Support needed

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hi
I have a five month old baby with my ex who I suspect has bpd. There have been specific behaviours that would suggest this: previous idealisation and now sudden hatred of me; silent treatment; disappearing; self harm and emotional outbursts; extreme sensitivity and the feeling of walking on eggshells with lots of subjects. He’s now launched some false allegations against me.  Everything was ok albeit some communication issues and me asking him to work on emotional stability. Then one day he suddenly told me he was leaving and left.
My baby is only 5 months old and the parent with suspected bpd began to demand 50/50 contact and told me I should stop breastfeeding. He’s not seen his baby for almost 3 weeks now.  He is chaotic with demands and communication is all over the place. He emails me every day.
 I want to protect myself and my baby whilst not making things worse. He’s so unpredictable and over the last few months there has definitely been a warped sense of reality. I could really do with some support and advice.

[Familystone]

Hi
I have a five month old baby with my ex who I suspect has bpd. There have been specific behaviours that would suggest this: previous idealisation and now sudden hatred of me; silent treatment; disappearing; self harm and emotional outbursts; extreme sensitivity and the feeling of walking on eggshells with lots of subjects. He’s now launched some false allegations against me.  Everything was ok albeit some communication issues and me asking him to work on emotional stability. Then one day he suddenly told me he was leaving and left.
My baby is only 5 months old and the parent with suspected bpd began to demand 50/50 contact and told me I should stop breastfeeding. He’s not seen his baby for almost 3 weeks now.  He is chaotic with demands and communication is all over the place. He emails me every day.
 I want to protect myself and my baby whilst not making things worse. He’s so unpredictable and over the last few months there has definitely been a warped sense of reality. I could really do with some support and advice.

[kells76]

Hi Familystone and welcome to the group 

First of all, congratulations on your baby! What a joy to have a little one 

Parenting a 5 month old already takes so much of your energy and focus; it's difficult when the other parent, instead of being supportive, is disordered and demanding. Not something you have bandwidth for, I'm sure. Glad you reached out to get some support from us as you're figuring out how to navigate everything going on.

Couple of questions, just so we have a better picture:

is he on the birth certificate as the father?

are/were the two of you married or otherwise legally connected (domestic partnership, etc)?

what would you guess is the % of demands that he actually follows through on? E.g.: he has demanded 20 times to see baby on a Saturday, he has actually made effort and followed through and seen baby on a Saturday 4 times (follows through with what he says he wants about 20% of the time)

do you currently have any legal framework for coparenting (a parenting plan, a custody agreement, a schedule agreed upon between you two...)?

...

Many pwBPD, due to their lack of skills in managing their huge and overwhelming inner emotions, have a corresponding external chaos/unpredictability in their lives. It sounds like your baby's other parent is that way -- his chronic emotional dysregulation continues over into how he expresses himself about the baby.

Focusing on a routine and schedule that's good for your child, while not engaging with or giving too much weight to his all-over-the-map demands, may be your immediate task. Our thread on Co-parenting: Doing what’s best for the kids  may have some helpful ideas as you learn new tools and skills for your family setup. We'll be here for you as you find a healthy way forward 

...

When he makes his demands, is that in person, over text, email, phone call, something else?

[ForeverDad]

My baby is only 5 months old and the parent with suspected bpd began to demand 50/50 contact and told me I should stop breastfeeding. He’s not seen his baby for almost 3 weeks now.

In the best of scenarios breastfeeding should be a joint cooperative effort by both parents.  Sadly, he's not cooperative.  In this situation, you decide how you nurse your baby.  It is undeniable that a mother's nursing is far better than any factory-produced formula or even milk from animals such as cows, etc.

Why this demand?  Perhaps he sees your nursing removes your focus from self-centered him to the baby's needs?  Could his demands be a way of him seeking control of you?  Many here have reported that childbirth and subsequent child care changed the prior relationship of just two people.  Perceptions and self-oriented entitlement are a big part of an acting-out disordered person's life.

That said, him demanding equal time with an infant is unreasonable, especially where the adult relationship is fracturing.  You would be smart to maintain primary care (primary custody) and majority time (parenting schedule).

One reason kells76 asked for your legal relationship status is so you are prepared and know where you stand legally in case this does eventually end up in family court.

This may be the time to be very careful in sharing our insights, experience and strategies.  I'm referring to sharing TMI - too much information.  You do have a right to privacy and confidentiality. His demands do not negate your own rights.

An example to be cautious about what you share in case your partner decides to use shared information to sabotage you... Family courts generally do default to mothers when the children are babies and toddlers.  It makes sense, especially if the mother is the more stable and reasonably normal parent.  But when it comes to determining how to apportion parenting time, breastfeeding itself may not as big a consideration, or so it seems in many cases.  After all, a nursing mother can express her milk and freeze it for times when the child is in the father's care.  Many working mothers do that even in stable family relationships.  So probably breastfeeding is not the sole reason to keep a father's parenting reduced.

