Avoiding contact with BPD parent

[Catgirl]

Hello,
I'm new to this site and first time on any forum.
My mother who is in her late 60's has BPD and long term many chronic health issues.
She also currently has an acquired brain injury after an operation and has been recently allowed to go home after several months hospitalised  (as she refused treatment unless she could go home) with outside supports to assist her with the brain trauma.
Many years ago I moved to be closer to her and as a result she became quite dependant on me and I enabled her behaviour. My sister who is my only sibling wasn't able to support me regarding her mental or physical health issues as it was too much for her to cope with, given our traumatic upbringing. I was a part time carer for mum at the time in conjunction with a full time job.
I became ill myself and had to leave my long term job. I continued to support my mum which at times was very difficult as she can be demanding in that she spend all her time with me.
About 2 years ago I met my now fiance.
Before my mum was even introduced to my then boyfriend she would do things to make him realise something was wrong with her. I waited a little while before telling him about her BPD.
When she met him she liked him. After the second time she wasn't impressed with him when she found out he wasn't interested moving near her. She told him she needed me as I was her carer.
After a few falls and operations she got very resentful of him as she expected him not to see me until she was well. I helped her a lot while still dating him. That made her angry as my time was also spent with him as well as looking after her. There were many tantrums and threats to harm my boyfriend and once threatened to pour hot tea over my head. I had to put her into respite for 2 weeks and since then she has gone out of her way to break us up with the help of my then next door neighbour. The things she did were very embarassing, scary and caused an enormous amount of stress on my fiance and myself. My boyfriend wasn't able to visit me for a while for safety reasons and when he eventually did, she would stalk him, threaten and yell out nasty things to him. Sending him a threatening letter to his house and a rude letter on his car that was hidden at my girlfriend's place. Also got her alcoholic brother to call him and threaten him and his twin brother.
After we got engaged last July my fiance wanted me to move in with him so we could move forward with our lives uninterrupted from her and so I could have a chance to get better.
In September I moved away from her about 58kms. I have told her we live elsewhere. Since then we have had more trouble.
I have had many arguments with her in hospital and told her I need a break from her, at
my fiance's insistence. I haven't seen or spoken to her since she was discharged. My fiance told me I had to change my mobile which I have done.
She contacted him by text once by mobile only to ask me to contact her regarding help with bills as my sister couldn't help at the time. My mum's memory is affected from brain trauma and she has confusion . He told me it was manipulation to 'get to me' and her comments such as 'I only have one daughter'. He told her to leave us alone after her behaviour towards us and that she has damaged her children the way she raised us.
He doesn't understand BPD and continues to tell me he was raised in a good family and never been subjected to what my mum has put him through. He recently out of the blue sent a picture of BPD to my mum without my knowledge to hurt her. He says his health has been affected over the 2 years and he has never retailiated before to my mum and that he was entitled to send a picture after all mums abuse and he wants her to know he knows she has BPD even though she strongly denies it.
I was clearly upset and horrified he would do that to my mum who is sick and has mental health issues. One of her friends son called,my fiance and threatened to kill him.
As a result my fiance has given me an ultimatum. I'm to have no contact with mum permanently or we are to break up. He doesn't want to marry a girl who's mother has mental health issues as she will continue her antics and if I have contact with her it will affect me which means it will affect him. He's scared what she will do next. He says maybe you should find a man who can accept a BPD mother in-law but he can't . He says I have detachment issues with my mum which is true . However I love my mum and I don't want to feel guilty and sad at losing her. He doesn't understand how I can love my mum. He hates her and speaks of her terribly . I know he's hurting but she is my mother.  I don't expect him to have contact with her. I'm happy for a break for a while from her but he wants the extreme. He doesn't want relationship counselling either.
Has anyone experienced suffering of a relationship as a result of a BPD mother.?Especially since I'm so bonded to her.
Would like any thoughts
Thank you!

[Notwendy]

Catgirl, I am so sorry your mother is acting this way.

My mother has not done this to anyone I have dated, and all relationships are different. However, one memory I have that was really hurtful was when I finally felt comfortable to tell a man I was dating about my mother, he promptly ghosted me. He didn't give me a reason why. I was very sad about this, because it seemed we were so compatible in many ways and I really had feelings for him.

I assumed it was that he didn't want to be involved with someone with a crazy mother? But considering all things, I was also co-dependent and had poor boundaries. Was it that? Or perhaps he was the kind of guy who did this kind of thing whenever things weren't just as he wanted them. In that case, he did me a favor by leaving, but I didn't know it at the time.

