Divorcing someone with undiagnosed BPD

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

My (ex)husband and I had been together for 8 years, married for 6, and have a 3 year old child. 5 weeks ago we separated after multiple marriage counselling attempts (essentially he has been unhappy since our child was born due to receiving less physical affection and attention from me and wanted a counsellor to tell me I was in the wrong and "fix" me). I had an individual therapy appt with our marriage counsellor after us separating and she told me she was so glad to get to talk to me because there was so much she wanted to address but was not comfortable discussing it with him present in our sessions. She let me know that in her professional opinion he has a personality disorder, likely borderline but possibly some overlap with narcissistic, and that there was little I could do/could have done for us to have a healthy relationship long term without him being in intensive behavioral therapy for many years. He has been in therapy for years but only because he has been diagnosed with ADHD and depression, and has never done any behavioral therapy or worked though any of his childhood trauma. She had significant concerns about him emotionally manipulating our child and thought that even the restricted amount of parenting time he's been given was too much for him to be alone with him. I have since started our son in play therapy in order to try and help him through all the changes and hopefully mitigate any manipulation or damage done.

I moved myself and our child in with my mother. He was pushing me to immediately give him 70/30 custody (him having our child M-F overnights with my only time being for 1 hr after work since I get off work earlier and could pick him up from daycare first, and I could have weekends. Given his history of erratic and aggressive behavior when in heightened emotional states combined with his habitual drug use, I was not comfortable with that arrangement. We both opted to file for divorce much more quickly than I think we would have if not for the custody conflict. He filed a day before I did and requested a provisional hearing on the grounds that I was alienating him from our child and that I needed a mental health evaluation. At the hearing, he did not get anything he was demanding and ended up "agreeing" to picking him up from daycare one day a week and returning him to me in the evening, one weekend day from 9am-7pm, and the alternating week he would get the same arrangement on the other day as well. (My lawyer sent his lawyer the baby monitor video I have from 2 years ago of him shoving our child, then 1.5 years old, away from him while putting him to sleep in his crib/toddler bed so hard he flew backward and his head bounced off the back of the crib which obviously influenced the decisions.)

He has since been posting on social media about me being a narcissist, an abuser, manipulator, etc. which I saw up until he deleted me, and has already begun some sort of relationship/friends with benefits arrangement with a new woman almost 10 years younger who is also going through a custody battle of her own and split with her partner around the same time we did. My son came home from being with him this weekend and said that he had taken a nap with daddy and daddy's new friend, that they had both been in his bed with him at naptime, and they had spent the day together. I was obviously upset and texted him asking for an explanation to which he eventually responded that no one had SLEPT in the bed with our child (not that no one had been laying there or in there with him) and to direct questions about his personal life to his lawyer. My lawyer is sending a letter to his regarding the inappropriateness of the situation but there is little else for me to do legally at this point as our final hearing is not for a few months.

He has not made any step of this remotely easy. I feel like I haven't had any time to even sit back and process anything as it just jumps from one thing into the next. Separating, moving out, filing, court, new girl, arguments over me signing our child up for a preschool gymnastics class without consulting him to make it around his schedule (I sent him videos/pictures, he wouldn't have cared when I scheduled it or shown up for the class even if were together!), moving his things out of the storage unit rented by my mother, him wanting to extend his parenting time or reduce it as it suits him... everything is high conflict and every time I respond with a firm boundary he says I'm making him a villain and being aggressive to provoke him. I go from feeling like I'm acting appropriately to wondering if I'm crazy.

Up until this weekend, I was feeling a mix of relief from not being in a constant state of tension, having to anticipate and deal with unpredictable moods and unrealistic expectations daily while also being the primary caregiver for our child - and sadness at how things are going. I truly wanted to be able to stay with him forever and raise our child in a happy and healthy family. After this weekend and realizing he has already started moving onto someone else in some capacity I am heavily into a grieving period knowing that there truly is no hope for that anymore. My primary concern is our child and his safety though, and I am feeling so much anxiety and hopelessness as to what I can do to keep him safe emotionally and physically. I know I can't protect him from the world and I don't aim to, just want to give him the tools to take things on himself and know that I am a safe person to fall back to when he needs me. I just feel like I worry too much about trying to not damage him so he doesn't turn out like his father... I feel like I have no one to talk to about this, even though I have a very strong support system and an appt with a new therapist (marriage counsellor let me know it had been decided it would be a conflict of interest for her to continue to see me).I'm not sure what I'm looking for by posting here... I guess just getting even this very abbreviated version of events out here is a relief. Any advice at all would be so greatly appreciated.

