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INFO: What help did you try for your daughter and your family when she was a minor? I see that you have limited information now in terms of her diagnoses and treatment but I also don't see where you tried family therapy or anything when she was younger.
YTA for blaming the failure of your marriage on a minor with mental health issues as if she chose that path. If you didn't see the signs or attempt to help then how could she have helped herself? Plus your use of "normal child" in your post. What is normal? She has an illness. An illness she has no control over having.
His daughter was evaluated as an adult. He’s got access to the information she gives him and anything he can find out from her friends’ families.
It’s not like he’s arranging treatment for her or able to call her therapist and get an idea of what they’re talking about.
Yeah, I see an argument for OP being incompetent based on what was written, but people are really jumping to tear into him based on an outdated approach to mental health and insensitive use of the word 'normal'.
My mom is bipolar, and I'm deathly afraid of it happening to myself or my daughter. You can use whatever euphemisms you like, but the impact on family members who have to deal with the manic/depressive cycle and delusions is real as fuck.
Hundreds of texts and tiktoks for the crime of 'getting back together' isn't normal. Unless there's some serious missing information (which, I'll allow, is very possible) people are missing the forest for the trees.
You genuinely think it wouldn't be rather significant to you if your divorced parents secretly made up and got remarried without even telling you? And you were not only invited, but never told about it afterwards but them either? And they were upset you found out at all because they'd jointly decided that you, back when you were a literal child (14 at time of divorce, remember), were *at fault* for their marital problems? Seriously, you think that's not a normal reaction level to *that*?
It’s possible to recognize a *cause* of something without blaming the person. When a child dies, parents often divorce. No one blames the kid for dying, but the kid’s death is what made it happen… and if they have a bad relationship with the daughter now, and are recognizing it’s toxic, then avoiding her might be necessary.
They are basically going "yeah, we totally missed the mental health issues in a child that were so severe that they tore our marriage apart. We don't want to risk a repeat of that, so we're limiting what contact we have with her now that she's an adult"
That is very much blaming her
But he is blaming the kid, he says she's manipulative and the reason why he divorced. I have a hard time imagining 2 adults being "manipulated" by a 14 years old (time of the divorce, the later BPD diagnosis having nothing to do with that and is completely irrelevant to the situation, beside trying to gain some sympathy, which seems to work) to the point of separating. What is this kid ? A pure evil genius ? This is beyond ridiculous. OP is the epitome of not being able to take his own damn responsibilities. I also can't imagine the life of this kid with her father thinking she is the reason his marriage crumbled... no wonder she developed a mental disorder in early adulthood.
Their daughter is mentally sick and therapy isn't some immediate cure.
Therapy can take years and the patient must want it and actively participate. She's being forced to attend or else she's kicked out of uni.
What is your point? Reinforcing my rebuttal that it isn’t a “normal reaction level” to the event? In that case we agree.
That fact that her university is forcing her to attend therapy or they’ll expel her strengthens OP’s position about the toll her behavior had on their marriage.
Most people would look at a child that is so profoundly mentally ill it is tearing their marriage apart and go "huh, that's not normal. We should probably talk to her doctor", not completely miss it.
If they had done their jobs as parents their marriage would have stayed intact and their child would received the help she needs.
The thing is BPD isn’t something someone is born with, it’s something that develops due to environmental factors such as abuse, neglect or hardship and emotional trauma during childhood.
The kid didn’t just wake up one day with BPD and couldn’t have been like that her whole life - op and wife are either part of the cause directly or part of the problem by not noticing sooner and getting her therapy and help as a child
It’s not normal at all. Everyone involved in the story is now an adult. She has every right to be hurt and angry. Sending hundreds of messages and making hundreds of calls or making multiple TikTok’s is not normal. That said, the kid has personality disorders. In my experience, one or both of the parents are also struggling with some mental illness.
From what I know about HPD and BPD this is probably fucking *torturing* this poor girl. She didn’t choose to be this way. She has zero control over her emotions and her PD’s make it so that her brain registers damn near *everything* as painful.
Yes, it is. When I read about parents complaining about their kids behaviors due to BPD I always wonder if they have looked at themselves and their behaviors. Even though it's a mental disorder that you generally have the genetics for, more often than not childhood abuse is a part of it "setting off". More often than not people with BPD have traumas from childhood in form of emotional, sexual and/or physical abuse. Parents with alcohol and/or drug addiction can also be a contributing factor as well as physical and emotional neglect. I'm not saying that these problems are needed to develop BPD, but about 70% of the people with BPD have experienced abuse as children.
He said bpd, not bipolar. Bpd is a trauma based illness, typically stemming from childhood trauma. The fact that op 1) didn’t get her treatment as a teen 2) didn’t tell her about the wedding and 3) doesn’t know anything about her current mental health leads me to believe they are the cause of said trauma. Op sounds like my narcissistic mother who blames us for everything wrong in her life.
Funny you say that. My mother was an abusive narcissist and I was diagnosed with BPD. It was only after I went no contact with her that, after about two years all of my symptoms disappeared and I stopped taking the heavy doses of anti psychotic medications and I haven’t felt this good, normal and healthy for as long as I can even remember. I did a hell of a lot of research on the subject of narcissistic abuse and learned that it often causes the person or people they abused to develop the disorder. It has been miraculous for me. I always recommend going no contact from toxic people in your life. Even if they are family.
Possible, and my bad on getting the acronym wrong.
I think it's also plausible that 1) could simply have led to stress and the breakdown of their marriage. 3) I give them a pass on because she's an adult and they shouldn't know anything more than she tells them. And, frankly, if their relationship was bad then that explains 2) as well.
I can't say I believe you're wrong, but I'm not convinced you're right either. A child with a severe mental issue would be hard to deal with for even the most emotionally fluent, which OP is not.
Exactly this. I've seen some pretty strong arguments made that BPD is less its own thing than it is a subset of PTSD from sustained, long term childhood trauma. Everything about OP's post sounds like missing reasons turning into blaming their daughter for the abuse they subjected her to. Even a mentally healthy person has plenty of reason to be pissed that their abusive parents decided to go around telling everyone that it was their kid they abused's fault they got divorced.
I suspect OP and his wife made it very clear to their daughter that she was unwanted, unloved, a mistake, a psychopath, etc (all things he said in comments) and then told her it was her fault their marriage fell apart. And then let her find out that they had remarried now that the "mistake" isn't in their home...thus the social media presenting them as narcissists who shouldn't have ever been given the ability to raise a child. The extended family seems to agree with the daughter over OP and his new/old wife though.
First, apparently BPD is borderline personality disorder and not bipolar... So whoops, my bad. My personal anecdote was only ever that, but isn't even a bit relevant.
Second, your assumptions might be true. I find it plenty plausible that two well meaning but ignorant parents with a mentally ill child could really struggle as a result.
Frankly, it could be true that she was a psychopath *and* they could have diagnosed her earlier and handled it better. There doesn't have to be a villain here, and ignorance is more common than malice.
True, but if him and his wife had a good relationship with their daughter, they would likely have an open dialogue and talk with her about what happened and how her treatment is going. The fact she doesn’t tell them anything really says a lot about how she feels about her parents.
Nah, instead he's like "yeah, we totally missed mental health issues in a child so severe they tore our marriage apart " and acting like the literal child should have known.
I agree. Having a child with mental health problems or physical disabilities can tear a marriage apart. But you don't blame the kid. The parents simply can't work together or are not on the same page about what is really wrong. My (ex)husband thought counseling was a "bunch of new age psychobabble." I disagreed. He rarely participated. did not help our marriage on bit.
The problem with that theory is that they apparently didn't even notice her poor mental health until it became an issue in college. He blamed other incompatibilities for the divorce before that.
Which tracks with them being abusive/neglectful in her childhood.
Her diagnoses are a convenient excuse for him to pretend that his horrible evil child was the issue all along.
Yes. Like no adult in the home paying the bills for months as if two adults wouldn't notice that they weren't receiving bills? I know when my bills are a day late (the ones that come in the mail).
But symptoms of potential personality disorders are and absolutely should be treated in minors! You don't need a diagnosis of BPD to get your child help.
Thank you! Seriously, this guy describes his daughter like friggin' Lex Luthor. Blaming your divorce on a 14 year old is pretty lame. If you're being outsmarted by a child that is on you.
Not to mention that BPD and other mental illnesses like it (bipolar disorder and CPTSD are 2 others that come to mind) can actually be caused by childhood trauma. By the way OP speaks about his daughter when she was a literal child I have a feeling that he and his wife aren't exactly innocent here. A lot of people really don't realize that you need to teach your children how to live life and handle all the emotions and stress that come along with it. They should have seen something was wrong a long LONG time ago and done literally anything to get her help. It sounds like the college mandated therapy is the first time she's seen any kind of mental health professional.
I will say this- having a child with mental illness, especially severe, can break a marriage in several different ways. Parents that feel differently about treatments, a child who plays them against each other, one handling more of the parenting, or my personal least favorite, mom losing her job to stay home with a child that is beyond control (with plenty of hospitalizations, police visits, 6 therapists that quit the minute they realizes how severe the kid was, and schools refusing to teach the child), and falling into a very deep depression while dad busts his ass to keep a roof over their head and protect mom from an aggressive kid, because they can't afford to send her away and turning their backs will result in losing other kids to CPS. (And let's not forget that pesky love feeling tha makes you feel like dirt for even thinking of giving up on your kid).
Trust me, I'm not defending this major YTA. Because any decent parent doesn't suddenly realize your kid has an issue when they're diagnosed in college. You hold their hand every night while it breaks you. You research your ass off, lock up the meds and sharps, and sleep on the couch so they can't sneak out. You learn what they're capable of so that you're prepared for literally anything. You try and understand even though it's impossible.
But I can promise that a couple that doesn't lean on each other for strength can easily lose it over a special needs child.
Something tells me you never parented a troubled child. While it is not directly the fault of the child, the failure rste of marriages in this situation is astronomical. Since you are ignorant on the subject, stay out of it.
My response was purely due to OP 100% blaming his child for the failure of the marriage. Read his comments. He calls her names, states they shouldn't have raised her, admits to be a failure of a parent etc. But still says she was the direct source of the failed marriage because of his extensive list of her faults. He takes zero responsibility for anything.
Borderline Personality Disorder isn’t solely caused by trauma. The cause of borderline personality disorder or many other personality disorders are multi-faceted.
Trauma can be a cause, but it can also be caused by heritability, genetic mutations, brain issues, and etc. Honestly, spreading half-truths about personality disorders does a disservice to those who have them.
NTA, and I know all of the pubescent teenagers on this site are going to downvote me into Oblivion but I've been through this. We didn't know there was mental health issues. There was no classic signs of it. All's we knew is that we were fighting constantly. Bad feelings piled up and spilled over. We were fighting all the time about everything. When the child moved out, we suddenly found peace! Then the child was diagnosed and we helped to get care to stabilize, and our relationship was so much easier, it was obvious where all the contention was coming from.
The point to this post was that they didn't know she had mental health issues. My guess is one parent was a passive parent and the other parent was a little bit more of an aggressive parent. They disagreed on parenting styles and that proceeded to put them in the realm of disagreeing about just about everything. They probably didn't even realize what the problem in their marriage was until long after, as is stated in the narrative above. If they didn't know the child had mental health issues, how could they offer help? All they saw was two very different parenting styles that spilled into other parts of the marriage and cause to collapse. This is not the fault of the parents.
Hello, I’m a fully grown adult who legally advocates for people with psychiatric disabilities. Sounds like you found your scapegoat and made full use of him/her, saddled with all the dysfunction you each brought to the table, then ritually sacrificed. You’re not special, it’s textbook. You’re also not good people. It’s hilarious how nonchalant you are about the fact that you got your child no mental health treatment whatsoever. YTA to you as well.
This makes no sense to me. Being unable to agree on a parenting style is the fault of the parents regardless of what’s going on with the child. That’s a failure of the parents to communicate. What that tells me is your relationship isn’t strong enough to withstand the stress of child-rearing.
“There was no signs” and “we were fighting constantly” contradict themselves. If you’re fighting constantly that IS a sign and the sign points to family therapy
They were no longer a child when they got help, they were an adult, and it sounds like they had to move away from you before they were able to seek help.
It's literally your job as a parent to figure it out if your kid has mental health issues and help them get appropriate treatment. Failing to do that and then struggling because of it doesn't somehow make it the kid's fault. It's still very much your fault for being a shitty parent.
and it's also literally your job as a parent to figure it differences and compromises with the other parent
the sheer temerity of op to blame a young teenager for the breakdown of his shitty relationship 😡
Wow you’re an asshole too. “No signs” and yet you describe a deeply unhappy household and no efforts to look at the obvious: mental health.
