Has s9 become an extension of his mother

[bus boy]

Getting proper access has been nothing less than a nightmare. Even before s9 was born, my now ex BPD wife was viewing me as an in compentant father. She was determined s9 would have no contact with my family. Since December I've had a new order in place. She is working very hard to cut back on my access time. S9 use to tell me how much he missed me, how much he wanted to be with me. My T said I better fight harder for s9, he's reaching out to you. My goal was to keep the peace and reunite. She wouldn't let s9 out of her sight when he was with me. I pushed the access and she got worse towards me but I had my son. Now it's May and it seems he's always sick or something is wrong. She is saying he's failing school, school says he's doing fine. My access is becoming way to stressful. My T says don't give up, it will be bad for s9, my father, a very smart, wise man says let s9 go, he's destroying you. Than you will be no good to him. It seems s9 is making me feel like his mother did. He doesn't show me any affection, he never says I love you, when I put him to bed, I say good night, he says ya, he never calls in between access visits but he gets fearful if he doesn't call his mother. He hit me on Saturday and gave me a bloody nose, this is not like s9. He has zero interest in doing outdoor things with me. He always wants to get his story stright for his mom, I'm sure she works on him like she did to me. His stomach gets in such a knot when I take s9 home and than his mother says if your to sick, come home early, she plants the seed and he wants to leave school bc his tummy is sore, she turns around and says the access is to hard on him, he's leaving school early. On Easter, my first Easter in 5 years with s9, she said before I picked him up that he was sick. I got him, he was fine, on Easter Sunday he was throwing up all day, on Monday he was great, I feel she planted the seed of sickness or had him scared to come to my families. S9 is changing,  he won't talk to me, changes the topic. I don't want to walk away. You know the saying, if you love something set it free. She is driven s9 will have as little access as possible. She is a master of manipulation and control. I feel s9 is starting to inject the poison in me that his mother use to, especially since I went nc. Accept yesterday, I talked to her and just listened, and everything was negative about s9 access to me, all untrue but very powerful.

[bus boy]

I fear for s9. He is gaining a lot of weight, always hungry. I don't want to walk out of his life but s9's mother has no end to what she will do. This is not about s9, it's about her mentally ill mind set, s9 is just collateral damage. I fear if I keep pushing for s9 she will turn him in the end. Child experts told me s9 is going to need therapy from what his mother is doing.

[Thunderstruck]

I fear for s9. He is gaining a lot of weight, always hungry. I don't want to walk out of his life but s9's mother has no end to what she will do. This is not about s9, it's about her mentally ill mind set, s9 is just collateral damage. I fear if I keep pushing for s9 she will turn him in the end. Child experts told me s9 is going to need therapy from what his mother is doing.

Yikes, that sounds really rough. 

You should listen to the child experts. Can you get him into therapy? Tell BPDmom that you want to work on your relationship with him, since she thinks it seems to be in trouble?

We went through a period (SD was ~8) where it was a nightmare with SD. She would scream at us all day long, say she hated it with us, say she wanted to go to her mom's. I would go to bed crying. uBPDbm was really alienating her at the time.

All I can say is... .we hung in there. We took as much time with SD as we could get, and things got better.

[Turkish]

Getting proper access has been nothing less than a nightmare. Even before s9 was born, my now ex BPD wife was viewing me as an in compentant father. She was determined s9 would have no contact with my family. Since December I've had a new order in place. She is working very hard to cut back on my access time. S9 use to tell me how much he missed me, how much he wanted to be with me. My T said I better fight harder for s9, he's reaching out to you. My goal was to keep the peace and reunite. She wouldn't let s9 out of her sight when he was with me. I pushed the access and she got worse towards me but I had my son. Now it's May and it seems he's always sick or something is wrong. She is saying he's failing school, school says he's doing fine. My access is becoming way to stressful. My T says don't give up, it will be bad for s9, my father, a very smart, wise man says let s9 go, he's destroying you. Than you will be no good to him.

