BPDFamily.com

Hello all first time here- a bit of background: I’m a semi retired emergency physician in New Zealand happily married for many years 2 adult children daughter and son. we’ve had our ups and downs as we all do but all minor and we are a strong stable family of more introvert type of people
My son met his partner a few years ago and they have been together since not long after.
She divulged she was going to counselling and later stated she had BPD - formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist in the mental health team she also has an additional diagnosis.
She has engaged in therapy and I thought she was going okay
A bit quirky and garrulous and nervous with new people- but that’s no biggie
She painted her mother as a very nasty controlling person who is an alcoholic. And consequently we’ve only met her parents on a couple of occasions her mother appears to be fairly strong minded but not not an unpleasant person. She fell pregnant last year and we were over the moon to be anticipating our first grandchild. Everything seemed to be fine and we have been nothing but welcoming and kind to her indeed my wife has helped her out and treated her as a daughter.

Our granddaughter arrived and everything seemed to be initially fine however on the first night in their new home my wife was there helping out and my son‘s partner started to decompensate. When she was finished feeding and the baby was going to be put down with my son and wife’s help she accused them of wanting to steal the baby and she did not want to sleep as a consequence of that this culminated in her calling her mother to come over and my son and my wife resorted to sleeping downstairs as their presence was winding her up. My wife arrived home the next morning very upset saying it was absolutely terrible the next week was a whirlwind essentially she got worse turning on her mother mother saying that she was evil turning on us saying that we were playing her son off against her in poisoning his mind she got friends and who she then termed as her family who started to enable her by believing her stories about us. It all came to head went through lack of sleep she went into a manic state requiring a compulsory treatment order under the mental health act they stayed in place for about five days in for the past week my son has been treating water and her parents especially her mother has been a fantastic help to her which makes me seriously doubt that all we have been told about her is untrue. We have been shut out in the cold we have not seen our granddaughter for the past two weeks. They’re seeing a therapist soon both my son and his partner and then the partner with her mother. A transpires speaking to the midwife that she has been telling stories about us which have been completely untrue due to patient confidentiality we don’t know the substance of these but the implication from the midwife is that they were not very nice - she also has exhibited splitting against her midwife having sacked her and intends to complain about her and other staff members at the hospital.. My son has the insight and his read up about BPD and given her instability and telling stories about us behind our back  he is not falling for her attempts to manipulate him against us and alienating us
He is intending to leave her and will be looking at doing a coparenting and  dividing up the relationship property  which they’ve only bought recently. This  is an absolute mess it’s our worst nightmare when it really should be one of the happiest times of our lives. We have told our son that it is really his decision what what he does in this situation and we will support him no matter what his choice however as coldhearted as it may seem my inclination would be to run.

My main concern is my son‘s mental health but also that about granddaughter I can’t see any fantastic option here but the unpredictability of living with such a person and the emotional rollercoaster they would put both my son and our granddaughter through would be tremendously destructive. For our part we have been very hurt and confused by this and it is taking a lot of time to get our heads around it. My son seems to be doing a very good job of sitting boundaries and he is currently sleeping in a separate bed downstairs in the house he has seen a lawyer and is getting all his ducks in a row in the likelihood that he will be leaving the relationship. It is made life very complicated that there is a baby involved who is an innocent party to all of this. The daughter-in-law now apparently we have heard through the grapevine has been on social media is starting to window dress her life with the new arrival

She seems to be settling down and almost behaving as if nothing has happened. She has however made no attempts to contact us or talk to us and at the moment we feel very hurt and angry but we feel supporting our son but distancing ourselves from her is the best option at the moment

Sorry for venting everybody but this has been an absolutely terrible rollercoaster to hell for us I would welcome anybody else’s perspective on this perhaps somebody has been an exactly the same situation we are in.

Looking through the forum they seem to be many accounts of manipulated behaviour using grandchildren as pawns in the game that they play we are very keen to avoid this if at all possible welcome your thoughts thank you to all