Hi, I am new and it's taken me a while to be able to post - DIL probably BPD

[Elizabeth22]

Hi and thanks in advance for reading this.

My husband and I believe my daugher in law is BPD. It causes us great concern and my husband discusses it with his therapist who said she is probably BPD. I had suspected for a while. I think I am in a bit of denial and a lot of pain. I tried to read Walking on Eggshells a few summers back to learn how to deal with her and it was so painful, I could not continue reading. I recognized so much of her in it.

My son had a child with a previous fiance of whom he now has custody and is 7. He has a child with his wife, who is now 3. The 7 year old is special needs and she is quite harsh with him. Her own family has even told her she is.

When my son met his now wife, I honestly did not like her and could not articulate why. Something seemed off. But she was functioning, employed and generally seemed ok. I later learned she had some serious psychiatric history.

I don't want to bore everyone with a really long post on my first visit here so the general issues are - She is on disability. My son is not allowed to work, she always sabbotages him when he gets a job. The two of them sit around all day and do practically nothing. I think he also does not trust her to leave her alone with the kids. She goes to the ER twice a week. Her doctor has accused her of pill seeking (I previously suspected this, she is always seeking pain meds and sometimes self harms to get them). She recently cheated on my son. She does nothing all day, stays in bed, my son had to take care of everything EXCEPT for when she wants to be out of the house, then she is fine. She will go out and do what she wants, which usually involves visiting her relatives (who are all drug abusers and on welfare), but I don't think that's where she is all the time she is out.

They are flat broke. Everytime they get a few extra dollars, she spends it. We used to give them money and help them out and still do by buying things for the kids. We stopped giving them money.

She has threatened to use at least one of the children against me before when I did something she didn't like. There have also been extraordinary expectations on my husband and I as grandparents (my husband is not the father of my children, my ex husband is) in terms of helping take care of the kids.

I probably seem all over the place. Anyway, I am finding myself not wanting to interact with my son, my grandchildren and especially my daughter in law because of all the turmoil. They live close by and this makes me personally feel like a failure. Like I should just be able to "get over it" or "do it for the sake of the kids", but I can't. I am anxious and burned out and sad and all sorts of things and I have read that it's normal to feel like this when facing a situation like this.

I am just overwhelmed and raw. I make excuses to avoid seeing them. I feel like I am drowning and can't save the other people who are drowning.

I guess those are my feelings and what I am trying to cope with and why I am here.

[Aurylian]

Elizabeth,

Sorry to hear about your daughter in law.  I'm sure you hurt for your son daily. 

I can relate somewhat in that my mom is in the same situation with my BPDw. Mom wants more and better for me, but it is what it is.

I can encourage you that the best thing you can do is continue to be available to your son and help as needed, without enabling.  Try to stay out of conflict with the daughter in law.  My mom got frustrated a few times with my wife.  One time mom was feeling emotional about it on a visit and after being prodded by my wife, unloaded on her in private.  The amount of damage that did was remarkable.  All of it was true, but now it makes it harder for me to see my mom and harder for her to visit. 

If you practice the Lessons on communication and make sure to take a time out if you get frustrated, then you could be a real help for your son. 

Be encouraged.  You have an important role in being there for your son.  Even if it is in the background, just knowing you are there for him is huge.

[Elizabeth22]

Elizabeth,

Sorry to hear about your daughter in law.  I'm sure you hurt for your son daily. 

I can relate somewhat in that my mom is in the same situation with my BPDw. Mom wants more and better for me, but it is what it is.

I can encourage you that the best thing you can do is continue to be available to your son and help as needed, without enabling.  Try to stay out of conflict with the daughter in law.  My mom got frustrated a few times with my wife.  One time mom was feeling emotional about it on a visit and after being prodded by my wife, unloaded on her in private.  The amount of damage that did was remarkable.  All of it was true, but now it makes it harder for me to see my mom and harder for her to visit. 

If you practice the Lessons on communication and make sure to take a time out if you get frustrated, then you could be a real help for your son. 

Be encouraged.  You have an important role in being there for your son.  Even if it is in the background, just knowing you are there for him is huge.

