She makes sure his kids hate me

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

My BF's ex wife has BPD.  They have five children, four adults and one teen.  The teen lives with her and the others have varying amount of contact with her.  She is relentless with the parental alienation.  It's been two years and she says that she's happier than she's ever been, yet she bashes my boyfriend to the children whenever she has a chance.  She rarely interacts with my BF.   

They believe her distortions and lies and in order to punish him, the kids want to exclude me from family gatherings.  The truth is, I have many people who love me and I don't really care if I'm included in their family or not.  My BF and I plan to be together forever but we don't want to get married or even live together.  We have both done our psychological work and have a wonderful, healthy relationship.

The only reason that this concerns me is that it really hurts my BF.  He wants me to be included in family things.  They're angry with him due to his mother's distortions and lies and another way to hurt him is to deprive him of my company when he would really like me there.  I feel like I'm being used. 

I'm not sure what to do here.  Do I go to the family events where I'm not wanted in order to support my BF?  Or do I skip them in order to stay away from all of the negativity?  Any opinions you have would be greatly appreciated.

[Tracy500]

My BF's ex wife has BPD.  They have five children, four adults and one teen.  The teen lives with her and the others have varying amount of contact with her.  She is relentless with the parental alienation.  It's been two years and she says that she's happier than she's ever been, yet she bashes my boyfriend to the children whenever she has a chance.  She rarely interacts with my BF.   

They believe her distortions and lies and in order to punish him, the kids want to exclude me from family gatherings.  The truth is, I have many people who love me and I don't really care if I'm included in their family or not.  My BF and I plan to be together forever but we don't want to get married or even live together.  We have both done our psychological work and have a wonderful, healthy relationship.

The only reason that this concerns me is that it really hurts my BF.  He wants me to be included in family things.  They're angry with him due to his mother's distortions and lies and another way to hurt him is to deprive him of my company when he would really like me there.  I feel like I'm being used. 

I'm not sure what to do here.  Do I go to the family events where I'm not wanted in order to support my BF?  Or do I skip them in order to stay away from all of the negativity?  Any opinions you have would be greatly appreciated.

[Turkish]

What do you mean by family things? The six of them, her family, or his including the kids and her?

[Tracy500]

weddings, parties, holiday gatherings, etc.  The five kids would all be there and the ex might or might not be. 

[broken3]

I would go to every event to show solidarity and to show that you are part of the family no matter what.

In time it will show everyone, including the kids that you have confidence in being a permanent fixture.

Just my .02

[ForeverDad]

Richard Warshak describe this somewhere in Divorce Poison, where the disparaged parent's entire family is painted blacker than black.  Evaluators can use that as a yardstick to assess whether children are being alienated.  Disliking a few of the relatives with good basis is normal, disliking all the relatives is not.  In this case, automatically disliking you without real basis is the issue here.  Of course the book was written with the focus on minor children, but the same principles ought to apply to adult children.  Sadly they can be even more entrenched in the projected ideology, they may or may not be convinced over time by validation, reality and common sense.

But yes, you can't let them stop you from living your lives.  Also, another option is to "choose your battles".  If the gathering is about the children you may decide to opt out sometimes and yet still attend all the gatherings where they're on the sidelines.  Eventually you and your BF will hopefully be seen for who you are and they might be seen as sourpusses.

[NorthernGirl]

Hi Tracy500! My DH has 3 adult children with his ex-wife (UBPD). She has launched a number of "hate campaigns" against DH and me, usually when she was feeling the most vulnerable. For years she told them they shouldn't invite me to events because I'm not family, and she said they must celebrate their birthdays only with her because she gave birth to them. The biggest thing that helped when there was an issue was DH explaining to the kids that needed to treat both of us with respect and for him that meant that I needed to be included in the major events because I was his partner. Because this is his issue, not mine, I have left the explaining to him.

My suggestion is that you talk it over with your BF and see if you can help him understand that if he wants you at these types of events with him, he may need to talk separately with his children to explain why.  He can explain that they should always treat you with respect and as his partner it is disrespectful to ignore or badmouth you. He can correct the lies. But in the end, he may still have the tough call of deciding if he will refuse to attend something or attend on his own if they don't invite you.

And as Matt says, I suggest you pick your battles. If there's a wedding, your BF can explain that he wants to be at the wedding with you and that you will not be expecting to play any major role in the event. If it is something you can have a separate celebration for (Xmas, birthday) then your BF can plan that if he likes. If the kids feel they need to show solidarity with their mom and choose not to accept their dad's invitation, then that's their choice.

I think it's important to remember that this stuff is hard on many kids whose parents are divorced. They feel torn, that they must choose sides. And as the kids get older, they will be trying to juggle schedules with their own partners and their partners' families, which also has challenges. Adding in a parent with BPD just ramps it up. But if your BF continues to show his children love and support, hopefully they will find ways to keep connecting with him that include you.