Help S/16 w/ BPD mom - now attracted to BPD GF - what to do? How to help?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Ok - feeling a bit devastated today.  Found out my strong, dynamic, confident son is attracted to beautiful emotional passionate girls like his mom.  Last night he told me his GF is super clingy, jealous, and self harming and it is stressing him out - and my stomach dropped.  He is attracted to dysfunctional girls too.  How do I break this destructive cycle?  How do I teach him he doesn’t want a relationship with someone like his quiet HF BPD mom without bashing his mom?  I don’t want him to end up like me, and yet he has likely already been “programmed” in the family environment as he is 16yo.  I am reprogramming myself - but what do I do for him?  How can I help him?  Since this board is for kids of BPD - What would you want to hear - what would work for you if your parent approached you in a situation like mine?  I can’t bash on the girl he loves either - I just want to scream run!

[Outdorenthusiast]

Ok - feeling a bit devastated today.  Found out my strong, dynamic, confident son is attracted to beautiful emotional passionate girls like his mom.  Last night he told me his GF is super clingy, jealous, and self harming and it is stressing him out - and my stomach dropped.  He is attracted to dysfunctional girls too.  How do I break this destructive cycle?  How do I teach him he doesn’t want a relationship with someone like his quiet HF BPD mom without bashing his mom?  I don’t want him to end up like me, and yet he has likely already been “programmed” in the family environment as he is 16yo.  I am reprogramming myself - but what do I do for him?  How can I help him?  Since this board is for kids of BPD - What would you want to hear - what would work for you if your parent approached you in a situation like mine?  I can’t bash on the girl he loves either - I just want to scream run!

[Notwendy]

I think you are wise to keep quiet about the girl, as the Romeo and Juliet story is based on the tendency for two teens to bond together when parents voice disapproval. I understand the concern.  At 16 it's unlikely this is going to be his "forever" person and the fact that she is stressing him out is a lesson.

My focus with my kids is to encourage them to pay attention to their feelings. This is a reflection of their boundaries. If they feel stressed around someone, that person isn't for them. This could be a learning opportunity for your son. Without being negative about the girl, you can validate his feelings saying something like "I am glad you can confide in me about that, I think your feelings about this are important". What you want for him is to have the kind of boundaries that would help him avoid getting serious with any dysfunction, not just this one girl.

Hopefully this will be a temporary learning experience for him. At16, he's not going to propose to anyone. I  assume you have had the "talk" with him contraception, him taking responsibility ( not relying on the girl alone) and access to it. Ideally you'd not want him to take that risk but teens don't always make mature decisions.

Beyond contraception, mentioning that getting close physically could include  more emotional issues than he wants to get involved with could help him decide how involved he wants to be. Teens have probably heard it all from social media so rather than lecture him, you can share your own stories of being a teen ager ( not TMI ) but something he could relate to like your own dating experiences. "yes, I had a GF like that son too. Let me know if you have questions". Your bonding with him and being a safe person to talk to is valuable. Let him know you have confidence in him to make the right decision and are there to talk if he needs to.

[NarcsEverywhere]

I am not a parent, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but you can't really force it. I think, you know, just explaining the down sides of it all can help. Also, setting an example of healthy relationships, both to yourself, him, and if you have a girlfriend or whatever would probably help.

I know that I still ended up attracted to the wrong people, almost out of habit, and instinct, even though I loved myself a ton, it's hard to break those habits, because it's ingrained into you, by your family dynamics, at a young age. I think he might choose to suffer a lot, before he learns, unfortunately.

[kells76]

Hey Outdorenthusiast;

It's so difficult when we watch our kids become deeply interested in people and activities that we fear are unsafe/unhealthy, whether physically or emotionally.

Like Notwendy mentions, validating that he was open with you and shared with you is a great start. It's a huge positive that he didn't feel like he had to hide that relationship or the dynamics from you. Really good stuff that he knows he can tell you the bigger picture.

One approach I've taken is to remind myself that staying non-reactive (or, at least, minimally reactive) and curious is a good way to keep the kids talking about these areas that I see as hazardous, instead of them clamming up "because kells76 overreacts when I talk about XYZ". For example, SD14 has wanted to go to some events coming up where drug use is pretty pervasive, and she'd be going with a family we don't know (or, ugh, what we do know about them isn't great). So, we've talked with her about "hmmm, well, we want to say Yes to you doing as much as possible, but sometimes, when it's a safety concern, we might have to say No. So, how would you navigate it if someone offered you drugs there?" We make it about problem solving instead of "you're not going and that's final". Opening a door to her having to explain how she'd cope with the situation, puts the work on her to justify her going, instead of us being the bad guys and that pushing her to hide that she's going anyway.

