My story

[Depression = 72% of members]

The BPD person in my life is my ex-sister in law. She is very much still in my life.

She was first my friend. Initially, I found her to be the funnest person I had ever met.

She was giving. She was happy. She was warm. She was sharing. She was kind. She was fabulous.

She is still in many ways these things.

I met her through another friend of mine, and we instantly hit it off. I was about to be married when I first met her. After I married is when we became closer. She met my brother in law at a New Years Eve party at my house about a year later. Not long after that, they were dating. By March, they were engaged. By August, they were married. By September, they were expecting their first child. We had become closer friends during the 9 months that they met, dated, and married. Yes... I think we all realized that everything was happening intensely and quickly, but it just seemed perfect. We were so excited to be going from friends to family. We were thrilled to be eachothers sisters in law.

I was too expecting my first child. Our due dates were a month apart. More to be excited about. We talked all the time.

And yet... .There was something off about her. Though I didn't really see much of it with my own eyes, she often talked about how she had major anxiety issues and emotional issues.

My brother in law got a good job, but it was in the evenings. She could not have been more melodramatic about this situation. She talked about how she cried every night... .how she didn't get married to be alone. She met with her Pastor for counseling... She acted as though he was going off on a deployment, when really they had most of the morning together. It was hard to empathize with her, but I did, because I could see it was a real struggle for her. Later on I would find out that she would do things to sabotage him from going to work, like hide his car keys. She denies it, but now that I know what I know about her, I could definitely see her doing this.

After we had our babies, her and I struggled immensely. She started to have issues with our shared in-laws. It started over a picture on their refrigerator. My son was born 2 weeks before her daughter. WHen they came to the hospital to meet my son, they took a picture and immediately went home and printed it out and put it on their fridge. They were proud to be grandparents. 2 weeks later, her daughter was born and they couldn't have been more thrilled. A grandson and a grand daughter in 2 weeks time. We met them up at the hospital to meet our new niece and of course we had our son with us. They took a picture of their grand daughter, and they also took another picture of our son, printed both out and put them both on the fridge. So, they had 2 pictures of our son and one of their daughter. This started a decade long "My inlaws are horrible people" campaign that I couldn't help but get caught up in. Because I know my inlaws. THey are not horrible people at all. They aren't perfect, but they are good people. They tried very hard to do everything equally for all the grandchildren.

But... .

No matter what they did and how hard they tried, they were terrible people.

As the years went on, we had more babies. We ended up having more babies together at the same time. She had 4. I have 6.



Sure, my inlaws made some mistakes. New Grandparents often do  little things that upset new, very intense parents... .(too much sugar... a movie that wasn't approved of... little things like that)... Once, when a sleepover was planned (and it was a very big deal... talked about for weeks ahead of time) an old friend of my father in laws showed up and they had a little too much alcohol. It ruined the sleepover. I don't think my father was rip roaring drunk, but it ruined the sleepover, and was pretty much unforgiveable. To her defense, I do wonder what my father in law was thinking. But anyways... .

She was on the quest to be the best mother ever and have the most wonderful family ever. She prided herself on how strict she was. NO sleepovers at grandparents houses, no sirree. She missed her kids way too much if they were gone. She would say how her and her husband would cry when they left the kids to go on dates. (I seriously doubt my brother in law cried... doesn't seem the emo type)... Meanwhile, my husband and I were totally fine with sleep overs, and yet, she made me feel like the worst mother ever for being okay with sleepovers. The subtle, and sometimes not so subtle language she would use with me would knock me down and make me feel like I was in the wrong. I ended up nixing sleep overs for a time, thinking maybe my friend was right.

But, my husband kind of thought that was ridiculous. Our kids grandparents are good engaged grandparents. Thank God I have him to keep me balanced about things. I tend to second guess my own intuition if I see other people are doing it differently than me, which I think can be healthy, but not when it comes to disordered people.

Because we were a lot looser with our kids in matters of overnights and allowing things like our inlaws to take our kids up north to the beach for the day, our kids naturally got closer to them than her kids. The closer they got, the more strange everything got. She would get so upset that our kids were going over there, that I began trying to hide it from her when they went there, even though, they were just as welcome (my inlaws would have been THRILLED actually)...

