world in extremes that can flip instantly depending on moods and perceptions.  It is inexplicable how someone can claim to love one moment, then get triggered by almost anything and thereafter perceive us as their worst enemy.  Yet that is part of their unhealthy dysfunction.  Compound that with their resistance to positive change and it is a recipe for disaster.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-splitting-425210


A caution here.  When you are trying to repair a damaged relationship, you do share information with the goal to restoring trust.  But if it becomes apparent that the relationship is not just damaged but also probably irreparable, they you have to be judicious about what you do share and what you don't share.  Why?  You don't want to share information which might enable the other to cause you more harm or even sabotage you.

I don't know how separations work in your country but in my area separations leave the marriage intact and, while you physically are separated, you are still financially connected.  That is a big risk for you, the financial liabilities.  It would be wise for you to privately and confidentially seek consultations with experienced solicitors or attorneys to learn to what extent you are exposed to your spouse's financial irresponsibility and how best to carefully extricate yourself from his financial excesses.

Usually it is best to do this legal groundwork without sharing this with the other.  You have a right to privacy and expected confidentiality.  PwBPD often do not have the typical respect for you that a normal person would exercise.  At this point you should have self-protection as a higher priority.


While the peer support here is excellent and invaluable, we also know that local support is also so very helpful.  Do not think you won't benefit from in-person counseling.  You are not alone.