Thanks ForeverDad, I think your point is very valid and you put it well. I guess having half your week in a safe environment and having some positive relationships to model yourself after would be long term better than living all your time in a dysfunctional environment where mommy and daddy cant change a diaper together witbout a fight. I guess really my feelings on this are more selfish than anything - I'd really want to go back to the positive moments and have her grow up in a home where we're one big loving family, but I'm just one person and its probably my issue to work on tying so much of my self worth in a goal that I cant control ultimately.

I do feel like the years of having to live hypervigilant attuned to her emtional state and predicting her triggers has massive carryover to caring for a small child. I dont really get triggered by prolonged crying spells and I think I'm really good at predicting and noticing the triggers that make the baby upset. Its been an incredibly rewarding experience and the one thing that keeps me centered and sane in the midst of all this. But at the same time I recognize that her experience is quite the opposite, and this disconnect probably plays a role in why we keep on having these fights around child caring. I probably could do better to strike her ego a bit every time she does something well with the baby - I think shes doing much better than she gives herself credit for, but its hard to see the positives sometimes in the midst of the resentment when all I get is criticism and contempt and crying spells sometimes getting attributed to me when the baby is just tired... But I guess this is also a skill that'll be valuable as a dad, the kids won't always be easy either.

There is some physical violence and frequent use of profanity against me in the presence of our baby. This is probably the most destabilizing thing for me, and its a line ive told her many times i wont allow to be crossed, yet she keeps on walking over it and I have little i can do besides just leaving the room and leaving her alone with the baby if she doesnt want to give baby to me, and often this can compound issues if she then has to take care of distressed baby on her own. Its not something that causes physical danger to anyone at this stage, but is severely damaging to my mental health. I dont really know what tools I have at my disposal here, ive considered discussing if we should see couples therapist again so that they could suggest that she find a therapist of her own, but I have no idea how she'd even react if i let someone on the outside know about these episodes, and im always worried they'd feel the need to get child protective services involved prematurely...

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I first came to BPD FAMILY 13 years ago (Oct 2013). Only recognize a few members on here from back then. I haven’t posted on here since 2019.  A brief summary of my story.
▪️Married 18yrs had 2 sons 8 &13. Caught my wife (literally) in bed with a neighbor on FATHERS DAY

I first came to BPD FAMILY 13 years ago (Oct 2013). Only recognize a few members on here from back then. I haven’t posted on here since 2019.  A brief summary of my story.
▪️Married 18yrs had 2 sons 8 &13. Caught my wife (literally) in bed with a neighbor on FATHERS DAY

I’m really struggling. Not for the now which is just bad because of my udxBPDH.  The after is not so bad but I have immense fear of unknown.  It is the through I am terrified of.

We have been married 30+ years, 4 kids. One at college, one in high school, other two have ft jobs, but one is still at home. My H has always been difficult, and mean on occasion, needs attention but as the years have progressed, he just seems to go more and more off the rails.

He is a legal professional which is some of the fear of the through (from married to divorced is what I call the through).

He makes a lot of money, I do not about 1/3 of what he does maybe a bit less.    He likes vacations a lot like 3-4 a year.  He buys nice cars (they look nicer than they are bc he buys used and gets a better deal but it has to be high end), etc.  Our bills are high bc he runs up CCs but never remembers and it’s hard to pay down. There are other large expenses and debts.  It causes me a great deal of stress.

I am responsible for the admin of paying the bills.  My check is always assigned some duty — right now college.  He often withholds his paycheck. He’ll hold it for the weekend and then come Monday or Tuesday it’s a pretend, hey did I forget?  Once or twice maybe, but multiple times in a row? 

He won’t talk about it. The last time I asked him via text about it so I could pay bills, he rage texted me back. We were dropping my son at college the next day and I just ignored and went to sleep and let all the bills be late.

There are some things going on at his office that have caused some delay so I understand but the expectation that I am responsible but not entitled to the information. He won’t discuss on the weekend but I told him that’s fine, but the weekend is when I have time and energy to pay bills so just lmk what’s going on so I can plan accordingly.

I’ve told him finances cause me stress.  Everything he knows he know weaponizes against me.

