How to help my husband deal with a BPD Mom

[tontoy]

Hello I am new to this board but so glad I found it.  My MIL has not been diagnosed with BPD but  we truly believe she has it. I have read several books about it and my husband and I have been to counseling to try and help him and help our marriage.  My MIL grew up with a verbally abusive father and a mother who we believe also had mental illness.  She had my husband when she was 19 and my sister in law when she was 17. My sister in law also has mental illness and has four children and lost custody of two of them. 

My MIL has been verbally abusive to my husband his whole life.  She got on drugs three times during his childhood and his grandparents raised him most of his life.  His mother has always tried to control him and he has always had ups and downs with her.  But since we have gotten married she has gotten worse.  She is also a foster parent now and she verbally and mentally abuses those children.  When we witnessed it first hand it sent my husband into a tailspin. He told his mother it was wrong and she is doing to them the same thing she did him.  We later hotlined her and he got into a huge fight with her over the phone about it because she felt like we betrayed her. He sent her numerous text messages about how she made him feel his whole life and how she was selfish and only cares about herself and the money she gets from being a foster mother.  He told him to go f$$k himself and he was stupid and dumb and i was fat and stupid and never to come over her house again. 

It has been a long road. he has not spoken to his mom in over a year.  She has sent me very nasty messages and I told her what she did and how she made him feel.  My husband is now telling anyone who will listen about how is mom really is.  She also has taken money from his grandparents when they died and my husband is very upset about that because he loved his grandparents. 

My question is, how do children of BPD Parents cope over time? My husband said he is okay not talking to her and that he feels a weight has been lifted because she no longer controls him but he talks about her almost everyday.  He wants to have a relationship with her but he wants mutual respect and he wants her to apologize and that will never happen.  He even sent her a text on christmas saying he forgives her and he wants to talk to her but they have to have mutual respect for each other.  She  never responded to the messsage but she lied to a mutual friend and told her that she did respond. 

She constantly lies about who she is and what she has done in her life.  She lives in a world of complete denial and I understand that and how the illness works but I just wonder will my husband really be okay with not talking to her. I know it will take him some time and hopefully he wont talk about her as much but 2016 was hell because his sister defends her mother and calls us liars and his sister even came to my house to try an fight me because we told the truth about her mother. It is just a huge mess and I know my husband misses her but she will never apologize for what she has done and i dont see her changing at all because to admit that she wasnt a good mother would mean she is guilty and that would shatter her perfect world and she will never do that.   

Thanks in advance

[Kwamina]

Hi tontoy

Your MIL indeed sounds like a difficult person and also someone who had a very difficult childhood of her own. It is sad that people who were abused, sometimes end up being abusers as well and continuing the cycle of conflict and dysfunction.

Whether your husband will be okay with not talking to her, will likely also depend on how he uses his time to heal from the abuse he endured. I am glad you are reaching out for support and advice to help you navigate this situation. You mention that you and your husband have been to counseling to try and help him and your marriage. Are you still getting counseling?

Your husband says he's okay not talking to his mother, yet talks about her every day which indicates to me that he likely still has some healing to do which makes sense after a lifetime of verbal abuse. Has your husband also taken other steps to try and heal himself?

Welcome to  bpdfamily

[tontoy]

Thank you for the response.  We have been to counseling several times last year but we will start going again next month.  He realizes that he has some of the same verbal abusive traits that his mom has and he is learning how to handle his anger and how to talk to people when he is angry instead of attacking below the belt.

I know every person is different and some people go NC for years, I just wondered if that was normal.  I have never experienced anything like this in my life. I grew up with two loving parents but my MIL seems to be pure evil.  It seems like she doesnt care about anyone but herself.  And she will tell you in a heartbeat she only cares about the check when it comes to the foster kids. Her boyfriend feeds them and takes care of them, she only collects the money. It is just so sad to me.

[Mister Watson]

Hello, tontoy! Perhaps I can offer you some advice, regarding your question?

I will start off by saying this.
I am eighteen years old. I graduated last June, am currently attending my first year of college, and, overall, feel more at peace.
This, fortunately, all happened because of a decision I made three years ago, to cut all contact with my mother. She does not have my phone number, has not seen me in my place of work, and has no way to contact me regarding social media. I, quite truthfully, could not be any happier.
Cutting contact with her not only has given me a chance to better myself as a person, as well as to heal from the abuse, but, it has also given me the opportunity to see her illness for what it is, and to know, personally, that she can't help this.
I, too, forgive her for what she has done. However, I still wish to stay away from her.
If she does not wish to seek out help for her illness, she will not change. We cannot force someone who has been diagnosed with BPD to seek out help.

