How to deal with enabling father/BPD mother & sister

[ainteasybeinggreen]

Hi all,

It's been awhile since I've posted, but here goes. My sister is a diagnosed BPD, I *strongly* suspect my mother has some variation of it—at the very least a severe mood disorder. I made the painful decision a little over a year ago to cease contact with them—all I had to do was simply stop trying to reach out to "fix" things, and I haven't heard a peep from either one of them with the exception of 2-3 several sentence emails from my mother. (She, for better or worse, is the type who doesn't bother to reach out when things are strained.)

So, my dad is really the only one "left." He is a good person–this is a fact. What drives me absolutely bat___ though, is that he *completely* enables particularly my mother's behavior. I strongly suspect she may have given him some intense talk about "if you ever go 'against' me, it's over." As a result, any time I bring up anything about my mother (to be honest, I'm less attached to my relationship w/my sister)—he tries to be empathetic. But if I catch him on a day when he's tired of talking about it, or if perhaps my mom may have been on him earlier—he'll say pretty insensitive things like "you need to move on with your life" and "aren't you past that? that happened awhile ago" and "I think there are other people who have it worse than you" type of crap.

Since he was the only relatively sane family member left, I was able to mildly put up with it, but I have reached a point where I can't have these fake conversations with no mentioning of the weird mom/sister relationship and he (not surprisingly) is completely oblivious to his enabling role.

I've accepted that I can't change him nor the situation. But I am struggling with contact with even my dad. I don't want an estranged relationship with him but I've found myself highly irritated and agitated the last month or so whenever we've spoken on the phone. So now we are at email contact.

Any thoughts about how to handle enabling family members? Surely not as challenging as the BPD-inflicted members, but the challenge in some ways may be even more deeply frustrating because they are more self-aware but seem to deliberately choose to live in the shadows of enabling the other person's toxic BPD tendencies.

Would love any thoughts—really been struggling.

[Kwamina]

Hi ainteasybeinggreen

Sorry to hear that you now find yourself struggling with the way your enabling dad behaves. Would you say that your mother uses things such as fear, obligation and guilt to try and 'control' your dad? If so, we have an article here that I think you might find interesting:

Fear, Obligation And Guilt (FOG): How We Allow Loved Ones To Control Us

Though your dad doesn't have BPD, some of the concepts and communication techniques that apply to BPD family-members can still also apply to him. Do you feel comfortable setting and enforcing/defending boundaries with your dad?

I've selected some resources that I think might (also) help you deal with your dad:

Setting Boundaries and Setting Limits

Express yourself: S.E.T. - Support, Empathy and Truth

Assert yourself: D.E.A.R.M.A.N. technique

[Auslaunder]

I think the enablers or even the care gIvers that are trying not to enable get so emotionally drained by the BPD they don't have any energy left to focus on the other members of the family. Talking about the BPD is dragging out the time he has to think about her. Because one of the parents, your mother, isnt acting as a parent, but childish, you are being parentified. This is emotional incest. In families with BPD parent there is a lot of pressure for the children to act "mature" all the time. I have gotten the sense the pressure to act strong comes from the enablers as well as the BPD because the enablers feel trapped, depressed, ect. It is common for children to have strained relationships with both parents because the enabler is not able to provide the child protection and safety or the attention due a child.

There is even a little bit of fear of the emotion of anger because we havs seen it misused so often. This is at least true in my family. Sometimes I've had to remind them that anger is a valid emotion. Everyone gets angry and I'm angry right now. Avoidance of the issue- the BPD- doesn't make it go away. We are allowed to be angry even if the anger has no purpose than to vent. Sharing feelings is actually how normal people bond with each other. They listen to me after that.

[Panda39]

I think the enablers or even the care givers that are trying not to enable get so emotionally drained by the BPD they don't have any energy left to focus on the other members of the family... .I have gotten the sense the pressure to act strong comes from the enablers as well as the pwBPD because the enablers feel trapped, depressed, etc. It is common for children to have strained relationships with both parents because the enabler is not able to provide the child protection and safety or the attention due a child.

Very true my SO found himself managing progressively less function uBPDw for almost 20 years the last 10 being the worst.  He had a wife making suicide threats, hording, unemployed, unable to drive, abusing prescription drugs, physical ailments (real and imagined), doing fraudulent things regarding money, getting into arguments with the nieghbors, and spending money they didn't have... .the list goes on and on. 

My SO was dealing with all of that and more regarding his wife and working full-time, grocery shopping, cooking, and trying to clean (pretty much a losing exercise with a horder), and trying to parent 2 daughters.

He was somewhat enabling... .a fixer... .he made a commitment to his marriage and his family that was important to him... .his code.  Towards the end of the marriage his wife was diagnosed Bipolar and he went on anti-depressants to "cope".  The medication helped create more enabling... .he was "coping" with the wife better because the drug managed his mood and he didn't fight it anymore.  She had no boundaries and loved it. 

He eventually realized the medication was dulling his senses and stopped taking them, his mother told him she didn't know who the hell he was anymore, he made is father a deathbed promise to leave his marriage, he had a brief "emotional" affair via internet with someone from his past that reminded him what a great guy he was, and the final straw was an verbally abusive attack on their older daughter.

He left his marriage.

His uBPDx blamed the divorce on my SO discontinuing the antidepressant and that might be partially true since he woke up and came to his senses.  But for him the final straw was seeing the verbal abuse their daughter received and the strength given to him by his family and the lady from his past that reminded him he was a good person that deserved better.

ainteasybinggreen I'm not suggesting your dad leave your mom but I wanted to give an example of how much he could have on his shoulders... .that he could be buried under it all and sometimes it's easier in the short run to take the path of least resistance and then the "short run" becomes all the time because he is overwhelmed.

