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If you have a sibling with borderline personality disorder, then you’ve likely already gotten accustomed to the challenges that can come with. Your family understands the rhythm. When it comes to discussing your sibling, you all have a shorthand. You know when she’s having a manic episode. You know what to do—sort of, to the best of your ability—and what not to do. You recognize the signs. You can go to each other to talk about it. You also recognize the signs of her depressive episodes. You have her therapist’s name and phone number (and she perhaps has yours). Everyone is up to date on what is going on and how to help your sibling live in a functional manner. It took years, but perhaps, as a family, you got your system down as good as you could. Maybe you even had some distance from his sibling for a while, but you put in the work to patch things up because it’s worth it.
Once you bring your romantic partner into the mix—the one you’ll marry, are married to, live with, or just know will be rather serious—that’s one more person who needs to be on-boarded into this delicate situation. It can be overwhelming at first, as an outside, to enter a family in which one of the members has borderline personality disorder. Think of your relationship with your partner’s siblings. You want a good one. Those are basically your backups when it comes to handling the parents-in-law. Your partner’s siblings are some of his closest friends, hopefully. And so, you want to be their friend, too. So now think of the fact that your partner hopes for such a relationship with your sibling, who has borderline personality disorder. It’s not so easy. There are some things to be prepared for.
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At first, she’ll be on her best behavior
It’s common for those with borderline personality to be on their best behavior when a new person enters the picture. Understanding that, this individual may have been warned about their condition, the person suffering from BPD may want to combat that by being as positive, sweet, quick-to-laugh, and charming as possible around your partner. At first, he may say to you, “I don’t understand what you mean about your sister—she seems amazing!”
