Peace with BF's Family?

[tick.tock]

Hi all,

When I first joined this site, I was looking for support as I dealt with my uBPD mother. Who would have thought that – years later – I’d be posting about my boyfriend’s own uBPD mom!

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons he and I work so well. Family is important. It’s a part of who you are, and few can understand BPD like someone who has witnessed it themselves – especially as a child.

Well, my poor boyfriend had been out of town this week to attend his sister’s graduation. Everything went well until today: the last day, of course. He just called to tell me that he had to leave his mother’s house (where he’d been staying) because his mother had begun to harass him. She said she would kill herself, accused him of being a bully, told him that I would dump him in six months because he was a “loser,” then cornered him to physically prevent him from leaving the house. He threatened to call the cops and tell them that she was holding him there against his will (since he didn’t want to touch her and risk her saying he’d “struck” her). Finally, she let him go.

Here’s the hard thing for me: I know how to handle my own family. When my mother picks on me, or flies into a rage, or we have a brief LC/NC period, I know how to cope. I know what’s right for our relationship. Here, I am totally out of my element. It’s not my place to tell my significant other what to do. I don’t want to tell him how he should have a relationship with his family. How do I support him without talking poorly about these people? How do I encourage him to have the kind of relationship he wants with them without discounting the pain that they’ve caused him? How do I have a relationship with them without betraying him or being fake? I feel like I’m a bit trapped.

Thanks so much for listening. Hope you all have happy Fridays!

[claudiaduffy]

Tick Tock,

Hi! Boy, do I ever feel you on this one. I joined this board several years ago to deal with my issues with my own uBPDmom, and then two years ago came back because of growing certainty of PD issues with my boyfriend's (then fiance's, then husband's) mom. It is a uniquely challenging place to be in, for sure.

It sounds from your description that your BF is pretty aware of his mother's problems. Does he acknowledge them as a permanent disorder? Does he see himself in a more or less healthy light in contrast to the way she paints him? I had to be very, very patient and gentle with my BF, because he still had his parents living in his home, and was trying to figure out if he believed them that they should live with him until they died. Fortunately for me, he really only needed the support of a couple of good friends (until me, he really hadn't had anyone come along and tell him that his family was unhealthy and abnormal in its seclusion from good friendships and prohibition of full individualization of its members) and the advice of a couple of professional counselors. He made a personal journey in about a year that had taken me more like eight years to make.

It was really, really hard to know how much to push and how much to wait. I decided that the best thing I could do was bolster his right to make his own decisions. I did not set ultimatums for him, though I knew that if he did not make certain life-changing choices along the way, I would not continue to be his girlfriend, much less marry him. That was MY boundary, not a bargaining chip. I also determined that I would not be the one to say things to his mother (who grew increasingly witch-queen-like as our relationship progressed) that he himself needed to say. That line got really blurry and, in retrospect, I wish I had stood up to her for myself a little more instead of just letting her crap roll off of me.

Things got really, really bad for us, especially since his enDad died suddenly one week before our wedding, before the two of them had moved out of my husband's house. Fortunately, we had planned on not living there ourselves anyway (we rented a place 15 miles away that we moved into after the wedding - we did not live together beforehand). Our honeymoon was the first time his mom had ever gone more than 24 hours without being able to reach her son. This made our honeymoon both a really good time for DH, but also a weirdly difficult time as he experienced depressed withdrawal symptoms alongside the utter relief of finally being safe. Again, lots and lots of patience was necessary on my part.

Before five months had passed, things with the MIL escalated to include a psychiatric hospital stay, police involvement, and her leaving the state in a huff. We emptied the house of her belongings, sent her the storage key, and put the house up for sale. She returned after a month or two, made a threatening and public campaign to malign us both, and DH sent her a letter stating that we would no longer be in contact. We have not spoken with her since. She moved states and got married within a month or two after that, and still attempts to guilt us/harass us into contact. Usually with sending gifts via Amazon, but also with emails (we filter them out) and phone calls (though we block all numbers we find she has) and sometimes trying to get mutual friends/family involved (my own uBPD mom and she are in contact. And my mom wonders why I've gotten so distant and cold with her!)

That's way more than enough about my story. Could you tell us more of yours? What feels right to you in your decisions regarding your involvement with your BF and his mom? What decisions do you question? Do you have a therapist or other trusted adviser that can help you stay true to yourself and your healing through this?

[tick.tock]

Hi Claudia,

Thanks so much for your reply! You tackled a lot of the things I was struggling with, so I appreciate your story.

To answer one of your questions — my boyfriend acknowledges that his mother has a disorder. He describes her as "ill" or "not well." However, he still manages to get sucked into the consequences of her BPD tendencies. If she behaves recklessly or impulsively, his first instinct is to parent her and tell her how to make things right. It's difficult to try and remind him that he cannot change her, no matter how logical he's being or how many times she swears she understands. He's a very straightforward and intelligent person. I suspect he developed this personality in spite of his mother; the problem is that he wants to imprint that on her, which I doubt will ever happen.

I like the idea of providing a supportive and loving space for him, just as you did with your husband. I want him to make his own decisions about how to have a relationship with his family. However, like you, I know that I will need some boundaries. Originally, we planned to have his mother come out and stay with my parents this Christmas. I now do not feel comfortable offering up my parents' home, as her tirade today included a distasteful comment about my mother. I also don't feel too compelled to interact with her on social media, as she implied that I was unhappy in my relationship and close to dumping her son. All that said, I don't believe I would bar her from staying in our apartment if she ever wanted to visit. I still want them to have an opportunity to see each other, if that's what he would like.

That said, if he and I were ever to have kids, I can't imagine her ever being alone with them. Not even for an afternoon.

My boyfriend is planning on seeing a therapist when he gets back, so hopefully that will help him come to terms with some of this. I am no longer in therapy, but I was for the two past years and it helped me immensely. I reference a lot of what I learned when my boyfriend and I talk about his family.