I’m new to the forum but am in somewhat of a similar situation to you. My 44 year old daughter has had severe extremes of behavior for the past 17 years, though she was fragile from the time her younger brother was born. I know of no traumatic experiences she suffered but she feels that I failed her and am the cause of all of her issues. She continues to be jealous of her brother. She alternates between needing me and shutting me out when she doesn’t like the advice I give her. She has 3 young children who I love wholeheartedly. I try to absorb her moods in order to be there for my grandchildren. While we live in a different state from her we bought a small place a few blocks from her when our first grandchild was born and go there one week a month to see them. A few days ago we had a major incident and I believe she may have cut me off permanently. This is the first time she’s involved the children. I’m devastated and know her children need me and my husband (their father left to take a job in another state 5 months ago). They have been very close to us their whole lives. I am continuing to reach out to her and will go there in 12 days whether or not she responds. I don’t know if she’ll let my grandchildren see me but I will try. I can’t bear the thought of losing them. I don’t know how long I’ll keep trying but for now I will.
Your daughter is still young and hopefully she’ll see how important you are to her children, if not to herself. It seems that now you are accepting her willingness to cut you out of her life. Sadly, though I can’t imagine not being a part of their lives, the decision is ultimately in our daughter’s hands. It sounds as though you have done everything you could to help your daughter. She’s just not ready to see that. Maybe someday she will. In the meantime I hope knowing that you aren’t alone can help you keep your strength.

Hi there,

A simplistic post mortem on the relationship could be that it didn't work out because you wanted different things.  She wanted full-on commitment in the form of marriage and babies, and you didn't want that yet, for whatever reason.  It could be you felt you were too young to make a commitment like that, or that you didn't know her well enough, or you had some doubts you wanted to clear up first, or that you preferred a lower-key relationship right now, as there was no need to rush, or maybe you weren't ready personally / financially / professionally yet . . . any one of those reasons would be perfectly justified in my opinion.

You ask, was the relationship real?  I'd say the relationship absolutely was real, because you experienced it.  It may feel surprising and painful that your ex seemed to move on so quickly, after such an intense relationship.  If she has BPD, she's emotionally intense, which is part of her allure, at least when things are going well.  Then it's no surprise to me that she leapt into another intense relationship because that's the way she operates.  Some people with BPD can't tolerate being alone, and therefore they tend to move from one intense relationship to another.

If your ex has BPD and was trying to use emotional blackmail, my opinion is that you dodged a bullet.  It's one thing to be transparent about wants and needs, and it's another thing entirely to make grave threats and ultimatums to try to coerce another person into doing something they don't want to do.  In my opinion, suicidal threats (plural in your ex's case) are a red line.  If someone is threatening suicide, I'm calling 911.

