Greetings. I'm new here.  My partner has erratic behavior and my therapist says it could be bpd. I'm here seeking understanding and validation of my experience through listening to others and hopefully (feeling safe enough) to share my own one day.

I agree with all of this and have experienced what this is like. I also agree there is harm in walking on eggshells and placating/appeasing someone. I think you are spot on in implicating your father as the one to have boundaries with.

One reason I think for the many responses to your post is that- we have been in this situation, in different ways and so, we've seen the reactions to doing so. It doesn't mean don't do it- choosing to have boundaries is the emotionally healthy choice- it's the outcome to be aware of. Since I wasn't aware- this is a "what I wish someone had warned me about" post, not a "you can't do it" post.

I agree that what your father is doing isn't OK, and he's the half of the pair and the issues with your BPD mother. In this sense, he's been her co-emotional abuser by enlisting you as a secondary caretaker probably since you were very young and not considering the effect it has on you. Your feelings about this are valid and it makes sense that every time he makes this request, it feels bad to you. It does to me too. Whenever I was in a position where I was expected to emotionally caretake BPD mother, it felt icky.

I also observed my father getting older, more tired, and less able to provide the emotional careraking BPD mother required. At some point he lost his own self in this relationship. The two of them were enmeshed- one person. One will- hers. But there was more that I didn't see as I also didn't live near them, and only saw them for visits. It was when I stayed with them to help with Dad that I saw, for the first time, what it was like to be with them 24/7, and it was way worse for Dad than I imagined. I even called social services to see if I could intervene but since he was legally competent, he'd have never agreed to that and I could do nothing. This was an emotional and vebally abusive relationship and if BPD mother wasn't placated, if people didn't do what she wanted, Dad would be the dealing with that.

At this point, after decades of this, he seemed like someone with Stockholm syndrome. While to me, he appeared to be the more reasonable parent to try to reason with, in this situation, he wasn't able to be reasonable. When BPD mother wanted him to do something, she could be relentless. All he wanted in the moment was for her to stop, even if it was temporary.

I also can relate to not feeling affectionate with family members. One alternative to this is that we don't feel love or affection with people we don't feel emotionally safe with. It's hard to be authentic with people who aren't emotionally safe to be with.

Like your counselor has advised- showing up more authentically is a good thing, it's important, and I was also encouraged to do this too. It has had benefits for me personally to work on this but disordered family members may remain disordered.

You can choose how to respond to your father's request and also choose your battles. I don't see in your posts where your goal is a potential rift in family relationships that could result from this kind of boundary setting. You've had counseling and recovery but they have not. From what I see in your posts, your goal seems to be how to have boundaries and still maintain these relationships.

Mine was to maintain the geographical distance- where I could have my own space, and boundaries. I had an emotional boundary with her- kept emotionally neutral- grey rock. The choosing my battles was about deciding how much I wanted to have drama during the visit- not about placating her. In this situation, I was still choosing what boundaries to have, because if every boundary is a battle, it was about what to go to battle over.

The sad and unfortunate aspect of our relationships is that- even if I could be authentic, due to dysfunction, I don't think my parents could "see" me as who I was and it wasn't personal to me. For my BPD mother- what she saw in people was through her sense of feeling like a victim and her projections.

For my father, in his situation, anything that increased the issues for him was a last straw. And while I completely validate your experience, and feelings, I can see your resentment- and it's valid but bringing your feelings to your already ovewhelmed and possibly abused father is not likely to bring you two closer. There was a sign in my therapist's office- "hurting people hurt each other". You are hurting, Dad is hurting. Yes you can choose what to do but put that choice in context of what your overall goals are when considering that choice. How we implement boundaries can be a choice too.

We are "on your side" here and have experienced disordered family dynamics. What your father is asking of you isn't OK, and your choice is how to deal with that. You can choose and also post here for support and feedback whatever you do choose to do.

Sorry to hear what you're going through, be assured you aren't alone. A lot of us here tried hard to make things work but, like yourself, eventually realised we couldn't make it happen.

As Gems has said, this is probably the best place to find support, learn and share experiences.. or just plain vent if it helps. Everyone listens and can relate totally. And it does help to write it all down, even just to 'get it out of your system'.

No matter how caring and loving we are to others, we also need to take care of ourselves, both physically and especially mentally, as a BPD relationship is probably the most stressful thing we'll ever encounter.

Best wishes

I've said this often. The vast majority of their actions are from their illness which they have no control over, but I'm sure they're far more aware of what they're doing than they'd have us believe and there can be a lot of premeditation. They'll still never apologise though, whether premeditated or not.

I'm sure my exBPD would still have been very moody and difficult even without her BPD -  and maybe this, along with other factors, even contributed to her developing it.

Hi, I'm so glad you found this place to share, vent ... I am so deeply sorry for your struggles with your son and for the pain you feel. You are a very caring Dad. I hope your son does get the help he desperately needs. I'm new here as well. There is so much support here. I'd suggest you seek out a therapist who is experienced with mental illness for yourself. I've done that and it's been so supportive and validating. And I agree that there is much to grieve.

Pook075,
Thank you! What you wrote helps a lot. I read it twice and will reread multiple times. It explains so well why I feel crazy or incompetent when I try to follow his "logic" in explaining a problem when he is disordered. Also, I never looked at it as disordered. My thought was he is very very upset and I assume he may blow things out of proportion... But, what is true is, some things just didn't make sense. What adds to the confusion is that there are times when he is not, and is self aware.  Makes my head spin.
Thanks again!

Hi Jazz,

That your husband calmed down after you gave him a "time out" is a great result.  You held your boundary without escalating the situation and without losing control.  That's major progress, even if you were frazzled and stressed out by the situation.

