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Children, Parents, or Relatives with BPD => Parent, Sibling, or In-law Suffering from BPD => Topic started by: zachira on March 14, 2019, 02:30:23 PM



Title: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: zachira on March 14, 2019, 02:30:23 PM
I have two siblings and a mother who all have BPD and NPD. My mother just told me this morning that she is changing her will so my brother can have her house. My brother has been living with mom for close to 18 years and takes care of her finances and supervises her caretakers. I don't mind my brother getting the house in some ways after all he has done for mom, even though I could use the money that I would get from selling the house, except for the fact that this seems to be another chapter in the family dysfunction. My brother was not liked by either my mother or father when he was a child. When he used to come home after school in his teenage years, he would hide in the basement until dinner time so he would not have to run into mom and be subject to her abusive behaviors. It seems he started taking care of mom when she got too old to live on her own, as a means to redeem himself and become the favorite child. Mom still abuses him, and I have tried for years to get my sister to insist that we put mom in an assisted living so he can have his own life. Both my mom and siblings are true BPDs alternating between fears of abandonment and engulfment. I experience the fear of engulfment from both my siblings in that they suddenly tell me they don't want me around. I believe my brother's fear of engulfment got me permanently kicked out of Christmas and staying at mom's house which was supported by my sister and distressed mom to no end as she still wants me to stay at her house.  There is nothing that I have done that merits this type of treatment, though I am human and well aware that I can make mistakes. I think my brother is asking mom to change her will so he will own the house because he fears I might show up and stay. Mom told me that even though my brother will own the house, I can still come and live there, which I am sure is fueling his fears and part of the reason he is likely asking to inherit the house. I just feel so sorry for him. I had really hoped he would leave the house of horrors once my mother was dead and make a life for himself. My BIL said years ago that we would have to buy a house with my brother after our mother died because otherwise my brother would go and live in another real dump, like he has always done. I agree with my BIL that my brother does not value himself enough to live in a decent place even though he has the means to do so. This is just another sad chapter and I realize that my siblings will not likely change for the better, and most likely become more mentally ill with age like mom. Thank you for reading my post. I am doing fine, just periodically get overwhelmed by all the dysfunctional crazy family behaviors from two siblings and a mother, all of whom meet the criteria for both BPD and NPD.


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: HappyChappy on March 15, 2019, 03:12:16 AM
Hi zachira

Thats sounds incredible frustrating and all too familiar. Sounds like your mum’s triangulation has worked with your brother. Good news that you know whats going on. My Dad was adamant we kids got the same, I must admit even I was surprised to see my BPD had managed to engineer it so her golden child got the lot. My sister was devastated, but then she doesn’t believe BPD is a thing. At least you know whats playing out here. I guess you brother is an adult acting out of free will  (technically) and his situation is none of your doing. My Dad was under the spell of his BPD and maybe he liked being dominated ? Maybe your brother is different to you ? At least its not you in the house. Peace be with you. 


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: Notwendy on March 15, 2019, 05:49:18 AM
BPD mom was angry at me when my father died and I was written out of the will. I wasn't concerned about material things but I feared my father had disowned me. I wanted to know if it was his idea or hers to do it but later had to understand that her ideas ruled no matter what. I suspected that she had written me out but she didn't admit it.

Later, she wanted me to sign some papers at her lawyer's office and was surprised when the lawyer told us I couldn't sign- she had named another relative to be her next of kin. She then realized this was not a good idea and wrote me back in the will.

She's then revised her will a couple of times.

She has a favorite child- the golden child. I just assume she will leave what is left to him- if there were to be anything left. She doesn't manage money well and yet didn't trust me to help her manage it. She wanted to be in control and so she is.

I did want some material possessions of my father's for sentimental reasons. She knew I wanted them. At first she refused to let me have them. Over time, she has passed on a few things but since he saw them as a way to manipulate me, I had to let go of them emotionally. At this point, I don't care what she puts in her will. I did care what my father did- I wanted to know if he cared about me or not, but once he was gone, she rewrote it.

This is in contrast to my in laws. They have their own issues but not BPD. Their estate is divided cleanly- and they did it ahead of time. There are some dysfunctional dynamics- but they did not use their will to create emotional drama.

I think that's what it comes down to. A will, in a dysfunctional family, can reflect the dysfunction.

I think the situation with your brother reflects her relationship with him. . She probably worries about where he will live and by leaving the house to him, she doesn't worry as much.





Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: madeline7 on March 15, 2019, 09:47:40 AM
I took a class on personality disorders many years ago to get continuing education credits for my professional degree. The instructor used TV and film clips to illustrate various PD, ie: NPD, BPD, antisocial, etc. When he discussed the BPD traits, he used Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction. It was the scene where Michael Douglas is breaking it off with her, she first screams "I hate you", he stops the clip and says to the class "You're out of the will". He starts the clip again, Glenn Close now says "I love you. You can't leave me", then stops the clip and says to the class "You're back in the will". He does this a few times. You get the drift. It certainly made a dramatic point. I think my parents changed the will at least 10 times in the last decade leading up to my Dad's passing. Not sure where it stands now, and will likely be surprised (probably not pleasantly) when all is said and done. I truly don't want anything, but don't want my kids to be excluded and their feelings to be hurt.


