Well to be honest, the thing is that after 18 years I am really tired. My love is the same, and my commitment to. It's just that my energy is not as it used to be. But everyone here is right. Divorce would take that little energy I got away.
Focus on my son is the most important lesson from this post and I am really grateful to all! Thx.
I know that there is not such thing as a magic wand that would make it all just go away. And as for myself, I am not sorry. It was all my very conscious decision from the start. But what troubles me is my son. I got him at 38, when it seemed that I would never be a father. He is truly the light of my life. I really hope that he will mostly remember the nice stuff and not the ugly.

I agree with FD, if you were truly on board and ready for divorce.  I think if you began the proceedings at his age of 15, he'd be so close to 18 by the time it was settled that custody won't be an issue.

From your post though- you aren't really considering divorce. You are considering calling her bluff by taking her up on her threats. In this regard, you both are not really wanting to divorce. Reacting to her threats to call her bluff will only escalate the situation. You have already stated you are committed to staying married to her.

In the situation where you are going to stay married, and you want to do the best for your son, then- the way to get him exposed to "normal" situations and away from the conflict is to help him to be able to leave it himself. He can't do this at 15, but there are options. One for me was to let me visit relatives during school breaks and I also could visit friends at their houses. Teens spend more time with their peers as they get older. If BPD mother was acting up at home, I could get to a friend's house for a while. I also went off to college after graduation.

This didn't undo the issues I was exposed to at home but I had some distance from it. I also had access to student health counseling to help. It wasn't a solution, it was a start.

Letting a grown child leave the dynamics at home does not mean no relationship with them. As an adult child, I formed a different relationship with each parent- according to each parents' ability to have a relationship with anyone. BPD affects all relationships. This is your time with your son. Since you have no wish to divorce - why spend more time and money with an uneccesary conflict with your wife?

My best childhood memories with my father are when we did things together without BPD mother as he would then be able to pay attention to us kids. Try to make some time to do this with your son.

One thing I needed to learn was to not react as much to BPD mother's threats (to me, not about divorce). She'd make a threat, I'd react and then there'd be conflict and drama. This reinforced the behavior because then, the focus would be on her.

When your wife makes threats, she's pulling your attention to her, and away from whatever else you need to focus on, including your son, who likely is already getting the short end of your attention. Maybe she is doing this so you will tell her not to leave. Surely it makes you feel angry and tempted to react. This is an "invitation to the crazy (drama for both of you)  party". It works for her to gain your focus, but you don't have to attend the crazy party. You can stay calm and say "honey, I wish you wouldn't leave" and then repeat as needed.

The choice is yours. If you were seriously considering divorce, the advice to stay would be out of line, but you aren't considering it. You have stated you are staying married and so, considering that, don't call her bluff. While your choice is to stay, it may not be your son's choice, so help him to gain independence so he can one day make his choice too.

I think it would be important to find out if there is a certain age at which your son would have a strong say in the custody decision in your area. It does seem you have a strong case for your son to stay with you, as it common for boys with long time divorced parents who have lived with the mother for most of the time to want to go stay with dad when they are teenagers, and it does often happen. It is well known that teenage boys need to spend more time with male role models, especially a father, as they are learning how to become a man.

Well, the only rule that might be slightly broken here is that this is the bettering board.

Pook is right, your priority now is yourself and your precious baby.

Why do we write "you"?  Just think of the instructions just before an airplane flight starts... "In the even of an emergency, put on your oxygen mask first before helping others."  That's precisely why you are a priority.  Your newborn needs you and depends utterly on you.

Though your S/O has in the past had cycles of acting out, there's likely additional triggers here.  (1) Your other children are a bit older and not so dependent on you.  (2) The relationship has changed, you are no longer just a mother but a mother of his child.  It's no longer a twosome but a threesome.  Those are just two of the potential triggers for him to act out.

Unfortunately, there's not a "one size fits all" solution.  With the BPDs in my life though, I'll get quiet and speak barely above a whisper.  Then I'll make short "me statements" like, "I am exhausted, emotionally drained, and I need you to help me."

Maybe he turns it around and makes it about him.  Fine...ignore every single word and go back to your "me statement."  You just gave birth and it's incredibly hard- mentally and physically.  You are not okay.  Make that obvious to him. 

However, stop just short of judging him.  Don't say things like, "You're a bad partner or a bad father."  While it's true, that's pouring gas on the fire.  Instead, keep it 100% about you and the baby.

Finally, you're allowing him to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.  You know that you can say no, right?  Like, get out of my house or I'm calling the police.  And he might say it's his house.  That's fine.  Let him explain that to the police why he's trying to kick out the mother of his week-old child.  That doesn't happen in the USA.

To recap, start with "me statements".  I'm not okay and I don't want to argue with you.  I need help and I'm asking you to stop. Can you understand what I'm asking?

If it goes south, make some space.  Tell him you're not breaking up, but you can't be around him if he's not going to respect some simple boundaries.  He might escalate, and that's when you leave and/or call the police.  Throughout all this, you keep going back to "me statements".  I need space to heal and take care of the baby, I can't argue with you.

For the outcome you mentioned, maybe that's where this is headed, maybe not.  But unless you change the narratives in this relationship, what do you really have?  This isn't a typical situation...you HAVE TO put yourself, the baby, and the kids 1st.

