How to react to boundary busting

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

Its coming up to three years since I left, and Im still struggling and not coping.

I havent got a court order, have no family support, his family are kind but have no availability to help, I work hard and run my own law firm.

After an incident where he hit my son in front of my daughter in July, I changed my mind about him coming on our family holiday, since then told him the kids would live at my house, and since we got back from holiday he tells me the shifts he is working that week, and I ask m to collect the kids for the afternoon on certain days and drop them back at 8 at mine.

We are in the usual roles where I set down the minimum rules I feel I need to have some structure for us all, and he meekly obeys, emailing each other and in ezch reply he signs off with I love you all, with infinite love... .atbleast thats betterr than the rants when I am accused of running a stalinist regime!

Knowing that on Thursday the kids are coming to the UK with me for three weeks, I asked if last weekend the kids could stay with him for the whole weekend. Partly as I needed a break from being full time mum and businesswoman, partly as I do want them to spend quality time with their Dad.

But it turns out his mum who has alzheimer was in hospital, he didnt tell me himself. He got D 13 to ring and ask if she couod come back to me on Saturday then again on Sunday morning, sent S 11 to a friends house and asked the frinds mum to drop him back at mine Sunday morning.

Of course I hadnt made plans for weekend as Inknew it wouldnt be so easy to get a break, so I was sittting at home and availabke when the kids turned up back at mine again. What couod I have done? I wrote a brief email saying Im sorry the kids didnt soend weekend with him, and please can we stick ti the rukes if we make them. Just got a reply back about his shifts this week ... .signed with infinite love.

So confused sad and messed up in my own head. Have to break free of this torment. In September need to vivist social services and ask for help mediating, and get myself a new therapist. I tried a lawyer but he refused to contact her.

Is anybody else in this half life where you have split up, it sort of works, but he still wont let you have a stable new life, breaks the rules, wont even recognise the rules, how do you react, Im trying BIFF and very LC.

[Cmjo]

Its coming up to three years since I left, and Im still struggling and not coping.

I havent got a court order, have no family support, his family are kind but have no availability to help, I work hard and run my own law firm.

After an incident where he hit my son in front of my daughter in July, I changed my mind about him coming on our family holiday, since then told him the kids would live at my house, and since we got back from holiday he tells me the shifts he is working that week, and I ask m to collect the kids for the afternoon on certain days and drop them back at 8 at mine.

We are in the usual roles where I set down the minimum rules I feel I need to have some structure for us all, and he meekly obeys, emailing each other and in ezch reply he signs off with I love you all, with infinite love... .atbleast thats betterr than the rants when I am accused of running a stalinist regime!

Knowing that on Thursday the kids are coming to the UK with me for three weeks, I asked if last weekend the kids could stay with him for the whole weekend. Partly as I needed a break from being full time mum and businesswoman, partly as I do want them to spend quality time with their Dad.

But it turns out his mum who has alzheimer was in hospital, he didnt tell me himself. He got D 13 to ring and ask if she couod come back to me on Saturday then again on Sunday morning, sent S 11 to a friends house and asked the frinds mum to drop him back at mine Sunday morning.

Of course I hadnt made plans for weekend as Inknew it wouldnt be so easy to get a break, so I was sittting at home and availabke when the kids turned up back at mine again. What couod I have done? I wrote a brief email saying Im sorry the kids didnt soend weekend with him, and please can we stick ti the rukes if we make them. Just got a reply back about his shifts this week ... .signed with infinite love.

So confused sad and messed up in my own head. Have to break free of this torment. In September need to vivist social services and ask for help mediating, and get myself a new therapist. I tried a lawyer but he refused to contact her.

Is anybody else in this half life where you have split up, it sort of works, but he still wont let you have a stable new life, breaks the rules, wont even recognise the rules, how do you react, Im trying BIFF and very LC.

[livednlearned]

Hi Cmjo,

You have so much on your shoulders -- parenting the kids, running your own law firm, no family support. It's exhausting, and you must feel overwhelmed, not only running things for yourself, but trying to parent with someone who is mentally ill (and in law enforcement, too, if I remember correctly). It really is a lot to deal with.

