When Does a BPD Realize They Are Responsible?

[mom2bpd]

I haven't posted in awhile so I'll first give a brief synopsis of my uBPDD and her issues. She is currently married to a worthless narcissistic alcoholic who moved into a separate apartment about 7 weeks ago. They are still seeing each other to see if they can work it out supposedly but he is not supporting her or my granddaughter. My granddaughter is not his child and he hasn't thought he should support her throughout their year long marriage. So I'm hoping they eventually divorce because she was constantly dysregulated when he was there full time. However... .BPDD seems to have a hard time letting him go. So now she has no money even though she's a school teacher and makes over 40k per year. Does she blame him for her money problems? No... .she thinks her father and I should help her out with grand d"s insurance and child care. Our BPDD did not put granddaughters father on her birth certificate and even though he's in another country and granddaughter is now 7, she now thinks she can go after him for child support! So she threatens us that if he doesn't start paying... then we'll have to pay. Her lousy husband is totally not responsible either so what a pair. She's kept our granddaughter from us before when she got upset over us claiming her on our taxes. So of course we are worried but we can't keep on having her pull our puppet strings over and over from one crisis to another. Our granddaughter truly only has us as stable role models so we know how much alienation could hurt her because she was a different child after they alienated her from us before. So what can we do? I've researched custody and talked with lawyers about it. It would be difficult in this state to obtain and even if it happened it would probably be joint and I can't imagine how dysregulated this would make uBPDD. What can we do to let her know we are not responsible for these costs and still get to see our granddaughter?

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

[MammaMia]

mom2BPD

Sit down with your dd and have her show you exactly where her money goes.  If she is supporting her alcoholic husband, she should stop.  PwBPD are notoriously bad at managing their money, and there may be ways for her to save money, but she will probably need to have them pointed out to her.

Then tell her very clearly that you cannot afford to help her financially.

Offer to help, if you can, by reducing childcare expenses.  However, if you are still working, that may not be an option.  Or offer to help in other ways that do not include giving her money, like running errands for her,  helping her around the house, or taking your gd for the weekend every once in a while to allow her some time to de-stress.  Simple kindnesses that keep you connected and show emotional support.  

She may be reluctant to let her husband go, because pwBPD have abandonment issues, regardless of how difficult the situation is.  

Hopefully, your dd will respond positively and allow you to spend time with your gd without making you literally pay for it, which is just wrong on so many levels.