What do do for the best?

[reloaded]

Hi all this is my first post here,

i have been in a relationship with my partner for 15 years have 6 children and this has been the biggest emotional roller coaster i have ever had to endure.

When i met her i thought she was the 'one' and still do in many respects, but within a few months i started to see another side, stealing from my family, cheating and lying about all sorts of strange stuff to hide the fact she had been doing these things and even placing the blame on everyone else but herself, not taking responsibility and generally completely oblivious and uncaring about the harm she is causing to our family and children.

I was forgiving, in love and thought we could move forward only now years down the line we are no better off.I have tried to make it work but i can never please her.

Numerous false allegations and me being arrested and treated like a wife beater to facilitate her cheating when in fact she was the one doing the beating and violent mood swings, and now even after going to court and having our eldest child live with my parents the mess continues.

She learns nothing by her mistakes like normal people and is determined to lose us our kids to child services, or at least it seems.

I have pleaded and forgave, and pleaded some more for her to get help but she just lies about going to the doctors and what they have told her.

We do have periods of complete normality, but as soon as her mother who constantly tries to interfere and cause problems for us in our life gets involved she goes off the rails again.

Her mother is her trigger, we have worked this out but just keeps going back for more, when her mother doesn't get money off my partner or isn't getting what she wants she will report her to all the services going in a bid to try ad have financial and emotional control over her, and this is from a woman who takes no interest in her grand children or doesn't buy them presents or anything, not so much as a birthday card.

The courts even ordered limited contact between my partner and her mother but this wasn't stuck to.

Another trigger is money and she is very motivated by this also, she is very wreckless and cannot budget for basic needs often leaving us with nothing and having to sell things to get by, she doesn't drink or do drugs but she is just so careless.

Even around the home both her and the children constantly break things and im constantly having to decorate because she won't educate the children on drawing on the walls when there is plenty of paper for them.

Twisting everything i say, delusional and in the past self harming with a razor blade, am i wrong for thinking this is BPD?

I am at the point now where i just want her to get help but she just won't budge. I can see traits coming through in the children, especially the oldest ones who have both became difficult when starting senior school.

I can control the behaviour of the children when she is not in the house, but when she is, it's like a switch has been flicked and i'm dealing with 3 borderlines all at once the 2 eldest feed off her, even the children have started to lie, because they are programmed that i am the bad person by my partner.

Social services are now involved again, should i cut my losses and get out of the relationship?, i have covered for her many times and took the blame, i feel like i have wasted 15 years of my life and it has effected my mental well being now having to endure it all.

I just fear for my childrens health in the future and i still love my partner despite all these things.

[OutOfEgypt]

Hi my friend,

First of all, let me say that I'm sorry for what you are going through. I can certainly identify with some of the things you said. Second, this post would probably be best placed in the "undecided" board, although I will leave that to the moderator.

It's hard to say what is or isn't BPD.  It could be.  Spending issues, blameshifting, deception, rages.  My ex was never diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure she is.  I'm not entirely sure you need a definitive diagnosis.  If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then even if may or may not be a duck it can be helpful to treat it like a duck, for your own sanity.  But that would be something you would know better than any of us.

Also, as far as the advice for staying or leaving, that is tough.  Ultimately it is up to you.  I can only speak to my experience.  I definitely can identify with the feeling that you have "wasted" that many years.  I am very glad that I left the marriage.  I was cheated on many, many times, and she was and is toxic for the children.  I am happily remarried, and the main difficulty we face is how my ex hurts or neglects the children.  My T once told me, "Your children need at least ONE sane, stable parent."  For me, I reached a point where I no longer wanted to take all her blame, no longer wanted to tolerate the cheating, blaming, dumping responsibilities on me, and taking no responsibility for anything, and no longer felt it was worth needlessly suffering anymore.  I needed to get away so that I could establish a sane, healthy household for my kids, even if they would only be with me part-time.  It has been really good for me and for the kids.  I personally did not think, in my situation, that I could "carry the load" of holding the family all together while being with my now-former-wife.  It was toxic, and it was a sad household.  Now, while things aren't perfect, my household is happy and warm and healthy, and it shows.

