BPDFamily.com

Hi all,

I've been with my husband 10 years now, we have 2 beautiful babies and 1 BPD mother in law who constantly threatens to tear it all apart.

I'm in therapy to help me deal with the constant damage she does to everyone in her life. I struggle to sit back and watch it all. I grew up with such a loving, supportive family. The things she has done to and said about my little family makes me so upset, and the fact that she holds so much power makes me sick.

I'm not the one who needs to be in therapy - she and I think more importantly her children need to be.

My psychologist has helped me at times ignore what she does, see the good which sometimes (rarely without an alterior motive) shows up, and learn to put up barriers to avoid myself getting affected.

But every so often there is something which I just can't get past - and my psychologist has helped me realise that it is usually when it involves my birth family. My husband and I both don't give her any information about my family and we avoid mixing families at all costs. But every so often she crosses that line and I can't get past it.

It is her birthday this week and I cannot bring myself to attend. I am SO angry. I am dreading Christmas with her. I want to move to another state to get away from her but I couldn't imagine her visiting and staying with us throughout the years, I wouldn't be able to cope.

I know this affects my husband. But I can't always just put on a happy face and let her get away with her behaviour. He truly believes that deep down she is a good person but just has a bad outter mask. I truly believe it's the opposite, someone with a good heart would not be so constantly destructive to their children and their families

Hi Loz

You have been married to your husband for 10 years now which also means you've been dealing with your MIL for many years already. I can see how those years can take its toll on you. Dealing with a person with BPD can be very challenging.


In what ways do you feel your MIL is constantly threatening to tear it all apart?


I also find it very interesting what you say here about her holding so much power. When you say this, are you referring to the way her behavior affects other people?


In what ways does your MIL cross the line concerning your own birth family? Could you perhaps give some examples of the things she says and does?


Perhaps it will help you if you try to keep your thoughts in the present as much as possible. Something that might help you with that is meditation or mindfulness. Have you ever tried this?


It can be very difficult to understand why people with BPD behave the way they do. If your MIL indeed has BPD, it is important to keep in mind though that this is a disorder, a serious disorder. People with BPD suffer from distorted thinking patterns and perception which results in intense emotions and often quite problematic behavior. It isn't necessarily that people with BPD don't love their family-members, but perhaps more that as a result of this disorder they are unable to consistently express their love in a loving manner. The unstable sense of self many people with BPD have, is also something that can very negatively effect their behavior. Having said all of this,  people with BPD are of course still responsible for their own behavior and the choices they make and can be held accountable for their actions. When dealing with a BPD family-member, it is very important to have firm boundaries and enforce/defend these boundaries.

Take care and welcome to  bpdfamily

Oh... .Loz, I hear you and I understand you!  My mom is uBPD, and my MIL is OCD.  I've been through years of therapy to handle my mom, as well as few sessions about my MIL.  Some things I can look over and let slide, but the personal digs- as you know, those are hard to get past.  It also makes for a difficult marriage.  You can do a few things to figure this out.

1.  Brief couples counseling, focusing on your interactions with his mom
2.  Only you continue in therapy, and focus on ways you can continue to handle your MIL
3.  You, your husband, and your MIL do a therapy moderation session, where you can give specifics about how what your MIL does affects you

I've done all three.  Number 2 left me always feeling like a punching bag for my mom and my MIL.  It was hard for me, because I was the ONLY ONE being asked to be "above it all," while they got to be petty, vindictive, and mean to me. 

Number 3 was interesting to go through.  My mother refused, but my MIL went with my husband and me.  The therapist who moderated did a wonderful job with the time we had.  My husband was able to see how manipulative his mother really is, and he no longer questions me about what she does.  My MIL tried to turn it into a "everything that's wrong with me and her son" session.  We did gain some insight in a later therapy session without her.

Number 1 is where we have been for awhile.  Our current "solutions" are that my husband pays close attention to what his mother says and does around me, whenever we are all together.  He is responsible for all communication with her.  I don't call her.  I don't text or email her.  That's on him.  When I do agree to spend time with her, it is for a specified amount of time- no more, no less.  And, the time we spend together is for a specific activity.  On the flip side, my mother has been so evil to my husband, he has no contact with her over the last two years.  No calls, no visits, no nothing. If I want to talk to her, fine.  If I want to see her, fine.  I don't ask him to make any attempts towards her.

Of course, my husband thinks his mom does stupid things, says stupid things, and doesn't mean them personally. He thinks my mom is evil, and she says mean things on purpose.  I think my mom is evil and she says and does mean things on purpose.  I also think my MIL is evil, and she also says and does evil things on purpose.   We both now respect each other's experience with the mothers.

This past Thanksgiving, I asked my husband if we could spend the day with close friends, instead of his mother, whom we have spent the last five Thanksgivings with... .he agreed!  She went off to her friends, and I had a wonderful, stress-free holiday without being insulted by my MIL!   (My mother doesn't "do" Thanksgiving, so not being with her was easy as well!)

