Future children with BPD spouse, what to expect

[tremtzi01]

Been married for about 2 years now, together for about 4 years. Relationship was good until about a year or so in when the inexplicable (now known to me as splitting) behavior began. I have a child from a previous marriage. Despite the splitting, we moved in and got married. Life has not at all been easy since. There are jealousy and abandonment issues with my child and my spouse, with her often acting extremely childish about being "left out" or "ignored" even though she is frequently asked and encouraged to do things with everyone. I feel like it has impacted my relationship with my son, and when I try to discuss it with her, it is always my fault for not doing more or that she thinks the relationship is fine and she's not stopping me from anything.

She wants to have kids with me. I am terrified about it. For the past year (and she has had a BPD diagnosis for about 1.5 years), we have a great time together for maybe a day or three, usually about a day, and then she will inexplicably start a fight just as we are leaving for work, or when she gets out of the shower, or before bed, or really during any completely inappropriate time to have a fight. She's twists everything I say into knots, "oh so you admit that..." when I say nothing of the kind. It's hard for me to keep my temper from flaring as it is truly the most insufferable conversation every time. Anyway... We have gone through an entire year of this fits and starts kind of behavior, that often results in entire weeks lost to pointless arguing over what feels like nothing to me (like events that happened three years ago that I barely even remember but she harbors great offense).

I feel like I am going in circles and that things might be slowly (very slowly) improving but it's really hard to tell. She says she will feel like she belongs more with kids. She has a desire to be a parent to children of her own. I can't generally fault her, but at the same time I am terrified about what this future looks like. Up until this point every additional point of commitment (living together, engagement, marriage, etc...) has not in any way helped her behavior and the goalposts appear to keep moving.

I am just curious about what others have experienced under similar circumstances and maybe what I could potentially expect when we have children. The last thing I want is years and years of being split over nothing, fighting for weeks on end, and adding to that very small children.

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[kells76]

Hello tremtzi01 and

You're in good company here -- other members have also asked that same question, of if or how having kids impacts a relationship when BPD is involved. It's wise of you to think through the pros and cons before committing yourself.

If your W is getting older, it makes sense that she feels a strong desire to have children. That's no joke; it hits hard.

Setting aside for a moment your relationship dynamic (i.e. if BPD weren't in the mix), do you want more kids? And how old is your son?

BPD is an inner disorder. pwBPD experience a wider range of more intense emotions than people without BPD, they experience more emotional sensitivity, and they struggle to regulate those harmfully intense emotions in healthy ways. The issue isn't what's "out there" going on outside of them -- the issue is inside of them, like you noticed with how the engagement/marriage/etc didn't "fix" her. Until pwBPD commit to meaningful treatment, it is likely that they will continue to struggle to behave appropriately both emotionally and relationally, and will remain impaired in those areas.

Does your W accept her diagnosis, or deny it/distance herself from it? Has she ever done any therapy or counseling?

And what about you -- do you have a therapist or counselor for yourself right now? Getting neutral, external feedback on your situation can really help make paths forward more clear.

Overall, while children are such gifts and blessings, I think the bottom line is that having a child does not improve or fix preexisting relational dynamics. Babies can be stressful (as you've already experienced) and pwBPD are pretty challenged when it comes to coping with stress in a healthy way.

You may still decide to have kids with her; it'd be important to go into that with eyes wide open, and to know that you might not be able to rely on her for a lot of the care. It could be time well spent to assess what kind of concrete supports you'd have in place for baby and child care, aside from her. Do you have family in the area? A line on good daycare? Do you work from home, and do you have lots of PTO and a good parental leave policy?

Difficult questions... glad you're here talking through stuff.

[HurtAndTired]

Hi tremtzi01,

Welcome. Let me share my experience with you, which is similar, but the roles of who wanted the child are different. My dBPDw and I have been together for 13 years and she had a 12 yo son from a previous marriage when we met. I was childless but still in my mid/late thirties and wanted a family someday. Our relationship, like most with BPD, got worse over time and what was tumultuous slowly turned abusive. Still, I stayed and we got married (I kept hoping that if I did one more thing like buy a house, get married, etc. that it would get better, but it never did.) By the time we got around to trying for children, I was nearly 40 and she was in her late 30s.