I apologize for what will be a long rambling first post but I wanted to give background to my current state.
I believe my 44 year old daughter has BPD. She is an incredibly intelligent and capable woman with 3 children. She is currently, for all intents and purposes, separated from her husband. She has had another short marriage and a relationship that was very near marriage that ended badly. She’s currently working, raising her children, homeschooling 1 of them and maintaining a house by herself.
As a child she was extremely jealous of her younger brother. He was not an easy child and she was a near perfect child. She has never gotten over her jealousy of her brother and has never had a close relationship with him. She feels we’ve always favored him and neglect her. He’s now married with 2 children and she hates his wife. For the most part the only relationship they have is to please me and my husband and when we’re all together my daughter makes it very unpleasant for me.
My relationship with my daughter has been very complicated. She sometimes wants me with her for the most intimate times, (including being with her in the delivery room for all 3 births) but will then become angry with me and push me away if I give an opinion she perceives as critical of her. She has stopped communicating with me on a few occasions and frequently doesn’t answer my texts.
My husband and I live in a different state from both of our children but when my daughter gave birth to her first child, seven and a half years ago, we bought an apartment close to her and go there for a week a month. The relationship between my daughter and her father isn’t great and he feels very uncomfortable when we go there but he continues to do so. My son lives further away but we travel to see him a few times a year and both children visit us a few times a year. For years he has asked us to sell our home and buy something near him. His wife is very close to us and feels the same way. As an aside, my daughter hates her and feels she is deliberately cruel to her.
The relationship my daughter has with her husband has been unusual and not healthy for several years. He has slept in the attic while the children ages 7, 5 and 3 sleep in bed with her. She controls most aspects of their lives including just about every decision about the children. She never wants to be with him without the children. Several months ago our son in law decided to apply for a job across the country without telling our daughter. He ended up accepting the position, has been there for 5 months and now visits for one long weekend a month. The children hate him, won’t speak with him on the phone and say things about him that sound like they heard from her.
My husband and I are both in our 70’s and while we are in good health now we’ve decided to sell our house and buy a home near our son. We will keep our place near our daughter and intend to split time with them. We’ve decided our primary residence will be the one near our son as the state he lives in is tax free, has better health care and we feel he and his wife are in a better position to help us should the need arise. We will however be able to spend more time than we currently do with our daughter. We told her about our decision about a month ago but didn’t tell her we’d be spending more time near her
brother.
A few days ago while she was visiting us we told her about our plans. We explained why and told her we would be seeing her more even though it was not our primary residence. We told her our dream would be to live near both of our children and we would help her move if she was willing to do so. We explained we’d be able to help her more and it would be better for her children to be near family. By the way, they have no relationship with their father’s family. We offered to help support her (we give both of our children money to help them get by). As expected it didn’t go well. She yelled, cried, said we were abandoning her, hate her and generally were always awful parents to her. I tried to appeal to her. I accepted blame for any pain I’d caused her but it was all in vain. She proceeded to tell the children we were abandoning them. We pleaded with her not to withhold her children from us, as much for their sake as ours. She implied she wouldn’t do that to them but left in a very bad state and will not respond to our attempts to reach out and has blocked us from her social media sites. We are to visit them in less than two weeks. We promised to bring some toys our grandchildren wanted from the house. I am beginning to think she won’t let them see us and is currently poisoning them against us. We will still go but I am afraid, though my friends say she’ll get over it as she’s done in the past, that this may be the final break.
I am devastated and don’t know how to handle the situation. I do occasionally see a therapist and will make an appointment with her but I’m hoping someone who has experienced something similar might be able to give me some insight that can potentially make things better for us.
Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I found this site while trying to find something to make me feel better about the situation I find myself in once again.  My daughter was the victim of an online Pedophile when she was in her early teens.  We knew something was wrong as she was self harming and had her in therapy for years.  We did find out what was going on and finally reported it to the FBI but nothing really happened.  She finally graduated high school after many rough patches and then Covid hit.  She went to college that year but it did not work out.  It was too isolating.  She then found a partner who was significantly older than her and ended all contact with us.  She did not talk to us for 2 years upon which time she decided to include us in her life as she had given birth to a baby boy.  We were so happy to have her back in the family and ultimately she left her partner but was pregnant for the second time.  We have been supporting her for the last couple of years but our relationship continued to be rocky with her bouncing from therapist to therapist.  She has now cut the family out of her life again and i am heartbroken as I will no longer be able to see my grandkids.  I am so sad and feel it is unfixable as I do not know how to navigate as what she thinks is not based on fact.  One thing is clear - she really believes my husband and I are abusive and wants nothing to do with us.  The forum made me feel a little better as I see others face similar troubles.  I think that she will likely be happier without me in her life as I am clearly a trigger but it breaks my heart.

Since you are in Family Connections- one option is to just go "grey rock"- don't react or make a decision until you come to the section on limits and what to do.

She seems to be connected to you- emotionally- even in a negative way. That doesn't mean you need to tolerate this constantly- but it may be an extinction burst to the new changes on your part. This would mean holding tight to the boundaries you have in place now.