I remember several times, having a doctors appointment or something, calling my inlaws to ask if they would take the kids, them saying "sure thing" and then later talking to sister in law and hearing her say something like... "Wow... wish I had that in my life... " or "You should be grateful, some of us would really love such involved grandparents... "... And I would get so mad, because

SHE HAD THE SAME thing I did. I just asked. I would tell her to ask, and she would say ... "I'm not the type of person who asks for help."

SO she created this completely false dichotomy... .painted the picture as though my inlaws highly favored my kids and ignored hers, but that wasn't the way it was at all. Not even a little. She kept her kids from them, and then blamed them and wrote nasty emails to them about favoring my children.

Not true at all. Near the end of their marriage, I was outright telling my inlaws "Please do not tell her that my kids were here. I don't want to start another war."

Our shared sister in law was another person who she smeared as a bad person, and my sister in law is a GREAT person. Seriously, the world needs more persons like her. She is AMAZING... just simply amazing. One of the nicest most caring people you could ever have the joy of meeting. Her and her husband are childless and do so much for their nieces and nephews. They are awesome. I feel so lucky to have them in my life, and I think all of her nieces and nephews feel this way about them.

But... .she could do no right either. To my BPD sister in law, she "clearly" also favored my kids.

It was so exhausting.

At the very end, just before the marriage exploded, my nonBPD sister in law and her husband took my boys to a baseball game. My husband and I are not baseball people, but my kids love it. They likely would never have the chance to go to a game if it weren't for my nonBPD sister in law and her husband. I made the mistake of posting a picture of them with our kids getting ready to go to the game on facebook. BPD sister in law had a FIT... .saying that her boys were so sad that their Aunt and Uncle were leaving them out. Leaving them out?  What the eff? Just 2 weeks prior, they had taken their kids to the beach. My kids didn't go. I had no fits. Normal people have no fits about Aunts and Uncle spending time with the other nieces and nephews. If her kid was sad, the right thing to say would be "Remember when they took you to the beach a couple of weeks ago? Now its your cousins turn to get some time with their Aunt and Uncle... "

I was spent. I was done. Instead of trying to hide the fact that my kids went to their grandparents and Aunts and Uncles, I just began to have an "eff it" attitude. My kids have a great extended family. I am not going to discourage that or try to hide that in any way. If she wanted her kids to have the same, they could have...  She kept them from them.


It was only weeks away from the marriage ending and my brother in law moving out. He was spent as well.

After he moved out, her and I had some very nasty exchanges. She said terrible things about my inlaws that just weren't true, at one point saying "These people jjust love drama!"... .But... the only drama in their life was her. They are very low drama, nice people. She said horrible things to me. Things like... ."Everyone knows you are a horrible wife and mom... "... .Sigh... My husband would adamantly disagree. We have a very happy marriage and family.

She was totally delusional.

And once she was out of my life... .things were so much more peaceful.

And yet, I missed my friend. I missed the fun girl I had known in the beginning.

It took about a year, but we began communicating again. I help her with the kids sometimes when she works or goes to school. Not very often anymore, but I imagine it will pick up when summer hits. Her and I have formed a friendship, keeping certain things off topic.

But just when things were going well, she burned me again. She will take any little piece off information about my brother in law (her ex) and use it against him or towards him. She very much wants him back, even though she hates him and says he is a terrible father. She tries to sabotage his new relationships in the most psycho of ways.

I have thought of going no contact, but I do seriously care about her, and I know she is in a lot of pain to act this way.

And I also love my nieces and nephews and want to be a good stable influence in their lives.

In short... .this sucks.

[Ylimepie]

The BPD person in my life is my ex-sister in law. She is very much still in my life.

She was first my friend. Initially, I found her to be the funnest person I had ever met.

She was giving. She was happy. She was warm. She was sharing. She was kind. She was fabulous.

She is still in many ways these things.

