I am worried for her and mostly for my children.

[Depression = 72% of members]

The mother of my 3 children has bdp plus a bad depression. She ended her rrlationship with me, and I am in the process of accepting it, although I want to fix the relationship. She is the mother of my children so I cannot just brush her off my life. I am worried for her and mostly for my children.

[Yourdudeness]

The mother of my 3 children has bdp plus a bad depression. She ended her rrlationship with me, and I am in the process of accepting it, although I want to fix the relationship. She is the mother of my children so I cannot just brush her off my life. I am worried for her and mostly for my children.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[GaGrl]

Welcome! Even though the reason for being on this forum is difficult, we're glad you found us. Many of the members here have been in a situation similar to yours and can offer help and support.

Can you tell us a bit more about your ex and the children? We're you married, and do you have a custody agreement? Are you seeing your children regularly? How old are they?

[Yourdudeness]

We started our relationship 11 years ago. Shortly after I noticed she had issues, and she told me so. She has always been aware of it.
This is our second breakup. We moved to a new town 7 years ago, and 4 years ago we had a son. Thigs started to get complicated then.
She is not diagnosed, and I just learned about BPD a couple of months ago. I wouldn´t blame all of our problems and breakups on her BPD. We went through a rough patch, financially, I was{t able to provide support for our newborn son, and I was drinking too much. When our son was about a year old, we went to a couple´s therapy session, and it was a disaster. That´s when she left. I was deeply heart broken, and made a huge effort to better myself. I quit drinking, lost 20 pounds, and started a business. During most of that time, she would tell me to "get my s""t together so that we could be together again. I kinda did, and after about 6 or 8 months, we got together again. It was a long process, in which I fought incessantly. At first, it was difficult, but we had a period of stability and a lot of happiness. Then she got pregnant again. Of twins. After the girls were born, she fell into a depression and dysregulation. At the same time, I had moved my business and it was´t working well. The pressure I had on my shoulders was enormous and even though I was aware that hers was worse, I have to admit I couldn´t be the emotional support she needed. I couldn´t provide the peace she desesperately needed. Last september, we had a fight and she went on a rage, kicking me out of the house telling. I came back two days later and stayed. I stayed on another room. Things slowly started to get a bit more tranquil I guess, at least civil. She went on a trip to our hometown around November. Around that time, my busniess briefly picked up. I was happy about it. She seemed to be ok with things. After an email argument, she sent me an email telling me that she did´nt know how to fix our relationship and that we needed to separate, but that she didn´t have a place to live and that she was coming back so as to not separate the children from their father. She prolonged her stay in our hometown, and I flew there for Christmas vacations. We spent time together with the kids, but the romantic relationship was obviously gone. We came back on January. After that, she made some approaches. She would ask me if I wanted to watch movies with her (probably our favorite activity toghether). So I would go to her bedroom, watch a movie, and then go back to mine. Eventually I started sleeping there. Things appeared to be slowly improving.
As I said, I did not know about BPD and about the toolkits offered here. I did everything wrong. I JADEd a lot, invalidated her, etc.
At one point, she had a breakdown and started crying "what happened to us?" "were is my "handsome" (rough translation of how she lovingly called me". And my reaction was almost to stonewall her. I was hurt, and proud. She had asked me to go to couples therapy and I refused.
On april, I decided to shut down my busniess temporarily. She went to visit her mother with the kids. Then she called me and told me she wasn´t coming back home. She would stay with a friend (on our hometown) and in June she would get a new place. When she came back from visiting her mother, she told me that what she wanted the most, woudl be for us to fix our relationship and get back together. At one point she sent me a message saying she loved me.
June came, and no new place. I offered to move out so that she could move back home with the kids. I proposed to do some kind of "nesting" were I could stay at home two days a week and her somehwere else. That threw her into a rage and said she wouldn´t move back.
A few weeks later she asked me again if she could move back into the house and me move out. I agreed and moved into my parents apartment (they don{t live here).
At the end of June I asked her to go to therapy together. We went, and it only made things worse. She basically made a laundry list of everything I´ve done wrong, which made her angry. I begged her to please try to fix our issues. She said no. The T asked why she was there, and she said because she loved me. I was desperate. I decided we should go back to our hometown for a month to cool things off. We did. While there, we went out a lot with the kids. Things started to calm down. She started to go back to baseline. Her anger dissipated little by little. At the end of the trip, we went to the movies together. Things appeared to be getting better.
Then we arrived back home, and we had a nice first day. I took them out for breakfast, the to run some errands, and she invited me to have lunch with them at home. Then I screwed up big time. I saw she was depressed and was having a hard time dealing with everything by herself. I went to take them some groceries, and our son started to desperately beg for me not to leave. That set me off and I tried to impose myself to stay back at home. That threw her into a rage, and every progress made went down the drain.
That was a month ago. As I said, we have three little kids together and NC is not an option. We have contact everyday. As for now, I drive to the house every morning to help her out with preparing breakfast while she prepares for work. It´s really hard to be there with the tension we feel.
There has been tiny progress. Yesterday she snapped at me, and then sent a message apologizing in the afternoon. That´s kinda huge.
The thing is, I want to fix things and have her back. I know I need to fix myself first. And due to her condition (non diagnosed, but she has most of the traits of BPD) I´m painted black right now. I know there´s a glimmer of hope, even if remote, but that it would take a lot of time.
Learning the tools has helped me a lot. The fact that she apologized yesterday shows it. I didn´t JADE, validated her feelings, and staved off what in other times would´ve been a major episode.
In this post I have focused on what I did wrong. I read SWOE and it says that BPD is NOT the whole relationship. Nons also bring crap to the table, and I sure did. I just hope there is a second chance in which using the tools will make a difference.
As for her, she is going through a depression and a dysregulated state. She will text me daily, and sometimes I dread the ping on the phone, wondering what mood she is in.
I have been trying to regulate my feelings and not to have my emotions depend on hers, but it has been really hard.
Sometimes I feel that renouncing all hope to getting back together would be healthier, but as for now, I cannot get myself to do that.
That´s the situation in a nutshell. Things aren´t really that contentious, and given her emotional state, I would say things could be worse. But she is totally distant from me, I´m painted black and all the pressure she is under gets redirected at me.

