BPDFamily.com

Hi all,

I've been a member here since the fall of 2019 when my dBPD/NPD ex and I finalized our separation agreement.  This is not why I am writing. I am here because of my daughter whose mother is my first wife - not my most recent partner.

My ex-wife - the mother of my daughter has had her own issues with depression and sexual orientation confusion - I suspect that she was sexually molested by her father as a young girl. We have a civil, polite and rather distant relationship. We rarely see eye to eye about how to handle our now 25 year old daughter

Our daughter has recently had a 3 year-old initial diagnosis of bio-polar confirmed.  Many people, have enabled her through her avoidance of facing this condition.  Those who have not, have simply fired her from her jobs or left her almost entirely.  When she is up, she is charming, intelligent and highly creative. When she is down, she is rude, nasty and disrespectful.

Given that I am the one who left her mother 12 years ago - I have over-functioned as her father. I know this because many people, including my current partner have commented how disrespectful she can be to me. More than once, several times even, I have asked her, even pleaded, to just tell me what I may have done to hurt her so that I can make amends. She has assured me, to the point of tears even, that there is nothing. And yet the behavior continues. 

Tonight, on the eve of her 25th birthday, I have hit my limit.  It is clear to me that she and her mother, have been lying to me about her getting help. She is no better today than three years ago when the diagnosis was first being tested.

I know that we are a group that is concerned with BPD - and that a bi-polar condition is not the same at all. But I have come to cherish this community and trust it's wisdom.

I can no longer in good conscience continue to support a menagerie that if we just continue to be understanding that my daughter will not end destitute with no money and no future. Her mother (my ex) by her own admission, lives in continual fear that my daughter will hurt herself.  I try to support my ex wife as best as I can by validating what efforts she is making. But I can't sustain that either.

I am struggling to understand how to set a boundary in such a way that it will be heard. Maybe I am really fooling myself here, because on the recovery board, I know only too well that setting boundaries are often received as ultimatums or threats.  When it came to ending my last relationship, I finally came to the place where I set a boundary that ended the relationship - and I sought help from my T and support here to deal with the aftermath of that.

But now, this is my first born child and I am obviously feeling a different kind of pressure. I have tried everything to break this cycle of spiraling behavior. Nothing has worked.

Thoughts.  I know I haven't asked a specific question. What jumps out here for whoever reads this?  Maybe there's a question that I haven't asked yet that will give me a measure of peace.

Thanks,

Rev

Rev, what exactly are you doing that you think needs a boundary? Is it financial, or tolerance of her disrespectful behavior?

And what are her behaviors that trigger you -- verbal abuse. entitlement, what?

Briefly...

Boundaries around disrespectful behavior.

Triggered by sense of entitlement

When she is disrespectful, is she raising her voice or using abusive language, and is It over the phone or in person?

How have you been responding to her in the past? Do you JADE? Have you ever told her you won't continue a conversation and need to hang up now? Or left the site of an abusive conversation?

She is well into adulthood and responsible for her bad behaviors. The tools used with spouses/partners are the same -- don't JADE, use SET to validate, etc. However, the pain of watching a child pull away or give the silent treatment is a different type of struggle. Is it your fear that she will cut you out of her life?

So after all this I've come to the conclusion that it's not the boundaries I am having trouble with - I am over functioning. That will simply stop now.

Thank you for all of this.  You ask good questions.

Rev

My husband was married to his children's uBPD/NPD mother for many years. He brought her to the U.S. and felt the need to overfunction because of her lack of language skills and lack of education. Even after she became better educated in English than she had been in her country of origin, he continued to overfunction. That carried over to his relationship with his daughter, who is not personality-disordered but has a high level of anxiety. When we married in 2005, I could see the dysfunction, and the relationships have now become much more appropriate. Lots of stress lifted off my husband!

Certainly in the last two years, my current partner has been very good for me in this regard because I have not had to over-function here. And there's been some very good therapy sessions that really affirmed that my gifts, such that they are, are to be respected rather than simply "given away". 

After reading this exchange, I am finding the foothold.  The piece in S.E.T. that I have really not excelled at - in my relationship to my daughter and in my 2nd partner (ie - not the mother of my children) is being able to speak the truth about what I am feeling and have that respected.  Only last year did I complete a master's thesis to understand how psychological coercive behavior (I have come to stop using the word abuse) plays out in male victims. Big, big eye opener and one that set me on this narrower path with my daughter. She definitely doesn't like it. And as I write this, to move in small increments has been worth all the stress it cause. At least now, I will have fewer regrets.

It will be up to her now to decide what she wants for herself. I know myself, and when I can say these words with clarity, it's because I have found the solid footing I was searching from this post.  I know what to do now.

Blessings to all of you. I am reliving the relief I felt when I found this community almost two years ago.  Such a super place.

Rev.