I'm new here

[ComfortablyNON]

I am hoping that this will be the start of better things for me.

I am currently co-parenting with a woman who has BPD, and I am ashamed to say that I am failing badly.

To start, my ex and I were never married, and in fact, went through a terrible break-up in our mid 20's that actually ended with her telling me she was pregnant, me reacting terribly to this news (I basically told her to just get rid of it and leave me alone), and walking away from her.  The 4 years I spent away from them were not good years, I dated (and failed epically), finished school (barely), and spent the whole time regretting my decision but balking to do anything about it.  At this time, I had no knowledge that she was BPD, I really just though she was crazy, obsessed, manipulative, or a combination of all of those things.

After 2 years she made an attempt to bring me back into the fold, with the caveat that we were also trying to repair our relationship.  I stupidly agreed to this just to be able to be in my sons life for the first time, and gave little thought to the two of us fixing our relationship.  As you can imagine this did not turn out well, and my inability to cooperate with her on this had me back out of their lives within a matter of months.

Finally, after 4 years, she invited me back into their lives again.  She did not insist on the two of us being together, which was a relief, however she did come with rules about how we were going to be raising our child.  Again, I made the mistake of being overwhelmed by the chance of being in my sons life, and did not give the proper attention to the rules she had laid out.  some of them were easy to follow (Holiday sharing, how to deal with any boyfriends or girlfriends we might be with over the course of our lives) however the one I always seem to fail at is being a co-parent.  This is also typically the reason for the fights we have, as well as my inability to deal with her BPD. 

The BPD aspect of our relationship was not made apparent until some really bad blow-ups between the two of us, and reacting to this improperly on my part has made everything worse.  I am in a deep hole that I dug for myself and I just don't know how to even feel like I can get out of it.  I know I am not now, and have not in the past been a great person.  I also suspect that I may have some anxiety and self worth issues that are exacerbated by dealing with someone with BPD.  I have fought back savagely against her, instead of not taking things personally and remaining calm, and of course that made things worse.  We entered into a brief sexual relationship that she initiated by telling me that it was to help me because I refuse to even begin a new relationship with someone else.  I refuse to be in a new relationship partially because I don't trust myself not to be a bad boyfriend, don't think I'm worth anyones time, and do not want to drag someone else into this difficult situation.  That part of our relationship has since ended, thankfully without any new additions to our dysfunctional family.

Our son is 10 now, his life has not been an easy one, partially due to having to live with a mother with BPD, and partially because the person he looks up to (me) seems unable or unwilling to make things better.  He has struggled in school due to these devastating disruptions cause by her illness and my failings.  This is compounded by his cold sore breakouts that seem to be stress related popping out all over his face and destroying his self image and worth.  He is scared of his mother, and he clearly does not see me as someone he can trust to help him, and she has found him hiding and crying a few times because he was unable to complete a task and was afraid to admit to it.  She feels terrible about how she makes him feel, and I feel terrible that I just leave him there with her and only ever seem to make things worse.  We have done a number of things as a family to try and give him a sense of normalcy in his life, but eventually things take a bad turn and the two of us explode at each other, and everyone is back to square one again. 

She is unemployed, and lives on the second floor of her mothers house.  For the last few years she spends most of the day asleep, with her mother dropping off and picking up our son from school, and she usually wakes up an hour or so after he gets home, helps him with his school work, gives him some extra assignments to work on to keep him sharp, and spend some general mom/son time with him before bed. When she is at the top of her game, there really isn't anyone more able to get things done, and I am often astonished by her parenting, planning and research abilities.  I have never been good at any of those things.  The things that trip her up are all BPD related, she hates leaving the house due to some appearance issues she has with herself (psoriasis, missing teeth, weight), has terrible ear pain that eventually led to her having tubes put in them, and often gets depressed and/or furious when things don't play out exactly how she thinks they should.  She gets into raging arguments with her mother and myself when we either fail to live up to her standards or she feels like we have betrayed her, loses her temper with our son over his weaknesses.  She is fully aware of her BPD, but is not seeking any professional help, or taking any medication to deal with it (or the other issues that arise along with it) and pretty much has just relied on her mother and myself to be there for her through this.   As you can imagine, being the only resources for her to rely upon when she is at her worst is taking it's toll on both her mother and myself. 

Her mother has her own issues that I am only slightly aware of that prevent her from being suited for this role, and as I have stated above, I have been terrible at dealing with all of this.  Both of us take her raging at us personally, and get mad back at her and end up saying terrible things that we don't even mean just to hurt her back as much as she hurts us.  All throughout this our son copes in his own way, usually burying his emotions in video games or just putting up a happy front so as to not be "another problem" for everyone.  He is already displaying "people pleaser" behavior that I had as a child, that I strongly believe led me to the point in my life where I could not find the spine to just walk away from his mother instead of dragging us through a terrible break-up that eventually led to her pregnancy and this terrible situation. 

We all need this to change.  As much as I wish I could have done things differently, I look at my son and I can't imagine not having him in my life.  I have to be able to deal with this for him.

I am writing this after our latest blow-up, in which I again failed to be understanding, and instead got defensive and ended up saying some hurtful things to her, while adopting a very crappy attitude towards her in general.  I work every day, and still live in my parents attic, so my life isn't exactly spectacular.  I have trouble getting into being a parent, and very often I forget about, or just do not adopt a mature attitude about our son and his present and future.  I forget things that she says to me all the time, and often start out well with whatever system she introduces, but eventually lose my grip on it all.  This does not help anything.  She considers me a baby sitter, and I have trouble arguing against that.  With all my failings, I am still the only other person in her life that she sees regularly (although currently she refuses to speak to me except to yell at me, and has decided to leave me out of my sons day to day life) that is even aware of what she's struggling with.  I hate the idea of leaving my son there without being able to just pop by to see him and assess the environment, and I hate being left out of his day to day life.  I am afraid to suck it up and beg my way back into her good graces because I feel like I will inevitably screw it all up again, and just widen the rift between us. 

I need to know that there is a way back for all of us.  I know it will never be perfect,  but I can't give up for my sons sake.

[Turkish]

Hello ComfortablyNON,



You're very honest about what you see about yourself.  It's good to be introspective.  It sounds like you and the mother of your son are like oil and water,  however, even not being in an intimate relationship. Is there a custody order,  or are you in a situation where she dictates your parenthood?

If the latter, then that's a hard place to be.  Have you explored what you could do to change that? How old is your son? Fighting in front of him isn't good,  as you realize.  It might be better for him to step back and take whatever time you can with him separately. No triggers for you and you can enjoy being a father apart from being criticized.  Children are resilient, and spending time alone with him apart from what she desires as a family unit,  can give him more peace than you may think.  

Turkish