My wife, my uBPD mother-in-law and me (more detail)

[AJC]

While not yet formally diagnosed, my uBPD mother-in-law [MIL] has all the hallmarks of BPD, but also has a knee injury which affects her mobility. That injury occurred in 1997 and almost resulted in her death, and my wife who was in her early teens at the time was deeply traumatized by the experience.

My wife was parentified from the age of 14; she was basically responsible for raising her three younger siblings while her mother attended university. They have been homeless numerous times in their life, and only since we've been married have I been able to provide a stable home for my wife. The toll that has taken on my wife has been terrible - "unschooled" (home schooled without sufficient parental supervision), anxiety/PTSD, hormonal problems, low self-esteem, inability to enforce boundaries. To address the psychological damage of her upbringing, my wife has been in therapy for 5 years, and to and intellectual level, it seems to have worked - she now see's what's gone on and can identify the behavior at least. However my wife still has limited ability to form and place strong boundaries when it comes to her mother, and to a lesser extent her siblings.


My mother-in-law [MIL] has mooched off other people - friends and family for about 30 years, ruining a number of lives along the way.

Before I knew what was really going on with her family, I sent my wife (GF/fiance at the time) and [MIL] hundreds of dollars a month every month to help them make ends meet . I did this for a period of about 10 years as I knew my wife was working full time to support her family and at school full time and I thought her mothers circumstances were a lot more extreme than they actually are. The more I got to know my [MIL], the more I could see that her circumstances are mostly self-inflicted. She and her family have been homeless - motels, shelters, living in their vehicles off and on until my wife was 16. At that point, a family friend started sending my [MIL] enough money to rent a house. This continued until the family friend could not afford to keep sending money, at which point my wife and her entire family moved in with him. After we got married, her mother and her two youngest siblings stayed with the family friend until early 2012 - at that point, the family fried had lost his house due the expense and repair costs from the damage my wife's family were incurring.

After we were engaged, my wife confided in me that her mother had taken numerous credit cards out in her name, running up tens of thousands in debt. I later found out that she had done the same to my wifes aunt, as well as other people. She has refused and/or given up getting on welfare, instead using what money she was being give to set up two failed businesses, and has refused to look for any work due to her disability.

Since our engagement and marriage, my [MIL] has become increasingly passive-aggressive and cold towards me. Early on in our marriage, my [MIL] made some very pointed comments to me to my face in my wife's presence, spoken behind my back to my wife while telling me a different story and vice-versa with my wife and I. She has admitted to a variety of different tactics (crying, cold shouldering, gaslighting) to us both to get what she wants and actually has taken some delight in seeing our reactions to her "successes".

That's a brief overview of the history - it only skims the surface, but reading this forum, some of it is very similar to other stories on this forum.

So, since we've been married, the situation with my [MIL] have been getting steadily worse.

After the family friend I mentioned above lost his home in February 2012 - he's now renting a one bedroom place 2 hours north of where we live -  my [MIL] and my wife's 2 youngest siblings (brother-in-law [BIL] and adult sister-in-law [SIL]) have been living in our 2 bedroom apartment. At the time, my wife and I agreed to take Her youngest sibling (my [BIL] who was 16 at the time and more of a son to my wife than a sibling) and to make the transition for him as easy as possible, we agreed that my [MIL] and [SIL] could stay with us for 2 weeks while my [BIL] was getting settled in.

That 2 week period ended up being 4 months of trashing our apartment, running up bills, going to the beach rather than contributing to the running of our home. So together, we told my [MIL] and [SIL] that the settling in period had long since passed and it was in everyone's interests that they branch out on their own - we did this about 3 weeks before the date we gave them to leave. The only thing we asked was that my [MIL] tell my [BIL] that they had decided to move on and that he'd be able to move with them once they were set up. They agreed and we left the situation at that. On moving day, as my [MIL] was leaving, she told my [BIL] that we were kicking them out and that maybe he could get us to change our mind, and left us to deal with the aftermath. We were devastated... .in hindsight, we should have known better, but to this date I can't believe a parent would do that to their child. In the time that they left our apartment, they returned and stayed overnight without our permission one occasion, and my [MIL] instructed my [SIL] to enter through our patio to get something because my wife had told her it was okay to do so - which turned out to be untrue.

My [MIL] and [SIL] hadn't found a place by the time they had left, they stayed in a motel for a week with money we had given them, and then lived out of their car for about 6 weeks, until my [MIL] calls my wife asking to meet. In that meeting, my [MIL] admitted that they were living out of the car, and they were finding it difficult to cope, and if we'd let them move back in, they'd make sure that things would improve, that they'd both find work and use the time to find somewhere else to live. My wife and I spoke about it at length, and drew up a lease of sorts with rules of the house and clearly laying out our expectations of both my [MIL] and [SIL] - including being more respectful of our home, our property, and being respectful and polite to my wife and I at all times. We made it clear to them that if they failed to do so, they would have to leave and would not be coming back. My [MIL] and [SIL] agreed and signed the lease and they moved back in.

