BPDFamily.com

Im trying to avoid conflict but im pretty sure no matter how I word my request it will cause conflict.

I have my daughter ( almost 3 yrs old ) from this Friday the 19th to the 25th of December. my ex told me today that she will call a few times during the week. I asked what days and times she plans on calling so I can expect her calls, her reply was im not sure whenever I have time.  In the court order it isn't set on frequency of calls it just says a reasonable amount, meaning we work it out together  

My goal hear is to get her to understand that it would be better to have set times for calls like 2 days. if not she could call and im either out of service or busy, you know enjoying my time with my daughter.

My ex is VERY entitled and thinks that I should be waiting around the whole week just for her to call while my calls need to be planned out well in advance. I was thinking of suggesting 2 days with times that I can commit to.

" I know you said you would like to call daughter a few times next week. We are going to be very busy with the holidays, but I would like to make sure daughter is able to talk to you. Could you suggest a few times that work for you ahead of time so I can be sure to have daughter available? Thank you and Merry Christmas." How's that sound? Leave it to her to suggest reasonable times and frequency and then you can see how it sounds. Probably no matter what you suggest will make her angry so I would leave it to her. If she doesn't suggest any times ahead of time I would just have a great holiday with your daughter and ignore the phone. I am kind of old fashioned with the phone. I don't answer when we're eating, have company over, bath time, etc, pretty much if you are busy you shouldn't have to answer the phone. Call back if you have to.

How about instead of texting her anything, just answer the phone at a regularly convenient time for you, say in the evening after dinner, but before bath & bed?  If your ex can get hold of you at that time, she may just start trying then instead of different times.  It might take awhile for her to get it, but you just keep at it.  If she doesn't call at a convenient time, call her back at that time.

How do BIFF emails work with her (if you're tried this?)

BIFF stands for brief, informative, friendly, firm.

The shorter the message, the smaller the target.

"I want to make sure you can talk to D3 when she's with me so I'll keep an eye on my phone from 7-7:30pm every night in the hopes you can call during that window."

Thanks everyone for all the input and help  :)

Unfortunately it went as expected ,basically I asked for her to pick a couple of days during the week that I could commit to and be able to take her call. She took this as me trying to tell her what to do, she feels that she should be able to call at random and i should answer her call. In the end i told her that I only get my daughter a few times a year for this amount of time and I'm not going to rearrange, worry or change my plans so that im in service 24/7 so she can call whenever she feels like it.  I told her that if she can't give me days she is calling then all I can do is call her back as soon as possible if I miss her call.

What it comes down to is she's disreagulated over not seeing her daughter for a week. I honestly think that it's more of a loss of control over her daughter for a week then actually missing her. Either way I let her know I understand that it's hard to go a week without seeing her daughter because every other week I go 5 days without seeing my daughter and I'm about to go 12 days without seeing her because of the Christmas break.

It sounds like your approach set you up to JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain):


What outcome are looking for with her? Or, looking at it a different way, what outcome do you want for yourself? Knowing she is BPD, knowing what you know about her limitations, and knowing that she will be hypersensitive to anything that feels like control, what is the best-case scenario?

This is a hard question -- we obviously want them to change who they are. Knowing we can't do that, what is next best?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. If you apply that definition to a pwBPD it will really help to understand the mindset. No matter how much you explain or justify or try to teach her better or try to teach her a lesson she will not react differently when the same situation happens again or when her situation and yours are reversed. Her illness does not allow her any amount of self reflection.

Also, For the longest time my DH was afraid of what his ex would do if he didn't jump anytime she said to. With my help he eventually realized that she was going to do exactly what she was going to do regardless of what he did.

We found the answer in boundaries and BIFF. A boundary is: not spending limited time tethered to the phone in case she calls. Enforcement of the boundary is ignoring inconvenient calls and calling back at a convenient time. Enforcement is also letting the fifty calls in a row go to voicemail (if she's anything like DH's ex). BIFF is simply letting her know what time your daughter will be available nightly to talk and leaving it there. She isn't going to learn anything so do what you need to do.

If necessary to text, yes, the BIFF approach.  But, if it were me I would revisit this one.  Is this really worth "discussing"?  I would think regardless of when the calls come in it wouldn't be a tremendous imposition to answer.  If there are too many calls, just don't answer.  Pretty sure my Order states "reasonable" phone contact in my order, in the evenings.  that's it.  I would measure the potential for instigating a texting campaign could very well get out of hand, against the slight imposition of answering calls when they come in.  IMHO this one is not worth the aggravation.

PS I remember one text exchange we had, I think it was over some medication S11 was on.  I remember counting 17 text iterations before I got any useful information.  The useful information could have been delivered in the first response.  This is why I communicate at a bear minimum.  I do lapse at times, but I resist engaging most of the time.

I will also add that if there is no urgency to a text, let at least an hour go by in between your response so it's doesn't get into a heated text exchange.

We do not respond to texts at all now. But in the past a text was something, like mentioned above, could become just a way to engage without exchanging useful info for 17 or more texts at a time.

When we had phone calls, we set it up that BPDm had between 7-7:15. When she responded with "well what if I can't rearrange my schedule to accommodate that time frame, I'm busy."

We just said the same thing back. If you can't be sure to be free at a set time, how can we be sure to be free at an unset time?