My husband and I have known each other for 11 years.  We've been together for 6 of them, and married for the last 4 years.  He is the best relationship I have ever had, and I refuse to let anyone else ruin it.  Both he and I have been NO CONTACT with our mothers during our relationship.  If that's what we need to do to keep our marriage together, that is what will be done.  We have decided that our marriage is our primary relationship, and we will do what needs to be done to take care of it.  So far, neither of us has had any resentments towards each other when we make decisions to keep our marriage strong.

We don't have children. Kids make things a lot harder when deciding how to handle the BPD or whatever grandparent.  My brother and his family has no contact with my mom. She did that to herself, by being completely out of control in front of my nieces and nephews. The kids saw that she has a mental problem that they are not mature enough to deal with (is anyone REALLY ever mature enough to "deal" with a borderline parent?) and they are okay not having their paternal grandmother in their lives.

I know I've given you a lot to think about.  You can explain a specific situation where your MIL has hurt you, and why it hurt- to your husband, and hopefully he will understand why you want to limit contact with her.   If you move out of state, you are right- you will have to put up with her crazy visits in your house, and it's so hard to get people like her to leave.

If I was in your shoes, I would tell my hubby I am only going to do ONE activity with the MIL.  For me, that activity would be her birthday celebration. That way, it's ALL ABOUT HER, and you know she loves that!  You can be fake, fawn all over her, then throw up when you get home. Then, skip Christmas with her. Start a new tradition, where that becomes a day for you and your hubby.

Best of luck to you!

I feel like she is trying to tear it all apart as that is what she has proven to do with her manipulative behaviour her entire life. From her own in-laws, ex husband, her sisters and friends. She plays her sons against each other. Sons against their father. Plays their girlfriends against each other. Cousins against cousins, and cousins wives. I've truly felt, ever since having my first child, that my MIL has openly tried to pen me as a terrible mother and praise my husband non stop (she's rarely said a good word or positive thing about any of her children in the 10 years I've known her unless she is trying to get something out of if - in this case, our kids). My husband craves this kind of acceptance from his mother and it is so sad to watch him fawn over her when she is being emotionally manipulative.

The power she holds is over her children. Everything they do for her is out of guilt. Years and years of emotional blackmail, guilt trips and threats. It makes me so upset to see her blatantly use horrible actions to get results that she wants.

On a slightly positive note, in the past year one of my BIL has started dating a wonderful girl who came in eyes wide open and could see it all for what it is. Having her around has really helped that particular BIL establish some boundaries, and the two brothers are now getting on very well, he has become a wonderful uncle and caring BIL. Despite MIL constantly spreading lies and making up horrible things about each son to the other. Now there is an open line of communication where they can find out if what she has said is bull___ (always is) and not to judge the other on it. It was a long, tough 9 years always being the enemy to the family because of her manipulations.

To be completely honest, my MIL has very little interaction with my birth family. I never trusted her behaviour around them and never wanted to subject them to her trouble so I can honestly say they've only spent a handful of time together. The two times she has completely crossed the line for me were when my mother was going through chemotherapy. It was Mothers day and we had taken MIL out for dinner. At dinner, she thought it was a great time to bang on about my mothers 'lifestyle' and how she needs to change who she is and what she does, and if she would have done this and that she wouldn't have gotten cancer. How inappropriate is that? I was so upset, she has no idea about my mothers lifestyle, family medical history or anything else and yet she thought it was appropriate to pass judgement on things she had completely made up in her head.

The second time was my grandmothers funeral recently. I rarely get her to babysit our children as I just don't trust her. On this occasion my husband put his foot down and so MIL was arranged to babysit. She arrived late (as she clearly has no respect. She is able to be on time, usually early, for things that are important to her and to work) meaning that i missed the beginning of my grandmothers funeral. This is something I just cannot forgive her for. My husband seems to think I am over reacting, it was just traffic etc. In my opinion, if you were to babysit someones children you would get there early and let the kids settle in, find out the routine, ask where anything is and perhaps even help out for a while before we had to leave. But no, she turns up late.

The thing is, these aren't even the worst things she has done. They are just the things that she has done which relate to my birth family which I have NO tolerance for. The mere mention of my family is a no-go zone for me, and my husband is aware of this so we don't tell her anything.

My psychologist at the moment is working with my on understanding that it probably is a mental health disorder (sorry just to confirm, its not diagnosed - its just from our year of therapy sessions that she's suggested it sounds like BPD), and trying to just feel sorry for her rather than get angry. There are times when I am able to do that. But since the funeral - I just can't. To be honest I can barely even look at my husband right now. When we were first dating I broke up with him because of his mother, but we eventually ended up back together. I just can't believe how often this rears its ugly head.