My ex also would not get help... .until I told her I was done and we divorced.  Then she caught wind that I was dating someone and came crying to me about getting therapy for herself, finally.  Was this all I ever wanted?  I reluctantly allowed her back in, emotionally, and within 90 days she was moving herself back into my house.  Like in the beginning, things progressed crazy-fast, maybe even faster.  And as soon as she moved back in, it was like a switch flipped.  Within a small number of months she was cheating on me again and lying to me, basically using me.  I ended it for good and it took me four months to get her out of my house.  It was a huge mistake to let her back in, but it did serve to completely sever any possible remaining hope.  So, it did serve a good purpose, in the end.

[livednlearned]

Hi reloaded,

Oof. That's a lot of BPD behavior you have going on. It sounds like grandma is a basket of tricks herself, and just her alone would be challenging. Many of the people here are coparenting with people who do not have a formal diagnosis of BPD. Cutting and self-harm certainly puts your wife into a high-risk category. My ex was never diagnosed, and even so, he lost custody of our son and the judge terminated visitation. In many cases here, what the courts care about is the pattern of behavior more than the formal diagnosis. Learn as much as you can about BPD -- that's an essential part of making things work, whether it's staying or leaving. You need the communication skills (like validation) just to try and dial down the conflict, a good idea no matter what.Validation is also essential with the kids. People with BPD have a desperately high need for validation and an almost complete inability to provide it, so children raised by BPD parents tend to have high needs for validation.

Lesson 5 about raising resilient children is a really good place to start ----------> over in the sidebar to the right.

Why is the oldest child living with grandparents?

What are social services saying? What are they concerned about?

[reloaded]

Hi, thanks for the replies.

It's nice to know that other people can relate to this and i'm not the only one who has had to go through this.

Through counselling i learned that my partners childhood was littered with domestic violence from her parents and that she behaves like she does because of this.

But it's almost like she is still a child and does things exactly the same way her parents did and asked her to do when she was younger.It seems lies were a staple part of her childhood and goes someway to explaining why she is like she is, but it doesn't excuse the amount of trouble it causes.

Her mum was causing arguments and using our son as a tool to try and get money for him, as i had found out about her manipulating money from my partner and put a stop to it.If she couldn't get to my partner she decided to use my child and getting him to make false allegations also.

Subsequently she kept making us out to be the bad party to social services  by ringing them almost 3 times a day on occasion and encouraging my son to run out to her house by buying him expensive gifts and letting him do whatever he pleased.

But she had slipped up by doing this as she couldn't handle his behaviour once she had made him like he was.

Lying, and uncontrollable behaviour.

This went to court because of my son running away through child services involvement and my partners many false allegations to the police in the past, and as a result my son is now with my parents and doing much better he is now 15 and show's none of these signs that i can see coming through in the other children.

The good thing about the court was that both my partners and sons lies came out in the open and people could see things for what they were.

With regards to my partner  most recently it's like history is repeating, nothing seems to bother her and she has the morals of an alley cat.

She was still making false reports to the police then when they attended they asked why they were called out, and she said she didn't know.

The only response i get from her is "i don't care".

I can be blue in the face trying to speak to her and get some sort of reasoning, but she is completely unphased by everything and doesn't see that she is doing any wrong, in fact quite the opposite. She blames me for it all, saying that i moan all the time. I have tried to explain that her actions are causing a lot of debt and anguish on the children and ourselves and that she needs to get help and that people (not just myself are going to moan if these things aren being done).

I try to emphathize with her but again she doesn't care and goes and hides her self away from reality in the bedroom for a day or 2. She will then come down stairs when she has calmed down and smile and laugh like nothing happened.

