This feels unnatural because as parents we love sharing life with our kids and we love being involved and hearing about their lives. What I keep coming up against with my son who has bpd is that sometimes knowing details is distressing for me. Actually often it is. It has been this way for most of his life. Maybe because he now has a stable job, and I see it gives him some stability - I think he will build on it and make wise and healthy decisions. The thing is, I'm tired of the emotional roller-coaster of stressing and worrying about his actions, and choices. I feel like I need to back off and not be curious about how things are going for him. I need to protect my right not to knoIt w. That hurts and it sucks when you love your child but honestly,  I don't know of another way. Do any of  you?
I've spent some time visiting him lately and I see him exhausted from lack of sleep- studying to renew his real estate license when he already has a very good full-time job and side work in his trade on weekends.  He tells me how little sleep he gets or that he hasn't eaten all day.??? I feel like he's making sure I stay hooked in. I think his longterm relationship with his girlfriend ended and he's filling up all his free time. I see bill (late notices) stacked on his counter. Yet his house is clean, laundry done... It makes my head spin. I feel I need to set a boundary for myself of not letting myself know too much about what's going on in his life. The thing also is, when I know - I want  to help, advise and rescue because I'm a mess worrying. 

The worst part is that they constantly want my help and when I try to honestly help, even in ways sensitive to their own fragile thought process, I immediately get stopped, talked over, or hear a “yeah, but”.   

They want my help, but the reality is they want validation of the very things they claim to want to try to get over. 

Hi Fooling,

I hear the exhaustion and resentment in your post.  My guess is that your daughter probably mistreated you before, and you wouldn't have let her back in your house if it weren't for your innocent grandchild.

It sounds to me like you deserve a break.  I've felt that way a few times with my adult BPD stepdaughter, who has rebounded back to my house several times.  For each rebound, we established house rules, and generally speaking she would start off OK, but eventually she reverted to her usual ways, sleeping the days away, not working on herself and being nasty and passive-aggressive.

Unfortunately, my BPD stepdaughter doesn't treat living in our house for free as a temporary situation to stabilize, work on herself and get back on her feet, at least not in the long term.  Rather, she treats it like a vacation.  How so?  Well, though she's a full-fledged adult, I think her brain is still functioning like a teen's most of the time, and she envisages living in the parental home as a carefree summer vacation when she was 13, with no responsibilities.  But since she's not 13, and her peers aren't either, lying around at home all day in front of screens just isn't as fun anymore.  Moreover, she takes a "vacation" in the literal sense, that of vacating her real life.  It might start out as a "transitional" period to relax and recharge, but over time, it's really a reflection of her avoidant response to adult stresses.  She basically parks herself on the sidelines of her life, avoiding work, school, volunteering, etc.  She's lying down, 22-23 hours a day.  Deep down she knows that's not an adult's life, but she just can't muster up the emotional resources to do anything about it.  Then she starts brooding and blaming:  my life sucks, it's your fault, you're horrible, you owe me.  She cycles between periods of passive-aggressiveness and outright hostility.  She's entitled, demands money, doesn't help and doesn't care.  "I don't care" is probably her most repeated sentence, followed by "Leave me alone" and "I'm an adult, I can do whatever I want."  The last time she was here, she stayed with us through the entire summer but then was kicked out in late September or early October.

I don't want my BPD stepdaughter to live with me again, because I don't think it's good for her, her dad or me.  No matter what we do and what rules are in place, cohabitation doesn't seem to work.  My opinion is that it actually makes things worse to let her back in our home.  Why?  Because it entails a "vacation" from the "real world," and adults shouldn't be on vacation from the real world when it's facilitated by someone else.  Plus, I think that it's just too hard for a kid to live in a parental home and not adopt childlike habits and resurrect the usual grievances.  Living with parents is a constant reminder of childhood, and let me guess, your daughter thinks she had a terrible childhood, right?

As for the horrible things your daughter might say in angry outbursts, well, that's BPD and probably mostly projection.  My BPD stepdaughter has accused me of the most ludicrous things, which I thought sounded like calling me a poo-poo face, and I actually had to stifle laughter.  I thought, you've lived with me for years, and that's the best insult you've got?  Maybe that just goes to show that she doesn't know me at all, because she doesn't care one iota--she's too busy ruminating about her purported "traumas" and recasting history to fit her victim narrative.  On top of that, she can't come up with any valid complaints about me.  She doesn't see the sacrifices we've made for her benefit--in time, money, emotional support, physical labor, administrative support--because she hasn't really lived in the "real world" as an independent adult.  She's still so entitled, like the 13-year-old little girl attitude she has around our house.  Except she has an adult's body, pocketbook and authority to make decisions.

Having said that, I think my stepdaughter does better when she's living in the "real world."  I think by now she's actually learned that she has to work for some money, and she can't go around blowing her top and expecting to keep any friends.  She can't live like a slob with roommates, and she can't be *itchy to them either, because they'll ask her to leave.  She's been evicted enough times to have learned that lesson (or so I hope).  Her main issue right now is probably realizing that adulting is so HARD, requiring so much work and "fake" niceness.  She still has considerable difficulties with interpersonal relationships (per her long-time therapist).  But in my opinion, she has been doing better, because she's had stable employment and a stable living situation for several months now.  I think that part of the reason is that the "real world" doesn't condone the outrageous BPD behaviors that might be tolerated, even rewarded, in the parental home.  Sometimes I think that pwBPD treat parents worse than anyone else in the world, because only parents are willing to put up with so much, out of love.  Spouses and partners might love a pwBPD, yet separation and divorce are options if behavior is out of control.  But there's no divorcing a kid.