[etherealphai]

My (ex)husband and I had been together for 8 years, married for 6, and have a 3 year old child. 5 weeks ago we separated after multiple marriage counselling attempts (essentially he has been unhappy since our child was born due to receiving less physical affection and attention from me and wanted a counsellor to tell me I was in the wrong and "fix" me). I had an individual therapy appt with our marriage counsellor after us separating and she told me she was so glad to get to talk to me because there was so much she wanted to address but was not comfortable discussing it with him present in our sessions. She let me know that in her professional opinion he has a personality disorder, likely borderline but possibly some overlap with narcissistic, and that there was little I could do/could have done for us to have a healthy relationship long term without him being in intensive behavioral therapy for many years. He has been in therapy for years but only because he has been diagnosed with ADHD and depression, and has never done any behavioral therapy or worked though any of his childhood trauma. She had significant concerns about him emotionally manipulating our child and thought that even the restricted amount of parenting time he's been given was too much for him to be alone with him. I have since started our son in play therapy in order to try and help him through all the changes and hopefully mitigate any manipulation or damage done.

I moved myself and our child in with my mother. He was pushing me to immediately give him 70/30 custody (him having our child M-F overnights with my only time being for 1 hr after work since I get off work earlier and could pick him up from daycare first, and I could have weekends. Given his history of erratic and aggressive behavior when in heightened emotional states combined with his habitual drug use, I was not comfortable with that arrangement. We both opted to file for divorce much more quickly than I think we would have if not for the custody conflict. He filed a day before I did and requested a provisional hearing on the grounds that I was alienating him from our child and that I needed a mental health evaluation. At the hearing, he did not get anything he was demanding and ended up "agreeing" to picking him up from daycare one day a week and returning him to me in the evening, one weekend day from 9am-7pm, and the alternating week he would get the same arrangement on the other day as well. (My lawyer sent his lawyer the baby monitor video I have from 2 years ago of him shoving our child, then 1.5 years old, away from him while putting him to sleep in his crib/toddler bed so hard he flew backward and his head bounced off the back of the crib which obviously influenced the decisions.)

He has since been posting on social media about me being a narcissist, an abuser, manipulator, etc. which I saw up until he deleted me, and has already begun some sort of relationship/friends with benefits arrangement with a new woman almost 10 years younger who is also going through a custody battle of her own and split with her partner around the same time we did. My son came home from being with him this weekend and said that he had taken a nap with daddy and daddy's new friend, that they had both been in his bed with him at naptime, and they had spent the day together. I was obviously upset and texted him asking for an explanation to which he eventually responded that no one had SLEPT in the bed with our child (not that no one had been laying there or in there with him) and to direct questions about his personal life to his lawyer. My lawyer is sending a letter to his regarding the inappropriateness of the situation but there is little else for me to do legally at this point as our final hearing is not for a few months.

He has not made any step of this remotely easy. I feel like I haven't had any time to even sit back and process anything as it just jumps from one thing into the next. Separating, moving out, filing, court, new girl, arguments over me signing our child up for a preschool gymnastics class without consulting him to make it around his schedule (I sent him videos/pictures, he wouldn't have cared when I scheduled it or shown up for the class even if were together!), moving his things out of the storage unit rented by my mother, him wanting to extend his parenting time or reduce it as it suits him... everything is high conflict and every time I respond with a firm boundary he says I'm making him a villain and being aggressive to provoke him. I go from feeling like I'm acting appropriately to wondering if I'm crazy.

Up until this weekend, I was feeling a mix of relief from not being in a constant state of tension, having to anticipate and deal with unpredictable moods and unrealistic expectations daily while also being the primary caregiver for our child - and sadness at how things are going. I truly wanted to be able to stay with him forever and raise our child in a happy and healthy family. After this weekend and realizing he has already started moving onto someone else in some capacity I am heavily into a grieving period knowing that there truly is no hope for that anymore. My primary concern is our child and his safety though, and I am feeling so much anxiety and hopelessness as to what I can do to keep him safe emotionally and physically. I know I can't protect him from the world and I don't aim to, just want to give him the tools to take things on himself and know that I am a safe person to fall back to when he needs me. I just feel like I worry too much about trying to not damage him so he doesn't turn out like his father... I feel like I have no one to talk to about this, even though I have a very strong support system and an appt with a new therapist (marriage counsellor let me know it had been decided it would be a conflict of interest for her to continue to see me).I'm not sure what I'm looking for by posting here... I guess just getting even this very abbreviated version of events out here is a relief. Any advice at all would be so greatly appreciated.

