BPDFamily.com

Situation: I would like my partner to see for himself that the strained relationship between his mum (pwBPD traits) and me is due to her behavior, not mine.

Recap: My boyfriend and I have been dating for about a year, he (early 30s) lives in a household with his mum - who isn't my biggest fan  lol

After an "incident" a couple of weeks ago (perceived slight so minor I couldn't even explain to anyone unfamiliar why this would be an issue to his mum) I was no longer invited to my partner's (and his mum's) house. It was a peaceful time for me   |iiii

However, my partner is very keen to establish a good relationship between his mum and I, and devised a plan to reintroduce me. They were due to invite some neighbors over as a thank you, but while honoring the social obligation appealed to his mum, actually spending the evening with these people did not. Hence, my partner suggested to also invite me and play a commonly known card game (that requires exactly 4 players) to give his mum a socially acceptable excuse to greet the neighbors politely but then retreat while him and I and the neighbors play the game. In addition, this would make me a solution to a problem of his mum's (since me being there allowed her to skip the majority of the evening) and he was hoping this would be a good opportunity to reestablish contact between her and I.

Knowing how important me trying for a good relationship with his mum is to my partner, I agreed. In a conversation before the evening and also in little interactions during the evening my partner and I essentially game-planned each interaction between her and I. I also noticed we have started using language around "us" working on my relationship with her.

In retrospect, I feel quite weird about it all - isn't him and I aligning against her just another variant of triangulation? On the other hand, I want my partner as involved as possible in my dealings with her. While I try to avoid any interaction between his mum and I without him, even the few situations with him out of sight/earshot have resulted in weird stories about my alleged behavior in these moments that makes me suspect his mum would take advantage of any opportunity to paint me in a bad light, even if it requires fabrication.

I'm so confused. I thought getting him to see my perspective was a step in the right direction, but now I don't even know anymore. How do I get off the triangle? Or is this impossible given we are three people in a BPD world and my partner does not think of his mum's behavior as disordered?

Hi FrozenBerry,

I remember your story from your last post.

I don't know if this will be of any help to you, but this is the way I personally see my relationship with my husband... Simply said : I don't see him as someone I can triangulate against or with on anything, for the simple reason that he is my partner for life, and I am committed to our relationship. So... We work as a team to solve our problems, we are truthful with one another, but we don't judge each other. To the rest of the world : we never speak ill of one another (except maybe during therapy if needed or under the cover of anonymity), we are a team and we solve our own issues together. We are never against one another, and we remind ourselves constantly that the other is not our ennemy. Short of those kind of boundaries and value, I'm not sure what would be the point of a committed relationship. It is not perfect, mind you, those are the values we discussed together, this is our ideal, and the kind of relationship we work toward together.

I understand that your relationship with your partner might not be there yet (i.e. not completely commited?) if only because of his level of enmeshment with his mother... I think that a good thing to remember is that in healthy families : wife/husband takes priority over the parents...  Although this might be a cultural thing, it is, to me, what feels the most healthy anyway.

For my husband, and for myself, our relationship with our parents is not prioritized. My husband was always respectful of my parents, and if my parents didn't like him, they would be the ones I see less, not him. Same for my husband.

The problem that I see in your partner relationship with his mother is that he was raised as his surrogate spouse, which makes it incredibly confusing for him to move away from her and reach complete independence and adulthood. But in a regular situation, I think this is what most couples strive for : independence, and to be able to focus on their own immediate family, namely their spouse and children. That isn't to say that they wouldn't provide for elderly parents, my husband and I help his parents whenever we can and we will support them as they age, but we are not enmeshed with them...while we might ask them what they think about something, because they have experience, we are still making our own decision and might not follow their advice if we judge it not a good one for our situation... Generally speaking, we go visit to make them happy and ensure they develop a relationship with their grandchildren, but we still hold boundaries so that they can't invade our privacy.

All this to say : the closer you are with your partner, the less you see them as entirely separate from you, so triangulation would not apply, because the couple in itself acts like one entity... Without emotional enmeshement. It might sound intense, but it is actually quite comforting to be able to depend entirely on someone without fear of betrayal... but then, some people really enjoy complete independance, and that is perfectly ok too...

I guess what I am getting at is that I would take the fact that your husband seems more "on your side" as a good thing... This is usually what we want in a relationship: autonomy from the parents. However, I don't foresee your MIL going away anytime soon, seeing how your relationship with your partner seem to revolve a lot around MIL being happy. Would he be open in reading books on the subject? Is he aware of his level of enmeshement with his mother?

So there’s nothing untoward going on here because like Riverwolf said, you are actually supposed to be in an alliance with your boyfriend.  :) But it almost sounds like the two of you are acting like teenagers trying to sneak around his mother and doing something “forbidden”, and so maybe that’s why you feel like there’s something a little “off”. 

