How can anyone live like this?

[Depression = 72% of members]

My dad dropped by yesterday. Said he was happy to get out of the house because my mother was yelling and screaming. Apparently he tried to heat up some chili from a can for himself and she went off because:

a: He's not allowed to use the can opener (?)

b: He threw away the metal disk cut off with the can opener and she had to go through the trash to get it because "she's saving those" (?)

I asked him for the hundredth time if he would like a book on dealing with her behavior, or if he would like support in going to a therapist to develop some strategies. He said no i don't want to deal with all that.

[daughterandmom]

My dad dropped by yesterday. Said he was happy to get out of the house because my mother was yelling and screaming. Apparently he tried to heat up some chili from a can for himself and she went off because:

a: He's not allowed to use the can opener (?)

b: He threw away the metal disk cut off with the can opener and she had to go through the trash to get it because "she's saving those" (?)

I asked him for the hundredth time if he would like a book on dealing with her behavior, or if he would like support in going to a therapist to develop some strategies. He said no i don't want to deal with all that.

[GeekyGirl]

Sometimes it's harder to understand my enmeshed Dad than it is to understand why my BPD mother does what she does. I've often wondered how he can live with her too.

Your father basically said that he's not at a point where he is ready change how he reacts to her behavior. Until he is, there's not much that will change.

What do you think about their situation?

[daughterandmom]

Hi GeekyGirl - Thank you for your reply 

I have conflicting emotions about it. On one hand I am concerned that she is becoming more and more controlling of every facet of his life and abusive to him. I am also very concerned about the extreme hoarding. The house was always a pigsty, but the obsessive hoarding is new in the past 10 years or so. He tells me there are stacks of unrinsed empty food containers stacked to the ceiling. Trash is building up because if he tries to take it out she drags it back in to go through it and make sure nothing got thrown away that she might want to keep.

On the other hand I am trying to realize that on some level this must work for him or he would change it. I have a tendency to imagine that he feels as powerless and hopeless and full of anxiety as I did in that environment, but I was a child.

I am feeling hyper aware of the situation though- I feel like at some point, no matter what the fallout, I will have to step in.

[Notwendy]

I watched my father deal with this. My mother controlled everything, even how the trash was taken out, read the emails I sent him and listened in on our phone conversations. She controlled every penny he gave me even though she didn't earn it ( and I believe working in the home is earning it, but she didn't do that either). We used to wonder what did she do all day?

Another thing that bothered me is that I had to be well behaved and not trigger her. I felt I had to work so hard just to get his approval. Yet, she could do anything and he would do what she said.

I don't get it. It had to work for him somehow, but I don't know if I will ever understand it.

I do know that if I tried to intervene on his behalf or say anything to him about her- it was jumping on the drama triangle. He would jump in to rescue her, she was the victim, and they both got angry at me. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have said anything to him. It was his choice to change it and he chose not to.

[Woolspinner2000]

Daughterandmom,

Do you think it possible that your dad doesn't want to deal with facing the dysfunction because it would also be forcing him to face himself? It seems like he knows that things aren't right with your mom, and you can hear that when he tells you the absurdity of what he is living in and with. There are so many times that I hear my family members seeking validation and some comfort, yet they won't take that first step to acknowledge the truth. As I've been in T, seems like each discovery leads me to be able to see another, and then another. Often I haven't been able to see 10 steps down the road because I'm only able to see what is right in front of me. Once I get to step 10, I am able to look back and say, "Wow! Why didn't I see this when I was back there?" It is so much like the layers of an onion.

Another possibility is something that I have faced myself: the fear of change, and the fear of the venom that spills out when confronting a BPD person. It's so sad for you and for him, that he can be trapped in this situation, yet really he isn't-you and I know that. There are so many reasons why people chose to stay, and often a big one is because it is easier to put up with it than it is to face the road less traveled: confronting themselves and the BPD in their life. I'm convinced that was the reason my uBPDm decided to leave my dad. He had begun to change to try and meet the needs she hounded him about on a continual basis. As he changed, I think she was faced with the fact that she would need to change too. That would bring up too much stuff (the insecurities, the going back, forgiveness, etc.) and she could not face that.

I am very glad for you and your dad that he felt free to come to visit you without her. I found that my own dad was quite different as the years passed, but he and my mom split up when I was 19. They both remarried, and in the new marriages, I can safely say that they did much better. I was so comforted by the good changes in my dad that were evident to all when he passed away last fall.

So hang in there! Keep your healthy boundaries about you even with your dad. 

Wools 

[khibomsis]

aha, I actually smiled over trash stories. Whenever I visit my uBPD mom - which fortunately is once a year or less, the first thing I do is clean out the fridge of any produce past its sell by date. I mean a year or so past its sell by date. I do this not in any hope that the place is going to be any cleaner, but simply so I don;t accidentally poison myself while I'm there.The last time I did that she started pulling the rotten food back out of the trash saying she was going to feed the dogs. For the dogs sake I waited until she was out of the house and threw it all away. Yes, it is sad to see how the other family members try to pretend that this is normality. But they choose it. Me,I look at the curtains in rags, the holes in the carpet, the lino worn through to the concrete or the junk lying around everywhere (my father fell last year and broke his hip failing to navigate the walkways) and I wonder if it is not her way to tell of her inner pain? Beneath the veneer of perfection maintained by punishing anyone who threatens to tell the truth, there must be a lot of pain. Maybe this is her broken way of communicating it? Daughterandmom my parents have reached a dysfunctional balance long ago. I wonder if your father triangulates you and this enables him to go back and live with the dysfunction some more. Clearly this could be costly for you.What do you think?

[GeekyGirl]

Do you think it possible that your dad doesn't want to deal with facing the dysfunction because it would also be forcing him to face himself? It seems like he knows that things aren't right with your mom, and you can hear that when he tells you the absurdity of what he is living in and with. There are so many times that I hear my family members seeking validation and some comfort, yet they won't take that first step to acknowledge the truth.

That's a good point. Those of us with enmeshed fathers have seen them bury their heads in the sand and pretend that our mothers' issues don't exist. By ignoring the problems, they do effectively avoid dealing with their own issues. My T really helped me dive into this, and one thing that I realized after a while is that healthy people choose healthy relationships. Our fathers inevitably have issues themselves. My father, for example, is willing to destroy relationships with anyone (including his best friends, his brother and daughter) to avoid conflict with my mother.  He is so codependent and afraid of losing my mother that he'll do just anything to avoid losing her.

On the other hand I am trying to realize that on some level this must work for him or he would change it.

It does, but it costs him a great deal. His own self-image is likely very poor and he probably has very little freedom.

[Notwendy]

My father, for example, is willing to destroy relationships with anyone (including his best friends, his brother and daughter) to avoid conflict with my mother.  He is so codependent and afraid of losing my mother that he'll do just anything to avoid losing her.

This was the hardest for me to comprehend. My father was very accomplished in his career. It didn't make sense to me that he was afraid of losing her or had poor self esteem. It looked to me that he was unhappy with her.

I had no idea how willing he was to destroy relationships with anyone, until I naively brought up my mother's dysfunction.

I also believe the cost to him was high. I know he loved me. But my mother had painted me black.  I never stopped loving him or trying to connect with him but no matter how hard I tried, he was angry at me.