The most direct route to tackle this is to just talk to your dad about how you feel.  Do you feel it is safe to do that? 

One thing to keep in mind is that we can only change ourselves we cannot change another person.  So maybe think about if your dad is unable to change to help himself and make you more comfortable with him, what can you change to make the situation more tolerable for you.  Maybe communicating via email like you have already started is helpful, maybe staying away from certain subjects could be helpful, maybe keeping phone calls short, maybe less frequent contact... .

I know it is frustrating to see someone you love allowing themselves to be abused when you see another way and they can't see it  or can't change even when they do see it.

There is even a little bit of fear of the emotion of anger because we havs seen it misused so often. This is at least true in my family. Sometimes I've had to remind them that anger is a valid emotion. Everyone gets angry and I'm angry right now. Avoidance of the issue- the BPD- doesn't make it go away. We are allowed to be angry even if the anger has no purpose than to vent. Sharing feelings is actually how normal people bond with each other. They listen to me after that.

Auslaunder

I thought this was a fascinating statement because I witnessed this type of behavior when I first met my SO.  A lot of very "rational" reactions to things that would have just pissed me off.  He had and still sometimes has a hard time expressing anger he will often express anger as sadness.  As nutty as this sounds I encourage him to express his anger (constructively) he needs to know it's okay to express himself fully.  No more dancing around issues either.

As a side note one of his uBPDxw's favorite saying was "You can't be mad at me"... .wanna bet 

Panda39

[ainteasybeinggreen]

Thanks so much for all your thoughts, everyone. I agree that my dad appears so buried underneath everything that has happened so far, that is may nearly be impossible to extract himself, so to speak. In other words, I accept that nothing I will do/say to him will change anything—a sad truth. What's specifically been hard for me lately is that I feel like my overall desire to want to confide in him as a parent feels not as secure because I feel like he doesn't "believe" me or understand how badly my mother has hurt me emotionally because of her suspected BPD.

I think that's what I'm struggling with the most—I just don't know how to manage my relationship with my dad anymore around it. Any thoughts for how people specifically interact with enabling parents? Thanks again to all the great points that have been mentioned here.

[Charlie3236]

Just had to write in response to this, because the enabler has been the most hurtful and infuriating part of this whole thing! I expect my BPD sister to act like a nut, but I never expected my dad to buy into her ranting and raving. He's spent so much time on the phone with her every day, calming her down, giving her emotional support. But it's all a huge lie, because she's a master-manipulator who has a very small band of yes-men around her. And whenever she feels slighted by anyone or anything, they are there to tell her exactly what she wants to hear.

The sad part is that it's not helping her in the slightest, she's getting worse and worse and worse. And now is starting to do some really crazy stuff.

I've realized over the years, however, that the only way to have a relationship with my dad is to not talk about my sister AT ALL! If he brings it up and vents a little I'll listen, until he says something ridiculous and offensive to me, then I have to put the smack-down back on by saying, ":)ad, I think it's better if we just don't talk about her right now." Otherwise I find myself getting furious with him for being so blind to what's going on.

Hope my rambling has helped! It's the only way I've found to deal with the enabling, and unfortunately it HAS changed the way I feel about my dad too. I just try to limit contact with all of them and focus on my family and life outside of all that craziness!

Good luck & God bless!

[capleton]

im dealing with this type of enabling from my Narcicistic in laws. my upwbdp can do no wrong as far as his family are concerned and they treat him as the forever victim. and he regularly will use whomever he can to triangulate into our disagreements. anytime i disagree with him he will go and complain to his parents and sibblings and they wanting to keep him needy and infantaslised and their image of their perfect fake family together will enable him and tell him exactly what he wants to hear and enable him playing the victim. even when he's been physically violent, they will blame me for everything. its shocking. the enablers are worst really but then you have to have some type of mental health problem to enable and encourage abused. they've even encouraged his abuse towards me as well as encouraged him to lie to me, to go behind my back, you name it but they act confused as to why i went no contact with our children and are even trying to triangulate my loved ones into the madness, its exhausting. im so tired of it all. during his last rage incident he pushed our toddler into a doorway,little one banged his head on the doorframe. pwbpd immediately denies it. i was having non of it and told him to leave. we have lived on eggshells for years. its not fair. he needs to get himself under control or im done. im done appeasing. if i learnt anything its that you cannot compromise with especially with an untreated bpd. you will never win. they always move the goalpost and push your boundaries more and more. he's been given an ultimatum, he has choices. he can seek help and work on himself and show it or go back to his enabling family if he thinks the grass is greener. i have to admit before i knew what i was dealing with, i enabled him to keep the peace or thought i was keeping the peace and listening to others advise who didn't live my life thinking they knew better. got me alot more heartache than if I were to just listen to myself. pwbpd loved this and loved having those types of people around because they believed his victim act and thought they were helping by telling me that i was being too hard on him and that he was sad and scared. that's hos pathetic go to. when he wants to triangulate someone into our arguments and play the victim he will tel people he is scared to come home or talk to me. its crazy making.  i got gaslighted and abused so much over the years by him and his family that i thought i was the problem. eveb bt those who didn't relaid they were doing it. got therapy to fix myself and learned that nope I wasn't and needed to stand uo for myself more.
i refuse to allow another soul to be triangulated into our marriage. if he doesn't want to fix issues with me by being direct with me i dont care and am not interested in hearing what he has to say through others or what they think i should do based on his lies. i stop the triangulation at the source now.