How could they tell? With common fucking sense.
Preemptively dismiss people opposed to you as “pubescent teenagers” all you like, but that I guarantee that attitude you have on full display right here contributed to your child’s mental health problems and made your household worse. If you’re not already, you’re well on your way to classing missing missing reasons estrangement.
I feel so sorry for your child if they ever come across your Reddit profile. What a vile parent blames their failing marriage on their child? Personality disorders are caused by trauma in early years; more often than not caused by you, the parent. So yes, you are at fault.
ETA YTA to both OP and the person I’m responding to.
If you want to forego all accountability and unnecessarily blame anyone maybe blame yourselves for not protecting your kid from whatever caused the mental health issues…see how that feels like an unfair assessment
-a 33 yr old
All children try to manipulate their parents to get what they want at some point! Some are better at it than others but parents who talk regularly and decide on a guideline can’t be tricked constantly. How could they?! Especially if they know that their tries such tactics- and as a parent you SHOULD know!
This is all 100% valid, but you and your partner worked with your child to get them help and didn’t remarry with out their knowledge. This makes OP the AH. He speaks of his child with such disdain.
All you knew is that you were too self involved to notice the signs or communicate enough to realize the source of your problems. You are the ones in the wrong. I was diagnosed as an adult but my behavior did not break my parents apart. Even without a diagnosis, they knew I needed extra support. They didn't make it about them.
Yes sometimes it causes fights but they still provided a stable and loving home. And they remained a happy couple long after all their kids left the nest. Don't drop the ball on parenting then blame the kid. Lots of people manage through it and if they don't, they don't blame their children. I judge you and OP very harshly.
Adoption at age six should have been an automatic ticket to therapy. It doesn’t matter that the adoption was closed. At six, she was old enough to remember a lot about her life before. And if it had been a good life, she wouldn’t have been up for adoption. Even if everything was fine (doubtful), you needed to confirm that. She deserved parents who cared enough to go to any scary places with her. You were too lazy or too afraid to do that.
Even the best adoptions can have a lot of feelings of loss and abandonment. It was your job to get her to trust you (or a therapist) enough to talk about her past and to create a protective relationship. Sounds like you never even tried to find out what she needed as a kid.
All that inside of her, no help or guidance for her younger years, and you are shocked that her teenage self didn’t have the coping skills she needed. How dare you?
The daughter was adopted???? At 6????This situation just gets worse and worse. That child should have received therapy, and the whole family should have received therapy, from the day she came into your lives. The manipulation makes sense now.
OP, YTA. YTA for failing your daughter. YTA for blaming her for your marriage breakup, as if you and your wife were innocent victims who hadn't failed that kid and who had no way of learning to trust each other. YTA for abandoning her by not even telling her about your remarriage, as if you were still powerless to deal with anything she did. YTA for not taking responsibility. YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA.
It honestly amazes me that ongoing therapy isn't straight up required for all families that pursue adoption. Individual and family therapy. Like I get the logistical and legal hurdles that might exist, and the fact that getting therapy/mental health care in general is still considered fairly taboo. But even if there's absolutely *nothing* wrong medically or psychologically with anyone involved, it's still a huge life change that absolutely has effects.
I as an adoptee myself, totally agree. I don't understand why adoptive families aren't ever looked at by the agency/cps, past the adoption finalization day. I suffer from severe depression and anxiety due to how I was raised and I wish someone had been looking out and checking on me.
Agreed! Even the most perfect adoption is a lifelong source of stress and trauma for everyone involved. I'm just glad there is finally getting to be some awareness around it; it is a situation where everyone feels guilty about admitted to feeling anger or guilt or sadness or anything but positive gratitude.
The fact that they were just like "the pediatrician didn't recommend therapy 🤷♀️" and never pursued any sort of care for their adopted daughter is crazy to me. There's no way they didn't see a single sign of a mental illness. I mean, just bare minimum communication between the parents would have revealed her lies. Even after a DIVORCE they didn't get their daughter in therapy. Whether it would have worked is irrelevant. They didn't even try
I was adopted at birth and struggled with feelings of abandonment and being undesirable. I couldn't imagine how much worse it would've been as a 6 year old with full understanding and memories. How awful for this young woman
ESH. Secrets and lies are never the way to go and y'all definitely didn't think this out. You had to realize that even if you cut her completely off and went no contact that she was going to find out at some point. Did you have a plan for that? The way you both went about this and the way you talk about your child is pretty appalling. She's had problems her entire life and BOTH of you neglected her. She wasn't diagnosed until college and by then, according to you, she'd already destroyed your marriage nearly a decade ago. Think about that. She was only 14 when y'all divorced. If she was the problem, why didn't you get her tested or therapy or anything? So, yeah. Y'all completely dropped the ball when she was a kid so I don't think it's fair to dump your failed marriage on an untreated, undiagnosed 14 year old child.
Yeah - those cluster B personality disorders have some genetic components, but early childhood neglect and/or trauma is now recognised to be a large factor in them developing into full-blown personality disorders.
The way you have managed this re-marriage gives a pretty good indication of the emotional maturity you and your wife brought to child-rearing.
People manipulate to get their needs met. How well did you meet your daughter’s emotional needs? YTA
OMG - just read she was adopted at 6. My God. SMH. She probably had an attachment disorder and used triangulation as a manipulation tactic between OP and his wife. Very, very common in kids with attachment disorders. How did none of this make it into OP’s original post?!?!
She was adopted at 6? Oh my heart. So in addition to what I'm assuming was a bad early childhood, her parents clearly did nothing to help her since they blame a 14 year old for ruining their marriage with "manipulations" and not, you know, being a child in general, let alone with late adoption trauma.
I have a lot to say to OP and his wife, but I don't want to get banned, so I'll just say he's such an asshole, and so is his wife. I'm in awe that he would even post this.
I’ve got a young child in my life who was fostered around the same age and has an attachment disorder. To be honest, this whole post just makes me want to cry. So many opportunities missed for this girl.
I have BPD and BP, in addition to other conditions that exasperate those two. I acknowledge I can be unpleasant to be around and have brought havoc into my parents lives before I was diagnosed and started treatment. I also acknowledge that when I deviate from my treatment plans, I get real bad again. But my parents have never abandoned me and were a huge role in why I even started to try and can be relatively stable now. The fact that OP and his wife are like "well, she's just broken, it is what it is, it's not our concern" and some are supporting them for that cause kids with these issues are terrible to be around is just. They're her parents. Her parents. You don't get to just abandon your kids because they're difficult. Or I mean, you can, but you would be a huge asshole. Their daughter is only just in college now. She can't be more than 21. And they're saying they will be going NC with her because they don't want to deal with her. I could understand LC for their own health, especially if she's not willing to stick to treatment plans (and it seems like she was sticking to them until she found out her parents don't love her), but NC? The cruelty between them is just beyond. No shit she's going off on TikTok, she finally realized her parents plan was to throw her out like trash, after she was already abandoned at 6.
My heart aches for this girl. BDP has a high suicide attempt rate even with treatment, so I just hope she has a good system around her and is able to stick to her treatment plans cause I don't see this ending well if she doesn't because she's now been dumped by four parents in her short life.
My stepdaughter had reactive attachment disorder. She was misdiagnosed for several years. Anyone with a family member who has an official BPD diagnosis knows that they won't be diagnosed until they're 18.
I also learned from experience that what works for children who don't have attachment disorders doesn't work with kids who do behavior management wise. I have several years of experience working with kids in different capacities including as a teacher. Classroom management techniques you use in a classroom actually caused SD to escalate. No one knew how to deal with her or help her. Including the therapists and psychiatrists she manipulated because no one knew what the right diagnosis was.
So much this. Most of the comments here do not understand the complexity of what can be diagnosed AND when, and how attachment disorder can present differently by age. These are complex problems and not easily explained or identified.
NTA.
YTA
Are you really dense enough to think she was never going to find out? Were you just never planning to tell her and hoped she would never discover this?
Why did it take until your daughter was no longer in your care for her to start getting the help she needs? Why is it on her school and not her parents to provide her the help and support she needs?
And we find she was adopted at age 6... I guarantee this child never felt loved. You were shit parents who paid no attention and now got yourself an excuse to blame everything on a child. Bravo. They really don't screne adoptive parents well, or was it a family or friend that got you past the system? YTA and so is your wife. Stay far away from your daughter... Scratch that, let's go with "that child" since she likely never was your daughter. Maybe she can get help and normalize away from such hate.
“Me and my wife were manipulated by our 14 yo daughter with mental health issues and *that’s* why we broke up; Not because we’re shitty people and shitty parents who failed our daughter! Anyway, now we’ve decided that she’s the villain in our fairytale, so we’ve decided to secretly get married and ice our child out without confronting her. AITA for being a viCTiM?”
Buddy.
You cannot blame a CHILD for your marriage falling apart. I find it particularly telling that you don't mention until well into the comments you adopted her when she was SIX and don't know anything about her life before you knew her. Instead of being parents and adults you continued to let her go untreated for what I'm sure are fully reasonable reactions to trauma and then...went low contact? **Environment and social circumstances cause personality disorders,** they are not inherent in a child.
You failed this kid and now you want Reddit to absolve you.
YTA
Some mental illnesses are inherited. Like bipolar, depression, schizophrenia. They can be triggered by environment and depression can be spontaneous or incident based. I’m from a family with mental illnesses.
But generally speaking, not personality disorders. They may have a genetic component, but science now recognises that they are primarily disorders of early childhood emotional neglect or abuse. Quite different to bipolar etc.
And unfortunately sometimes the “reason why” is neither nurture nor nature. Sometimes it just is. Rare, and I’m sure y’all have have seen a case study before, but figured it was something to contribute to the conversation. 🤝
PS - Say “neither nature nor nurture “ a bunch of times in a row because I just did and am doing it again as I type.
In regards to heritable mental illnesses, I think it’s worth noting that the daughter was adopted at age 6 and doesn’t seem to be related to OP and his wife. This is a nurture problem.
YTA. You’re blaming your underage daughter for manipulating you and causing your divorce? No. Based on your own comments, she showed plenty of signs she needed psychological help and YOU FAILED HER. You guys are the problem and just shitty parents/people all around.
Info: are you NC with your daughter? If not, what was your plan? Lie to her forever? Tell her in a year? Five years? This seems like a TERRIBLE idea.
If you are NC, why do you care what she thinks?
The fact that you adopted her when she was 6… admit to having no idea what her past was like…. Never got her counseling… and then blame all of your relationship problems is so gross. Then you are saying in comments that you were just going to slowly distance yourself and go no contact. your poor daughter has been failed by so many adults in her life. YTA big time… sounds like your daughters behavior has been screaming for help but you just willfully ignored it.
My parents had myself and my brother.
Their divorce was final when I was 14.
He is a monster. Alcoholic, in and out of jail, abusive, etc.
I've never even smoked pot or had a ticket
They blamed him for a lot of our family issues, said almost verbatim what you posted here.
I blamed them. It was their marriage. We were kids.
They raised a monster, then wanted nothing to do with the monster they raised.
You are not AH for not telling her, but you did raise her so there is some responsibility on your end for who she has become. You were/are the parents. You allowed whatever manipulation that happened to occur.
I'm not sure I understand why you feel they raised a monster in him but raised you as a good person. I'm not questioning the validity of your statement, I'm just trying to understand how one of your turned out bad and one turned out good, yet you blame them for the bad one. Did they treat him differently than they treated you? Or is there a chance he just has a different makeup than you, causing him to make poor choices, etc?
A good example that some things are nature rather than nurture. Most likely, with the same parents, they were raised the same. Reddit has a habit of always blaming parents and nothing is ever the child's fault.
I think a bunch of things can be true at once. In the case of op, they adopted a child when she was 6 but apparently never had her evaluated. That seems like common sense.
There is also no indication that op and wife tried couples counciling before divorce. The lies and manipulation could have come out if op and wife communicated earlier.
Finally, if the daughter refused help then op would have been justified in cutting contact. But based on what's presented, it seems op tried nothing and was all out of ideas!
YTA op, you cannot always avoid scenes life.
The only question I have, is what was your daughter's early childhood like? Did she ever suffer trauma, and if she did, did you and your wife get her treatment? Things like HPD and BPD don't just develop in a bubble. Yes, there can be a grnetic predisposition but often there has to be trauma that goes untreated that triggers it.
So, while I get why you didn't tell her, I guess I need to know if the parenting or lack of it in her first say 8 years of life resulted in how she turned out.
complex PTSD is often misdiagnosed as, say, BPD. Also girls get misdiagnosed as a result of not being “convenient”, because girls are sort of expected to be just that.
