BPDFamily.com

I'm actually making some progress with my uBPDmom. She is admitting to her own troubled childhood and how she wasn't the perfect parent herself. I see some genuine remorse for the chaos of my childhood.

Its taken some frank admissions on my part about how I acted out as a teenager due to stress at home. She knows in her heart I wasn't a "bad" kid to start with, and somethings bad happened to change me at that time.

But I've also reflected on my enDad's role in our family. According to a relative I talked to, he was excessively hard on me when I was very young, like when I was a toddler. When visiting other people, he was constantly angry at me for doing normal childish things.

This continued through childhood and into my teens. When it came to physical (spankings) abuse and gaslighting, he was worse than my uBPDmom. Keep in mind, as a child, friends and relatives commented on what a sweet, well-behaved kid I was. The punishment wasn't justified.

I'm naturally an easy-going person, that's true, but my behaviour was over-managed by enDad. I believe he was partly keeping uBPDmom from getting upset or bothered in any way. I paid this price for my uBPDmom's disorder.

My enDad wasn't a total tyrant all the time. When uBPDmom isn't around, he acts different even today. His bad parenting was largely the result of his dealing with her abuse of him.

Some of the worst damage enDad did to me was making me doubt myself, taking a lack of interest in me, and trying to impose his own interests on me. Even worse, he wasn't any kind of emotional support. Truth is I felt him rub salt in emotional wounds created by my ubpmom. Including getting mad at me for disassociating and fidgeting.

I notice there is a "Parenting after the Split" area in bpdfamily, but not one for parents who are still married. I guess there isn't the same interest because, after all, many who are still married to BPD partners are enabling or enmeshed in some way.

Any other comments on the other parent (enabler or not) is welcome. I'm curious what others have to say.

One of the things my therapist said to me which has really stuck is that children who have a parent with BPD will be mad at the pwBPD yes but the most time in therapy will be spent with them coming to grips with why their nonBPD parent behaved the way they did. I think your post has some flavor of that.

Yes, I feel betrayed.

enDad also provided less support for me than my siblings. I think part of it was I was the oldest so somehow they thought I could take care of myself the most. They were wrong there.

I appreciate hearing from spouses of BPDs on this.

I don't think someone stays with and has children with a pwBPD unless they have some SERIOUS issues of their own.  My dad certainly had his share.  He is a typical alcoholic, unreliable, unrealistic, no boundaries, weak-willed.  I've found him a lot easier to forgive than my uBPD mom because I understand his perspective a lot better.  I understand what it is to be escapist, to not want responsibilities, to be self-indulgent rather than strong.  It's not admirable, but it's a human feeling I understand.  It also helps that he's honest about his role in the dysfunction of our family, and takes responsibility to some degree.  I have a lot more trouble understanding how my mom could think her family was against her, that we didn't love her, and how she could heartlessly abandon us while STILL blaming us for not being kind enough to her.  I do have more problems with my dad today, simply because I still speak with him, so there are things to disagree about, and behaviors to criticize.  My relationship with my mom is dead, so there are no more problems there, just a loss to mourn.  

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but that's a short version of my experience with the non-BPD parent.

This is what my T has told me. My father is so afraid of losing my mother that he will do anything to appease her and keep her content, even if it means that he has to hurt others.


That makes a lot of sense. My father's behavior has been more hurtful in some ways than my mother's. My mother has BPD, which explains why she does a lot of the things she does, but my father's behavior can't be tied to an obvious cause. His co-dependency could be driving his keep-her-happy-at-all-costs behavior.

issheBPD, how is your relationship with your father these days? Do you feel that it's separate from your relationship with your mother and brother?

I have no emotional relationship with my enDad. He is and always was distant. I don't know if other fathers give advice about stuff, but he didn't. There were no father-son chats growing up.

He is a workaholic, though he does at least enjoy his semi-retirement projects.

I honestly don't know the guy. He has more common sense than my mother and brother combined, but I can't regard him as independent from them.

My "other" parent is my mother. I felt nurtured as a child however I was also over disciplined.

Mum has her own set of issues around passive aggression, tests people, sensitive to perceived slights/criticism and quietly controlling. I guess because my other parent was my mother and I still was nurtured there were times I felt unprotected.

En parents tend to over discipline to encourage calm so all hell doesn't break out at home - silent child syndrome comes to mind - be quiet or else! So I was made to feel responsible for my fathers behaviour because I was the one punished.

Given Dad was also an alcoholic - he was physically abusive - I wished at the time Mum would just leave - enmeshed she was! She was afraid to leave and afraid to stay ----> everyone was unhappy.

Tough gig being married to a Borderline - its also a tough gig being married to an enabler - neither were perfect, I have done a lot of healing. I guess the way I see it now is that they both tried their best with the knowledge they had. Their parents were not the best role models, my parents were not good role models - thankfully I hope I have somewhat broken that mould.

I know how you feel, my dad is also an enabler. I've only recently confronted the fact that my mom is BPD, and I get really frustrated with my dad as well. He is very distant and I always felt an emotional need from him that he was never able to satisfy. He'd interact with me, but it was always a very superficial level because he's a workaholic as well.

When I was a little kid he had a really short temper as well, which occasionally resulted in him hitting me (Mom of course hit me a lot). I also felt betrayed by him, because while sometimes he'd shield me from my mom, intervene on my behalf to stay abuse, there was too many times where he caved to my mom's demands.

It boiled over when I was a teen when an argument between my mom and I (provoked by my sister) lead to him snapping and punching me in the face, I ran away from home for over 8 hours in the middle of the night, but I eventually returned because I had nowhere to go. The police showed up because my parents reported me, and I stood silent while my mom showed how I had a tv in my room and that I had "such a nice home" and that what I did was "unacceptable". I got chewed out by the cops, even though I wanted to report them so they'd be arrested I was still conflicted about having my dad arrested because he did try sometimes to help. He never hit me again, I guess because he realized the gravity of the situation.

I always tried to rationalize my dad's behaviors, that he was this way because he didn't know how to be a father (his dad died of a heart attack when he was a little boy). However now I just see that he's too submissive and a coward to stand up to my mother's behavior, so he stays with her rather than be alone.