My recent ex is out to destroy me

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I met my (now ex) BPD partner 2.5 years ago, we fell madly in love and everything seemed so scarily perfect. At the time, I was living in New York on secondment from London. As I was in my late 30'/ and had always wanted a child, we both agreed we were so in love it was a magical thing to do and after just 6 months of being together I fell pregnant. We were both surprised that it happened so quickly. A number of events happened, he lost his job of 12 years, he was separated for 2.5 years and trying to get divorced and his mood was down from the stress of it all, but I always felt that I could support him even though there were times when his paranoia about my past romantic relationships and friendships were a little disturbing. He had a rough start in life with both parents dying when he was young, and he loved on the streets and in a boys home for a while so I always felt sad for him as I'd been dealt a much luckier hand in life. He admitted that he suffered from depression and had been to counselling for many years, I had understood this given his background and wanted to give my full support. Mostly, we were very in love and fast forwarding the story, whilst we had issues like any couple with disagreements about this or that, I was happy and thought he was too.
We moved to England once our baby boy was born, he was just 7 weeks old. My ex BPD was a wonderful caring and loving father, but continued to struggle with mood swings and feeling a sense of worthlessness for losing his job and not working. His spending was always out of control, and I stupidly paid off all of his debts but for a man I felt would be in my life forever it didn't worry me too much. 
Anyway, at the beginning of this year I started to see a change in my ex, he became more impatient with me and irrational. He stopped taking his meds. I do believe there were a number of triggers which lead to some major anxirlety for him, and then the mania really took off. He booked a flight to New York one day giving me little notice to arrange childcare, and went off 10 hours before the flight was due to leave, upgraded himself and took a lot of money out of the joint account. The week he was away created major drama. He slept rough despite having places to stay, and when I cancelled the Amex card to control spending it made him livid and the abusive texts started. He got into an argument with a good friend and eventually left his cases and US passport at his friend's then headed to airport with just a U.K. passport. All very out of character.
In the last few weeks since he came home, he has now ransacked the house, gone through every personal item of mine down to scribbles on a note pad and packed things up and stored them in different locations. He has spent over £3,000 and says he hid the money but doesn't seem to remember where. He's called me a double agent and spy, said I'm committing global fraud at my company and is going to get me fired, and has sent the police around to my mum's house to say I haven't been caring for the baby, so fortunately we have social services involved now. I had to take the baby away to safety two weeks ago as I was so afraid of what he might do next. When I went to the house with my brother to collect things he freaked out and broke my brothers wrist. I don't recognise this person anymore, what happens to the kid gentle man I fell in love with?
At my wits end, Incontacted his ex wife who said he had made her life hell and had been diagnosed with BPD.
I continue to receive abusive texts, he has moved me and our baby out of our home and he is planning to hurt me emotionally every day. For example, this weekend he said if I don't send him money he is going to burn all of my college photos. He's now Ellis my things for money and to be honest I feel so helpless and rigged with guilt st the prospect of having him arrested by the police again - first time was when he beat up my brother.
He had agreed to take a flight to Chicago last week but then didn't take the flight, so once again I'm losing money hand over fist. This morning he posted on Facebook a very angry message and said he was taking me to court.
Is this extreme behaviour for a BPD? I am wondering if there is also something else going on here.

[Larky]

