Co-parenting with someone who wants to take over

[mama-wolf]

So, I just had this argument with uBPDw, and need to sort out my thoughts.  I'm hoping folks here can help me out a bit.

It's the same argument we have had with increasing frequency over the past few years.  One of her major triggers is feeling undermined in front of the kids.  Having any element of her parenting or how she addresses the children questioned is a guaranteed path to being yelled at, cut with sarcasm, and having any of my own actions questioned.

And yet, seemingly every chance she gets, she has to interject her opinions or comments into my own interactions with the kids.  To the point that she ultimately ends up totally derailing any progress I might have been making, and/or taking over the entire interaction.  And she gets really pissed at me if I don't back her up 100%.

Add to the mix that D9 has been exhibiting increasing agitation caused by any interaction with uBPDw, and the situation was ripe this evening.  I allowed D9 to borrow a couple of dollars today to buy some candy at the store since she didn't have her money with her.  The item was $1.88, and she got very indignant when I suggested that she also pay me back for the tax.  She started arguing back to me about it being unfair, and uBPDw took the opportunity to "reinforce" me by saying of course she had to pay tax (while I was already making that point). 

D9 started acting out in a major way, getting very angry and yelling that it's not fair as she handed over $2.  I gave her a dime back, telling her I was satisfied with $.02 tax, but she still wasn't satisfied at not getting the full $.12 that she was expecting back.  At which point, uBPDw felt obligated to continue pressing the point about tax, and D9 stormed off to put her change away with the rest of her allowance, stomping all the way.  When she came back a few minutes later, she had calmed a bit, but uBPDw still felt disrespected and decided to continue telling D9 that she will not behave that way.  Ultimately, D9 started yelling back, and I just told her that was it--she needed to go to her room.

Once D9 was up in her room, I tried to calmly remind uBPDw of the agreement we had just made a week ago with our couples therapist that if I'm handling something, she would stay out of it (and vice versa).  Her justification back to me for getting involved was that she was present in the room, and with D9 yelling and getting upset, that made her part of the interaction.  Said that I what I was telling her was to "shut the f___ up," and just sit by and not be part of the parenting.  She said she would apologize for the part about stepping on my toes, but not about any of the rest.  Her responses escalated to the point where she was yelling at me, continuing to curse, all with S5 sitting on the floor next to her trying to watch tv.

I tried to extricate myself from the interaction--especially since I didn't want S5 to see us arguing again.  I told her quietly that we needed to talk about this more some other time when we could both discuss it calmly.  I apologized for making her angry, and for making her think that I didn't want her to be engaged in parenting.  I didn't get angry or raise my voice at all this time, unlike other times I have started out calmly trying to speak up for myself and gotten provoked by her.  It took me a couple of attempts to stop continuing to engage verbally, and I finally left for a few minutes.

I feel like I shouldn't have brought it up, but things were getting better around here and I thought she would be more receptive to a calm reminder about our agreement with the therapist.  Its never a good time to speak up about these things with her, so I thought doing so calmly, quietly, right after the moment so that memories were fresh would work best.  Instead, it was totally turned around on me again.  And she almost had me spinning by the end, telling me she perceived the interaction differently than I did and how dare I try to correct her perception.  Said I'm not the arbiter of truth and what really happened, etc.

She did apologize for the initial interjection in the conversation, but I really don't think that gives her the right to then take over everything because D9 acted out.  There's no convincing her of that, and I think what hurts me as much as anything is the flat-out refusal to apologize for anything that followed.  It's times like this that make it really hard to see a path forward with our marriage.

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[formflier]

Hey Mama-Wolf,

I don't often jump into threads on the bettering board.  The parenting topic grabbed my attention.  I have 8 kids and my wife is high functioning uBPD.  There is no consistency in the area you are talking about.  People with PDs have a hard time "keeping agreements" when emotions run high.

I'm not suggesting your issue is not a big deal or something to "let go", I AM SUGGESTING there is little chance of "solving" this with no hiccups or backsliding.  When their emotions get fired up... .things start happening that don't normally happen when things are baseline.  It is what it is.  Can't be reasoned with or "reminded about" (although I don't disagree with you bringing up the reminder).

So... if you take their feelings as the "battleground" and you "know" that things are better at "baseline" then when "upset", I would hope that could inform you better about next time.

Right after kids have an incident is NOT a time to solve things, if there is a disagreement.  It's a time to listen/validate and figure out if you need to be "done for now" with the conversation.  Validating there was just a hard conversation with a kid is very different than agreeing with either one of your courses of action.

"Babe... I'm sure you will agree that's hard for us as parents to hear those things from our kid.  Can we come together now as parents and relax a bit?... .let the stress go away?  We can talk through details later?... .I can't think clearly right after Junior does these things."


Last piece of advice if it gets "ugly" in front of a kid.  Trying to control a pwBPD and get them to hush or modify behavior is a loosing proposition, especially in the moment.  What ended up working for me is sending the kids to their rooms... ."so the adults can talk"   

FF

[pearlsw]

Hi mama-wolf,

formflier share a lot of helpful insights here. I just want to echo the notion of how hard it is for people with these traits to hold to promises of any kind. I don't know how many times I've tried to discuss and arrange and set up principles/practices for interacting when his kids are around and they go straight out the window as if these promises were never words, these words never spoken. Hearing formfliers take on this reminds of why this is so hard. So, time to sit down and come up with your own set of strategies and then working on your own self-discipline for holding to those notions.

Sorry for the short reply, but sending you lots of warm thoughts and hope!   

~ pearl.

[mama-wolf]

Thank you FF and pearl for the perspective and support.  It's exactly the help I needed, and I'm grateful to this forum for making it possible.

It's hard for me to come to terms with being in a marriage where making and sticking to agreements just isn't possible.  I have dealt with years of these failures in many areas of our life together (especially financial), but without the BPD awareness that I have now.   Now that I am educating myself more and more about where she's coming from, it makes me feel more and more hopeless.

So, yes, I can and will focus on my own strategies and will continue improving my awareness of when/how to address my concerns with her.  I just struggle with the distraction of wishing--desperately wishing--that things were different.  I know that isn't really productive, but it's hard to stop those feelings sometimes.

mw