upwBPD does not keep our children safe

[heritage_pass]

I’m writing this hoping that someone can relate or provide advice. I feel alone and very scared of ever not having custody of my children. I’m sure there are many posts here about custody—I’ll continue to read through them. Here’s my story:

My husband has undiagnosed BPD and I’ve just come to realize it one week ago. We’ve been together 10 years (married for almost 6 of them). We have two children ages 2 and 11 months.

After getting married, I learned that his mom is a narcissist (as are others in his extended family). My husband has acknowledged this, but he ultimately always chooses to “go back to her” and “forgets” any conversations/decisions we’ve had and made (between the two of us and with a therapist) regarding boundaries and his family. He started to become increasingly emotionally volatile over the years, but I wasn’t able to see it until recently. I’ve often told my mom that it feels like he absolutely hates me when he gets in one of his “states”. When I was pregnant, I asked him to please not eat my pizza as I wanted leftovers the next day. When I went to have my pizza, he’d eaten it, so I of course asked him why he ate my pizza when I’d asked him specifically not to. He RAGED. He called more horrible names—including “pregnant c***”. I could not comprehend. It all makes sense now. He left me at 37 weeks pregnant to go to a bachelor party weekend where he had interactions with strippers (not unusual for some, but was extremely out of character for him and definitely crossed boundaries for our relationship). It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d confessed and apologized. Instead, he waited until we were in the car on the way to my parents’ house to tell me “there were strippers there but nothing happened”. He was driving like a maniac with me and our oldest child in the car. I could feel more happened than he’d told me but when I asked him, he told me he didn’t do anything, it’s my problem if I have trust issues, he has no problem going to bed with a clear conscience, etc. A week later, he confessed to interacting with the strippers. Here I saw a brief glimpse of true emotion. He was devastated.. couldn’t understand what sort of a state he was in to ever do something like that, he’d do whatever it took to keep us together, etc. But that quickly ended and he was back to telling me to get over it, he didn’t feel he did anything wrong, etc. I have endless examples of these scenarios.

I’ve recently hit a wall. I’ve been so depressed. Have never felt so lonely. I reached out to a counseller as I thought I had postpartum depression. At the beginning of our second session, she told me it sounds like my husband has BPD. I’ve done SO much reading and learning in the last week, and now everything makes sense.

I am going to leave this relationship. The only thing holding me back is custody. My kids are not physically safe with him. I’ve only left him alone with them once in almost 3 years. He’s capable of functioning at work and has been promoted several times in the last three years. But at home, it’s as if he can’t function. Can’t put the bins out, feed the cat, lock doors, etc. The same comes to our kids. The one time I left him with our child, I made and plated her lunch, and sent him a message telling him to give it to her. 4.5 hours later I got home and she’d not eaten. Another time, she fell in a covered pool under his watch. Luckily, he jumped in and got her out, but he brought her inside and said “look who wasn’t being careful.” She was one. (My therapist says he will blame the children for everything and the children will learn to manage his emotions and live a life of insecurity and walking on eggshells around others.)

Last summer, we went to his family doc together after the stripper situation. We explained everything. My husband was being true and “human”; through tears said he knows something is wrong. The doc said he thinks it’s covid brain fog from the time he had covid 2 years ago. I asked for a psychiatrist referral and he complied. By the time he got an appt with the psychiatrist, he was in another one of his states. I knew it was hopeless. The result was that we have marital issues—nothing wrong with my husband.

The last “glimpse” of him being real and true were in February. He had read a book on emotionally immature parents and it rocked him to his core. He was crying and told me a lot of things about his childhood and parents I had never known. He wrote me a letter saying he knows he goes into dissociative states and would do everything in his power to get help and end the cycle. (We saw yet another therapist and things were helping. By the fourth visit, he said she was a fraud and never went back.)

I’m in the process of looking for a lawyer with experience with BPD divorce. Does anyone have any advice or experience with what to do while I wait. Do I write down incidents?  Do I keep a journal?

I appreciate anyone taking the time to read this. I know it’s all over the place but I have to get it out and start somewhere.

[ChooseHappiness]

I'm sorry you are going through this. I know from experience it can be quite difficult when children are involved.

You definitely need to talk to a lawyer to determine what the general rules are regarding parenting time/custody in your area. In many places now it's shared custody no matter the disturbing behaviour of one parent or another. Which means many people try to stick it out until the children are older. This may or may not be manageable in your case. But it's also very difficult to leave your children with someone who may not be capable of caring for them, especially at such a young age.