I think it's great he calmed down relatively quickly, the very same evening, maybe even within an hour.  Let me guess, the whole thing riled you up, and you had trouble sleeping.  I know, experiencing a spouse's discontent is extremely unsettling, even if you refuse to engage.  It's hard not to feel shaken and upset by his behavior, which seems both mean-spirited and deranged.  But I see continued progress here.  Your husband is human, he's going to regress to old habits sometimes.  He might be testing your boundaries on purpose.  But if you continue to hold your boundaries, I think you'll train him how to treat you better.  My question is, despite a slip-up, is your husband back "on track" to treating you right?  If so, maybe there's reason for hope.

Your husband's complaints touch a particular nerve of mine, which is always assuming the worst and griping about things that haven't even happened yet!  To cut short an overly negative rant like that, my stock response is:  "I don't want to hear about something that hasn't even happened / that I haven't even done."  If he continues, I leave the room.  If he follows me, I'll go to the bathroom or for a walk.  Sometimes just by giving him a little time and space, the negative energy will dissipate.  The reminder that he's upset about something that hasn't even happened is perhaps the reality check he needs.  If it's not enough, OK then, he can talk to himself, as long as he closes the door and I don't have to hear it.

Haven’t been here for ages. Life goes on with my BPD husband.

18 months ago he sold his (our) holiday home and gave his daughter all these funds plus his savings because she left her high paying job without having another job to go to. She has spent some of his money to live on no expense spared manicures, haircuts, expensive food, restaurants including a trip to Europe for 3 weeks.

Now 18 months later, she has got employment again, starts in February. It will be interesting to see if the money gets returned to husband. In a way him having no money has been less worrying for me as he couldn’t buy something totally mad. He did try to buy a block of land about 9 months ago and actually asked her for his money back in a fit of disregulation, but it was not forthcoming.

Anyway, we push on with ups and downs in life
 Best wishes to all here for the New Year.

Hi JazzSinger, I read again with great interest your interaction with your BPDH as I believe we are all of a similar age group.

I do get moments of thinking I would be better off alone but then like you the practicalities of life come to my attention. I know I couldn’t give up my home and lifestyle with my adult kids and my darling grand children to go it alone in reduced income and circumstances. So I manage to live as best I can amidst the turmoil and disregs BPD brings into my life. Of course if there was violence involved that would be a different thing. Does your husband threaten or has he hit you.?

Hope things go more smoothly for you again after this period of intense disruption.
All best

I am venting to this community. Some of your posts resonated deeply with me. A major caveat is I don't have an official diagnosis for my family member, but he won't really participate in counseling/discussions with providers or even acknowledge there may be a problem.

We raised my stepson for 16 years. Leading up to highschool he displayed a theme of defiance. Potty training, eating, getting him to do hygiene (brush teeth, etc.), do homework etc seemed like a futile effort. Unlike our other 3 boys, he consistently received emails home from school (elementary, middle, and high school) that were beyond normal teacher communications. We gave him the benefit of the doubt up until about 8th grade when literally every teacher in the parent teacher conferences more or less said he's a menace in class.

In this same timeframe he got suspended for brandishing a knife at another student, and also for throwing a rock through a teacher's car window in the parking lot. He swore up and down it was an accident, but I'm not sure how you accidentally chuck a rock into a parking lot full of cars. We received a text from his ex girlfriend's mom that he flipped her off at school, he swore up an down she was crazy. He aggressively started down a male adult neighbor when he was asked to leave their home. Later, we would find him texting very degrading and aggressive content to the daughter of that same household when she wouldn't go along with his "disobey your dad!" plan.

The entire time, his bio dad would make comments to my wife such as "he would NEVER do that here" and "you just need to be more strict!" The same bio dad racked up a ton of child support arrears and did not contribute to the massive medical bills this child required such as a 5k dental bill (he needs anesthesia because he literally will not tolerate normal treatment, he will flail around and scream and the providers give up). We became particularly sensitive to this hypocrisy over time from both their household and from the rest of our family who would be quite dismissive of us when we discussed our concerns that this child isn't developmentally where he should be. Therapy was a non-starter, he treats it like a game and even explicitly told his mom he would be happy to waste all her money on it.

Eventually things hit peak tension in our home. We eliminated any ways for him to get around our basic rules of "no smart phone apps if you're failing class." That included changing wifi password, finding his burner phone he brought from his dad's, adding a pin to the game console during the school week. He blew up, wrote some of the nastiest content either my wife and I have ever received, and moved in with is dad. He has refused to discuss any of the incidents with us going on over a year now. The updates we receive from the other house are generally descriptive of wild mood swings and the same difficulties we tried to articulate for years. They recently switched him from a normal therapist to a psychiatrist (because "it's not working!") and are trying Prozac. Surprise, he 'lost' his first bottle of Prozac and they had to get my wife to call the pharmacy for an exception refill. I'm validated on one hand that their house is finally seeing what we saw, but I also feel like the entire situation is completely unfair and ridiculous after we were the only ones for years to be pointing out the obvious. The harder we tried, the worse things blew up in our faces.

His only outreach now is to ask for rides. We have invited him to rebuild and heal in a safe talking environment and he had rejected these invitations. After all, everything is our fault so why should he have to do anything? We've tried to explain our viewpoint that proceeding as if nothing happened isn't healthy and it isn't healing, it's just avoidant and kicking the can down the road, and ultimately counterproductive.

The other three boys gel like we expect normal kids to gel in a communal environment. Sure there's bickering, but there are no blood feuds.

I hold out hope he will return and want to be a part of our family. I hope more that he gets his brain settled. I am profoundly sad and regretful that things have turned out this way.