What I’m wondering is what the plan is with regard to the two of you getting your own place? Are both names on the title deed meaning he will need his mother’s cooperation in order to either sell the place or buy her out?

Riverwolf, thank you so much for sharing your view on your own relationship. I really admire those values you list for building a connection, even though at the moment, I do not think my relationship is at that stage (yet).
It also helped me come to an important realization, which is that the discomfort I feel might have much more to do with my own attachment issues than with triangulation.

This relates to the point made by Couscous. I didn't feel my partner and I did anything 'forbidden', but creating a plan and operating as a team felt very intimate. This level of closeness is not something I'm used to or handle well - and as remembering and sticking to the plan when interacting with pwBPD (knowing the tiniest slip would mean failure) was exhausting, I guess it was easy to misattribute my discomfort!

I am so impressed and amazed how much insight and clarity your replies give me, and how soothing this board feels. Thank you guys, you are truly amazing  :wee:

I agree that if I choose to be in this relationship, she will be part of the deal. It doesn't feel right to me to 'push' my partner towards reading any books on BPD - as you have better insight, correct me if I'm wrong but I've read realizing the dysfunction in your own parent tends to bring up a lot of emotions for people posting here, not just relief but also anger and grief. I want him to engage with these topics on his own timeline. It also would not go down well AT ALL to suggest she is mentally ill.

I do not think he views the relationship he has with his mother as problematic, in his world there are always good reasons (excuses) for her behavior. My hope is that with time, I can show him that I can take on board suggestions and make an effort. When it doesn't work (as you all seemed in agreement it wouldn't on my introductory post), I hope he will reach the conclusion that this is not actually anything to do with me or my behavior, and everything to do with my status as his partner. I guess a discussion of reducing the role his mother has to have in our relationship cannot happen until then, as I am pretty sure any attempt to raise this topic now would lead to the accusation that I am prejudiced against her (nothing bad (that I can prove) has happened yet) and would be fruitless.

Ironically, between him, his mum and I he is probably the only one who likes the idea of us moving in together at some point in the future  :) I prefer to live alone to living with a partner, and moving in together is not something I would be willing to discuss, let alone plan for at the moment. While I'm curious, I do not know how he envisions potential living scenarios in the future - my guess is that it would involve some set-up that includes both his mum and I. I would never agree to that, but these are hypotheticals anyway. I have communicated that living together is not something I am interested in, but I can't know if he is hoping for me to change my mind on that some time in the future - wait and see!

So there’s no need to mention BPD to him at all because BPD is not the problem — the enmeshment/emotional incest is. In fact, I am beginning to think that this website should be renamed: Enmeshedfamily.com. :(

I’m in the middle of reading a book my therapist recommended called The Emotional Incest Syndrome and I think you might find it quite helpful. At the very least you will understand exactly what it is you are signing up for and better able to make an informed decision.

Oh, so after re-reading your original post again, I now see what’s going on here. His loyalty is first and foremost to his mother and it’s because of this that he sees you as the problem.

Unfortunately, he’s trying to have his cake and eat it too. His desire to have the two of you getting along is virtually impossible — his mother views you as her rival and there is nothing that you can possibly do to win her over. You are essentially trapped in a love triangle, and will remain the “other woman” until he wakes up.  

I think that turning the focus back on ourselves is the best thing we can do to see things as they are.

You didn't chose a partner enmeshed with his mother for no reason, and it doesn't seem to me that the enmeshment really bother you... I get a feeling that you would be ok with it, as long as you are not asked to participate in it or "join the family", so as long as you can keep on to you independance and autonomy.

One of my relationships prior to my husband was with a guy deeply enmeshed with his mother. He had lost his father and he was 5years old and became his mother surrogate spouse. I remember feeling deeply abandoned, I wanted emotional connection, but he was emotionally connected to his mother, and she was his main priority. For me, I was reliving my abandonment trauma, my loneliness, my feeling of exclusion, of not belonging, of not being enough. And as much as I hurt, part of me was ok with him not being emotionnally available, because I was deeply scared of intimity. Intimity was dangerous where I came from.

Your story might be completely different, but I think that you mentioning you don't handle proximity well is the real step in your healing journey... More so than focusing on the triangulation with MIL (even though this is a real problem also deserving of your attention).

 :hug:

I think that you mentioning you don't handle proximity well is the real step in your healing journey... More so than focusing on the triangulation with MIL

I think this is key. We tend to be attracted to, and attract people who match us emotionally in some way- this is all relationships, not just with BPD. They don't need to be the same circumstances- someone with BPD can match with someone with co-dependent tendencies for example. Someone with an addiction can match with someone who enables them. In an emotionally stable relationship- both people match in their relationship skills.

