Maintaining contact with ex BPD's family

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I was married for 10 years to a BPD man and finally got a divorce last winter. I had moved to the US from Europe and have and left my own family behind. Throughout our marriage and during difficult times at the end of our marriage I got very close with his family. They love me like I'm their daughter and keep telling me they want me in their lives no matter who i'm with and if I eventually date someone they don't want me to break contact with them.

My ex harasses me about my contact with his family and he thinks if I don't want him and since I divorced him I have no right to be involved with them anymore. I'm usually not even the one that initiates contact with his family, they are the ones that check on me and his mom texts me every day and calls me very frequently. When they come to visit and stay overnight, they stay with me, not at his place.

This whole situation sometimes causes a lot of conflict and sometimes I just want to tell his family I need to lay low for a while and not talk to them, but my ex mother in law and his sisters don't want that to happen, especially since we have a daughter together and they want to be close to her to.

Any advice on ho to handle that? Am I right to continue the relationship with his family even though I chose to end our marriage?

[newlifeBPDfree]

I was married for 10 years to a BPD man and finally got a divorce last winter. I had moved to the US from Europe and have and left my own family behind. Throughout our marriage and during difficult times at the end of our marriage I got very close with his family. They love me like I'm their daughter and keep telling me they want me in their lives no matter who i'm with and if I eventually date someone they don't want me to break contact with them.

My ex harasses me about my contact with his family and he thinks if I don't want him and since I divorced him I have no right to be involved with them anymore. I'm usually not even the one that initiates contact with his family, they are the ones that check on me and his mom texts me every day and calls me very frequently. When they come to visit and stay overnight, they stay with me, not at his place.

This whole situation sometimes causes a lot of conflict and sometimes I just want to tell his family I need to lay low for a while and not talk to them, but my ex mother in law and his sisters don't want that to happen, especially since we have a daughter together and they want to be close to her to.

Any advice on ho to handle that? Am I right to continue the relationship with his family even though I chose to end our marriage?

[Turkish]

Let's leave your exH and his BPD behaviors aside for a moment... .and even your daughter for a minute.

Do you enjoy your relationship with his family?

[newlifeBPDfree]

Let's leave your exH and his BPD behaviors aside for a moment... .and even your daughter for a minute.

Do you enjoy your relationship with his family?

Yes, I do enjoy it and it's the only family I have here in the States as I moved from Europe for my husband and left my family there. My husband's mom refers to me as her daughter and his sisters call me their sister. Sometimes they say jokingly that they would rather trade and have me instead of him. But of course, I never mentioned it to him because his relationship with his family is already very fragile.

[Turkish]

Let's leave your exH and his BPD behaviors aside for a moment... .and even your daughter for a minute.

Do you enjoy your relationship with his family?

Yes, I do enjoy it and it's the only family I have here in the States as I moved from Europe for my husband and left my family there. My husband's mom refers to me as her daughter and his sisters call me their sister. Sometimes they say jokingly that they would rather trade and have me instead of him. But of course, I never mentioned it to him because his relationship with his family is already very fragile.

Sorry for a delayed response... .

I see it as you feel it's good for you, and I assume it's obviously good for your daughter. My only concern would be if your daughter picks up on how the family feels about their son. That would be them engaging in a form of alienation of her father.

So you're left with dealing with his behaviors and resentment about being you being the chosen one (he probably feels "abandoned" by his family, right or wrong) over him.

The harassment you talk about... .is this over the phone, by email or text? How often do you have to see him?

We have a concept when engaging with our exSO's called BIFF:

TOOLS: Responding to hostile email

I've found that a form of BIFF works well in verbal interactions as well. I messed up on it the other night, and sent a longer text reply than I had meant to. Her reply was meant to draw me into an argument, so I just didn't respond. I've had to do that a lot.

How often do you have to see him, and what is the custody situation? I read through your past posts and didn't get a sense of that.

I'm also sorry about his cheating on you... .mine chose to end our r/s by doing that, instead of just leaving. I still find it painful to even see her even though she moved out 5 months ago.