[GaGrl]

I'm so sorry you are in this back-and-forth situation -- you must be exhausted. And with three young children! That is a lot of responsibility and stress.

You've tried couples counseling, unsuccessfully so far. Have you had any individual therapy? Ideally, if each of you could do individual therapy, then couples therapy might be more successful.

What does your partner want? Do you know? Does she know?

[Yourdudeness]

We are both going to individual therapy. I do not know who she is going to. Last therapist told her she couldn't help her. I hope the new one does. I am going to a new therapist and so far so good.
I do not know what really wants. Maybe at the moment she really does not want me back.  Or really does not know. This happened before.
Two weeks ago she messaged.me suggesting we drove to Disneyland with the kids. I wanted to suggest that for a while but she beat me to it. I am looking forward to that (now, to get the money for it...),  to spend a nice couple of days the 5 of us.
Again, I recognize the BDP is not the only issue. But it makes otherwise normal problems impossible to solve.
All I can do is give her time and as much space as possible, and try to be the best version of myself possible. But I'm struggling with depression and anxiety, and am finding it really hard to get better. My kids are my motivation, but they also worry me, especially our 4 year old for whom this is also hard.

[GaGrl]

Sometimes the only "thing to do" is give your partner some space to become centered again. Had this happened before?

[hardrockcy]

Go het her man.  before it s too late and find somebody else, cause you 'll suffer more.  go tell her you love her, hug her, make love to her and everything will be ok.  but keep on communication with her.  maybe you did the mistake to have kids with the wrong person, but work the relationship.  before it 's too late.