Don't let them turn you against other people

[Gerda]

I've been posting about my father's death, but I just wanted to make this important point in its own post. Maybe it's part of the grieving/healing process, but I feel like this is an important lesson I've learned from all this that I want other people to know about in case you're in a similar situation.

I never remember my parents being happily married. In fact, almost as far back as I can remember, they slept in separate bedrooms. My mom talked bad about my dad ALL THE TIME. He was a total idiot and there was absolutely nothing he could do that was right. She complained about every single little thing he did. Being a kid, I just believed everything Mom told me. I always thought I just had a bad Dad, while I had a wonderful Mom. It was really unfair that my mom got stuck with such a lousy husband.

My dad was hardly involved in my life at all, while my mom and I were inseparable. I automatically went to Mom for everything, even minor things like signing a permission slip for a school field trip. It was like I really only had one parent, at least emotionally. (My dad supported us financially and lived in the same house, but that's about it.)

When I was 16 they got divorced, and by then my mom had so thoroughly turned me against Dad that I wasn't even sorry to see him go. I was sure we were better off without him.

I had hardly any relationship with him at all for years and years after that. I moved out, went to college, turned 30... .

About two years ago I got married, and I was actually surprised that Dad wanted to go to my wedding. He seemed genuinely excited about it. On the other hand, Mom acted like a complete nightmare and tried to derail everything. Dad acted great through my wedding weekend, while Mom went completely crazy. Shortly after my wedding I went NC with mom because I just couldn't handle it anymore.

That was also around when I started suspecting Mom had BPD and started reading up on it. When I read Understanding the Borderline Mother, there was a chapter about the kind of men BPD women marry, and I recognized my dad as being a "frog prince". He was a passive person who was easily pushed around and manipulated by my mom. (Meanwhile, I was the "Golden Child".) When I read "The Emotional Incest Syndrome", I recognized my dad was "the left-out spouse" while I was the "Chosen Child" and Mom monopolized my life, leaving no room for me to have relationships with other people.

I started to realize my dad might not be such a bad guy after all, and that maybe he was just as much of a victim of my mom as I was. Maybe it wasn't so much that he didn't want to have a relationship with me, but that my mom pushed us apart. Sure, he wasn't perfect. He could have stood up for himself more and fought to have a relationship with me more, but he didn't. But I'm sure mom didn't make it easy for him to have any kind of relationship with me. So I think he just gave up.

I started to think maybe I should try to re-establish some sort of relationship with him.

But I ran out of time. In September he got cancer, and in March he died.

I did get to spend a little time with him while he was sick. It was pleasant enough. At least as pleasant as it can be visiting someone who's terminally ill, who you realize is pretty much a stranger to you. I found out a lot of things about dad I didn't know, things that I thought were cool, things we had in common that I didn't know about. My husband went with me once and pointed out a few of those things. "You must have gotten that from your dad, because you sure didn't get it from your mom!" And I had spent most of my life hoping I was nothing like my dad, because everything about me that reminded my mom of my dad, she criticized. "Oh, that's just like your father!" The half of me I got from my dad was the BAD half, obviously.

But actually some of the things I had in common with my dad were things I think are good things.

So if he didn't get cancer, maybe I could have had a relationship with him. But I didn't get the chance.

Now I'm wondering about some of the other family members she's driven away from me. For example, I'd like to talk with my older sister more. We have the same mom, but different dads, but she called me when she heard my dad died and we had a very nice conversation. I hadn't talked to her in years! She said my dad was "the nicest step-dad" she could have hoped for, and "I just keep thinking of all the nice things he did for me."

I had no idea. My mom gave me the impression he treated his step-daughter badly because "she wasn't his kid."

The thing is that they get you to focus so much on them and your relationship with them that other people get ignored and pushed out of the picture. I had all those years between my parents' divorce and my wedding that I could have been spending with my dad, but that was all taken up with supporting my mom through dating and getting remarried and getting divorced again. If I ever drove back to town to visit for holidays, I'd have to stay with mom, and she didn't seem to like me even going over to visit Dad. I remember I spent a whole day with him once, and she didn't like that at all.

(That's why when Dad got sick, I went to his house to visit him and didn't tell her. Now she's telling everyone I never visited him while he was sick.)

I see how she's doing it with other people too. She's been trying to turn me and my uncle (dad's brother) against each other trying to convince me that my uncle is trying to cheat me out of my share of the inheritance from my dad's estate. I almost fell for it too, because she kept on and on about it while my dad was dying, until I realized she was just up to her old tricks again, and my uncle's actually been acting much nicer than she's been through all this.