[Mutt]

 

Hi newlifeBPDfree,

There's no right or wrong here. These types of relationships with a pwBPD tend to make us doubt our judgement and instincts and it takes time to recover our self-esteem and confidence once the r/s has ended. If it feels right for you to maintain a relationship with his family - so be it. He is emotionally immature and I would wager that this issue with his family was in the marriage?

From my experience with my ex - she would try to alienate me from my family and hers as well, healthy relationships. I really got a long with my FIL it almost felt like a father / son bond. I miss my ex FIL. My ex started telling him stories in our relationship. She was trying to poison him and weaken our relationship. But she's family to him and of course blood is thicker than water. He was the one person that it hurt the most to lose from her family after the fall-out of the marriage from her insecurities and maladaptive coping skills.

Was your ex controlling or alienating you from healthy relationships with family and friends? You are divorced and his insecurities and distorted belief system are his own and not yours. I think your right to continue the r/s with his family. You can only put out so many fires and if they are alienating him and enabling him that is their issue as well. Have you talked to them and explained how you felt?

If your ex is not happy and he's harasses you - the best thing to do is to disengage. Ignore his emotionally immaturity and petulant behaviors. That belongs to him - not you - there's some residual FOG here? Maybe he has insecurities and he is worried that you will say something about his childish behaviors to his family? It's control and I'm sorry to hear he is causing strain on you and your relationships with his family.

[newlifeBPDfree]

Turkish, there is no custodial agreement. He never even showed up at our divorce hearing, so I got whatever I asked for, which is full custody. I was going to get a joint custody but my attorney advised against it. He basically said that judging by his behaviors I would have to fight him every inch of the way every time I try to do anything. My ex does not know that though and I act like we have joint custody and I dread the day he finds out I have full custody. We kind of established certain days when he has her but he keeps changing the plans all the time and never knows when he's supposed to have her and keeps cancelling things on me last minute. I basically interact with him ever day because he picks her up from summer camp since his work is more flexible and would wait for me to get home, so I still see him pretty frequently. He also still has the keys to my apartment that we shared. I know it's a huge No, which I'm going to handle soon.

His  harrasment is mostly via text. He goes on and on and can send me 20 textx all at once. Sometimes he tries to approach me in person but he is careful because usually my daughter is around. Sometimes he calls me too when I'm at work and can keep calling 30 times in a row until I answer. But most of the abuse is via text.

[newlifeBPDfree]

If your ex is not happy and he's harasses you - the best thing to do is to disengage. Ignore his emotionally immaturity and petulant behaviors. That belongs to him - not you - there's some residual FOG here? Maybe he has insecurities and he is worried that you will say something about his childish behaviors to his family? It's control and I'm sorry to hear he is causing strain on you and your relationships with his family.

I just tried disengaging completely and ignoring his texts and I thinnk it might work. I used to reply to his messages and trying to defend myself but it always backfired and intensified his tantrum.

He definitely has a lot of insecrurities and thinks that I manipulate his family against him. When we were married we never visited his family much because he always had issues with his parents. But I missed the family interaction especially because my won lives across the Atlantic. Now, they take my side and he is furious because he feels like they never have his back.

[Turkish]

Turkish, there is no custodial agreement. He never even showed up at our divorce hearing, so I got whatever I asked for, which is full custody. I was going to get a joint custody but my attorney advised against it. He basically said that judging by his behaviors I would have to fight him every inch of the way every time I try to do anything. My ex does not know that though and I act like we have joint custody and I dread the day he finds out I have full custody. We kind of established certain days when he has her but he keeps changing the plans all the time and never knows when he's supposed to have her and keeps cancelling things on me last minute. I basically interact with him ever day because he picks her up from summer camp since his work is more flexible and would wait for me to get home, so I still see him pretty frequently. He also still has the keys to my apartment that we shared. I know it's a huge No, which I'm going to handle soon.

