There's a saying that's been mentioned here, "Let Go and Let God".  There are some relationships that overwhelm us.  Often it's that our personality traits lend us to strive to be Good Guys or Nice Gals.  We find it near impossible to resist "helping" or rescuing or complying or appeasing or caught off guard again and again.

So with it being so hard to make an objective and healthy decision, the practical outcome can be to set intractable distressing problems on a Higher Power's shoulder.  It is difficult to work at a task with an uneven yoke.  (A wise man once said, "Come to me, all you who are toiling and loaded down, and I will refresh you." - Matt 11:28-30)  If we can't resolve the distressing dysfunction, hand the distress off.

Recovery takes time.  Give it time.  After all, recovery is a process, not an event.

If only we had an encouraging Successful Outcomes board, this post would be there!

More or less exactly the same story here.
My wife also suffered from drug addiction and alcohol abuse, and she too left me for the guy pushing drugs on her. Spent a year with the back and forth, leading me on only to go back to him, would deny she was still on drugs, would even try and deny the fact he was selling her drugs every week for 3 years even though she was taking money out of my wallet for it!

More recent than you thought, we split up late 2023. I have been in a relationship for the last 9 months with someone else now who has literally as I type this message just sent a text just to say that she is thinking of me. We are both incredibly happy together and it is so nice not to have to deal with the dysregulated sh*t I had to with my wife.

I’m not religious. Just become the person that you always were, the person that your bpd partner more than likely suppressed. Be the happy, confident person knowing what you had become was never your fault, and don’t let your bpd ex define you, and you will find happiness.

I’m fairly sure my adult daughter has BPD, as did her father - who I divorced two decades ago.  Her two younger sisters (both happily married and healthy) have each recently had a child (ages one and two). For Christmas week, everyone is coming to my (and my new husband’s) house that we recently moved and I’m very much looking forward to it.  My BPD daughter lives close;  the others do not and will be staying with us.   While I learned about BPD years ago (my ex had it) I never associated the condition with my oldest daughter until recently.  Yes, she had all the symptoms but masked them well with other issues (addiction).  I have always supported her and have been her safety blanket.   Recently though something triggered her and she has been sending me vile texts about how all her problems are due to how I raised her.  The texts are in large part delusional; her emotions are over the top and have little basis in fact.   Her sisters and I are very concerned.  I’ve never been good with setting boundaries for her.  My other two daughters are excited to have their families here for Christmas and told me not to worry that if she gets mean or angry or out of line they’ll ask her to take a break and leave.  They and their husbands are good at setting boundaries, but I want to be sure I also do all I can to create and maintain a peaceful atmosphere in a home we all love.  I’m reading relevant books and learned enough not to escalate or defend but it’s going to be hard.   Any advice as to strategies you may have engaged would be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, both!  The holidays make me especially emotional and I am tearing up, a bit reading this!  I am happy, in regards to my other daughter, who is so kind, my best friend, who shares her family with me (there is alot to be said for that) and my beautiful granddaughters; I make myself active and am involved with many animal shelters and church; you all hang in there, also

Money is power too. Seeing the concept of "power dynamic" reminded me about how my BPD mother controlled people with money. How she spent money was emotionally driven.  Accepting any money from her had strings attached.

She prefered relationships with people who had less income than her- and this kept the power dynamic in her favor. Speaking to some of them, they assumed she was wealthy.

However, there was a disconnect between her emotional spending and the logic of numbers and the actual money she had, and her emotional spending eventually led to her being in financial difficulty. 

Observe how he relates to money and others. Taking you out for a nice dinner- that's a nice date- but using money to control and influence is different.

Hi AngelofItaly,

Iam currently also estranged from my udd. We have had episodes of LC and NC over many years and udd would then return and  act as if it never happened so nothing could ever be resolved. Like So Confused has said I also replayed every little detail over and over in mind driving myself crazy until I couldnt sleep or focus even on everyday tasks.

Eventually I saw a pattern and realised that my udd often used LC/NC as a form of punishment, manipulation or when she felt some form of discomfort or emotional shame and that she would make contact again when she felt that the time was right for her to make contact again which was usually because she needed something from me like babysitting. Often my calls were blocked or went to VoiceMail during LC or NC.

Taking all the blame doesnt help. All it does is breakdown your character and give you anxiety so please take this time and space to look after your after your own mental health.
 

Good to see you've now found happiness.

Time is indeed a great healer; it lets you see things more objectively and dulls the rose-coloured glasses we all look through when the final breakup happens.  We see 'the whole picture' as if from a distannce and we end up thinking 'How the hell could I have put up with that for so long??'.  A BPD relationship is probably the most intense relationship we'll ever go through so impossible to just forget quickly and move on with life.. ironically, only the BPD person seems able to do that!

It is truly wonderful to be in a relationship where you're not constantly on guard about everything and wondering when the next blow-up happens. Long may your happy marriage continue.

People with BPD have a higher risk (susceptibility) of developing PTSD and therefore there is an statistical overlap with many patients having both disorders (my wife included). However:


Roughly 15-20% of Vietnam veterans experienced PTSD, with a lifetime prevalence around 18% according to major studies like NVVRS. Overall, that wasn't because of BPD at it did it make them develop BPD. Because BPD is a more complex disorder with origins in childhood and is also harder to treat.

Well, to be fair, among the veterans with PTSD, a fraction of them (8,7%) actually developed BPD. But, there are studies indicating that they already had BPD features (traits) previously. It is understandable that 18% x 8,7 = 1,5% of the veterans would already have subclinical BPD and then progress to develop clinical BPD after suffering from war traumas.

Yet complex-PTSD (CPTSD, as described by Pete Walker), on the other hand, relates better with BPD, since it also comes from childhood reoccurring traumatic memories.