We tend to also match with people with whom we might play out a family dysfunction pattern because that feels familiar to us. I think you are correct in that your boyfriend doesn't see his relationship with his mother as not normal- it's the normal he grew up with. It's the only child-mother relationship he has experienced.

On one level, it's match of boundaries. Boundaries can be weak, but they can also be too strong- not let anyone get too close. We tend to focus on the poor boundaries here on this board but I think we also have some of each. Emotional intimacy requires healthy boundaries. It requires being vulnerable and that can feel scary.

In ACA groups we have a "laundry list" of personality traits children who grew up with dysfunction or a parent with addiction have. These parents were not there for us emotionally- and so we may choose people who also aren't emotionally available to us.

I don't know how you grew up or what led to your own need to avoid being too close to someone, to not live with someone, but this may be the "need" that leads you to match in your romantic relationship because you have matched with someone who also is not completely emotionally available to you.

There are other qualities he has that are attractive as well- but this emotional match is what leads to the relationship continuing. People can be attracted to each other at first and eventually the relationship doesn't last but if it meets both people's needs somehow, it does last. This doesn't mean the relationship with his mother is OK with you.

Yes, MIL is a problem but I wonder if it's a tolerable problem as it suits your boundaries. We do have choices in who we connect with emotionally. Someone may want to be with someone of the same religion so they can share that, if a person wants children- they need to also be with someone who wants children too. If you wish to live alone in a relationship- you would need to also be with someone who also wants that. These are individual choices- there's no right or wrong in them-  but if you need a certain distance, this can influence who you connect with romantically.

To add to Notwendy’s comment, my step-mother has an extremely avoidant attachment style, and I think she was quite content to be number 2 in my dad’s life and was initially quite happy that he was enmeshed with us kids since it took a lot of pressure off of her. But she now regrets having married him and seems quite lonely.

It's not that we are happy with our defense mechanisms. It's that we choose one discomfort over the one that is most distressing to us.

I have read that we choose someone with whom we engage in the issues we had in our FOO's with the hopes of somehow "fixing" the issue. Choosing someone who is emotionally unavailable could be due to hope that they will pay attention to us, and somehow give us the love we need that we didn't get but it can be the case that this person can't do that for us.

As Riv3rW0lf mentioned - the actual key to changing the childhood pattern is to care for self, so we no longer have the need to choose the person we chose.

Interesting things can happen when we do this. One possible outcome is that the relationship no longer fits, and doesn't last. While we can not change another person, another possible outcome is that when we change, the other person feels a discomfort. The relationship no longer fits their dysfunctional behavior. At first, they may try to engage you back into the familiar pattern because that is what they are used to doing. If that doesn't work, they may then decide to try something else- they may grow from this. For this to happen, it's a risk but people aren't motivated to change behaviors if their current behaviors work for them.

Some people are afraid to take the risk of changing the dynamics for fear of losing the relationship but it also opens up the possibility of something different if they do. Some people are incapable of personal insight and change as well so when the partner changes, the relationship probably doesn't last.

You needing distance fills a need but also makes you frustrated that your partner isn't completely separated from his mother. On the other hand, if he was, he may want more intimacy with you than you are wanting to have. Partner may not be happy being enmeshed with his mother, but he too may fear emotional intimacy with a woman and his enmeshment with his mother prevents that. Neither of you may be completely happy with mother in the mix, but it may serve a purpose for both of you. He seems less concerned about this than you- so you are the one who is motivated to change your part in this if you wish to. He then, may or may not follow your lead. He may still choose his mother but you will have the choice to accept this as it is or decide the relationship isn't for you.

Wow, this conversation is so interesting to me. I have suspected for a while that my partner and I might be damaged in ways that 'fit'.

At the beginning of our relationship, my attachment anxiety was still really bad. I frequently had episodes where I would get upset and withdraw, from the most minor things (as an example: Early on in the talking phase, he suggested he would like to prepare a picnic for us as a date. I didn't like one of the food choices he suggested and rather than communicate that, didn't talk to him for about 24h). I'm aware that this isn't healthy behavior and have been working really hard (and succeeded  :wee:) to change this pattern - while we might have 2 episodes like this a week at the beginning, we now haven't had a single one for months. It makes a lot of sense to me that my partner would tolerate this behavior precisely because he is reliving the trauma of abandonment by his father and unpredictability by this mother in our relationship. In that case, I suspect that the FAMILIAR emotional instability in addition with the fact that I take responsibility for my behavior, we have constructive conversations and I then change the pattern and there is progress, is what makes our relationship so rewarding for him. As you say, trying to solve the dynamic he was unable to 'fix' in his FOO.

