Mommy issues

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi Family,


Since I have discovered these boards I have been doing SO much better and I am very grateful. That being said, apparently I am not immune yet to a negative thought that can send me in the wrong direction. I was hoping someone could redirect me... .

My BPD exbf lived with his mother.  He was 43 (red flag but that's a whole other thread)!  I let it go becasue they had circumstances that 'could have' been accepted as the reason. His mother was the legal guardian for his schizophrenic niece. The niece's father, my ex's brother, passed away years earlier. Perhaps due to theses circumstances my ex was very attentive to his mother's needs so when she wanted to go see fireworks an hour away on the 4th of July I knew he didn't want to disappoint her.  I had no desire to go but did it for him.  When we returned to "their" house it was midnight.  I lived a half hour away and his mother asked if I was staying.  I said no because I have 2 cats and I was concerned about their reaction to the fireworks in my neighborhood.  She kind of pushed but I stuck to my guns and said it would just give me piece of mind. Within the next month our relationship started to take a turn. I am suddenly focused on this event I am telling myself that he started to paint me black because I told his mother I didn't want to stay, and now I look unreasonable because afterall they are only cats.

I would really like to know if others had an issue with their ex and their mother, and also is it ridiculous that a 43 year old would get that upset because something didn't make his mommy happy.  Rationally I know that is true but I am having an irrational moment  :'(.  Can someone talk some sense back into me...

[Lilflower]

Hi Family,


Since I have discovered these boards I have been doing SO much better and I am very grateful. That being said, apparently I am not immune yet to a negative thought that can send me in the wrong direction. I was hoping someone could redirect me... .

My BPD exbf lived with his mother.  He was 43 (red flag but that's a whole other thread)!  I let it go becasue they had circumstances that 'could have' been accepted as the reason. His mother was the legal guardian for his schizophrenic niece. The niece's father, my ex's brother, passed away years earlier. Perhaps due to theses circumstances my ex was very attentive to his mother's needs so when she wanted to go see fireworks an hour away on the 4th of July I knew he didn't want to disappoint her.  I had no desire to go but did it for him.  When we returned to "their" house it was midnight.  I lived a half hour away and his mother asked if I was staying.  I said no because I have 2 cats and I was concerned about their reaction to the fireworks in my neighborhood.  She kind of pushed but I stuck to my guns and said it would just give me piece of mind. Within the next month our relationship started to take a turn. I am suddenly focused on this event I am telling myself that he started to paint me black because I told his mother I didn't want to stay, and now I look unreasonable because afterall they are only cats.

I would really like to know if others had an issue with their ex and their mother, and also is it ridiculous that a 43 year old would get that upset because something didn't make his mommy happy.  Rationally I know that is true but I am having an irrational moment  :'(.  Can someone talk some sense back into me...

[crookedeuphoria]

Mine most definitely has mommy and daddy issues. His father ran a background check on me when we first started dating (nevermind that I have a level 3 FBI background screen for my job), they would constantly make cracks about my house and tell him that his house with his ex wife (which they helped to buy) was nicer (yes, mine is a bit shabby but I am a single mom who receives no child support or financial assistance from ANYBODY), he would allow them to pay for his son's clothes and school lunches, he was always getting money from them for one thing or another and every time he left me, he ran to them. No one has ever been good enough for him in their opinion. They act as though they are really well-to-do and better than everybody when the reality is very much the opposite of that. They are miserable, horrible people, to be quite honest, with never a nice thing to say about anybody.

Anyway, one night I was rambling about how I have no regrets in my life over any choices that I've made, that I made the best choices for me and that I don't really care what his parents, or anyone else's opinions are, I know I'm a good person, blah, blah, blah. It was weird because all of a sudden, he shut down (you know that feeling, right, when they "go away" from us?) and suddenly I could tell he was looking at me with their eyes, seeing me as they saw me. Even though his BPD had reared it's head numerous times before that night, I think that was the night he really started to slip away.

Some of the things he has said to me when I am painted black are very clearly their words: I am trash, I set my sights on him and manipulated him, I am a ___, it goes on and on.

I have no anger toward my exbf (sometimes I wish I did) but I definitely have hate in my heart for his parents. I have zero doubt that his BPD was caused by them.

[momtara]

My exH lived with his mom when I met him.  He was 32.  Now he's back there.  Secretly I think he loves it.

[Popcorn71]

My ex had a weird relationship with his mother.  He hated her but seemed to want her approval.  He once woke me up shouting at me that I was a c**t because I could not even love my own mother.  (Projection?)

Anyway, he cut her out of his life when there was some kind of family row about who she would leave her house to when she died.  He didn't speak to her for 4 years.  When she died, (after we split up) I guess she must have left him a share of the property after all because he's living there now.

I don't know how he can live in her house, knowing how badly he treated her in her last years.

[rollercoaster24]

Hi Lilflower and other posters

Great post topic.

My exBP had bigtime Mommy issues, (and Daddy issues too of course). Like anyone who is close to him, he splits them from either 'good' to 'bad' and at most points, he cannot decide which is which.

Where most of us can realise that we are all made up of good and bad, and take it all in the one (most of the time0, BP's cannot do that.

