So, The Band, I need your opinion:
Can a person be held fully responsible for her actions if she is not of the mental capacity to understand her actions? Can the Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) wife be held accountable for her uncontrollable rage? Can she be held accountable for manipulating someone when she has no idea she’s doing it?
According to our court system, a person who is declared insane does not receive full accountability for a crime she commits. But does that line of thinking apply to mundane day-to-day actions?
Should I no longer hold my husband accountable for his emotional breakdown? The one that lead to him to order me to quit my job years ago, leading to a long period of poverty, near homelessness, my own breakdown and our thousands in debt?
Are we being too tough on those in our lives who have obvious limitations? Or is insanity simply a convenient excuse to the affair between a BPD woman and her white knight lover?
Right is right and wrong will always and forever be wrong, after all.
What do you think, The Band?
People handle things differently. One person will use his mental illness to do things he knows he shouldn’t do, while another will truly have diminished capacity, and shouldn’t be held accountable.
I think the most important thing is for you to talk to someone who can help you find ways to live your own life to its fullest, even though that may mean stepping away from someone who is harming you emotionally.
So much love to you.
These are difficult Situations & I am sorry for what you had to go through. For myself, thinking about behavior of loved ones who have mental health issues from a legal framework doesn’t work. If you hurt someone, that person is hurt regardless of your awareness or intention. For me this is where boundaries and compassion come in. Having good boundaries to protect yourself is different from punishing someone. I feel that good boundaries are helpful to both people involved, where punishment may not be helpful to a person with mental illness.
BD is an extremely complicated disorder that can be managed with proper self-care and therapy – that doesn’t mean it’s easy or fun. Some people who have BPD do not engage in such activities not because they can’t, but because they won’t.
I won’t pretend to know your situation or your partner, but I will say this: you can only support someone so far before you become the enabler. Not only that, it sounds as though your partner has changed your life for the worse, and that’s simply not okay.
I’d suggest reading up on codependency (it’s usually attached to addiction, but substitute mental illness for it). You can’t be the white knight if you can’t save yourself.
Sending you love and light and hope.