Manipulation with the children

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hi tradad.

I am an adult child of a BPD mom - and my dad felt the same way.  He decided to stay because he KNEW what she would do.  So for 25 years he choked it down until my bro was out of university and I was off in doing my own thing.

Honestly I am not sure what age your kids are but I wish my dad had left years ago.  I understand now why he didn't but it was HELL growing up in that house and I bailed at 16.  End of the day I think you need to see what's best not only for your kids but for you.  I am an adult now but I still need my dad - I don't see that changing so I imagine your kids feel the same.

[simplesimon]

Hi tradad.

I am an adult child of a BPD mom - and my dad felt the same way.  He decided to stay because he KNEW what she would do.  So for 25 years he choked it down until my bro was out of university and I was off in doing my own thing.

Honestly I am not sure what age your kids are but I wish my dad had left years ago.  I understand now why he didn't but it was HELL growing up in that house and I bailed at 16.  End of the day I think you need to see what's best not only for your kids but for you.  I am an adult now but I still need my dad - I don't see that changing so I imagine your kids feel the same.

[alembic]

Hello again all.

Sorry for the long time since the last post.  Real life has been very fraught and unpleasant again.

To fill you in on what has been going on - my move to another town with work didn't happen.

Both my older children, my son (11) and my daughter (8) wanted to come with me.  I was delighted that it worked out this way, but it also created logistical problems, because despite trying really hard, I wasn't able to find suitable state schools for them in the new town.  All of the places in the good schools were already long gone, and I was told that I would have to go through a lengthy appeals process, alongside 60 other families, to try and get places in them.  Since our children already go to good schools in our current town, it seemed potentially a bad move to take them to a different town and then put them in much worse schools.

The only other possibility was sending at least one of the children to private school in the new town.  My wife's family certainly has enough money to do this, and in the past, she had claimed that this wouldn't be a problem if we decided this was the best thing to do.  However, of course, now that paying for it would mean the children would be spending most of their time in a different town to her, suddenly it was more of a problem.

I was also very concerned about leaving the children in her care, because I would have had to start work immediately, and the children would have only come with me at the start of the new academic year.  Taking the job and putting the children in private school would have then made me financially dependant on her and her family, because if she had at any stage withdrawn the money for the private school fees, I would not have been able to fund it on my salary alone.  So very reluctantly, in the end I decided it was just too big a risk to take.

In the meantime, things have got much worse here.  My wife refuses to respect my privacy, and by sneaking looks at my laptop when I'm out of the house, found out about this forum, and my postings here.  She has even, I believe, gone so far as to register her own account, and has created her own posts somewhere on these forums, to protest her innocence.  She cannot bear the idea that I might be getting support for my situation from anyone, and always tries to undermine whatever support I manage to obtain.

About three weeks back, my wife had a enormous meltdown, where she contacted the emergency out-of-hours doctor, who prescribed her some valium.  From reading around on the Internet, apparently valium often makes BPD worse... . She knows I have been buying and reading more books about BPD lately, and that weekend she tried to warn me off and told me to 'stop pursuing it'.   She was in such a state that day that I knew something bad was going to happen the next day, so when I couldn't sleep, I decided to leave the house in the middle of the night.

The next morning all hell broke loose when my wife found out I had gone.  She had another meltdown, and phoned the doctors again, and they sent around paramedics and a GP around to our house.  My son also became very upset because he though I was gone for good.  The paramedics and GP insisted on contacting social services, but naturally my wife blamed everything on me.  Social services even suggesting moving my wife and the kids to a 'safe house' to be protected from me, or banning me from the house.

Our family is now involved with various agencies, all trying to get to the bottom of what is happening. Obviously my wife makes this as difficult as possible, by twisting everything, and making out she is the innocent victim in everything that has gone on.

Around a week ago, when I was again out of the house, our daughter got so upset she grabbed a knife from the kitchen, and threatened to hurt herself with it. This is exactly the same sort of behaviour my wife tried in 2002, and her mother tried in 2004.    It is shocking and saddening to hear that my daughter is now caught up in the same behaviour too.  I naturally brought this to the attention of the agencies dealing with us, but of course my wife even tried to twist things to make out it was my fault - even though I wasn't there - by claiming I had telephoned with the house and upset everyone, which had caused the incident. Fortunately, I could prove that this hadn't happened, because my son talks about these events in the phone call, so they must have logically happened earlier.  But obviously, sometimes I can't prove my account of events so easily.

I just hope the authorities can get to the bottom of what is happening in our family.  The problem is, I doubt they've ever heard of BPD, and seem to be taking the 'let's find a workable compromise' approach to dealing with us. They naturally don't understand that my wife will say anything to make it seem as though she is amicable, and then when things inevitably don't work out, she will find some way to blame that failure on me.

[Matt]

About security at this site... .

You can change your user name - contact a member of the staff (listed near the top of this page) and ask them to do that.

Sign out of the site, and turn off your computer, so nobody else can see what you have written here.

Make sure not to include any proper names, or too many details, like the town where you live.

When you follow those guidelines, I don't think anybody will find what you write here.

Books... .

"Understanding The Borderline Mother" by Christine Lawson.

"Stop Walking On Eggshells" by Randi Kreger (who founded this site) and Paul Mason.

About the authorities... .

Where I live, you can file a motion with the court to appoint a Custody Evaluator who will do psych evals of both parents.  You have to include in your motion that the CE will do psych evals, and that the psych evals will be based on objective evaluations (like the MMPI-2) not just chats, and that the test results will be given to both parties.  In my case, that's what got my wife's psychological disorders out in the open - they are an objective fact now, not just my opinion or anybody else's opinion.  Someone with BPD might easily fool a psychologist who just chats with her, but objective psych evals like the MMPI-2 are very difficult to fool and often find more than we expect.

The motion is more likely to be granted if you ask for both parents to be evaluated, and you need to be prepared for results that show you have some issues too.  My results - to my surprise - showed that I am at high risk for substance abuse.  Rather than deny that, I accepted it, and asked the psychologist what he recommended that I do about that.  A contrast with my wife's response to her results - "multiple psychological disorders" including BPD - she denied it and did not comply with the court's order that she get psychotherapy.

Of course this all assumes that you move forward with separation or divorce.  From what you have said, it seems clear that the current situation is putting too much stress on the kids and they are already having problems.  Maybe a counselor for them would be a good place to start.

[DivDad]

Remember to keep a chronological log of everything text, email, phone messages and phone calls.

It was a relevation to me... . when i went back and read it all.

YOu need to keep copious notes and a log.  Mainly for your own sanity.  And for the courts later on.

You will see a pattern of how the Bline manipulates, distorts and lies.

Find some friends to confide in.  It will keep you grounded.

If not, the Bline will isolate you socially... . and you will begin to think that the bazaar is the norm.