Abstract
Persons with emotionally unstable personality disorder have significant difficulties in intimate partnerships. Their relationships are unstable and intense and are marked by distrust, periods of temporary breakups and reconciliation, and a high rate of divorce. Breakups are, due to sensitivity to rejection and fear of abandonment, a potential trigger that can lead to the activation of existing emotionally unstable personality disorder in the parents and increase in the intensity of their symptoms, consequently leading to different forms of inappropriate and manipulative behavior. The goal of this study was to achieve insights in the characteristics of breakups in parents with symptoms of emotionally unstable personality disorder. The present article describes the results of a qualitative study on the characteristics of dissolution of martial and non-marital partnerships of parents with symptoms of emotionally unstable personality disorder, with the participation of 12 social workers and psychologists from the Department for the Protection of Children, Family, and Marriage of social welfare centers in the area of Zagreb and Zagreb County. The study was conducted in the form of semistructured interviews. Data processing consisted of thematic analysis. According to the results of the study, breakups in parents with symptoms of emotionally unstable personality disorder are marked by a high level of conflict among the parents, inability to reach an agreement about organizing parental care, manipulative behavior, and manipulation of the child, the other parent (i.e. the ex-partner), social care professionals, and the system as a whole. The most common forms of manipulation are preventing the child from meeting and spending time with the other parent and members of their family, disparaging the other parent and members of their family in front of the child and social welfare professionals, unfounded accusations and reports against the other parents, and repeated complaints and reports against the conduct of social workers and other experts.
