How old is your son?

There's some thought that BPD starts with attachment issues. I went through lots of behavioral issues with my son when he was 5 and 6. My best advice to any parent with a kid with issues, is to put the relationship first. The hard line is on hurting himself or others.

One of the big themes I had with both my kids during the breakup is that it's normal to love, hate, and feel indifferent about people.....often in the same minute. But that growing up is learning coping skills to deal with those feelings, and when it's okay to act on them and when it isn't.

Rather than focusing on punishment of bad choices, work on helping to teach him new ones. (Sometimes my kids did what was right.....just to shut me up.....okay with me...whatever works.) And over time, and many, many fails, they did learn. For a while, I got into the habit of speaking aloud the things I was thinking and how to work them out. ("Do not kill, do not kill, be patient, go to a happy place.....smile.")

It was really weird to hear them murmur under their breaths, the things I'd said.

I KNOW how hard it is to be a single parent to a kid with issues like that. Most of what my ex did just made things worse.

Good luck

You have quite a challenge with your BPD wife for they have a way of projecting the issue on to you! I suggest that you safeguard yourself legally. Getting her to cooperate will be a challenge because from one moment to the next, their thinking pattern changes. As far as your son nature or nurture is not important. What's important is that he gets parented by the mentally balanced person. You!

Thanks to both of you! I really appreciate your thoughts and great advice. He's 8 and I've come to realize that while it was so difficult for me to ride the roller coaster, it must have been even more of a challenge for him. We've always had behavioral issues with him but they were always attributed to other things per my ex. Now I'm questioning the majority of those diagnoses for my little guy.

Neither of us has money to spare, so we're trying to avoid hiring separate attorneys. But as Aries said, her thinking pattern could change in an instant and I could be caught off guard. I even worry that she might read my comments here and figure out I'm discussing this. I feel like at any moment she's going to fabricate a crisis to draw me back in.

In a sad way, it feels like my only hope is that she will find some other person to latch on to and take responsibility for her problems, thus relieving me from the burden! Sounds crazy but I wish for it sometimes.

I am really sorry to hear of your struggle. Have you spoken with a counselor at all?

Live, Laugh, Cantor on

I can tell you from experience it will be a difficult road. Pretty sure my ex is BPD. Her son from a previous marriage was tentatively diagnosed with a few years back and I now see the same traits in her. One of the most important things is to keep all communication by e-mail/text, or record all conversations. Every issue became extremely contentious and it helped to have things on record. Check out www.shrink4men.com. The site isnt that useful, but there is a forum there that has numerous individuals on it that have gone through similar situations and they can offer a wealth of insight.

I just got out of a relationship with a girl with borderline personality disorder... I watched her fight it and she was a really sweet girl but bpd is a really serious thing, I'm sorry for what your going through, bpd can be so difficult, I'm sure it's hell for her... I read a lot about bpd in the process of dating my ex gf trying to find better ways to get along with her, I'm sorry for your struggle, my ex had some type of hypno therapy or something like that that is one of the few things that I've read can actually help with bpd... I know how hard it can be to get a person with borderline to want to do things like that but it helped my ex a lot and was the only reason we didn't break up sooner... I hope you find some relief from you struggle, even though it's sad, it might really be a huge weight off you to find someone else who doesn't have such intense needs, I hope you have the strength to be her freind and help her with her struggles though, bpd is Soo hard on the people who have it and it's not their fault obviously... There's a lot of awesome people on ds.. I think just posting here and talking about it is a good step in easing some of your stress... Hope u find the peace your looking for..

I do talk with a therapist once a week. I've been suffering from "caregiver burnout" from dealing with all of her self-diagnosed medical conditions. I need her to work with me and it would be great if we could remain friends. Thank you Auri for reminding me of this.

But she's so unwilling to accept responsibility for anything, always leaving it to me to clean up. I'm so bitter about it that it is hard for me trust her. She's manipulative and vindictive-- whether or not it is intentional or the result of a mental health disorder remains largely unknown. I've had to set very firm boundaries with her and that has been very good in establishing some kind of working relationship. I would suggest this to anyone with a similar situation.

Anyways, thanks for the thoughts and advice, and letting me "talk it out".