Partner's ex

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

My partner has a probably (not diagnosed) BPD ex and dealing with her leaves him sobbing and frustrated. She's very good at blaming him for everything and making him feel like he's the abusive one, which I know is not true. He's the most gentle and steady person I know. Watching him be worn down to the point of a breakdown as he tries to co-parent with her makes me feel sad and powerless.I have been urging him to find a good support forum but he is afraid she might already be on such a forum since she firmly believes he is the problem and their parenting situation is unusual, which is why I'm being a but vague. So I thought I would come here and see what the community is like... .

[friend22]

My partner has a probably (not diagnosed) BPD ex and dealing with her leaves him sobbing and frustrated. She's very good at blaming him for everything and making him feel like he's the abusive one, which I know is not true. He's the most gentle and steady person I know. Watching him be worn down to the point of a breakdown as he tries to co-parent with her makes me feel sad and powerless.I have been urging him to find a good support forum but he is afraid she might already be on such a forum since she firmly believes he is the problem and their parenting situation is unusual, which is why I'm being a but vague. So I thought I would come here and see what the community is like... .

[Panda39]

Hi friend22,

I'm glad you stopped in to check us out 

My significant other (SO) also has an undiagnosed BPD ex-wife (uBPDxw) none of us here can diagnose anyone but it sounds like the shoe fits in your situation too... .I googled "Chronic Lying" and bingo! the shoe fit.

I hope you had the chance to read some of the posts on our sight, if you did I suspect you (like I was when I first arrived) noticed how similar our stories and situations can be.  If your partner's ex were to come here it would be very difficult to tell your story from another members story.  He is not alone in his fear but (as a strange Panda you've never met before  ) I have always felt safe here. 

Below is a link to our co-parenting board... .

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=9.0

You will find other parents and step-parents that have gone through or are going through similar things and facing similar issues, all the members here are really great at sharing ideas, tools, strategies and are great a just listening when you need to vent.

Both my SO and I are members here.  It really helped us be on the same page about our approach parenting his daughters, how we approach situations with his ex, and we are able to speak the same language.

I find as the Step(girlfriend) I have gained insight from spending time here too.  Gotten a feel for what my SO's life might have been like before I met him (relationship boards), how his daughters might feel about their mom or what kinds of things they might have to negotiate (the coping with a BPD parent board), I also like to support the folks going through divorce (having shared that experience with my SO) on the (Legal Board).  There are also a ton of information and tools that can be helpful.

Now that I've sold you on our site can I sell you a used car?   Just kidding    I really do encourage you and your partner to jump in, this site and the people on it have been really helpful personally and I see all the great members here support each other everyday.

Panda39

[Turkish]

What's unusual about the parenting situation?

In my years here,  members don't get found by random Internet searches,  but I understand the feelings of being found.  I felt that way once.  How can we help?

Turkish

[friend22]

They have a very severely disabled son who requires a lot of special accommodation and care, meaning they have to coordinate on coparenting much more than parents of "normal" children

[Panda39]

I can imagine how hard it is to coordinate anything with the ex and to have do do it frequently has to be exhausting.  What types of issues are you struggling most with?  What's at the top of your list?

Panda39

[ForeverDad]

I've been a member here for over a decade, others have been here longer or less.  We have a wealth of hard-won experience dealing with disordered people such as BPD and other acting-out PDs.  This site is for those who are or have been in relationships with BPD.  We refer anyone with BPD elsewhere.

We are generally able to discern if a new member is seriously disordered.  It can be seen in how they write, their perspectives, etc.  So if someone is posting here making false claims, they're probably not hard to identify and our responses to him or her would be somewhat cautious.  We can't promise the ex isn't here or hasn't been here, but the odds are low.

In addition, we encourage the anonymity here.  Don't select a user name the ex might recognize. It's okay to tweak some details so a member is less likely to be identifiable.  You don't even have to identify your locality.

[friend22]

Thanks for the replies. What I find the hardest is staying hands off and letting him work his way through encounters with her by himself. Her incessant and irrational demands on him just kill me. It is so hard seeing this person I love just be yelled at and told he doesn't matter. It is also really hard seeing him over and over again giving in to her irrational demands because he wants to keep things peaceful for the children, but she won't and I think can't honor her agreement to not yell at him in the children's earshot. Ultimately he has to work out stuff with her in mediation and my interference will only make things worse, so I just have to keep biting my tongue and being sad.