I met her through another friend of mine, and we instantly hit it off. I was about to be married when I first met her. After I married is when we became closer. She met my brother in law at a New Years Eve party at my house about a year later. Not long after that, they were dating. By March, they were engaged. By August, they were married. By September, they were expecting their first child. We had become closer friends during the 9 months that they met, dated, and married. Yes... I think we all realized that everything was happening intensely and quickly, but it just seemed perfect. We were so excited to be going from friends to family. We were thrilled to be eachothers sisters in law.

I was too expecting my first child. Our due dates were a month apart. More to be excited about. We talked all the time.

And yet... .There was something off about her. Though I didn't really see much of it with my own eyes, she often talked about how she had major anxiety issues and emotional issues.

My brother in law got a good job, but it was in the evenings. She could not have been more melodramatic about this situation. She talked about how she cried every night... .how she didn't get married to be alone. She met with her Pastor for counseling... She acted as though he was going off on a deployment, when really they had most of the morning together. It was hard to empathize with her, but I did, because I could see it was a real struggle for her. Later on I would find out that she would do things to sabotage him from going to work, like hide his car keys. She denies it, but now that I know what I know about her, I could definitely see her doing this.

After we had our babies, her and I struggled immensely. She started to have issues with our shared in-laws. It started over a picture on their refrigerator. My son was born 2 weeks before her daughter. WHen they came to the hospital to meet my son, they took a picture and immediately went home and printed it out and put it on their fridge. They were proud to be grandparents. 2 weeks later, her daughter was born and they couldn't have been more thrilled. A grandson and a grand daughter in 2 weeks time. We met them up at the hospital to meet our new niece and of course we had our son with us. They took a picture of their grand daughter, and they also took another picture of our son, printed both out and put them both on the fridge. So, they had 2 pictures of our son and one of their daughter. This started a decade long "My inlaws are horrible people" campaign that I couldn't help but get caught up in. Because I know my inlaws. THey are not horrible people at all. They aren't perfect, but they are good people. They tried very hard to do everything equally for all the grandchildren.

But... .

No matter what they did and how hard they tried, they were terrible people.

As the years went on, we had more babies. We ended up having more babies together at the same time. She had 4. I have 6.



Sure, my inlaws made some mistakes. New Grandparents often do  little things that upset new, very intense parents... .(too much sugar... a movie that wasn't approved of... little things like that)... Once, when a sleepover was planned (and it was a very big deal... talked about for weeks ahead of time) an old friend of my father in laws showed up and they had a little too much alcohol. It ruined the sleepover. I don't think my father was rip roaring drunk, but it ruined the sleepover, and was pretty much unforgiveable. To her defense, I do wonder what my father in law was thinking. But anyways... .

She was on the quest to be the best mother ever and have the most wonderful family ever. She prided herself on how strict she was. NO sleepovers at grandparents houses, no sirree. She missed her kids way too much if they were gone. She would say how her and her husband would cry when they left the kids to go on dates. (I seriously doubt my brother in law cried... doesn't seem the emo type)... Meanwhile, my husband and I were totally fine with sleep overs, and yet, she made me feel like the worst mother ever for being okay with sleepovers. The subtle, and sometimes not so subtle language she would use with me would knock me down and make me feel like I was in the wrong. I ended up nixing sleep overs for a time, thinking maybe my friend was right.

But, my husband kind of thought that was ridiculous. Our kids grandparents are good engaged grandparents. Thank God I have him to keep me balanced about things. I tend to second guess my own intuition if I see other people are doing it differently than me, which I think can be healthy, but not when it comes to disordered people.

Because we were a lot looser with our kids in matters of overnights and allowing things like our inlaws to take our kids up north to the beach for the day, our kids naturally got closer to them than her kids. The closer they got, the more strange everything got. She would get so upset that our kids were going over there, that I began trying to hide it from her when they went there, even though, they were just as welcome (my inlaws would have been THRILLED actually)...

I remember several times, having a doctors appointment or something, calling my inlaws to ask if they would take the kids, them saying "sure thing" and then later talking to sister in law and hearing her say something like... "Wow... wish I had that in my life... " or "You should be grateful, some of us would really love such involved grandparents... "... And I would get so mad, because

SHE HAD THE SAME thing I did. I just asked. I would tell her to ask, and she would say ... "I'm not the type of person who asks for help."

