Dealing with my mom as a BPD grandma

[Depression = 72% of members]

I'm a 30M with an D biPD/U BPD m. Mom has all the common comorbid diagnoses: bipolar, depressive, anxiety. She terminates therapy when she is made to be responsible for her emotions. I don't know if she's been diagnosed BPD. Going through the Eggshells workbook made it clear my mom has BPD. She's got a lengthy history of trauma, as well as a traumatic brain injury. She's admitted to having episodes of dissociative amnesia - which she attributes to TBI and aging, but are clearly emotionally triggered.

My mom has a lifetime of splitting behaviors. Writing off extended family, burning bridges with friends, perceived betrayals, at least as long as I have been alive. I have seen her shift her perception of others from perfect to malevolent in hours. She exerts control through offering help, and when they offer any resistance to her absolute assertion of control, she preemptively abandons them before she can be abandoned, usually after an explosive confrontation.

I have been called ungrateful, entitled, an a$$hole, every name in the book. My mother then "apologizes" for stating her feelings, not for having her feelings, or for the reasons for her feelings. This comes out as, "I'm sorry I said you were an a$$hole, but you were being (or are) an a$$hole."   Sometimes it's even just, "I'm sorry you're an a$$hole."  My dad then tries to water that down. For my mom, feelings are facts. She feels I'm an a$$hole, so that's a fact as sure as gravity; she can only apologize for saying so.

I desperately don't want this, and all my life I've fallen for recycling. My mother has only ever made a real apology twice: for making me work so much during my childhood, and for making me her therapist. I knew the depths of my mother's traumatic history at a very young age, and had to coach her through all of it - marriage difficulties, health problems, interpersonal issues, depression. I want to have a relationship with the loving, generous, understanding person my mom can be, and I've only recently reazed that aspect of her personality is an oscillating component of her mental health disorder.

My wife has C-PTSD. When we met, I told her I'd never introduce her to my mom; we weren't speaking at the time. We eventually reconciled to some degree, and I introduced her to my mom - the first person I'd done so with in years. When we married, my mom insisted on helping plan our wedding. It went explosively badly, with some irrevokable hurtful things said,  but we reconciled, though the wounds were permanent.

From there, my mom seemed to try to keep it together. Things got more difficult when we decided to have a child. Mom kept buying things - everything. We told her not to after our miscarriage - we didn't want painful reminders of baby preparation until we were certain the pregnancy would make it to term. She ignored us. She bought carloads and trailerloads of stuff for our baby. My mom was determined to highjack the experience. We were to call her "before we bought anything." She basically stole the experience as some sort of vicarious thing. We were told not to sell or give away any of it, but to save it all for my siblings, in case they had kids, or if we had more. She bought nearly all of the clothing up until age 4, toys, more than any kid could ever need. When we bought our own diaper bag and stroller, she was upset that we didn't tell her first, so she could try to get it cheaper.

When we told her that it was too much, that we wanted to buy some things for our baby, and that our baby had enough for a while, my mom became very cold about it. By her second birthday my mom gave only one passive-aggressive used gift - we did not take that bait, though we recieved the gift graciously. My mom complained that my daughter had enough toys that Christmas, though she did get her some dollar-store gifts.  If we don't allow imposing gift-giving practices, we're jerks.

Through this, my parents have both been very encouraging that we just "open up" to them. My wife's C-PTSD causes depression, intense anxiety, triggered emotional flashbacks, sleep difficulties. All of it makes relationships very difficult for her. Her other health problems have exacerbated her mental health issues. We are working to address those but have limited resources. I had thought that being open would allow my mother some insight into what we faced, and reduce her abandonment fears and realize that our problems are not personal or directed towards my mother. My mom faced a prolonged difficulty getting diagnosed for her health problems, has trauma issues, etc. and we thought that common ground might help them both forge a lasting relationship.

We have limited healthcare resources here, and we need to move. We are fulltime caretakers for my father-in-law. We also took in my mother-in-law. We need to fix this house to sell it to move. My father is very capable at construction, and we needed his help, so we accepted his offer to help fix it. My mother came with him.

My mother turned our home repair situation into a fulcrum for exerting absolute control. In her head, she was playing "Love it or Leave It" where her remodelling our house might lead to our staying there. We made it clear long ago why we had to move, and that we had to, but she entertained delusions we would stay for a very long time. She was cognitively dissonant about obvious market factors affecting the value of our house and therefore our remodelling goals and needs. No feature or improvement would make us stay, and few of those improvements would add value we could hope to recoup.

This all culminated in an explosion. My wife hid; she can't handle confrontation, especially in her own home, especially in that home, and she did not want my daughter to see. My mother exploded at everyone in the home. She said I had a "___ty, unenviable life" and I would be "stuck there forever" and would "never get my ___ together."  She said that my father-in-law did not need us (he has profound memory deficits, ambulation problems, etc) implying were taking advantage of him. We spent years working on his physical therapy and gaining his independence - both my wife and I have extensive careers in disability services. She stated that my mother-in-law should have been helping and was taking advantage of the situation. She's lost her housing after a progressive disability rendered her unable to work.

We did not scream, or return her hurtful volleys. We refused to engage, told her this was inappropriate, and for the sake of our relationship, she should go. She escalated until my wife finally left the room she had locked herself in to tell my mom this was inappropriate and she needed to go. My mom left, irate. I told her I loved her. I spoke to my father, who also fled from the conflict. I told him I loved them, and we'd do the rest of the repairs ourselves.

