Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis MLC or Borderline Personality Disorder.

I'm bumping this thread because the more I've read on the link 4myfamily provided on the topic the more I ask myself,

"What came first, the BPD or the MLC?"

Hi Sleeper,

In my case I now know (took 20 years to work out/filter down) due to my W's family of origin and her subsequent life events that she has always since I have known her been a High Functioning (borderline) Borderline Personality. She has expressed her anger through acting out in passive aggressive ways and by withholding affection/love.

The affair she had 4 years ago and what looked like MLC was probably triggered by me accepting the situation deciding to have a happy life anyway and stopping enabling the PA withholding behaviours. Plus a spilling over of the 'toxic emotion pail/locker/draw' that she had split away: end result BPD crisis: looking for external source of happiness - affair - objectification of OP - triangulation - projection - deception self and otherwise etc.

I think that those that have a difficult mid-life transition are those that have there pre-existing personality traits or disorders. A well adjusted individual would not behave in these ways no matter what.

Just my thoughts and opinions.

The roots of the disorder or the disorder start in childhood long before you came on the scene. The BPD was there since teenage years at least.

I understand what you are saying but will they come out of it or is it who they are? The behavior seems worst then ever. Will it keep escalating or will they find peace one day?
Is that why we say : Our reaction might have something to do with it?

In my case, i choose not to deal with this any longer. It took way to much out of me. It drains me EMPTY! To many high and lows. I am finding balance once again. It has been so long, i had forgotten how good it feels.

It seems that those who successfully deal with childhood issues either themselves or through therapy can come out of it transformed, individuated into the people they should have been.

I agree, 4myfamily.

X's abusive father actually said to me, "If you ever have any trouble with her, blame me, not her." (It seems he's been coming to grips with what he did, gradually no longer denying and finally begging X to forgive him recently). I guess this is the trouble he was predicting.

The more abused they were in childhood the more likely they are damaged as adults prone to mlc. The term "arrested development" comes to mind. It mes sense that if their development wasn't completed, then a future trigger could cause development to resume.

Who knows? Only if they choose to deal with the crisis.

I think it moves along a continuum depending on the extent and duration of the abuse.

They are very good I believe at hiding it until they can't any longer.

They have always known something is not quite right...

Best to let them live it out and get out of harm's way.

Any other choice IMO is destructive to yourself.

This is the hard part to beat into out heads. I feel rather destroyed. And I know I can't go on feeling destroyed. There is a better world for me. Maybe when I become the person only a fool would leave I will become smart enough not to take him back unless he also becomes a person only a fool would leave.

Thank you all for continuing to post things that are worth reading!

Maybe when I become the person only a fool would leave I will become smart enough not to take him back unless he also becomes a person only a fool would leave.


This is the best advice i've read
Thank you!

I read today on a website (forgot which one of several) that those with borderline personalities usually respond on an emotional rather than rational level.

Things that make you go, "hummmmmm"

Oh I completely believe this.

Where I work, there is a resident that has BPD.

Quite frankly she makes my XH look like a kitten.

Thing is she's not vicious, she manipulates through hypchondria, crying, twisting the facts, and always making herself the victum. She's so bad that we have a rule that people always go into her room paired up in order to have witnesses because we have no idea what idea she will conjure up next.

Ive caught this woman in bold face lies and called her on it in a round about way, and she looks like a child that got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

I wish the MD's would do more to treat her mental illness instead of just giving her another pill and feeding into ther hypochondria. We do have one MD that is trying that bit by bit and the woman has gone complete mushroom cloud on us.

I don' know after dealing with this woman, I think I'd take MLCers.