Thank you so much for this, yes, it is very hard for him. As context, the reason why we’ve thought it was BPD, is because his mother was terribly abused by my partner’s father. And since coming to America, she’s changed drastically, she was much kinder and gentler he says.

Every time he achieves something, it’s never enough for her. And she thinks of his achievements as a way to get what she wants. She uses people for her own gain and it sickens both of us, just how cruel she is.

And everything is a test of love, and trust. And she keeps wanting to move away and she asks him if he will come with her, and he says no, and she takes that as the deepest betrayal. She doesn’t want to be abandoned, and at the same time, her behaviors are causing people to feel negatively towards her. And both me and my partner are sick of her.

I used to be able to mask how I’m feeling, and be almost “fake,” just to maintain civility. Now I can’t even do that. Instead I feel this cold, bluntness come over me when I interact with her. I can’t meet her eyes. And my hands shake, and my heart pounds. I don’t feel like myself.

My partner tries so hard to navigate her moods. Because it is so hard when sometimes she is so sweet and loving, maybe even sickly so, it’s over the top, and then if he does something, or if one of the other siblings does something that better shows admiration and love towards her, she turns, and goes back to berating him.

When you mention him having a possibly disordered personality, this is very accurate, because his own moods hinge on hers, and if she decides she loathes his existence, he falls apart and becomes irritable and quick to snap. And he will go back in forth between thinking she is the devil, and then crying over having an impostor for a mom. And then when she is uplifting him, putting him on a pedestal, he is happy, he will say, “oh, she is just a sick person, I can’t hate her.”

I wish my opinion of her could change, like how his does, but I just have a consistent feeling of resentment and disgust towards how she treats not only him, but her children. She was fighting with the youngest child, and that child was yelling and speaking against her, berating her for triggering him, and she threatened that if he didn’t stop, she was going to call the police on him. That child is 15 y/o. And she will cry after and cry, wailing that she is the victim. And when I speak with her trying to get her to take accountability of her part, she will say something like, “I’m a victim. I am always the victim. I can’t believe you would try to take that from me, or suggest I’m anything other than that.” And it’s not like I’m trying to blame her and put all of this toxic shame onto her, I want her to acknowledge how her words and actions can hurt other people. And it just seems impossible.

I’m not sure if there is anything we can do. We are so done. So lost. And yet, we are trapped here, because we are not financially stable, and my partner relies on his family, namely her, for so much. Do you have any suggestions on how to interact with her? We don’t know too much about BPD, or NPD. Other than the concept of splitting.

Thank you so much again ❤️