I need support

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi.  I think my wife is a high-functioning BPD.  She can hide it from most people and most situations.  But she sometimes imagines slights or feels like someone is screwing with her.  It used to be mostly me, but lately our teenage daughter has started to bear the brunt too.

The latest episode had my wife upset that our teenager was looking out the side windows of the car while sitting at a light.  She accuses her of trying to flirt with other drivers.  The teen tried to defend herself and this justbinflamed the situation.  My wife then decided to berate the kid about her choice of friends, threatened to call social services to take her away if she thinks she has it so bad with us.  Our daughter went for a walk but ended up at a friend's house.  My wife got mad at her for lying about where she was going and took her phone and told her to stay away from her friends.  "I will pick you new friends". 

I couldn't stand by and tried to calm the situation.  Now I too am I'm the doghouse and being threatened.  First she tells me to pack my bags and get out, them says if I leave she will destroy my career by telling my coworkers bad things about me.

I am using some techniques from Stop Walking on Eggshells, but this is very hard.  We also have two younger children who I fear for.

[StuckDad7]

Hi.  I think my wife is a high-functioning BPD.  She can hide it from most people and most situations.  But she sometimes imagines slights or feels like someone is screwing with her.  It used to be mostly me, but lately our teenage daughter has started to bear the brunt too.

The latest episode had my wife upset that our teenager was looking out the side windows of the car while sitting at a light.  She accuses her of trying to flirt with other drivers.  The teen tried to defend herself and this justbinflamed the situation.  My wife then decided to berate the kid about her choice of friends, threatened to call social services to take her away if she thinks she has it so bad with us.  Our daughter went for a walk but ended up at a friend's house.  My wife got mad at her for lying about where she was going and took her phone and told her to stay away from her friends.  "I will pick you new friends". 

I couldn't stand by and tried to calm the situation.  Now I too am I'm the doghouse and being threatened.  First she tells me to pack my bags and get out, them says if I leave she will destroy my career by telling my coworkers bad things about me.

I am using some techniques from Stop Walking on Eggshells, but this is very hard.  We also have two younger children who I fear for.

[david]

I don't have any advice on how to help the situation. However, one thing I would have done if I knew it would be to record the outbursts and yelling. If things get worse you have evidence to support what is going on.

[Panda39]

Hi Stuckdad,

We can all speculate on what your wife was thinking... .pwBPD fear abandonment and the teen years are when kids begin to assert their independence... .the teen years are also when we begin to mature physically (was your wife sexually abused at all?) your daughter's maturing body may make her fearful... .or it could be jealousy... .or it could be projecting her own thoughts/feelings on to your daughter.

Your wife unfortunately is gonna do what she wants to do and say what she wants to say.  The only person that can control her... .is her.

I think the real key is to focus on your daughter, try to run interference when you can but more importantly validate her feelings, tell her you understand, talk with her about what happened... .listen.

A good book on Validation that you might find helpful is The Power of Validation: Arming Your Child Against Bullying, Peer Pressure, Addiction, Self-Harm, and Out-of-Control Emotions by Karyn D. Hall & Melissa Cook

Also check out some of the topics/links in the box to the right.

You might also want to consider therapy for your daughter if your wife continues to focus her attention on her.  Therapy is a great place to talk privately with someone about what's going on, get some coping skills, and support.

I'm sorry this all happened to your daughter unfortunately it probably won't be the last time but by learning to better support your daughter you can help her negotiate having a BPDmom.

Keep posting, asking questions and sharing your stories here our members will give you all kinds of perspectives, information, ideas and support.  You're doing a good thing for your kids (and yourself too) by coming here.

Wishing you well,

Panda39

[NorthernGirl]

Hi Stuckdad.

Ouch, that's hard on a teenager. As Panda39 says, there is likely some fear of abandonment going on. We saw my DH's ex (uBPD) become much more aggressive when the kids began to flex their independence muscles.

Are you able to have good conversations with your daughter? If she'll talk with a counsellor or other responsible adult, it may help her see this has nothing to do with her. But if she is left to process it on her own, she may look at herself as being the cause.

We found SS22 (who struggles with addiction, anxiety, depression) was saying very little when his mom raged as he tried to become more independent. The problem was, he was blaming himself and not saying anything to DH or to the therapists he was seeing. He just let it all sit. And now it is coming out, but not in a way that is helpful. He is now raging at DH and his brother, and trying to win the love of his Mom. Don't presume that if you daughter says everything is fine, that it is!

[livednlearned]

I wanted to add to your new reading list    the book "I Don't Have to Make It All Better" -- it has some really good sections on validation, not just for your wife, but for your daughter too. And it doesn't label anyone as BPD, so that avoids the sticky issue of pointing out the mental illness. I like Panda39's suggestion, too, The Power of Validation. Both are good. The first one has sections for teens, as well as for adults so it might help you with both relationships, and give your D some tools to help minimize conflict with her mom.

People with BPD have a higher-then-average need for validation, and that turns things upside down when there are kids involved. It's a role-reversal for the parent-child relationship to expect that the child is going to validate the parent, but that's what is happening.

Take validation for a spin and see how it works. If you see that it works for you, maybe share the tool with your D and tell her this is a tool to prevent her mom from escalating things to high conflict.

You can see a short thing on validation to the right on this board ---------> under tools.

Let us know if it works. I found it was helpful to get feedback from people to see if I was phrasing things in a way that was validating. Also, it can be hard for fixer/rescuer types because we like to control things and give advice. Validation is an antidote to that, so you have to really look closely at the language you use to make sure you are genuinely validating your wife.

It doesn't erase all conflict. It just helps to prevent it from making things worse.



LnL