What reaction did you have to your parents suggesting your wife had bpd?

[Jareth89]

Mod Note:  This reply was split to start a new thread.  It was originally posted in a thread from 2017 here:  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=315970.0

I am also someone in a position similar to your son. I love my mother and father very much, but because of my relationship with my wife, my parents have only met my 4 year old daughter once in her life. I do not have any other children.

About 10 years ago my parents were the first to suggest my wife had a personality disorder. They didn't know about BPD at the time, but they saw strong NPD traits. They did NOT share this with me until AFTER I opened the door for the conversation though.

What reaction did you have to your parents suggesting your wife had  bpd? What do you mean by 'opening the door for conversation with them', do you mean you started talking about your wife's behaviour with them? Did your wife try to isolate you from your parents and siblings and if so how did you feel about that and what made you give in to this demand? When did your wife's bpd become obvious to you - after marriage, after children...how many years after you were together? Were your wife's parents involved?

[Wilkinson]

My first reaction to my mother suggesting my wife had BPD was anger.  My wife had been successfully working to distance me from my FOO.  She painted my mother as the crazy, selfish one, and I bought it.  So, when my mother suggested that my wife had BPD, if felt she was just being bitter because she didn't have control over her son anymore. 

That was 10 years before I finally moved out of my house.  I'm in the middle of a nasty divorce and now that I don't feel under her control anymore, I am definitely seeing signs of some sort of a PD.  In all honesty, I don't know that I might have ever recognized it, except for the fact that my wife totally ramped up her abusive behavior.  Before, the cycles of abuse were small enough and drawn out enough, that I never picked up on it.  It was easy to just attribute things to marital strife.  Then near the end the bad times were getting worse and lasting longer.  She said meaner things and did meaner things.  Once I left, she went full out abusive on me. 

I don't know what I should have done different.  I don't know how someone could have pointed it out to me back then.  The problem with believing my mother was that she had something gain from it.  I always felt like wanted to see my kids more often, she wanted me to not choose my wife over her all the time.  So by believing that my wife had BPD, it would help get my mother what I thought she wanted.  I guess that made me believe it less.

I don't know what would have made it different for me.   Maybe if a third party with no skin in the game said something, it would have been better.  Maybe it wouldn't have because I just didn't want to believe it, because I had three kids with this woman at this time and I just felt like I couldn't leave without giving them up.