"Adult" but not ready to deal with BPD parent

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

We just had another incident with BPD mom and my stepson, who is a young adult.  Even though he knows that BPD mom makes "emotional assumptions" and knows that she attempts to sway him, he is not able to set boundaries with her and to stop her from swaying him.

We have done this dance SO MANY TIMES with him and his mom, but this time, he is able to at least articulate that he knows what is happening when he takes a step back, and he also admits to getting sucked in.  While we tried to keep our conversations between his dad and him, he requested many times that his dad talk with his mom... .I think he really just wanted his mom to calm down, and he knew that if his dad paid attention to her, she would.  His dad finally did communicate with her, and the desired result happened.  But, as I told DH, he can't to this forever--the adult kids do need to learn some skills.

Here is what happened in a nutshell:
DSS19 needed to hire a professional for a sensitive matter; I had connections (but I am wicked stepmother who must be trying to trick my stepson with my recommendation); DSS19 was totally fine with my recommendation of the professional UNTIL BPD mom found out and tried to convince him that I was probably recommending someone who would hurt him; he knew that wasn't true, but he ended up finding other reasons to decide that BPD mom's recommendation was more desirable.

HOWEVER, BPD mom could not pay for the professional she wanted (and we had already talked down the price due to my connection of the one we suggested) so she finally calmed down and texted DH about it (she had tried to text DH when she was in her emotional attacking mode, but DH wouldn't engage).  NOW BPD mom is claiming that DSS19 came to her asking for another professional bc he didn't trust my recommendation, and that is supposedly why she interfered--UH, NO--SHE DIDN"T TRUST THAT PROFESSIONAL.  But oh well, let's rewrite history to feel better about being so emotionally reactive.

And now DSS19 is suddenly fine with my recommendation again.

So ridiculous... .

[sanemom]

We just had another incident with BPD mom and my stepson, who is a young adult.  Even though he knows that BPD mom makes "emotional assumptions" and knows that she attempts to sway him, he is not able to set boundaries with her and to stop her from swaying him.

We have done this dance SO MANY TIMES with him and his mom, but this time, he is able to at least articulate that he knows what is happening when he takes a step back, and he also admits to getting sucked in.  While we tried to keep our conversations between his dad and him, he requested many times that his dad talk with his mom... .I think he really just wanted his mom to calm down, and he knew that if his dad paid attention to her, she would.  His dad finally did communicate with her, and the desired result happened.  But, as I told DH, he can't to this forever--the adult kids do need to learn some skills.

Here is what happened in a nutshell:
DSS19 needed to hire a professional for a sensitive matter; I had connections (but I am wicked stepmother who must be trying to trick my stepson with my recommendation); DSS19 was totally fine with my recommendation of the professional UNTIL BPD mom found out and tried to convince him that I was probably recommending someone who would hurt him; he knew that wasn't true, but he ended up finding other reasons to decide that BPD mom's recommendation was more desirable.

HOWEVER, BPD mom could not pay for the professional she wanted (and we had already talked down the price due to my connection of the one we suggested) so she finally calmed down and texted DH about it (she had tried to text DH when she was in her emotional attacking mode, but DH wouldn't engage).  NOW BPD mom is claiming that DSS19 came to her asking for another professional bc he didn't trust my recommendation, and that is supposedly why she interfered--UH, NO--SHE DIDN"T TRUST THAT PROFESSIONAL.  But oh well, let's rewrite history to feel better about being so emotionally reactive.

And now DSS19 is suddenly fine with my recommendation again.

So ridiculous... .

[Turkish]

Your H stepping on as a 3rd party in order to reduce conflict was triangulation.

Though some people use this in the pejorative sense,  by itself,  it's not necessarily so.  H stepping in reduced conflict. For a time... .when it becomes negative is when the 3rd party becomes enabling,  shifting from the Adult role into the Parent role,  for all parties. 

SS19 needs to realize that he is an adult now.  And that he needs to take on this role. 

Going a bit nerd here,  but the roles within a Transactional Analysis framework are the Parent (Punitive), Child (rescue me), and Adult (mature, not enabling, rescuing or accusing).

The hard part is your H stepping back,  and your SS learning to be an adult and learning boundaries.  Harder might be you watching this and supporting them doing the right things.

[takingandsending]

sanemom and Turkish - agreed that SS needs to learn coping strategies for dealing with BPDm, but let's face it, pwBPD are in continual onslaught of others' boundaries. That is one of the hallmarks of the disorder, right? If it were simple, this website would likely not exist.

Your SS's dad likely had his hands full with maintaining boundaries with xBPDw during the marriage. If he was terrific at it, SS might have had excellent modeling and understanding how to do it. More likely, your H learned the hard way. It's a lot to expect of a young adult, particularly one who has grown up with BPD parent, to learn how to have healthy boundaries, since he likely never was allowed to develop any. I speak this from experience within my own FOO, and from watching my own S6 and S11 attempt to negotiate boundaries with their uBPDm.

How can SS be supported in development of healthy boundaries? Is it possible to send him the information on boundaries from this website without possibly sending the link?