interactions with enabler dad

[Vanilla Sky]

It's been a few weeks that I haven't made contact with my enabler dad. I am still NC with uBPD/uNPD mother (11 months now), and I've been low contact with dad as I realized our interactions were filled with direct or subtle attempts to use FOG. My father was the parent that was able to be loving and have suffered a lot of abuse from my disordered mother. I've been grieving the situation with my mother during this NC period, and I think I only recently started to grasp the reality of my father's issues.

So yesterday I sent him a message and it goes like this:

- Hi dad. How are you doing?
- Hi. I'm fine. I've been waiting - it's been exactly 27 days that I have not heard from you.
- It's good to hear that you are fine, dad. I've been on a rush lately* ~ I'm not on a rush, but being "busy" is one way I found to keep some distance

I wasn't on my best yesterday, so the fact that he seemed to be prepared to reply to me that like made me feel angry. I might be reading too much into this message, but I felt like I was being tested. He used to initiate contact as well, and he hasn't. He was waiting to see.

I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop with him. He and I used to be close and I used to feel good around him. With my decision to remain silent and go on with my life while my mother is not speaking to me (silent treatment), he is the one bringing all the FOG and it seems to be a matter of time for him to resolve his conflict of "mother versus daughter" by scapegoating me.

I am feeling frustrated. I've been sitting with difficult emotions for the past year, going to therapy, dealing with FOG, reading on how this dynamics work and my part on it. And then one message from my father consumes my day.

Thank you for reading this and I would appreciate some reality check.

[madeline7]

Vanilla Sky,
I didn't mean to imply that you are over explaining by saying you are busy, that was short and sweet. It's just the urge to say it. Since it was a message and not a phone call or face to face interaction, a simple glad you are fine may have been a more streamlined response. And the irony is not lost on me that here I am "explaining" my response to you!

[Vanilla Sky]

hi madeleine!

I didn't mean to imply that you are over explaining by saying you are busy, that was short and sweet. It's just the urge to say it.

I agree with your observation, I felt an urge to justify and I took the bait. I see I can JADE in short sentences sometimes 

[Panda39]

 

Hi. I'm fine. I've been waiting - it's been exactly 27 days that I have not heard from you.

Would this be a normal type of reply from your dad?  Would he count days like that?  I'm a little suspicious the part about the days could the communication actually have been with your mom or do you think he was parroting her?

. He used to initiate contact as well, and he hasn't.

  If he is enabling, he could very well be being pressured by your mom here or he could be taking the road of least resistance don't contact you to keep the peace with your mom.

I am feeling frustrated. I've been sitting with difficult emotions for the past year, going to therapy, dealing with FOG, reading on how this dynamics work and my part on it. And then one message from my father consumes my day

Vanilla Sky, it sucks but just sit with the discomfort.  The discomfort is coming from making healthy change in a dysfunctional environment and the pressure your dad (and mom) is bringing to bear trying to force you back into your role in the dysfunction.  Keep doing what you're doing, I know it's not easy but I know you can push through it.

Hang in there,
Panda39

[Harri]

Hi   

Panda said this so well:

Vanilla Sky, it sucks but just sit with the discomfort.  The discomfort is coming from making healthy change in a dysfunctional environment and the pressure your dad (and mom) is bringing to bear trying to force you back into your role in the dysfunction.  Keep doing what you're doing, I know it's not easy but I know you can push through it.

It is so true and very difficult but it gets better.  There will be some low points for us.  Even after a lot of recovery I still have low points like you describe here and both my parents are dead.    Granted they do not happen all that frequently and they are of shorter duration than long ago. 

And then one message from my father consumes my day.

What sort of thoughts are/were you having when this happened?  I am wondering if there is some twisted thinking going on. Twisted thinking is fairly common in those of us who grew up in dysfunction and it is also common in depression.  Check this out and see if is applies.  If not, please disregard. 
Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking - Burns MD   If it turns out you do have some twisted thoughts that are fueling some of your feelings, there is a link at the top of the article to way to untwist your thinking.

 

[Notwendy]

Before I experienced this with my father, I would have been as surprised to read this as you are.

It completely shocked me to realize just how far my father would go with this. Until then, I was a "daddy's girl". I adored my father. I thought we had a good relationship.

