I believe my DIL is BPD

[Mom2forBPD]

Hello to everyone.

"My extended family consists of my son, his wife who struggles with BPD, and my granddaughter, and I love them all dearly.

My daughter-in-law sends hurtful messages about me being a bad mother and claims that my son has nowhere to turn to about 4-5 times a year. My son remains silent, and it seems like his communication is constantly monitored. He feels isolated and has drifted apart from almost all of his friends.

Whenever my daughter-in-law begins sending possessive and hurtful messages, I block her, but her messages tend to follow the same pattern. I want to find a way to support my son in dealing with his wife's BPD."

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

[Sancho]

Hello Mum2forBPD
I am so glad you have come here because there are many here who struggle with their child's partner who is either diagnosed BPD or has lots of BPD traits.

It's interesting that the tirade occurs 3 or 4 times a year. Many people have a constant negative barrage thrown at them. It's also good that you don't engage in trying to defend yourself or argue the point.

It's common for someone with BPD to isolate their partner - or their child - from others. I think there are two reasons for this:

The first is that someone with BPD is constantly trying to avoid intense abandonment. So just normal interactions your son might have with a friend is a threat in the mind of the BPD partner. It is painful to see your son being isolated in this way.

The other reason is that the BPD person can have such a poor sense of self that they identify as 'one' with the partner - or child.

It is a good thing that there is still contact and that these tirades haven't ended in a 'cut off'. I think learning about BPD and how to engage is possibly the best thing you can do to enable you to keep the door open for your extended family. You have done extremely well to have managed this so far, so I hope you can engage here to get some different views on how other's deal with their DIL situation.

Every situation of course is individual. Not every response can be useful in different circumstances but I have found some wonderful information and suggestions here that have helped me cope over many years.

Thanks for posting and I hope you will post again if/when you want to discuss any particular situation that is happening for you.