Hi Delta- this is a complicated situation- and also you have the right to protect your finances. You aren't obligated to support this family. As hard as it is to step back, you realized that your enabling wasn't helping their independence and it also took a financial toll on you.

Looking at the members involved- other than the 18 year old- whose potential is unknown, they are probably not capable of being self sufficient. It's good that they have the pension but are not capable of managing it.

An important part of this is who gets the pension. The elderly aunt may be eligible for some Medicaid care at home or a nursing home (it's different than Medicare). I am assuming you are in the US but if not, this might not apply.

However if she gets the pension, and it's over a certain ammount, she may not qualify. If she did, Medicaid would take the pension but this would leave the others in dire straits. So that's not a good idea for now.

If the 50 year old has an intellectual disability, she may be eligible for social security disability if she qualifies.

If whoever gets the pension is found to be mentally legally incompetent, a family member can make a case for financial guardianship if someone reliable is willing. This could incur legal costs and a court appearance and so would only be worth it if certified as incompetent by a medical professional.

I think a first step in all this is for you to make an appt at the social security office to discuss the situation and get ideas of what they may qualify. For the older person, a local council on aging can give you information, if any.

If the adults are legally competent, there's not a lot you can do to intervene. As social services once said to me "your parents are legally competent to make their own bad decisions".

It makes sense that these family members will be manipulative. Feeling guilty, I think it's a part of the situation because you do care but you also need to have your boundaries. You have no obligation to support them. For me, groups like CODA, ACA, helped me to manage my own tendencies to "help too much".

Sometimes people don't change until they have to. It may be that the whole situation has to topple before changes can happen. That change may be that the elder person eventually needs a nursing home, or they depend on resources like soup kitchens. If the living situation gets bad enough, social services may need to look into it.

The younger one seems to be trapped in this situation. However, she is being useful and gaining skills as a caregiver. One idea for her may be to start with getting her nursing assistant certification at a local community college, and then she could also work a bit while caring for her grandmother. With some maturity, she could continue schooling later if she chooses. She may first need to get a GED. It's also possible she has some intellectual disability if her mother does but if so, there may be supportive work programs for her.

Hardest part for me is realizing I love her, but hate her behaviour. We are getting seperated right now, but still I feel sorry for her. Was she my extra child I took care of?

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That’s a lot to take in, and I can see why holding steady matters right now. Focusing on the relationships that are open to you sounds like a grounded way to move forward.

As mentioned in my previous post, I texted my BPD daughter to let her know I would be visiting in March and would like to see her and her son. I texted her mid January. I just got a reply today:
(From BPD daughter)
“Was thinking whether I even wanted to respond to this but I feel like it’s important to point out how weird it is after hearing NOTHING from you all this time that I’d jump at some opportunity to see you in person. It’s just weird. I want nothing to do with an abusive, sexist and racist person. Who also raised a son who’s exactly the same. I’m good but yall have so much fun. I’m sure you’ll be able to check the box of “seeing my kids” even though we ALL know it’s not cause you genuinely want to. Have fun with your new family and their grandkids though.

Wolf [BPD’s son] doesn’t even remember you and that’s how it will stay.

Have a good one.

Oh and also it’s real great you’ve support Nicole’s dumb ass and talked PLEASE READ about your own kids to her. She’s a psycho bitch. But again, have fun. Your loyalty is just so cool! But considering you’re a cheater why would I be surprised you’re not loyal to your own kids either.”

So I guess I will be visiting with two of my three kids in March.

I think in many of these cases of "discard" and monkey branching, it's more about the pwBPD than the other person, or the other person not being aware of how their pwBPD thinks and so may get upset with them for some reason. We are all humans, and nobody is perfect.

I think it's normal to look back at a relationship and wonder what happened. It's part of emotional recovery.


 

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Hello,

I’m looking for advice and coping strategies for a very complicated family situation that has been going on for many years and is now taking a serious toll on me.

I have an elderly aunt (80+) who is emotionally unstable and highly manipulative. She has an adult daughter (around 50) with cognitive limitations who has never lived independently or worked. That daughter has a daughter of her own (now just over 18), who was taken out of school years ago and has grown up extremely socially deprived. The granddaughter has effectively become a carer for the grandmother, despite having no education, guidance, or real chance to develop a normal adult life.

For a long time, I believed my aunt’s explanation for how things ended up this way. She repeatedly told me that her son-in-law had gambled all the family’s money away and that she had to “save” her daughter and granddaughter. Based on this, I felt morally obligated to help and provided financial support for years. Only last year did I discover that this version of events was deeply misleading, the opposite occurred: my cousin drained her husband's savings.