It's much harder for me to see the patterns I might be replicating from my own childhood. I know that I date emotionally unavailable men, and I know that this probably relates to my parents giving me away when I was very young - I had to be independent and self-sufficient emotionally from less than a year old, and I guess this is the abandonment I'm recreating by being in this relationship. Riverwolf, the story about your earlier relationship really resonates with me. The difference might be that I feel that this partner really pushes my boundaries but in a healthy way - he wants more intimacy and emotional closeness from me, but is happy to move at my pace - this has resulted in this turning into my first serious committed relationship. The fact that I feel I have grown so much by being challenged in this relationship is one of my favourite things about it.

Couscous, this is exactly what I thought at the beginning - the fact that he already had a primary relationship (to his mum) and would not expect me to fulfill all the roles you might usually want a partner to have was a plus in my books, and I even told him so  lol (he was surprised, saying this is the first time in his life a prospective love interest saw him living with his mum as a benefit) Well, guess I underestimated how much their enmeshment would introduce her into our relationship, which is the aspect of this I struggle with.

Thank you all for the reminder that working on myself continues to be much more important than dealing with his mum.  :hug:

While I applaud you for all the progress you have been making personally, it does not sound to me like this is actually a committed relationship, any more than an affair partner is in a committed relationship. His remaining attached to his mother is actually a way for him to avoid commitment.

A committed relationship cannot begin until you become your BF’s primary attachment figure. This is a developmental stage that is supposed to be reached in late adolescence, and according to research usually takes about 4 months, but due the extreme levels of enmeshment exhibited by your BF and mother, therapy (for him) may well be required.

Maybe he would be open to reading this book: https://www.overcomingenmeshment.com/books/when-hes-married-to-mom/

The difference might be that I feel that this partner really pushes my boundaries but in a healthy way - he wants more intimacy and emotional closeness from me, but is happy to move at my pace - this has resulted in this turning into my first serious committed relationship. The fact that I feel I have grown so much by being challenged in this relationship is one of my favourite things about it.


It sounds like both of you are "safe" relationship partners for each other. His connection to his mother creates a safe distance for you. Your need for distance makes you less of a threat to his relationship with his mother.

This seems to be working for both of you. Now, that doesn't mean we are always happy about what works for us. These situations are more of a cost/benefit. People will engage in high cost behaviors so long as the benefit outweighs the cost. Tolerating his relationship with his mother has an emotional "cost" but the distance is also a benefit.

Imagine he calls you up and says "I have left Mother and now I am totally available to you"- could you handle that? And if you said "you need to choose between me and Mother" could he handle that?

There isn't any right or wrong here. You two are consenting adults. This might be the kind of relationship the two of you can handle. I think change happens through the one who is motivated to make the change. If he's comfortable with things as they are with his mother, he's not motivated to change.

If you want something different- therapy and exploring your need for distance might help. It makes sense from your early childhood that you are wary of attachment. If this causes you to have discomfort- then work on this. However, it's also a bit of who you are and you might want to accept that you need distance in relationships.

I can see where some of my experiences growing up have influenced my relationships. II have some close female friends but it seems other women enjoy doing things in groups "girls night out", or church groups or take trips together. Somehow I have felt excluded and lonely because I didn't have this but the few times I have done this, I didn't like it. I realize it's me- I keep a certain distance from people. I feel safer with people who don't push to be too close but I also have decided to be OK with that.

 

I think this is incredibly important.

I've started therapy trying to improve who I am, trying to become the version of me the world expect me to be.

However, like Notwendy, I also realized that therapy and self growth is not about changing who I am... It is about discovering who I am, what I like and not like, and loving myself and taking care of myself.

I also hold a lot of people at a distance. I am emotionally connected with my husband most times, but I have a very hard time trusting acquaintances and friends. I often find myself weary after too much socializing. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is ok to value independance. My relationship with my husband also let us a lot of room to do our own things. We don't share our bedrooms and were judged for it a lot, but you know what? He snores and I am a light sleeper, he likes to watch TV and have light while I need pitch black. Nothing wrong with that, I can still visit him in his bed whenever I need a cuddle...

There is not just one way to do things... Therapy is about finding the way that works FOR YOU, the way that makes you feel at peace with yourself.

What a committed relationship is will look different from one couple to another, and it is ok, as long as both individuals forming the couple are at peace and comfortable with their boundaries and values, and as long as they have open communication and trust in each other... As long as they CAN emotionnally connect when they need to attune themselves to each other, to prevent using, for example, children as crutches like our parents did...  :(

I think this is the crux of the matter.

Speaking from first-hand experience, what he wants is simply not possible. Either he is going to have to be willing to accept that you and his mother are not ever going to have the kind of relationship that he is envisioning, or you will need to be OK with being blamed for the tension and accept it as the price you pay for the relationship with him.

Oh, so I asked my H what he suggests you can do, and he said that you will never be able to convince him that there’s anything wrong with his relationship with his mother and that your best bet is to ask him to read When He’s Married to Mom. That book is what opened his eyes.