We miscarried on our first attempt, and I waited two years to bring the subject up again because I was so afraid of upsetting her. I finally ended up saying something because I knew that biologically we were running out of time. By that time, she had changed her mind about wanting children and it was nearly a deal-breaker for me. That is one of the few times that I gave an ultimatum in our relationship. When we married, she had promised a family. To me, that didn't matter if we gave birth or adopted, but I wanted children. If she had changed her mind, then I needed to be free to find someone who wanted children. We separated for a few months and then she begged me to come back saying that she had changed her mind again and wanted to try one more time for a child. We were pregnant within a month.

The pregnancy was a nightmare. We were both terrified due to the miscarriage, but she took all of her fear out on me in the form of anger. The ever shifting pregnancy hormones didn't help. Thank God our S3 was born healthy and with no complications. My dBPDw's BPD got much worse though, although at first it seemed like she was getting better. We had one good year after our child was born before she took a turn for the worse.

She suffered from post-partum depression and was taking an SSRI to deal with the nightmares within a few weeks of the birth. For the better part of a year, this kept her from raging. However, she said that the SSRI made her feel "numb" and she stopped taking it shortly after our son's first birthday. The rages were back, with a vengeance, within a month. Now everything was just as abusive as it was before, but now she had the additional complaint about having a child that she didn't want. I did all of the midnight feedings and diaper changes with no complaints. I was just thrilled to finally be a dad. However, I was increasingly worried about the environment that we were raising our son in. My wife had started to self-medicate with alcohol.

By the time our son had turned 2 I realized that I had to do something to protect him. I read the book "Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to End the Drama and Get On with Life " by Margalis Fjelstad and it changed my life. It was all about how to use boundaries to stop letting someone with a cluster B personality disorder abuse you. I started using boundaries and natural consequences that come from crossing those boundaries to make our house safe for my son and myself. One call to the police when she started throwing things at me has ended all physical aggression in the house for over a year now. She now knows that a suicide threat will land her in a 72 hour psych hold. My life is still far from normal, but at least it is safe and my son is not being exposed to things that will scar him for life anymore.

Things for you to think about:

• Your wife has a right to have children. If you do not want to have children with her, do the right thing and free her so she can find someone else who does. If you deny her children and she passes the age where it is possible for her, she will never get over it.
  
• BPD gets worse for many women after they have children. It did for my wife.
  
• BPD also gets worse for many women as they approach their early 40s and go through perimenopause. It did for my wife
• A child means bringing more stress into an already stressful relationship. This rarely improves the dynamics.
  
• BPD mothers often see their children as an extension of themselves and they can and do try to triangulate the children against you when they are splitting.

I am glad that I have S3. He is the best thing in my world, and I wouldn't do anything differently I had it to do over, because then I wouldn't have him. That being said, I worry about his home life every single day. I worry about how long we can go on until he is old enough to notice that mommy doesn't act normal sometimes. How long until he sees her drunk and disorderly? How long until she loses it, hits me again, and goes to jail this time?

What your wife wants is a legitimate want for any person. No spouse should tell their spouse that they cannot have kids. This is a deal-breaker for any marriage and should be worked out well before you tie the knot. If you said yes and then changed to no, that's your right, but it also gives the other spouse a justified reason for leaving (legally and religiously.) That being said, in my experience a pwBPD always thinks an external thing will make things better (let's buy that house, take that vacation, get married, have a kid, etc.) but it never does. They can only fill the empty hole inside by going to therapy and working on themselves like their lives depend on it. Nothing external can ever "fix" them.

You are in a tough spot. You are 100% right for having doubts about what this will mean for your relationship. BPD does not make parenting easier, and parenting does not make being married to a pwBPD easier. However, these are things you should have thought about and discussed before getting married. Did you guys not talk about this before getting married? It's a pretty big issue to overlook for a couple considering nuptials. If so, and you did agree to have kids, then she has every right to expect you to come through on your promise. If you did and agreed to not have children, then you should expect that she stick to her promise. If no one promised anything, then you need to figure it out soon so that she has the option to move forward with someone else if you decide that a child is a bad idea.

Best of luck,

HurtAndTired

[thankful person]

Hi tremtzi and welcome,

I am certainly qualified to share my experiences. I am in a lesbian marriage, my wife has carried and birthed all 3 of our ivf conceived young children, and our 4th is due in a matter of weeks.