[PeteWitsend]

....I'm not sure what I'm looking for by posting here... I guess just getting even this very abbreviated version of events out here is a relief. Any advice at all would be so greatly appreciated.

I went through a lot of this, and for the most part things have been okay, or at least not as bad as I feared, in terms of my daughter picking up bad habits from BPDxw. 

Get a therapist for your son, maybe, and have it written in the divorce decree so that your exH can't take your son to different ones until he finds one he can manipulate and control.  And given your son's age, it might be prudent to have succession rules written in the decree to choose a new therapist if the current one moves or retires.

Beyond that, just be a good parent and role model for him.  The advice my D's therapist gave me was to help nurture their mind and thought processes so they learn to think for themself.  If your ExH is filling your kid's head with nonsense, don't panic, just provide some guidance to them.  Ask them what they think. If they ask questions like "[Parent] said this, is that true?"  Ask them why they want to know.  Ask them what they think.  And then tell them what you believe.  If they feel conflicted, tell them it's okay to be confused, and adults don't always agree, but [your child] can make up their own mind.

I was always careful not to criticize my BPDxw in a way that would hurt my daughter, even if my daughter was upset with her.  I recognized that she's still half her mom, and so I don't  run her mom down.  I may say things like "your mom has her own opinions and I don't agree with them" or "It was wrong of your mom to say that to you. You should tell her how you feel next time."

There's nothing you can do to make the BPD parent behave; you can just be a source of truth, patience and peacefulness for your child.  Think long term here, and don't sweat the small stuff. 

[etherealphai]

Thank you for the insight. I got a therapist for my son shortly after we filed for divorce, just in anticipation for all of this. My mom has always said it's the one thing she wished she'd done for me and my brother when she and our dad divorced. He's only had 2 sessions but he likes going to "the emotions doctor" so far.

Another thing I picked up from my own childhood was that my parents didn't speak badly of each other to or around us, and I have been modelling that with my son as well. He honestly doesn't ask about his dad when he's not around or ask to call him or see him, but he does mention him sometimes ("mommy loves me, daddy loves me" "daddy got me this toy," etc) and I always just say "that's right, mommy and daddy love you so much", or "that's awesome bud!" My goal is to either stay positive or at least neutral.

I tried to reach out to him today to open up discussion about us being able to be amicable but it just turned into him using that to try and bully me into letting our son stay overnight with him and him accusing me of being hostile and difficult. If he could stay sober, and not bring strangers into our son's life so quickly and inappropriately I would be open to that. But I just feel he's too unstable and unsafe at this point. I hate feeling like I'm the one being unreasonable, but I think that's just something I will have to accept.

[ForeverDad]

She let me know that in her professional opinion he has a personality disorder, likely borderline but possibly some overlap with narcissistic, and that there was little I could do/could have done for us to have a healthy relationship long term without him being in intensive behavioral therapy for many years... She had significant concerns about him emotionally manipulating our child and thought that even the restricted amount of parenting time he's been given was too much for him to be alone with him.

One of the toughest feeling we can have is guilt.  "What if I had done {whatever}..."  BPD is known for Denial, Blaming and Blame Shifting.  Many people with BPD traits (pwBPD) are willing to use guilt improperly to manipulate others.  The reality is you could never fix him.  You were too close.  Borderline is a PD most impacting the closest of relationships and your ex would have the hurdle of the past emotional baggage to overcome to even listen to you.  Just look at the years you had together and yet you couldn't improve his perceptions and behavior.

And remember too that once you had a child, the relationship changed from 2 to 2+.  For you it was a natural and loving progression, your ex perceived it far differently.

At the hearing, he did not get anything he was demanding and ended up "agreeing" to picking him up from daycare one day a week and returning him to me in the evening, one weekend day from 9am-7pm, and the alternating week he would get the same arrangement on the other day as well.

I am a fan of "alternating weekends".  I'm not talking about the restrictions on a problematic parent.  Of course, if one parent shouldn't have overnights then of course the problematic parent should not have overnights just to have fully alternating weekends.  I'm saying courts everywhere see the practicality of letting at least the custodial parent have a full weekend with the kids and be free to plan longer weekend activities.

Your current schedule where the judge assigned him parts of each weekend is not practical long term IMHO.

Your ex's drug use is also a valid concern.  I recall in my own divorce that our court's parenting investigator, a counselor, said she did not have credentials to recommend as to custody and stated we would benefit from a Custody Evaluation.  They're quite expensive and a lousy evaluator can mess up what is a basically good temp order for you, so maybe you don't need one.