SO she created this completely false dichotomy... .painted the picture as though my inlaws highly favored my kids and ignored hers, but that wasn't the way it was at all. Not even a little. She kept her kids from them, and then blamed them and wrote nasty emails to them about favoring my children.

Not true at all. Near the end of their marriage, I was outright telling my inlaws "Please do not tell her that my kids were here. I don't want to start another war."

Our shared sister in law was another person who she smeared as a bad person, and my sister in law is a GREAT person. Seriously, the world needs more persons like her. She is AMAZING... just simply amazing. One of the nicest most caring people you could ever have the joy of meeting. Her and her husband are childless and do so much for their nieces and nephews. They are awesome. I feel so lucky to have them in my life, and I think all of her nieces and nephews feel this way about them.

But... .she could do no right either. To my BPD sister in law, she "clearly" also favored my kids.

It was so exhausting.

At the very end, just before the marriage exploded, my nonBPD sister in law and her husband took my boys to a baseball game. My husband and I are not baseball people, but my kids love it. They likely would never have the chance to go to a game if it weren't for my nonBPD sister in law and her husband. I made the mistake of posting a picture of them with our kids getting ready to go to the game on facebook. BPD sister in law had a FIT... .saying that her boys were so sad that their Aunt and Uncle were leaving them out. Leaving them out?  What the eff? Just 2 weeks prior, they had taken their kids to the beach. My kids didn't go. I had no fits. Normal people have no fits about Aunts and Uncle spending time with the other nieces and nephews. If her kid was sad, the right thing to say would be "Remember when they took you to the beach a couple of weeks ago? Now its your cousins turn to get some time with their Aunt and Uncle... "

I was spent. I was done. Instead of trying to hide the fact that my kids went to their grandparents and Aunts and Uncles, I just began to have an "eff it" attitude. My kids have a great extended family. I am not going to discourage that or try to hide that in any way. If she wanted her kids to have the same, they could have...  She kept them from them.


It was only weeks away from the marriage ending and my brother in law moving out. He was spent as well.

After he moved out, her and I had some very nasty exchanges. She said terrible things about my inlaws that just weren't true, at one point saying "These people jjust love drama!"... .But... the only drama in their life was her. They are very low drama, nice people. She said horrible things to me. Things like... ."Everyone knows you are a horrible wife and mom... "... .Sigh... My husband would adamantly disagree. We have a very happy marriage and family.

She was totally delusional.

And once she was out of my life... .things were so much more peaceful.

And yet, I missed my friend. I missed the fun girl I had known in the beginning.

It took about a year, but we began communicating again. I help her with the kids sometimes when she works or goes to school. Not very often anymore, but I imagine it will pick up when summer hits. Her and I have formed a friendship, keeping certain things off topic.

But just when things were going well, she burned me again. She will take any little piece off information about my brother in law (her ex) and use it against him or towards him. She very much wants him back, even though she hates him and says he is a terrible father. She tries to sabotage his new relationships in the most psycho of ways.

I have thought of going no contact, but I do seriously care about her, and I know she is in a lot of pain to act this way.

And I also love my nieces and nephews and want to be a good stable influence in their lives.

In short... .this sucks.

[Kwamina]

Hi Ylimepie  

Thanks for introducing yourself to us!

It becomes clear from your post that you have a lot of wonderful people in your life who also care very much about your children. It is very sad that your friend/ex-SIL behaved the way she did all those years. Though you've formed a friendship with her again, she unfortunately is still exhibiting some problematic behavior. Has she perhaps ever been diagnosed with any kind of disorder? Has she perhaps ever been in therapy?

She tries to sabotage his new relationships in the most psycho of ways.

In what ways does she try to sabotage his new relationships?

I have thought of going no contact, but I do seriously care about her, and I know she is in a lot of pain to act this way.

And I also love my nieces and nephews and want to be a good stable influence in their lives.