I met my (now ex) BPD partner 2.5 years ago, we fell madly in love and everything seemed so scarily perfect. At the time, I was living in New York on secondment from London. As I was in my late 30'/ and had always wanted a child, we both agreed we were so in love it was a magical thing to do and after just 6 months of being together I fell pregnant. We were both surprised that it happened so quickly. A number of events happened, he lost his job of 12 years, he was separated for 2.5 years and trying to get divorced and his mood was down from the stress of it all, but I always felt that I could support him even though there were times when his paranoia about my past romantic relationships and friendships were a little disturbing. He had a rough start in life with both parents dying when he was young, and he loved on the streets and in a boys home for a while so I always felt sad for him as I'd been dealt a much luckier hand in life. He admitted that he suffered from depression and had been to counselling for many years, I had understood this given his background and wanted to give my full support. Mostly, we were very in love and fast forwarding the story, whilst we had issues like any couple with disagreements about this or that, I was happy and thought he was too.
We moved to England once our baby boy was born, he was just 7 weeks old. My ex BPD was a wonderful caring and loving father, but continued to struggle with mood swings and feeling a sense of worthlessness for losing his job and not working. His spending was always out of control, and I stupidly paid off all of his debts but for a man I felt would be in my life forever it didn't worry me too much. 
Anyway, at the beginning of this year I started to see a change in my ex, he became more impatient with me and irrational. He stopped taking his meds. I do believe there were a number of triggers which lead to some major anxirlety for him, and then the mania really took off. He booked a flight to New York one day giving me little notice to arrange childcare, and went off 10 hours before the flight was due to leave, upgraded himself and took a lot of money out of the joint account. The week he was away created major drama. He slept rough despite having places to stay, and when I cancelled the Amex card to control spending it made him livid and the abusive texts started. He got into an argument with a good friend and eventually left his cases and US passport at his friend's then headed to airport with just a U.K. passport. All very out of character.
In the last few weeks since he came home, he has now ransacked the house, gone through every personal item of mine down to scribbles on a note pad and packed things up and stored them in different locations. He has spent over £3,000 and says he hid the money but doesn't seem to remember where. He's called me a double agent and spy, said I'm committing global fraud at my company and is going to get me fired, and has sent the police around to my mum's house to say I haven't been caring for the baby, so fortunately we have social services involved now. I had to take the baby away to safety two weeks ago as I was so afraid of what he might do next. When I went to the house with my brother to collect things he freaked out and broke my brothers wrist. I don't recognise this person anymore, what happens to the kid gentle man I fell in love with?
At my wits end, Incontacted his ex wife who said he had made her life hell and had been diagnosed with BPD.
I continue to receive abusive texts, he has moved me and our baby out of our home and he is planning to hurt me emotionally every day. For example, this weekend he said if I don't send him money he is going to burn all of my college photos. He's now Ellis my things for money and to be honest I feel so helpless and rigged with guilt st the prospect of having him arrested by the police again - first time was when he beat up my brother.
He had agreed to take a flight to Chicago last week but then didn't take the flight, so once again I'm losing money hand over fist. This morning he posted on Facebook a very angry message and said he was taking me to court.
Is this extreme behaviour for a BPD? I am wondering if there is also something else going on here.

[ForeverDad]

You are socked by all this but you don't have time to let it all sink in.  Whatever he does is all about him, don't let it bother you when he claims "you made me do it".  That is Blame Shifting, typical behavior with pwBPD - people with BPD.

Now is a time for good boundaries.  He misbehaves, you get yourself and your child safe.  If you can prove he's been misbehaving then don't hesitate to seek help from the police, as appropriate.  Remember, unless you have documentation of his poor behaviors, when the police arrive he will just project his behaviors onto you and your advocates, claiming he's the victim and target.

Me?  I separated before cameras and recording apps on phones were common so I bought myself a few voice recorders.  They were my 'insurance' to avoid a weekend in jail.  As a man I was very frightened that my spouse would make allegations and I would defaulted to being the aggressor if I didn't have proof otherwise.  As it turned out, when I called for police ("domestic dispute" they asked me to 'step away'.  Looking back, I now think I was about to be hauled away.  Surprise!  My preschooler who had been quietly sobbing in my arms started shrieking and gripping me for dear life when I tried to obey the order to hand him to his mother and step away.  The officer just stared pondering for a long moment, said "work it out" and both officers drove away.  That day my son was my insurance and paid huge dividends.

While your husband, being married to you, has some rights and whatevers, don't let him pressure you into appeasement or compliance.  You have rights too.  Understand that though he is in a sorry mental state now, appeasing him or giving in to him when you don't have to can enable and encourage him to keep demanding and pushing.  That's why I mention Boundaries.  Once you have firm, consistent boundaries in place then in time he may reduce his pushing.  Maybe not soon, but eventually.

The lesson is that you are in control of your boundaries.  Sure, you're not in control of him, he will do anything and everything he feels and wants to do, but You can control Your boundaries.  For example, "you do ____ and then I'll ____."  You've already done some, he charged too much on the card, you cancelled the card.  It was your card after all.  He injures someone and the police will step in and do whatever police do.  Action ... .consequence.  Action ... .consequence.  (Ad nausium.)  Without consequences he's unlikely to change.  With consequences, maybe a little, enough for you to get on with your life.

Since his change of behaviors was so extreme and so sudden, you may want to search here for an explanation of the phrase Extinction Burst.

[Larky]

I cannot thank you enough for sharing your experience, and passing on such helpful advice. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to go through something similar without the technology on my side, and my exBPD has been sending me some crazy and abusive messages which will help with my evidence gathering. You were so sensible to take recordings. And thank goodness for your kids reaction.

I am having to try and stay one step ahead of him, he is doing exactly what you have explained and trying to twist the story and revert blame on to me, as well as say that I'm the crazy one. He even has sympathy from friends who feel he has been left abandoned. I can't believe what a different person he is, I don't even recognise him anymore. Many of his old college friends have never seen him like this, how he has hidden it so well all of these years is beyond me. His ex-wife must have been an incredibly caring and long suffering lady who kept his antics to herself.

We are keeping the police abreast of everything as living in panic that he is going to take my baby. I'm so new to learning about this illness and just hope that he isn't capable of anything worse than I've already experienced. And I wish that I could stop feeling so guilty for not supporting him more, but he won't accept psychiatric help or take his meds.