BPD Ambush: How Borderlines Weaponize Therapy

Many clients wrongly believe that setting boundaries with a borderline or narcissistic partner will magically fix the relationship.

It won’t.

Nevertheless, boundaries are essential—I encourage every client to set them. But I also stress two things:

It won’t be easy—for them or their disordered partner.
Setting boundaries is usually the beginning of the end.

To a narcissist or borderline, a boundary doesn’t register as self-respect. It feels like rejection, control, abuse, or proof you don’t love them.

If my clients had healthy boundaries from the start, these relationships likely wouldn’t have progressed past the first few dates. Of course everything felt amazing in the beginning—because there were no boundaries to push back on yet.

BPDs and NPDs aren’t looking for partners—they’re looking for easy targets. And people without boundaries are easy prey. They definitely don’t have HEP: high enabler potential—the main trait BPDs and NPDs are screening for, whether consciously or not.

Once you finally start to set boundaries, it doesn’t just upset the apple cart—it blows it up.
Some disordered partners respond with rage. Some cry victim.

And others?

They try to regain control by hijacking your support systems—like therapy.
And with a therapist like me?
Big mistake.

Now let’s look at what a BPD therapy ambush looks like in real time. Enter “Victor” and “Goldie”—and what was supposed to be a simple individual therapy session.

Instead, it turned into BPD-palooza, where personal and professional boundaries were violated with wild, unchecked BPD abandon.

(*Names have been changed to cover my ass).

How a Borderline Hijacked Her Husband’s Therapy Session

“Victor” requested a session because he had “questions” about “difficulties” with his wife. His session prep form was vague. He didn’t disclose any details about these so-called difficulties. I logged into the video meeting to find Victor sitting there with his wife, “Goldie.”

Surprise.

He hadn’t mentioned she’d be joining us. Or that the “difficulties” involved false abuse allegations, arrests, and her recent BPD diagnosis.

Me: Hello, Victor. Nice to meet you. Who’s this? You didn’t mention bringing a guest.

Goldie introduced herself and asked if it was alright for her to join.

Me: I guess we’ll find out.

She didn’t ask to join because she was confused about the boundaries. She asked to see if I’d enforce one.

Goldie then disclosed she’d recently been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She said she’d read my “profile” and understood me to be an expert on BPD. Translation: she thought flattery would get her control of the session.

I corrected her.

Me: My expertise is in working with people—primarily men—who are abuse victims of BPD partners. Not BPD individuals.

Did Goldie acknowledge that? Nope.

She plowed ahead. Claimed she was taking full responsibility for her behavior, that she’s on medication now, and just started DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy).

Me: Okay, great. What are you looking for from me?

Goldie pressed on. Since I’m the expert, wouldn’t I agree it’s highly unusual for someone with BPD to admit their destructive behavior and voluntarily seek therapy?

Me: It depends. Also, attending DBT is no guarantee of success. Sorry, but I’m still unclear on how I can help you.

Therapy Aside #1: When BPDs Use Therapy to Manipulate, Not Heal

Yes, it’s highly unusual for personality-disordered individuals to voluntarily seek evaluation. When they do, it’s usually because of a court order, an ultimatum, or a hospitalization.

Attending therapy, though? That’s not so unusual. But let’s be clear about why they go.

Many borderlines don’t seek therapy for self-improvement. They use it as a tool for:

- Validation (I’m the real victim here!)
- Manipulation (Watch me turn the therapist into an ally against my partner.)
- Damage control (Avoiding divorce, losing custody, or getting arrested.)

And yes—some genuinely want to manage their symptoms and improve their relationships. But in my experience? That’s the exception, not the rule.

“I’m Not Like the Other BPDs…”

At this point, Victor finally chimed in with additional background information. Turns out, he and Goldie have been married for less than a year.