So I'm just trying to warm people that this can happen, and you need to be on the lookout for it with your own family members. They probably aren't perfect, but they might not be the monster the BPD makes them out to be. Those books I mentioned really helped me see how this affects the whole family system. I just wish I had figured it out sooner.

I think NC or at least VLC with my mom is a good idea, because I think I need to concentrate my energy on repairing some of my other relationships that she's damaged, rather than putting SO MUCH energy into trying to deal with a relationship with her. I don't want any more people to die with me having hardly knew them because I only saw them through mom's eyes instead of having a relationship with them on just our terms.

[Kwamina]

Hi Gerda,

Thanks for sharing your story and these important insights. BPD parents are very good in making their children believe their reality, especially after they've already succeeded in removing the other people from the picture, in this case your father. Since your father wasn't around it also wasn't possible for him to defend himself against any possible lies your mom was telling you about him. I'm sorry you missed all those years with your father but I'm glad you at least got to spend some time with him before his death. I had a similar experience with my mother's older sister. My mother was always very good in pointing out the flaws in others while completely ignoring her own. As I really got to know this aunt it became clear to me that the things my mother said really didn't add up. Same thing with my father, I still don't have contact with him and I'm sure he wasn't perfect but living with a BPD wife isn't easy at all so I now too believe that their problems were at least partly caused by my mother.

[Lise]

Thank you for sharing your story, Gerda. I am so sorry this happened to you, and I cannot begin to imagine the grief you must feel after losing your father, when you were just getting to know him.

It seems to me, you've been able to find a way of gaining strength from this whole experience, that is truly amazing and I hope you'll find peace of mind.

[veronica lodge]

Hi Gerda, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.  What an awakening you are going through at the moment.  I totally understand your situation as my udBPD MIL has ruined many relationships surrounding the family.  She tries to control everyone's relationships, wanting no-body to talk to each other so that she is the sole communicator amongst us all. She wants everyone to hate each other.  I have only just realised this myself.  I also have re-connected recently with someone that my udBPD MIL tainted and shamed for years.  This person is actually a beautiful person and I am really happy that I am in contact with her again after so many years.  My MIL also works her sons against each other, constantly backstabbing each one to the other and she absolutely HATES the daughter in laws (me included) and she does her absolute best to make sure that we also hate each other so that she is the "Queen" of the family.  I don't know if the others see this but my husband and I have recently woken up to the situation.   

[Wryly]

Thank you for sharing. I am sorry for you loss. But I think hearing what you went through is helping me get a better grip on what is happening in my family right now.

I have always been very close with my father. I have been close with my mother too but the relationship has been very difficult in my twenties. They have always fought and my mother has always spoken to me like she pitied him for being stupid and not being able to live without her. I never believed. He is flawed, but not at all in how she says. And he would never say a bad word against her except that he wished she didn't say such terrible things to us kids.

My mom left recently. In one big drama-filled day. I was not home in the morning. She screamed, yelled, beat herself up, broke things and left. In the times she has come back to get clothes she talks to me telling me not to believe what I'm told (I'm living in the house with my dad right now). Showing me bruises. Telling me she is talking to social workers, etc.

But when my brother has talked to her, she tells him she is going to see a doctor and just needs time to herself and wants to come back.

She has told her parents she had a mental break down and my cousin that it wasn't that, but that my dad and brother abused her.

I love both my parents very much. And my father and brother have never shown any signs of anything but being gentle, caring people. But having my mother leave, and miss having my mom, and at the same time having her saying things against them has been so confusing and heartbreaking.

But I think now I see she is trying to shape some image of herself, by turning us all against each other. I think she has always felt like the glue uniting us and the idea we might still be fine without her makes her feel like she has to wedge her way between us in destructive ways.

Again thank you. It just helps to know some one else had been through something similar and seen it's not your/my fault or our dads' either.

I'm glad you reached some peace before he passed and at least you will carry that memory with you now.

[funfunctional]

Hi,

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your dad.   You got at least sometime talk and get to know him better.    Mom's mistake she talked so badly about him.   

When I lost my mother I often drifted back in time and did a "life review" of my own.  Why did this happen?  Why did this person do this?  Look how it affected me?  Lot of thinking

I keep reminding myself that people change over time.  I also tell myself "my mom did the best she could then in her mind".      We can only go forward.   How do we go forward and bring as much happiness and love into our lives and if we have kids as well?

The inheritance thing seems to be BIG with people that are or may be BPD.   My BPD M.I.L does that a lot.  We just show no response.    She told my husband's sister he is cut from her will.   Whatever!

You have a lot going on.  Grief.  Sad.    AND now seeing your mom in such a different light.

I wish you some peace in your life and wish I could give more advice but I just joined here and need to read & learn myself.   Take care and don't get entangled in the drama.