BPDFamily.com

Short version: My son and ub-dil told us we are not to contact them for at least a year. Help! What happened to my son, and how can I prevent such a tragedy with my other children? Should we obey her (manipulative, condescending, disrespectful and incongruent)"rules"?

Longer: In March my daughters were learning to crochet and made booties, they were so excited about being aunts to the first grandchild, (due beg. of Sept.) Though I knew she had problems, we thought everything was "fine" between us.

Out of no where, we got a (rare) phone call telling us that we were to have no electronic communication with s & dil, that we had hurt them too many times that way, that we were "not allowing them to form" their "own family", etc. (See other posts.)

We were stunned. 3 weeks later my husband saw ub-dil out in town, asked her to call him to talk. She reacted badly to this and so, s & dil decided to further punish us by no longer allowing *any* communication. A week later, we discovered they had moved three hours away. We received a letter stating our sins, none of which we were aware of, or, which we had worked out previously.

The letter said that there would be no communication at all for at least a year, and that we had "forfeited our privilege" of being involved for baby's first year. The letter was written the week that my son would have been at work and getting ready to move with his pregnant wife. It was most likely written by her, since he is a good writer and uses I and me correctly, though the letter was poorly written. He signed it, though. He ended it by saying his hopes are dashed. Another has let me know that she was talking about us not being grandparents to her child, months before this.

I haven't found anyone else online who has been estranged by both, and for virtually nothing. Our worst sins; we are (falsely) accused of yelling on two phone calls and having an angry attitude during the town encounter. Still trying to figure out my son being so lost from himself. Our dd at home was also accused of being "a brat", (because she missed her brother and wanted to hug him when she saw him.) So, she and all of our family are also banished. S & ub-dil seem to have also left their friends made during five+ years, including those in their wedding party, only 20 months ago. They have both deleted their fb accounts. He is becoming BPD, too?

We asked one friend, whom we knew was in contact with them, to request a meeting to work this out, and they refused.(Matthew 18).

It breaks my heart that he is stuck suffering this, that he is brainwashed, that he is heartbroken. If she does not want to have a relationship with us, that is fine. If we could just see our son a few times a year, and hopefully our grandson, that would be good. We wouldn't even mention her! But she greatly fears us, and they keep saying we are trying to tear them apart--which is an accusation fit for the twilight zone. He has been brainwashed to go along with her, says they are "one person", so, he must tell her everything. She demanded that she be present whenever he saw us, then, she did 99% of the talking. What can I do so that none of my other children fall in to this death trap?  I didn't realize my son was vulnerable to this until it was too late.

Hi whiplashed_mom

I've seen members on here before who unfortunately have had very similar experiences with their child who was involved with a BPD partner. People with BPD are often very sensitive and perceive things in a distorted way. As a result they can easily feel slighted while non-disordered people would say that nothing offensive happened at all.

People with BPD often also find it very difficult dealing with stress. Perhaps their upcoming child has caused her so much stress that it has triggered this behavior in her. Instead of dealing with the stress in a constructive manner she might be taking it out on you and others.

There are several parts of your post that to me really signal classic BPD behavior, like:






Them moving away seems to be part of their current strategy of 'punishing' you. I am very sorry your family is going through this. I can imagine how difficult it must be for you as a mother seeing this drastic change in your son's behavior and losing the relationship you had with him. You were undoubtedly looking very much forward to your first grandchild and then all of this starts happening which isn't easy to deal with at all.


Do you feel like your Dil perhaps feels threatened when your son gets attention from other people? That she perhaps feel like she should be getting all of his attention?

Many people with BPD also have an intense, yet often irrational, fear of abandonment. Would you say this is also true of your Dil?


Her behavior is mind-boggling indeed  And so is your son's... .It indeed also says something about your son that he goes along with her. You mention not realizing before that your son would be vulnerable to something like this. Would you say that your Dil uses things such as fear, obligation and guilt to try to get your son (and) others to do what she wants/"obey" her rules?

Dear Whiplashed_mom:  Sorry you have to be here, but you have found some new friends, and we welcome you to this Board.     Kwamina is right---there are several of us here who have experienced the "loss" of a son when he became involved with a woman with uBPD.  I say "loss" because it will get better, although it may take some time.  Your son is doing what he needs to survive, and he is still the wonderful young man you raised, believe me.  We have been through a very similar situation with our ds and uBPD ex-dil, including their moving 6 hours away when our gd was only three months old. (I even joined Facebook when they left, thinking I could stay in touch that way---big mistake!  I soon realized that FB was a way for dil to get to rant about us and her own family, without any rhyme or reason)  But I digress.  Our son stayed with her for more than two years, and we figured out about the BPD when she overdosed and we flew up there to try to intervene.  Another big mistake. He went back to her, and we learned how little grandparents can do when there is not physical evidence of child abuse, and when the child lives in another state.   She kicked him out and he was homeless for a time, and then had a series of very tough living situations.  All this time, we were sending him my social security check so the baby would be cared for.  I should add that our son has mild developmental disability, and works minimum wage jobs, so he could not support himself and the baby without help.  My story goes on and on---gd is now 6 and doing well as far as we can tell.  We see her once or twice a year, when we make the trip to visit.  The divorce is final; our son stays near his daughter, and sees her once a week when he brings money.  But he has survived, and the little one is doing well in school, and has everything she needs, and six years later we are at some kind of peace with our arrangement.  Our son is still the person we raised, and we are proud of his determination to stay in his daughter's life, despite never ending drama with ex dil. 