Wishing you all the best!  :hug:

Hi FrozenBerry-

There is a whole lot to men who are deeply enmeshed with their mothers.  My exBF, who was undiagnosed BPD/NPD was one of them, and he knew there was something very wrong about their relationship.  One of the reasons I needed to end our 6.5-year relationship was because of theirs...just too much.  Skin crawling stuff and he just couldn’t act to change or escape  it.  He’s 64 years old.

There’s a book titled Silently Seduced by Kenneth Adams. 

I wish you the best.  It’s a hard hard road.

Warmly,
Gemsforeyes

NotWendy, once again thank you for that observation. You are spot on - right now I couldn't handle that.


100% agree. This has come at a really good time for me. I'm just about to leave on a long vacation and will be away from my partner for a month. Perfect time to think about where I am at and what I'm looking for, and where I want to go from here.

Thank you for validating that this is not not working because I am not making enough of a effort (my partner's view) but because it cannot work (unless his mum or he work on their relationship, which is completely outside of my control).

I do not think your second scenario would work for me longer term. So I guess the question would be if he will accept my relationship with his mum for what it is at some point - or not.

I will definitely check out the book you recommend to make sure I'm educated on what I'm getting myself into  lol

Thank you for the recommendation, and your support.

It means a lot to be able to come here and listen to all of your experiences  :wee:

Where I see the issue in your relationship is not that it doesn't work for you, or him.

It works for you because it gives you the space you need at the moment and meets your emotional/physical needs.

It works for him because you aren't creating pressure on him to leave his relationship with his mother and also meets the emotional and physical needs that his mother can't meet.

It's that mother isn't happy about it, and likely would not be happy about her son having a relationship with anyone except for her.

Son ( your BF) is feeling discomfort because he wants his mother to be happy and he wants a relationship with you. In classic triangle dynamics, BPD mother sees you as the cause of her distress, wants him to rescue her from it. The simplest thing is for him to say to mother "you are my one and only" and not have a relationship. But he's also a grown man who wants a romantic relationship with a woman. This puts him at odds with what his mother wants. Parents with PD's see their children as extensions of themselves. She wants him to be focused on her so he needs to do that too as far as she is concerned.

This conflict is between the two of them. He may wish he could enlist you to smooth things over with his mother. It may not be that he's purposely doing this to you. He thinks you are great and thinks if only his mother could see that too, she'd change her mind. But she's not going to change her mind because it's not about you. It doesn't make a difference if you are Cruella DeVille or Mother Theresa. It's that she sees you as a threat.

This is between them. You can and should treat her kindly- because she's human and we should treat people respectfully, but she's going to think what she thinks. You can also have boundaries about what you are willing to tolerate and take on.

Kindly tell your BF you will be kind to her, but that is the best you can do.

Hey FB-

I kind of hesitate to say what I’m about to say.  I haven’t really seen the topic of parent/adult child enmeshment delved into much from a first-hand experience standpoint on this site.  It’s an incredibly painful thing to experience and no one “wins”.

The way I see it is there are three of you in this relationship.  Always.  You, your BF and his mother.  That’s how it became in mine.

Here’s a bit of my story.  I met my exBF in September 2013.  I waited a month before sleeping with him... I needed to be sure of my feelings.  He was quick with his “I love you’s“... I was a bit slower.  I’d made a joke with him after our intimacy that I was relieved that he was circumcised!  I told him I prayed - “Oh dear GOD, please have him be circumcised so I don’t look surprised”.

Well, 7 months on and we’re going out to dinner where he’ll introduce me to his mother.  Keep in mind he’s 55 and I’m 56 at the time.  He and I are getting ready and he keeps jumping in front of me at the bathroom mirror.  I said, “honey, I need to get ready and your mom already knows what you look like!”  It was weird...
So we arrive at dinner, and first he introduces me by his ex-girlfriend’s name (3 years prior).  I laughed and he turned beet red.  I now think there’ more to that than met the eyes.  THEN he proceeds to tells me how FUNNY his mother thought it was that I was afraid he wouldn’t be circumcised!

I wanted to slip under the table... and I have a pretty loose sense of humor, but this??

Prior to this meeting, Christmas was coming and I wanted to get him some clothes.  He told me his mother gets him all of his clothing.  Always has.

His mother was married during the first part of our relationship, so things weren’t as bad.  But when her H got ill or she had problems with him, they became “our” problems.  My exBF raged non-stop about his mother, his stepdad ad nauseaum.  I’d go into my bathroom and pray for my BF to just leave my home.  Or fall asleep.  Anything to stop his droning on and on.  It was awful. 
And then when his stepdad passed on, the enmeshment between my exBF and his mother became much worse.  He’d be with me and run to hers to cook.  Then he’d call me from there absolutely beside himself with anger.  So even when he wasn’t here, he was.  But he only screamed at me.  Only me.