A week later my mom called to "apologize."  We did not accept the call, but wrote to say we wanted space and we had my wife's health issues to deal with. The stress brought on a flare, my wife was sick for weeks. The stress sickened me too. We would continue to address my wife's health issues and avoid further conflict. We didn't communicate for a long time, but sent my mom birthday cards and mother's day cards - we wanted to maintain a pathway to a potential relationship and healing.

I should note my mother has made clear threats three times to seek grandparents' rights. Originally, I thought this was just a hurtful threat stemming from my mother's fear of abandonment. It's become clear that her intent is more malicious. In my state, grandparents' rights apply in only two conditions - death of a parent and the surviving parent refuses visitation, or the parents are deemed unfit by the court. It hurt enough that if I died, my mom's first impulse is to sue my widow, but that she would try to demonstrate we were in any way unfit was very painful. I thought it was only misguided fear manifesting as lashing out. I was wrong.

My mom told my siblings that she feared what my wife "was capable of" and how she worried about my daughter's safety. My wife is not self-destructive, does not have dissociative amnesia, does not have total losses of emotional control and actions, though my mother does all of this. It seems clear that she intends to ferret out any support for slandering our character and parenting for legal purposes.

Months later, my mother began making demands. She messaged, "Are we going to get to see our grandchild on her birthday?"  It was transparently a request for an audience for another emotional outburst. After so much of us pleading for space, my mom was demanding to dictate the terms of our relationship again. I told her that would not be possible, and wrote my father why I thought it a bad idea. I was clear about the magnitude of my mother's attack. Then I made a very clear pathway to reconciliation:

1) My mom gets help

   A. Mom accepts responsibility for her emotions

   B. Mom begins the work of learning to control her emotions

   C. Mom re-evaluates her feelings related to my wife and myself

2) My wife gets help. We need to move, and address my wife's health concerns, both medical and mental, so that she can be on sure footing while attempting to rebuild a relationship with my mother that my mother has destroyed.

A bridge is built from both sides.

This was meant largely for my father; I want him to understand what's happening and the reason for our actions. My father showed my mother what I wrote, she exploded. She unfriended me on facebook, and accosted my siblings to see who had told - not realizing that she had implied to me directly through her actions that she thought so ill of my wife.

My mother has spoken thusly of my wife and I to all our family and friends. When I posted pictures of my daughter, a family friend of over four decades (one of the nicest people I know) decided to take a potshot about my conflict with my mother. I didn't engage, only replied that we wished people knew what was actually going on. This is particularly caustic; how is my wife supposed to resume a relationship when she has social anxiety and my mom is poisoning every well she can?

The same day as the facebook potshot, my dad asked if we could video conference on my daughter's birthday. Again, mom dictating terms and demanding an audience, so that when we refuse or when she breaks down in tears in front of people, we're the bad guys. He never addressed what we said in our letter to him. We elected not to respond. They sent a birthday gift.

Yesterday, my father called (we've explicitly said we don't want calls, we don't need the stress of evaluating my mom's traps in real time). My mother wants to buy my daughter Christmas gifts, but was wondering if something is "appropriate."  It's another clear trap.

The best it can go: Mom sends a gift that is reasonable, age-appropriate, etc. and my daughter is put in the middle, not understanding why she can't see these people who buy her gifts.

How my mom probably intends it to go:  We accept the gift, and then every gift thereafter is an escalation in price and/or scale, forcing us to both explain the gifts to our daughter and guilting us about our relationship with them, without my mom ever needing to address her mental health problems.

How my mom intends it to go will actually go: Eventually, we are forced to say no to something we can't handle, that violates our boundaries. Another explosion ensues. We'll just be "using" her again, and "ungrateful twits."

The bad way it can go: We're forced to say no to an inappropriate gift, mom complains to everyone how terrible we are. If we say a gift is to expensive, we're preventing her from giving what she wants. If we ask they get affordable purchases, we're making her look cheap to our daughter. If we say she's only three and a gift is not age appropriate, then we underestimate our daughter. We can only lose telling them what to buy or not.

I do not want my daughter drawn into this. My wife tried very hard to shield her from my mother's epic emotional meltdown, and thankfully she was kept in her room for the duration of that. We do not speak ill of my mother around my daughter, for the sake of the good memories of her grandparents that she already has, and any future relationship we might be able to build. I do not wish to bear the burden of explaining my mother's dysfunctional behavior to her, nor to I wish to expose her to it. My mother exposed me to her abusers repeatedly when I was a child, and it's important that my daughter not be forced to deal with that, especially when she does not have the emotional and mental capacity to do so.

It's hard to remain not engaged, not be drawn into conflict, when it seems action I take ends in conflict. My mom engineers these lose-lose situations that enable her to act out her abandonment issues in a way she controls. It all serves to let her avoid addressing her volatile emotional state, and project her internal conflict onto others. I won't have my daughter dragged into that.

I know you can't just say, "I think you have BPD." I know that I she's the one who has to want to get better. I've left that door open. I deeply regret that my father has lost his relationship with us because of my mother's behavior. He could have one independently of my mother, but my mother would accuse him of being unsupportive. My father is the most supportive partner ever, but if he opposes her too strongly he faces strong backlash from her, and she then blames him for her self-injurious behavior.

