My sd17 has Borderline Personality Disorder. If you've never read up on BPD, you should - lots of those crazy birth moms seem to display the traits lol!

But seriously, it's a horrible disorder to have touching your life. In short, BPD's lie to themselves and everyone all the time to feel better about themselves, see people as either all good or all bad (and can switch their view of you in the blink of an eye) and they are master manipulators/victims. They are exhausting.

(Actually, after reading sooo many of your posts about your SD's, I'm wondering if this sounds familiar??)

I'm going to oversimplify this for the sake of time, but a little background is needed: We've shared our kids (my son 14, his son 15 and sd) 50/50 with exes for the last seven years. This past August, sd texts her dad one morning saying she's going to live with bio mom full time. She had packed her bags in secret and left. Bio mom was in on it, but she's her own special basket of crazy. (We ALL said good riddance privately, she was horrible to live with. Publicly, we were just polite about it if anyone asked.)

My husband had breakfast with her, and asked what her reasons were for leaving. She gave him a list of grievances that were petty (truly, think soap opera quality complaints) "It hurts that I can be up in my room all day and no one even knows I'm here!" And "You all went away for the weekend without me!" (It must be clarified, she works full time, varying shifts, in the summer, and if she doesn't tell anyone she is in the house, we can't very well KNOW she's in the house - her room is in the attic - and if she is working full time, she CAN'T go away with us... But she's the victim in her eyes. Seriously, that's why she left us. Those where her reasons. My husband told her if she wanted to come back, she'd need to 1. get counselling for her disorder and 2. stop smoking (which he just discovered.) That's it. She declined.

He sees her sometimes for breakfast or lunch, and they text from time to time. She sees her brother when he is at bio mom's home. She has not been in touch with me or my son since she left. BUT she has contacted everyone else in MY family and tried to see them. Even people she rarely ever saw!

I wrote her a note when she left from both me and her dad, laying out our requirements for counselling and quitting smoking if she wants to be a part of our household, told her she was loved and hoped she'd make the effort. But that's it, nothing else.

So here is my dilemma: I'm thrilled she's gone. I mean, THRILLED. I gave years of attention to her mental health, way more than I ever should have, and cared far far too much. I regret that, but lesson learned. Now she's a young adult, she makes her own choices about everything, and she does not want to make amends. She can't, because then she can't tell the same story.

My husband has been amazing! He knew she was trying to get him to freak out when she left, and all he said was "Okay, if that's what you want!" I'm really very proud of him.

She has, however, started showing up at his family's dinners (3 over Christmas). In itself, not a problem. She still hasn't spoken to me. That's not a problem either. But my husband's family falls all over her. When THEY ask her what happened, she tells them "I don't want to talk about it." She implies there is something to talk about, by refusing to speak.

I can't stand watching this behaviour of husband's family. That's MY problem, I know that. Just turns my stomach. So, because I don't want to have to see this absurd fawning over her, I just don't want to go to anymore dinners with his family. Tricky one. Does husband go to future invites without me? I really don't care if I go or not, but I think it's not good for our relationship. I could keep going and play the "you can't see me" game with sd, because that doesn't matter to me either - but can I watch them trip over themselves to take care of the poor, wounded, left out in the cold sd??? I'm not sure it's worth it. My husband has told them that nothing happened for sd to leave, but it doesn't seem to matter. They have their own ideas that she's a victim apparently.

(I am planning for the four of us (husband and boys) to go away for Easter. So that's one holiday avoided. But really, I can't do this every holiday lol...)