Do BPD parents commonly sabotage child's courtships?

[Tim300]

My ex-fiancee and her mother both have BPD.  Her mother would at times seem to view me as a white knight, but at other times I strongly suspected that she was trying to sabotage my engagement with her daughter (classic BPD flip flopping).  In any event, I suspect that it's very difficult for an aging, single BPD parent to see her child (especially an only child) be wed off.  My ex-fiancee was one of the only people who would tolerate her mother.  If I swept my ex-fiancee off into the sunset, her mother would be completely abandoned (in her own eyes).  I think the mother will keep helping to thwart her daughter's romantic relationships before they get too serious.  And my ex-fiancee seems to just do whatever the mother says.  Has anyone else seen something like this?     

[rarsweet]

Omg yes I told my ex someday his dad would die and he would be all alone because his dad had scared everyone off. Totally sabotages anything in his life.

[rarsweet]

Funny thing though I met his dad first through work and he set me up with his son because he thought I would be perfect for him and then two years later when I put my foot down about his dad I became the evil no good b___

[Tiredbride313]

Hi Tim300,

A BPD must feel that they are the center of their loved ones' lives, so when they feel that is threatened, they often will try to eliminate the source of that threat. BPDs generally don't handle major life changes well, including engagements and weddings.  Maybe my experience will help put things into perspective. I am a non with a uBPD mother and uNPD father, and they tried everything they could to break me and my husband up when we got engaged. They liked him very much when we were dating, because they didn't feel threatened by him. Like you and your ex's mother, my husband was my mother's white knight and could do no wrong. When we got engaged, however, they felt their grip on me slipping away and did everything they could to sabotage things, and became increasingly controlling and emotionally abusive to both me and my husband. At first I wrote it off to typical tensions that planning a wedding brings, but none of my attempts to reason with them worked. They wouldn't have been happy unless I called off my wedding and stayed theirs forever. They disowned me multiple times, thinking that would bring me back to them, but instead, it drove me away. For the sake of my emotional well-being and happiness, I chose my husband and our life together. We got married without them there and had a wonderful wedding day. I am now NC with my parents -they still try to contact me every now and again to try and manipulate me, but I ignore it. I am sad it had to come to that, and still struggle with the fact that my parents will never be what I want them to be, but I don't regret my decision.

Before I understood what PDs were, I thought my parents were overly protective but still had my best interests at heart (I'm also an only child). I didn't realize it wasn't normal until they escalated their controlling, abusive behavior to the point where I didn't recognize them. It's taken a lot of emotional processing, self-care, and therapy to come to terms with the fact that their behavior wasn't normal (and never was), and that I'm not the bad person they tried to make me think that I was. Redefining my idea of normal has been an ongoing process. Looking back, they did thwart some of my other relationships. I had to get to the point where I was strong enough to make tough choices and focus on what was best for me, and not for them. My husband is also amazing and stuck by me through all of this craziness, but he also knew that our life together was my priority and supported me while I worked through things how I needed to. 

I'm sorry things didn't work out with your ex. Ultimately, though, it's up to her to do what's best for her, even if it means putting her foot down with her mother and being prepared to deal with the fallout. It's not easy - in fact it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. However, one has to be ready to take that step, and from what it sounds like, your ex isn't ready and may not ever be. I can only imagine what it's been like for her, especially if she exhibits BPD traits herself. I'm sorry you've had to experience this as well.

I hope this helps put things in to perspective a little bit. You'll find similar stories on this forum.

[Ripped Heart]

I've been through similar with my mother which is a very double edged sword.

Due to my upbringing, I fall within the rescuer type personality and as such attract relationships with pwBPD or at least strong cluter B traits. ex-wife was NPD/BPD, gf is BPD, I know my father was NPD and T believes my mother is BPD.

I have major issues around introducing partners to my mother because she does start to control and then I'm left to pick up the pieces because she knows exactly what to say to trigger them. It's very complicated in that regard because I have 2 people that I can't often determine who is telling the truth and ultimately they both appear as bad as each other.

I know exN/BPDw wanted me to cut off all ties with my mother because she apparently told her that she is the only one I will listen to and should exN/BPDw start getting in the way she would get me to turn on her. The problem I have with that is that exN/BPDw was a master manipulator and had already succeeded in cutting friends from my life so it was extremely difficult to tell who really said what.

It also makes it very difficult to have a normal relationship because how do you explain to a healthy individual why you have to keep your mother at a distance when it comes to relationships without making it sound like you are the one with the issue?

I've asked my mother to keep out of my relationships but she still does behind my back. With BPDgf, she took her out for dinner and when BPDgf told her that she really wants to marry me, my mother told her I wouldn't be interested and that I was also still married (despite being divorced for 3 years) she also painted my exN/BPDw white as though BPDgf could never live up to the standards of my previous relationships and even went as far as telling her she wasn't allowed to have access to my VISA cards.