I've only grazed the surface and it's already so long. My mother blames me for her last suicide attempt - solely for attempting to remain neutral while she wrote off a family member as dead to her. My mother blames my wife for my career - because I'm a full-time caregiver for two adults and a child. My mother stresses at every opportunity that I'm a failure and a disappointment, and I should be some kind of doctor saving the world, and healing my wife. Ugh. I feel a little better having vomited all this out. Sorry it's so long.

TL; DR - My D biPD/U BPD m and grandmother to my daughter exploded on my C-PTSD wife, myself, and family. Not currently speaking, we insisted she get help in order for a relationship to continue. She is recycleing, and having gotten no traction on fear, has apparently moved on to obligation and guilt through an attempted relationship with my daughter. My father is unfairly kept from a relationship with his granddaughter and I have no idea how to appropriately relate to my mother other than to not engage her.

[CubicRubic]

I'm a 30M with an D biPD/U BPD m. Mom has all the common comorbid diagnoses: bipolar, depressive, anxiety. She terminates therapy when she is made to be responsible for her emotions. I don't know if she's been diagnosed BPD. Going through the Eggshells workbook made it clear my mom has BPD. She's got a lengthy history of trauma, as well as a traumatic brain injury. She's admitted to having episodes of dissociative amnesia - which she attributes to TBI and aging, but are clearly emotionally triggered.

My mom has a lifetime of splitting behaviors. Writing off extended family, burning bridges with friends, perceived betrayals, at least as long as I have been alive. I have seen her shift her perception of others from perfect to malevolent in hours. She exerts control through offering help, and when they offer any resistance to her absolute assertion of control, she preemptively abandons them before she can be abandoned, usually after an explosive confrontation.

I have been called ungrateful, entitled, an a$$hole, every name in the book. My mother then "apologizes" for stating her feelings, not for having her feelings, or for the reasons for her feelings. This comes out as, "I'm sorry I said you were an a$$hole, but you were being (or are) an a$$hole."   Sometimes it's even just, "I'm sorry you're an a$$hole."  My dad then tries to water that down. For my mom, feelings are facts. She feels I'm an a$$hole, so that's a fact as sure as gravity; she can only apologize for saying so.

I desperately don't want this, and all my life I've fallen for recycling. My mother has only ever made a real apology twice: for making me work so much during my childhood, and for making me her therapist. I knew the depths of my mother's traumatic history at a very young age, and had to coach her through all of it - marriage difficulties, health problems, interpersonal issues, depression. I want to have a relationship with the loving, generous, understanding person my mom can be, and I've only recently reazed that aspect of her personality is an oscillating component of her mental health disorder.

My wife has C-PTSD. When we met, I told her I'd never introduce her to my mom; we weren't speaking at the time. We eventually reconciled to some degree, and I introduced her to my mom - the first person I'd done so with in years. When we married, my mom insisted on helping plan our wedding. It went explosively badly, with some irrevokable hurtful things said,  but we reconciled, though the wounds were permanent.

From there, my mom seemed to try to keep it together. Things got more difficult when we decided to have a child. Mom kept buying things - everything. We told her not to after our miscarriage - we didn't want painful reminders of baby preparation until we were certain the pregnancy would make it to term. She ignored us. She bought carloads and trailerloads of stuff for our baby. My mom was determined to highjack the experience. We were to call her "before we bought anything." She basically stole the experience as some sort of vicarious thing. We were told not to sell or give away any of it, but to save it all for my siblings, in case they had kids, or if we had more. She bought nearly all of the clothing up until age 4, toys, more than any kid could ever need. When we bought our own diaper bag and stroller, she was upset that we didn't tell her first, so she could try to get it cheaper.

When we told her that it was too much, that we wanted to buy some things for our baby, and that our baby had enough for a while, my mom became very cold about it. By her second birthday my mom gave only one passive-aggressive used gift - we did not take that bait, though we recieved the gift graciously. My mom complained that my daughter had enough toys that Christmas, though she did get her some dollar-store gifts.  If we don't allow imposing gift-giving practices, we're jerks.

Through this, my parents have both been very encouraging that we just "open up" to them. My wife's C-PTSD causes depression, intense anxiety, triggered emotional flashbacks, sleep difficulties. All of it makes relationships very difficult for her. Her other health problems have exacerbated her mental health issues. We are working to address those but have limited resources. I had thought that being open would allow my mother some insight into what we faced, and reduce her abandonment fears and realize that our problems are not personal or directed towards my mother. My mom faced a prolonged difficulty getting diagnosed for her health problems, has trauma issues, etc. and we thought that common ground might help them both forge a lasting relationship.

We have limited healthcare resources here, and we need to move. We are fulltime caretakers for my father-in-law. We also took in my mother-in-law. We need to fix this house to sell it to move. My father is very capable at construction, and we needed his help, so we accepted his offer to help fix it. My mother came with him.

My mother turned our home repair situation into a fulcrum for exerting absolute control. In her head, she was playing "Love it or Leave It" where her remodelling our house might lead to our staying there. We made it clear long ago why we had to move, and that we had to, but she entertained delusions we would stay for a very long time. She was cognitively dissonant about obvious market factors affecting the value of our house and therefore our remodelling goals and needs. No feature or improvement would make us stay, and few of those improvements would add value we could hope to recoup.