Do you feel that you have experienced genuine radical acceptance about your ex's mental illness? I ask only because for me it was a process that took a lot of reading and talking to therapists to fully comprehend my ex's emotional limitations. They are severe, and confusing, and bewildering, and in the end, so completely sad and tragic.

Radical acceptance is about recognizing how it is, not how you want it to be. Your ex hits your kids, yet you want them to spend quality time with their dad. The two things do not coexist. One is how it is, the other is how we want it to be.

Because of his emotional limitations, he cannot follow rules. He just can't. No amount of agreement, no amount of bargaining with himself will produce the consistency you desire. He changes the schedule because he is this way. It's how it is, and you want it to be another way.

If you accept him for who he is, that he is mentally ill and has severe emotional limitations, the responsibility to enforce the boundaries falls to you. They are there for your protection, not to control him. So when thinking about your values, your boundaries, your rules, it's important to think about what you are willing and able to enforce. Creating rules and schedules that you are not prepared to enforce, or cannot enforce, means he will continue to move the goal post every time the winds shift (by virtue of his emotional limitations). He cannot regulate his emotions, and has an unstable sense of self. This is hard for us to imagine -- and the shame that goes with this condition compounds. He feels at the end of his rope, cannot regulate his emotions, lashes out (hits the kids), then feels shame, and the cycle starts up.

We desperately want the parents of our children to be people they aren't, and this is the source of a lot of pain and frustration. There is a lot about this on the Staying board. Even though you are not staying, if you choose to work with your ex and learn skills and techniques (beyond BIFF and LC), these are the people who are working to implement them, as are parents who have BPD children. There are some coparents who are committed to using these skills (ennie, for example, others too that slip my memory).

It takes a lot of strength and effort to do this. The first step is to make sure you are taking care of yourself, shoring up strength. You cannot do this work if you are depleted, which is when it's time to invoke boundaries so you can protect yourself.

[Cmjo]

Thanks, that makes sense.

No I dont have complete understanding or acceptance of his emotional limitations yet, but I do come on this board often and it helps me to put things into perspective. Im moving forward but only one millimetre a week. I still fantasise about being together as a family. And I make excuses for his behaviour even the violence, saying well its a one off maybe my son really wound him up. Thats the way I coped when I was living there, playing down my own feelings that his behaviour was wrong to make it easier to tolerate.

What I have searched the board for but not found, is how to enforce boundaries. For example is there anything I could have done at the weekend. Should I have said to my daughter dont come home? Insisted they were there for the weekend, and sent him a message to remind him? Or should I have let them come back then told him you cant have the kids for a weekend again?

[livednlearned]

These workshops helped me with boundaries. My aha moment with boundaries was learning that boundaries are about taking care of my needs, not controlling my ex. It does take work to figure out what those boundaries are and how best to enforce them -- boundaries are rooted in values, and it's not always clear what those values are when there is a conflict between two that are at odds with each other (like being a family vs feeling safe).

WORKSHOP: Boundaries: Living our Values

Independent core values determine our decisions and guide our lives. Boundaries are how we define our values to others. A boundary is nothing more than the outer perimeters of our independent core values -  it's like a fence  - anything inside the boundary is consistent with our core values and anything outside the boundary is not. Even when we live our values responsibly, we can still encounter boundary busting. Read more.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/values-and-boundaries

Examples of boundaries

This thread talks about examples of our values, our boundaries, and how to defend those boundaries.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=167368

BPD Behaviors: Extinction Burst and Intermittent Reinforcement

What does extinction burst mean and why should I care about this stuff?  Because when you try to implement boundaries you will most likely see an increase in bad behavior because the BPD sufferer isn't getting the response they expect. They become confused and frustrated. You've changed the rules by not giving your typical response. They will increase their bad behavior to try to get the response they are used to.   If we are prepared going in ahead of time... .see how:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=85479.0