Hi Aurylian,

Thank you for your reply to me. I really appreciate the fact that you are in the position my son is and was able to talk to me about this from your point of view.

I do hurt for my son daily and I do want better for him and it is very hard to just stand by, but you are right; it is what it is.

I do feel my DIL has tried  to prod and provoke me but after a few episodes of responding and experiencing the fallout, I think I have learned better now. I think this is a big reason why I limit contact: to avoid giving her those opportunities and to lessen what she can take from me or manipulate.

It was  very important for me to hear that just being there for my son and letting him know it is huge, because that is what I am doing. He does discuss  things with me privately sometimes and I always tell him I/we (my husband and I) are here for him. I also tell him if he needs to  get out of the house to just give us a call and come on over. He has not taken me up on it. He seems like a hostage to me, he has often said he feels trapped. We also offered to take and raise my grandson (from his previous relationship) when DIL did not want him there anymore. My son did stand his ground on that with her and told her if he had to choose, he was choosing his son. We also did say both my son and my grandson could come here, but since they were expecting another baby, my son felt he needed to stay there (or that's my  take on things. I think he thought she would be ok when the pregnancy was over). She relented on the demand that the 7 year old no longer be there and has acted contrite and apologetic about it, even going overboard as to proclaim how much she loves him and saying he is her son too, tho she does not act as tho she feels this way.

This caused a lot of problems  for my son as she was pregnant with their child at the time and she accused him choosing one child over the other. She accused me of favoring the 7 year old over the 3 year old before the 3 year old was even born and attempted to use the unborn child as leverage against me (and did so after he was born too). That is when I started to emotionally check out, when I realized that my life would be full of things like that if I stayed close to them. I was being set up to fail before the  baby was even born. However, she has made it  very clear that the 3 year old basically belongs to her family and he is special. She has said she believes he is the reincarnation of her father. I cannot deal with that level of crazy.

The line between helping and enabling is a difficult one to straddle at times, and that is another reason I feel I must maintain distance. They used to call for money. They used to call at night when she needed to go to the ER and ask us to babysit. For some reason, she is only sick enough to need a doctor at night, hence the many ER visits which now, to the best of my knowledge, has been identified as pill seeking.

Your reinforcing the idea that I cannot engage in any drama with her, no matter how provoked and prodded I am is a good and timely reminder, as I was thinking of telling her what I think about the situation, just to get it off my chest. It is insidious and its like a thousand small events snowball into a larger one and I begin to question my own sanity. Taking a step back is always wise.

Thank you.

[Aurylian]

Yeah, venting to her won't change her, but will be ammunition she will redirect at your son.

Has he done any therapy or read "The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder?"  Having him get healthy and learn the tools is probably the best gift you can give him.  Obviously, he will have to read it in private.  "Boundaries in Marriage" is also very helpful.  If you can impress upon him that there are many tools that will make his life much easier that would be great.

[Elizabeth22]

He has not gone to therapy, I have asked him to. He is depressed and lost a lot of weight since he found out she cheated on him. I will suggest your reading recommendations when I get a chance. It's been slow going with him in terms of admitting she has serious problems. He will tell me all the symptoms, but cannot yet come to terms with the severity of the matter. When she faked a nervous breakdown and I tried to talk to him about how serious it was and we needed to talk about it as a family and have a plan and some support in place should it happen again, he got very upset with me. When he cooled down I asked him why he got so upset and he said its because I am always right about her and it just makes him angry. So, he does recognized problems, I just think he copes with denial as a defense mechanism sometimes. Like, some reality is ok, but not too much, if that makes sense.

[Elizabeth22]

Has anyone else just come to the conclusion in  their own lives and experiences with someone with BPD and with children involved that you are going to initiate low contact or no contact to lessen the conflict or what the BPD person can take from you? This is especially hard with small children involved.

