Wife's BPD Symptoms Worse After Having a Baby

[Mike82]

I'm hoping someone can send me some resources (i.e. Journals, etc.) that explain if/how/why BPD symptoms seem to get worse when a baby/young kids are involved.

My wife and I had a decent relationship, sure there were signs of BPD through the years but we seemed to function.  I attuned this to the fact that she didn't have to compete for my attention.  Then we had our daughter and rapidly she became less functioning and far more abusive, including physical, emotional and even indirect sexual (via an affair that happened while her and I were still being intimate).  I'd like to better understand this phenomenon, which I predict has to do with the lack of "nurture" from her own childhood.

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[Dutched]

Mike 82
It became a very long reply….

I can relate the behaviour getting worse after daughter was born.

From what I experienced there was a big aha-moment reading similar stories and about the pathology of Cluster B related to kids.
There were Cluster B people exchange stories and experiences about having a baby and raising kids, so far I only saw self awareness that ‘they’ could show some emotional behaviour as raising a kid can be ‘exhausting’.

Babies are the perfect attachment for the mother. It is loved ‘beyond believe’ as it can be cuddled, nurtured,  and does not resist any of mothers behaviour.
Making mom receiving the perfect love from their ‘love object’ (‘the best ever happened to me’).
Experienced even more. The kids were here possessions! As was clearly said more than once…

When their love object, the baby, gets older, that kid develops their own personality by exploring their surroundings.
That causes fear for pwBPD, intense fear, as their love object start to reject (as it is perceived by) that ‘unconditional love’ from mom
The push / pull is initiated by the child…  fear by mom! How to deal with that?
Keeping the child on a rubber band is the only solution for pwBPD, letting go of, but still in control…
I name it  ‘Control by pleasing with sweet words as they have magical power’.

Contrary to you. As mom in fact pleases, you will become the one that will have to set consistent boundaries.
So you again, a factor that with years, will be seen as more and more annoying, to harsh, having no consideration, not understanding/loving mom, hurting her feelings and don’t forget for acting weird.   

Towards the kid mom can get very, very angry too ‘without reason’ (in our perception).
Now father naturally take care of the hurt kid by comforting and validating, even explaining.

Later, mom will ‘make up’ with the kid, however not excusing, not explaining but in a (manipulative way) telling and making the kid understanding that it must considerate mom too.
Mom will tell in a way that she is trying and doing her best for the kid, so it is legitimate that mom also can be disappointed… etc.  And the child accepts it… adjusting its behaviour towards mom…never to make mom angry…

Consequence is that a dynamic family bond (father - mother - kid) develops, in which the kid:
#will try to be as emotional stable as possible towards mom => consider moms’ feelings and difficult task
#can’t break the rubber band with mom in order to develop as a whole emotional independent person that is entitled to a self (again, as mom wasn’t able too).
#will see you, father, as a stable factor at whom it can show disappointment, angriness, become angry at, but will be comforted by mom (sweet magic words)
#will see you the one that is loved too (of course!), relied upon and so needed for to play, do activities and teaching life.
May I say the father for all good and non emotional things in life?
#however, the kid (and mom!) will see you also as the hyper critical parent (emotionally), all reinforced by mom.

So at least by that time (and you mentioned it already) you will be seen as the ‘bad object’ by mom, the one that hurts her ‘love object’ and the one that hurts her directly.
You already failed towards your wife and even became the stand in for HER own hyper critical parent.
Projection complete…   

So, when the primary caretaker (mom) shows unpredictable and inconsistent behaviour in approaching and loving/nurturing the very young child, that alone can cause later in life, an emotional ‘defect’ in the child’s (adult by then) attachment style towards others

Have a look at  Dr. Edward Tronick (UMass Boston) , the Still Face Experiment
Using the "Still Face" Experiment, in which a mother denies her baby attention for a short period of time, Tronick describes how prolonged lack of attention can move an infant from good socialization, to periods of bad but repairable socialization. In "ugly" situations the child does not receive any chance to return to the good, and may become stuck
Please be prepared of what you are going to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0

Please, learn the techniques as can be found on this board!
Please read about children’s development, attachment, etc.