I get what your father is saying, but this seems contradictory. What does "letting him go" entail? If you let him go (give him the most access to his mother and hardly see him, I'm thinking), you'll likely lose him forever. You'll cement in his young mind the very things his disordered mother says about you.

It seems s9 is making me feel like his mother did.

I understand your reactions, but neither his mother, nor your son are responsible for your feelings. Your T is supporting you and telling you to fight. Are you just so tired that you don't want to do it anymore? If so, then that is that, but step back and think long and hard about what you want to do. What's done now on your side may never be undone.

He doesn't show me any affection, he never says I love you, when I put him to bed, I say good night, he says ya, he never calls in between access visits but he gets fearful if he doesn't call his mother. He hit me on Saturday and gave me a bloody nose, this is not like s9.

That's pretty bad. How did you react to this? Why did he say that he did that?

I feel s9 is starting to inject the poison in me that his mother use to, especially since I went nc. Accept yesterday, I talked to her and just listened, and everything was negative about s9 access to me, all untrue but very powerful.

It sounds like she still is, and it's unfortunate that she is wrangling your little boy into her disordered, paranoid world. It's a given that what your Ex said is going to be negative, but in what way was it powerful?

[Ulysses]

I feel like I experience a little of this with my S13.  If he spends a long time with his dad and stepmother, he comes back to me with behaviors like mean comments, homework refusal, yelling at me.  I want to cry.  I feel like I did when I was married to his dad.  I'm so sorry for you.

How can you strengthen yourself to better withstand those moments of rejection from S9?  That is something I'm working on.  It seems to go better some days than others.  I also try to think about the icky feelings S must have inside of himself, and how he's trying to get them outside of himself.  Advice I've read on this board about setting an example, being a consistent parent, etc., has helped me.

I think therapy is helping my S.  One thing that I felt really helped was giving the school counselor permission to speak with the therapist (both parents must give the approval in writing, usually).  This was helpful because the counselor could tell the therapist what behaviors she sees in S at school and school personnel are able to use phrases the T uses with him, e.g. regarding building trust and taking responsibility, so he is getting the same message in many settings.

Can you start a conversation with your S9 school counselor or school psychologist?  Can you take your S9 to a therapist?  Maybe if the school counselor recommends a T, S9's mother will agree more easily than if the suggestion comes from you?

[Harri]

Hi bus boy.  I am sorry to hear that things are such a struggle with your ex and specifically your parenting time with your son.  Dealing with pwBPD can be quite difficult to say the least.

As painful and frustrating this is for you, your son, is most likely suffering greatly at the hands of your BPD ex's manipulations and parental alienation tactics.  In a couple of other posts you mentioned that your son worries about what to say to mom when he returns, how to explain things and how he is fearful when he does not call his mother while with he is with you.  That, and other details you shared paint a pretty clear picture of what your son is having to deal with at home with her.  As such, it is not surprising that he is acting out with you, seems closed off from you, and may be avoiding visitation.  Chances are, after the visitation parameters were changed a few months ago, your wife ramped up her behaviors and your poor son and you are caught in the middle.  Parental alienation is a vile form of child abuse.

I think your counselor is right to encourage you to not give up on him.  He is dealing with an incredibly difficult and scary situation at home.  Think about this:  As an adult you were pulled into your ex's world and experienced enormous pain.  How do you think a child who is in that environment is going to cope especially given that he is with her the majority of the time?

As hard as it may be, please try to put his behaviors into perspective and try not to take them so personally.  By all means, establish boundaries, routine and discipline with him as that will help him in the long run, but remember he is a child living in a world that in your own words nearly destroyed you.   :'(  <--- for both of you --->     He is not injecting poison into you; rather he is trying to expel the poison he has had injected into him since birth.  He has, as have most (all?) children, always been an extension of a BPD parent. 

Get him in counseling and please continue to get help for yourself on a regular basis.  This is a tough road you are on and you need to take care of yourself. 