I am not close to my mother, but I really wanted my father's approval. My role in the family was to appease her. If she was angry at me, Dad would be angry at me too, and I didn't want him to be angry at me. I became very co-dependent and people pleasing.

I am also my mother's scapegoat child. I did stand up to her. People assume it was me being a rebellious daughter. Nobody knew the real reason behind our difficult relationship and that is that she is abusive to me. Her behavior was a family secret. She blamed me for the difficulties between us, and so I believed her. I wanted to be good enough for her to care about me. I wanted to be good enough for my Dad to care about me. I tried hard to achieve this.

But when my kids approached pre-teen years, my mother began to enlist them as her emotional caretakers and treat them like she treated me. That was my limit. I began to have boundaries with her, to protect them. I assumed my father understood. He knew she was abusive. She was abusive to him too. But when she got angry at me, he jumped right in as rescuer ( right on the triangle). His health began to fail a bit later and I also tried to intervene with how my mother was treating him. I then became the persecutor to her. She painted me black to him, listened in on phone calls when I called. His attitude towards me completely changed.

My mother sees people as either on her side or not her side. I was no on her side. My father basically had two choices. Her or me. He chose her.  I was shocked at how he could discard our relationship like this, his own child. But he did.

I felt like this was a tough choice to be in. Please my parents by allowing my mother to invade my children's boundaries, which to me was a form of abuse, enlist them as her caregivers and basically use them to make herself feel better. Or lose the love and approval I so badly wanted from my father. The answer was a no brainer- I choose my children.

It's sad that to choose yourself, your boundaries, your family- that this is the result- a parent's rejection. As a parent, I want my kids to have emotionally healthy boundaries. However, these dysfunctional family patterns are sometimes generational. I don't think my father meant to hurt me. I think he was just so focused on my mother. Your father is too. However, your choice is different, you want to change this pattern. I wish you strength. Your father is just doing what he knows to do. Please don't take it personally.

[Sandalwood]

Hi Vanilla Sky,
I understand how difficult it is to sit with the hard emotions. In my case the uBPD is my older sister, and my eldest sister has completely sided with her. I used to be very close to both of them. It is heartbreaking to be in a situation like this.

Here is something my T said to me last year, and I constantly remind myself of it. He said that I was going to be uncomfortable with them in my life, or without them. Being with them would be harder, and certainly have more drama, so I would have to learn to accept the discomfort. I choose to be very, very LC and most of the time my life is pretty peaceful.

I hope this is helpful.

[Vanilla Sky]

I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me through this. The questions you all made are much appreciated and I will be getting back here in the next couple of days.  

[TelHill]

It completely shocked me to realize just how far my father would go with this. Until then, I was a "daddy's girl". I adored my father. I thought we had a good relationship.

I am not close to my mother, but I really wanted my father's approval. My role in the family was to appease her. If she was angry at me, Dad would be angry at me too, and I didn't want him to be angry at me. I became very co-dependent and people pleasing.

I am also my mother's scapegoat child. I did stand up to her. People assume it was me being a rebellious daughter. Nobody knew the real reason behind our difficult relationship and that is that she is abusive to me. Her behavior was a family secret.

The family dynamics I have are similar to notwendy. My dad seems to be on my side by agreeing that mom is abusive. I believe it’s a velvet-gloved version of my mom’s rage—having control over my life.  When he is forced to take sides, he take mom’s side.

They especially need care now as they are both elderly and frail. They are following  their old-fashioned conservative Catholic culture  — the widowed daughter sacrifices her life for them by not leaving the house and being raged at.

I made the decision to step away. I deserve a life where I don’t have to account for every minute of my day. Am lucky I do not need an inheritance and own my own place.

Vanilla Sky, am thinking good thoughts for you.

[Vanilla Sky]

Hi Panda39

Would this be a normal type of reply from your dad?  Would he count days like that?  I'm a little suspicious the part about the days could the communication actually have been with your mom or do you think he was parroting her?
If he is enabling, he could very well be being pressured by your mom here or he could be taking the road of least resistance don't contact you to keep the peace with your mom.

This was not a normal type of reply from him. I am sure it was him replying and not my mother because the conversation continued with the "normal" chit chat between us, about a new show he is watching on Netflix - my mom doesn't know what Netflix is. But I've never seen him being infantile like that - waiting to see how long it would take for me to contact him and being "prepared" with the math to reply me once I made contact. I can see him definitely parroting my mother here.