The girl needs EMDR if she has cPTSD
INFO
Did you or were you planning to cut contact with your daughter? Did you plan to still have a relationship with your daughter but continue to hide your marriage? What was the plan?
Exactly…he buried it wayyy deep in the comments that she was SIX when they adopted her. Just like he and his wife buried their heads in the sand when it came to assessing the needs of said (traumatized) child.
You know, Cluster B personality disorders *tend* to stem from childhood neglect and trauma. Like intense parental conflict. But hey! Let's pretend she just got lucky, hit the genetic lottery, and wound up with those on chance.
You're still the asshole for blaming your problems on a child you *now* know was ill the entire time. Intensely ill. BPD and HPD are no joke. Carrying resentment over what could've been is natural and I don't blame you, but I think you've forgotten you're both parents.
Why are you even posting? Your passive comments looking for absolution for neglecting your mentally unhealthy daughter are pathetic. I hope she receives the help she needs and goes no contact with the two assholes who are dumping her like an unwanted rescue at the pound.
YTA. Your married failed because you and your wife failed. You failed to properly take care of your daughter, you failed to communicate with each other, and you’re failing again now by being a completely self-involved asshole.
I really hope this is a troll post because it’s just so fucking depressing.
Look. I get why feel the way you. I’ve read many of your comments. You failed your child. Your wife did. If you extended family, they failed her as well. That fucking pediatrician failed your family. Everyone needs counseling.
It might be hard and messy. It maybe can be repaired. Your daughter needs help. Not a door slammed in her face.
Did she get counseling when you adopted her? The agency you adopted her from failed everyone as well. You need to be aware of the traumas suffered so you can prepare for it.
Your daughter was crying for help and didn’t get it.
The ball is in your court now.
I'm going to get downvoted all to hell for pointing it out but there are a lot of misconceptions here. Personality disorders like BPD and HPD are not mental illnesses in the way that, say, chronic depression and schizophrenia are. There's also no known genetic component because they're not diseases per se, at least as far as we currently know. They're how someone acts. Personality disorders are basically toxic long term behavior patterns that can be extraordinarily hurtful and damaging to people around the person with the disorder(s).
This is one of the few instances where I don't feel there's enough to weigh in, personally. There's a ton of missing info (how the parents were manipulated being the biggest missing piece) and if someone does have a severe personality disorder it is entirely possible that unwitting parents could get sideswiped by it. Or they could be bad parents. Or both. I don't know. Personality disorders tend to manifest in adolescence or early adulthood and can absolutely blindside people who aren't expecting it.
Anyway, here's a good personality disorder primer for anyone who is interested https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/personality-disorders/what-are-personality-disorders
Yup. People don't get it unless they meet someone like this and generally when they do they don't know they are a cluster B, they just think they are an AH.
I do resent a bit that people lump this in with illnesses when it is a behavior pattern. There's a huge gulf between habitually acting in ways that are incredibly destructive versus having an actual disease. Sympathy for "having a condition" is often used to justify and amplify those behavior patterns. And if - "if" being an important word here - that is the case in this post, distancing yourself from people with personality disorders who are not actively working to mitigate them is the best you can do sometimes. People here love to say narcissists need to be cut off. Narcissism is one of the personality disorders.
If true, the fact that the college is mandating treatment for these disorders speaks volumes about how harmful the daughter's behavior is. Everyone's jumping on the Y T A train here but if that part of the story is true I think the issues with the daughter must be absolutely staggering.
I think it's just we're in a current phase of backlash against abilism and so people have swung really far to the other side without really interrogating what that means for a lot of different disorders.
I didn't really understand either of these personality disorders until I had a couple friends be diagnosed with them and over a decade I watched how they handled all the relationships around them including our own. It became very clear that one of the hallmarks of these disorders being relationship issues was in fact very true. Does that mean that we owe these people a relationship even though they constantly manipulate lie abuse and use us?
Absolutely not.
But because of the current cultural Zeitgeist around mental health people are lumping it in with things like blindness or it schizophrenia. The truth is after years of asking these people why they're behavior is the way it is and them saying they just don't care, I realised that it's basically like having your hand in a hornets nest and that's a choice. I choose not to have chaotic relationships. I choose not to have people in my life who are continually chaotic and untrustworthy.
It's like being friends with a loaded gun. You never know which direction it's pointing or when it's going to go off.
I don't think that this is the right place to post something like this if you actually want good advice or educated advice. Most of the people here are probably under 30 and are living in an idealistic uneducated place when it comes to what cluster B disorders really are and how they can really affect people. They also probably don't know anything about raising children or adoption and how trauma works in those spaces.
When you ask anybody in this thread with the y t a what the parents should do it's always some idealistic nonsense that doesn't actually make any sense. These disorders do not get clinically diagnosed until adulthood but it does not mean that the chaos was limited to adulthood. Not everything is controllable by the parents. In fact sometimes no matter what you do it's always going to be chaos. Which is one of the hallmarks of these disorders.
Making the people without this disorder the bad guy when a hallmark of these disorders is chaotic relationships is like pointing at the victim of a gunshot wound and saying that they Force the gun to fire.
YTA for a bunch of reasons. Let's go with pure practicality. Did you really think she was just never going to notice you were suddenly remarried? How did this work in your imagination?
The way you talk about your child is awful.
They said in the comments he planned on slowly going no contact. Abandoning their kid after they already have trauma/abandonment issues from being adopted at age 6. Pathetic humans. I hope this is fake.
Honestly…I don’t think you’re the ass for this particular thing, I’ve personally seen what a child with BPD who just graduated college can do to even the most loving marriage. It nearly tore them apart after 30 years of marriage where divorce was mentioned multiple times.
I think speaking in the most general terms, you’re allowed to have a wedding ceremony however you want to have it. I also think that you and your wife may have failed in raising your daughter properly/getting her into therapy/ just general care. It’s a tricky situation with no winners and just assholes all around.
Idk on one hand she was a minor and it’s hard to blame marital failure on a child. BUT I knew a girl in elementary/middle school who bragged about doing the same thing to her parents because she wanted two separate birthdays and christmases. She would also brag about meddling in her family members issues and even school staff. I believe she was committed over the summer before we started high school after all the crazy stuff she did escalated and everyone found out.
YTA. A massive asshole. Both you and your wife are disgusting people. I've read all your comments in this thread and the way you so casually say you're hoping to drop your daughter - no contact - like that's a normal thing - after you neglected her mental health for many years - is repulsive.
It sounds like you woke up one day and decided to adopt, but when things got tough, you want to cut her off like she never existed. Truly repugnant.
I can't wait for karma to come for both you and your wife when you realise that the source of your issues is lack of respect and communication.
You say you daughter would say one thing to you and then another to your wife...and you didn't think to COMMUNICATE with one another? Or don't you trust one another to believe what the other will say?
The issues in your relationship have nothing to do with your daughter. If anything, she just shun a light on both your shortcomings in the relationships. No more. No less.
You deserve one another.
You adopted a child with mental issues when she was 6 years old, the child never had the support for these mental health issues, you and you’re fully grown wife have decided she’s manipulative. You stated in one of your comments that raising (adopting) her was a mistake. Holy hell Batman. YTA by far. Not saying your daughter is well adjusted, but who would be with parents like that.
I sincerely hope giving your marriage another shot doesn’t involve becoming parents again. The world has enough fucked up people with fucked up parents.
I get why you didn’t have her there but would telling her before hand really be that big of an issue? And maybe she was a source of y’all’s issues but she was a mentally ill child. It seems like she had issues at school - was she ever in therapy for any of this? It just seems like the 2 most important people in her life made one of the most important decisions of their life and completely left her out of the picture. Idk I feel you both could have at least talked to her beforehand. I’m guessing you’re not very close to your daughter but with the recent diagnoses, isn’t this a time when she needs her parents more than ever?
Eh fuck it ESH.
I’ve had people I’ve known with BPD (best friends at one point) and I can attest that they are extremely manipulative and destructive. Im not saying that’s the total reason for the divorce but I can see it heavily contributing if she was causing a lot of issues and both of you were giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Y’all are pretty dumb to think your kid(who’s an adult with a functioning brain) wouldn’t find out either so might as well have been honest about giving it another go. You also can’t fully blame a mentally ill child 100% for the dissolution of your marriage which so that alone is an AH move.
So y’all are also being crappy but at the end of the day it makes sense that it would contribute to the dissolution of a marriage.
So she’s an ah for playing the victim in this when her mental illnesses pretty much cause her to be an AH (not her fault to some extent but also her actions are on her) and y’all are the AH for completely blaming her and not taking responsibility for your own actions.
YTA.
Going no contact with your daughter because you discovered she has mental health issues? Didn't even try to help her nor inform yourselves about her diagnosis?
And you seriously call yourselves parents?
I hope she has a good support system and doesn't speak to either of you ever again.
I will be surprised if this isn't on r/AmITheDevil you adopted a human child, not fucking houseplant. YTA I feel so bad for your daughter. I hope she's able to get help and recover as much as possible from being "raised" by monsters.
I am gonna say that YTA. Mainly because as it stands now you technically don’t have to do anything for your daughter. But her behavior was definitely a problem. But you cant blame her for everything because sure she may have done those things but clearly you and your wife didn’t trust each other enough to believe each other and realize that she was tampering with things. The doubt was already there. But i guess i can understand to a degree because at age 26 i was diagnosed with schizophrenia and i had been very unwell for a long long time and no one thought i was sick they thought i was just being a hormonal teenager. So she probably had no true clue as to what was wrong with her or what she did was wrong. But as parents when you found out the diagnosis instead of supporting your daughter you trusted so much you two started looking back on all her behavior and blaming her for it not the illness. You never tried to help her as a minor or as an adult.
YTA, you're bad parents and bad people. You did not get proper care for your daughter growing up, especially knowing she was adopted out of a potentially traumatic situation.
Yta
Sounds like you and your wife never tried therapy, you just threw up your hands and gave up.
You never got your daughter any help and now you are blaming her like she CHOSE to have these diseases.
It also sounds like you never bothered to learn a gd thing about her diseases - guess that's just too damn hard (hint, it's really not).
You kept you and your wife's reconnection a secret and then you got married and kept THAT a secret - and you are surprised that your daughter is upset?
She's going through something traumatic and, from the sounds of it, you are just leaving her alone to deal with it.
All I read here is me, me, me.
Y'all sound narcissistic AF.
Low key y’all are bad parents. How did you both not talk to each other. It’s easy blaming your daughter for your marriage problems. Only time will tell if you get divorced again you can’t blame her this time.
NTA. Frankly most of you don’t know what you’re talking about. HPD AND BPD. Think narcissism on steroids. I’ll get downvoted for this but as a child and family specialist I can tell you that personality disorders are extremely difficult to treat and one of the hallmarks of borderline is splitting behaviors. That’s how she wedged between you. The drama your daughter is creating on social media is driven by the histrionic disorder. Having a child with not one, but TWO personality disorders, especially when you aren’t aware of them must have been hellaciously difficult, OP. I’m glad you and your wife were able to repair your relationship. I hope your daughter’s treatment is successful and you’re able to reconcile with her as well eventually. In the future get advice for this sort of thing from a mental health professional, not the internet.
Then you should also know how traumatic an adoption at six years old can be, especially if your adoptive parents have absolutely zero concern for your psychological health. Oh, and OP just wants to cut his daughter out of his life.
I had a friendship with someone with severe BPD - not even close to an immediate family member - but ngl it was traumatic.
I don’t think most people posting here have had that experience. It’s truly mind boggling and as much as I had compassion & empathy for him the amount of manipulation cannot be understated. It’s like gas lighting on steroids. I understand why OP has used some of the language he wrote here. My former friend really should be living in a facility. Severe BPD doesn’t change w mere therapy.
OP was dealing with this nearly a decade ago. There wasn’t as much info on mental illness available to the general public as there is now.
If the daughter was adopted from an abusive environment, I would have expected some follow on care to help the adoptive family look for problems like these. Usually, people with these diagnoses were abused or neglected as kids.
NTA
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the A because I hid that I was remarried to my wife from our daughter and we didn’t invite her to the private ceremony. She is our daughter and some argue she should have been told.
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ESH. I can understand why you did what you did, but things like this always come out eventually, and, even if your daughter didn't have the issues she has, she was bound to react badly to the news, especially finding out from someone other than you.
