BPDFamily.com

I need advice, I think my father in law has BPD. All the signs appear to be there and he appears to be hurting my mother in law financially, mentally and emotionally. I suspect he is physically abusive too.

His father left him at 8 years old and he has never let it go. He speaks of how it hurt him when he left 50 years later and holds a resentment for his mother keeping him. He keeps replaying all the bad things that have ever happened in his life whenever he is down and just keeps going down further. He has a hair trigger anger and can go from showering you with compliments one day to hating you the next. I went from a lovely wife and mother to him to a prideful callous person overnight because I didn't agree with him.

He will fight with my MIL over the smallest things, like her telling him what pew to go into at church saying his a grown up and will be upset for the rest of the day not speaking to anyone over it.

He isolates my MIL, not wanting her to leave him and not liking it when she is not there while he sleeps. He doesn't even like to let her come over to see the grandkids. The grandkids annoy him because they are busy and loud.

He can't hold down a job and retired early because of it, he has had a problem with someone at every job he has ever worked at.

He goes on spending money he and his wife do not have for expensive "quality" things. He is always onto the next extravagantly priced items. Needed a luxury car and a giant truck, thousand dollar camera lenses, expensive tools and a newly build house. He spent them into credit card debit and they often lived paycheck to paycheck while my MIL worked two jobs and he was at home.

I just see this as abusive to my mother in law. She can't see it. I have showed her the symptoms for borderlines and she doesn't seem to agree with me. I want him to get help, because he only seems to be getting worse. Ignoring her for days for a petty things and emotionally cheating on her--but saying he saw no problem with it. She is literally the kindest, most long suffering person and she still protects and defends him. She is completely committed. What can I do for them both? How can I make sure he gets the help he needs, I don't think she understands this disease enough to talk to a counselor about it.

You are very caring to consider helping your in laws. I have highlighted the reasons why this is not something you are able to do, unfortunately.

There are complicated dynamics between an abusive person and their co-dependent partner. While it appears your MIL is the victim, she also plays a part in the dynamics, possibly not consciously but as a co-dependent enabler.

Your FIL's behavior is the more obvious. Co-dependent behavior is seen as being kind and caring, and so it isn't perceived as being part of the issues. It's a good thing to be kind and caring, but enabling is different.

If there was any hope of change, it would likely be through your MIL deciding she wants it. We can't change another person's feelings or decisions. I understand it's hard to observe this from the outside. My parents were in a similar situation.

I want to call your attention to the Karpman triangle dynamics. My naive impulse was to step in to try to "rescue" my enabling father from the behaviors of my BPD mother, and we did this several times in different situations. The victim-rescuer(enabling) bond between your in laws is very strong. They will likely align together against you.

It's actually a good thing that your FIL isn't interested in the grandchildren. They need to be protected from abusive people. Unfortunately this may also mean protecting your children from both of them at times, due to the interactions between them. It's a tough balance- you want to show respect for grandparents while also not exposing them to these dynamics. This may mean spending less time around them, or limiting contact to public spaces where others are around as often pwBPD are more likely to behave better when others are around.

This is a tough situation because I wanted to have a relationship with my father and also for my kids to have one with him- and they did. But this had to involve some boundaries with BPD mother which she didn't like. Although I perceived them as separate people, they were actually enmeshed and functioned as if they were one person. This is important to recognize. Your in laws function as one person with your FIL's feelings taking precedence.

Do the best you can, and be kind to your MIL but your task is to keep your family intact and safe from any abuse and to protect your children.

Curious, how does your spouse feel about all of this?