Thanks for the advice. If I understand you correctly - you are suggesting I do this to remind myself there is likely not a positive outcome to this conversation.
I continue to be stuck in a difficult spot when it comes to communicating with her. While I feel like I am gaining some clarity, I still have a very strong urge to connect with her. I tell myself it's for the right reasons, but I am not sure I can trust that part of my brain right now.

Prepare yourself for being "recycled" quickly. 

I would say that it's easier for a woman to find a man and get hooked up than vice versa, but I don't know if that's true or fair.  I can say with some certainty that it's definitely easier for a person with no standards and no qualms about using people to get hooked up quickly. 

Depending on what shared assets and debts there are, a divorce mediator may be unable to succeed.  Let me restate that... Most of us tried mediation, after all it is a required second step in a divorce, after the initial temp order.  So don't be disappointed if it ultimately ends with a stalemate.

However, most of our divorces do eventually end in settlements.  That is partly due to the multiple steps in a divorce but more likely due to the court willing to put off making rulings or decisions and instead allow repeated continuances.  (Judges don't like making decisions since they don't want an appeal to a higher court to reverse a decision.)  It's as if the court is a reluctant referee stating, "Be adults, you can work this out, so just do it."  Alas, our cases don't involve two reasonably normal adults.


It is nice to have normal conversations with overall positive people, isn't it?  But we are wise to avoid getting into another relationship before we have a measure of recovery from this one.  How to know when we are rebalanced and ready?  One way to realize this might be an undesirable rebound relationship is if we keep talking about all the crazy making experiences with our new ex.  Better to work those aspects out with a counselor.

All good stuff.  You're putting yourself first and you're creating a plan to move forward.  Either she agrees to it or she doesn't.

The biggest part is that you're healing while going through this process; that's the hardest aspect and you're handling it like a champ.  You'll continue to gain clarity as this process unfolds as well, week by week, you'll be a little bit more you.

*a few nice smiles and conversations wandering through my days, and it felt really nice to just... feel like someone was being nice? Genuinely?

Hi everyone!

I found a good divorce mediator and have passed the contact along to my wife; I'm fairly certain I'm in a discard phase so this might be great. My own therapist and I are working through mental preparations for the charming or future anger that gets thrown my direction. This past week has been almost no contact and - frankly - it's been so restorative.

I've made a promise to myself to focus on mind and health for the remainder of this year. We don't need to be thinking about dating or anything, haha. But I'll say it was really nice; I've received a few

Step... by... step. I'm hoping the mediator e-mail doesn't create drama, but I was tasked with it... so, it shouldn't? Ah. Shouldn't. The illogical word.

Sounds like you're getting some clarity by virtue of distance from her.  If you do start to get an urge to reconnect, here's an idea: first go and read the DSM Definition of BPD (link: https://bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-disorder, put yourself in the shoes of someone who was speaking to her for the first time, and ask yourself what sort of positive things you could expect to hear from a person like that. 

Hi Jackie,

I'm sorry your relative seems to be teetering on the brink, and yet refuses to do what it takes to turn her life around.  It sounds like she has substance use disorder as well.

Unfortunately, you can't force an addict or someone with BPD to get help.  With BPD, the situation is especially complicated, because her disordered thinking convinces her that everyone else is the problem, not her.  Even if you managed to get your relative some therapy, I think it's unlikely to work, because for therapy to work, she has to want to do the work.  Therapy is work, after all.  She has to want more than anything to change, and change is really hard, especially for someone with deeply ingrained habits and routines.  Alas, she probably has to hit bottom first, in order to realize that therapy (and sobriety) is the only available option to her.

I feel really sorry for her son.  On the bright side, he might be able to leave home soon.  But the reality is that after growing up with dysfunction, he probably doesn't understand what a healthy life looks like, let alone how to go about obtaining it.  One thing you might consider doing is spending some time with him, if you could arrange that.  That way, he might get a break from his disordered home, and he might have opportunity to glimpse what a "normal" life looks like.  That might give him some hope, too.  But in practice, it might be difficult to pull off, if his mom is reliant on him or super-controlling.  Maybe a way to frame things would be to offer to spend time with her son, to "give mom a needed break."

You summed up succinctly how the pwBPD in my life is.  She has both these reactions--angry outbursts combined with feeling judged, isolated and rejected.  The way I see it is as a trauma-based, fight-or-flight response.  With the pwBPD in my life, her reactions would tend to go in cycles.  Typically, angry outbursts would be followed by shutting down--cutting people out of her life and general avoidance.  When she self-isolated, her internal dialogue was extremely negative--feeling wronged, judged, traumatized, rejected, inferior, a failure, hopeless, really depressed.

All that probably just means that BPD behaviors are on a spectrum, both in terms of the type/manifestation, as well as the intensity, frequency and duration of disordered thoughts and behaviors.  The nuance is that everyone feels anger, rejection, depression, etc. from time to time.  But to qualify for BPD, basically these reactions are deemed to be disproportionate to the situation, as well as causing prolonged dysfunction in life and relationships.

Hope that perspective helps.

The most successful treatment approach for getting people who are unmotivated to make needed changes is motivational interviewing. It has been used for many years with addicts and is now mainstream in mental and physical health. It meets the client at his/her level of motivation including having no motivation whatsoever to do anything. It is easy to learn and there are many resources on the internet. Not sure if motivational interviewing is effective with BPD or other personality disorders.