Yes, you both do and it's important that you protect that relationship with your daughter.

I don't know why, but my BPD mother would triangulate- get another person to listen to her complaints about a third person, and sometimes that was me. I don't know all she has said to others about me but I know some, because she did it with my in laws and tried to do it with my H. They didn't listen to her or believe it.

But my mother's extended family and friends, and possibly even my father did (or he didn't but went along with her to keep the peace). I found out some of it accidentally. Someone in her FOO hit reply all on an email thread I was in. They were discussing someone in a negative way . I thought at first they were speaking about my mother, but after reading it, I realized they were discussing me.

This began what turned into years of estrangement between me and my mother's FOO, not by my choice alone. Later, after spending more time with BPD mother, her FOO began to see the bigger picture of her behavior. They apologized to me and we have been trying to reconnect.

I think trust in a parent and other family members is essential to a child, no matter how old that child is. I think there are situations where separation is necessary- for safety- emotional or physical, but none of this applied to them distancing from me in this situation. I couldn't trust my mother but I did have trust in the other relationships. Forgiveness is possible but trust is hard to regain.

Your D trusts you. This is precious. It's good that you are protecting it.

Hi.  BPD is real.  But none of us here on this site can diagnose your husband.  I suggest you meet with a therapist who is knowledgeable in this area and discuss your concerns to gain their insight.

Hi Horselover,

I think you're onto something here.  I can relate to an ongoing underlying concern about the ability of the pwBPD in my life to pull herself together of her own accord.  I'd like to share with you a subtle mind-shift I made a while back.  You see, historically, the pwBPD in my life would mess up (and give up!) as well as show significant signs of distress.  An example might be, she'd lose her job, fight with her roommates, have a meltdown and move in with her dad and me.  Obviously she was torn up about the situation and her life in general.  And her dad and I would try to help, by consoling her, helping her to get back on her feet, helping her move her stuff, offering to help her search for jobs, giving her money so she wouldn't go without, trying to do something fun/nice to ease her funk, etc.  Typically she'd accept the "help," but the positive effects were only temporary.  Why?  Because virtually all the effort was coming from her dad and me.  She was basically a passive recipient of good will.  And when the good will dried up, nothing changed, she was still stuck.

So here's the mind shift I made.  I had to acknowledge that I couldn't fix her problems, and I wasn't responsible for them, either.  By doing too much, I was probably getting in her way of taking responsibility for her own life, for pulling herself together so to speak.  That was hard for me, because I'm naturally a doer and a generally helpful person.  In contrast, she tends to be a dreamer, full of intention, but with seemingly little practical experience, let alone follow through.  Historically, she'd declare her intentions and half-expect others to fulfill them for her.  "I want to move to the city / I'm going to be an artist / I need plastic surgery / I going to move abroad to Paris / I'm going to volunteer in Gaza."  The "old me" would ask practical questions.  The "old me" would offer tips, suggestions and potential contacts.  The "old me" would gently caution about the practicalities, e.g. the expense, administrative burdens, logistics, safety considerations.  In essence, anything the "old me" did short of making her (delusional) dream come true, probably made her feel both incompetent and disappointed.  So now my mindset is, if she really wants something, she'll make it happen for herself.  Now my response is something along the lines of, "I can see why you'd want that.  It sounds really cool."  And that's about it.  At first, I think she was shocked that nobody was making her big dreams come true.  But when she discovered that nobody was going to make her life happen for her, eventually she started doing things for herself.  And I think that shows remarkable progress.

So my advice on something like visitation would be for you to provide (safe and reasonable) access to the kids, and that's it.  I think your husband should be the one to make visitation happen.  He should come up with the plan, ask for your consent, make the arrangements and then follow through.  Sure, he can vocalize his intentions as much as he wants (I want to take the kids to Disney . . . I want to call the kids every day).  My response would be something like, "I'm sure the kids would like that."  But let him come up with workable dates and times (e.g. not during school), tickets, accommodations, the works.  He needs to be the one to make it happen.  Sure, he might talk about it to the kids, and if he doesn't follow through, they are going to be disappointed, but they probably already know he's like that . . . talking about big plans but not necessarily making them happen.  I don't think you can prevent your husband from vocalizing his big dreams to the kids when he's with them.  But what you can do is push the responsibility to him to make visitation / phone calls happen.  It may be that when he is faced with the onus of planning and executution, he doesn't see or talk with the kids that much.  But my opinion is, though it's sad, it's probably a reflection of the reality that your husband isn't in a good enough place to reliably execute on basic plans, and therefore contact with the kids is probably not ideal.  Does that make sense? 

Hello, Mutt.  Thank you for the response.  Well, some of it is probably the years I've been at this. But the big thing that has changed in this instance is that the ubpd has been trying to get me to listen to their complaints about my daughter.  I guess the mama bear inside just wasn't going to let that happen and helped wake me up. 

And, yep, still need to remind myself that my kiddo deserves better and so do I.

Previous post here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=3062251.msg13234941#msg13234941

I've been doing really well lately! I've gone back to certain projects that are really important to me, and am finding joy and sustenance in them - things that for a long time I've deprioritised - not solely because of the BPD relationship, but honestly, that was a huge part of my energy and solitude and lifeforce being sucked away.

I've also been making some progress on what Pook wisely calls the 'what if game' - trying to realistically appraise the level of control I had over the situation, rather than ruminating over 'what ifs' that might somehow have made things better.

Here are some examples:

- What if I hadn't been stressed and snappy towards former partner on various occasions?

It's normal to sometimes be stressed and snappy, especially if (as was the case) both partners are under extreme pressure. If the other person's response to this is to cheat, lie, manipulate, blame, engage in choatic and harmful actions with money, and generally get detached from reality, this can't sustain a successful relationship. 