[swampped]

Oh, Elizabeth22:  I wonder if we have the same dil?  Your story is familiar in many ways, which I won't bore you with now, but I did want to answer your last question:  Yes, we have found that going to "limited contact" (LC) and occasionally very LC (VLC) has kept us sane, if not pain-free.  Our situation is easier in the sense that our DS moved 350 miles away when our granddaughter was three months old, so her mother could be closer to her older children who were in their father's custody.  We continue to support them financially---he is mildly limited intellectually, so works at minimum wage jobs---and I am sure the only reason we ever hear from now ex-dil is because she needs that monthly check.  And needs more, and more, and it never ends.  Although we do not send more, then she browbeats DS for more and more of his meager paycheck, he ends up donating plasma, etc, and I said I would not go onto our soap opera, didn't I?

So:  What have I learned?   First, get on over to the parenting board, where you will begin to understand what BPDs are like from an early age.  Also, there are many grandparents on that board who have been through the agony you describe.

Read, read read, but in the process (Once I started, it became slightly obsessive) take care of yourself! The airplane analogy is a good one here---you need to get the oxygen on yourself first so you can help your child with theirs.  And listen to Aurylian's advice---I bet my DS would say the exact same thing if he could.  Blessings to you!  And welcome aboard!    Swampped

[Elizabeth22]

Hi swampped,

Boy, do we ever have some similarities. Nice to meet you. Thank you for the nice welcome and the kind words. I am very sorry to hear you are going through something so similar. I admire your interest in helping your adult child while maintaining boundaries. That part is so hard. And yes, the grandkids, its really so hard with them involved. My DIL called me today for a favor, which basically was could I do something she was responsible for while she did whatever the heck she wanted. I lied my way out of it to avoid conflict. I hate lying because I am usually such a straightforward person and I feel this is causing me to behave unlike myself. I just hate it. I will always choose to tell the truth and take the consequences, but then I wonder if she will take it out on me or someone else. I really cannot deliver the truth to her in a way which will not offend her. I need a VERY GOOD reason to not comply with her wishes.

I am so sorry your son has to go to such extremes for money when you are providing money as well. My DIL burns through money as soon as she gets it, like its literally burning a hole in her pocket. As I mentioned, she is on disability and basically forbids my son to work through all sorts of manipulation and feigned illness, feigned a nervous breakdown because he went to work one morning and she didn't want him too (she actually allowed herself to be admitted to the psych ward and was 100% fine the next day and discharged, that is a total other story and something I fear again).

I did start reading on the parenting board per your suggestion and will continue to. One thing I did see was BPD and Asperger's being a terribly problematic combination. I will have to find out more about that. My son is mild ADD, but I believe he was misdiagnosed and is actually mild Asperger's. His son is (7) is ADHD. Lot's of issues just around that alone. 

I feel this strange mix of relief and anxiety - relief because I am not crazy and anxiety because I wish this was not real. Strange place to be.

Thank you for affirming my choice to be LC and VLC (or at least tell me you do it and how you feel about it). It has helped me and I am grateful.


Elizabeth22

[swampped]

   ELizabeth 22.  Yes, our stories do sound similar!  Let me give you an example of how our LC is working.  Two days ago, ds called, telling us he had "bad news"---always a gut wrenching announcement.  This time it was that her car (which we bought, paid for, gave to them, and she now owns because he signed it over so "your daughter/our granddaughter"--fill in the blanks---would have transportation) had been towed, needed repair, and how was it going to be paid for?  That translates into, of course, more money from Mom and Dad because xdil's parents have long since given up on supporting her, and we are still the ones who respond to our first gd's needs.  For the first time in a long time, my dh said "We're sorry about that, ds.  I am sure dil will figure out a solution". (We always take the calls on speaker phone because he is a little hard of hearing and we do better two-on-one)  So we waited for the inevitable call which came yesterday, after the price of repair was known.  Again, ds calls, saying dil's own mother could not help, and what was dil going to do to get the car out?  My (sainted!) dh said again, "I'm sure she will figure out a way, son."  He fretted some, we engaged in some other conversation, and said goodbye, knowing we would hear again.  But surprise!  He calls back an hour later, saying ":)on't worry Mom.  Dil got the car out, and I think she might have had the money all along!"   We PRAY that our ds will learn something from this little experience.  We certainly have and hope we can repeat our "performance" the next time there is a crisis.  (THe irony is my dh stood firm this time, because I have recently had surgery, and I had to let him take the lead.  Maybe I should be "weak" more often! )