I have some questions about your situation, and they are for you to answer only- as it involves you considering both your relationships with this man and your mother and only you know all the details and can decide.

On one hand, there needs to be better boundaries between you and your mother in order for you to have your own independent life. I know it would feel like a defeat and letting her win if you break up with your fiance. She assumes that if you did, you would be back to being her caretaker.

But there is another choice, with or without breaking up and that is to establish your own life, work on boundaries and not be your mothers caregiver whether or not you are in a relationship. You can work on yourself, your own co-dependency and be a more emotionally healthy person with or without someone else now or in the future.

You are upset about some of your fiance's behaviors- the sending your mother a picture was one of them. This clearly upset you. This is the question to consider- sometimes people do things when they are pushed to their limit- and your fiance has good reason to feel mistreated. However, if we do something in the heat of the moment that hurts other people we care about, we are probably going to feel remorseful. How did your fiance respond to your distress? Did he minimize it? Did he acknowledge it?  Or was he convinced he is right and it was deserved. This is more about how he responds to you and your feelings than the actual incident. In marriages, people do hurt each other's feelings sometimes, but communication and the ability to repair these things is a good skill to bring into a marriage. Is he impulsive in other areas? Would he yell at his boss, or you? Or is it that your mother was such an extreme situation he just was pushed to the edge?

There isn't a right or wrong answer to this, but if he is good to you in general and sometimes impulsive, it may be just who he is. There are no perfect people. But if you feel hurt or discounted a lot of the time, then pay attention to how you feel . These are personal decisions, we all marry people with strong attributes and weaknesses too and we choose what is important and what to let go.

Ultimatums are hard to work with. I do understand that he doesn't want to deal with the way your mother has treated him. Nobody would. However, the other part of this is- can you do what he asks- cut off your mother without resenting him? For you to do this, you would have to own this decision as well. It seems you are struggling with this. I think it is important to be really honest with yourself. If you need more time, then be honest.

IMHO, If you do decide to cut contact with your mother, it would be good to do some therapy to deal with your feelings as well as the learned behaviors that are a result from growing up with someone like her. This is for you- but it would help all your other relationships. If your relationship ends, then doing this will help you. If the relationship continues - with or without your mother, it will help you with your marriage too.

[Basenji]

Has anyone experienced suffering of a relationship as a result of a BPD mother.?Especially since I'm so bonded to her.
Would like any thoughts
Thank you!

Yep... .sure have!

Borderline Mothers and Victims' Relationships

My borderline mother has attempted to undermine every relationship I ever had that she could get to! Telling my first love that she didn't really love me and driving her to tears. Spreading scurrilous gossip and lies about me behind my back to put prospects off. Convincing herself that ex girlfriends were not really history and launching into absurd conspiracy claims that I was pretending that I had broken up with them to try to fool her. Ignoring one girlfriend socially, refusing to speak to her in person or call her her by name (rather referring to her as "that girl" and constantly trotting out the mantra "she's clearly not the one for you" in all cases... .


Attributes of Borderlines

Several realities about borderline personality people.

1) They have a powerful fear of abandonment - they don't want us (the victims) to leave them! When we spend time with a partner they have intense feelings of rejection and abandonment;

2) They are highly manipulative and utterly self centred (even their sense of "love" is based on a sense of self and martyrdom);

3) Their behaviours can be abusive both from a legal definition (child abuse in come cases) and from practical reality (they mess with your mind to control you into responses born of shame and guilt);

4) In same cases (and I stress this may or may not apply to you) they may seek to recruit their children for emotional / psychological support when they should be seeking that from a peer as a partner and thereby "steal" childhood innocence (which is classifiable child abuse since long lasting psychological damage is caused);

5) There may be (and I stress this may or may not apply to you) be lasting and decisive impacts on those of us who have been subject to the borderlines' abusive behaviours - that is why this website presents a "Survivors Guide" on the right hand column of the web page.

6) The borderline can continue to entrap the victim into adulthood through their manipulate behaviours, often predicated on the victim's feelings of shame, guilt, incessant need to make things right and find the real love of a normal parent that they never had, and ever will.

7) Part of the borderline's ability to entrap is to invoke the child rather than the adult in their victim, even once the victim is well into adulthood.


The Impact on the Victim

In my own case,  I finally decided that I would never subject somebody I actually cared for to the unwarranted abuse of my borderline mother. Mother regards me as her partner and has done since my father walked out on her - she fights against my girlfriends both out of a fear of abandonment and out of a misplaced (and rather "sick" perspective that I am her partner and am cheating on her by seeking a relationship!