[Vanilla Sky]

Hi harri 

 
What sort of thoughts are/were you having when this happened?

My father told me a few months ago that my mother is unceasing trying to put him against me. I feel this anxiety that he will get to a point where he can't stand the conflict anymore while being told every day horrible things about me, he will go along with her and somehow find comfort by making his mind that I am truly an ungrateful daughter. I have seen that happen to my brother.  I know I am anticipating a lot here. It is this fear of losing that one loving parent and it makes me anxious and sad. At the same time, I am not feeling good around him lately - walking on eggshells and with my guards high, which makes me avoid him.

 
I am wondering if there is some twisted thinking going on. Twisted thinking is fairly common in those of us who grew up in dysfunction and it is also common in depression.  Check this out and see if is applies.  If not, please disregard. 
Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking - Burns MD   If it turns out you do have some twisted thoughts that are fueling some of your feelings, there is a link at the top of the article to way to untwist your thinking.

Thank you for the article. "Personalization and Blame" hit hard for me. Although I feel more capable now to not take what my mother says and blame myself, I am still veeeeery triggered by whatever my father says.  I also took the Depression Test from the link in the article and I scored 41. It's something my T and I are monitoring (sleeping, eating, work, motivation). I feel that I am in one of my lows for more than 3 weeks now. I have a session with her tomorrow, I'll bring this to her attention.

Thank you Harri 

[TelHill]

I don’t know if I was helpful earlier. I just understood this was a recent occurrence & not something from childhood on.

I am glad Harri pointed out the helpful article. Anything is possible, but am guessing dad is reacting emotionally to his bpd wife. I get the same when my mom is in full on rage.  I don’t mean something bad but it looks that way.

Hope it all goes well for you.

[Vanilla Sky]

Notwendy, TellHill, Sandalwood, Harri, Panda39, madeline7,

Thank you so much for joining this thread. I get so many valuable inputs when I post on the board, I am really thankful for that. I had a session with my T yesterday and we talked about the fear of being rejected by my father, the anxiety and sadness that comes with it, and how predictable his behavior is under the circumstances. I need some time to process that and it feels like another mountain to climb, emotionally speaking.

[madeline7]

I feel like a "mountain climber" too, with many peaks and valleys, sometimes I feel like I am finally reaching the top, then an avalanche in the form of a tiny but mighty BPDm knocks me off course. But I keep climbing and  I am focused on continuing to move toward the top, even though it is an uphill climb/battle. Stay strong!

[zachira]

Vanilla Sky,
You are doing everything you can to not be consumed by the latest mean behaviors of your family members. Know that we can never match the intensity of their mean behaviors, and it is normal to feel hurt when being treated badly. The challenge is to be less emotionally overwhelmed in intensity and for length of time when new hurtful treatment happens. Also know we will always hope for a change in their behaviors, because it is normal to want to repair old hurts and have healthy loving relationships with family members, especially our parents. I admire and respect all the work you have done to manage the relationships with your family members.

[Harri]

My father told me a few months ago that my mother is unceasing trying to put him against me. I feel this anxiety that he will get to a point where he can't stand the conflict anymore while being told every day horrible things about me, he will go along with her and somehow find comfort by making his mind that I am truly an ungrateful daughter. I have seen that happen to my brother.  I know I am anticipating a lot here. It is this fear of losing that one loving parent and it makes me anxious and sad. At the same time, I am not feeling good around him lately - walking on eggshells and with my guards high, which makes me avoid him.

Yeah, this hurts.  I hear you on this.  It hurts when people turn against us, especially a parent or loved family member.  The only thing I have to offer, other than empathy and support, is radical acceptance (RA).  Are you familiar with that?  While it does not make things hurt less, it can go a long way in terms of helping us accept the things we can not change and accept the feelings we have.  Here is a link to an article about RA that I don't think many people read but I find it very helpful in terms of understanding what RA really is:  Radical Acceptance - Marsha Linehan PhD  We/I tend to talk a lot about RA without really explaining it.  This article does a much better job than I ever could though.  See if it helps and as always, it it does not resonate, leave it.