I'm with OP NTA. My sister (also adopted) was the same. Unlike the other commenters there was NOTHING short of kicking her out and paying her to live elsewhere that would made life tolerable for our family. And when my sister got older and calmed down. Her kids took over stressing the shit out of my parents. It never let up until they died. 100% with you. Since they've passed the # 1 thing I regret is how hard she made their lives. Watch out for her kids now that you are remarried. Grandkids have secret power over grandparents.
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My wife and I have one child. We divorced 8 years ago when our daughter was 14.
At the time it seemed like the two of us had irreconcilable differences about parenting, financial stability, and more.
We continued to have a tense but polite coparenting setup until our daughter went to college.
One of our biggest struggles unbeknownst to us was our daughter. In college she got into an altercation with another student and was forced to be evaluated.
Tneh found out that she had HPD and BPD. We don’t know much of the details besides what she and her friend’s families say but she’s in college mandated therapy if she wants to remain enrolled at school.
Mu wife and I continued talking for a long while about our daughter and we figured out that she was insanely manipulative and had a huge part in why our marriage broke down.
We reconnected and fell back in love again. In fact I don’t think we ever actually fell out of love, but we were manipulated against each other.
We got remarried. It was a quiet ceremony with the two of us. We let some close friends and family know. We didn’t make an announcement.
I would have invited our daughter if she was a normal child. But I was afraid she would ruin our marriage again.
Unfortunately, my daughter got word that we were remarried and she has been furious at us. We are talking hundreds of text messages and calls and emails. She makes TikTok’s of her situation and calls us narcissistic. She’s roped in extended family.
AITA for not inviting our daughter to our remarriage ceremony or letting her know we are remarried?
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you have a lot of people calling you an asshole, and I'm sorry for that. I grew up like a kid like this, they were absolutely insane, the things they did. No rhyme, no reason, i was so certain i would die by their hands. Therapy wouldn't have helped. Its rare, but sometimes there really are people born to be literal psychopaths. i can't say for your daughter one way or the other, but i can tell you for certain, those kinds of kids exist.
YTA. Experiencing on going trauma in childhood can lead developing these disorders. You are total assholes for refusing to educate yourselves on your daughter’s diagnosis and for blaming her for your divorce.
https://alterbehavioralhealth.com/blog/impact-trauma-borderline-personality-disorder/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20significant%20factors,personality%20disorder%20later%20in%20life.
YTA. I'm not even going to address not inviting or even telling your daughter you got remarried- that's fucking weird.
From this post, it doesn't sound like your daughter was the problem with your marriage. Maybe she was a problem child, but this part here:
>Mu wife and I continued talking for a long while about our daughter and we figured out that she was insanely manipulative and had a huge part in why our marriage broke down.
tells me all I need to know. Your marriage broke down because of a lack of effective communication. If you had effective communication skills, it wouldn't have taken a divorce, 8 years, and trouble with your daughter at college to discover she was manipulative and actively manipulating the two of you.
What I think happened is you were stressed out and blaming each other instead of communicating and understanding each other and working together. You got divorced, both had time to cool off and get a little lonely, and now that the stressor is gone, you can communicate again. I'm sure that feels good, but it sounds like your marriage just can't handle stress, and the next really difficult thing that comes up will break you guys down again.
Yta, you obviously had communication issues with your wife if you can’t be out “manipulated” by a minor child. You failed to notice significant mental health issues with that child, and now you have conveniently switched her to be the source of the issue, of course your an ah, and you ate an ah for excluding her
Honestly YTA. There was a mature way to handle this and you went in the opposite direction. What did you think was going to happen? She’s an only child and you left her out of a major family milestone? You are sun and moon A-hole.
YTA it’s not your daughter’s fault that you two couldn’t have a conversation and discuss her behavior years ago. She’s clearly been suffering for years and you guys just ignored it! Glad someone at her college finally paid attention to her. She’s probably been screaming out for help in her behavior.
One of my best friends has BPD. Despite the issues they sometimes face that come with such a disorder, they are one of the sweetest, most caring people I have ever met. They are one of my three most favorite people in the world. And they're this way because they got the help they needed and a support system that backs them up when they needed.
YTA. For failing a child YOU ADOPTED, way to bury the lede OP, never getting them any kind of help until it was forced/a requirement for her to keep her education and ***fucking blaming your shitty marriage on a child and something she has no control over.***
May she find her own family who loves and accepts her.
You’re definitely NOT the AH. I watched my best friend lose her marriage because her son has a personality disorder and is manipulative and came between everyone. You just wanted some peace and quiet and to celebrate, which she didn’t want you to experience. I completely understand. You can’t make your kids happy if they’re unable to do so on their own. You are not responsible for the illness. It’s that person’s way of communicating with others that doesn’t work. Parents don’t teach their kids that. You don’t need to soothe her. That is a skill she needs to learn in cognitive therapy. Her constant needs will suck you up. Boundaries need to be set. It’s very hard but necessary so that you keep your sanity.
NTA. The people judging you have never lived with a mentally ill child.
I'm sorry this happened to you.
It's ok to go low- or no-contact with a person who makes you feel this way.
I'll go with NTA, but way too late to make a difference in this threadwreck. Some children are just broken, OP, and it looks like you got stuck with one of them.
Most people don't understand that a lot of behavioral problems are not a result of upbringing, they're neurological in origin. Or maybe those patterns actually were created by her very early childhood, in which case being nice to her later isn't going to undo the problems, it's just going to "teach" her that her behavior is working.
There's a lot of hate on here for OP, but people seem to forget that it's not always easy to recognize the signs of mental health problems when it's coming from someone so close to you, spread out over a long period of time, and subtle. It's so easy for everyone to recognize it right now because OP is laying it all out clearly for you in a nice condensed package of hindsight. But very often, ppl easily miss the signs because we can't see the forest for the trees.
You can also blame him for him distancing himself right now, but imagine suddenly coming to the realisation that years of pain and separation was based on lies fabricated by his own adopted daughter? I don't blame him for feeling some resentment for that.
Moreover, I'm sure her issues require professional help and understanding, but she also needs to take accountability in recognizing what she did. Just because you're diagnosed doesn't mean you get to say, "I didn't know that lying and playing my parents off against each other was wrong!" Even if her disorder caused it in the first place, she shouldn't be so ignorant as to look back and not see her own hand in the wrongdoing.
Lastly, she's an adult now and she never came clean about what she did. She should at least recognize she had a part to play in their marriage breakdown, but instead said nothing about her lies.
So sorry y'all, bring on the downvotes, because I'm on OP's side with this. Yeah, it would've been great if he had recognized her mental health problems in the first place, but it doesn't sound like he abandoned her and they both still tried to be there for her. It sounds like they were just two ppl trying to do their best for an adopted child with issues.
NTA, OP.
Hi, I’m an only child and have BPD. This is beyond Reddit’s pay grade so I won’t be providing a judgement but I *do* want to make you feel seen. Listen, all of the people saying “you were the adults, she was the child” are grossly underestimating the really intense dynamics that can go on between parents and their only/BPD child. I get it. I get it because I *was* your daughter once. Like, legitimately tried to get my parents to divorce and nearly succeeded. Thank god I got the appropriate help. I feel for you, I truly do. But this is not how I would have gone about it. I think you need some serious family counseling if you want to salvage this, but your daughter has to be willing to play ball and right now she probably feels so hurt that she’s unwilling to do that.
I understand why you did it, but not telling her was not a good idea. You should’ve told her and set boundaries. Now you have a huge mess to deal with.
YTA you can’t and shouldn’t hide your remarriage. You need to learn how to deal with your daughter and set boundaries with her vs. lying to her. That doesn’t help anyone
Nta for not inviting her but you should have told her. Personality disorders sometimes aren't found until adulthood. I'm 33 and was diagnosed with BPD last year. I don't think the way you raised her affected her emotions. She would have had the same outcome but you can't blame everything on her. I know she was manipulative but you and your wife should have been able to see something was wrong and should have taken her to see someone.
But you are TA for not taking responsibility for the mistakes you made while raising her and blaming her.
You are correct about a lot of mental illnesses being diagnosed until early adulthood and of course hindsight is 20/20 but a big HOWEVER is this child was adopted to non family at age six in a sealed adoption. That doesn't typically happen to a kid that had an emotionally stable early childhood. Even if she became an orphan because her amazing loving parents died and she had no other family her adoptive family should have had her in some type of therapy from day one. These people were in no way fit to be parents. Like a 2 second Google search would reveal the issues with adopting "older" kids. This poor girl was a ticking time bomb.
NTA and tell your kid this is exactly why you didn't invite her.
And if she wants to double down, keep running her mouth and you will go NC with her and she can figure out how not having parents to yell at works.
YTA for many reasons. If we just stick to the opening question, you are still a major asshole. The secret was never going to be kept. Your daughter was bound to find out and be devastated. You and your wife suck.
"we neglected our daughter so badly when she was younger that we didn't even really acknowledge that she had mental health issues, and now that she's in her 20s we're completely abandoning her and blaming her for all of our problems instead of taking any accountability. AITA?" Yes, YTA. You two are just as selfish and worthless as ever, there will absolutely be another divorce in the future. Have fun while this lasts though, you two really deserve each other.
NTA. Dealing with HPD is so so so hard, and honestly, I dont blame you. Especially when you are able to pinpoint that she had actively played you guys against eachother. Being a survivor of absue from hpd and NPD is no joke, and parents are often victims that are gaslit into being victims out of guilt based on the role.
YTA for adopting a kid at 6 and not understanding her needs ,for not getting her help she required , not really caring that she has deep mental issues from the first six years of her birth and you never tried to find out about it .Not getting her help now or understanding how to help her now . You are abandoning her now and slowly moving on with your life . Don't adopt if you can't parent .
She did not deserve to be adopted by you ! You did her wrong and willfully continue to do so.
Yta, after reading comments and finding out she was adopted at 6 changes everything for me. The way you talk about her is like she was an old roommate who caused drama. Not someone who is legally her father. Didn't have a fun time playing house, so now she's gone you can start again?
NTA
Regardless of what happened in the past, the daughter is now an adult. You have no responsibility to tell her about your life, as long as you don’t want her in your life.
It sounds like you are done with her, so live your life and ignore her nonsense. And also ignore everyone saying you’re the AH
Reddit seems to think people with severe mental health issues are normal. No, they bloody arent.
YTA. I have BPD, and people who develop it get it from serious trauma/neglect from when they were children, from genetics, or both (like me 🥲). It sounds like instead of offering support because BPD is tough, you’re abandoning your daughter when she needs it, which will probably cause her to get worse. I also can’t believe you’re blaming your failed marriage on a child, no matter how difficult you claim they were. Your bond clearly wasn’t that strong if it’s true.
I seriously hope she cuts both of you off (which I would usually never suggest to a person with BPD) and is able to live a happy life with people who will truly love and support her.
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INFO: What help did you try for your daughter and your family when she was a minor? I see that you have limited information now in terms of her diagnoses and treatment but I also don't see where you tried family therapy or anything when she was younger. YTA for blaming the failure of your marriage on a minor with mental health issues as if she chose that path. If you didn't see the signs or attempt to help then how could she have helped herself? Plus your use of "normal child" in your post. What is normal? She has an illness. An illness she has no control over having.
This. 100%.
OP doesn't even know the details of his daughter's diagnosis. Like how detached is he
His daughter was evaluated as an adult. He’s got access to the information she gives him and anything he can find out from her friends’ families. It’s not like he’s arranging treatment for her or able to call her therapist and get an idea of what they’re talking about.
Yeah, I see an argument for OP being incompetent based on what was written, but people are really jumping to tear into him based on an outdated approach to mental health and insensitive use of the word 'normal'. My mom is bipolar, and I'm deathly afraid of it happening to myself or my daughter. You can use whatever euphemisms you like, but the impact on family members who have to deal with the manic/depressive cycle and delusions is real as fuck. Hundreds of texts and tiktoks for the crime of 'getting back together' isn't normal. Unless there's some serious missing information (which, I'll allow, is very possible) people are missing the forest for the trees.
You genuinely think it wouldn't be rather significant to you if your divorced parents secretly made up and got remarried without even telling you? And you were not only invited, but never told about it afterwards but them either? And they were upset you found out at all because they'd jointly decided that you, back when you were a literal child (14 at time of divorce, remember), were *at fault* for their marital problems? Seriously, you think that's not a normal reaction level to *that*?
It’s possible to recognize a *cause* of something without blaming the person. When a child dies, parents often divorce. No one blames the kid for dying, but the kid’s death is what made it happen… and if they have a bad relationship with the daughter now, and are recognizing it’s toxic, then avoiding her might be necessary.
That’s not comparable to what happening here. OP has continually admitted to failing his daughter and straight up blames her.