A few years ago, as I became more concerned about the granddaughter’s situation, I contacted social services to try to get help from outside the family. Unfortunately, my aunt actively resisted any intervention. At the time, the local court ruled that nothing could be done while the girl was still seventeen, and the matter was effectively closed.

Over the years, the household has survived largely on pension income combined with handouts from relatives, including me. However, there has been no meaningful effort from them to seek education, employment, therapy, or external support. I eventually realised that my financial help was not improving their situation but enabling it to remain frozen.

I have now stopped providing regular financial support. I still visit occasionally and may help in very limited, practical ways, but I’ve drawn a firm boundary around money. Since doing this, the emotional pressure, guilt-tripping, and manipulation have increased, along with more frequent phone calls that are almost always about needing something.
They can't manage the pension the grandmother gets, they never pay the bills. The gas supply was disconnected moths ago, but for some reason they still get electricity. The flat they live in is cold, my cousin sleeps in an unheated room.

What makes this especially difficult is the youngest. She is now legally an adult, but emotionally and socially much behind the expected normal mental development, and I struggle constantly with guilt about her future — even though I know I did not create this situation and cannot fix it alone. She is childish, but fascinated by horror, fascism and nazism.

I feel torn between compassion and self-preservation. When I hold boundaries, I feel cruel. When I give in, I feel resentful and trapped. Under stress, I sometimes overreact and then feel guilty afterward, which only reinforces the cycle.

I’m not looking for legal advice or to be told to “just walk away.” I’m looking for:

• ways to cope emotionally with guilt and pressure
• strategies for maintaining boundaries without constant conflict
• insight from people who’ve dealt with manipulative or dependent family systems
• help accepting that some situations cannot be fixed by one person
* what kind of help could be beneficial to them at this critical stage.

If you’ve dealt with something similar — especially involving extended family rather than parents — I’d really appreciate hearing what helped you cope and stay emotionally balanced.

Thank you for reading.

Hi CGAME,

There have been lots of times my udd would use others to deliver messages to me and would make out that I was too "scary" of a person to have any conversations with her hence gaining their sympathy. It also brought many people into our r/s that had no need to be in it who seemed to want to "fight" for my udd without knowing any of the facts of how things really were and werent too interested in sticking around long enough after udd had cut them off too which is understandable.

IMO Your udd is playing the game of triangulation with your husband. She has done it with her husbands parents and will continue to do it until the third party decides that they want no part of it as your husband is doing which I think is great.

I also think there is hope that your udd is likely to have an amazing pregnancy just as my did. I was literally the last to know for her first 2 pregnancies and the 3rd pregnancy I knew nothing about until I showed up on her doorstep unannounced to drop some gifts off to my other gc that I had not been allowed to see for 2yrs. I know that my udd has enjoyed the attention she gets from each of her pregnancies and behaved in a very entitled way with each one. I was only brought back into having some kind of r/s with her just before her due date when the baby daddy was not around.

I understand that your dd is implying that she doesnt want to speak to you and that it is upsetting to you but that is her choice. I know you want her to remain as calm as possible during her pregnancy so insisting that she speak to you when she doesnt want to will just create further stress for you all and may actually cause of a mental breakdown on both sides.I think remaining calm may bring different results. I know that you are hurt by her behaviour but I think you should give it time as things are likely to change again.

There can be discards without monkey branching and with family members. There are examples on the other sections of this board of daughters who have gone NC with their parents for years, and mother in laws being alienated from their sons due to some perceived issue the BPD daughter in law may have of them. These mothers are devastated. It's especially difficult when this separates them from grandchildren.

From what I could see with my BPD mother, it appeared that her relationships met some need of hers. At least this is how it seemed to me. It's hard to know what anyone else is thinking. While she didn't monkey branch with my father, I did see her "discard" relationships. I think this is an aspect of the push pull dynamics as well. How long the "discard" lasts can vary. Even in a romantic relationship, some might "recycle" if the former partner is also willing to do that.

A romantic relationship meets certain needs that family relationships don't, but family relationships also are significant and meet needs as well. Even the person in Persecutor position meets a need. BPD relationships are not as stable. The configuration of Rescuer- Victim has a stablizing effect. Both people are aligned, and looking at a common "Persecutor". The pwBPD is in prefered Victim position. The Rescuer, for the moment, is painted white and so gets the benefit of that. For this to happen though, there needs to be someone or something in Persecutor position.

You are correct that in romantic relationship, the pwBPD chooses that person and also has expectations that this will somehow fulfill their needs. But if these expectations are unrealistic, then it's possible the pwBPD may then look at someone else in this same way.

While one doesn't monkey branch with family members in the same way, family members can sometimes also be cut off if the pwBPD perceives themselves as having been wronged in some way.