Day 3: Family intervention

[unicorn2014]

Things are out of control with my ex and because I am choosing to allow him to remain my daughter's stepfather for today I am doing a family intervention with his father.

I have sent him an email copied to his father with the statement that we will not resume our relationships with him until he has his therapist email us with his treatment plan.

If my ex should pose a problem to my daughter I will remove him from her Facebook page and block his number on her phone. I am closely monitoring the situation. At this point it would cause her more trauma to forcefully terminate the relationship for her. She is not comfortable talking to her father, she is comfortable talking to her stepfather and because I do not believe he is a threat to her I am allowing him to speak to her.

I feel very solid in my stand. I have blocked my ex on my iPhone and sent his email to junk. I am keeping him on my Facebook profile because my daughter added him as stepfather however I unfollowed him and muted our conversation in messenger.

I have called two friends in program today, my priest, and reconnected with my old English teacher on Facebook. I will write more on the coping board.

I got my first check today for my first painting so that is helping me and my ex's father also said he would buy all my prints of my paintings as cards so I am going to make them up and send them as time allows.

I am very exhausted for a myriad of reasons so I'm going to sleep while my daughter is at work this afternoon so I can take care of her when she gets home.

This is hard. I broke down in tears at the health center before my daughter's appointment for her throat. I am trying very hard to keep my tears away from my daughter but she did put her hand on my should and try to console me. I have told her I am going through a break up, I am looking for a sponsor, I have a new therapist and I am seeing my doctor tomorrow to help me deal with some medication issues.

If anyone has anything other then that please advise.

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Because I am new to the detaching board I have not had a chance to caught up on new posts, I hope to do that after I run some errands this afternoon.

[Skip]

Unicorn, we want to support you, but there is a requirement that members "do no harm" and try their best to adapt the clinical tools in the healing platform.

We all respect your right to make choices in your life, and at the same time, we don't have the tools to host the approach you are taking here at bpdfamily.

Affecting a silent treatment silent on your married boyfriend, while intervening in his strained relationship with his father and saturating communications with him (planning an intervention), intervening into his marriage (coaching his wife to force bankruptcy and file for divorce), encouraging your 15 year old daughter to maintain a "father / daughter" relationship during this, and asking for contact from his therapist in the name of ":)etaching" is not something we can condone.

This is outside of the charter of Detaching.

We can't host this on the Conflicted Board. Interventions are not a prescribed "cure" or part of recovery in personality disorders. Members have encouraged you in hundreds of posts on Conflicted to not get involved in his marriage, his legal issues, or his therapy. Doing all of these while blocking his communication is inconsistent with the relationship rehabilitation approach authored by Manning, and Fruzetti and reflected in many of the lessons.

We can't host this on the Parenting Board. Setting your 15 (15.75) year old your daughter up with your estranged boyfriend as a conduit and looking glass into your home when his relationship communication has been blocked is putting a young girl in an adult role in unhealthy. Members have be very outspoken.  Setting up an older man who is in the middle of a marriage, family, financial and relationship crisis to be her mentor and father figure is unhealthy - you don't trust him with your heart and well-being, but you trust him with her's?

If at some point you decide to take a different approach to this relationship, you will be welcomed to post. We all grow and change in time.  We all learn.

[unicorn2014]

Ok that is not what I am doing so I will not post about this anymore. Thank you for your time and energy. My ex's father and I are going to be working with NAMI. My ex's father already has a relationship with NAMI for their other son who is schizophrenic. I do not know what my ex's diagnosis is and it is possible he is not BPD. I am going to send you a private message to check in with you about the coping board and my parents and brother.

[unicorn2014]

I think what I am doing is more of a therapeutic separation where I'm willing to get back together if he gets help. I think what I am doing is more taking space. The undecided board had been advising me to do that for months. Today I am finally able to do that and I feel insanely great.

My ex lives in another state so he doesn't pose a threat to my daughter. She actually likes him a lot and chalks it up to stubbornness on his part which is funny to me because she is very stubborn herself!

I think I am getting better.

[Skip]

We're going to lock this one. This link might help with understanding Therapeutic Separation.

Therapeutic Separation - Restarting the Relationship

Sometimes the bad habits of the relationship are so ingrained on a day to day basis that recovering from within the current living situation is nearly impossible. Many couples hang in there hoping for the best and when it doesn't come, end up in a divorce that neither may have really wanted.

There is an alternative - therapeutic separation - members here have had varying levels of success and failure with this. The goal of this workshop is to talk about:

1) When does a therapeutic separation make sense

2) How is best managed

3) What are the tricks and the traps

As an overview and to help start the discussions, I have briefly summarized Therapeutic Separation below:

Goal: To reinvigorate a broken relationship that has been damaged by stress, work, children or other distractions. Involves counseling and both parties seeking to improve the marriage. Also, can serve a way to experience that harsh reality of what a divorce would feel like before jumping directly to divorce. Distinct from a Trial Separation, where the goal is to test out separation, not to renew the relationship.

Term: Three months to one year, although more than six months may lead to increased distance in the relationship.

Structure: The terms of a therapeutic separation are highly flexible and are initiated by the therapist and agreed to by the couple.  The only required terms are that both parties are in solo counseling during the separation and that there is a set end where the couple agrees to come back together.  Therapeutic separation can begin with a period of NC (no contact) to allow both sides to have a break, heal and grow before starting interactions.  After the NC period, the remaining interactions are limited to “dates”, often weekly, where the couple can get together rediscover the positive aspects of their relationship.  Problem solving during dates is discouraged in order to prevent further harm.  The dates are usually followed by joint therapy sessions where communication and negotiation skills can be learned and any problems with the date may be addressed.

Living Arrangements: Couples may choose to have one member move out for the term of the separation, or rent an apartment and take turns switching who lives in the marital residence—especially if children are involved.  However, if the separation turns to a divorce proceeding, the person living in the house at that time will likely be allowed to remain there.

Custody: Custody is negotiated up front and can take any acceptable form. 

Finances: The goal of this type of separation is to come back together, so finances are often agreed to be handled as usual. This should be expressly agreed to however to make sure one spouse does not take this opportunity to clean out the bank accounts.  There are no legal obligations regarding disposal of assets during a therapeutic separation, so anything can happen.

Risks:
-The break caused by the separation may help one the parties disconnect and actually accelerate the end of the relationship.
-A pwBPD may see the separation as abandonment and sink deeper into their condition rather than improve, or act out in unpredictable ways.
-If the TS does not succeed and the couple heads to divorce, any terms agreed to in the separation could have an impact on the divorce settlement.  This could provide critical in custody and home possession issues.

References:
<a href="www.davismintun.com/2007/01/therapeutic-separation-for-couples.html" target="_blank">www.davismintun.com/2007/01/therapeutic-separation-for-couples.html[/url]
<a href="www.marriagemissions.com/to-stay-or-not-to-stay/" target="_blank">www.marriagemissions.com/to-stay-or-not-to-stay/[/url]