You're right, this is dysregulation and its super hard.  You still have to stand up for yourself though or things will continue to get progressively worse.

While there may some truth in what she claims about her prior marriage, one member here (infamously?) declared that he always knows when his ex is lying... when she opens her mouth.

In other words, unless you have clear independent confirmation through witnesses or documentation, you can't fully trust what a person with BPD traits (pwBPD) claims.

I will simply quote one of my posts long ago.  I was trying to emphasize that a better example for the kids is invaluable.  It allows the children to experience the contrast between what your calm and steady home would be versus the chaos and dysfunction of time spent with the other parent.

While custody - or as much custody as the court would grant you - is important, even more vital is that you set an example for your children.  They need to see what a normal home environment should be, even if only with one parent.

Unless your ex somehow succeeds in convincing the court or other professionals that you are abusive or significantly neglectful, you WILL get parenting time with your children.  It may be as little as alternate weekends, it may be equal time or it may be more.  You son is clearly old enough to have a say in that aspect.  (After all, once he starts to drive he can "vote with his feet".)  But beware that his mother will emotionally guilt him and try to sway him to appease her.


A benefit would be that your children would get a glimpse of normalcy and seek that normalcy in future adult relationships... neither seeking controllers, users and manipulators nor seeking compliant appeasers.

So... "better late than never" may be a theme that works for you.

I agree with how vulnerable I am at this time and how difficult it is to take care of an 8, 5 yr old and newborn AND deal with his emotional dysregulation. We've been together for 2 years- the splitting became more frequent towards the end of the pregnancy so it's beginning to take a tremendous toll on myself and my other children. I'm no longer able to tolerate is as well as I once did. I don't know what to do next - I'm thinking about going away for the weekend with all 3 kids out of town to stay at a hotel and do some fun activites BUT I'm not sure I have the energy to do that on my own AND I'm afraid about how he will respond to that- he's already threatening to find someone else or go to the same town we're going to but do his own thing and go out to bars and whatever. If he does that it will break me- I don't think I could cope with those emotions. He will NOT leave our house- when I have said "fine just leave" or "you need to leave then" he says "I will" but he never does. Or he'll say I will leave once I get a place, next weekend, ect...And yes he texts abusive messages repeatedly all day long - he'll say don't talk to me and then continues to text me. I understand the function of splitting, I know none of this is personal I just want it to STOP. That's the part I don't understand- when they are doing this what response will work to make them stop- ignoring them doesn't work because it signals abandonment, responding briefly with supportive texts or at least acknowledgement doesn't stop the emotional abuse it still continues. Eventually I get angry and say mean things back or defend myself and that just escalates it further. I don't know that me "leaving" or getting away for the weekend- not ending the relationship but just getting away from him would work- I think if I said it was just a break not ending relationship he would still think it meant the relationship is over no matter what I say. When he's like this he does not believe ANYTHING I say is true - especially the positive reassuring things. The outcome will be he will jump to someone else and I'll be left alone, exhausted, devastated and broken.

I had a two year divorce and was in and out of family court for another six years.  Court studiously ignored the obvious mental health issues.  As did CPS, police, children's hospital, etc.  They all danced around the core issue and looked at only their slice of responsibility.  The unstated expectation was that it would eventually fix itself.

Even my lawyer, as practical and experienced as he was, ignored my concerns that that I was dealing with a Personality Disordered ex-spouse.  Yes, he did call her batsh-t crazy, but like most everyone else in the system PDs were never voiced.

The only exception was our last magistrate.  Fortunately she was no-nonsense and didn't put up with my ex's antics.  Unfortunately, we had her only at the end of my eight years in and out of family court.  While she did lambast my ex for disparaging me in my son's presence, did grant most of the solutions I sought in my petition and even said my ex needed counseling, she stopped short of ordering counseling.

There was a lesson there.  Family court does not try to fix the adult litigants.  It deals with them - mostly - as they are.  We would do well to follow that pattern.  Its court orders are what we would otherwise call Boundaries.


Fortunately most of your issues are financial except for the long term guardianship of your needs but grown son.  There are calculations for alimony but beware of agreeing to open ended orders.  They tend to continue for longer than appropriate.  In decades past long marriages could end up with permanent alimony, not so much today.  (One member long ago said his former state may still be an exception.)

The point is that today spousal support during a divorce or alimony afterward is seen more as interim support while the financially disadvantaged ex transitions to life after marriage.

Be aware that laws in the USA changed a few years ago.  The income earner now pays support and the income taxes, not the recipient who earns less and may be in a lower tax bracket.  The government wants its cut.

In my own divorce my ex easily agreed to a financial split since she was possessively focused on the custody and parenting issues.  But she balked on the parenting.  There was a chasm between our perceptions so the mediator agreed that mediation had failed.  I learned a lesson then... It's okay if mediation fails.  That is better than agreeing to lousy terms.  In our cases mediation often does fail and the litigants simply return to court and report mediation failed.  The good thing for you is that court has calculations to handle the financial issues.  However, be careful not to let the court walk all over you when trying to find a quick fix.

I just left my wife of 6 years who has had traits of BPD and NPD and am beginning the process of divorce.  I still love her and am struggling with a lot of grief over this, but I fully know that the relationship was extremely unhealthy and damaging to me and that both of us exhausted all attempts at improving it. Does anyone know of any online support groups for people recovering from abusive relationships due to BPD or NPD.