Jobs, relationships...the patterns...Please Share

[squirrel20]

Our daughter is 27 with BPD and completed her PhD as a psychiatric nurse practitioner almost a year ago. She is destructive in romantic relationships (affair 3 months into marriage, divorced by 6 months), doesn’t keep a job very long, in fact lasted one week at the new position as a NP and quit. Always claims to be “negotiating” the next one...

We don’t have issues with the screaming and confrontations- she lives out of state. We get the silent treatment.

We deal with her badmouthing us to dad’s side of family (which we are now completely estranged from due to this), she targets me (mom) and never tells us the whole truth.

Does this all seem to be par for the course. High job turn over and continued failed relationships? Lying?

I would like to hear from parents of BPDs with higher education levels and what they see. Do they hold jobs? What about relationships.

Interested in hearing about other’s experiences with this particular type of child. 

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[AskingWhy]

I am sorry to hear this.  An adult child with BPD can ruin a marriage. At what point do you disengage?  H and I married while all the children were under 5 years of age.  H's X W had an affair, and then left to marry her lover, taking all three children with her out of state.

My uBPD H has a uBPD adult D.  She has been kickout out of the military after a suicide attempt, had numerous R/S with young men, some at the same time, and is now likely addicted to recreational drugs.

Her most recent live in BF was a sweetheart, but she devalued him and they broke up.  They moved out of their home.  They are back together again, but to what end.  Her young female friends joke about the number of times they have broken up.  

She dropped out of college again, but said she planned to start up again.  Nothing came of this.  Instead, she escalated her drug abuse, and wound up in a hospital.  She denies the drugs were the issue.

She devalues and gives her father the silent treatment for months on end.  Her F finally got a backbone and said he'll not let her use him any more.  We'll see.  He is uBPD and does not know boundaries.  I can easily see her calling him from out of the blue (after weeks or months of silence) to suck up to him, asking for gifts or help with rent money, money used for drugs.  As he is BPD, he will be more than happy to let her back into his life and take her place over me as his special woman.

I hope this gives an idea of BPD in a young woman. Having D mistreat her F is the only way he can see just how unstable she is.  Her last visit months ago was a shouting match with us, and she left slamming the door.