She encourages the childrens bad behaviour by letting them get away with everything and actively rewarding them for it and encouraging them to lie to me about the rewards.She makes me out to be the ogre and they aren't learning any boundaries.

She has gone to the doctors before but he puts it down to post natal depression because she doesn't give a full account of her symptoms when she goes there, she is very good at minimizing her actions.

I'm glad to hear that some of you have come through this and managed to have some normality and peace in your lives.

I'm just hoping that i can find the right direction i need to go, as when her mum is involved it seems the syptoms are more prevalent and when she isn't we lead relatively normal lives, which is why i have stayed so long.

I think the biggest thing for me is the children, i couldn't leave them with her as i know she will go to her mum if i left, and they kids will carry on being damaged even more than they are now.

But if i can get her to seek help and we can deal with her past issues maybe she can find some inner peace and learn to deal with things more appropriately.

[livednlearned]

It sure does sound like BPD. At least the behaviors are familiar to many here on the boards.

It can feel like being in a relationship with a child, except more dangerous because they have access to adult behaviors and privileges.

There is this quote, ":)on't believe everything you think." I think it applies to people like us who tend to keep our situations secret, either out of embarrassment, denial, fear, whatever. We end up talking to ourselves, and without much input from others who have some objectivity and distance, we decide with much certainty that we cannot make things better.

Often when we are in long-term relationships with pwBPD, it's easy to start thinking in black and white like they do. The truth is that you have many options. Will you have to share custody? Probably. Will the courts give you primary custody? Possibly. If you ask for sole custody, they will see that you're serious about taking care of the kids. With her record, maybe the court sees a very unstable woman who escalates conflict, and a grandmother who needs a protection order.

My ex is a former trial attorney and I stayed too long in my marriage because I figured there was no way I could stand up to him. I'm not saying it was easy, but I will say that my energy and focus came back after leaving the marriage. I had some small successes in court about a year in, and that gave me confidence to behave with even more assertiveness.

Your circumstances are different, and everyone has to line up all the facts and start thinking about what your chances are to get a favorable custody outcome.

I will say for myself, someone who did not want to divorce, that my son desperately needed a break from his dad. He needed a home where he could exhale. Even with the break, he struggles, though he's in a much better place, learning skills he needs to help him become a healthy adult.

What ages are your kids? What do you think CPS would recommend if you asked for sole custody?

[reloaded]

Hi livenlearned,

I can totally relate to the hiding things through embarassment, we never do anything together in public because of it. We never go shopping together because even somthing simple like groceries ends up in her making scene if we cannot afford a luxury item one week and she has to wait.

My children are 15,12,10,8,4,1

The 15 year old lives with my parents but i can definitely see some of my partners behaviour coming through recently in our 10 year old. The 12 year old has just started senior school and his attitude has become volatile when he doesn't get what he wants.

My partner cannot deal with any side of discipline so i struggle with no backup. When she is not in the house it's like they are different kids.

I think that custody would probably be awarded to me because i have learnt to make sure everything is logged on advice from my solicitor last time. So there is a log file of not only my partners behaviour but also of her parents behaviour who havd been warned by the police for harrasment also.

I'm really glad it worked out for you and can totally relate to what you said.  I have felt emotionally numb and drained by the whole court experience, i was away from home for 6 months and it was the hardest thing i ever had to do.

I saw thd kids every weekend and actually managed to have some quality time with them. Something i rarely get at home because she will always try to stop it somehow. She will try to alienate me and keep me separate and at distance at the best of times, but i got used to that. Knowing that when they are a bit older they can see things for themselves.

Even the 15 year old tells his friends his mum is dead, i think partially resentment and also embarrasment is partly to blame for this.

I'm just glad he is on thd right tracks now.

[livednlearned]

I know this is hard question to answer: what is best for you? what is best for the kids?

It's hard to want a healthy partner, knowing that with BPD, this is not under our control. Sometimes, not wanting to make a decision between two hard things, we make no decision at all.

And things don't get better.