That fits my BPD mother. She had a sort of magnetism, and she was very pretty, not in the "hot sexy" way, but the sophisticated beauty way. She didn't dress provocatively but elegantly.

I know a young woman, a friend's daughter, who also has BPD and this element to her. I also know of another young woman with BPD who doesn't have that. So I don't think it's all pwBPD but I have seen these two combined.

It's part looks but it's also something else.

I noticed a similar situation with my parents. I didn't understand all that was going on as I was a child but when I was about 9 years old, they had big arguments.  Dad was already doing a lot of parenting.

By my teens, these episodes seemed to be lesser, but my father also seemed to be resigned to just doing whatever BPD mother wanted him to do. He also seemed less engaged- in general.

I don't think he had any idea BPD mother was mentally ill in their early years of being together. I think he must have known later but he didn't mention BPD.

Not knowing why one would give up their values, as Pook said- I don't know either but I think maybe the constant stress, walking on eggshells, to give in also results in momentary- even if temporary, relief and that may be all one can manage in the moment.

 

I’ve written on here about the behaviour of my ex, the drug use and the situation where she ran off with the guy selling her drugs.

I am, or was at the point now where I don’t care what she does, it’s her life she is entitled to mess it up however she wants. I’ve also written recently on a thread about the consequences of her actions that are coming back to bite her.

However, this weekend she has crossed the line.
We all live in the same village. I live one side with our youngest son, he is 22. She lives at the north end of the village with her bf and two of his kids. My eldest son (27) lives on the eastern side of the village with his girlfriend, and my ex’s sister lives 3 doors up from my son.

On Friday my eldest and his girlfriend went into hospital to be induced and give birth to their first child, my ex and I’s first grandchild. He has a dog so asked his brother if he would stay at his place while they were at the hospital. On Saturday night/Sunday morning at 2:30am I was in bed and the phone rang. Expecting it to be about the baby, it was in fact my youngest son ringing me in tears and quite distressed.

He told me his mum had asked him to go and get some drugs for a friend and had a go at him about drinking and driving. While on the phone he said she had just turned up round there so I got in the car and went to have it out with her about asking our son to go get class A drugs as that is crossing the line. She wasn’t there. I sent her some angry texts. The next morning she responded denying any of it and putting all sorts of blame on my son. I went round to speak to him, he was at his aunties house 3 doors up. I could see he was still tearful and upset.

My sister in law explained the situation. Her sister and boyfriend had turned up at 2am absolutely off their heads on whatever it was they had been taking, asking for a key to let our sons dog out. My son arrived as he said he was going to at 2am and his mum started screaming and shouting at him, accusing him of drink driving although my sister in law said he was sober. They had also been talking to my sister in law like trash as well.

I’d messaged my father in law that morning as I was livid, explaining what his daughter had asked our son to do. This was met with a what do you want me to do about it she is an adult response. I explained that he is the only person she actually respects, the only person she has never devalued and that it was him that told her it doesn’t matter who she is with as long as she is happy, while not knowing the guy she is with has been a coke addict for over 30 years and was in fact selling it to my wife every week for over 3 years, and that involving our son crossed the line and the shame from her father might put a stop to it.

That afternoon when I left my sister in laws and went home, my son rang me again saying his mum had rang him screaming and shouting at him for telling people what she had done. I messaged her saying don’t you dare shout at our son for your mess of a life. She then rang him back apologising, but the apology was sorry but I thought we had a different relationship, to which he replied he wants her to be his mum and was shocked and disappointed she had asked him to go and get drugs, so no real remorse or belief that what she had done was wrong.

So there we are. The weekend that was supposed to be filled with joy and happiness, welcoming our grandson into the world, and she makes it toxic and puts a dark cloud over it all. The one thing to come out of this is that she has now shown her true colours and I no longer feel like a voice that no one can hear. I’ve explained over and over to her sister how toxic she is and now she has shown it, she has proved the drug use, she has shown that she doesn’t care and is capable of throwing her own son under a bus, and both her and her boyfriend have displayed the behaviour that is as toxic as I’ve said it is all along.

Hi Heartbrokengma,

I suspect my daughter has bpd and have been I estranged from my eldest gc for for 5years. The youngest  has been born during this estrangement and we have never met. I cant even be sure if my eldest grandchildren will have any memory of me since the estrangement began as they were still pretty young at the time.

