Divorcing someone with undiagnosed BPD

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

My (ex)husband and I had been together for 8 years, married for 6, and have a 3 year old child. 5 weeks ago we separated after multiple marriage counselling attempts (essentially he has been unhappy since our child was born due to receiving less physical affection and attention from me and wanted a counsellor to tell me I was in the wrong and "fix" me). I had an individual therapy appt with our marriage counsellor after us separating and she told me she was so glad to get to talk to me because there was so much she wanted to address but was not comfortable discussing it with him present in our sessions. She let me know that in her professional opinion he has a personality disorder, likely borderline but possibly some overlap with narcissistic, and that there was little I could do/could have done for us to have a healthy relationship long term without him being in intensive behavioral therapy for many years. He has been in therapy for years but only because he has been diagnosed with ADHD and depression, and has never done any behavioral therapy or worked though any of his childhood trauma. She had significant concerns about him emotionally manipulating our child and thought that even the restricted amount of parenting time he's been given was too much for him to be alone with him. I have since started our son in play therapy in order to try and help him through all the changes and hopefully mitigate any manipulation or damage done.

I moved myself and our child in with my mother. He was pushing me to immediately give him 70/30 custody (him having our child M-F overnights with my only time being for 1 hr after work since I get off work earlier and could pick him up from daycare first, and I could have weekends. Given his history of erratic and aggressive behavior when in heightened emotional states combined with his habitual drug use, I was not comfortable with that arrangement. We both opted to file for divorce much more quickly than I think we would have if not for the custody conflict. He filed a day before I did and requested a provisional hearing on the grounds that I was alienating him from our child and that I needed a mental health evaluation. At the hearing, he did not get anything he was demanding and ended up "agreeing" to picking him up from daycare one day a week and returning him to me in the evening, one weekend day from 9am-7pm, and the alternating week he would get the same arrangement on the other day as well. (My lawyer sent his lawyer the baby monitor video I have from 2 years ago of him shoving our child, then 1.5 years old, away from him while putting him to sleep in his crib/toddler bed so hard he flew backward and his head bounced off the back of the crib which obviously influenced the decisions.)

He has since been posting on social media about me being a narcissist, an abuser, manipulator, etc. which I saw up until he deleted me, and has already begun some sort of relationship/friends with benefits arrangement with a new woman almost 10 years younger who is also going through a custody battle of her own and split with her partner around the same time we did. My son came home from being with him this weekend and said that he had taken a nap with daddy and daddy's new friend, that they had both been in his bed with him at naptime, and they had spent the day together. I was obviously upset and texted him asking for an explanation to which he eventually responded that no one had SLEPT in the bed with our child (not that no one had been laying there or in there with him) and to direct questions about his personal life to his lawyer. My lawyer is sending a letter to his regarding the inappropriateness of the situation but there is little else for me to do legally at this point as our final hearing is not for a few months.

He has not made any step of this remotely easy. I feel like I haven't had any time to even sit back and process anything as it just jumps from one thing into the next. Separating, moving out, filing, court, new girl, arguments over me signing our child up for a preschool gymnastics class without consulting him to make it around his schedule (I sent him videos/pictures, he wouldn't have cared when I scheduled it or shown up for the class even if were together!), moving his things out of the storage unit rented by my mother, him wanting to extend his parenting time or reduce it as it suits him... everything is high conflict and every time I respond with a firm boundary he says I'm making him a villain and being aggressive to provoke him. I go from feeling like I'm acting appropriately to wondering if I'm crazy.

Up until this weekend, I was feeling a mix of relief from not being in a constant state of tension, having to anticipate and deal with unpredictable moods and unrealistic expectations daily while also being the primary caregiver for our child - and sadness at how things are going. I truly wanted to be able to stay with him forever and raise our child in a happy and healthy family. After this weekend and realizing he has already started moving onto someone else in some capacity I am heavily into a grieving period knowing that there truly is no hope for that anymore. My primary concern is our child and his safety though, and I am feeling so much anxiety and hopelessness as to what I can do to keep him safe emotionally and physically. I know I can't protect him from the world and I don't aim to, just want to give him the tools to take things on himself and know that I am a safe person to fall back to when he needs me. I just feel like I worry too much about trying to not damage him so he doesn't turn out like his father... I feel like I have no one to talk to about this, even though I have a very strong support system and an appt with a new therapist (marriage counsellor let me know it had been decided it would be a conflict of interest for her to continue to see me).I'm not sure what I'm looking for by posting here... I guess just getting even this very abbreviated version of events out here is a relief. Any advice at all would be so greatly appreciated.

[etherealphai]

My (ex)husband and I had been together for 8 years, married for 6, and have a 3 year old child. 5 weeks ago we separated after multiple marriage counselling attempts (essentially he has been unhappy since our child was born due to receiving less physical affection and attention from me and wanted a counsellor to tell me I was in the wrong and "fix" me). I had an individual therapy appt with our marriage counsellor after us separating and she told me she was so glad to get to talk to me because there was so much she wanted to address but was not comfortable discussing it with him present in our sessions. She let me know that in her professional opinion he has a personality disorder, likely borderline but possibly some overlap with narcissistic, and that there was little I could do/could have done for us to have a healthy relationship long term without him being in intensive behavioral therapy for many years. He has been in therapy for years but only because he has been diagnosed with ADHD and depression, and has never done any behavioral therapy or worked though any of his childhood trauma. She had significant concerns about him emotionally manipulating our child and thought that even the restricted amount of parenting time he's been given was too much for him to be alone with him. I have since started our son in play therapy in order to try and help him through all the changes and hopefully mitigate any manipulation or damage done.