It’s hard to know where to start though. This year has been rather plain sailing and despite the low level splits, it makes me feel confident, in control, and safe in the knowledge that our children are growing up emotionally healthy. Ok but let’s wind back (and forward) the clock a bit. Let’s face this fact: I have absolutely no control over anything when my wife high level splits on me and it destroys me emotionally for months on end. I try not to get involved in her stupid game’s of proving that I love her and that I’m attracted to her, that I care or whatever. And I’m right back where I started.

My wife was diagnosed with bpd about a month before we met online ten years ago. This was because she was severely self harming and had an eating disorder and had attempted suicide. She somehow managed to lure me away from a 14 year relationship with a man I loved (although I wasn’t happy…) and we had emigrated to the other side of the world together (w is from my home country). Anyway, I knew how severe her mental health issues were and I wanted to help her. I told her she had to work on getting better as it would be very traumatic for me to leave my relationship. She attended dbt for a few months, beat the eating disorder and stopped self harming (mostly). I couldn’t be prouder.

I came over to meet her in person before leaving my ex and even then I knew what hell I was in for but I didn’t want to turn back for whatever reason. She would flip out when I got an email from my ex or whatever, and soon after we downloaded each other’s emails onto our phones. I found she was more secure if I let her read the email first and then tell me what it said. But of course she also deleted emails. Anyway, she no longer gets my emails on her phone.

We married after 3 years and our relationship was always difficult, so much jealousy over my friends and family, my work, and my enjoyment of absolutely anything.

D5 arrived in 2019. There was much jealousy and control issues over the baby. W wanted to be in charge of everything. She has breast fed and co slept with all our babies. I do believe they present as emotionally secure and I do believe this is why. But I often would get screeched at for various things I did wrong in her perception, including caring for the baby and I am very qualified and experienced in childcare professionally which she hates. For some time she talked seriously about getting in a better sex partner whilst I was out at work. We also had a big issue where my Mum was upset because w was forbidding me from taking photos of the baby and sharing them with her. This led me on the path to bpd family.

When D3 arrived in 2021, then D5 (1.5 at the time) became much closer to me, D3 was in NICU and w was away for a few weeks. Sometimes w would shriek at me to put D5 down and stop reading her a story or whatever just because she didn’t like us being close. There have been various instances where I’ve been worried about our children’s mental health, like when she would screech at them for no good reason and still does sometimes.

When S1 arrived nearly 2 years ago, we had just moved to a new area of the country and w felt very isolated knowing no one and struggling to make friends while I was out at work. Last year was absolutely the worst year of our relationship where she split me black for pretty much the first year of S1’s life and constantly told me I wasn’t doing good enough at anything, she didn’t love me, she didn’t want to be with me or in the marriage, she didn’t feel desired, supported, etc etc.

Please note that this year I speak of (2023) was the year after I had posted in the success stories thread where you will find my story not far up as not many people post in there. I had learnt so much from bpd family about validation, setting and maintaining boundaries, reclaiming the life I wanted for myself etc. andi felt like things were permanently better. I recommend the book, stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist, and raising resilient children by the same authors. (Hurt and tired has also recommended this book as his post went up just before mine. Interesting that in his case bpdw was all good for a year after the birth, though I understand she was on medication and my wife will not take medication for her mental health problems, as she believes herself to be cured from bpd). Although the child book often suggested taking the kids out to give pwbpd a break, which is not an issue here where w wants 100% control over the kids at all times.

I am proud of how far I’ve come because I know that the changes I’ve made and my new attitude will go a long way towards helping my children to grow up emotionally healthy. I posted not long ago that I was proud when D5 did her first piece of school homework and w screeched “ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!” (because she’d done it with me) and I said, “D5 I think your homework is really good and your teacher will love it!” A few years ago I couldn’t fathom how I would ever be able to stand up to her, even for the sake of the kids’ mental health.

So here I am, we seem to be still married… I see this as the calm before the storm. Is she going to split on me for a whole year again when new baby arrives? Probably. She might not know it yet, but I am bracing myself for it.

I hope all that jumble of info made some sense anyway. I’m happy to answer any further questions you have. Good luck.

[tremtzi01]

Thank you everyone for the thoughtful responses. I appreciate the support. As you well know, being in this type of relationship is very alienating and it's easy to lose your bearings.

[Pook075]

For my marriage, my BPD ex-wife and I had two daughters together.  Our oldest has been diagnosed with BPD and bi-polar.  Our youngest is really well-rounded mentally and can deal with almost anything.

