We've been told that our son's fiance possibly has BPD.

Hi

My husband and I are struggling to deal with an awful situation we find ourselves in. My son met and fell in love with a lovely girl when in his early twenty's. For the following ten years she was a huge part of our family. We loved her as did our three other son's. There were a few occasions during those years that my son would say she was always arguing or having hysterics. Often he would tell us she didn't like seeing any of his (lifelong) friends. This often resulted in him cancelling weekend arrangements and bemoaning having to stay at home with just her. We never ever saw any of this behavior from her and just put it down to typical couple arguments and the fact that maybe she was just a lovely homely girl.

Two years ago he rekindled a relationship with a girl that he had met during his teenage years. They were teenage 'sweethearts', but sadly for him she left him for someone else who she later married, then separated from. Our son told us he loved her and wanted to make a life with her. The obvious problem was leaving his girlfriend. Personally we were upset at possibly not having his girlfriend in our lives anymore. But we told him whatever his decision we would always support him. Then everything went wrong!

A friend of his girlfriend told her what was happening and quite obviously she was very upset. To cut a long story short my son decided to stay with his girlfriend. Three months later he told us that his girlfriend had decided to come of the pill without his knowledge and subsequently became pregnant. At this point they privately got engaged.

They also cut ties with all his friends. People he had known for years. Couples we had known and whose marriages we were invited to. Myself and my other son's were very forcibly told to delete them all from Facebook. We complied reluctantly but thought it was just a short term thing.

Everything seemed to have got well and truly back on track during her pregnancy, we were all happy together. My husband and I were ecstatic at becoming first time grand parents as were our three other sons at becoming uncles. And to top it all we were going to have a granddaughter and niece. We bought a cot, a car seat, baby clothes, you name it. We helped them out furnishing the nursery. All done happily and with love.

That was until the month before the birth. Our three sons were invited to a 30th birthday party with a close mutual friend. Unfortunately also at the party were going to be a few of the friends that had been deleted from our lives, ten or so months before. It was met with horror from my son and his fiance. Both told me to stop them going. Of course I couldn't as they were all late twenties and early thirties, they did as they pleased. My son's fiance told me I didn't do enough and we had all betrayed our son. After our granddaughter was eight weeks old she refused to bring her over and wouldn't allow us to visit them. Only I was allowed a few hours visit once a week. She was always lovely and seemingly happy to see me and I built a lovely relationship with my granddaughter for six months. But the problems were huge. My husband, a very laid back and kind man, never saw his granddaughter my sons never saw their niece. Although my husband still maintained a relatively good relationship with his son. Mainly as they both worked in the same profession.

I spent most weeks with my son's fiance trying to understand why he was becoming so distant. She told me he was depressed and we should all stop contacting him for a while and things will sort themselves out. I very much complied just so we could resume a happy family again. Well she so reprimanded me for sending him a text message after a week or so. Basically because of that I had ruined everything and my son wouldn't want to see me again and it was my fault. Then a few weeks later it was Christmas and she told me we would not be seeing them as they were going to her mum and stepdad's. Upsetting as that was she did agree to visit us when they returned in the New Year. She came with her daughter, no son, on a day when only my husband and I were home. She came with no presents not even a card. But under the tree were all our presents from them. It was upsetting but we welcomed her in. Things were strained but went very wrong when asking after our son. She accused me of saying he did have an affair before her pregnancy. Basically it just went downhill, she screamed at us and bolted for the door. The upshot is my son believes some really horrible lies she has told him. He refuses to even have another text message from us. Our granddaughter just turned two. We were not allowed to see her or give her a present. On her first birthday we were allowed to call over but had just fifteen minutes on their front lawn to hand over our present and for the present to be opened. Our son stayed inside the house.

All this time we have never understood why. Why had any of this happened. Until a good friend who is a forensic mental health nurse told us she believed it was due to my son's fiance having BPD. We googled it and now there is some sense to it. So many behaviors fit.

At the age of fourteen my son's fiance lost her father. He committed suicide. He was diagnosed as being bipolar. We understand that this could be some trigger to why she behaves as she has.

Obviously without a proper diagnosis we can never be sure. But so much of this makes sense. I know I have rambled on a bit but believe me this is the very short version of the whole picture. I do hope that maybe someone has some advice for us. Thanks.



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