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Girlfriend of xBPDbf has just returned to him for 3rd time in as many months. I can't cope with situation any longer. D6 starting to pick up on his ,attitude mannerisms and outbursts and is throwing them back at me. I need to get away from her because she is triggering me and I am having trouble remembering that I am the adult and shouldn't be saying anything to her about her dad. I don't really have any family support so my only option is to send her to her dad full-time which may well make the situation worse. I don't know what to do

Hi newlyhopeful,

Your D may have a sensitive genotype that predisposes her toward this kind of behavior, and it can't help that she sees one of her parents coping like this too. It doesn't mean she's going to be BPD, but it does mean that you have to parent her very carefully.

I believe my son has a genetic predisposition toward sensitivity. The most effective thing I did was to validate the heck out of that kid. I read Power of Validation, which is a book for parenting. My son used to talk about not wanting to live when he was 8 years old. He had a lot of somatic complaints that were vague or invisible, and I dismissed all of it, not really knowing how to deal with what seemed imaginary.

Your D is probably acting out because she doesn't have tools to express her feelings in healthy ways. The other thing that has to happen is that you have to model that behavior for her. Not easy! When my son did stuff his dad used to do, I had to learn how to deal with those interactions in healthy ways. For example, S13 would say, "You love the dog more than me." Something his dad used to say. Instead of saying, "I definitely do not love the dog more than you, you're my son, I love you best, etc." I had to learn to say, "You must feel really sad right now. You feel that I am always spending time with the dog and not you." I had to acknowledge that his feelings are his feelings. Even if what he is saying isn't true, his feelings are.

I had to do this all the time, not just when he was at his boiling point. Sometimes you have to validate their feelings and then circle back later to say what's going on for you, when they're ready to listen. It sounds really easy, but it's incredibly hard at first. That's why I had to read a book and practice this stuff. It gets easier over time.

For my son, it worked like a magic pill. He's still a sensitive kid, but he started to internalize the validation and now he does it himself. He'll still announce when he has the faintest scratch on his knee, and will come to me and point it out and says it hurts, but he has now started to say things like, "I got a scratch at school and it hurts even though you can't really see it. It'll probably hurt for a while but I don't think I need a band-aid or anything." Then it's over! Hallelujah. For years, he would say things like, "You don't care that I'm hurt." Or, when I tried to comfort him, he would sometimes get mad and say, "Why are you asking me if I'm hurt! Of course I am! If you were paying attention you would've heard how hard I hit my head!" Just like his dad.

If you validate your D, she is going to have less tolerance for her dad's antics because validation feels way better. No one likes a kid who throws a fit. She's hitting the age when she won't be able to get away with it much longer. By 3rd grade, she will have real issues when she tries to use those moves with peers. 

Thanks for book suggestion L&L. I have purchased it and will try to get stuck into it this weekend. I feel a little better than I did but am still angry that he thinks its OK to have his girlfriend in and out of his daughters life. From October I will need his cooperation so I can go back to shift work but his cooperation seems to be dependent on whether his girlfriend is available to babysit.

I would feel angry too. My ex is practically a hermit, so I haven't had to deal with this. I would imagine it might be easier in some ways if he could hold onto one girlfriend, because then you have a somewhat stationary object you can study and get to understand better. Sometimes you read stories on this board where the SO of the exBPD is actually an ally, because that person is making sure nothing too nutty happens around your child.

Also, if you have a therapist, I would ask about what to say to your D. I learned the hard way that not talking about stuff can really mess up your kid. But my son was 13 when I got real with him, and by then I had worked through a lot of my anger and grief, so I could focus on him. It was still hard, the conversation kept coming back to me, but I worked at it over a period of a couple weeks with my therapist and S13 developed a really solid relationship. If you navigate this stuff carefully, amazing things can grow in your kids. My son is wise beyond his years. He still has issues, and I definitely messed up a lot, but we have a pretty strong bond.

I feel like I'm steering him into emotional healthiness, and that's paying off big time for both of us.

Keep posting and let people know how you're doing. I learned so much from people here, and felt a lot better getting out my frustrations to people who really understand.