Note that a designation of BPD for your husband will be relatively meaningless in the court process if it's not an official diagnosis. Instead, you will need to establish patterns of behaviour and neglect, etc. You may want to read Splitting for useful court tips.

Be prepared for your husband to instantly turn on you and become your worst enemy, as that's a common experience on these forums. It's a very challenging situation, so you will likely want an alternate place to live if possible.

Keeping a chronicle of events is a good idea. It's probably best to have both an electronic and print journal. I mostly keep things in a Word document with email backup, but a police officer friend of mine told me the courts really like print journals as they feel they are harder to manipulate events.

In the meantime, I recommend reading as many books as you can on the subject. I found Stop Walking on Eggshells, Raising Resilient Children with a Borderline and Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist particularly useful.

Remember to have compassion for yourself during all this.

[Tangled mangled]

@heritage,
I’m here to support you and glad you found this site.
I am female in a similar situation as yours but several steps ahead- waiting to finalise my divorce.

My children are older so I’ll be mindful of that.

First things first, you have made the right choice in wanting an end to the relationship- it’s a tough call because everyone and everything around you will make you think it’s the wrong decision. Looks like you have overcome the hurdle of self doubt.
Secondly it sounds like your children’s safety can be compromised by leaving them alone with your husband.

I remember reminding my soon to be ex husband, stbxh, to cut grapes in half before feeding them to my toddler. Lo and behold he didn’t while I was away for work and he sent me a picture of my son with a bowl of grapes. It’s like you share your anxieties with them and they weaponise it against you. Looks like what happened with your child in the pool.

If I was in your situation, I will get all services onboard with how careless he is with the children. Eg if anything happens while you’re at work take child to the doctors, or any other service. Start keeping a track record of events not just in your journal but recorded with professionals eg daycare, hospital.
From here on, you keep your plans secret. Be careful with sharing your thoughts and actions with even your own family as you don’t know if they will blurt things out to your husband.
He will not cooperate with you to end the marriage so everything you do from here on is for you and your children only.
It sounds like your husband is not interested in child custody. These kind of men have children to keep a woman trapped.

A bit of my background:
I physically left my home over a year ago with 2 children who are just under 10yrs old- we had been married for 10 years.
In my case I made my plans to end the marriage known and had created boundaries around communication with my husband. He attacked me physically, for the first time in our relationship .
I too was called names, b&& itch, cu8nt etc. the pregnancy and birth of my first son was used to attack me endlessly and I was psychologically abused by my husband and mother while I was in labour. It’s endless.
I physically left our home 10 months after the DV incident. In those 10 months, the police were called to our home twice, anytime he dared raise his voice or disturbed the peace I got the police in. I was advised to keep video recordings of his behaviour. The thing with pwbpd is that they successfully evade being charged for their criminal behaviour. Mine would change in his state - either crying hysterically or being reasonable when the police arrived.
He denied everything as the only witness was my 4 year old at the time so getting a secret camera maybe an option for you. Although check the law in your state.

At the moment I have full custody but the court has allowed mine to have half the holidays but it looks like he’s not interested in having the children.  Eg he has only agreed to have them for a week instead of 3 weeks of the summer.

I can see yours going down that path too, I have heard other members here state thesame, how the pwBPD gives up custody. Your children are very young and if your husband doesn’t have flying monkey supporters to care for the children he may not want them for long periods of time.

The first step now is to secretly interview a few lawyers in your area and start putting money away secretly.

[ForeverDad]

While he will likely eventually return to his "comfort zone" of not parenting, during the divorce he may try to look like an involved parent.  There may be several reasons for him doing so, some likely ones are...

• He will try to make you look worse than him.
• He will want to appear a doting and involved father, a public face.
• He will want to pay the least amount of spousal/alimony and child support possible.

Family court usually does not care to distinguish which family is the problem parent, it can assume both are bickering spouses.  Eventually court may detect reality but it may be inclined to let the case proceed before accepting that one parent is the problem and the other parent (you) is the one proposing solutions.

My court had a parenting investigator but as a counselor did not have licensing to comment on custody.  The recommendation was to get a Custody Evaluation, more in depth than a cursory Psych Eval.  I as a father needed one since my county was old school and automatically defaulted to mother getting temp custody and majority parenting time.  This was days after my ex was arrested for Threat of DV.  I concluded it was as though the system assumed DV threats (adult behavior) was not connected to the temp order (parenting behavior), as though she could be a bad spouse but a good mother.