I think it is positive that you are able to empathize with her and recognize that her difficult behavior stems from the hurt she carries inside, from her own inner turmoil. People with BPD often have a very shaky sense of self. If she indeed has BPD, it could very well be that she actually cares a lot about all of you but doesn't have the ability to express her love in a loving manner. People with BPD also often have very high validation needs and a distorted perception of reality. As a result they`might perceive rather innocuous comments and actions as major slights. Based on your post I'd say this also seems to apply to your friend/ex-SIL, would you agree?

Take care and I encourage you to keep posting here. We have many members who also have BPD in-laws and know how difficult this can be. I think reading their stories can also be very insightful to you.

[Ylimepie]

Hi Ylimepie  

Thanks for introducing yourself to us!

It becomes clear from your post that you have a lot of wonderful people in your life who also care very much about your children. It is very sad that your friend/ex-SIL behaved the way she did all those years. Though you've formed a friendship with her again, she unfortunately is still exhibiting some problematic behavior. Has she perhaps ever been diagnosed with any kind of disorder? Has she perhaps ever been in therapy?


I do not know that she has been officially diagnosed, but she is in therapy, and recently during our conversations about her ex, I asked her if she ever thought that perhaps she had some borderline tendencies, and she admitted that she thinks she might because most people don't endure what she has endured for so long. What she means by endure is that she hates her ex and thinks he is a terrible father. And yet wants him to choose her so bad that she will go to extreme lengths to make sure that he can't have anyone else. I'll get to that in a bit. So yeah, I think borderline is probably on her therapists radar, but I don't know what if anything she is doing about it.




In what ways does she try to sabotage his new relationships?

Initially, it was finding out who he was dating and harassing that person through facebook, telling whoever he was seeing about what a horrible father he was and that she was causing him to not see his kids, stuff like that. Once, having run into him and his friend in a grocery store, she went ballistic, yelling at him that his kids have been calling him and he wasn't answering the phone because he was with some girl. She then turned on the girl and said something along the lines of "And your not even pretty. You are SO ugly." She then proceeded to follow this girl around the store taking pictures of her saying that she needed proof of how ugly she was. The girl knocked my sister in laws phone down, because she was putting it in her face, and my sister in law accused this poor girl who was now beside herself crying and trying to get away from my sister in law of hitting her.  She was trying to get the phone out of her face. Just after this incident, my sister in law called me to tell me what she did, thinking it was totally rational, when I told her that it was not okay to do that, she said "Really, because I told a bunch of other people, and they all said they would do the same thing... "  uhhhh... .no. It was the craziest thing I ever experiencd from her... this obviously delusional irrational thinking. Most recently, (and this is where I come in) my brother in law told me that he loved his new girlfriend. He has been successful at keeping his ex from finding out who she is. Meanwhile, my ex-sister in law takes any little grain of my brother in law being nice to her as proof that he still has feelings for her, so she told me that he was leading her on. I told her that I was pretty sure that he was only trying to be civil for the kids sake, because he loves his new girlfriend. She flipped. It set her off and I think she has been in full blown crisis since then. She sat on my couch sobbing, telling me that she can't handle him actually loving somebody else, because then he will never pick her. (but remember, she hates him... he is a horrible father and abused her and cheated on her when they were together, per her words)  She told him that his new girlfriend contacted her to ask what kind of father my brother in law is. When my brother in law asked this girl, she had no idea what he was talking about. It was a lie. For the next lie, my ex sister in law told my brother in law that she was able to figure out who this girl is and do some investigating and this girl is cheating on him. He asked her to prove it, and she told him she would, but only if he slept with her first, so... .obvious delusions.

As far as the girl in the grocery store thing goes... .she has apologized to both my brother in law and told him to tell her that she was sorry, but I don't think this apology is about true remorse as much as it is about manipulating my brother in law into thinking she is a good person, because she still refers to this girl as "Bucky beaver" when retelling the story.





YES. Very distorted perception of reality. Its very frustrating. She perceived the 2 pictures of my son on my inlaws fridge not only as them loving my son more, but also as them favoring male children. It was absolutely baffling. Less so once we found out that in her family of origin, male children were favored and spoiled. She carried that baggage over to her new family in the most obnoxious way