So about 10 days ago, he left some dishes in our family room. I don’t love it but I usually do a sweep in the morning to load the dishwasher of anything left before I run it. I didn’t this morning for some reason. TBH I might have been annoyed bc he leaves apple cores and fruit stickers and I find that particularly disrespectful that he feels someone else (me) should clean that up. But it may have been the day I had an appointment out of the house (I work from home) and just didn’t get to it.

Anyway, usually collapse after work so didn’t grab and he stays up hours later than I do so I expected (idk why) that the next morning he would have at least moved it to the kitchen (a lot of weaponized incompetence that can’t tell if dw is clean or dirty).  Instead it was still there but he had added to it.  I stuck to it and would not pick up. We would generally chat at night but just ignore the mess.  I want to avoid a fight and don’t want to play into his game. I simply do not have it in me anymore.

This goes on for over a week to the point he amassed something like 14 moldy glasses, 6 moldy coffee mugs, bowls with food remnants, open tin cans, garbage on the floor.

My oldest was coming for the weekend so I thought he would pick it up. Nope he instead tore apart my daughter’s room to replace the carpet and only half put things back and left the rest blocking the stairs and into the kitchen.

We spent the weekend walking around and with smelly dishes.

I feel absolutely absurd, childish and ridiculous typing this.

Come work week and he is off and I cleaned everything up til the house was pristine and bought some flowers for myself and split in a few rooms.

While I cleaned, I threw out some that was not salvageable, but the rest is thrown out as far as he knows bc I did not put any back.

He didn’t say a word last night but did not make a mess. 

He’s withholding his paycheck since last week and the general account is in arrears.  He used some money from my son’s college account to buy gas.  The check is dated last week and he will neither give to me (usual) or deposit.

It’s not even a joke as we have major expenses coming up and not even covering basics.

10 days of smelly dishes.  I videoed each day to show the increase and disgust really.

I feel completely off my rocker, it is distracting at work and I feel like I’m going to explode (physically implode really). If I didn’t still have kids to consider I would walk years ago.

He rages mostly at me and I’ve been afraid that if I wasn’t there, he would turn on kids. I’m so close but feel so uncertain and yet just can’t continue.

I don’t know my next step and I’m really afraid of taking it. Oh and like most BPD, I am completely isolated from family and have zero support system.

How can I get to through?  Why do I worry about his response and if he’ll be okay?  Especially when I don’t know if I will.

I’d like to get him to file first (I think he won’t and tries to push me so I’ll be the bad guy and the kids will blame me) but I’d like to really just offer a fair settlement and try to leverage his ego, his desire to keep our mess private, not open the firm books especially as they are tying to merge with another firm. But I’m afraid of walking away with nothing but a huge fight and a big bill.

I would really appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.

Hi again,

My humble opinion is that if you weren't empathetic, you wouldn't be here at all.  I think it's the opposite:  you care very much, almost too much.  You can't stand to see your daughter struggle, and not being able to fix her life for her, to ease her burdens, to have a normal mother-daughter relationship, makes you incredibly sad.  Here's some proof:  your screenname is Sad.  While it's true that you're struggling with the emotional turmoil your daughter puts you through, and it hurts to be her punching bag, I think that if you didn't have as much empathy, your username might be Mad, Resentful, Desperate or Just Done.  At any rate, you're not alone in feeling all these things.

My guess is that the therapist probably only listened to your daughter's version of events.  Based on my experience with BPD, the pwBPD's narrative tends to be distorted, often wildly so.  Your daughter might try to extract apologies and retribution from you for ruining her childhood, but it's never enough.  Her objective isn't to forgive, learn and move on; it's to unleash her inner turmoil onto you and hurt you in the process, to let you know what pain she's in.

Based on your short post, I'm convinced you can't be blamed for everything.  You stated your daughter quit her job because her boss was making her suicidal.  And then, the prospect of looking for another job makes your daughter depressed.  As you can see, these things have NOTHING to do with you or her childhood, and everything to do with your daughter's emotional instability, her negative attitude and struggles with handling daily stresses and disappointments.  Her go-to coping strategy is BLAMING.  She thinks the world is "making" her depressed and suicidal, which is easier to face than the truth:  it's mostly in her head.  That's why DBT and CBT can help with BPD, as opposed to traditional talk therapy or medications.