When he makes his demands, is that in person, over text, email, phone call, something else?

You are being asked what documentation you have for his demands as well as your responses.  If you should eventually end up in family court and the professionals have to decide how to handle it, they won't give a lot of weight to unsupported or unsubstantiated claims.  They would seek documentation and evidence or any recommendations from responsible other sources (doctors, counselors, social services, etc).

[ForeverDad]

You suspect your baby's father has BPD.  That's why so many of us are here too.  But most of us never had an official diagnosis, or never learned of a diagnosis.

Even family court, where many of us went for a divorce or officialdom's court orders, seemed uninterested in determining what was the problem with our ex-relationships.  It was quite a shock that the professionals were not trying to "fix" them.  Instead, they dealt with them as they were.  The orders - issued by the Real Authority - seemed to be more like official Boundaries than aid.

Sadly, that is the most productive example for us.  We cannot "fix" the ex-partners.  (For a variety of reasons we are the last people who could get them to listen... BPD is a disorder most evident in close relationships and there is just too much emotional baggage of the relationship for them to listen to the logic of what we say.  That is why therapists - with no personal relationship - might be helpful, but even then it may not be enough.)  So we deal with them as they are, not as we wish they'd be.  And we follow the professional's example, Let Go of hoping or fixing (for us) the unfixable and make use of the evidence and documentation.

Maybe your partner may come around to common sense.  Anything is possible.  But your #1 priorities must be you and your baby.  Too often we get disappointed by repeatedly broken promises and the predictably unpredictable roller coaster cycles of up and down chaos.  As often advised here... you can hope for the best - the "less bad" - but you must plan for the worst.

[Familystone]

I’m not sure if I’m replying properly to the comments written as I’m new here but hopefully I am.
I appreciate what people have written already.
To answer some questions:

Yes Dad is on the birth certificate.
No we’re not married. Nor was he on the deeds to my house which I own and I had before meeting him.
We were due to marry next June and he was going to be put on my house deeds and mortgage in a couple of months time. I went to get legal advice about doing both and was advised not to. I shared with my partner I only wanted to do a celebrant wedding and potentially rethink the house application. It’s since then that I saw an escalation of behaviour and then this discard happened.

He was texting and emailing me. He’s made various demands this way as well as making visitation about paying me less maintenance   Contact does not genuinely seem to be about our son and his best interests. We met in person and demanded I stop breast feeding. I recorded the conversation.

It’s extremely hard to focus on the baby when I’m this tired and stressed. But i understand it’s where I have to put my energy.
I miss my ex but also am aware he’s a disordered person and I can’t have this amount of chaos in my life. I have to let go and stop worrying about “fixing” this. That’s very good advice.

[ForeverDad]

We were due to marry next June and he was going to be put on my house deeds and mortgage in a couple of months time. I went to get legal advice about doing both and was advised not to. I shared with my partner I only wanted to do a celebrant wedding and potentially rethink the house application. It’s since then that I saw an escalation of behaviour and then this discard happened.

There's a word we have here to describe the life typical for close contact with a person with BPD traits (pwBPD).

FOG ... Fear, Obligation, Guilt.

I'll speak now of the Obligation aspect.  Having children with him makes you appear obligated to him.  Being married to him also adds a sense of you being obligated to him.  Sharing ownership of your home also puts you into an obligated connection with him, one that would be costly to undo.

How he may interpret that "obligated" aspect can vary from person to person, after all we are all different with different traits to some extent.  But as you've experienced, though he doesn't have much of a sense of obligation to you and the relationship, he does expect it of you.

You've taken one step on that path, having a child with him.  But you're having second thoughts about going further, getting married and legally sharing your home with him.  We here in remote peer support can't know every nuance of his perceptions and his inner thoughts, but this is what I suspect is at least partly how he sees the current situation.

We also speak about extinction bursts.  When we don't do what an acting-out disordered person expects and start erecting boundaries - as you did sharing your updated thoughts with him - the pwBPD can easily overreact and tries to shock us into compliance.  Extinction bursts can be described as demands or ultimatums or similar.  We're not used to that and, being unprepared, we may cave to them.  But it doesn't solve the core issues in a dysfunctional relationship.  Once our boundaries are weakened or broken, it is that much harder to restore or improve them.

The good thing is now you're more aware and informed.

[Familystone]

FOG. Yes! I can completely relate to this feeling. My fear obligation and guilt have increased over time.
I realise now the things he was sharing with me about his first marriage and divorce were must definitely to manipulate me and enhance these types of feelings. Towards the end I just felt I had to do the things he wanted. But instinctively I knew I couldn’t and what that would mean for my mental and physical well being