parental unit

[Woody59]

My 32 yo daughter has BPD. She is successful in many ways but also has significant medical issues. She is psychologically and sometimes physically dependent upon us (her parents) but can be verbally abusive and difficult. My husband prefers to "let go" of her verbal abuse while I feel very hurt by it. Ultimately neither of thinks it is good for her to relate to us this way. How do you try to promote the "parental unit"? Is that necessary?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Swimmy55]

Hi Woody,
Here is a post for your viewing that talks on co- parenting/ parallell- parenting. https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=298763.0
I can't really add much to this.   My son's father and I divorced and he was in and out of the picture when our son was a minor.  We didn't work well with co parenting back then.  Now   son is an adult and estranged from both me and his Dad.  Others on here can probably share on this topic better than I can.

[Tulipps]

I'm fairly new as well and completely relate to what you're saying. Most days I wish for teflon skin so I can more easily deflect the verbal/text abuse from my 33 year old BPD daughter. I'm the sole reason for every problem - past, present and future.
Since participating in a Family Connections^TM workshop, taking advantage of the great resources on this site and reading "Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, I'm working hard on building my validation skills so I can interact with her from a mindful position and let go of my own fear, obligation and guilt.
I understand that my daughter's anguish is 1000 times beyond what I'm feeling due to her dysregulation. She's lashing out and unfortunately I'm in the target zone. What she really needs is a huge hug and that's not possible due to COVID. All I can do is dig deep for empathy, and some days - today for example - it's hard. Really hard.
This is a great place to be when you need support! Stay strong!

[Woody59]

Thank you for your response.
We are new to understanding the issue this way. Unfortunately it has been a very stressful 6 months due to multiple factors including the  illness and death of my mother, the caring for a 91yo  grieving father, COVID, work stress and missing friends and family (particularly our other daughter) we can't see. Our D lives nearby so we do see her and in addition to her psychological issues, she has serious medical problems. Since she was a child she has had many medical complaints so it's often hard to know what's real and what's partly psychological though they clearly interact. She has been in the hospital many times this year. This weekend she got on a rampage with us about various wrongs and feelings she has had since childhood, this time particularly directed at me. In part because this would have been hurtful at any time (and I've heard it all before), and in part because I am dealing with my own sadness and anxiety/depression, I was more vulnerable than baseline and lost my composure. I said something hostile that I did not really mean and regret it. I apologized immediately and several times since but she has continued to send harsh texts and to split me and my husband. We are both exhausted by the drama she creates on a regular basis and has for many years. Sometimes I think her sister moved away to escape this.I want to have a relationship with her. I realize that I am going to have to put some of my feelings aside but may have to wait until she is ready to let me in. My husband has a much harder time setting limits and is trying to figure out how to relate to her now. How does he try to provide some support to her but also let her know that she cannot drive wedges between us? I feel terrible about what happened but I guess all I can do is wait for a while and let the anger subside? Any thoughts appreciated.

[Tulipps]

The stress is real! I can certainly relate. My C/L husband is very supportive but is very concerned about the emotional toll on both of us. We experience frequent triangulation attempts aimed at driving a wedge between us and also between me and my spouses adult children. It looks and feels like major manipulation most of the time, but the more we learn about BPD, we understand her actions are more about her emotional dysregulation.
I don't believe my daughter is deliberately trying to undermine my relationships, but her fears and anxiety prompt outrageous (ridiculous) threats if I don't respond to her in a certain way or give in to her demands... "don't you DARE hang up on me", "if you hang up on me, I'm calling your boss and telling him xyz" or "I'm calling ___ and telling her what you told me". Interestingly, the only threats she has followed through on are ones that impact her directly and immediately, like quitting school (multiple times), self-harm, binge eating, eg.
I don't have any answers but hope sharing these stories helps us all feel less isolated.