You are either in their good books and esteem at that moment, or they despise you and want to punish you immediately, usually they will if they think they can get away with it.

They will flip from hate to love like a switch.

Generally, they say here, that for the BP, his/her last memory of his/her last interaction, is how he/her judges the person right now.

So it wouldn't matter that his Mother might have been financially supporting him (and in all other ways too) for the last 20 years of his life, if she said "NO' to him last week, (or displeased him even unknowingly in any way) then he hates/despises her again right now.

Once I got to know my BP's parents, he encouraged me to be in regular contact with them, as did they. He would often have a joke on the telephone about his own 'mental' problems, and tell me to 'just ask his parents about these problems'. Funny, I never thought it was a joking matter, (especially when only days before, he might have assaulted me or threatened my life once again).

BP's Mother often told me how much she had done for her son BP over the years, and how for the last 13 he had been backwards and forwards to them whenever he had no money, (often) or nowhere to live, (often).

She told me that his Father was 'just the same' and that most of BP's issues are to be blamed on his Father, (and the way the Father acted and treated BP as a child).

Listening to BP over the years told me different however. He often either held his Mother on a pedestal, or tore her down like all the rest of us. He told how his Father was always drinking/abusive and violent, and all this childhood dysfunction played like a broken record from his lips, (not to mention the never ending replay of all his ex's).

There were constant hints at his Father being a cheater, (away from home at nights and for weeks sometimes with no explanation), yet when I asked him directly if that is what was happening, or if he thought that, he would then say 'No of course not', but the way he told the stories said different.

He also alluded to the fact that he was his Mothers favourite, and confidant. She would always turn to him for comfort from the Fathers upsetting antics, and still does to this day. They all talk to each other about the other, and it makes all the dysfunction only that much worse.

When I was there for dinner with them all on occasion, it was like walking on eggshells all over again at the table. You couldn't get a word in edgeways for them all trying to talk over top of each other, or compete for attention. And then it could so easily go the other way, one of them would get upset, usually BP, and he would either start shouting, ranting, or get up leave the table and go outside to his shed-room. I always dreaded these moments, because I just knew that I would be paying for whatever he was upset about at his parents or in general. 

Thinking back to BP's explanation of his financial life, it doesn't make sense that for someone so highly educated in his career, and the amount of money he earned over his life, (including buying/selling several properties in his 30's) how did he end up with no money and so much debt?

None of his stories add up, even though his Mother validated some of the stories about his buying houses etc.

It seems that when he sold his last property, (apparently for well over $100K), he managed to spend all that, still attain temporary periods of high earning employment, (such is his industry), rack up a huge credit card debt, cash in his super, (way before his retirement is due), steal stuff and sell that, plus get the unemployment payment every week, live for free at his parents off and on, plus mine and any other women he managed to con the same way, how did he end up so broke so quick?

He always makes out his costs/wants/ego for material things is soo low, and he lives on a shoestring budget, (unlike the rest of us fat, greedy egotistical pigs), yet he blew soo much cash, soo fast doing relatively nothing. How does one do that?

Hmmmmm

[Loveofhislife]

Rollercoaster--though we are oceans away, I would swear we were in a relationship with the EXACT SAME PERSON.  On another thread tonight, we too were discussing mommy issues:  BPD's and ATTRACTION. 

[Tibbles]

Interesting topic. I never thought of my ex as having mummy issues but looking back - I think he did. I was never allowed to criticise his Mum. He used to attack my family all the time, especially my Mum and Dad. Yet he was always very clear that I was never to criticise his Mum. She used to stay with us, while my parents had to stay at a motel. I was lucky in some ways - his Mum really liked me. Think she was just grateful some one loved him, cause I think she found him difficult to be around.

His family used to have raging fights with each other too. One sibling was always not talking to another at some point. They would talk over the top of each other too. Non of them actually listen to what the other said. He is like that too, would interrupt me or the kids and just completely change the topic. When he had said what he wanted he'd leave the room - saying he'd leave us to talk. I used to think - don't leave, this is where you get to hear about the kids lives, listen. He never did, just didn't know how to listen. Listening meant giving his opinion and criticising.

[drummerboy]

I just posted about mommy issues on another thread but yes, my uBPDexgf had a totally strange relationship with her mom, this is what I wrote on the other thread.

This was certainly the case with my ex, she had a really unhealthy relationship with her mom, whom she was always finding fault with but would call her numerous times per day to consult her about her never ending life crisis. This 32 year old BPD would get her mom to come to her place to clean her room and the silly mom would drive 20 miles to clean her room! Her mom is not in great health but whenever my ex would call her it would always be to talk about her stuff, I never heard her ask her mum how she was doing. Talk about failed detachment!

It was actually quite funny, my ex and her mom were so similar, both into Budhism, Tolle, Chopra, mindfulness. They had read every self help book in the world but they were both pretty messed up.

They talked the talk but could never walk the walk.

My ex once said, "No one loves their mum like I love mine" and I got a bit annoyed and said something like ":)arling, you're not the only one that loves their mum, I loved mine deeply, not because of what she did for me but for what she taught me" My ex really didn't like me saying that. She knew she had a messed up relationship with her mum, 100% co-dependent, her mum was one of those people that "needs to be needed"