In your case, being the involved parent is a good.  Document that.  Claiming "he always..." or "she always..." is too vague, likely to be considered hearsay, heard and then ignored.  Even if there is no paperwork proof from a professional, your details with specific dates, events, locations, witnesses are very credible to the court.

• Use journals, calendars, whatever.
• Don't destroy your journal entries.  They are your private and confidential possessions.  If he learns of them, he will demand, pressure or convince you to destroy them.
• Court usually only pays attention to the incidents 6 months before you filed, but record everything meaningful since it could provide a long term pattern.

Very important... seek the best (least bad) temp order possible.  You may be stuck with it for the length of your divorce case.  Don't feel sorry for your stbEx, being "overly nice/fair" (a risk with us being Nice Guys & Nice Gals) will not gain you kudos from the court.  It. Doesn't. Care.  Just make sure you don't appear nasty, other than that, seek the best for yourself and your children.

Good that you have counseling.  My lawyer told me, "Courts love counseling!"  Your stbEx quitting sessions is not a good sign for marital repair.

If I was in your situation, I will get all services onboard with how careless he is with the children. Eg if anything happens while you’re at work take child to the doctors, or any other service. Start keeping a track record of events not just in your journal but recorded with professionals eg daycare, hospital, doctors.

From here on, you keep your plans secret. Be careful with sharing your thoughts and actions with even your own family as you don’t know if they will blurt things out to your husband.

He will not cooperate with you to end the marriage so everything you do from here on is for you and your children only.

If you had hopes for your marriage you would share information seeking to restore trust in the marriage.  Your marriage is dysfunctional, the future for it is dim.  Once you sense the marriage will end, you need to switch from sharing to protecting yourself and your children.  Yes you share appropriate parenting information.  But keep private and confidential your exit thoughts, legal consultations or interviews and strategies.  You never know what you share that might be used against you to sabotage your plans.  The old wartime warning, "Loose Lips Sink Ships."

[GaGrl]

Did you save the letter where he admitted to dissociative states and confessed a need for help? That, with his aborted history of therapy, could be invaluable.

[ForeverDad]

Gagrl has a good question.  Gather and keep safe elsewhere any such docs.

Most counselors and therapists make clients sign disclaimers that they won't be called anywhere to testify, they don't want lawsuits or licensing board complaints.

However, they will speak and share information with parenting coordinators, custody evaluators and Guardians ad Litem (GAL - lawyer for the children).

Be aware that a lousy, biased or inexperienced GAL or CE can do more harm than good for a case.  Be sure qualified and well trusted professionals are selected.

[Gerda]

I am in a similar situation (BPD husband, small kid, getting ready to divorce him). I second reading Raising Resilient Children with a Borderline or Narcissistic Parent. I've read many books on BPD now, and I think that's my favorite.

Also definitely read Splitting, which is about divorcing someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, to prepare yourself for the battle you're in for.

I also recommend a couple more books that aren't necessarily about BPD but I also found helpful, especially when it comes to helping your kids deal with having a father who is abusive and/or mentally ill. When Dad Hurts Mom by Lundy Bancroft is for women who have kids with an abusive man (not necessarily a man with a personality disorder, but honestly I don't really care about the distinction anymore at this point). It's sort of a sequel to Why Does He Do That? which is about abusive men in general.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents is another good one, and might be the book that your husband read. You should probably read it too. Parents with personality disorders are definitely emotionally immature (that book categorizes them as "overly emotional parents"), and the result of having an emotionally immature parent is to either become an "externalizer" (that is, they become emotionally immature themselves and repeat the cycle), or become "internalizers" (a caretaking, codependent type person). Keep in mind that just because your husband had a a mom with a PD does not excuse his behavior.

Those books also help motivate me to leave my husband sooner rather than later, and I go back an re-read them sometimes if I ever doubt I'm doing the right thing by divorcing him. Nothing like reading about how much a parent with BPD can mess up their kids to bring out my inner Mama Bear and try to get away from him ASAP before more damage is done!

