My friend encourages me to face my fear and talk to my children about what their going through. I really haven't talked to them much about what is going on. I don't want to bad mouth their mother so I avoid bringing it up. They have dealt with it fairly well but sometimes express how they miss me living there.
overcomer, congrats and it takes courage to take that first step. My uNPDw difference is that she would never say she loves me, she would never apologize and she will always blame me for her anti-social and inappropriate behaviors… and even go around and spread them to my family and friends… yeah, just crazy. Unlike other BPD nons, I don't have to worry about her ending her own life, because she is a Narcissist.
I want to talk about not telling your children. My uNPDw has flat out make us stuff in front my kids and blame me and my family for things that just invented in her head. My 7 year old looked confused. She completes alienate my family, she was a b___ at my mother's 80th birthday and she restricted we could only visit less than a day after traveling 3 hours each way and my sister's family from california came back to east coast for a week. she constantly gave my mom dirty looks and it was very very odd... since we only see my mom like 2 to 3 times a year. She didn't talk to anyone and didn't wish my mom a happy birthday. The strangest thing is she came home and wrote an email explaining that she is only horrible to my mom because I am horrible to her mother. Which can not be further from the truth. We spent every mother's day with her mom and every birthdays. MY birthday is less than a week apart from her mom and her birthday is less than a week away from both of us. She insisted that I should celebrate my birthday with her, meanwhile she celebrate her birthday independently. I pushed back and then she start saying why do I hate her mother and go on full rage. I was like… all I am saying is that I would like to celebrate my birthday and we can celebrate her mother's birthday... if they want to celebrate together since they are mother and daughter, I am fine with that. But it is strange that how she would force me to celebrate with her mother. Needless to say, my wife is extremely controlling and not in a logical way. She gets extremely controlling on things that she irrationally think that they are important. Ok, I just want to paint a picture to let you see that my wife dysregulates in front of our kids quite often, she goes full rage mode and attacks me with nastiest stuff and she breaks all boundaries when she is in that mode. I had no choice, but have to explain to my 7th year old that mom is not all there in the head. Otherwise, if I don't provide a clear line on what is real and what is not, I am so afraid that my kids will grow up in a FOG and complete lost themselves in this PD insanity. If my uNPDw would be able to control herself and not rage in front of the kids, then I wouldn't have to do the explaining. I am not interested in raising a bunch kids who gets so FOG up in her world that they would go on to become PDs themselves.
So my advice is to educate your kids and let them know it is ok to love their mother while acknowledging that she has this issue. No one is perfect and let them know that it just happens that PDs hurts their immediate partners the most and you need to give each other space to make sure everyone will be ok. It is very tough for your son and daughter, I can only imagine for them having to go through dad not at home. that is why I am dealing with my wife's abusiveness because I love my kids. You toughed through so many years and I just hope I will be able to do the same…. there are times, I say to myself, this is getting too abusive and unhealthy, maybe I will have to take that first step.
Best wishes to you and stay tough… I learned that when you are with someone with a PD, there are no right or wrong … you just got to keep your own health as priority and then dealing with it minute by minute... .