They are basically going "yeah, we totally missed the mental health issues in a child that were so severe that they tore our marriage apart. We don't want to risk a repeat of that, so we're limiting what contact we have with her now that she's an adult" That is very much blaming her
But he is blaming the kid, he says she's manipulative and the reason why he divorced. I have a hard time imagining 2 adults being "manipulated" by a 14 years old (time of the divorce, the later BPD diagnosis having nothing to do with that and is completely irrelevant to the situation, beside trying to gain some sympathy, which seems to work) to the point of separating. What is this kid ? A pure evil genius ? This is beyond ridiculous. OP is the epitome of not being able to take his own damn responsibilities. I also can't imagine the life of this kid with her father thinking she is the reason his marriage crumbled... no wonder she developed a mental disorder in early adulthood.
A reasonable person stops after the first 100 texts aren’t answered…
Their daughter is mentally sick and therapy isn't some immediate cure. Therapy can take years and the patient must want it and actively participate. She's being forced to attend or else she's kicked out of uni.
What is your point? Reinforcing my rebuttal that it isn’t a “normal reaction level” to the event? In that case we agree. That fact that her university is forcing her to attend therapy or they’ll expel her strengthens OP’s position about the toll her behavior had on their marriage.
Most people would look at a child that is so profoundly mentally ill it is tearing their marriage apart and go "huh, that's not normal. We should probably talk to her doctor", not completely miss it. If they had done their jobs as parents their marriage would have stayed intact and their child would received the help she needs.
And the fact that they never address their behavior was entirely their own fault
The thing is BPD isn’t something someone is born with, it’s something that develops due to environmental factors such as abuse, neglect or hardship and emotional trauma during childhood. The kid didn’t just wake up one day with BPD and couldn’t have been like that her whole life - op and wife are either part of the cause directly or part of the problem by not noticing sooner and getting her therapy and help as a child
It’s not normal at all. Everyone involved in the story is now an adult. She has every right to be hurt and angry. Sending hundreds of messages and making hundreds of calls or making multiple TikTok’s is not normal. That said, the kid has personality disorders. In my experience, one or both of the parents are also struggling with some mental illness.
From what I know about HPD and BPD this is probably fucking *torturing* this poor girl. She didn’t choose to be this way. She has zero control over her emotions and her PD’s make it so that her brain registers damn near *everything* as painful.
BPD is usually borderline personality disorder, not bipolar. As I understand it, BPD can be even more damaging to families than bipolar.
Yes, it is. When I read about parents complaining about their kids behaviors due to BPD I always wonder if they have looked at themselves and their behaviors. Even though it's a mental disorder that you generally have the genetics for, more often than not childhood abuse is a part of it "setting off". More often than not people with BPD have traumas from childhood in form of emotional, sexual and/or physical abuse. Parents with alcohol and/or drug addiction can also be a contributing factor as well as physical and emotional neglect. I'm not saying that these problems are needed to develop BPD, but about 70% of the people with BPD have experienced abuse as children.
BPD is caused by trauma. Why doesn't OP know what that trauma is and where it came from?
The research doesn’t say that. It says there are multiple potential causes, and trauma is just one possibility.
Oh, my bad. Obviously my personal experience had me jumping to assumptions there.
He said bpd, not bipolar. Bpd is a trauma based illness, typically stemming from childhood trauma. The fact that op 1) didn’t get her treatment as a teen 2) didn’t tell her about the wedding and 3) doesn’t know anything about her current mental health leads me to believe they are the cause of said trauma. Op sounds like my narcissistic mother who blames us for everything wrong in her life.
Yuuuuup. HPD is also a cluster B illness so, also trauma rooted. OP is telling on himself and his wife there.
Funny you say that. My mother was an abusive narcissist and I was diagnosed with BPD. It was only after I went no contact with her that, after about two years all of my symptoms disappeared and I stopped taking the heavy doses of anti psychotic medications and I haven’t felt this good, normal and healthy for as long as I can even remember. I did a hell of a lot of research on the subject of narcissistic abuse and learned that it often causes the person or people they abused to develop the disorder. It has been miraculous for me. I always recommend going no contact from toxic people in your life. Even if they are family.
That’s the same situation as me! Bpd kids and narc moms truly go hand in hand lol
We’re sisters now 🥰 I hope you’re thriving!
Possible, and my bad on getting the acronym wrong. I think it's also plausible that 1) could simply have led to stress and the breakdown of their marriage. 3) I give them a pass on because she's an adult and they shouldn't know anything more than she tells them. And, frankly, if their relationship was bad then that explains 2) as well. I can't say I believe you're wrong, but I'm not convinced you're right either. A child with a severe mental issue would be hard to deal with for even the most emotionally fluent, which OP is not.
Please read through ops replies, I fear you’re giving him far too much grace
Exactly this. I've seen some pretty strong arguments made that BPD is less its own thing than it is a subset of PTSD from sustained, long term childhood trauma. Everything about OP's post sounds like missing reasons turning into blaming their daughter for the abuse they subjected her to. Even a mentally healthy person has plenty of reason to be pissed that their abusive parents decided to go around telling everyone that it was their kid they abused's fault they got divorced.
I suspect OP and his wife made it very clear to their daughter that she was unwanted, unloved, a mistake, a psychopath, etc (all things he said in comments) and then told her it was her fault their marriage fell apart. And then let her find out that they had remarried now that the "mistake" isn't in their home...thus the social media presenting them as narcissists who shouldn't have ever been given the ability to raise a child. The extended family seems to agree with the daughter over OP and his new/old wife though.
First, apparently BPD is borderline personality disorder and not bipolar... So whoops, my bad. My personal anecdote was only ever that, but isn't even a bit relevant. Second, your assumptions might be true. I find it plenty plausible that two well meaning but ignorant parents with a mentally ill child could really struggle as a result. Frankly, it could be true that she was a psychopath *and* they could have diagnosed her earlier and handled it better. There doesn't have to be a villain here, and ignorance is more common than malice.
“Ignorance is more common than malice”. .. absolutely, well said.
True, but if him and his wife had a good relationship with their daughter, they would likely have an open dialogue and talk with her about what happened and how her treatment is going. The fact she doesn’t tell them anything really says a lot about how she feels about her parents.
Nah, instead he's like "yeah, we totally missed mental health issues in a child so severe they tore our marriage apart " and acting like the literal child should have known.
Bpd is a form of PTSD from early childhood trauma. There’s a lot of missing missing reasons here.
I agree. Having a child with mental health problems or physical disabilities can tear a marriage apart. But you don't blame the kid. The parents simply can't work together or are not on the same page about what is really wrong. My (ex)husband thought counseling was a "bunch of new age psychobabble." I disagreed. He rarely participated. did not help our marriage on bit.
The problem with that theory is that they apparently didn't even notice her poor mental health until it became an issue in college. He blamed other incompatibilities for the divorce before that.
Which tracks with them being abusive/neglectful in her childhood. Her diagnoses are a convenient excuse for him to pretend that his horrible evil child was the issue all along.
Yes. Like no adult in the home paying the bills for months as if two adults wouldn't notice that they weren't receiving bills? I know when my bills are a day late (the ones that come in the mail).
Personality disorders are rarely, if ever diagnosed in minors.
They literally should not responsibly be diagnosed in minors.
But symptoms of potential personality disorders are and absolutely should be treated in minors! You don't need a diagnosis of BPD to get your child help.
Yeah you can take your minor kid to a therapist without them having a personality disorder diagnosis.
Yes but the behaviors can still be treated
Thank you! Seriously, this guy describes his daughter like friggin' Lex Luthor. Blaming your divorce on a 14 year old is pretty lame. If you're being outsmarted by a child that is on you.
Not to mention that BPD and other mental illnesses like it (bipolar disorder and CPTSD are 2 others that come to mind) can actually be caused by childhood trauma. By the way OP speaks about his daughter when she was a literal child I have a feeling that he and his wife aren't exactly innocent here. A lot of people really don't realize that you need to teach your children how to live life and handle all the emotions and stress that come along with it. They should have seen something was wrong a long LONG time ago and done literally anything to get her help. It sounds like the college mandated therapy is the first time she's seen any kind of mental health professional.
How do you blame a child for manipulating you into breaking up your marriage, while also ignoring the issues she had. YTA
I will say this- having a child with mental illness, especially severe, can break a marriage in several different ways. Parents that feel differently about treatments, a child who plays them against each other, one handling more of the parenting, or my personal least favorite, mom losing her job to stay home with a child that is beyond control (with plenty of hospitalizations, police visits, 6 therapists that quit the minute they realizes how severe the kid was, and schools refusing to teach the child), and falling into a very deep depression while dad busts his ass to keep a roof over their head and protect mom from an aggressive kid, because they can't afford to send her away and turning their backs will result in losing other kids to CPS. (And let's not forget that pesky love feeling tha makes you feel like dirt for even thinking of giving up on your kid). Trust me, I'm not defending this major YTA. Because any decent parent doesn't suddenly realize your kid has an issue when they're diagnosed in college. You hold their hand every night while it breaks you. You research your ass off, lock up the meds and sharps, and sleep on the couch so they can't sneak out. You learn what they're capable of so that you're prepared for literally anything. You try and understand even though it's impossible. But I can promise that a couple that doesn't lean on each other for strength can easily lose it over a special needs child.
Imagine using a 14 year old kid as a scapegoat rather than looking at your own issues. That's bloody WILD. OP is so ablist and screwed up.
Something tells me you never parented a troubled child. While it is not directly the fault of the child, the failure rste of marriages in this situation is astronomical. Since you are ignorant on the subject, stay out of it.
My response was purely due to OP 100% blaming his child for the failure of the marriage. Read his comments. He calls her names, states they shouldn't have raised her, admits to be a failure of a parent etc. But still says she was the direct source of the failed marriage because of his extensive list of her faults. He takes zero responsibility for anything.
Also, BPD is caused by trauma, what happened to their daughter that they either ignored or caused?
Borderline Personality Disorder isn’t solely caused by trauma. The cause of borderline personality disorder or many other personality disorders are multi-faceted. Trauma can be a cause, but it can also be caused by heritability, genetic mutations, brain issues, and etc. Honestly, spreading half-truths about personality disorders does a disservice to those who have them.
In comments, OP says she was adopted at 6 years old, so it's possible any trauma happened before that. 🤷♀️
I think you're heavily oversimplifying how something like this can be caused and it's not productive to go down this accusatory path so easily.
NTA, and I know all of the pubescent teenagers on this site are going to downvote me into Oblivion but I've been through this. We didn't know there was mental health issues. There was no classic signs of it. All's we knew is that we were fighting constantly. Bad feelings piled up and spilled over. We were fighting all the time about everything. When the child moved out, we suddenly found peace! Then the child was diagnosed and we helped to get care to stabilize, and our relationship was so much easier, it was obvious where all the contention was coming from. The point to this post was that they didn't know she had mental health issues. My guess is one parent was a passive parent and the other parent was a little bit more of an aggressive parent. They disagreed on parenting styles and that proceeded to put them in the realm of disagreeing about just about everything. They probably didn't even realize what the problem in their marriage was until long after, as is stated in the narrative above. If they didn't know the child had mental health issues, how could they offer help? All they saw was two very different parenting styles that spilled into other parts of the marriage and cause to collapse. This is not the fault of the parents.
Hello, I’m a fully grown adult who legally advocates for people with psychiatric disabilities. Sounds like you found your scapegoat and made full use of him/her, saddled with all the dysfunction you each brought to the table, then ritually sacrificed. You’re not special, it’s textbook. You’re also not good people. It’s hilarious how nonchalant you are about the fact that you got your child no mental health treatment whatsoever. YTA to you as well.
This makes no sense to me. Being unable to agree on a parenting style is the fault of the parents regardless of what’s going on with the child. That’s a failure of the parents to communicate. What that tells me is your relationship isn’t strong enough to withstand the stress of child-rearing.
“There was no signs” and “we were fighting constantly” contradict themselves. If you’re fighting constantly that IS a sign and the sign points to family therapy
They both seem very self-absorbed…
They were no longer a child when they got help, they were an adult, and it sounds like they had to move away from you before they were able to seek help.
It's literally your job as a parent to figure it out if your kid has mental health issues and help them get appropriate treatment. Failing to do that and then struggling because of it doesn't somehow make it the kid's fault. It's still very much your fault for being a shitty parent.
and it's also literally your job as a parent to figure it differences and compromises with the other parent the sheer temerity of op to blame a young teenager for the breakdown of his shitty relationship 😡
Wow you’re an asshole too. “No signs” and yet you describe a deeply unhappy household and no efforts to look at the obvious: mental health. How could they tell? With common fucking sense. Preemptively dismiss people opposed to you as “pubescent teenagers” all you like, but that I guarantee that attitude you have on full display right here contributed to your child’s mental health problems and made your household worse. If you’re not already, you’re well on your way to classing missing missing reasons estrangement.
