BPDFamily.com

So we have been nc (me) lc (hubby) with his BPD mom for about a year. He talks to her once a month and will see her every couple of months. I don't anymore and we give the kids the same choice. Anyway things were quiet until her boyfriend got fed up with her stealing, lying, abusiveness, and drug addiction so he kicked her out. She broke into his house, stole from him, and trashed the place... . and lied to us all about it. We all know it happened. She is like tra la la. So then she moved in with her daughter (my sil). She drove sils boyfriend away and mooched uncontrollably. She finally managed to get a job far too close to us. She starts Monday. She is looking for a place to live 20 minutes from us. She has been calling hubs and asking him to cosign on a mortgage with her. He knows that is a bad idea but doesn't believe that she would purposely screw us over and steal from us... . which deeply concerns me. She most definitely will do that. He said he has no plans to cosign. She also asked for a down payment from us that she would "pay back". She is truly delusional to believe that people who barely talk to her anymore would invest in her financially like that. Anyway, hopefully my husband will stay strong on this as she will obviously pitch a huge fit. I told him that the only thing I thought would be an a acceptable idea would be to give her back the 10k she gave us as a gift when we bought our house. She holds it over our heads continually and I have no issue giving it back even though it was never supposed to be a loan. She apparently said all sorts of nutty stuff and thinks we are rich and have our house paid off. She's nuts. We have a mortgage and two kids-one of whom is autistic and requires a significant monetary investment monthly for therapy. Any way, I see a poop storm coming as she will likely show up uninvited at our house frequently and attempt to do crazy stuff I can't even predict.

Hi, littleln,

It's good to hear from you again.

What is your plan if your MIL shows up at your house?

Wishing you peace,

PF

We have a plan for that! If DH is there he will handle it. If I answer I'll call him to the door. We have a code phrase indicating what the problem is so he will come right away. It's "Honey, your mom is at the front door!" Haha.

If he is NOT around, which he is out of town for work sometimes, I'm keeping my purse and keys by the door... . if she shows up I act like I was on the way out with the kids. I'll start yelling at them to turn the TV off and come get their shoes on etc... . then we will go to the park or something. I"m not big into confrontation, esp not with her. Its much easier to just weesel out of there and let DH know about it later. If I am at all even close to honest with her she will make a scene.

I'll also be dropping a picture of her off with dds school in the fall when it starts again. Pretty much anyone is allowed to pick up your kids there! It's atrocious really. I sent my FIL to pick up dd one day when I couldn't make it and I didn't have to do anything. She just came out and went with him. Hed never been there before, theyd never seen him before, and they didn't have him on file at all as someone who could pick her up. So thats something I will have to work out. Their summer camp is pretty good about stuff like that, so no worries there.

littleln,

I too have a MIL who is uBPD.  DH and I have sort of been NC with her for 2 and a half years now.  She still sends our DD's mail and DH and I got into texting wars with her a couple of times, but other than that, we haven't seen her.  She only lives 20 minutes away... . she's not really the type to show up unannounced.  She'd rather hide behind a text or email than a face to face confrontation.

Do your kids generally want to see her?  Do they know they plan if she shows up?  Would that be awkward for them if you just started yelling that you were leaving?  My youngest DD3 doesn't even know her grandmother, but my older DD9 remembers her and I think she'd be really upset if MIL showed up.  If I was afraid of that happening, I'd probably prep DD9 a bit for it. 

Good luck!  Your gut instinct with the money thing sounds spot on.  And... . I totally get the holding over your heads down payment thing.  If you have the means, it might not be a bad idea to just give that back to her.  MIL had done similar things to us, so we stopped accepting any help from her. 