He’d get onto fights with her, but he’d come here to yell.  At me, but largely about her.  Or he’d start fights so he could direct it AT me.

And then he went on a luxury European cruise with his whole family.  I was not invited.  I’m not sure why, but he regretted that everyday he was away.  His three sisters and their husbands.  And his mother.  My exBF SHARED A STATEROOM with his mother.  Holy GOD...WHY?  His mother was paying for everything and she is very wealthy.  He said yes...

He called me from every stop SCREAMING about his mother, his entire family, he needed to come home to me NOW, blah blah blah...he skipped every shore excursion.  Tortured man. 

This was the beginning of the end for me.  He came home and did nothing to change anything.  And there’s so much more.

And some incredibly cruel things I actually saw her do to him.  It’s really no wonder he’s still seeking her approval, which he’ll never likely get.  She neglected him in childhood and she’ll neglect him until the day she passes.  He said he’s felt like an outsider in his family his entire life.  He’s right.

He didn’t have a friend in the world.  I knew at this point that nothing in our relationship was between him and me.  His mother knew EVERYTHING...  She said - “After everything that SHE’S done, I will not have her here for Christmas!”  He was sick about it, but he couldn’t own up to the fact that he lied about our fights to his mother.  And That was it for me.  I knew who and what he really was.  I needed out before this thing killed me.  I’m no match for either his illness or hers, and I don’t want to be.

I’m sorry.  There’s no such thing as “just” a mama’s boy.  There are good sons and there are sick sons (and daughters).

Maybe your BF shares nothing about your relationship with his mother.  You’ll find out soon enough I suppose.

I too, need space.  But I expect any loving relationship I have to be with only the man I have it with.

I hope I haven’t upset you.  I ended my relationship when I still loved him.  I still do in a way.  And writing this (I never have before) is pretty upsetting.  No way around it.  I truly hope yours is different than mine.

Warmly,
Gems

Wow, Gemsforeyes, no wonder you exited the relationship. Only witnessing and having to deal with so much anger, even if not directed at you, must have been incredibly upsetting. I sure hope he seeked therapy, that maybe your relationship with him opened his eyes... It is terrible, to think he has spent almost his whole life trapped in anger, with a spouse he never chose, a spouse that forced herself on him...

I've also been in a relationship with a guy that was "married" to his mother, but there wasn't as much anger... I thought I could share, if only to offer another possible dynamic to the triangle mother-son-girlfriend relationship.

There wasn't any anger. He had lost his father at an early age and his mother never allowed a boyfriend to come into their house. It was only him and her. And even when he left, the boyfriend that came in was always downstairs and obviously resented my ex-boyfriend for the role he was playing with his mother. I still remember a phone call.. we had been dating for about two weeks, and she called him, crying on the phone because he wasn't going "home" anymore on the weekends. And he promised he would go the next day, etc.etc. She was very waify. I remember feeling weirded out by this.

Everything emotional was shared with her... If my ex-boyfriend struggled with something, she was the one he would share it with. Basically, I was just the girlfriend used for the sexual needs his mother couldn't fill, but all the rest was up to her... It was hard to even go on love walks because she had to come with us. He felt he just had to take care of her. When we went travelling through France, he would call her every night. I was so sick and tired of it toward the end. I felt completely abandoned and used, which is exactly what I was.

But there was no anger, her mother was trying to be nice with me, buying me expensive gifts, trying to make me happy. She would always gave him a kiss when he went to bed, and once she started giving me kisses too...I was weirded out, but she was obviously trying to include me in their love triangle. She wasn't mean, she didn't hate me, as long as I kept on going and being an active part of their family, without seeking emotional connection with her son. ... Pretty weird typing that out... I think she appreciated that he could have sex with me while she kept all the emotional commitment...

Ho yeah, she once also kissed him...for a very long time... On the mouth ...to wish him happy new year...she was drunk... Then she looked at me and asked me: what?

I was so disgusted and weirded out...I asked him in the car if it had happened before? how he felt about that? he wouldn't open up about it at all... And then her boyfriend was trying his hands on me... Such a weird dynamic.

I was told he looks a lot like his deceased father so my guess is she continued the relationship with him when her husband died. Terrible story really...and the grandmother was basically the mother...

I am also glad I left... Between being alone, and being alone in a relationship, I chose to be alone.

I left the relationshion after two or three years. He was looking elsewhere, liked to flirt and please other women. Without the emotional connection, how could I have expected for him to be serious about us? It was a matter of time. After reading Silently Seduced, I can see now that he is also an addict of sort.

We were in our early twenties though, so maybe the anger will develop later on if he is still enmeshed with her, who knows...

Failing to individuate in healthy ways from his mom, he may unconsciously want to use you as his crutch to help him perform this separation.

Then, when you fail to deliver this fantasy, he may become angry. You aren't fulfilling this promise to deliver him to an individuated self.