One of the mantras about BPD on this site is the three Cs:  you didn't cause it, you can't control it and you can't cure it.  You are NOT responsible for another person's mental health struggle.  You can't force someone else to change or fix their choices, no matter how much you'd like to.  At the end of the day, your daughter is the one with the problem, but she's also the one with the solution.  If she's getting therapy and working on herself, that's a positive sign.

My daughter is almost 25 and has been diagnosed with BPD.  Everytime she calls me and she's having a hard time, it hits me so hard.  Sometimes I wonder if I will ever feel ok.  I feel guilty that this is somehow my fault, whether because I didn't do what I needed to do to help her when she was young (even though I really tried) or whether it's because I had kids with mental illness in my family (although I was not consciously aware of that at the time).  It crushes me that she feels so sad.  She tries to get help for it.  And nothing seems to be working.  She is miserable and so therefore so am I.  Is there a future where I get to be ok?

Any words of encouragement out there?

You are not alone in being excluded from a family vacation spot, feeling both angry and hurt. It can be more helpful to focus on the hurt underlying the anger. My large extended family with many disordered family members including some with BPD have ostracized me from family gathering for several years now. When this happens, I often find myself thinking of the past when I was included. What does it say about us when we are no longer included? Oftentimes it means, our awareness and boundaries of the family dysfunction can not be hidden any longer and the disordered family members are extremely threatened by any challenges to their hurtful behaviors so  they prefer to not have us around.

 I need help repairing the harm I have caused in my chaotic relationship with my boyfriend. I’m trying to understand where I went wrong and if it’s possible to move forward.

Here’s the nitty -I’m pretty well versed on bpd (have read so much!) and still learning
-he’s not currently in treatment, and retreats in and out from self awareness
-4 years on again off again long distance relationship (I know, I know)
-usually very close, talking almost every day, multiple visits to see each other
-major bpd behaviours were meltdowns (splitting on me and getting into horrible circular arguments about how I’ve hurt him), shutdowns (going cold and dismissive, taking big chunks of space), and sensitivity to rejection (worst possible interpretations of my words, behaviours, possible thoughts).

I understand that I’m not perfect. And that my reactions and actions make sense because his behaviour can be confusion, hurtful, and frustrating. But I’m trying to figure out where I’ve gone wrong and to try to do better.

I’ve tried to “fix”  things instead of listening to his feelings Now I realize this made him feel invalidated and weak. I’ve tried to stay calm and ended up shut down and cold when he’s been overwhelmed. Now I realize this made him feel invalidated and ignored, and he read my calm as dismissal and threat.I’ve been needy and desperate for repair and reassurance when he’s needed space to calm down.Now I realize this made him feel pressured and smothered.

Worst of all, I had a meltdown. During a disaster of a holiday together, where he kept picking at me and making passive aggressive comments out of the blue, I lost my cool. I didn’t yell. And I wasn’t intentionally cruel. Just exhausted and desperate and not in control. I couldn’t stop crying. And I couldn’t stop talking. I did not filter or mince my words. I talked about my love for him.And I talked about my frustration and hurt too.

This scared him. After he told me he thought I was going to physically hurt him. Which horrifies me.

I apologized for scaring him, for losing control, for not taking space to calm myself down. But the damage is done.

The petulant child in me says “but he’s had some many meltdowns and acted terribly to you, and yet YOU try to understand where he was coming from and  forgive and move on! Why can’t HE give me that grace?!” But that doesn’t actually help anything. I can give myself grace and understanding here (I was overwhelmed, he was being _____ty) but that’s just not something he is capable of. Just have to accept that.

Which is kind of the aha moment. For so long I have wanted grace and understanding from him. Wanting him to understand why things hurt me, wanting him to understand why I react a certain way to his behaviours. But he’s not capable of that!

While the things I’ve done that hurt him are understandable, I still hurt him. So how do I move forward from that? How do I repair my relationship with him without throwing myself under the bus (“you’re right I’m a monster”) or slipping into trying to explain to someone who doesn’t hear/understand explanations?

How do I repair something so broken?