Good. 

Now you need to get to a place mentally where seeing someone happy, or happier than you, or who has more than you do (or at least looks that way outwardly) doesn't bother you. 

Like I said, you never know what's truly going on behind the scenes, and things change constantly.  Today's happy couple can become tomorrow's divorced couple. 

realize that your life is your own, and what other people do and don't do doesn't change who you are. 

I don't see this the same way.  I don't think they're unable to focus, and I don't think the incoherent rants and misremembered history is a sign their mind is sick.  I think it's simply another avoidance technique, and reminds me of a debate strategy called the "Gish Gallop" which was basically throwing out so many "arguments" to support one's position that the opponent couldn't refute them all, at which point one could claim to have "won" and move on.  Each argument didn't have to be logical or even true, there just had to be enough of them to overwhelm the opponent and dominate the conversation.   

If you're in a discussion, and you know you're in the wrong, it's better to try to go from a discussion to a "debate" where you can "win" and then claim you're in the right and the other person is therefore "wrong" and short circuit the whole thing.  Just another way to avoid responsibility.  I feel like all of us endured that sort of situation, where you naively tried to get the pwBPD to stop doing something, or apologize, only to be met with a flurry of angry denials, counter-accusations, excuses, complete fabrications, etc.  And then instead of focusing on what you were upset with, you're trying to defend yourself, and the pwBPD has derailed the conversation to avoid any accountability for their actions and shifted the blame to you, and something you supposedly did or didn't do that caused them to behave the way they did. 

What your daughter did reminds me of what BPDxw did during our last marital counseling session.  I arrived with some pretty clear goals of what I felt needed to happen (or stop happening) if we were going to stay together:
1) No more fighting in front of our daughter; if she wanted to fight, at least wait until we were alone; and
2) No more baseless accusations that I was having affairs, being unfaithful, or whatever weasel words she'd try to use, ESPECIALLY not in front of our daughter.

Clear as day, right? 

Her response to was to go on an absolute rant for 15+ minutes about everything I ever did wrong in 5 years of marriage & 1 year of engagement/dating... 4 years ago my mom said this, and I did that, last week I did this, a year ago I didn't help her find a job, 2 years ago I complained about her spending, 4 months ago I rolled my eyes when she wanted to talk about something, I drink too much, I have a friend who cheated on his wife, my family thinks they're perfect, but my brother is unemployed, my aunt is not very nice, my parents are divorced, etc. etc.

The therapist started taking notes, but after a couple minutes just put her pen down and listened.  Then when BPDxw finally stopped talking, said "Okay, he's given you some pretty clear things to work on, what can he do in return?" 

She said "he needs to love me enough." 

The MC said "Well, how does he do that?  That's not something someone can work on."

As the MC continued to try to get her to commit to something, and made it clear BPDxw's deflections and hand waving didn't work on her, BPDxw started screaming at her and then stormed out of the room and told me to "just divorce [her] already" (I did a few months later!). 

I think had you tried to pin your daughter down in the same way and force her to take some accountability for her behavior, she'd storm out of the conversation like that as well.  So it's not that their minds can't focus: the rants, the pointless circular arguments, the finger pointing, deflection, etc. is all a game they knowingly play to avoid having to accept any accountability for their behavior.  Because if they do that, then they need to change their behavior, and they'd sooner die.

I was married to a BPD spouse for 23 years, and I often wondered how I didn't realize she was mentally ill until the very end...or how we even made it that far to begin with.

What dawned on me though was that we split up 3 times the first few years, I had been punched and berated countless times, and my wife focused all of her energy on her family instead of ours.  It was a terrible marriage, yet I couldn't see it.

Maybe around year 8 or 9, I decided that we always had the same arguments (cleaning the house, grocery shopping, saving money, etc...typical stuff).  So one day I just said to myself, "I'm not going to argue anymore and I'm not going to say anything about the stuff that bothers me."  If the house was a wreck, I'd clean it myself or let it be dirty.  I did all the shopping, all the bills, all the appointments and schedules...I just did it all and never again asked for help with anything.  I also stopped complaining about my wife never being there as well.

By doing these things, the arguments almost completely stopped because there was nothing left to argue about.  We lived basically like we were single, did some things as a family, and we just sort of existed for the next 15 years.  And honestly, this was more terrible than getting screamed at and slapped.  At least back then there were good times and bad times.  I just felt alone though and it was depressing to be married but living like I'm single (not in the dating sense...just in the general lifestyle since I did so much alone).

If I hadn't made that change in year 8, there's no possible way we made it 23 years.  And I still don't completely know why I gave up my values and morals to let her just run free.  I'm not autistic, but at the same time there has to be something different about me since I just lost the will to keep fighting back.  I just hated everything about arguing and I still shy away from conflict today.