There can be a very dark, shadowy element to these enmeshment triangles where the third person becomes a pawn.

Without a third person, the enmeshed relationship can be unstable. The third person is like a leg that enables them to stabilize their relationship so they can perform the roles they find most familiar.

It sounds like you can see that already. The piece I would be curious about with their enmeshment is whether your partner is expecting you to do what is actually his responsibility.

If you fail to help him individuate, he can then confirm for himself: See? It is impossible to break free of mother.

Gems, your story- I both laughed and cringed!

That your ex BF would share such personal info with his mother  :(  and also share a vacation room. How ewww.

Your last post is important. A bond between disordered people is less stable without a third.

LNL, this is a very good point.

Frozenberry, I realize that I have also been in your shoes in an ongoing relationship triangle involving my sister and brother. My sister was in your BF’s position while my brother was in your BF’s mother’s position.

My solution was to step off of this triangle completely by refusing to JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain) when my sister would try to be the ‘peacemaker’ between my brother and me by blaming me for the tension in our relationship. I told her that while I realized how much it pained her that we were not getting along, that my relationship with my brother was between me and my brother, and that I was no longer willing to discuss the issue with her.

She fought me tooth and nail on this for two years, but has finally accepted things — but she told me that she no longer wishes to have a relationship with me and I haven’t heard a word from her since.

Yes, the third part as a pawn dynamics can apply to different relationships too. I took on that role for my parents. They were the most stable and connected when they were aligned in anger or disappointment at someone, that someone often being one or more of their children.


This: If you fail to help him individuate, he can then confirm for himself: See? It is impossible to break free of mother.

This is victim perspective, and it played out in so many ways and heard so many times growing up. If I asked him for something: No, mother won't allow it. No, mother won't let me.

Dad didn't say "no" to BPD mother. He also didn't often directly say "no" to me. It was "Mother says no".

I was expected to love my mother but this resulted in me resenting her. When Dad was elderly, I naively stepped in to "rescue" him and this resulted in both of them aligning in anger at me. I could see that the two of them seemed at their happiest together when they were angry at someone else, and if that happened to be me, I could see how that worked for them. Maybe it was necessary for their relationship for others to fail somehow.

While these dynamics can be at play in all kinds of relationships, I think there's another very specific  dimension to the BPD mother-son dynamic. BPD mother can meet all his emotional needs but she can't meet his sexual needs. There needs to be a third party for this- someone who can do what his mother can not do and she knows it and if the son is straight, that person is another woman.

Thank you so much for sharing, even as it was upsetting to you. I really hope my partner chooses a different path than your exBF did (regardless of our relationship). I'm starting to realize how heavy the burden of a disordered parent can be. Really impressed by everyone here for the strength to face these challenges with self-awareness... I guess it really makes me accept that making our relationship work is not something he might be motivated to do, or strong enough to do, and there is very little I can do about that it seems. Other than to keep my eyes wide open to any attempts to bring their unhappiness into my life  :(

Riverwolf, this story gives me chills...I guess I should be grateful his mother mostly just ignores me... :(

I think this level of calm is pretty much where we were before his mother caught on that our relationship was getting more serious (read: my partner started spending more time away from her to be with me).

LivedandLearned, I'm not sure I understand - but I would very much like to! How would the fantasy world look like where I help him individuate in his head? He starts his own relationship and mother let's him go and wishes him best of luck? Or am I misunderstanding your point here?

To my knowledge, they were going through a rough patch before my partner and I met, with him reaching his limit on how much he felt he could continue to support her. He described the period as extremely exhausting (of course he does not see his mother as having any responsibility for this, as she was 'attacked' by circumstances and people he needed to protect her from *sigh*). Anyway, my suspicion has been that he found me because he felt like he couldn't do it alone anymore and needed support. Is this what you mean?


NotWendy, from reading on the boards I was under the impression that it might be hard for her to meet his emotional needs if she has BPD tendencies? Is this incorrect? Either way, my feeling is that she strongly prefers him to date casually, which he has done mostly as far as I know.

I probably should have clarified that "meeting emotional needs" is more on the family dynamic level than like meeting the need for  emotionally healthy romantic relationship. BPD mother ( or any mother ) can't meet the needs for a romantic relationship. The natural course of growing up is that when a boy is little, Mom is their special person but in time, we know that this changes, and at some point the spouse is.

I think enmeshment changes this. It's not the same kind of attachment as a child to an emotionally healthy mother. A child needs a secure attachment to the parent in order to separate into their own individual self. This might sound backwards but from raising my own kids, it means feeling secure enough to be able to push the parent away while still knowing you won't lose their love.