I know there was some element of truth in what BPDgf was saying because she knew things I hadn't even spoken about so could only come from one source. The issue I have when I challenge her on anything is that my sister jumps to her defence because at the end of the day she is our mother and I should consider her more important than any relationship.

[Harri]

Hi Tim300.  I watched my mother work on my brother behind the scenes in a few of his relationships.  She would first love any girlfriend he talked about but then over time she would trash talk about them to my brother.  He would make the mistake of giving her information (about the girl, an argument they had, etc) and it would be over from there.  With his now wife, somehow he stuck with the relationship though my mother did try her usual tricks including claiming her parents were rotten people plotting against her to make her look bad.  As I write this, I am struck by the relief I feel that our mother died just shortly a year after they married and before my nephew was born.  My mother was relentless and my brother was/is enmeshed (though he has gotten much better).  She did make things difficult for him and I know he felt torn between loyalty to her and to his wife but I am happy to say he was able to go with what he wanted, though he paid dearly and I know it caused resentment and hurt with my SIL (and out mother too   ).  My mother was even telling him crap about pre-nups and how manipulative his then finance and her family were on the morning of his wedding day!

The other thing my mother did was what she would do to me.  Aside from all the typical abuse you get with an uBPD, she would tell me that she was morally and spiritually obligated to tell any guy I may bring home the truth about the kind of person I am so that sort of sabotaged things before they could even happen with me. 

So I do not know if this is common, but it does happen.  Any person coming in and taking away their child (enmeshed or not) is a threat and will trigger abandonment issues.  How the BPD then reacts will vary.

I am sorry your finances mother did this and that she was not able to see beyond her mother to you. 

[vortex of confusion]

Oh my, yes they do. I have 3 siblings and all of us have had our relationships messed with by our parents.

In my case, I was engaged to a guy when I was in college. Him and my dad got into it over something. After that, my dad pretty much said that it was him or my fiance. I had to choose. At first, I chose my fiance and moved in with him. I was young and scared. Things were sometimes shaky with my fiance so I ended up running back to my parents. They told me that the only way that I could come back was to go to counseling because I had serious issues.   At one point, my dad flat out told me that if I chose to stay with that guy he would spend the rest of his life doing whatever it took to break us up and make our lives miserable. Needless to say, I gave up on that.

With my husband, my parents initially really liked him. But, I think the reason they liked him so much was that he let me stay under their thumb for the most part. This was before cell phones so when I left his apartment he would call my mom and talk to her until I got home. It was win-win for both of them.

I used to think that my first fiance was abusive and messed up but the more distance (20 years) I have gotten on things the more I realize how much my parents and family members colored my perception of things. It is kind of funny because all of the things that my parents predicted would happen with that other guy have actually happened but they have happened with my husband.

[Tim300]

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses. 

[polly87]

Hi Tim and thanks for opening this topic.

Yup, my uBPDm actively tried to sabotage my relationship. It's a rather long story and it involves loads of things so if there's anything in particular besides what I write below that you'd like to know just ask . The things that come to my mind just now is that she said that the relationship between my partner and I wouldn't last three years. She tried to convince him that I was a drama queen. She told me his parents were mean and low people. She blamed him for not calling her (yet he kept refusing to call someone who had treated him unkindly ). She wanted me to choose between his parents and herself (which I refused, and this led to another fight).

When I stopped telling my mother the truth about how much I loved him, things suddenly went a whole lot better between me and my partner. This led me to think that she wanted to sabotage my life and our relationship. My partner suspected the same thing and since he studied medicine, he suspected BPD after a couple of months. This was a huge eye-opener to us. Everything fell into place. From then on, I disengaged myself from her control. She did some horrible things like trying to kill me on the day I moved out of her house. She tried to break me by picking fights every time I spoke to her and then acting like nothing had happened. Just like a cat playing with a dying mouse. Except that I didn't get eaten by her - I finally escaped her control. To this day she is trying to find out where I live so that she has her victim back. She is all alone now. No man in his right mind wants to live with that Medean Witch.

[Maisha]

I have a related question.  Like the others who have posted on this thread - my BPD mother is jealous of my husband.  She started by trying to be nice to him and soon changed her tune when she felt like he would now give in to her every demand. My husband and I are currently in a long distance marriage due to our career, so I only get to see him when we both have leave days from work.  My mother is always jealous of this time that I have with my husband - she will keep tabs on how many leave days I take per year to see him, then make me feel guilty that I took those days to visit him instead of visit her (she lives in a different country from me). 

How have other people coped?  I start to feel like a child - if I am upfront with my mother and tell her I'm going to see my husband or going on holiday with him, she will rage and find a way to make me feel guilty.  so I wonder if I should just lie to her and say I'm going on a work trip during those days?  I feel absurd about lying - since I am not doing anything "wrong" or anything that deserves a cover-up, but then I don't want to deal with my mother guilting me because I chose to spend time with my spouse.