[bus boy]

What she said was powerful bc I listened very close to what she was saying instead of defending my self like I use to do. Everything she said was so belittling about my parenting, it made me reflect on how crippling her words are. It gave me strength to hear those words, I didn't own them. I realized her words don't have the same effect they use to.

I had a great session with my T today. She said if I'm not going to fight for s9 she can't work with me anymore. She said she's exhausted. She was very straight forward. She gave me that extra boost I needed to fight on. She spoke to me as a friend not a T and said s9 would be devistated if I give up. Yesterday and today were real moments of growth for me.

[bus boy]

Thank you Harri. You really hit for me. After I read your post It made me feel my son's pain, I cried so hard, I can't give up on him, he needs me. I probably expelled my own pain. My T says there are different tears and these were pouring down my face. I needed that so bad. I have a whole new prospective. You hit me right in my soul. Thank you.

[david]

My ex ran away in 2007. The first few years were the worst. I tried to co parent. I tried being reasonable. I tried explaining the whys to my decisions. It always went in the direction that I was wrong. My T convinced me that if I wanted things to change I had to change. I stopped second guessing myself and did what I thought best for our two boys regardless of what ex was telling me to do. I slowly detached myself emotionally. That helped a lot. Eventually things started to change for the better. Yes I made mistakes like every parent does.

The first few years I would pick up our boys and they wanted to stay with mom and I agreed with them. They were "sick" and I let them stay with her since she was a nurse. My T pointed out that if my ex wasn't there I would be the one taking care of them when they were sick. If ex wasn't there and they didn't want to be with me they would be since they had no choice and I had to deal with it as much as they did. I stopped giving in and kept my court ordered time with them. It wasn't easy in the beginning and it did take about three years but things did begin to change.

My approaches became much different.

One example, our youngest, about 7 at the time, used to tell me I was abusive whenever he was upset about something. One day he started on his usual rant about me being an evil abusive dad. I was sitting down at the time. I stood up and stuck my arms out like Frankenstein and started to walk towards him making monster sounds. He broke a smile and I chased him around the house. That was a big point in our relationship. That incident changed his perception towards me in a big way. He stopped calling me abusive or evil from that point on. I was in the moment and it was a normal father son thing.

Another example, the boys used to say that I was always punishing them and they didn't like me. I went into a Wawa to get a coffee. Both boys stayed in the car. I bought them an Icee. I walked to the car and they were both playing on their Ipads. I opened the door and with a stern voice said , " You better enjoy this or you are in biig trouble. I will punish both of you like you have never been punished before". They were both startled. I could tell from their faces. Within seconds they both started to smile. For the next few years whenever we went driving somewhere they would ask me to punish them when we were driving by a Wawa. Months later they were talking to me about their mom and how she would change from being nice to instantly changing into being mean and yelling even when they didn't do anything. They mentioned how I acted like her when I bought them the Icee. I had no idea what they were dealing with when they were with her. I learned to listen and understand them much better.

I learned, in a very real way, that kids can't always express their feelings or thoughts very well and when they act out it is usually because something is emotionally off balance. The off balance isn't necessarily what is going on at that time but whatever is happening is triggering them to respond the way they are. I may never know the underlying cause but I can respond in a calm and/or appropriate manner to guide/parent them. Eventually they begin to understand that they can trust me and they will open up more and more. Building on the trust is my strength in helping them now. Ex has lost practically all trust from them and they have learned their individual coping strategies when they are with her. My relationship is very strong with both of them now. Remember, this started in 2007 and it didn't happen overnight. The first three years were the worst. The next two years it was a back and forth which gradually became less and less of the old behaviors.

I credit my ex for making me a much better parent then I was before.

[david]

 It's those little things that happen, that you can't force or predict when, that make the big differences and that is why your time is valuable. I started as an EOW and one dinner night a week into 50/50 in our court order. Once that "battle" was "lost" by ex she became less interested in the kids and gave me more of her time.