Teens are a challenge at times. They don't know exactly who they are yet. They know they aren't their parents and so may be critical or rejecting of their parents' ideas. I am not talking about acting out in a bad way. It's the "Mom, can you drive me to the mall but don't walk anywhere near me because I don't want my friends to see that" kind of push and sometimes they aren't so nice about it. A parent needs to have a strong sense of self to be able to not take this so personally. The process of a child differentiating also involves a change for the parent who needs to adjust from parenting a child to an a more adult relationship. The child also needs to feel secure enough to not be afraid to do this out of fear of losing the parents love or fear of their reaction.

 A parent with a PD sees their child as an extension of themselves and their purpose is to meet their emotional needs. If the child becomes "Mommy's little man" they are given special status for meeting her affection needs. This doesn't necessarily mean incestual in the physical sense but it is in the emotional sense. It's not the child's responsibility to meet their mother's needs, but it gets them special status and attention, attention they might lose if they don't fill that role. As they become adults, they then have the sexual/romantic need- but  still want to have both romantic and parental love. Wanting a parent to love us is an emotional need for a child. We may not need it in the same way as an adult but we still want a connection to a parent. A romantic relationship is entirely different and people can want and have both.

I think it's normal for your BF to want a relationship with both you and his mother. It's not a competition. These are different relationships.  However somehow it's different when the parent has BPD. From my experience, BPD mother somehow acted like if if my father had affection for a female family member it took something away from her. Your BF wants what any straight man wants- both a romantic relationship with you- a woman- and also a loving relationship with his mother. BPD mother seemed to be more irked over relationships with female relatives than male.

It's navigating these relationships that could be the challenge and it may not be possible to have both of you be content with it but it makes sense he'd try to achieve that.

I don't want to imply that having a BPD parent makes an emotionally healthy romantic relationship impossible. It's having a "normal" relationship with a parent too that is the challenge. Your BF's mother may understand that he has sexual and romantic needs but feels more comfortable if these are met in less committed relationships. This meets your BF's emotional need to not upset his mother.

Your BF may want more than that with you, but to achieve that, he may make his mother unhappy. I think many of us have faced this dilemma at some point. For me, it was protecting myself and my children. Having boundaries with BPD mother made her unhappy. I didn't want to make my parents unhappy. Your BF may also be dealing with such type of conflict.

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense!

Some of it might be "let him go" in a physical sense, but much of it is internal, in his head. How he sees himself in relation to his mother, whether he can recognize that he has a life separate from her, not tied to how she feels or what she needs or wants.

A healthy mother would take steps to champion her young child to separate safely and become a whole, full distinct self independent of her. This is hard for a BPD parent. Typically, this healthy separation happens during the developmental ages between 0-6.

Having no real sense of self, and having no real boundaries, a BPD mother sees her children as an extension of her, which reverses the natural parenting order. Instead of providing emotional support to her children, she expects them to provide her with emotional support, and this stunts the individuation process for children who instinctively recognize it's unsafe to be themselves.

An enmeshed adult child like your BF may want to individuate but can't. The intensity of the guilt may be too much to tolerate -- it could feel like annihilation to try and go it alone.

In your case, it's possible that your BF, who may unconsciously fantasize to separate from his mom, transfers the responsibility for this job to you. He has a lifetime not finding the strength to do so and may see you as someone who has the x factor he needs.

It's probably not conscious.


He probably wants the support from a partner in dealing with her, and there are healthy versions of that. But it can also be unhealthy and there's a bunch of ways this can manifest.  

For example, my H was overwhelmed by the needs of his BPD adult daughter. Instead of asserting boundaries directly with her, he would use me to take breaks from her. It took years for me to realize that he (unconsciously?) was unable to assert boundaries directly with her so he used alternative ways to create the distance he wanted. He pawned her off on me and I became an unwitting babysitter to a grown adult woman, until asserting my own boundaries.

Another example more likely in your situation is that you set boundaries about how you will engage with MIL, which on one level he admires and knows is healthy, and may even emulate for a time, but when the emotional demands of his mother increases beyond what he is capable of tolerating he blames you for things ending badly.

You showed him the path he wants to walk but you won't walk it for him and that causes him to act out toward the safer, not ballistic person, which is you.

Codependence and enmeshment run on a continuum like everything else. I don't know why some people work their way toward the light and others don't, but I do believe everyone is at least aware of the light. If the script in your BF's head is, "I see the light but every time I go toward it I get burned," it will be harder than if his script is, "I see the light and keep getting knocked off course but I have to keep trying."

He's going to feel scared. It's scary having a BPD family member. It's intense and requires tremendous strength to overcome the hard wiring. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is look for tiny little changes that things are moving in the right direction.  |iiii

Edited to add: A really helpful book to read is In Search of the Real Self by James Masterson. He's a personality theorist who compares what healthy development looks like compared to the damage incurred when a primary caregiver fails to support that healthy development.

I get it now, and I think some of this is already in motion. Thank you for laying this out for me! Truly grateful.