BPDFamily.com

My sister and her family have not met my S3 in the two years since my wife got mad at sister and refused further contact (and they have never met my S1 yet). This is unacceptable, and I am ashamed because I have let this continue for so long already.

So I have finally arranged to have dinner with my sister's family this Friday. I have not told my wife about it yet. It has taken me a long time to come up with this plan and gather the courage to go ahead with it. Now I am absolutely terrified by how this is going to play out. I should be planning for some possibilities, but I have trouble concentrating when I try to think about it.

So I write out my plan and some concerns here, in the hopes I can get some suggestions and encouragement.

I am supposed to pick up our son from daycare on Friday. I will do that, but instead of heading home as usual, we head off to a nearby restaurant. There we will have dinner with his ant, uncle and cousins. Then we will return home.

I will let my wife know about this plan in the Friday morning, after he is already in the daycare. I will offer her the chance to bring S1 and join us for the dinner.

Some points:
 - leaving from daycare instead of home gives her less changes to sabotage
 - telling her late gives her no change to try and sway our son
 - I'd love the S1 to join but right now it is more important to just do something to start fixing things

Concerns:
 - will she be stable enough to be safely left alone with S1
 - will she try to go and collect S3 herself to prevent me from doing it
 - will she come to daycare / restaurant and demand for S3 to go with her instead of me, and how can I handle it if she does
 - will she ask me to move out, and is that a thing I can safely comply with (or safely refuse, for that matter)
 - how can I handle the blowout over the weekend
 - how do I actually tell her on Fridat and not be drawn into an argument, while also treat her respectfully?
 - should I actually tell her earlier, am I being unreasonable

Oh well.

This kind of strategy was common in my family growing up. While the ideal would be to be transparent in a relationship, the "playing field" wasn't even and BPD mother's reactions were scary, sometimes dangerous. We were all afraid of her.

I feel for your situation and know, your wife is going to react, one way or another.

Because of the fear of her reactions, my BPD mother had a lot of control in the family. In addition, our attempts to get around this resulted in us being sneaky, not telling her things- but these are actions that go against our own moral code. It makes sense that BPD mother would feel betrayed in these situations, any person would be, but she didn't connect our actions to her behavior that we feared.

BPD mother disliked my father's family but her control was about anyone who she felt somehow threatened by. Eventually, this also included my father's relationship with me if I stood up to her.

If this were my BPD mother, I would say there is going to be a reaction to your plan- and what she might do is unpredictable. Is she safe with a one year old? I don't know. Will she show up at daycare? Maybe. IMHO-while your plan to do this in this manner is understandable, under the circumstances, it is in a way a betrayal of her trust and she is going to react to that too, in addition to you doing something that feels threatening to her.

Your wife has banned family members from seeing you and the children. She would react to your being up front about you insisting on this. It's a question of which reaction to deal with, or to avoid altogether by complying with her- which you also feel is unacceptable.