A predator father?

[sempervivum]

My BPh channels his outbursts and insecurities as usual, but we are in the middle of a big crisis. Namely, me and our 22yr old son sometimes feel hurt, but we both have a certain immunity and coping mechanisms.

His newest prey is our 18yr old daughter. There is a problem of distinction between his fatherly role to object to some things she does and his intensifying of her youthful mistakes, usually very suddenly and rudely.

She is very sensitive, still rebellious and insecure. She is also spoiled by this same father, who was pleased to have a "good" child when our son was growing up. Now its her time and my husband cannot accept the fact of having a rebellious daughter. He is especially harsh to her. I am trying to help her with advice to rely on her common sense and find strength in herself and to accept her father as a person with a disorder.She is unhappy with that fact and afraid she will become the same.

[livednlearned]

Hi sempervivum,

It must be hard to watch him swivel his anger toward her, especially if she has been favored for so long. It sounds like she has not had to develop the same skills and is now struggling to understand how to handle this new dynamic?

Can you describe the types of interactions, maybe an incident, including how you advise her? How does she respond to the advice you give her?

What makes her feel that she might become the same as her dad?

[sempervivum]

Hi sempervivum,

It must be hard to watch him swivel his anger toward her, especially if she has been favored for so long. It sounds like she has not had to develop the same skills and is now struggling to understand how to handle this new dynamic?

Can you describe the types of interactions, maybe an incident, including how you advise her? How does she respond to the advice you give her?

What makes her feel that she might become the same as her dad?

Hi livednlearned,

exactly, when my husband fought with his expectations from the son, he made some fatal mistakes with the daughter. I am realistic, all parents make mistakes, but incosistency and favoring one child belong to unpardonable parental sins. Just like he warned me about some of my mistakes, I warned him about his. But I tried to be critical to myself, the fact he is not able to. There are no mistakes on his side.  (his opinion, of course)

So our daughter was spared from some things and as I already wrote, became spoiled. Now my husband tries to forbid and restrict some things he generously allowed before. He did not care about her friends, about her evenings out, now he is treating her as if she were 12 or 13, which is long overdue and she feels tied.

We have an absurd situation: he used to allow her to sleep in her (female) friend´s house from time to time - not any more, he is judging her friends by the state of their family circumstances: he objects to friends from divorced parents. He even goes so far to accuse her for our possible future divorce. He objects to everything he did not use to object before. To top it all: he objects to her eating habits. She is choosy, jus like him, BUT I deal that matter with her directly. I am telling her that she is too old to be forced to eat, but it´s her own reponsibility and that I am not cooking double meals. Exactly this is the thing my husband´s mother did: she was a magician who cooked for her sons just what they wanted and what they wanted.

It took me years to achieve some success in that matter with my husband. He is not objecting directly as he used to. We  can all see when he is not happy with some meal, but he is being quiet. I am not going to let our daughter be a tyrant and so far it goes well. The irony is that he nags her about the things he used to do. 

When I try to advise her she reacts defensively, because she still cannot digest the fact that her father is  "damaged goods", it hurts her and she doesn´t want to hear about the background and roots of his disorder.

Still, she educated herself about this issue and probably her intuition works quite well and that´s the reason why she thinks she will develop into a similar person like her father. 

She is unhappy with reality. Many young persons are, but the core of growing up is to leave that feeling. Children of pBPD have a much harder path.

[livednlearned]

Do you have any concerns that she might become like her dad?

I think the golden children may develop some similar personality traits.

Would your D18 consider seeing a therapist? If your D does start to exhibit some BPD traits, you might find a lot of support on the Parenting board. My son is not full-blown BPD, though he definitely has a sensitive genotype. The members on parenting were a godsend, I learned a lot from them. 

[sempervivum]

Livednlearned, thank you for your support.

Right now I am concerned about my D´s general mental state, she is too nervous to bring any reasonable decisions. She just wants to be left alone and does not accept any advice. Well, exavtly this is a trait similar to her F´s traits. ":)on´t object me, I am right, I don´t want to hear anything, I just want to object other people."

And I am somewhere in the middle, concerned about their mental states, but at the same time I feel manipulated. Nobody cares about my mental state, it is irrelevent to them, I am just a service. I feel like a Cinderella, though I reduced my pleasing and servicing my family members, there is still so much work in my life that I sometimes feel exhausted.

The therapist issue: we are in a sort of a therapy, we had two sessions, but it started and it continues as dealing with the relationship problem between our D and us (primarily her F). Even there I feel neglected. I want to talk about my H´s  unrealistic demands from all of us and about his mood ups and downs. My plan is to make one of the appointments about that, but it looks like I am going to be alone, my H sees no problem in himself.

For startes I am going to look at the Parenting board.