My BPD girlfriend just left our apartment and took our daughter with her.

[RN25]

Hello; in advance I truly appreciate any advice and/or comment that you could provide. I'm about to give up.
I'm 38 years old and I have lived with my 27 years old BPD girlfriend for the last two years. I've 2 daughters from my first marriage and a one-year old baby girl with my BPD girlfriend.
I own a small company and we have a comfortable life, no money pressure though living in a rented apartment since I got divorced and we decided to move together.
Intense rages, insecurity attacks, infidelity accusations, complaints of being less important for me, than my daughters, work, friends and/or parents, unmeasured reaction towards small things, i.e. leaving the bathroom door opened and multiple threats of leaving the relationship appeared as soon as we start living together and she got pregnant.
My girlfriend is from eastern Europe and she is, at least to me, intelligent, passionate and astonishingly beautiful. She had a rough childhood, divorced parents, she was exposed to verbal / emotional aggression and irresponsible parenting. She left her mom's house at the age of 17 to a 4 years relationship with an 22 years old man, and then leaving that relationship move abroad to start working as a model.
Once that our baby was born, she regain immediately her looks and consistently threatening to cheating me, due to my supposed infidelities, or leaving me at all. Then I start reacting aggressive, first hitting myself using my girlfriend hands, then hurting myself in front of her and finally engaging in physical aggression against her, which I'm terribly ashamed. I never had before physical aggressive reactions, not in my 11 years first marriage, nor at work.
Nine months ago we decided to start couple's therapy, and after three different therapists, due to my girlfriend's discontent when she started to hear feedback that didn't favored her, she was pre-diagnosed with BPD by our third therapist, immediately, she decided to interrupted therapy.
Since then, I did my best to improve my behavior, trying to help her cope with her illness and be as attentive to her needs as possible. I start moving around my agenda to try to be most of the afternoons with my girlfriend and my baby, I gave her all of my passwords, facebook, email and bank accounts,  I hired her into my company as a sales associate in order for her to be close with me and see the type of relationships that I had at work, I allow her to get into my cellphone whenever she wanted, I asked her to be in charge of the family finance in order for her to control all expenditures, I encouraged her to go back to college... .nothing helped.
Lately her relationship to anyone close to me, started to erode. First with my friends and colleagues, then my parents and finally my daughters, specially with the elder one (7 years old). Even though she never was directly aggressive with them, in private she started to talk bad about them, felling envy and resent about supposed aggression towards her and complaint of me forcing her to spend time with them.
It was until very recently when I decided to take one step further and actually go beyond BPD over the internet and start reading related books (Randi Kreger's, Margalis Fjelstad and others), I stopped confronting her and using some of the techniques learned, such as leaving whenever she became verbally or emotionally aggressive, establish limits and trying to make her responsible for her own decisions. I guess that either it was too late, or without me fighting back, she decided to leave. Last Thursday, when I got back to the apartment she was gone, she took some of her and our baby's stuff, including her crib.
I believe she is with her girl friend and she wrote to me yesterday, stating that I never loved her, that I made her everyone's enemy, she said that she love my daughters and that she never had a problem with them, that I was the problem since I only care about my family. That as soon as she got pregnant I realized that she was a mistake and that I never wanted our baby girl. That I was aggressive with her because I wasn't able to cope with the damage that I made to my daughters due to my divorce. She said that after year's end, she is moving back to Europe with our baby girl, she wrote asking for forgiveness; to me, to my daughters, my ex-wife and my parents, but that she has making up her mind about leaving the country.
I told her that because I love her I will respect her decision, that she can move back to Europe, stay where she is right now or come back to me, where I will keep trying to make a family for the three of us, since I love her.
I don't know what to do next, I don't know if I should insist her to come back, condition her to come back only if she goes to therapy or really take the risk not doing something and she going back to Europe.
If you lived something similar, please take the time to share your advice to me, I'm really on the edge and feel very confused.

Thank you very much!

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[drained1996]

Hi RN25,



That's a very difficult situation you currently face, unfortunately it's not uncommon here.  Having a loved one with BPD traits can be emotionally, mentally and physically draining.  We cannot tell you what to do here, but I can ask... .what do you want?  You seem to understand the illness fairly well, you've done some homework, and by your story, you knew exactly what to write so someone that has had that experience would immediately understand.  At this point in time it seems she's given her thoughts and boundaries... .have you given any thought as to yours?  I know you have the daughter with her to take into account as well... .which I know is not very comfortable. Has there been times in the past where there has been separation and reconciliation?  I'm asking questions to help better get an idea of the past, and your present mindset.  Feel free to share any thoughts, feelings or questions.  You've found the right place.  We understand.   

[RN25]

Thank you very much for replying! I greatly appreciate it.
She left the apartment four or five times in the past, just for one night or two nights at the most, some times by herself and other ones she took our daughter with her. Three months ago, she decided to go to her hometown in Europe for six weeks, she took our daughter with her. Every time that she left in the past, she took her decision during one of her rages, I always end up begging her to come back and she always returned
This time is different, there was no rage before her leaving, I believe because I wasn't fighting back and I took a completely different approach towards our circumstance. We have barely chat since she left and I have declined to discuss over the chat, even though she tried it.
I'm completely decided not to continue with our relationship unless there is, at least, acknowledgment from her about her illness, but as you mentioned, there's our daughter in the middle and I'm very afraid that if she doesn't get the right treatment, our daughter could start suffering the consequences.
I'm still love her, I want to help her, but I'm determined not to keep allowing her to destroy everything that I have work for.
Any thoughts? Please keep asking, I will keep responding candidly. This is cathartic for me.
Thank you very much. 

[drained1996]

I'm completely decided not to continue with our relationship unless there is, at least, acknowledgment from her about her illness

And history for most shows forced acknowledgment doesn't really work most of the time, they have to be in it to work on themselves... .for themselves.  It's a simple and sad truth. 

One thing many of us have learned is that we cannot change our person with BPD, but we can change how we react to and communicate with them.  There are tools and lessons  in the right upper margin of this page that can help guide you in that process.  This should help you navigate things a little better no matter which direction things go. 
The boundaries you have set are obviously there for self protection, and that is a good thing.  Boundaries serve to show where one person ends and the other begins... .a concept that is lost on a borderline as they have no sense of self. 

Understanding your concern for you daughter, you may find it helpful to post on the Co-parenting board, though it says after the split most there obviously weren't split when it all started so they may have some insight that would be helpful.  Here is a link: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=9.0

Keep us posted!  And feel free to post anything that comes to mind... .thoughts, feelings, questions etc.  This whole process is not easy, but you are surrounded by people here who either have or are dealing with similar situations.