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: zachira on March 15, 2019, 12:32:40 PM
Thankyou HappyChappy, Notwendy and Madeleine7 for your replies and sharing your experiences and feelings about your mother's will. I am so sorry what you are having to deal with and admire how you are handling all the challenges which helps me to have courage to keep moving forward. I understand how Madeliene7 does not want her children hurt and not have them left out of the will. I think we get to a place where we are stronger and more concerned about how the behaviors of our family members with BPD impact others, especially our children.
I mentioned a couple of years ago about coming to stay at the house for a while to help clean it out after mom dies, and my brother blew up. Mom has been talking for years about having me live there, and that is probably another reason why my brother desperately wants to own the house. Notwendy, I think you are right: mom may possibly be offering the house to him as she is worried about where he will live once she is gone. I am not really hurt this time like before as I have started to have compassion for my mother and siblings, not that I want to have much contact with them as I don't like being abused by them. I am feeling so sad for my brother, and realize I can't help him. He will likely never have a life of his own, and will die in the house of horrors where he has been abused his whole life. My sister is not likely to change either and will likely become more of a burden to her husband and children. I am feeling lucky that I am who I am yet sorry for the kind of lives my siblings and mother are living and realize I am the only one who is able to be happy as I am able to face pain and sorrow, and able to have loving caring friends which my family members with BPD and NPD are incapable of.


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: Notwendy on March 15, 2019, 01:07:27 PM
The Golden Child in my family is enmeshed with my mother. He also could really use the help if he inherits something from her. I suspect she holds this position in the will over him as a means to control him.

Surely any of us could use funds that were willed to us, but the price of wanting financial help from BPD mom is for her to use it as a means of control. She mainly wrote me out to be hurtful. I didn't know if my dad did it or she did. She painted me black to him and I wouldn't put it past her to insist he disown me.

I realized how hurtful using a will can be. For the pwBPD it is a momentary fit of rage- and possibly not likely to last as is the case with my mother. However, if someone is  deceased there is no way to repair it, no way for my father to change his mind. I believe she aimed to be hurtful but in the moment didn't think about this. I think my father just wanted some peace and did what she wanted.

I didn't need my father's assets, but I did need to know he loved me. A will could have done that- acknowledge that he has a daughter. I don't know if, at the time, he did. A will is much more than money. For my mother, it's another tool.

It has given me freedom to be detached from this drama. I know she's already given money to the golden child. I also think she worries more about him than me. Mostly, I don't know what she gives him- I don't want to know.



Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: zachira on March 15, 2019, 03:02:23 PM
Notwendy,
It seems that in a lot of dysfunctional families money is used as a means of control and a substitute for love and/or to show hate. I find it sad yet often true that the favorite child is often times more impaired than the scapegoated child once the scapegoated child starts to see what is really going on. It sounds like your brother fell for your mother's manipulations yet you did not. You have been able to become financially independent from your mother and do not need her to support you. At the same time you long for the love that you did not get and wonder about how your mother impacted how your father expressed his love for you. You are a wonderful mother to your children and nothing like your mother. My mother talks to me almost exclusively about money and nothing else and what we will be inheriting. It has been that way since my father died many years ago. Mom does not have that much money, yet she is very intent on the fact that we will need her money to survive once she is gone. Mom never wanted any of her children to get married or have a job. Of course, we all had to go to work in our twenties and none of us have been living off mom since then, though the way mom talks I often think that any one who knows her thinks she is financially supporting all her children. She got my brothers to go live with her, and tried to get me to stay when I was there for a few months several years ago. My sister is the only one married, and mom has made my BIL's life hell at times, especially how she treated his and my sister's children when they were growing up. It seems that I am finally able to feel loved and less impacted by never really being loved and appreciated by most of my immediate family. The challenge seems to be to have a positive introject of being a lovable person and somehow recently I feel love and cared for by others, and I don't know why now. It just has happened, after years of hard work, many years of therapy and so many people outside my immediate family being extremely kind to me. Every night before I go to bed, I imagine myself being in the arms of a caring man, and throughout the day, I imagine myself having caring dialogs with others. I noticed this past week, a few different friends really wanting to be with me, because they like and care for me; it seems this made the news of the will change less upsetting. Also, I have begun to read "Loving Someone with BPD", which has helped me to have compassion for my family members with BPD and NPD. I have noticed for years that the people with the highest self esteem feel sorry for those who act badly and wish the best for others. I am feeling that I am getting closer to feeling much less distressed about my family members mean behaviors and feeling sorry for them, while feeling so fortunate to be able to work through my challenges so at this point I really have little in common with them.


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: Notwendy on March 15, 2019, 03:46:15 PM
You are correct that money can be a source of control or a substitute for love. I also think it's often the case that the scapegoat child is the least enmeshed. My brother gets the best and the worst of my mother, in a similar way that my father did ( minus the romance but I think there's an element of emotional incest there). I don't have the attachment he has to her and it's understandable. When she's nice, she's great. She just wasn't often as nice to me.