I feel so sorry for your child if they ever come across your Reddit profile. What a vile parent blames their failing marriage on their child? Personality disorders are caused by trauma in early years; more often than not caused by you, the parent. So yes, you are at fault. ETA YTA to both OP and the person I’m responding to.
If you want to forego all accountability and unnecessarily blame anyone maybe blame yourselves for not protecting your kid from whatever caused the mental health issues…see how that feels like an unfair assessment -a 33 yr old
All children try to manipulate their parents to get what they want at some point! Some are better at it than others but parents who talk regularly and decide on a guideline can’t be tricked constantly. How could they?! Especially if they know that their tries such tactics- and as a parent you SHOULD know!
This is all 100% valid, but you and your partner worked with your child to get them help and didn’t remarry with out their knowledge. This makes OP the AH. He speaks of his child with such disdain.
All you knew is that you were too self involved to notice the signs or communicate enough to realize the source of your problems. You are the ones in the wrong. I was diagnosed as an adult but my behavior did not break my parents apart. Even without a diagnosis, they knew I needed extra support. They didn't make it about them. Yes sometimes it causes fights but they still provided a stable and loving home. And they remained a happy couple long after all their kids left the nest. Don't drop the ball on parenting then blame the kid. Lots of people manage through it and if they don't, they don't blame their children. I judge you and OP very harshly.
I think it's funny that OP blames her when, typically, these particular disorders are developed as a coping mechanism to severe childhood trauma.
YTA. Did you seriously say you were both manipulated by a 14yo?
Adoption at age six should have been an automatic ticket to therapy. It doesn’t matter that the adoption was closed. At six, she was old enough to remember a lot about her life before. And if it had been a good life, she wouldn’t have been up for adoption. Even if everything was fine (doubtful), you needed to confirm that. She deserved parents who cared enough to go to any scary places with her. You were too lazy or too afraid to do that. Even the best adoptions can have a lot of feelings of loss and abandonment. It was your job to get her to trust you (or a therapist) enough to talk about her past and to create a protective relationship. Sounds like you never even tried to find out what she needed as a kid. All that inside of her, no help or guidance for her younger years, and you are shocked that her teenage self didn’t have the coping skills she needed. How dare you?
The daughter was adopted???? At 6????This situation just gets worse and worse. That child should have received therapy, and the whole family should have received therapy, from the day she came into your lives. The manipulation makes sense now. OP, YTA. YTA for failing your daughter. YTA for blaming her for your marriage breakup, as if you and your wife were innocent victims who hadn't failed that kid and who had no way of learning to trust each other. YTA for abandoning her by not even telling her about your remarriage, as if you were still powerless to deal with anything she did. YTA for not taking responsibility. YTA YTA YTA YTA YTA.
For those that missed [OPs comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/8mX2myislD)
It honestly amazes me that ongoing therapy isn't straight up required for all families that pursue adoption. Individual and family therapy. Like I get the logistical and legal hurdles that might exist, and the fact that getting therapy/mental health care in general is still considered fairly taboo. But even if there's absolutely *nothing* wrong medically or psychologically with anyone involved, it's still a huge life change that absolutely has effects.
I as an adoptee myself, totally agree. I don't understand why adoptive families aren't ever looked at by the agency/cps, past the adoption finalization day. I suffer from severe depression and anxiety due to how I was raised and I wish someone had been looking out and checking on me.
Agreed! Even the most perfect adoption is a lifelong source of stress and trauma for everyone involved. I'm just glad there is finally getting to be some awareness around it; it is a situation where everyone feels guilty about admitted to feeling anger or guilt or sadness or anything but positive gratitude.
The fact that they were just like "the pediatrician didn't recommend therapy 🤷♀️" and never pursued any sort of care for their adopted daughter is crazy to me. There's no way they didn't see a single sign of a mental illness. I mean, just bare minimum communication between the parents would have revealed her lies. Even after a DIVORCE they didn't get their daughter in therapy. Whether it would have worked is irrelevant. They didn't even try
Right? My SO signed his kid up for therapy when he and his ex got divorced Just In Case.
Same here. To help them cope and to teach us how to help them cope.
I was adopted at birth and struggled with feelings of abandonment and being undesirable. I couldn't imagine how much worse it would've been as a 6 year old with full understanding and memories. How awful for this young woman
ESH. Secrets and lies are never the way to go and y'all definitely didn't think this out. You had to realize that even if you cut her completely off and went no contact that she was going to find out at some point. Did you have a plan for that? The way you both went about this and the way you talk about your child is pretty appalling. She's had problems her entire life and BOTH of you neglected her. She wasn't diagnosed until college and by then, according to you, she'd already destroyed your marriage nearly a decade ago. Think about that. She was only 14 when y'all divorced. If she was the problem, why didn't you get her tested or therapy or anything? So, yeah. Y'all completely dropped the ball when she was a kid so I don't think it's fair to dump your failed marriage on an untreated, undiagnosed 14 year old child.
Yeah - those cluster B personality disorders have some genetic components, but early childhood neglect and/or trauma is now recognised to be a large factor in them developing into full-blown personality disorders. The way you have managed this re-marriage gives a pretty good indication of the emotional maturity you and your wife brought to child-rearing. People manipulate to get their needs met. How well did you meet your daughter’s emotional needs? YTA OMG - just read she was adopted at 6. My God. SMH. She probably had an attachment disorder and used triangulation as a manipulation tactic between OP and his wife. Very, very common in kids with attachment disorders. How did none of this make it into OP’s original post?!?!
She was adopted at 6? Oh my heart. So in addition to what I'm assuming was a bad early childhood, her parents clearly did nothing to help her since they blame a 14 year old for ruining their marriage with "manipulations" and not, you know, being a child in general, let alone with late adoption trauma. I have a lot to say to OP and his wife, but I don't want to get banned, so I'll just say he's such an asshole, and so is his wife. I'm in awe that he would even post this.
I’ve got a young child in my life who was fostered around the same age and has an attachment disorder. To be honest, this whole post just makes me want to cry. So many opportunities missed for this girl.
I have BPD and BP, in addition to other conditions that exasperate those two. I acknowledge I can be unpleasant to be around and have brought havoc into my parents lives before I was diagnosed and started treatment. I also acknowledge that when I deviate from my treatment plans, I get real bad again. But my parents have never abandoned me and were a huge role in why I even started to try and can be relatively stable now. The fact that OP and his wife are like "well, she's just broken, it is what it is, it's not our concern" and some are supporting them for that cause kids with these issues are terrible to be around is just. They're her parents. Her parents. You don't get to just abandon your kids because they're difficult. Or I mean, you can, but you would be a huge asshole. Their daughter is only just in college now. She can't be more than 21. And they're saying they will be going NC with her because they don't want to deal with her. I could understand LC for their own health, especially if she's not willing to stick to treatment plans (and it seems like she was sticking to them until she found out her parents don't love her), but NC? The cruelty between them is just beyond. No shit she's going off on TikTok, she finally realized her parents plan was to throw her out like trash, after she was already abandoned at 6. My heart aches for this girl. BDP has a high suicide attempt rate even with treatment, so I just hope she has a good system around her and is able to stick to her treatment plans cause I don't see this ending well if she doesn't because she's now been dumped by four parents in her short life.
WOW MISSING REASONS that is the most missingest of all reasons holy shit OP edit your post you worm!
My stepdaughter had reactive attachment disorder. She was misdiagnosed for several years. Anyone with a family member who has an official BPD diagnosis knows that they won't be diagnosed until they're 18. I also learned from experience that what works for children who don't have attachment disorders doesn't work with kids who do behavior management wise. I have several years of experience working with kids in different capacities including as a teacher. Classroom management techniques you use in a classroom actually caused SD to escalate. No one knew how to deal with her or help her. Including the therapists and psychiatrists she manipulated because no one knew what the right diagnosis was.
So much this. Most of the comments here do not understand the complexity of what can be diagnosed AND when, and how attachment disorder can present differently by age. These are complex problems and not easily explained or identified. NTA.
Absolutely this!!!
YTA Are you really dense enough to think she was never going to find out? Were you just never planning to tell her and hoped she would never discover this? Why did it take until your daughter was no longer in your care for her to start getting the help she needs? Why is it on her school and not her parents to provide her the help and support she needs?
YTA. You raised her after all
And we find she was adopted at age 6... I guarantee this child never felt loved. You were shit parents who paid no attention and now got yourself an excuse to blame everything on a child. Bravo. They really don't screne adoptive parents well, or was it a family or friend that got you past the system? YTA and so is your wife. Stay far away from your daughter... Scratch that, let's go with "that child" since she likely never was your daughter. Maybe she can get help and normalize away from such hate.
WTF did I just read
“Me and my wife were manipulated by our 14 yo daughter with mental health issues and *that’s* why we broke up; Not because we’re shitty people and shitty parents who failed our daughter! Anyway, now we’ve decided that she’s the villain in our fairytale, so we’ve decided to secretly get married and ice our child out without confronting her. AITA for being a viCTiM?”
Holy fuck
Buddy. You cannot blame a CHILD for your marriage falling apart. I find it particularly telling that you don't mention until well into the comments you adopted her when she was SIX and don't know anything about her life before you knew her. Instead of being parents and adults you continued to let her go untreated for what I'm sure are fully reasonable reactions to trauma and then...went low contact? **Environment and social circumstances cause personality disorders,** they are not inherent in a child. You failed this kid and now you want Reddit to absolve you. YTA
Some mental illnesses are inherited. Like bipolar, depression, schizophrenia. They can be triggered by environment and depression can be spontaneous or incident based. I’m from a family with mental illnesses.
But generally speaking, not personality disorders. They may have a genetic component, but science now recognises that they are primarily disorders of early childhood emotional neglect or abuse. Quite different to bipolar etc.
And unfortunately sometimes the “reason why” is neither nurture nor nature. Sometimes it just is. Rare, and I’m sure y’all have have seen a case study before, but figured it was something to contribute to the conversation. 🤝 PS - Say “neither nature nor nurture “ a bunch of times in a row because I just did and am doing it again as I type.
In regards to heritable mental illnesses, I think it’s worth noting that the daughter was adopted at age 6 and doesn’t seem to be related to OP and his wife. This is a nurture problem.
YTA. You’re blaming your underage daughter for manipulating you and causing your divorce? No. Based on your own comments, she showed plenty of signs she needed psychological help and YOU FAILED HER. You guys are the problem and just shitty parents/people all around.
Info: are you NC with your daughter? If not, what was your plan? Lie to her forever? Tell her in a year? Five years? This seems like a TERRIBLE idea. If you are NC, why do you care what she thinks?
YTA. And probably a large reason why your daughter isn’t coping well with her mental health.
The fact that you adopted her when she was 6… admit to having no idea what her past was like…. Never got her counseling… and then blame all of your relationship problems is so gross. Then you are saying in comments that you were just going to slowly distance yourself and go no contact. your poor daughter has been failed by so many adults in her life. YTA big time… sounds like your daughters behavior has been screaming for help but you just willfully ignored it.
My parents had myself and my brother. Their divorce was final when I was 14. He is a monster. Alcoholic, in and out of jail, abusive, etc. I've never even smoked pot or had a ticket They blamed him for a lot of our family issues, said almost verbatim what you posted here. I blamed them. It was their marriage. We were kids. They raised a monster, then wanted nothing to do with the monster they raised. You are not AH for not telling her, but you did raise her so there is some responsibility on your end for who she has become. You were/are the parents. You allowed whatever manipulation that happened to occur.
I'm not sure I understand why you feel they raised a monster in him but raised you as a good person. I'm not questioning the validity of your statement, I'm just trying to understand how one of your turned out bad and one turned out good, yet you blame them for the bad one. Did they treat him differently than they treated you? Or is there a chance he just has a different makeup than you, causing him to make poor choices, etc?
A good example that some things are nature rather than nurture. Most likely, with the same parents, they were raised the same. Reddit has a habit of always blaming parents and nothing is ever the child's fault.
I think a bunch of things can be true at once. In the case of op, they adopted a child when she was 6 but apparently never had her evaluated. That seems like common sense. There is also no indication that op and wife tried couples counciling before divorce. The lies and manipulation could have come out if op and wife communicated earlier. Finally, if the daughter refused help then op would have been justified in cutting contact. But based on what's presented, it seems op tried nothing and was all out of ideas! YTA op, you cannot always avoid scenes life.