As maternal gm my udd has always made it very difficult to maintain a relationship with my gc and I was cut off many times before this final time. Since becoming a gm  I experienced control and entitlement issues( turning up on my doorstep, or  wanting to drop them off and pick them up when she wanted to), jealousy,( her own abandonment issues) manipulation(faking illness's) and paranoia(Grilling gc after each visit)from udd.

I think that your son is really in a difficult position and any communication with you will be seen as a betrayal by his wife and even worse still if he even tries to facilitate anything between the two of you. I used to feel so sad for my Gc during the estrangements because they were so young and it would upset them so much but it never seemed to bother my udd at all. Family and friends would try to convince her to let me see my gc again but it just made her dig her heels in more than ever.

I think what you can do for now is to have some boundaries with your DIL and only accept what is comfortable for you to do.. Being expected to jump through hoops  in the hope of seeing your gc is not acceptable or sustainable behaviour and you do not have to do it and you should make this known to her.

One of my biggest boundaries with my udd was around timekeeping because she would purposely bring them late or pick them up late without a call to say she would be running late. I know she knew that this stressed me out because I like to be punctual and expect the same from others so I told her that it she was more than x minutes late without a phone call I would not be having them and she knew that I meant it and it work because afterall I was doing her a favour by giving her some time to herself and not the other way round. 

It simply says that you tried your hardest and definitely went way beyond in your efforts to make the relationship work - as we all did. Had you been the most perfect human being to ever exist this would still not have been enough to satisfy someone with BPD.  If they can find a genuine fault they'll exploit it and if they can't.. they'll simply invent some way in which you 'failed' them. You have a moral rule set and you were up against someone who had absolutely no rules, moral or otherwise.

My exBPD would switch almost instantly from reason to reason why I'd 'hurt' her.. it's like she was running through the entire list to see if she could get one to stick and that I'd admit too.

It's vital that you don't compare yourself with her previous partners and especially not her next partner. She will find fault with them as she did with you once the idealisation wears off. Any new relationship will only last as long as the poor guy is prepared to endure it.

Stay fit, active and see friends to fill your new - and thankfully non-chaotic - life. Good things often happen when you least expect it, I've found this to happen a lot so be the best you can be and be ready.

Thank you

It set me off on a road of rumination for sure.

Probably not helped by being alone in a different city for a few days.

I'll work on it!

Yeah, you're right!

I struggle with that for sure.

In this case, I think it's probably something like:

"Gosh, if I gave that my best and it wasn't enough... and now she has that thing with someone else... what does that say about *me*??"

But that's the point I guess, isn't it?

I often process things through the lens of "What does it say about me?"

Sometimes it's other people.

Easy to say, harder to feel... but I guess that's where I need to be heading.

Your distress is often heard here.  Grandchildren are such astounding blessings but your daughter in law has weaponized the children as leverage in her control.

I suspect your son is walking a fine line trying to appease her demands.  Yet that's virtually impossible when one spouse is being dictatorial.  While she no doubt feel she must be in full control or else feel controlled, that perception is unhealthy and dysfunctional.

Over time you can share with your son some of the insights, experiences and time-tested strategies that you learn here.  The reality is that even then he may not be able - by himself - to shift the marriage back into team orientation and equal authority.

In my own past... I first sought help from others but my ex refused any thought of us seeking counseling or therapy.  She was increasingly insisting and demanding she she was in full control of our marriage and parenting.  She started saying  she would disappear with our toddler.  It reached the point where I could not see any way forward unless we separated and divorced.  (Actually, the first visit by the police ended up being the next phase of our marriage's end.)  What was surprising was that I found out that, despite my then-spouse's insistence that she was the Authority in our marriage, family court was The Real Authority.

Admittedly, family court was very reluctant to step up and resolve the core issues and it gifted the mother too much default preference.  But eventually the court order (court's word for Boundaries) became more specific to deal with the parenting conflict.

One distinct difference was that a court order specified separate parenting time for each parent.  I decided what happened during my parenting time , just as she decided for hers.  This meant that now,  on my scheduled parenting time, I could bring my child to see my parents who lived nearby but had been previously blacklisted by her.

It's possible that your son finds contemplating such an outcome - the end of his marriage - as too difficult and even premature to ponder.  That we can't know.  Meanwhile... He can certainly get educated about how to deal with these acting-out (harmful to others) personality disorders.  Even if she won't join him in meaningful therapy, he can seek it for himself... and as the children get older, play therapy for them too.

Often we feel time is our enemy.  We were designed to reach for a life without end.  Yet our lives are so short.

But in this matter time is your friend.  Time will allow eventual recovery.  Meanwhile, don't dwell on this overmuch, keep busy with other healthful activities and association.