Book: John Bowlby  Attachment theory 
Book: John Bowlby  Attachment and Loss SEPARATION ANXIETY AND ANGER

Material of Dr. Otto F. Kernberg
Bowen:  www.thebowencenter.org/research/
David M. Allen, M.D., How Dysfunctional Families Spur Mental Disorders: A Balanced Approach to Resolve Problems and Reconcile Relationships.  http//:davidmallenmd.blogspot.com

[livednlearned]

Hi Mike 82,

Welcome and hello 

People with BPD don't handle stress very well. Having babies and kids is stressful.

Add to that, people with BPD are often not reacting to the present situation but to something that took place earlier -- sort of a ready-reference list of beliefs about the world usually learned in childhood. Having a child kind of tightens that loop. She may be reacting to things she does, projecting them onto you, and playing it out based on her belief system from prior relationships (especially primary caregivers).

Do you have a safety plan in place for the physical abuse? I'm so sorry about the affair. That had to be painful.

How old is your daughter? How does your wife handle her? What are the explosions toward you about?

LnL

[storagecold]

Sorry you're going through this, Mike.

In my case, I didn't notice anything abnormal until a few months into the pregnancy. uBPDw's mood swings and abuse became violent, and got worse as the year went on. Not long before the child was born, it died down, but came back in full force about two year later. With our second child a few years later, it got even worse.

I have never been able to find any correlating documentation, but IMHO the pregnancy hormones trigger whatever it is that makes the BPD worse.

[Dragon72]

Since the birth of my son (now 3), my wife has become totally focused on him and turns to him for her emotional validation and not to me.

She moved out of the marital bed and into his bed right from his birth and has not returned to sleep with me since.  Any lovemaking between us has been done in short visits to "our" bed, after which she goes back to sleep with him. 

It bothers me greatly that my son has not yet been trained to sleep alone - even more than it bothers me that my wife doesn't seem to want to sleep with me - and I have often said to her that we need to change the set-up for the benefit of his development.  But she insists that she needs to be there for him when he wakes up in the night demanding attention.  All the more reason for training him to sleep alone, I say.

Even though my son seems to be emotionally stable and able to interact well with people young or old, I am worried for the long term impact of her behaviour.  What sort of concept of adult intimate relationships is he developing? 

Also, he's 3 years and two months old and is showing no signs of wanting to get out of diapers.  I can't help thinking that this may be due to the night-time sleeping arrangements... .

I have tried to reason with her to persuade her to leave his bed and return to ours.  I have explained to her the benefits for our son and explained how we as a couple would benefit from greater intimacy, which has been steadily decaying with every night apart.  But we all know how little reasoning works with our loved ones with BPD.

[livednlearned]

There is an article on the site, How Parents Put Kids At Risk for Psychopathology that might be of interest.

The co-sleeping thing comes up a lot with BPD mothers, and might fall under what one of the researchers in that article calls "intrusive insensitivity." It starts out relatively benign during early stages of development and then gets worse as the child tries to naturally individuate, which can feel to a BPD mother like abandonment.

[Dragon72]

There is an article on the site, How Parents Put Kids At Risk for Psychopathology that might be of interest.

I appreciate the suggestion.  I confess I'm a bit scared to read that article. 
I fear it might confirm my fears about the damage we're doing.  It really pains me.
And besides, whenever I have given my wife articles that support my opinion on anything, she has just brushed them aside.

[livednlearned]

It's probably to say that the fear you feel about reading the article is multiplied for your wife  

She already likely suffers a devastating core wound, and struggles to feel like a competent wife/mother, even person.

My son (15) was at risk of developing BPD traits (uBPD/N father) and I found The Power of Validation (not focused specifically on having a BPD parent) and another book, You Don't Have To Make Everything All Better was so helpful -- they both show ways to use validation to help a child develop a sense of self.

Also, Bill Eddy's book Don't Alienate the Kids is excellent, and written specifically about coparenting with a BPD parent. It gave me a life-changing aha moment that I could have a positive effect on my son's development and even mitigate some of what he was dealing with. He's growing into a pretty wise soul, having had these skills modeled for him, tho he does still suffer from other issues related to childhood and genetics.

Lesson 5 on the Coparenting board is about raising an emotionally resilient child when one parent has BPD.

You can't control what your wife does, you can only control what you do, and that may help your child more than you can imagine.