This all culminated in an explosion. My wife hid; she can't handle confrontation, especially in her own home, especially in that home, and she did not want my daughter to see. My mother exploded at everyone in the home. She said I had a "___ty, unenviable life" and I would be "stuck there forever" and would "never get my ___ together."  She said that my father-in-law did not need us (he has profound memory deficits, ambulation problems, etc) implying were taking advantage of him. We spent years working on his physical therapy and gaining his independence - both my wife and I have extensive careers in disability services. She stated that my mother-in-law should have been helping and was taking advantage of the situation. She's lost her housing after a progressive disability rendered her unable to work.

We did not scream, or return her hurtful volleys. We refused to engage, told her this was inappropriate, and for the sake of our relationship, she should go. She escalated until my wife finally left the room she had locked herself in to tell my mom this was inappropriate and she needed to go. My mom left, irate. I told her I loved her. I spoke to my father, who also fled from the conflict. I told him I loved them, and we'd do the rest of the repairs ourselves.

A week later my mom called to "apologize."  We did not accept the call, but wrote to say we wanted space and we had my wife's health issues to deal with. The stress brought on a flare, my wife was sick for weeks. The stress sickened me too. We would continue to address my wife's health issues and avoid further conflict. We didn't communicate for a long time, but sent my mom birthday cards and mother's day cards - we wanted to maintain a pathway to a potential relationship and healing.

I should note my mother has made clear threats three times to seek grandparents' rights. Originally, I thought this was just a hurtful threat stemming from my mother's fear of abandonment. It's become clear that her intent is more malicious. In my state, grandparents' rights apply in only two conditions - death of a parent and the surviving parent refuses visitation, or the parents are deemed unfit by the court. It hurt enough that if I died, my mom's first impulse is to sue my widow, but that she would try to demonstrate we were in any way unfit was very painful. I thought it was only misguided fear manifesting as lashing out. I was wrong.

My mom told my siblings that she feared what my wife "was capable of" and how she worried about my daughter's safety. My wife is not self-destructive, does not have dissociative amnesia, does not have total losses of emotional control and actions, though my mother does all of this. It seems clear that she intends to ferret out any support for slandering our character and parenting for legal purposes.

Months later, my mother began making demands. She messaged, "Are we going to get to see our grandchild on her birthday?"  It was transparently a request for an audience for another emotional outburst. After so much of us pleading for space, my mom was demanding to dictate the terms of our relationship again. I told her that would not be possible, and wrote my father why I thought it a bad idea. I was clear about the magnitude of my mother's attack. Then I made a very clear pathway to reconciliation:

1) My mom gets help

   A. Mom accepts responsibility for her emotions

   B. Mom begins the work of learning to control her emotions

   C. Mom re-evaluates her feelings related to my wife and myself

2) My wife gets help. We need to move, and address my wife's health concerns, both medical and mental, so that she can be on sure footing while attempting to rebuild a relationship with my mother that my mother has destroyed.

A bridge is built from both sides.

This was meant largely for my father; I want him to understand what's happening and the reason for our actions. My father showed my mother what I wrote, she exploded. She unfriended me on facebook, and accosted my siblings to see who had told - not realizing that she had implied to me directly through her actions that she thought so ill of my wife.

My mother has spoken thusly of my wife and I to all our family and friends. When I posted pictures of my daughter, a family friend of over four decades (one of the nicest people I know) decided to take a potshot about my conflict with my mother. I didn't engage, only replied that we wished people knew what was actually going on. This is particularly caustic; how is my wife supposed to resume a relationship when she has social anxiety and my mom is poisoning every well she can?

The same day as the facebook potshot, my dad asked if we could video conference on my daughter's birthday. Again, mom dictating terms and demanding an audience, so that when we refuse or when she breaks down in tears in front of people, we're the bad guys. He never addressed what we said in our letter to him. We elected not to respond. They sent a birthday gift.

Yesterday, my father called (we've explicitly said we don't want calls, we don't need the stress of evaluating my mom's traps in real time). My mother wants to buy my daughter Christmas gifts, but was wondering if something is "appropriate."  It's another clear trap.

The best it can go: Mom sends a gift that is reasonable, age-appropriate, etc. and my daughter is put in the middle, not understanding why she can't see these people who buy her gifts.

How my mom probably intends it to go:  We accept the gift, and then every gift thereafter is an escalation in price and/or scale, forcing us to both explain the gifts to our daughter and guilting us about our relationship with them, without my mom ever needing to address her mental health problems.

How my mom intends it to go will actually go: Eventually, we are forced to say no to something we can't handle, that violates our boundaries. Another explosion ensues. We'll just be "using" her again, and "ungrateful twits."

The bad way it can go: We're forced to say no to an inappropriate gift, mom complains to everyone how terrible we are. If we say a gift is to expensive, we're preventing her from giving what she wants. If we ask they get affordable purchases, we're making her look cheap to our daughter. If we say she's only three and a gift is not age appropriate, then we underestimate our daughter. We can only lose telling them what to buy or not.

I do not want my daughter drawn into this. My wife tried very hard to shield her from my mother's epic emotional meltdown, and thankfully she was kept in her room for the duration of that. We do not speak ill of my mother around my daughter, for the sake of the good memories of her grandparents that she already has, and any future relationship we might be able to build. I do not wish to bear the burden of explaining my mother's dysfunctional behavior to her, nor to I wish to expose her to it. My mother exposed me to her abusers repeatedly when I was a child, and it's important that my daughter not be forced to deal with that, especially when she does not have the emotional and mental capacity to do so.

It's hard to remain not engaged, not be drawn into conflict, when it seems action I take ends in conflict. My mom engineers these lose-lose situations that enable her to act out her abandonment issues in a way she controls. It all serves to let her avoid addressing her volatile emotional state, and project her internal conflict onto others. I won't have my daughter dragged into that.