I moved myself and our child in with my mother. He was pushing me to immediately give him 70/30 custody (him having our child M-F overnights with my only time being for 1 hr after work since I get off work earlier and could pick him up from daycare first, and I could have weekends. Given his history of erratic and aggressive behavior when in heightened emotional states combined with his habitual drug use, I was not comfortable with that arrangement. We both opted to file for divorce much more quickly than I think we would have if not for the custody conflict. He filed a day before I did and requested a provisional hearing on the grounds that I was alienating him from our child and that I needed a mental health evaluation. At the hearing, he did not get anything he was demanding and ended up "agreeing" to picking him up from daycare one day a week and returning him to me in the evening, one weekend day from 9am-7pm, and the alternating week he would get the same arrangement on the other day as well. (My lawyer sent his lawyer the baby monitor video I have from 2 years ago of him shoving our child, then 1.5 years old, away from him while putting him to sleep in his crib/toddler bed so hard he flew backward and his head bounced off the back of the crib which obviously influenced the decisions.)

He has since been posting on social media about me being a narcissist, an abuser, manipulator, etc. which I saw up until he deleted me, and has already begun some sort of relationship/friends with benefits arrangement with a new woman almost 10 years younger who is also going through a custody battle of her own and split with her partner around the same time we did. My son came home from being with him this weekend and said that he had taken a nap with daddy and daddy's new friend, that they had both been in his bed with him at naptime, and they had spent the day together. I was obviously upset and texted him asking for an explanation to which he eventually responded that no one had SLEPT in the bed with our child (not that no one had been laying there or in there with him) and to direct questions about his personal life to his lawyer. My lawyer is sending a letter to his regarding the inappropriateness of the situation but there is little else for me to do legally at this point as our final hearing is not for a few months.

He has not made any step of this remotely easy. I feel like I haven't had any time to even sit back and process anything as it just jumps from one thing into the next. Separating, moving out, filing, court, new girl, arguments over me signing our child up for a preschool gymnastics class without consulting him to make it around his schedule (I sent him videos/pictures, he wouldn't have cared when I scheduled it or shown up for the class even if were together!), moving his things out of the storage unit rented by my mother, him wanting to extend his parenting time or reduce it as it suits him... everything is high conflict and every time I respond with a firm boundary he says I'm making him a villain and being aggressive to provoke him. I go from feeling like I'm acting appropriately to wondering if I'm crazy.

Up until this weekend, I was feeling a mix of relief from not being in a constant state of tension, having to anticipate and deal with unpredictable moods and unrealistic expectations daily while also being the primary caregiver for our child - and sadness at how things are going. I truly wanted to be able to stay with him forever and raise our child in a happy and healthy family. After this weekend and realizing he has already started moving onto someone else in some capacity I am heavily into a grieving period knowing that there truly is no hope for that anymore. My primary concern is our child and his safety though, and I am feeling so much anxiety and hopelessness as to what I can do to keep him safe emotionally and physically. I know I can't protect him from the world and I don't aim to, just want to give him the tools to take things on himself and know that I am a safe person to fall back to when he needs me. I just feel like I worry too much about trying to not damage him so he doesn't turn out like his father... I feel like I have no one to talk to about this, even though I have a very strong support system and an appt with a new therapist (marriage counsellor let me know it had been decided it would be a conflict of interest for her to continue to see me).I'm not sure what I'm looking for by posting here... I guess just getting even this very abbreviated version of events out here is a relief. Any advice at all would be so greatly appreciated.

[PeteWitsend]

....I'm not sure what I'm looking for by posting here... I guess just getting even this very abbreviated version of events out here is a relief. Any advice at all would be so greatly appreciated.

I went through a lot of this, and for the most part things have been okay, or at least not as bad as I feared, in terms of my daughter picking up bad habits from BPDxw. 

Get a therapist for your son, maybe, and have it written in the divorce decree so that your exH can't take your son to different ones until he finds one he can manipulate and control.  And given your son's age, it might be prudent to have succession rules written in the decree to choose a new therapist if the current one moves or retires.

Beyond that, just be a good parent and role model for him.  The advice my D's therapist gave me was to help nurture their mind and thought processes so they learn to think for themself.  If your ExH is filling your kid's head with nonsense, don't panic, just provide some guidance to them.  Ask them what they think. If they ask questions like "[Parent] said this, is that true?"  Ask them why they want to know.  Ask them what they think.  And then tell them what you believe.  If they feel conflicted, tell them it's okay to be confused, and adults don't always agree, but [your child] can make up their own mind.

I was always careful not to criticize my BPDxw in a way that would hurt my daughter, even if my daughter was upset with her.  I recognized that she's still half her mom, and so I don't  run her mom down.  I may say things like "your mom has her own opinions and I don't agree with them" or "It was wrong of your mom to say that to you. You should tell her how you feel next time."

There's nothing you can do to make the BPD parent behave; you can just be a source of truth, patience and peacefulness for your child.  Think long term here, and don't sweat the small stuff.