An overlooked affair

[thanes]

Hi,

My BPD/NPDw whom I have been having less contact with at home to avoid emotional and verbal abuse sent me the following link: www.foundationrestoration.org/2013/02/the-overlooked-affair/

In other words, since I won't join my wife in rejecting my daughter and making her a scapegoat, and she absolutely will make no attempt to build a relationship with her daughter, I am being accused of having sort of an affair with my daughter since I get along with her and am trying to help her deal with her relationship with her mom.

Has anyone else been accused of having an affair with the child that is the current scapegoat? Is it possible I am guilty? or am I being punished for not being my wife's flying monkey and not pushing away and rejecting my daughter?

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

[thanes]

Hi,

My BPD/NPDw whom I have been having less contact with at home to avoid emotional and verbal abuse sent me the following link: www.foundationrestoration.org/2013/02/the-overlooked-affair/

In other words, since I won't join my wife in rejecting my daughter and making her a scapegoat, and she absolutely will make no attempt to build a relationship with her daughter, I am being accused of having sort of an affair with my daughter since I get along with her and am trying to help her deal with her relationship with her mom.

Has anyone else been accused of having an affair with the child that is the current scapegoat? Is it possible I am guilty? or am I being punished for not being my wife's flying monkey and not pushing away and rejecting my daughter?

[Lollypop]

Hi there Thanes

Welcome!

I'm really sad to hear about your troubles. My eldest DS26 has caused a lot of problems to my relationship with my H. It's so important to be singing from the same song sheet but it's hard to actually understand what that looks like through the confusion and emotional turmoil we found ourselves in.

Has anyone else been accused of having an affair with the child that is the current scapegoat? Is it possible I am guilty? or am I being punished for not being my wife's flying monkey and not pushing away and rejecting my daughter?

I've actually wondered myself why I put my DS and his problems above everything else in our lives. I did this for years. I've learnt that my mistake was putting more effort in than my DS was into his life. Also, my H was not only exasperated with my DS I think he was also resentful. I felt it was my job to fix everybody. My DS and my H have always had a difficult relationship. I placed myself in the middle and hindered the two of them working things out.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I understand.

Dx brought me to the forum. Being here has saved my family. That's a big and powerful statement but it's absolutely true. We have a better relationship, despite the problems.

I got myself armed up with knowledge and the skills I needed to more effectively support my adult son. I encourage you to read as much as you can about BPD - top right hand of this page. "When we know better, we do better".

How old is your daughter and is she in therapy?
Are you all living together?

LP

[thanes]

We're all living together. I'm trying to get my daughter into therapy, and trying to find out what I can do to help my wife, or at least minimize the emotional damage she does to my daughter and her younger siblings. The damage has already been done to the oldest.

[Lollypop]

Hi Thanes

I can see you're in a tough situation. It'd be good to get a better understanding of your situation if you can share a little more if you feel that you can.

We all have our own story, each of us is unique but we all have BPD and mental health disorders in our family in common. This is a safe place to vent and sharing can really help not only you but others can see how they relate to your particular situation and then can respond. It's been my life saver.

Do you suspect that both your wife and daughter have BPD?

Is your daughter resistant to therapy? How old is she?

LP

[incadove]

Has anyone else been accused of having an affair with the child that is the current scapegoat? Is it possible I am guilty? or am I being punished for not being my wife's flying monkey and not pushing away and rejecting my daughter?

To answer that question - yes, strangely it may sound, but in both directions.  That is, I feel that first H had an inappropriate emotional connection with dd (adopted at an older age, and also we were separated at the time - long story) which deeply disturbed me when we moved back together, then I did!  I know for sure that I did, and I acknowledged it to both H and dd (though I should have more quickly).  The thing is when the spousal connection is not strong, and BPD is extremely loving and validating and sensitive to a person's needs, but also has a lot of needs and wants to be put first, this is a dynamic that is very possible and can be extremely damaging and painful to all concerned - both spouses and dd. 

I think that if you are trying to live as husband and wife, even if your wife is npd/BPD, you have to put spouse first as the number one emotional connection and work things out with them, which can be extremely difficult.  My H was abandoned and traumatized as a child and absolutely would not go to counselling, but once dd's moved out we were able to work on our relationship which has improved.  It is still often destabilized by one or the other - which is not their fault!  They have a very painful time too.  So it takes sort of a consistent honest and open work, to maintain the priority of relationships while being empathetic and supportive to dd's and its hard as hell.  But I think it helps to try.