I know the key thing... .two days after my Ex finally moved out, I gave her back the spare key to her car (I'd been keeping it in my safe due to a recent burglary), but I asked for the house keys and home alarm fob in return. She looked at me and said, "shouldn't I have a key to the house?" I replied, "do I need a key to your apartment?" She handed the keys over to me. It's a form of control (as well as a sign of attachment), and it's good that you are doing something about it.

So what I get is that you have full legal and physical custody of your daughter. Does this mean that he has zero visitation rights, and that you have just been merciful? Or he has some visitation, but is making it hard by constantly changing it? How is your daughter when you get her back, do you sense that she is stressed?

[Mutt]

Now, they take my side and he is furious because he feels like they never have his back.

I get it.

It's emotional blackmail. His family control their own actions and feelings. He'll likely never change about how he felt during and after the marriage. It's a reality. How we choose to accept our exe's feelings and actions are our own. A goal could be to become indifferent and depersonalize his FOG.

[newlifeBPDfree]

I know the key thing... .two days after my Ex finally moved out, I gave her back the spare key to her car (I'd been keeping it in my safe due to a recent burglary), but I asked for the house keys and home alarm fob in return. She looked at me and said, "shouldn't I have a key to the house?" I replied, "do I need a key to your apartment?" She handed the keys over to me. It's a form of control (as well as a sign of attachment), and it's good that you are doing something about it.

So what I get is that you have full legal and physical custody of your daughter. Does this mean that he has zero visitation rights, and that you have just been merciful? Or he has some visitation, but is making it hard by constantly changing it? How is your daughter when you get her back, do you sense that she is stressed?

Yes, I have full custody and if I wanted it that way he would have no visitation rights, but I dont want that because my daughter gets along great with him and loves him to pieces. We initially set certain days he can have her and he mostly sticks to it but he just assumes most of the time I have no life on my own and he can cancel and rearrage at any time.  I want him in her life, it's just it makes my life more difficult and him not knowing the truth about this makes it harder sometimes. For example now hes threatening me i cant take my daughter to Europe to see my family because I cut off the contact with him. He still thouught he could get back with me and now hes manipulating to get back at me. My daughter is actually very happy with the arrangement because she has quality time with him and even loves his new girfirnd. I dont think there are any issues there. If i sense any issues I would cut him off immediately.

[Turkish]

I know the key thing... .two days after my Ex finally moved out, I gave her back the spare key to her car (I'd been keeping it in my safe due to a recent burglary), but I asked for the house keys and home alarm fob in return. She looked at me and said, "shouldn't I have a key to the house?" I replied, "do I need a key to your apartment?" She handed the keys over to me. It's a form of control (as well as a sign of attachment), and it's good that you are doing something about it.

So what I get is that you have full legal and physical custody of your daughter. Does this mean that he has zero visitation rights, and that you have just been merciful? Or he has some visitation, but is making it hard by constantly changing it? How is your daughter when you get her back, do you sense that she is stressed?

Yes, I have full custody and if I wanted it that way he would have no visitation rights, but I dont want that because my daughter gets along great with him and loves him to pieces. We initially set certain days he can have her and he mostly sticks to it but he just assumes most of the time I have no life on my own and he can cancel and rearrage at any time.  I want him in her life, it's just it makes my life more difficult and him not knowing the truth about this makes it harder sometimes. For example now hes threatening me i cant take my daughter to Europe to see my family because I cut off the contact with him. He still thouught he could get back with me and now hes manipulating to get back at me. My daughter is actually very happy with the arrangement because she has quality time with him and even loves his new girfirnd. I dont think there are any issues there. If i sense any issues I would cut him off immediately.

At this point, it's about following the court order. Does the order say that either parent needs permission of the other to take them out of the country? If so, then it's in your best interest to work on interacting with him using the communication tools (SET, etc... .). If not, then it may be time to establish some firm boundaries, not violating whatever the court order says. He is still controlling things in an immature manner.

The hard thing, of course, is that is sounds like your daughter gets along well with him (actually, that's good!). This is a tough line to walk. You need to be healthy and stable, too, for your sake, and for your daughter's.