BPDFamily.com

My story on these boards is mostly scattered on the divorcing, suffering, or surviving type of posts. But to sum it up, my uBPD wife has several traits of BPD, especially leaning towards the waif  and hermit type.  I have five kids.  My D16 in the last two years went from daddy's girl to fully stonewalling me. I might get a grunt or a shrug from her in response to any and every thing.  She is treating me with cold anger, and isolation.  Add in what seems like projection and blame, and it seems like she's becoming a clone of her mom during the worst of the times.  I understand that a daughter is most likely to follow and feel closer to mom, and I am very okay with rebellion in the teen years.  I get it, and I was there too.

A bad thing that is happening is that mom and D16 seem to feed off of each other.  Mom is the voice for her now and tells me how much she's (D16 and herself) struggling.  Mom is dismayed with my handling of things.  At present, the only communication I get from D16 is "Can I drive the car on ... .?" She wants to drive to school, weekend work, and so forth.  All good uses.  She had a period of time where she was not safe behind the wheel, but I think she has progressed above that now.  

Generally, I have required her to show maturity, responsibility, and handle herself at home and school.  Since subtle and common sense don't always work, I have a list taped to the refrigerator that lists the steps to borrowing a car.  One step says to show respect for the person who owns the car.  I request that she speak to me politely when she does, and stay in the room, and so forth.  I don't think my "demands" are unjust.  

As of lately, I have been more firm in expecting respectful treatment, and she has pushed the limit about as far downhill as I am willing to go.  Now that she sees her car use is at risk, she will form a complete English sentence to me "Can I borrow the car?" and sometimes "Please?"  I've explained that respect requires a little more than one sentence amid all the nonverbal communications, grunts, shrugs. locked bedroom doors, stonewalling, huddling up and trying to leave the room when I enter (like at every dinner).  She is taking it hard.  Therefore, mom is watching the "abuse" in silent judgement against me.

I was having a hard time with this - trying to make my wife and daughter happy - or at least tolerable - until I stumbled on this phrase, which I said quite unexpectedly.  "I am not trying to control you or take away your independence, I am controlling, setting the standard, the way I'm am being treated before I loan someone my stuff."  I don't know where that came from, but somewhere deep inside it worked its way out.

I felt suddenly better about making mom and D16 mad at me.  I think I'll stand on that principle.  :)oes this sound like proper boundaries?  
Have any of you got tips for dealing with uBPDw and most evidently teen girls following mom over the BPD cliff - figuratively speaking?
Thanks.

You aren't responsible for their emotions.  It's the empty bucket you'll never fill.

Have you tried the communication tools on your daughter,  SET and validation rather than just boundaries? ":)____, I see that you seem upset with me,  and don't want to talk... .what's up?"

T

This sounds very self-respecting  :)

The boundary seems very clear. "I respect myself too much to lend things to people who are treat me badly."

In response to my own parent/teen challenges, I was told to read Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by the Arbinger Institute.

If I could summarize the book with one sentence, it is this: "the key to leadership lays not in what we do, but in who we are."

Your sentence to D16 contains some of what they are expressing in the book.