Now there are some real differences in our situation.  Our ds is 35, has a developmental defect which is complicated, although not visible, and has real problems with executive function, among other things.  He is terrified that if he does not jump when xdil says jump, she will deny access to their daughter, which she does regularly.  Our codependence with ds is complicated by this disability--a whole other story---and dh and I have come to the conclusion that supporting gd6 is an important part of supporting ds35.  Their divorce was uncontested; there is no visitation policy; we support her with my SS check because we can afford to, and because it makes his life a little less stressful.  That is surely not the case for most parents here, and I rarely talk about it because it is such a complicated situation.  It is because of that $ that she is decent to him at all, I am sure.  Our anxiety over gd6 is great, but we have had to let that go, as she is on the surface well cared for, is bright, and has everything a little girl could ever need.  We have struggled, especially during her infancy, with the question of seeking custody, as have many on the parenting board.  My dh is 70, I am 68, have Parkinson's disease, and the Lord was good to us in keeping us from making that decision.  (The fact that they are in another state made it impossible anyway.)  Looking at her from the surface, there is no way anyone would ever think that social services should be involved.  I am sure that living with her mother's BPD will take an emotional toll, but we cannot fix it.  We have had tremendous help with all of that from AlAnon, which we found 10 years ago for another reason.  I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Sorry for this long post.  I think the bottom line is that you have to take care of yourself, no matter how selfish that may seem (another lesson from AlAnon), because if you are in knots all the time you are no good to anybody anyway.  You need to find some support from others who have walked the walk, and I have found this site incredibly helpful for that.  You have to trust that things will work out how they are going to work out, ("Let go and let God", again from AlAnon) and that you are not in control.  Then you have to love your ds, your grandchildren, and yes, your dil who after all suffers from a terrible problem.  The way I figure, both parents have a pretty full plate (don't we all), and our gd6 didn't ask for any of it.  But who among us asked for our problems?

And with that, I'll stop.   I am so glad you have found us.  You will be in my thoughts and prayers.          Swampped

[jdtm]

Has anyone else just come to the conclusion in  their own lives and experiences with someone with BPD and with children involved that you are going to initiate low contact or no contact to lessen the conflict or what the BPD person can take from you?

Yes, that is "us" too.  Eventually, our DIL left our son and abandoned her children.  Our son has since re-married and life is good for him (unfortunately, ex-DIL continues the "same old same old"  We lived through "hell" for almost two decades.  I am sure this "experience" has shortened the years of my life, as well as my husband.  That was too much power to give to a BPD now ex-DIL.  It will not happen again (our eldest grandchild appears to be BPD) - we will be changing our "mode of action" to one of proactive, and not reactive.  We have decided to call "a spade a spade" and to quit "walking on eggshells".  I believe in "validating communication" but not at the expense of truth and my integrity.  And, if it means this grandchild will not be in our lives, so be it.

The best advice I can give since having "lived your life and exited with sanity" (although sanity at times was questionable - LOL) is to "put yourselves first".  That may require not being available and sometimes saying "no".  I changed everything that I could in order to survive - my shopping areas, my church, my recreational activities (so important) and since we lived in the same neighbourhood as our son and his family, we moved.  Yup - all this to remain sane.  And, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I think what we forget here is that "we count too".  If our adult children decide to "mess up their lives", well, it is their right to do so.  And, when "push comes to shove", it appears your son (as did ours) will choose his children first.  We honestly feel that if we had "stepped out of their lives sooner", the divorce would also have been sooner.  We believe that our interference/help was the "duct tape" which held the marriage together longer than it should have been.  It would have been better for our grandchildren and our son and us (and perhaps our ex-DIL) if the marriage had ended far, far sooner.

Your son made a mistake.  You cannot fix it.  Trust him -  So sorry ... .

[Elizabeth22]

Hi, I am sorry its taken me so long to get back to this thread. Thank you so much for sharing your stories and for your support. I probably won't be back, it doesn't have anything to do with any of you or this thread. I wish you all the best of luck and thank you again for your generosity.

Elizabeth22