Give it time. That is the best thing I have done regarding a family member who has BPD. Counseling will most definitely help in the meantime, but realize, that cutting contact will most certainly help in the long run, in the sense that you can heal, as well as look at the situation with a clearer mind. It will be tough, but a lot of things are.
Talking helps. Thinking helps. You and your husband are good people, I do not doubt that. You both will make it through this

I wish you a wonderful year.

[Kwamina]

Thanks for answering my questions! Great that the two of you will continue to get help

Many children of BPD parents find themselves dealing with BPD-like traits in their adult lives. Often these are behaviors they learned/copied from their disordered parent. Fortunately, through hard work these behaviors can also be unlearned or at least better managed. I think it is very positive that your husband is able to recognize these traits in himself and is trying to develop new and more constructive ways of dealing with his anger.

Going NC and maintaining NC are always highly personal decisions. Sometimes to protect their own well-being, members have found it necessary to distance themselves from their BPD family-members. This does not necessarily have to last forever though. However members move forward, I think the most important thing is that they use the time to work on healing and growing. Ultimately, the most important thing is not what our disordered family-members do, but what we do and how we respond to them (or not respond to them).

It can definitely be very difficult to understand why people with BPD behave the way they do. The reality is that BPD is quite a serious disorder and people with BPD suffer from distorted thinking and perceptions which often becomes manifest in quite disturbing behavior. It isn't necessarily that people with BPD do not love other people, another way of looking at it is that as a result of their disorder they are unable to express their love in a loving manner. It is also so that many people with BPD have a very unstable sense of self which makes it very hard to have any real close and loving relationships with anyone.

[tontoy]

Thank you all so much for the feedback.  I will continue to try and find ways to help my husband heal from this.  I made the mistake of trying to rush him through the process by telling him he needs to stop talking about her and let it go, but now I see how hard that can be. She has controlled him his whole life and now that he has broken free everyone is taking sides.  His father and other family members have always known that she had a mental illness but no one ever said anything. They are on my husbands side. But my sister in law still lies for her mother and doesnt want to face the truth.   My MIL doesnt have many friends and she doesnt let anyone in to see who she really is. 

Do people with BPD feel bad about themselves?

My MIL barely finished high school and has a low aptitude and every time she has sent me mean text messages she always talks about me having a degree and thinking I am so smart and better than her. For months I never responded in a mean way, I would let her comments slide off and she constantly called me fat, and she knew we were trying to have a child and she would constantly say mean things like I am too fat to have a baby and her son is a dummy and too stupid to have kids and we are evil and all kinds of mean things and one day I told her off. I hit below the belt and since then she hasnt said anything else to me.  I have a 16 year old daughter from my 1st marriage and I told her that while she was giving blow jobs in the crack house for drugs I was raising my child and doing what a good mother should for her child. I told her she failed her children and her grandchildren and she didnt sow any good seeds into her kids life.  I showed my husband the text and he was glad I sent it. I felt bad about it, but she pushed me over the edge.  I no longer talk to her and I have learned not to let her bother me because it seems that she really hates herself.

My husband has also sent her text about he she made him feel and how evil and mean she is.  It seems that since he has told other people about her being on drugs and other things about her past she has really gotten angry.  She has disowned him and no longer wants to talk to him.  I think it is because he has exposed her for who she really is. 

[Kwamina]

Do people with BPD feel bad about themselves?

Based on the research literature, it seems that people with BPD often deal with intense feelings of shame, guilt and self-hatred. They however often lack constructive coping mechanisms to deal with these negative emotions and as a result resort to less constructive coping mechanisms such as projection and splitting. Are you familiar with the concepts of projection and splitting?

My MIL barely finished high school and has a low aptitude and every time she has sent me mean text messages she always talks about me having a degree and thinking I am so smart and better than her. For months I never responded in a mean way, I would let her comments slide off and she constantly called me fat, and she knew we were trying to have a child and she would constantly say mean things like I am too fat to have a baby and her son is a dummy and too stupid to have kids and we are evil and all kinds of mean things and one day I told her off. I hit below the belt and since then she hasnt said anything else to me.

I understand your frustration with her behavior. To help you better deal with any future hostile communications you might receive from her, I encourage you to explore the so-called BIFF technique:
Responding to hostile e-mails, texts etc. - Keep it BIFF: Brief, Informative, Friendly (well at least not unfriendly as in civil), Firm

I hope this helps. Take care

The Board Parrot