I'm a grandfather and father dealing with what I believe is my adult daughter's undiagnosed BPD/NPD. She's a single mother of twin 6-year-old boys with special needs who are each on three psychiatric medications with minimal oversight. Today I sent her $1,000 on top of the $4,000 I gave her at the start of March — on top of her brother providing free housing and health insurance. Within hours she told me my support was "a joke" and that I want her to "drown." She's accumulated $27,000 in debt in six months while I've been trying to help. I've lost weight, my marriage is strained, and tonight I feel used, heartbroken, and helpless. I can't cut her off because my grandchildren are in the middle of this. I can't give enough because no amount is ever enough. How do families survive this? How do you love someone who cannot see what you're doing for them and may never be able to?

LOL, what a weird thing to say.  Like was her mom worried she might be TOO sober? 

Even while claiming she's trying to save the marriage she can't help herself, apparently.


That's surprising she would say some of that nonsense to your own family members.  Did she think telling your aunt and sister you had a gay affair wouldn't get back to you?  Like just bizarre.  And did she think it wouldn't affect her desperate efforts to get back together?

in my case, it seemed like BPDxw tried to badmouth me to a lot of people, but knew enough not to say anything to direct family members.  A couple of our mutual friends told me the stuff she was claiming and said she broke contact when they indicated they didn't believe her and wouldn't get dragged into it. 

at some point after our divorce was finalized, she started sending me these angry emails claiming I "stole"
money from her.  I never did of course and all that was nonsense, and just projection on her part.  She had no money when we met, and for all our marriage I was the primary breadwinner and often the sole breadwinner. 

and of course She tried to steal from me!!! (she looted our bank accounts when I said we were getting divorced.  but I got my half back in our property settlement) and charged a few thousand dollars worth of things on my CC before I cut her access (I had to pay half of it off). 

i assume she was just projecting, but at that point I was so over it I didn't even bother reading her page long email tirades. 

I imagine BPDers' profligate spending habits are a combination of poor impulse control, and also a need to show off due to their own self image issues.

in my case, I was at least able to keep these under some control; BPDxw and I would fight about money, but at least her spending wasn't too excessive compared to our income.

From my standpoint, it seems to have gotten a lot worse after we divorced.  Her finances must be a mess.

I find it hard to imagine that your wife was not aware of your stress over finances. As a young teen, I could see this with my father, even though I had no knowlege of his finances. I didn't understand how someone could put their spouse through this but also didn't understand why my father seemed to have no control over it, even though he was the wage earner.

It was during my mother's elder years that I became aware of how uncontrollable her spending was. Prior to this, she had kept her finances secret from us kids. My father had managed to save and plan for their retirement. We didn't know exactly how much but that it would be sufficient for her, if it was managed reasonably, but we also were concerned if she would do so. We found out that she had done considerable damage when we accidentally found a copy of a home equity loan she had taken out some time prior.

I tried to reason with her but couldn't. Neither could other family members who also tried but couldn't. She was in assisted living and spending the remaining proceeds from the house very quickly. This was self destructive behavior and it didn't make sense to me. I asked one of the nurses if she had seen this kind of behvavior before and the nurse brought up the idea of addiction. I don't know for sure if this was one of the reasons. BPD mother had a combination of BPD/NPD and addiction, which made for a complicated situation.

We assumed she hid her financial information from us because she didn't trust us but she had no reason to not trust us. Maybe, like an alcoholic hides the bottles, she hid it because she didn't want us to know what she did with it. Perhaps this is also one reason your wife hides her information too.

Whatever the reason, even if we have empathy for someone struggling with these issues, - dishonesty, abusive behaviors, secrecy are damaging to a relationship. When this involves finances, keeping financial boundaries in a marriage is challenging, when laws determine joint property and liability. 

Hi there,

Well, to me that is absolutely fantastic news.  I think you can feel better that you can keep tabs on your daughter through your son.  That they are in contact with each other is fabulous.  That you know about her general welfare isn't nothing.  In addition, I see a trifecta here:  "adulting" independently, doing well at work and developing a functional social life.  To my thinking, that's a very solid foundation for forming an adult "identity," something that generally feels very fragile for a pwBPD.  In my opinion, she really needs a solid, healthy identity (i.e. not one centered around being a traumatized victim all the time) before she can hope to repair her familial relationships, let alone enter a romantic relationship (if that's something she wants).  I think you have good reason to be proud of her, even if it hurts not to be close to her right now.