To monitor their behavior and progress, my wife held regular family meetings with them and they kept a log of the social assistance resources they had contacted. My [SIL] really knuckled down - getting into school and getting a job. However, after my wife started back in school, the family meetings stopped and after a few months, my [MIL] started to behave even worse than before. She had become increasingly disrespectful and passive-aggressive towards me, attempting to manipulate my wife, being reckless with our property, while doing little to stabilize their own living situation. Things came to a head when my [MIL] started to reengage with my [BIL]s father - someone who had been both abusive and threatening to my wife as she was growing up and physically abusive towards my [MIL]. This greatly upset my wife, and we told my [MIL] under no circumstances was she to have contact with him under our roof. She refused, and arranged to send my [BIL] to meet and stay with his father in a different state for a couple of weeks. My wife was devastated, and that was the end of the line for me, we haven't spoken since. Our lease on our apartment was expiring a month after my [BIL] returned, at which point we would be moving and under no circumstances was she moving with us. We told our [SIL] that she was welcome to stay with us, but that would only be without my [MIL]. My [SIL] told us she understood but was not going to leave my [MIL].

After our [BIL] returned, we found a new place and started moving, finishing our move about a week before the end of our lease. whereas my [MIL] and [SIL] stayed in the apartment until about an hour an hour before the leasing manager came to change the locks. That was at the end of April of this year and we vowed that my [MIL] was not to stay with us again.


My wife, my [BIL] and I had settled in to our new apt pretty well. There were some ups and downs with her sibling - typical teenager stuff, but he also has some rather right-wing views which are grating from time to time, and he suffers from depression, but we cope ok and I am thankful that I have been able to provide a more stable environment for him and my wife. In the moths proceeding our move, my wife was completely ignored by my [MIL] - no calls on birthdays, complete ignorance if they met at the grocery store - all very hurtful to my wife, especially after all she had given to look after her mother and family. We knew they were living in their car again, but they refused to confirm that was the case or where they were staying. They would meet with my [BIL] a few times a week, but made him promise not to tell us where they were.

At the end of August this year, 4 months after we had moved to our new place, my wife got a call from my [SIL] saying that my [MIL] was in the hospital. They had spent the night in a motel, and while my [SIL] work, my [MIL] went to take a shower, slipped and damaged her injured knee. My [SIL] since confirmed that she told my [MIL] to wait until she got home, but like everyone else, was ignored. My wife, not knowing what to do, picked her up once my [MIL] was discharged and brought her back to our apartment so she could look after her during the acute phase of the injury. The diagnosis seems to be a torn meniscus, but since that hospital visit 2 months ago, there have been know further visits and no follow-ups.

While my wife see's this as an isolated incident, I see the same patterns as before - an emergency, someone else providing a home, getting comfortable and refusing to find a different place to live. Both my wife and I have actively looked for someone for my [MIL] and [SIL] to live - we've been contacting SROs, disabled living facilities, public assistance housing etc and have tried to get my [MIL] signed up for whatever welfare programs are available, this is difficult as I have 12 hour work days and my wife is back in school full time. My [MIL] has done nothing to help, aside from checking on CraigsList for free rooms. She is still not on any social assistance programs, and hasn't offered to move on.

My [BIL] has been relegated to sleeping on our couch again, the apartment is constantly a mess as my in-laws don't know how to clean up after themselves, our property is being damaged again, and our bills have skyrocketed.

This has become too much for me to cope with again and has started to cause problems in my marriage. My wife just can't bear to see her family - and her mother in particular - from suffering even if that suffering is self inflicted, and goes to great lengths to try to make sure her siblings don't face the same fate she did. I understand why she feels like that and I understand the difficulty that puts her in. However, the strain it puts on our marriage and our resources is really starting to damage me. My wife and I have spoken at length about it, and we have met a therapist to discuss the difficulty her family of origin causes in our marriage. Intellectually she understands, but remains incapable of addressing the situation, and refuses to let me address it.

My home, the home I work so hard to provide, has become unbearably uncomfortable for me to stay in. Aside from my wife, there are 3 other adults living under our roof, none of which are doing anything to move on. As a result, I've started to stay away from home longer and longer, and now I only come home to sleep once I know my wife is home and her family are otherwise occupied.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a complete emotional breakdown over the situation - I am just exhausted, and can't deal with having such a damaging influence in my home any more. I have spent thousands of dollars trying to improve the situation, but have been treated terribly in spite of everything I've done - same story for everyone else who naively tries to assist my [MIL] until they are completely consumed by the dysfunction.  I have told my wife that if her family were not gone permanently by October 30th, that I would be finding somewhere else to live. That was 5 days ago.