Anyway, we had those discussions about "how would you handle it..." a few months ago. A few days ago, we were talking about one of her friends that we let her hang out with a couple of weeks back. I was commenting that it was odd that the mom, who I just met, was instantly telling me about how safe their home was ("We lock up the Nyquil"), and then SD14 told me that the friend used to use drugs and was getting clean... except this friend had another friend offering her drugs, and Friend was thinking about accepting, to keep the friendship. When SD14 hung out with Friend, Friend offered SD14 drugs. I asked SD14 how she navigated that, and she said Friend was cool with her saying No and wasn't pushy. I asked how the friendship felt after that, and SD14 said it seemed OK, she was more concerned with Friend's health. I am hoping that because my fear (of SD14 getting hooked on drugs to keep friends) didn't dominate the conversation, that means that SD14 will sense that she can keep sharing these things.

So I guess all that is to say -- consider keeping the communication door open with your son by working through "what do you think you would do if XYZ" type questions, where you give him opportunities to share his problem-solving ideas with you, and you listen and reflect back in a low-reaction, curious way: "Yeah, it makes sense that if she tells you she's cutting herself, you'd feel stressed -- I wonder what it'd be like if you told the school counselor about that?" If the work is put back on him, he may have some mental "aha!" moments about what he wants.

Also consider having him invite her over to your place. I know, it might be stressful, but that'd do a couple of things: give you eyes on the actual dynamic, and communicate to S16 that (again, as Notwendy mentioned) we don't hide relationships. Also, it might be eye-opening for S16 to watch how his GF interacts with you and the family. Maybe he'll see a contrast, or interaction, that helps him make a decision.

This is the hardest stuff. We'll be here for you.

[livednlearned]

It's a good sign that your son is willing to confide in you.

Are you together with his mom?

Your son probably didn't receive a whole lot of emotional validation. He probably learned to take care of his mom's emotional needs.

It probably won't seem like a lot because it can take years, but I would start with hard-core emotional validation, especially validating questions. It's a way to build up the shaky self he probably has from his childhood.

You Don't Have To Make Everything All Better by the Lundstroms has a great section on how to ask validating questions.

"How did it feel when she said that?"
"That sounds awful. I can relate. How did you feel?"
"What kind of support feels best right now?"

Like that.

I had to earn my son's trust and it took some time for us to get there.

A week ago S21 said, "I don't think a lot of kids have a relationship like this with their parent." He was talking about trust.

It is much easier to validate a child who does not have BPD. Emotional validation is how you build and earn trust. It communicates to them that their emotions are real and valid, and that you trust they can not only can identify them, they're strong enough to survive them.

If you grew up with a BPD family member and/or were married to someone with BPD, chances are your child is starved for validation.

Something else that helped my son is counseling, if yours is open to it. Eventually, we drifted into something kind of interest and probably a bit unorthodox. S21's sessions were always the last of the day. His therapist could come out into the waiting area to chat and that would turn into a session with all three of us. Some of the most powerful breakthroughs happened during those impromptu sessions. In retrospect, I wish someone had told me how impactful it would be to do sessions with my son earlier.

If your son is open to counseling, and open to family counseling with you at some point, that could help accelerate things for him.

You may have to meet him where he's at and be vulnerable and honest. "It's painful for me to see you go through this. I'm going to be honest, I haven't faced this before and I'm feeling a bit out of my depth. When things like that happen, things I don't know how to handle, I turn to people who can help, like a therapist. If you're willing, I'll find someone and we can figure out how to do this together."

I can't remember where I read this, whether it was in Bill Eddy's books or somewhere else, but it was something along the lines of meeting your teen where he is, and then being honest about how it's your first time dealing with something like that. Maybe it was in one of the Love and Logic books ...

I think it worked with my son because he didn't want to be lied to (e.g. pretending I had all the answers) and he didn't want to be treated like a kid (e.g. tell him the truth, adults don't always know everything) and yet I reassured him that I was there with some skills that worked in other situations that I could lead the way with.

If someone told me 10 years ago that there was a silver lining to having a BPD co-parent, I would never believe them. But in some ways, despite not wanting a broken family and dysfunctional father, I can see that we make it out of the woods together, probably closer than we would've been otherwise. Still some healing to do, and S21 has other issues, but trust that you can help your son heal. Be open to learning about your own emotions, too. It's ok to be vulnerable (with boundaries) with our kids.

[Couscous]

I'm so sorry to hear this Outdoorenthusiast but I would like to encourage you to not sink into despair and resign yourself to the situation. Since she is self-harming this means that the relationship is destructive, so you absolutely have the right and even obligation to "meddle" (very carefully), although I don't recommend you doing this without professional help and I second LNL's suggestion family counseling. I also recommend that you check out some Al-Anon meetings for parents, or Family Anonymous meetings if they have any in your area. I think you will find it very beneficial for you to be able to connect with other parents who are facing very similar challenges with their kids.

I have found the information on this parenting website to be pretty good in general and they have some suggestions on what do in situations like this: https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/i-really-dont-like-my-teens-boyfriend-girlfriend/

I wish you all the best as you deal with this challenging situation.