- What if I did/ didn't do A and B and C which brought former partner into contact with the person he cheated/ monkey branched with?

You cannot live a life where you are not in contact with other people. Knowing other people does not cause a person to cheat, lacking integrity and self-regulation does. In addition, my former partner destroyed his last relationship by cheating, too. This problem of his is not about me, and precedes me.

- What if I went back in time and ran after former partner as he was walking out the door to the event where he cheated and told him what was going on and we tried to work out together how we could stop this and save the relationship, which I thought we both valued very much?

That is completely insane. It would only work if former partner really was a 'partner' in the sense of being someone capable and desirous of working with me to share a life together in integrity and care. Which... if he was that, he wouldn't have lied, manipulated, ________ed up with money and blamed me while I was forced to live on couches on months after he demanded I move out, and cheated!

Furthermore, when I look at what I did to support former partner with his mental health and other struggles - I kept him under suicide watch for a month. I helped him get access to healthcare he was eligible for, and encouraged him to use it (which he never did in part because he thought he was 'too smart' for therapy). I let him live with me rent free for seven months so he could save money for a holiday. None of that was enough for him to actually enact the love he claimed he felt through decent and loving behaviour, once his desire for validation kicked in.

Now I am contemplating going back in time using science fictional powers to save him from himself - that is completely ridiculous.

The experiment is done!

I did my best for someone who seemed at the time to have lots of good qualities. It wasn't a perfect best, but it was a good one. What happened was not my fault, and the 'what if' has been decisively answered. It would have failed whatever I did.

What are your 'what ifs' that you've had to re-imagine?



 
 

Hello…..

To break this pattern, a different communication style is needed where he feels loved and appreciated.

Can someone helped me with this?
How to communicate with untreated BPD HUSBAND ?

Thank You

This is a difficult but not uncommon situation. While one person in a family may have a disorder, the family as a whole acts as one system. Other members can take on roles like enabling the disordered person.

It may help to realize that not all of this is personal to you, or about you. It's natural that parents love their children and it's possible your mother has compensated for your sister by enabling her, and isn't fully aware of that. In my family, some members became my BPD mother's enablers, and tended to align with her, even if it compromised other relationships.

I understand your fears of how your sister can align family members "against" you. There really is no way to control what your sister says or does and what others decide to believe. I agree that speaking to your mother about it would put her in the middle and that, as a mother, she doesn't want to choose between two of her children.

I think that underneath your sister's behavior, she's jealous of you and if she puts you down, somehow she thinks she can feel better about herself. One suggestion is, rather than to speak to anyone- is to slow down the information given to her. She doesn't need to know your plans to move, or all the details about your ring, or your fiance. It may be that you don't share this information with your mother either- for your own privacy. It doesn't mean going NC or not sharing anything, but choosing what you want to keep private.

Your can keep some aspects of your relationship private. It may be that complete NC isn't feasable when you want to keep contact with family members. LC- lowering the emotional content, less contact, less drama may be more doable for you in your situation. You don't need to speak to anyone about your choice of what to share and what to keep private. You just do it.

You all clearly understand my situation and I appreciate your advice and support.  Before I heard back, I did try BIFF and, as you predicted, it didn't work -- if by work, we mean elicit a good reaction.  What it did allow me to do was to state my boundary clearly, which has been a really good thing in its own way. Because I set that boundary, I am hearing very infrequently from my sibling, what I do hear is attacking, and I'm not responding, so it's a LC situation.  And also, when I move towards FOG, I can easily remind myself of the reasonableness of my boundary.

And you are right about LOC -- that is allowing healing on my part.  I still have anxiety that comes and goes but it is less every day.   

I hope everybody has a good day.

I also miss my ex-husband. My partner was also more empathetic to others than his own wife. When I said I was sad or missed him, my husband would become cold and appear upset.

It's very hard to love someone with BPD.

In my experience, attempting to be NC with a disordered person didn't help them or the relationship. There's also the reactions from other family members who are part of the family system of behaviors.

I also think how someone uses NC can be emotionally healthy or not. It was actually BPD mother who would do the silent treatment/NC briefly as part of her push-pull behavior. For me, if someone goes no contact with me, it feels punitive. If there's a conflict with someone, I prefer to work things out- but with pwBPD that may not be possible.

I think there are some situations where NC is the best choice and it's for the person going NC, not the relationship. When a relationship is truly over- like someone is dating someone, they break up, they don't have any ties. If continued contact is impacting one's emotional recovery- NC is helpful.

NC is a choice when contact with the person is emotionally hurtful to the person. I mentioned in another thread that a counselor had recommended that to me. The advice to try NC was not to make the relationship better but to give me some emotional space.

I agree with not saying something to the other person. It causes a reaction in them, and other family members. Your sister has BPD but it's possible other family members are enablers and will react too. If you still want to have contact with these family members- consider them in the decision. I tried do what the counselor suggested but contact with my father included her too and I didn't want to go NC with him. Then there's family events. If you go see your parents at holidays, likely your sister will be there too.

It's BPD mother for whom NC was done in a disordered way. She was angry at the time my father passed away and told her friends and family to not speak to me. This caused a period of estrangement. Yet still there were some family events where I'd see them. It was so awkward. For BPD mother, this was a part of her push pull behavior. NC didn't help or change her but it affected the relationship with extended family members.

I think NC is appropriate when relationships are so toxic that one goes NC with their FOO for their own protection. I think in some cases, it's the right and necessary decision. However, if the goal is to have some emotional boundaries while maintaining family ties, I think the better choice is LC- less emotion, less contact, and less drama, and also to not say anything to anyone, just a decision on your own.