I know you can't just say, "I think you have BPD." I know that I she's the one who has to want to get better. I've left that door open. I deeply regret that my father has lost his relationship with us because of my mother's behavior. He could have one independently of my mother, but my mother would accuse him of being unsupportive. My father is the most supportive partner ever, but if he opposes her too strongly he faces strong backlash from her, and she then blames him for her self-injurious behavior.

I've only grazed the surface and it's already so long. My mother blames me for her last suicide attempt - solely for attempting to remain neutral while she wrote off a family member as dead to her. My mother blames my wife for my career - because I'm a full-time caregiver for two adults and a child. My mother stresses at every opportunity that I'm a failure and a disappointment, and I should be some kind of doctor saving the world, and healing my wife. Ugh. I feel a little better having vomited all this out. Sorry it's so long.

TL; DR - My D biPD/U BPD m and grandmother to my daughter exploded on my C-PTSD wife, myself, and family. Not currently speaking, we insisted she get help in order for a relationship to continue. She is recycleing, and having gotten no traction on fear, has apparently moved on to obligation and guilt through an attempted relationship with my daughter. My father is unfairly kept from a relationship with his granddaughter and I have no idea how to appropriately relate to my mother other than to not engage her.

[Sitara]

Welcome CubicRubic, and I'm sorry to hear about all the troubles you've had with your mom.  My mom is uBPD, and I can relate with a majority of your story. 

It sounds like you already have a fairly good grasp how to deal with people with BPD.  You've already set your boundaries, and congrats for sticking with them!  That's so hard to do.

My mom engineers these lose-lose situations that enable her to act out her abandonment issues in a way she controls.

This describes so much of my life.  I finally got to the point that I realized no matter what I did, I'd lose, so why was I wasting so much energy on trying?  If I can't make her happy, I started focusing on doing what would make me happy.

It seems like you really aren't sure how you want to handle the gift situation.  For background, I have two sons ages 4 & 1.  I don't know if my mom plans on sending gifts or not yet, but I have been thinking about how I wanted to handle the gift situation lately.

The best it can go: Mom sends a gift that is reasonable, age-appropriate, etc. and my daughter is put in the middle, not understanding why she can't see these people who buy her gifts.

Does your daughter already ask why she doesn't see grandma?  My 4 year old doesn't really associate gifts with people unless it's someone he knows well, and most of the time he doesn't remember who gave it to him anyway.

How my mom intends it to go will actually go: Eventually, we are forced to say no to something we can't handle, that violates our boundaries. Another explosion ensues. We'll just be "using" her again, and "ungrateful twits."

I've dealt with this before, as my mom always wanted to buy giant things we had no room for, then would throw a fit when we said no.  Or she would ask our opinion about something and if we thought he wouldn't play with it, she'd either ignore our advice or tell us we're too picky.  I know the things she says about us isn't the truth, and I've had to come to accept that I know the truth and her opinion is not important.  I know this is hard when it's your mom, but she's in the minority.  Most other people who know me know that's not true.

The bad way it can go: We're forced to say no to an inappropriate gift, mom complains to everyone how terrible we are. If we say a gift is to expensive, we're preventing her from giving what she wants. If we ask they get affordable purchases, we're making her look cheap to our daughter. If we say she's only three and a gift is not age appropriate, then we underestimate our daughter. We can only lose telling them what to buy or not.

Your mom will complain no matter what.  If she wants to buy something expensive, let her waste her money on what she wants - she can make her own decisions and you make yours.  Your daughter doesn't yet understand expensive/cheap, just cool/lame.  Expensive can be lame, cheap can still be cool.  If it's not age appropriate, she probably won't end up playing with it.

If you don't want your mom buying gifts, then that is your choice.  You do have the ability to send something back if that is what you want and she ignores it.  If you are okay with her sending a gift, then why not set some solid limits for things you absolutely won't accept ("Mom, that power wheel is too large and we won't have anywhere to store it, so if you buy that we will be returning it to the store." and some general suggestions ("I really don't think she's ready for a 1000 piece puzzle, but if that is what you really want to get her, I'm not going to stop you.".  Why do you feel you're the ones losing?  If your mom ignores your advice and she fails in front of your daughter, why not let her?  If she ignores your advice, that is not your fault.  I completely understand that you want to protect your daughter, but at some point she is going to have to make up her own mind as to what type of relationship she wants with grandma.

I won't have my daughter dragged into that

Ultimately she is your daughter and you need to do what you feel is best for her.  Long story short, my mom, who used to babysit for my oldest, is no longer allowed to have unsupervised contact with him.  When he asks about her, for now I tell him that people who want to have a relationship with you will.  When he gets older, I'm sure more questions come up, and I plan on having a very honest but difficult conversation about how grandma is sick which makes it very difficult to have a healthy relationship with her.  I hope I can instill in him that even family needs to love and respect you.

I deeply regret that my father has lost his relationship with us because of my mother's behavior. He could have one independently of my mother, but my mother would accuse him of being unsupportive.

I've also lost the relationship with my father because of my mom.  However, he is an adult capable of making his own decisions.  If he really wanted one, he could do it.  It hurts immensely that he'd rather not for fear of rocking his boat, but I also understand he's in survival mode and he's doing what he needs to in order to protect himself.

My mother has spoken thusly of my wife and I to all our family and friends.