I know this affects my husband. But I can't always just put on a happy face and let her get away with her behaviour. He truly believes that deep down she is a good person but just has a bad outter mask. I truly believe it's the opposite, someone with a good heart would not be so constantly destructive to their children and their families

I often think about it this way: BPD is a mental illness. I have a sib. w/ uBPD, and I try to compartmentalize it as loving my sibling and hating the illness. That attitude doesn't make everything magically go away, but sometimes it helps me when I am in my moments of sheer frustration - because it makes me think back to before the BPD started.

I like SunnyBlue's suggestion about ONE activity. I was also wondering about your husband going alone, either to the bday or to visit her on xmas or both?

The comments she made about your mom's cancer, and showing up late to babysit, were really inappropriate and disrespectful. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. You are TOTALLY owed an apology (that you probably won't get).

Thanks for your reply and all your advice.

A couple of stand out things that my MIL had done to us over the years is:

When we announced we were pregnant (7 years after being together and 2 years after marriage!) she literally sat there and told us off 'Why don't you ever listen to me? I told you not to fall pregnant! Im too young to be a grandmother!' (all very serious). My BIL only got to hug and congratulate me before the tone in the room quickly turned bad. He never even congratulated his brother, and neither of us got a congratulations from his mother. Very strange.

Then even weirder - as the birth got close she got completely possessive over the baby. Only referring to it at 'My baby!'. Constantly asking immediately (like days after birth) "when she could take her home overnight. Why won't we let her take her home and spend some time alone?". She would buy so many things for m daughter, show them to us and then take them home with her and put them in a cupboard for when she slept over. I'm talking thousands and thousands of dollars worth of clothes, toys etc which never got to be worn and never got to be played with because we wouldn't let our 2 month old go home with her.

She is constantly bad mouthing us to everyone. We get calls from people saying 'Why would you let MIL see the baby?' when we were literally going there twice a week!

My husband went away for 6 weeks of work when baby was only 5 weeks old. In this time I had mastitis, went back to work for 4 days over Easter to help out and also, of course, had a brand new job as a first time mother to look after a tiny baby all on my own. During this time I took my daughter to her work twice for lunch and so she could show her off to all her friends (45 minute drive to get there btw). The whole time I was there she went on about how I was doing everything wrong. But I still went. When husband came back - wow did he cop an earful. MIL had gone the 6 whole weeks without even seeing the baby ONCE! Is she insane? I went and visited her TWICE! In hindsight, should she not have offered to come over and help me? Why was there so much pressure on me to take the baby to visit her, especially when the visits were quickly forgotten and I quickly became enemy # 1 for not letting Grandma see HER baby.

This doesn't even touch on the weekly bull___ that we cop from her from our dating days, engagement, wedding, travels, work life, social life, everything. She is so destructive and manipulative.


Thats exactly how I feel. I shouldn't be the one paying for therapy but because I seem to be the only one who can see it for what it is. Im not doing the therapy for her sake either, I honestly would be happy to never see her again. I'm only doing it for my husband as he hold onto a lot of guilt about his relationship with his mum, and her relationship with our kids.


This is what we do too. I don't call or respond to her - its his mother he can deal with her. But god, she makes him feel like ___ for it. I'm sitting out her birthday this year after being the one to organise it for the last 10 years. I'm just not mentally ready to see her at the moment. When I visit now I don't engage in conversation, I'm there - but I'm not there.


Its fantastic that you are both in a position to respect each other. Do you think its because of your mother as well, he is able to relate to how it affects you? My husband says he gets it, but he doesnt. He doesn't see it when it happens. Maybe if I explain a scenario to him after it has happened he'll see it, but face to face often it goes over his head because he is so switched off when around her.

Thanks for your response. I struggle to compartmentalise, hate the illness and love the person as I have no love left for her. When I was pregnant  with my first child I made a decision to go above and beyond to repair our relationship for the sake of our future family. The amount of time, understand and forgiveness that I put into that 6 months was tough for me but I did it for my husband and family. The second my daughter was born my MIL was just awful to me, possessive over my family, all of a sudden only started speaking her native language around me (so its like I wasn't even in the room, private conversations with me sitting there), often not even greeting me when barging into my home. Just grabbing the baby and sitting herself down on the couch for hours on end. When the comment about my mothers cancer was said the line was drawn for me and that is when i put every possible boundary up.

My husband will be going alone to her birthday, but I can't miss Christmas because of my children.

I struggle as well, and call me paranoid, with my husband going there alone too much. I never stop him, but I prefer to go. I feel like he's had 30 years of this emotional abuse, manipulation, he barely sees it happening. He also often forgets about incidents (or remembers them very differently) after they've happened. I worry most for my children, who are still young, but what great targets for her to get off on her emotional abuse right?

Sorry O'm new to forums so trying to figure out how to do the quotes and all the lingo xx