BPD + ADD partnerships / children of BPD + children of ADD partnerships

[Teabunny]

Hello!
Please help -

I've read that people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder often end up together to meet dysfunctional dynamics / their needs. And I know about Understanding the Borderline Mother which has 4 categories of BPD mothers and the 4 types of partners they tend to choose. Is there any resource that suggests children of BPD parents end up with the children of ADD/ADHD parents or someone with BPD choosing someone with ADD/ADHD?

My husband and I realized he might have undiagnosed ADD last year and he continues to struggle with it but refuses therapy or treatment. He prefers to work through it himself and try coping strategies and is trying to change his damaging behaviors with some success! He's been having a particularly emotional stressful time since Thursday morning (today's Saturday) with little things triggering him, like my suggestion we eat brunch at one of his favorite restaurants. Or throwing a tantrum because he forgot something yesterday. I want to learn as much as I can about BPD + ADD partnerships and avoid the drama.

I still think we have a great marriage, 15 years, but want to understand our dynamic better. Especially to help me get through this weekend. If I was socialized by a BPD mother and he was socialized by an ADD father, both abusive to us as children, I bet that's affecting our marriage for the worse but is there anything I should be aware of? Maybe I chose to marry my husband because the feeling of walking on eggshells is so familiar to me from childhood. Thanks!

[Notwendy]

Yes, our family of origin influences who we are attracted to and who is attracted to us.

In fact if someone has left a dysfunctional relationship and begins a new one without working on understanding the dynamics and their part in it, they have a high risk of recreating the same dynamics in the next relationship.

But you do not have to leave a relationship to begin working on your part in the dynamics which is likely to make improvements. One truth is that we can not change another person, but that the dynamics are between two people. If one person makes a change, the dynamics may change.

Families involving a disordered person attain a level of balance by each family member taking on certain roles that are actually functional in the disordered family. However, when they take these adaptive behaviors into their romantic relationships, they can recreate similar dynamics with someone else. The dynamics feel familiar to both people and this plays a part in the development of the relationship.

For instance, if you are used to walking on eggshells, taking care of someone- due to being raised in a home where this was adaptive for you-- you can end up doing these tasks in your relationship. It's not that it is specific labels- it's the pattern. So another person whose comfort pattern is being the recipient of the emotional caretaking may have ADD, or BPD, or maybe none of these at all but were raised in a family where this pattern occurred due to another disordered family member.

So yes, being raised with a disordered parent makes one prone to to pairing up with someone else with which they recreate the patterns. The good news though is that, since these behaviors are learned, we can un learn them, we can learn more adaptive ones. We can change the dynamics by working on our part in them.

Your H may not be open to therapy. Yes, it would be nice if he did, but you can still do it for you. I found it very helpful to do it myself, looking at my own enabling behavior. This didn't just help with one relationship- it helped with all of them, and also helps me relate to my BPD mother better too.

[Teabunny]

Thank you so much Notwendy!

I suspect one of the best ways I can work on my part in this would be to stop responding to H's emotions, just ignore those reactions and focus on the normal healthy thing to do. Such as, here is an option, Go to brunch or don't go to brunch, and if he can't discuss it calmly just walk away and do my own thing. HOWEVER, do you know how to tell the difference between not enabling dysfunctional behaviors (focusing on his needs/wants in order to keep him happy) vs disrespecting my H by ignoring his feelings / not asking him to state what he needs or wants? I can't tell the difference yet, which is making it harder for me to just ignore him and keep on doing my happy thing - which feels cruel when someone I love is upset.

[Harri]

Hi Teabunny.

We have a lot of relationship tools over on our Bettering a Relationship Board which may help you better understand the dynamics involved in your and your hubby's relationship.  A good place to start is here:  HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS SITE

I am not saying either of you are dysfunctional or have BPD.  Most of the tools offered on this site are based on CBT or DBT and can apply to any relationship.  I learned a lot about relationships and how to interact with people by reading the sections I highlighted here and by reading posts on the bettering board.  I will say a lot of the work I did was to help me learn better ways to handle my own dysfunctional childhood legacy.

Good luck!

[Teabunny]

Thanks Harri!

Resources are very welcome and especially since I'm new, this is very appreciated. I'm not interpreting your post as saying either of us are dysfunctional or have BPD. Thanks for the tools I am already checking them out.

[Notwendy]

I will also second Harri on this.

Many people on the relationship board are in a relationship with someone who has BPD ish behaviors but isn't diagnosed as BPD. Also there are many who are in a relationship with someone who does have BPD. The behaviors are on a spectrum from very severe to mild. In the mild category the person may not have a formal diagnosis, but this still may cause stress and dysfunction between them and also the personality traits of their partner.

I married someone who is very different from my mother, yet somehow similar patterns to what I observed between my parents showed up in my marriage. This was very confusing to me. On my end, I tend to be an enabler and have done a lot of work on my own codependent behaviors. This did influence my relationships. Walking on eggshells and trying to fix other people's feelings felt "normal" to me. My fear of angry people made me a people pleaser and this reinforced the dysfunction between us.

This type of pattern is frequent in the relationship board and while some situations are more severely dysfunctional than others, the tools are helpful regardless and they don't require a label. Personal therapy and working on our own issues is also helpful.