BPDFamily.com

Just curious after an incident last night:

My wife just started a new job this month and has been having a lot of "mixed signals" regarding extra hours, vacation time, etc. so she arrived home with this frustration still fresh in her mind.

Her 1st choice of discussion topic was a sore subject for both of us regarding the possibility of sending my son to a boarding school or not.  We disagreed on a specific detail of a previous conversation and she was near the edge of explosion.  I didn't want to delay the meal as I had just taken it out of the oven so I went to get my son and daughter, warning them of the "atmosphere" and to keep their calm if the subject of boarding school was brought up.

Basically, during the meal she did raise the subject, but my son handled it beautifully and avoided all her triggers, basically defusing the situation (very very proud of him BTW).

What suprised me the most was that during the meal my kids kept pointing out all the good things I had done that evening (taxi service to their activities, getting the meal ready, taking care of the dishes, etc) and tried to get my wife to compliment me.  She, of course, wasn't having any of that as she was still fuming.

When I was alone with them afterwards I thanked them for their support, but warned them to avoid things like that in the future and let Dad handle his own publicity as I fear one time they may take it too far and it may cause my wife to trigger.

Has anyone else had a similar experience.  If yes, what was your reaction?

Lol, yes, but as the child in the situation.  Wow.  I grew up an only child with 2 BPD parents, in the military so no family lived near us and friends were discouraged.  I was very isolated, and my only escape was often school.  They would have both snappy and ugly exchanges, and they'd have horrible loud, angry, physically violent exchanges, and plenty of in-between.  Due to the 3-person dynamic in the household, I ended up in shifting alliances or 2 versus 1 - me and mom versus dad, me and dad trying to retrain mom, both of them versus me.

After a while, I saw how mom's erratic behavoir triggered dad's violence and depression, and felt it was MY job to step in, to mitigate anger and violence, and to manage their emotions.  I tried to keep things light, learned to be as quiet as possible when things were on the edge of a knife and an explosion was coming, tried to shame them into behaving by pathetically following them room to room as they fought with my blankie in hand, and as I got older, pre-teen and young teens, I tried to play mediator, I stepped in between the physical blows and pulled Dad off Mom as he tried to strangle her. 

Good for you for trying to communicate that mom and dad problems are mom and dad problems, that it's okay to listen to mom and try to avoid setting her off, but also to not feel it's their job to keep her happy, to manage her emotions, and that it's really not about him.  As they get older, you may share a bit with them about BPD and how it means that their mom is pretty much facing an emotional disability.  It's okay to love her but realize that what she says is not always going to be the most rational or correct (especially if she paints the children "black" in her mind and goes off on them).  Also, age-dependent, they might find some good tools, here, too.  Just caution them to not seek you out, or make sure they don't know your user-name.  You deserve a safe place to be open.  But as a child of BPD parents, I can say this ahs been a good place to come visit the other boards as well. 

Yes, as the child also.

Kudos to you to recognize this tendency in your kids, address it, and put a stop to it.

The rescuing isn't good for them. It is also being a part of the drama triangle. It has the potential to trigger their mother, as when they step on as rescuer, she can go into victim mode- and expect you to be her rescuer.

I became co-dependent myself with this pattern. By early adolescence, I was emotional caretaker to my mother, to keep her moods in check. I was in a sense another rescuer for her, and this kept the peace in the family temporarily. My father encouraged that- I don't blame him- this is what he did too and it became an expectation.

Years later, when my father was elderly, I did step in to rescue him. It was naive- but I didn't know any other way, nor did I recognize it as dysfunctional. There is a normal role reversal at this stage- a grown daughter can step in to help out an elderly parent - and I did but I also stepped in to rescue him when there were conflicts with BPD mom. She went into victim mode and rallied him to her side as rescuer.

By teaching your children that rescuing isn't desirable in this relationship or others,  you are doing them a great service. As you are able to role model healthy boundaries for yourself, they won't feel the need to do this, and the skills you model for them will be a help to them with all their relationships.