[Panda39]

Thanks for the replies. What I find the hardest is staying hands off and letting him work his way through encounters with her by himself. Her incessant and irrational demands on him just kill me. It is so hard seeing this person I love just be yelled at and told he doesn't matter.

Yes, it's a hard place to be "in it" and "not in it" and you are right the encounters are his to negotiate.  As much as it hurts to watch the interaction is between the two of them.  That said he is lucky to have you supporting him and giving him a different point of view.

It is also really hard seeing him over and over again giving in to her irrational demands because he wants to keep things peaceful for the children, but she won't and I think can't honor her agreement to not yell at him in the children's earshot. Ultimately he has to work out stuff with her in mediation and my interference will only make things worse, so I just have to keep biting my tongue and being sad.

I saw this with my SO too back at the beginning of our relationship.  I kept thinking where is his backbone, why does he always have to give long explanations for things when he should just be saying "No".  He also allowed her to invade our time together. 

Boundaries... .It's about having and enforcing boundaries.

Links to more on Boundaries... .
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=167368.0
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=206736.0

Has your partner tried setting some boundaries... .like telling her he won't talk to her (he'll leave or hang up the phone) until she stops yelling? Has he tried limiting his contact with her?  Maybe communicate more via email vs phone or in person for example.  How co-mingled is the care of their son?  Is it possible to try and parent in a more parallel parenting style?  You do what you do at your house and mom does what she does at her house and communication is short sweet and agreements are in writing.

Article on Parallel Parenting... .
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=239557.msg12549107#msg12549107

Panda39

[ForeverDad]

Panda has a good point, you're in his life so you can't live in a bubble world.  I agree you can't tell him what to do and intrude, that would lend itself to the wrong dynamic.  However, over time you can help him to gain a better perspective and see the big picture, more objective and less subjective.  Sharing what you learn here, or pointing him to the resources here, can help him handles his ex better.

He can learn that inaction and appeasing aren't good strategies.  As already suggested, he needs to educate himself on how to set appropriate boundaries.  Of course she will fight boundaries but he can start small and gradually expand them as the need arises.  One misconception is that boundaries are for the Ex.  Well, they should be but we all know a disordered Ex won't pay attention to them.  So what the boundaries are... .are boundaries for US!  Did you notice that a basic boundary above was telling the Ex that if any contact became a ragefest, rantfest, demandfest or whatever, then WE would hang up or walk away.  We know the Ex won't stop so we help it stop by our own actions, exiting.  Maybe the Ex will eventually learn that boundary, maybe not.  But hanging up or walking away is definitely within our power.  See?

He may not like being lectured to on how to handle his Ex but he may be willing to hear what you learned or, better yet, be willing to read it for himself.  There is a lot of collective wisdom here.  We've "been there, done that."  Tap our hard-won experiences.  We can share what strategies typically worked for us - and what usually didn't work too.

[livednlearned]

What I find the hardest is staying hands off and letting him work his way through encounters with her by himself.

I understand.

Does he ask you for help?

Or is it more that he emotionally hits a wall and you feel responsible for putting him back together, so to speak?

If he has a pathological way of dealing with a BPD co-parent, it's very (very) tempting to get tangled up in that stuff. It's super easy for a Karpman drama triangle to form -- the ex is the perpetrator, he becomes the victim, and you feel like you're the rescuer (who often can't do anything). Rescuer is a terrible relationship role to play in these dynamics.

Some of the skills people here use are validation (where you validate how he feels without trying to solve his problems) and coaching, where instead of trying to fix or rescue or save, you help him see where he is succeeding, basically building up his strength and supporting healthy emotional habits so he can level off a bit and start accessing the problem solving part of his brain.

If he is depressed, problem solving probably seems daunting.

Whatever you do, take care of yourself. My SO has a uBPDx and a dx bipolar/uBPD D20, and that combo has taught me to take care of myself like my life depends on it. Doing that gave my SO a vision of what good boundaries can look like, and me being in a good place supports him more than me being anxious and worried, or feeling helpless/hopeless. It took a while, but he is much better at taking care of himself. I don't know why negative feelings are so much more contagious, but positive ones can catch on, too. You just have to have really good boundaries so that his feelings of helplessness don't take the both of you down.

Being in a BPD relationship can really destroy a partner. Did your SO do any therapy to process what happened?