In my situation, I didn't find out about my wife's mental illness until decades later, so it's tough to say if I would have done anything differently with that knowledge.  I will say though that I love my BPD kid with all my heart and even though she put us through hell in her teenage years, I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world.

If you're asking more for what it may do to the relationship, that's a lot more complicated to answer.  My ex was depressed for awhile after both kids were born and suffered largely in silence.  She did love both our girls though and they were her world; looking back, I don't think our marriage would have survived as long as it did without the kids.  So I personally have zero regrets.

[EyesUp]

I have 3 kids with my uBPDxw.

I love my kids dearly, however "if I knew then what I know now" I would absolutely do some things differently.

A lot of the discussion here reflects the thought process of people who end up in BPD relationships:  caretakers, people who put others first, rescuers, helpers, individuals who are conflict avoidant and thereby stuck in conflict, individuals with weak boundaries, etc...   as a result, the discussion here often focuses on the individual with BPD - the partner, the child, the parent - the other.

Why not put the focus on yourself?

It's the hardest thing to do, but it's really the only option when you think about it.

What do you want? 

The answer is probably along the lines of:  a copacetic relationship and balanced cooperative parenting with your W. 

You need to answer this for yourself:  Is it achievable?  What if it's not?

There are some people in this community who have achieved a sort of equilibrium and work hard to make a BPD relationship "work" - i.e., not implode.  There are others who make the difficult personal choice to exit the relationship. 

Only you can determine what's right for you.

I'd encourage you to work on this with an individual therapist if you're not already doing so.  I'd also encourage you to avoid "getting pregnant" under pressure or duress and to approach this with as much honesty with yourself as possible.

I knew my uBPDxw for 10 years before marriage.  I knew about her bouts of depression and under-treated anxiety, but I had no idea how much adding kids to the mix would change things.  Her distorted view became "I'm a short order cook" (resentment toward the kids) "who only exists to serve others".

As a parent, you already know that there are stages of parenting in which infants, toddlers, and eventually teens take everything for granted - they are fully incapable of recognizing a parent's effort, or expressing recognition/gratitude for it.  This is super tough for many BPDs (esp those with NPD tendencies) who require attention, recognition, appreciation, admiration - and who cannot get it from their kids.

It's tough for partners.  And it's super tough for the kids.  Sounds like you're already experiencing some of this in how your W relates to your kid. 

My advice is:  Take your time, study here, and be kind to yourself - and to the kid you already have.

[PeteWitsend]

...

I am just curious about what others have experienced under similar circumstances and maybe what I could potentially expect when we have children. The last thing I want is years and years of being split over nothing, fighting for weeks on end, and adding to that very small children.

I would say if you're 100% committed to this person, such that divorce is not an option under ANY circumstances, then having kids is just another step in the "BPD challenge" you need to work through.  And you'll need to take on an additional role of caretaking to ensure your kids aren't modeling behavior off the BPD parent.  It probably won't help things, certainly not in the long run, if even the short run.  And you'll PROBABLY end up doing more than your share of the childrearing, regardless of whether she's a stay at home mom or not, because pwBPD are pretty lazy and irresponsible when it comes to basic chores and housework.

If you're unsure about whether you plan to stay married, then I would say do NOT have kids with a pwBPD... sharing custody with a pwBPD - who will forever hate and resent you now for leaving them - is absolute hell.

You'll deal with constant bickering, worries over who the BPD parent is bringing home and exposing your kids to, and their likely attempts to try and alienate the kids from you. 

[ForeverDad]

I would have said I'd never have cause to divorce my spouse of 15 years.  But... I thought she would feel happier if we had a child and she could relax and watch our child discover the joys of life and discovery.  Didn't happen.  I was so clueless.  I didn't realize that having children doesn't fix serious mental health issues, it typically aggravates them and makes unwinding the marriage vastly more difficult due to the custody and parenting conflicts.

In my case life at home was getting so bad that she was threatening to disappear and I'd never see my preschooler again.  I knew that I was powerless if I did nothing since married parents have equal but undefined rights to the child.  Only a court, the Real Authority, could step in and issue orders (boundaries) that must be followed.  Otherwise any dispute between spouses, excepting abuse, would have police and other agencies keeping their distance.  I knew Legal Separation was not a long term solution, so once I verified she was remaining obstructive, I filed for Divorce.  As I saw it, I had no other choice if I was to remain a parent to my child.  Yes, it can and does get that bad.