My situation isn't dissimilar--my husband and I can keep tabs on our adult BPD child through her therapist.  We know that she's "adulting" for the most part, and I think that's fantastic, major progress vs. what her life looked like a few short years ago.

May I ask, is your daughter getting therapy?  That would also be a really good sign for her.

My guess is that this situation won't last forever.  In the meantime, my general advice to parents is to be a role model for what a healthy adult's life looks like.  That includes self-care, financial security, general wellness and time for friends, too.  That way, you'll be in a good, balanced, calm place if and when she decides to reach out.

All my best to you.

Hello and welcome to the family.  I'm so sorry you're going through this and I was in the identical position several years back with my 27 year old BPD daughter. 

There will always be peaks and valleys...and those are 100% outside of our control.  If you can't control it, then the only thing left to do is to let it go.  All of it.  Don't carry that pain around when it's not your fault, you didn't cause it, and you're powerless to fix it.

Today, my BPD kid and I have a pretty good relationship.  Still ups and downs, but it's steady and we reconcile quickly.  The opportunity will come somewhere down the line.

I hope my LONG break did not worry you     I should add, for some odd reason, my daughter latched onto my mother, I am very grateful I still have that "link"

Just want to thank you for your responses. It helps to know I am not so alone in this. CC43 I am going to take your advice and refrain from the texts. It seems she is doing a fair job of adulting right now. My son assures me that she is doing well at work and is hanging out with friends. She has made it clear in the past that I am a trigger for her. I want her to be happy and healthy more than I want a relationship with her so for now I will try to be patient. I just hope this situation is not forever. It breaks my heart.

Hi, Brijit! I won't bore you with the backstory....quicknotes version....my daughter was diagnosed with BPD, approximately 5 years ago, in retrospect, had I known about BPD, she sure had the signs, ONCE I knew I dove right in & researched it, read all of the books, joined NAME; my daughter asked me to sleep over all of the time, had me store her pills, there were 3 inpatient pscyh stays, constant texts, etc. (I say this so non-chalantly....it has taken 3 years & much therapy); for the first 2 years, we were together ALL of the time (research would state, I was the FAVORITE person (not a great place to be); well...something SWITCHED (I think that is splitting), I am now the NON-favorite and me, her father, sister & 3 nieces are scorned; for 2 years she would, like your situation, text when she needed something, we WOULD text here or there, mainly me (per therapist...a quick text, i.e. Merry Christmas, hope you are well) (I am a very festive person....this is very difficult); well....the past 6 months, I believe I am "ghosted" none of my texts are returned; I am at a stage where I am about "giving up" her dog, who she also abandoned, passed away on 2/3/26; she has had zero contact with her dog, either; her father reached out the day, Hazel passed & we never heard from her....I cannot believe THIS is the "straw" that broke the camel....but, I just don't have any more hope left...in any case, I regress....I am sorry you are in this club...but, to a long answer to your question....it is so disheartening!  I don't pretend to understand BPD...my only "take" on the situation is BPD is a BEAST!  I hope your "resolve" is better

I'll try to keep this as accurate and concise as I can. But a lot happened in a few weeks. I will pose the question now. I will provide context afterwards.

Context:

My girlfriend and I dated another woman together, who turned out to have BPD. We adore her and want to continue being with her. But understand that may not be possible. The most important thing to us right now is that she knows that we don't hate her.

Question:

After a fairly sudden and abrupt removal from her life, where she told us via chat that she had a panic attack after last seeing us, and not wanting to experience it ever again, she blocked us and told us she doesn’t want to hear from us ever again.

This felt like a violent self-amputation. And it left us in shambles. We didn’t know her friends yet, and have no grip on how she’s doing now.

We know she didn't mean to do hurt us. She tripped, she fell, and she accidentally took us down with her.

There was no major conflict before this, just a small disagreement that we noticed she was incredibly sensitive to. We asked for reassurance that everything is fine, and she couldn’t give it.

Several days before that date, she posted on Instagram that she feels that being rejected is better than the fear of rejection itself. Because then the pain is gone.

We do not know what to do.

On the one hand she asked us not to contact her. On the other hand, it was in the midst of an intense dysregulation. She’s currently gone on a business trip that she left on on Monday. She blocked us a week before already.

Is this it? Is it really just a matter of hoping she at one point unblocks us, and if she doesn’t, tough luck? We don’t want her to think that we hate her now. That’s the most important thing to us. Whether we'll have her back in our lives or not.