Your father is who he is and he may go along with your mom on this.  Again, RA does not make the pain of that possibility go away.  RA is a way to look at the situation and help with the feelings you have.  It helps to process them in a more healthy way.  When we know what we are dealing with we can work with it better right?  I don't know about you but I have a tendency to go down some pretty wacky rabbit holes when it comes to this stuff.  Re-reading this helps me.  I hope it helps you.

"Personalization and Blame" hit hard for me. Although I feel more capable now to not take what my mother says and blame myself, I am still veeeeery triggered by whatever my father says.  I also took the Depression Test from the link in the article and I scored 41. It's something my T and I are monitoring (sleeping, eating, work, motivation). I feel that I am in one of my lows for more than 3 weeks now. I have a session with her tomorrow, I'll bring this to her attention.

When I feel triggered I usually have some twisted thinking going on inside my head.  The same thing about personalization and blame that help with your mom apply to your father as well.  Often, because our non/'better' parents behavior is less obviously dysfunctional it is harder to see and accept especially when/if our relationship with them is stronger or cherished.  For context, it may be helpful to look at him as being as dysfunctional as your mom.   The dysfunction may manifest differently, but his treatment of you is also not healthy.

This is really hard stuff to work through VS.  You are not alone and have a support network here of people who get it and have been through it or are going through it.  You also have a T you are working with.  More importantly, you are strong and you can get through this.   

How did your therapy session go VS?

[Notwendy]

I feel this anxiety that he will get to a point where he can't stand the conflict anymore while being told every day horrible things about me, he will go along with her and somehow find comfort by making his mind that I am truly an ungrateful daughter. I have seen that happen to my brother.  I know I am anticipating a lot here. It is this fear of losing that one loving parent and it makes me anxious and sad.


I understand your fear. This is what actually happened for me. For someone to co-exist with my mother in any form of peaceful coexistence, one has to buy in to her thinking. To do otherwise would create a certain cognitive dissonance. It's one reason I haven't tried to explain myself to the relatives she painted me black to. One of us would have to be a liar. We can't both be right. Since they are more connected to her, I saw no good in trying to explain away the things she said to them.

How does one deal with this? It was hurtful. I had a hard time understanding why my father would choose to go along with her. My mother has an insidious way of casting doubt with someone. She doesn't just come out with a big lie. She tells little ones, ones that may not be outrageous- just enough to cast doubt. It's the series of them that leaves one vulnerable to the big ones.

When my father was ill and I visited him, he was quick to get angry at me. I limited my time around them because my mother was emotionally abusive to me. I couldn't handle it. My father was seriously ill, and I was grieving the impending loss. He was the only parent I felt was a parent to me. I couldn't handle my mother's behavior and I didn't want to make my father angry. So that opened the door for her to tell him I didn't visit because I didn't care.

She has even made cruel comments about my father thinking I didn't care, after his death I told her I didn't want to discuss him with her. I have kept that boundary. There's no point in this discussion. I did care about him whether they thought so or not.

How do I deal with any of this? I believe truth prevails. I have tried to be civil and ethical as much as I can. My mother's relatives have seen enough now that they have begun to doubt her lies. Although it felt like my father chose to discard his relationship with me, this could not have happened unless he chose to discard his own truth and reality - and I believe he did in order to keep the peace. I don't blame him. He lived with her. As much as we find our mother's to be difficult, being with them all the time must be tougher. He did what he had to do.

But I don't believe he didn't love me and that he didn't know the truth somehow. I believe your father knows the bigger picture. Whatever he decides to do, hold on to this. Truth prevails. It's going to take some faith on your part, faith in Truth, faith in God, or faith in who you are, but whatever you have faith in, hold on to that.

[zachira]

I hear great sadness and worry about how your mother is trying to turn your dad against you. I have learned over the years of having so many family members with BPD and NPD, that I do better most of the time not correcting the lies family members are spreading about me. Notwendy is right that if she corrected the lies her mother tells about her, than that means someone is lying, and this puts the person hearing the lies in the position of having to figure out who is telling the truth. I think the person who lies first and constantly repeats the lies is likely to believed by many people, though there are other people who recognize that the bad things most people say about others usually are more about the person doing the badmouthing, especially when badmouthing others is something that person is doing constantly.
If you do decide to correct any of the lies your mother is telling your father about you, I would carefully choose one message to repeat over and over again to him like: Some of the things mom says about me are untrue, and I do really care about the family, love you more than you will ever know.