And in that short time Goldie has:

Accused Victor of abuse and called the cops on him multiple times.
Gotten him arrested multiple times.
Retracted her allegations… only to accuse him again.
Run out of public places screaming and crying that Victor was abusing her and making scenes that caused the police to be called.
Jumped out of a moving car. More than once.

All in under a year.

That’s not a rough patch.
That’s a preview of coming attractions.
Heaven help this man if he has a child with her.

Me: That’s all pretty serious.

Goldie jumped in immediately. She took responsibility (sort of)—but also blamed:

Her invalidating parents.
A former manager (when she was still employed) who was “mean” to her once.
Feeling “unloved” because… reasons.

She “took responsibility,” sure—sandwiched between a word salad of justifications and emotional guilt bait.

But don’t worry.
She found the “right” medication and started DBT, so everything’s fine now.

Goldie: Victor says I’m back to being the girl he first met and fell in love with, right, my love?

Yeah. That girl?
She never existed.

The real Goldie didn’t reveal herself fully until after they said, “I do.”

I asked again: What do you want from me?

Goldie didn’t say it outright, but it was clear. She wanted my stamp of approval—that meds and DBT would magically fix everything. Which she could also weaponize. “Look Victor, your BPD expert says everything’s okay. Impregnate me.”

Therapy Aside #2: She Was Always Going to Be in the Room

Victor didn’t find me by accident.

He likely came across my work through search engines, social media, my website, YouTube, or word-of-mouth from someone who recognized the patterns in his relationship. My guess? He read enough to know he wasn’t crazy. And that maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t the abusive one after all.

Whether Goldie asked to be included or just showed up, it’s clear the session had to happen on her terms.

As for reading my “profile?”
You bet your ass she Googled me.
And I’d wager she was panic-stricken—and probably enraged—by what she found.

There was no way she was going to let Victor meet with a therapist who might validate his reality.
So she showed up to gatekeep the narrative, shape what I heard, and monitor what Victor said.

And the fact that she thought she could manipulate me?

Let’s just say that’s not uncommon when you’re dealing with someone who likely has high narcissistic traits, which the majority of BPD people do.

That’s how this works. If she can’t control the therapist, she’ll block access to the therapist.

So no—this wasn’t a spontaneous tag-along.
This was a preemptive maneuver to safeguard her version of reality and her control over Victor.

I Have Questions

This is when I decided to ask the obvious:

How long have you been on the medication?
How many Dialectical Behavior Therapy sessions have you attended?
Does your DBT practitioner know you’re meeting with me today?

Goldie’s answers, in order:

Less than a week.
One session.
No.

Naturally, she believed she was in full remission.

[Oh, FFS. Deep breath.]

Therapy Aside #3: Medication, DBT, and the Illusion of Change

Most psychiatric medications—antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, atypical antipsychotics—don’t work overnight. They typically take 10 to 14 days, minimum, just to build up in the system and determine if they’re even effective.

And one Dialectical Behavior Therapy session?

Let’s be real: Attending therapy doesn’t prove change. Any more than going to church once a week proves moral goodness.

As for Goldie’s miraculous transformation? It’s not the meds.

Call me cynical (or experienced), but I’d bet she’s on her best behavior—for now.
Not because she’s healing. Because she’s trying to avoid divorce.

And once she locks in an anchor baby (not for immigration purposes), Victor better buckle up.

Conditional Answers: It’s Way Too Soon to Celebrate Progress

Me: Look, I don’t have enough information to give you the answer I think you’re looking for.

I don’t know either of your individual histories.
I don’t know your family backgrounds.
I don’t know your relationship history.

But I do know this:

You’ve been on the med for less than a week.
You’ve attended one Dialectical Behavior Therapy session.

That’s nowhere near enough to predict outcomes—let alone talk about “progress.”

The best advice I can give?
Slow down.
Reset your expectations to something more realistic.

You’ve barely started treatment.
No matter how committed you are, this is going to be a long, uphill slog.

Goldie didn’t even blink.