Having that said, studies with Psychedelics on BPD patients must be designed and carried out very carefully. As by today, December 2025, the most clearly “in-progress / registered” work I can point to are:

1) NCT05399498, an interventional study testing psilocybin in people with co-occurring major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder, explicitly looking at symptom change in both conditions.
2) NCT06683014, an interventional study testing MDMA’s effects on social cognition in adults with borderline personality disorder.
3) ACTRN12624000871549 (ANZCTR), a registered trial combining BPD-specific psychotherapy with MDMA in a public mental health setting.

Major psychedelic centers (for example the Parsons Center at Mount Sinai) now list MDMA-assisted therapy for BPD among their research lines, although details are still emerging and these are small, early-phase investigations (link).

There are also peer-reviewed discussions and case literature arguing for, and exploring, BPD-targeted psychedelic approaches (including LSD and MDMA frameworks), but those do not serve as a demonstration of efficacy. See more here.

Perhaps a safer approach is Ketamine. One interesting case is about a BPD patient who was at the most extreme situation but finally begun to respond to treatment after Ketamine infusions: Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder with Ketamine - Dr Helena Rogg

Ketamine is not actually a psychedelic, but the patient does loose contact with reality during the infusion. Ketamine is classified as a "dissociative anesthetic that has psychedelic properties". This is an already approved drug to treat persistent depression, not yet BPD. It works through the promotion of neuroplasticity, very similarly to Ayahuasca from Amazon forest, but without the associated risk of permanent psychosis. It helps by creating new pathways in the brain that enable the patient to break through the persistent recurring negative thoughts that sustained a depressive mood.

By the way, Ayahuasca is not recommended for BPD patients. My wife actually developed mild visual and auditory hallucinations after experimenting it in low dosage (around 20 ml). She only recovered from it one year later, after taking high dosage of B1 vitamin, which has neuroprotective effects (it was Benfotiamine, a high absorption form). Overall, it is too risky to experiment with Psychodelics with BPD patients, especially in a unsupervised way, because they can cause persistent hallucinations and psychosis due to brain damage.

My personal opinion is that the abnormal functionality seen in BPD, as well as the brain damage that is frequently seen in image exams, is related to low levels of essential nutrients during the first years of brain formation (e.g.: inside the womb and the first two years of life). That's why nutrients such as high quality Omega-3 TG are so helpful for BPD patients. And therefore, igniting the brain with a drug that has psychedelic features is a recipe for more brain damage. Perhaps replenishing with those nutrients for a few years would allow the brain to get stronger. But the challenge is to know the exact nutrients that are lacking. There are advanced intracellular exams for that purpose, but they are not designed to test brain cells.

At 35,000 felt, you are chasing, and he is feeling pretty entitled and testing (consciously or subconsciously) your boundaries.

In a relationship with a person with BPD traits, you have to be strong. Part of that is zero tolerance for doormat treatment.

When someone says "you can always leave", hit the pause button and wait for him to comeback knocking. Be strong. Stand up for yourself. Keep the "power dynamic" in check.

Yeah, I totally understand the need for a break.  Though I've never been the direct target of my stepdaughter's BPD rage, her dad has been, and I've seen first hand how horrible that is.  We have gone through YEARS of rage cycles, punctuated by periods of estrangement/no contact/very low contact.  Though the LC/NC periods are relatively tranquil, it's impossible not to worry and despair sometimes, especially during the holidays, when stress ramps up and expectations run high.

Look, my BPD stepdaughter has said the most horrible things to her dad.  Though he's not perfect, I think he has gone above and beyond to support her, from paying years of extra college tuition (she dropped out several times), paying her rent and all her expenses, moving her in and out of successive apartments, letting her live with us rent- and chore-free, arranging and paying for extensive therapy programs, numerous rescues halfway across the country, several trips to hospitals, etc., along with countless hours of supportive talking, texting and validating.  He delayed retirement for years as a result of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra expense to get her the help she needed.  And yet through all this, she'll still rage at him and cut him off.  I know she doesn't really mean any of it, and she has admitted as much.  She credits her dad with saving her life.  But when she's dysregulated, she can't help but play the victim and blame the very person who loves and supports her the most.  It's torture for both of them sometimes.

The pattern seems to be that my BPD stepdaughter will reach out when she needs help, which is often.  I know she doesn't like to ask for help, but the years lost to BPD episodes mean that she's a bit behind her peers in terms of autonomy.  She's still needy like a teenager (though she has definitely been stepping up her game in the last six months).  The requests for help feel very transactional and sometimes manipulative.  I think that entire situation is triggering for her, because she's not satisfied with her life on the one hand, and she resents being dependent on her dad and me on the other hand.  You see, her expectations of others and life in general are sky high, which sets her up for constant disappointments.  She wants a glitzy lifestyle but isn't willing to work consistently to get it.  She wants romance but "isn't attracted to anyone."  She wants the freedom of adulthood without responsibilities.  She wants gratification without delay.  I bet she feels like a failure most of the time.  So when she has to ask for money or other help, she's triggered and prone to outbursts.  Since she's gotten therapy, I think she's showing more patience and self-control.  Yet the rage is still there and comes out from time to time.  That's my longwinded way of saying, I don't think you're at fault, no matter what your daughter says.  She's projecting her frustrations onto you, because you're the only person in the world who is willing to share in her pain sometimes.  I think she's not mad at you; I think she's mad at herself but deflecting that as anger towards you, because to admit to herself any weakness is just too painful.  Sure, maybe she's high functioning, and that's wonderful, it really is.  It's just that the stress of attaining that level of functionality is overwhelming to her sometimes, and she struggles mightily.

I think you both need a break!