BPD SIL; distance now from brother and nieces

[ripley152]

Hi all, this is my first post.

tl;dr - my brother's wife (likely BPD) cut me and my husband off two years ago. The reasons aren't worth belaboring - suffice to say that I've done all I can to reach out and to talk through her issues, and she has retained an extremely warped vision of our relationship, to the point of being provably wrong through text/email history. She continues to be incredibly unstable from what I hear from my parents - at a recent visit she screamed at him for minor things in front of them, stuff like that.

What I'm struggling with now is my relationship with my brother, and the consequences of being discarded.

My brother's always been passive and conflict-averse, so in casual conversation over text he never brings her up and refuses to talk about these relationships. I resent him a bit because of that, and because part of the conflict feels like it could've been more readily resolved had he not buried his head in the sand and pretended like everything was going to be fine.

I know he's essentially in an abusive state at this point, and that he's doubly stuck because he has two children with her now, so I'm trying to move past that resentment. How do I put this all into context? How can I cope with being cut off, resenting my brother, and not really being able to have a good relationship with the nieces?

[zachira]

I am glad you have reached out to us and sorry for the circumstances that bring you here. You have come to the right place as there are many members who have similar problems with disordered family members. I come from a long line of disordered family members and my heart hurts hearing what you are going through. You love your brother and nieces, and are very hurt by being cut off by your SIL. Right now, there is not probably much you can do to change the relationship with your brother as it sounds like he fears his wife so much he will go along with whatever she wants. It is really scary as your SIL is no longer hiding as much how she blames your brother for how she feels on the spur of the moment, blowing up at him over minor things in front of your parents.
I think you best bet is to say little to your brother, though if you do keep it extremely brief, like I am really sad about not seeing my nieces, and say no more. How old are your nieces? At some point, your nieces may reach out to you. In my experiences with my disordered family members, I never cease to be surprised by those who enable the terrible behaviors of others, and those who really get what is going on. We are here to listen and help in any ways we can.

[Four Winds]

hello ripley152, I too have a difficult situation with my brother and his bpd wife which has been ongoing for more than 10 years after they moved country and came to live nearby. She initiated a series of awful, illogical and untrue accusations against me - my brother totally backed her up, in fact she used him as her attack dog and his behaviour became more and more hurtful and demeaning.  She has tried to cut him off from us (his family of origin) by telling him he had to choose and threatening divorce. she also isolated him from his closest friends.  i stepped back and made the decision to not engage in any way to avoid upsetting her and just be as polite and calm as possible to try and avoid conflict. my main goal was to keep the lines of communication open to try and keep some type of relationship with my brother and his children. My main aim is to be a loving aunt towards them but at times she makes it impossible and causes all sorts of awful and hurtful obstacles. I am so tired of the whole situation.