BPDFamily.com

My daughter in law controls all access to my son.
He cannot visit, call or talk to me without her permission
or communicate with me in anyway.
Any ideas on how to reach him?

Hi Concerned Mumsie
I can see why you have chosen this name! What an awful position to be in. Is you DIL diagnosed with BPD?

It is a situation that has cropped up here in various ways, and it is very painful. It is not uncommon for BPD folk - probably more so when there is a strong bond between parent and child.

Can you describe what sort of contact you are 'allowed' to have? From what I have read and from my own experience I think there are a few things to consider as to what might be happening.

- DIL is in some way and to some degree - probably high degree - threatened by the relationship you have with your son.
-DIL needs the total attention of your son to avoid experiencing deep abandonment.
DIL will be looking for any excuse to cut the ties between you and your son.

I am not sure how you can work to change this situation.

If you did get the chance to spend some time with your son by himself, he will probably be quizzed to the limit by DIL. And even if there is no conversation about DIL, she probably won't believe him (the paranoid aspect of BPD).

If you try to take the initiative you risk putting your son as piggy in the middle. This would be a very difficult place for him to be.

So all this says I am not much help really. It is like walking a tightrope and you never know when a simple ordinary thing might trigger DIL separating you and your son even more.

The only thing I can think of is perhaps setting up routine contacts so that they don't require negotiation (perhaps you have this already). The other thing that I have had to use a lot (but in relation to the triangle of me, dd and gd) is that I have to always appear that I am not the slightest bit interested in being the main person in gd's life (even though I have been for 12 years!).

It is a bit of a play acting really. I pretend I'm not concerned etc - and somehow it seems to take the pressure off - most of the time! I always check with dd first about things I know I am going to have to do anyway - things like that.

I suppose what I am doing is handing over control to dd so she doesn't have to fight me for it.

I am not sure this is making sense and I don't really have enough sense of how things are playing out in a day to day sense for you. Perhaps you could give a little more detail?

Concerned Mumsie,

I am in the same situation, though my daughter-in- law has now cut me off from my grandchildren. Our son says "they" have decided that it is o.k. for him to still come see us. However, every time he says he is coming over, he cancels for very lame reasons. We stopped texting him and contact him via e-mail only in the hopes that she won't read his e-mails ( though she may). My counselor says to keep the conversation on a surface level only. If we do get a chance some day to talk to him alone, we will tell him we see a pattern of behavior-- he is cut off from his friends, family, and favorite activities. Then we will ask him  if he knows he has a right to make decisions, for example bringing the kids to a park so we can see them. Ultimately, it is his decision to stay in the marriage and allow her to call the shots. Some days I wish we wouldn't have raised him to be so nice (which is a sad thing to wish, I think). Standing up to her comes at a huge cost!

It helps to know there are other people out there with similar situations! I am 62 and have never met a person like my DIL. I wish I had some good advice.