Victor sat expressionless and guarded—the way people look when they’ve learned to hide what they feel just to survive the fallout.

Why Victims Stay: Victor Isn’t Perfect Either, Just So You Know!

Of course he isn’t.

But I bet he doesn’t jump out of moving vehicles or file false police reports.

The fact that Victor married Goldie—and is actually considering staying and having kids with her after all of the insanity of the past year—tells me he has his own issues, too.

Just not the ones Goldie thinks.

Goldie’s complaints about Victor:

He’s not social enough. (She’s very social.)
He isolates himself. (According to Goldie—and Victor’s mother, who wasn’t present during the session.)
He doesn’t want to go out with her and her friends. This makes her feel “unloved.”
She doesn’t like how he spends his money.

Naturally, Goldie doesn’t work. She contributes nothing financially to the marriage.
But she has plenty of opinions about how Victor spends the money he earns.

The same money, by the way, that her BPD antics could destroy.
And if he stays married to her?
It still could.

Therapy Aside #4: Leave Victor’s Mom Out of This! (BPD Family Triangulation)

If they’re not trying to isolate you from your family, they’re trying to recruit them as flying monkeys. I don’t know what the truth is between Victor and his mother. But Goldie discussing Victor’s alleged “isolation issues” with his own mom?

That’s a giant red flag in BPD relationship dynamics.

She’s pathologizing him behind his back—then weaponizing his mother’s supposed agreement as proof that she’s right. According to Goldie, Victor’s mom agrees that he’s isolating. Which is interesting, considering Victor’s mom presumably also knows about the false police reports and arrests.

Yet somehow, Goldie’s the one diagnosing Victor?

Victor has his own issues, sure.
But this?
This isn’t one of them.

Well, Duh: Why the Falsely Accused Try to Avoid More False Allegations

For most of the session, Victor barely spoke.
When he did? Goldie either corrected him or “amended” his statements.

At this point, I cut in to make what should’ve been a blindingly obvious point for anyone with a shred of empathy.

Me: Goldie, if you had run out of restaurants screaming that I was abusing you—and jumped out of my car—I wouldn’t want to go out in public with you either.

Because beyond jeopardizing your own safety, you also jeopardized Victor’s physical safety, reputation, career, freedom, and mental health.

False abuse allegations don’t just “go away.”

They cause depression. Shame. Isolation.
Especially for the wrongly accused.

For the first time in the session, Victor showed real emotion.

Victor: I feel like you actually understand what I’ve been going through.

Goldie’s microexpression? Not pleased.

Therapy Aside #5: Abuse Has Consequences

Goldie’s complaints about Victor pathologize his natural emotional responses to her abuse—
a classic tactic used by borderlines and other high-conflict personalities.

She wants date nights.
She’s “behaving better” now.
So what’s his problem?

He’s making her feel unloved.

I wonder how Victor was feeling when he left his own home in handcuffs—thanks to Goldie’s lies?

Her emotional immaturity, entitlement, and lack of empathy are on full display here.
Goldie either doesn’t understand—or doesn’t care—that trust isn’t a faucet you turn back on the moment she decides to “behave.”

Abuse has consequences.

Lies.
False allegations.
Public scenes.
Emotional manipulation.
These things don’t magically vanish because someone starts DBT or finds the “right” medication.

Once trust is broken, rebuilding it isn’t just hard.
Sometimes, it’s not possible.

When abusers frame a partner’s emotional withdrawal as “withholding love,” it’s not vulnerability.
It’s coercion.
Or, if you like, coercive control.

It’s a guilt trip—designed to force reconnection and intimacy without accountability.

Even if an abusive partner genuinely begins to change, they’re not automatically entitled to trust, forgiveness, or closeness.

Going to one therapy session and being on better behavior for a few weeks doesn’t prove change.
It’s just step one in a long process—one that requires sustained effort and consistent proof over time.

