Frustrations With No Accountability

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hello,
I will first give you an update from my last post, I got a lot more time with my son being a single father.  However the one thing I am struggling to deal with is the lack of accountability from my the mother of my child.  She's all lies and claim's I'm the reason why the relationship failed.  There is no accountability on her end and its infuriates me.  Even when I had proof of the abuse in the relationship she claims it was only a playful slap.  Has anyone ever dealt with this.  Also how can I protect my son from this type of Borderline Abuse.
-Brian

[Newyoungfather]

Hello,
I will first give you an update from my last post, I got a lot more time with my son being a single father.  However the one thing I am struggling to deal with is the lack of accountability from my the mother of my child.  She's all lies and claim's I'm the reason why the relationship failed.  There is no accountability on her end and its infuriates me.  Even when I had proof of the abuse in the relationship she claims it was only a playful slap.  Has anyone ever dealt with this.  Also how can I protect my son from this type of Borderline Abuse.
-Brian

[david]

How old is your son ?

[Newyoungfather]

He is a little over 1 year old.

[david]

I used to get all kinds of accusations against me.
At one year old she can't really put thoughts in his head. He may sense her stress/etc and there isn't much you can do about that. You can make him feel secure and safe when he is with you.
Our boys were around 4 and 8 when the s*** hit the fan. She tried serious alienation tactics against me. I was afraid it was going to work. Fortunately, our boys saw and compared the differences between the two houses and her tactics, which included lots of made up lies, backfired on her. Neither boys trusts anything out of her mouth now. They are 18 and 13 now.

[Newyoungfather]

I just get frustrated when she has no recollection or accountability of why the relationship failed.

[Panda39]

Hi Newyougfather,

I'm coming at BPD from another angle my SO (significant other) has an uBPDxw (undiagnosed BPD ex-wife) so I was not in a relationship with someone with BPD like you were.  That said I can totally identify with your anger and frustration around your ex's behavior towards you.  When I arrived here I was one angry lady at my SO's ex, I could not understand her behavior towards him (but he's an adult), what was more upsetting to me was her behavior around her daughters.  I couldn't understand a mother that would not get her daughter with a toothache to the dentist, or a mother that would pull her other daughter out of school "to home school" her but in fact do nothing for a year, or the mother that used her children to spy on their father... .

It took me some time spent on these boards both posting and reading, and reading books about BPD etc. to start to understand what BPD is all about, to understand that this woman had a mental illness so of course she wouldn't act rationally, that her behaviors were driven by her mental illness/dysfunctional thinking, and that I myself was contributing to my own anger/frustration... .my desire but inability to "fix" things made me obsess about different situations and that in turn just escalated my anxiety and frustration... .I was going in circles.

I hear your hurt and pain about your failed relationship, of course you want her to act like a normal person and take personal responsibility for her actions, but it is most likely that she is not capable.  There is a lot of shame for someone with BPD and discussing her shameful behaviors probably are just too difficult for her to admit... .thus the "Gaslighting" telling/believing a story that isn't true.  The pain is so great that she has to make up a different reality that she can handle.

You are still processing the end of this relationship and that takes time and can be even more difficult if you share a child and still have contact with his mom. 

One thing Matt a long time member told me when I first arrived was to focus on the kids and not their mother.  I found that shifted my thinking and helped me start to let go of ruminating on their mother.  I have over time been able "radically accept" the ex is who she is and unfortunately she will never be the mom I think she should be, so what do I do... .I focus on her daughters and my interaction with them.  The ex is gonna do what she's gonna do I can't control that.

So I will share that same advice with you focus on your son and focus on you... .take care of you both your son is so lucky to have you.

Hang in there,
Panda39

[insideout77]

Brian:

Hang in there. Been there done that. Married to one for 15 years.

I believe one of the hardest parts of divorce with a BPD is they will never take responsibility for anything that went wrong in the marriage. As far as they are concerned, they are 100% perfect and you are crazy. Again it's like a toddler telling you are bad, take it for what it's worth.

Your kid will see through it when they grow up and the courts are frankly not interested. They don't care why the marriage went south. They have no time to litigate that stuff. The only concern they have is how to best raise the kid and being a bad spouse does not make you a bad parent. So it's all a moot point and shrug it off!