I've shared this here before.  One time, my BPD daughter was particularly dysregulated and she began saying pretty often, "You never listen to me and if I could just explain how I feel, you'd understand."

About the 4th time she said that, I replied, "Sure, explain it to me.  I'll listen."  She refused though and said that she wanted to think about it.  And maybe a week later, she showed up on a Saturday when I was off work and said that she wanted to talk.  We went to a quiet part of my house and I told her to go for it.

For the next 45 minutes, she spoke non-stop and it was like the paragraph I wrote above about the sandwich.  Just one random thing after another, and ever 5-10 words we were on a completely different topic.  Something that happened when she was 8, then what happened at work yesterday, then when I wouldn't buy her a car after she wrecked her 2nd one, then someone that bullied her in high school.  It went on and on and on, and my brain was literally screaming inside.

I didn't stop her though and let her ramble.  Truthfully, I'm glad I did because I felt like for the first time, I actually understood what it's like to have BPD.  Her mind couldn't focus and it bounced from one thing to another, then to another thing, then back to a few words she said 15 minutes earlier.  It was maddening and I could feel myself going insane from the onslaught of words...until it dawned on me that my kid felt this way the entire time she's disordered. 

Every moment of every day when she wasn't thinking clearly, this is what's rattling around inside her head.  It was chaos, and I don't think I've ever felt more heartbroken in my entire life.  I can say with 100% honesty that I'd rather have her cuss me out and tell me how horrible I am than to go through that again, all that frantic emotion at once...she was crying her eyes out and getting more and more upset as she talked.  Yet she couldn't stop, she had to get all of it out, so I just sat there and tried to listen and make sense of what I was hearing.

At 45 minutes, I cut her off with a lame excuse...I think I said that I had to go to the bathroom or get a drink.  Like I said though, I was literally going insane just getting a true glimpse of how her mind worked.  My cutting her off actually served a purpose though because she finally said, "That's what I've been trying to tell you for over ten years now."  And I thought, you didn't tell me anything...none of what she said made sense...but at least it was cathartic for her.

I shared all of that to say this.  If that's BPD and how a BPD typical mind operates when it's disordered, they're simply fighting to survive and last out the moment.  There's literally no right or wrong in any of that, and no sort of justice within it.  It's literally self-torture and I would have done absolutely anything to get out of that room after 45 minutes.

I can understand why they scream or why they cheat.  It's an escape from their own hell, and it allows happy feelings to take over for a little bit.  It is truly the most heartbreaking thing I've ever experienced in my life because my mind was trying to think like her mind to understand it all.  It just wasn't possible though.

I don't know if there's a prototype that disproportionately attracts a partner with BPD, or one that is especially drawn to someone with BPD.  My sense is that some people might like the intensity and initial drama of the relationship--the process of falling deeply in love, feeling so close and special.  But if you're talking about a female pwBPD, what I've noticed is that if she's hot or sexy, many suitors will look past some red flags, precisely because she's hot and sexy.  I saw quite a bit of that in my college days.  Looking back, I'm wondering if some of those sexy "damsels in distress" had some BPD traits.

I agree here.  What makes BPD so BPD is "delusional" logic, the recasting of fact patterns to fit a narrative of victimhood, to justify ill treatment of others.  But in my humble opinion, I think that deep down, pwBPD know full well that they are acting badly.  That's why the feel such deep SHAME, which is a huge feature of BPD.  They know better, but their inability to control their emotions and impulses gets in their way.  They lack emotional control, and they're acting badly, and they know it!  However, because apologizing and making things right involves taking responsibility, well, that's impossible to do, because it would contradict the victim narrative.  What do they do?  They might enter into a pit of despair ("I'm horrible/hopeless/unloveable").  But more often than not, they pretend like they did nothing wrong, or they shift the blame onto someone else, in the hopes that you give them a pass, as well as keep the victim narrative intact.  Most "normal" people wouldn't give them a pass--only the people closest to them will, when they are operating in a FOG of fear, obligation or guilt, or they're committed to making the relationship work.

Just my two cents.

Interesting topic. About a year or so before my wife and I split up, I’d done several online questionnaires that came back saying  I was highly likely on the asd spectrum. When we split up I went to the doctors to investigate this further, and was given two questionnaires to fill out, one for autism and one for adhd.
After looking at the results my doctor said he was putting me forward for an official diagnosis. That was 2 1/2 years ago and I still haven’t heard anything from them.

If I am, I have traits and I’m not particularly affected by it. My brother refuses to believe that I even have it, although my ex, my kids and my in laws believe I probably do.

The part of your post that I find worrying however, is where you mention autistic people don’t care what anyone thinks of them. I do sometimes wonder how I am perceived, or if I have upset someone if I haven’t heard from them in a while, which now leads me to question if I am narcissistic instead. I don’t have a grandiose sense of self nor act superior to anyone, although I can at times feel a little insecure. I am not particularly sociable and am an introvert.