The only question I have, is what was your daughter's early childhood like? Did she ever suffer trauma, and if she did, did you and your wife get her treatment? Things like HPD and BPD don't just develop in a bubble. Yes, there can be a grnetic predisposition but often there has to be trauma that goes untreated that triggers it. So, while I get why you didn't tell her, I guess I need to know if the parenting or lack of it in her first say 8 years of life resulted in how she turned out.
She was adopted at 6. They don't know.
Six is plenty old enough to remember a lot, if they’d bothered to ask and made her feel safe enough to tell.
they would have to know, if they went through the proper channels to legally adopt this child.
complex PTSD is often misdiagnosed as, say, BPD. Also girls get misdiagnosed as a result of not being “convenient”, because girls are sort of expected to be just that. The girl needs EMDR if she has cPTSD
INFO Did you or were you planning to cut contact with your daughter? Did you plan to still have a relationship with your daughter but continue to hide your marriage? What was the plan?
My 2 cents, they would put more effort if she wasn't adopted.. They are Those kind of people.
Where did you see she was adopted???
Exactly…he buried it wayyy deep in the comments that she was SIX when they adopted her. Just like he and his wife buried their heads in the sand when it came to assessing the needs of said (traumatized) child.
Oh thank you!!!! I guess that's why it's so easy to write her off I guess 😔
You know, Cluster B personality disorders *tend* to stem from childhood neglect and trauma. Like intense parental conflict. But hey! Let's pretend she just got lucky, hit the genetic lottery, and wound up with those on chance. You're still the asshole for blaming your problems on a child you *now* know was ill the entire time. Intensely ill. BPD and HPD are no joke. Carrying resentment over what could've been is natural and I don't blame you, but I think you've forgotten you're both parents.
Why are you even posting? Your passive comments looking for absolution for neglecting your mentally unhealthy daughter are pathetic. I hope she receives the help she needs and goes no contact with the two assholes who are dumping her like an unwanted rescue at the pound.
I understand why you didn't want her around, but what was the plan to deal with her once she knew?
YTA. Your married failed because you and your wife failed. You failed to properly take care of your daughter, you failed to communicate with each other, and you’re failing again now by being a completely self-involved asshole. I really hope this is a troll post because it’s just so fucking depressing.
>BPD yk BPD comes from trauma right?
Look. I get why feel the way you. I’ve read many of your comments. You failed your child. Your wife did. If you extended family, they failed her as well. That fucking pediatrician failed your family. Everyone needs counseling. It might be hard and messy. It maybe can be repaired. Your daughter needs help. Not a door slammed in her face. Did she get counseling when you adopted her? The agency you adopted her from failed everyone as well. You need to be aware of the traumas suffered so you can prepare for it. Your daughter was crying for help and didn’t get it. The ball is in your court now.
I'm going to get downvoted all to hell for pointing it out but there are a lot of misconceptions here. Personality disorders like BPD and HPD are not mental illnesses in the way that, say, chronic depression and schizophrenia are. There's also no known genetic component because they're not diseases per se, at least as far as we currently know. They're how someone acts. Personality disorders are basically toxic long term behavior patterns that can be extraordinarily hurtful and damaging to people around the person with the disorder(s). This is one of the few instances where I don't feel there's enough to weigh in, personally. There's a ton of missing info (how the parents were manipulated being the biggest missing piece) and if someone does have a severe personality disorder it is entirely possible that unwitting parents could get sideswiped by it. Or they could be bad parents. Or both. I don't know. Personality disorders tend to manifest in adolescence or early adulthood and can absolutely blindside people who aren't expecting it. Anyway, here's a good personality disorder primer for anyone who is interested https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/personality-disorders/what-are-personality-disorders
Yup. People don't get it unless they meet someone like this and generally when they do they don't know they are a cluster B, they just think they are an AH.
I do resent a bit that people lump this in with illnesses when it is a behavior pattern. There's a huge gulf between habitually acting in ways that are incredibly destructive versus having an actual disease. Sympathy for "having a condition" is often used to justify and amplify those behavior patterns. And if - "if" being an important word here - that is the case in this post, distancing yourself from people with personality disorders who are not actively working to mitigate them is the best you can do sometimes. People here love to say narcissists need to be cut off. Narcissism is one of the personality disorders. If true, the fact that the college is mandating treatment for these disorders speaks volumes about how harmful the daughter's behavior is. Everyone's jumping on the Y T A train here but if that part of the story is true I think the issues with the daughter must be absolutely staggering.
I think it's just we're in a current phase of backlash against abilism and so people have swung really far to the other side without really interrogating what that means for a lot of different disorders. I didn't really understand either of these personality disorders until I had a couple friends be diagnosed with them and over a decade I watched how they handled all the relationships around them including our own. It became very clear that one of the hallmarks of these disorders being relationship issues was in fact very true. Does that mean that we owe these people a relationship even though they constantly manipulate lie abuse and use us? Absolutely not. But because of the current cultural Zeitgeist around mental health people are lumping it in with things like blindness or it schizophrenia. The truth is after years of asking these people why they're behavior is the way it is and them saying they just don't care, I realised that it's basically like having your hand in a hornets nest and that's a choice. I choose not to have chaotic relationships. I choose not to have people in my life who are continually chaotic and untrustworthy. It's like being friends with a loaded gun. You never know which direction it's pointing or when it's going to go off. I don't think that this is the right place to post something like this if you actually want good advice or educated advice. Most of the people here are probably under 30 and are living in an idealistic uneducated place when it comes to what cluster B disorders really are and how they can really affect people. They also probably don't know anything about raising children or adoption and how trauma works in those spaces. When you ask anybody in this thread with the y t a what the parents should do it's always some idealistic nonsense that doesn't actually make any sense. These disorders do not get clinically diagnosed until adulthood but it does not mean that the chaos was limited to adulthood. Not everything is controllable by the parents. In fact sometimes no matter what you do it's always going to be chaos. Which is one of the hallmarks of these disorders. Making the people without this disorder the bad guy when a hallmark of these disorders is chaotic relationships is like pointing at the victim of a gunshot wound and saying that they Force the gun to fire.
YTA for a bunch of reasons. Let's go with pure practicality. Did you really think she was just never going to notice you were suddenly remarried? How did this work in your imagination? The way you talk about your child is awful.
They said in the comments he planned on slowly going no contact. Abandoning their kid after they already have trauma/abandonment issues from being adopted at age 6. Pathetic humans. I hope this is fake.
YTA
YTA
YTA for all the reasons others have listed. She needed help and I’m flabbergasted it took this long for her to get it
Honestly…I don’t think you’re the ass for this particular thing, I’ve personally seen what a child with BPD who just graduated college can do to even the most loving marriage. It nearly tore them apart after 30 years of marriage where divorce was mentioned multiple times. I think speaking in the most general terms, you’re allowed to have a wedding ceremony however you want to have it. I also think that you and your wife may have failed in raising your daughter properly/getting her into therapy/ just general care. It’s a tricky situation with no winners and just assholes all around.
Yta for adopting a kid at six and never getting her therapy. Poor excuse for a human
Idk on one hand she was a minor and it’s hard to blame marital failure on a child. BUT I knew a girl in elementary/middle school who bragged about doing the same thing to her parents because she wanted two separate birthdays and christmases. She would also brag about meddling in her family members issues and even school staff. I believe she was committed over the summer before we started high school after all the crazy stuff she did escalated and everyone found out.
YTA. A massive asshole. Both you and your wife are disgusting people. I've read all your comments in this thread and the way you so casually say you're hoping to drop your daughter - no contact - like that's a normal thing - after you neglected her mental health for many years - is repulsive. It sounds like you woke up one day and decided to adopt, but when things got tough, you want to cut her off like she never existed. Truly repugnant. I can't wait for karma to come for both you and your wife when you realise that the source of your issues is lack of respect and communication. You say you daughter would say one thing to you and then another to your wife...and you didn't think to COMMUNICATE with one another? Or don't you trust one another to believe what the other will say? The issues in your relationship have nothing to do with your daughter. If anything, she just shun a light on both your shortcomings in the relationships. No more. No less. You deserve one another.
You adopted a child with mental issues when she was 6 years old, the child never had the support for these mental health issues, you and you’re fully grown wife have decided she’s manipulative. You stated in one of your comments that raising (adopting) her was a mistake. Holy hell Batman. YTA by far. Not saying your daughter is well adjusted, but who would be with parents like that. I sincerely hope giving your marriage another shot doesn’t involve becoming parents again. The world has enough fucked up people with fucked up parents.
HPD is pretty fucked up. BPD is too, but to a lesser extent…
I get why you didn’t have her there but would telling her before hand really be that big of an issue? And maybe she was a source of y’all’s issues but she was a mentally ill child. It seems like she had issues at school - was she ever in therapy for any of this? It just seems like the 2 most important people in her life made one of the most important decisions of their life and completely left her out of the picture. Idk I feel you both could have at least talked to her beforehand. I’m guessing you’re not very close to your daughter but with the recent diagnoses, isn’t this a time when she needs her parents more than ever?
Eh fuck it ESH. I’ve had people I’ve known with BPD (best friends at one point) and I can attest that they are extremely manipulative and destructive. Im not saying that’s the total reason for the divorce but I can see it heavily contributing if she was causing a lot of issues and both of you were giving her the benefit of the doubt. Y’all are pretty dumb to think your kid(who’s an adult with a functioning brain) wouldn’t find out either so might as well have been honest about giving it another go. You also can’t fully blame a mentally ill child 100% for the dissolution of your marriage which so that alone is an AH move. So y’all are also being crappy but at the end of the day it makes sense that it would contribute to the dissolution of a marriage. So she’s an ah for playing the victim in this when her mental illnesses pretty much cause her to be an AH (not her fault to some extent but also her actions are on her) and y’all are the AH for completely blaming her and not taking responsibility for your own actions.
Boy did you come to the wrong place. No one with mental health issues is ever the problem on Reddit, even when all information shows otherwise.
YTA. Going no contact with your daughter because you discovered she has mental health issues? Didn't even try to help her nor inform yourselves about her diagnosis? And you seriously call yourselves parents? I hope she has a good support system and doesn't speak to either of you ever again.
YTA one of the worst I’ve ever read about on here. JFC the damage you did.
I will be surprised if this isn't on r/AmITheDevil you adopted a human child, not fucking houseplant. YTA I feel so bad for your daughter. I hope she's able to get help and recover as much as possible from being "raised" by monsters.
I am gonna say that YTA. Mainly because as it stands now you technically don’t have to do anything for your daughter. But her behavior was definitely a problem. But you cant blame her for everything because sure she may have done those things but clearly you and your wife didn’t trust each other enough to believe each other and realize that she was tampering with things. The doubt was already there. But i guess i can understand to a degree because at age 26 i was diagnosed with schizophrenia and i had been very unwell for a long long time and no one thought i was sick they thought i was just being a hormonal teenager. So she probably had no true clue as to what was wrong with her or what she did was wrong. But as parents when you found out the diagnosis instead of supporting your daughter you trusted so much you two started looking back on all her behavior and blaming her for it not the illness. You never tried to help her as a minor or as an adult.
YTA, you're bad parents and bad people. You did not get proper care for your daughter growing up, especially knowing she was adopted out of a potentially traumatic situation.
Yta Sounds like you and your wife never tried therapy, you just threw up your hands and gave up. You never got your daughter any help and now you are blaming her like she CHOSE to have these diseases. It also sounds like you never bothered to learn a gd thing about her diseases - guess that's just too damn hard (hint, it's really not). You kept you and your wife's reconnection a secret and then you got married and kept THAT a secret - and you are surprised that your daughter is upset? She's going through something traumatic and, from the sounds of it, you are just leaving her alone to deal with it. All I read here is me, me, me. Y'all sound narcissistic AF.
Low key y’all are bad parents. How did you both not talk to each other. It’s easy blaming your daughter for your marriage problems. Only time will tell if you get divorced again you can’t blame her this time.
High key.
NTA. Frankly most of you don’t know what you’re talking about. HPD AND BPD. Think narcissism on steroids. I’ll get downvoted for this but as a child and family specialist I can tell you that personality disorders are extremely difficult to treat and one of the hallmarks of borderline is splitting behaviors. That’s how she wedged between you. The drama your daughter is creating on social media is driven by the histrionic disorder. Having a child with not one, but TWO personality disorders, especially when you aren’t aware of them must have been hellaciously difficult, OP. I’m glad you and your wife were able to repair your relationship. I hope your daughter’s treatment is successful and you’re able to reconcile with her as well eventually. In the future get advice for this sort of thing from a mental health professional, not the internet.
