Not sure if I'm the right respondent to this, but I'll give it a go.

I spent 25+ year of my life with a highly personality disordered individual. He destroyed my life, and that of my children. We still all wear the legacy of that, and most likely will for the duration of our life.

To keep it short and simple, the best, and only way to live in a healthy way for all concerned is to go "no contact" or as minimal contact as possible, for all concerned. Personality disordered individuals are TOXIC to your mind and general well-being and any contact with them spells trouble.

The thing that helped me the most was therapy with a psychologist. I've been in therapy for 5 years now and believe that I wouldn't be here, in this "healthy" state if not for that. It is a very difficult and arduous process, but well worth it. It will give you the tools to protect yourself emotionally from them, as well as restore your sense of being and belief in yourself.

Your children need your stable support through this and the only way you can provide that is to work on yourself and build up your own internal resources. They need stability, unconditional love and support from you as I imagine that the relationship you have with your partner is highly complex and fraught with emotions. Children will be profoundly affected by any instability and you need to keep this in mind.

I left my H 2.5 years ago and thought this would be a significant trigger to make him see the error of his ways. WRONG. It made no difference whatsoever and if anything gave him a licence to live his life to the full with no constraints. If someone is truly personality disordered this will have zero impact on them because you are appealing to a consciounce that does not exist.

Focus on yourself and put this "bad relationship" behind you. Focus on your kids and the here and now: not what was, or could be. or shoud've been, etc. Be kind to yourself and allow yourself to grow beyond the confines of this relationship. It can be done. It's hard, but well worth it, and more importantly you are teaching your children what is and isn't acceptable in a relationship.

Take care

Janna 💚

Thanks Jenna,

I'm sorry to hear of your experioence, and I hope life is moving in a better direction.

No contact is an approach many recommend, and one I often consider - but the imapct with a 50/50 parenting situation, in a reltive isolated small community means it's just not at all easy to achieve.

But like you, given the response to the alcohol use and associated behaviors (not an apology, no ackmolwedgement of the harm and hurt caused our children), I feel there is simply co capacity for empathy, or even basic respect.

thank you for taking the time to answer, and all the best

Thank you Bubbles for the reply.

I empathise with Jenna, thouh I try very hard to differentiate between behaviors, and the person themselves. But I can understand the place of hurt that Jenna's response comes from.

I guess I am at a complete loss as to how to "work together" when in the face of abusive behaviors, and severe alcohol use, there is not an ounce of acknowledgement that there is a problem, rather as always I am the problem.

Might I ask what lead you to a place where you understood yourself, and could acknowledge and accpet what professional after professional says is an extremely difficult diagnosis that should never be raised as a possibility? (given we've barely had a conversation about anything even vaguely contentious in several years, thta didn't end in a complete shut down and dismissal of my opinion, or a screaming fit and days of emotional abuse, the chances of any such conversation seem close to zero regardless)

thank you again

Hi @horten

It sounds like you have been managing an extremely challenging situation for a number of years. It must have taken a lot of strength to leave.

I'm not sure if @Bubbles3 has seen your reply. Just for future reference, if you use the "@" symbol in front of the name, the member will get a notification that you have tagged them.

It's great that you have identified where you want to focus your attention in the midst of a complex situation, i.e. in focusing on how to manage the reality of co-parenting. You might find @Determined's post here helpful, from the perspective of a husband whose wife lives with BPD:

Meeting the needs of children when a parent suffers from mental illness

I hope things are going OK for you @horten. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

@horten thank you so much for sharing this. I don’t have much to add, as this is all just sinking in.

Long story short, I left my now ex-husband nearly three years ago. Alcohol was a huge problem, as was emotional and physical abuse, mostly centred around jealousy and my perceived misgivings. And his financial recklessness was out of control ( $70, 000 of speeding and traffic violations in 12 years, and credit card debit). I came to the realisation that staying together was only modeling to our four children that it was okay for someone who’s supposed to love you to treat you so terribly, and even worse, that his behaviour (and my fear) was very normal - that this was how all families were.

Fast forward to August last year when he stopped communicating with me at all, trying to use the kids as messengers (which I refused to do!). At the start of this year, he unilaterally walked out of the children’s lives - physically, emotionally and financially. A blessing in disguise, as I now have them 100% as opposed to 50/50. I have allowed them to FaceTime him, when ever they want, as I don’t ever want to be the person he tells them I am - controlling. But this has come at a huge cost to the harmony I am trying to establish in OUR family.

He phoned me the other day. The first time we’ve spoken in 14 months. Three hours on the phone being told what a bad mother I am. In some ways it was kind of reassuring, as I know nothing has changed. If anything he’s worse. But better the devil you know, as they say. In amongst his lectures, rants and put-downs came this, “oh yeah, they think I’ve got Borderline Personality Disorder!”. He wasn’t laughing this off, he was almost boasting. Anyone else who would have herd this would have been confused by his almost manic enjoyment of this newfound insight. To me it, it seemed true to form.

Well, this has sparked a panic in me. Just speaking to him has taken me back to a place I thought I’d left behind. The physical response I’ve been going through since that phone call (heart racing ever time I think about it, inability to sleep) has me so annoyed at myself.

I booked in to my psychologist the next day, and once I told her about his BPD revelation she became very, very serious. Her advice is to stop the kids communication with him. This is something I’ve thought needed to be done for some time, so I’m glad that a professional has offered me support to follow through. Luckily my kids visit the same practice, so there will be much conversation around how to do this, with the kids wellbeing being first and foremost.

As I said, thank you for your post. And any advice would be much appreciated.