Victor is right to be skeptical.
He’s right to be guarded.
Goldie is manipulative AF.

Protecting himself doesn’t make him unkind, unloving, or unsupportive.
It makes him aware of the damage—and smart enough not to fall for another round.

This is peak BPD:
Seeing the natural consequences of their behavior as unfair—
as if they’re the ones being wronged.

Anything Else I Can Help You With?

Eventually, Goldie asked: Do you ever work with couples who want to save their marriage?

I restated my position: I don’t work with personality-disordered individuals.
But I have worked with their partners—helping them implement DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) techniques.

Goldie wasn’t done: How many of those couples stayed together?

Me: None of them.

Why? Even in the best cases, DBT led to little—or at most—marginal improvement in the relationship dynamic.

The reason is simple. DBT can help manage symptoms, but it can’t create empathy, accountability, or emotional safety where none existed.

And couples therapy with a personality-disordered partner? It usually backfires.

They don’t go to resolve issues. They go to control the narrative, discredit the victim, and get the therapist on their side. (Exactly like Goldie was doing in this ambush “couples session.”) Therapy becomes just another stage for manipulation.

Then I made an offer: I’d be willing to support Victor individually—under certain conditions.

My Conditions

Before I agreed to work with Victor, a few things needed to happen:

The DBT therapist had to be informed.
Victor and Goldie needed to sign releases so we could communicate directly.
Future joint sessions?
That would be up to the DBT therapist—not Goldie.
Goldie needed to sign a release allowing Victor to communicate with her DBT therapist—whether he worked with me or not.

These aren’t power plays. They’re best clinical practices—especially when working with high-conflict or personality-disordered dynamics. The goal is transparency, coordination, and protection from the typical BPD shenanigans.

Victor agreed.
He scheduled an appointment for the following week.

Then Goldie asked: Can I come too?

Me: No.

She was looking for control.
And I’d just told her she couldn’t have it.

Therapy Aside #6: BPD Boundaries Matter

I never expected Goldie to agree to these conditions. Which, to be honest, was part of the reason I made them.

The other reason? Like I said, they’re just best clinical practices.

When someone with borderline personality disorder has multiple professionals in their orbit—therapists, social workers, case managers, probation officers, their partner’s therapist, their child’s therapist (or all of the above)—releases of information are essential.

Why? Because it keeps everyone on the same page. And it makes it a lot harder for the BPD to triangulate, manipulate, or split providers against each other.

If you’re dealing with someone like Goldie, you don’t just need therapy.
You need to BPD-proof yourself as much as possible.

Epilogue

Less than 24 hours before his solo appointment, Victor emailed to cancel.
No surprise there.

I replied that my offer of support still stands—but made it clear:
I have no interest in working with Goldie.

My best guess? Goldie realized she couldn’t manipulate or control my work with Victor if she wasn’t in the room to puppetmaster the session.

If I ever hear from Victor again, it’ll likely be after the divorce begins—and things get ugly. Hopefully, they won’t bring kids into the mix. Not unless—and until—Goldie stops manipulating and stabilizes.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Goldie’s going to need hostages.

Up Next: A Deep Dive into BPD Manipulation Tactics

This session with Goldie wasn’t just an ambush—
it was a textbook example of how borderline personality disorder can show up in therapy settings.

In the follow-up article, I’ll break down the specific BPD manipulation tactics Goldie used to hijack the session, derail accountability, and maintain control over both Victor and the narrative.

From boundary violations to weaponizing therapy, triangulation, guilt-tripping, and performative “healing”—I’ll unpack it all.

Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD helps individuals with relationship and codependency issues via telephone or Skype. Since 2009, she’s specialized in helping men and women break free of abusive relationships, cope with the stress of ongoing abuse and heal from the trauma. She combines practical advice, emotional support and goal-oriented outcomes. If you’d like to work with Dr. Palmatier, please visit the Schedule a Session page or you can email her directly at shrink4men@gmail.com.

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