BUT I also have to deal with the deeply ingrained damage she has done to me psychologically - the problem is that the borderline has the power not just to spoil a relationship but create dysfunction in the victim that may impact their mental health and relationships or decades to come and impact their very capacity to form a and enjoy a healthy relationship.

I am now 54 years old and can finally see how my attempts to satisfy my borderline mother and her abuse when I was a child have impacted several significant relationships and in effect "stolen" my opportunities for marriage, children, happiness, etc.

It has taken me this long to accept that she was a child abuser, continues to abuse me as an adult, and these realities have had a profound influence on my life.

I have also had to accept that I wasn't really ready as a partner to somebody if  I hadn't come to terms with my own childhood issues and stepped fully into my adult persona.

The final straw came a few months ago when a 5-year relationship slipped apart and upon analysis challenges in that relationship pushed me into my unresolved childhood stuff related to coping with a borderline mother were a factor.

So now I put myself first. That is my commitment to myself. As an adult I can put a stop to it all!


Respecting The Victim's Partner

After decades of failing to master my own situation I have made the personal choice (and each and every one of us must make our own choices) with respect to any prospective partner;

• Keep anybody I hold dear well away from my mother
  Never let my mother stay in my house
  Go "no contact" when I feel I need to put myself first (which is now a permanent decision having failed to find a middle ground despite decades of attempt)
  Challenge my inclination to rush in and fix mother's problems as merely unhealthy outputs of shame and guilt and childhood conditioning - put myself and relationship first;
  Only date a prospective partner who can respect I am on a road to healing

Maybe the next relationship will have a chance!


What Can We Do?
 
I guess we have several choices:

• Go non contact
  Manage our borderlines the best we can
  A mix of the two

Whether we go non contact or not, we may still have latent issues in our minds and even a co-depency that will benefit from healing, or even therapy (as NotWendy recommends).

Managing a borderline person is very difficult! Even professional professional health workers have great challenges!

You will find much debate on setting boundaries as a management tool.

There's much to read about on this great website!


Our Responsibilities

Please consider that we have no actual legal responsibility to look after our parents!

That said we have a sense that we want to or that we should (for example because of our personal values or spiritual /religious convictions).

Perhaps in making the choice to attempt a relationship or go non contact we should aim to eliminate any latent feelings of shame or guilt and make such a decision for a positive position?

In any case, these choices are highly personal and we must make them for ourselves respecting the upside and downside of our choices and consequences of our actions.

We make these choices ideally from our "adult" persona (and not our "child".

I have made the decision to eliminate my mother from my life and have never been happier. I have no problem doping given an understanding of the nature and impact of her abusive behaviours and decades of failed attempts at a middle ground and tend years of practising boundary settings. I kina wish i had done that before I lost grip on my last relationship - but you can't repeat the past only learn from our triumphs and mistakes!

I must stress that many others report on this website have taken a different route - personal choices!
 

A Compromise Solution

Life rarely offers simple choices and an ideal solution!

Is it OK to make a suggestion about the challenge facing you and your fiancé?

It can happen that when one partner takes a strong position there is obviously an issue to be dealt - yet that may be lurking beneath the statement  - the elephant in the room, or as some would say, "the real issue".

In such circumstances it can help to have a constructive conversation in which we simply ask - is that the real issue?

In the case of trying to handle a borderline mother, perhaps the real issue is that the impact on the relationship is unreasonable since the strategy to handle mother clearly isn't working. Maybe it's something else!

So do you change the relationship or the ineffective strategy to handle mother?

At the moment it isn't working - mother is running rings around you, spoiling the relationship, and getting the attention and drama she craves and lapsing into martyrdom when she doesn't. Everyone is losing.

Is there really one choice to fix the real issue - maybe there is another - maybe you can change your strategy and agree to go non contact if that doesn't work in a certain timeframe.

Maybe there are some techniques to help - such as detaching from childhood responses and becoming more adept a=t setting boundaries.

Whatever you decide, there is a point of view that you should put yourself first and deciding upon the importance of your relationship within the family dynamic.

If you do ever decide to go non contact, arguably do so because it is right for you, it may well be in reality that your owe your mother nothing upon a frank and unemotional analysis in the circumstances (or you may feel that you do).




 

[Highlander]

Has anyone experienced suffering of a relationship as a result of a BPD mother.?Especially since I'm so bonded to her.
Would like any thoughts

Hi Catgirl,

I am in the position of your fiance.  I've been with my husband for over 10 years.  He had diagnosed BPD up until a couple of years ago and am pleased to say, after a long, and at times, horrifying journey for both of us, he has now recovered. 

