BPDFamily.com

Hi all,

I have been a bpd fam member here four years now. So I’ll do a quick recap/intro… I am a married lesbian with four small children who are biologically my dbpd wife’s (created through ivf), but legally half mine.

I would like to reiterate how much bpd family has helped me improve my marriage and my wife’s behaviour and treatment of me. She does not think she has bpd “anymore”, and does not think her behaviour needs to improve. But I have single-handedly turned things around through following the advice on here and particularly the “Stop Caretaking” book. We did have a very bad year following the birth of our third baby, 2023, my wife split on me the whole year. I’m surprised we made it out of that year together.

Somehow things again have improved to the point that I am extremely happy with my life. I still sometimes think, it would be nice if I wasn’t with such a difficult person. But generally I don’t mind as I feel I know how to handle her now and I’m much better at standing up for myself and doing what I want to do.

The problem is still my wife’s relationship with my mother and her refusal to let Mum visit her grandchildren, who she has barely met though we do FaceTime her and my elderly disabled father, we live 5 hours away so it’s not easy to visit.

In 2023 the year from hell, I faced the final frontier and insisted my mother would be visiting. I was willing to give up my marriage over this, I had to be committed to this, and I find it shocking that I would have more rights over my children were I to go through a divorce and custody battle. It was in some ways easier to commit to the possibility of losing my marriage that year because it felt like it was almost over.

Now things have changed so much. I get on with my wife, our relationship seems somewhat stable and her behaviour mostly sane and most importantly my children seem emotionally healthy. She is refusing to have my mother visit or me to take the children to see her. No variation of this is acceptable to my wife such as my wife going out while my mother visits for a few hours.

My wife’s reasoning (in her own words): My mother makes her feel “uncomfortable in her own home”. Mum has never made any effort to talk to her or get to know her and is not interested in her as a person or her past. She feels that Mum is only interested in the kids.

My Mum’s response to this: I always try to ask bpdw how she is and show an interest (they only have a text message relationship). I don’t know what else I can do. (My opinion in truth is yeah I doubt Mum likes or has any respect for you cos she knows of you treating me like sh1t and all the grief you’ve caused me.)

The stakes have changed for me. Of course I want my mother to have an in-person relationship with our kids, like bpdw’s mother who came on holiday with us as babysitter but barely lifted a finger to help and did not contribute to the cost of food and drinks. But I don’t want to create a massive problem now that things are going so well. In addition to this, I’m not sure how I can insist my mother sees the kids or what that would look like because inviting Mum round against my wife’s wishes is certainly not a good idea. My wife says, it’s simple, once she starts showing she actually cares about me then I’ll let her see the kids. My Mum has given us lots of money but apparently that’s just “throwing money at the problem” when really it’s the only thing Mum feels she can help with.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and wisdom. My mother is 80 years old and seems very well but we never know how long we have. As an aside.. I did not invite my mother round last year because I personally did fall out with her. What happened was our dog was diagnosed with cruciate injuries in both legs and we were quoted over £10k for surgery to fix it, and given the impression from the vet that we would likely be looking at euthanising soon if we couldn’t get the cash. I asked my Mum for the money out of desperation and she accused me of bullying her. This hurt me deeply because it was about my grief over a beloved pet which is not the same as bullying although it may have come across that way. For anyone who’s interested the dog has somewhat recovered  :wee:, he is still injured but has gone back to loving life and doesn’t seem to be suffering.

Hi TP- I am glad things are going better for you. This, unfortunately, seems to be a common dynamic. There are posts from heartbroken mothers in law who have been separated by their child and grandchildren due to the feelings of the BPD spouse.

And, like your mother, they have tried all they know to do, but as you know, we can not change anyone else's feelings. There's no way to do "good enough" because of this. It seems your mother has been very generous but it's not "good enough". Also, it's not due to anything your mother didn't do or do- because she's been put into that perspective by your wife. Your mother can't fix this.

The advice given to them is that it's going to be up to their child to change this, not them. You can't change your wife's feelings either. It would need to be addressed and you'd have to stand up for it. But this risks the relative calm in your situation. IMHO, there isn't an easy path out of it.

This may sound harsh- but from your mother's perspective, when you asked your mother for the money for the dog, I think she did feel bullied. Why? Not over the dog in the moment but because, she's been generous financially with you and your wife, and she doesn't get to see her grandchildren? She's already understood your choice of your wife's feelings over hers and the children and she's given the two of you money for your needs over them. If she had a connection to the grandchildren, she may have not felt hurt over the request for help for the dog but she's already in a state of feeling hurt.

These are difficult situation. You've made your choice and your mother knows that. But she also has the choice of what to do with her own money.Your mother loves you- she really does, but she may not be willing to give financial support in a situation that is hurtful to her. She may have decided on her own boundary here.