In the USA, driving over the speed limit is wrong.  Most of us have broken that law hundreds or thousands of times.  And when we get down to it, we all present what feels like valid excuses at the time. 

- I am late for work and I can't be late.
- My kid is sick and I have to get home.
- My wife is in labor and we're rushing to the hospital.
- I thought the speed limit was 55 in this area!?!
- I'm rushing to a dentist appointment they just worked me in for.
- I was getting away from that car that was swerving everywhere.
- I was just trying to get out of this bad neighborhood quickly.

Police have discretion and for several of those, you might be let go without a ticket.  Other cops might impose the maximum penalties regardless, just because they're jerks with no hearts.  Despite the "excuse", they are all technically wrong and against the law regardless.

Here's where the BPD thing makes this a complicated discussion.  Is cheating wrong?  Yes.  Do they know it's wrong?  Yes, on some levels.  But the part of their brain that says "don't do that" is muted by the part that's screaming, "I deserve this because my life stinks and all these things keep happening and it's not my fault and I deserve a break and people don't love me and this feels wonderful in the moment and I think that if my partner loved me they'd understand because they didn't make me a sandwich for lunch yesterday and that proves they hate me so this is really justice for what I deserve for putting up with the constant abuse in my life."

Is it still wrong?  Yup.  But their minds convince them that it's mostly right because they have a solid, air-tight reason that absolutely nobody could deny.  They'll never share that reason, of course, because it would make them sound crazy.  But they know what's right and that's all that matters.

Indeed I've tried that tactic as well.  Then I get a verbal assualt:  "You're my wife, and you don't answer me (immediately) when I call!  You are horrible!  This isn't marriage!"  And then he'll demand, "What if there was an emergency?"  When I'm feeling cheeky, my response is, "What's the emergency?", which begets an out-of-control rant, because there is no emergency, unless you deem that not knowing the dinner menu or having to heat up a dinner plate in the microwave ALL BY YOURSELF constitutes an emergency.  However, my usual response is, "If you're calling me just to yell at me, I'm hanging up."  Then I'll hang up.  Typically he'll call me me five minutes later to yell at me again, and I'll say the same thing and hang up again.  When I arrive home, he typically yells some more, sulks and puts himself to bed early (like at 8:30PM instead of the usual 10 or 11PM), in protest.  Anyway, he tries to "punish" me with a tantrum whenever I go out.  Apparently he thinks I'm his full-time caretaker-maid.  The injustice is, caretakers and maids get days off, but I apparently I don't deserve a few hours off here and there to do something fun for myself, let alone whole day or weekend, let alone any pay . . .

Anyway, I've resolved to try to have a social life, knowing that no matter what I do--provide a complete itinerary and listing of other people I'll be seeing, invite him to come along, leave food for him to reheat for dinner, etc.--he will have a tantrum a third to half the time and attempt to "ruin" it for me.  Just getting his "permission" to leave the home is sometimes grueling--he wants to know locations, exact travel times, people's names, etc., a third-degree interrogation for getting a morning coffee, it's truly tiring.  One time I had a morning coffee for an hour, and since the coffee shop was near my local drug store, I decided to stop in to pick up a prescription and some household items, to save time, right?  Since that drug store errand took maybe 20 minutes extra, guess who called and chewed me out, for taking "too long" for a coffee meeting.  He demanded that I come right back home.  If I dare show him the receipts and prescription as "evidence," he'll toss them aside and insinuate that I'm doing something dishonest. Ugh.

Like you, there have been a couple of times that I've ignored his call, knowing full well that my spouse was calling only to yell at me, and I might as well delay the onslaught until I get home.  Plus, when I'm driving and he's yelling at me, he makes me so nervous that I'm afraid I'm going to get into an accident.

Thanks for all of your thoughts everyone.

I'll just reply briefly before I head out, but:


Yeah... I suppose you're right.

It's hard to believe it, but I guess it's true.

It doesn't give me much pleasure actually... I don't think I want her to wreck her life, I just want her to confront what she did - or to have not done it in the first place.

I can think of a few examples of 'devoutly religious' mothers who showed up all holy for church and saved all the abuse for their family... so I know it happens... it's just... hard when you've seen it first hand - hard to really believe what you've seen with your own eyes.


It is true - my dad was prone to psychosis because of a degenerative illness.

Sometimes the way she'd speak to me reminded me of the way that he did - dissociated and incoherent, and kind of mean.

It's one of the things I found so painful about her episodes.

I'd also love to marry and have a family myself. So maybe it's hit on a sore spot there.

I know it'll be okay eventually, it just hurts at the moment I guess!


Goodness that's wild - sorry that you've been caught up in that.

*sigh* they don't teach you this stuff in school, do they??