Many here have noticed that temp orders can morph largely unchanged into final divorce decree.  You may find there is a need to require him, at least officially, to abstain from drug use immediately before and during visitations.  Too, you want to have as much Decision Making or Tie Breaker authority as possible in the order so your ex has less impact on good parenting.  And see if there is a way to assume at least some full weekends with your child for meaningful weekend activities in future years.

You've got this.  You'll do well and raise a healthy, reasonably normal kid!

[ForeverDad]

I tried to reach out to him today to open up discussion about us being able to be amicable but it just turned into him using that to try and bully me into letting our son stay overnight with him and him accusing me of being hostile and difficult.

Let the court order take the brunt of his bullying, especially the "no overnights" part.  Don't feel guilty.  Family court is The Real Authority.  For now you don't have to wheel and deal.  Simply state that you're following the Order, a new and better Boundary for both of you.  (Of course, do not weaken the order.)  Things have changed, your adult relationship is being dissolved.  There is a new Normal.  Sadly, amicable is not always possible, at least not consistently.

We have a Tools and Skills Workshops board where you can learn many excellent time-tested communication skills, boundaries and strategies.

[etherealphai]

 @ForeverDad - thank you for your response.

And remember too that once you had a child, the relationship changed from 2 to 2+.  For you it was a natural and loving progression, your ex perceived it far differently.

For me having a child really opened my eyes to how much of a maternal role I had sort of been thrust into by my ex (he is no contact with his own mother who also exhibits many BPD traits, and all the things he hates about her are things he himself does). It wasn't really until I was caring full time for an actual child that I realized how much I took care of him; made sure the bills got paid because he "forgets" to do things that don't interest him, came home urgently from work every time he misplaced his car keys or his wallet because he would call me having a panic attack over not being able to find it, took care of the lion's share of household cleaning/upkeep, etc. I was already exhausted from having a newborn and I didn't have the energy to add on caretaking my 31 year old husband. The only postpartum OB appt he came to with me was the 8 week one where I would be cleared for sex again after my c-section... I think that says a lot. He has kept a running log of all the times we've had sex since then and how long in between each time. He says his love language is physical touch/intimacy and that me depriving him is akin to a man dying of dehydration in the desert - that some water can be derived from food (in this analogy other forms of intimacy or thoughtful gestures) but what he really needs is just water. I tried so many times to be intimate but when his rejection sensitivity is always so high that any time I gently indicated I wasn't interested in something he wanted to do in the moment he would shut down and lose momentum until the whole experience came crashing down. I learned that when I was going to disappoint him either way, the easiest path for myself was to just not do it at all. He even made my own pleasure all about him by insisting that he gets pleasure from giving pleasure and that me rejecting or limiting certain things made it so he couldn't experience that. I thought something was wrong with me or my body for the longest time. I've lost count of how many times and in different ways I tried to explain my feelings to him - he just says I kept moving the goalposts. In reality I had to trickle the truths out because every time I approached something it became a fight, and if I tried to talk about more than one thing at a time I was overwhelming him.

Your current schedule where the judge assigned him parts of each weekend is not practical long term IMHO.

I agree, but my lawyer keeps telling me that it's the compromise for no overnights and that it is already severely restricted compared to most cases where there isn't abuse or other obvious concerns. I get where he's coming from, but you're right - it doesn't seem sustainable.

You may find there is a need to require him, at least officially, to abstain from drug use immediately before and during visitations.

I do think this is something I'm going to try for as hard as possible. It gets tricky in that he "only" uses marijuana products and does not believe that anyone could be addicted or impaired by that... but when you use them quite literally all day every day, needing to get high before you even greet your child, taking a vape pen on the go all day at work, before leaving for breakfast family dates or holiday functions and taking the pen to vape in the car out the window, as soon as you get home before engaging with the child, all night after he's asleep and the last thing you do before bed... I find that to be a problem. Especially when all the products are kept out and open on a computer desk for our child to get into (our pets have done this in the past and had to be taken to emergency vets for treatment). Even when you have a lockbox just feet away you could secure everything in... He thinks he's fine because he technically uses primarily Delta 8 which is legal in our state on a technicality. But the results are all the same. He lost access to his ADHD stimulants for a while because he couldn't pass a required drug test. Still not a deterrent. He's also previously had a benzo addiction and frequently told me he couldn't have cocaine in the house, only could use it at festivals, because it would become a problem. He also told me once, long ago, that he doesn't even know who he is sober since he's been high for half his life.

You've got this.  You'll do well and raise a healthy, reasonably normal kid!

This is my biggest goal - it was before we split and is even more so now. I have a lot of regrets about the relationship and marriage, and ultimately I may have picked the wrong person, but I definitely got the right kid regardless.