I'm worried about custody too because my husband has threatened to seek full custody and accuse me of being the abusive one in court if I dare to divorce him (he was accusing me of being "violent and physically abusive" just this morning). Talking to a lawyer helped reassure me that he probably won't be successful because he doesn't have any proof. (Though that doesn't mean he won't try.) On the other hand, I don't have proof that he's abusive either (or at least not *enough*), so the best I can hope for is the Standard Visitation Schedule our state has and getting myself designated as the custodial parent. That will still split our time something like 60/40, which is still a lot of time for our kid to be with him. Fortunately my husband is overprotective when it comes to our daughter's physical safety, so I don't think I have to worry about her getting hurt with him or anything like that. He actually gets angry at me if something happens to her like if she skins her knee or gets a cold, like it's my fault and this proves that I'm a terrible mother for allowing this to happen to her. On the other hand, he also thinks she should just be allowed to eat whatever junk food she wants, watch all the TV she wants, and go to bed as late as she wants, and I'm too strict with her trying to get her to do otherwise. (I think he's trying to be the "fun parent" to make me look bad.)

It would be good to talk to a lawyer yourself about how custody works in your state, but it sounds to me like most states (certainly with mine) they think it's really important to be "fair" to both parents, and one parent has to be a complete monster (like in jail or a mental institution or something like that) to lose joint custody with the other parent. I find that both comforting and disappointing. Comforting that he won't be successful in taking my daughter away from me, but disappointing that he'll still get a lot of parenting time despite him not being a very good parent.

Also, I second keeping a journal. Definitely do that! I do, even though I'm not sure if I'll even be able to use any of it as legal evidence. It's still valuable to keep myself sane through all the gaslighting and blame shifting. Also, if he sends you any mean texts or emails or leaves mean voicemails, keep those. And if you can secretly record him and live in a state where that's legal, try to do that too.

[ForeverDad]

I know everyone gets nervous about recording.  The laws on privacy and permission add to our caution... yet that doesn't stop our spouses from ranting and raging, does it?

My impression is it seems the recording laws were written more for professional scenarios.  In all the years I've been here I've only noted a few posts where the court took action against recording and all were to tell the parents to stop recording the children.

Here is a sampling of what I've posted in the past about recording incidents.

At one time during my divorce I had three voice recorders (before today's multitasking cell phones) since they often filled up quickly and needed recharging.  Some are concerned whether it is proper to record.  My position was: (1) Others here have recorded and never faced severe consequences though a few times they were told to stop recording the kids and (2) Hey, I'm quietly recording myself to ensure I'm not saying anything too bad and if ex misbehaves oops that's on the ex.

@FD, a variation I’ve heard recommended is: “I was recording myself to document to myself that I don’t yell, shout, scream, or initiate conflict.”  The fact that other people are occasionally recorded is incidental.

It’s been noted that even in 2-party states, it seems impossible to find a case where someone was penalized for recording.

What happens is:  the recording helps establish who is credible and who is not, without being entered as evidence.

Of course, in a 1-party state, it’s also evidence.

Recording may be the only way that a person can demonstrate that certain accusations (eg a false DV complaint) are, in fact, false.

It seems for most of us the recordings aren't used directly in family court.  CPS did listen to a couple of my recordings but the cases were either closed or that time I did demand and got an "unsubstantiated" letter.  Never a less passive "unfounded" outcome, though once my court did state her testimony was "not credible".  Wimps.

It was largely a type of insurance so I could sleep at night without catastrophizing whether the police would come banging on my door in the middle of the night.

Which is why I recorded, back then it was with voice recorders.  Technically, to play it safe, I say "I recorded myself to document I wasn't the one being aggressive or abusive.  If others were recorded being aggressive or worse, well..." 

So weird, she too claimed to be a victim but I never ever saw a more aggressive victim.

[Gerda]

I don't know if the recordings I have are ever going to be useful in court, but they're already just useful to me, privately.

I haven't managed to record very many incidents (usually at the time I'm in "survival mode" too much to think to hit record, and also I have to do it in such a way that H won't notice), but the ones I have are useful, if nothing else, than in reassuring ME that the incident really did happen the way I remember it.

Basically it's to protect me from gaslighting and FOG. A few days later after I've calmed down, I go back and listen to the recordings.

And every time I've done that, it sounds like the rantings of an unhinged crazy person (my H). It helps because later my H is always, "well, we were BOTH losing control there, not just me." And yeah, on the recordings, I don't always sound *perfect* either. I might sound a bit frustrated or make a few sarcastic comments, but then he's hitting back with totally out of proportion rage.

If any of my recordings or journals or saved texts/emails ever become useful evidence in court, that will just be a bonus.