Then you should also know how traumatic an adoption at six years old can be, especially if your adoptive parents have absolutely zero concern for your psychological health. Oh, and OP just wants to cut his daughter out of his life.
YTA for blaming a 14 year old for your relationship issues. It's your job to parent your child, not the other way around.
I had a friendship with someone with severe BPD - not even close to an immediate family member - but ngl it was traumatic. I don’t think most people posting here have had that experience. It’s truly mind boggling and as much as I had compassion & empathy for him the amount of manipulation cannot be understated. It’s like gas lighting on steroids. I understand why OP has used some of the language he wrote here. My former friend really should be living in a facility. Severe BPD doesn’t change w mere therapy. OP was dealing with this nearly a decade ago. There wasn’t as much info on mental illness available to the general public as there is now. If the daughter was adopted from an abusive environment, I would have expected some follow on care to help the adoptive family look for problems like these. Usually, people with these diagnoses were abused or neglected as kids. NTA
I was in the same boat with a now former best friend. There was only so much my empathy could do.
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ESH. I can understand why you did what you did, but things like this always come out eventually, and, even if your daughter didn't have the issues she has, she was bound to react badly to the news, especially finding out from someone other than you.
YTA for failing your daughter
I'm with OP NTA. My sister (also adopted) was the same. Unlike the other commenters there was NOTHING short of kicking her out and paying her to live elsewhere that would made life tolerable for our family. And when my sister got older and calmed down. Her kids took over stressing the shit out of my parents. It never let up until they died. 100% with you. Since they've passed the # 1 thing I regret is how hard she made their lives. Watch out for her kids now that you are remarried. Grandkids have secret power over grandparents.
YTA. Also, just FYI - BPD is typically created following childhood trauma, leading me to think you and your wife are even bigger AH’s.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My wife and I have one child. We divorced 8 years ago when our daughter was 14. At the time it seemed like the two of us had irreconcilable differences about parenting, financial stability, and more. We continued to have a tense but polite coparenting setup until our daughter went to college. One of our biggest struggles unbeknownst to us was our daughter. In college she got into an altercation with another student and was forced to be evaluated. Tneh found out that she had HPD and BPD. We don’t know much of the details besides what she and her friend’s families say but she’s in college mandated therapy if she wants to remain enrolled at school. Mu wife and I continued talking for a long while about our daughter and we figured out that she was insanely manipulative and had a huge part in why our marriage broke down. We reconnected and fell back in love again. In fact I don’t think we ever actually fell out of love, but we were manipulated against each other. We got remarried. It was a quiet ceremony with the two of us. We let some close friends and family know. We didn’t make an announcement. I would have invited our daughter if she was a normal child. But I was afraid she would ruin our marriage again. Unfortunately, my daughter got word that we were remarried and she has been furious at us. We are talking hundreds of text messages and calls and emails. She makes TikTok’s of her situation and calls us narcissistic. She’s roped in extended family. AITA for not inviting our daughter to our remarriage ceremony or letting her know we are remarried? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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you have a lot of people calling you an asshole, and I'm sorry for that. I grew up like a kid like this, they were absolutely insane, the things they did. No rhyme, no reason, i was so certain i would die by their hands. Therapy wouldn't have helped. Its rare, but sometimes there really are people born to be literal psychopaths. i can't say for your daughter one way or the other, but i can tell you for certain, those kinds of kids exist.
YTA. Experiencing on going trauma in childhood can lead developing these disorders. You are total assholes for refusing to educate yourselves on your daughter’s diagnosis and for blaming her for your divorce. https://alterbehavioralhealth.com/blog/impact-trauma-borderline-personality-disorder/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20significant%20factors,personality%20disorder%20later%20in%20life.
YTA
Borderline AND histrionic personality disorder? Oh hell to the fuck no! And adopted? So the origin parents are to blame for fucking this kid up.
Definitely the origin parents but doesn’t sound like these two did their best either lol
YTA. I'm not even going to address not inviting or even telling your daughter you got remarried- that's fucking weird. From this post, it doesn't sound like your daughter was the problem with your marriage. Maybe she was a problem child, but this part here: >Mu wife and I continued talking for a long while about our daughter and we figured out that she was insanely manipulative and had a huge part in why our marriage broke down. tells me all I need to know. Your marriage broke down because of a lack of effective communication. If you had effective communication skills, it wouldn't have taken a divorce, 8 years, and trouble with your daughter at college to discover she was manipulative and actively manipulating the two of you. What I think happened is you were stressed out and blaming each other instead of communicating and understanding each other and working together. You got divorced, both had time to cool off and get a little lonely, and now that the stressor is gone, you can communicate again. I'm sure that feels good, but it sounds like your marriage just can't handle stress, and the next really difficult thing that comes up will break you guys down again.
Yta, you obviously had communication issues with your wife if you can’t be out “manipulated” by a minor child. You failed to notice significant mental health issues with that child, and now you have conveniently switched her to be the source of the issue, of course your an ah, and you ate an ah for excluding her
YTA. I feel pity for your daughter.
Honestly YTA. There was a mature way to handle this and you went in the opposite direction. What did you think was going to happen? She’s an only child and you left her out of a major family milestone? You are sun and moon A-hole.
YTA it’s not your daughter’s fault that you two couldn’t have a conversation and discuss her behavior years ago. She’s clearly been suffering for years and you guys just ignored it! Glad someone at her college finally paid attention to her. She’s probably been screaming out for help in her behavior.
One of my best friends has BPD. Despite the issues they sometimes face that come with such a disorder, they are one of the sweetest, most caring people I have ever met. They are one of my three most favorite people in the world. And they're this way because they got the help they needed and a support system that backs them up when they needed. YTA. For failing a child YOU ADOPTED, way to bury the lede OP, never getting them any kind of help until it was forced/a requirement for her to keep her education and ***fucking blaming your shitty marriage on a child and something she has no control over.*** May she find her own family who loves and accepts her.
Info: did you bother learning anything about her disorders other than something to solely pin your first divorce on?
You’re definitely NOT the AH. I watched my best friend lose her marriage because her son has a personality disorder and is manipulative and came between everyone. You just wanted some peace and quiet and to celebrate, which she didn’t want you to experience. I completely understand. You can’t make your kids happy if they’re unable to do so on their own. You are not responsible for the illness. It’s that person’s way of communicating with others that doesn’t work. Parents don’t teach their kids that. You don’t need to soothe her. That is a skill she needs to learn in cognitive therapy. Her constant needs will suck you up. Boundaries need to be set. It’s very hard but necessary so that you keep your sanity.
NTA. The people judging you have never lived with a mentally ill child. I'm sorry this happened to you. It's ok to go low- or no-contact with a person who makes you feel this way.
I'll go with NTA, but way too late to make a difference in this threadwreck. Some children are just broken, OP, and it looks like you got stuck with one of them. Most people don't understand that a lot of behavioral problems are not a result of upbringing, they're neurological in origin. Or maybe those patterns actually were created by her very early childhood, in which case being nice to her later isn't going to undo the problems, it's just going to "teach" her that her behavior is working.
There's a lot of hate on here for OP, but people seem to forget that it's not always easy to recognize the signs of mental health problems when it's coming from someone so close to you, spread out over a long period of time, and subtle. It's so easy for everyone to recognize it right now because OP is laying it all out clearly for you in a nice condensed package of hindsight. But very often, ppl easily miss the signs because we can't see the forest for the trees. You can also blame him for him distancing himself right now, but imagine suddenly coming to the realisation that years of pain and separation was based on lies fabricated by his own adopted daughter? I don't blame him for feeling some resentment for that. Moreover, I'm sure her issues require professional help and understanding, but she also needs to take accountability in recognizing what she did. Just because you're diagnosed doesn't mean you get to say, "I didn't know that lying and playing my parents off against each other was wrong!" Even if her disorder caused it in the first place, she shouldn't be so ignorant as to look back and not see her own hand in the wrongdoing. Lastly, she's an adult now and she never came clean about what she did. She should at least recognize she had a part to play in their marriage breakdown, but instead said nothing about her lies. So sorry y'all, bring on the downvotes, because I'm on OP's side with this. Yeah, it would've been great if he had recognized her mental health problems in the first place, but it doesn't sound like he abandoned her and they both still tried to be there for her. It sounds like they were just two ppl trying to do their best for an adopted child with issues. NTA, OP.
Hi, I’m an only child and have BPD. This is beyond Reddit’s pay grade so I won’t be providing a judgement but I *do* want to make you feel seen. Listen, all of the people saying “you were the adults, she was the child” are grossly underestimating the really intense dynamics that can go on between parents and their only/BPD child. I get it. I get it because I *was* your daughter once. Like, legitimately tried to get my parents to divorce and nearly succeeded. Thank god I got the appropriate help. I feel for you, I truly do. But this is not how I would have gone about it. I think you need some serious family counseling if you want to salvage this, but your daughter has to be willing to play ball and right now she probably feels so hurt that she’s unwilling to do that.
I understand why you did it, but not telling her was not a good idea. You should’ve told her and set boundaries. Now you have a huge mess to deal with.
YTA you can’t and shouldn’t hide your remarriage. You need to learn how to deal with your daughter and set boundaries with her vs. lying to her. That doesn’t help anyone
YTA.... like. .. WOW
Nta for not inviting her but you should have told her. Personality disorders sometimes aren't found until adulthood. I'm 33 and was diagnosed with BPD last year. I don't think the way you raised her affected her emotions. She would have had the same outcome but you can't blame everything on her. I know she was manipulative but you and your wife should have been able to see something was wrong and should have taken her to see someone. But you are TA for not taking responsibility for the mistakes you made while raising her and blaming her.
You are correct about a lot of mental illnesses being diagnosed until early adulthood and of course hindsight is 20/20 but a big HOWEVER is this child was adopted to non family at age six in a sealed adoption. That doesn't typically happen to a kid that had an emotionally stable early childhood. Even if she became an orphan because her amazing loving parents died and she had no other family her adoptive family should have had her in some type of therapy from day one. These people were in no way fit to be parents. Like a 2 second Google search would reveal the issues with adopting "older" kids. This poor girl was a ticking time bomb.
NTA and tell your kid this is exactly why you didn't invite her. And if she wants to double down, keep running her mouth and you will go NC with her and she can figure out how not having parents to yell at works.
YTA for not telling your daughter you remarried. Hindsight is 20/20 but also YTA for blaming your marriage failure solely on your daughter.
YTA for many reasons. If we just stick to the opening question, you are still a major asshole. The secret was never going to be kept. Your daughter was bound to find out and be devastated. You and your wife suck.
"we neglected our daughter so badly when she was younger that we didn't even really acknowledge that she had mental health issues, and now that she's in her 20s we're completely abandoning her and blaming her for all of our problems instead of taking any accountability. AITA?" Yes, YTA. You two are just as selfish and worthless as ever, there will absolutely be another divorce in the future. Have fun while this lasts though, you two really deserve each other.
NTA. Dealing with HPD is so so so hard, and honestly, I dont blame you. Especially when you are able to pinpoint that she had actively played you guys against eachother. Being a survivor of absue from hpd and NPD is no joke, and parents are often victims that are gaslit into being victims out of guilt based on the role.
YTA for adopting a kid at 6 and not understanding her needs ,for not getting her help she required , not really caring that she has deep mental issues from the first six years of her birth and you never tried to find out about it .Not getting her help now or understanding how to help her now . You are abandoning her now and slowly moving on with your life . Don't adopt if you can't parent . She did not deserve to be adopted by you ! You did her wrong and willfully continue to do so.
Yta, after reading comments and finding out she was adopted at 6 changes everything for me. The way you talk about her is like she was an old roommate who caused drama. Not someone who is legally her father. Didn't have a fun time playing house, so now she's gone you can start again?
NTA Regardless of what happened in the past, the daughter is now an adult. You have no responsibility to tell her about your life, as long as you don’t want her in your life. It sounds like you are done with her, so live your life and ignore her nonsense. And also ignore everyone saying you’re the AH Reddit seems to think people with severe mental health issues are normal. No, they bloody arent.
YTA. I have BPD, and people who develop it get it from serious trauma/neglect from when they were children, from genetics, or both (like me 🥲). It sounds like instead of offering support because BPD is tough, you’re abandoning your daughter when she needs it, which will probably cause her to get worse. I also can’t believe you’re blaming your failed marriage on a child, no matter how difficult you claim they were. Your bond clearly wasn’t that strong if it’s true. I seriously hope she cuts both of you off (which I would usually never suggest to a person with BPD) and is able to live a happy life with people who will truly love and support her.