I can relate to the feeling of wanting to be loved and finally feeling it from your peers. I experienced this in high school with a close friend group, some of who I am still in contact with. A boyfriend in high school liked me for me. That was probably just a teen love thing for him. It was overwhelming for me to be held, to be loved. It went the way of most teen age dating- didn't become a big deal but it meant the world to me at the time to have someone I could trust to not rage at me or get angry at the littlest things.

As many of us with BPD parents do- we long for someone to love us and end up marrying people with whom we experience not feeling as loved as we want to be. Yet, through this, I have learned to accept that my H loves me in the ways that he can- he has his own family issues. Rather than long for a man to hold me in his arms and love me, I have learned that I don't need that to feel love ( it's nice though). I'm good enough as just me. You are too Zachira. Once we feel this, romantic love is great to have too. There are good people in this world, and it seems you have found some.


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: CautiousHopeful on March 16, 2019, 02:25:09 AM
Hi zachira,

It sounds like you are in a good place in relation to this situation, in that you can see how everything is playing out, but yes it is sad watching an enmeshed sibling struggle.

In my own family I was scapegoated as was my dad, while my brother was the golden child. My uBPD mom talks of her own childhood being like this with her mom spoiling her brothers while bullying her, and yet she went and repeated those dynamics with her own children.

Fairly recently I found out my mother had been involving my brother in their financial affairs for a number of years, including getting him to come with her and dad to meetings with their financial advisor. I was never told anything about this. Then 2 years ago when I was at their place, just before my dad died, he said that maybe I would like to be involved, upon which my mom turned to me and said "you wouldn't want to be involved in that would you?" (clearly a rhetorical question that she didn't want an answer for). I said I didn't know because no one had ever talked to me about it. I didn't pursue it further as I have a feeling that querying my exclusion from their financial matters would have led to my mom going into a rage state that would have been distressing, and it just wasn't worth it.

So I empathise with your situation where you have not been included in these things. In my case, my brother is quite a fair person and I'm assuming he has been made executor of the will and I don't think he would exclude me in how things are distributed. At the same time, it has felt invalidating being left out of family financial matters. My brother has been through emotional breakdowns in the last few years which are related to his enmeshment as the golden child, and he has recognised this to some extent and now can only spend very limited time around our mother.

Goodness knows how it is all going to pan out, but I've realised that I am ok and I've proven to myself I am a survivor whatever happens, and I think like you I feel for my brother and just hope he can be ok in the future. In a weird way being scapegoated has given me a kind of strength, as maternal rejection as the 'bad' child has made me have to be self-reliant, and I've had to really work at developing inner resources. It sounds to me that you have done a good job of building your own resources and managing your own life well, and you have lots of insight into your own family situation.

All the best!


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: Notwendy on March 16, 2019, 07:01:49 AM
My Golden Child brother is also aware of my mother's issues and that he has to limit his time with her. Still, I think he has enjoyed the special position he has in the family. They have personal financial arrangements that I don't know anything about. He had my Dad's approval for being part of this "inner circle" with Mom as well.

He limits his time with her because, like my father, he can't resist enabling her. So he does it in short time spurts. If I see it, it's very similar to how she and my father interacted. She orders him around, he does her bidding ,and then she verbally abuses and criticizes him.

He has more sympathy and empathy for her than I do but he's also received the best of her. I love my brother and we are close, but I am also aware that if I were to tell him something in confidence, he is likely to tell her about it. My mother enlists people to keep her informed about me since she knows I don't share personal information about her.


Title: Re: Mom Is Changing Her Will
Post by: zachira on March 19, 2019, 10:59:21 AM
Notwendy and CautiousHopeful,
I can really relate when you talk about how the golden child is usually more impaired that the scapegoat, and how the golden child becomes aware at a certain point that he/she needs to distance from mom while at the same time able to maintain some of their special relationship status with mom. The hard part about being the scapegoat is we will never like our parent with BPD as much as our golden sibling does because we were so mistreated and missed out on the special treatment and status that the golden child will always have with mom.
As far as my brother inheriting the house, he was always a scapegoat until he worked his way into becoming one of mom's favorites. My deceased brother who was mom's favorite child was expected to take care of mom when she got old. When my brother was dying of cancer, mom abused him so badly that social services had to get involved. This was when I started to go to therapy and the light really came on, that mom's behaviors are far from normal and just plain criminal in some cases. My surviving brother has slowly groveled his way to the top by becoming mom's caretaker and totally supporting my sister in constantly painting me black. My mother abuses my brother still and he just seems to have become more used to it than before. At one time, he moved far away and we never saw him. My cousin once asked him if he was gay and he said he just hated woman. So now he is taking care of the mother he once hated so much.
I will never be a member of the club nor do I want to be. I can't imagine myself doing the things my brother has to become her favorite living child, though my dead brother continues to be her favorite. I am just dying inside on some days, waiting for mom to die and hoping I will be able to undo all the financial legal enmeshment I have with my siblings so I can have as little contact with them as possible. Most of the time I am doing pretty well, and I do become unraveled at times by the latest abusive act of crazy making behaviors by my family members with BPD and NPD.