My mom has also turned many of my family against me.  My sister has completely cut me off (not that we ever had a good relationship to begin with thanks to mom's interference), which means I've also lost the ability to have a relationship with my niece and nephew.  My dad started backing mom's crazy insults, which made me realize he will never protect me the way I hoped he would.  My mom in the past has broken friendships, told me who I could be friends with, and tried to control who I dated.  She has gone behind my back to attempt to ruin the one good family relationship I've started building with one of my husbands relatives.  It almost worked, but I sat down and had a long chat with this person about my mom and what she's capable of, so this person was prepared when my mom put her in the middle and tried to gain info from her.  It's very hard, and since she's been so destructive to the family members, I've had to put much more trust in friends to be my supportive group.

It sounds like you're already familiar, but it might help reading over the FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) thread.  https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog  This one was so hard for me to get over.  You'll find a lot of support here and I hope that you are able to really continue on your path to healing yourself.

[CubicRubic]

Welcome CubicRubic, and I'm sorry to hear about all the troubles you've had with your mom.  My mom is uBPD, and I can relate with a majority of your story. 

Thanks, it's really great to hear that I'm not alone.

You've already set your boundaries, and congrats for sticking with them!  That's so hard to do.

It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

Does your daughter already ask why she doesn't see grandma? 

She talks about them almost every day.  It's tough.  We don't speak about them, we just ignore it and hope it will cessate on it's own. If my mom has no intention of ever seeking treatment, then there's no chance for a relationship, and this will only get more confusing.

I've dealt with this before, as my mom always wanted to buy giant things we had no room for, then would throw a fit when we said no.  [... .]

This is the kind of thing we're expecting.  Everything she's given us has been emotionally-laden already.  She got us an expanding circular table that seats up to 10.  With the leaves in it, it literally consumes the whole kitchen; you can't walk around it.  We can't get rid of it, we can't use it, we can't move with it.

Your mom will complain no matter what.  If she wants to buy something expensive, let her waste her money on what she wants - she can make her own decisions and you make yours.  Your daughter doesn't yet understand expensive/cheap, just cool/lame.  Expensive can be lame, cheap can still be cool.  If it's not age appropriate, she probably won't end up playing with it.

This is how I want to be about it, but I'm so apprehensive about even this small thing we're allowing... .which we're allowing for the sake of a possibly better future.

If you are okay with her sending a gift, then why not set some solid limits for things you absolutely won't accept

Well, because she approached this by trying to demand it on her terms, she's still speaking ill of us, the pattern hasn't changed.  And to be honest, I'm kinda cowardly.  Setting limits is very hard for me, and she's like a velociraptor perpetually testing the fences for weakness. It's been easier for me to shut off contact and keep her at arm's length with silence than to try to maintain those boundaries while a dialogue is open.

Why do you feel you're the ones losing?

Because I want my daughter to have a relationship with my father. I want her to have a strong sense of her family as more than the sum of the products of two dysfunctional families. 

I completely understand that you want to protect your daughter, but at some point she is going to have to make up her own mind as to what type of relationship she wants with grandma.

She's just turned three.  We've worked hard to limit her exposure to my mom's BPD; I don't want my daughter to have to accept grandma's negative behavioral patterns as normal.

I hope I can instill in him that even family needs to love and respect you.

For myself, a lesson hard won.  And that will one day be the understanding I hope to impart, if this does not improve.

However, he is an adult capable of making his own decisions.  If he really wanted one, he could do it.  It hurts immensely that he'd rather not for fear of rocking his boat, but I also understand he's in survival mode and he's doing what he needs to in order to protect himself.

My wife says this repeatedly, and I've taken to repeating it in the hopes that it sinks in for me too.

It's very hard, and since she's been so destructive to the family members, I've had to put much more trust in friends to be my supportive group.

This is one of the toughest parts for us.  We've had to be proactive and more open than we'd like in order to stop this kind of thing short, but it's a lost cost among her social circle. There's just no point in attempting to stem it and engage.  Some of the people realize something might be wrong with mom when she flips out on them, sometimes not.

I've looked at the FOG resources and I find myself revisiting them often.  I even looked up transactional analysis (made famous by "Games People Play" to try and better understand the relationship dynamics I was getting caught up in.

Thanks again, I appreciate your thoughts and support.

[Sitara]

This is the kind of thing we're expecting.  Everything she's given us has been emotionally-laden already.  She got us an expanding circular table that seats up to 10.  With the leaves in it, it literally consumes the whole kitchen; you can't walk around it.  We can't get rid of it, we can't use it, we can't move with it.

We recently moved cross country and had to get rid of a lot of our stuff (we moved from a house to an apartment).  There are a lot more options to get rid of stuff than you think.  We ended up posting our moving sale on Craigslist and it was way more successful than we expected.  When it was over, we had a lot of our large furniture left so we put them at the end of the driveway with a free sign - everything was gone within 24 hours.  We did donate a lot of things too.  You could take out an add advertising you want to sell it.

She talks about them almost every day.  It's tough.  We don't speak about them, we just ignore it and hope it will cessate on it's own.

That is hard.  My son could never remember my mom's name and she used to babysit him 4 times a month for over 2 years.  Then suddenly, a couple months after we moved he started talking about her by name.  It drives me nuts because it's hard for me to hear him talking about her.  Right now he does a lot of "I miss grandma," and I generally just respond with an "I know" or "It's okay to miss people."  I occasionally throw in a "The people who want a relationship with you will have one," as she is not contacting us anymore since we moved.