So that is a shortened version of our story.  But more to the point:  read everything you can about BPD.  Start with "Stop Walking on Eggshells", then read Lundberg's "I Don't have to make everything all better".  Look at the parenting board on this site---it will help you understand the way your dil thinks, and that will help you to understand what your son is living with.   You will find a lot of support on these boards.  My dh and I have also found great support from AlAnon, which we had joined when we thought alcohol was the problem.  Although that is no longer true, the lessons and principles of that program are invaluable, and parents there understand the importance of detaching with love, and accepting what you cannot change.  Also, it helps tremendously to see a therapist yourself---to support you in all of this stress, and to help you to understand that you are not crazy.  I hope other mothers-in-law will come by to share their stories with you.  In the meantime, know you are in good company, and your son will be back at some point.  I think all you can do right now is pray that your grandson will be born healthy and will be  loved and cared for, and then be ready to deal with whatever comes up.  You will be in my thoughts and prayers.    Swampped   

Hi whiplashed_mom,

I wanted to join swammped and Kwamina and welcome you to the BPD Family too. 

I was part of a recent post about BPD DIL's that I thought I'd pass on.  I do not have a DIL with BPD I'm here because my SO (significant other) has a uBPDxw (undiagnosed BPD ex-wife) but sometimes something about a post outside of my home Board (Coparenting) resonates so I join in.  Anyway, I thought it might be something you'd be interested in reading.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=277436.0

My advice about your son & DIL is leave the lines of communication open at some point my guess it one or both of them will reach out.

Just wanted to let you know you're not alone. 

Panda 39

The same thing has happened with my parents. My mother the uBPD told my father she wants nothing to do with his 'good for nothing' family. And made sure he has no contact with them. While his parents were alive, we got to see them 3-4 times a year but after they died she cut off all contact with his siblings. She tried to show him how they tried to take advantage of him, were screwing him over when it came to inheritance, that they weren't worth his time etc. I don't know if he believed her or if he stayed away just to keep the peace. Or if it was because she kept threatening him to take the child (me) away from her. Probably a mix.

They divorced when I was 20 and he now has a very close relationship with his siblings.

She never talked to them. Was never rude to them. She made sure he knew that they weren't welcome and we weren't going to visit them. And he obeyed.

I never understood why he let it happen.

But I know the only way was to divorce her. Only he did it too late.

Sorry, I know, that isn't helpful. But I wanted to write this down so you can see that it happens to others 

Oh my goodness!  I feel like I just read my own story; everything sounds so eerily similar.  Your description of your son and the way he has been changed by dil is all too familiar.  We were allowed almost no contact with our son and grandson for the eight months prior to their moving clear across the country, because of how we hurt her "unspeakably".  I got to hold my new granddaughter just once, briefly, in a hotel lobby, where they were staying temporarily before the big move.  They waited almost 2 days to inform us of her birth. It feels like we are grieving a lost loved one. Some days are better than others, but today happens to be a sad one, which is why I came here.  So glad for the support of others who are going through the same things.

Like others on this site, I have "lived" through this horror.  Our son also "abandoned" us for the "peace - as if there was any" in his immediate family.  We were accused of things we never did, never said, never even thought.  I tried and tried and tried - pleaded and begged - to no avail.  After almost two decades of marriage, our uBPD DIL left our son and abandoned her children. We are slowly repairing the damage - but it is a long road.

If I could relive the past two decades, I would have gone on with my life - leaving the door open.  It would have been painful; but far less painful than what we endured.  I would have issued invites to holidays but not expecting any reply or attendance.  I would have sent cards for birthdays (perhaps with a money order inside - especially for the grandchildren) but not expecting any notice of receipt (and it would have been possible the grandchildren would not have received their cards).  The contact would have only been through our son - probably at his work site.  We did change our lives - new interests, additional friends, shopping areas, different church and even moved - anything to "not remember".  And, I would have tried to "count my blessings" instead of "wallowing in my misery".  The end result is the same ... .  As Attie said in her post - "the only way out is divorce".  We were "lucky" - our son did eventually "see" her and realized - well, not sure what he "realized".  So so sorry ... .