Grey rock doesn't mean ignoring her or saying nothing. It's not responding emotionally or defending yourself. A counselor once recommended to me to substitute something absurd in your mind- that you won't emotionally react to- for the accusation. If your D called you up and said you were a pink elephant- you wouldn't have the same emotional reaction to that. You stay calm during her emotional storm.

Then bring this up to the Family Connections class coordinator- they have expertise in this.

I meant to say "he moved in quickly"

Hi Everyone,

I posted a few weeks ago. I’m kind of getting to the realisation that, even though I feel a strong pull, it is probably over forever. Because I don’t think it would be good for my well-being the way things ended, even if she wanted to come back.

What I’m really struggling with, was any of it real?

I would say our relationship overall had much more ups than downs. She could get easily upset & trigger easily sometimes, and would test a fair bit, but it wasn’t too bad and I could deal with that. Mostly she was lovely, but I was always a little on edge because I didn’t know when something might happen.

The real problem for me was the emotional blackmail (including a few suicide threats), pushing sexual reproductive boundaries, and ultimatums & blow ups to force commitments (propose/try for babies). And this wasn’t all the time, maybe every few months something would happen. But the effect is it destroyed my ability to choose freely. These future decision need to be made from a free mutual choice, not under coercion. She never seemed to understand that.

Other than that we worked so well together in daily life. We are very compatible in so many ways, and we had so many amazing great times together. We supported each other through the good and the bad.

There wasn’t really an idealisation/devaluation cycle. She constantly idolised me for years, the “devaluation” was more around us not moving forwards. She would talk me up constantly to me, and friends/family or anyone who would listen. To the outside world, we looked like a great couple. She was a little volatile occasionally, but not often. We were two successful professionals living what seemed to be a good life. No-one would know of the extent of things that happened behind doors.

She seemed extremely committed to me, and she’d make sure I and everyone else knew. She’d constantly thank me and make me feel appreciated. She’d always be very proactive in planning activities and ways to improve the relationship. She would say things like:
-  "You’re the only one for me."
-  "I’m so lucky to have you."
-  "I will never move on."
-  "I wouldn’t want to live if we broke up."
- "If we ever broke up, it would destroy me if you moved on quickly."

When we finally did break up, she said she hoped I came back and was sure we would work if we tried again. She kept pushing for me to come back, putting out all kinds of emotional hooks.

Then in a few weeks she was with another guy, and he moved quickly. She said she still loved me, but we never would have worked. She said that she misses me and is confused, but she really likes this guy. And I can tell she really likes this guy.
This completely destroyed me.

It makes me question:
- Was any of it real at all?
- If it was as real as she claimed, how could she flip to a new partner so quickly?
- Was it all just a strategy to stop me from leaving? Because she couldn’t face being alone?

We shared so many special moments that now feel ruined.
If we had broken up and she had taken time to reflect, then maybe after a while we could have revisited things in a healthier way. Or if she had reflected and then started dating again slowly, that would be okay too, I want her to be happy.

But moving on in this way, so quickly and so completely against everything she ever said, makes me feel like the relationship was never real.

And still, I can’t help wondering about all the “what ifs”.

I’d appreciate any perspectives.

Full Disclosure: this is a rant with it’s only purpose being to gain some validation from someone out there who can relate. These are my feelings, which influence my own perception on my own life. Even if those feelings may not perfectly reflect reality, they feel close enough that I can share.

I’m married to my wife who struggles with BPD-type symptoms (she’s undiagnosed, and procrastinating treatment). Her (f, 36) and I (m, 30) met working at a restaurant, conceived a child within the first two months of dating, and have been swimming together since.

There’s always been something off with the way she processes emotion and her quick trigger to point fingers and project dissatisfaction onto others around her. She’s been in and out of contact with her mother, who has been through two divorces, the second sparking months of not speaking to her, and no contact for the children. Her father, who last year met someone and began spending lots of time with this new woman, sparked a huge fight with my wife berating them with verbal violence and accusations of her being psychotic and abusive. This caused him to completely shut her (and us) out.