Educator,

Both of my kids have seen her enough to know her. My 6 year old is autistic and does not like grandma. Honestly, I don't blame her. My MIL won't just enjoy her grandkids as they are. Instead she tries to  "fix" the autism. She doesn't get that my daughter is not broken and does not need fixing and likewise will not "grow out of it". She is high functioning enough to possibly have a very good life depending on what she does (shes a genius, kid is 6 and going into the 3rd grade) but severe enough in terms of the autistic side of things that she can't "pass" for neurotypical, probably ever (not that she wants to, lol, but thats another story), and still requires a lot of support. Dd6 is or was the golden child. She used to dote on her like nuts. But as she got older, it became clear that she was not typical. Grandma, being uBPD, took it PERSONALLY when DD6 wouldn't have a conversation with her about dresses, dolls, disney, princesses or respond to grandma when she asked her a question, or talk on the phone with grandma, or really any of that sort of thing. She doesn't respond to 95% of questions, requests, or conversation starters. She is either zoned out or it registers as "vastly unimportant". We eventually revealed that she has autism, but it's not a big deal. We weren't going to tell her, but we naively hoped she would stop taking everything our daughter did as a personal affront. No. Instead she went around telling people that my daughter has behavioral issues because we are horrible abusive parents. She has even go so far as to accuse me of training her to act like that so that she couldn't have a relationship with her. I've told her that she can have a relationship with her, just not the one she had pictured in her head. It would never be like that (This was like maybe 2 years ago when I/we had more contact with her). This kid is as prickly as oscar the grouch and has as much love for barbie and disney princesses as your average prison convict. So she hates Gma. None of my doing, Gma did that herself. Anyway, I somewhat regret telling her, and as my husband pointed out "What did you expect? Did you really expect her to act like a normal, rational person? Shame on you!"

The 4 year old LOVES everyone. She loves her grandma and so badly wants her attention everytime gma visits. She would LOVE to talk about barbie, princesses, and to discuss fashion. Problem is she's been painted black since birth (who paints a baby black?) and Gma even went so far as to tell people she wasn't my husbands child! Everytime she visits she ignores this poor kid while attempting (And failing) to dote on the other one. My dd6 even tells Gma to go spend time with dd4 since she likes princesses and only has a few hours to spend with them. Nope. Wants nothing to do with her. They see her for maybe a day every few months.  Not even a day. Sometimes it's just a dinner or a lunch. She could probably get more time if she would stop trying to "fix" dd6. We don't tolerate that.

I don't think my kids would react in an odd way if we were suddenly on our way out. We usually just up and tell them to put their shoes on, we're going out. If I tell them ahead of time the information is lost on them. It's always a surprise no matter what, lol.

She is exactly the type to just stop by. She is so intrusive and obnoxious like that. I remember one time she was on her way to visit and we knew she was coming. We told her "we won't be home till 5. If you get there early, don't go into the house, it's armed and locked." Well she got there really early and decided to break into our house because she didn't want to wait. She set off all of the alarms which of course, caused the police to show up etc... . it cost us a ton of money in the end. We had to pay a fine for a false alarm or something silly like that. Then she played innocent like we hadn't told her it was going to be armed. My husband told her several times, loudly. She wanted the code and he wouldn't give it to her. He specifically said he didn't want her messing with it and accidentally setting off the alarm (she's incompetant with stuff like that). I personally believe she did the whole thing on purpose as a "I'll show you for not just giving me the code, I'll set it off anyway!" My husband believes she is really just very full of herself and quite stupid as in "Ha, I'll go in anyway. I can get in without setting off the alarm because I'm AWESOME."

Anyway, we sent her SOME money. If she does not repay it then we are off the hook. If she does, then we are not out any $. Win win. He feels that if she doesn't pay it back when she has promised that she will(Apparently, as I refuse to talk to her) then it is absolute proof of a lie. Physical evidence. Something he can point to, show her, and say "you lied" and there is no refuting from her, just more lies. Apparently he got it in writing from her that she would pay it back. I think he really feels the need to absolutely confront her with one of her lies, an irrefutable one, before cutting her off completely. I think he needs to know if she's capable of seeing it or not. I've told him she isn't, but he seems to have a deep need to really KNOW.

Eh that was long... . sorry. I tend to rant and get long winded.

Our relatives can be really frustrating. It is hard when we have communicated our needs and boundaries and they continue to ignore them. Sometimes, if we find ourselves constantly angry and annoyed at someone, it might help to stop and take a look at what we can control and what we can't. Yes, people with BPD are notorious for trying to bust through other people's boundaries and have everything their way. We can't control that. But we can take a look at our own behavior--what we can control--and ask ourselves a few questions. Are we taking care of our boundaries? Are we doing anything that enables someone else to continue with destructive behaviors? And, are our own expecations realistic?

With those questions in mind, is there anything that might have been different about this story?


It sounds like you and your husband found a solution that will work for you in terms of the gift/loan.


I hope your DH will be able to see what he needs to see.   I am sure she will keep showing him who she is. It can be hard to accept that reality when we keep holding onto hope that someone will be who we want them to be rather than who they are.