Needing guidance

[Finding happines]

Hi there,

My situation is complex and difficult, as I am sure many are. I began dating my (prior) best friend's brother over a year ago. My friendship with my best friend prior to my relationship with her brother was ok, but reflecting back I can see that it was more functional because I was devoted to "taking care" of her needs. Since I have begun dating her brother, things between she and I have taken a terrible turn for the worse, and I have seen a new side to her that before I only caught glimpses of. I am sure that she has BPD (undiagnosed) and for a while she used me as an informal therapist (I'm a social worker).

While she and I have had difficulties since I began dating (and am now engaged to) her brother, I have begun to develop more boundaries and have disengaged from her unhealthy behaviors. The family (of origin) revolves around her as they all cater to her emotions and do everything they can to stabilize her. My fiance (her younger brother) now sees the enabling that takes place in the family and no longer wants to participate. He and I are strongly bonded and both agree that we will put up boundaries as to what we will and will not accept or engage in.

Upon our engagement, my friend had a breakdown. She threatened suicide, her parents brought her to the hospital, only for her to have talked her way out of it to be discharged. She does not engage in therapy or treatment and continues to blame others (mostly me) for her issues and unhappiness. I have limited my contact with her and only see her at family events. The issues we are facing are that my fiance's parents are desperate for resolution and see myself and my fiance as the ones who need to "fix" the situation. We have continued to communicate that there is nothing we can do to "fix" anything and that my friend's issues are her own. We continue to receive threatening, passive aggressive, bullying messages from my fiance's mother telling us we need to make amends.

While I know the ultimate resolution would need to be for my friend to seek help and treatment for BPD, this does not seem likely. I have not explicitly "broken up" with her and let her know that I no longer wish to carry on a friendship as I am unsure that this will be productive for anyone. My fiance and I are at a loss and don't know where to turn. We continue to try to keep distance everything, but people continue to seek us out, and almost harass us.

Any help (at all!) or suggestions would be truly appreciated as we don't know where else to turn.

Many thanks in advance

[Kwamina]

Hi Finding happines

First of all congratulations on your engagement!

This situation with your (former) friend, also your fiancé's sister, is quite unpleasant. It sounds like both she and and her mother use things such as fear, obligation and guilt to try and control other people. Would you say that's an accurate assessment? If so, I encourage you to check out an article we have about this subject, here's a short excerpt:

... .fear, obligation or guilt ("FOG" are the transactional dynamics at play between the controller and the person being controlled.  Understanding these dynamics are useful to anyone trying to extricate themselves from the controlling behavior by another person and deal with their own compulsions to do things that are uncomfortable, undesirable, burdensome, or self-sacrificing for others.

You can read the entire article here:

Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG): How We Allow Loved Ones To Control Us

The issues we are facing are that my fiance's parents are desperate for resolution and see myself and my fiance as the ones who need to "fix" the situation. We have continued to communicate that there is nothing we can do to "fix" anything and that my friend's issues are her own. We continue to receive threatening, passive aggressive, bullying messages from my fiance's mother telling us we need to make amends.

This is concerning. How would you generally describe your fiancé's mother's behavior and her relationship with your fiancé? Do you perhaps believe she might also exhibits certain BPD traits?

When dealing with people with (possible) BPD or BPD traits, boundaries are very important to protect your own well-being. I understand why you have been distancing yourself from the unhealthy behaviors. We have several resources here that you might find helpful for setting and enforcing/defending boundaries. Here's another excerpt:

Boundaries are how we define our values to others.   A boundary is nothing more than the outer perimeters of our independent core values -  it's like a fence  - anything inside the boundary is consistent with our core values and anything outside the boundary is not.  For example, if your independent core value is "always to be respectful of others" a boundary question might be "would abruptly walking out of the room when someone says something offensive be inside or outside of your definition of this value?"  It's not always obvious as we all see things differently.  As you can quickly see, with values, we have a significant responsibility to lead, educate and inform others - we must walk the walk, have effective communication and be consistent.

Here's a link to an article about boundaries:

Getting Our Values and Boundaries in Order

Take care and I encourage you to keep posting here. Welcome to bpdfamily