My MIL has enough traits to be diagnosed as having BPD (as well as NPD), but unlike my husband who seeked treatment because he was 'low functioning' (LF), his mother being more of a 'high functioning' (HF) sufferer that will likely never ever admit she has a problem, let alone BPD.

All my husbands therapists over the years reported that his BPD was a result of his upbringing he received by his parents and that they both are unwell (His mother - BPD & NPD and father -NPD).  In addition, his adult BPD behaviours were always triggered by something she had said to him to distress him and 99% of the time it was always something negative about me or more accurately something irrational that she had made up about me.

The fact is that my husband, even though he no longer self harm's as a result of his mother's behaviour, he still suffers from depression as a result of her irrational behaviour.  I then have to spend weeks and, at times, months to help him to get back on his feet by taking on most of his chores and getting him to therapy as well as spending hours helping him by talking it through with him.  His depression brings me emotionally down too, making me unwell. In other words, having his mother in our lives makes us both sick.  I can now say after a decade, I am now completely and utterly over it.


As a result of my MIL, I have now been diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression and anxiety.  Exposure to my MIL had to end for me.

I am aware that there are many skills that can be learned to keep a BPD in ones life and some people may well be strong enough to use these skills but in my case, I as well as his therapists, don't believe my husband is strong enough to learn and implement them effectively, for now anyway.

I never told my husband I don't want him to see his mother but therapy has helped him to realise that his mother will most likely never ever seek therapy therefore, he will always be exposed to her irrational behaviours and for his health and mine he has concluded that he will now have NC 'no contact' with her.   This is not easy for him at all and he is currently seeking therapy for this transition.

After so many years of saying whatever I believed she wanted me to say around her, last year, I finally snapped after she had accused me, yet again, for giving her son BPD (at age 30!) even after we had both sat her down to explain to her that its a childhood disorder.  He had been self harming since 10 years old.  I must have been wielding some magic to give my future husband BPD some 20 years before  I  met him!  Unfortunately the word 'rational' is not in her vocabulary.

The abuse on ourselves does have it limits.  Ironically like your fiance my reaction was to tell her that she had BPD and I was not surprised by her reaction - I am 'apparently' mentally unwell.  I laughed - little did she know I was expecting her to say that as I had read too many times that if you try and tell a HF BPD sufferer they have BPD, they react by saying you are the one with a mental problem!   

 I completely understand why it is written that BPD is a disorder making disorder.  The joke "How can you tell if someone in the room has BPD?  Look for the craziest person in the room and it will be their spouse".  Although I have been the 'spouse', I think the joke could also relate to children or partners of children with BPD mothers/mother in laws.

What kept my marriage healthy was that I was prepared to go to therapy with my husband and we used the same therapist.  At times we went together and at other times we went alone.  It was helpful to find a therapist that had experience with BPD patients.

I would have a think about whether being around your mother brings you right down affecting our mood around your fiance. Also that if he is affected by your mother's manipulations ie are you cancelling appointments with him to satisfy your mother's demands?  If you were thinking of having children, your fiance may well be concerned about the effects a BPD grandmother would have on them too. 

In the past I found a number of websites that recognise it is extremely common for BPD mothers with adult children to attack their partners/spouses.  It gave me some relief to know it was common.  My husband has recognised no woman he ever dated in his life was ever good enough for his mother. 

By the sounds of your mother's behaviour towards your fiance, I can completely understand where he is coming from.  Sounds like he has been an incredibly patient man to put up with 2 years of this abuse before he finally reacted and is now acknowledging its affecting his health.  And like me, he has also been subjected to other people in the family believing in whatever your mother says about him, resulting in more abuse on him by outsiders.  I guess you may need to look at the possibility that whoever you meet in life, they will also likely be subjected to the same treatment. 

Put yourself and your happiness first and remember that not every potential future husband you meet may have the same patience that this man your shown to you.  I mean two years before he finally reacted after threats including physical ones!  To me from what you have said, he looks like a 'keeper'.  He obviously loves you.

Yes its unfortunate he has given you an ultimatum.  I just hope he could agree to therapy with you.  Is it possible to try and get him to go to therapy with you if you promise that all options will be put on the table including NC with your mother?  At least that way you can work through the ultimatum with a therapist which may help him to understand BPD better and how difficult it is for a child to simply end all contact with their mother.

Hope my story helps and welcome to this site.