This is how I want to be about it, but I'm so apprehensive about even this small thing we're allowing... .which we're allowing for the sake of a possibly better future.

How is allowing her to give gifts when you say she won't work on her half going to make the future better?

And to be honest, I'm kinda cowardly.  Setting limits is very hard for me, and she's like a velociraptor perpetually testing the fences for weakness.

You've worked hard to get as far as you have!  They do push your buttons more once you start setting limits.  You're forcing them to take accountability and responsibility for themselves, which is something they've avoided most of their lives.  It makes them uncomfortable and they want things to go back to the way things were.  Fortunately for me, as I started setting limits, my mom got more irrational with how she reacted, which made it easier for me to start cutting ties.

Because I want my daughter to have a relationship with my father. I want her to have a strong sense of her family as more than the sum of the products of two dysfunctional families.

Although I am not one of them, there are people here who have managed to have relationships with just their non BPD parent.  My mom separated us from all our extended relatives, so I always had fantasies that once I got married and had kids, we could have a large loving family.  I wanted so badly for my kids to have a relationship with their grandparents like I always wanted, I looked past the unhealthy aspects in order to try to make that happen for them.  It took me a few years before I realized that wasn't going to happen.  I posted a long post about my issues with my mom in response to someone asking about relationships with grandparents.  I'm not sure if it would be helpful to you, but if you're interested it's here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=213952.msg12346059#msg12346059

She's just turned three.  We've worked hard to limit her exposure to my mom's BPD; I don't want my daughter to have to accept grandma's negative behavioral patterns as normal.

I definitely was not suggesting your three year old gets to call the shots now.  For my son, I was thinking late teens/early adulthood before he gets to the point about having to decide if he wants a relationship with grandma.  I'm hoping being honest with him and the contrast of a healthy relationship with one of his grandmas (she calls and sends cards all the time) will help him realize that's how relationships should be.

This is one of the toughest parts for us.  We've had to be proactive and more open than we'd like in order to stop this kind of thing short, but it's a lost cost among her social circle. There's just no point in attempting to stem it and engage.  Some of the people realize something might be wrong with mom when she flips out on them, sometimes not.

It's very hard to accept that my mom is going to bad-mouth me and it doesn't matter what she says.  I have to keep reminding myself that what she says is not true and that the people who love me know it isn't true, but I get all worked up if word gets back to me.  For example, my mom is asking people for our address and telling them that "we don't pick up the phone when she calls."  She hasn't contacted me in any way.

I don't know how far away you're moving, but we ended up moving halfway across the country, and I've found not having to stress with the day to day interactions and the added pressure of being close on holidays has given me the space I needed to really start healing.  I hope you are able to continue to work towards being happy and healthy!

[CubicRubic]

There are a lot more options to get rid of stuff than you think. 

Oh, that's not even the issue.  I know how to get rid of stuff, I'm seasoned.  The issue is that this is its own whole deal.   My mom buys antique furniture at auction, and refinishes it by hand.  So just giving away the set of brace-backed Windsor fan-back side chairs she painstakingly restored and matched table would be tantamount to an attack.  I was specific there just so you'd know what they look like .  They eat floorspace, but getting rid of them is like a slap, refusing them just as impossible. I know it's a FOB tactic.  I mean, we're already jerks because we were unable to keep our cats from scratching the table legs, and had to put them in storage "until we move."

Right now he does a lot of "I miss grandma," and I generally just respond with an "I know" or "It's okay to miss people."  I occasionally throw in a "The people who want a relationship with you will have one," as she is not contacting us anymore since we moved.

Which seems like a good way to go about it.  "I know" is my fall back and I'm glad to have "It's okay to miss people" - thanks.  What gets me is that she repeatedly exposed me to her abusers, but she also completely obstructed my relationship with my paternal grandparents.  So I'm now torn between desperately not wanting my daughter to be exposed to these negative behavior patterns, but also not wanting to let her obstruct relationships with other relatives.  It's so frustrating.

How is allowing her to give gifts when you say she won't work on her half going to make the future better?

Well, this gets to another point.  She said I was responsible for her last suicide attempt, because I tried to remain neutral, which was tantamount to opposing her. So she was abandoned, my fault, etc.  I know consciously this is self-hostage taking, and it's totally inappropriate, and I won't feed it or be responsible.  Still tugs at guilt a lot.  She also said that she was only living for my father and my daughter.  I told her that was unfair, she needed to live for her, etc. but I'm sure she meant it. I want to keep a door open so when she seeks help we have something to work toward. 

I know she knows she messed up, and she regrets it, but she really doesn't want to do the work to fix herself... .if she keeps sabotaging herself she'll eventually either destroy herself or be forced to seek help.  While treating her as dead to me has it's appeal and might be the healthiest, I'm still leaving that door open if she'll just go through and seek help. 

You've worked hard to get as far as you have!  They do push your buttons more once you start setting limits.

It's tough because I know my mom thinks I'm being cowardly and childish by setting these limits and not having contact, and after a lifetime of conditioning it's difficult to remember that what I'm doing is the healthy adult course of action.

You're forcing them to take accountability and responsibility for themselves, which is something they've avoided most of their lives.  It makes them uncomfortable and they want things to go back to the way things were.

Yeah.  I was setting limits immediately prior to the blow up, small ones.  That's what led to her blowing up.  She wanted me to respond to her passive-aggressive calls for attention, validation, etc... .which are usually a prelude to more playing the victim, or worse, raising the stakes and engineering conflict. 