I know this might be hard to hear, but in my home, the worse my BPD stepdaughter acted, the more money, help and concessions she got.  For a long time, it was a bizarro world of mixed-up incentives.  Maybe these mixed-up incentives are partly at play in your home.  And I think that is precisely when resentment starts to build.  Resentment is the feeling of unjust treatment, indignation from injury.  If you are feeling resentment, I think it's time to pull back from over-functioning for your daughter and focus more on yourself.

Hi foolingmyself

You have a right to feel hurt. Pwbpd are very impulsive and want to live in the moment with no thought for how it impacts others lives and boundaries and the word "No" is not an option to them. Your dd has made plans for the summer and probably discussed it with her new guy and you are not complying with her plans hence the dysregulation totally "forgetting" how much you have helped and supported her and gc.

I think what helps when it comes to the abuse is to remember that your dd is mentally ill and she is saying all these horrible things to you as a coping stratergy and  deflection and If she can put all the blame on you then she doesnt have to look at her own behaviour.

I also think it may helpful to let the dust settle and take some time out for yourself right now which may include limiting calls with your dd.

Have you encouraged him to talk it out, or get counseling?  I don't know of course, but it sounds like he's carrying a burden there and doesn't want to confront it. 

One thing I heard once was that the anxiety or fear of rejection and abandonment sometimes drives them to "self-sabotage" ... they act out so that when others say "no thanks, don't come back" they can step back & blame everyone else for rejecting them, instead of living with that anxiety (however irrational it may be) of what could happen. 

His FOO history I imagine would contribute to this dynamic.  He never got that sort of foundational love needed to grow into being a stable adult it sounds like. 

HE could use therapy to work through this, I imagine, but again, good luck with that. 

It's hard being on the outside of people like this and thinking "It's all in your head" and wanting to convey that to them so they get it, that their problems are entirely of their own making and only they hold the key to fixing them, but I don't know whether that helps or hurts.  I had a roommate in college that would disappear often in his room, and had a really short temper when we were out.  He finally confessed to me one day that he was depressed and couldn't leave his room some days.  I tried to say some of that, but I don't know if it helped or not.  He's had a successful career and learned to self-medicate and keep it in check as far as I know, but it seems like an ongoing struggle for him. 

I spoke to her yesterday and she’s of course trying to frame it as all my doing. I completely understand that she is splitting but hearing the barbaric words out of her mouth was particularly excruciating this time. I can’t see myself forgetting about it. I’ve done all I can and gone into debt to help her. I’m drowning financially and now she has attacked me in such a deep, personal way that I can’t move past the cruelty of it all.

Good for you!

It's a big step forward when we finally realise that, though not perfect, we weren't the cause of all the chaos. It really is very freeing and empowering, almost like being washed clean. Took me 4 years to come to this conclusion and I'm just glad I didn't spend 20, 30+ years in something which was toxic and gradually wearing me down.

Since that relationship I've met only one other who definitely had BPD and other issues and I got out ASAP once I saw the patterns developing. You learn to value yourself and the fact you won't compromise 'just to have someone' rather than be alone.  Keep yourself busy doing all the things you couldn't do while in your BPD relationship because you were so enmeshed by it and it ruled your life so completely.

At the end of the day you are now your own person and anything is possible. Be the best and happiest version of yourself you can be and be ready.. because I find good things often happen when we least expect it, especially when it comes to finding relationships

Hello. Some of you may remember me from several years back, when I was frequently posting during our custody dispute. That fortunately ended up with a good outcome for me and our child.

I haven't been here in a long time, but this website was such a valuable resource for me during the hardest period of my life, and so many of the people who were so helpful to me then seem to still be posting here. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

I started dating again once we were divorced. Being reintroduced to the dating scene after years of being off the market, and now adding a child into the mix, is challenging. Some of the people I've met have been great, and some have been the total opposite.

There were two women in particular that I started dating and, when they started treating me poorly, I made a clean and immediate break from them. That's why I'm posting - because just about all of us on here have been in a horrible and abusive relationship at one point or another and likely stayed in it way too long. But a sign of growth is when you're faced with a similar situation and make a better decision the next time, and I'm very proud of myself that I have. I don't put up with anything in my dating life anymore.

I'm sorry you're going through this. Sadly, this is much more common than it should be. Regarding your husband's therapy, so much depends on who the therapist is.

My ex and I went to three different marriage counselors. By the time we went to the third one, I had read "Stop Walking on Eggshells" and had informed myself about the basics of BPD and was convinced she had it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that within 2 minutes of our first session beginning, I hadn't said a word yet and the marriage counselor - totally unprompted - starting going down the list of the DSM for BPD with my ex, asking questions related to each element in order. I immediately recognized this, and it was so validating that a professional had picked up on it so quickly with her. My ex had no idea why he was asking these questions.

I say that to say this. Even if your husband is trying to limit your access to the frequency or progress of his therapy, if you ever get into some sort of legal dispute with your husband, the therapist may be a valuable witness for you (or you may be able to subpoena the T's notes).