I love my wife dearly, but I am at the end of my tether with this situation - I really do not want to be taking of her adult family and I don't want them in my home any more - my wife knows this, though there seems to be little she can do to stop it. They will always need something from her, there will either be emergencies due to my [MIL]s irresponsibility and recklessness or she will orchestrate it to look that way, and my wife will just get sucked back in. I can't have my married life be that way - i feel like my marriage has 5 people in it instead of just the two of us.

I feel stuck, and incredibly alone in all of this, but after all the time, effort and money I have put in, the years of therapy for my wife, I don't see how this is ever going to work out. We talk about buying our own home someday and having our family, but there's no way I want to expose my home and children to this.

I understand that my wife is in an impossible situation with this, and I do not doubt that my [MIL] was injured and is recovering, but I just can't stand having her in my home any more. The need to just leave is getting stronger every day, but I know if I do that, my marriage will be damaged even further. I just don't see any way for this to be resolved - years of offering money to solve it, years of therapy to address it have had little impact, and things are worse than they have ever been.

I don't think my marriage is going to survive... .

[GeekyGirl]

Wow, AJC, that sounds like an exhausting situation, and I don't blame you for wanting some peace in your home. While your MIL, SIL and BIL have undoubtedly been through some tough stuff (as have you and your wife), it doesn't mean that it's ok that your needs aren't being met.

It's understandable that you're emotionally exhausted. How are you doing now, since the emotional breakdown? What kind of a support system do you have for yourself?

Do your in-laws have any other options? Have you looked into assisted living, or subsidized living so they can find homes of their own? If your MIL isn't open to welfare or finding work, does she have anyone else that she could live with? What does your wife say about having her family live with you?

You're right--there are many members here who have lived with people with BPD, and know how the behaviors you described--the cold shoulder, mood swings and the intrusion can be. You are not alone here. 

[AJC]

Hi GeekyGirl,

Thanks for your response - it's helpful to know there are others who know what I'm going through.

I guess I'm hanging in - some days are better than others. I moved to the US about 6 years ago after we got married, we made the decision so my wife could be close to her family. She had told me about many of the difficulties and at the time and the responsibilities she had, and that was a factor in me moving to the US rather than her moving to where I'm from - as newly weds, I didn't think there was anything wrong with doing that, and of course I wouldn't insist on her being away from her family. We moved 120 miles away from where they were living, and I thought that within a few months, my wife would be able to scale back what she was doing for them, and we could finally concentrate on our life together. I had no idea just how dysfunctional everything was  - and for the first few months of our marriage, I could not believe what was happening to me as a result of my [MIL]s manipulations and how she used my wife to get at me, it was like I had married a completely different person. I certainly had no idea I would be supporting and housing 3 other adults for coming up to 2 years.

My family and friends are all back in my home country, we don't have many friends here, and my wife has no other family - any existing family or friends have put hundreds of miles between themselves and her mother. So, it's just my wife and I in this - my wife has been seeing a therapist for about 5 years, and I go as needed. I have reached out to my parents back home, they know the situation and do their best to offer emotional support, but that's really all I have.

My wife is being as supportive as she can be - she understands the situation and had a similar breakdown with her mother about 3 years ago. We have both been looking assisted living - I agreed to subsidize half the rent on a place for 2 months - and we thought we had a place for my [MIL]to move to, but that fell through yesterday. The management of the place considered her too much of a liability and felt there was something else going on we weren't telling them about.

My wife knows the damage her family is causes - she's been through everything I am experiencing myself now. She's knows I want them out of our home, but she can't bring herself to do that if they don't have anywhere else to go. With her injury, I know my [MIL]will use it as an excuse to keep my wife under her thumb, and my [MIL] never leaves a place of her own volition, and never leaves without causing some sort of major collateral damage.

For me, the outcome is inevitable - we will need to force my [MIL] to leave and she won't go quietly. The longer we are in this situation, the worse it gets, and I can see the current circumstances lasting months. At this point I just need to be in a space where they are not, I don't really care where they go. My wife understandably does not feel the same but that's where all of this is just breaking down.

My wife has midterms at the moment and so I am doing my very best to support her with that, and I am intentionally not bringing the issue up further and staying away from her family as much as possible (I leave for work early, I come home late or meet her at the university after class, and just stay in our room while I am at home), but it's just exhausting.

I know if she has to make her family leave without anywhere else to go she will resent me for that, but I know I can't stay in this environment much longer.  The whole thing is heartbreaking... .