I wanted so badly for my kids to have a relationship with their grandparents like I always wanted, I looked past the unhealthy aspects in order to try to make that happen for them. 

I'm there.  Maternal grandparents were abusive, and being repeatedly exposed to them was terrible.  My paternal grandparents had issues and geographical distance, but I valued what I had with them.  We'd hoped to have a solid relationship with both sets of grandparents, but now we're down to my wife's parents, and that has it's own challenges.

I'm not sure if it would be helpful to you, but if you're interested it's here:

Thanks... .I feel like we had some common ground in your being a called bad parent and my mom's behavior immediately preceeding her explosion.  My mom bought my daughter tons of toys, we get a few more used toys and at my daughter's birthday and christmas my mom says, repeatedly, that my daughter has "too many toys."  I put too much food on my daughter's plate - nevermind that it's exciting and my daughter doesn't want to eat as much when she could be playing.  My daughter doesn't get outside enough, she should play in the yard - nevermind that the "yard" is a coal and gravel lot that was previously used as a truck depo, and we have a half-dozen nice parks within three blocks. I "can't let my daughter play video games, they'll rot her brain" - though I played them from the age of 6, and had a lot of educational content that way, as does my daughter. 

And the part about how you stopped existing when your kids were born?  Spot on.  My mom has said quite clearly that my relationship with her doesn't matter, my daughter and father are the only people she's living for.  I'm a terrible parent and she knows what I should be doing for parenting.  And I know the holiday thing is something she does and would do as long as she could.  I don't even think I could do holidays for her if she ever did get help. I don't think I'll ever do a large family gathering, or holiday, or vacation.  I couldn't afford to let her have that kind of stage, the set and setting of it would be so bad. Only after I came here did I see what an issue holidays/events can be.

quote]

I'm hoping being honest with him and the contrast of a healthy relationship with one of his grandmas (she calls and sends cards all the time) will help him realize that's how relationships should be.

I completely agree with your sentiment.  When she's older she can decide the context and how that will go.  I just wish she had a relationship with her maternal grandmother to contrast with - while it's healthier, it's not strictly a healthy relationship that she has with us.

I don't know how far away you're moving, but we ended up moving halfway across the country, and I've found not having to stress with the day to day interactions and the added pressure of being close on holidays has given me the space I needed to really start healing. 

After what happened to me, my sister won't get pregnant in the same area code as my mother, and they're waiting until they get deployed to get pregnant.  We've thought about moving far, but it's hard to do when the cost of living in the midwest is so low.  She's three hours away, and we don't want her closer. 

Thanks again, I appreciate it.

[Sitara]

It sounds like logically you understand a lot of this stuff but are having trouble making the jump emotionally.  I learned long ago to bury my emotions deep and used my logic to survive, so now I'm having to relearn all the emotional stuff - it's hard.

I don't know if you have visited the Tools section, but there's a lot of stuff there that you can look at and maybe find what's going to be most helpful to you.  The one that jumped out at me was the one Dealing with threats of suicide https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=79032.0  My mom doesn't make those threats to me (I think she may to my dad) so I don't have any personal advice.

Don't forget to give yourself credit for how far you've already come!

[nomom4me]

Wow cubic, I got a little misty-eyed reading your post.  I have complex PTSD and my mom us UBPD (with some NPD characteristics).  I'm also a new mom.  I've watched my mom with nieces and nephews and have tried to pave a road with my baby to better interactions with my mom.  I would like mine to get help too, but she scoffs at therapists and has belittled me for having "mental problems" (yet she likes to claim some "memory problems" make it impossible for her to remember my simple boundaries).  I try to focus on consecutive contact with her and would like to see that improve before I commit to more than phone conversations.  Email has been her petition box/journal for years and facebook is out of the question, my mom and I have very different values when it comes to the internet and privacy.

I hear you on the gift issue.  Gifts and help with childcare/school cost have turned into a system not unlike buying stock with her older grandkids, we are not doing an IPO with our child.  I put of announcing so I would not have to deal with the stress of her "suggestions" and "gifts" during a very difficult pregnancy.  I'm trying to streamline everything into xmas gifts because (I hope) those will be more difficult to hold over my head later.

I hear you on the moving issue too, I live in a big city - I have for years, and I don't own.  I've never stayed in an apartment for more than 5 years and have moved cross-country more than once, it's generally an economic decision and my mom has morphed it into accusations of instability "mental problems" etc and even said she can't "walk on eggshells" around me.  I might move next year, my current place is not rent controlled and my mother has not rented in decades and lives in an area that is it's own economic bubble - she has called me a looser for moving so much and any time I've lived in a temporary rental or had a temporary job she gets delusional about potential of a perm situation.  I don't even tell her about temp jobs anymore and she does not have my current address, she has been telling family that she has "no idea" where I live for years now so I feel no obligation to allow her to visit, we have had a great deal on rent and I don't want to manage her emotions if the rent goes up or the landlord wants to sell the place.

My little angel is starting to wake here... .so I have to go feed her, but I found your post very validating.  It's good to know I'm not the only one who has to to fight these ridiculous battled. 

[unicornlaxative]

It's funny and sad at the same time - you are halfway across the world with a different culture and ethnicity than mine, and yet it felt like you described my mother to a T.

Loving difficult people while maintaining your and your kid's sanity is so hard.