Speaking of abuse, there have been 8 or so times where I’ve been hit, shoved, pushed, slapped. Each time, I shut down and feel completely empty, desperate for peace and love.

The number of personal attacks could probably be estimated to be about 4 times a month for 7 years (4 x 12 x 7). I’ve been told the whole range: “I wish you were dead” to “Talk like a PLEASE READing man” while I’m talking to our two year old son.

By the way, we have three kids in the house. Ages 11, 6, and two. The eleven year old is my step son (feels more like a real son, as I spend more time taking care of him than his bio dad).

Throughout all of this, I’ve managed to carve out a successful career as a teacher (I’m a caregiver at heart I guess). I spend my days teaching 4th/5th graders with more developed emotional regulation skills than my wife. This occupation has actually allowed me to develop some good coping skills for being proactive to avoid her triggers and dealing with my emotions following verbal attacks. A lot of what works with kids, works with my wife. (I’ve never told her this).

The highs are high, lows are beyond low. It’s just gotten to the point where I feel so swamped with taking on the housekeeping, child-raising, and everything in between that I’ve felt “This is not the way I want to spend the rest of my life”.

One of my last straws was this winter when I forgot to pack my son’s mittens for daycare. My wife (who works in childcare), pulled me into the kitchen and punched me in the stomach and said a bunch of personal attacks about how I don’t think about anything and I can’t pay attention to anything.

Ten minutes later I was walking into a school of high-functioning adults full of love and patience and emotional intelligence in a staff meeting. Living between these two worlds has become exhausting emotionally and has made me feel torn about the life I want for myself and my children (and what’s really best for all of us, her included).

She struggles with body image stuff, has had a history of anorexia and other eating disorders, and doesn’t maintain close friendships. I’m her world, and when things are good, I love it.

Since I told her a month ago that I’m ready to start the process of divorce, went back on it, got us back into couples therapy, and recommitted myself to making things work, things have been going pretty well. But I’m trying to prepare myself for the next episode. She’s heard of DBT, and has shown some interest in getting treatment but we’ve gone two weeks with her not pulling the trigger and thinking exercise is going to fix all of these problems. I’m in therapy now for myself, which has been a life saver. Reading “Stop walking on Eggshells” on audiobooks the past few days has been so validating, also reading these posts and finding out other people are going through what I am.

Thank you for listening.

Good afternoon!

Just found this forum after a quick search and was very grateful for it. My wife and I have been together for 15 years married for 5. We have both been in therapy at different points in our lives but my current wife’s therapist has diaagnosed her with a couple of things. Her full list is BPD CPSTD AuADHD. For years we had assumed she just had depression or anxiety but after doing more therapy we have found these as very likely causes. I have been with her through all of her bad times, we have been together since we were 15 and I know how bad this can get. It is nice to see the symptoms all laid out.

I want to know what people are doing to help their partners through the hard times and how you are dealing with the aftermath of a really bad episode yourself. I haven’t really been doing any self care and we have been in a really low mental state for the past couple of weeks due to my wife having a new chronic injury that has affected her ability to walk around and enjoy life, which means we have been having near nightly breakdowns. It it starting to take a toll on my mental health. What do I do? Thanks again and I will start to read older posts to look at everything that I am sure every body has already said. Thanks again.

I understand what you are saying. It is hard to walk back from some of the things my partner said while in a split. When not having an episode, they are a very kind and sweet person. But when they are raging they can say the most horrid, insulting tings imaginable. i can see it in their eyes that they are taking some delight in the crulety. everything about me is fair game for attack.
I find myself feeling afraid some days. I wonder what kind of mood they will come home in. Like you, i have physical reactions to the stress. this is not something i can discuss with my partner even on a good day, of course.